‘In what way? Do you not believe I am capable of procuring you vouchers, perchance? Oh, ye of little faith. I am in possession of a certain piece of information for which Lady Jersey would give her eye teeth...’
‘It isn’t that,’ she said with a touch of impatience. ‘I don’t care how many people offer to procure me vouchers to Almack’s, I shan’t go, and that’s that.’
‘I share your reluctance to set foot in anywhere so stuffy, but, Miss Gibson...’
‘No,’ she repeated firmly. ‘It’s all very well to talk about social advancement, and Aunt Ledbetter agreeing not to stand in my way, but I shall not turn my back on her and my cousin. I will not go anywhere that they will not be received, too. And you know very well they would never admit Mildred.’
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘It sounds as though you are referring to a conversation you have already had, so I can only surmise that Lady Dalrymple has already offered to use her influence to promote you.’
She nodded.
‘But only if you play down the fact that the people with whom you are currently residing are not quite the thing.’
She nodded again, glumly.
He clucked his tongue. ‘How foolish of her to suggest you should turn your back upon your relatives in order to feather your own nest.’
She looked up at him sharply. ‘You do understand, then?’
‘Of course.’ He gave an insouciant shrug. ‘You are too fiercely loyal to anyone you consider family to do anything so shabby. I only wish I’d been there to hear your reply,’ he said, a gleam of appreciation in his eyes. ‘Hampered as you were by the fact that you were, no doubt, in your aunt’s drawing room at the time.’
‘And,’ she pointed out, ‘by my own innate good manners. Heavens, your godmother had just offered to go out of her way to bring me into style. I would never, ever want to offend someone who’d just done that.’
He raised one eyebrow. ‘Anyone but me, you mean. After all, have I not just offered to do the same?’
‘Oh, you are different,’ she said, slamming her hand down on the arm of the sofa.
‘Am I?’
‘You know very well you are. This is all just a game to you. So stop pretending to take offence,’ she said, folding her arms and glaring up at him. ‘And concentrate on coming up with some other solution.’
He planted his hands on his hips and examined her, head tilted to one side. He did his best to look stern, but no matter how hard he tried he could not quite prevent a smile from playing about his lips. He was glad she’d turned down his offer to procure vouchers for Almack’s. Delighted with the reasons she’d done so. And thoroughly enjoying the spirited way she was sparring with him.
‘It would have been quite a sacrifice, you ungrateful wretch,’ he said with mock reproof, ‘getting me to attend Almack’s. Any of the lady patronesses would have been thrilled to think they’d seen me finally brought to heel.’
‘Well, you shan’t need to make that sacrifice now,’ she pointed out.
He shook his head ruefully. ‘No, instead I shall be obliged to pursue you through the lower echelons of society.’
‘But...how will that answer?’
‘You goose. Once people discover that I am prepared to go anywhere that you attend in the hopes of making you smile upon me, you will get invited everywhere. All you will have to do is ignore any invitation that does not include your chaperon and companion. Before long, the more astute hostess will understand what she needs to do to get you, and therefore me, to attend her party.’
Her face lit up.
‘Oh, how clever of you. Yes, that would answer.’
He had never thought that a woman’s smile could have such an exhilarating effect upon him.
Though it was simultaneously rather sobering to reflect that if she knew what he was planning for her, she would shrink from him.
But he was not going to let minor matters like scruples hold him back, not now. Miss Gibson was going to marry him and he would do whatever it took to get her to the altar. Even if it meant deceiving her.
‘In part,’ he said gravely. He made as if to sit on the sofa beside her. Henrietta shifted slightly to give him room, her eyes fixed on his with open curiosity. Another pang of something like remorse shot through him.
Again, he thrust it aside.
‘At the risk of you accusing me of being rude, Miss Gibson, I have to remind you of the one factor which may give the lie to our little game.’ He took her hands in his, without breaking eye contact. ‘My reputation.’
‘Y-your reputation? As a rake, you mean? Y-yes, I know that you do not normally pursue innocents...’
He shook his head. ‘Even among those who could never have been described as innocent have I ever had to pursue any female. At the most, all I have ever had to do is drop a few subtle hints. If the woman in question did not respond, I saw no reason to persist. After all, there have always been plenty who were willing to pursue me. Thus, I have been able to avail myself of the ones who are...’
‘The most beautiful!’ She tried to draw her hands away, but he held on to them firmly.
‘It is not that you are not beautiful, Miss Gibson. I have already told you that you have many good features. Clear skin, speaking eyes and a perfectly acceptable mouth. Your problem, my dear, is, as you yourself have already pointed out, that you do not have what you call the “charisma” to attract the notice of a man such as myself. Though I would call it allure. Feminine allure. That elusive factor which draws men to some females like moths to a candle flame.’
She frowned. ‘You aren’t going to suggest I suddenly start apeing all those girls who flutter their eyelashes at men and say how clever they are, and agree with whatever nonsense they spout?’ She wrinkled her nose in disgust. ‘Even if I restricted my fluttering and fawning to you, I don’t think I could be very convincing...’
She faltered as he began to chuckle.
