Gift-Wrapped Governess (13 page)

She couldn't help looking at his lips, which were curved into a very sensual smile.

She sucked in a sharp breath. And then another, because all of a sudden there didn't seem to be enough air in the room.

‘Do you know what I think?' He leaned forwards until their faces were so close their breaths mingled.

‘N-no.' She shook her head, inhaling the scent of Lord Chepstow. His sweet breath, his freshly laundered clothes, his spicy soap, and something else she could not identify, but which was probably just…him.

‘I think, since it is Christmas, that you should let me kiss you.'

She gasped and shot to her feet, panicked at how very easy it would be to lean forwards and make his seductively murmured words into reality.

‘You don't really want to kiss me,' she said, shaking her head as she backed away from him.

‘Oh, but I do,' he said, getting to his feet and coming after her. ‘Honeysuckle, take it from me, as one who has spent a great deal of time studying the topic of feminine attractiveness. Any man who could see you now would want to kiss you.'

She stopped mid-stride, his words astonishing enough to paralyse her. He took advantage of her immobility to come right up to her and place his hands on her waist.

Honeysuckle's heart was beating so fast now that he must be able to feel its echo through the palms of his hands. But if he did, it did not distract him from studying her face as though he had never seen her before. As though he really was thinking about kissing her.

She was sure he had not come up here with seduction on his mind. That he really had only been thinking about mending fences with her, because she was a friend of Pippa's. Or wanting to cheer her up, because she'd admitted to feeling so miserable yesterday.

So she was not afraid. That was not what was making her heart beat so fast. It was just that, well, it was like a dream coming true, having him look at her like that, as though she was worth showering with jewels and fine clothes, the way
Pippa told her he always treated the current object of his interest.

Though he couldn't really, truly, be interested in her. It was probably the wine making him talk like this. Or perhaps he was bored, and hadn't been with a woman for a very long time…or perhaps he did not like the fact that she wouldn't behave as though the sun rose and set on him, the way every other woman of his acquaintance must surely do.

Perhaps he saw her earlier antagonism as a challenge to his masculinity.

‘You ought to let me go,' she somehow found the strength to say, even though she was aching to press herself closer. ‘You really should not kiss me.'

‘Do you know, whenever someone tells me I ought to do something, I have the strongest urge to do the exact opposite?'

There was nothing more likely to induce him to go off on one of his madcap adventures than someone telling him the thing was impossible to achieve. And she knew that. So why had she thrown down the gauntlet?

‘Y-you should not tease me,' she said, recognising the glint of devilment in his eye. ‘Not like this. I'm not a little girl any more.'

‘No, you are not.'

He leaned back a little, the better to make a leisurely perusal of her body. With his hands at her waist, he must be able to discern the outline of her figure, even though it was covered in the thick flannel gown.

‘You have grown up into a very attractive woman. You have a delectable body. Even that hideous nightgown you are wearing cannot completely disguise it. And your hair…' He raised one hand to run his fingers through its length. ‘It is the kind of hair a man likes to see spread across his pillow.'

His pillow. She could see herself lying back and letting him spread it across his pillow with those long, capable fingers. Looking at her just like this, as though his next move was
going to be to remove her nightgown and run his fingers over every single inch of her naked body.

‘You are cold,' he said, misinterpreting her convulsive shiver of longing. ‘It is freezing up here and you have nothing on your feet. It was selfish of me to keep you talking like this. Tell you what,' he said, sliding one arm round her waist and pulling her close. ‘Kiss me goodnight,' he said, his voice dropping to a husky whisper that sent another shiver right through her, ‘and then I'll let you get back to your bed.'

‘That is an outrageous request to make.' She was saying the right words, but they were coming out all low and breathy. Nothing at all like the stern rebuke they ought to be. But the longer she kept arguing, the longer he was likely to hold her close to him like this.

