Not Wicked Enough (14 page)

His eyes followed the direction of her arm. “March the twenty-ninth, fourteen and sixty-one.”

“The Battle of Towton?”

He nodded. “It was.” He used his shoulder to push himself upright. “You know your history.”

“I do, your grace.” She didn’t say so, but she appreciated that he was not bothered by her historical knowledge. It had been her unhappy experience that some men disliked the mere hint of erudition in a woman. As a child, there had been little for her to do but read what books were in her father’s library. Books of history, for the most part. And a great many treatises on architecture. She had become expert in both subjects. Had it not been for the housekeeper taking pity on her she might never have learned more feminine occupations.

“An ancestor of mine fought at Towton. He took an arrow in the thigh.”

“Was he badly hurt?”

“Not enough to keep him from continuing to fight. He was loyal to King Edward.” He walked in. “Up late as usual I see.”

His coming so near set off tingles in her chest and the backs of her knees. One of the inappropriate dreams she’d begun having, now for several nights running, had as its setting this very library.

“You don’t sleep well,” he said in his smoke-edged tenor. “Why is that?”

“Why does the sun rise in the morning and set at night? Because the world is made that way.” She shrugged. “I am not made to sleep at night. Since I shall be up one or two
more hours at least, I’ve come down to fetch the next volume of the novel I selected the night I arrived.”

“You are enjoying the story?”

“Very much. It’s quite exciting.”

“Then you did take something thrilling from the library that night.”

“I did, sir.” She wasn’t sure whether she ought to respond to the suggestion that lurked in his comment. “The heroine, Miss Quince, has been attacked by banditti whilst escaping from her uncle who wishes to force her to marry his odious son. She is in love, sir, with a poor young man who possesses a noble brow. I suspect the author’s use of
noble
is no accident and that he is a prince in disguise. Or else unaware of his heritage.”

“And vast fortune.”

“Indeed.” She smiled, pleased to have him join in. “I further suspect that the captain of the banditti is the brother she believes was lost at sea when she was a girl.”

He kept walking toward her. She did enjoy watching him move. He was a graceful man. The most shocking notions came to mind while she did, and really, where those thoughts came from did not bear examination. Him nude, bending to kiss a woman, moments from sliding into her willing body. As he had slid into hers in her dreams. More than once.

Her experience with Greer had taught her just how much she adored the male physique. Even though she’d not been with anyone since, there were times she longed for intimacy, for the pleasure a man’s body could give. There had been occasions when she’d thought even a man she did not love would do. The Duke of Mountjoy put just those sorts of thoughts into her head.

“What
are
you thinking, Wellstone?” His banyan shimmered in the light. This was the sort of fabric he ought to wear all the time, rich and flattering to his coloring and features.

“Nothing I will confess to you, sir.”

He was now in front of the suit of armor and mere inches from her. Lily was nearly five feet and ten inches, and
Mountjoy was at least two inches taller than she. He gazed at her.

More wicked thoughts occurred to her, more images from her dream, more forbidden longings. Whatever might happen, she would be safe. The Duke of Mountjoy was a decent man who had no expectations of her outside of this room. Her fortune was of no consequence to him. To him, her family connections meant nothing. Before much longer she would go home to Syton House, and if she had lovely memories of Mountjoy to add to her visit, then she would be a lucky woman indeed.

“Dr. Longfield is right. Your eyes are very fine. Full of life and spirit.”

“Good heavens,” she managed, somehow, to reply in a cool voice. She did not feel about him the way she’d felt about Greer, and he had no deep feelings for her, either. They could flirt in this way that was not innocent and have no fear of unwanted entanglements. “Was that a compliment buried in there?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you. To you and Dr. Longfield.” Her belly tightened. She’d worked so hard to suppress her attraction to him and all that simply vanished. He filled the room with his presence. She wanted to touch him. Yearned to touch him. To taste his skin, his mouth, feel his hair beneath her fingers, his breath warm against her skin.

“When I was in town this afternoon I happened to see him. He asked after you.”

“I hope you told him I’m well.”

“I did. He then described your eyes to me at length, but he was certain they were black.”

“Why on earth would he say anything at all about my eyes?” She walked away from him, heading for the shelves. “It was my finger he treated.”

“I’ve no idea. But one wants to know such things precisely,” he said. “When one is forced to listen to a man prattle on for the better part of half an hour about a woman’s
eyes. Could my memory be faulty, and your eyes are black? Or some other color entirely?”

She clutched her book. He had a way of making even a large room feel small. “Five minutes or twenty-five, I observe that he did not trouble himself to discover their actual color.”

“I grant you that.” He didn’t quite smile, but there was a lightening of his countenance that suggested he might. She resisted taking a step back when the duke took a step forward. Under no circumstances would she retreat from this spot. She intended to stand here as if her slippers were glued to the floor. “What color are they? Let me see, Wellstone.”

She lifted her chin and opened her eyes as wide as she could. “As you can see, a very common brown, your grace.”

He took her book from her while she blinked to recover her vision. What he did with the book she had no notion whatever. “There’s nothing common about you.”

