The Countess Confessions (3 page)

“Don’t stray far from your pony tonight,” he said in a soft burr that sent a chill coursing through her.

“What do you mean?”

“There are other men like me about.”

He was teasing her again, but there was a warning in the warm tenor of his voice.

“Thank you for giving me shelter,” he added, but made no motion to leave. “I think you would be wise to forget that we ever met.”

As if he were a man whose memory a woman could banish as easily as that.

Unmasked desire shone in the depths of his eyes. She wasn’t sure what had ignited this temptation between them. It would be up to her to dampen it. Instead, she braced herself against the table and hoped he would quietly end the inexplicable attraction she felt before she fell back in the chair and knocked over the lamp that could easily set the tent on fire.

Claim me.

Kiss me before I change my mind.

He seemed to be reconsidering, prolonging the suspense that had quickened her breath. Perhaps she had only imagined that he wanted to kiss her. He had been playing with her before, had admitted as much without a hint of remorse. She didn’t have to be held captive by her curiosity. But when he bent his head, her heart raced, and when his arm reached around her waist, she felt her wits abandon her. She let him draw her into the folds of his long black coat and the hard torso beneath without a murmur of complaint. How wickedly sweet to be caught in his game when she was playing one of her own.

He hadn’t bothered to ask for permission. He took. The sudden heat that flared between them scorched the air she struggled to breathe.

For an instant she felt utterly lost. She didn’t know which way to turn. He had trapped her without even trying. A moment later she was found, claimed, her indecision melting as his mouth slanted over hers. She had no inkling of what he intended to do next. Was this a standard prelude to passion? Would he dare attempt anything indecent with her brother standing outside?

This was no tender peck between sweethearts. It was a full-bodied, hot-blooded kiss to seduce a woman’s will. His tongue stroked the shape of her lips, delving inside her mouth just as she drew a breath. His hard, intense face said he wanted more. What that might be, she hesitated to speculate on. His hand moved up her arm to grip her by the shoulder and draw her into the core of his body.

Should she shout for help? Not quite yet. Perhaps she should give him another few seconds to redeem himself. Yet it was impossible to keep track of time with his mouth plundering hers. She had waited years to be kissed. She might wait forever for a kiss like this.

She knew intuitively he would have demanded other pleasures from her if they’d met in another place or time. Her heart pounded at the thought. And still she couldn’t bring herself to move or utter a word. His hand gripped her harder. His fingers lightly traced her hip through her skirts and lifted away before she could scold him.

He deepened the kiss. He raised his straying hand to her nape of her neck. She ached for his blissful caress to continue, for another chance to revel in the sensations he had awakened in her and left wanting.

Her breasts pressed against the black wool and white linen of his evening dress. Heat stole slowly through her veins. His kiss was persuasive and dangerously pleasurable, designed for maximum effect on a female’s senses. She must have been one of many who waged no resistance.

Hadn’t she asked the fates to show her what passion was?

He was the wrong man, and she knew she would never see him again.

But for this moment she was in his arms.

The kiss would end. Reason would return. And in the next moment, before she was ready, it did, although he was the first to break free. She stood, shaking, and suddenly she could breathe.

She opened her eyes. He was gone. So were two of the cards, including the last one she had cast on the table. Had he taken them or knocked them over in his departure?

She gathered up the empty bottle and the other remaining cards, still puzzled by their appearance.

Secrets

She straightened with a rueful smile.
Mariage
had disappeared, of course. To judge by the hollow ache inside her, the Scotsman had given her a mere taste of what passion meant in his world. Undiluted. As potent as any love potion.

I think you would be wise to forget we ever met.

As if that were possible.

H
e left the tent with as little warning as he had entered it, while Emily sat breathless, recovering, and quite disgusted with herself. If she hadn’t been in disguise, she would have given him a piece of her mind for kissing her, intriguing as the experience had been. Then again, if she’d been dressed as ordinary Miss Rowland, he wouldn’t have tried. She would have been her usual invisible self. But what would she have done if another guest had entered the tent at the wrong time?

