After she put them on, she laughed. “They’re huge.” She held up her hands, which looked clownishly large with his gloves on them.
He fought a smile. “But will they work?”
“I think so.” She nocked another arrow in the bowstring, once more sticking out a bit of her tongue.
This time, however, she ran it along her lips. He groaned as his body responded to that little motion. Bloody hell. One would think he’d never been around an attractive woman.
“Am I doing it wrong?” she asked. Clearly, she’d heard his groan.
“No, but let’s try it with your thumb here.” He put her thumb into the position so she could get a feel for it. “How is that?”
She let her arrow fly, then crowed her satisfaction when it hit closer to the bull’s-eye.
“Well done,” he choked out. “See? You’re already getting the hang of it.”
“Only because of your teaching.” She drew out an arrow from the quiver herself this time. “I still don’t feel as if I know what I’m doing.”
He heard a sigh to the right of them. He glanced over to see the bored groom sitting cross-legged on the ground.
Joshua headed over to hand the young man a sovereign. “Take this,” he said. “There’s no point in you suffering through our practice when you can be having a pint at that tavern we passed on our way here.”
The groom jumped to his feet. “Milady? Do you mind?”
“Not in the least.” She didn’t even look at him, waving him off with her arrow before nocking it into the bowstring. “We may be here a while longer, given how bad I am at this.”
The groom bowed. “Thank you, milady. Thank you, Major.” Then he ran off.
Joshua returned to her side.
“How do you know so much about shooting with a bow and arrow anyway?” she asked. “It’s not as if anyone uses them in battle or hunting anymore. Or do they?”
“They don’t. But my grandfather was a member of the Royal Toxophilite Society in London. Toxophilite means—”
“I know what it means, Joshua. It’s a fancy word for a skilled archer.” She lifted a brow at him. “As your sister once told you, ‘I can read, you know.’”
“Forgive me,” he said coldly. “I didn’t intend to question your reading abilities.”
“Don’t get all grumpy over it. I was merely pointing out that you aren’t the only one who knows something about books.” She nocked her arrow and shot it wide of the target. “And go on with what you were saying about your grandfather, the old duke.”
He shook his head at her. She was the only woman he’d ever met who was never put off by his being “grumpy.” “Grandfather was quite the archer; he taught me everything I know. That’s how I became aware of this place. It’s where the Toxophilite Society used to have their matches. I shot in one of those matches before I was shipped off to the Continent.”
“How old were you when you left?”
“Sixteen.” Before his leg was damaged forever. It seemed like a lifetime ago.
“So young?”
He shrugged. “I was lucky to have a grandfather willing to buy me a commission even though my father had died fighting a scandalous duel over a lady of ill repute. And sixteen is the usual age to start in the Royal Marines. At least I wasn’t in the navy. There, you start at twelve.”
A pensive expression crossed her face as she held the bow to her bosom. “I can’t imagine sending off my twelve-year-old son to battle.”
“Yet you would send him to Eton without a thought?”
“That’s different. There aren’t any cannonballs volleyed at you at Eton.” She cleared her throat. “So, is this bow your grandfather’s?”
“Actually, it’s Beatrice’s. I had it made for her when she found his old bows and wanted me to teach her. I believe she had a mind to get me interested in something—anything—after I was finally able to be up and around.”
“You mean, after you were wounded in battle.”
“Precisely.” And he did not want to talk about that with her. He couldn’t bear to see the pity in her eyes. “Anyway, I went over to Greycourt’s mansion last night to borrow it from her. I told her you wanted to learn to shoot.”
He knew he’d said too much when she narrowed her gaze on him. “So what you’re telling me is you had already planned this charade when we arrived in London? That you actually told Beatrice the truth of it, and she didn’t bat an eye?”
The look of betrayal in her eyes unsettled him. “Don’t blame her. I . . . um . . . didn’t exactly tell her the truth of it. She didn’t know you wanted to learn to shoot a pistol.”
