The Ideal Bride (24 page)

 
Caro rejoined Lady Kleber, Mrs. Kosminsky, and Mrs. Verolstadt. Their talk, however, quickly became desultory, then faded altogether. A few minutes later, a gentle snore stirred the air.

 
All three older ladies had their eyes closed, their heads back. Caro glanced swiftly around the clearing; most others, too, had succumbed—only Kosminsky and Ferdinand and Michael and the countess were still awake.

 
She had a choice—pretend to fall asleep, too, and fall victim to whichever of the two men pursuing her first came, like Sleeping Beauty’s prince, to wake her—as she would wager her best pearls they would—or…

 
Quietly rising, she drifted around the chairs—and kept drifting, silent, wraithlike, until the trees closed around her, and she was out of sight.

 
Quite what she’d hoped to achieve—by the time she reached the stream, sanity had returned.

 
Sinking onto a flat rock nicely warmed by the sunshine, she frowned at the rippling stream and decided it had been her vision of Sleeping Beauty, trapped, forced to wait and accept the attentions of whichever handsome prince turned up to press a kiss to her lips… it really had been too reminiscent of her own situation, so she’d done what any sane woman would have—even Sleeping Beauty if she’d had the chance. She’d upped stakes and run.

 
The problem was that she couldn’t run far, and was therefore in danger of being run to earth by one or the other of her princes—pursuers. On top of that, one knew this piece of forest even better than she.

 
Worse still, if she was destined to be caught by one, and had to choose, she wasn’t sure which of them she should opt for. In this setting, Ferdinand would be difficult to manage; Edward had been right there. However, regardless, Ferdinand had little chance of sweeping her off her feet and into any illicit embrace. Michael, on the other hand…

 
She knew which of the two was more truly dangerous to her. Unfortunately, he was the one with whom she felt immeasurably safer.

 
A conundrum—one for which her considerable experience had not prepared her.

 
The distant snap of a twig alerted her; concentrating, she heard a definite footfall. Someone was approaching along the path she’d taken from the clearing. Quickly, she scanned her surroundings; a thicket of elder growing before an ancient birch offered the best hope of safe concealment.

 
Rising, she hurriedly climbed the bank. Circling the thicket, she discovered the densely growing elder did not extend to the trunk of the massive birch, but instead formed a palisade screening anyone standing under the birch from the stream. Beyond the birch the ground rose steadily; she might be visible from higher on the bank, yet if she stood in front of the birch…

 
Slipping into the screened space, she took up a position before the huge birch trunk and peered toward the stream. Almost immediately, a man came striding along the bank; all she glimpsed through the elder leaves was a shoulder, the flash of a hand—not enough to be certain who he was.

 
He halted; she sensed he was looking around.

 
Stretching this way and that, she tried to get a better sight of him— then he moved and she realized he was scanning the bank, the area where she stood, simultaneously realized the coat she’d glimpsed was dark blue. Ferdinand; Michael was wearing brown.

 
She held her breath, still, eyes locked on where Ferdinand stood… childhood games of hide-and-seek had never felt so intense.

 
For long moments, all was silent, unmoving, the heavy heat beneath the trees a muffling blanket. She became aware of her breathing, of the beat of her heart… and, suddenly, a disconcerting ruffling of her senses.

 
Those senses abruptly flared; she knew he was there before she actually felt him, moving silently toward her from around the tree. Knew who he was before his large hand slid around her waist; he didn’t urge her back against him—her feet didn’t move—yet suddenly he was there, all heat and strength at her back, his hard body, his solid masculine frame all but surrounding her.

 
She hadn’t been breathing before; she couldn’t now. A rush of warmth flooded her. Giddiness threatened.

 
Raising a hand, she closed it over his at her waist. Felt his grip firm in response. He bent his head; his lips traced the sensitive skin below her ear. Suppressing a reactive shiver, she heard his whisper, low, deep, yet faintly amused, “Stay still. He hasn’t seen us.”

 
She turned her head, leaned back into him, intending to tartly tell him “I know”—instead, her gaze collided with his. Then lowered to his lips, mere inches from hers…

 
They were already so close their breaths mingled; it seemed strangely sensible—meant to be—that they shifted, adjusted, closed the distance, that he kissed her and she kissed him even though they were both highly conscious that mere yards away Ferdinand Leponte searched for her.

 
That fact kept the kiss light, lips brushing, caressing, firming even while they both continued to listen.

 
Eventually came the sounds they were waiting for, a faint curse in Portuguese followed by the sound of Ferdinand’s footsteps retreating.

 
Relief swept Caro, softening her spine; she relaxed. Before she could collect her wits and retreat, Michael seized the moment, juggled and turned her fully into his arms, closed them about her, parted her lips and slid into the honeyed cavern of her mouth.

 
And took, tasted, tantalized… and she was with him, following his script, content, it seemed, both to allow and appreciate the slowly escalating intimacy that each successive encounter brought. Wrought. A reflection of the steadily escalating desire building within him and, he was sure, in her.

