“Were you planning on asking me if I wished to be stolen back?” Angela tried to sound breezy, but she couldn’t stop staring at his face. It seemed so familiar. That was just because of the comic book, of course. But he felt so real to her. So ... right.
“No.” He stared after his brother for a moment. Then he came to her. He halted too close according to the rules of his society. “Kittens?”
She loved his smoky-slate eyes. She wanted to grab his face with her hands and pull him in to kiss her. She was dying for him to kiss her again.
“I thought he could use some alternatives to mud and marbles.”
“And my scapegrace brother took to this idea?”
“He loved it.”
His brow lifted.
“I can be very persuasive,” she said. “It’s my profession, you know: convincing people of my point of view through reasoned argument based on sound evidence.” She shrugged. His gaze slipped to her shoulders, then along her arms. Angela got all sorts of hot and needy inside.
Maybe he would kiss her now. If he didn’t make it happen, she would.
No rules.
Whatever the reason Father Time had for thrusting her back into the past, Angela knew one thing: before she left, she wanted to break every rule she could. And she wanted to break them all with Trenton Ascot.
Chapter Six
Trent allowed his gaze to trace the curve of her bodice hugging her breasts. “New gown, Miss Cowdrey?” He had never before in his entire life asked a woman about her clothing. After Miss Howell’s discourse earlier, he thought he never would.
But this woman made him do and say things he’d never imagined, like stand on a path in the dark and stare at a woman’s perfect breasts bound in layers of fabric and wish those layers to Hades.
“Lady Sophronia found it for me,” she replied, fingering the sleeve. “It doesn’t have all those buttons up the back. Easier to put on and take off by myself. Still no maid, you know?” She offered a little grin. “And at the house there aren’t usually helpful gentlemen standing around when I need to dress.”
“I am relieved to hear that.”
“You are?”
He nodded, bemused, dazed, intoxicated. She spoke with the freedom of a girl yet swayed her hips with the allure of a woman. She had the most perfect teeth he’d ever seen and toenails painted the color of the summer sky. With the merest flick of her lashes and the soft, direct light in her eyes she made him dizzy. “Yes.” She made him want to do things he shouldn’t do. “Would you care to take a stroll through the garden?”
“Now? It’s nearly midnight.”
This was a mistake. “Now.”
“Sure,” she said with slight hesitation, but her eyes remained bright. She did not wait for him to extend his arm but started off along the path that led back to the formal garden. He went after her, but he did not touch her. That would be truly foolish.
“Are you enjoying the party, Miss Cowdrey?” he asked because he wished to hear her voice, a simple pleasure that he had been denied all day.
She slanted him a skeptical glance, then her attention slid to his mouth. She blinked rapidly twice. “I don’t really know how to answer that.”
“Honestly, perhaps.”
Her brow furrowed beneath a loose strand of hair as dark and silky as Russian sable. Trent wanted to reach up and brush it aside and feel her soft skin again. He was so thoroughly drawn to her. When she was not in sight, he could not cease thinking about her. When she was near, he could not cease staring.
“I’m a little perplexed, actually,” she said. “I could swear that the Duke of Wessex’s wife was named Cleopatra. I love that name, so when I read something about him last year in a book on the parliamentary leaders of George IV’s reign, I remembered the duchess.”
“Cleopatra is the name of the elder sister of Miss Helen Grey, the duke’s betrothed.” And there was no George IV ... yet.
“No. I’m pretty sure it’s his wife’s name.” She halted. “Maybe he doesn’t marry Miss Grey this week. Maybe he marries her sister instead.”
“Cleopatra Barrows is a widow.”
“So? Dukes can marry widows.”
“Yes. But they don’t typically switch one sister for another the week of their weddings.”
“Maybe not typically. But not never. After all, women from the twenty-first century don’t typically time travel two centuries into the past. At least I don’t think they do.” A crease formed at the bridge of her nose. “I shouldn’t be saying things like this.”
“Things about time travel?”
“Things about history that hasn’t yet happened. I don’t want anything I say to affect events to come. As an historian, that would be astoundingly irresponsible.”
“You can trust me not to repeat your revelations.”
“Because you think I’m making them up.” She spoke without distress.
The path had come to a divide. In one direction lay the terrace and the house and the people who would make it impossible for him to be with her alone, to speak with her privately, to watch her move and think and breathe. In the other direction the hill descended toward the lake.
He should not.
He must not.
He gestured toward the dark path to the lake. “Shall we?”
The anxiety slipped from her face. “To the scene of the crime?” She grinned. “As it were.”
“I recall you insisting that you are not a criminal.”
“I’m not.” She bent her head and seemed to concentrate on her footsteps as she walked beside him along the gently sloping path. “I saw you on the terrace tonight with Sir Richard Howell’s daughter. You two seemed ...” She paused. “On good terms.”
“As it were?”
Her gaze jerked up, her face serious. “Do you know her well?”
He did not want her to mistake his interest in Miss Howell, but he could not tell her the truth. He shook his head. “No.”
She looked away quickly.
