Miss Wonderful (40 page)

His
head swiveled so sharply it was a wonder it didn't fly clean off his
neck. "You what?" "You," she said. "Naked."

For
a time, he had done very well, not thinking of her naked. This day he
had only held her in his arms, and not for so very long, either. Not
nearly long enough.

He
had not kissed her or attempted to remove so much as a glove, though
he would give anything to taste her mouth again, to feel her hands on
him. She had only to touch his face and the world changed, came
right.

Yet
somehow he'd resisted desire, and so he'd flattered himself that he
was maturing after all. This time he would not be so unspeakably
stupid as before.

But
she no sooner said the fatal words than he saw her standing upon the
bed with her skirts hiked up to her thighs, revealing… oh, no,
the tiny, lopsided, upside down heart at the crook of her knee…
and then she was down upon the bed… the perfect breasts tipped
with sweet, pink buds… the feather-soft curls between her
pretty legs.

He
remembered the scent and taste of her skin. He remembered the trust,
the tenderness, the passion.

He
squared his shoulders and set his jaw. "When we are wed, you may
see me naked all you like," he said. "Until then, it would
be best not to refer to the subject."

"We
are not going to be wed," she said.

"Yes,
we are, though it may take some time." He turned her toward him,
careful to keep his hands only lightly upon her shoulders. "You
must not take off your clothes in front of any other man, Mirabel."

"Certainly
not," she said. "It isn't the sort of thing I make a
practice of. It is only you—"

"That
is precisely what I am saying," he said. "Only me. That is
the point—one of the points—of being married."

"It
did not seem to be a very important point for Lady Thurlow," she
said.

Curse
her aunt! The Thurlow affair was not public knowledge. How had she
found out? And what was she thinking, to communicate such knowledge
to an innocent?

"You
may not cast my youthful indiscretions in my face," he said. "My
father performs that service admirably. Furthermore, I am mending my
ways. If I were not, I should take advantage of this moment. We're
alone. No one is watching."

They
were alone. No one was watching. And he didn't want to reform. He
wanted to be worse than he'd ever been before. He wanted to snatch
any opportunity offered, to do whatever was necessary to have her,
and honor be damned.

The
distance between them was so great, and so very small. The very air
between them vibrated.

He
closed the space in a single stride, pulled her into his arms, and
kissed her.

And
she kissed him back, surrendering instantly, her soft mouth yielding
to the first light pressure of his. Her hands came up, cupping his
face, holding him—as though she needed to, as though he wasn't
already bound to her.

He
undid the bonnet ribbons, and tossed the ugly thing aside, and
dragged his fingers through the unruly copper-tinted curls. She
knocked his hat off, and laughed against his mouth, and the husky,
wicked sound echoed inside him. She was innocent in so many ways, yet
she tasted and sounded like sin and made him drunk with longing.

He
undid the fastenings of her hideous cloak and slid his hands over her
bosom, down over the delicious little waist, down over the voluptuous
curve of her hips and perfect derriere.

She
moved under his hands, unself-consciously enjoying and seeking more,
and driving him wild with frustration. Too many garments, too many
obstacles. He reclaimed her mouth, kissing her deeply, ferociously,
while he eased her back against a pillar.

He
pushed the cloak off her shoulders. While it slid to the stone floor,
he was undoing the fastenings of her bodice, then dragging it down.
He broke the kiss to bury his face in her neck and drink in her
scent. He trailed kisses along her shoulder and down to the edge of
her chemise, to the smooth swell of her breasts, straining at the
confining corset.

She
held him there, her hands stroking through his hair. She kissed the
top of his head, an unexpected tenderness in the midst of mindless
passion. A wild rush of feeling tore through him, as though some
inner dam had burst. He could not get enough of her, could not get
close enough.

He
dragged up her skirts and petticoats—too much in the way—and
his hand slid up her inner thigh to the opening of her silk drawers.
She pushed against his hand. "Oh, please." Her voice was a
soft moan laced with laughter. "Oh, no. Oh, please, yes."

He
sank to his knees and kissed her in that soft, most feminine of
secret places, and heard her suck in her breath and let it out on a
sigh. "Oh," she whispered. "Oh, that is wicked."

Laughter,
still, the faintest trace. And he laughed, too, inwardly, with a
wicked joy, while he made love to her with his lips, his tongue,
while he held her beautiful, trembling legs and felt her body
convulse, wave after wave of shuddering pleasure. Pleasure raced
through him, too, in waves of liquid heat. It flooded his brain,
submerging the last bits of reason and principle, and roared through
his blood to swirl dangerously in the pit of his belly.

He
kissed the inside of her knee, where the funny, upside down heart
was. Then, when she was still weak and helpless, trembling in the
aftermath of euphoria, he rose, to make her his, because he must. He
was hot and mad with need, his swollen rod straining toward her.

But
as he reached for the first trouser button, a gust of wind shrieked
and whistled through the colonnade, so sharp and sudden that it
startled him to consciousness.

The
wind screamed like an angry ghost, and he remembered where they were:
her mother's burial place.

A
chill colder than the March wind went through him. He let her dress
fall, and brought his hands to her shoulders, and leaning forward,
rested his forehead against hers, and waited for his breath to come
back and his thundering heart to slow.

When
he could speak he said thickly, "My reform is not progressing as
well as I thought. I was sure I could resist doing something
scandalous with you against one of these columns."

