Her betrothed was to arrive tomorrow to take her on a picnic.
The precipice of disaster loomed closer. Her life had ever been thus.
Fearing that witlessness ran in the family, any suitors she’d had over the years had been scared off by Richard’s idiosyncrasies. Mr. Montague didn’t seem the fearful sort, but once he saw her brother in a rage or shrinking into a corner and refusing to come out, what would he think? She didn’t want to frighten him off.
Or alternatively, perhaps she didn’t wish to know if Mr. Montague was as craven as her other suitors had been.
“Where is Gerry?” she asked. She supposed she needed to reward the man for bringing Richard safely to London.
Richard looked around as if he’d just missed his companion. “Gone,” was all he reported. “Can we go home now?”
How had he heard that she would soon acquire their former home? She’d been very careful not to raise his hopes. She hadn’t even invited her family to the wedding, because her mother hated leaving her books and her half sisters would have complained of the travel—and because the news about Carrington House would have them cackling enough for Richard to hear. Gossip must have reached them despite her precautions.
The black cloud of worry that had been hovering over Jocelyn since she’d first read Richard’s cryptic note dissipated, and was replaced with a whole new set of concerns. She considered his demand to go home. Carrington House was his real home. Richard needed familiar surroundings to feel safe. He wouldn’t know the new servants, but perhaps . . . Did she dare? She had already cheated Mr. Montague of the funds he was expecting. Once he learned about that, how could he become any more angry?
“Would you mind staying in Chelsea without me?” she asked her brother.
Richard shrugged as if he understood, which he might. He would simply forget the problem a moment later. “You found Percy?” he asked.
Jocelyn almost laughed. Richard could remember birds better than what he ate for lunch. She had told him she’d found the Grey, in hopes it would keep him happy for a while longer.
“Percy is with Mr. Montague, the man I mean to marry.”
He looked at her blankly and waited for her to say what he wanted to hear. His obliviousness could be most frustrating at times.
“Everything will be fine shortly,” she assured him. “I cannot replace all you’ve lost, but we can look for new specimens, just as we did when we lived there last.” Before their father died, she meant, but that loss still bewildered Richard, so she didn’t mention it.
He still looked baffled and unhappy. “I don’t know what to do, Josie.”
“I know. Sometimes I don’t either,” she admitted with a sigh, letting down her guard with this one person she trusted. “That’s when we just do whatever we must and hope for the best. Have you eaten?”
He frowned. “I don’t think so.”
“We’ll find you something to eat first. Then we’ll worry about the next step.”
It was a pity all men weren’t so easy to maneuver as Richard.
16
On Thursday, Blake steered his father’s cabriolet around an oxen cart and sent the horse trotting down the open road toward Chelsea. It was damned good to finally be out of confinement. Autumn had begun painting the leaves, and the carriage hood was required to protect against a brisk wind. But with Miss Carrington by his side, he was inordinately warm. Her smile could heat an empty chamber, and she beamed like sunshine on his dark world.
Seduction was all that had occupied his mind for these past weeks of enforced idleness. He couldn’t easily turn off his lascivious thoughts now that she was about to become his bride.
“Lady Belden is quite certain you mean to ravish me, you know,” she said with such innocence that Blake knew she had no idea that was exactly what he was inclined to do. “I had to persuade her that you are a gentleman, and my reputation is secure.”
“We have a postboy and an open carriage.” Both of which he had intended to lose, but as usual, she was diverting his plans.
She would be his
wife
. It would be his duty to protect her with his life. So he supposed ravishing would be wrong. “I would never do anything to harm you,” he added gruffly, cursing his inbred honor.
“Except throttle Percy and shoot my toe in retaliation,” she agreed, bursting his bubble with her usual perception. “You have already told me you are not a domesticated man. You do not have to pretend you are what you are not for my sake. Shall we see how the house progresses?”
Perhaps wooing Miss Carrington involved houses and family instead of kisses and gifts. How the hell would he know? Someone really ought to write a textbook on the minds of women.
