by Amy Sandas
The marquess was disturbingly punctual.
Lady Terribury swung her startled gaze to Eliza. “Sit up straight, Lizzie. Knees together. And smile.” As she bit out the swift instructions from the corner of her mouth, Lady Terribury followed her own advice.
In contrast, Eliza took a more relaxed posture in the corner of the sofa. It was a testament to her mother’s distraction that Lady Terribury did not even notice her daughter’s rebellion.
A few scant moments later, their butler appeared in the doorway to announce the arrival of the Marquess of Rutherford.
His large imposing form filled the doorway and Eliza lost her breath.
When is that going to stop happening?
She gave a small cough to start up her lungs again as her mother stood and graciously greeted their guest. All evidence of Lady Terribury’s prior agitation was gone as she smiled and gestured for the marquess to join them.
“Lord Rutherford, do come in and have a seat. Lizzie and I were discussing what a lovely time she had on your drive the other day and how gracious Lady Rutherford had been.”
The marquess glanced at Eliza through Lady Terribury’s lime-green feathers.
Eliza gently rolled her eyes at her mother’s fabrication as she rose from the sofa.
Stepping around Lady Terribury, the marquess approached Eliza and executed a respectful bow over her hand. “Miss Terribury, a pleasure to see you again,” he stated without emotion as he straightened.
Eliza could practically feel the resistance running through his body. She gave him a smile before she replied pertly, “And you, my lord. What an illustrious occasion to have you here in our little parlor.”
Lady Terribury stepped forward. “Ah, yes. Quite.” She cast Eliza a swift reproachful glance, apparently having detected the note of mockery in her daughter’s tone. Then she turned to the marquess with a generous smile as she indicated the empty space beside Eliza. “Do have a seat, my lord.”
Rutherford lowered himself into the corner of the sofa. Though he settled back with an air of confident ease, Eliza could see the tension present in his tight jaw and the obvious distaste in the firm line of his mouth.
Poor man, she thought not without some bit of sympathy.
They were all seated for barely a moment when Lady Terribury made a low sound of distress and rose abruptly to her feet. Rutherford also stood as proper manners dictated.
“My word,” Lady Terribury exclaimed with wide eyes and a frantic wave of her hands. “I completely forgot to address a matter of grave importance with our housekeeper. I must see to it at once.”
Eliza watched with smothered amusement as her mother rushed to the door, leaving the marquess standing somewhat stunned in the center of the room. Once Lady Terribury reached the door to the hall, she turned and gave a convincing sigh. “I apologize for the swift departure. I will return as quickly as I can but the matter will easily take no less than an hour. I am afraid the two of you will have to manage unchaperoned for that time.”
She intoned the last statement with a lilt of expectation. Eliza nearly groaned at her mother’s obvious hope that the forced privacy might lead to another display of indiscretion between Eliza and Rutherford and therefore ensure a more a solid engagement. It seemed her mother was not going to take any chances and would continue her manipulations through to the wedding day.
Without waiting for a reply, Lady Terribury passed into the hall and pulled the door closed behind her. Not to the point that it clicked shut, but nearly.
The marquess turned to look down at Eliza in the corner of the sofa.
“Subtle,” he muttered dryly.
“As an African giraffe,” she agreed with a wry grin.
“It would seem we have a full uninterrupted hour to spend,” he said and gave a bored glance about the room before settling his sharp gaze back upon her. “What shall we do?”
Eliza knew she was imagining the suggestion she heard in his low tone, yet it did not stop a wave of heavy warmth from flooding her limbs. Of course, he did not intend to make use of their time in the way her mother implied.
She pushed aside her inappropriate thoughts and reached into the pocket of her skirt to pull out her notebook. “If you don’t mind,” she began hopefully as she tapped the book against her thigh, “I would like to get back to a particularly exciting passage I was working on earlier this morning.”
There was a barely perceptible pause before he gave a gracious bow of his head.
“Of course,” he replied.
Eliza wondered why she now heard a note of disappointment in his tone. She really needed to rein in her imagination and train it in a more productive direction.
After a moment, he turned to take the chair Lady Terribury had vacated.
In a determined effort to redirect her focus, Eliza turned sideways on the sofa and brought her feet up, bending her knees to create a slanted surface with her thighs on which to place her notebook as she wrote. Finding her place, she licked the end of her pencil and began to read the passage where she had left off.
“This morning’s newspapers should be on the table there if you’d like something to read,” she added in as aside to Rutherford as she started to fall into the world of a highwayman and a runaway orphan.
Rutherford turned the page of the newspaper and realized he had no idea what he’d just read. He scowled in annoyance as he flipped the page back again. He was not accustomed to reading in the presence of someone else. It was distracting.
She was distracting.
He should leave. There was no reason to stay other than to present to Grandmother, the Terriburys and the rest of London the suggestion that this engagement was solid and true. That was reason enough, he supposed, if it gave him a break from husband hunters the rest of the season.
But it didn’t explain why she kept drawing his attention when he should have been grateful for the reprieve from having to actually engage in the social call.