Since he was so close, she put her hands on his chest. She knew immediately she oughtn’t have. Because everything changed. Her world was no longer safe. Mountjoy tensed, but he didn’t move away. He stayed just where he was, his moss green eyes on her face. The silk beneath her palms was as rich as she’d imagined.

“This is lovely,” she said, stroking the material. “You look a god in this.”

“A god?” His low voice sent a thrill through her, a warmth that centered in her belly.

“Yes.” She left her hand on his chest. “Arrayed in gold befitting your status as a deity.”

“It was a gift from a friend who traveled to Anatolia.”

What could he mean but a former lover? Of course he had had lovers in his life. A man of his great physicality must have lovers. “Was she very beautiful?”

The distance between them became smaller yet, and that made her pulse leap. A hint of citrus clung to his skin. “Why do you assume it was a woman?”

She curled her fingers around the lapels of his banyan, just beneath his chin, and that was the moment that sealed
her fate, because he still did not move away. And she didn’t want to. She didn’t. Because she wanted to kiss Mountjoy. And more. The anticipation was delicious. “Wasn’t it?”

“No.” He smiled, and it killed her to see the curve of his mouth, the tender shape of his lower lip. He had kissed other women. Taken them in his arms and whispered endearments to them.

“I hate them all,” she said. “Your previous lovers. All the women you’ve held and loved.”

“You shouldn’t.”

She leaned forward, dizzy with the images in her head and the longing for him to do…something.

“The friend who gave me this was a man,” he said. “I met him not long after I came into my title. He was in the army at the time and was soon after deployed near Constantinople. He’s only recently retired to the English countryside where he lives a very dull existence, so he tells me.”

“He has exquisite taste.” She stroked the silk, traced one of the sumptuous patterns embroidered in the fabric of his waistcoat. “You need more clothes like this.”

“My valet, Wellstone, says much the same thing.” He didn’t move. Neither did she. “He’s in raptures whenever I wear this.”

He was going to kiss her. She knew it and wanted it. Desired his mouth on hers beyond anything. Lily tightened her hands on his lapels. His head came nearer to hers, and she made sure to meet him. She closed her eyes in anticipation. But there was no brush of his lips against her, and she looked at him through her lashes.

One of his hands cupped the nape of her neck. So warm. His thumb slid toward her jaw. “Horrible man,” she whispered.

His hand moved along her jaw, and then his thumb brushed the line of her lower lip. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. You’re horrible.” She rolled her eyes. “I shan’t fall in love with you, your grace.”

“I don’t expect you will,” the duke said in a soft voice.

She wouldn’t. She couldn’t. Her heart had died with Greer. “You won’t fall in love with me, either.”

“No.” He laughed. “Given our mutual defects in respect of our hearts, tell me, what would you like to happen between us?”

“I’ve been thinking about that these ten minutes at least.”

His arm tightened around her. “Something shocking?”

She leaned closer. “You don’t strike me as a man easily shocked.”

He laughed, low and throaty. “I swoon, Wellstone.” He continued touching her face, but his other hand now rested on her waist, very near her hip. “But I shall endeavor to bear up.”

“I want you to make love to me.”

There. She’d put words to the feelings building in her.

His hand had moved up to cover the side of her face and then angled down until his first three fingers were underneath her chin. His eyes stayed locked with hers. “You relieve my mind.”

“Indeed?”

“I’d begun to think I’d put on this banyan for nothing.”

“You wore this for me?”

A grin pulled at his mouth. “You are welcome to see the matter in that light, yes.”

“Oh, you are horrible.” She tugged on his lapels. “I wish you weren’t so tall,” she said. “I thought I liked that about you, but I don’t. Not in the least.”

“Is this better?” He lowered his head to hers.

At last.

At last his mouth brushed hers.

Lily opened her mouth and kissed him, and he made a sound in the back of his throat and kissed her back. Before she was quite ready for the contact to end, she pushed him back. “Aren’t you worried we’ll end badly?”

“Yes.” He pulled her closer. “But right now I don’t give a farthing for that.”

She didn’t either.

A
S A LOVER—POTENTIAL LOVER
—L
ILY WAS UNFA-
miliar to him and he was, quite honestly, overcome with sensation. The entire time he was sticking his tongue down her throat and sliding his hands over all the parts of a lady a gentleman never touched, he understood he was crossing a line that shouldn’t be crossed. The knowledge aroused him even more.

Her skin was warm and her mouth hot beneath his, the shape of her body against his undeniably feminine. She tasted good and smelled even better, violets again, sweet and delicate.

No, at the moment, he didn’t give a damn that he shouldn’t be doing this. He wanted her, and he meant to have her.

She kissed him just as hungrily as he kissed her, and when both his hands cupped her arse, she tightened her arms around him and pressed harder against him, as if she couldn’t get enough either.

He entertained thoughts of laying her on the table, throwing up her skirts, and getting himself between her legs.
Would she object? Would she let him take her right here? Now? With just this desperate kissing and touching before they got there?