‘I don't think so.' He raised one hand, and cupped her cheek. He ran one thumb over her lower lip. ‘A girl as pretty as you ought to be kissed. Especially at Christmas.'

‘P-pretty?' Nobody had ever told her she was pretty before. Not that she cared what anyone else thought. The point was, Lord Chepstow was telling her
he
found her pretty. Even though he could not possibly mean it.

Good lord, flirting came as naturally to this man as breathing. Give him a spare hour and a woman who posed a bit of a challenge, and he would not rest until he'd made a conquest of her.

All she would have to do was admit she wanted him to kiss her more than she wanted her next meal and he would no doubt recoil in horror. So naturally she did no such thing. Instead, she raised the stakes.

‘This is a schoolroom,' she pointed out, even pulling away slightly to make him hold her a little tighter. ‘It would be completely inappropriate,' she said, unsure whether she was talking about kissing in a schoolroom or her deliberately provocative behaviour. ‘It's not even as if there is a kissing ball up here…'

‘I have no need of a kissing ball,' he said scornfully.

His eyes were fixed upon her mouth. And she couldn't pretend this wasn't exactly what she wanted one second longer. Her lips parted on a yearning sigh.

He lowered his head towards hers. ‘I am quite capable of kissing a pretty woman without any other stimulus whatever. And did I not warn you that if someone tells me something is inappropriate, I want to do it all the more?'

Yes, which was exactly why she'd reminded him. But if she was only ever to be kissed once in her life, she wanted it to be this man that did the kissing. Besides, he'd been the one to point out that life was short and pleasure was for snatching, wherever it was to be found. The chance to taste the ultimate delight of Lord Chepstow's lips was just as ephemeral as the ice cream he'd bought her that day at Gunter's. He might not be sober, he might be only reacting to the challenge he thought she represented, but if she did not taste him now, the moment would melt away, never to return.

And so she raised her arms, and put them about his neck.

‘A C-Christmas kiss? Just one, and then you will let me go?'

He smiled the smile of a victor. Then fulfilled every dream she'd ever had since the first hour she'd met him by swooping down and placing his lips over hers.

She groaned with pleasure. It was as though she had broken into the cake shop while nobody was looking and had grabbed an armful of all the most expensive of those mouth-watering treats. And he did taste good. Sweet. She supposed it was the wine he had been drinking. But even better, she could feel the heat of his body through the soft folds of her nightgown. The press of his hands sliding up her ribcage.

‘Good lord,' he said, breaking the kiss and looking down at her as though he'd never seen her before. ‘I always thought whoever named you had got it completely wrong. But your lips are the sweetest thing I have ever tasted.'

Years of repressed longings swept away her natural caution.

She pulled his face back down to hers and pressed her lips feverishly against his.

She half expected him to reject her inexpert attempt to kiss him back. But far from seeming repulsed by her eagerness, he emitted a groan of his own and clasped her tighter. To her utter delight, he took charge of the kiss, parting her lips and thrusting his tongue inside her mouth. It sent hot shivers coursing all the way through her body. She wasn't quite sure what to do with her mouth, apart from yielding to his exploration of it, but at least she no longer had to resist the temptation to push that silky fringe from his forehead as he bent over her. His hands were roaming all over her body, so he could not possibly object to her running her fingers through the delightfully soft texture of his hair.

Lord Chepstow could not recall ever experiencing anything quite as inflammatory as her mixture of innocence and eagerness. For once, he did not make the calculated moves of an expert seducer of women, just gave in to the demands of his body, letting his hands roam where they would, until the urge to grab her bottom and hold her hard so that he could grind himself against her soft yielding flesh grew too strong to resist. But doing that only made him want to yank up her nightgown and touch bare skin. Rip open those buttons and taste the breasts he could feel pressing into his chest.

