He kissed Evie again, a long, liquid pull of passion that ended with him on his knees and his mouth on the inside of her thigh, venturing as far up as he could go before fabric impeded his journey towards her coiled thatch of dark curls and all the honeyed sweetness they were guarding.
She gasped when he yanked impatiently at the satin ribbon holding up her drawers. The undergarment fell to her knees and he guided her out of it, delighting in the way her legs quivered as he lifted first one ankle and then the other, fingers gliding along the curve of her calf.
It occurred to Weston, almost in passing, that perhaps he ought not to do…well, what he was about to do. Not the act itself, for which he was historically somewhat fond, however he couldn’t ever recall a time where he’d looked forward to it with such fervor. But rather, the implied intimacy of such an erotic display. Did he want to step off this ledge? Then Evie’s hands burrowed in his hair, and a mewling cry of desperation spilled from her lips, and it wasn’t a matter of want, but of when.
He cupped her bottom, palms fitting perfectly around her arse as his head slipped beneath her chemise. Trimmed in lace, it bunched around his shoulders as her feet slid apart. The intoxicating scent of her unique fragrance invaded his nostrils, an earthy mixture of arousal and jasmine that nearly caused him to spend in his trousers.
The first lick, the first heavenly taste, was all but his undoing. He wanted to throw back his head and howl like a bloody wolf. He wanted to pick her up and take her against the wall. Or the bed. Or the floor. Anywhere. He’d take her anywhere, and everywhere. Once more, and once more, until they were both too sated to move.
Instead, he contented himself with the luscious banquet laid out before him. Using only his tongue and his mouth, he drove Evie to a ruthlessly fast release, wrenching a cry from her lips as her thighs contracted around him and her arms slid bonelessly to her sides.
“Again,” Weston growled, and this time it was a vow that he kept.
Chapter Seven
Men were peculiar creatures.
After Weston had nearly made her weep with pleasure, he left without a word, leaving Evie to lean weakly against the windowsill and wonder what in heaven’s name had just happened.
Bliss was the simple answer.
Pure, unadulterated bliss.
The sort she had never imagined possible, because she’d never imagined…whatever it was that Weston had done to her.
Kissing, she told herself as she padded barefoot across the room to where her poor traveling habit lay in a heap on the floor. It had just been kissing. Very, very private kissing.
Picking up her dress, stained with dirt and dust and whoever knew what else from their long walk, she held it out and gave it a shake, but couldn’t make herself put it back on. Not that it would have been suitable even if it had been clean, as she vaguely recalled, through her haze of lust-induced euphoria, that Weston had nearly torn the bodice in half in his eagerness to divest her of her clothing.
The fierce possessiveness in his gaze as he’d stared at her…with an involuntary tremble, Evie folded her gown in half and laid it on the bed before she went to the corner of the room, where Posy had made a nest of Weston’s coat, and sank down beside the sleeping lamb.
No man had ever looked at her like that before.
Oh, she’d been openly admired.
Leered at, even.
But no one had ever made her nipples harden with a glance. Or scorched her flesh without laying a finger upon her skin. Or made her body yearn to be touched with such intensity that she’d felt a trickle of moisture between her thighs.
No one…
Until the Earl of Hawkridge.
Because it had been more than just kissing.
The emotions he’d wrought from her body…the things he’d made her feel…it defied description. Which was fitting, as he defied description. Hot one moment, cold as ice the next. Not that she’d been expecting any proclamations of undying love after their second…encounter. But a smile would have sufficed. Or even allowing a few minutes to pass before he bolted out of the room as if his damned pants had caught fire.
On the bright side of things, she’d forgotten all about how hungry she was. Temporarily, that is. Now, however, as the proverbial dust settled and the candlelight began to wane, Evie’s stomach was alive with grumbles and gurgles and all sorts of mortifying sounds. It almost made her glad Weston had left, as men ought never be privy to any sight or sound or unpleasant smell that might make them believe a woman was actually human.
With a sigh, she curled up beside Posy and closed her eyes.
When Evie woke, it was morning. A gray, drab, dreary morning with a sky spitting rain, but morning nevertheless. Wincing, she sat up and lifted her arms in a long stretch that helped work some of the aches and pains from her muscles that came from spending the night on the floor with a lamb.
The irony of it did not escape her, and as she rose, her mouth twisted in a mirthless smile. Here she was, finally in the company of an honest-to-goodness earl. An earl with a fortune rumored to be so large that it boggled the mind. Yet for all that, they’d traversed the countryside on foot, been shot at by a crazed farmer because Weston hadn’t thought to carry any money on his person, stumbled upon a tavern filled with questionable patrons, and slept on the ground. At least she’d slept on the ground. There was no telling where Weston had laid his head.
Or when he’d be returning for her.
Maybe…maybe she’d made a mistake in choosing the Earl of Hawkridge as her future husband. Even though she hadn’t chosen him so much as the ring had. A particular turn of fate that had brought them together, for better or worse. As Evie stepped onto something squishy and lifted her foot to reveal a present left behind by Posy (not the good kind), she grimaced and acknowledged that this was almost certainly the worse.
