“You’re upset about the horse,” he said.
“Yes, yes!” Her eyes glistened, and she blinked rapidly, refusing to weep. She clenched her fists. “I cannot believe I was so stupid and careless. I failed her, poor thing. They trust us because we teach them to do so. We make them our responsibility. Belinda trusted me to look out for her, and I betrayed her trust. I was not paying proper attention—and now she is h-hurt. And Fewkes might have hurt her worse.”
“A small hurt,” Darius said, surprised at this out-pouring of emotion. “And your groom would not have let Fewkes hurt her. Jenkins would risk his position to protect the animal, I have no doubt. You must not fret about what might have happened. You know what ifs are pointless.”
“What ifs,” she repeated. “Yes, yes. Futile.” She swatted at her eyes and essayed a smile. “Never mind. I feel like a fool, and I hate that.” She looked about her. “Where am I going? The house is the other way.”
“I wondered about that but said nothing, on the chance you were leading me astray,” he said.
“Astray?” Her voice climbed in pitch.
“A man can always hope,” he said.
Her color came back, a delicious pink. “I knew it,” she said. “I
knew
it.”
“Knew what?”
“Never mind.”
She turned abruptly—too abruptly, because she stumbled, her heel catching on the hem of her dress. Trying to pull her foot free, she tore the hem. Her boot snagged on the torn cloth, and she tripped, pitching sideways toward the gravel.
He moved to catch her, but her flailing arms got in the way and, trying to avoid getting knocked in the eye, he trod on her skirt, ripping it more. She shrieked and jerked away, throwing him off-balance, but he managed to grab her as they both went down. He hit the gravel, and she landed on top of him simultaneously, her weight thrusting him harder against the small, sharp rocks.
For once, thanks to Goodbody’s patient obstinacy, Darius was wearing a hat. Though it tipped over one eye, it stayed on, sparing him a bruise to his head and perhaps a concussion.
Not that he had time to care about bruises or concussions or the gravel digging into his backside.
They’d scarcely hit the ground before she was struggling frantically to get up. She’d fallen cross-ways on him, and when she tried to get off, he heard a ripping sound.
“Get up,” she snapped. “You’re on my dress.”
“I can’t get up until you get off,” he snapped back.
“Move your leg, you idiot!”
Impatient, she yanked at the dress at the same instant he shifted his weight. The dress came free abruptly, throwing her off-balance. She toppled backward, legs waving comically. Her dress slid back, revealing not only dirty boots but a good deal of stockinged leg.
He had no time to admire the view—or even to laugh at it, though she reminded him of an overturned turtle—because he was too busy trying to protect himself from those flailing limbs. He grabbed her fist before it could hit his face.
“Let go!” She kicked and squirmed. “Don’t touch me!”
He clamped his free hand over her mouth. “Stop shrieking, you idiot!” he said. That was all he needed: to be caught with her in a compromising position. “Someone will hear.”
She wasn’t listening. She was too busy wriggling this way and that, blindly kicking and hitting.
Fed up, Darius let go and tried to push her off.
She flinched at his touch and hastily struggled up onto all fours. She ended up straddling him—and that sent her into another flurry. In her clumsy haste to crawl off him, her knee landed on his groin.
He doubled up, gasping one short, very old English and most ungentlemanly word.
Through the miasma of pain he heard, “Oh, sorry. Sorry.” He felt more movement as she shifted her weight. Then the knee, carrying all her weight, landed on his thigh.
He said the word again, with more feeling.
“Sorry,” she said. “Sorry.”
He really had to kill her.
He untangled himself from the skirts and frenzied limbs and staggered to his feet. He didn’t wait for her to stand. He hauled her upright, grasped her upper arms, and shook her. “Calm down, curse you!” he snapped.
She stilled. She flashed him one of her murderous looks. She opened her mouth to say something.
He let go of her arms, clasped her face between his hands, and clamped his mouth on hers to silence her.
She froze.
He froze.
Then,
Oh, hell,
he thought.
And he kissed her.