Blake realized his seduction plans had been anticipated and outmaneuvered by a supposedly naive miss. He didn’t know how he felt about that. “We will picnic in the barnyard then, with the pigs and dogs and roosters.”
“I like pigs and dogs and roosters,” she countered.
“I like books and cigars and Scotch, but that doesn’t mean I’ll make you endure them.” So much for wooing. He was better at irritating.
She tilted her head and regarded him with interest. “That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like to try things that you like, although I must admit, cigars sound particularly nasty.”
“How do you do that? How do you take everything I say and turn it around so that you seem sweet and appealing, when I know you are simply skewering me?”
For a change, she looked startled, but she recovered admirably. “You don’t wish me to be sweet and appealing?” She flapped her thick lashes at him. “Or you dislike being skewered as you skewer everyone else?”
“Now, you intrigue me.” And she did. She looked like a flaxen ball of fluff in her ridiculous blue bonnet and nearly see-through muslin gown adorned with bits of silk flower buds. He felt as if he ought to pet her like a kitten and listen to her purr. But the kitten had claws.
He stopped the cart in front of the carriage house and let the postboy handle the horse while he helped her down.
“I am very adaptable.” She took his hand and stepped down to the newly mown grass. “But no one has ever called me intriguing. I think I like being mysterious, and I wager you prefer your ladies to be a bit of a puzzle you must conquer. Am I right?”
“I have never conquered a lady,” he pointed out as he lifted the hampers from the back of the seat. Apparently Lady Belden’s cook had thought to show off her picnicking skills. A delicious aroma of meat pie drifted from her basket.
“Your interest in me is puzzling,” Miss Carrington acknowledged. “Aside from the money, of course.”
“Apparently I like having my toe shot just as you like being shouted at. Either that, or we make a handsome pair.”
She laughed and tripped happily along beside him as he led her to a secluded area out of sight of the house. Admiring the overgrown brambles, she swung in happy circles in a grassy place concealed by shrubbery. Blake had to admit he enjoyed the puzzle she presented almost as much as he admired her lovely figure.
“I have been shouted at a great deal and tend to ignore blustering threats, so I shall settle for being a handsome pair.” She untied her hat and let it fall, then tilted her head to smile provocatively at him. “I also like kissing.”
A man could resist only so much. Setting down the hampers, Blake reached for the beauty tempting him. Somewhere in the recesses of his mind, he knew that she wanted something and this was her way of getting it. But he wanted the same, so he was happy to oblige.
She was so slight against him that it was almost like holding a feather, until their mouths met, and passion exploded. Blake sank into the plushness of her lips and breasts and drove his hand into the lovely silver-gold tresses he’d been dying to unravel.
She moaned and crushed closer, enthusiastically wrapping her slender arms around his neck and standing on her toes to better reach him.
The damned woman had no idea how close he was to ravishing her, just as her hostess had warned. He deepened their kiss.
Mr. Montague’s masculine scent of bay rum and whiskery skin aroused and tantalized, while his kisses taught Jocelyn the mysteries of desire. A shocking thrill rose in her midsection when his muscled arms lifted her and his mouth took possession.
His tongue hungrily probing at her lips made her actually feel wanted,
needed
, for the first time in her life. She craved more of these heady promises of happiness.
She dug her fingers into his coat and allowed him to pry her lips apart. She was glad for his support when his tongue touched hers. The sizzling thrill caused her to doubt her ability to stand on her own. His broad hands grasped her more tightly. He was to be her
husband
. With the freedom to do this every day—
She gasped when her betrothed abruptly set her feet back on the ground. Covering her tingling lips with her hands, she watched in surprise as he grabbed the checked cloth Cook had used to cover the hamper. He flicked the cloth open, threw it across the grass, and reached for her again.
She knew she ought to stand firm, but she was still too dizzy to think. She had wanted reassurance, and he was offering it.