The moon was a slim crescent of silver, the lake before them glittering beneath brilliant stars. All was quiet, only the quick high-and-low song of a late nightingale in a nearby tree, an owl’s hoo-oo-oo-ooo at a distance in the park, and their slow footsteps on the path. Trent breathed in the scents of summer, and the peace. This was what he wanted, every day, every night—not what his father wished of him. For once he wanted to be who he really was.
“I haven’t told you something important about that comic book,” she said into the warm night.
“Withholding information is a sure sign of subterfuge, Miss Cowdrey.”
She turned her gaze up to him again. “You don’t believe I’m involved in subterfuge.” Her words were certain.
“I don’t.” He didn’t. He never really had. If that made him as much of a fool as his father had been with Sir Richard, then it was only what he deserved for working so hard for so many years to be the sort of man the earl expected him to be.
“On the last page of the comic book,” she said, “you drew yourself in a close-up. You’re looking out from the page.”
“Am I?”
“I know you think I’m inventing this.”
“Go on, Miss Cowdrey.”
“Back home, in the future before I came here, I was looking at that drawing of you, and—” She halted on the path and turned fully to him. “—and you winked.”
“I had also drawn myself winking?”
“No. That picture winked, like it was animated. Alive. Like you knew I was looking at you at that moment. I know this must sound completely insane.”
“Perhaps because it is.”
“But that isn’t the— the thing—” She closed her eyes. “Oh good lord, Angela, just tell him.”
Trent’s heart was beating uncomfortably hard. “Tell him what?”
She opened her lovely intelligent eyes. “The caption. The captions were in your handwriting, the same as in the drawings in your portfolio that I saw in your room.”
“You’ve already said you believe that I drew this book. The similarity of penmanship would follow, would it not?”
“Yes. But it’s not that. It’s ... The caption on that last drawing, the one that winked—” Her breasts rose on a tight breath. “—it said ‘Angela, Come Back.’”
Her cheeks had grown dark beneath the starlight. She lifted her palms to them. “I know. It’s totally insane.”
He nodded. Totally insane. As insane as how much he wanted her, a strange woman he had pulled out of a lake, who seemed to have no family and no purpose to be at this house. Except his family. She had helped Charlotte and her friends. And now Henry.
“I don’t draw human subjects,” he could only think to say.
“But can you?”
He should lie. He should deny it. He should return to the house and surround himself with people so that this temptation would end. “Yes. I can.” He wanted to draw her—her eyes that illuminated a lovely face and her lush lips that he could feel in his dreams and her lithe body he ached to touch.
“It’s awfully warm for so late at night in England, don’t you think?” she said abruptly, breaking the silence. She set off along the path again. They were nearly at the lake. He didn’t respond. She was speaking of the weather. She was making an attempt to return to normalcy, perhaps to pretend she had not spoken of impossibilities.
She went to the edge of the water, bordered in stone here as it was on the far end and glittering black beneath the stars. Trent could not follow her. He couldn’t think when she was near. He didn’t want to. But she was offering him a game now, a game of normalcy, and he must play it with her.
“I haven’t taken a shower in days,” she said and looked over her shoulder at him. “Want to swim?”
He crossed his arms. “And ruin your new gown?”
“I’ll take it off.” Her eyes were luminescent. She was staring at his arms across his chest. “I’ll take it all off,” she said. “If you will.”
His throat closed. Not normalcy, apparently.
“We could be discovered,” he barely managed.
“Nobody’s anywhere near. If they were, you wouldn’t have brought me out here. You’re too responsible and honorable.”
He wasn’t being honorable now. He was being a thorough rogue. He hadn’t brought her out here to be responsible. He’d brought her out here to kiss her again.
“Miss Cowdrey, this would be a good moment to save yourself from my baser instincts.”
“If your baser instincts are what I think they are, Lord Everett, I like them. And I don’t want to play by the rules. I’ve been playing by rules my entire life, trying to make it work no matter where I was, no matter how hard it was, no matter how likely I was to have it all pulled out from under me at a moment’s notice. But this isn’t my life.” She spread her hands out toward the house in the distance. “This is another life altogether—another time and world. So I’m going to break every rule I can get away with. Starting now.” She reached around behind her and began unfastening her gown. An impish smile creased her lips. “Want to come?”
Yes. No. And no.
“Angela.”
The harshness of his voice halted her. The bodice of her gown gaped over her breasts barely confined in the corset. “Trenton?”
“What if—” He couldn’t say it aloud. He’d sound like a lunatic. “What if—” He dragged a hand through his hair.
“What?”
“What if when you go back into that water you disappear into the future?”
She stared at him for a long, silent moment, the music of crickets all around them.
“You believe me,” she whispered.
“I don’t know if I believe you.”
“You believe me.”
“I ...” Dear God. “I think I believe you. It makes me a madman, but I think I do.”
Without a word, she removed slippers, stockings, petticoat, and corset. Then slowly she drew the chemise up her body, sliding it over her skin that glowed pale in the starlight, revealing graceful, slender legs, softly curved hips and waist, and breasts more perfect than he had even imagined. She tugged the chemise off entirely and let it dangle from her fingers for a moment before dropping it. A tiny scrap of white lace hugged her hips and dipped between her thighs. Like a Siren she stepped out of it with silken ease and tossed it away with her toe.
