“Breathe,” he said, curving his gloved hands over her slender shoulders. “I doubt you’ve managed a full breath since Lord Kirkland had the poor taste to show his face.”
The mere mention of her former fiancé caused her to draw up with tension, her shoulders setting stiffly beneath the light pressure of his hands. “I suppose I must thank you,” she said awkwardly, her eyes fixed somewhere over his shoulder.
“Nonsense,” he said. “If you’ll recall, we made a bargain. Provided you intend to honor it, you owe me no thanks.”
“Not—not for that,” she said. “For...not letting him speak to me.”
“That was my pleasure,” he said, and surprised himself with honesty. Lord Kirkland had deserved that and more. He was a fool to expect that he could abandon Lady Jillian for greener pastures and then simply insinuate himself into her life once more. He was a fool to think that Jillian might have waited for him, that simply because she was yet unmarried meant anything more than that she had not yet found someone she cared enough for to risk her heart on once again. Lord Kirkland had broken it in the first place; James found it beyond comprehension that he had dared even return to London, much less to seek her out.
Jillian’s hands had fluttered to her temples, rubbing fiercely as if a headache had settled in. She looked beyond exhausted, like she carried the weight of the whole world on her shoulders. He knew she was likely dreading her eventual return to the ballroom, dreading the fact that the threat presented by Lord Kirkland would likely still be there. She had not escaped it, merely delayed it for a time.
James could not afford the sympathy that wrenched his heart—that sort of emotion would be ruinous to his plans. He steeled himself against the wretched sorrow written across her face that she attempted to hide from him within the confines of her gloved hands, reminded himself that he was ten times the villain that Lord Kirkland was. And still something in him wished only to comfort her, to erase the desolation on her face.
She had curled in on herself as if to guard her heart against a coming blow. He suspected she had no idea what she looked like, that she wouldn’t have risked exposing herself in this manner to him if she had. She counted him just as much of a danger to her, and she was right to do so.
He dropped down onto the bench next to her, stripped off his gloves and crammed them into his pocket. In the shadows her hair looked darker, the bright amber deepened to auburn. A few of those precariously-arranged ringlets had been tossed free, slipping over her shoulder in a wayward sprawl. He collected them in his fingers, rubbing the fine silky locks. His fingertips brushed her bare shoulder as he did, and she started as if he’d seared her.
Something unbearably fragile swam across her lovely green eyes, visible even in the darkness. She was raw and wounded, cast back into the past, her scars reopened, and so vulnerable that it hit him like a knife to the gut. She couldn’t conceal it, not now—not when Lord Kirkland’s reappearance had thrown her adrift once more. The curls clutched in his fingers tethered her to him, anchored her to the present against the ceaseless tide of the past. And for a moment he fancied he could see the plea in her eyes. Hold me here. Don’t let me lose myself again.
He reached for her slowly, his free hand lighting on her shoulder. Her skin was cool beneath his fingers, the heat chased away by the night breeze. He had expected tension, perhaps for her to shrug off the improper touch—his bare hand against her bare skin. Instead her shoulder relaxed beneath the light pressure, sinking to a more natural slope. Confusion darkened her eyes, not only at his actions but for her reaction to him. He traced the delicacy of her collarbone with the pad of his thumb, slipped his fingers along the graceful curve of her neck, and cupped her chin in his hand. Her eyes were wide, fringed with thick, dark lashes, unblinking—as if he held her captive with only his gaze.
“When you were engaged,” he heard himself ask, “did he ever kiss you?”
Her lips parted on a shocked gasp. “Of course not,” she said. “Lord Kirkland was a gentleman.”
“More fool him.” He bent his head, touched his lips just to the corner of her mouth, felt the scandalized tremor sweep through her. The night breeze sent yet another errant curl floating down from its pins; it touched his cheek in a fleeting caress. A shred of conscience skewered him, made him pull just a few inches away and provide her an opportunity to castigate him for his temerity—slap him, screech at him, shove him, anything that would put distance between them.
