The Study of Seduction: Sinful Suitors 2 (22 page)

Edwin leaned forward. “But you saw him for what he was almost from the very beginning. And despite knowing that something wasn’t quite right about the man, you stood up to him. You refused to let him cow you, even when he frightened you. You’re a very brave woman.”

Such effusive words of praise coming from Edwin made her a tiny bit wary. “Are you trying to manage
me
now, Lord Blakeborough?”

He smiled. “Is that even possible?”

“No,” she said frankly. “But I suppose it would be intriguing to watch you try.”

“Is it so hard to believe that I could genuinely admire you, on occasion?”

“Yes, it is. I’ve spent years hearing you lecture me. Why, you couldn’t even refrain from chiding me for one whole night.”

“Ah, yes, that reminds me. I owe you a prize for winning our wager.” He drew a middling-size box from beneath the seat and held it out to her. “Open it.”

The wager. She’d forgotten all about it until now. “Is it what I requested?” After removing her gloves, she took the box from him.

“Open it and see.”

She did as he bade to find something encased in velvet inside. Once she parted the folds of fabric, she caught her breath.

The figurine lying there was about eight inches high and three inches wide. Blond curls peeped from beneath an enormous hat, and the lady—for it
was
a lady, very theatrically dressed in breeches and a waistcoat that failed to hide her womanly figure—was affixed to a box that had a windup key.

“An automaton!” she exclaimed.

He smiled. “I always pay my debts.”

“But is it one you made yourself?”

“Just as you requested.”

Delighted beyond words, Clarissa removed it from the box. “She looks like a performer. What exactly does she do?”

“Try it and find out.”

After Clarissa wound it up, a lively tune played and the lady in breeches began to twirl and dip, to lift her arms and lower them in a most elaborate dance.

“Ohhh,” she breathed. “She’s
lovely.
”

“Yes,” he said. “She is.”

Clarissa glanced up to find him watching her face with that heated look that made her hands grow clammy and her cheeks hot. She jerked her gaze back to the automaton.

Suddenly the figure stopped. Was it broken? Had it already wound down? Then the lady stuck out her tongue.

Clarissa burst into laughter, even more enthralled. “Now,
that
is one cheeky dancer,” she said as the figure repeated the dance again.

“Very much like the woman she’s based upon,” he said.

“Based upon?” Clarissa looked more closely at the dancing lady and noticed that her waistcoat had a particular design, as did the hat. Both were the same as in the costume Clarissa had worn to the masquerade last year.

She gasped. “You didn’t!”

“I did.”

“It’s
me
? But when could you . . . how could you . . . I mean, surely you didn’t have time to create it in the past day or so.”

“I made it nearly a year ago, because Yvette wanted to give you something special last Christmas. She used a fashion doll and dictated every aspect of the attire. Then I altered the figure to suit. But I couldn’t get it completed in time for Christmas, so Yvette had to choose you another present. Since then, it has sat in my study. I was going to ask my sister if she still wanted to give it to you, but then you wanted one and . . .”

“It’s wonderful. And I suppose it does look a bit like me.”

“But not as pretty. I can’t work miracles, after all.”

She cast him a coy look. “That’s two compliments in less than an hour. You’re turning into a veritable flatterer, Edwin.”

“I shall have to chastise you for something right away,” he drawled. “Wouldn’t want you to grow complacent.”

With a chuckle, she returned to examining the automaton. As the dancer wound down, she peered beneath the waistcoat, trying to glimpse the mechanism.

“She has a hidden secret,” he said, after a moment.

“Does she? Where?”

“See if you can find it.”

Clarissa looked all around the figure, but she was afraid to move too many parts for fear of breaking it. “At least give me a hint.”

He crossed to Clarissa’s side of the carriage and drew off his gloves. Taking Clarissa’s finger and placing it beneath the back of the voluminous hat, he had her press up on the brim from beneath. A cascade of golden tresses fell out of the hat and down to the figure’s waist.

“Oh!” she said. “That’s marvelous!”

He twined one finger about the hair. “That night at the masquerade I kept hoping your hair would fall out of your hat, and I would finally get a glimpse of it unpinned.”

