by Olivia Drake
“Quite the contrary. I just now confessed that I’d penned a number of groveling apologies to you. But you haven’t yet told me what you wrote in your letters.”
He held on to her, his thumb stroking idly over the inside of her wrist, sending disturbing tingles up her arm. “I’m sure it was just girlish nonsense,” she said. “For pity’s sake, you can’t expect me to recall something I wrote half a lifetime ago. Now do release me, Rothwell.”
He continued to lightly caress her tender skin so that she felt flushed and skittish. “I wonder if you made reference to what we enjoyed together. Do you remember, Abby? I certainly do, for you were the first girl I’d ever kissed. We were lying entwined in the grass, and I delved beneath your skirts, ran my hand up your legs, and stroked your—”
“Stop! Only a cad would mention that folly!”
She pulled free and took several steps back, putting her hands to her hot cheeks. How vividly she recalled the intoxicating heat of his kisses, the pressure of his body on hers, and a touch so shockingly forbidden that it had frightened her into pushing him away.
He settled back onto the edge of the desk, his hands braced on either side of him. “I suppose you were right to be angry with me,” he admitted rather ruefully. “I was a randy teenaged boy who didn’t know how to control myself. After our quarrel, I went away believing I’d earned your scorn. So, it really came as no surprise when you never answered my letters.”
His admission of guilt caused a breach in Abby’s defenses. Was it possible that he too had suffered pain at their separation?
Feeling the need to assuage the hurts of the past, she took a step closer. “Oh, Max, I never hated you. That’s what I wrote to tell you, that I ought to have been more understanding. You were distraught and in need of comfort. It was the day of your mother’s funeral, after all. And you’d just told me that your father was taking you and your infant sister to London for good.”
He glanced away, his expression turning dark and brooding. It was as if he were peering into the past. She did too, remembering how upon hearing the awful news of his mother’s death from childbed fever, she had waited for Max at the edge of the woods. But he hadn’t appeared for two long days, not until after the private burial when he’d half dragged Abby through the forest to their secret glade, where he’d pressed her down onto the grass and proceeded to kiss her with heart-wrenching desperation.
“I also wrote to offer my sympathy and … and friendship,” she added, leaving out the word love. “Our quarrel wasn’t really about seduction, anyway. It was because you’d shut me out of your private thoughts. I knew you must be grieving terribly, and I thought if you could just talk about it to me—”
The sudden grip of his hands around her waist startled Abby. Without arising from the edge of the desk, he pulled her forward in one smooth move, placing her in between his open legs. His eyes glittered silver in a flash of lightning, and she trembled to realize that the brief truce between them somehow had been shattered.
“Still trying to mend other people’s lives, are you, Abby? Well, some things can never be fixed. It’s best to just lose yourself in pleasure.”
His mouth swooped down to capture hers in a stunning, wholly unexpected kiss. Her lips had been parted to speak, and his tongue slipped inside to trace her soft inner flesh with shiver-inducing expertise. The instinct to stop him brought her hands up between them. Yet even as her fingers spread over the solid wall of his chest, reason and logic vanished under a torrent of temptation. Desire swept over her skin, tingling in her bosom and penetrating to the innermost depths of her body.
The delicious taste of him carried her back in time. It was as if all those years vanished and they were back in their secret glade again, clasped to each other in reckless abandon. She had forgotten the thrill of being held by a man, of savoring his hard form pressed to her softness, of inhaling his masculine scent. She had buried those memories because it was too painful to reflect upon what she could never have with him again.
Yet now he was back and his embrace filled her with light and color. One of his arms was looped around her waist, while his other hand cradled the back of her head as if to keep her firmly locked in his grasp. If only he knew, she had neither the desire nor the strength to escape, not when the racing of her heart made her giddy and her legs felt treacherously unsteady.
Max. He had been the reckless, all-consuming love of her girlish heart. Yet he was no longer the fumbling boy whose lack of finesse had lent a certain awkwardness to their embrace. Those faded snippets of memory did not do justice to the powerful man he had become. A master of seduction, he kissed her now with an expertise that stirred tremors throughout her body.
