by Cara Elliott
The words provoked a sudden smile. Withdrawing a small watercolor sketch that was tucked between the back pages, Gryff held it up and angled it into the sunlight. It was only a quick, loose study of camellias, but the delicate colors and forms radiated with life. It was…
“Perfection,” he said aloud, echoing the secret language of flowers depicted on the paper.
From the moment he had spied it peeking out from the portfolio of possible artists, he had known it was the perfect style for his book. He had gone through the motions of examining the other artwork, but the flower had already entwined him in its whisper-soft beauty.
Watkins had allowed him to keep it, and promised that working out a contract with the artist should be a mere formality.
A good thing, for Gryff had resolved that he wouldn’t take no for an answer, no matter the cost.
Tucking the sketch safely away, he rose and resumed his walk, choosing a roundabout path back to the manor house that wound down through a copse of tall trees. Sunlight filtered through the leafy canopy, painting hide-and-seek shadows over the ground. Gryff slowed his steps, in no hurry to return to his rooms. Leete and his friends were already half sunk in a sea of claret, so the prospect of a long and well-lubricated supper did not hold much allure. A bunch of young fribbles spouting slurred jests and inane boasts.
Good Lord, was I really so crass and callow at their age?
Quite likely, he admitted with a rueful grimace. He paused to breathe in the woodsy scent of the surrounding trees.
“Elf! Elf!”
Were there mystical wood sprites at play in the ancient oaks? Gryff shook his head, half smiling at the thought. He was tired from traveling and the setting was obviously affecting his head. For an instant he felt like a child again, caught up in the enchantment of some fairy-tale story.
“Oh, hell and damnation!”
No, that was definitely not an ethereal forest spirit, but an irate human. Yet oddly enough, the voice did seem to be coming from out of thin air. He looked right and then left. And then, as a rain of leaves floated down from the spreading branches overhead, he looked up. Among the flicker of greens, there was a flutter of creamy lace and lawn cotton.
His brows arched. The sight of a lady’s undergarments was hardly a shock, but the angle of view was a trifle…unexpected.
“Mmmph.” A small thud was followed by another unladylike oath.
Biting back a laugh, Gryff watched for a few moments longer, then tucked his notebook into his coat pocket and shrugged out of the garment. He caught hold of an overhanging limb and hoisted himself into the branches. Up, up he climbed, brushing aside the soft slap of the leaves.
“May I be of assistance?” he asked, joining the lady on her perch.
The breeze must have covered his approach, for she gave a sudden start. “Oh!”
Gryff steadied her balance. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you, Lady Brentford.”
“W-what are you doing up here?” she stammered.
“I might ask the same of you,” he replied.
“I—I am saving Elf,” she replied over the chatter of the leaves.
“Saving elves?” She was either delightfully drunk, or delightfully mad.
“Not elves, sir. Elf.” She jabbed a finger skyward.
There, a half-dozen feet above their heads, a small striped cat was curled in the crook of a branch.
“He’s afraid to come down,” she added.
“Ah.” Gryff looked from the cat to her. “I might be, too, if someone was shrieking my name loud enough to wake the Devil.”
“Ha, hah, ha.” She didn’t sound amused. “Be advised, sir, I am in no mood for levity.”
“I gathered as much. Ladies don’t usually swear like sailors.”
Her cheeks turned a touch pink. “If you will kindly move aside, Lord Haddan. I need to see if I can reach around the trunk and wedge my foot—”
“No need.” Gryff was already shimmying to a higher handhold. The cat was in a deucedly awkward position, but if he stood on tiptoes, one hand bracing a spread-eagle stance…
“I had better warn you, sir…”
“Don’t worry, Lady Brentford. I spent my boyhood swinging from—”
His words gave way to a grunt of pain as the cat raked its tiny claws across his outstretched hand.
“Elf doesn’t like men,” she finished.
“Thank you,” muttered Gryff. “A useful bit of information to know.”
The cat hissed.
He reached up again, this time more gingerly. Elf struck out with another swipe of his paw, raising a beading of blood, but Gryff managed to catch the animal by the scruff of the neck.
