A Lady's Guide to Rakes (15 page)

He thought she would pull away then, but she didn’t. She only stared at his moving finger.

Her subtle acquiescence sent the blood inside Alexander’s veins pumping faster, and the thought of stealing a hiss grew ever large in his mind.

He bent then and lowered his mouth, until he could feel his own heated breath bouncing off her soft ivory skin. She smelled lightly of lavender and rose blossoms… as though she’d scattered petals in her bath.
Mmm
. He liked that.

“I daresay, I could even…” He raised his eyes and looked deeply into hers before he continued. Still, she did not move.

“You could even… what, my lord?” she asked breathily. Her voice was husky, strained. The wide-eyed, wary expression in her eyes told him he walked the edge, but he pressed onward. For somehow—from experience, he guessed—he knew she wished him to.

“I could even… do this.” He lowered his mouth until his lips brushed the thin skin of her wrist. He could feel her heartbeat throbbing against his lips. Faster. Faster still.

Alexander cradled her elbow in his left hand and held her hand in his right. He pressed his moist lips into the center of her palm, then began to hiss a slow trail to her wrist, over the exquisitely sensitive skin of her inner forearm.

He heard a faint gasp, and yet she did not straggle or protest, though her breathing grew harder, deeper.

Alexander drove onward with single-minded focus. His mouth’s journey would not end until he felt her lips against his own.

He straightened as he reached the heavy silk puffed sleeve covering her shoulder. He released her hand and elbow then, and slid his left hand around to rest in the small of her back, while the other cupped her chin.

“Now, were I to… hiss your mouth, for you do owe me, darling”—Alexander tilted her chin and brushed her lips with his own—”Chillton might take issue with my boldness… but it would be worth it.”

Her lips, tasting of tea sweetened with honey, made him yearn to drink in her essence. He pulled her tight, until he felt the softness of the tops of her breasts molding against him, and kissed her, harder mis time.

She sighed as his mouth moved over hers and her arms came up around him. “Worth it,” she murmured.

Alexander nudged her mouth open with his lips and slid his tongue into the warm smoothness inside. As if by instinct, her tongue mingled with his, as they blissfully suckled and fed on one another.

He felt himself harden against her and knew he should pull away. God, how he wanted her, with a wanton urgency he’d never known. What was it about Meredith that made him desire her like no other?

Perhaps he’d simply gone too long without a woman. It had been two months since his father’s edict, after all, and until today, he’d remained the consummate gentleman, ignoring stirrings below his waist, as well as the lusty gazes of women he would have bedded in earlier days.

Of course, this is it. Has to be.

Then suddenly he heard the clop of hooves on pavers, the command of a driver reining in his horses.

His eyes snapped open and both he and Meredith stood frozen, their lips locked fast as they listened. And there it came, the manservant’s footfall in the passage, the click of the front door opening.

“ ‘Tis my aunts!”

Alexander and Meredith repelled from each other— one racing to the sofa, the other to the settee.

The parlor door opened.

“Well, now, I trust you had a good visit,” Lady Letitia quipped.

“We… um… we did indeed, Auntie.” Meredith tucked a loose lock behind her ear and unobtrusively straightened her skirt. “Quite a delightful visit.”

“Oh, then Lord Lansing has told you all about it. Good, good!”

Smiling brightly, Lady Viola crossed the Turkish carpet and sat beside Meredith. “Does it not sound exciting, dear? I shall ask Annie to pack your portmanteau right away.”

Meredith’s jewel blue eyes darted from her aunt’s face to Alexander’s. “A portmanteau? Where am I going?”

“I beg your pardon, ladies, but I thought you might rather tell your grandniece the news.” Alexander felt a tenseness in his muscles as he waited for the Feathertons to reveal his invitation.

“Oh!” Lady Letitia plunged her walking stick into the carpet and caned her way to Meredith. “Why, dear, we are going to Harford Fell—all of us.”

Meredith looked up at Alexander. “Your family home? Might I ask why?”

Smiling uncomfortably, Alexander nodded and had just opened his mouth to speak when Lady Viola interrupted.

“To obtain a horse for Mr. Chillton—from his family’s own stables,” the old woman blurted.

“W-what?” Meredith’s gaze shot to Alexander.

