“Hello,” she echoed, also remaining calm and in control, mostly because she was not surprised at all to see him. Yet, being in his presence and in such close proximity she was unable to say anything further, and so allowed her gaze to flicker over him from linen stock to top boots.
She had admired his sartorial splendor of richly-embroidered frock coats and waistcoats in his urban setting, but out here in the country amongst the leafy greenery and fresh air, he looked relaxed and his lean face had a healthy glow. He was very much in his element, and although dressed for comfort in tight buff breeches and a pale lemon-yellow linen waistcoat over a white shirt and plain stock, he was no less splendid. But it was his free-flowing dark hair which brought a warmth to her throat. Without pomade and ribbons, it fell loosely across his brow and down to his shoulders. On any other man such lack of restraint would have bordered on the effete, on him it made his masculinity crackle.
“Is this a fortuitous contrivance, Miss Crisp?” he drawled. “Or a spectacular coincidence? Are you a guest of the Cavendish wedding?”
“I am,” she replied steadily, aware of his tease, hands behind her back, with chin up and smiling into his dark eyes. If they had not been surrounded by others, she would have kissed him there and then. “And fate cannot be contrived, can it?”
He took a step closer. “Fate? I am inclined to think you are a practitioner of the dark arts, and are a witch.”
“A witch? But you are the one who inhabits a magical world conjured by sorcery. Are you not then a sorcerer?”
“Touché. Tell me again: How old did you say you were…?”
Her smiled widened. “And by what name did you say I should address you—my lord?”
He did not flinch. “If you know that,” he murmured, “then you know the rest, witch.”
Lisa suppressed a grin, lifting her brow in puzzlement, but there was no hiding the light of triumph in her blue eyes. “But it would be prudent to have the information that has been imparted to me confirmed. Though I am very sure my source is impeccable.”
His tone lost its playfulness. “I would have told you—eventually.”
She continued to tease him. “Here? Or elsewhere? And when?”
“You’re the witch, you tell me.”
“Ah, but as a sorcerer you should have the answers.”
His top lip twitched and her gaze dropped from his dark eyes to his mouth. That mouth she so wanted to kiss. She would. She must. It was not a desire, it was a need. Her eyes lifted again to his and she drew in a breath. The look in his dark eyes was no less hungry. He was thinking the same wicked thoughts. Instead of being shocked, she was elated.
“I did not know you would be here,” he confessed. “But I dared to put my hope in wishful thinking.”
“That is fate.”
They took a step closer and were within a hand span of one another, acutely aware of each other yet mindful they were in a public space. Their private reverie was intruded upon and they were dropped back into the here and now when Elsie broke from being fussed over by her nurses and maids. She pressed her dolls on a maid and rushed over to the couple and tucked her hand into her brother’s fingers.
Touch made him look away from Lisa and down at his sister.
“Henri-Antoine, this is my new friend Lisa. I want her to be invited to Maman’s picnic in the pavilion.”
“As a guest, she already is, ma petite chou,” he replied gently.
“Are you staying for the picnic?” she asked hopefully.
When the clutch of women took a step toward their charge, Henri-Antoine stopped them with a dark look, and they quickly retreated to the oak to await His Lordship’s pleasure, and where two of his ever-present shadows lingered at a respectful distance. He went down on his haunches before his sister, not at all concerned Lisa was present and would hear every word of their discourse. He spoke to Elsie in French, their preferred language.
“Maman’s picnic is a female-only affair for all of Teddy’s friends and relatives, and of course that means you, too.”
“But Maman would let you stay if you asked her. Papa is at home.”
“So he is. But your papa will do as he is told and remain well away from the pavilion for the duration of the picnic. And I too must respect Maman’s wishes. Remember what was threatened at breakfast?”
Elsie giggled
“Maman would never banish Papa to sleep in his dressing room, silly. There’s no bed for him in there.”
“I think it was an idle threat, too.” He kissed the back of her hand. “I understand your wish to be alone better than any other, ma petite chou. But when you run off without telling anyone, and your ladies they cannot find you, Maman becomes frantic. I know the last thing you wish to do is upset her.”
