“Besides,” he murmured in a weak attempt at humor, “how do you know she wasn’t trying to prod you out of Swan Park, and give you a bit of adventure?”
At least that dried up her tears. “That’s not funny,” she said in a small voice.
“Don’t s’pose it is,” he admitted. “But truly, lass, she’ll be all right. I’ll get to her even if I have to book passage to Scotland. You needn’t worry.”
“I can’t
help
worrying.” She pushed away enough to lift her tear-drenched face. “I’ll drive myself mad unless you let me go. Promise me you will. Please…”
He rubbed away her tears with his thumb. “You’d be better off—”
“No, I wouldn’t.
Promise
me. I’ll pay for a coach or a gig, whatever you wish. I’ll be quiet as a mouse, I swear, and you’ll have nothing to worry about from me.”
“All right, damn it,” he murmured to stave off her litany. “We’ll hire a coach and go on that way, but—”
Her face lit up at once. “Thank you, Daniel, thank you!”
“Let me finish. We’ll go on as soon as I’m sure you haven’t hurt your leg.” He hated making even that concession.
“I’m sure I haven’t.”
“That’s for me to determine, since I can’t trust you to tell me the truth.” He lifted her lame leg and set it across his lap before she could protest, then shoved up her skirts to examine it.
“It’s fine…truly…you needn’t…” She trailed off as he caught her leg and began gently kneading the calf, watching her face for any sign of pain that signaled a fracture.
He saw not even a wince, but she did blush prettily and avert her face. That’s when it dawned on him that he had her leg in his hands again, just where he wanted it. What’s more, her lovely, frail calf was not only uninjured, but as shapely as he remembered.
He told himself to release it. Instead he continued kneading, but more slowly, indulging in the luxury of her soft female flesh, savoring the delicacy of it, the way it moved so smoothly beneath her stockings.
Within seconds, the unquenchable thing inside his breeches stiffened, mad with the pleasure of touching her. He began to consider outrageous possibilities, like re
moving her stocking, peeling it down past her knees and right off.
“I think my leg is…all right,” she whispered. “I’ll be able to stand on it once I can rest it.”
Still, he was loath to let go. “Are you certain?” he asked, drawing out the moment. He smoothed his thumbs over her knee, then up her trim thigh.
Her eyes widened, not with horror as he expected, but with anticipation, even excitement. His fingers no longer kneaded but caressed. She blushed again and shivered.
His blood pounded through his veins. So she felt it, too, did she? She mightn’t know what to make of it, she mightn’t approve of it, but she surely felt the powerful shock of awareness fracturing the scant air between them.
If he had an ounce of sense he’d flee the room and preserve his sanity. But when it came to her, his common sense always went on holiday. He leaned forward, unable to tear his gaze from her flushed cheeks and trembling chin. And her mouth—her fine, dainty mouth, opening on a breath.
“Bloody hell…” he whispered, and then his own mouth was covering hers.
Her lips were sweet and spiced with cloves, soft as a swan’s breast. Though every instinct warned against kissing her, he ignored them. He took advantage of her willingness, measuring the heat of her mouth, the silky texture, all the things he’d wondered about when he’d been mad enough to imagine this.
He’d wanted to kiss her since he’d first spied her on the terrace at Swan Park last summer. Now he needed to do it too badly to stop, even if she slapped him afterward or froze up again.
Except she did neither. True, she remained utterly still at first. But then she softened into pure, lovely woman,
giving him all the encouragement he needed. “That’s it, Helena. Relax,” he murmured against her mouth before taking it again.
Helena wanted to laugh at the command. Relax? Impossible! He was kissing her, for heaven’s sake, like no man had ever kissed her before. It dazed her, intrigued her, excited her. It made her want to kiss him back. Somehow Daniel had undermined her defenses before she could even erect them, and now it was too late.
All she wanted was to go on like this forever, with his mouth on hers, stealing her breath, giving it back, heating her lips with the warmth of his own.
Until he ran his tongue along her lips, startling her. She jerked back to find his gaze wild and hungry on her. He brought his hand up to clasp her chin, sliding the pad of his thumb over her lower lip, pressing it down a trifle.
“Open your mouth for me this time, lass,” he murmured.
