One taste of her had been such a bad idea. He didn’t think he’d ever be able to pull away.
He felt the heavy pound of her heart where their bodies were crushed together. Sucking on her lower lip, he nipped at it before releasing it then soothed it with a gentler kiss. She matched every thrust of his tongue as their mouths tasted hungrily.
“Ask me to stop.” His request was but a whisper against her lips.
She shook her head and pressed her mouth against his, giving him a sweet kiss.
“Ask me to stop, Rosa.” He pressed his lips to her forehead, trying to rein in his need to claim her in an entirely different way than with a kiss.
“I can’t. I—I don’t want you to stop.” She rained kisses along his chin and neck.
Wrapping his arms around her, Teddy held her tightly, locking them in an embrace. With her head tucked into the crook of his shoulder, she was in his complete control. He didn’t move for some time, just held her as he warred with his better judgment to stop the madness that had ensnared them and let her go.
Even lost in the moment, Teddy knew that the danger in not pulling back was that Rosa would think him no better than any other man in her life. He had to refrain himself, take his time to get to know her.
He needed her trust, her friendship, and her love before he led them farther down their current path.
Brushing his lips over hers one final time, he let her go. Teddy hated the distance immediately.
Standing, he walked around to her side, took her hand, and assisted her over to the sofa. “Please stay a while. We can talk trade or about your brother. I want your company.”
She shut her eyes and took a deep breath. “I think it’s best for us to call it a night.”
His jaw clenched. Despite that being the last thing he wanted to happen, he understood her hesitancy in remaining in his company if she wanted to fight their mutual attraction. “If that is what you desire, let me arrange for a carriage.”
“Desire is a dangerous emotion.”
“Not if it leads you in the right direction.” He took her hand and led her back downstairs.
“Who is to say what’s right between us?”
“Don’t you feel how right this is?”
When she didn’t answer him, he left to retrieve her cloak and his frock coat. Conceding to her wish to leave was growing more difficult with every step. He reminded himself again that she must think of him differently than she did of other men. The only way to achieve that was to be patient with her. Whatever was between them seemed to frighten her, where it only intrigued and spurred him into wanting her more.
After he hailed the cab, he opened the door for her, reluctant to say good night.
Temptation overwhelmed his better judgment and he gathered Rosa in his arms before he could think better of his actions. Taking a surreptitious glance around them, he checked that they were not being watched. Her breath hitched in her chest, her tongue darted out to moisten her lips, enticing him to take a bite.
When he did no more than hold her in his arms, she asked, “What are you about?”
Her voice had taken on that sultry, breathless quality that had his body aching for her.
“I want you to myself, and I’m sorry you feel the need to escape us.”
As her arms snaked around his shoulders, the last of his patience wore right through. He was done waiting for a more appropriate time and place, and urged Rosa behind the open door of the carriage so the driver could not see them.
He lowered his mouth to the upper swell of her breasts, biting the flesh that teased him. He worked his way toward her collarbone, licking and nipping a path along her pale flesh. When she gasped and threaded her fingers through his hair, he knew she was his. Arms around his shoulders, she held him tight, encouraging him. Hands at the small of her back to pull her close, he dipped his tongue lower once again.
Could two people be more in tune to each other? Could two people meld any tighter with all their clothes on? He wanted to feel and taste all of her, every dip, every curve, every part of her flesh as he wrung passion from her body when he finally claimed her. Teeth grazing the curve of her breast, leaving it reddened, he tasted every part of her that he could without physically removing any article of cloth.
Voices broke through their private, stolen moment and he reluctantly released her, holding her in his arms, looking into her unseeing eyes. “Though I need to better contain my desire for you, I cannot apologize.”
She took in a shaky breath.
“We need to get you home, or I’ll do my damnedest to convince you to come back inside. I want you, Rosa. I have from the moment we met.”
Closing her eyes, she pressed her palm against his cheek. “I fear the path we’re on.”
She was afraid of what lay between them, he could sense it in her words, in her body language as she started to pull away from him. Her honesty struck him so deeply that he wished he could brush her fears away with the wave of his hand. Instead of doing what he most wanted, he offered, “Let me accompany you home. I won’t stay, I just want to see you safely off.”
When she stepped away from him he felt his world shatter a little with the distance and wall she put up.
“Thank you, but I can manage on my own.” She climbed into the carriage with her hand on the door so she could shut it behind her, separating them. He watched her leave, and stayed out in the street until he could no longer see the swing of the lamp on the side of the carriage.
FINALLY IN THE SAFETY OF her home, she shut the door behind her and pressed her back against the wood for a moment, thinking over the monumental evening with Teddy. Something far more than friendship had sprouted between them. Fingers reaching up, she traced her lips.
She could still feel the phantom touch of Teddy’s lips atop hers: supple, strong, addictive ... everything a kiss should be. Even the taste of him lingered on her tongue, and the imprint of him warmed her skin as though he had seared her very flesh with each of his passionate caresses.
