Dark Angel / Lord Carew's Bride (11 page)

“We will see.” The viscount turned abruptly to go back upstairs. “Two can play at your game, Thornhill. It will be interesting to discover which of us plays it with the greater skill.”

“Quite fascinating,” the earl agreed. “I begin to enjoy this Season more and more.” He bowed elegantly and continued on his way down the stairs.

I
T WAS DIFFICULT TO THROW OFF THE FEELING that everything had been spoiled. Merely because the Earl of Thornhill had kissed her, Jennifer told herself, trying to minimize the importance of what had happened. All he had done was touch his lips to hers for a few seconds. It was really nothing at all.

But it was everything. Everything to spoil the pattern of life as it had been building for five years. Everything to upset her and everyone around her—not that everyone else knew the whole of it.

Aunt Agatha scolded in the ballroom. Very quietly and quite expressionlessly so that no one, not even anyone standing within a few feet of them, would have known that she was scolding. But she made it clear that if dancing with the Earl of Thornhill was not indiscreet enough to raise the eyebrows of society, leaving the ballroom with him, being absent with him for all of half an hour, was enough to ruin her reputation. She would be fortunate indeed if her absence had not been particularly noted and if she did not become the
on dit
in fashionable drawing rooms tomorrow.

It was in vain to protest that both the balcony and the garden were lit and that other couples were outside. The
balcony and the garden were not for the use of a young unchaperoned girl who happened to be with a man who was neither her husband nor her betrothed, she was told. Especially when that man was a rake of the lowest order.

Jennifer now believed that he was indeed a rake. It was unpardonable of him to have stolen that kiss. And unpardonable of her to have allowed it, not to have protested her shock and outrage. She was unable to argue further with Aunt Agatha or to wrap herself about with righteousness. She felt horribly guilty.

Viscount Kersey danced the supper set with her and led her in to supper, but his manner was cold. Icy cold. He said nothing—that was the worst of it. And she was quite unable to bring up the topic herself. She was powerfully reminded of Samantha’s opinion of him. But she could not blame him for his coldness this time, though she would have far preferred to be taken aside and scolded roundly. She felt very much as if she had been unfaithful to him. She felt unworthy of him. She had kissed another man when she was betrothed to Lord Kersey.

And yet Lionel was the only man she had ever wanted to kiss. She had so looked forward to the supper dance and to the supper half hour spent with him. But it had all been totally ruined—entirely through her own fault.

After supper Lord Kersey returned her to Aunt Agatha’s side and engaged Samantha for the coming set. He took her out onto the balcony and kept her there the whole time—as punishment, Jennifer supposed. And it worked. It was agony knowing he was out there, even
though it was only with Sam. She danced with Henry Chisley and smiled at him and chattered with him and was all the time aware of the absence of Lionel.

Yes, it was suitable punishment. If she had made him feel like this when she had gone outside, then she deserved to be punished. And it was the Earl of Thornhill with whom she had gone outside. And she had allowed him to kiss her.

She went home and to bed some time early in the morning, weary to the point of exhaustion, only to find that she could not sleep. She tried wrapping herself about with the warmth of the knowledge that in just a little over a week’s time there was to be the dinner at the Earl of Rushford’s and her betrothal was to be announced. After that all would be well. She would spend more time with Lionel and get to know him better. He would kiss her. There would be all the excitement of their approaching wedding. She pictured him as he had appeared this evening, handsome enough to bring an ache to her throat. He was hers—the man she loved, the man she was to marry.

And yet her mind kept straying to dark, compelling eyes and long, artistic fingers. She kept feeling his mouth on hers and reliving her surprise at the discovery that his lips had been slightly parted so that she had felt the soft moistness of the inside of his mouth. She kept remembering the physical sensations that had accompanied the kiss—the strange tightening in her breasts, the aching throb between her legs.

She kept remembering that she had talked to him and listened to him. She had revealed far more of herself than she had ever done with Lionel, and had learned more of him than she knew of her own betrothed. He had convinced her that whatever had been in his past he had now reformed his ways and was prepared to live a responsible life. And then he had kissed her.

