A Little Mischief (13 page)

She didn’t resist his aggressiveness. He covered her mouth with his again, slipping his tongue gently inside, sipping her sweetness again and again, and increasing the ache that had consumed him. His groans of pleasure mixed with Isabella’s soft feminine sounds, which heightened his own enjoyment.

His lips left hers and grazed along her cheeks, over her nose, and up to her eyes. He tasted the dampness that had settled on her skin from the heavy mist. His lips made a path down her cheek, over her jawbone to trickle down the slender column of her neck.

“How do you feel now?” he whispered without letting his lips leave her skin.

“Like something warm and fluttery is attacking my stomach and floating up in my chest.”

“I hope that is a good feeling.”

“Very good,” she answered.

The touch of her soothed him while it provoked him to try things he never should try with such an innocent. He slipped the cap sleeves of her gown off her shoulders and kissed the soft skin along the crest of her collarbone and over to her naked shoulders, feeling any moment that she would tell him to stop.

He lifted his head and looked at her satiny skin in the gray moonlight. She was captivating. He placed the palm of his hands on her shoulders and caressed them gently before letting his fingers slide down her chest. He stopped when the tips of his fingers found the gentle swell of her breasts.

Daniel looked into her eyes and was relieved to see desire floating in their depths. Her breath came in short little gasps, indicating her pleasure at the new sensations he was creating in her. It pleased him that she had no fear about what they were doing.

“I shouldn’t be touching you this way,” he whispered in a tender voice.

“I know.”

“But I find I can’t stop myself.”

Her eyes were swirling with emotions. “I don’t want you to stop. It feels so delicious. I can hardly catch my breath and my knees are weak.”

He laughed gently. She knew how to say what he wanted to hear. He had that same fathomless feeling.

“I don’t want to pressure you into anything you don’t want. Do you want to continue?”

“Oh, yes. Kiss me again, Daniel.” And she lifted her lips up to his.

Daniel’s breath fanned her cheeks as his lips pressed against hers once again in a deep drugging kiss. His fingers continued to caress the full supple flesh that pushed up and out of her gown while his palms dropped to the roundness of her breasts. Her skin softened and heated beneath his hands like velvet beneath a hot iron, leaving a burning sensation in their wake.

No woman had ever felt this good, this invigorating in his arms, and Daniel was lost to the sensual essence of Isabella. He let his tongue rake down her chin, her neck, and her chest all the way down to the rise of her bosom. He dipped his tongue below the cold fabric of her dress, searching for her nipple so that he could suck it into his mouth and sate his hunger.

With slow and deliberate movements of his hands he traced a path of passion from the nape of her neck, across the width of her shoulders, down to the small of her back until his hands reached the firmness of her buttocks. He fit her cheeks into the palms of his hands and lifted her bottom up against the thick, heavy hardness beneath his trousers.

Daniel moaned with need as Isabella gasped with pleasure. She felt so good. She made him feel good, and he couldn’t get enough of her.

He didn’t want to move his hands from her buttocks because she was pressed so tight against his thickening shaft. He couldn’t bear the thought of taking away that gratifying sensation that helped ease the ache of wanting to be inside her.

The distant sound of laughter stilled him. He fought his natural impulse to continue even though he knew the danger in doing so. But finally he dragged his lips back up her chest to her lips and held her tightly against him.

Damnation, what was he doing? And what was he thinking? If they were caught like this, he’d be married to her before the week was out.

Daniel hastily set her away from him and stepped back. For a moment his breath was too shallow to speak, but he saw in her eyes that she didn’t understand his abrupt change of heart.

Bloody hell! He was supposed to be a gentleman, a titled man of honor. He would be expected to right the wrong he committed against her. He should offer for her hand. Suddenly his head went light, and it was difficult to breathe. He didn’t want to wed her.

He desired her yes, but marry her? She was too unconventional, too uncontrollable. He had expected to marry a quiet and demure young lady. But the fact that he didn’t think she’d make a suitable wife shouldn’t matter. If she demanded he marry her, he would.

“I’m sorry, Isabella. I shouldn’t have let things go so far between us.”

He watched as her eyes adjusted to the moonlight. She looked down at her dress where the bodice had fallen off one shoulder. Desire stirred inside him. A lump grew in his throat as hard as the one beneath his trousers. He still wanted her.

“Sweet merciful heavens!” she exclaimed. She spun around, pulling her dress up as she turned her back to him. “I don’t know what came over me! What just happened between us?”

He cleared his throat and hoarsely whispered, “We were kissing. That’s all.”

“Nonsense. I might be an innocent young lady compared to your worldliness, but I know we were doing far more than kissing. Your hands were on my… body, and I… felt every inch of… I was very close to you.”

“We were making love.”

Isabella turned back to face him with an incredulous stare. “Love?” She straightened her sleeves on her shoulders and pulled up her gloves as far on her arms as they would go. “What are you talking about? We couldn’t have. I don’t love you and you don’t love me.”

No truer words had ever been spoken. Daniel would have laughed if he hadn’t realized the seriousness of how close they’d come to being lovers.

“Would it please you better if I said we were on the verge of copulating?”

She gasped and he saw a flaming red flush creep up her neck and settle in her cheeks. “Copulating?”

“Yes. After the way we just kissed, why do you sound so surprised?”

“It’s just that I’ve never heard anyone actually say that word before. I’ve read it, but it sounds so different hearing it.”

“That’s because it’s not a word anyone would usually say to a woman of quality, and I shouldn’t have said it. But I find that rules of convention fly out the window when you are around.”