‘God, no! You must remain your own, refreshingly honest self at all times. Only a more feminine version of yourself.’
‘How can I become more feminine? You aren’t going to advise me to wear low-cut gowns and paint my face, I hope?’
‘That would be to make you look desperate,’ he replied drily. ‘As though you are out to snare any man who will throw the handkerchief your way. No, what I plan to do is make you aware of yourself as a woman. Only when you understand and embrace your own sexuality will other men understand what it is that attracts me to you.’
‘Embrace my s-s—’ She tugged her hands free, a tide of red sweeping over her cheeks. ‘What,’ she said primly, ‘exactly, are you suggesting?’
‘Do not look at me like that,’ he said frostily. ‘Do you think I intend to ravish you upon this sofa?’
‘N-no, but—’
‘No buts, Miss Gibson. Either you trust me to turn you into the kind of woman who can have a man panting after her with one glance, or you do not.’
He could teach her how to have a man panting after her with one glance? Was that even possible?
Yes. Yes, it was. Hadn’t she seen Miss Waverley bewitching Richard? And even Mildred had the mysterious power to draw men to her side, and keep them fascinated, even whilst holding them at arm’s length. She had thought it was simply that she was beautiful. But Lord Deben was saying there was more to it than that.
‘Do you trust me, Miss Gibson?’
She looked into his stern features. If she said she didn’t trust him, he would get up and walk out, she could tell.
‘If I didn’t trust you, I wouldn’t be sitting here in this room, on the sofa with you, with the door locked,’ she pointed out. ‘I just don’t really understand how...’
‘I know you don’t understand. That is why you must trust me. Let me teach you about your body and the power it has.’
‘You really have no idea, do you?’ His eyes, which could sometimes look as hard as polished jet, softened to something she felt she could drown in.
‘If you were more aware of yourself as a woman, the power to attract a man’s notice would flow naturally from that.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’ Why was it becoming so difficult to draw breath? ‘Of course I am aware that I’m a woman.’
He shook his head, almost pityingly. ‘No. Miss Gibson, though you inhabit the body of a fully grown woman, you are still, in many ways, just a little girl.’
‘I am not!’
‘Oh, but you are. You wield none of the weapons that other women employ upon the battlefield of the ballroom. You walk and talk more like a man than a gently bred female of two and twenty summers.’
He laid one finger upon her lips when she opened her mouth to make an objection.
‘And, my dear, it is quite obvious to every experienced male that nobody has ever kissed those innocent lips.’
‘Oh, but they have. I mean, they did. I mean, of course I have been kissed!’
‘Not to any great effect,’ he said with a slight sneer. ‘It was obviously a fumbling boy, not a man that kissed you, or you would not appear so untouched.’
Untouched? Richard’s kiss had flummoxed her so much she had chased after him all the way to London.
‘Whereas,’ he was continuing, silkily, ‘if I were to kiss you, you would never be the same again.’
‘You are the most arrogant man I have ever met!’
‘No. Just truthful. If I were to kiss you, I would take great care to ensure you would never be able to look at a man’s lips in quite the same way again. When you next spoke to a man, any man, you would not be able to help wondering if his lips could wreak the magic that mine did. Your eyes would linger on them, speculatively. And he would know that you were summing him up. Know that you were wondering what it would be like to kiss him. And then he would want, above all things, to show you.’
Magic? He was declaring that his lips would work some kind of magic upon her? And yet, it appeared, the magic was already beginning to work because as he spoke, she found it impossible to tear her eyes from his mouth. And wonder what was so special about it that one touch would change her into someone who could draw men to her like moths to a flame.
Of course, he had a vast amount of experience.
And he did have a reputation for being so very good at carnal things that any lady who’d been fortunate enough to attract his attention wanted it again. And suddenly it was not just his mouth she was thinking about, but his whole body, naked, in a rumpled bed, where he was rendering some faceless female delirious with desire.
He smiled, a lazy, sensuous smile that did funny things to her insides and made her heart race. Or had it been racing like this for some minutes already?
‘Exactly so,’ he purred softly. ‘You are wondering what my lips will feel like. So, naturally, I wish to oblige you.’
‘How can you tell what I’m thinking?’ Her voice came out in a horrified squeak. Goodness, if he knew she’d just been picturing him naked, she would never be able to look him in the face again.
‘It is the way you are looking at my mouth, Miss Gibson. With curiosity. And longing. And, best of all, with invitation.’
‘I...I wasn’t...’
‘Oh, but you were.’
He frowned. ‘At this point in the proceedings, with any other man but me, you would pull up the drawbridge and retreat behind it, since you do not wish to appear fast.’
‘P-pull up the drawbridge?’
‘Last chance, Miss Gibson. Stop me now, or I will kiss you. And I promise you, if I do that, you will never be the same again.’
Chapter Seven
She wasn’t the same already. She had never, ever, thought about what a man would look like naked, in bed. Or felt her lips tingle with expectancy. Nor had her heart raced like this while she was sitting completely still. And all he’d done so far was talk about kissing.
Heavens, no wonder women were queuing up for the privilege of taking him as a lover.
