“All I have to do is look at your breasts and I know that well enough. Is that a blush I see on that brazen face of yours? All right, so you wish to string me along, like a trout on your fishing line. That is very female of you, Corrie, and I don’t appreciate it. You say I don’t love you-all this has happened too quickly. How can something like that happen in the course of a week? I do like you all the way to the soles of my feet; I admire you. I think you’re too brave for your brains. I think you’ve been a twit more times than not, but the fact is we’ll do very well together. Now, listen. We’ve known each other forever. My parents are very fond of you, and you of them-forget my grandmother, she hates everyone-and your Uncle Simon knows that you won’t have to be hunted down like a rat if you marry me, since our marriage would have nothing at all to do with your blasted money. Everyone would be relieved. The gossip would stop. We would be blessed and smiled upon. No one would cut you, ever again. I would no longer be considered a ravager of young maidens. We would get along fine, Corrie. Enough of this.” He hauled her against him and kissed her.
Corrie, who’d only been kissed by Willie Marker, nearly blacked out. Delight, that’s what it was, and it swept over her with the force of a wave at the beach. His tongue touched her lips, pressing lightly. Without any hesitation at all, Corrie opened her mouth and nearly fainted with the lust that poured through her when his tongue touched hers. She knew it was lust; it had to be lust because it felt so very good. She knew lust was wicked because Uncle Simon was wont to say that the reason wickedness was so rampant in the world was because it was so utterly delicious. Well, with James, it was beyond delicious. This was something she’d never even known could exist, it-
“Oh dear, excuse me.”
Corrie would have crashed insensible to the floor if James weren’t holding her up.
James’s brain nearly melted at the sound of his mother’s voice. His heart, nearly pounding out of his chest, thudded to his feet. His sex, thank the good Lord, became instantly dormant. He knew he couldn’t let go of Corrie, she’d fall in a heap.
He managed to pull his tongue out of her mouth and slowly, very slowly, he turned to say, hoping he wouldn’t pant out his words, “Hello, Mother. Since Corrie and I are engaged now, she wanted to know what it was like to kiss.”
Alexandra stood in the doorway, amused, horrified, and terribly aware that her son had his tongue nearly down a girl’s throat. Corrie looked like a half-wit, which was a very good thing, she thought, shuddering, because in that instant she remembered the first time she’d kissed Douglas, and lost her head. As for James, he looked flushed, embarrassed, and-no, better not think along those lines.
What if she’d walked through that door two minutes from now? Oh dear. What was a mother to do?
She cleared her throat. “Welcome to the family, Corrie.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
JAMES WAS DRINKING tea the next morning, actually sitting in his chair in the breakfast room, not propped up in his bed. And, glory be, he didn’t feel like he wanted to fall off his chair and curl up on the carpet.
Jason said, as he handed him a bowl of porridge, “This is from Mrs. Clemms. She said you were to eat all of it or I was to stuff it down your gullet. If I didn’t succeed, why then, she would come out here to stand by your right hand and sing opera in your ear until you’d licked the bowl clean.”
“I didn’t know Mrs. Clemms could sing opera.”
“She can’t,” Douglas said, and grinned over the top of his paper.
James spooned up a big bite, and sat there, chewing, savoring the sweet honey she’d mixed in with the porridge, when his mother walked into the room, allowed Willicombe to seat her, then announced, “I will meet with Corrie and Maybella this morning. Your father thinks the sooner your marriage takes place the better,” and then she picked up a slice of toast, smeared gooseberry jam on it, and took a satisfying bite.
James swallowed too quickly and choked. His father was halfway out of his chair when James raised his hand and said, “No, sir, I’m all right. I was thinking, Mother, just perhaps it would be better if Corrie and I met first.”
“What is this, James? You’ve still failed to convince her? She’s still threatening to bolt?”
James turned to his father. “If I give her more than a minute alone, she will talk herself into a panic. Yes, probably she’ll bolt. She told me that it isn’t fair, said she’d just begun to sow her wild oats, you see, whereas I’ve had seven more years to be as debauched as I please.”
“Hmmm,” said Corrie’s future mother-in-law. “She has a point, James. I hadn’t thought of it in quite that way. You know, the same was true of your father and me, only he was ten years older than I, and he knew ever so much more than I did and-”
“I don’t think you should revisit the past, Alex,” Douglas said. “You might not remember things in the way they actually happened.”
“Well, that’s certainly something good about getting older.” She smiled at her sons. “One does soften things a bit through the haze of years. James, if you like, I can fetch Corrie and bring her back here.”
“No, thank you, Mother. Since I’m feeling more fit this morning, I think I’ll take Corrie riding in the park. But first, I must write an announcement.” James excused himself, and said over his shoulder as he left the dining room, “I shaved myself this morning. Petrie predicted I’d slice that lovely vein in my neck. I swear he was disappointed when I didn’t.”
“And,” Jason said, rising, “I am off to meet with several of our friends. None of them had news the other night, as you well know, but I understand from Peter Marmot that we’re going to meet a fellow down in Covent Gardens. Supposedly he spoke about this Cadoudal fellow. There’s probably nothing to it, but you never know.” Jason fiddled with his napkin a moment, then said, his voice lowered, “Actually it was James who was supposed to go with Peter, but I don’t think he’s completely well yet; at least I don’t want him to risk himself again so soon.”
“I’ll come with you,” Douglas said, and threw down his napkin.
“No, Father, we’ve discussed this. We all believe strongly that you need to stay close to home for the next couple of days. The man who had James kidnapped must know now that he failed. I know he’ll be coming up with something else very soon. Please, sir, let us see what we can find out.”
“If you get yourself injured, Jason,” said his father, “I will be very upset.”
“Just don’t tell James about this. He’s liable to try to throw me into a wall.”
“If you get yourself hurt, I’ll throw you into a wall,” Douglas said.
Jason gave him a cocky smile, leaned down to kiss his mother’s cheek, and walked out of the breakfast room, whistling.
“Young men believe they’re immortal,” Douglas said. “It scares the hell out of me.”
CORRIE WAS CHEWING on her thumbnail, looking out over the long, narrow park across the street from Uncle Simon’s town house on Great Little Street, wondering what she was to do. Climb aboard a ship bound for Boston-a strange-sounding name for a city-in the wilds of America? Or, and this was more likely, just fold her tent and walk down the aisle, James at her side. And, truth be told, what was so wrong with that? When he’d kissed her, she wanted to fling him to the floor and pin him down. She groaned aloud, echoes of those absolutely amazing feelings that had sunk into the deepest parts of her, those feelings that had made her soar into the heavens the instant his mouth had touched hers, still rumbling inside her. She shivered at the memory of those little sparkles of lust.
Corrie shook her head at herself, then saw a young lady walking across the park, coming this way. It was Miss Judith McCrae, and so very beautiful she was. Maybe even as beautiful as Miss Juliette Lorimer, who’d lost James, and wasn’t that just too bad?
At least if Corrie married James, he wouldn’t end up with an awful wife like Juliette, who wouldn’t appreciate how smart he was, how very clever and witty he was, who would whine if she had to lie atop a small hill and look up at the stars whilst James was peering through his telescope at the Andromeda constellation in the northern sky.