“Obviously my good sense goes the same way when I am around you. I do believe we were headed for trouble, Daniel.”

“That seems to be all I’ve had since meeting you this afternoon, Isabella. If I believed in such notions, I’d be thinking you had bewitched me.”

“Funny you should say exactly what I was thinking about you. I can assure you, sir, I have never had an encounter such as we just had.”

Daniel didn’t understand why or how he had lost control so quickly, either, but his feelings shouldn’t matter. He had an obligation to her, unless, of course, she released him.

“I’m quite aware of that, Isabella. If anyone had stumbled upon us, your father would have had us married before sunrise.”

Daniel watched a fleeting sadness cross quickly and fade away.

“My father has more pressing concerns than me. It’s always been that way. He’s content to let my aunt handle my affairs. But I will soon turn twenty-one and have control of the allowance my mother left me.”

“That day has not yet arrived, Isabella, and no doubt your aunt would be just as disapproving as your father had anyone caught us.”

“Thank goodness no one saw us. It would be dreadful to be forced to wed.”

Daniel breathed a sigh of relief and looked into Isabella’s eyes. There wasn’t even a hint of the vulnerability he’d seen a glimpse of just moments ago when he’d mentioned her father. She was steady and in complete control of herself. Their close encounter hadn’t upset her.

“So you don’t intend to demand that I marry you?”

“Heavens, no. I plan to remain unmarried and declared a spinster so that I will be responsible for myself.”

Daniel took a chance she was being truthful and said, “We were quite intimate just now. If you insist, I’ll do the right thing and offer for your hand.”

She scowled at him. “You’ll do no such thing. I don’t want to marry you, sir. I don’t even know you. What we must do, Daniel, is make sure what just happened never happens again. I thank you for teaching me how to kiss, but I refuse to marry you because of it.”

“I couldn’t agree more, Isabella.”

Laughter sounded again, and Daniel realized it was closer than it was before. Obviously someone else had decided to take a walk around the gardens.

He had let himself get so distracted by his desire for Isabella that he had forgotten all about Gretchen waiting for them at the house and Throckmorten’s missing body.

What kind of brother was he that he could be so easily sidetracked by a woman? He would have to take greater care when he was with Isabella.

“Let’s go find Gretchen,” he said.

“Yes,” Isabella agreed. “She’s probably wondering what has happened to us.”

Daniel had to remember that Gretchen was the one who needed his help right now, not the lady with him. Isabella had just proven she could take care of herself.

Nine

The elegant party at Lord Gleningwold’s house was a smashing success. All the right people were in attendance, and none more sought after than the recently returned Earl of Colebrooke. He was seen dancing with Lady Katherine Spearmont and Miss Alice Eldridge. Rumor has it he stole a walk in the garden with Miss Isabella Winslowe. It appears the earl is not wasting a moment of time in his search for a countess.

—
Lord Truefitt,
Society’s Daily Column

Isabella crumpled the scandal sheet in her hands and let it drop to the rose-colored settee she stood beside in the parlor of her aunt’s home. She was mortified. Completely, totally, utterly mortified every time Lord Colebrooke crossed her mind. Which was at least three times a minute.

What had happened between her and Daniel in the garden last evening was shocking, and if that wasn’t bad enough, she’d spent the entire night reliving each kiss, each touch, each shallow breath of desire they’d shared. Whatever had come over her had managed to eradicate every soupçon of common sense from her being, but what shocked her even more was that she was left with very little guilt.

She couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her. She had never had such feelings for a man before. Daniel must have cast some sort of wicked spell on her. A wickedly delicious spell. What else would account for her sudden, unexpected wanton behavior? She was shocked she’d allowed Daniel such liberties.

Isabella might well have been Daniel’s mistress with the way she did his bidding. She answered all his kisses and caresses with loving touches of her own. Her behavior was scandalous, but she wasn’t sorry it happened.

Daniel was right. If anyone had caught them, her aunt would have either insisted she marry Daniel or she would have sent Isabella packing to the country to spend the rest of her days.

“Dreadful thoughts, both of them,” Isabella mumbled to herself, shaking her head with displeasure.

She didn’t want to think about the possibility of doing either. She was quite content to stay in London, as a spinster attending parties, riding in the park, and occasionally attending the opera. And she looked forward each week to the time she spent with her Reading Society.

London was busy and Isabella loved the city with its sights and sounds and even its smells. She never wanted to live in the quiet countryside again. She didn’t want her father to return and insist she go back and live with him and his new family.

Her last coherent thought last night had been when she told Daniel his kiss wasn’t long enough. That was true. It had been the most enjoyable experience of her life. And even though she told him it must not happen again, she wanted him to kiss her again.

The things that he’d made her feel were unbelievable and wonderful. His kisses had drugged her as surely as if she’d taken a dose of laudanum. She had done all manner of things with him from probing his mouth with her tongue to letting him fondle her breasts.

And she’d loved every moment of it.

Isabella squeezed her eyes shut and remembered his touch. She’d never experienced such shattering pleasure. Even now thinking about the sensations he created inside her made her legs turn weak again. Why should she be ashamed of the feelings that had made her feel so good, so womanly?

She wouldn’t.

Isabella’s eyes popped open, and she took a steadying breath. What was done was done. She had told Daniel it must not happen again and he agreed. That should be the end of it. She wasn’t going to worry any more about it.

“Oh, there you are,” Auntie Pith said, almost floating into the room with a big smile on her face.

Isabella put her hand up to her hair and smoothed it, trying to hide the heat that had crept into her cheeks while thinking about Daniel.