“So you tricked her, too.” She faced the target, her expression grim. “Next time I see her, I intend to inform her of the full truth about that.”
It began to irritate him that she couldn’t understand why he’d done it. “Go right ahead. She will side with you in the matter, I’m sure. Though I daresay her husband will side with me.”
“I wouldn’t bet on that if I were you,” she mumbled.
She might be right, actually. Greycourt wasn’t like any duke he’d ever met. The man had married Beatrice, after all, and at the very least that required keeping an open mind about what sort of woman would make a good wife.
Gwyn would make a good wife for any man who didn’t give a farthing about what society thought. A man like him, come to think of it.
He scowled at that fanciful, impossible idea. “Let’s work on aiming for a while.”
The abrupt change in subject had her glancing at him. “I thought we’d been doing that already.”
“No. We’ve been working on your drawing of the bow.”
She sniffed. “Then you’ll have to show me how to improve my aim because I don’t see how I can do it any better.”
He really had got her dander up, hadn’t he? “All you do is draw back the arrow to your cheek so it’s directly lined up below your eye, the way I showed you before. Now line up the end of the shaft with the tip of the arrow and the center of the target—”
“How am I supposed to do that when I have the end of the arrow against my cheek?” she complained. “That makes no sense.”
Her arm shook a little, making it clear she was coming to the end of her stamina. Drawing a bow was harder work than most people realized, especially the way she’d been trying to draw it.
“Perhaps we should continue this another time.” Right now, he would happily join the groom in a pint.
She steadied her arm. “Just a few more shots. Honestly, I’m fine. I want to aim correctly at least once before we leave. If you could just show me—”
“Certainly.” He stood behind her again, this time trying to put more of his energy into holding the bow for her and less of it into holding her.
It didn’t work, especially because he wasn’t wearing his gloves. Putting his hand on her draw hand meant his bare hand was resting against her cheek. Her soft, silky cheek.
Swearing silently, he positioned the arrow the way he’d described. He released her hands. She shot the arrow. It went wide.
“Why didn’t that work?” she asked.
“Because it’s nearly impossible for me to aim properly when I can’t put the end of the shaft up to my cheek.”
“Oh! You’re right, of course. Here.” She thrust the bow into his hands and withdrew another arrow from the quiver. “Why don’t you aim as if you’re going to shoot at the target, and I will observe how you do it.”
Thank God she didn’t want him touching her again.
He did as she’d asked, shifting his weight onto his good leg so he could stay upright. Once he’d drawn back the bowstring, she peered closely at his bow and arrow from one side. Then she did it from the other. Finally, she took off his gloves and moved behind him.
But when she reached around him to cover his hands with hers, thus pushing her breasts into his back and her lower half against his arse, he’d had enough.
Dropping the bow and arrow, he
rounded on her. “Damn it, Gwyn. What are you about?”
“I’m trying to learn how to aim,” she said, sounding bewildered.
He knew better than to believe that. And he refused to fall for her tactics. “That’s not all you’re doing, admit it.”
“I honestly have no idea what you mean.”
Snorting, he grabbed his cane and advanced on her. “You’re cozying up to me. Bad enough you were forcing me to put my arms around you every other shot, but now you’re pressing your body up against mine, which is even worse. It’s all meant to tempt me into doing something rash so you can punish me for misleading you about the shooting lessons.”
“Why on earth would I choose that method to punish you?” she asked, backing away until she came up hard against a large birch. “You’ve made it quite clear you don’t find me appealing in that way.”
That caught him off guard. “How in God’s name did I make that clear?”
She jutted out her chin. “By refusing to speak of our kiss. By pretending it never happened, as if it were some . . . vile thing you’d endured for the sake of your ‘mission’ to protect me.”
Could she really be that unaware of the many ways she made him lust after her? Did he dare believe her?