“Might I hand this imp of Satan down to you before he inflicts permanent damage?”
“Thank you,” she said, clutching the squirming ball of fur to her chest.
Meow. Elf did not sound quite as grateful as his mistress. Wriggling free of her arms, the cat shot down the trunk and disappeared beneath a thicket of bushes.
“Thank you,” repeated Eliza, steeling herself for an explosion of temper. In her experience, men did not react well to attacks on their pride. “I’m sorry you suffered an injury to your hand. Elf didn’t mean any harm. He was simply frightened.”
“Don’t mention it,” he replied lightly. To her surprise he had already started to shimmy up to a higher branch.
Good Lord, was he actually grinning?
“A little spilled blood is well worth this magnificent view.” His boots slid across the smooth bark. “Is that the River Thames?”
“Yes.”
An ominous crackling sounded as he shifted his stance.
She winced. “Lord Haddan, I really think that you should come down from there. Stout as English oak might be, I fear that particular limb is not quite up to your weight.”
“In a moment.” He crouched low. “Look, in this angle of afternoon light, the stones of old Abbey ruins turn the color of sun-drizzled honey.”
Eliza craned her neck, trying to see through the scrim of ruffling leaves. “Oh, you are right.” The color was indeed delicious—and how unexpected that he, of all people, should notice such a detail. “How lovely.”
She leaned down, intent on imprinting the subtle hue on her mind’s eye, but as she shifted again, her foot slipped. Arms flailing, she fought to regain her balance. However a gust caught her skirts and tugged her sideways. The world began to spin and Eliza felt herself falling, falling.
Falling—
And then a muscled arm suddenly caught her around the waist, halting her plummeting drop toward the ground.
“Mmmph.” She gave a little kick, trying to free her snagged toes from the twigs.
“Don’t move! One errant twitch and I might lose my grip.”
With her head hanging straight down, and her legs twisted awkwardly in a froth of skirts, she was in no position to argue.
“Here, let me try to get you untangled.” More crackling. And then she was suddenly aware of a thrum of heat pressing up against her derriere.
Whatever he was doing, it was most…improper.
“Sir—”
“Quiet—don’t distract me.” His hand skimmed along the ridge of her collarbone. “Just let me shift my position,” he murmured, letting it slide lower. A callused palm cupped her breast and then squeezed. “Oops. Sorry.”
She let out a sharp hiss. “Please hurry, I am getting dizzy.”
A tug lifted her up and settled her right against his groin.
How in the devil had she come to be sitting between his legs?
“Stop squirming, Lady Brentford.” Like his body, the marquess’s breath was warm and tingly against her flesh. “Not that it isn’t exceedingly pleasant. But certain parts of the male anatomy respond on their own to friction, and I don’t wish to embarrass you.”
“You are enjoying this, aren’t you?” she muttered.
A zephyr of a laugh tickled against her neck. “I’m just trying to be a gentle
man and help a lady in distress.”
“Ha! A true gentleman would not take advantage of the situation to grope a lady’s…chest mound.”
“But it’s such a very lovely chest mound,” murmured Gryff. “Soft and yielding as a ripe peach.” His voice dropped to a suggestive whisper. “I wonder whether it would taste as sweet.”
Eliza felt her face heat from peach to pink to flame red. “Please get me down from here, Lord Haddan,” she commanded. “This instant.”
“I fear that’s easier said than done,” he drawled. “If you’ll look down, you’ll see that your tumble has landed us in a rather precarious position. There is only one way to descend. And you are not going to like it.”
A glance showed he was not exaggerating. She would have to…
“Just get on with it,” she said through gritted teeth, consoling herself with the fact that the embarrassing interlude wouldn’t last long.
He set his big, broad hands on her hips. “Relax. I need to lift you up and turn you around.”
Aware that she was no mere feather, Eliza’s flush deepened. “Lord Haddan. I fear this is not going—”
“Trust me.”
The leaves seemed to spin in a blur of chartreuse and emerald, and suddenly she was straddling his hips, the insides of her thighs kissing against velvet-soft buckskin encasing his thighs.
