“If you would but have a moment’s patience, I am about to prove to you otherwise.”
She studied him through narrowed eyes, pursing her lips in speculation. “Patience for what, precisely?”
“Impertinent and impatient.” He laughed with wry humor. “What am I to do with you? Here I am, all civility and cordiality, yet you will not accept my friendship.”
She pointed to the square object covered in blue velvet, before steadily moving toward the sofa. “Is that what you are offering by way of this pillow?”
Not at all, but he could hardly confess the war between desire and reason that waged within him. “Yes,” he lied, his gaze riveted to the delicately boned hand that hovered over the pillow.
She picked it up by the corner. “Very well then, I accept.”
Gabriel’s heart rose higher in his chest. Anticipation after so many years caused it to beat madly.
Crossing the room, she kept her gaze on his, a slight smile curving her lips. That smile said to him, I am a complete person, with or without your approval.
How many times—and in how many ways—had he imagined such a scene unfolding? He had her undivided attention. Other than the open doors, they were alone. There were only six buttons on the back of her gown. He’d counted. Only two combs in her hair. He would like to see her cross the room to him with those buttons undone, her hair teasing her shoulders, but still wearing that smile.
Now, the wild beating of his pulse ventured decidedly lower.
Calliope stopped at the base of the stairs and held out the pillow in both hands as if presenting him with the Sovereign’s Orb. “Your pillow, my lord.”
He slipped the embroidered velvet from her grasp and placed it on the step directly below his. He spread his legs farther to allow her more room. “Do sit down, Miss Croft, if you please.”
“Sit?” She blinked in astonishment. “Surely, this was not your intention—to have me bring a pillow to you and then sit upon it.”
“With your back to me, yes.” He reached down and gave the pillow a pat. “Come along now, or you’ll have my patience wearing thin.”
She eyed him warily. “I am suddenly wondering at the price of your friendship.”
“You are seeing dragons where there are only dragonflies.” He tsked at her. “I know of a remedy for your sore neck; that is all.”
She shook her head to decline but then winced again. The pain must have made her think twice because she glanced down and then back up at him. “You believe you have a cure and that it involves my sitting on a pillow with my back to you.”
He held out his hand, hoping his eagerness did not show in his eyes, hoping she could not hear the heavy hammering of his pulse. “I am merely extending the hand of friendship, Miss Croft.”
With undisguised reluctance, she slipped her hand in his and placed her foot on the first tread. The coolness of her fingers did nothing to soothe the roaring heat inside of him. He drew her up a step, then two, and on the third she turned and sat.
His thighs bracketed her like bookends. The slender curve of her neck and shoulders were bared for him. A hot jolt of arousal tore through him, engorging him. As long as she didn’t lean back against the fall of his breeches, she would never know.
He placed his hands on her shoulders, skin on skin, and nearly groaned with unfettered pleasure. Her response, however, was slightly different. She stiffened. He could hear the argument before she uttered a word.
Gabriel couldn’t let her balk now. “Surely you’ve heard of the Chinese medicinal massage,” he said, attempting to reassure her. Yet the low hoarseness of his voice likely sounded hungry instead. Slowly, he slid his thumbs along the outer edges of the vertebrae at the base of her neck.
“I don’t believe I have,” she said, relaxing marginally, her voice thin and wispy like the fine downy hairs above her nape, teasing the top of his thumbs.
“Taoist priests have used this method for centuries.” His own voice came out low and insubstantial, as if he were breathing his final breath. As it was, his heart had all but given up trying to lure the blood away from his pulsing erection. This was a terrible idea.
He was immensely glad he’d thought of it.
His fingertips skirted the edge of her clavicle. Hands curled over her slender shoulders, he rolled his thumbs over her again.
Calliope emitted the faintest oh. It was barely a breath, but the sound deafened him with a rush of tumid desire. As if she sensed the change in him, she tensed again. “Are you trying to seduce me, Everhart?”