He had taken his time, tasting her tenderly, touching her like a man who couldn’t get enough of the feel of her. The intimacy they shared had burnt a path right to her aching, hungry heart. She wanted him even now and felt the deep, craving ache in her body to have him. Why had she turned him away? Because she didn’t trust herself around him.
And because she was falling in love with him. How could she not? The question was, did he return her sentiment?
As she made her way upstairs, she realized just how much she was at a loss in dealing with the feelings bombarding her. Teddy was merely helping her through a difficult time in searching for her brother. She read more into his actions than she ought. And while he said he needed her musical acuity, she knew that wasn’t quite true; he just had to believe in what he was creating. There was no doubt in her mind that others would find his new work just as beautiful as she did. And she’d only had a tiny glimpse of the surface of it.
Where could this love affair lead in the end? She was a ladybird. A woman of ill repute and not worthy enough to stand next to a man of Teddy’s status. There could never have or share more than their mutual love of music.
That was the key to making their relationship work; she needed to focus on his music and forget any sentimental feelings she harbored for Teddy.
As she made her way into her room, she trailed her hands along the polished wooden surface of the vanity in search of her hairbrush. When the bristles prickled her fingertips, she turned it about to grasp the handle and sat on the edge of her bed.
Perhaps the last few years alone made her yearn for the company and companionship of a man. It wasn’t any man she wanted, though. Thaddeus de Burgh thoroughly consumed her thoughts.
She needed to shield her heart. She’d not be left broken and unable to pick up the pieces when he no longer required her services, when he no longer enjoyed the chase in pursuing her.
Why did he have to treat her as an equal?
What she did
know was that in Teddy, she had found a friend who shared her passion and love in music. Everything they worked toward for his composition would make his debut at the Hanover Square Rooms the most talked-about event for years to come. And she would have a part in all that. But what would happen after that? Once her brother was found and Teddy’s piece completed, what would be left for them? Would he write out her piano sonatas in the end? Or would he be done with her altogether?
Rosa sighed her frustration as she pulled at a stubborn knot at the end of her hair. She was being fanciful and foolish. And she knew that falling in love with Teddy would be a grave mistake.
Teddy was a man with the world before his feet. He would become someone amazing and respected, and he would never be able to do that with a woman of her reputation standing by his side. There would be no spot for her in his life once those around them realized just how brilliant a man he was. Because without a doubt, there would come a time when Teddy would be lauded again for his musical compositions.
He would have everything, and rightfully so, that she’d been denied. And while she felt no jealousy, only pride, that meant she had nothing to offer him once they concluded their time together. How could she ever expect to stand on equal ground with him when she couldn’t even write her own music down to share with the world?
She shook her head as she set the brush down. For now, she would live vicariously through Teddy.
And the rest ... the rest she would worry about when the time came to pass.
“DE BURGH.” LORD HAGAN CLAPPED him on the back. “What brings you here so late in the evening?”
It was true that he rarely went out to his clubs at night, but he needed something to distract him, to keep him from going to Rosa and demanding she stop pushing him away.
“I’m in search of someone.”
Hagan glanced at Teddy’s half-empty tumbler, and the newsprint folded open on the table. Teddy hadn’t wanted company when he’d arrived, but now ... After an hour, half a glass of whisky he didn’t have the good sense to enjoy, and a mostly unread paper sitting in front of him, he could use a break from doing nothing. He motioned toward the chair across from him, inviting Hagan to join him.
“Anyone I might know?” Hagan asked, taking off his frock coat to hang it over the back of the wooden chair.
Then it struck him that Hagan was a regular here day and night. Why not ask him about Rosa’s brother? There was a good chance Hagan would know of him, he was much more a man about Town than Teddy had ever been.
“Daniel Montgomery.”
Hagan made a derisive sound in the back of his throat as he pulled off his gloves and waved the club owner over to their table. “I didn’t realize you’d fallen in with that lot.”
“I’m looking for him for—” His companion? His lover—though Rosa wasn’t yet his lover. He took another swig of the whisky. “A friend asked me to locate him.”
“Ah. It makes sense then. Is your friend owed money?”
“Yes.” A small lie would not hurt in this instance.
Hagan gave Teddy a thoughtful look, fingers splayed along the edge of the table. “Well, I doubt you’ll find him here, or at any of your other clubs. Seems Johnson gave the boy heaps of money just prior to him up and disappearing into the night. There’s some shady business going on there that you don’t want any part of it.”
Goddamn Johnson. Why did it keep coming back to that cad? Teddy’s fingers curled tightly into a fist, his knuckles cracked. When he found that little prick, he’d wring his bloody neck.
And why in hell was Hagan warning him off?
“I see.” Teddy scratched his chin pensively. “Though anything with Johnson is usually bad news.”
When Hagan looked at him curiously, Teddy turned is focus to the paper he still held. He folded it and set it on the table. What would he tell Rosa? How would she react once she knew her brother was mixed up with Johnson?