“Disgusting,” she muttered aloud, searching the room for something to clean herself off. There was no washbasin. Not even a towel. But there was her traveling habit. Her only traveling habit, as it so happened, but given that it was already torn and soiled, what was a little lamb excrement to finish it off?
“I need to take you outside and find us both some food and water.” Hands on her hips, she watched Posy frolic on top of the mattress. With a happy bleat, the lamb leapt off the side and went skidding across the floor, her tiny hooves scrambling for purchase on floorboards worn smooth from decades of heavy use. Chuckling, Evie scooped up her pet and carried her over to the window. Faces pressed together, they peered out through the grimy glass in unison, Posy searching for a patch of clover and Evie searching for any sign of Weston.
“There he is,” she said, relief flowing through her when she spied the earl walking around the side of the tavern, his powerful stride and broad shoulders unmistakable, even in the rain. He was carrying something under his arm. A bag or a package, she couldn’t tell for certain. As he headed for the front door, Evie set Posy down and ran her fingers through her hair in a desperate attempt to make herself look presentable.
Loose and tangled, it was knotted on the one side and drooping on the other, with pins snarled in between. Her bonnet was gone, plucked from her head sometime between their arrival and this morning. She suspected Posy had eaten it, but the lamb wasn’t talking.
Without a comb, Evie made do with an embarrassingly simple braid. And here she’d thought her beauty regimen was restrictive when she and Joanna had shared a room at the boarding house! She missed her creams. Or potions, as her sister referred to them. She missed the bucket of warm water they’d been allotted each day. She missed gazing at her reflection in the mirror, searching for imperfections with the ruthless scrutiny of a surgeon examining his patient. She missed the beautiful gown she’d worn to the Countess of Beresford’s ball.
And she knew it was vain, and small, and petty, these things that she missed. There were children going hungry. Men losing their lives in pointless wars. Women selling their bodies to put food on the table. But in a li
fe that had felt beyond her control ever since her father died, Evie’s appearance was the one thing she could control. The one thing she could take pride in. The one thing no one could take away from her.
Unlike her childhood home, and her treasured belongings, and her beloved school, and her so-called friends.
All snatched away, like a dream in the morning.
The only things she and her sisters had left were each other and their mother’s ring.
And then that, too, had been taken.
By him.
Weston Weston, the Earl of Hawkridge. The heir to a dukedom, Joanna’s half-brother, and the only man to ever make her knees wobble.
She’d never known knees could do such a thing before he had kissed her.
Wobble, that is.
Joanna and Claire were the ones who believed in such ridiculous notions as love and happily-ever-after. For her part, Evie held a much more practical view of courtship. It was a means to an end. A straight road to take her where she wanted to go with no time for stops or detours along the way.
But then Weston, in all his dark, brooding glory, had made her weak in the knees.
And he’d kissed her.
Down there.
If that wasn’t a detour, she didn’t know what was.
Worse than that, she hadn’t the faintest idea what to do about it.
Hair styling and dresses. Mixing the perfect shade of eye paint to bring out the blue in her irises. Flirting not for the fun of it, but for the sole purpose of attaining what she wanted. Those were contrivances that Evie was familiar with.
These growing feelings she had for Weston were decidedly…not. And without her potions and a pretty dress and an air of calculated frivolity to hide behind, she felt helplessly exposed. As if by kissing her, Weston had done more than make her legs wobble. He’d stripped away a layer of the stone wall she had built around herself. A wall whose rough edges she’d disguised with coy smiles and fluttering lashes and a cavalier demeanor…so that no one would ever guess how much hurt she’d buried beneath it.
Evie startled when the door swung open and Weston entered the room without so much as the courtesy of a knock.
“I could have been naked,” she said, a belated prickle of self-consciousness causing her arms to cross over the front of her chest. Even without her traveling habit, she still wore several layers of clothing. But she’d never stood before a man covered only in her unmentionables before.
At least, not in the light of day.
“Which is why I’ve brought you a new gown.” Dropping a cloth bag on the floor (the object she’d seen him carrying), Weston removed a plain gray dress made of wool and held it out her. “Here you are. To replace what I…ah…” He cleared his throat. “What was accidentally torn.”
Evie just stared. “I cannot wear that. It’s almost as hideous as what you’re wearing.” Her nose wrinkled as she took note of Weston’s change in wardrobe. Gone was his crisp white cravat, tailored jacket, and trousers specifically cut to fit his long, muscular legs. Instead, he wore a brown coat with sleeves that were much too short, a coarse linen shirt, and a pair of breeches that hadn’t been in style since before Queen Victoria took the throne. “What are you wearing?”
“I attempted to tell the barman who I was.” His brow creased in irritation. “But it appears travelers to this particular tavern often attempt to barter their good name in exchange for an evening’s stay, only to never make good on what they owe.”
“You mean to say the upstanding citizens who would choose to frequent such a splendid establishment lie about who they are in order to get free lodging?” Evie said dryly. “How shocking.”
“I realize this is not the Langham Hotel–”
“The understatement of the century.”
“–but I didn’t see you offering up another solution.”