“I do not want Maman to be upset, and I do try to do as you say and ignore them all,” she said, a glance over her shoulder at the half-dozen women obediently waiting by the tree trunk. “But they fuss too much. I tell them not to, but they do not listen. So I run away to breathe. You must make Maman understand.”
“She is trying her best to let you breathe, ma chérie. You are the most precious thing in the world to her and to your papa. She has no other daughter but you, and you are your Papa’s only heir. Which is why your women they are protective to the point of suffocation. But I will talk to Maman again, and to your papa, and perhaps we can contrive to make your breathing easier, hein? All Maman asks is that you tell her, or someone—anyone—when you wish to run away.”
“But how is that running away if I tell someone? Did you tell Maman when you ran away and hid in the big house?”
Henri-Antoine could not help smiling. He shook his head.
“I did not. But I always had Jack with me, and so Maman she was not so worried. If anything were to happen to me, Jack could raise the alarm. If you go off by yourself, who is there to do that for you?”
“But you were a very ill little boy, Henri-Antoine. That is what Maman told me. So she had cause to worry. I am not ill. Papa says I am a better swimmer than Sarah-Jane ever was. He says I have the heart of a tiger! But you do not even row on the lake without your bears at your back—”
“Bears?” He flicked her flushed cheek. “Is that what the lads look like to you?”
Elsie nodded and smiled. “But they do not dance like the bears I saw in Paris.”
He winked. “They would if I told them to.”
Elsie giggled, but then shook her head. “You would not make them. Maman says your lads help her to breathe.”
“So they do. Which is one good reason I have them as my shadow.”
“And if you were ever to fall ill again, yes?”
“Yes. If I were to fall ill again.”
“I have never seen you without them except at table when they wait outside the door. I want you to have them because they look out for you, but do you not sometimes wish you could breathe without them?”
Henri-Antoine rose up to his full height on a sigh, gaze still on his sister.
“I wished for that every day when I was your age, ma petite chou. But I am old enough to be wise to the truth: I cannot breathe without them, and neither can our Maman. So I accept them, and do my best to ignore that they are there. But your life will be very different to mine. On my honor. One day you will be old enough to do as you please, and no one will be able to stop you from walking out from under the shadows of your women. For the present—for Maman and your Papa—you must strive to do your best to ignore your shadows, without being cruel or unkind in doing so, because they only have your best interests at heart, and do what they are told to do. If you accept this is the way life must be until you are older, then they will be gone, just like that,” he said with a snap of his fingers. “As if by magic, you will no longer see them, even though they are still there. Can you understand that?”
Elsie cocked her head and squinted in thought. “You mean in the same way as the footmen who open all the doors, and the maids who clean out the gra
tes before first light, and the laundresses who wash our clothes, whom I do not see at all but who are there every day, and who Maman says are most necessary to our comfort, and deserving of our gratitude.”
Henri-Antoine lightly touched the tip of Elsie’s little nose and wiggled it gently. “I see that you do understand.”
Elsie smiled and grabbed her brother’s hand and pressed it to her cheek. “I wish you were staying for the picnic.”
Henri-Antoine glanced at Lisa but said to his sister, “I wish that too. But Jack and Freddie and the twins are waiting for me at the big house. We are having our own—er—picnic in the billiards room.” He looked across at Elsie’s maids and nodded, signal for them to approach. “But I shall see you in a day or two—I am sorry, ma petite, but Miss Crisp must remain here,” he added when Elsie took hold of Lisa’s hand, her ladies ready to return her to her mother. “I shall not keep her long. And then she will join you at the pavilion.”
“Promise.”
“Promise.”
He watched Elsie take back her dolls from one of her maids, and go off across the lawn with her female entourage following close behind. He then signaled to the lads, who were still kicking their heels by the oak, to move on, which they did, to the stand of willows by the water’s edge. They had come by skiff across to Crecy Hall the day before, and would return to the big house the same way. His valet Kyte and his overnight bag had already done so via horseback. He knew not only Jack and his three nephews would be waiting him, but also Seb and Bully, but he had some unfinished business with Miss Crisp first, and they could wait; this could not.