“If you have to ask,” he said, attempting to add levity with a chuckle, “then the answer is most likely no.” Yet even he knew differently. The most likely was said only as way of not lying to himself. He wanted to seduce her, slowly and for hours on end.
For five years he’d wanted to feel her flesh beneath his hands. For a moment this evening, he’d even thought this one touch would be enough to sate him. He hated being wrong.
Those pearl buttons called to him. He feathered strokes outward along the upper edge of her shoulder blades, earning another breathy sound. Only this time, she did not tense beneath the heat of his hands.
“I’ve read—heard stories,” she corrected, “where the young woman is not always certain of seduction until it is too late.”
Gabriel caught her quick slip and was not surprised. Her penchant for reading was another aspect of her character that drew him to her. Earlier today, in fact, he’d spotted her disappearing through the library doors.
Unable to control the impulse, he’d found a servant’s door off a narrow hall and surreptitiously watched her from behind a screen in the corner. Browsing the shelves, she’d searched through dozens of books. Yet her method fascinated him. She only searched the last pages of each book. When she found one she liked, she clutched it to her breast and released a sigh filled with the type of longing he knew too well. He had little doubt that she sought the certainty of a happy ending. All in all, it had taken her over an hour to find three books that met her standards. Yet instead of being bored, he’d been enthralled by every minute.
And now, here they were . . .
Under the spell of his massage, her head fell forward as she arched ever so slightly into his hands. Rampant desire coursed through him. Even so, he was in no hurry to end this delicious torment.
“I cannot imagine that a woman would not suspect an attempt of seduction in some manner.” He leaned forward to inhale the fragrance of her hair, the barest scents of rosewater and mint rising up to greet him. “Aren’t all young ladies brought up with the voice of reason clamoring about in their heads?”
His gaze followed the motions of his fingers, gliding over her silken warmth, pressing against the supple flesh that pinkened beneath his tender ministrations. He’d always wondered . . . and now he knew she felt as soft, if not softer, than any one of his dreams.
“Curiosity has a voice as well,” she said, her voice faint with pleasure. “And are we not all creatures put upon this earth to learn, just as you have learned this exquisite medicine?”
And sometimes curiosity could not be tamed.
It was no use. Did he truly imagine he could resist her? “Well said, Miss Croft.”
Unable to hold back a moment longer, Gabriel gave into temptation, lowered his head, and pressed his lips to her nape.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Calliope jolted. Sitting upright, her spine snapped into place with the suddenness of an arrow hitting a target. “Did you just . . . just kiss me?”
“Kiss you?” Everhart asked from behind her, his tone a combination of amusement and disbelief. “Preposterous. You know very well that I’m merely aiding in your recuperation. Nothing untoward. My fingers are here”—he thrummed them over the upper portion of her shoulders to demonstrate—“and my thumbs are here.” He burrowed the tips in a circular motion directly into the aching knot at the base of her neck.
She tried not to moan, but a soft whimper might have escaped,
nonetheless.
While he claimed this medicinal massage had been around for centuries, she knew nothing of it. Even so, she never wanted him to stop.
“I distinctly felt something that was neither thumb nor finger on the nape of my neck,” she argued, but with no force behind the words. She found it difficult to summon any censure. Her body hummed pleasantly as if his hands massaged every inch of her, instead of merely her shoulders.
“This accusation comes from a wealth of knowledge on your part, does it?” He altered his grip, kneading her flesh with the heels of his hands.
She swallowed down another moan. “Well, no. But I think I would know the diff—”
“There you have it,” he said succinctly. “You would not even know a kiss if it had happened, which it did not. Now tilt your head forward like before, or you will strain yourself again.”
Oh, yes. Every rumor she’d heard about Everhart’s skill with his hands was indeed warranted. Of course, she shouldn’t have paid any attention to what widows whispered behind their fans at balls, but one could not simply forget what one was not supposed to overhear. Those were usually the most interesting bits of conversation.
