Woo'd in Haste (7 page)

Stunned, she parted her own and then all conscious thought was gone.

Instead, she felt. Felt the sweep of his tongue, the rasp of his teeth. It was hot and all-consuming, and the sensation radiated straight down to the tips of her fingers and toes. There was a rhythm to his movements, and after a moment she followed, matched him, danced with him, even though their feet were still.

She stumbled back a step, the rush of air between them cooling her heated skin. Still dizzy from the embrace, reeling from pleasure, she stared up at his face. At first glance she had thought his features broad and plain, but now the angles and shadows were clearer to her, even if nothing else was.

Except the understanding that this kiss had been forbidden, should never have happened. That Luc had taken an enormous impropriety. She lifted her hand before she even consciously knew what she was doing. The slap resounded in the air.

She took another step back, aghast at the violence of her actions, even if it were the proper response for such effrontery.

He, too, seemed shocked.

“I shouldn’t have . . .”

“No, you shouldn’t.” But she couldn’t imbue her tone with the same severity as that slap. Her lips tingled and her mouth wanted desperately. He’d awoken a physical hunger inside of her, one that had little to do with the romances of her favorite books. This then was the passion that poets lauded and men fought wars over.

“Will you forgive me?”

“No.” She shook her head at the words, wishing he hadn’t asked them, that he had simply taken her in his arms again, that she could
feel
once more.

He looked stricken. He wasn’t some devil-may-care seducer. She’d known that from the start.

“For I’m glad you did. Even if it should never happen again.”

He looked confused, and well he might for she, too, was confused.

“Now I know,” she continued, “what I am missing, and what
this
should be like.”

His brows furrowed but she didn’t want to explain more, talk about the future husband she’d likely have, who would
not
be him. Not that he was even suggesting such a thing. She sighed, shaking her head at her foolishness.

“Bea?”

Her name now sounded like an endearment, and when she looked at him, he felt so familiar, so known. With that one kiss he had changed everything between them, forever obliterated any distance of class or propriety. Yet, it should not happen again.

But his lips were so enticing, as if they were water and she were parched in some foreign desert. As if she had been some Sleeping Beauty, and awake, all she cared about was touching things with her own lips. Touching
his
.

“You must have kissed many women,” she said, trying to stop herself from taking that one illicit step forward back into his arms.

He flushed. “I was forward, I know, but please, don’t think that this is . . . that I kiss women lightly. Yes, I have kissed before, but I wanted to kiss
you
. Indeed, that one kiss has obliterated for me the memory of any other.”

Obliterated. He had used that word, too. As if their desire for each other was so all consuming, so powerful, it could explode resistance to it.

Resistance that was weakening in her.

“It was my first kiss,” she admitted, and then she stepped forward, lifted up on her toes, slipped her arms around his neck, and met his lips with hers. Because there were a host of things she “should” not do, had she determined to live solely on her own terms.

Today, that meant kissing Lucian Dore one more time.

B
ut it wasn’t one more time. August was a blur of kisses. Stolen moments in the early morning or late afternoon, or on outings with Thomas when they were certain he was preoccupied with other things. They kissed in the schoolroom, and the conservatory, the greenhouse and the library. By the stream and the folly on the north lawn. After she’d slammed his ball into the hedges during a game of pall-mall. And in the upstairs gallery that they’d appropriated for a short and disastrous game of rackets, which he’d learned how to play during his days at Harrow years before. They kissed over breakfast and dinner, though those lasts were only the remembrance of kisses past and the promises of kisses to come.

Their gazes met again and again, sharp with electric pleasure, before, secret smiles on both their lips, they looked away.

And every time they did, every time they hid their growing love from the world, a little part of Luc’s soul died.

Because he wanted more than stolen kisses.

