Sari Robins - [Andersen Hall Orphanage] (17 page)

“I
can’t believe how much information Mr. Leonard has shared with us,” Edwina marveled as she and Prescott strolled through Green Park.

The leaves danced on an evening breeze as the final rays of the sun faded into darkness. It was amazing how quickly the air cooled once the sun had dropped below the rooftops of the nearby town houses.

“Was it helpful?” Prescott asked, staring off into darkening landscape.

“Immensely. His experiences at White’s and Boodles are invaluable to our current situation at the society. I must confess, I had no idea who he was when you first mentioned him, but now, I cannot thank you enough for the introduction.”

“Few people know Leonard. Discretion is his byword. Moreover, since he’s not the day-to-day manager but more of a ‘behind the scenes’ facilitator, even fewer
know of his connections to the clubs. Most of the club members have no idea of the influence that he wields, and he likes it that way.”

“That story he told about pretending to be a footman and serving those two gentlemen who were making application to the club was absolutely astonishing.” Edwina raised a hand to her heart and the reticule hanging from her wrist banged against her hip. “The wretched things those men said about the club’s members without a dollop of consideration that he might overhear! I know that many view servants as inconsequential, but such indiscretion is unpardonable.”

“Which is part of the reason the gentleman found themselves rejected. Although they have no idea that Leonard was the cause. So you mustn’t repeat the story.”

“Upon my honor! I would never betray the trust he placed in us by sharing such knowledge.”

“He liked you, Edwina. And was most impressed with all you’ve done with your society.”

They’d reached the end of the path, where a gazebo sat in a pool of shadow from the canopy of trees overhead. It had gotten very dark very quickly and Edwina noted that few people were about. Her heart began to dance just at the thought of being alone with Prescott in such a romantic setting.

She reminded herself that soon their friendship would be but a memory. A very short, unfulfilled one. Although they might be friends at the end of this adventure, never again would they be pushed together in this ruse of being engaged. The intimacy would be lost, as would any sense of romance, however imagined.

Prescott motioned that they go inside the gazebo.

Climbing the stairs, Edwina aimed for nonchalance as she continued the conversation. “His advice is already giving me the seeds of a plan of what to do with the society’s newfound popularity. Now if only I can convince the board of the wisdom of such a course.”

“Oh, no.” His tone was mocking. “Edwina has another plan!”

Good-naturedly pinching his arm beneath her hand, she blushed, “Things haven’t gone so wretchedly wrong yet, have they?”

“As a matter of fact.” Stopping inside the cool gazebo, he drew her to stand beside him. “They have. There’s something we need to discuss, Edwina, and now is as good a time as any.”

At the seriousness of his tone, her stomach sank. “Look, Prescott, I owe you an apology.”

“For what?”

“For yesterday. I shouldn’t have pried.”

Turning away, he removed his hat and brushed his hand through his hair. “I shouldn’t have been so prickly. For some reason, when I’m with you, I have a hard time keeping my feelings masked.”

“But you shouldn’t have to hide your feelings, especially when they’re so justified. Who am I to question your choices? It’s none of my business.” Even though she ached for it to be.

“You spoke out of consideration, Edwina, I know that.”

“Let us face facts, Prescott; I’m interfering, bossy and more than a little full of my own good opinion.”

White teeth glistened in the dimness. “Are you certain you haven’t traded places with Janelle?”

“I’m being serious, Prescott. I had no right.”

Turning, he walked to the edge of the gazebo and stared out at the woods. The wind blew and the leaves rustled in the trees. “As my friend, you’ve earned the right.”

Her heart swelled with gladness, but she tempered it. “I’m pleased you consider me a friend, as I do you. But—”

“On that first day we met you asked that I be honest with you in all things…” Prescott’s broad shoulders lifted in a shrug. “Well, I haven’t been. About something important. At least to me.”

Edwina pressed her lips together, waiting for the axe to fall.

“Catherine Dunn, Cat, well she’s much more to me than an instructor at Andersen Hall. And, much more than simply another charge that I grew up with at the orphanage. Cat…” His voice trailed off with emotion. “Cat’s been my best friend for ages.” He turned to face her, but his features were cloaked in shadow. “And I love her more than I’ve ever loved another person in my life, save my mother.”

