Oh, the wonder of that kiss. It was cool and hot, firm and soft. Their lips seemed to merge, their mouths to collide and mesh, giving off a dazzling display of multicolored delight. His tongue once again touched and teased, explored and excited. She clasped her hands at the back of his neck, holding tight to keep herself on her toes. His hands played along her back, stroking in ever-widening circles. Each area he caressed came alive under his touch, sensitive to the textured cotton of her gown and to the movement of his fingers above it.
She was pressed against the solidness of his body, oblivious of the buttons on his jacket that pushed against her soft flesh. Everything within her strained toward him, relishing the daring scent of him, the taut feel of his chest against hers, the echo of his breathing. When his mouth left hers to plant nibbling kisses on her eyelids and then her nose, she blinked up at him, breathless and near-mesmerized by the kindled light in the naturally black depths of his eyes.
There was a fire smoldering within her. She could feel it heating her face and her breasts and her very core, just as the sun beat down and warmed her back and hair. Amelia wanted his kisses to go on forever, to stoke the fire, to make it rage through every part of her. His tongue returned to seek out the hot moistness of her mouth, to play against the hardness of her teeth and rub against the velvet lining beyond. When she returned this intimate pleasure, running her own tongue deliciously around the cave of his mouth, he began the movement that had so disoriented her that evening in his room. His tongue slowly but firmly thrust forward and back between her lips until her body sang with the incredible sensation of it.
The blond hair had come loose from its pins and flowed down over her shoulders, framing her face like a halo. He stepped back for a moment to cup her face in his hands, and offered the most dazzling, endearing smile she had ever seen on his rugged face. “You’re quite beautiful, Amy. And quite the most exciting woman I’ve ever met. I could stay here all day and hold you, kiss you... but I shouldn’t,” he finished with a sigh. “We’re far too attracted to each other to spend much time alone together and preserve your innocence.” He reached down to pick up her bonnet, dusting it meticulously before he handed it to her, as though the mundane act helped to calm him. “We should get back to Margrave.”
“Not yet,” she whispered, staring at the bonnet in her hands. Her mind was so befuddled with the intoxication of her arousal that she didn’t know quite what to do with the simple straw confection and she absently handed it back to him. “It would be all right, I think, to stay just a while longer. No one will expect us yet.”
“That’s not the point.” His voice was gentle and he settled the bonnet on her head, but removed it immediately, saying, “You should tuck your hair up.”
Amelia reached absently to touch the silky tresses, but her fingers felt nerveless and she couldn’t seem to find the pins. She gave a helpless shrug and stood expectantly before him. Verwood searched through the shimmering locks, discovering only two pins. “Perhaps some of them have fallen out,” he suggested, crouching to look about them on the stone pavement.
The sunlight gleamed back from one of them and Amelia crouched down beside him to pick it up. But his face was so close, his lips looking so very inviting, that she bent forward to kiss him, and the next thing she knew, they were both sitting on the sun-baked stone, their arms once more around each other. His face was lost in her hair, the whisper of his breath against her forehead. Amelia found her hands were under this jacket, massaging his back through the crisp linen of his shirt. So easily did the simple touch rekindle heat in her body. His hand came to remove the shawl she wore and to caress the bare skin at her throat, sending a tremor down the length of her.
Don’t stop now, she pleaded silently. Don’t let this thrilling sense of imminent ecstasy fade out to nothing. She bent her head to kiss his wrist, and his thumb played softly over the rapid pulse in her throat. There was a handbreadth of bare skin from her throat to the sleeves of her walking dress and he brought his fingers to either side to gently knead the exposed flesh. The repetitious stroking made her breasts so close below ache for the same touch. They felt swollen to the point they would burst from her gown, straining against the material, too tightly enclosed to allow for their expansion.
He raised his head from her hair and stared directly into her hazy eyes, as though asking a question. Amelia smiled tremulously and nodded. He shifted her slightly in his arms until she was half-leaning against his chest and could feel the steady thumping of his heart, less erratic than her own. His lips touched hers, brushed against them, butterfly-soft, and his hands... They cupped her full, aching breasts with warm reassurance, remaining motionless there for several minutes as their lips merged in a sultry dance of heightening pleasure.
