He frowned, aware that they were treading hazardous territory. A sparrow had swooped down from an overhanging branch in search of a beetle in the foliage. “Why would you say that?”
“Russell is concerned with his public image. I’m sure that part of him must enjoy having women admire him. Most men do.”
“Not all of them.” He had grown tired of being chased himself, honestly. He had enjoyed it when he was younger, but now he wanted so much more.
“For heaven’s sake, Heath, none of you Boscastles are working toward sainthood.”
He couldn’t deny that. “With the possible exception of my sister Emma.”
She laughed. “Perhaps she hasn’t met the right man.”
“You mean the wrong one.”
Her amusement faded. “Do you know what I overheard one of my servants say? She said that Russell was a rascal, that he was only marrying me because I’ve inherited a fortune.”
He frowned. “That’s ridiculous, Julia.”
“It isn’t, actually. I’m quite well off.”
“Well, Russell wanted you before you became an heiress.” And so had he.
“Yes.”
“How did your father die?” he asked quietly.
“He had a stroke.” She looked him in the eye. “I’ll tell you a secret. He hoped you might ask to marry me.”
She gave another laugh, kicking up a few leaves with her silly pointed shoes, and something inside him turned dark and fierce. The desire to protect her, to spare her pain. A fortune she had said. Could it be true? The old viscount had not flaunted his wealth. Yet Heath still believed that Russell loved Julia for herself, even if he was betraying her behind her back, the stupid bastard.
Heath didn’t know how to respond. After their past encounter, he never would have imagined that Julia would discuss him with her father. “I had no idea. I didn’t know that he even thought of us in those terms.”
“Neither did I until recently.” She grinned wickedly. “He only told me right before he died. He didn’t dislike Russell, but he preferred you to all the young men I’d met.”
Heath’s face showed no reaction. “Really?”
“He didn’t disapprove of my engagement,” she said as an afterthought. “But he caught Russell cheating at cards once, and never felt the same about him again.”
Heath smiled.
“Of course that would never happen to you,” she said tartly. “You’d never cheat at cards, would you?”
“I wouldn’t get caught.”
“But would you cheat?” she asked again, teasing him, he suspected.
They turned to each other at the same moment. Without thinking he put his hand on her shoulder and drew her toward him. There was no one around them, no one to witness their behavior. It was only the second time in his memory that Heath had given in to basic impulse. The rest of his family happily submitted all the time.
But he had always prided himself on his restraint. He was admired for it. He was the one his siblings sought for advice, for intervention. The level-headed male member of the Boscastle line. The one Russell had chosen to be the protector.
A protector turned predator. He couldn’t help it.
He slid his hand down her half-bare shoulder to her waist, urging her into him. She bent but not without initial resistance, or was it surprise? It didn’t much matter. He placed his other hand on top of her knee. To balance himself or hold her in place? Both perhaps. That didn’t matter either. Her body heat stole through his jacket and shirt, into his skin, into his bones, where his memories of her smoldered. The tempting fire of her blazed a direct pathway into the guarded regions of his heart. She’d found her way there once before, he remembered, but he had assumed a scar had formed around the spot.
She moistened her lips, meeting his gaze. The sensuality in her eyes stirred his deepest senses. “Julia,” he murmured.
“Go ahead,” she said in an undertone. “Do it. We’re both dying of curiosity. Perhaps we shall feel better if we get it over with once and for all.”
His heart quickened. He felt the burning warmth deep in his belly now. A heat, a hunger. A wanting that gnawed into his bones. He brought his hand to her face, traced her jaw, her cheekbone with his thumb. “Do what?” he asked in a deep, deliberate voice. Yes, he was a patient man. He understood what she was saying, but he wanted to hear it explained in her own words.
“This.” She angled her head to bring her full red mouth to his. Her warm breath taunted his jaw. “Kiss me, and then we shall know.”
