He sighed her name against her throat in a voice she’d not heard from him before, one imbued with longing and passion.
Ah, God, the pleasure of his open mouth on her skin. It was like horses galloping for joy inside her, like…
She arched up into him, knowing full well what that rising column of flesh was. To hold him to her and glory in his desire for her should have been unthinkable, but when his hand settled over her breast, she buried her nose against his throat and rejoiced.
It had been so terribly long, and this was what a spring day was for. This was what youth and life were for.
He closed his fingers gently around her breast, and lightning shot from her nipple to her womb. Lovely, sweet, piercingly pleasurable lightning that made her
And then, when she would have started tearing at his clothing, a sound intruded. A rude, wrong sound that had Lucas going still above her and shifting himself up onto his knees and forearms so he crouched over her.
The wheels of a large conveyance lumbered past on the other side of the swale. Over the clatter of the vehicle, Eve heard a man’s voice.
“…Probably off in the trees taking a piss. Pass me yon flask, Jordie…”
Above her, Deene let out a held breath.
There were men with pretty manners, and then there were men who were not always gallant, and yet they were truly chivalrous. Eve accounted Deene some points in the chivalry department when he didn’t immediately roll away from her but stayed for a moment tucked close to her, his hand brushing her hair back from her temple.
His caress soothed her and helped her settle. It kept inchoate shame from gaining a toehold over the warmth still pooling in her middle.
She might have initiated the kiss, but Deene was showing her that he’d participated in it willingly. When she turned her face into his palm, he sighed and kissed her cheek, then drew back.
“Evie, tell me you’re all right.”
“I am fine.” When he took himself away, she’d be bereft, but to hear honest concern in his voice made even that eventuality bearable.
He rested his forehead against hers then shifted away, leaving Eve lying on her back amid the lilies of the valley, mourning his loss but also consoled by his rueful smile.
“You pack quite a wallop, my lady.”
Wallop. She smiled back at him, for she
“I was either going to kiss you or give in to some other kind of upset.” She liked lying there amid the flowers, despite what it was probably doing to her fashionable brown ensemble. “And your kisses are lovely, Lucas.”
In the spirit of chivalry, she had to tell him that much.
“As are yours. But, Eve, we’ve had a narrow escape.”
And with that one solemn comment, Eve felt not the lovely, fragrant breeze of a joyous spring day, but that she was lying in the dirt, looking a fright, very likely having destroyed whatever grudging respect Deene had felt for her.
“Don’t poker up on me.” Deene used one finger to trace her hairline, then took her hand in his and drew her to a sitting position. “I’m not displaying the crests on the landau today, and that was hardly a fashionable conveyance that just passed.”
But his warning was clear: but for those two happenstances, she’d be ruined. A party from Town who recognized the Denning family crest would have remarked to one and all that the Marquis of Deene had been off in the bushes all alone with Lady Eve Windham. A little digging might have been necessary to find out with whom he’d driven out, but somebody—many, gleefully helpful somebodies, more likely—would have seen Eve leaving Mayfair up on the bench with Deene.
“Merciful heavens.” Eve dropped her forehead to her knees. “I’m sorry, Lucas. I did not think. I wasn’t —”
“Hush.” He stayed beside her, apparently in no hurry to rise. “A near miss is by definition not a disaster, and I could never regret such a pleasurable interlude, except that it does rather contradict the trust your family has placed in us both.”
She nodded and liked that he didn’t start fumbling around, blaming himself, when she’d been the one to accost him. If he’d taken that away from her, she would have
“It was just a kiss,” Eve said. “We’ve kissed before.”
“And it has been a delight on each occasion.” He sounded puzzled and pleased, if a little begrudging, which made Eve smile despite the rest of the thought he was too kind to say:
And
He needed to marry, and she needed to avoid marriage. If they kept up with the kisses, sooner or later their near misses and narrow escapes would yield to the inescapable forces of Polite Society.
And that she could not allow.
To be thirty years of age, an experienced man of the world, and yet utterly flummoxed by the kiss of a proper Mayfair lady was… not lowering, exactly, but astonishing—and little had astonished Lucas Denning since his first pitched battle on the Peninsula.
If he’d had sisters to ask, he might have put it to them: Was it usual for a woman well past her come out to shift from composedly sitting beside him on the driver’s bench, making conversation, to flat panic, to scorching passion in a matter of moments?
Except the insight of genteel womenfolk probably had less to do with Eve’s behaviors than did the sieges he’d witnessed in Spain. When the walls were finally breached, mayhem of the worst kind ensued. Decorated veterans became animals, their most primitive natures ruling all their finer inclinations.
To think Eve Windham was besieged by fear was not comforting at all.
What
“If I’d taught him to bow, he’d be on both knees before you, Eve Windham. That cannot be good for a horse who’s destined to compete for a living.”
“But he’s such a magnificent fellow. How could I not be smitten?”
The smile she gave the colt was dazzling, so purely beneficent Deene could not look away from the picture she made billing and cooing with the big chestnut horse. Willy was shamelessly flirting right back, batting his big, pretty eyes at her, wuffling into her palm, and wiggling his idiot lips in her hair. It wasn’t to be borne.
“Would you like to hack out with me, Eve?”
The smile disappeared. “I’m not dressed appropriately. Thank you for the invitation, nonetheless.”
He hadn’t expected her to accept, though he had wanted to hear her reply. He shifted closer to her in the stall, close enough that he could stretch out a hand to his horse and not be overheard by the lads.
“I’d put you up on Willy here. He’s gentle as a lamb under saddle.”
“You’d let me ride your prize racing stud?” The longing in her voice was palpable.
“I don’t think he’s going to hear, see, or obey anybody else when you’re in the vicinity. Willy’s in love.”
The blighted beast nickered deep in its chest as if in agreement.
“What a charming fellow.” Eve’s bare hand scratched right behind Willy’s ear, and if he’d been a dog, the stallion’s back leg would have twitched with pleasure.
What was wrong with a man when he wanted to tell his horse:
“I’d love to see you on him, Lucas. I’ll bet he has marvelous paces.” Now the smile was aimed at Deene, and even the horse seemed to be looking at him beseechingly.
“I cannot disappoint a guest. We’ll have some luncheon up at the house, and the lads can saddle him up.”
As Deene escorted the lady from the loose box, Willy managed to look crestfallen before he went back to desultorily lipping at his hay.