He leaned in to plant one forearm against the tree next to her head. “Has it occurred to you that perhaps my ‘mission’ to protect you means not doing things like kissing you?”
“Why should it? It isn’t as if you’d do anything ungentlemanly to me. We both know you aren’t attracted to me. You think I’m a silly, spoiled female who—”
He kissed her. He couldn’t help it. She was blathering nonsense, and he had to make it stop. It was either that or lose his temper at her for thinking he would fall for her blatant lies.
But the longer he kissed her, the more he wanted to kiss her. Her mouth was so giving, so . . . so tempting. He could stand here all day like this, one hand on her waist, one knee rubbing hers through her gown.
God, when had he dropped his cane to put his hand on her? It didn’t matter. He wasn’t about to stop unless she made him. She tasted like ambrosia, whatever that tasted like. Food of the gods. Fruit of the forbidden. And she was forbidden as hell. He just didn’t care.
“Does this . . . clarify my attraction to you?” he murmured, his lips close enough to her mouth that he could feel her breath quickening. That he could use his tongue to trace her perfect bow of an upper lip.
“I’m not sure,” she said, her voice low and husky. “Show me again.”
That was all the encouragement he needed to seize her mouth once more, this time driving his tongue harder and deeper. When she moaned low in her throat, his need for her spiked unbearably high.
And hard. He was hard for a woman who, with one word, could ruin his reputation as an officer and a gentleman.
“You’ve got to stop doing this to me,” he rasped against her mouth. Her oh-so-delectable mouth.
She bit his lower lip. Lightly. Maddeningly. “So now it’s my fault you can’t control yourself?”
“You can’t control yourself either,” he pointed out.
“True. But that’s to be expected.” She cast him a look that was pure seduction. “I’m a woman—weak and helpless in the arms of a man, at the mercy of my lascivious urges.”
Even if he hadn’t heard the faint sarcasm in her tone, he would have known better than to believe that rot. “Yes, I noticed how weak you were when you were drawing back that bow to its farthest extent. As for being at the mercy of your urges . . .” He covered her mouth with his again, this time so he could slide his hand up over her breast, just to see how she’d react.
Right. Like that was why he did it. Not because he wanted to, needed to, damned well couldn’t help himself.
Her breast was plump and soft. God, how he wanted to taste it. But for now he would settle for caressing it, kneading it . . . imagining having it in his mouth. Clearly, he had lost his mind.
If she was trying to manipulate him using feminine wiles, it was too late to stop her. Because he’d already succumbed. He would march right along with whatever she wanted . . . as long as he got this brief chance to fondle her senseless.
She tore her mouth free. “Do you think that’s wise?” Her eyes were wide, their green shining darker and deeper here in the woods.
He could read what she wanted in those beautiful eyes of hers. Or perhaps that was just wishful thinking. “No, it’s utterly unwise. But I don’t care. Do you?”
“Not one bit,” she whispered, placing her hand over his.
That sent the last bit of his sanity flying into the ether.
Chapter Nine
Gwyn had never expected to have this with a man again. She certainly shouldn’t be allowing it. But Joshua . . . oh, his hands on her breasts felt heavenly. Not intrusive or ruthless, just . . . exploring. And when his thumbs rubbed her nipples, sending the wildest sensations rocketing through her, she tore her lips from his with a gasp.
“Yes,” she whispered. “That feels so . . . good.”
“It certainly does.” His caresses were thorough, not frenzied, as if he were testing how best to please her. Unlike Lionel.
Never mind about Lionel. And who would have guessed that the major was as good at touching a woman intimately as he was bad at suffering fools?
Kissing a path to her ear, he whispered, “This is what happens when you . . . tempt a man beyond his endurance. He does things he shouldn’t.”
“For the last time, I wasn’t trying to tempt you,” she felt compelled to remind him. “And you seemed to resist . . . my ‘temptations’ well enough at the coaching inn.”
“They took me by surprise,” he admitted before tugging on her earlobe with his teeth. “You took me by surprise.”