“There’s no excuse for us this time,” he said in a thick voice. “You can get up and walk away.” But he prayed she wouldn’t. He wished for this so badly his heart hammered in desperate violence.
She leaned into him, lacing her left hand around his neck. Her fingers trembled, stroked his hair until he shivered. “So can you.”
“We both know better.” His body was already as hard as stone.
“Do we?” she whispered, her gray eyes wistful.
He knew what he wanted. He cradled the back of her head in his hand. Her lips parted.
She had the softest, most erotic mouth he had ever tasted. Forbidden fruit. He wanted to eat his fill of her, taste her from top to bottom. Incredible that this feeling could flare up between them, hotter, more dangerous for their years apart than before.
God help him. He wasn’t kissing an innocent debutante. She was experienced now, a woman who had lived a life, who knew how to please a man, to take her own pleasure. He had not counted on this, that his talent for seduction would meet its match in the one woman he had wanted and lost.
It was not like him to underestimate what he must face. He’d assumed time would dampen his attraction to her. He who analyzed every aspect of human behavior, who followed a precise blueprint for his own life, had not taken into account that Julia matured would be more than his equal.
Everything he secretly desired in a woman wrapped in one package.
A package labeled: Forbidden. Do Not Open. Property of Another Man.
But he had not bargained for this. To desire her all over again. This time with his full awareness and knowledge of what they were, the risks so dangerously high. They both stood to lose more than they could afford. He would give up any aspirations to his career, the respect of the man who’d saved his life. Julia would surrender whatever respect and standing in Society she had left.
She broke the kiss, her breath warm on his lips, lingering with the aftertaste of fine champagne to tease him. Forbidden sweetness. He felt her hand lift to his chest. Felt her fingertips fleetingly explore the ridge of muscle that sheltered his pounding heart. He didn’t move, didn’t encourage or discourage her. She had kissed him with the cool skill of a courtesan. He couldn’t help wondering what else she could do, would allow if they were alone. What she could be in a man’s bed. In his bed. If she kissed like that, what else had she learned?
He pressed his tongue between her parted lips. Her mouth was sweet and moist. He tasted the sigh she gave, felt the quiver that shook her supple frame. His fingers tightened possessively around her neck. He deepened the kiss, his other hand curling around her waist to draw her against him. Her tongue met and circled his with a sensuality that made his body clench.
She moaned, the creamy globes of her breasts crushed to his chest. He cupped her hip through her pale gown, tested the tempting softness of her flesh. His blood pounded through his veins in a powerful wave of desire. This wasn’t enough. He needed more. He’d kill for the chance to sleep with her. Six years of lust coming to an uncontrollable boil.
“Julia,” he whispered in a thick voice. “Oh, my God.”
Her mouth trembled. He pulled her closer, tangling his fingers in the hair that had fallen down her shoulder. He pushed his knee between her thighs, desperate to feel more of her. He moved his hand from her waist to the swelling underside of her breast. He heard her breath catch. His thumb teased the taut nub of her nipple. A dark mist of desire swam in his h
ead. He had to stop before someone saw them.
“Your cravat is a little crooked,” she said, staring at his neck. “Shall I straighten it?”
“Please.” Just keep touching me. He glanced down at her averted face to the creamy sun-kissed skin of her shoulders. A pulse fluttered at the hollow of her throat, the only telltale sign of his effect on her that he could discern. His heart was thundering like a bloody war drum.
“Are you and Russell—”
“No,” she answered quickly, her eyes lifting to his. “We’re not lovers.”
He smiled slowly, wondering why her answer pleased him. “I meant, are you going to live in London after you’re married?”
“I think so. At least for part of the year.” She gave his cravat a final tug. “Are you going to tell him?” she asked carefully.
He forced a smile. “Tell him what?”
“That I kissed you.”
Her cheeks were flushed, and her mouth looked delectably moist.
“I kissed you first.”
“Yes, but . . .”
