Most Eagerly Yours (25 page)

He drew a breath. Good God, from where had that notion arisen? He well understood Fitz’s tendencies, which was why he so often stepped in to prevent his royal friend from ruining respectable women. Aidan did so as a matter of course. Rarely did Fitz’s indiscretions pique his temper this way.

Laurel’s hand closed over his wrist. “You’d thrash the man for doing exactly what you just did?”

A teasing light twinkled in her eyes, while her moist lips tantalized him. His loins tightened. Wishing he hadn’t chosen such formfitting breeches that morning, he took up the reins and hoped she wouldn’t notice his body’s response to her nearness.

“You’re quite right. Don’t know what came over me.” He clucked the horse to a walk. “I’ll take you home now.”

She recaptured his wrist, her grip strong and decisive. “No. Not yet. Just drive.” Her lips widened in a mischievous smile. “Or better yet, hand those reins to me.”

 

Laurel didn’t know what instinct prompted her to make such a brazen request. Talk about cheek! It was one thing for a widow to ride with a man in an open carriage in plain view of a dozen other carriages. It was quite another to set off down a deserted country road with him. But she could no more have swallowed the impulse than she could have stopped breathing.

With his shoulder pressed against hers and his taste still fresh on her lips, she felt effervescent, slightly feverish, tingly . . . and, heaven help her, reckless, as though she were riding the crest of a tall wave racing toward an unknown shore.

For an instant his gaze smoldered over her, his sculpted features as majestic as the hills surrounding them on all sides. His own rogue’s grin blossoming, he faced front, guided the horse in a wide half circle, and passed the reins into her hands. Then he reclined against the seat, propped an ankle on his knee, and crossed his arms over his chest. “Well?”

She tipped her chin. “Do you trust me?”

“Implicitly. Do you trust
me
?”

At that moment, she did. With a laugh she clucked the horse to a trot, quickly widening the distance between them and the outskirts of Bath. Soon they entered the vast, sloping patchwork of the southern Cotswold Hills, where the pale greens of early spring sprouted in the sheltered river valleys.

His question echoed in her mind.
Do you trust me?

The true question was, did she trust herself with him?

She urged the gelding faster, harder, and the animal responded with an eager burst. The road streaked beneath them while the countryside blurred on either side. Laurel laughed again as the wind sent her hair streaming out behind her. Her sodden skirts adhered to her legs, the hems fluttering to reveal her tasseled boots and silk stockings.

Did Aidan notice?

A quick glance confirmed that her ankles commanded the better part of his attention, a circumstance she found immensely satisfying. Still laughing, she gave the horse full rein. They rumbled along the dirt road, the wheels raising splashes, until they hit a bump that sent the vehicle bucking into the air and jolting down hard.

Laurel’s teeth clacked together, sending stars dancing before her eyes.

“Whoa there!” Aidan’s arms instantly encircled her. His hands closed over hers and he pulled back on the reins to slow the horse to a walk. He didn’t remove his arms from around her, but continued to hold her, wrapping her in a delicious cocoon of masculine sensuality. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, fine. I’m sorry I lost control. . . .” She couldn’t resist sinking back against those massive shoulders, that hard chest. He felt so warm and heavenly and made her feel so safe. . . .

His lips nuzzled her hair with a tenderness that triggered a firestorm of yearning. Her body suddenly straining to be touched, she twisted half around and raised her face to his. His arms tightened around her middle as he bent over her and took her mouth. He ravaged her lips, his tongue parting them with an intimate demand she had no power or wish to deny.

And his hands . . . oh, with her side pressed to his chest, his hands roamed the front of her bodice, molding to the shape of her breasts through her corset before plunging lower and gliding over her waist and abdomen and hips.

Inside her, taut cords stretched to snapping, tugging mercilessly at her female places until her nipples hardened to sensitive peaks and aching heat claimed her lower regions. A tiny caution warned that as easily as she had lost control of the carriage, she could lose control of this rising passion . . . and of herself.