 
He felt confident of that last even though she was extremely difficult to read, and apparently set on denying it.

 
Recalling that, recalling his real purpose in coming after her, and accepting that greater privacy would be wise, he reluctantly eased back from the kiss.

 
Lifting his head, he looked into her face, watched the shadows of emotions swim through her eyes as she blinked and reassembled her wits.

 
Then she glared, stiffened, and pushed back from his embrace.

 
Managing to keep his lips straight, he let her go, but caught her hand, stopping her from stalking off.

 
She frowned at his hand, locked about hers, then lifted a chilly gaze to his face. “I should return to the clearing.”

 
He raised his brows. “Leponte is lurking somewhere between the clearing and here—are you sure you want to risk running into him… alone, under the trees…”

 
Any lingering doubts over how she saw Leponte—any inclination to view the man as a rival—were banished, reduced to ashes by the aggravation in her eyes, by the nature of her hesitation. Her gaze remained locked with his; her expression eased from haughty dismissal to exasperation.

 
Before she could formulate some other plan, he said, “I was on my way to check the pond, to make sure the stream is still running freely. You may as well come with me.”

 
She hesitated, making no secret that she was weighing the risks of accompanying him against those of inadvertently running into Leponte. Unwilling to utter any promise or assurance he had no intention of keeping, he kept silent and waited.

 
Eventually, she grimaced. “All right.”

 
Nodding, he turned away so she wouldn’t see his smile. Hand in hand, they left the protection of the elders and headed further along the stream.

 
She threw him a suspicious glance. “I thought you said the stream was unblocked?”

 
“It was, but as I’m here”—he glanced at her—“with nothing better to do, I thought I’d make sure we’ve got the problem permanently fixed.”

 
He walked on, leading her deeper into the forest.

 
The pond was well known to locals, but as it was buried deep in Eyeworth Wood, a segment of the forest and part of his lands, few others knew or even suspected its existence. It was located in a narrow valley, and the surrounding vegetation was dense, less easy to penetrate than the tracts of open forest.

 
Ten minutes of tramping along forest paths brought them to the pond’s edge. Fed by the stream, it was deep enough for the surface to appear glassy and still. At dawn and dusk, the pond drew forest animals large and small; in midafternoon, the heat—not as heavy here, yet still considerable—wrapped the scene in somnolence. They were the only creatures awake, the only ones moving.

 
They glanced around, drinking in the quiet beauty then, still holding Caro’s hand, Michael led the way around the bank to where the stream exited the pond.

 
It was gurgling merrily, the sound a delicate tinkling melody falling into the forest silence.

 
Halting at the stream’s head, he pointed to a spot ten yards along. “A tree had lodged there—presumably it came down in winter. There was debris built up around it, almost a dam. We hauled out the tree and the worst of it, and hoped the stream would clear the rest itself.”

 
She studied the free-flowing water. “It seems to have done so.”

 
He nodded, gripped her hand and stepped back. Drew her back with him—without warning released her hand, locked his about her waist, lifted and whirled her; setting her down at the base of a huge oak, her back to the bole, he bent his head and kissed her.

 
Thoroughly this time.

 
He sensed her gasp—knew she tried to summon and cling to outrage—felt a spurt of very masculine delight when she failed utterly. When despite her clear intent to resist she instead met his thrusting tongue, when within seconds her lips firmed and, for her almost boldly, with that lick of elusive passion, not only met his demands, but seemed intent on gaining more.

 
The result was a kiss, a succession of increasingly heated exchanges that, to his considerable surprise, evolved into a sensual game of a type he’d never played before. It took him some moments—it took effort to tear even a part of his mind free enough to think—before he realized what was different.

 
She might not have had much experience kissing, believing, wrongly, that she didn’t know how; he’d expected her, once he’d seduced her thus far, to be eager to learn—as indeed she was. What he hadn’t expected was her attitude, her approach to that learning, yet now he was dealing with it, lips to lips, mouth to mouth, tongue to tongue, it was, indeed, pure Caro.

 
He was starting to realize she did not possess an acquiescent bone in her body. If she agreed, she went forward, determined and resolute; if she disagreed, she would resist equally trenchantly.

 
But being acquiescent, going along with something without any real commitment, was simply not Caro.

 
Now he’d forced her to face the question, she’d obviously decided to take him up on his offer to teach her to kiss. Indeed, she seemed intent on getting him to teach her more—her lips, her responses, were increasingly demanding. Commanding. Matching him, step by step, meeting him toe to toe.

 
If the complete capture of his senses, the total immersion of his attention in the exchange, the increasingly definite reaction of his body were anything to go by, she didn’t need any more teaching.

 
Abruptly, he pulled back, broke the kiss, aware of just how dangerously insistent his own desire was growing. Aware of the rising beat in his blood. He lifted his head only inches, waited until her lids fluttered, then rose—searched her silver eyes.