The Lady In Question (24 page)

“I’m confident he’ll be fine,” St. Stephens said firmly.

“Yes, of course.” Still, she would make certain he was checked on later this evening.

“And when I see him I shall be sure to thank him for saving me from sherry.” St. Stephens grinned, and she found it most contagious.

In a few mere moments he’d managed to dispel all her apprehensions. He’d taken her confession far better than she’d ever dreamed he would and brushed aside her deception as if it were of no real consequence. It was extremely gracious of him. She was not at all certain she would be so pleasant if the situation were reversed. Perhaps he was simply a better person than she was. His reaction tonight, coupled with his honorable behavior last night when he had insisted on speaking to her father, quite warmed her heart. He was, all in all, a very nice gentleman, this Lord Mysterious of hers. She sipped her brandy and met his gaze over the rim of her glass. “What other benefits?”

“Of pursuing a widow?”

She nodded.

“Any widow, or one widow in particular?” His voice was cool, but his piercing gaze brought a flush of heat to her face and a recklessness to her manner.

“One widow in particular, I should think.”

“Ah, the benefits to pursuing the lovely Lady Wilmont are far too numerous to mention, but I shall try.” He sipped his brandy and considered her in an intimate way, as if he were seeing her without benefit of her black lace. She rather liked it. “As a widow, you have far more freedoms than other unmarried women. You are independent. You have your own house and no need for chaperones, for the most part. You can, in very many ways, live by your own rules.”

“Still, there are rules of society one is bound by,” she said loftily. “I would hate to court scandal.”

He raised a brow. Obviously the man was aware of her past.

“Very well, then. I should hate to court
more
scandal.”

“Given your recent deception, I find that difficult to believe.”

“Nonsense. I was discreet and my performance was excellent.” She cast him a smug smile. “You, my lord, had no idea of the truth.”

“To my everlasting humiliation.” He lifted his glass to her. “And you will probably never allow me to forget it.”

“Never.” She laughed. “I admit that I am not overly concerned with scandal. I have tasted it and survived and come to the realization that no one’s opinion of my actions is as important as my own. I fully intend to live my life for my own approval and no one else’s.”

“As well you should.” Admiration colored his voice.

“However, I fear that is easier to say than to do. I’m not entirely sure I have the courage to completely flout the rules of society that I have lived by all my life.”

“That too is good to hear.”

“Why?”

“Well, I should hate for my future wife to be embroiled in one scandal after another.” He shook his head in a somber manner she would have believed, were it not for the gleam of amusement in his eye.

“Think of how poorly it will reflect on the children.”

“The children?” She raised a brow. “I have not said I will marry you, nor, unless my memory has become as poor as my sister’s, do I recall you asking me.”

“Why, I believe you’re right.” He widened his eyes in feigned surprise. “I can’t imagine I would have forgotten such a thing as asking you to marry me. Very well, then, I take it back.”

“Take what back?”

“You may be as scandalous as you wish.”

“Oh, thank you for your kind dispensation,” she said dryly.

“Think nothing of it.” He gestured graciously. “Indeed, I am quite looking forward to your scandalous behavior.” He leaned forward until his lips were a scant inch or so from hers. Was he going to kiss her?

“As long as you confine said scandalous behavior to me.”

“To you, my lord?”

“Anthony,” he said, his gaze shifting from her gaze to her lips and back. “My friends call me Tony.”

“Will I be a friend, then?” She certainly wanted him to kiss her.

“Indeed you will.” He leaned nearer, his lips a mere breath away from her own. And this particular kiss would be vastly different from the last.

“Delia,” she said, without thinking. “Or Philadelphia, really. But Delia is what my dearest friends and my family call me. If I am to call you Tony, you should call me Delia.”

This kiss would be between Lady Wilmont and Lord Mysterious.

“Very well. Delia.” He said her name as if it were a gift or the answer to a prayer. Philadelphia and Anthony.

“Of course, that in itself is highly improper. Calling one another by our given names, that is.”

