Lovers and Ladies

by Jo Beverley

  “I thought you were to teach me to kiss,” she managed to say.

  “So I am, Deirdre. I have been demonstrating. Now, you kiss me.”

  She stared at him for a moment, then began to kiss his face as he had kissed hers. Oh, how she had wanted to do this; to pay homage to his lean cheeks, his perfect nose, his beautiful eyes…

  He slid back so she was on top of him. His shirt stood open at the neck, so she kissed his warm skin there. She was aware of his hands traveling over her back. Through her fine muslin it almost felt as if they touched her skin.

  “Bite me,” he said softly.

  She looked up. “What?”

  “Just little nips. It’s another form of kissing. Like this.” He captured her hand and took the fleshy part of her thumb in the gentle pressure of his teeth.

  Deirdre sucked in a sharp breath. Then she surveyed him. “I feel like a diner choosing the most succulent piece of meat.” Deirdre realized she was smiling at him. How could she be smiling at a time like this?

  He grinned back. “I wait to be eaten.”

  She sank her teeth into his neck, but didn’t think she hurt him. She relished the taste of his flesh, but when she released him she saw that she had made a dark mark there.

  “Oh dear…”

  “Marked me, have you? Fair’s fair. You must let me mark you.”

  Deirdre swallowed, but nodded. A dim, distant part of her mind reminded her that she had come here for some other purpose, but nothing short of Armageddon could stop her from enjoying every last moment of this tryst.

  He pushed her away slightly, surveying her as greedily as she had surveyed him. The very path of his eyes made her tremble.

  He put out a hand and traced the low bodice of her dress, easing it down to uncover the upper swell of her breast. She captured his hand.

  His eyes dared her. “Fair’s fair, and you wouldn’t want the mark where it could be seen, would you?”

  With a mental apology to her mother, Deirdre released him, and his mouth wandered across her chest to settle on the spot he had marked, just an inch or two inside her neckline. She swayed back against his arm, and her own hands came to hold his head to her. He nuzzled lower and lower. His fingers brushed her thigh, and it felt as if he really was touching her bare skin…

  “Good God!”

  Her mother’s voice shocked Deirdre back into her senses. She twisted her head to see her mother standing in the doorway, staring at her. Lucetta stood behind, looking amused. The butler and Joseph peered in from a distance.

  Deirdre squeaked, and grabbed Everdon’s head to pull him off her.

  He was deliciously flushed and disordered, and for a moment she lost awareness that they had been caught.

  “Lord Everdon,” said Lady Harby awfully. “Remove your hand from my daughter!”

  Deirdre looked down and found that his hand covered her right breast, but it was the only thing that did. She hastily tugged up her gown, and he eased his hand away as it became unnecessary.

  “Oh, criminy…” Deirdre muttered. She would have leapt to her feet, but he was still all over her. She whispered frantically, “Get up, my lord!”

  “Calm, light of my life. There is an art to this.”

  Deirdre realized that more than her bodice was disarranged. Most of her skirt was, too. His hand really had been on the naked skin of her thigh. Somehow—years of practice?—he pulled her to her feet and rearranged her clothing in one smooth movement, and turned them to face their accusers, keeping her safe in his arms.

  “Well,” said Lady Harby severely. “I’ve told you, Deirdre, let them inside your clothing and it’s the altar for you. And we’d best not wait until September by the looks of it.”

  “We will certainly wait until September if Deirdre wishes to,” said Everdon firmly. “There is no reason for haste.”

  “We’ll at least have the betrothal in the papers immediately,” countered her mother.

  “Of course.”

  Deirdre looked between them and collected her wits. “Stop! I am not marrying Lord Everdon.”

  “You most certainly are, miss, after a scene like that. Look at the pair of you!”

  “He tricked me!”

  “Tricked you? How, pray?”

  Deirdre turned to Everdon for support, then the truth dawned. Rage bloomed, and she swung back and clouted him with all the strength in her arm. She cried out at the pain in her hand, but she had the satisfaction of seeing him knocked backward. Of course, he would not have fallen if his heel had not caught in a hole in the threadbare carpet, but there was great satisfaction in seeing him tumble to the floor.

  She stood over him, arms akimbo. “I told you I’d hit you.”

  He lay there laughing. “I knew you were a woman of your word. Marry me, Deirdre. Please?”

  “Why?” It was almost a wail.

  “I haven’t finished the kissing lessons.”

  She hurled a musty cushion at him. She looked for further ammunition and threw his jacket over his face.

  He pushed out from under it. “Is that a hint that you want me to dress, dear heart?”

  “That’s a hint that I want you to stop making fun of me!”