“Because you enjoyed our kiss?”
“Because you enjoyed our kiss,” he murmured. “I didn’t expect that.”
His beard stubble, rough against her cheek, reminded her that he was a man, one whose body she would very much enjoy exploring.
She slipped her hands inside his coat and up under his waistcoat so she could feel his muscles flexing through his shirt. “I can’t imagine why not, Joshua. You are very adept at kissing.”
He drew back to pin her with a smoldering look. “And this? How am I at this?” He fondled her breast so expertly that she let out a strangled sigh.
“You’re . . . very good at that, too,” she choked out.
His breath came in ragged gasps now. “So you like it.”
“Too much.” Yet she didn’t resist when he unbuttoned the jacket of her riding habit. She even shamelessly helped him by undoing the hooks that kept her jacket attached to her skirt and thus not easy to open.
Then he was confronted by her chemisette. He pulled on it, but it didn’t give, yet he could clearly tell it wasn’t an actual shirt. “What in God’s creation is this confounded thing and how does it unfasten?”
Though she shared his frustration, she couldn’t help laughing at it, too.
He scowled at her. “You find my being thwarted by a piece of linen amusing, do you?”
“I wouldn’t dare,” she said with mock seriousness, then laughed at his lowering look. She reached behind her. “It unfastens with buttons, but you’ll have to do it.”
“Show me,” he growled, in a perverse echo of what she’d been demanding of him for the past few hours.
Taking his hands in hers, she brought them back to the only button she could actually reach. But apparently, that was all he needed, for he deftly undid each one and unfastened the ties so he could draw off the chemisette.
At last he had what he apparently wanted. He gazed at the tops of her breasts with a famished look that delighted her. It seemed he wasn’t entirely immune to her attractions after all. And though she shouldn’t care—because she knew he would never marry her if he knew the truth about her—she did take satisfaction from it.
But he wasn’t done with his foray. “I want to
taste you.”
Yes, please. But she merely said, “If you wish.”
That was all it took to have him pulling down her corset cups and untying her shift so he could draw that down enough to bare her breasts. He took a long, admiring look at them, hunger clearly flaring in his eyes. And then he bent to put his mouth on one and his hand on the other.
Something feral seized her, making her moan and thrust her breasts at him in a half-conscious bid for more. He sucked one breast like a starving man set before a feast, while he fondled the other in silky strokes that had her growing warm and wet between her legs. She let out a shuddering breath of pure pleasure. The only thing better than this would be having his hand caressing her in that aching spot down below.
Could he tell that she’d shared such intimacies with a man before? Well, not these delicious caresses exactly. Lionel had been too impatient to be thorough. Or tender, for that matter.
But to her shock, Joshua was patience personified. As he moved to the other breast, licking and teasing it even as he thumbed the damp, hard nipple of the one he’d just been sucking, she clutched his shoulders and let the thrill of his actions course through her, sweep her away if only for a short while.
That reminder of how little time they dared take made her want to keep him with her. Burying her hands in his hair, she arched her back and held him to her. His queue frustrated her, so she untied it to allow her to run the silky, raven strands through her fingers.
Having him like this was beating down all her carefully constructed defenses, making her want to touch him, fondle him. Lord help them both if anyone came upon them while they were behaving in this reckless, mad fashion.
As if he’d read her mind, he said, “I should stop. We should stop.”
“Yes,” she agreed, though she wished they could stay here forever. Forget about her past and his. Just do . . . this.
But he was already straightening to pull up her shift and tie it.
Not quite ready to give up their enjoyment, she clung to his shoulders. “Do many people know about this place?”
“I don’t believe so. Just the members of the Society, and they only come here for matches or to practice as a group.” He pinned her with his steely blue gaze. “But since Greycourt owns this land—and knows we’re out here together—it probably wouldn’t do to tempt fate.”
The Bachelor Page 9
