“It did not seem important to do so.”
It was a damned wonder she’d survived to . . . the twenty-something years she had.
Grabbing the handle, he pushed the panel open, and stormed inside.
And promptly fell into a fit of choking, as he took in the monstrosity before him with horrified eyes. A floral embroidered coverlet of silk had replaced the serviceable wool blanket that always covered the beddings of the Old Crow Inn. A pillow encased in a matching fabric had been set in the middle, and artfully arranged atop that were a pair of pale green and pink silk pillows adorned with gold tassels. As if the designer feared they might not be garish enough, they’d stitched a child gardening into the center of that already busy design. Dumbstruck, he picked up from the nightstand a small crystal-cut vase that contained a lone pink flower. “What in the hell is this?”
“A peony.”
He closed his eyes and prayed for patience. “I mean, all of this,” and he slashed a hand around the room.
She glanced about. “My rooms?” It was a question.
At least, he wasn’t the only one of them confused this time. “I’ve seen these rooms. Every room in this inn,” he said, awe and horror comingled as he spoke to himself. “Not a one of them looks like this.” As if the sun had been swallowed and thrown back up all over the tiny quarters.
“Thank you,” she said, bowing her head.
“It wasn’t a compliment.”
“I know that.”
She had? He highly doubted—
“However, kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much.”
He puzzled his brow. It was irrelevant and yet— “Who the hell said that?”
“Blaise Pascal. He was a French writer. And mathematician.” She paused. “And physicist . . .”
And . . . the lady who’d been sent to retrieve him proved more and more of a peculiarity. Who was she that she spoke like a lady and recited French mathematicians and charmed gruff villagers in Staffordshire? “And you know so much about . . . French physicists?” And . . . oddly, that question came out not as a taunt, but out of genuine curiosity that demanded asking.
The young lady gave a toss of her artfully arranged reddish-brown tresses. “As I told you before, I know a good deal about everything. It serves a young lady well to be accomplished in many, many domains, Mr. Audley.”
He stalked over to the frothy curtains hanging over her windows, and gave them a light tug. “Such as prettily decorating temporary lodgings?”
“Precisely,” she said with an enthusiastic nod.
And this time, he couldn’t help it, and didn’t even bother trying to stop it—he smiled.
The first real and true one that wasn’t inspired by sarcasm or an attempt to unsettle her.
Miss Dalrymple folded her arms at her chest. “You are being sarcastic, this time.”
“And you are catching on,” he murmured, more to himself, as he strolled about her rooms, inspecting the fripperies she’d crammed into each corner and wall space. My God, she even had sketches hung. Colorful watercolors of flowers and angels and—
“It is important to make one’s home where one is.”
Rafe shifted his focus from the pair of cherubs frolicking back to Miss Dalrymple. “And where is your home, Edwina?”
“That isn’t appropriate,” she immediately replied.
“Which? My using your Christian name, or probing too deeply?” he asked, dropping a shoulder against the wall.
A pink blush filled her pale cheeks, and that rosy hue did her features a favor, making her more pretty than he cared to notice. “Both. Either. Just as . . . it is inappropriate for you to be here, in my chambers. Alone.” She coughed artfully into her fist. “That is . . . alone with me or any young woman, really.”
“This isn’t London,” he said, eyeing her anew. How . . . interesting. He’d managed what had otherwise until now seemed impossible—he’d unsettled her.
Rafe shoved away from the wall and started a slow stroll across the room. Another might have met that approach with wariness. The woman before him could teach a thing or two to commanders about facing down charging forces. He stopped before her, and she angled her head enough so that their gazes met. “And yet, you who don’t believe I should call you by your Christian name, and who doesn’t wish to share anything remotely personal, expect that I should happily welcome your interference in my life, Edwina?” he asked, adding a mocking edge to that overemphasized use of her name. And yet, what had set out as an attempt to run her off and shame her for refusing to consider his wishes . . . shifted, and changed in that moment. As close as they were heightened the intimacy . . . of their bodies’ nearness, and a different tension hummed to life in these rooms.
His gaze slid lower, to the mouth that continued to fascinate, those lips a shade that didn’t know whether it wished to be red or pink, and had settled into a hue in between, like the neighbors’ raspberries he’d snuck off to pluck before they’d fully ripened, as a boy. And oddly, this was a like hungering for this taste of an altogether different, and even more forbidden, fruit.
“Are you . . . attempting to scare me, Rafe?” she whispered, laying a deliberate command of his name, in what was clearly a challenge, a stubborn response that left it clear that fear was the last thing she felt.
He wished he was. Because then she wouldn’t be standing there, her chest heaving and her lips parted, and he was the one who suddenly found himself on the defensive. His senses jumbled as desire stirred to life within him. He brought his mouth lower, closer to hers, and she sucked in a shuddery little breath just as he shifted course and placed his lips beside her ear, that delicate, curved, perfectly formed shell. Another part of a woman he’d never truly noted, but now would never stop noticing. “And what if I said I was, Edwina? What would you say then?”
“I would say your efforts are in vain.”