The pads of his fingers traced the swells of her breasts through the muslin of her gown. Sweet heaven, when had he shifted his hand to her bosom? She clung to his broad shoulders as he lightly rubbed his thumb over one tip, sparking delightful shock waves that vibrated inside her. “Max.”
“Shh,” he murmured against her lips. “You’ve a mouth made for kissing.”
He demonstrated that statement with enticing sensuality. His teeth gently nipped at her lips, his tongue soothing her sensitive flesh. In his hands, she felt like softened butter, ready to be molded to his will. Nothing in her limited experience had prepared her for this fevered pulse of need. She had only ever known the untutored groping of a boy.
Not the skillful caresses of an inveterate rake.
The thought pierced the haze of her passion. It jarred her back to an awareness of exactly who it was that held her in his arms.
He was not her Max. He was the Duke of Rothwell, a silver-tongued rogue famous for his carnal exploits. He used women for pleasure and then cast them aside. He harbored no love in his heart for any of his conquests.
Least of all her.
Chapter 11
Max was enjoying the kiss far more than he could have imagined. It had started out as a means of distracting Abby from a line of conversation he preferred not to pursue, and then had swiftly intensified into a uniquely gratifying episode. Curious that, for she had not been flirtatious in the least, and he could have sworn she despised him.
Yet any resistance in her had evaporated within moments, and she was kissing him back with willing—if naïve—fervor. Just as startling was his own hot rush of desire for her. He usually avoided virgins like the plague, for their innocence made them either dead bores or giggly flirts. They also angled for a marriage proposal, which he had no intention of ever offering.
But Abby broke all the rules. She not only held his attention, she intrigued and charmed him. It was a delight to discover she was no dried-up spinster. Nor was she the green girl who had once spurned his inexpert caresses. She was a mature woman with unfulfilled needs, and it was a bloody damned shame he couldn’t take her straight to his bed—
He felt a hard shove at his chest.
Jolted, he released Abby, and she stepped back out of his reach. Those gorgeous blue eyes glared at him.
“That’s quite enough, my lord duke. Kindly recollect that I’m your sister’s governess.”
Her sudden missishness irked Max as much as having his pleasure so abruptly interrupted. He was accustomed to being the one to decide whether or not to end an erotic encounter. Then again, he should have expected such a quaint reaction since she’d lived all her life in the country, no doubt being courted by dull dogs like Babcock.
Curling his mouth into a smirk, he did a slow survey of her reddened lips, her mussed hair and flushed cheeks. “Come, Abby, don’t play the prude. You enjoyed that kiss as much as I did. Your heaving bosom proves it.”
“Well, of course I enjoyed it,” she candidly admitted. “You’re very accomplished at seducing women. It is what you do best.”
His grin vanished. He frowned at the sway of her hips as she marched out of the study. She didn’t bother to close the door, and the tapping of her footsteps faded into the drumming of the rain.
Acknowle
dging that he’d been masterfully insulted, Max straightened up from the desk. She had left her bonnet lying there and he grabbed it without thinking. Instantly, he flung it back down again. Fool! He wouldn’t go running after her like a lackey.
Instead, he stalked to the window to gaze out into the storm. A steady shower fell from the leaden sky, though the lightning and wind had subsided somewhat. He ought to go and seek out his friends, for he had left them to their own devices for most of the afternoon. But he needed a moment to cool his blood and collect his wits.
You’re very accomplished at seducing women. It is what you do best.
From any London lady that would have been a compliment. But not from Abby. She’d implied he’d done nothing of worth in his life, that he was a useless rake. That other people did productive, meaningful things while he was merely concerned with satisfying his own selfish pleasures.