Her braid slid over her shoulder as she gave a belligerent toss of her head. “My solution would have been to never travel that awful excuse for a road in the first place. If we’d gone the same way as Lady Brynne, you wouldn’t have had to trade your clothes because we never would have found ourselves here to begin with.”
“The main post road would have taken twice as long and been cluttered with traffic.”
“And this is better?” she said incredulously, eyeing the potato sack he was holding. “That thing is probably crawling with lice.”
“The hag I got it from seemed very clean.”
Evie blinked. “Did you…did you just tell a joke?”
For an instant, it almost looked as if Weston was going to smile. The edges of his mouth pulled back. The corners of his eyes crinkled. Then his almost-smile gave way to an all too familiar scowl and he tossed the dress at her before stalking to the window. “Wear it or not, I could care less. I’ve arranged a growler to take us the rest of the way to Hawkridge Manor. It should be here momentarily.”
Catching the dress before it hit the floor, Evie draped it over her arm and tried not to shudder. It didn’t even have a stich of ornamental lace, let alone a proper bustle. But it was better than arriving to the house party in her chemise and drawers. Knowing that she would already be under intense study as both an American and Joanna’s sister, whose identity was flying through the ton like wildfire, she wanted to make a positive first impression on the other guests. Not make them reach for their smelling salts by showing up in her unmentionables.
“A growler?” she asked Weston, the term unknown to her.
“A carriage for hire,” he said, his steely gaze pinned to the glass. “Slightly larger and quicker than the hansom cabs in London. If the rain does not increase, we should arrive at Hawkridge Manor right after luncheon. Before that happens, I should like to discuss our…”
“Encounter?” she suggested when he hesitated.
Finally, he turned to look at her, his eyes as gray and impenetrable as the cloudy sky behind him. “We both know that was more than an encounter, Miss Thorncroft.”
“Apparently not enough of one for you to start calling me by my given name.” She’d meant it as a quip; an attempt to bring levity to a situation that suddenly felt as heavy as the wool dress she was holding. But there was no humor to be found in Weston’s sober countenance.
“What we did…what I did to you…” A dull flush began to spread beneath the shadow of bristle that had gone unshaven since their departure yesterday. “I lost control, and my behavior was inexcusable. I apologize.”
“I do not accept your apology,” she said coolly.
He grimaced. “Miss Thorncroft–”
“I do not accept your apology, because you’ve nothing to apologize for.” Her chin lifted. “If you lost control, Lord Hawkridge, then so did I. And I am not sorry for it. Neither should you be. Had I wanted to stop, I’ve a voice that works, and I would have used it. But I did not, because I found our encounter to be extremely enjoyable.”
She could tell he didn’t know what to make of that by the way he gripped the nape of his neck, fingers digging deep into taut, coiled muscle.
Her lips twitched.
“Have I thoroughly shocked you with my admission, my lord?”
“You’re an American,” he said flatly. “Your entire country is wholly uncivilized. Nothing you could say would shock me.”
“Even if I said I wanted to do it again?” she asked, genuinely curious as to what his response would be. She knew that she was testing waters best left alone, at least for now. But provocation was its own source of power, and Weston wasn’t the only one seeking to regain control. In this ongoing battle of wills, there was room for a single victor, and Evie was determined it was going to be her.
Before…whatever it was they’d done last night (encounter did not begin to cover it), she’d thought to keep their physical interaction to a bare minimum. But since the only time Weston let his guard slip was when they were wrapped in a passionate embrace, she would surely be remiss if she didn’t use their tangible attraction towards each other as
a means to achieve her ultimate goal.
She even toyed with the idea of going a step further. Given Weston’s strong sense of responsibility, as shown by his refusal to leave her or Posy behind, he would feel obligated to marry her when…that was to say, if they had intimate relations.
The sort that ended in a bed, not with Weston storming out of the room.
But while Evie was desperate to make a good match and retrieve her mother’s ring in the process, she wasn’t yet that desperate. The British author Francis Edward Smedley may have claimed that all was fair in love and war, but what he’d failed to mention was that there were unspoken guidelines. And tricking a man into marriage by nefarious–albeit pleasurable–means was largely frowned upon.
Not to say that she wouldn’t ruin herself with the earl.
But surely it was best kept as a last resort.
Besides, if she had to choose, she’d rather a man marry her out of some sort of emotional attachment (it didn’t have to be love; a mild affection would suffice) instead of a sense of forced responsibility.
In short, she wanted Weston to propose not because he had to, but because he wanted to. A distinction that was notable only because she hadn’t bothered to make it before she and the earl had set out on their misguided adventure.
“No, Miss Thorncroft, we will not be doing that again,” said Weston, speaking with the absolute certainty of someone who had just declared the sky was blue and the grass was green. “If you’ll recall, we both agreed that our first kiss was a mistake. The second was no different.”
“That’s all right.” Unfolding the dress he had given her, Evie held it up for closer inspection. “I am certain there will be plenty of eligible bachelors at the house party who would be more than happy to…strike up a conversation with me.”
“I hadn’t realized you were so free with your charms,” Weston said caustically.
Entranced by the Earl Page 8