With a catch in her throat, she looked up at him. He sat so close now, his eyes shimmering in the fading light of dusk and his breath wafting over her.

Then he added, in a husky voice, “I would give anything to see your hair down.”

She swallowed convulsively. “I’m sure that can be arranged,” she managed through a throat suddenly gone dry.

With his gaze boring into hers, he took the automaton from her and placed it on the seat behind him, then began to remove the pins from her coiffure.

“You mean to do it
now
?” she asked. “What will the servants think when I disembark from the carriage looking like a trollop from the streets?”

“They’ll think we’re newly married. Which we are.”

When he tugged at a pin that stubbornly resisted his efforts, she said, “Stop that. Let me.”

As she took out her pins, he caught the locks that fell, twining them loosely about his hands, rubbing them between his fingers. “Your hair is like gilded silk
thread.”

She gave a shaky laugh. “When did you become so poetic?”

“When my wife told me I had to learn how to pay a woman compliments.” He kissed one of her curls. “I’m not very good at it yet.”

“You’re good enough,” she said softly.

His gaze played over her face, searching, drinking in. Then he clasped her head in his hands and brought his mouth down on hers.

Oh, heavens. This kiss was decidedly different from the one they’d shared in the church—sweeter, hotter . . . more intimate. She parted her lips for him, and with a groan, he plunged his tongue deep.

That’s when everything got more interesting. He kissed like a marauder of old, plundering and taking and turning her into mush with every long, hot thrust of his tongue. She caught him by the neck; he caught her by the waist. He swept his hand up to thumb her nipple through her gown; she swept hers up to fondle his beautiful raven hair that cascaded luxuriously over her fingers.

His free hand skimmed her as if looking for chinks in her armor. And there were many; right now her armor might as well be made of paper.

Burying his mouth in her neck, he gave a sort of sucking kiss to the delicate skin that sent a thrill down to her toes. When she gripped his head, he said, “Do you like that?”

“I’m not sure. It’s different.”

“I want to touch you beneath your skirts.” He nuzzled her jaw with his whisker-rough face. “Will you
let me?”

Beneath her skirts. Oh no. That was how things started to go awry. “I . . . I don’t know.”

He must have sensed her alarm, for he stilled. “What if I just kiss you, then?”

“Yes, oh yes.” Relief coursed through her. “Kissing is good. I like kissing.”

“So do I.” To her surprise, instead of seizing her mouth again, he slid off the seat and onto the floor of the carriage.

When he started pushing her skirts up, she grabbed his hands. “Wait, I thought you were going to kiss me!”

“I am.” His eyes gleamed up at her in the thin light of dusk. “But here.” Parting the long slit in one pantalets leg, he pressed a kiss to the inside of her bare knee. “And here.” He kissed the thigh above it. “And definitely here.” He kissed the other thigh higher up.

An errant shiver swept down her. “I see,” she managed, though she didn’t see at all. It hadn’t occurred to her that kissing could be done . . . down there. Or that it could feel so intoxicating. The Vile Seducer had certainly never bestowed any kisses on that part of her.

Edwin’s head was practically in her lap now, and for some reason it felt less alarming than when he was sitting on the seat beside her. His privates were nowhere near hers, only his mouth. He couldn’t really hurt her with his mouth, could he?

Unless . . . “You’re not going to bite me, are you?”

He chuckled. “No, I swear.” Rubbing her linen-clad thighs with his hands, he said, “Open your legs for me, my sweet, and I’ll do things to you that make you feel
good. Things that you’ll like. And naught else, I swear.”

Only the fact that he was kneeling and she was seated made her willing to let him try. She opened her legs a little and was rewarded with a series of soft, delicate kisses to her inner thighs inside the long openings in her drawers.

To her shock, that excited her quite a lot. It frightened her a bit, too, but beneath the fright simmered a hot thrill that made her heart race.

Then he placed his mouth right upon her privates.

“Edwin!” she squeaked. “Are you . . . sure about this?”

Ignoring her question, he began to kiss and lick her down there. Inside her pantalets. Between her legs. His mouth covered her soft flesh, teasing and stroking her tenderly. It felt
shockingly
good.