“Honor bound as your brother’s friend,” Hagan said as he rose to his feet, “I should warn you that half the club is looking for Montgomery for various chits and favors owed. You’ll not find Montgomery until he is good and ready to be found.”
Teddy inclined his head. “And I am bound by honor to locate him.”
Hagan gave him a slow, knowing smile. “A woman, eh?”
Teddy chose not to agree or disagree and instead shrugged.
Hagan clapped him on the shoulder once again before taking his leave. “Because it’s you, and for a lady friend, you can try asking Montgomery’s father. Though I hear he’s taken ill and hasn’t left his bed for a fortnight.”
Teddy looked up at Hagan curiously. “And who precisely is his father?”
Good God, this search for information was hitting dead end after dead end. Now he’d have to tell Rosa that Johnson might be responsible for her brother’s disappearance, but that her father ailed.
“My mistake. I thought you might know him. Lord Percy Montgomery of Sussex.”
The corner of the paper Teddy clutched was suddenly crushed between his fingers. Not only was Rosa a baron’s daughter, she was Lord Montgomery’s daughter, a man known for his support of the arts, namely music.
He nodded a curt thanks to Hagan, hoping the shock he felt was not easily read on his face. Teddy needed to see Rosa—to ask and understand why she’d kept him in the dark as to her being that Montgomery’s daughter. Miss Rosalie Montgomery. Despite knowing precisely who her father was, Rosa’s name remained unfamiliar to him.
Shrugging into his overcoat, he left the club. Coming across a free hackney, he gave the man directions to Rosa’s house.
He ascended the steps two at a time when he arrived, and gave a harsh pull at the knocker. A woman in a mobcap, rounded and matronly, answered his summons before he could pound the knocker a second time.
“The mistress of the house?” he asked.
Riotous curls swept around the woman’s shoulders as she bobbed her head. “Come in, my lord. The house has bedded down for the night, but the mistress gave instruction to be summoned no matter the hour if you ever arrived for an audience.”
The door opened enough to permit him entrance. Removing his gloves and feeling agitated for the first time in days, he paced the small foyer. Had Rosa lied to him purposely?
A footman who couldn’t be a day over fourteen and still half asleep came and took his coat before leading him to a small sitting room just off the main foyer. The room housed only two sofas and a chair, a rounded table off to the side and an inviting mantel with a painting that depicted a woman at her piano.
“Teddy.” Her voice was full of pain. He hadn’t thought about the hour he’d come and how she might interpret that.
Her hair fell over one shoulder in a loose plait. Her night rail was covered with a soft lavender silk robe.
“Is something wrong? Has something happened?”
Some of his anger dissipated, knowing she’d come down the moment she’d been told of his arrival. He was sorry to have worried her.
He stepped forward and took her chilled hands in his. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. I have not found your brother, but I had to come to you immediately.”
As she exhaled, her shoulders relaxed marginally. He needed to hear the truth of what he learned tonight from her own mouth.
“Why didn’t you tell me, Rosa?”
She slipped her hands out from under his and took a few steps back. When the backs of her knees hit the sofa, she sat heavily.
“What are you referring to?”
“I was advised to seek out your father if I wanted to locate your brother.”
“My father?” she repeated. She turned her chin down, no longer able to face him, he thought. Her hands curled into the sleeves of her robe as a shimmer of tears glazed her eyes.
“I was advised that your father might have some insight as to how I should locate your brother. Funnily enough, I know precisely who your father is.”
Rosa shook her head. “Daniel won’t g
o to our father if he’s in trouble.”
“How well do you even know your brother to assume he wouldn’t?”
She swiped the tears away from her eyes with the back of her hand. “Do not claim to know me or anything about my past. You know nothing about my family.”
“Because you refuse to let me in,” he said.
The hurt in her words was enough to have him reaching for her to gather her in his arms as he sat next to her. She struggled, but it was a brief fight before she gave up and pressed her face against his chest.
And just like that, the anger that had built from the moment he’d left his club vanished as though it never was. He brushed his hands over her back, wanting nothing more than to soothe her hurt, to erase everything that had gone wrong in her life, and stand in as her knight-errant as she’d claimed him to be.
She broke away from the embrace, and asked, “Will you still help me?”
“Why didn’t you tell me, Rosa? Did you think it would change our first meeting? Change what I’ve started to feel for you?”
“Have you figured out who I am?”
“I feel like I do know you, but can’t think from where. Your father was once a prominent figure and teacher, but stepped out of the spotlight before I went to train in Vienna. I know of your father, but I do not know him personally.”
“We would have had the same teachers in Vienna, Teddy. Only a few years separate us.”
She’d mentioned Vienna before, but hadn’t elaborated just what she’d been there for. Teddy’s first instructors had been Mendelssohn and Schumann in Leipzig. Johann Strauss senior had been his instructor when he moved to Vienna some eight or nine years ...
“What are you trying to tell me?”
Tempted by You Page 7
