The Persuasive Love of a Libertine

by Jane Lark

  But this was one of the reasons why she had wished to cut Peter’s friends, because she did not want to hear Peter’s name in every other sentence, even if it was spoken with condemnation. She sent Harry a very direct look, one she had never given to anyone else, but she had aimed it at Harry a couple of times in town when his teasing had become too much. “Please, do not keep speaking of Peter. You will not cheer me by doing that.”

  His hand squeezed her fingers. “Is it that bad, then? Then I am very sorry. I shall button up my lips on the subject from now on. But in return you must promise me you will write to Mary and not lose your friend.”

  She did not answer.

  They reached the end of the lawn and turned to the right to walk along the far edge, towards the old plane tree.

  “Promise me,” he said.

  Emily stared at the broad gnarled trunk of the tree ahead of them. “I feel a fool.”

  “And why?”

  She glanced at him. “Do I need to say why?”

  “Without mentioning the subject you have asked me not to mention I can only say that it is not you who is the fool in my eyes. And besides, Mary is only concerned for your welfare, as is Drew.”

  “Drew does not like me.”

  “Do not be silly. Had it not been for you his plan to elope with Mary would have failed, he loves you.”

  She glanced at him once more. “Now you are being silly.”

  “I told you I am here to cheer you. And if you write to Mary and ask her, I am sure she will confirm that her husband adores you.”

  “For lying, to help him steal her away.” She made a face at him. “I might not accept that as a good thing; their marriage was not happy in the beginning.”

  “Yet it is happy now, and they have one bonny child and another on the way. Their children would not exist had you not made your intervention.” He was grinning at her.

  She twisted her face at him. Another thing she had only ever done with Harry. She would not have dared to be so forward in anyone else’s company, but he had always teased her so terribly.

  “Do you think I am jesting? I am not jesting.”

  Charm and satire, that was the way of Peter and his friends.

  “Perhaps I shall write to Mary.”

  They neared the plane tree, taking the last couple of steps. His arm dropped from beneath her hand and instead his hand grasped hers. “Not perhaps,” he stated. “Certainly you must.” As he spoke he pulled her to the tree, and then stopped behind the trunk, and his other hand lifted to brace her cheek, and then, in the next moment, she was pressed back against the tree and his mouth came down on hers.

  Peter had kissed her, four times, his lips gently pressing over hers. They were scarce, stolen moments when they had left rooms behind others, or once they had kissed quickly when he had taken her out for a ride in the park in his curricle.

  But this…

  Harry’s tongue ran along the seam of her lips, back and forth. She opened her lips to take a breath, in a gasp. His tongue pressed into her mouth, and then the kiss was no longer a static thing, like the kisses she had exchanged with Peter, but a thing of movement, of flow and ebb. His tongue swept around hers and then out of her mouth.

  Her fingers gripped his shoulders as his lips lifted from hers, then touched hers again and lifted, and then his tongue was back within her mouth.

  She responded only because of the power and intensity within the flirtation of his lips and tongue against hers, as his body pressed her back against the tree. He had captured her in a state of surprise.

  But then she came to her senses. Her grip clawed, grasping the fabric on the shoulders of his evening coat and she pushed him away. “My mother is watching.”

  “She cannot see through trees.”

  “That is not a reason to continue.”

  “Do we need a reason?”

  “Harry.” She was suddenly flustered, and hot, and—was she being made a fool of again?

  Do not trust them, Mary had said to her a long time ago. Do not trust any of them. They work together, one will distract you while another…

  Emily turned away, twisting out of his reach, and out from behind the tree and began to walk across the lawn back towards the house.

  “Emily!” he called after her.

  She kept walking, her legs slicing at the layers of petticoats beneath her skirt.

  “Emily.” He had stopped shouting, and yet his voice had grown harsher. “Your mother will wonder what is happening.”

  She stopped suddenly and turned about, anger flooding through her. She would not be used again. “Perhaps I shall tell her what happened, and you will never be permitted through the door again.” But even as she said the words, she knew that was not what she wished for, she liked Harry, he did cheer her, and it had been thrilling to be kissed so passionately.

  But she did not want to be used again!

  He walked casually towards her. His ease annoyed her. Her hands fisted. “You should ask a lady’s permission before you kiss her.” Peter had always at least done that.

  “Would you have told me no?”

  She was unsure what she would have said. But he need not know it. “Yes, I would have refused it.”

  “But you enjoyed it, so you would have denied yourself.”

  Oh. These men. Mary had warned her. He stood before her now smiling at her, even as she raged at him.

  Her hand lifted, unfolding from a fist, and swiped at him, slapping him across the cheek with a satisfying crack of sound that stung her hand.

  “Ow. Emily,” he said with a laugh as his hand covered the redness rising on his skin.

  “That is no more than you deserve,” she answered, swinging around with a whoosh of her skirt and walking on ahead of him. “Now you may come inside and take your leave.”

  Fortunately when Emily opened the French door and entered the room, her mother looked up in a way that implied she had not previously been looking through the window and seen Emily’s quarrel with Harry.