“But?” he prodded gently.
She released a sigh. “I didn’t have to reciprocate.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t have to tempt you.”
Julia patted the end of his cravat, her pensive frown giving way to her natural merriment. She had never struck him as the type to cry over spilled milk. Or stolen kisses. How could he have forgotten her delightful irreverence for dignity? “It was a kiss, Heath. Not the Treaty of Paris.”
He pretended to scowl at her. His body was still aching and hard. His heartbeat was only now slowing to a more normal pace. “Do you kiss other men often?”
“Every chance I get.”
“Did I satisfy your curiosity?”
She took another sip of champagne from the glass she had set beside her on the bench. He noticed that her hand was not completely steady. Good. “Did I satisfy yours?”
“Satisfied is not quite how I would describe my present state, Julia.”
“I’m not satisfied either,” she confessed, drawing her hand back into her lap. She lowered her gaze. “I feel very unsettled inside and annoyed at myself, if you must know.”
He turned his head, ending their lighthearted exchange with regret. Lady Dalrymple and the earl were coming toward them, their voices raised in a quibble. He straightened, his face deliberately impersonal as he murmured, “Well, I’m not complaining. And, Julia, it should go without saying that I’m not telling either.”
Chapter 9
Julia wandered over to her bedroom window, slowly pulling the pins from her hair. Evening had fallen, and she wasn’t at all tired. She’d had the loveliest day she could remember in a long time. She’d had three glasses of champagne at the party and had fallen asleep on the ride home with Heath sitting opposite her. Now from where she stood she could hear the patter of light rain on the rhododendrons in the garden. She could hear the muted clip-clop of carriages in the street.
She’d retired to her room at ten o’clock that evening. She had not bothered to light a candle. Heath had refused to go home again. She’d left him downstairs with a book, his cravat loosened, his arm stretched across the back of the sofa. It had been a struggle not to stay with him.
She was going to have to find a way to release him from his promise.
Today only proved that they could not be trusted alone together.
She had seen other women stare at him throughout the party. Stolen, yearnful looks. Bold flirtatious smiles that invited seduction. She knew he’d noticed. But he’d only smiled politely and refused to linger. Russell would have stopped to talk to half of them, always the political creature. At the theater two weeks ago, he had made friends with everyone except the footmen. Julia had thought she would collapse from pretending to be so polite. Heath didn’t seem bothered.
Would one of those women at the party today capture his heart? It was bound to happen soon. What would it take? She sighed at the thought of Heath setting out to seduce a debutante, a beautiful heiress. She wondered suddenly if he would be a faithful husband. And what he thought of her after their kiss today. Had it settled anything or left more questions unanswered? She was still weak from the wonderful power of it. Weak and wistful. She felt a little ashamed of herself too, but . . . she couldn’t stop thinking about him. The dizzying pleasure of his hand on her breast, his hard mouth claiming hers. She had wanted him to touch her all over. She was ashamed, but she had wanted it just the same.
A creak from the misty darkness of the garden below arrested her attention. It was the cat banging against the shed door as it did every night when the gardeners forgot to lock their tools away, or when Hermia’s little spaniels bedeviled it.
She tossed her brush down on the bed. She tugged the bellpull to summon a servant, but no one answered. It was late anyway, and she would be faster solving the problem herself.
She encountered a far more intimidating problem on her way down the stairs. Her heart accelerated at the tall lean figure who appeared without warning to intercept her. He had unbuttoned his jacket and stood below her in his white linen shirt and gray pantaloons. The shadows accentuated his deep blue eyes and the chiseled power of his face, the lines that bracketed his lean cheeks. Unwelcome heat suffused her as she met his gaze; her breasts felt heavy and sensitive. She couldn’t remember when a man had aroused her with a mere look.
