The Second Seduction of a Lady (6 page)

“Thank you,” he said softly. “Now let me find one of the biggest and ripest for you.”

He’d already spotted his quarry on the bush, out of the corner of his eye. He plucked it carefully and pressed it into her slightly open mouth. She chewed convulsively and a tiny driblet of purple seeped out. Quick as a wink he took the lush lower lip between both of his and sucked off the juice. And before he knew it, he was kissing Eleanor again and she was kissing him back.

Standing a foot or so apart, only their lips touched, and their hands. He’d never released the one he’d so thoroughly kissed. One corner of his brain was urging him to seize her, embrace her, press her against the growing evidence of his desire, throw her to the ground and possess her. Only knowing that haste had once led him to lose her stayed his passion. Stayed, not dispelled.

He wanted her body, heart, and soul, forever. Her body he’d won before and he sensed from her response that he could do so again. But her heart was hidden behind defenses he’d never suspected existed, because he’d never taken the trouble to find out. As for her soul, he’d bruised it badly when he’d betrayed her trust with that foolish bet. He still had work to do.

He kissed her gently, their lips moving together soft and sweet. It wasn’t a deep kiss but a slow investigation of taste and texture, a scouting trip with the promise of a full exploration. Max let lust fall away as he devoted his mind to the joy of a simple kiss with the woman he loved.

Still, she was the first to break contact, not him. He wasn’t that saintly. “Caro,” she said in strangled voice, blinking foolishly. Since her back was to the open field, Max had an excellent view over her shoulder of Caro and Robert, hands clasped and about to kiss.

“Robert!” he shouted. His first thought was that Eleanor should not know. If she did, she’d keep Caro away from Robert and their frequent meetings would stop. He needed time, much more time, to win her over.

I
t was a long time since Eleanor had dressed for a ball with such anticipation. Five years to be precise. By chance Robert Townsend’s twenty-first birthday fell on the anniversary of the Petworth militia ball. She was somewhat disgusted with herself that the cause of her excitement was the same in both cases, the pleasure of dancing with the same man.

However hard she tried to think like a sensible woman of thirty years, she couldn’t stop feeling like a girl as young and foolish as Caro. Her body swayed in time with imagined music, drawing a remonstrance from the maid who was lacing up her stays. She twirled in front of the mirror, admiring the swish and rustle of her favorite blue silk gown, then picked out the steps of a lively gavotte, just to relax her feet into the matching dancing slippers embroidered with seed pearls.

Her heart felt light. She hadn’t thought it possible, yet at this moment she felt no anger toward Max. He’d made a mistake. Everyone made them, especially gentlemen. Normally tolerant of human foibles, she’d believed him unpardonable. Perhaps there was a lesson here, that anyone deserved forgiveness—once.

“You look beautiful, Eleanor.” Caro gave her a hug that took Eleanor’s breath away when she joined the family downstairs.

“Caroline! You’ll crush your dress.” Elizabeth Brotherton was ever ready to spoil a moment of enjoyment.

In a way she was right. Caro’s gown of fine white gauze would crush easily. She was so excited that her vibrant red curls already threatened to come loose from their pretty arrangement of satin ribbon and pearls. Eleanor was quite certain the girl would return from her first ball with her pristine kid slippers and gloves soiled and worn. But who could object? Caro’s youthful glee was infectious and certain to charm the stuffiest of sticklers.

Except her own mother. Mrs. Brotherton was dressed with impeccable taste in her favorite lavender. Eleanor would bet her entire fortune on the certainty that Elizabeth would come home in as perfect a state as she’d left in, flawlessly pressed, coiffed, and scented by the sweet lavender powder she favored.

Eleanor herself strove for no such undisturbed state. No normal woman could survive an evening’s dancing entirely unruffled. Her stomach fluttered dangerously at the anticipation of another cause of ruffling. Since the blackberry expedition she had spent far too much time dwelling on that kiss, and she was fairly sure—almost sure—that she would let it be repeated tonight. What else that meant for her future she wasn’t certain.

“What a splendid ball,” Eleanor said when Max claimed her for the first set. “I am impressed that a mere man could arrange things so well.”