He needed to speak with Bianca, know he had her heart, and then speak with her father. But at the same time, if he spoke with Mr. Mansfield, that might very well be the end of everything. The man might stay true to his ridiculous decision that Kate marry before he even considered a suitor for Bianca. Or he might be swayed but furious at the deception Luc played. This last was a new terror for him. But he refused to countenance it, to entertain any regrets, because these last weeks had been the most amazing time in his entire life. The moments with Bianca were more delightful than any he had experienced anywhere else on his tour. He knew now that the “love” with which he had been struck that day weeks before had been merely an appreciation of her beauty, thin and likely to fade away. But the love that had grown in recognition of her inner beauty, her kindness and humor, even the rougher edges of bitterness and despair, this was an eternal love.

As he sat at lunch with the Mansfields and Miss Smith, his gaze slid again to Bianca. As usual, she was dressed in the plainest of frocks. How he longed to give her all of her dreams, the opportunity to see the world, to wear the finest clothes and the brightest jewels. He had the means to do so. She would do credit to the Dorlingsleys, and he had no doubt his parents would welcome her into the family with cheer.

All of this was why he was going to spend his afternoon off visiting Reggie instead of seeking out Bianca. He needed a strategy. He needed to clear his head and take action.

But then she met his eyes with her blue ones and his breath caught. The left corner of her lip curved up before she looked away.

“What do you think of this house party Kate has proposed?” Mr. Mansfield said.

The table went silent. Bianca’s expression froze, and then settled into that stoic one he was used to seeing whenever talk of Kate came up.

“I had no idea she had,” Bianca said slowly. “When and why?”

Luc, too, waited for the answer with bated breath. Because the event could change everything. Could endanger everything. The outside world pressing in, invading their idyll, cutting short their affair and the time he had to make things right.

“Henrietta wrote me of it,” Mansfield said. “I was certain Kate would have said as much in her letter. Did she not write to you?”

“I would not know,” Bianca returned. “I no longer read her letters.”

“A foolishness you will now regret,” Miss Smith admonished.

“I do not like such strife,” Mansfield complained. “I don’t know why you girls cannot get along. When you were children you always clung to each other.”

“Will I get to attend? How long will it be?” Thomas asked, ignoring the undercurrent of tension as he always seemed to do. For the first time, Luc wondered what the boy thought of the discordant dynamics of the family.

“For one week. In two weeks’ time.”

“So soon as that?” Bianca said faintly.

“Yes, but you should be pleased,” Mansfield said. “I’m certain you will enjoy meeting people.”

“Pleased?” Bianca said, her voice suddenly louder and more forceful, as if she’d recovered from the initial shock.

“Yes,” her father interrupted her. “And because I knew you would be concerned about such frivolous things, I thought you might wish to join me this week when I go to take possession of my new thoroughbreds. I’m certain Eastbourne has a dressmaker that would meet your tastes.”

“You’re trying to bribe my compliance.”

Mansfield laughed. “Yes, I suppose I am. But come, be my good girl and let it work.”

A small smile lifted Bianca’s lips. “I don’t suppose I have much of a choice about the house party. Kate wishes it and so it shall be.”

Luc left lunch morose and pensive.
Kate wishes it and so it shall be
. Mansfield hadn’t denied his daughter’s words, and it held ill portent for Luc’s chances of a successful proposal. Beyond that, now Bianca would be away for several days. And then, there was only a short amount of time before society descended on the house. Before his masquerade might be discovered. Which meant he had very little time left indeed.

K
ate was coming home. For a house party. Even thinking about it, Bianca’s breath caught in her chest, which seemed terribly small. She couldn’t get any air. Of course, Kate would return home in several months for Christmas, but for the last two years, she had flitted from town to town, country house party to country house party, following society as it moved across England. Not once in two years had Kate attempted to bring that society home.

Why was she inviting guests to stay with them? It wasn’t as if she could very well have Bianca hide away here. Amends, perhaps? Unlikely. Then some other nefarious reason?

Two months ago Bianca would have been excited. After all, until Kate married, she would have no other way of meeting her peers outside of the neighborhood. But now . . . now it was a threat.

