Castleford did not demur regarding that praise. Instead he sighed, as if this were just one more burden he carried on his privileged shoulders. “They waste their time, but it is theirs to waste. Still, it is a nuisance if my every move is noted.”
Albrighton looked at him in a way that implied he saw much more than the duke ever thought he revealed. “I expect one of those engineers or whatnots spoke indiscreetly, and it got out.”
Hawkeswell lost interest in the gossip as quickly as he had thought of it. He stood and offered his hand to Verity. “If you do not mind, Castleford, I think that I will take a turn around the deck with my wife and enjoy the night sky before we arrive at the gardens and face the noisy crowds.”
The two of them wandered off and soon became a single silhouette fading away. Celia looked at Jonathan. A slow smile on his face responded to a teasing one on hers, then they were gone without even taking their leave.
Daphne craned her neck this way and that to see either couple. She was dismayed that her friends had abandoned her, sitting on an upholstered settee next to Castleford, whom they knew could never be trusted.
“You will not see them,” he said. “They have strolled toward the stern. There are little pavilions there, done up like Arabic tents.”
“I think that perhaps I will take a turn as well and see these pavilions too.”
“I do not advise it, unless you want to witness true marital bliss.”
She was half standing before she comprehended his implications. She froze and looked at him. “I am sure that they are not . . .”
“I would lay odds they are. I know Hawkeswell from well before he reformed, and one of the joys of marriage is that one can be bad again. As for Albrighton, he ignores rules that are inconvenient to his goals.”
She was about to argue when she remembered the gaze Jonathan and Celia had exchanged and Celia’s private smile. The notion that her friends were in the dark back there, engaging in “marital bliss,” dismayed her.
She sat again and eyed Castleford suspiciously. “Is that why the lanterns are only on this end of the barge? You are a very thoughtful host.”
“I was thinking only of myself. I hoped that deep shadows beneath a starlit summer sky would lure them away from us. Lo and behold, they have.”
She set her gaze at the remnants of wine in her glass. If she had not had more than was wise, perhaps she would be indignant and outraged and would pointedly discourage him from any seductive intentions.
Unfortunately, the warmth provoked by the wine and the happy laughter of the night only made her weak to the inexplicable appeal of this man. Even the knowledge that he was dangerous to women and represented potentially serious trouble for her in particular only managed to titillate her right now.
She turned her attention to the front of the barge. In the distance, beyond the bend of the river, she was sure she could see some of the lanterns of Vauxhall Gardens twinkling like tiny stars.
“We should probably head upriver now,” she suggested. “We will never get there if we keep going back and forth like this.”
“We will arrive soon enough. I do not want to rush our mutual friends. Do you?”
She was trying hard not to imagine what their friends were doing, let alone estimate how long it would take. Scandalous images wanted to enter her mind of how they were doing it too. Were there even beds back there?
She felt herself flushing. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Castleford turned toward her slightly on the rather small settee, his head propped on his hand and his elbow propped on the table.
He watched her ever so calmly—almost, it seemed, with consideration—and she would be hard-pressed to identify anything particularly threatening about him. He appeared quite sane and not even especially seductive. His attention might be that of any host to a guest left to her own devices by friends who forgot their duty to her.
All the same, her instincts screamed that she would be wise to run away—if only there were someplace to run to. She felt him there, felt his proximity and gaze, and she noted with alarm the sensations sparkling inside her.
“I have something for you,” he said. “A small gift.”
She turned to him, surprised. “I do not think—”
“Hush.” He took her hand and held it palm side up. He dropped something small and hard in it. The candlelight caught the item, and a new star was born in the night.
He had just dropped a diamond in her hand. A goodsize one.
“Of the finest clarity, as you demanded,” he said.
“I did not demand any—” She lost the path of her thought. She had to pick up the stone and hold it to the light. The clarity astonished her. But for all its brilliance, the human warmth of his hand on hers distracted her more.
His touch felt so good, so intimate and human. She should withdraw her hand, but she did not. The careful, firm support seemed protective. What would it feel like to turn her hand, so it was palm on palm?
She placed the diamond on the table. The dancing candle flame made its surface flash. “I cannot accept it. You know that I cannot.”
His other hand reached toward the stone. The move angled his body closer to her. His long fingers turned the diamond, almost absently, while he looked at it. She gazed at it too, keeping her eyes averted from that face and that dangerous appeal.
“What are you afraid of, Mrs. Joyes? If I thought to buy you, I could do better than this.”
Tonight the implied proposition charmed her more than irritated her. No doubt that was the wine again.
He angled closer yet. “Is it scandal that you fear? I think not. You are too self-possessed to worry overmuch about it, and you are unlikely to be indiscreet enough to be a victim of it.”
“I do not fear scandal so much anymore. When I was young it terrified me. Ruled me. However, maturity brings a new perspective to such matters.”
“Then what is it that you fear?”
“Do not pretend that you do not know.”
“A week ago I would have said you were afraid of me, but now I am wondering if perhaps you fear yourself instead.”
She dared not turn her head, because he would see her surprise at his insight. He was also too close now, so close that his breath feathered her ear. He turned her hand on his own and stretched his fingers between hers so he held her fast.
Her own breath jumped around inside her, not knowing where to go. She wanted to close her eyes and relish the lovely stirrings in her body.
“I am not afraid of you.” Not truly. Not in the sense that he might physically harm her.