Delia and Tony.

“You’re rambling, Delia.” His smile was slow and seductive.

“I never ramble.” What was he waiting for?

“Perhaps it is time to do a great number of things you have never done.” His voice was low and seductive.

“Perhaps.” She gazed into his dark eyes and wanted everything they promised. “What do you suggest?”

“Well, just as a first step, you understand, I would suggest a kiss.”

“Ah, but I have been kissed before. In fact, I have been kissed by you before.”

“Indeed you have.” He nodded thoughtfully. “But our kiss at Effington Hall scarcely counts because it was not you I believed I was kissing. Furthermore, it was a first kiss, after all, and you know how inconsequential they are.”

“Inconsequential?” Her gaze slipped to his lips. “I would hardly call it inconsequential. I thought it quite significant.”

“Its significance lies primarily in its position as first.”

“Not as I remember it,” she murmured.

“Nonetheless, I wouldn’t say it was our best effort.”

“I thought you did an excellent job of it.”

“I’m flattered, but I can do much better.”

“I’m certain you can.” She laughed. “And I suspect the second kiss was far too quick to be at all worthy of the name?”

“Exactly. It’s scarcely worth mentioning.”

“Then that leaves us…?”

“With nothing.” He shrugged. “Not a thing.”

“My, that is a shame.”

“However, it does put kissing me on the list of those things you have never done.” He set his glass down on a table, plucked hers from her hand and placed it beside his.

“Why, so it does.” Her heart thudded with anticipation.

“And it is past time to remedy that.”

He slipped his arms around her and pulled her close. His mouth met hers gently, firmly. His lips were warm and tasted of brandy and secrets and promises. She slid her arms around his neck and his kiss deepened. Her lips opened beneath his and his tongue met and mated with hers. The hot thrum of desire welled within her and she noted dimly it was different with him. It was somehow deeper, richer… more. She pressed hard against him, noting the beat of her heart in her ears, the beat of his in her blood. She wanted to lose herself in his embrace, in the excitement of his mouth joined with hers, of his body hard against hers. She wanted…everything.

He pulled his lips from hers and nuzzled the side of her throat. “I daresay that more than makes up for any perceived inadequacies.”

She struggled for breath. “I know I am pleased.”

“What else have you never done, Delia?” he murmured against her neck.

“Aside from sharing your bed?” she said without thinking.

He raised his head and stared in surprise. “I thought I’d work my way up to that one.” He wagged his eyebrows in a truly wicked manner. “Although I should like to put it on the list.”

“Oh, you may certainly put it on the list.” She pulled his lips back to hers. She wanted to taste of him, to drink of him, to drown herself in the sensation of touching him and being touched by him. She wanted to lose her soul to him. Now. Forever.

He wrenched his lips from hers and kissed the corner of her mouth. “Just out of idle curiosity, mind you” — he kissed the line of her jaw and a lovely spot just below the lobe of her ear — “how long is this list and where is that particular item?”

“I don’t know.” Her voice had an odd breathless quality. “But I suspect it is moving higher.”

His hands roamed over her back and lower, to her derriere. “Surely there’s more?”

Her fingers entwined in his hair and she angled her head to give him greater access. “Yes, well…” His mouth traveled to the base of her throat and she gasped. “I have always wanted to have…a life of grand adventures.”

“Indeed.” One hand splayed across the small of her back, his other moved slowly and deliberately up her side. “What kind of adventures?”

“Grand,” she murmured.

“You said that. What specifically?”

“I should like to…urn…” It was impossible to hold a rational thought and she said the first thing that popped into her head. “Ride a camel…” His hand caressed her breast and she caught her breath.

“How interesting.” His breath was warm on her neck. “Anything else?”

“I…” Her nipples tightened beneath the fabric of her bodice.

“Drift…down the Nile…” And she wondered if he would rip her dress from her body.

“I’ve heard the Nile is nice this time of year.”

And how she could encourage him to do so.

He cupped her breast and she thought her knees would buckle. “Is there more?”