"I
hoped you would not resist," she said. "But I had no idea
there was anything so scandalous as that."

He
lifted his head and met her dazed blue gaze.

"You
like to flirt with danger, I see," he said.

"No,
not at all," she said. "I am always so careful and
sensible. But you make me so…" She looked away. "Happy.
The word is inadequate. My heart lightens when you are by, and I feel
like a girl again."

His
heart ached. All he wanted was to make her happy, and all he seemed
to do was cause her trouble. His demented lust: Twice he'd come a
heartbeat away from deflowering her. His curst, crucial canal scheme:
The great obstacle between them was his only hope for the economic
independence that would let him offer for her honorably and proudly.

He
mustered a smile. "You mean I make you foolish."

She
laughed. "Yes, that, too. And you are foolish to come here. You
should have taken the bad-tasting medicine I administered before and
let it cure you."

"When
you told me to conquer my passion, you mean."

"I
was trying to make it easier for us both," she said. Belatedly
she noticed her state of undress. She tugged at her bodice. "Oh,
look what you've done. I wish my maid were half as quick as you. I
cannot believe you have had only seven or eight romantic episodes. It
is hard to believe you've done anything else your whole life but
dress and undress women, you are so expert at it."

At
the moment, he wasn't sure he possessed any other talent. But he said
nothing, only turned her about and did up the fastenings. He found
her cloak and bonnet. He draped the ugly cloak over her shoulders. He
did not attempt to retrieve the many lost hairpins but arranged her
hair as best he could with the few remaining and stuffed the lot into
the hideous bonnet.

As
soon as he was done, he wanted to take everything off again. "When
we are wed," he said, "the first thing I'll do is burn
every last stitch of the abomination you call a wardrobe."

"We
are not going to be wed," she said. "I have a weakness for
you. I am deeply infatuated. This may cause me to forget,
temporarily, what modest behavior is supposed to be, but I cannot
forget why you are here."

"I
don't expect you to forget it," he said. "I only ask you to
try not to underestimate me. I know a solution exists."

She
shut her eyes and let out a weary sigh, then opened them again and
said, "Do you think I haven't tried to find one? I know
Longledge far better than you, and I have searched and searched and
turned the matter this way and that. If I thought a solution was
possible, do you think I would have written that letter to Lord
Gordmor?"

He
recalled, then, why he'd come—or part of the reason, the
rational part. He had to tell her. He couldn't let her learn it first
from the newspaper on Wednesday. "Mirabel, I wish you hadn't
written to him," he began. "I wish you'd trusted me. Now
you've left us no time at all."

He
hesitated. He'd come to warn her, but he'd forgotten about Gordy,
what he owed him. It would seem like disloyalty. Yet Alistair had to
warn her: It would be dishonorable, and the worst sort of betrayal,
not to.

"No
doubt your friend will make haste to hold his canal committee
meeting," she said, the previously sultry voice now brisk and
businesslike. "If he is wise, he will send the notice express
this day to the papers, to make sure it arrives in time for this
Wednesday's Derby Mercury."

She
already knew. Of course she would. Everyone said she had a good head
for business. She understood how such matters were managed. She must
know that parliamentary orders required the canal committee meeting
announcement to appear in both the London Gazette and the local
paper. Was that what she had been studying the other day? Was that
what all those legal papers were about? Had she already begun
planning how to throw legal obstacles in their way?

He
told himself he must resist the temptation to interrogate her. Where
she was concerned, Gordy must do his own spying. And she must do her
own spying on Gordy.

How
in blazes was a man to work out all the niceties of loyalties in such
a case as this?

"He
does not wish to lose a minute of time," Alistair hedged. "All
the same, you must trust me to see the matter dealt with fairly."

"If
you want the matter dealt with fairly, you must go back to London,"
she said. "I had expected you would be on your way by now."

"Yes,
I know you had counted on my departing—or being taken back,
rather, in a strait-waistcoat, no doubt."

"You
are under a great strain, though you won't admit it," she said.
"You cannot look after my interests and Lord Gordmor's at the
same time. They are mutually exclusive. It is no wonder you dream
incessantly of war, when you are fighting with yourself."

She
moved closer and took both his hands in hers. "I have looked
after my own and my father's affairs for more than ten years. This is
not the first crisis I have confronted. I am not helpless or stupid."

"I
know that," he said. "Still, it doesn't mean the man who
loves you may not try to help you."

"I
fear it does," she said. "I cannot fight properly when you
are by. You make me deranged."

"It
is not a fraction of what you do to me," he said, tangling his
fingers with hers.

Gently
she drew her hands away and folded them at her waist. "If you
truly wish to give me a fighting chance, you must keep away from me.
I can accomplish nothing productive while you are near. London would
be best."

"I
refuse to run away, merely because the situation is difficult,"
he said.

She
huffed an impatient sigh. "If Lord Gordmor is truly the friend
one supposes him to be, he will consider your well-being and insist
upon your leaving. If he is so selfish as to keep you—or you
persist in this hopeless—"

"For
God's sake, Mirabel," he broke in. "You know my history. I
always get into disastrous situations. Never once in my life have I
had to get myself out of one. I am nine and twenty. And I am quite
done with letting others fight my battles, while I go on my way
feeling stupid and useless—until I stumble into the next
difficulty."