“Miss Merriweather, you do still wish to purchase a horse for Mr. Chillton, do you not?”

Meredith nervously squeezed a fistful of her skirt in her hand. “I have no choice now. No other gift will do, else I fear Chillton will never believe my reasoning for being at Tattersalls.”

“Exactly.”
Alexander released the breath pent up in his lungs. “But a horse from the establishment might only serve as a reminder of seeing you there dressed as a man.”

“Sadly, Lord Lansing is quite correct, dear.” Lady Viola took Meredith’s hand in hers and patted it gently. “I had not wished to reveal this to you, but now I feel I must. Mr. Chillton was so troubled by your outrageous doings this day, that he feared losing his temper in your presence, and would not even enter our home to retrieve his own sister.”

Aunt Letitia bobbed her head. “Tis true. He simply rapped upon the door, then remained on the outer steps until we were clear about how Hannah was to return home.”

Meredith lowered her head and seemed to study the pattern woven into the Turkish carpet. “I… I had not realized my actions could affect him so.”

“Oh dear, do not fret, for I believe traveling to Harford Fell is the perfect solution for easing you back into Chill-ton’s good graces.”

Meredith snapped her head upright. “Really, you think so?”

“Yes, yes, of course!” Her Aunt Viola raised her frosty white brows excitedly. “Surely you have heard that Harford Fell is known far and wide for fine bloodstock.”

Alexander knew he almost had her now. Time to cinch it. “And since your troubles with Mr. Chillton are partially my fault, I will sell you a horse for the sum of one guinea.”

“One guinea?” Meredith coughed a laugh. “You are joking, surely.”

“Well, Chillton will not accept a horse I gave you. If I sell you the horse, however, at a very
reasonable
price, he will think you most thrifty.”

“And you know how your Mr. Chillton admires thrift.” Lady Letitia slowly walked across the parlor, her gaze fixed on her grandniece.

“You all are mad if you think this will work.” Meredith paused a moment and Alexander could see her mind processing the scheme. Finally a resigned smile tipped Meredith’s lips. “Oh, very well. I shall accept your kind gift, Lord Lansing.”

Lady Letitia plopped onto the sofa beside Alexander. Her walking stick fell to the floor as she clapped her hands merrily. “Oh, is Lord Lansing not the most generous man in all of London?”

“So it would seem, Auntie.” Meredith’s eyes grew as sharp as a hawk’s as she leveled her gaze upon him. “My, my, Lord Lansing, you are just one surprise after another, aren’t you?”

“Indeed. But then I enjoy surprises, don’t you? Wouldn’t do for life to become too predictable.” Alexander nonchalantly ran the tip of his tongue over his bottom lip, causing Meredith’s cheeks to flush. “How boring that would be, eh?”

A wise woman never allows herself to be lured into a rake’s home. There she is certain to be compromised.

Two days later, Meredith found herself at ancient Harford Fell, a sweeping stone structure regally perched atop a mountain. Before their arrival, she’d heard her aunts prattle on about the enormity of Lansing’s ancestral home. Therefore, she hadn’t expected anything less than a veritable castle, but still, her first glimpse of Harford Fell left her quite speechless.

Plump turrets—the sort fairy-tale damsels were always being imprisoned within—bookended either end of the main portion of the house. But, it was the high arches, vaults, slender vertical piers and counterbalanced buttresses that convinced Meredith of its true Gothic origins. Had an addition not been made in the home’s more recent past, of French windows and a balcony stretching the entire front length of the house, Harford Fell might have been drawn straight from one of those gothic tales of horror Hannah so enjoyed reading.

Within no more than twenty minutes of their carriage’s arrival, Meredith found herself ensconced in an exquisitely appointed, dark-paneled bedchamber.

Here she found herself completely in awe too. Not that all the rooms she had toured weren’t tastefully decorated—because they were, of course. Though this chamber in particular was… well, special in a way the others were not.

Meredith laid the claret-hued gown she thought to wear to dinner upon the bedstead and crossed to the hearth. It bothered her a little that she could not determine the reason for the room’s appeal.

Maybe it was the delightful collection of Sevres figurines arranged upon the mantel. She lifted a small porcelain shepherd girl and examined its obvious quality for several moments before a bowl of fruit on the hearthside table caught her notice. Plunking the shepherdess down, she grabbed a shiny red apple and bit into it.