Instead she listed toward him, those lids that had gone so wide with shock instead shading her eyes. His thumb traced the plump curve of her lower lip, testing the softness. In all his life he had never seen a woman who so badly needed to be kissed. Who deserved to be kissed, well and often, by a man who would love her and cherish her all of their days.
He was not that man. But he would take what she so sweetly offered anyway.
Curling his palm around the nape of her neck, he drew her toward him, slanted his mouth over hers, and teased her lips apart with his own. His gentle assault caught her entirely off-guard; she had likely expected some chaste peck, at most a few fleeting touches—instead she received a blatant expression of desire, sensual and heated. Her palms landed on his chest as if to brace herself against him, but they exerted no pressure. Instead, as he explored the sweet satin interior of her mouth with his tongue, they crept up to his shoulders until she clung to him like a barnacle, as if she feared she would be swept away by the storm.
Then her tongue touched his in a shy mimicry of the searching strokes of his own, and he was lost—her innocent passion seared him, sheared away years of experience and cynicism. He felt his arm band around her shoulders, drawing her flush against his chest, urging her head back to plunder the silky depths of her mouth. She made a soft sound in her throat, surprise and pleasure, and draped herself against him, utterly surrendered.
It was only when he found himself edging down the sleeve of her gown that he realized just how far he had allowed himself to be carried away—dear lord, he had been only a handful of moments away from making love to her in Lady Lennox’s garden.
And he was stunned by the realization that she might very well have let him.
Chapter Seven
With no small amount of effort he dragged himself away from her, steeling himself against her regretful murmur. Her eyes opened, dazed and slumberous, as if she had been pulled, unwillingly, from some sweet, dark dream. Her fingers had clenched on his shoulders just briefly, resisting him setting her away as if all she wanted in the world was to remain in the circle of his arms.
For a moment she stared at him, bereft, and he could not say that he would have refused her had she cast herself back at him—but the passion-flush faded from her cheeks and she lifted her hand to her bruised lips, touching them with a sense of dawning horror, and he knew that there was little danger of that.
“You kissed me,” she said at last, her voice accusing.
“You wanted me to,” he countered swiftly, and ruthlessly shoved the heel of his shoe onto the hem of her gown as she tried to rise.
“I most certainly did not!” She seized the skirt of her gown, tugged it in a futile attempt to pull it free.
“Jilly,” he said, with all of the patience he could muster, “I could kiss you again this very moment and you would let me.” He snatched the fabric of her skirt away from her, seized her hands in his.
“Unhand me. I will scream,” she said in hard little voice, but by the distress lingering in her eyes, he suspected that her antipathy wasn’t directed nearly as much at him as it was at herself. She had convinced herself that she neither wanted nor needed personal involvement, and he had nearly effortlessly put a lie to it. She hadn’t put up anything even approximating a fight. He frightened her not because he’d taken liberties, but because he had successfully tempted her into granting them.
“No, you won’t,” he said. “You’d be ruined. You would have to marry me.” Good lord, her opposition to marriage would provid
e him untold opportunities to seduce her—she would say nothing of his advances, not when she thought they would mean a path straight to the altar. He shoved aside the thrill that coursed through him. “I have a proposition for you,” he said.
She made a ragged sound of pure fury, her eyes spearing him. “No,” she snapped, yanking at her trapped hands until her fingers slipped in her gloves.
He snatched at her wrists instead. “I’m not proposing marriage at the moment, Jilly. I want to help you—I can keep Kirkland from attempting to renew his acquaintance with you. So long as you are in my company, I will keep you safe from him.”
Her hands went limp in his. The fight left her as suddenly as it had come on, and she sat beside him, astonished and silent. For a moment her eyes were distant, focused not on him but on some intangible point past his shoulder, lost in deliberation. Her shoulders dropped and she pursed her lips into a firm, thin line. When she spoke at last, her voice was crisp, and imbued with all of the suspicion she could muster. “What do you get from this arrangement, Your Grace?”