Aye, he rather suspected those to be the truest words ever uttered. The king himself couldn’t go toe to toe with a warrior such as her. And that only fueled the ever-growing desire that seared through his veins. “And what if I said I was going to kiss you?” he asked hoarsely, in what should have been a taunt, but was really a request. And it took all his efforts to fight the hungering to take her mouth under his, as he wished.
Her eyes flared . . . and then darkened a shade, before those lashes so red they were nearly black swept low, lying like a blanket upon her skin. “I should say that it isn’t proper to kiss one’s charge,” her voice emerged breathless, “and that I’ve never allowed it.” He silently cried out at the frustration of that rejection. “Until now—”
Until now . . .
It was all the permission he required.
He covered her mouth with his.
The lady stiffened for one span of a heartbeat, before her hands climbed about his neck, twining like ivy, and she clung to him. Clung to him as he kissed her, and she kissed him in return.
He brought his mouth down over hers again and again, tasting that overly full upper lip that had so fascinated him, and he suckled the flesh, he licked the seam of her lips, and she moaned, that little hum reverberating inside Rafe.
There would be time enough later to recoil at the horror of having surrendered in any way to Edwina Dalrymple, but in this moment, there was only this aching need to have her in his arms.
Chapter 8
Edwina had been kissed a total of eight times in her life. All lecherous attempts she’d ultimately managed to escape.
Four of the kisses she’d received had landed on her cheek, a product of her quick reflexes and the drunken attempts of the men who’d employed her.
Four had landed on her mouth.
All of which had been sloppy and wet and gross enough to make her stomach churn.
None of which had moved her . . . in any way, beyond that horror and revulsion.
&
nbsp; And none had ever dared ask permission of her, a mere servant to them. None had showed restraint, allowing that decision to be hers.
That was, until now.
And that recognition of her right and her choice was a heady aphrodisiac.
Nor had any of those shameful bounders dared kiss like Rafe Audley. As if he were possessing her and asking to be possessed by her, all at the same time. He teased and tasted the seam of her lips, licking those contours she’d spent years practicing ways to conceal for the sinful attention paid them . . . only to at last learn the glory she was capable of feeling . . . and giving because of them. She relaxed, softening her mouth, surrendering herself completely to him and this moment.
And then he touched his tongue, a fiery brand that burned her from the inside out, to hers.
Whimpering, her fingers curled reflexively, clenching and unclenching against his nape, sinking into his skin and leaving her marks upon him. So this was the manner of madness that possessed women to forget their names and reputations.
“Th-this is really quite informative,” she rasped, as he drew her hands up, collecting her wrists, and bringing them above her head. He used them to drive her gently back against the door.
It rattled behind her, a naughty little knock created by the wicked game they now played. “Is it?” he panted, dragging a trail of kisses down her jawline, and lower, to her neck.
Had she spoken aloud? Or were their thoughts moving as one, as their bodies now did?
She moaned, a long, keening, desperate little sound, and her legs sagged under her. The only thing keeping her upright were his hands and body, anchoring her there to this moment and her pleasure. “Undoubtedly so.” And that was the only reason, the only reason at all, she was allowing herself this. All of this delicious wickedness in his arms.
“You must tell me how, princess.” Then, he lightly suckled and nipped at the sensitive skin of her throat. An area of skin she’d never before known was sensitive.
He’d asked something. He wanted something. What was it? It was all confused in her mind. “Are you teasing me?”
“Oddly, this time I am not,” he said, taking her lips in another kiss, before returning his attention back to the tender skin of her neck he’d abandoned. “This time, you have me intrigued about your lessons, princess.”
And then, through the fog of passion, she recalled her mission. “I-It is an important lesson,” she panted lightly, as he lifted his head, to take her lips once more.
“Is it?” That question came hoarse and graveled between one kiss and the next.
“O-oh, yes.” Perhaps, the most important one she might have ever learned. “Because it i-is essential to kn-know the reasons a young l-lady might be s-so tempted to throwwww . . .” That word ended on a moan, as he kissed a path along the bodice of her dress. “. . . away her reputation.”
“Never much cared for anyone’s opinion,” he whispered harshly against her mouth.
“We will address more on that later,” she said, and tipped her head back to take his kiss once more. And he proved obliging, at least in this. Yes, this was no doubt shameful. And wicked. And all things bad. And she who had so closely guarded her virtue should only be scandalized with herself for having allowed Rafe Audley’s embrace. What was worse, not only had she allowed it, but she wanted it, desperately.
Edwina closed her eyes. At last, she understood that which she never had before. Her mother. The fears raised about young ladies everywhere. Why women had a lapse and forgot all the important lessons on morality. For what was morality, when put against this?
With a gasp, reality came rushing up to meet her. Lowering both hands to the sculpted wall of his chest, Edwina shoved, and shoved hard.
And this time, unlike earlier that day, she managed to move the mountain of a man.
Rafe Audley stumbled back, and nearly tripped over his feet . . . before righting himself.
Struggling to get a proper breath in through her lungs, Edwina collapsed against the wall, horror and the lingering effects of his touch a shared culprit.
