Lady Lissa's Liaison (8 page)

"You smell of honeysuckle," Wylde murmured.

Lissa blinked, staring hard at the far wall, trying to mentally count the number of angling poles there, to decide what type of wood each was fashioned from, decipher each pole's length and heartiness;
anything
but acknowledge the keen and newly discovered desire surging through her. It would not do at all to be physically swayed by the man, Lissa knew. She needed to keep her wits about her and not become yet another female victim of Wylde's manly charms.

"Your skin tastes of the morning's dew," he continued.

Lissa, trembling, blinked again.
Two African greenheart poles,
she mentally said to herself, stubbornly trying not to become overwhelmed by his tactics.
One of British Guyana lancewood, another made of Jamaican greenheart....

It soon became decidedly difficult to concentrate on the angling rods; Wylde's mouth moved higher, reaching the shell of her ear.

Three of the poles are at least twelve feet in length; the others doubtless fourteen feet,
Lissa thought, but then she heard and felt Wylde's breath in her ear. Like a fanning flame—warm, erratic—it rushed inside of her, consuming any and all of her reservations.

Lissa forgot about the angling rods. Her eyes drifted shut again.

Wylde lowered his head, nuzzling his way down the long column of her neck, and then back up again. When he reached the underside of her chin, Lissa knew for certain she was completely lost to his lordship's masterful onslaught.

His lips soon found hers, claiming them with surprising tenderness, gently teasing each corner, and then slowly easing her mouth apart. She realized with a start that he wanted inside of her.

Hesitantly, Lissa obeyed the unspoken command. Wylde's tongue delved inside her mouth, searching out the moist recesses. Never before had she experienced such stark, stunning intimacy. But she wasn't frightened. Instead, she felt a wave of curious and glorious feeling pour over her. He tasted clean. Like the cool morning air; like the nature she loved so much. When their tongues collided, Lissa felt as though her world had bottomed out and she was spinning in some purely physical realm where nothing mattered but the touch and feel of him.

His thumbs caressed her cheeks as his tongue delved deeper inside her. It seemed that a volley of Roman candles exploded within Lissa. She felt transported up and out of her body. Felt, in fact, as though she'd died and had been lifted to a place that must surely be paradise. A soft, breathless sigh escaped her.

At the sound of her pleasure, however, Wylde suddenly stiffened. Abruptly, he ended the kiss, pulling his face back.

There came a moment of absolute silence and stillness.

Lissa forced her eyes open, seeing only the obsidian depths of Wylde's gaze. He studied her for a long breath of a moment.

"Have you no fear of me?" he finally asked, his voice husky, demanding. "I could, after all, be the darkness that would steal your light... could be a man of scarce morals... someone who could eat you alive."

Lissa felt herself blush crimson. How could she charge him with possessing no morals when she herself had allowed him to kiss her so intimately?

"You—you do not seem so terrible at the moment," she whispered honestly, "and I doubt you could be so... so heartless as to do the things you just said."

The moment the word "heartless" passed her lips, Lissa wished she could snatch it back.

Wylde's gaze instantly shuttered. His body stiffened.
"Faith,"
he muttered. He reached up and firmly guided Lissa's hands away from where they had been anchored against his chest. "I suggest you take yourself home.
Now.
Before either of us says or does something more we might come to regret."

He might just as well have thrown a bucket of icy river water in her face.

Lissa felt her entire body burn with a hot blush, caused not only by her careless word choice, but also because of her wanton behavior thus far. She immediately dropped her hands to her lap and clasped them tight together. She felt Wylder's hard gaze on her.

"You must think the worst of me, sir," she whispered, feeling miserable inside, "but I—I should like you to know that wh-what I just allowed to transpire between the two of us is... is something I've never done in my life before today."

"No?" he asked.

"No," she said, feeling the shame burn deep, deep inside of her—though not nearly as deep as the effect of his kisses had gone.

Wylde touched one finger to her chin, forcing her to look up to him.

Lissa thoroughly expected another tongue lashing. It never came.

"For what it is worth, I never for one second thought otherwise," he said.

Lissa didn't know whether to feel relieved or even more miserable. Was his comment meant to soothe—or did it indicate that her return kisses had been lacking, even schoolgirlish?

She had no idea, and at the moment, since she'd so willingly allowed her good sense to fly with the wind, she did not dare to dissect the issue further. Too, she needed Lord Wylde to help her catch the trout that had eaten Lord Langford's locket and also needed his presence to help ward off her many suitors. It was best that she just get beyond this uncomfortable moment and never, ever, let herself lose control with him again.

"Yes, well," Lissa said, clearing her throat and pulling back from the touch of his finger against her chin, "I—I think it wise we both forget about that—that bit of business. We should just agree that I, er, rather, the
both
of us, suffered a momentary lapse of good judgment, sir."

Wylde seemed not so eager to sweep their kisses under the rug. He lifted one brow. "So that is what it was?" he asked far too slowly, the sound of his voice doing odd things to the rhythm of Lissa's heartbeat. " 'A bit of business... a lapse of good judgment'?"

"Entirely," she insisted, even though her body claimed otherwise. "I suggest we endeavor to continue on with our original pact. In fact, we should do so immediately."