Right now, tonight, with the stars above and the breeze teasing her, with the wine making her lighthearted and with romance in the air, the many reasons for resisting his temptation seemed part of a different, distant world.
“Perhaps it is pleasure itself that you fear and the loss of your careful composure.” The words whispered in her ear, so low they might be her own thoughts. His breath, so close, became an irresistible tease.
And still the barge floated back and forth. It would continue doing so until he signaled otherwise, she knew. Her friends would not return either until that happened. They would continue indulging in marital bliss, moved by the wine and the night and the stars and their love, until the barge clearly turned to go upriver.
The deep, sensual purr inside her overwhelmed attempts to scold herself. A subversive notion entered her thoughts instead—that he would lose interest once he won his game, and therefore surrender might not be so foolish. That her resistance only intensified his pursuit. But more than anything, a poignant ache made her weak and unable to remember why she had to deny herself.
A kiss most discreet, on her hand. A small thing, yet it shook her to her essence. Another, on her shoulder, and a hand sliding her shawl down before one more scorched the skin there. He embraced her shoulders and kissed again, this time the crook of her neck.
Heaven help her, she savored every sensation. She closed her eyes so she could revel totally. Further kisses on her neck, on her skin and hair, did glorious things to her, unbearably wonderful things. The wine had demolished her best defenses, and these small lures too easily breached what was left.
She did not resist when his embrace lowered and drew her closer nor when his kisses claimed her mouth. She was glad the pleasure did not sweep her away to some unearthly realm, because she ached to feel everything. She dwelled on the warm, dry pressure of his lips and relished how inner shudders flowed down her body.
Misgivings could not survive such a sensual onslaught. They sank beneath a euphoria born of intimacy and delight and pleasure. Astonishing pleasure. With each sensation more powerful than the last, pleasure stole her breath and made her hunger for more.
Her lover knew what he was about. That small thought entered her mind as she submitted to the art of those kisses, to the way he used his mouth and tongue and even his teeth. It intruded once more when he began to caress her. His hands knew just what to do, just how to move. She waited for the masculine press against her body, and her wanton desire impatiently urged more scandalous touches.
His caress moved up her side, skimming the outer swell of her breast. A jolt of excitement drenched with anticipation shot through her, then lowered and pooled in shocking places. The caress smoothed over until he cupped her breast, and delirium descended. He withheld what she wanted for a torturous minute, so long that she wanted to weep or curse him. Finally, finally, the caress she craved sent shimmers through her body.
She luxuriated in the thrills and the ruthless way he drove her mad. The pleasure grew more intense with each touch. She sensed all control slipping from her grasp as her awareness constricted to her body and his aura and the abandon crying for completion.
Dazed now, existing in a sensual stupor, she could only follow when he stood and guided her by the hand away from the table and settee and down some stairs. In the dark, on the side deck, the lanterns barely illuminated the spot where he stopped beside a pier of the tilt house. The silhouette of one pavilion could be seen near the stern.
You must stop him now, because he will not stop later
. The warning barely whispered in her mind. Tonight it sounded like a lesson memorized to no purpose, not some hard-won truth. He pressed her against the pier and passionately kissed her neck and demolished the small foothold her common sense had managed to find.
He set her arms to her sides and took her two breasts in his hands. Despite her garments, his touch found the tips and teased until she would not have stood but for the wall at her back. She could not believe what it did to her, the way desire taunted her to distraction.
She opened her eyes so she might not go insane from it. The light from the nearest lantern made him barely visible to her, but she saw his face, taut and hard, while he watched her.
Firmly, he turned her so she hugged the wall. He covered her with his body, and his arm circled her shoulder. His hand slid below her dress’s edge so he touched her naked breast.
She had thought it could not be worse, but now she truly suffered from pleasure. Her body silently cried and begged and screamed. He caressed her freely, shockingly, everywhere, her hips and bottom and thighs, while his body pressed hers and his hardness taunted her even more.
A new coolness flowed on her legs. She realized her skirt was rising. Higher now. The shock gave her a jolt of sobriety. She looked over her shoulder, alarmed.
“No,” he said quietly. “Not here, although later tonight I will be cursing my deference to your need for discretion and privacy.”
“Perhaps I will be too,” she muttered. The bottom of her dress was at her thighs now. The wickedness of that rising hem made her shiver with anticipation, even with his reassurance that this would not go too far.
Suddenly his hand was on her down there again, beneath all her garments, skin on skin, stroking her thigh, and higher.
“You will be cursing no one, I promise. If anyone suffers for this inopportune passion, it will be me. Again.”
His hand firmly followed the curve of her bottom, startling her. The anticipation became a yearning throb. She was in much deeper than she expected, and her vulnerability alarmed her.
Castleford stepped closer, so he pressed her to the wall, his one hand tantalizing her breast and the other caressing her bottom in the narrow space between them. “You will do as I say now. You will move one foot to the side a bit. Then you will let pleasure have its way with you and not deny yourself or me the experience of that wildness.”
He touched her then, before she even absorbed what he said. Touched her so intimately that she gasped. She moved her leg as he had commanded, allowing a new exposure. Then he stroked her so effectively that she barely swallowed a moan.
She surrendered completely. She had no choice, no will, no desire to stop any of it. His odd embrace kept her standing or else she would have collapsed, she was sure. She could not feel her legs or anything except the excruciating tease at her breasts and the exquisitely carnal demand that intensified until she wanted to beg for mercy.