With a sigh of genuine satisfaction, she reached for her bar of French soap. The savon too was lavender, direct from a quaint little shop she’d found in Paris during her last stay there. It usually calmed her.
Not tonight. Tonight her mind swirled with questions and worry knots. It was growing impossible to convince herself that her attraction to Thornton was an aberration, particularly since she’d wound up in his arms once again that afternoon.
Her reaction to him took her by force, had always done. Lulled by the warmth of the water, she allowed her mind to consider simpler times between them.
“No, that shan’t do at all.” Cleo tilted her head to study the landscape she’d been sketching from another angle.
“Won’t it?”
The masculine voice startled a gasp from her. Clutching her charcoals and sketch book to the bodice of her dress, she spun to find the voice’s owner. Seated as she was on the grass—indecorous yes, but most importantly, comfortable—she had to tip her head back so far her hat fell. She saw his boots first, then his riding trousers, fitted lovingly to lean calves and narrow hips. Good heavens, his trousers fit him exceedingly well. Blushing, she hurried her gaze to his face. He grinned with a boyish ease and her breath caught again, but this time not because she’d taken a fright.
He was glorious. Sun haloed his ruffled black hair. His eyes were gray, crinkled at the corners, lively too. His slashing nose was perhaps a bit long, but his mouth was a wonder, firm and, well, almost pretty, she dared say. After all, she’d seen it on a few occasions already and had deemed it imminently kissable to her sisters.
It was Lord Thornton, her charming dancing partner of the other evening. Oh dear. Her delight at his unexpected interruption dissipated as she realized the picture she presented. Curls escaped from her simple chignon. Her hat was lost, her walking dress a castoff of Helen’s and as she glanced down at herself, she realized she’d quite mussed the silk bodice with charcoal streaks.
Embarrassed to be caught at such a disadvantage, she raised a hand to her hair in an effort to subdue it. “My lord. Have I made my way onto your lands by accident? If so, I apologize. I do have the most appalling sense of direction. Ask my sisters and they’ll concur. But they fare no better, the affliction being a family trait, I fear.”
His grin deepened and he sank down on his haunches, bringing them eye to eye. He smelled of a distracting combination of sandalwood and man. “You needn’t worry that you trespass, Lady Cleopatra. Visitors as lovely as yourself are always a welcome addition.”
Her face heated again, not from the sun’s late summer rays. “Thank you, Lord Thornton. I wouldn’t have imposed, however, had I realized I’d be disrupting your ride.” She gestured weakly to the horse he’d abandoned some ways away, its reins slack, nibbling at the grass. “Goodness, you haven’t tied your mount. You may want to go and retrieve the poor fellow, else you’ll be forced to walk back like me. I dare say I forgot to wear the proper shoes for walking but I do love August as it’s certainly the loveliest month of the year and everything is at its zenith. I’m afraid I lose my head when I’m in search of the proper sketch.”
Lord, she was babbling. Babbling like a simpleton and she couldn’t keep herself from speaking and making a cake of herself. If only he didn’t stare at her so intently with those striking gray eyes. If only he weren’t so handsome and so close and smiling with that charming dimple in his left cheek. Double oh dear.
“My mount will remain. Don’t worry yourself.” He leaned closer to her as if he were about to impart a secret. “But I do think you may upset her if you go about referring to her as a fellow.”
“Oh yes.” She swallowed, vastly discomfited. “I wouldn’t wish to upset your horse. Bilious horses are so difficult to ride, don’t you find?”
“Of course. Nothing worse than a bilious horse.”
They stared at one another in a charged silence. His eyes dropped to her mouth, but he did not kiss her as she suddenly wished he would. Instead, he reached out with a gloveless hand. With great care, as if it were formed of finest china, he tucked a stray curl behind her ear. She held her breath as his fingers lingered close to her cheek before retreating. Disappointment surged.
“Thank you,” she whispered, biting her lip.
His grin faded. “You never answered my question, Lady Cleopatra.”
“Your question?” She’d forgotten it.
“When I approached, you were lost in a most vehement conversation with yourself,” he drawled, “saying something shan’t do. What shan’t do?”
He’d overheard her talking to herself. How lowering. “My sketch.” She proffered it to him with reluctance, aware that it was hopelessly smudged.
He took her small notebook from her hands and examined it. “An excellent likeness.”
“Pooh. That tree resembles my old governess.”
“Truly?” He laughed.
Cleo smiled at him, unable to help it. “Sadly for Miss Hullyhew, yes. She was, as my father once commented, sturdy as a chimney. Not a compliment, as you can imagine.”
“No, I should think not. But the unfortunate, sylvan Miss Hullyhew aside, the sketch is rather fine.”
There was sincerity in both his expression and his voice. A strange sensation blossomed in her chest. “It is kind of you to say so.”
“Nonsense.” He winked. “Now I shall banish my charm by telling you that your dress is hopelessly ruined.”
“I know.” She attempted to take the sketch from him, but her fingers brushed his. A spark frissoned over her skin.
“Lady Cleopatra?” He caught her hands, leaned even closer until his breath was a soft caress on her cheek.