Still, she could not allow her somewhat overactive imagination to let her lose this argument. “The flesh that brushed mine was decidedly warmer than your thumbs.”
“Are you saying my hands are cold?” He did something almost wicked then, sliding his fingers along the ridge of her shoulders as his rotating thumbs slipped beneath the back of her gown.
Sweet heaven. “Not at all. Only that I’m certain what I felt was softer than the flesh of your thumbs, but not overly soft, and warmer, like the heat rising out of a brazier.”
“Hmm,” he murmured deep in his throat, causing her to feel the rumble of it rising up through the stair tread. “This is quite the mystery. Are you certain it was not this . . . ” He brushed the pad of his thumb along the curve of her nape, eliciting a pleasant series of tremors through her.
Oh, please do that again. “I’m certain.”
He shifted behind her. “What about this,” he said, closer now. His heated breath sifted through fine strands of hair to fan out over her skin. “Perhaps you merely felt my breath on your flesh.”
Everhart made the notion sound sinful and decadent. Her mouth watered.
His massage remained unhurried and thorough, delving into the deepest part of her ache, all the while creating a new one elsewhere—foreign and familiar at the same time, like a book slowly coming to life at the reader’s bidding. And when his breath caressed her, she felt her pages stir.
Shortly after the beginning of their acquaintance, Everhart had been cold to her, so unlike the way he was with everyone else. She longed to discover the mystery behind his changeling behavior.
She’d been trying to make a point to him about how he could not remain cold and annoyed with her for years and then suddenly turn warm and friendly without explanation. Yet at the moment, she no longer cared. She was solely living in this moment. Her, Calliope Croft. Not a character in a story, but her.
Another breath touched her. His lips glided against her flesh once more.
“Everhart, are you kissing me now?” She knew the answer, of course, but she needed to hear him admit it.
“No, Miss Croft,” he said, nipping her lightly. The fingers at her shoulders trailed down to tease the flesh beneath her lace trim, just above the curve of her breasts. “I’m offering you a frame of reference, should you accuse another man of kissing your neck in the future.”
That was unlikely, but she made no comment. Shamelessly, she let him continue. A rake should behave as a rake ought, she reasoned. This was his basic nature at work. And she preferred the heated press of his lips far above his unwarranted coldness. The soft, teasing caress of his fingertips made her breasts tingle. Her nipples grew taut. She wanted him to touch her. She wanted to arch her back.
Surely, this solitary moment wouldn’t hurt her reputation or change the fact that she would be gone from here as soon as she found the letter and . . . Wait.
The letter.
That was the reason she’d come into the map room in the first place. How could she have forgotten? Well . . . Everhart’s skillful hands and lips were the likely cause. Nonetheless, now that she remembered her purpose, she could not forget it again.
Leaning forward, Calliope abruptly abandoned her spot on the pillow and clambered down the stairs. Not wanting to appear like a frightened ninny, she smoothed her hands over her gown and turned to face him. But that was a mistake.
The firelight caught the dampness of his lips, which drew her attention to the spot cooling on the back of her neck. She shivered. His blue-green eyes were cloudy and heavy lidded in a way that made her want to climb the stairs again. He offered no excuse for his behavior, but merely beseeched her with his potent, seductive charm, tempting her to return to his embrace. And oh she was tempted indeed.
She shook her head as if to answer his unspoken question. “You have distracted me from my purpose long enough.”
A slow grin curled the corners of his mouth. “If you are ever in want of another distraction, please enter my sanctuary again. I promise to be thorough.”
Her knees wobbled at the same time her suspicions went on alert. With four siblings, she understood taunting when she heard it. In addition to that, they both knew of his wager with Montwood and Danvers; therefore, he would never be so thorough as to compromise her. Yet apparently, that was what he wanted her to believe. “Come now, Everhart. I thought we were going to be friends, but friends do not issue threats.”
