by Maya Rodale
Say something. Ask her a question. Good God, man, it’s not like you haven’t spoken to a woman before. You’re not some green schoolboy. Ask her a bloody question!
Finally, Fox seized upon a topic.
“It’s a lovely day, is it not?”
“Indeed.”
“Fine weather for a garden party.”
“Ideal, even.”
“Yes.”
Was he really going to be the first English person to run out of things to say about the weather?
Fox was aware of people still watching. And now whispering.
“Tell me, Lady Claire, what do you like to do besides math?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Can a man not just make conversation?”
“Of course. But. Well. I just . . .”
Flustered. He had flustered her. That was good, yes? People would see her blushing and think he was charming her. If they thought she was the sort of woman who became flustered and blushed from the attentions of a rake, it would help win the wager.
“I enjoy playing cards, as you know,” she said. “And riding, as you might expect.”
“That’s right, you grew up on a horse farm,” he said, piecing together all the gossip about the family. They had a horse farm in one of the former colonies. Maryland, was it? The haute ton thought it shameful, but he thought it must have been rather nice—and probably not much different than growing up on an English country estate. “That must have been a wonderful place to grow up.”
“You know, you are the only person I’ve met to think it fun and not embarrassing,” she replied, genuinely smiling at him. “There is a very slight but important distinction between a peer’s estate where horses are bred and raised as an expensive hobby and a farm in America where horses are bred, raised, and trained for money.”
“We’re a lot of snobs, aren’t we?”
“Whatever you say, my lord,” she murmured. Smiling. Agreeing with him.
“Well, I think it sounds like fun. I’d much rather be out riding and even mucking about in stables instead of sitting around inside, doing whatever it is lords do inside all day. Account books, correspondence, et cetera. We have some good stock in our stables at Norwood Park. Perhaps you and your brother might like to visit sometime.”
“That would be nice.”
Their conversation faltered. People were looking. Even better, people were commenting to one another about it. This was excellent. Francesca’s plan was working.
Or was it?
“It’s a very bright day, is it not?” she remarked. “I would just love some shade.”
His brain sounded an alert: Why was she speaking of the weather?
“What about your parasol?”
Or her bonnet. For that matter, why was he the one to point out the logical remedy to her perceived problem?
“Oh, this hardly provides sufficient coverage,” she said with a laugh, which begged the question of why women always carried them.
She linked her arm in his and urged them to walk in the direction of the hedges and shrubbery. The green things that provided shade, yes, but also the privacy he was trying to avoid.
It gave him wicked ideas.
It wouldn’t necessarily help win the wager.
It might even get him leg-shackled.
“You’re not one of those women worried about freckles, are you?”
“Hardly,” she scoffed. But before he realized what had happened, she had expertly maneuvered them both to the area behind the hedges, where it was cool and shaded.
They were alone.
No prying eyes.
He wanted prying eyes, for Fox was afraid of what he might do without them to keep him in line.
Lord Fox solved all sorts of problems for Claire. Since the duchess had deemed him an eligible suitor, she ceased thrusting Claire into the path of other, more tedious and, honestly, less attractive men. She even allowed Claire quite a bit of freedom with Fox. Freedom to do things like attend events or visit with Ashbrooke or even to stroll behind the hedges.
She had all sorts of reasons for leading him behind the hedges.
For one thing, while the duchess had her hands full keeping Amelia out of trouble, she lost track of Bridget. While sipping her lemonade, Claire had spied her sister strolling this way with the man she fancied, one Mr. Rupert Wright. Claire was not at all opposed to them making a match, but she was opposed to her sister causing a scandal by, say, being caught in a compromising position in a shrubbery.
Scandal meant they would have to be on their very best behavior, which did not include attendance at lectures or mathematical studies. It meant additional pressure to wed—and to marry for reputation and prestige, not necessarily love. They would be separated. They might not be happy.
Claire had promised her mother to ensure her siblings were happy, above all else. It was that simple.
Claire had also given the matter of Lord Fox, her desire, and hedges some consideration. Her brain was finally beginning to recognize the demands of her body.
She had long thought of her body as a mere vessel for carrying around her brain, but ever since that kiss Fox seemed to have woken her up from a long slumber, with hungers and demands.
She craved his kiss, the strangely wonderful sensation of souls and bodies melting into one as the whole world fell away. Her brain wished to know what his body looked like unclothed; her body wished to know what his bare skin felt like against hers. It was intimacy she craved, lots of caresses and gentle kisses and solving the mysteries of what two people did in bed. She’d never really given much thought to it before—well, other than in the abstract. The truth was, she’d never met a man with whom she wanted to explore all these things.
Until Fox.
She had no illusions that they would be a good match in any meaningful way, but there was no denying a potent attraction between them. Meredith had given her the idea to dally with him in secret. Perhaps she might, while ensuring her sister stayed out of trouble, get into a little bit of trouble of her own.
Hence, the hedges.
