Wallflower (Old Maids' Club, Book 1) (32 page)

Two more days. Less than
that, actually. In closer to thirty-six hours (not that Noah was
keeping track of these matters, mind), she would be his
wife.
Then
he
could act on his impulses. Then he could satiate his
need.

He’d have to teach her a thing or two
about what her wanton looks and brazen touches did to a man. To
him, in particular.

Lady St. Benedict let out a loud sigh
from a few feet away, over the heads of the gathering she’d invited
to join her. “That was an excellent supper, if I do say so myself.
But I feel the need for a bit of exercise after all of that. Would
any of you care to join me?”

Noah’s gaze fell upon a movement in
the distance, away from their supper box. He strained his eyes to
see what, or more specifically who, it was. The man walked into a
pool of light from a hanging lantern, and finally Noah could make
out his face: Oglethorpe. The bastard. But the lecherous blackguard
was no longer a concern. He would never collect on his bet now.
Noah forced his attention to return to their hostess’s
speech.

“
The fireworks will not
take place for a good time, yet, so we might as well find some
other way to entertain ourselves.”

A number of the ladies present
murmured their approval of her suggestion and got to their feet,
Tabitha and Miss Faulkner amongst them. “A good promenade is
precisely what I need,” Tabitha said, linking her arm with her
cousin.

Noah and Leith exchanged a look. From
the hardened, black expression in Leith’s eyes, Noah could only
suspect he’d seen Oglethorpe too. They got to their feet almost as
one.

“
We’ll join you,” Leith
said to Miss Faulkner. He placed her hand in the crook of his arm.
Tabitha unfurled her grip on her cousin and instead took Noah’s
arm. She smiled up at him in that wicked manner she’d taken on of
late.

The entire party headed out onto one
of the well-lit paths meandering through the gardens. Most of the
ladies were on the arm of a gentleman, though a few groups of them
clustered together as debutantes were wont to do, leaving a few
gentlemen to hang back from the crush and talk amongst themselves.
Several of the young ladies exclaimed in delight as they passed the
cascade, or giggled as they walked beneath one of the storied
archways.

Noah and Tabitha walked along in near
silence. The sweet scent of peaches kept wafting across his nose
every time the wind rustled over her—a scent he would forever
associate with his bride-to-be. He wondered how she achieved such a
scent, whether it was a particular oil she added to her bathwater
or something she daubed behind her ears. The idea of discovering
her secret, and then aiding her in producing it each day, crashed
headlong into him. He had to stop thinking like this. Thirty-six
hours. He could make it thirty-six more hours without succumbing to
death from this torment.

He’d already survived almost
thirty-two years without taking Tabitha to his bed, after
all.

As they walked, the assemblage began
to dissipate, with smaller groupings breaking off to travel down
this path and that, straying away from the main path and sneaking
off to the Druid Walks—and away from the ever-watchful eyes of
their chaperones, in the bargain. Soon, only a spattering of the
original party remained strolling along the lamp-lit
walkway.

Noah glanced over his shoulder at
Leith and Miss Faulkner. They were engrossed in conversation and
not paying even the slightest attention to Noah and
Tabitha.

“
Come with me,” he
whispered into Tabitha’s ear. With a gentle tug, he guided her away
from prying eyes and into the dark. Not that he intended to do more
with her than he had in the past...but it might ease his anguish if
he could steal a kiss or three.

She didn’t complain. Indeed, she came
along eagerly, hurrying along beside him. As they moved farther
from the lights, her hand closed more tightly on his arm, but she
kept pace with him, wending and turning through the tree- and
flower-lined trails. Finally, the only light left to guide them on
their journey was the crescent of the moon in the night sky. An
occasional cloud passed over the moon, blanketing them in
darkness.

They hadn’t passed another person in
at least a few minutes. An expanse of grassy field opened before
them, with a thick copse of trees on the other side. “Over there?”
he asked.

