“More to the left, I think. Your shoulder was even with the edge of the frond.” She came to face him again. James tensed as she lifted her hand. Her touch brushed his skin, lingered against his cheek. Her eyes found his.
Without thought he caught her fingers and drew her hand to his lips. She gasped and he felt her shiver in response. He drew her forward, and she swayed into him and placed her palm against his chest. Heat burned into him from her touch.
“Mr. Huntington—”
He brought her closer and her hand slid up to grasp his shoulder. She was standing between his knees, the curve of her breasts brushing his shirt.
Mirroring her earlier touch, he set his fingers under her chin and lifted, tilting her face up. Her eyes were half-closed, her lips parted, as sensuous as the heady flowers blooming around them, as enticing and irresistible. With a sense of inevitability, he lowered his mouth to hers. Her lips were as kissable as he had thought—warm and soft. He deepened the kiss, pressing his mouth more firmly over hers to taste her sweetness.
She let out a sigh. He slipped his arm behind her, splaying his hand over the curve of her back, and she leaned further into his embrace, like a blossom seeking the light. Gods. Fire kindled in him at the press of her breasts against his chest, the speeding of her breath, the smoothness of her skin. He could feel the wild pounding of her heart as he moved his mouth over hers, devouring her with his lips as she had devoured him with her eyes. It was only fair that she be captive to his touch, his mouth, to the wild insistence that had gripped him the moment she had stepped into his arms.
His fingers tangled through her dark hair while he savored her, holding her close against him, warm and pliant. That same passion he had glimpsed while she painted now thrummed between them, alive and aware and full of desire. Her lips were nectar, and he could not drink enough of her.
The kiss was an eternal instant that lingered and flamed like a fire. Only the sound of Mrs. Hodges shifting on the cot sent them hurrying back into the containers of their bodies. James felt Lily pull away. She slipped out of his embrace and stood, eyes wide.
“No,” she said, but there was no sound, only her mouth forming the words. She took a step backward, then, without another word, turned and ran.
***
Lily slammed the door of her bedroom and leaned hard against it. Flashes of heat still pulsed through her and she let herself, just for a moment, relive the taste of his kiss. Her heart had nearly stopped beating when she stood between his knees and felt the delicious inevitability—the warmth of his breath, the first brush of his mouth against hers, the sweet fire of his kiss.
How could she have been so weak?
She pulled off her apron and wadded it into a ball, throwing it toward the bed. She knew where this path could lead—she had been there when she was Isabelle’s age.
It had started innocently enough. Her new art tutor was young, and handsome in a quiet fashion. His canvases glowed with an inner light that was generating interest in Society. How proud her mother had been to acquire him as a tutor. How taken Lily had been as they sat in the springtime garden sketching one another. He knew everything, and she was so hungry to learn.
It was not long before their mutual passion for art led to passion of another sort. Their glances had progressed to shy touches, handholding, then a few gentle, stolen kisses. Her body had thrilled in response to his caresses. The first time he had stroked her breast through her gown she thought she had become a firework, a blazing flower shot into the sky.
Lily had imagined herself desperately in love, but looking back, it seemed she had been in love with the heady feeling of discovering herself desirable. That first taste of a young woman’s power had been intoxicating.
And so it went, spring giving way to summer, until a stolen hour in the evening garden had turned heated. He had lifted her skirts and entered her, gasping apologies as he thrust wildly. She had barely understood what was happening until he gathered her into his arms and stroked her hair. They were both crying, and yet her body yearned for him, yearned for a kind of completion she did not understand.
He resigned his position the next morning. He would never forgive himself for robbing her of her innocence, he told her. Marriage was out of the question; their stations were too far apart, he could barely support himself, let alone a wife, and she would come to despise him for taking her away from her world of wealth and privilege. She took his words in, but they did little to shield her from the aching misery that followed. She had never again allowed herself to be so vulnerable.
Until today.
Lily paced to the window. Outside, the early spring drizzle had resumed. Another wagon of supplies trundled up the drive, the driver hunched under his wet cloak. Mr. Huntington must have sensed her weakness. She always lost herself when painting. He had felt her vulnerability and acted the rake. Hadn’t he checked to make sure Mrs. Hodges was asleep?
Yet somehow she could not bring herself to believe it. Perhaps it had been the look in his brown eyes as he had drawn her to him; perhaps the way he had tipped her chin up for their kiss. There was a tenderness in his touch that could not be a lie. He was not a wicked man—just a dangerous one, and his presence here was disturbing everything.
In five days her father’s coach would come up the drive to take her to London. There she would sit in a parlor and drink tea with her future mother-in-law. Marriage. Would Lord Buckley’s kiss inspire that flare of her senses, the feeling that she was truly alive in every corner of her being? She doubted it. He was her mother’s choice, after all.
Lily bent and picked up her crumpled apron. What was she going to do? She had encouraged Mr. Huntington. He had kissed her first, but she had kissed him back. What would he expect as they traveled together? She had lost her innocence, but in the years since she had gathered the tatters of her virtue about her. Her future husband deserved what little she could offer. She was a fallen woman, but not a loose one.