In defiance of all reason, he found Elizabeth Terribury inexplicably interesting. Over the last forty minutes, he had become fascinated by the way she tapped the end of the stubby wood pencil against her lower lip or caught it between her teeth as she paused to think. And the fact that about ten minutes ago, in the midst of a furious stream of writing, she had kicked off her slippers and tucked her toes between the cushions of the sofa as if she had completely forgotten he was still there. And then there was the running conversation she seemed to maintain with herself. It appeared to take place mainly in the privacy of her thoughts, but at times, she would mutter aloud as if arguing a point of view.
He gave up on reading and rested the paper in his lap as he watched her more blatantly, trying to figure out what it was about her that sparked his interest. It was something that had started back on the very first day, he acknowledged, when he had stepped from his bath to find her wide eyed in the middle of his bedroom. Of course, on that day, the interest her unexpected presence and innocent curiosity had triggered in him had been decidedly carnal.
At least until he realized who she was.
No, that wasn’t quite honest. Even during the encounters that followed, he had felt an underlying sexual tremor, like a dragon crouching in the darkness. Waiting for an opportunity to…what? What exactly did he want from Elizabeth Terribury?
The quick answer was highly unacceptable. He refused to consider he might be sexually attracted to the overly talkative, impertinent and eccentric young woman. She was not at all the type of female he was typically drawn to. He preferred his sexual relationships to be with sophisticated women. Women who understood the nature of their association to be strictly physical with no demands for commitment or incessant conversation.
Not exactly a description he would apply to the woman across from him.
His gaze rested on the full line of her lips as he recalled her response to his kiss that night he had played highwayman. The way she had leaned into him and dropped her head back to fully relinquish herself t
o his direction. Though brief, the kiss had burned brightly into his memory and left him feeling…dissatisfied.
He frowned. He was not accustomed to dissatisfaction.
He suspected it was the brevity of the experience that taunted him. Perhaps he needed to kiss her more thoroughly.
It made sense. Then he would be satisfied and she would stop interrupting his thoughts with images of her hair loosened down her back, her inquisitive eyes shadowed with lust and her curved body wrapped in tantalizing strips of turquoise-colored silk and nothing else.
As his thoughts gave swift rise to a certain part of his anatomy, Rutherford shifted to ease the sudden discomfort. His movement caused the newspaper to fall to the floor and the rustling noise drew her gaze to his position.
“Lord Rutherford,” she muttered. Her mossy-brown eyes were wide and slightly unfocussed.
“Miss Terribury,” he replied as he bent to retrieve the newspaper. He took a moment to force a much needed measure of control over the amorous reactions in his body before he addressed her again. “Due to our current situation, you may call me Michael. May I call you Lizzie?”
Her grimace was almost comical. She shook her head vehemently as she turned her attention back to her notebook. “Eliza, please. I cannot stand being called Lizzie.” She made a little grimace of disgust into her pages. “It makes me feel like a reptile.”
Caught off-guard, Rutherford gave a snorting chuckle. “I apologize, I was certain I heard your family address you as such.”
“You did. And I have been telling them not to at least once every day since I was ten years old.”
“Why do they persist?”
“Apparently, none of them have heard me yet.” She delivered the explanation in a wonderfully dry tone, not even looking up from her notebook until she finished speaking. And when she did, it was with a sly upward glance from beneath her lashes and just enough lift of her chin that he could see the shimmer of a smile on her lips. Then the saucy little thing winked at him.
A rush of heat pulsed through his blood and he had a great, powerful urge to rise from his chair, stalk over to her and bend her back over the arm of the sofa to kiss her full on the mouth. He swallowed hard in resistance.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
Wrong?
No. But he suspected something may be terribly, horribly right. A far more disturbing possibility.
He folded the newspaper with meticulous care and then set it aside on the small table next to him. He felt her watching him the entire time, her head tilted in a pretty way that revealed her curiosity, but he didn’t look at her until he had risen to his feet.
She reclined sideways on the sofa, completely unself-conscious, fully relaxed. The curves and lines of her figure were unabashedly feminine and her face was lifted toward him as he towered over her. Her expression was open and friendly. Accepting and inquisitive.
“Stand up, Eliza.”
She blinked and her earthy gaze turned slightly wary. She lifted her notebook in a small gesture. “I am right in the middle of—”
“Please, Eliza. Stand up.”
Perhaps it was the please, he couldn’t be sure. But without further argument, she tucked her pencil into the binding of her notebook, closed it and set it beside her. Sliding her slipperless feet to the floor, she slowly rose.
“Come here. Please.”
The please worked again, and she stepped toward him until they were face-to-face, chest-to-chest, inches apart. She did not meet his eyes and kept her gaze seemingly trained upon the center of his chin. He breathed slowly, catching the lovely female scent of her, highlighted with warm notes of honey and cinnamon.
Surely, the impact of the kiss had been a mere product of circumstance, heightened tension and the impulsiveness of the moment. But he needed to find out now if that were truly the case.
He brought his hands to rest intimately on the feminine swell of her hips, saying in a low mutter, “You may stop me at any time.”
