Woo'd in Haste (10 page)

“I do.”

“Have you played with Kate?”

“I have not yet had the pleasure.” He sounded intrigued, as if he could not wait to kick Stanbury out of the chair and take his place. Looking at the board, Stanbury was about to kick himself out with his careless moves in any event. “But I am gaining the advantage of studying her technique.”

“Surely fifteen minutes cannot reveal that much,” Bianca said.

“When one watches closely, a minute can reveal all.”

“Do you watch closely, my lord?”

For the first time he focused his attention fully on Bianca. His pale blue eyes were sharp and she shifted uncomfortably under their sudden perusal. He smiled, and she relaxed. Then realized he had used that smile to
make
her relax.

Impressive.

“I try to, Miss Bianca.”

“Lord Lindley!” Kate cried. “Do tell Mr. Stanbury that there are better uses for his pawn than what he is about to do.”

Without hesitation, Lindley’s attention was back on Kate. From the satisfied expression on Kate’s face, Bianca knew that was her sister’s plan. Jealous of losing her beau’s attention to her sister? How . . .
pitiful
.

Surprise lightened her spirits even as the conversation continued around her, punctuated with laughter. This was a new perspective on Kate. That her sister was so small a person she might be jealous of the slightest bit of attention given to Bianca instead of her. That she was someone to pity than to fear.

How wonderful and freeing!

The revelation made the rest of the evening pass easier. Even as again and again, in all sorts of small ways, Kate did her usual Kate things. Oh, there were no tantrums, and someone who did not know Kate as well as she did might not be aware, but to Bianca it was very clear.

It made her bold. Made her glance down the table to where Luc sat more than once. Made her let her gaze linger on him a moment too long until he met her gaze. Let her indulge in the pleasure of that connection, even though she was so very tired and eager for the night to be at an end.

After dinner, as the women started to make their way to the sitting room, Luc caught her hand with just the slightest brush of his finger. Enough to let her know to pause, to wait for the whispered message.

“I need to see you. The day has been far too long.”

She agreed and she understood. “Thirty minutes. The library,” she returned and then she followed the women obediently out of the room.

Thirty minutes would be enough to have made an effort at conversation but not so long that the men would have joined yet. It would be easier for them both to beg off the evening separately.

H
e had watched her all evening. From the moment he had joined the company in the drawing room till the moment the women left the men to their port. She was tired and yet radiant, and he longed to wrap her up in his arms and keep her there forever.

But instead he was forced to sit in the dining room with Mansfield and his male guests. Thankfully, of the group he had only ever met Graughton, and that had been in passing on one drunken evening in Vienna. The man didn’t look twice at the tutor, Mr. Dore, and, after recovering from the cold sweat of the fear of discovery, Luc found that amusing. After all, it was not as if he were not on most occasions the tallest man in the room, a distinguishing feature that often attracted notice.

But luck was with him. Now if only thirty minutes would pass swiftly.

He listened to the conversations with half an ear, Mansfield’s assurance of a hunt later in the week, discussion of the merits of the countryside, of the port they drank. Finally Luc excused himself, to which no one paid any particular attention. As if he were invisible. It was an intriguing position to be in and one that, as a viscount, he had never experienced before.

One that he hoped to shed before the night was out. At least to Bianca.

He slipped into the library, which was draped in shadows by the setting sun. The room was empty. He waited by the window, looking out over the garden. The moments passed like hours and finally, impatient, he strode to the cupboard where Mansfield kept a cache of spirits for his guests. Considering he was expected to join the evening festivities as if he
were
a guest, Luc had few qualms about helping himself to a finger of whisky.

He took a sip and rolled the peaty drink on his tongue before swallowing. He’d developed a taste for it on his travels. A taste for all spirits, truly. For the pleasure of a good wine under the warm Mediterranean sun.

He heard the door open and he pivoted on his heel.

For an instant she was framed by the open door, the glow of candlelight from the hall sconce illuminating her hair and throwing her into silhouette.