“Ah, this is better.” She fanned herself. Even though she now stood in the shade of hedges. Fine English hedges. There was a garden party in the front and a promise of wickedness in the back.
“Indeed,” he remarked, gazing at her. “You at least aren’t wearing a wool jacket.”
“You could take it off,” she suggested coyly. Oh, dear Lord, when did she become a woman who made coy suggestions, let alone coy suggestions about the removal of attire?
“Are you flirting with me?”
“No. Please.” She gave a nervous laugh. The words had been out of her mouth before she could stop them. She hadn’t meant to flirt with him. But her thoughts about him were of a romantic direction, there was no denying that.
He lifted one brow, questioning.
“Perhaps,” she mumbled.
“I don’t mind if you flirt with me,” he murmured, stepping closer.
“I bet you don’t,” she replied.
“At any rate, I can’t get the damn thing on or off without the assistance of my valet. And he’s nowhere to be seen. Obviously.”
This reminded them both that they were very alone.
“’Tis the same with my dresses and corset,” she added. Why, why, why did she have to mention the removal of her dress and corset to him? What the devil had happened to the filter that had previously existed between her thoughts and her mouth? Honestly.
The man addled her wits.
“Careful, Lady Claire, of the ideas you put in a man’s head,” he warned softly.
“Were they not already there? I thought men thought about undressing women all the time.”
“Not always,” he replied, grinning like a naughty schoolboy.
“Oh? I am intrigued. What else do men think about?”
“Sport. Beer. Food.”
“How positively barbaric.”
“And lifting up a woman and carrying her back
to our lair.”
“Truly?”
“No. Women would make such a fuss. All that screeching and pummeling of tiny fists and wriggling about like a trout on a line. That is not the way to get a woman to bed.”
“Neither is comparing a woman to a trout on a line.”
Fox laughed. “Good point.”
“Either way, we should not be speaking of this.”
“Says the woman who speaks of equations and numbers and whatever they all do together. Some say women shouldn’t speak of those things, either.”
“Ashbrooke speaks of mathematics all the time,” Claire pointed out.
“Aye, but not in ballrooms, and besides, he’s a man.”
That heat she was feeling cooled considerably. And quickly. She knew what people said and what they thought. She just hadn’t realized he shared their opinion. She hadn’t realized she cared until this moment.
“I didn’t think you shared the ton’s sentiments about that,” she said acidly.
“I don’t. I mean . . . That is to say . . . I’m just . . . saying.”
“Well, don’t say it,” she snapped. “I couldn’t care in the slightest what the haute ton of morons thinks about a woman of intellect and sense. But you—” She gazed up at him. Strong jaw, noble profile, confused dark eyes, darker hair. The shoulders, the chest, the arms she wanted wrapped around her, and his mouth . . . “I thought you were different. But honestly, you are such an idiot.”
“It’s not my—”
“I dragged you back here so you could kiss me and you just have to go and insult me. Well, I nev—”
The thought was unfinished, the sentence unconcluded. The kiss happened. His mouth crashed down on hers.
She yielded to him, or he yielded to her. She didn’t know, it didn’t matter. In this, they were of one mind. Connected.
Tasting, his mouth opened to hers. Touching, his hand upon the small of her back, tentatively caressing higher. She did not say no in any way, at all.
He kissed her neck; she sighed.
She slid her hands along his chest. He kissed her again.
His palm closed over her breast and he teased the center with his thumb. She shivered, even though it was a hot sunny day and even though a marvelous heat was pulsing through her. It was a shiver of awakening. She hadn’t been touched like this before.
Claire leaned into the pleasure. She threaded her fingers though his hair and kissed him deeply.
Oh, God, this was better than her idle daydreams.
But her daydreams weren’t interrupted by garden party guests. Their kiss slowed at the sound of people walking and talking on the other side of the hedge.
“I heard a rumor that Arabella Vaughn was coming back to London. Alone,” someone said.
Fox, to his credit, kept kissing her.
“Alone? You mean she didn’t actually elope?”
“That is the rumor. I heard she and that actor only made it as far as Alconbury before realizing their mistake.”
Fox lavished kisses along her neck. His fingers splayed at the edge of her bodice and she ached for his touch to go lower. But she also listened.
“I wonder if Lord Fox will take her back.”
“Of course not.”
“Because he has taken up with Lady Claire?”
“No,” the woman said with a laugh. “Because of his male pride.”
“Still, Arabella is a much better match for him.”
And whoever they were, two nameless and faceless gossiping matrons, they carried on their way while listing all the ways in which Arabella Vaughn was a better woman for Fox than Claire, presumably ignorant of who had overheard them and what they’d been doing while listening.
Fox claimed her mouth with his and she kissed him passionately, hoping the pleasure of it would drown out her troubled thoughts. But it didn’t.
He kissed her like she was the most desirable woman in London but that couldn’t possibly be true. She faced facts. That was one of them.