Oh, Lord, oh, Lord. But whether her inner self was voicing a plea or a prayer, she wasn’t sure.
With naught but a scant layer of lawn cotton and leather between her and the overtly masculine bulge of his sex, Eliza was intimately aware of his long, lean body. The tapered waist, the chiseling of muscle, the corded legs, now serving as a wildly erotic saddle.
For a fleeting instant, all her wild, wicked imagination could picture was the image of skinny country spinster mounted on a big, dark stallion.
Her pulse began to gallop, sending a frisson of heat racing down the length of her limbs. Her flesh was tingling, and to her acute embarrassment her core was growing damp.
Surely he wouldn’t—he couldn’t—be aware of that.
Or did a rake possess a special sixth sense of seduction?
Her heart hitched and began to thud against her ribs.
Breathe, Eliza reminded herself. But sucking in a lungful of his spice-scented shaving soap only made her dizzy. Her brain seemed hazed in a swirling, silken fog. Light winked overhead, bright, brilliant flashes of jewel-tone blues and greens. She felt drugged. Deranged.
How else to explain how all reason went spinning helter-pelter as she clutched tighter to the broad slope of his shoulders and crushed her body to his. A blaze of sunlight melted through the interlacing of leaves, casting patterns of liquid fire over his long, curling hair. Threading her fingers through the silky strands, Eliza tipped up her chin to watch the play of emerald-shaded shadows dip and dart over his features.
Their gazes met, and the rippling intensity of his beautiful eyes suddenly seemed too deep to fathom.
I am in over my head.
“I—I fear this game has gone too far,” she stammered.
His mouth hovered a hairsbreadth above hers. “And I fear it hasn’t gone far enough.”
Swoosh, swoosh. The rustling of the leaves, soft as satin and lace, rose above the hard-edged whisper inside his head. Trouble, trouble. Ignoring the warning, Gryff possessed her in a long, lush kiss. She tasted indescribably sweet, with a tart tang of wild heather and some essence he couldn’t put a name to. He coaxed her lips apart, wanting more.
More.
To his satisfaction, her response was warmly willing. She opened herself eagerly, twining her tongue with his. Teasing, touching—like their bodies, the rules of Polite Society seemed suspended as they hung high above the ground, letting all rational thoughts dance away on the summer breeze.
Eliza. The musical lilt of her given name rolled so easily off the tongue. It suited her, decided Gryff, for he sensed a simmering sensuality beneath her sun-kissed skin. She was no cold-blooded prude, but rather a delightfully daring wood sprite. A creature of Nature—of dark forests and sunny fields, of windswept moors and swirling waters. Her eyes gave hint of primal passions lurking deep down inside, just waiting to be released.
Without thinking, Gryff moved his hand down over her breast and began a slow, circling massage over her peaked nipple. Its tip traced a spiral of fire along the inside of his palm.
He made a sound deep in his throat and the rumble seemed to break the spell of elfin enchantment.
Eliza’s eyes flew open. “Please, sir…”
“Yes, yes.” Gryff leaned back, reluctantly surrendering the feel of her feminine softness.
“D-down,” she stammered. “We need to get down from here. It’s dangerous—we might fall at any moment.”
Why do I have the feeling that I’m already tumbling in a slow, spinning somersault? He dispelled the strange sensation with a small laugh. “Very well. Let’s get your feet firmly planted on the ground.”
Hitching her a bit higher, he swung around and braced his boots against the tree trunk. “Keep your arms around my neck, and hold tight,” he cautioned. “This may get a little rough.” Picking his way down through the branches was an awkward endeavor. Twigs snapped, bark scraped.
“Loosen your grip,” he said—and then dropped her heavily the last few feet to the ground.
At the unexpected impact, Eliza lost her footing and sat down rather heavily on the mossy ground.
Grinning, Gryff dropped down lightly and offered her a hand up.
“Thank you for rescuing my cat,” she said with injured dignity.
“And not your person?”