She gave a little nod and issued a sound of acknowledgement that drifted off into a slow exhale, bathing his throat in her warm breath.
He stood there with her for a long moment, acknowledging the way her nearness increased the flow of blood through his extremities. At first he resisted, then he gave in to the urge to measure the curves of her body. He looked down at her bent head as he smoothed his hands up over her waist and then higher. Her swiftly drawn breath expanded her ribcage beneath his palms, and when he brushed his thumbs against the side-swell of her breasts, a soft sound caught in her throat.
He paused, expecting her to step away out of his reach.
When she made no move to halt the experience, he realized how badly he had been hoping she wouldn’t. Sliding his hands back down to the fullness of her hips, he drew her body toward him.
At the same time, she brought her hands to his shoulders and tipped her face up to his. It was so easy then to simply lower his head and claim her mouth.
At the very first touch of her lips, desire slammed through him with the force of a tidal wave. She was all softness and warmth. Without hesitation, she slid her arms around his neck as she lifted herself against him and kissed him back in a silent and urgent demand. He should have known she wouldn’t be passive in this experiment, and he responded by folding his arms around her waist and deepening the kiss. He swept his tongue past her lips and she met his rising passion with equal fervor. He took his time tasting her. Gliding his tongue against hers, drawing her lower lip into his mouth.
She was lovely.
Her body melted against him and he tightened his arms as if he would draw her completely into himself. Blood roared through his veins and his muscles ached with the need that claimed him. He wanted to devour every bit of her sweetness with his hands and lips and teeth.
He had never been so consumed by a kiss and the greater pleasures it promised. His experiment had failed. He knew without a doubt this kiss wouldn’t be enough to satisfy the deep craving that had taken hold within him.
He had to stop it.
She made a sound of protest when he moved his mouth to the side of her throat. But her whimper turned to a soft moan as he laved her petal-soft skin with his tongue. She grasped his face in her hands and arched her body into him. He doubted she realized the invitation she issued with her response. And for that reason alone, he was finally able to pull back and put some distance between them.
He kept his hands firmly at her waist, but it was more to hold her away from him than to keep her near.
Her eyes remained closed even after she issued a deep and heavy sigh that sent tiny shock waves rippling through him. She eased her hands from around his neck, and with a soft brush of her thumbs along the tense line of his jaw, she dropped them to his shoulders.
He opened his mouth to say something, though he wasn’t sure yet what words might form. But his thoughts were cut off as a noise sounded behind him.
He glanced over his shoulder. At the same time, Eliza stepped away, scooped up her notebook and slid it back into her skirt pocket as she strolled toward to window.
By the time Lady Terribury swept through the door, nearly half the room separated the betrothed couple.
“Well, I hope you have been enjoying your visit. I apologize again for being called away.”
Fiercely reining in the heat and sensual longing that had not fully dissipated, Rutherford turned toward Lady Terribury. He forced a casual and slightly bored tone to his voice. “It is no matter. As it is, I must be on my way.”
Lady Terribury’s gracious smile fell and her eyes narrowed to a near squint.
“Yes, ah…of course, my lord. Do not let us keep you.” She stuttered a bit in her reply, clearly distracted by something as she focused rather intently on a point located to the left of his chin.
“Of course, Lord Rutherford. I imagine you must have very important things to attend to,” Eliza added as she came forward from her place by the window.
Ruthe
rford turned back to her as she finished speaking and saw her eyes widen suddenly. She looked swiftly at her hands and then shoved them both behind her back. He met her dancing eyes with a questioning look and all she could do was shake her head as she rolled her lips in between her teeth in an obvious effort to keep from laughing.
What the hell was going on?
“Well, good day to you,” he said with a stiff bow to both women before he turned to leave the room.
“Oh, my lord,” Lady Terribury called just before he reached the door. He turned back with supreme reluctance. “We received the invitation from Lady Rutherford this morning. We will, of course, send our acceptance, but I wanted to say how lovely I thought it was for her to so quickly wish to welcome us all into your family.”
His annoyance deepened as the lady again stared intently at the left side of his face with a distinct expression of confusion. Having no idea what she was talking about and wanting only to escape the odd behavior of the two women, he nodded. “Yes, of course.” But as he made to step away, Lady Terribury held up her hand, stalling his exit.
“Ah, my lord. One more thing.”
“What is it, Lady Terribury?” he prompted with the last of his patience.
“We would love for you to join us for dinner this Saturday. Nothing elaborate, just a family meal.”
“I will check my schedule.”
“Wonderful. Wonderful,” Lady Terribury muttered with a delighted clap of her hands and a wide smile.
Having had about as much as he could take, Rutherford cast a final glance toward Eliza, who stood behind her mother and so didn’t need to hide the wide grin that spread her lips. Not at all comfortable with her obvious amusement and frustrated that he had no idea what caused it, he turned and strode into the hall.
The butler stood by the front door, already prepared with his coat and hat. Rutherford drew the coat on quickly and glanced in the mirror beside the door as he placed the top hat on his head. Catching a glimpse of an odd shadow, he leaned forward and angled his head to better see his image in the reflection. He flinched at what he saw.
