Ashlyn Macnamara (18 page)

“You’ll know what other cards aren’t in play.”

“So will you, and they won’t be the same cards.” She blinked and blinked again. “But if you really want, we can do it this way. I take the first card, and if I like it, I keep it and lay the next one aside without looking. If I dislike the first card, I can take the second, but then I must keep it, even if it’s worse.”

“That would work. How would you determine trumps?”

“Last card is trumps, just like real whist.”

He grinned, caught up in the novelty of inventing a new game. “What shall we play for? Forfeits?”

“Forfeits?” Naturally her eyes narrowed. Experience had taught her to distrust. If he wanted answers to his questions, he would have to ease into the matter. “What sort of forfeits?”

“Nothing scandalous. Not unless you prefer higher stakes,” he couldn’t resist adding.

“I do not.”

“I’d never ask for more than you’re willing to pay. For every point, you must answer a question with the truth.”

“And for every point I win?”

He allowed himself a rakish smile. If she believed him to be after kisses and such, she might be less suspicious of his true purpose. “You may name your price, and I shall be happy to pay whatever you demand.”

She smiled in turn, and he wasn’t sure he liked it. That impish gleam in her eye promised all manner of mischief.

One after the other, they drew cards. Her method of determining the hand proved devilishly clever. He might well build himself a long suit only to have another turn up as trump. Or he might hold a king with no way to tell if she had the ace or it lay in the pile of discards. He might attempt to count cards and remember the honors that had been played, but such strategies were hampered with half the pack an unknown quantity.

As play progressed, Isabelle showed herself quite adept. In a true game with the play deep and her as his partner, he might easily win enough to cover Summersby’s markers plus a nice cushion for himself—enough to set Isabelle and Jack up in a nice area of London, enough to acquire her a servant or two. Enough that she might live the way she was meant to.

Isabelle slapped a trump on his last card. Blast it, she’d already closed her book, which meant …

“I win the point.” She sounded all too pleased with herself.

“Imagine, once you remember how to play.”

She rested her hand on her chin and contemplated him for a long moment, until he shifted his weight on the bench. “Well? Do your worst and have done.”

“I want to hear you play the piano again.”

Damn it, anything but that. His music might drive him, but it wasn’t a talent he shared with anybody. And
he couldn’t refuse. He had said she could claim anything. “How shall I play with no instrument to hand?”

“You may repay me another time.” On the other hand, that implied she might meet him again at Shoreford. Given her reception earlier, she’d have to plan another midnight rendezvous.

With a grin, he passed her the cards. They composed new hands for another round. He watched her carefully as the game progressed. She’d begun to make elementary errors, leading a ten to his ace. By the final card, her fingers were shaky.

George took the last trick. “Two points. That means you answer two questions.”

“Very well.” Head bowed, she folded her hands before her.

“Tell me …” He couldn’t jump right in with Redditch. “Tell me about something that makes you smile.”

“Oh.” For a moment, she looked lost.

Perhaps that much was true. In the past two days, she’d lost her son, lost her support. And every day, she struggled. Struggled for acceptance as much as she struggled to live. Earlier, he’d seen the reaction of the other villagers the moment they realized who he was searching for. Their expressions had hardened, and they’d eyed him with speculation, the same as the butler this morning.

“Well. Jack …” Her voice caught on the name. “Jack’s always one for stories. He usually wants me to invent something with dragons and such.” She fingered her empty teacup. “The other week, I was too tired to come up with anything, so I thought he might like to hear about Jack and the beanstalk. Because of the name, you see.”

“Wasn’t he afraid of the ogre?”

“Not at all. He tromped about for days shouting, ‘Fee, fie, foe, fum!’ Do you know what he said?”

He propped his chin on the heel of his hand. “No. Tell me.”

“He said an ogre worth his salt wouldn’t say anything so namby-pamby.” She nearly laughed at the memory, but somewhere her laughter snagged on a jagged edge to emerge as a choked sound.

George settled himself more firmly on the bench. Like the card game, he’d meant his question to distract her from her missing son.

“You still have another question,” she said thickly.

He ought to ask about Redditch, but how? How did he bring up the topic and not appear cruel by reminding her of yet another loss? He couldn’t do it, not after all she’d been through. “Perhaps I shall claim my second question later, when I’ve had a chance to play for you.”

“Can’t you think of anything else to ask me?”

“I’m holding out for something extra scandalous.” There. Let her think he only meant to flirt.

“And you can’t imagine that now?”

“Well, if you insist. Never let it be said I backed down in the face of scandal.” He made a show of contemplating, tapping his fingers on his chin while giving her a wolfish grin.

Her cheeks turned a fetching shade of rose under his scrutiny. So much the better. The past few days hadn’t done any favors for her pallor.

“Gracious.” She touched her fingertips to the base of her throat. “What are you thinking?”

“Shall I answer you truthfully when it isn’t your forfeit to claim?”

“Yes.” That single syllable emerged on a throaty note, much more appropriate to the bedroom. But then she clapped a hand over her mouth. “Good heavens, what am I thinking?”

Her voice wobbled into an alarmingly higher register on the final syllable. Her face crumpled, and she screwed
her eyes shut. Damn it to hell, he’d nearly succeeded in his distraction. He’d had himself believing he might coax reserved little Isabelle Mears into flirting with him yet.

“I shouldn’t,” she murmured into her palm. “What kind of person …”

She was melting before him. All her composure drained away before his eyes. Something like a fist squeezed his heart. He pushed the bench back, stood and circled the table to her side.

“Budge up, would you?” Deliberately, he kept his tone light, while he nudged with one shoulder.