Rather than heeding that voice, she placed her hands over his to guide him in the pleasure he brought her, sliding them down over her skirts to trace the lines of her thighs, and then back up again.

The reins having fallen, the horse ambled to the side of the road and ducked its head to graze on the coarse weeds. As he munched, his motions rocked the cabriolet in a lulling rhythm. Her skin on fire, her passion inflamed, Laurel turned in Aidan’s arms until her breasts came flush against his chest.

A cool draft grazed her calves, then her knees. Her heart stood still as Aidan tunneled a hand beneath her skirts, his palm and splayed fingers igniting a blaze along her leg. Her heart lurched to a hammering pace. As when she had urged the horse to a near gallop, she felt breathless, ecstatic, filled with giddy anticipation.

In some corner of her mind, she noted that the sun had dipped behind the hills and the rain had stopped, its steady hiss replaced by the chirping of the evening’s first crickets. Soon night would descend to cloak them in darkness. If they tarried much longer, how far might this go?

She did not wish to leave.

Aidan’s hand abruptly stilled and his mouth broke away from hers. The startled look on his face brought Laurel up short. “What’s wrong?”

With a frown he tipped his chin at the horse. The animal had abandoned its roadside feast and stood with its head high, ears pricked and alert, nostrils quivering.

“Someone is coming.” With deft motions Aidan disentangled himself from her skirts and seized the reins from off the floorboard.

An instant later a rumbling heralded the approach of a carriage from the north. With the skill and speed of a master horseman, Aidan turned the animal sharply about and set him at a brisk trot toward Bath.

“Your hat,” he said.

Laurel’s hands went to her hair, fallen in a tangle down her back. Twisting, Aidan reached to the seat behind them and managed to catch the brim of her bonnet between two fingers. He dropped it into her lap. With trembling fingers she coiled her hair in a knot at her nape, set the bonnet on her head, and tied the soggy ribbons beneath her chin.

“Presentable?”

“Give your skirts a shake.”

As she complied, he straightened his coat and smoothed a hand over his hair.

Moments later, a barouche overtook them. As the vehicle swung around to pass them, a gentleman inside peered at them through the window and waved a greeting. Laurel and Aidan waved back, then faced forward as though nothing scandalous marked their outing.

The skies darkened to purple during the ride back into the city. Aidan said nothing, his jaw tight, arms tense, eyes intent on the road. His silence threw Laurel into a misery of confusion and embarrassment. Did he think her loose, a trollop? What had possessed her to behave in such a rash, untoward manner?

But a single glance at his powerful physique and taut features raised an echo of the passion that had driven her into his arms, and she knew that at the slightest sign from him—a word, a look, a touch—she would be back in his arms.

“I asked you if you trusted me,” he said suddenly, startling her. He continued to face forward, his profile rigid and grim. “It was a question I should have asked myself.” He glowered at the road. “I cannot trust myself with you, Laurel. I am sorry.”

Knowing full well that the blame for what had happened rested as firmly on her own shoulders, she looked down at her trembling hands. “You have been called a rogue in my hearing, but what sort of rogue apologizes for living up to his reputation?”

“Even a rogue follows his own set of rules.”

She shook her head. He was as much a villain as she was a widow.

What was he, then?

Even the way he had maneuvered the horse, with such urgent precision, led her to conclude that he was not like other men of his class. She remembered the disguise he had worn yesterday when he’d gone to Avon Street, raising her suspicions that he was a member of some radical political faction. But she also thought of how he had questioned her about her past, how he had questioned others about the new spa, the elixir. . . . A memory flashed in her mind of his vehemence when he had attempted to dissuade her from sampling Rousseau’s elixir.

Suddenly she understood, at least partly. Like her, he was investigating . . . something. Something to do with the Summit Pavilion. But for whom? And why?

She said nothing of her realization as the pitted country road gave way to the paved streets of the Upper Town. Questioning him would have only invited further interrogation about herself and the circumstances she had sworn not to reveal. The crown had yet to rest securely on the new queen’s head, and Victoria could ill afford to have her family difficulties aired publicly.