Don’t touch me don’t touch me don’t touch me.
Don’t touch him don’t touch him don’t touch him.
In the instant they fell together onto the path, an image flashed in Charlotte’s mind, a picture from another life. She, so young, so happy for a time, tumbling with Geordie Blaine onto the grass, laughing.
And in the next instant,
Get up get up get up,
was all she could think—as far as she could think.
After that, it was all chaos and panic and trying to get away because she couldn’t trust herself with this man.
The world had lit up when Mr. Carsington strode into the stable like a golden god, so tall and beautiful and so utterly sure of himself. Even the uneasy horse quieted at the sound of his voice.
Charlotte hadn’t quieted. Her heart had leapt at the sight of him, lightening with relief because she knew he’d know what to do. He’d settle everything and save the horse.
Her heart had pounded, too, and not with relief but with something less innocent, because he was beautiful, and she wasn’t a good girl.
He was bold and improper and he made her want to laugh.
And now he was too close. He smelled like a man, and the scent was maddening. He felt like a man, and she ached for a man’s body against hers.
Hold me. Touch me.
Don’t don’t don’t.
Don’t kiss me don’t kiss me don’t kiss me.
She beat her fists on his sides, then his back, but it was a sham, a joke. His big, capable hands were warm on her face. It had been too long since a man had held her so, her face cupped in his hands.
Turn your head away.
How could she?
He kissed her, and she tasted summer and freedom and the youth she’d lost. One tantalizing taste of him, and a place inside her opened, a great emptiness she hadn’t realized was there.
She clenched her hands, trying not to touch him, but his mouth gentled on hers, and she tasted a sigh, or felt it. Her inner tumult began to quiet, and she felt a quieting in him, too, as he seemed to hesitate, to slow and pause. It was as though he’d felt something, too, something surprising.
It was his hesitation, perhaps, that made her heart give way. She felt it unfurling, even as her fingers uncurled and she rested her hands on his chest.
Only for a moment.
Only to feel it a little longer, the sweet wash of pleasure, the warmth of wanting and being wanted. She wanted to pretend for a moment that all was right again, and this was the forever she’d dreamed of long ago: to be held so, in strong arms, where she was cared for and safe. To be kissed as though she were the only girl in the world.
To be loved.
She felt his hands slide from her face, felt him start to pull away, and she wrapped her hands about his upper arms.
Not yet, please, not yet.
Only a little more, another moment. It had been so very long a time she’d done without this. She’d forgotten how sweet it could be, a kiss, merely a kiss. She’d forgotten how perfect the beginning could be, before everything turned cold and ugly.
She held on and pressed her mouth to his.
Come back. I’m not done.
She coaxed him with all the sweetness she could find within her.
She coaxed him with all the dreams she’d given up dreaming.
She coaxed him with all the longing she’d stifled, all the wishes, all the loneliness.
Ten years.
It spilled out of her, as though an inner dam had broken.
Ten years’ boredom, frustration, and anger.
Ten years’ lying and evasion and manipulation.
Ten years’ suppressed laughter, too.
It spilled out of her, all of it.
It was only a kiss, a mere kiss, but she kissed him with everything she had in her.
And at last he kissed her back.
He wrapped his arms about her and kissed her as though she were the only girl in the world and this was the last kiss in the world and all that was left in all the world was this kiss.
Only this kiss, so sweet.
…and wild.
…and hot.
…and devastating.
Her knees buckled. Her mind went dark.
The world shook and changed. Became unrecognizable.
The taste of him poured into her and swept everything before it. She was lost, tumbling along like a twig in a torrent.
She saw herself tumbling again, down to the ground, careless, laughing fool. Lost, lost, again.
No.
She couldn’t. Not again.
She wrenched her mouth away. She planted her palms on his chest and pushed. He didn’t move but only regarded her through eyes narrowed to slits of molten gold. The big chest under her hands rose and fell, fast and hard.
“You started it,” he said. His voice had dropped to a rumble. She felt it low in her belly.