Choking, she inched to the side, let him sit, let him wrap an arm about her. Her head settled on his shoulder, and one of her small hands crept up his free arm until she clung to him. Her breath tore from her in ragged spurts, and her body trembled against his chest.

She felt so small in his arms, small and vulnerable, this slip of a woman. Mentally, he cursed Redditch for turning her out into the world, for that night had led to this—a night she’d lost everything yet again. He tightened his hold on her, and sifted his fingers through her hair. If he could, he’d have saved her this pain.

She burrowed closer, buried her face in the side of his neck, and inhaled, steady now, as if she were taking his scent into herself. As if she might take him into herself. Her breasts pressed against his chest.

In spite of himself, his body reacted to her nearness, her softness. Good Christ, she was nearly in his lap. She might even feel him against her thighs—white, slender thighs that he wanted wrapped about his waist.

He swallowed a groan. The last thing she needed was to fend off his advances.

She raised her head, eyes wide and brown and luminous in the candlelight. No, those were unshed tears, not the reflection of desire. Her lips parted. Her teeth tugged at the plumpness of her lower lip, and his mind
flooded with the memory of that sweet pliancy beneath his mouth.

Under his tongue.

She’d reacted to gentle persuasion, but now his mind focused on a single question: How would she react to a more carnal assault? For that was how he wanted to take her: rough, forceful, hard, and fast.

Only a scoundrel would act on the impulse. A scoundrel would take advantage of her innocent vulnerability—for she was still innocent, even though she’d borne a child. A scoundrel would think with his prick and strip that away from her.

She blinked, and her lips parted once more. The pink tip of her tongue darted out. Heated need shot to his groin, and he forced himself to loosen his grip.

She must have sensed his hesitance, for she moved closer. “Please.”

Oh, damn. If she planned on begging him in that cracked little voice, he was well and truly buggered.

“Isabelle—”

“Please, I need …”

He touched his fingers to her lips to stop her from completing that thought. “It’s not a good idea. I should leave.”

But he couldn’t very well rise with her nearly in his lap, couldn’t dump her onto the floor.

“I cannot bear to be alone.” She formed the words around his fingertips, and his resolve slipped a bit further.

“There’s a difference between keeping company and asking for trouble.”

“Please.” That word again. It burned through him.

And then she took away his choice along with his chance to protest. Seizing him by the lapels, she covered his lips with hers.

Her kiss, God, her kiss. As gentle as their first had been, this one was its complete and utter opposite. It was the antithesis of demure. It was every bit as rough and forceful and hard and fast as he craved. She tasted of desperation and need entwined. She shattered his will with all the finesse of a racehorse charging ahead on to the finish line.

Her palms flattened against his chest and slid upward to his shoulders. Her fingers tugged. Good God, she was unknotting his cravat. He had to slow her down before she pulled him over the cliff with her. She might well seek some release to her emotional turmoil, but he was certain she’d regret it if he took her to bed—by tomorrow morning if not the moment they finished and she drifted back to earth.

He tore his lips away, but she only settled her mouth against his cheek, while her fingers still fumbled with his neck cloth.

“Isabelle,” he grated. By God, he was going to regret what he was about to do—or parts of him were. “Isabelle.”

He pressed his hands over hers, halting her fingers. They were trembling, whether with desire or despair, he didn’t know. “Slowly. I’m not going anywhere.”

She blinked up at him, her eyes round and dark and huge in her pale face. It was the wine. It had to be. She’d barely eaten all day and the strong burgundy had gone to her head. Her breath ghosted across his lips. “Don’t stop. I … I need … I don’t even know how to say it. You’ll think me scandalous.”

“Hush.” He gave her hands a warm squeeze. “I know what you need.”

Lord help him, he needed the same, but for different reasons, reasons he was in a position to ignore. This one time, he could give without taking. “I swear to you, I
won’t do anything you’ll regret later, but you’ll have to trust me.”

Her gaze focused on his mouth, and she leaned in. Before she could advance on him again, he met her halfway in a gentler caress. If he wanted her trust, he had to earn it, starting now. “Do you, Isabelle? Do you trust me?”

CHAPTER TWELVE

T
HE OVERPOWERING
hunger for closeness to another person—to feel a heartbeat against hers—overwhelmed any protest her brain might mount. She craved this escape, however ephemeral. And if he could give her that much without forcing her to risk once again her virtue and reputation, then how could she refuse?

How could she
not
trust him? She’d already thrown herself at him in a reckless offer of her entire being. Her past might well have taught her caution, but in this moment when she’d lost everything, she could not tolerate any less than the comfort intimacy bestowed. His lips on hers. His tongue and hands seeking out her secrets. Skin against skin.

Above all, the oblivion of passion.

“Yes, I’ll trust you when I should not.” Her voice sounded foreign to her ears, something low and enticing and compelling.

Imagine such seduction dripping from her tongue, when she had once fallen prey to that very siren’s song. But it was as if someone else controlled her actions now. Someone or something. Not reason, certainly. No, somewhere inside her, a need had awakened, a small spark that had ignited in dry timber to become a raging inferno. Reason and logic held no power against such forces.

Neither did her conscience.

She didn’t want to think, only feel until the sensations overtook her and blocked out all else.

“Why should you not trust me?”

Because he was a rogue. Because his charm captivated her. Because, right now, she wished these things had never led her astray. “Perhaps …” She focused on the front of his topcoat. “Perhaps it is myself I should not trust.”

He closed his eyes, and a groan erupted from deep in his chest. “Do not say such things.” He raised a hand to her cheek. His fingers trembled against her skin. “You play utter havoc with my resolve to respect your wishes.”