“Yes?”
“I should like to kiss you,” he informed her with a gravity that would have been amusing had not she been dying inside for him to do precisely that.
“Then I wish you would, my lord.” She swayed forward.
“Call me Alex,” he murmured and that quickly, his mouth was hungry and demanding on hers.
Cleo kissed him back, opening to his seeking tongue and somehow, they fell to the grass. Her sketch was forgotten. A long time later, they discovered her crumpled hat and the charcoal dust staining his white shirt.
Shaking her head to clear the foggy remnants of memories she’d do well to forget forever, Cleo soaped her arms with ginger care. The plain truth of it was she found herself in the same hopeless position as all too many society ladies married to a blighter, longing for another. She knew she ought not even entertain thoughts of Thornton, but her heart’s old wound seemed suddenly sore again. How could she not?
The floor creaked behind her. “This is an interesting place for an audience,” drawled a deep voice laden with bad intentions and sinful promise.
She swirled around in her bath, flinging her arms over her chest and pulling her knees up. Thornton leaned in the open doorway, the soft light from her bed chamber glowing behind him so that he looked other worldly. Like a fallen angel come to tempt the wicked wife. How had she thought him a saint?
He was sin personified, wearing a white, un-tucked shirt with an improper amount of buttons open, a black jacket and no shoes. His bare feet drew her notice, strong and disturbingly attractive. It occurred to her she’d never in her life seen a man’s bare feet, neither Thornton’s nor John’s. It shocked her to think he had walked the hall sans shoes, in a state of half dress. And he’d entered her chamber. Had anyone seen him? Was he mad?
“What are you doing here?” she demanded, keeping her voice stern. It wouldn’t do to let her eyes slip to the enticing expanse of chest visible beneath his shirt’s gaping vee. Even if it was strongly muscled and lightly bronzed. Did he work out of doors without a shirt? How uncivilized, yet how thrilling.
Thornton continued to rest his hip against the doorjamb with the negligence of a conqueror. His gaze traveled to her bathwater and then back up to her face. “You sent me a letter.”
“I sent you no letter.”
“I’m not being coy, you lackwit.” She glowered at him. What was he about? “I didn’t send you a letter!”
“Of course you did, requesting a private audience here in your chamber.”
“While I’m at my bath?”
“How was I to know what you had in mind?”
“You must leave at once.”
He stroked his chin in mock thought. “Not yet, I don’t think.”
“I’m completely unclothed in this bath. Leave now.”
“All the more reason for me to stay.”
“You’re horrid!”
“You didn’t seem to mind earlier today.”
“Does the Prime Minister know of your penchant for assaulting innocent ladies in closets, libraries and bathrooms?”
A grin worked his sullen mouth. “I wouldn’t call you innocent, darling.”
Cleo glared at him, at a loss. The man was insufferable. Despicable. Insolent. Seductive. Oh, drat. She had to get him out of here before he made her do something regrettable. Something daringly foolish. Seeing no other alternative, she splashed a great handful of water toward him. It slapped him in the chest with a comical thwack. His expression was brilliant.
“You just threw water at me like a child.” Surprise colored his voice.
“You’re interrupting my very private bath,” she countered. “You’ve fabricated a letter to barge your way in here and now you refuse to leave. Water is my only ammunition.”
He raised a brow. “Send enough of it my way and you won’t be able to hide in it.”
“Did you really walk down the hall half-dressed and looking like some sort of Visigoth?” she asked, ignoring him.
“Of course I did.” He glanced down at himself, then back to her, his gaze smoldering. “Do I shock you, my lady?”
She disregarded that as well. “Did anyone see you entering my chamber?” The last thing either of them needed was a scandal.
“Only my mother and seven or eight servants. Why do you ask?”
That earned him another splash. It was surreal to see him standing over her bath, disheveled, bare-footed and wet. He no longer appeared aloof or forbidding or even particularly unfamiliar. Odd though it was, no time might have passed between them. Their banter, their easy attraction—all remained, a fire she hadn’t known still burned.
They played at a dangerous game. Something told her she could love this man again, perhaps had never stopped. It was her greatest fear that the match she’d convinced herself was a childish infatuation gone wrong was all too real.
Cleo grew serious. “You cannot be here like this.”
Thornton stilled, the grin leaving his eyes. “I know.”
She swallowed. “Then why did you come?”
“Your note.”
Why did he insist on subterfuge? “I sent you no note,” she told him again, only to have a sudden suspicion edge its way into her mind. “Unless…no, they wouldn’t.” Yes, they would, she realized. “My lord, I believe you and I have been the recipients of malicious interference.”
Growing understanding dawned on his handsome face. “You mean to say someone else wrote me a note pretending to be you? Who would do such a thing?”
“My sisters,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Your sisters. Ah.” Thornton passed a hand through his hair. “I hadn’t thought of that. It was signed in your name. I assumed…”
“Yes.” It occurred to her that he had truly thought she’d asked him to bed. And he had come.
Oh, it was common enough practice at country house parties. Bored husbands and wives found new lovers beneath the auspices of many a generous hostess. Proprieties were observed. The guilty parties returned to their own beds before dawn and all was well. The country house liaison was nothing exceptional.