He’d have jeopardized her chance to convince Camden that she, underhanded and unladylike though she might be, was an ideal candidate for marriage. How was she supposed to appear aloof and mysterious when she had spent all her energy surviving a stranger’s kiss?

She would never wear wool close to her skin again without remembering that blue-eyed rogue. She should be furious instead of feeling slightly wistful about their encounter.

Sir Angus had taken so much of her time, she doubted many of the guests had chosen to stand in line when they could be sipping champagne or dancing in the warm, bright ballroom. She could hear the wind puffing at the tent, perhaps even a raindrop or two splattering on the canvas.

Camden cared too much for his creature comforts to stand in the wind for a reading. She might as well sneak back to the tower where she and her maid had hidden their cloaks and gowns. She dreaded facing Michael, having to admit her plan had failed. He had only been home for a week, and she had taken up most of his spare time with her attempt at romantic intrigue.

“Emily!” he hissed from the back of the tent. “Have you fallen asleep in there?”

“Where were you when I needed you?” she demanded, glaring at the dark face that appeared between the back flaps of the tent. “I’ve been held prisoner by that arrogant Scotsman you permitted to barge in and overstay his welcome.”

“What Scotsman?” Michael asked, staring first at her and then the odd display of cards in her hand. “What was his name? What did he look like?”

“He introduced himself as Sir Angus Morpeth. He had a dark red beard and blue eyes full of wicked intentions.”

“You were supposed to be looking at his cards, not into his eyeballs.”

“Really? He was number seven, you know.
You
were supposed to make sure that I was alone with Camden, not with a sinister albeit attractive stranger who refused to leave, no matter how many hints I dropped that he should do so. I don’t know how you could have missed him. He was even bigger than you. He was full of himself, too. He shoved Camden out of line in order to hide from someone at the party.”

“Why?”

“I’ve no idea, Michael. He wouldn’t tell me, and I’ve a feeling I’m better off uninvolved. I assume he is leading on two ladies at once and had no idea they would appear at the same party.”

“That would make him sneaky, not necessarily sinister. What gave you that impression?”

She bit her lower lip. “I can’t remember exactly. The cards, for one thing. And then I spilled the potion all over—”

“What potion?”

“The potion I took from your room—”

“Sssh.” He stared past her with that preternatural instinct she had always envied and that had been absolutely useless when Sir Angus had taken Camden’s place in the tent.

“Michael?” she said, pulling her shawl over her bare shoulder. The temperature in the tent had dropped at least five degrees since the Scotsman’s departure. “Should I pack up—”

“It’s Camden,” he said succinctly, pushing her down into the chair. “I’ll stay out back and listen. Or would you prefer I don’t listen?”

“I would like a little privacy to make an utter cake of myself if you don’t—”

He swept out of the tent before she could finish, leaving her alone with the gentleman who would undoubtedly never speak to her again if he realized her identity.

•   •   •

She turned in the chair, cringing as it creaked like the gate of an ancient crypt. The brown-haired gentleman who had just arrived brushed off his damp coat before her. He was someone she had dreamt of too many times to fall to pieces now that she faced him in the flesh. He was a man she should have welcomed with a blush of pleasure rather than the unexpected sigh of deflated hope that escaped her. It was a bit off-putting to watch him shake about like a wet dog.

Camden,
she thought, and stopped herself from blurting out his name—perhaps because his wind-tousled hair and slapped-red cheeks did not match her secret image of him as her one and only.

Here, at last, was the gentleman she had gone to embarrassing measures to impress. How could she blame Camden for her reaction to the brash Scotsman who had worn through her meager supply of defenses? It wasn’t his fault that a stranger’s kiss had shaken her composure or that he’d given up his spot in line to a man who didn’t look like he would take no for an answer.

“Sir?” she said, in what she intended to be a low, provocative voice but that emerged more like she had something caught in her throat.

Camden didn’t seem to notice either way. He wiped off the stool in front of her with the cuff of his sleeve and sat. “Dash, it’s getting windy out. Will this take long?”