Dropping into the wingchair, Meredith gazed upward at five small paintings hanging over the mantel.

Odd, in every other room she’d been privileged to see, a grand portrait of some sort graced that prime spot. But not here. Here was a collection of boldly rendered landscapes—not unlike her own sister Eliza’s paintings of Dunley Parish, where Meredith and her sisters were raised.

As she crunched into the sweet apple, remembering fondly how she and her older sisters used to swing on the scarred tree branches in her family’s orchard, she realized that it made her happy just to sit here and gaze upon the paintings.

Maybe that was it. Meredith lowered the apple from her lips. The chamber was welcoming.

Just then, the door swung open and Alexander strolled into the center of the room.

“Damn me!” Alexander blinked in astonishment. “I beg your forgiveness. I hadn’t heard you’d been settled in here.”

Meredith came to her feet. “Have I been placed in the wrong chamber?”

“Not at all. Came in here out of habit, I reckon.” At once, Alexander’s eye fixed on the little shepherdess on the table beside the fruit bowl.

He swaggered across the room, in that rakish way of his, carefully picked up the Sevres in his hands and replaced it on the mantel. He started to turn back to Meredith, when, instead, he paused and positioned the figurine toward the window… then aligned the six others in identical fashion. “There we are. Perfect.”

Meredith crinkled her nose. “I—I do apologize for touching the figurine. She is quite exquisite and I could not help myself.” She quieted for a moment, then studied Alexander. “She is yours?”

“Am I so obvious?” Alexander laughed. “It was a gift from my grandmother long ago. All of them were.” He joined Meredith at the table and bade her to sit. “This was my bedchamber. Still is… when I visit.”

She shot to her feet again. “Oh dear. Of course, I will ask to lodge in another room.”

“No, no, no. Wouldn’t hear of it I find it the most comfortable chamber in all of Harford Fell, and would consider it a great honor if you were to stay here and enjoy it.”

Alexander started to leave the room. “Again, pardon for the intrusion. I’ll just head next door, shall I? If anyone asks you why I was in your assigned chamber just tell them what a bloody awful sense of direction, I have It’s true. Ask the staff. They’ll tell you.”

As he reached the threshold, he bowed politely, then turned and slammed into the wall. “See, what did I tell you? Just awful,” he said, grinning, as he quit the room.

Meredith laughed, though she knew he was just having fun with her. Still, he was right about one thing. His bedchamber was most comforting, and, somehow, knowing it belonged to Alexander made her feel all the more at home here.

Lifting the lid of her portmanteau, Meredith withdrew her coffer and removed her book of pages, then slipped the pencil from its center fold.

She glanced out the French windows, past the balcony beyond, to see the sun just beginning to rest in the lush treetops on its way to bed.

Settling at the table once more, Meredith dutifully set herself to the task of recording her successes in bringing out Lord Lansing’s true nature.

Though she’d never admit it aloud to anyone, Meredith would be sad when her reasons for keeping company with Lansing came to an end. For recently, she’d felt as at ease with him as she did in his room.

She mentally shook her head. Bah. She had to remain focused. Earlier, she’d been far too preoccupied with helping her aunts with packing for their visit to Harford Fell to concentrate on her guidebook. Now that she was here, she needed to get back to what was important.

She dampened the pencil with the tip of her tongue.
Let’s see. Might as well start where I left off.
A record of their day at Tattersalls.

Emm.
Well, now, that day hadn’t been
quite
the success she had hoped for. Oh well. She’d just begin someplace else.

All right, maybe our… visit in the parlor. Yes, much better. The rake had kissed her in there—made her tingle all over. A smile curled her lips at the heated memory.

Meredith lifted her pencil excitedly, ready to record all the delicious details, but then paused again and thought back to two niggling little words she seemed to remember uttering in the passion of the moment.

Worth it.
Golly, she’d agreed that his kiss would be worth Chillton’s anger.

She gulped down the stone that seemed lodged in her throat.
Oh dear.
What had she been thinking? Aghast at her impulsive words, she cupped her hand over her mouth.

Suddenly it became clear to Meredith the real reason she’d put off recording her results—she had no results to record without impugning herself! Why, she’d rained every single experiment by issuing her own invitation to him. In no way had he taken unfair advantage of her.