“Thank you. I’ve never acted as host on such an occasion. And I will not do so again. Not at Longford, at least. As of this morning I relinquish all control over Robert and the Townsend estate.”

“How long will you stay?” she asked, as they moved through the dance.

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether Robert allows me to remain his guest.” His lazy smile sent a different message.

“Ah, you fear summary ejection. Have you been such a cruel, strict guardian then?”

Max turned to the lady on his other side. Eleanor felt her toes curl and a foolish grin stretch her lips. In evening clothes of gray and deep red he looked far handsomer than any gentleman in the room. “He and the boys intend to leave here in a day or two,” he said, once the dance brought him back to her side. “He’s not cut out for country life and chafes for London.”

Eleanor looked at Caro, who was gazing at Robert as they danced. “It’s probably just as well,” she said. “Caro will be sad, but they are both too young to marry.”

“Worrying about your charge?”

“She’s not mine tonight. Her mother is present.”

“All the more attention for others, then, ” he whispered, as the movement of the dance drew them apart again.

“I’ll never be host at Longford again,” Max said a minute later. “But I have my own house, near Newmarket. It’s not as large as this one but I hope you would like it.”

“That’s one part of England I’ve never visited,” she said, trying to sound indifferent. “For some reason I have no relations there. I would like to visit Cambridge. The colleges are said to be very fine.” Once again the movements of the dance separated them.

“Eleanor,” he said softly, when they came back together. “Are we going to spend this evening discussing the beauties and antiquities of England?”

“I generally find travel to be a fine topic when one is traveling through a country dance.”

“In that case,” he said, “I hope you will reserve a later set for me and we can forget the dance and walk outside. The gardens are very lovely at this time of year.”

Her heart hammered and her breath increased. A tingling of her lips anticipated that kiss she’d promised herself. Just a kiss. And she wouldn’t go far from the house. This time she was not going to lose control of herself.

“There’s nothing like an evening walk,” she said. “Meanwhile you may tell me about the fen country. What is it like?”

“Very flat.” His smile made her wish the promised
later set
was now. She felt herself drowning in a heated gaze that seemed incongruous in such limpid blue eyes.

T
he ball was endless. Max fretted through half a dozen sets and the tedium of supper. In a house filled with the cream of Somerset gentry, there was only one person whose company he desired. Finally it came time for his promised dance with Eleanor. She, ravishing in blue, stood with her cousin, the impossibly unpleasant Mrs. Brotherton.

“Will you do me the honor, Miss Hardwick?”

“I would be pleased.” Her demure answer was belied by the smoke in her gray eyes. “But I find the room a trifle overwarm.”

“In that case, may I suggest a stroll under the stars?”

“This has been the longest evening of my life,” he said once he had her on his arm. “My job as Robert’s guardian is supposed to be over today, but the wretched boy keeps disappearing, leaving me as sole host. I’m afraid he’s dicing in the stables with the other youngsters. The three of them are probably fleecing the rustics, as Lithgow so charmingly puts it.”

“As long as no one’s fleecing Caro of her virtue, I don’t care.”

“Good God! I hope not. Why would you think such a thing?” Surely Robert wouldn’t? Max beat aside his uneasiness at the suggestion.

“Just a joke, a poor one. My duty is to prevent Caro and her mother from being at odds. She’s dancing with Lord Kendal now, which will please Cousin Elizabeth. I don’t really believe Mr. Townsend would seduce her.”

The light remark fell into a pool of silence, pregnant with meaning and memories. “Do you know what day this is?” he asked.

“Of course I do, but I didn’t expect you would.”

A number of guests had come out to seek the cool of the night, but Eleanor and Max were far enough from the house to be out of the earshot of others. Max halted and gazed down at her face, pale and lovely against the dark halo of her hair. He itched to frame the soft cheeks in his palms, delineate the high cheekbones with his thumbs, kiss the elegant nose whose slight prominence gave her face such character. He contented himself with taking her hand. She did not pull away.

“Not a day goes by when I do not remember that night.” A wisp of a breath was her only response. Max chose to find hope in her silence. “When you returned my letters I despaired, but I never wholly gave up. I always hoped we would meet again.”