Her breath was short and she struggled to form words. “
You
started it,” she managed to say.
“You didn’t stop it,” he said. “I was ready to, but you…” He trailed off. She watched a slow smile transform his face, making him more impossibly handsome than ever. “You know how to kiss. Well, well.”
He was right on every count.
She wanted to kick him for being right, and for what he’d done to her, so easily, oh, so easily.
Ten years, and she was as great a fool as ever.
She ought to kick herself.
He shrugged and looked about him. His hat must have fallen off during the tussle. She watched him pick it up, brush off dirt and gravel with the back of his hand, and put it on, tipping it at a typically rakish angle.
As though she needed the reminder. A rake. She
knew
he was a rake. She
knew
the consequences. She’d borne the consequences for ten long years.
One kiss, and she’d surrendered.
Another minute and he’d have had her on the ground, her skirts up and her legs spread, like all the rest of his strumpets.
Yes, it was her own fault, but she couldn’t bear it: the knowing rake’s smile, the cool confidence—when she felt as though she, and the world she’d so carefully constructed over ten long years, had shattered to pieces.
She snatched the hat from his head and struck him with it. She hit his upper arm, then his chest. Then she flung down his hat, kicked it, and stormed away.
Darius remained where he was, waiting for his breathing to slow and his breeding organs to settle down.
That kiss.
He did not like to admit it, even to himself, but his legs were the slightest bit…wobbly.
On account of a kiss. A mere kiss. Nothing more. He hadn’t put his mouth anywhere but on hers. He hadn’t put his hands on her breasts or between her legs. He hadn’t tried to unhook or unbutton or untie anything.
He couldn’t. He’d had all he could do to keep up with her, with that kiss.
It wasn’t supposed to happen, that kiss.
He knew better.
“
Moron,
” he said between his teeth. “Did you leave your brain in London?”
He closed his eyes but opened them immediately again because the sight in his mind was too painful to contemplate. One insane act after another.
He, a man of science, whom other men of science looked up to. He, who devoted himself to reason.
Yet he’d panicked over her damaged dogcart, practically fainted with relief to find her unharmed, then whined to her about his
father,
of all things!
“This is unacceptable,” he said. “This is…absurd.”
He searched for his hat and found it eventually, under a shrub. He brushed off dirt and leaves. “Idiot,” he growled. “Numskull.”
He shoved the hat onto his head. It was the celibacy, he tried to tell himself. A fortnight at least, perhaps as much as a month or even more since he’d last bedded a woman. He couldn’t remember when it was exactly, or who she was.
Celibacy was the trouble.
No, it wasn’t.
The trouble was Lady Charlotte Hayward.
The trouble was his inexperience with blue-blooded virgins. They were a species he did not understand and didn’t want to or need to understand. They were like…like an infectious fever. The only intelligent way to deal with them was to have nothing to do with them.
“You know that,” he told himself. “You’ve always known that.
Keep away.
How difficult can it be?”
By the time Charlotte reached the house, she had herself under complete control. She walked past the servants in the same calm and self-possessed way she usually did, and they did not betray by the smallest change of expression any reaction to her mangled coiffure and cap or the ragged hem of her dress trailing behind her.
When Charlotte entered her bedchamber, Molly simply stared, her mouth open, while her wide brown gaze traveled from her mistress’s head down, then up, then down again.
Before Molly could think of what to say, Lizzie came in. She, too, surveyed Charlotte more than once. “Did you have another accident?” she said.
“I fell,” Charlotte said. “I caught my heel on the hem of my dress and tore it and tripped.”
“Oh. I thought perhaps Belinda had stepped on you. Several times.” A pause, then, “I was told that Mr. Carsington was here.”
“Oh, yes. He was.” Charlotte looked away from her stepmother’s too-keen gaze and addressed the maid: “I need a bath, Molly. The sooner the better.”
“He’s downstairs, then?” Lizzie persisted.
“No. He heard about the accident and came to inquire after us. Then he left. That is to say, he left after settling a dispute in the stables about treating Belinda’s wound.”