Before Wylde could gainsay her—or worse, announce that their pact was null and void due to her shocking lapse of ladylike behavior and his own daring—Lissa turned back to the table and quickly gathered up her sketchbooks and journal, then chose an assortment of fly-tying accoutrements to take with them to the water's edge.

That done, she quickly got to her feet, managed to maneuver her way around the bench, then made a hasty path for the door. She did not wait for Wylde to open the portal for her, but instead opened it herself and then hurried outside, into the morning's light.

Once there, Lissa paused alongside the profusion of wildflowers and took in several gulps of cool air.

She was amazed that she'd raced out of the river hut like a ninny, more so that she'd allowed him to take such liberties with her, and still more so that she'd responded to his kisses with such wanton passion. What must he think of her?

She heard Wylde inside, gathering up his angling equipment. He seemed in no particular hurry to join her.

It was just as well. Lissa needed these scant few seconds alone to gather up not only her dignity, but her resolve as well.

While she waited for him, Lissa repositioned the fly-tying necessities and her sketchbooks in one hand, then laid her journal atop the pile and hastily scribbled a list of to-dos on the back page.

Directly beneath what she'd written earlier that morning, she drew a rather unsteady line, then listed the following:
Keep to course. No more lapses of judgment. None.
She underscored the latter entry.

Wylde came out the door. Lissa flipped the journal shut just as he let the latch fall into place.

"You are ready?" he asked. It seemed that his protracted stay inside had been time enough to lessen the dark look of intent in his gaze and to also give some space to their combined lack of propriety.

Lissa felt a small sense of relief. "Very ready, sir," she answered.

"This way, then," was all he said, and he led the way back to the river, acting as though he'd not kissed Lissa so thoroughly as to make her see starlight and sunshine all wrapped into one....

* * *

As Lissa left the river hut with Lord Wylde, there was a stirring of intrigue and gossip brewing within all the hamlets of Derbyshire—one of Lissa's employees at the eye of it all. The raw-boned Mrs. Rachett, enjoying her moment in the sun, told one and all what she'd overheard about her lady and the Heartless Lord Wylde.

The old woman shared her second-hand knowledge with not only the milliner, the baker and even her godson who oversaw the stables, but also with the third cousin who could cook a duck to perfection at the busiest inn of Derbyshire, as well as her good friend who polished the pews for the rector at Ashbourne Church, with her great-nephew who often helped transport the Mails aboard the Royal Mail Coach, with her childhood friend's daughter who now baked confections at the far end of the smallest shire, and even with the newsboy from whom she sometimes purchased the print from London that happened a week or so ago in the Metropolis.

Before Mrs. Rachett left for Clivedon Manor just a scant three hours after arriving in the village, nearly everyone in every establishment and beyond had heard of Lady Lissa's scandalous liaison with the sixth Earl of Wylde, the very same who had made a notorious name for himself as a heartless beast of London Town.

The gossip grew to a fever pitch. By mid-afternoon, the lovely Lady Lissa was said to have become enamored of his lordship... and mayhap even
besmirched
by him.

The tale succeeded in whipping through all the hamlets of Derbyshire, skimming the very hills... until it seemed even the River Dove pulsed with a curious energy.

Who would have thought the exquisite, perfectly perfect Lady Lissa—the very lady who knew so many fine offers for her hand in marriage but had gainsaid them all—would willingly entangle herself in the dastardly web of a man know as the Heartless One?

Several prayers were whispered in Ashbourne Church for Lady Lissa. Even the rector knelt and offered a heartfelt prayer, for he knew what a fire storm all this gossip would create for his lovely parishioner. He'd married Lissa's parents, had christened the girl, and had been the one to stand over the graves of her fine parents. To hear that the young lady had chosen such a dangerous path worried him no small amount. He decided it was time to pay a visit to the lovely Lady Lissa Lovington....

Chapter 5

Lissa looked up at Lord Wylde, who stood beside her near the water's edge. The sun was fully up and shining on them with a bright patch of heat. Since leaving the lodge, they had fallen back into a mode of trout angling and had—thankfully—left any and all mention of their shared kisses behind.

In the interim, Lissa had managed to study the flies flitting above the Dove and instantly decided that the handmade ones she'd created in the river hut were all wrong.

"If you do not mind," she said aloud, sitting on a rock by the riverbank and pulling out all the supplies she'd brought with her, "I believe I shall tie a handmade fly of my own creation."

She bent her head, getting to work.

Lord Wylde stared down at her. "What about the green-drake, and the other fly?"

"Not quite right," Lissa murmured, her mind on her task.

"But I thought they were your chosen flies."

"I was mistaken. That happens, y'know. An angler can plot and plan all he wants before reaching the water about what type of fly to use, but once at the water the accomplished angler will always reassess things."

"Reassess?"

"That's right. Just as the wind will shift, flies will come and go. Whatever fly you thought best might not be at all the desired choice." She studied the feathers she'd brought, and the hooks as well. "Nature can be tricky, Lord Wylde. One must always be prepared."

He digested all she said. "And are you, my lady," he asked, "prepared?"

"Of course," Lissa replied. "I've brought with us all manner of feathers and threads and hooks. An accomplished angler is accustomed to forgoing his preparations and will simply allow the sight of the nature surrounding him to choose his course of action."

"So what you are saying, then, is that in spite of all your knowledge of insects, you really haven't a clue as to what will entice a trout to move toward a hook."