  He leapt lightly to his feet, but there was nothing light about his expression. “I truly want you to marry me, Deirdre. You have every quality that I wish for in a wife, but in addition, I adore you. Think back over the last fifteen minutes or so. That was not a mild, convenient passion, Deirdre. That was deep desire. I desire you, body and soul.”

  Deirdre looked anxiously at the watchers, for though Everdon seemed unaware of them, she was. She saw that the servants, at least, had gone. “Why on earth did you stage this farce?”

  “To show you what we have here. You could have stopped me at any time, but you wanted that as much as I. But also to compromise you. This time, one way or another, I will keep you with me.”

  “You are trying to trap me!”

  “Yes. But what am I to do? I can make you happy, cara…” Then he spread his hands and sighed. “I fool myself. I cannot hold you like this. Even in your own interests I cannot use the whip. No one here will speak of what they have seen, Deirdre—I promise you that. You are free. If your heart is free.”

  Deirdre sucked in a breath. This final gesture, the act of setting her free, was the one that broke the chains. “You truly do love me,” she whispered in wonder.

  “To distraction. As I have never loved before.”

  “But why? I am not pretty.”

  “If I were to be scarred tomorrow, would you cease to love me?”

  “No, but—” She glared at him. “I have not said I love you, sir.”

  “Do you not? If you don’t, I will find a way to make you love me as I love you.”

  Deirdre was overwhelmed that he would say these things before others. “I don’t know…Why do you love me?”

  He reached out and touched her cheek. “Why do you love me? I love you for your courage, and your honor. For the way you dance, and the way you smile. I love the child that is still in you, and the woman you are beginning to be. I love you as you are. What more can I say?”

  There was almost a plea in that, and Deirdre answered it by going into his arms. “This frightens me a little.”

  He held her close. “It terrifies me,” he admitted with a laugh. “But to be without you would terrify me more.”

  Deirdre had to ask. “And your first wife? Is she still in your heart?”

  “Oh, love, my heart and she parted long ago. I wept for the person she might have been, in another time and another place, and for the misery of her passing. There is no one but you.”

  Deirdre had no choice but to believe. He produced the diamond ring with a question in his eyes. Blushing, she extended her hand and let him slip it once more onto her finger.

  At that moment Rip and Henry burst in. “Where is everybody?” Harry demanded. “What a day. What a fight!”

  “Yes, wasn’t it?” murmured Everdon
.

  “Thought it’d go on forever!” declared Rip. “Wasn’t sure of the outcome at all.”

  “Neither was I,” mouthed Everdon, and Deirdre bit her lip against a grin.

  “Until the victor landed that blow,” said Henry. “What a right!”

  “Sent him crashing to the floor!” said Rip. “Wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”

  Everdon turned Deirdre in his arms, and stood with his chin resting on her head. “My sentiments entirely, Lord Ripon.”

  “What?” said Rip. “You weren’t there, were you, Everdon? Corking contest, wasn’t it? Touch and go. Some clever maneuvering, but plenty of close work. They really went at it toward the end.”

  Deirdre could feel Don Juan shaking with the laughter she was fighting down. She elbowed him, and he kissed her cheek.

  Rip looked around. “Why’s everyone in here, anyway? Not to be discourteous or anything, Everdon, but this room ain’t your best spot. Could do with a bit of refurbishing. There’s a hole in the carpet there that could cause an accident.”

  “How true. Deirdre will doubtless see to it.”

  “Not at all,” said Deirdre sweetly. “I shall preserve it as a valued memento.”

  Rip stared at them in bemusement, then his gaze became fixed on Everdon’s neck. “I say…”

  Lady Harby interrupted. “It lacks but fifteen minutes to dinnertime, Ripon, and you are in all your dirt. Get along with you. And you, too, Henry.” She turned to leave with Lucetta, but turned back. “And you, too, Everdon. And I’ll thank you to behave yourself until September!”

  They were alone again. Everdon turned Deirdre gently in his arms and they collapsed together in helpless laughter.

  When she recovered Deirdre gasped, “I don’t feel at all like myself.”

  He hugged her. “I don’t feel like Don Juan, either. Will you mind being boringly domestic, and attending to my rather tattered home?”

  She smiled up at him. “I can think of nothing I’d like more, Don. Except, perhaps,” she added with a sliding look, “another kissing lesson?”

  His eyes darkened, but he pushed her away. “Oh no, sweet temptress. That will have to wait until September.”

  Jo Beverley is widely regarded as one of the most talented romance writers today. She is a five-time winner of Romance Writers of America’s cherished RITA award and one of only a handful of members of the RWA Hall of Fame. She has also twice received the Romantic Times Career Achievement Award. Born in England, she has two grown sons and lives with her husband in Victoria, British Columbia, just a ferry ride away from Seattle. You can visit her Web site at www.jobev.com.