“Why don’t you give me your hand?”

“Whatever for?”

“So that I can read our fortune.”

“
Our
fortune?”

She lowered her gaze. This deception had unfolded so much easier when she practiced it with Lucy and her maid last night. She should have taken a page from Sir Angus’s book of seduction. He had managed to engage her in his game before she realized what had happened.

Camden cleared his throat. “Well, you’re awfully quiet. I hope this doesn’t mean I have no future to foretell.”

Emily stole a look at his face. “You’ll need to give me your hand first.”

As he complied, she frowned at the gloved fist he held stiffly over the table. “Well, take it off.”

“My glove?”

“I can hardly see your palm through pig leather.”

His friendly eyes roamed over her face as he pulled off his gloves. “Will you ask me to strip off my boots and socks, next? You can read my feet, but watch the toes. I’m ticklish.”

“I think that can wait for another time.”

“Another time?” he said in surprise. “You aren’t hoping to set up a business hereabouts? If all your prophecies don’t come true, you’ll be driven from the parish before dawn. Gypsies are blamed for every manner of mishap.” He paused. “Haven’t I seen you before?”

“Never.”

“At the country fair? My grandmama used to buy a tonic every year for her swollen ankles. My father warned her that she was only paying for water and weeds, but she didn’t listen.”

“Did the tonic help her?”

“She thought so.”

He smiled at the memory. There wasn’t a sparkle of the rake in Camden. His sweetness had ensnared Emily from the afternoon he’d rescued her and her maid from an attack of wasps during a picnic. Emily hadn’t really been bothered by the swarm. Neither had Iris. But both lady and servant pretended great horror at the prospect of multiple stings, a near impossibility as both had been bonneted, gowned, and gloved so that it would take a determined warrior of a wasp to find even one vulnerable inch of flesh.

In fact, Emily had caught Iris covertly pulling up handfuls of meadowsweet to
attract
the pests. It was then that Emily realized she had not only crossed the line of infatuation to desperation, but even her maidservant realized time was running out for Emily to find an eligible suitor.

He coughed in obvious embarrassment. “You’re so subdued, miss. I hope you don’t see anything dire in my future.”

“Dire,” Emily murmured. “No. I see . . . fire, perhaps even desire.”

He drew back in alarm. “Desire?” he said, examining the back of his hand. “I don’t mean to offend you, but you require glasses if you’re going to do this sort of thing for a living. That’s a mole you’re looking at. Perhaps you have a remedy for it. My grandmother swore the gypsies could cure any ailment.”

“Oh.” Guilt tightened the back of her throat. He was kind, and this was devious of her. “It sounds as if you miss her very much.”

“I do,” he admitted. “She went a little off in the head at the end, but no one ever minded. She used to give us swords to fight the ghosts in her house when we visited.”

“What good is a sword against a ghost?”

He gifted her with another of his endearing smiles. “She said the ghosts liked to think they were still alive and capable of a last rousing battle against the enemy. But I shouldn’t have to tell you this. You’re a gypsy. You have the sight. Perhaps you could put me in contact with her.”

Deception, Emily decided at that moment, would never be her forte. She felt so miserable that she would likely confess all before the party ended. Being the gentleman that Camden was, he might forgive her if she didn’t take this any further. But how could she admit her feelings for him had driven her to this extreme? Besides, she wanted more than his forgiveness.

She longed to win his heart. She wanted him to steal a kiss. But she doubted the thought of kissing her would ever enter his mind.

Her face burned at the memory of that other kiss. How unfair. Forever after she would hold all kisses to the standard a wicked stranger had set. Then again, a young lady who put herself in her position should have expected a little retribution.

“I can’t put you in contact with your grandmother,” she said earnestly. “We are under the influence of Venus tonight, so I’m prepared to give romantic and not spiritual advice.”

“Well, all right, then.” His voice dropped. “There is a lady to whom I am attracted.”

Emily stared down at his pale, uncalloused palm. “Who,” she inquired without looking up, “is she?”