“More?” Her breath was short and her mind was fogged. “Yes…well…there could be…I…” She drew his lips back to hers and pressed her body tighter against his. His arousal was evident between the layers of her clothes and his. And still she wanted…

He pulled his mouth from hers. “What else?” His voice was heavy against her ear. “What else have you never done?”

“What…” She could barely think. “I have never…never…”
I have never shared your bed.
Why was that the only thing she could think of?

He drew back and studied her. “What else?”

She shook her head and stared up at him. “Do you want a serious answer? Now? This moment?”

He grinned weakly. “God help me, I believe I do.”

“Your powers of observation may not be as good as you think them,” she said under her breath. Didn’t the man see he could certainly have his way with her at this very moment? Why, she was barely coherent, thanks to the rather remarkable sensations produced by his lips and his hands. Not only would she not protest, but she was willing and eager. It was to his credit that he did not press his advantage of her vulnerable state. He truly was an honorable man. What a pity.

“Well.” She drew a deep breath and reluctantly stepped away from him. “Those things I have never done are far greater than those I have, although I suppose I have never given them any serious consideration before now.”

He picked up her glass and handed it to her. “Then this is your opportunity to do so.”

“I suppose. If you insist.” She took a fast swallow of the brandy, noting the trembling of her hand and a far more intense trembling of unsatisfied need deep inside her. “I fear they may sound ridiculous.”

“It’s been my experience grand adventures always sound ridiculous in the saying of them.”

“Oh? Have you had many grand adventures, then?”

He sipped his brandy in a decidedly wicked manner. “One or two.”

“Tell me about them.”

He laughed and shook his head. “I think not. Besides, at the moment we are discussing what you want.”

“Very well.” She thought for a moment. “I have never spouted Shakespeare from a stage.”

“And?”

She grinned. “I have never dined with a sheikh.”

“Surely there’s more.”

Now that she thought about it, there was a great deal more. “I have never left England’s shores. I have never been sung to in public.” The words came out faster of their own accord. “I have never seen my name in a book.” She widened her eyes. “I have never written a book.”

He grinned. “Is that all?”

“Why, no, I don’t believe it is.”

“Your list is becoming rather lengthy.”

“It’s entirely your fault for encouraging me.” She drew her brows together and tried to sort out the myriad of exciting ideas filling her head. “I have never posed for a painting alone, without my family or my sister. And I have never done it without benefit of clothing.”

He laughed. “That’s good to know.”

“Why?”

He raised a brow.

“Never mind.” She cast him a wicked smile. “I know why. Still” — she struck a classical pose — “I should think it would be quite exciting to be painted sans garments, like a Greek goddess.”

“The Goddess of Love, perhaps?”

“Unless there is a Goddess of Grand Adventure.” Laughter bubbled up inside her.

“And where would one hang such a portrait, I wonder,” he murmured.

She leaned forward and brushed her lips across his. “In one’s bedchamber, I should think.”

He laughed and reached for her. She danced out of his way. “Now, now, my lord, you started this.”

“And I should like to finish it,” he growled in a manner at once threatening and terribly exciting. “Is there anything else you have never done that you should like to do?”

“Yes,” she said firmly. “All manner of things, really.”

He groaned and rolled his gaze toward the ceiling. “I fear I have opened Pandora’s box.”

“Indeed you have.” She drank the last of her brandy, set the glass aside and ticked the items off on her fingers. “I never raced a carriage through the streets of London. I have never danced in a fountain —

”

“With or without clothing?”

“Either. And regarding clothes, I’ve never dressed like a man and slipped into the sacred halls of a gentlemen’s club.”

“I know you have shocked me now,” he said dryly. “Doesn’t every woman have a secret desire to invade those places forbidden to her?”

“Probably, though it isn’t something I personally particularly want to do; but, as it is something I’ve never done and would be a bit of an adventure, I thought I should mention it.” She glanced at him. “Or should I limit this list not merely to what I haven’t done, but what I want to do?”