Or was she? She closed her eyes and was back in the conservatory, enfolded in Mr. Huntington’s arms, his hand pressing against the small of her back, his lips drinking her in.
She must not let it happen again. She must not give him the opportunity to tempt her. Her only hope was to press on, pretend it had never happened. Lock the memory of his caress away with her secrets. She could manage—she had to. It was simply a matter of immersing herself in her work. She would signal to Mr. Huntington that she was not available and, if he asked, tell him directly that he would be allowed no further liberties.
And she was going to finish his portrait—it really was going very well, despite the unfortunate distraction at the end. There was no reason to let personal disaster ruin good work. Sketching him had been effortless, and when she had begun to paint there was a boundless power running through her—she could not put her brush wrong. It had been heady and wonderful. She had become transported and let her defenses down. It would not happen again.
Lily shook out her blue apron and carefully folded it.
It had only been a kiss, after all. Likely a trifle to him, a passing fancy. Anything more than a cordial acquaintance between them was unthinkable.
CHAPTER SIX
James lay awake, staring up at the dim shadow of the canopy over his bed. He had been unable to find Lily that afternoon, and when she finally did appear at the dinner table she had hardly spoken to him, except to say that she required him in the conservatory tomorrow afternoon.
He had not acted in a very gentlemanly fashion, kissing his host’s niece, but he could not be sorry for it. She had been so warm in his arms, so responsive. His body still burned with the memory of her.
Of course, it would not happen again. She was returning to London in a matter of days. A stroke of luck, since he was not sure he could endure the temptation she presented for the days and weeks an expedition would last. It was madness to contemplate a dalliance. He knew the price if they were discovered, and he could not pay it. He had nothing to offer except
the fool’s hope of recovering his grandfather’s journals. It was best to act the gentlemen for a short while longer, then circumstance would take care of the problem.
He tossed and tangled in his sheets before at last falling into a fitful slumber where past and present twined hazily together. The dream came again—half memory of his departure for India, half odd, disjointed collage.
He was standing at the ship’s rail looking down at the dock below. Lovers were embracing, wives and children waving tearful farewells, sailors and stevedores loading baggage into the ship. There was no one for James—his sister was in boarding school in York and he had not bothered to inform anyone else who might care to see him off.
In the dream, as in real life, the ship cast off and pulled away from the dock. A bell rang, and sailors climbed in the rigging, setting out canvas to catch the offshore breeze. Slowly the people on the docks, and then the docks themselves, shrank into the distance and disappeared. He stood gripping the rail until he was the only one left, staring blindly at the cliffs and hills of England.
This time, the dream changed. A gentle touch on his shoulder, and Lily was behind him, smiling, wearing her blue painting smock. Then, in the way of dreams, they were back in the conservatory, Lily again in his arms, leaning into his kiss. She pulled back, looked deeply into his eyes for an instant, then ran. James followed, but the brick walkways twisted and the foliage had overgrown the path—he had lost her and could not find his way home.
The dream followed him into daylight, leaving him with a vague melancholy when he woke in the grey light of dawn. The familiar pain of his old longing had echoed through him all morning.
Now he paused before the cut-glass doors that divided the conservatory from the rest of the house. What could he say to put things aright? What would Lily require of him?
Stepping through those doors was like stepping into a different world. No matter how grey or cold it was outside, here was a paradise of warmth and lush fragrance. Again he had entered this haven of the senses, and there was no way out but forward.
He followed the path past carefully tended plantings and nodded to a gardener pruning a leggy hydrangea. Ahead, he could hear her voice.
“Lord Buckley is presently in America. Mother and I are going to take tea with the countess upon my return to London…” Seeing James, she broke off.
Lily’s hair was coiled tightly at her neck, though chestnut strands were already escaping. Her blue apron was drawn over a soberly cut grey gown. She was standing by her easel, speaking to her aunt, who was seated on the wicker chaise and holding a portable writing desk. James squared his shoulders.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Huntington,” Lily said. “Aunt Mary will be lending us the pleasure of her company as we work today.”
“Yes, Lily suggested I catch up on my correspondence here. The atmosphere is lovely, don’t you agree?”
“Very much.” James flicked his gaze to Lily.
“Please sit, Mr. Huntington.”
He returned to the stool and tried to let his body remember the pose. One foot firmly on the ground, the other heel resting on the lowest rung. Shoulders at an angle, just so. He did not remember the leaf that was now tickling his neck, though.
Lily eyed his pose with a frown. She began to move toward him then hesitated. “Come and look at the sketch from yesterday. That should give you a better idea of the positioning.”
He rose and rounded the easel for his first glimpse of the portrait. Even unfinished, the painting had a vital energy to it, a sense of coming into being that stirred him. Or perhaps it was standing so close to the woman he had so recently kissed.
“I see.” He studied the lines of the pose, imprinting them in his mind, then returned to the stool.
Lily rewarded him with a faint smile. “Yes. That’s it precisely.”
He lowered his voice. “I’m glad you are continuing with the portrait. After yesterday, I wasn’t sure how you felt.”