In the shadows of the overhanging leaves, her expression was hard to discern. “I think I would have managed quite nicely on my own,” replied Eliza. She took a moment to smooth her skirts and pick a leaf from her bedraggled hair. “You distracted me with the mention of the light’s effect on the stones.”
“Yes, now that I get a better look at that fetching gown, I can see you have a keen interest in colors,” he murmured, eyeing the paint-spattered muslin. “The design is quite…unique.”
Eliza suddenly looked flustered. “I—I always wear old garments when I…” She let her voice trail off.
“When you paint?” he suggested. “Very practical. And what sort of paintings do you create? Portraits of feisty felines? Scenes of woodland Druids performing their pagan rituals?”
“I—I just dabble,” she mumbled.
“I imagine you are being far too modest, Lady Brentford.” He smiled. “All well-bred ladies are expected to wield a pencil or paintbrush with some proficiency, aren’t they?”
She drew in a nervous breath, though he wasn’t sure why.
“May I see them?” he went on.
“No!” she exclaimed in alarm. “Th-that is, I don’t like to show my sketches to anyone.”
“Oh, come now. Rest assured that I’m not a harsh critic. I enjoy looking at art and in my experience, most females are happy to show off their talents. And yours”—another look at her gown—“appear quite exuberant.”
If anything, his teasing made her even more agitated.
“No, really. They—they aren’t very good.”
They must be truly awful to stir such a visceral reaction, thought Gryff. It would be ungentlemanly to embarrass her by pressing the point—not that his recent actions had been terribly honorable. A gentleman really ought not ravage his host’s sister at the top of an oak tree.
“Forgive me,” he said, sketching a small bow. “I did not mean to upset you. If you wish to keep your artistic talents a secret, I shall, of course, abide by your wishes.”
“Thank you.” Still, Eliza looked a little skittish. She grabbed up her half boots and made a shooing gesture. “If you don’t mind, sir, I should like to get dressed, and it is only proper that I do so in private.”
Gryff couldn’t resist a bit more teasing. “But I’ve already seen far more than your graceful ankle
.”
“How very ungentlemanly of you to remind me, Lord Haddan,” she tartly pointed out.
“One of my many sins, I’m afraid,” he murmured. “I often say things that I shouldn’t in Polite Society.”
Eliza looked away, the curl of her wheat-colored lashes hiding any hint of what she might be thinking. “Yes, well, men are allowed to make their own rules. Alas, women are not.”
She was right. He could laugh off the incident, while the consequences for her would not be so amusing.
He backed up several steps and went to stand behind one of the thick-trunked oaks. “There, propriety is satisfied,” he called.
A scrabbling of leather sounded in answer.
“Will I see you at supper?” inquired Gryff.
“Are you mad?” she answered. “Sit down at a table full of drunken, debauched louts? God forbid. I shall stay as far away from the lewd jokes and the overflowing piss pots as is humanly possible.” He heard a rustling among the fallen leaves. “You may come out now.”
He stepped out onto the path. “Has your brother no concern for your comfort?”
“Given our previous encounter, Lord Haddan, I should think it would be obvious that Harry thinks of little, save for his own pleasures.” She picked a twig from her hair. “Enjoy yourself among such company, sir.”
He frowned, realizing that she must think him part of their circle. He was, after all, here.
“You and my brother can drink yourselves witless, but I have better things to do with my evening.” Eliza drew back her shoulders and assumed a regal pose—rather endearing given the disheveled state of her clothing and her half-laced boots. “Good day.”
With that, she turned and began walking off…though the attempt at a dignified retreat was nearly upset by her tripping over a root.
Gryff waited a few minutes and then followed discreetly, curious as to where she was going. The manor house was in the opposite direction.
As the path wound out of the trees, he caught sight of her up ahead, hurrying to duck through the stone archway of a walled garden. The slatted gate slammed shut.
Again, he waited a moment and then approached for a closer look.
It appeared a very charming spot. The mortised stones glowed with a buttery warmth, the vines of wild roses adding an exuberant splash of color to the well-worn surface. Thick twists of ivy spilled over the top of the wall, the curls of green like slender fingers swaying in the breeze.