Blast her, he wouldn’t be goaded into shame. He had been blessed by birth with a position of power and wealth, and it was his prerogative to decide how he conducted himself. What the devil did she know of his life, anyway? Yes, he’d enjoyed all the leisurely pursuits of a gentleman, including a long string of high-flying mistresses. But he also had hundreds of employees and tenants on his four estates to oversee, a prizefighter to manage, investments to evaluate, a seat in Parliament to fill, and—
Max caught himself. No, he need not justify his existence merely because a governess had dared to rebuke him.
To be fair, though, Abby was not just any governess. She had been his first love—and his last, for she was the girl who had opened his eyes to the idiocy of surrendering one’s heart to someone who would poke and pry into his private thoughts. How much better it was to have his choice of women, to relish the white-hot heat of a lusty affair and then have the freedom to move on when boredom set in, as it inevitably did. He could think of nothing more tedious than to spend the rest of his days in the company of one woman.
But would his life have been different had he known back then that Abby had written to him, after all?
He had felt utterly alone in the weeks and months following his mother’s death, when his father had fallen into deep despair and had subjected his only son to drunken lectures on the hazards of love matches. Max had desperately craved a reply from Abby in the hopes of finding sanctuary in her warm and caring nature. But there had been only silence.
What the devil could have happened to his letters—and hers? He had a vague suspicion, though it would be impossible to pursue the matter until he returned to London. Perhaps the situation did warrant further investigation …
No. It was all pointless. He liked his life exactly as it was, dammit. Let the past remain buried. Nothing could be more abhorrent than the notion of rekindling an ancient romance with a prickly spinster.
* * *
“I wonder what is keeping Rothwell.” Elise, Lady Desmond, stood at a gold-draped window in the Turkish Saloon, peering out at the downpour. “He went for a ride, if that dreadful butler is to be believed. I do hope he wasn’t caught somewhere in this rain.”
“Didn’t I tell you? Saw him half an hour ago—whoops!”
Lord Ambrose Hood made a quick lunge to hit the shuttlecock with his battledore, sending the feathered missile arcing back across the vast room to Pettibone, who dove over a gilt chair to return fire.
“Huzzah!” Lounging on a chaise, Mrs. Sally Chalmers let out a cheer. “Good one, Petti!”
Both men were in shirtsleeves, having brought their lawn game indoors at the first crack of lightning. Like a pair of rowdy schoolboys, they were now playing amid the brocaded chairs and baroque furnishings.
Elise should have been amused by their exploits. But she had felt cross all afternoon, due to being denied the chance to further her enticement of Rothwell. “Where did you see him?” she prodded.
Ambrose pinged the shuttlecock back and narrowly missed toppling a tall vase on a pedestal. “Going into his study with Miss Linton.”
Elise stiffened. She exchanged a telling glance with Sally, who shrugged while idly shuffling a deck of cards. What could Rothwell want with that rustic little baggage? It had better be something proper like a report on his sister’s progress in her studies.
“Did he say when he would join us?” Elise inquired.
“Soon.”
On that vague reply, Ambrose executed a neat jump shot that sent the shuttlecock sailing toward a gloomy corner. Pettibone lunged and came up short, his paddle striking a figurine on a side table and knocking it onto the fine Turkish carpet.
“Blister it!” the earl cursed. “I concede the round, old boy.”
“Not just the round,” Ambrose said. “The entire match.”
“Ah, well. I’ll ring for champagne, then!”
As Pettibone went to tug on the bell rope, Elise minced forward to scoop up the china dog and examine it for chips before replacing it on the table. “You two and your childish games,” she scolded. “It’s a wonder you didn’t shatter half the contents of the room!”
Ambrose grinned slyly at her. “Counting your possessions already, eh? Pray pardon my candor, but I must warn you that Rothwell isn’t likely to offer you more than carte blanche.”
Elise sent him a cool stare. “Nor is he likely to grant you his sister’s hand in marriage. Yet I daresay you still cherish the hope.”
“Mea culpa,” he said, languidly fanning himself with his paddle. Exertion had mussed his fair hair, making him look as if he’d just risen from bed. “I cannot deny the need to marry an heiress. Of course, that would require sufficient time to romance the girl, when I’ve yet even to set eyes on her.”