Acknowledging that understanding forced her to accept that Luc meant something to her. That she felt more for him than she should. That she’d been living in a world of make-believe in which a flirtation, a romance, between she and an impoverished tutor would even be possible.

Sitting in the schoolroom with her brother and the nursery maid on Mr. Dore’s day off merely made the tantalizing visions of the tutor even stronger in her mind.

“You like Mr. Dore.”

“What?” Bianca turned to Thomas in shock. Had she spoken out loud? She glanced back at the nursery maid. Ellie was looking discreetly away, but she couldn’t help but hear a conversation right in front of her. She would have to speak with the girl and make certain nothing of this left the room.

He made a face and then giggled. “I saw you kiss him the way Mummy kisses Father and Ellie kisses Martin.”

Ellie flushed and met Bianca’s gaze. The fact that the nursery maid and one of the footmen were kissing was not nearly as shocking as that Thomas had seen Bianca and Luc. However, at least she no longer needed to worry about being tattled on. Ellie would worry for her position, as well.

“I’m certain you mistook something. Mr. Dore is a kind man, but he is your tutor. Not my suitor.”

“I know what I saw,” Thomas said stubbornly.

“Did you tell anyone else what you saw?” She tried to say this lightly, as if she didn’t much care about Thomas’s answer.

“No. Are you going to marry him?”

“Thomas!”

“Miss Smith says you kiss someone when you marry them.”

“Well, that is true, but you don’t have to marry everyone you kiss,” Bianca pointed out. Especially if one were kissing someone not appropriate for marriage. At least marriage to Bianca.

Thomas’s eyes widened.

“Please don’t tell Lottie that I said that,” she said quickly. She could only see where this would lead, a lecture from her former governess, or a discovery. And she didn’t want this affair to be discovered. She didn’t want to end it. “Why don’t you tell me what you want me to bring back from Eastbourne?” She was all too aware that she was resorting to a bribe the way her father had with her. Pitiful, really. Taking the easiest route.

She admired her father but, as Lottie had pointed out, that was not one of his finest traits. No, she wanted to be honorable and admirable. She loved Luc because he was both.

Loved?

Did she? Did she truly love him?

She thought back over all the moments in the last few weeks, the way her heart would race when he was near and her skin would tingle, the way she looked forward to his company. He had a way of telling stories, anecdotes about his life and his friends that had her breathless with laughter. And then there was his touch. Forget skin tingling. This was skin on fire. A pleasurable burn.

There had been the time that his hands had wandered down. When the kiss hadn’t just been a kiss.

But love?

Was this love?

She only knew of
fine eyes
and
courtly confessions
. The books never described the true depth of feeling involved.

Perhaps this trip to Eastbourne, bribe though it was, was exactly what she needed. Would give her the space to put things in perspective. If distance truly made the heart grow fonder, then she would have her answer in a few days.

But what then? If this was love, what difference did that make?

She took the cart to the Lovells’ house before she thought better of it. She found her friend in the parlor working on a new reticule. Alice took one look at Bianca’s face, ordered tea, and pulled her down to the sofa beside her.

“Something has happened.”

Yes, something had happened, but how could she tell anyone what it was, even Alice? After all, the last time they had discussed Mr. Dore, Bianca had dismissed him out of hand. She blushed at the very thought.

“I was going to say the problem is Kate, but now I suspect it’s a man!” Alice stared at her in amazement. “But that’s impossible. Unless it’s Lord Reginald. Or the duke. He did return, didn’t he? But neither of them make sense. And I know you are not the least bit affected by John Dunnett’s seventeen-year-old face. The only other single male in our vicinity . . .” Her eyes widened. “Impossible!”

“Is it?” Bianca questioned softly.

“The tutor?” Alice laughed. “You’ve fallen for the tutor.”

Bianca nodded, embarrassed, even though, at the manor, isolated from the rest of the world, embarrassment was the least of her feelings.

“I love him.”

“But you can’t, you know.”