Tabitha’s eyes shimmered bright in the
narrow shaft of light. “Yes. That looks perfect.” He didn’t think
to ask perfect for what. Surely she had the same idea in mind as
he.

Noah took her hand into his own and
led her across the meadow. Her slippered feet slid on a damp patch,
and he pulled her to his chest to steady her. Her breath caught at
the contact between their bodies. He understood all too well. The
heat between them was palpable. “You’re all right?” He studied her
expression, but she displayed no sign of worry.

“
Yes,” Tabitha whispered,
smiling and stretching up on her toes to peck him on the nose. Her
coy, coquettish kiss set Noah’s loins aflame. Perhaps this wasn’t
such a grand plan, after all.

Reaching for his hand, Tabitha
directed them the rest of the way across the pasture. When they
arrived at the shelter of massive oaks, he slowed to stop, but she
pulled him deeper into the sanctuary, only stopping when they were
altogether enshrouded in the cover of night and surrounded by the
aroma of thousands of freesias.

He couldn’t see her any longer. But he
felt the curves of her body press against him as she strapped her
arms around his neck and pulled his head down for a kiss. The
sugared, fruity, feminine scent of her drew him down, closer to her
warmth, and her lips tasted like golden honey. Her breath came on
ragged moans and soft sighs.

“
Touch me,” Tabitha
commanded when he repositioned his lips to taste the frantic pace
of her pulse beneath her ear and then lower, to the hollow of her
neck.

Who was he to disobey? One hand moved
to cover her breast and the other slipped behind her, settling over
the soft, rounded flesh of her derrière. He squeezed both, glorying
in the taught nub that formed beneath his palm at her breast and
the near-inaudible whimper that trembled forth from her
lips.

She grabbed the lapels of his coat,
pulling them back and over his shoulders as she nibbled a path
along his jaw. She had it halfway down his arms before he came to
his senses.

Noah stilled Tabitha’s hands, holding
them tight so she couldn’t continue to undress him. “What in God’s
name are you doing?”

Her tongue slithered over his jaw,
soothing the abraded skin she had left behind. By Jove, he needed
about six more hands to contain her.

“
I’m disrobing you,” she
said breathlessly. Her hands continued to seek freedom as she
placed feverish kisses over his neck and ears. “Unless you wanted
to keep our clothes on. I suppose it is possible that way, though
it will be a bit more complicated.” One of her hands pulled away,
and she gave his cravat a great tug, then another, finally pulling
it away. It fell unceremoniously to the bed of flowers and grass
beneath their feet.

“
Stop this, Tabitha. That
isn’t why I brought you here.” In the dark, his attempts at
recapturing her rogue hand went awry. She eluded him at every turn,
until the flat of her hand pressed torturously against his
erection. With a tiny movement, she enfolded him in her grasp. “Oh,
God. What are you doing? This can’t happen.”

He had to stop her. He couldn’t give
in to his baser instincts. Noah picked her up and set her away from
him, holding her back with the greater length of his arms. It took
every ounce of patience and honor he possessed to do so.

“
If that’s not what you
intended, what are we doing here?” Another cloud drifted away from
the moon, and in its insubstantial illumination he saw her cross
her arms over her chest, magnifying the glorious display before
him. Her expression was a riveting combination of mutiny and
desire. She looked absolutely ravenous—not something that would
help his cause.

He chanced removing his hands from her
shoulders. She didn’t immediately go on the offensive again, so he
took a breath and pulled his fingers through his hair. “I thought
to get you alone for a bit. I just wanted to kiss you.”

“
I want more than a kiss.
I want your hands on me. I want to feel you all over me—inside
me.”

Dash it all. Even just hearing it from
her mouth, in her voice, was almost enough to send him over the
edge. “Tabitha, I thought I made myself clear to you in the
carriage yesterday. We have to wait. I want this to happen the
right way.”