She studied his palm while waiting for his answer. His hand didn’t give her the impression of either strength or implacable will. She hadn’t noticed any scars on his knuckles. Nor did she detect the slightest sprinkling of hair on his wrist. She was tempted to ask him what he used to keep his skin in such pallid condition.

She was tempted to—

“She isn’t here, of course,” he said. “She isn’t invited to fancy affairs. I don’t think she’s even gone to an assembly or leaves her cottage much. She’s the new schoolmistress.”

“The schoolmistress?” Emily said in shock, almost giving herself away. “Isn’t she as old as—as your grandmother?”

“Hardly. Yes, she’s a few years older than I am, but I don’t see why that has to make a difference.”

Emily couldn’t envision her gallant young gentleman in love with the sourpuss schoolmistress. As far as Emily knew, she rarely lit a candle at night or even planted flowers in her garden.

“Of course, I haven’t met her formally yet. I can’t think of an excuse to introduce myself. But tell me—do you see Miss Whitmore in my future?”

She swallowed, staring down at the bottle on the floor. She ought to pick it up before he stepped on it. The potion was worthless now, wasted on a man who was off juggling his lovers like a court jester. “I see a woman who is devoted to you, who has admired you in secret but was afraid to show her feelings—”

“That’s her,” he said excitedly.

“I’m not so sure.”

“How do you know?”

“How can she be devoted to you if she has never confessed her heart? If you’ve never even met her?”

“But I have met her. I mean, I’ve walked past her three times on the street and wished her a good afternoon.”

“But she didn’t smile, did she?”

“That’s because she’s shy and proper,” he said, heaving a sigh. “Her shyness makes me want to . . . it makes me want to protect her.”

“From you?”

He blinked. “Do you think I’ve been too forward?”

“I’m astonished she hasn’t slapped you yet for a scoundrel.”

He gave her a sheepish grin. “I understand. It’s probably hopeless. It will infuriate my father if I marry her. She isn’t gentry. She has no wealth.”

Emily’s tolerance for humiliation had reached its limits. The next thing she knew, he would be asking her for a love spell, in which case she was going to run out into the night with whatever scrap of dignity she could salvage.

He said, “All I wanted was some help on how to approach her about a courtship and perhaps to broach the subject with my father.”

Emily heard a gust of wind hit the tent, or perhaps Michael had banged his head against the canvas in exasperation. “Sir,” she said to Camden, “I am neither the king to elevate her to the peerage nor a bank to lend her a dower.”

He frowned, as if the crossness in her voice or the thought of losing Miss Whitmore was more than he could endure.

“Write her a letter,” she said in resignation. “Although you must consider that it could ruin your life. Or embarrass your family. But you will not be the first person in love to do so, I assure you.”

“Just answer me. Can you tell from my palm if she’d want to marry me? Do your powers suggest I tender a proposal?”

First, she would have to concentrate on his palm and not allow his boyish appeal to distract her. Of course she didn’t need palmistry to realize that their lives, their
hands
, were incompatible. The schoolmistress probably wore gloves to stir her tea. Emily’s hands, with her tint and scratches from playing with the housekeeper’s new kittens, looked like a field laborer’s in comparison.

She traced her nail over the cross beneath his index finger. “According to this mark, you are destined for a happy marriage.”

“But with her?” he insisted.

“The lines don’t go into that much detail.” She sighed, suddenly anxious to escape the disappointment she had brought on herself. “I’d have to read the cards, and there are people waiting in the wind—”

Which, right on cue, blew against the sides of the tent and whacked loose the wooden poles stuck in the shallow pits of dirt. The canvas walls sagged inward on Emily and Camden. She lurched to her feet, stumbling over the basket that rested beside her chair.

“Are you all right, miss?” Camden asked, pushing up the poles to little success.

She bent to grasp her basket.

The table pitched forward, cards scattering in the rush of wind that swept around her. She grasped the oil lamp and extinguished the light. If not for the rain in the air, the straw that Michael had laid around the tent might have caught on fire, the perfect denouement to an evening of disaster.