Then, slowly, slowly his thumbs began to move, almost as though he didn’t even will them to. Through the thin cotton material she could feel them circling, swirling, confidently closing in toward the very tips of her breasts. Even under the cloth her nipples tingled to the pressure, stiffened to a solid knot of desire. Now every devouring flame seemed to be concentrated at three amazing points on her body, two of them in direct touch with him.
She opened her eyes to regain some sense of where she was, to place herself in his strong arms, to see the expression on his face. He was looking at her, his lips slightly parted, about to kiss her again. The unruly black hair and the bristling black brows over the enraptured dark eyes made her heart hammer with love. How very tender he was, this ordinarily brusque man.
“Should I be ashamed of myself?” she asked timidly.
“Ashamed?” His eyes snapped. “Of course not! We’ve both exceeded some typical bounds of propriety, but I can’t see that will do the least harm. I don’t think either of us knew quite how... ardent you would be, Amelia, but I for one,” he said, smiling wryly at her, “am delighted.”
“Well, I had no idea how... nice you could be.” She rose to her feet and began to dust off her dress, not looking at him. “You’ve always been so gruff with me, or slightly mocking. You don’t suppose the kindness could be a lasting thing, do you?” she asked, hopeful.
He considered her dolefully. “I very much fear it may be, where you’re concerned, my dear.” After shaking out her shawl, he handed it to her, along with two pins for her hair. “Can you pin it up yourself? It’s not the sort of thing I’ve had any practice at.”
Obviously there were other things at which he’d had plenty of practice, Amelia reminded herself. But that was only to be expected, and was undoubtedly to her benefit. She poked the pins casually into her curls and allowed him to settle the bonnet carefully on her head. When he had tied the ribbons at a jaunty angle under her chin, he kissed the tip of her nose and asked, “Shall we do things in a more orderly fashion from now on, my love? Why don’t I speak to Peter first thing when we get back to Margrave?”
Amelia’s heart leapt in her bosom. He had called her “my love.” He really was going to offer for her! Her eyes shone with delight, but she lowered them demurely and said, “I’m sure I would wish you to do everything that’s proper.
He laughed, and squeezed her hand. “Just as you would,” he teased her as they wandered out of the castle ruins and back toward the house.
* * * *
Peter regarded Verwood with some anxiety. “You’re sure you’re not feeling pressured into this, Alexander? I told you the other night I didn’t regard your being here as in the light of a suitor.”
They were sitting in Peter’s study, in handsome leather chairs, with the window out onto the garden thrown open. Verwood stretched out his long legs, and when he spoke there was a trace of amusement in his voice. “The only thing that could pressure me into offering for your sister is my great affection for her, Peter. She’s taken me completely by storm. I’ve never met such a delightful, intelligent, exasperating young woman in my life. I don’t think I can live without her.”
“I see.” Peter leaned back in his chair, crossing his hands over his stomach. “Well, if you know she can be exasperating, you won’t be much surprised in her, I dare say. It isn’t everyone who would suit her, but I have a feeling the two of you will get on admirably... between your rows. Which is just as Amelia would have it, I think. She’s a darling most of the time, headstrong occasionally, and downright feisty when pushed. Do you think she shares your affection? She swears she won’t marry without it.”
“Oh, I believe she shares it. We haven’t actually come straight out and discussed that, you understand. But I did tell her I was going to speak with you.” The viscount tapped one restless finger against the arm of his chair. “I suppose she will want to be married here, quietly, but if she prefers London, I’m not averse to that. If I can convince her, I’d prefer it be within the month. Once these things are decided, I can’t see any reason for delay.” He frowned across at his host. “You haven’t made an offer yet to Mlle. Chartier, have you?”
“No, I’m not as precipitate as you.” Peter laughed. But he grew instantly serious. “Actually, it’s a matter of letting her get to know me a little better. I can’t say your concern about her brother has made me one jot less determined to marry her, though. She’s too young and too artless to be involved with spying, I’d stake my life on it. I know Amelia has helped me in the past; that doesn’t mean Veronique is at all suited to the same sort of endeavor.”