“Close the door,” he said roughly, striding toward her even as he did.

She looked surprised but she did as he said. Then took a step toward him.

He stopped, slid his arm around her waist, and dragged her close to him. He could smell that delicious fragrance of skin and rose water. Forget the drink in his other hand, he was intoxicated by her scent, her nearness.

“Aren’t you the rogue?” she whispered, looking up at him. It was darker now, with the door closed and the sun below the horizon.

“You bewitch me.”

“Luc?”

His answer was his lips on hers, the shape of wordless communion. The need to taste her as deeply as he could, to know her this way.

Weeks ago he had fallen in love with her beauty. Then he had fallen in love with her in all the other ways that mattered, her wit, her humor, the way her mind progressed through ideas. And now, the undercurrent of desire had come to the fore. Every time he looked at her, his lips ached, not to speak of the rest of his body.

Now she was pressed close to him, lips, tongue, engaged with his, in the back halls of the manor house, where any servant or guest might stumble upon them. Reckless.

But her teeth nibbled at his lower lip, tongue sweeping in its wake, and sensation overpowered any rational thought. Perhaps that kiss in early August had been her first, but he felt as if he were the innocent, awakened to a sinful world of physical pleasure.

“Bea,” he said with a groan, pressing himself against her body in a fruitless search for relief.

They needed privacy, and he needed at last to tell her, to reveal his secret, pledge his love and his hand. And then . . . then perhaps a kiss not need to be just a kiss.

“Someone’s coming,” she whispered, breaking away. But she took his hand and pulled him to the corner of the room, into the deepest shadows.

In an alcove, behind thick draperies, behind a substantial potted plant, they stopped, breathless with the exhilaration of needing to hide. But the door to the library didn’t open.

She snatched the drink from his hand and drank deeply. Her hair was loose and wild about her shoulders. Her lips still swollen from his. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to love her. He wanted . . .

She set the drink down on the windowsill and pressed herself up against him. She took his hand in her own and lifted it to the expanse of bare creamy skin swelling above the neckline of her gown.

“B—”

“Don’t speak, Luc. Don’t tell me we shouldn’t be doing this. That it’s wrong. That we’re not meant for each other. I don’t want to think of the future right now. Perhaps this shall ruin me, but inside”—she pressed her other fist against her chest—“I am ruined already.” She drank of the whisky again. A drop lingered on her bottom lip, tantalizingly, and for Luc, the future was the path of her tongue as she licked it away.

He followed, pulling the bottle from her grasp and placing it on the table before taking her in his arms once more. She didn’t wait for him to kiss her. Instead she lifted up on her toes, pressed herself against him again, mouth parted. She tasted of the whisky now and he drank deeply, losing himself in her.

But she broke the contact too quickly, her hot mouth moving to his cheek, his jaw, his neck, and he groaned at the feeling, at the tugging of her hand on his simply tied cravat. Her tongue trailed across his skin and he gasped, needing, wanting.

He had to taste her and he did, mimicking her actions, kissing, nipping, licking at the sensitive skin of her neck, at her earlobe, and then she demanded her turn again.

His hands roved over her body, down her spine to the roundness of her buttocks, studying their shape under the far too many layers of fabric that separated skin from skin.

He was not a pure innocent. The Continent had rid him of that distinction, but nothing had ever been like this, both beautiful and erotic all at once. His heart was full at the same time he throbbed hot with need. In all the years of his youth he had separated lust and love in his mind, one the nearly embarrassing desire and the other the realm of chivalry and purity. Now it all combined and he was astounded, devastated by the reality. That he felt such base lust for the woman he admired above all others. That he wanted nothing more but to lift her dress, part her thighs, and join himself to her with a thrust, to know how she felt inside, the ridges of her welcoming flesh.

He groaned against her skin again, hands bunching up fabric, lifting though he hardly knew what he did.

She whimpered and the sound nearly undid him. Or maybe that was the soft flesh of her bare thigh under his fingers.

“Luc,” she said on a sigh. He had been indifferent to his name until that moment. Then, he wanted her to say it again and again.