“I do not think we can be friends, Miss Croft.” Another threat. His gaze was clearly telling her something else entirely. It said, We could be much, much more than friends. The same way he looked at all women.
As much as it thrilled her—to be seen as a woman worthy of his seduction when all she’d earned before was his censure—somehow this felt worse than when she’d thought he hated her. Now, she was just like all the others. Not that she wanted to be different in his eyes. No, it was just that she wanted to be special to someone, instead of so easily forgotten.
She hid her inexplicable wound behind a tight smile. “I’m certain we could have been friends, if you weren’t such a conceited, condescending prig.”
Relishing his open-mouthed astonishment, she curtsied ever so sweetly and took her leave.
Gabriel fell back against the stairs, allowing the sharp edge of the tread to bite through his coat. He issued a groan that was more frustration than pain.
A familiar laugh sounded from the doorway. “Did I just hear Miss Croft call you a condescending prig?”
Gabriel didn’t bother to look at Montwood. “You left out conceited.”
“Even better.” From the sound of glass clinking and knowing what bottles remained on the sideboard, Montwood was now pouring a whiskey. “She left in quite the rush.”
“I made sure of that.” He was sure that she would never come back either. He’d already given in to temptation once—twice, if he counted the second kiss to her nape—and he would likely do so again.
He couldn’t risk it. Too much was at stake. He needed to make sure she knew that he couldn’t be relied upon to behave properly, no matter the circumstance.
Montwood tsked. “You’re not going to make this easy, are you.”
“I’m going to make this impossible.” Hearing his friend’s even footsteps approach, Gabriel sat upright and accepted the offered glass of whiskey. He downed it in one swallow.
“You’d deny yourself for the sake of a wager?”
It wasn’t all about the wager. Not for Gabriel. His reasons had deeper roots. “Would you do any less?”
Montwood didn’t answer. Instead he moved to the hearth and poked at the logs on the grate as they sizzled and popped in response. “And in a year’s time, will you marry her then?”
He couldn’t believe that Calliope had thought all this time that he hadn’t liked
her. That he disapproved of her. It was as disconcerting as it was liberating. He could easily perpetuate the lie in order to keep her away from him.
“Before she leaves Fallow Hall,” Gabriel said, his mood darkening, “I’ll make sure she never wants to see me again.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Gabriel opened the portal window on the far side of the attic. He closed his eyes against the blast of cold, damp morning air, perspiration cooling on his flesh. Having alternated between the use of his cane and one-legged hops, he’d managed to navigate all the stairs. He hoped the exercise would dispel the futile desires that had plagued him all night.
Typically, he enjoyed early morning hours. During travels abroad, he’d written in his journal of each sunrise and the first sounds of each new day on any given spot on the earth. Lincolnshire hosted its own sounds—the silken hush of the wind through the evergreen boughs, the quiet rush of servants’ footsteps combined with the subdued murmur of their voices. It was comforting to know where one’s place was on the map at any given moment. Which was hardly something that a gentleman with the reputation for being an aimless wanderer could admit.
By all accounts, he was supposed to roam, to revel in exploration. And he did. He loved experiencing new sights, sounds, fragrances, and flavors. But as wonderful as those experiences had been, there had been something missing.
He knew what it was, of course. A man did not advance to eight and twenty without a sense of his own mind. He’d learned firsthand how lonely traveling could be, even when among friends. For him, there had always been a certain amount of poetry to the journey home to England. Even when he had not been returning to any home in particular.
He’d never felt such acute yearning for a home until recently. It was unsettling. More than anything, he wanted to run from this feeling. Run from Lincolnshire. Run from Calliope Croft and everything she represented. But with this damnable broken leg and the restriction of his monies, he couldn’t. He was trapped here.
The Elusive Lord Everhart: The Rakes of Fallow Hall Series Page 8