  Harry caught a hold of the door as Emily’s hand let go of it, and he stepped into the room behind her.

  Emily tried to smile, although the muscles in her face felt stiff.

  “It is time I headed back to town, Mrs Smithfield,” Harry said. “Thank you very much for your invitation.” Emily looked at him as he bowed to her mother, then her father. Then he looked at Emily and smiled as though nothing had occurred outside.

  She wished to slap him again.

  He looked at her father, once more. “May I call to take Miss Smithfield out for a drive in a curricle tomorrow, if the weather is fair? After I have looked about the factory, of course.”

  Lines formed across her father’s forehead, but then he smiled. “Of course.” Like her mother, her father was seeing another opportunity to settle Emily in a marriage to a man from the aristocracy.

  “Thank you.” Harry bowed to her father again, then to her mother. Then he lifted his arm. “Would you walk into the hall with me, Miss Smithfield?”

  She longed to say no, but her parents would make her explain why once he had left.

  She did not rest her hand on his arm, but walked ahead of him.

  As he followed, a low sound of humour rumbled in his throat.

  In the hall she turned around and whispered, “Do not laugh at me.”

  “It is not out of amusement, it is because I am charmed by you.”

  Charmed… How she hated that word. “I do not wish you to be charmed, and you do realise that simply because you drive out here does not mean you can force me to climb into the vehicle with you.”

  “I hope I do not need to force you. As I said, I came to cheer you. Let me do so.”

  By kissing her… She did not say the words aloud as her father’s butler was on the far side of the hall pretending not to listen.

  He leant towards her and took her hand from where it hung at her side, then lifted it to his lips, and he tilted it forward so he could kiss her wrist above h
er glove.

  “You have a night and a morning to consider whether you wish to be cheered by me. If I arrive tomorrow and you send me away, then I shall go home with my tail between my legs, like a sad, kicked, little puppy. But if you drive out with me, then I will stay until I know you are truly happy again.” The words were whispered against her skin, so they sent goose-bumps up her arm

  He let go of her hand, bowed his head in a swift movement, then turned to leave. Mills came to life and opened the door. “Your carriage, sir?”

  “I shall walk down to the mews and stir them into preparing it.”

  Then, Harry was gone.

  Emily excused herself from the parlour, and hurried upstairs. The maid came to help her undress, but Emily did not climb into bed. Instead, as the sun set outside her window, she looked out and imagined Harry’s carriage turning into the market square in Devizes. Then she found out some paper, ink, and her quill and wrote a letter to Mary.

  Part Five

  He had not lied to Emily; he had not been bored in her father’s factory, he had been fascinated. The looms had moved at such a pace as the men and women had worked, casting the shuttles between the maze of threads, back and forth, creating intricate patterns.

  But now his reward for spending three hours in a hot, noisy, and dusty factory with her father was highly anticipated, although with some concern.

  He had possibly been too hasty last evening, in being so forward as to kiss her. She might turn him away today. But despite her anger, he knew women well enough to be certain she had enjoyed their kiss.

  When he arrived at the Smithfield’s, though, things became shambolic. Emily was awaiting him in the hall, in a bonnet and shawl, but there was also a maid there, in a bonnet and shawl. The hand he’d played today had been trumped by an ace.

  Damn it.

  The curricle he’d hired, unlike those his friends owned, had a seat which faced backwards behind the driver’s seat, and so he was also without the excuse that he could not fit a maid on the carriage. He therefore spent an hour of his afternoon driving along country lanes beside Emily speaking of the most general things through gritted teeth, because sitting directly behind them was her maid.

  They spoke of George, and how fast Drew’s and Mary’s son was growing, and how clever he seemed, which was as personal as they became. The rest of the conversation covered the factory, the weather, and the crops in the fields they passed, as Harry asked what was what, because he had never been a country boy.

  So when they returned to her parents he was not one tiny step forward in his campaign to win her, and frustration burned in his blood. He would not take her out in a curricle again.

  “Do you wish to join us for dinner this evening, Mr Webster, rather than eat alone in the inn?” her mother offered.

  “Yes, that is very kind of you, Mrs Smithfield.” Yes, and he would damn well walk outside in the garden with Emily. He would have been better off doing that this afternoon than taking her driving.

  When he returned to the inn, he asked for paper, ink, and a quill, and promptly scribbled a letter and sent it to Drew, which was largely full of complaints, followed by a request for advice. He walked down and posted it and ordered a carriage to take him out to Seend before dressing for dinner.

  He had made his mind up to stay.

  He also told the inn’s clerk that.

  When the clerk had asked how long for? Harry answered, “Indefinitely.”

  For as long as it took to win Emily, he supposed, and he had a feeling that might be a while, and he hoped that the inn did not call him on their credit arrangement prior to then. He always preferred the term credit over debt, but there was always a point when one became the other.

  ~

  Emily’s mother had spent the afternoon studying The Peerage for Websters while Emily had been out driving with Harry. Emily therefore faced further questions the moment Harry had left.

  “Is Mr Webster related to this branch?”

  “I am not aware of it.”

  “Or the Websters from Lincolnshire.”