Of course Claire would find him so arousing—every woman in London did, it seemed. But she wondered why he seemed to find her so desirable? Because he kissed her like he wanted her, badly, even though she was an eccentric bluestocking, a future spinster, always the odd girl out. Even though she hardly compared to the likes of Arabella Vaughn.
It was odd.
Something didn’t add up.
She couldn’t concentrate on her thoughts and she couldn’t let herself get swept up in this kiss. She just knew that this—whatever this was—couldn’t continue until she knew more. The risks were too high, the consequences too permanent.
“We have to stop,” she said. Gasped, really.
“Yes. Right. Whatever the lady wishes.” His voice was rough, too. He wasn’t unaffected, which she noted with some surprise and satisfaction and confusion. Perhaps she had expected he wouldn’t be affected because this was an act, a game, a lark.
Even though they kissed like they had a perfect connection, in truth, the two of them together as a couple did not make sense. Until she knew more, she would have to keep her distance.
“We cannot keep doing this. People might see us.”
“Right.” His mouth, which had just a moment before been kissing hers, pressed into a firm line, as if he were disappointed. It was the logical, sensible thing, so his reaction hardly made sense.
Hearing more voices, Claire did not stick around to debate the point.
Someone had decided that a garden party would not be complete without rowing in the lake. Fox, for one, was glad of it. Rowing was an activity at which he excelled; it also allowed him to showcase his strength and brawn.
Women loved strength and brawn.
He was about to ask Francesca’s giggling friend Miss Montague if she wished to join him in a boat. That girl could always be counted on to flirt with a man, and his Male Pride was in the mood for a simple female to fawn over him.
But then Her Grace, the Duchess of Durham, interfered. She did so in a way so expert and elegant that no one quite realized what was happening until it was done.
Fox watched as she arranged things to her liking—Darcy found himself rowing a boat containing Lady Bridget and hardly looked happy about the situation. Rupert set off in a boat with Lady Amelia.
Lady Claire was matched with him. Even though he was troubled by Claire’s hot and cold behavior behind the hedge, he recognized that this fit into his plan, because now he would be seen with Lady Claire by one and all. They would be seen as a pair. As a couple. Encouraged by the duchess herself. People would talk.
And he would have a chance to talk to her, alone. Fox didn’t like how they parted earlier this afternoon, what with her running off and leaving him behind the hedge, with a hard arousal. Deuced awkward, that.
Some part of his brain wondered why she didn’t want to be seen with him publicly. Most women save for, until recently, Arabella would have swooned at the chance to have their names linked with his—to say nothing of a more intimate connection. But then again, Lady Claire was hardly most women.
Confounding creatures, women.
Fox dug the oars into the water and pulled. The boat glided through the water. He repeated this action, taking note of the way Lady Claire watched him move. She seemed to like what she saw.
Women always did.
And yet. The fact that she did made him suddenly more aware. More keen to please her. More anxious to know why she didn’t wish to be seen with him.
Lud, but the woman tied him in knots.
He was all brawn, just enough brain and feelings.
“Where are you taking us?” she asked.
While he had been dealing with his own inner turmoil and trying to read her thoughts via staring into her eyes, he had rowed them quite a bit away from the others.
“I am absconding with you to my lair. Obviously.”
“That’s not funny. People will see.”
There it was again: people will see.
“What
will they see?”
“They will see two unmarried persons without a chaperone. They will hear wedding bells.”
“We are in full view of at least a hundred people. We are hardly unchaperoned. As a woman of sense, you must agree. And as for wedding bells and holy matrimony, I hardly know where you got that idea from.”
“It is the only idea that women are allowed to have.”
“Like that would ever stop you from all your brilliant thoughts.”
“Please stop, I might swoon.”
“Please don’t. I shouldn’t like to have to fish you out of the water.”
“But wouldn’t you like the opportunity to demonstrate your strength?”
“I’m doing so right now. Without getting my clothes wet and risking the ire of my valet.”
“Are you really such a dandy?”
“Not at all. I just live in fear of upsetting my valet.”
She was looking at something off in the distance. Fox followed her gaze toward her sisters, off in boats with Rupert and Darcy. Amelia was standing and waving her arm dramatically, rocking the boat in the process.
Without a word, Fox started rowing them in that direction.
“Thank you,” Claire said. “They are a constant bother. As the eldest, I must claim some responsibility for them.”
“What are your sisters doing?”
She sighed and, once they got closer, strained to listen. “It seems that they are reciting poetry.”
“It’s a very dramatic recitation.”
Lady Amelia was certainly projecting. And now Lady Bridget was joining her to stand in the boat, which was a terrible idea, one that offended both laws of etiquette and physics.
Fox chuckled at the murderous expression on Darcy’s face. God, the man must be dying.
“Yes, well, Amelia never does anything in half measures and Bridget never could restrain herself from an excess of fun.”
Fox waited to see something like annoyance or resignation in Claire’s countenance. But she spoke of her sister’s behavior as fact, and thus something to simply accept. It was in a way, oddly loving.