Where Walcot Street turned into Northgate, Aidan slowed the carriage to accommodate the pace of the other vehicles on the road. Bath’s thoroughfares were filling with evening traffic as the inhabitants set out for balls and fetes and theaters.

They continued south, nearing Laurel’s lodging house in Abbey Green. Soon she would have to leave him, and spend the remainder of the night alone with the mystery of who and what he was.

And why his merest touch sparked her uncontrollable passion.

As they swung past the Grand Parade overlooking the river, she could not resist one last touch before they parted. Reaching up, she stroked the curve of his cheek-bone with her fingertips.

He flinched, but she refused to pull away. Instead she grasped his chin and turned him to face her. “You mustn’t blame yourself for what happened. I was just as much at fault.”

He said nothing, but drove the carriage onward with a steely resolve that left her bewildered. He seemed so angry. At her? Himself?

They came around York Street, then Stall, and on treelined Abbey Great Street, the approach to Abbey Green, he brought the carriage to a halt.

Though Laurel continued to hear other horses and buggies bumping along Stall Street, all lay quiet and dark on Abbey Great Street and on the green up ahead.

Aidan grasped her face in his hands. “I lost control back there.”

“So did I.”

The scowl that had not eased during the ride now deepened. He pressed closer, not intimately, but relentlessly. “You do not understand. Make no mistake, Laurel, I want you. Were you any other sort of woman we would not now be sitting a stone’s throw from your lodging house. We would be at
my
house, in my bedroom. In my
bed
. We may end there yet, but not this night.”

Her breath caught, and her insides quivered at the images evoked by his stern assertion. “Oh, I—,” she began, but he cut her off.

“Don’t speak. Listen.” He released her face and lifted her hands in both of his. “You are
not
the sort of woman I take to bed. You are the sort whom I make a point of avoiding. Always. As I said, even a rogue follows certain rules. Except today. Today, I lost control. Damn it, Laurel, I might have pulled you into my lap and taken you right on this very carriage seat. And that, by God, is no way to make love to a lady.”

His vehemence drew a gasp from her lips. The images conjured now were stark, coarse, infinitely shocking. To lose her virginity on a carriage seat, exposed to the elements . . . oh, but silently, shamelessly, she continued to wonder if she would have stopped him.

His jaw clenching, he gave her a shake. “I swear, I do not understand it. All I know is that you are not safe with me. This is no game, Laurel. Because with you, I simply cannot be trusted.”

Of all the lies either of them had told, that was the most dishonest. She did not believe for a moment that he would harm her. Honor would compel him to turn her away long before that ever happened, just as he did now, when he prompted the horse forward and brought her to the steps of her lodging house.

He descended from the carriage and offered his hand to help her down. Barely looking at her, he stood like a soldier at attention, his features tight and pained and angry. Distance, murky and immeasurable, yawned between them.

She wanted to span that distance and put her arms around him, kiss him, reassure him, and convey the depths of her confidence in him. The closed look on his face prevented it, and sent her silently but swiftly up the steps, where she fumbled with the latch, obscured by the tears burning in her eyes.

H
is feet propped against the cupboard that held his few kitchen provisions, Phineas Micklebee rocked gently to and fro on the back legs of his chair. For the past few minutes, he had listened without comment to Aidan’s account of the previous day’s picnic: the attendees, the details provided by Giles Henderson about the Summit Pavilion, and, most significant, the sampled elixir.

To this Aidan added the phenomenon he had observed this morning when Barclay’s Bank on Milsom Street had unlocked its doors. A line had immediately formed in the lobby, one made up of a good two dozen of yesterday’s picnickers. While Aidan had watched from a recessed doorway across the street, he had surmised that they had come to purchase shares in the Summit Pavilion.

He had confirmed that assumption with a visit to the bank himself once the initial rush had tapered off.

“It is extraordinary how bearing a title grants me access to all manner of official documents. Being an earl proves highly convenient,” he said.