If he was smug, she was going to wallop him. She was going to gather up her parasol for a second time that day and bring it down atop his head.
And yet . . . as passion receded from his gaze, there was a brief moment of horror—good. So they were of a like opinion on some things, after all.
“That was—”
“An important lesson?” he drawled.
She blanched. She’d spoken aloud—again. All her thoughts had been clouded . . . because of him and his masterful touch. By the mischievous twinkle in his usually cynical eyes, she feared just that. “A mistake,” she managed a calm that she did not feel inside. “It was, of course, a mistake, given that we are, one,” she struck a finger up, “strangers to one another.” Edwina lifted another digit. “Two, I am in your employ.”
“You aren’t any employee I’d hire, princess.”
She bristled. He needn’t be so rude. Refusing to let him sidetrack her, she raised a third finger. “Very well, I am in your father’s employ, which means you and I are working together. As such, it is inappropriate for a tutor to have relations of such sort with one’s charge.” It was the wrong thing to say. Reminding him who had sent her, and why she was here.
That ghost of a smile on his hard lips vanished as quick as haunting specters might. “We are not working together, in any capacity. Today or ever.”
He’d returned to his surly self. And it was a regrettable transformation as she’d found she so very much appreciated the glimpse of a gently teasing and smiling Rafe Audley, to this . . . angrier version he presented with an even greater ease to the world.
Edwina rested her hands on her hips. “You are being obstinate about this.” And here, when she’d give anything to be so accepted as he was by his father. Nay, not accepted . . . wanted. His father truly wished to have Rafe in his life. She smiled. “But fortunately for you,” she went on, wagging her finger, “I am even more so.”
He matched her movement. “You think you’re more obstinate than me, Edwina?”
Well, this certainly didn’t seem like a battle she wished to wage. Neither fighting him about the use of her name, nor debating who was more stubborn. Not when she desperately needed to convince him to return with her.
In a bid to take back the gauntlet she’d inadvertently thrown, she forced her lips up another fraction and batted her lashes, in that trick she trained all her students to do.
He peered at her. “Is there something in your eye?”
She immediately stopped that artful flutter. “No, there is not something in my eye, you great lummox,” she snapped, and then promptly gasped, stifling that sound of her horror with her palm. First an embrace with Rafe Audley . . . and now this? Never in the course of her career had she so lost control of her temperament. She’d always been in complete command of every part of herself. And by the smug, cocksure grin he wore, he knew it, and was relishing it. Refusing to rise to that silent bait, she angled her chin a fraction. “Forgive me. I . . .” Don’t know what overtook me? Nor did she have a good and proper response.
“Not one who loses your temper, princess?” With his voice a husky, silken purr, he both teased and taunted at the same time.
Edwina bit her tongue to keep back the sharp retort that sprang to life. Blast and damn this man. What was it about him that made Edwina forget herself around him? She, who was never shaken by anyone, at any time?
Well, it was time that she asserted herself as she’d been forced to do with only the most vexing charges. “Mr. Audley,” she began, resurrecting that formal divide. “Be assured, I have both listened to you and heard you. You do not wish to return to London.” Because he preferred the godforsaken country, which was something she’d never, ever understand. “You’ve blustered and bullied everyone before me, but I am not going anywhere.” She shoo
k her head. “Do you hear me? I. Am. Not. Leaving.” She clipped out each syllable, over-enunciating each as she spoke. “So you can pout and stomp, and resist all you want, but this is happening. Whether you like it or not. Have I made myself clear?”
He slowly lowered his arms to his sides, and took a slow, languid step toward her, something subtly predatory in his approach that sent Edwina’s toes curling into the soles of her slippers to keep from abandoning the spot she stood. She would be damned ten times to Sunday if she ceded an inch to him. And then he stopped that prowl, just beyond her shoulder, so that she had to angle her neck a fraction to see him. Those hard lips that had been on her just moments ago, responsible for more pleasure than she’d known was possible in a mere kiss, curved up in a slow, dangerous grin. Little shivers trickled along her back. Nervousness is what it was. Surely not desire. Not again. Not when she’d already recognized the temporary lapse, and sworn she’d not let herself do it again.
Even so, as he brought his mouth close to the shell of her ear, her lashes fluttered, and she angled her head away from him, in a bid to conceal her weakening.
“You’ve made yourself perfectly clear, Edwina,” he whispered. “This is war, then.”
That brought her eyes flying open.
And with that promise of a threat, Rafe turned on his heel and stalked off.
He closed the door, not with a bang but with the faintest of clicks, so eerie in its silence it proved more powerful than had he slammed the door in its frame.
The moment he was gone, her legs sagged, and she caught the slightly curved back of the Welsh stick chair.
This is war, then . . .
Gadzooks, what had she gone and done now?
Chapter 9
The following morning, seated in the nearly empty taproom, Edwina found her legs firmly under her, once more, and not only braced for the war Rafe had spoken of, but eager for it.
And as sleep had eluded her, she’d spent the night thinking of the battle to come because between travel, and instructing the gentleman, and having him ready to take part in the Season, she had little time left with which to convince him.
Along Came a Lady Page 10