She felt sinful and spoiled. And unwillingly fascinated by the memories.

The morning brought with it no relief. Tired and dispirited, she wandered into Samantha’s room only to find her cousin sitting quietly at the window, heavy-eyed.

“Have you been crying?” she asked, alarmed. Samantha never cried.

“No,” Samantha said, smiling quickly. “I am just tired after last night. We were warned that the Season would be exhausting, Jenny, and it sounded marvelous, did it not? It has hardly started yet, and already it is simply—exhausting.”

Jennifer sat down beside her. “Did you not enjoy last night’s ball?” she asked. “You had a partner for each set. You danced twice with a few of them.” Lionel, for example.

“I enjoyed it.” Samantha got to her feet. “Let’s go down to breakfast, shall we? And perhaps for a walk in the park afterward to blow away the cobwebs? I can feel them just clinging to me. Ugh!”

Samantha was not her usual exuberant self. Jennifer
had counted on her being so. She had expected to find her cousin eager to talk about last night, to discuss her partners, to reveal her favorite. But she seemed unwilling to talk about last night. Jennifer felt her own spirits dip even lower.

“Sam,” she said, “I thought you would cheer me up. You know that I was in disgrace last night, I suppose?”

“Yes.” Samantha bit her lip. “I think he likes you, Jenny. He has never tried to dance with me. Yet he has danced with you twice. I think he really is the devil. He must know that you are betrothed. Lionel was upset.”

“Lionel?” Jennifer frowned.

Samantha flushed. “Lord Kersey,” she said. “You upset him, Jenny. You ought not to have gone off with Lord Thornhill like that.”

“You are scolding now too?” Jennifer asked quietly.

“Well, it was not right, you must admit,” Samantha said. “You have a man, Jenny, and you have claimed forever that you love him. It was not right to step outside with the earl. Who is to know what you were up to, the two of you, out there?”

They were halfway down the stairs. But Samantha had stopped in order to stare accusingly at her cousin. And then, under Jennifer’s dismayed gaze, she bit her upper lip, her eyes filled with tears, and she turned without another word to hurry upstairs again.

“Sam?” Jennifer called after her. But she was left alone in the middle of the staircase. Feeling wretchedly miserable and as much like eating breakfast as she felt like jumping into a den of lions.

It had really not seemed like such a dreadful indiscretion at the time. Had it been? Why had the French windows been open and lanterns lit both on the balcony and in the garden if guests had not been expected to stroll out there?

But guilt prevented her from feeling indignation against everyone who was condemning her—even Sam. For of course it had turned into an indiscretion. They were right and she was wrong. She had allowed a man who was not even her betrothed to kiss her in the garden.

S
AMANTHA THREW HERSELF ACROSS
her bed and sobbed into the pillow she held with both hands against her face. It had taken her a long while to erase all traces of last night’s tears. Now she would have to begin all over again—after she had stopped crying again, that was.

She felt wretchedly guilty and wretchedly something else too. She would not put that something else into words.

She had a number of admirers already. She determinedly stopped sobbing and turned her head sideways so that she could breathe. She began to list them and picture them in her mind. There was Sir Albert Boyle. He was very ordinary, very kindly. There was Lord Graham, who was very young but quite dashing too. There were Mr. Maxwell, who made her laugh, and Sir Richard Parkes and Mr. Chisley, all quite worthy of her consideration. Perhaps a few of her new partners from last night
would show further interest and become regular admirers too. Perhaps soon one or two of those admirers would turn into definite beaux. Perhaps soon she would be involved in a courtship. Perhaps Jenny would not be the only one married by the end of the summer.

But the thought of Jennifer distracted her.

He really had been very upset. Very angry. She had felt it as soon as supper was over and he had asked her for the next set. She had been annoyed, wondering why she should be expected to dance with him and smile at him and spend half an hour in his company when his eyes were so cold and his lips so compressed and his mind so obviously distracted. There were other gentlemen she could have been dancing with who would actually have looked at her and appreciated her.