But knowing Alexander de Vere, the haughty, saintly politician Thornton, had come to her thrilled Cleo just the same. He stared at her now as if he wanted to pull her from the bath and devour her. Yes, this game was dangerous indeed, fraught with perils and best not played. If she went through with an affaire, Claridge was the far safer choice.
“You must go,” she said again.
He sketched an ironic bow. “It seems I owe you an apology. I’ve thrust myself into your company quite unwanted.”
Not unwanted, she yearned to say but could not. “You’ve been making a habit of it all day.”
A self-mocking smile curled his sensuous lips. “You have my apologies, my lady. I’ll leave you to your bath.”
“No.” The denial left her before she could think better of it.
He paused, watching her. Those eyes burned her skin worse than any flame.
“Could you help me with my hair?” she queried on impulse. “Bridget always assists me, but I sent her to her chamber for the night because the poor dear has a terrible cold.” It was true that her hair was an unwieldy mass difficult to wash on her own. But true also that she wanted him to linger, to touch her again, possibly to kiss her. Possibly to do far more.
“You sent your woman away because she has a cold?”
“Of course.” She knew many ladies did their best to pretend that servants didn’t have feelings, or that as social inferiors they were not entitled to them, but Cleo was not one of them. Bridget was valued, loyal and extremely talented.
“That was kind of you.” Thornton was staring at her with a strange, indecipherable expression.
“You seem surprised.” She studied him. “Would you have not done the same? In your pamphlet on the working class, you urged that they be treated with the same kindness and respect we favor to members of our own set.”
“You’ve read my work?” His voice was shaded with surprise.
Oh dear. She hadn’t meant to reveal as much. Her fish was fried, as it were. “I did.” Her chin went up in defiance, daring him.
“I’m honored,” he said at last, “but as to your question, I can’t say I’ve ever known Oliver to take sick.”
“Perhaps he has but you haven’t noticed.” She doubted this, but was feeling cross enough with him to suggest it.
Thornton hadn’t budged from the threshold. “I’m quite observant, you realize.”
Oh, she had realized. At the moment, he was being rather observant of each bit of her skin bared to his gaze. Asking him to wash her hair had been foolhardy. If he touched her, she would slide to the bottom of the tub like a boneless lump and drown. How sobering.
He sauntered into the room, his feet making an intimate sound on the floor. It did not seem possible that years had passed and yet in two days, the careful architecture of her world had been disassembled as though never there. She had not lived with a man, had not been truly drawn to a man since she and John took separate residences a few months after their marriage. Somehow, Thornton turned her into a heroine torn from the pages of an old gothic romance, swooning over him. The spirit of the house party had driven her to madness, she was convinced of it.
“I’m sure this is ill-advised,” she murmured, watching him warily.
A knowing smile curved his wicked lips. “I’m sure everything that’s ever been worthwhile throughout history has been ill-advised.”
She sank lower in the water until her chin grazed its warm surface. “Do you swear on your honor to touch my hair and my hair alone?”
Her request wrung a chuckle from him. Cleo liked the deep rumble of his laughter, rich and contagious. His gray eyes glinted into hers. When he smiled he looked less arrogant and more reminiscent of the young man she’d known.
“I swear on my honor,” he promised.
“I don’t know if I trust you.” Or if she trusted herself.
His grin deepened. “I assure you that, apart from the occasional indiscretion, I am quite the decent fellow.”
“The occasional indiscretion?” she repeated. “Is that what yesterday and this afternoon were to you?”
Thornton drew closer to the tub and roll
ed his shirt sleeves to his elbows. His forearms, she noted, were dark and strong. She wondered again if he went about Buckinghamshire shirtless when he was up from town. Cleo never would have guessed him for a barbarian. But she fairly savored the thought of it now.
“Shampoo?” he requested.
“On the chair just over there.” He had not answered her question. Was she a mere indiscretion to him? A careless dalliance? Why did the thought bother her? She should be pleased. “Ridiculous creature,” she scoffed beneath her breath. “Ninny. Hen-wit.”
“Have you just called me a hen-wit?” he asked from very close to her ear.
She started at his proximity and turned. Her lips nearly touched his. “I rather thought you hadn’t heard.”
“It isn’t done to berate the man about to wash your hair, you know. I could pull it, or some such.” Thornton’s strong hands sank into her hair, turning her face away from him. He began dismantling her complicated chignon.
Pins slid one by one from her scalp. A soft sigh escaped her lips. The only sensation better than her hair being released from its styling was the laces on her corset going slack. It occurred to her that he was unusually handy with hair pins.
She couldn’t keep herself from commenting on it. “You know your way around a lady’s tresses, Thornton.”
“Is that jealousy I hear curdling your sweet voice, my love?”
“Aren’t you a wit?” She paused for a moment, nettled by his attempt at humor. “For a gentleman who claims to be quite the decent fellow, you are remarkably well skilled, is all.”
Her hair was almost completely down around her shoulders now. “I should like to think so.”
Heart’s Temptation Books 1–3 Page 6