“Your company.” Satisfied she was unlikely to flee, he released her hands. “Tonight you fled to me, Jilly, to protect you. I will do it gladly. All I want in return is your company, an honest opportunity with which to win you.” The words tasted acrid; nothing about his suit was honest or respectable. He was setting her up for a fall that would be a hundred times worse than the one she had suffered with Kirkland.
“I won’t marry you,” she said, folding her hands in her lap. Her jaw was tight and firm, but her eyes darted as if shying instinctively from his. “I told you—I have no intention of marrying.”
“Then you’ve nothing to lose.” He raised his hand to her cheek, and her skin was unbearably soft beneath his fingers. He heard her breath sigh out, saw the brief flicker of her lashes, and knew she was nowhere near as indifferent to him as she wanted to believe. If so simple a touch could evoke a reaction, she was halfway in his hands already.
She had no idea how badly she needed this, just simple human contact, affection. With a few well-placed touches, a few stolen kisses, he could capture her forever. No, damn it—not forever. Just long enough to ruin her and cast her out. Just long enough to make her wretched brother regret he had ever trifled with Gloriana.
Jilly’s eyes closed, and for half a moment her cheek turned into his palm. He doubted she even realized she had done it; she seemed to be steadying herself, collecting the scattered bits of her composure. He had wrecked it with his kiss, and she was still reeling.
“All right,” she said. “I suppose I’m risking nothing.”
Another wayward wave of guilt flayed him, unbidden and unwanted. Good lord, he didn’t want to sympathize with her. He didn’t want to like her, or admire her, or even enjoy her. She was a means to an end. But she didn’t feel like one. She felt soft and delicate, fragile in a way he had never expected. If only she had been as dissipated as Westwood. If only he could have justified her ruination by her actions. If only she had been cruel or calculating, he could have gleefully destroyed her.
If he wasn’t careful, she would destroy him. Already he burned to kiss her again, to tempt her into his arms once more. To slip the sleeves of her gown from her shoulders and bare her to his gaze, to let his lips spend an eternity exploring her silky skin.
If she knew the half of what he was thinking, she would run screaming away from him. With a muffled curse, he shoved himself to his feet and turned to offer her his hand.
She twitched her skirts as she rose, inspecting the hem of her gown for evidence of his shoe. Luckily, there was none to be found, and she brushed at her skirt and straightened her gloves, then patted at her hair, clearly at a loss for how to secure the cluster of curls that had come loose from her coif.
“Let me,” he said, brushing her hands away. She would make a muck of it, surely, and with her kiss-swollen lips, she already looked like she’d been compromised. Turning her around, he sifted through her hair until he found a pin that didn’t seem to be securing much and tugged it free. The stray curls he wound atop her head, securing them with the pin. Perhaps not as neatly as her lady’s maid would have done, but it would suffice. His fingers caressed the nape of her neck, soothing the night chill from her smooth skin.
“Your Grace?” Her voice trembled.
“James,” he corrected absently, watching, fascinated, as gooseflesh chased across her shoulders. He wanted to hear her say it, wanted to close the distance she had erected between them with the constant use of his title.
She half-turned, peering at him over her shoulder, her brows knitting in confusion at the husky tenor of his voice. Whatever she read in his face made her eyes widen, her even white teeth worry her lower lip—she tensed, but made no move to flee, as if curiosity had rooted her to the spot.
“Are you—are you going to—”
“Yes.” He blanketed her mouth with his, wrapped his right arm about her waist to pull her back into the cradle of his body, trapped her head where he wanted it with his left hand, tipping her chin up. The thin fabric of her gown couldn’t possibly shield her from the evidence of his arousal, and she jerked just a bit, gasping into his mouth, her hands clutching his arm. Then, impossibly, she softened against him with an enticing shudder. His groan was lost to her lips; the unconscious pressure of her pert little bottom against his hips was more affecting than it had any right to be. It seemed somehow unfair that a woman of no experience and little seductive prowess should be so unintentionally irresistible. She could not possibly know what she had done to him, the shreds she had made of his self-control.