“I myself prefer a more mature woman.” Pettibone sank down beside Sally and squeezed her knee through her saffron muslin gown. “And our present company happens to be quite delectable.”
“Wicked man,” Sally said fondly, abandoning the deck of cards in order to control his wandering hands. “Well, I for one must support Ambrose in his quest to marry well. I always say, there’s no game worth playing if the stakes aren’t high.”
“Only look at how you enticed your nabob to the altar,” Ambrose said. “Chalmers was as rich as Croesus, as old as Methuselah, and as indulgent as merry King Wenceslaus. Not to mention, he had the good sense to cock up his toes and leave you in sole possession of a mountain of gold.”
“Oh, la!” she said with a flutter of her fingers. “I gave Horace a happy few years—and a delightful alternative to his dull account books!”
“Leaving you free now to delight another man, hmm?” Pettibone said, sliding his arm around her waist as he nuzzled her neck.
Elise regarded the lovebirds with a jaded eye. She wanted Rothwell here, making up to her for all the hours of neglect. Instead, he was closeted with that countrified governess. What could he have to say to Miss Linton that would take more than half an hour?
Perhaps the chit meant to entice him. The very notion made Elise fume. When they’d met this morning in the portrait gallery, Miss Linton certainly had displayed airs above her station. She had conversed more like an equal than a servant.
Sally riffled the cards. “What say you to a game of piquet? We shall have a tournament, one couple competing against the other.”
Ambrose drew over a small table. “Ten-guinea stakes? I should be happy to relieve you of a portion of that Chalmers gold.”
“Sorry, I’m not in a humor to sit,” Elise said. “Lord Ambrose, do come and take a turn around the room with me.”
Ambrose cast a longing look at the cards, but he offered her his arm and they began to stroll the length of the large chamber. He possessed a handsome physique and a debonair manner, and she might have taken an interest in him, Elise thought, if not for the lamentable fact that he was a mere second son and too often low in the pockets.
“You seem afflicted by a fit of the blue devils today,” he observed.
“It is the rain, perhaps. I daresay that bout of measles among Pettibone’s s
taff has dealt us all a raw hand. Had we not been forced to come here, Rothwell would be with us, rather than being drawn hither and yon with estate matters.”
Ambrose cast her a cunning look. “Or being closeted in his study with the governess.”
“Miss Linton? Bah, she’s too long in the tooth to tempt him. She dresses like a servant, her hair is an unseemly red, and her face is far too common.”
“Simplicity suits Miss Linton, her hair is a delightful shade of cinnamon brown, and those large sapphire eyes lend a luminous glow to her features.” He paused, a little smirk on his lips. “Perhaps the glow comes from living a wholesome life. Alas, neither of us could ever hope to duplicate it.”
Elise refused to react to his mischievous jest with anything more than a sniff. It wouldn’t do to quarrel with Ambrose when she needed him on her side. She smiled coquettishly at him, saying, “I gather that she and His Grace are old acquaintances. You knew him at school. Did he ever speak of her when you were young?”
“Rothwell has never been one to kiss and tell. I should warn you, he greatly dislikes anyone prying into his private affairs.”
“That is hardly an answer.”
He patted her hand. “I’m afraid I must disappoint you then, dear lady, for it is the only one I am able to give.”
Men, she thought disparagingly. In certain matters, they would not betray the bonds of comradeship. “I have been pondering, Lord Ambrose, and I believe you and I can assist one another. May I suggest that we form an alliance?”
“How so?”
She stopped by a window at the opposite end of the saloon from where Sally and Pettibone sat playing cards, their raucous laughter and the noise of the rain ensuring that she and Ambrose wouldn’t be overheard. “You will help me win Rothwell, and in turn, I shall arrange for you to steal some time with Lady Gwendolyn.”
He stared skeptically at her, then laughed. “And just how do you propose to manage that?”
“As a lady, I can seek out her company far easier than you can. I shall go upstairs to visit her in her apartments, drop a good word in her ears, and finagle a way for the two of you to meet.”