A dangerous man, she warned herself, recalling the rumors that he had efficiently, ruthlessly hunted down foreign agents after recovering from his experience in Portugal. Russell had often bragged of how he had rescued Heath, of how he had carried his abused body across the countryside in a wine cart, how they had begged refuge at a convent, disguised as peasants. She’d heard stories about Heath, too. How many lives had he saved? He did not brag of his deeds.
“Is something wrong?” he demanded, bringing her unruly thoughts back in line.
“Yes. It’s a Crown crisis, Heath. My cat is banging against the shed door. At least I assume it was the cat. Call the Horse Guards while I fetch the prime minister.”
His firm mouth curled into a sardonic smile. “And the light infantry?”
She attempted to slip around him. “Let’s not lose our heads.”
She did not see him move, but suddenly his hand captured her bare arm. The subtle pressure of his fingers encircled her wrist in an inescapable yet protectively gentle hold. She felt her breath hitch in her throat. “Wait,” he said. “It’s raining, and your dress is thin. I shall close the door.”
She glanced up. “One of the footmen—”
“I sent them all to bed.”
“Honestly, Heath, you cannot keep spending the night at my house. It really makes me feel terribly guilty.”
He drew her down onto the step beside him. She felt a spark of shock, allowed herself to be swept into warm confusion. In the blink of an eye it engulfed her—shimmering heat, temptation. The very air that brushed her skin seemed to burn.
“Only until I make a more suitable arrangement,” he said. “Do you really object?”
Breathing became difficult. The virile allure of his body drew her forward, magnetic and irresistible. She couldn’t bring herself to pull her hand from his, enjoying his possessive touch far too much. “I object only because I feel it is an unfair imposition on your time.”
“Is my company unpleasant?” he asked, his gaze playful, dangerously enticing.
“What do you think?”
“I say we will do what we are told.”
She laughed softly. “As if either of us has ever done so. What must your family think of this? And my servants?”
The latter was a poor excuse, and no doubt he knew it. Julia had never lived an orthodox life. She had barely managed to cling to the fringes of convention, even during her marriage, and her household had been in her employ since her first days in India.
His roguish grin caught her off guard. “Your servants are loyal to you and understand the danger of your
fiancé’s mission. Furthermore, your butler and I are becoming fast friends. We played cards with the housekeeper last night.”
“You didn’t,” she said in chagrin. What was going on in her household?
“I did. I won a silver carving knife and an Irish linen apron.”
“With the servants,” she exclaimed, not as disapproving as she pretended. “Gambling. My aunt would be scandalized.”
“She wasn’t, actually.” His deep chuckle sent a shiver down her back. “She kept score for us.”
“How could you? A carving knife. An apron.”
“I won them fair and square.” He leaned toward her, his voice wickedly conspiratorial. “And it’s keeping your aunt out of trouble. She planned to break into Odham’s bedroom tonight. She’s convinced that he sleeps with her love letters under his pillow.”
She swallowed. She wanted for once to unsettle him, as he did her, to see him lose his poise. She wanted . . . to melt into his arms again, to savor his hard strength, to resurrect the beautiful passion they had known. How could she have guessed that he would haunt her heart for the rest of her life? In self-defense she changed the subject. She could not think of him in such terms. “Speaking of my aunt, you’re in for a surprise if you’re still here in the morning, Boscastle.”
“Am I? That sounds promising.”
She lowered her gaze, staring inadvertently at his firmly molded mouth. She’d wager he wouldn’t be smiling like that in the morning when he found the house taken over by a flock of amateur female artists.
“Aunt Hermia’s painting club meets here every Tuesday after breakfast. The ladies are ever in search of a suitable model for their Greek deity collection.”
And what a model he would make. The man radiated raw masculinity. What woman with artistic aspirations would not be tempted to immortalize that classically handsome face and perfectly sculpted torso? He would cause a sensation tomorrow if Hermia’s friends got hold of him. She grinned a little slyly at the thought. It served him right for being so unfairly gorgeous.
The Wedding Night of an English Rogue Page 9