She had been even more indignant when Lord Kersey had made it clear that he was not going to dance with her but expected her to step out onto the balcony with him.

“I am not sure, my lord,” she had said to him, “that it is proper for me to leave the ballroom without a chaperone.” She had suspected that he was doing it in order to punish Jenny. She did not want to be caught in the middle of a lovers’ quarrel—if, indeed, that was what it was. If she was going to walk on the balcony instead of dancing, she would have preferred to do so with one of her admirers.

“It is quite proper,” he had assured her. “You are the cousin of my betrothed.”

And so she had allowed herself to be led outside—and straight down the steps to the garden below, where he
took her to sit on a wrought-iron seat that was out of sight of the balcony and the ballroom.

“What a mess,” he had said. “What a bloody mess.”

She would have felt more shock at the word he had used in her hearing if she had not been in the process of removing her hand from its resting place on his arm and if his own had not come shooting across his body to hold it where it was. She had felt remarkably uncomfortable—and still angry at being drawn into something that was none of her concern.

“Does she love me?” he had asked abruptly. “Do you know? Does she confide in you?”

“Of course she loves you,” she had said, shocked. “She is your betrothed, is she not?”

“Yes,” he had said. “Forced into it five years ago when she was no more than a child. When I was no more than a boy. She seems remarkably interested in Thornhill.”

“She danced with him once at our ball and once at this,” she had said, being drawn against her will into this quarrel or whatever it was between her cousin and her betrothed. She was still feeling angry that she was missing half an hour of the ball.

“Except that here they did not dance,” he had said.

“They came out here,” Samantha had said. “Or perhaps only out onto the balcony. There is no great indiscretion in that. We are out here. We are committing no indiscretion.”

“No,” he had said. “There is nothing even remotely indiscreet about a couple’s being outdoors unchaperoned during a ball, is there?”

And as if to prove his point, which he had made obvious through the sarcasm of his tone, he had drawn his arm from beneath hers, circled her shoulders with it, raised her chin with his free hand, and kissed her.

Samantha had been so shocked that for a moment she had sat rooted to the spot. And then she had struggled to be free. She pushed at his shoulder, her palm itching to crack across his face. She was furiously angry.

But he had not let her go. He had used his superior strength to imprison her hands against his chest and had drawn her closer to him with both arms. His head had angled more comfortably against hers and he had kissed her again—with greater heat.

She had stopped struggling. And then she had stopped being passive. She had kissed him back. And somehow one of her arms had worked its way loose of its prison and was about his neck. For perhaps a minute she had mindlessly reveled in her first kiss.

He had looked down at her silently, his eyes glinting in the moonlight, when he finally lifted his head, and she had gazed back, only gradually realizing what had just happened, with whom she had shared her first kiss. Only gradually remembering that she had never greatly liked him, that she had always thought him cold.

“My lord,” she had said uncertainly. She had wanted to be angry again, but anger had seemed inappropriate after her minute of undeniable surrender.

“Lionel,” he had whispered.

“Lionel.” She had spread one hand over his chest. She had not been able to think what to say to him.

“You see,” he had said, “why chaperones are such a necessary evil?”

She had stared mutely back at him. Had he merely been demonstrating what might have happened between Jenny and the Earl of Thornhill? Was that what this was all about? But her mind refused to work quite clearly.

“Samantha.” He had touched the backs of his knuckles lightly to her cheek. “I could wish that you had gone to live with your uncle a year or two sooner than you did. Perhaps he and my father would have chosen me a different bride. One more congenial to my tastes.”

“I think you should take me inside,” she had said, feeling a little sick suddenly.

“Yes,” he had agreed. “Oh, yes, indeed I should.”

But he had not immediately got to his feet. He had lowered his head and kissed her again. And to her everlasting shame, she had allowed it to happen even though this time she could not plead the shock of the totally unexpected.

They had climbed the steps to the balcony and strolled there in silence for the rest of the set. But his free hand had rested the whole time on her hand as it lay along his arm.