He wanted so much more than a kiss from her. He wanted things that would shock her to the tips of her dainty little toes. But not here, where half the Ton waited just inside the ballroom—not here, where Lady Ravenhurst lingered on the terrace. And so he contented himself with just a kiss, savoring her soft, champagne-flavored lips beneath his own.
“James,” he said, drawing back to tease her lips with light brushes. “Say it, Jilly.”
She rocked onto her toes in a blatant attempt to coax him back down to her, a little murmur of discontent building in her throat. The moonlight gilded her hair, glistened on her moist lips. She smelled like vanilla and almonds, good enough to eat, and he wanted to slide his tongue down the enchanting valley between her breasts and taste her.
He let her almost, but not quite, reach his lips, and she made a sound of aggravation, her lips pursing into a delightful pout.
“James,” she said at last, just a shade of resentment coloring her voice. He stifled a chuckle and rewarded her with a kiss—not the wild one she’d wanted, but soft and slow and evocative. This was the one he wanted her to think of tonight, alone in her bed. A kiss to seduce her back into his arms again and again, to sear the memory of it at the back of her mind so that his name and pleasure would be inextricably linked.
There was so much untapped passion in her, simmering just beneath the surface, awaiting an outlet. It would be his pleasure to unleash it, to discover the woman that lurked beneath the cool exterior she had cobbled together for protection.
He drew back slowly, heard the low, longing sigh she gave as she settled back onto the flats of her feet once again. This time she was not shocked, but resigned—as if she had at last accepted that she had been waging a losing battle.
“You did it again,” she said, in a whisper-soft voice, almost mournful. Her lashes shaded her eyes, but she made no move to escape the arm at her waist, and tipped her head back against his shoulder as if she needed the steadiness of it.
“You wanted me to,” he repeated, soothing the sting of the truth with a brush of his lips across the apple of her cheek. “You won’t marry anyway. Where’s the harm?”
With no little effort, her fingers detached themselves from his arm, and she gave a little wiggle to free herself from his embrace. “I have to go,” she murmured. “I don’t know how long it’s been—Nora must be worried.”
Jame
s suspected that Lady Ravenhurst had had a rather good idea of his intentions, and had tacitly approved them. “Go,” he said, giving her a gentle shove toward the path leading back up to the terrace. “I’ll be along shortly.”
“You said you would escort me,” she said, linking her fingers fretfully. “Lord Kirkland—”
“Kirkland won’t dare approach you again tonight,” he said. “I’m not fit to enter a ballroom just yet, Jilly.”
She didn’t understand. Her brows drew together, uncomprehending. He dug his gloves from his pocket, camouflaging a chuckle with a cough. “Ask Lady Ravenhurst,” he said. “She’ll understand.”
Chapter Eight
She had let him kiss her. She had let him kiss her twice. And worse yet, she had enjoyed it.
Jilly hurried along the garden path, clutching fistfuls of her skirts to avoid treading on the hem of her gown in the darkness. It had been so wrong of her, but she had always wondered what it would be like. Nora clearly enjoyed her husband’s attentions, but she had never really gone into any salacious detail as to what those attentions entailed. And as an unmarried woman, no one was truly inclined to tell her, not to any degree of satisfaction.
She had always thought that kissing would be pleasant, of course, but in her imagination it had always been just a light touch of the lips. She had never imagined that anyone would kiss her as James had—it had shocked her to her core. At least until a strange heat had coalesced inside her, stoked by the slow, deliberate sweep of his tongue against hers.
A shiver trickled down her spine at the memory. That scorching heat that had settled low in her belly had burned away all her resistance, and she could still hear the echo of his satisfied groan as she had draped herself over him like the worst kind of strumpet.
His Favorite Mistake Page 6