“That is . . . more than kissing . . .” She let out a little moan when he flicked with his tongue right at the top of her cleft. Her body arched high, craving more. “Heavens, Edwin!”

She was still marveling at how amazing it felt when suddenly, his tongue darted inside her. She tensed a little, but his thrusts were silken and sweet, devoid of pain. Full of the purest pleasure. Oh,
Lord.

The fear still lay in a knot at the center of her, but the longer he caressed her with his mouth, the more she was able to push it down. Soon she was clutching his head to her, urging him to greater boldness. “You are very good at . . . whatever this is.”

He paused to glance up at her. “I’ve had enough opportunities to study seduction to know what I’m doing.”

She could well guess why, but she didn’t care what
women he’d been with before. All right, she cared a little. Just not right now. Not if they’d taught him
this
.

Her body tingled, felt alive and full to bursting. She shimmied beneath him, trying to get more.

“You taste delicious,” he growled against her.

“Do I?” What he was doing to her was certainly delicious. “You are . . . oh . . . that is . . .
incredible.
”

Who’d have guessed such a thing would make her want to press herself against his mouth like a shameless tart? The urge to squirm grew almost unbearable, and her lower body seemed to move of its own accord, seeking more of the amazing sensations, more of the heat and intoxication. A wildly drumming thrill built inside her, pounding and thrumming and making her strain to feel every caress of the sweet, hard lashes of his tongue until . . . until . . .

“Edwin! Lord, yes,
Edwin
!” She clasped his head against her privates as lights exploded behind her eyes.

Then she tumbled over into a most delicious oblivion.

When Edwin felt Clarissa convulse beneath his mouth, he exulted. He
could
make her feel pleasure. And since that was possible, then all of it was possible. He’d just have to take special care with her.

Perhaps he’d have his wedding night after all.

Smiling against her luscious skin, he nuzzled her thigh, drunk on the smell of her, the taste of her. His wife. She might run him a merry dance, but they would have this, at least.

Her fingers loosened their grip on his head, and she uttered a drawn-out sigh. “Oh my. My, my, my.”

Chuckling, he wiped his mouth on her drawers. “Yes.”

“Mama most certainly did not tell me about that.”

He gazed up at her. “What
did
she tell you?”

“Not much; she was blushing too hard. But I already knew . . . some of it, anyway. Just not this.”

“Who told you?”

It was too dark now to see her face, but he could feel her muscles tense beneath his hands, which were
still resting on her thighs. “Oh, girls talk about these things, you know.”

“Really? And what do they say?”

“Oh, this and that and the other. You wouldn’t want to know.”

She pushed on his shoulders and he drew back, only to have her pull her legs together and jerk her skirts down to cover them.

“Ah, but I would like to know.” With his erection still thick in his trousers, he rose to sit beside her and put his hand on her waist. “Why don’t you tell me?” He brushed a kiss to her cheek. “Then I can show you which things they were wrong about. And which things they didn’t even know.”

She shifted away from him to look out the window. “Oh, b-but surely we’re getting near to home. It’s been ever so long since we left London.”

Her withdrawal was too obvious to mistake, and he bit down on the impulse to push her, to demand answers. That wasn’t the way to handle a skittish female.

But now that he thought about it, wasn’t her reaction odd? Clarissa was never skittish about anything. She threw herself into every adventure, embraced every experience, was often too reckless for his taste.

So why be afraid of this? Unless . . .

“Durand didn’t do anything to you in Bath, did he?” he asked hoarsely.

Her head swung around. “Like what?” There seemed to be genuine surprise in her voice.

“Like overstep his bounds.”

“Oh. No, of course not. I mean, he stole a kiss once or twice, but no, nothing like that.”

“That surprises me. He hasn’t seemed to be good about staying within any boundaries heretofore, and he tried to push a kiss on you that day in the library.”

Crossing her arms over her chest, she slid back into the corner, into the shadows. “That was the first time he was rough with me. Before then, he was persistent in his attentions, but a gentleman. I think my unprecedented absence from London must have provoked him.”

Hmm. “So he never forced himself on you.”