Edwina swallowed, feeling a little ill. She wanted to ask if he loved her like a sister or something more, but no words would come.

“But Cat kept secrets. Not just from me, but from the world. Completely justifiable, understandable, reasonable secrets for her to keep—”

“But it hurts,” Edwina supplied softly, “that she didn’t share them with you.”

“Terribly.”

Edwina swallowed, her heart aching for him. “You feel betrayed.”

“Yes. And a bit…lost.” His pain was so tangible, it
was as if the very air Edwina breathed was tinged with sorrow.

He swallowed. “It’s like everything I’ve counted on, my bearings have all disappeared…” His voice cracked.

“Headmaster Dunn.”

Mutely, he nodded.

Stepping forward, she grasped his hand and squeezed. “I’m so sorry, Prescott.”

He nodded. “Thanks.”

Releasing her hand, he moved away, and she felt helpless, wishing there was some way she could ease his pain.

He began to pace, his bootheels thumping on the wooden floor. “Then Cat married Marcus…”

Edwina held her breath.

“And I felt even more betrayed.”

Edwina’s heart sank and she exhaled, trying to quell the deep disappointment slashing through her. He loved her. Cat. The woman of his heart.

Spinning on his heel, Prescott turned and paced once more. “But I realize now that I was simply feeling excluded, discounted from all she was doing, all she was facing, all she was suffering. Hell, I was her best friend and I didn’t even know her real name.”

“That had to hurt,” Edwina murmured.

“Oh, it did. It still does. But not as badly as it once did. Not recently, anyway.”

Edwina looked up.

“You see, I’ve been a little distracted.”

“The whole blackmail affair…”

“That, yes, but it’s been a bit more than that. You see, I find you altogether too distracting.”

Edwina blinked, trying to make sense of this. Was he trying to bow out of the plan for the Kendricks’ house party? But, no, he’d just said that
she
was altogether too distracting.
She. Edwina.

Her stomach lurched. Did he no longer wish to be in her company? With Janelle and Ginny there, mayhap Prescott didn’t feel she was needed at Kendrick manor after all.

In a panic, she blurted, “I don’t necessarily have a pride of authorship, so to speak, about the plan. Well, that’s not entirely true.” Was she blabbering, again? “But I think that I can really contribute to this effort and see my role as very important.”

He halted. “What are you saying, Edwina? It’s your secret the blackmailer is threatening to expose.”

“Oh, yes, yes, of course.” She bit her lip, wondering at that idiotic lapse. “What was I thinking?”

“I’m talking about my”—he pressed his hand to his chest and then toward her—“attraction to you.”

“To…me?”

“Yes. It’s been altogether too distracting, but in a good manner. And it made me realize that I couldn’t have loved Cat, not in that way, if I could find myself drawn to you so quickly. Don’t you see it?”

“Oh.” Edwina’s brow furrowed. “Yes, of course.”
Not in the least.
But she didn’t want him to stop talking and certainly not to stop talking about this attraction to her.

He opened his hands wide. “I simply needed to get over my hurt pride and recognize that Cat and I weren’t ever meant to be together that way. It’s been quite liberating to realize that I was wrong, and now Cat and I
can be friends once more. The way we were always meant to be.”

“That’s wonderful.”
But what about that attraction to me?

“Isn’t it?” He exhaled. “I’m really quite relieved.”

“I’m glad.”
But what about the attraction?

“And I feel like I’m regaining my footing once more. I’m not quite there yet, but things are improving. My business venture is moving forward, I have a sense of where I’m going…”

“That’s all so…wonderful.”
Would he ever get around to talking about his attraction?

He stepped close. “You already said that, Edwina.”

“Oh, did I?”

“Yes, you did.” Lifting her chin with his finger, he traced the back of his hand across her jaw, searing her skin with his touch. “But enough about me, I want to talk about us.”

Her breath hitched. “We can talk more about you if you’d like…”

“Would you like that?”

“Or we could talk about the attraction you mentioned…”

“Ah, yes. The attraction. It’s…distracting, making me exceedingly…prickly.”