A hint of color rose in her cheeks. “The painting is coming along very well.” She looked directly into his eyes. “I am not in the habit of abandoning my work.”
“An admirable quality. Have you always been so single-minded?”
“Yes.” Her smile was gone now. “In fact, I find it difficult to work and converse at the same time. Because flowers do not require it, I never developed the ability to banter while painting.”
“As you wish.”
In silence he watched her begin to paint. Her focus narrowed, and her sea-green eyes became more intense as they moved over him, but today the transformation did not catch him so completely off guard. There was more of a respite, periods when she focused on the image on her easel. James wondered what she saw when she looked at him, how the colors spoke to her and then were translated into his face and form. The quiet was broken only by the dip and scratch of Lady Mary’s pen and the faint whistling of the gardener somewhere beyond James’s vision.
There were times when the intensity of her gaze became too much. Then he stared straight ahead and concentrated on the sweeping lines of the greenhouse—glass and iron, imprisoning and at the same time sheltering the lush foliage. Outside the trees were still leafless, but inside was a tumult of green.
The sound of light footsteps on the walkway broke the spell. A maid with freckles on her nose entered and dropped a curtsy to Lady Mary.
“Beg pardon, milady. A man is here with more packages. I think they need your direct attention.”
“Very well, Anne.” Lady Mary rose, setting aside her lap desk. “Please excuse me for a moment.” She smiled at Lily and James, and then led the servant from the conservatory.
They were alone, and the silence between them quickly grew as tense and charged as the air before a lightning storm.
“Miss Strathmore,” he said. “I hope I did not cause you distress yesterday.”
Her fingers tightened on her brush. “Distress? Oh, no.”
“I did not intend to put you in a compromising position.”
Her gaze dropped to the brick pavers. “Mr. Huntington, I took no offense. In fact, our interchange had all but slipped from my mind.”
“I wanted to reassure you—”
“Please, it is unnecessary. Do not worry yourself further on my account. I’ve put the incident behind me, and would ask that you do the same.”
“How practical.” He could not so easily erase the memory of her softness pressed against him, her lips warm under his.
“Precisely. It is the only sensible course. And Mr. Huntington…”
“Yes?”
“You should have no expectations. I do not allow—”
“No, of course not.”
“Then the matter is settled.”
James regarded her for a long moment. “If that is how you want it to be, then it is settled.”
She held his gaze a heartbeat too long, then dabbed her brush and returned to her work, some deeper emotion darkening her eyes. A strained silence fell between them.
“I have ordered up a tea tray,” Lady Mary said as she came briskly up the walk some minutes later. She glanced from James to Lily. “It should be along shortly, if you are ready for some refreshment.”
“Yes,” Lily said, “that would be lovely. Though I am nearly finished.”
“Finished?”
“Yes. The work has been going very well. Another quarter-hour should see it to completion.”
James was curious to see the transformation from sketch to painting. Though more uncomfortable than he might have guessed, observing her in the act of creation had been captivating. He watched her paint, knowing it would be his last opportunity. It was like seeing any creature in its perfect element—a hawk soaring high, riding invisible currents, or a quicksilver fish darting through water. Time had seemed almost suspended, measured only by the dip of her brush, the beat of his own heart, the graceful presence of the artist before him.
The scent of narcissus filled the air, sweet with an edge of citrus. L
ady Mary turned her page over, the rustling of paper like the hush of palm fronds on a tropical shore. He was filled with a quiet regret that he and Lily could not enjoy an easy companionability. The shadow of yesterday stood between them.
At last she set down her brush and took a deep breath. “I am done. Or near enough that you are now free, Mr. Huntington.”
James rose and stretched. He and Lady Mary moved to join Lily at the easel.
“Oh, Lily!” Lady Mary exclaimed.
He could not speak at first, only look. His figure was cast against subdued greens, making it stand out strongly in vivid tones of gold, white, and warm brown. Behind his shoulder the palm fronds were parted, revealing a shining glimpse of white petals.
She had painted him looking slightly to the left, focused past the viewer as if searching for something in the far distance. The longing he saw there startled him. Was it so obvious? It was his yearning as the ship pulled away from the dock, the ache he still felt when he thought of the happy days when his father was still alive.
But she had not just shown his longing—she had shown his hope. Hope that this mad adventure to Tunisia would succeed, that he could save Somergate and at last find a place he could belong to. Lily had painted more than his physical form; she had described his deepest emotion. It was something he had not anticipated—that her skill had transmuted him to this. His heart contracted painfully. He looked down into her upturned face, seeing the unspoken question there. Is it you?
“It is wonderful,” he said softly.
Her sea-green eyes smiled into his. Once again he felt the absurd impulse to reach out and gather her into his arms—but there was no place for him there.
CHAPTER SEVEN
James ignored the buzz of conversation that followed him through the club as he made his way to the back and selected a chair facing the fire. London, it seemed, had not yet forgotten his duel with the Duke of Hereford’s son.
Fortune's Flower (Passport to Romance Book 1) Page 6