He shrugged. “I can’t say I’d like having a French spy for a brother-in-law, but I wouldn’t be able to hold that against his sister. If you can possibly find out the truth about him, I’d appreciate your doing it soon. Exposing him as a spy should come before, rather than after, I ask Veronique to marry me.”
Verwood nodded his sympathy. If indeed Chartier was a spy, and they were able to prove it, Veronique could well hold a lasting aversion to the earl, which had nothing to do with her obvious affection for him. There was no saying that she would marry him under those circumstances; indeed, it seemed unlikely. “Your man hasn’t returned yet. I promise I’ll let you know as soon as he does. Even then all we may know is that Chartier’s gone to France on a smuggler’s boat.”
“I realize that.”
The two men sat in silence for a while. Verwood finally rose and placed an encouraging hand on Peter’s shoulder.
“Things most often work out for the best.”
“Thanks. Good luck with Amelia.”
It was Verwood’s natural assumption that there would be no question of luck about it. He felt certain Amelia shared his feelings and that she would be as eager as he to set a date for their marriage in the near future. When he and Amelia had gotten back to Margrave, she had been handed a letter, which she took absently, then noted that it was from a friend. “Oh, good, it’s from Clarissa. I shall take it to the Summer Parlor to read.”
Now there was little trace of Verwood’s limp as he strolled confidently through the Blue Drawing Room to the door at its farthest end. If he wouldn’t for a moment have believed two months ago that he would now be about to propose marriage to this intriguing young lady, well, any number of things happened in one’s life that surprised one. He hadn’t as yet given a great deal of thought to his future with Amelia—where they would spend their wedding trip, whether they would live in London or at his seat in Derbyshire. Those were questions for the two of them to decide together, after all. But he was impatient to discuss them, to know that they really would be planning how they would spend their lives together.
The door to the Summer Parlor stood partially open and he pushed it the rest of the way with an eager hand. She sat at a small table, her friend’s letter open in front of her, but she was not looking at it. Instead she was staring off at nothing in particular, a strange expression on her pale face.
“Amelia? Is there something wrong?” he demanded, hastening to her side. “Have you had bad news?”
She refused to allow him to take her hand, but stared stonily up at him. “You lied to me,” she said.
Chapter 19
Verwood searched through his love-clouded brain for a time when he had lied to her. Somewhere the nagging thought came to him that he had, about something a little more serious than the limp, but he was at a loss to put his finger on it. “It was probably just an exaggeration,” he suggested, trying once again to take her hand.
This she would not allow, clenching her hands tightly on the table on top of her friend’s letter. “It was not an exaggeration,” she insisted.
“Perhaps you will refresh my memory of the occasion. I certainly wouldn’t lie to you without provocation.”
“Yes, the greatest possible provocation, I’m sure.” Amelia drew forth the letter and read, “Colonel Lovell was much disappointed to hear that Lord Verwood had gone to Margrave without stopping in town to see him. He is much afraid he’ll be posted before his lordship returns, and won’t have any opportunity of discussing their army days together.” She slapped the letter down on the table and regarded him coldly. “You told me you had seen Colonel Lovell in London. You even professed to know of his new assignment with Sir John Moore.”
“Well, I did know of his assignment with Moore. I helped to arrange it for him through the War Department.”
“But you didn’t see him in town, or anywhere else.”
“No,” he admitted, running a hand through his disordered black locks.
“Then why did you tell me you had?”
“Because, my dear Amelia, it was your way of testing me. I could tell from the way you asked. God knows why anyone should ever have let the least bit of information slip to you; you were so utterly transparent. I knew if I said I had seen him, you would be satisfied that I was myself. Otherwise you were likely to continue your misguided cloak-and-dagger presumption that I wasn’t. It was the simplest way to prove myself; anything else would have taken an inordinate amount of time.”
He smiled confidently and reached out to place a hand on her stiffened shoulder. “I didn’t want to waste any more time, my love. Given the circumstances, I’m sure you would have done the same.”