She barely had a chance to prepare herself before he was kissing her once more, his hand holding her still for it, the palm firm against her throat.
Again his tongue swept her lips.
Open your mouth.
That sounded as fascinating as it did naughty, so she complied.
The moment her lips parted, he sank his tongue inside to touch hers, to tangle intimately with it. Dimly she wondered if there was any stricture in Mrs. N’s guide about letting a man thrust his tongue into one’s mouth—but then she stopped caring.
Because it was wonderful, absolutely wonderful. Hot and sensuous and delicious. He plunged slowly in and out, teasing all the sensitive parts of her mouth until she felt loose and fluid from head to toe.
Then he dragged her onto his lap. Although her leg had already lain there, it was a shock to find her bottom sud
denly resting between his hard thighs. She tore her lips away in a panic. “You must stop this,” she said shakily, pressing her hands against his chest.
“I’d rather not.” Deprived of her lips, he scattered kisses along her cheekbone and down the slope of her neck. “Are you sure that’s what you want?”
Pride demanded that she make
some
resistance as a proper lady. But the thundering excitement in her chest demanded that she not only let him do these scandalous things, but participate. She began to understand how Rosalind had let herself get into trouble with Griff.
When he nuzzled her neck and then her ear, his whiskers abraded her skin, yet that intensified the secret thrill of it. Her breathing grew erratic. “Please, Daniel…don’t…” Yet her hands clutched his coat.
He chuckled, the sound guttural against her ear. “You’ll have to do better than that, lass. I thought you wished to know what all the fuss is about?”
“I-I never said that—
you
did.”
“Yes, but you thought it, didn’t you?” He laved her ear with his tongue, making her gasp. How could something so odd feel so good? “I’ll wager you’ve wondered about it more than once, too.” His hands stroked her back now, up and down in long sweeps that made fiery shivers dance along her spine. What if he were to put his hand on her breast the way that man in the street—
She groaned. He was right—she did wonder. “Perhaps I
am
a trifle curious…but that doesn’t mean I want you to…that you should…”
“If you don’t like it, show me,” he rasped. “Let go of my coat. Slap me. I’m a big man; I can take it.”
Slapping him was the furthest thing from her mind, and the rascal knew it.
He pressed an openmouthed kiss to her ear. “It’s a pal
try thing to endure for the chance of kissing you.” He nibbled on her earlobe. “Ah, lass, you rouse my appetite so sorely. I’ve been aching to make a meal of you for such a long time…”
A vague image of him nibbling and kissing her naked flesh—
all
her naked flesh—tantalized her, then angered her. Devouring naked women was his forte, was it not? “I suppose you say that to your fancy women, too.”
“Trust me, you’re the fanciest woman I’ve ever kissed, my beauty, and certainly the only one I’d try to win with words.”
Disturbed by the sudden notion that he might consider her a kind of…elite conquest, she tried to wriggle from his lap, but he wouldn’t let her. Instead, he caught her face in his hands and made her look at him. “Or p’raps I shouldn’t try words with you a’tall, since you’ll turn them wrong in your head.” Kissing the tip of her nose, he whispered, “For once, let yourself feel. Just feel.”
He feathered his lips down the curve of her nostril, brushed them over the corner of her mouth, then pressed them once more to hers. His tongue invaded her mouth again, taking what it wanted and making her insides jump and quiver. This she liked—the kissing. He did it so well, made it so…thrilling.
Especially when he kissed her slowly, leisurely, as if he had every right to feed on her mouth. He probably thought he did, since she was letting him handle her body so shamelessly. One of his hands splayed over the back of her head, crushing her upswept hair as his mouth grew bolder, harder, needier.
He stole her breath away, and all she could do was sway into him, intoxicated by the feel of his mouth taking hers like some marauding bandit. Or smuggler.
A knock at the door broke the spell. “Sir?” they heard
a male voice call through the door. “Is your wife all right?”
She jerked back from Daniel, her hands still clinging to his coat lapels.
“The innkeeper, damn it,” Daniel grumbled under his breath. Then he called out, “She’s fine.” But his gaze bore into her with an intensity she’d never seen in him. “Full of surprises, aren’t you, lass?” he whispered, one eyebrow cocked upward. “You may not ride, but you can bloody well kiss. And much better than I’d expect of so lofty a lady.”