She threw her hands up in
the air. “Who says what way is the
right
way? We love each other. We’re
to be married in two days’ time. Why do we have to
wait?”

She would be the death of him. He
might not make it to his own wedding.

Noah pressed his eyes closed.
“Thirty-six hours,” he managed to get out between gritted teeth.
“It is only thirty-six more hours, and then we’ll be married, and I
can do things the way you deserve to have them done.” The image of
Tabitha’s body beneath him in his bed flooded his mind. He opened
his eyes and took another breath. “You’re an innocent, Tabitha. I
absolutely refuse to take your maidenhead on the ground in a public
garden.”

“
I’m not.”

His heart stopped. He must have
misheard her. “You’re not what?”

“
I’m not an innocent,
Noah. I know exactly what I’m asking you for.”

Chapter
Eighteen

Noah stood staring at her as though
she had suddenly sprouted wings and might fly away at any moment.
“What do you mean, you’re not an innocent?” His words were quiet
and measured, as though each one caused him great pain.

She hadn’t meant to blurt it out to
him this way. He would have to learn eventually, once they were
married and he tried to bed her at least, but she had hoped she
would have a little more time to decide just how, precisely, to go
about her explanation.

But Tabitha couldn’t very well have
expected to be in this particular situation. She hadn’t planned it,
not by any stretch of the imagination. The story was far from a
short one to tell, and Tabitha was over-stimulated to the point of
desperation. She needed him.

Tentatively, she stretched out a hand
and reached for him, only to have him grab hold of it and hold it
captive. “Explain,” he growled.

Oh, good Lord. He clearly needed her
as badly as she needed him. But he was behaving like an intractable
mule. “It was years ago,” Tabitha said, with far more exasperation
tainting her tone than she’d intended. “I was young and exhausted
from all of the fortune hunters paying me court. One of Father’s
footmen said sweet words to me and sent flutters coursing through
me, and I thought myself in love.”

Noah riffled his free hand through his
hair in the way that always made Tabitha want to take over the
task. “One of your father’s...Did he...? Did they...? Is he
still...?”

Tabitha frowned. She wished he would
just bed her and let her finish the rest of it later. “James
Marshall was sacked. Not because of our relationship. Well, not
exactly because of it. After we had been intimate for a few months,
I caught him coupling with a pretty, petite scullery maid in his
quarters when I went to look for him. When I confronted him, he
admitted he was only bedding a ‘fat wench’ like me because it
allowed him the opportunity to sneak around the family’s wing—I’d
arranged for him to work in that area of the house, because I
wanted him to be happy. He’d stolen quite a bit of jewelry and some
artwork already since he took up the position. James was quite sure
I’d never admit what had been happening to my father or brothers.
He was right. Instead, I found Owen and told him where he would
find James and the maid in the act, and he sacked them both on the
spot.”

She sniffed back her frustration and
stole a glance at Noah; his eyes were closed tight, as though
hearing her admission pained him. “Since him, no gentleman who
wasn’t already a notorious fortune hunter has paid me any
attention. Clearly, no one has any need for a ‘fat wench’ like
me.”

“
Don’t call yourself such
an ugly untruth as that. I do. I need you.” His words were like a
prayer.

“
So you say. Your body
appears to agree with your words, but then you push me away. Why?
I’m no innocent, and I’m asking you to touch me, yet you tell me we
must wait until it is all legal and proper.” Tears stung her eyes.
Damn them for betraying her now. “What reason should I suspect is
behind this if not your need to have my dowry firmly within your
grasp before you force yourself to touch the ‘fat wench’ I am? If
you even decide to touch me at all, that is.”

“
You can’t still believe
that,” Noah said. “I thought we were past your distrust of me. And
for God’s sake, would you please stop calling yourself a fat wench?
You’re not fat at all. You’re perfect.”

“
Perfect?” Tabitha
scoffed. “There are many things I am, Noah, but
perfect
is about the furthest thing
from the truth.”