As he spoke he saw pain in her eyes that squeezed at his heart. “Why?” she asked. He bent to hear the repeated word. “Why?” For his forthright Eleanor to speak so softly was another testament to how badly he’d hurt her. “It’s not so much the original contest. I know men can be foolish, especially when they drink too much. But why did you boast about it to Sir George Ashdown?”

“Boast? To an oaf like Ashdown? I did nothing of the kind.”

“He told me you had. In the carriage on the way home from Petworth. He said the officers of the regiment had a contest to see who could win a kiss from me. When you claimed the prize, you implied that you’d won far more. I’ve never been so humiliated in my life.”

“Ashdown lied.”

“But you did win two hundred pounds.”

“When we returned from the lake that night, Ashdown asked me if I’d fulfilled the terms of the contest—to kiss you, nothing more—and I told him I had. To my shame, I took the money. I’m not a rich man and I was intending to be wed. To
you.
But I promise you Eleanor, I swear on every scrap of honor I ever possessed, that nothing I said to Ashdown can have given him the idea that we did anything more that night than exchange a kiss. I told him I would call the next morning to offer for your hand because I was in love with you.”

“You said that?”

“My dearest Eleanor. I fell in love with you that week and that night I thought you felt the same.” Joy seized his heart. Eleanor and he had been victims of a misunderstanding. Now they could be happy.

She hadn’t quite reached the same state of bliss. She was looking for answers. “Ashdown said he forced you to propose to me. That you were reluctant, but after much persuasion you agreed that you owed me marriage.”

“Good God! No wonder you sent me away. Why would Ashdown play such a trick?”

“Because he is a horrible man and wanted to revenge himself on me. Poor Sylvia, his wife, has six children and still he would not leave her alone. I advised her to stand up to him, to refuse to let him into her bed for at least a few months. I knew he was angry with me for helping my cousin find a backbone, but I had no notion he could be so vicious. Where are we going?”

The last question was a response to Max’s dragging her by the hand toward the shelter of a convenient shrubbery. “I’m not waiting another minute to kiss you.”

She was not, thank heaven, reluctant. As soon as they were safely out of sight, she fell into his arms. They devoured each other with the same hunger they’d shared five years ago, almost to the hour. Yet it meant so much more this time, because he’d lost her and had found her again. The way her body strained into his was a gift that humbled him, the taste of her kiss a priceless treasure. Five years deprived of Eleanor made every fraction of a second in her presence infinitely precious.

His darling was a woman of powerful appetites beneath a serene exterior. There was nothing tentative or restrained about her embrace, not a trace of maidenly reluctance. She demanded, sucking his tongue into her mouth while emitting an animal purr from the depths of her throat. No puny ladylike creature she, with strong arms that snaked beneath his coats to caress his back, her fingers delicious fiery brands through the linen of his shirt. Why did women have to wear so many layers? his brain hazily wondered, as his own hands sought the ecstasy and comfort of skin and flesh and found only the sturdy cloth and bones of her stays. Finally, in desperation, he relinquished her mouth so that he could taste the long column of her neck, the expanse of chest, and the smooth firm breasts thrust upward for his delectation by the same corset that frustrated him elsewhere. Her head fell back to give him access and at the same time her hands grasped his satin-breeched buttocks and pulled his swelling cock against her center, grinding into him in time with her speeding breaths.

What a marriage they would have! What days and nights of delight!

He stopped trying to burrow beneath the lace edge of her gown to find her nipples. “Eleanor,” he whispered. “Enough.”

An incoherent moan of displeasure accompanied an attempt to find his lips again.

He put a few inches of air between them so his thoughts would no longer be scrambled by her touch. “Let us not repeat our mistakes. Before we go any further, let us set a wedding date.”

She blinked in a flattering state of bedazzlement, shook her head a couple of times with resultant danger to the state of her coiffure, and then opened her mouth a couple of times as she formulated a speech that he hoped would run along the lines of
next week
.

“Are we betrothed?” she said.

He laughed. “I should know better than to take you for granted, my darling. Do you want me to propose on one knee?”