But they were in the library of her father’s home. With a houseful of guests. And they were unmarried.

He had not yet confessed.

He stopped, rested his forehead against the top of her head, took in the rose-scented fragrance of her hair even as he tried to tame his need. Another moment and he would have ruined her. Without a sound of protest from her.

“Luc, please,” she whispered. “I need you.”

“Bianca.” He groaned. “Do you have any idea what you are saying? How close we are to . . .” There was no polite way to say it. Yet, how polite was it to have had his hands on her silken skin?

“Yes. Yes, I understand, and I don’t want you to stop.”

With another groan wrenched from deep in his throat, he moved, claimed her lips with his once more. Devoured her. No, he wouldn’t stop. Perhaps he could not have her the way he most wanted to, but he could give her pleasure.

R
eckless. Dangerous. Ruination. She would not step away from this night unchanged, innocent. But what was innocence to the taste of this? Of Luc? Of his kisses—his mouth, his tongue. What was innocence and waiting for Kate to marry, waiting for a Season and a proper sort of husband that she might not care for at all, because while Kate could do as she might, that had never been the way for Bianca. She had had to be perfect. Do what everyone wanted. Stay out of trouble, not draw any attention. It was the only way she’d ever had any freedom. Back when anyone had paid any attention to her.

Living in the shadow of a terror like Kate was enormously stressful. It made the little dramas of everyday life anathema.

But now, here was drama of a different sort. Passion. She reached up and took his face in her hands, stopping the kiss. Turned his head slightly, and pressed her lips to his skin, to the warmth of his cheek, then his jaw, then the sliver of skin above his casually tied cravat.

Tears sprung to her eyes as she touched that slightly worse for wear fabric. It signified so much. How his family was on the way down, genteelly impoverished, while her family was on the way up, only two generations from trade. How vast a difference. How strange this society that her family would look down upon such a match when truly Luc was matchless.

Luc’s hands rested over hers. “Your face is damp.”

“I’m just so happy,” she said, leaving her strange thoughts far behind and leaping back in to pure sensation.

“I’m happy, too,” he whispered, hands moving to her hips and lifting her up against him. She was not petite and slender like Kate, but he made her feel that way, little and fragile, and the perspective was wonderfully new.

Their heads moved around each other, mouths nibbling at skin, until he let her slide down his body and reached for the fastenings of her dress, loosening it so that the bodice gaped over her short stays.

She undid his cravat, his waistcoat, pulled at his shirt so that she could reach up under its long tails and feel the hot expanse of his chest. Her fingers tingled with the new experience.

He scooped her up again, made her dizzy with his touch, and then the soft carpet was beneath her. Pressing down beneath her to the floor that was firm, cool.

And he was above and hot. Kissing her, touching her. His hand on her thigh. Above her stockings! She gasped and shuddered.

Then his fingers were in a place that, despite what Lottie had told her of conjugal relations, she had never before imagined a man touching. She wriggled to get away.

“You shouldn’t— Is this . . . done?” she whispered.

He laughed softly. “It’s more than done. There are men who pride themselves on their technique of bringing women pleasure. I only hope I can do as much for you.”

Pleasure
. She tried to relax, to focus on the soft searching of his touch, the way it—

She gasped as he hit a particularly sensitive place, his thumb circling about. And his fingers, how many did he have? It felt like hundreds with the way sensation was everywhere. Yet focused. And building and . . . it was such a strange feeling, like a tightness that wound tighter and tighter, as if drawing her toward some great height.

And then, she fell.

Pleasure scattering about like fairy dust, settling softly in her skin.

He drew his hand away and in the absence, her body pulsed. He rolled off of her, his breath ragged in the dark.

“What . . . Why are you stopping? I know there’s more. There’s—”

“Bianca, I can’t ruin you. What kind of man would I be?”

“The kind that desires me above all reason,” she insisted. “That would slay dragons for me.”

She could still feel him hard against her leg, the part of him that was meant to join with her.