‘Do you wish to continue?’
‘Wh-what?’
‘With your lesson. Do you wish me to take it to its conclusion?’
Lesson. She blinked.
And although there was still a pool of lethargy where her knees had previously been, most of the haze cleared from her mind at his curt reminder that this was not real.
Not for him, anyway. He considered her a pupil, very much in need of tutoring in the arts of which he was a skilled practitioner.
It was a good job he’d recalled her to reality. It would never do to start thinking there was anything romantic about what was going to happen next. She’d read far too much into a kiss before—and look where that had ended up.
She must think of this merely as a practical demonstration from a master craftsman to his apprentice.
‘I cannot think of anyone better qualified to teach me about kissing,’ she said tartly, ‘than you, Lord Deben.’
And with that, she shut her eyes, tilted her head back and puckered up her lips.
‘Miss Gibson...’ he chuckled ‘...you are the most absurd creature.’
Well, that dealt with any last lingering shreds of girlish excitement she had not so far managed to squash. She opened her eyes and glared up into his mocking face.
It was all very well accepting she was ignorant and in need of tuition, but that did not mean she would sit back and tamely let him mock her.
‘That’s it,’ she snapped. ‘I have changed my mind.’
When she made as if to get up he reacted astonishingly swiftly, seizing her about the waist and pulling her back down. Then he took hold of her chin with his free hand.
‘Don’t fly into the boughs because I laughed,’ he said sternly. ‘You should not have pushed your mouth into that absurd little shape. It made you look ridiculous. Never do it again.’
‘How dare you speak to me like that!’
‘I dare because you asked me to teach you how to be more feminine, sweet tempest,’ he pointed out.
It was strange he should have spoken of a tempest, because it really did feel as if some kind of tempest was raging through her. It was making her breathless. Her heart was pounding against her ribcage. But it wasn’t, at least not all of it, the product of outrage at his high-handed attitude towards her. A good deal of it stemmed from the determined way he was holding her captive, which was having the peculiar effect of making her want to sink into his strong embrace rather than make any attempt to struggle free of the confines of those muscular arms.
‘You should let your lips relax,’ he instructed her. ‘Perhaps part them a little for me. Moisten them, if you wish.’
He licked his own, then, as if demonstrating what she ought to do.
She couldn’t have torn her eyes from his mouth if her life had depended on it.
‘R-relax,’ she stammered.
He smiled and gently caressed her lower jaw with his gloved hand. A flash of something very like electricity struck her midriff as he angled her head into a position of his own choosing.
‘By all means close your eyes, if you wish.’
He was lowering his head towards her. Any second now...
‘I find that absence of sight heightens the other senses.’
Immediately, she screwed her eyes tightly shut. Though it wasn’t about heightening her senses, since hers were pretty over-stimulated already, so much as hiding. She did not want him looking into her eyes when they kissed, in case he saw...
What? That she had never felt like this? Could never have imagined feeling like this? That, in short, he was right, damn him
? That just having a man of his reputation holding her so close was making her all soft and melting and more aware of her femininity than she had ever dreamed possible?
Particularly since he was so hard and demanding, and masculine.
She swallowed.
And felt his breath, hot against her cheek. Then he nuzzled her ear. And breathed in, deep and slow, just as though he was... What was he doing? Smelling her? Why would he want to do that? Although, hadn’t he said something about heightening the other senses? And it was very...affecting, having him just breathe in and out like that, as though he was inhaling her very essence.
She couldn’t help being extremely aware of the scent of him, too. It was incredibly intimate—yes that was the word, intimate—to be so close to a man that she could identify the unique smell of the shaving soap he’d used, overlying freshly laundered linen and what she suspected was just him. Spice and musk. Masculinity.
Oh, bother the man. What was he waiting for? Why did he have to make such a meal of it? Why could he not just get on with it?
His hand went to the nape of her neck. His fingers speared upwards, into her hair, massaging her scalp. He nudged at her jaw line with his nose, as though he wanted her to tilt her head back still further.
And because it felt rather as though her spine was melting, she had no problem with letting her head loll against the back of the sofa.
He buried his face in her neck.
‘Oh!’ He was still not kissing her. Instead, he was very gently nipping along the length of her neck. And now not only her spine, but every single bone in her body was melting.
He lapped at the little hollow beneath her collarbone with his tongue. And it occurred to her, shockingly, that he would only have to lower his head a fraction more, nudge aside her bodice and his mouth could gain access to her nipples. Which certainly needed something. They had gone so hard and tight they were almost painful. And that hot, wet tongue would be incredibly soothing.
She whimpered.
He lifted his head, briefly. She did not open her eyes, but somehow she knew he was examining the effects of his handiwork. Or should that be teethiwork? For he was only employing his hands to keep her in place. Which was a jolly good thing. Because, when he started suckling at the juncture of her neck and her shoulder, she went so limp she would have slid right off the sofa and melted into a pool on the floor without them to anchor her in place.
Harlequin Historical February 2013 - Bundle 1 of 2: Never Trust a RakeDicing With the Dangerous LordA Daring Liaison Page 11