“Come with me,” he ordered, taking hold of her hand and striding off towards the oak.
“You do realize, my lord, that when Elsie lets it be known I am here, and that you are here, and that we are alone, questions will be asked. I could find myself in the awkward position of having to account for myself.”
Undaunted, he walked on and around to the far side of the enormous tree, glancing about him, as if he had lost something, and still holding her hand.
“Getting yourself into an awkward situation did not seem to bother you when you took it upon yourself to enter Westby’s house, did it?”
Lisa gaped at his back. Her mouth worked for several seconds and then she blurted out in a guilty rush, “I beg your pardon, my lord, but—”
“My lord? No, no, no, Miss Crisp. It will not do. I much preferred it when you called me sir—”
“—that was an entirely different circumstance—Oh? You do?”
“I do. But I would also prefer you not to call me sir, either. And you are right. Entering Westby’s house was an entirely different circumstance. Your friend stole something of mine—”
“Stole? She did no such thing! In your distraction, you dropped the catalog into her basket. She was none the wiser and I offered to help her return it before she was wrongly accused of stealing—” Lisa blinked. “If I am not to call you my lord or sir, then how am I to address you?”
He let go of her hand, confident that they could not be seen, from the house, or by anyone approaching from the direction of the pavilion. He took a step toward her, and she backed away and came hard up against the tree trunk. He smiled to himself. He had her right where he wanted her.
“In my distraction?” he asked with a frown of incomprehension. “Whatever can you mean, Miss Crisp?”
Lisa decided now was not the time for dissimulation. She met his gaze openly.
“It is hardly surprising you dropped the catalog into Becky’s basket when your mistress was standing before you naked but for a pair of stockings held up by pink garters—”
“Pink garters? Were they?”
He took a step closer.
“Yes! They were pink, and your mistress stole them from Becky—”
“She is not my mistress.”
“I beg your pardon. That is true. She is Lord Westby’s mistress, and your lover.”
“And I must beg your pardon. She is no longer my lover.”
“Oh? I see.”
“I don’t think that you do.”
“I may be ignorant of many things, but I do understand that gentlemen—noblemen—have mistresses and take lovers, and it is none of my business, my lor—sir—”
“Henri-Antoine. That is my name. And that is what I wish you to call me.”
“I cannot call you by your Christian name!”
“Why? If when we are private I call you Lisa, then surely you can call me Henri-Antoine?”
Lisa unconsciously shook her head but then closed her eyes on a sigh for the briefest of moments hearing him say her name. She wished he would say it again so she knew it was real, that he had indeed said it and it wasn’t because she was suddenly heady due to his closeness. He had his hand to the trunk, gazed fixed on her, and hair falling into his eyes. She was sure her heart was beating faster; that her blood was pumping too hard and drumming in her ears. Becky would say she was feverish. What had Becky called him—“bewitchin’ ’andsome”? He was that, and much more. And if she didn’t move away from his orbit that instant she was very sure she would do something she would later regret, but which at that very moment she wasn’t thinking about the future, or regrets, or consequences. She wasn’t thinking logically at all. All she knew was that if she didn’t act upon her impulses and satisfy a need, she might just go mad. In one last ditch effort to bring herself back from the brink of social ruin, she swallowed hard and asked curiously,
“What do you mean I don’t think that you do?”
“I currently do not have a mistress, nor have I had a lover since that night you and your friend the haberdashery assistant returned the catalog she did not steal—”
“Becky did not steal—Oh! You said that.” She blinked up at him and resisted the urge to gently brush the hair out of his eyes. “Why—why are you telling me this?”
He moved closer. “Because it is all your fault, Lisa Crisp.”
“My fault?” She was nonplussed.