Ever since leaving Hyde Park, Prescott had been thinking about it and had come to one conclusion; Edwina’s appeal combined with the fact that he’d been too long without a woman made him thin-skinned. His abstinence hadn’t bothered him until he’d begun spending time with Edwina, so it had to be the combination of the two. Otherwise, why else would he become so
angry when it came to talking about matrimony and fatherhood? Why else would he become so irritable when thinking about Edwina’s husband?

“This distraction…” Her voice was a throaty whisper. “Is it a good or a bad thing?”

Prescott could feel the delicious heat of her body as his fingers smoothed the line underneath her lovely jaw, traveling down her sloped throat toward the luscious swell of breasts underneath.

Her body quivered and her mouth opened, as if seeking air.

“I think the distraction is very, very bad,” he murmured, pressing his lips to her temple and inhaling her lily of the valley scent. “And it threatens to get much, much worse.”

He felt her lashes graze his cheek as she closed her eyes. “So what…what do you wish to do about it?” Her clove-scented breath teased his ear.

His own breath was heavy and his heart hammering in that delicious staccato of need. “I’d like to sate it.”

“Oh…?”

“But I worry, Edwina. You’ve never had an affair…”

She leaned back. “No, I’ve never…” Looking up at him, she licked her lips, drawing his gaze. Oh, how he’d like another taste of Edwina’s sweet mouth. “Before that night at the Vaughns’ ball…I’d never even considered myself a likely candidate.”

He wondered at her marriage but wasn’t about to ask. It might break the mood, especially after what Dr. Winner had said about Edwina’s devotion. A twinge of
jealousy pinched his chest over what Sir Geoffrey Ross had had. “And now, Edwina…?”

“Now, I want to…experiment some more.”

The pinch in his chest dissolved. A small smile teased his lips at the corners. “So I tempt you, Edwina?”

“In ways…in ways I’ve never imagined I’d be…”

A small bubble of delight surged inside of him, but he tempered it. This was her first dalliance ever; perhaps the novelty of it enhanced her keen desire.

“I’ve never felt the kind of…temptation that you inspire,” she continued breathlessly. “Not…ever.”

That swell of delight burst full bloom and Prescott gloried in it. She wanted him as badly as he wanted her. Could this night get any better?

Still, Prescott resolved to make this as good as he could for Edwina, knowing that she was not a woman of easy virtue.

Gently coiling his fingers into the curls at the base of her neck, he tilted her head back. Her creamy skin shimmered luminous in the darkness. With her petal-soft skin and delicious lips she was any man’s dream. But tonight she was his, only his. “I don’t want you to have any regrets, Edwina.”

“How can I have any regrets when we haven’t done anything yet?”

“Cheeky. I like that.” His lips were still quirked when they claimed hers, so pure, so soft, so Edwina.

Gently he urged her lips apart and he savored the honeyed sweetness that was so particularly
Edwina.
Her tongue explored with an artlessly passionate hunger that had his body thrumming to be inside of her.

She pressed closer to him, a small movement, yet his manhood responded by straining against his breeches. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, her body melting against him like hot wax to a candle.

This was everything he’d felt in the alcove, and more.

His hands traversed the plane of her shoulders, dipping into the shallow arc of her back and lower to reach for the lush flesh that he’d been dreaming about for days. Kneading the soft derriere, he pulled her closer, letting her feel his desire.

Shifting against him, she groaned. Desire spiked through him and his shaft pitched with need. She felt so good, so amazingly right, he knew he had to have her. And soon.

He pulled away, a little more roughly than he intended. “Not here.” His voice was a rasp.

“Hmmm…?” She swayed slightly on her feet and he held her close. Her head fell backwards, exposing a tempting arch of creamy flesh and suddenly his lips were tasting the salty skin, sucking, licking and exploring that willowy curve of neck.

As if of its own volition, his hand curved around her waist and under the soft sarcenet mantle she wore up to the bountiful swell of her breasts, gently kneading the soft flesh beneath. Through the thin muslin he felt her nipple pebble and press deeper into his hand.

She moaned, a low rumble that shook him to his boot tips.

Exploring her honeyed neck, he groaned. “I want you, Edwina.”

Her hand traced his shoulder, down to his elbow, his forearm and then to the hand that covered her breast. Then, as if realizing, she quickly pulled away.