  “I have said I do not know, Mama.”

  The conversation ended there, with her mother being none-the-wiser as to how Harry might be connected to the aristocracy, beyond being a friend of Peter’s and Drew’s.

  When Harry walked into the drawing room behind Mills later, Emily smiled with amusement, aware that she had thoroughly beaten him in the afternoon. She had enjoyed the carriage ride; it was a rare outing for her, but she was aware that Harry had hated it. His normally inappropriate, candid form of conversation had been entirely subdued before her maid.

  His dark blue-grey eyes threw her a chastising look before he turned to say good evening to her parents. Then he turned to her. “Miss Smithfield.” He took her hand and as usual, screening the gesture with his body, he kissed her wrist above her glove, out of the sight of her parents.

  In London, she had only ever seen the action as jocular, when she had been safely courting, and then betrothed to, his friend, yet now… The nature of that token greeting held an air of a much darker, militant mischief.

  Do not trust them… Mary had said. How Emily wished she had listened, and responded much more wisely.

  Well, now she was wiser.

  She pulled her hand free. “Mr Webster.”

  He spent the meal speaking mostly to her father about the factory, the looms, and their products, which developed into an explanation that he intended to stay in Devizes a little longer and would welcome learning more about her father’s work.

  Oh, he was wicked. She was not fooled at all. He was staying to pursue his game with her. His game of cheering her.

  She smiled at her portion of the meringue as she finished eating, while Harry continued speaking with her father and mother, in a very un-Harry-like manner.

  Her inclination was to play along with his games. Because, despite all else, he did genuinely like her. He would not have travelled all this way if he did not, and that was flattering. And besides, she also liked him, and kissing him had been as fun as the carriage ride. So if she did not allow herself to be used, but used him, to explore such things, then what harm would there be should she choose to play? It would cheer her.

  She did not resist then when he asked after dinner if they might walk about the garden.

  When she stood, though, she did not take his arm, but walked ahead of him, and then stood still, waiting for him to open the door. He frowned at her when he reached for the handle and turned it. Playing with Harry was a very exhilarating parlour game.

  She smiled. Oh, she was going to have a wonderful time.

  She had never really felt shy with Harry, because he had always knocked that part of her aside. It gave her a freedom she had never claimed before.

  And now she was under no obligation to anyone and she was not in a crowded ballroom being watched and made to feel inferior. There was no one here to judge her, or make her feel nervous, as Peter has always done. Here, with Harry, she might do and speak as she wished.

  As soon as the French door had shut, she took hold of his arm, and as they began to walk, she said, “You may ask to kiss me if you wish? I know it is what you hoped to do this afternoon, but you needed to know that such things shall be on my terms.”

  “Such things…” He repeated in a challenging voice.

  “Kisses,” she answered. “I am more than happy to be cheered by your kisses, but only when I agree to them.”

  He laughed. The libertine.

  She lifted her chin. “Do not laugh at me.”

  “I was not laughing at you. I was laughing at myself. I came here to seduce you and I am now finding myself seduced. I think I like it.”

  She looked at him as his slate-grey eyes looked at her. “I am not seducing you. I do not want you seduced.” Her answer was sharp because it was true. She would welcome his kisses and conversation, but beyond that… She wanted no more than those.

  “So I am to be kissed and tossed aside
.”

  She smiled at him. “Yes.” Was that not what Peter had done, and what Harry had intended? Well now, she would be the user and not the used. The thought did cheer her.

  His eyebrows lifted and he smiled too, then shook his head in an expression of disbelief and reprimand. But then he answered, “I do not think I care. Although I feel that I should.” He immediately angled their path to cut the corner of the lawn and walk towards the plane tree.

  Like the evening before, as soon as they were behind the wide trunk, she was pressed back against it and his hand lifted to the back of her head as his mouth came down on to hers.

  This time, though, she knew how he liked to kiss and her lips immediately moved against his as her hands slipped beneath his unbuttoned evening coat and lay over his waistcoat.

  Their lips pressed against each other and moved, and brushed, then parted.

  His head lifted and he breathed heavily, his eyes looking into hers, so close she could see every detail of the pale lashes about the dark grey. She had never seen that depth of expression in his eyes before.

  His head lowered and he kissed her again, only this time his tongue pressed into her mouth.

  She would not be used.

  She pressed her tongue back against his, and played the game with him, a competition, fighting for control of the kiss.

  He gave in and let her invade his mouth with her tongue. But as her tongue swept across his teeth, she realised how forward she had become, broke the kiss and drew away, certain she was blushing.

  If he knew she had become embarrassed, he did not say a word. He smiled, then lifted his arm. Then they began walking again. “I think you do feel cheered,” he said as they proceeded on along the edge of the lawn.

  Her stomach churned in ways it had never done in Peter’s company. She answered, “Yes, I think I do.”

  They walked about the garden thrice. Stopping at the plane tree on each occasion—to kiss. On each occasion as they parted, she and he were breathless. On the second occasion, his eyes had looked into hers again with that previously unseen intensity, but on the third, there was the usual look of mocking humour in his eyes when the kiss ended.