Now, she wanted more of his amazing kisses, much, much more. She’d tried to keep her teasing and taunting to a minimum, knowing he was already a smoldering fire ready to burst into flame. But she hadn’t counted on her own desires.
She willingly tumbled to the cloth with him, loving the hardness of his pure masculinity as he leaned over to resume their explorations. Recklessly, he nibbled her ear and down her throat, until she was certain she would be consumed. His knee pinned her gown between her legs, and her hips strained upward, aching to press against him.
Heat encompassed her breast through the thin fabric of her bodice where his fingers cupped her. His moan of pleasure aroused her own. She ached. She longed. She desperately needed more. . . .
And she remembered marriage meant babies.
Before her formidable betrothed could take what she so recklessly offered, Jocelyn shoved him off, rolling breathlessly out of his reach. She scrambled to her feet, shook out her skirt with trembling fingers, and tried not to look at the big man lying sprawled on the cloth, propped on his elbows while jabbing his hands into his hair with frustration.
“I want to trust you,” she said, crouching down and hiding her blushing cheeks by poking around in the hamper. “I really do. But it would be much easier to trust after we have said vows.”
Mr. Montague didn’t answer, and Jocelyn steeled herself for a furious male tirade. She had hoped and prayed that if she could cajole him into a reasonable mood, she would find some way of working Richard into the conversation, but that would not be practical now.
“When it comes to women, men are never to be trusted,” he finally replied, in a pure male rumble that sent a tingle up her spine.
“Really?” Fascinated, she set out the bottle of wine and glasses Cook had provided and dared look at him again. “Are you saying men are little better than animals? I like animals.”
He continued to lie prone on the tablecloth while he gathered his obviously thunderous thoughts. “Thank you for that insight,” he grumbled. “Would you care to scratch behind my ears?”
She laughed. She almost fell over laughing. It was such a relief to know that he didn’t hate her, and that he could see the lighter side of his dark nature.
He turned on his side to watch her with an odd expression. He was all masculine strength and muscle, a large cat stretching in the sun. She averted her gaze from the powerful play of muscular thighs revealed by tight pantaloons.
Seeing the wine, he grabbed the corkscrew and put his energy into a practical task. “I suppose if you can find amusement in our strange predicament, I can learn tolerance. Some,” he admitted reluctantly. “I am not, on the whole, a tolerant man.”
She located the wineglasses. “I, on the other hand, am very tolerant and simple. You are doing your best to confuse me and succeeding. I am not accustomed to that.”
“You are accustomed to outwitting every man who crosses your path,” he argued, popping the cork and pouring the wine. “You may do it with artlessness and beauty, but you use your wiles deliberately. Men can fight with words and fists, but they cannot fight winsome looks.”
He thought her beautiful? Jocelyn touched her sorry excuse for a nose and hid her smile of delight. He thought her
beautiful.
And that she could outwit men! Well, maybe she did that a bit. But she would not let his flattery go to her head.
“Men fight women’s wiles all the time,” she argued. “Viscount Pig was never swayed by tears or pity. I think it may only be gallant gentlemen who are swayed by wiles. Not that I admit to having any,” she added hastily.
“Then let us simply say you are a formidable opponent.” Mr. Montague lifted his glass to hers in salute.
Fascinated by his perception of her, she finally dared to settle on the ground when he gestured for her to sit opposite where he lay.
“I fear I was spoiled by my father’s political salons. I acted as his hostess because my mother would not, but I was only a child. So I curtsied greetings and sang if my father asked it. I was not allowed to speak, but I learned a great deal from listening,” she explained, now that they had reached what she hoped was a higher level of understanding.
“Politics,” he said in disbelief, as if she’d suggested running nude and strewing feathers through the queen’s chambers. “I cannot imagine your interest.”
Well, she supposed understanding went only so far.
She tried not to stare too hard at broad shoulders bulging in tight superfine as he rested on one arm, but it was hard to drag her gaze away. She had a vague understanding that normal wedding nights involved sharing a bed and more than kisses. She tried to envision him without his clothes, and her cheeks heated.