She reached up and pulled the pins out of her hair. It fell about her shoulders in a satiny, tangled mass he ached to run his fingers through.
“Well,” she said, “I’m in.” She pivoted and he glimpsed a flash of black markings across her shoulder as she dove.
He held his breath. The water didn’t move. He breathed in hard, then again. Panic gathered in him.
He lurched forward.
She broke the surface. “Oh, wow! This is wonderful.” She spread her arms and floated onto her back, her breasts poking above the dark water. “I’ve always wanted to skinny-dip. It feels fantastic.”
“Skinny-dip?” he managed hoarsely.
“Take a dip wearing only one’s skin.” She turned onto her front and took a few long strokes toward the center of the lake, her arms white against the night, the water gleaming on her skin. From a distance, the markings on her shoulder rippled like a bird’s wings. “You should try it, my lord.”
She liked calling him that. It seemed to amuse her, as though she were playing a game. An innocent game.
“You did not disappear,” he said, his breathing ragged.
“I wasn’t ready to go.”
“Is it in your control? Going and coming?”
She shook her head. She stroked backward. “Now come on.” She beckoned with her hand. “If I can do this, you can too. I know you want to.”
“Do you?”
“Stop stalling.”
Paddling in place, her chin beneath the water, she watched him as he removed his boots, coat, waistcoat, and cravat. He pulled his shirt from his trousers and she stared unabashedly. He’d never imagined that shameless honesty could be so erotic. By the time he’d discarded his trousers his arousal was evident. He dropped his drawers and came to the edge of the bank.
“Lord Everett,” she said in a sultry voice, “you are one fine specimen of a man.”
“I am to understand that as a compliment, I gather?”
“Oh yeah.”
He dove. The water was cool and tasted of sky and earth. He surfaced, shook his head, and swept droplets from his eyes.
She gave him a bright smile. “Want to race?” She pointed in the direction of the opposite bank.
He allowed himself a grin. “I will win.”
“What happened to being honorable and gentlemanly?”
He lifted a brow.
She laughed. “I’ll race you anyway. Ready? Set. Go!” She started for the far bank.
He caught up with her easily and stretched out his hand to touch her shoulder. She darted forward. For a moment he stared at the lithe line of her back and soft mounds of her behind, then he set off after her again.
He reached her within yards of the bank and grabbed her ankle.
“No!” She came up sputtering and laughing, dashing hair from her face. “That’s cheating!”
He released her. “You did not specify the terms of the race.”
“Cheating is always against the rules.”
“I thought you were enthusiastic about breaking the rules.” He moved beside her and brushed strands of hair from her shoulder. She turned her head to watch him.
“What is it?” He stroked his fingertips over the image of the bird, the black lines impressionistic rather than realistic, but evocative nevertheless.
“It’s a tattoo.” She was breathing hard, from her swim or perhaps his touch. “Body art, we call it in my era.”
“The twenty-first century.”
“It’s a golden eagle.” Her gaze shadowed as she met his. Her shoulders were smooth and gleaming. He stroked his fingertips along
the graceful curve, and her lips parted as eyelids fluttered down. She was perfect—natural, simple loveliness without need of adornment. Perfect.
He traced the lines of the eagle with the barest caress.
“Have you ever drawn one?” She seemed to hum the words, low and sultry in her throat.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I have never seen one with my own eyes.”
“Well, now you have. Sort of.” She stretched her arm out and stroked away, moving out into the lake again, slowly now. He wanted to follow her, to take her into his arms and touch her again. Again and again.
He swam the few strokes toward the bank and leaned back against the stone that still held the sun’s warmth. His heartbeats were fast, the stars overhead shimmering.
She made an arc of the lake then turned again toward him. Her strokes were even, strong and clean, as though she swam often, as though she was in fact the strong swimmer she claimed to be. Perhaps she was. He knew nothing of her, nothing at all, only that this was the best night of his life.
When she neared, she did not slow. She came right to him, wrapped her hands around his shoulders, and slipped her body against his in the deep water. Her mouth found his.
She was warm and soft—the pressure of her breasts on his chest, her thighs brushing his. He took her waist in his hands and held her tight against him, skin to skin, delving into her eager mouth, following her tongue into hers. She moaned and pressed closer and he slid his hand up and cupped a perfect breast, as he’d wanted to do since the moment she’d undressed in that boathouse.
She was soft and wanting and willing in his hands, and so beautiful, her shape and fullness. Sliding his thumb between them, he stroked the peak. Oh, God. It wasn’t enough. She clung to him and he took both of her breasts in his hands and caressed as she consumed his mouth. Then she spread her thighs and stroked her sex against his.
“Oh,” she gasped. “Trent.” Her mouth sought his neck, and he held her to him and had no idea what to do.
“Angela, you are beautiful,” he whispered, because he had much more to say, none of it manly or even particularly cogent.
She brought her lips to his again and he drank from her, hungry for her mouth and her hands on his skin.
At the Duke's Wedding (A romance anthology) Page 35