He nodded slowly, gaze fixed on hers. His upper lip twitched and his mouth parted slightly as he tried to suppress a grin at her complete lack of awareness as to his meaning. He tried to sound disconsolate, and gave a practiced sigh for good measure.
“Whatever am I to do with you?”
“Do? Do with me?”
She knew what she wanted to do with him, and that was kiss that perfect mouth, and the consequences could go hang. No wonder his mistress—who was no longer his mistress—had dropped her clothes there and then for him. To her astonishment she had the urge to do just that, here and now. But she would settle for a kiss. One kiss would be worth the consequences, whatever they might be—she would find that out soon enough—if only to stop this all-consuming desire that threatened to overwhelm her body and soul.
And then it happened. Thought succumbed to need, as if by magic—she a witch and he a sorcerer in this magical place. In one fluid movement her arms slipped up about his neck and she leaned into him. On tiptoe, with her body pressed against his, as if needing anchorage, she tilted her chin, closed her eyes, and let her mouth find his.
Surrender.
SIXTEEN
HE WAS RARELY if ever surprised, but he was by her. And he had been since their first meeting at Gerrard Street. Now this. She had kissed him first!
He’d had every intention of kissing her. Reason he had brought her around to the far side of the oak, out of the potential prying gaze of guests and servants at the pavilion picnic. But intention had almost crippled him. He wanted their first kiss and everything about the moment to be perfect. It was to be a memory for them to cherish. And then she had stolen his initiative and kissed him.
Startled, he was slow to respond, not only because her kiss was unexpected, and thus the moment he had planned was lost, but because he had never been kissed first before, and never on the mouth. And never in such a spontaneous, rather awkward manner which he supposed sweethearts who had never kissed before would share a
first kiss. It was a barely there, tentative touch of her lips to his, and it made him wonder if she had ever been kissed before, and presumed not. Just as he presumed her to be innocent of the carnal delights of the bedchamber. Which was why he had hesitated, and why he had planned the execution of this, their first kiss.
And then he surprised himself. For while he believed himself to be an attentive and experienced lover, he knew he was prescriptive in certain particulars, which was the reason for his hesitation. He had never been needful of indulging in the extravagance of kissing on the mouth. It was too deeply personal. And intense emotion had played no part in satisfying his carnal appetite, until now. Which was why this moment with Miss Lisa Crisp held such significance for him. He not only wanted to kiss her, he needed to kiss her, and in the sort of reverential way that she would not only derive just as much pleasure from the act, but gain some understanding of the depth of his feelings.
He surprised himself further by realizing he was being utterly selfish in wishing she had not taken the initiative from him. It required great courage for her to be the one to kiss him first, to lay her feelings bare in that way. In doing so she gave him the choice to accept or reject her, and without consequence to himself, because she was not of his world. In his world, a girl did not find herself alone with a man, and she never permitted him to kiss her unless they were engaged, or, as in Jack and Teddy’s case, the promise of an engagement between cousins had been on the horizon for years, and welcomed by both families, so there really was no going back from that.
But not for him. He was a free agent. He could kiss who he liked, and damn the consequences, particularly for a girl like Lisa, with no family, no pedigree, and nothing to offer him. She could not expect anything from him in return, certainly not marriage. His honor did not oblige him to offer her his name. Had she been of his world, there wasn’t a girl who wouldn’t want to marry the son of a duke, and not just any duke, and he not just any son. His brother was a duke, his nephew would be a duke, his stepfather was a duke, and his half sister would be a duchess in her own right one day, and there was his maman who was a double duchess. He was as steeped in aristocratic privilege as was possible, and he could, quite rightly, have any female he wanted, to bed, if she were a member of that fraternity of high class whores who catered to men of his ilk, or to wed, if she were the daughter of the nobility with a pedigree that matched his own. But he didn’t want to bed a whore, and he did not want to wed a nobleman’s daughter. He had made up his mind. No one would do for him but Miss Lisa Crisp of Gerrard Street, Soho…
Satyr’s Son: A Georgian Historical Romance (Roxton Family Saga Book 5) Page 23