The hint of triumph in his voice brought her to instant mortification. She tried to scramble off his lap, but her legs wouldn’t work, and she landed on her knees on the floor. With a curse, Daniel lifted her up under her arms as if she were a rag doll, then dragged her back onto the settee beside him.
“Stay there,” he ordered.
The knock came again. “Can I do anything?” the man asked through the door.
“Yes. Come on in,” Daniel responded.
By the time the innkeeper opened the door, Helena was sitting beside Daniel as demurely as possible under the circumstances, though she surely looked a fright. She’d excavated Daniel’s handkerchief from her skirts, wanting to bury her entire face in it, but that would be just as suspicious as revealing her puffy eyes and red nose. Then she spotted her bonnet on the floor, which made her feel even more conspicuous.
Especially when the pockmarked innkeeper shot them both a knowing smile. “You can stay here the night, sir,” he offered, much more genial than his wife had been. “We’ve got a nice room with—”
“As it happens, we can’t.” With a quick searching
glance at her, Daniel rose. “But we’ll need some other way to travel. Have you a coach or a gig for hire?”
“I have a post chaise, and a fine well-matched pair to pull it. The postboy can be ready to leave at a moment’s notice.”
“That’ll do nicely, thank you. Go have it readied, and I’ll be there in a bit.”
With a quick nod, the innkeeper left.
Daniel returned to the settee, where he loomed over her with an unreadable expression. “This is your last chance, Helena.”
She gazed up at him, painfully conscious of the fact that she couldn’t stand and look him in the eye. “For what?”
“To return to London. It’s two hours by post chaise—you could be back at Griff’s in time for dinner.”
She crumpled the handkerchief in her hand. “I’ve already said I don’t want to go back. Why would I change my mind now?”
His gaze drifted to her mouth and settled there as if marking his place. “Because if you go with me, I can’t promise not to kiss you again.”
She caught her breath. Oh, my. Nothing like honesty to shatter a woman’s nerves. Or rouse her imagination.
Still, there was a certain presumption in his words. “I can promise not to allow it.”
A half smile touched his mouth. “Can you?” He picked her bonnet up off the floor, then held it out to her. But when she reached for it, he caught her hand with his free one and bent his head to kiss it.
She couldn’t help it—her hand trembled as he lingered over it, kissing first the back, then turning it over and pressing an openmouthed kiss to her wrist where it lay exposed above the edge of her glove. Her pulse did a wild dance beneath his parted lips.
When he released her hand and straightened, his gaze glittered with need and her entire body tingled with it as well. He flashed her an enigmatic look, triumph mingled with frustration. “If you think for one minute that your resolving against it can prevent it from happening again, then you don’t know me very well, lass. Or yourself.”
She couldn’t think of a single retort that would sound convincing.
He scarcely waited for one before nodding. “All right then. As long as we understand each other.” Looking suddenly grim and determined, he headed for the door. “Stay there. I’ll be back to carry you to the coach once it’s ready.”
Oh, Lord, the coach. Now they’d be riding in a coach, alone together in a most intimate situation. Merciful heavens, what insanity had she agreed to?
Her closed eyes, like weapons sheath’d,
Were seal’d in soft repose;
Her lips, still as she fragrant breath’d,
It richer dyed the rose.
Robert Burns,
“On a Bank of Flowers”
T
he coach rattled along the road to Tunbridge as Daniel watched Helena sleeping on the seat across from him. She’d fallen asleep almost from the moment they’d started off, probably exhausted from her stint on the horse. Except for a brief doze, he’d watched her the whole time, unable to look away. Helena asleep was fascinating, made even more lovely by the setting sun that
caressed her slender body with gold-spangled fingers. The way he wanted to caress it himself.
What a fine piece of work she was—a long-limbed creature of such elegance he could scarce believe he’d kissed her. She even slept elegantly. No snoring or drooling for m’lady, oh, no. With her head propped against the squabs, she slept neatly in the corner of the seat. Her hands remained folded between her cheek and the carriage wall, and her feet stayed together on the floor.