‘My God,' he grated, tearing his mouth free and resting his forehead against hers. ‘We have to stop before I…'

She wasn't the kind of woman you could just fling down on a hearthrug and use to slake the lust roaring through him. He should not have started this. But he'd thought any kiss they might share would have been sweet, not hot as Hades and twice as sinful.

‘If I'd known you could kiss like that, I…'

‘What? What would you have done?'

Her lovely dream shattered and came crashing down around their ears. He was too fond of his liberty to be tied into any relationship he could not step away from the moment he grew bored. Nor was he so lost to all sense of decency that he would take a friend of his sister's as his mistress. She stepped back, pushing his arms away from her.

And just as she did so, a small sound from the doorway to the schoolroom caught her attention.

She could just make out the silhouette of a female, though the candle she held aloft threw her face into deep shadow.

Lord Chepstow had noticed nothing. He was intent upon her, following her as she backed towards her room, replacing his hands on her waist every time she batted them away.

‘No, no, don't pretend to be cross with me,' he said. ‘There is no point. Not now I have discovered the truth. You don't really dislike me at all, do you? All those frowns, all that scolding—it was all a bluff to disguise the fact that, deep down, you want me so much you don't know what to do with yourself.'

‘How dare you speak to me like that?' And smile like that. His cocky grin made her fingers itch to slap the expression from his face.

‘Because you just kissed me with your whole body, not just your mouth. I don't think anyone has ever kissed me with such passion.'

The light flickered and faded, indicating that the female, whoever she was, had gone. But it did not alter the fact that she must have seen them in each other's arms. As if Lord Chepstow discovering the intensity of her feelings for him was not mortifying enough.

‘You won't ever be able to fool me by putting on that prim, governessy voice again. It is just a front. Underneath, you are a passionate creature.'

‘No,' she murmured, anxiously scanning the gaping doorway.

‘Yes, you are. You have just never had anyone to share your passion with before. But it's all there. You are just dying to shower someone with all the love that is bottled up inside you…'

Was he suggesting she let him be the person to shower with her love? Was this all a prelude to suggesting she let him teach her all about passion? She was not so innocent that she did not know exactly what it was that had been pressing into her belly a moment ago.

‘I'll show you passion,' she said grimly and did exactly what he'd suggested earlier. She whacked him hard on the backs of his hands with her hairbrush. And then, when he'd let her go with a surprised yelp, she darted backwards into her bedroom and shut the door firmly in his face—before she yielded to the almost overwhelming temptation to seize him by the lapels and drag him inside with her.

From the other side of the door, she could hear his low, throaty chuckle.

She sprang away from the door as though it had turned red hot. She felt betrayed. She'd got carried away and let him kiss her—no, had kissed him. With her whole body. And heart.

And now he was standing there, laughing at her. She wrapped her arms round her waist, tears stinging her eyes.

‘Honeysuckle?'

He heaved a sigh. The door shivered, as though he was leaning against it.

‘Oh, hell. I was completely out of line, wasn't I?'

He should not have teased her into that kiss. He shouldn't even have come up here, when he knew full well they would be alone. A man should never be alone with a lady of good birth. It just wasn't done. Normally, he would not have walked into a situation a woman could use to her advantage to trap him into marriage, but…

He sucked in a short, sharp breath as it struck him that
if this had been London, and he had just kissed a débutante like that, society would consider he'd compromised her. Her reputation would have been ruined.

‘I suppose at this point, as a gentleman, I ought to make amends by proposing marriage, but…'

Marriage. A state he'd been so determined to avoid he'd got as far away from Havelock, and the predatory females who stalked the fields he was intent on entering, as possible.

He would have to get married one day, of course, to make sure there were sons to continue the line.

And he'd already come to the conclusion that Honeysuckle would make a wonderful mother.

Good grief, now he thought of it, she was also an orphan, which Havelock had declared would be a bonus, given the complicated state of his existing family affairs.

He'd further stated that he wouldn't care if his bride didn't have any money, since he was very comfortably circumstanced anyway.