A strange feeling swept through Margery, part excited, part fearful. Jem had been right; she had taken a risk tonight, but she trusted Henry. She knew that in all the drab repetition of her daily life this one evening would always sparkle as bright and exciting as a jewel. She did not expect it to happen again, but she wanted it to end well, not on the sourness of Jem’s intervention, spoiling the magic.
“Yes,” she said. Her voice was husky. “Yes, please.”
Henry smiled but said nothing and took her hand in his. They walked back through the quiet streets, the brim of her bonnet brushing his shoulder. Neither of them spoke. It did not feel necessary. When they reached the gate at the corner of the gardens, Margery opened her reticule. Her fingers shook a little as she took out the key and turned it in the lock. The gate swung open on well-oiled hinges and they stepped inside.
“Lady Grant gave me a key when she realized that I like to take the air here of an evening,” Margery said. “The gardens are private to the residents.”
On this evening it was like a secret garden, belonging to them alone. The gravel of the paths crunched softly under their feet as they made their way beneath the spreading boughs of poplar and oak. Margery ran down the path to the place where a pool was sheltered by the overhanging branches of a willow. She trailed her fingers in the cool water and watched the ripples shatter the reflection of the stars. Somewhere, distantly, in one of the grand town houses that bordered the square, an orchestra was playing a slow, dreamy waltz. It reminded Margery of the previous night, when she had danced with Henry on the terrace.
With a sigh, she straightened and turned back to look for Henry. He was standing still and straight in the shadows of a plane tree. His silhouette was dark, his shoulders broad and strong. The moonlight glinted on his glossy black hair. Margery went up to him and put her hands against his chest.
“Thank you,” she said simply.
He smiled. “My pleasure, Miss Mallon.”
Spontaneously, Margery stood on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek, as she would have kissed one of her brothers if they had given her a present. Henry’s cheek was smooth beneath her lips—evidently he had shaved before coming to meet her—and warm. Margery was suddenly vividly aware of the scent of his cologne mingled with the smell of crisp linen and sweet scented grass. The combination went straight to her head and she felt a soaring dizziness that was far more dangerous than the light-headedness induced by the ale.
She drew back, made clumsy by shock and awareness, and in the same moment Henry turned his head and her lips brushed the corner of his mouth. Margery felt him go very still. The moment turned from something sweet to something profoundly awkward. Heat suffused her. She felt inept and mortified. She was ready to curl up with embarrassment.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean… It was a mistake—”
“Does this feel like a mistake?” Henry said. His arms went around her, pulling her against him, and then he was kissing her properly. Margery’s head spun, and the ground shifted beneath her sensible half boots and she realized that the kiss in the brothel had been nothing at all compared to this.
Henry’s lips moved over hers, his tongue touching hers, tasting her, searching, exploring. It was astonishing. It was bewitching. Little ripples of pleasure shimmered through her, down to her toes. She was shocked and intrigued all at once. It lit her blood with fire, making her shiver with heat and cold simultaneously as though she suffered a fever.
She had wanted this. She realized now how very much she had wanted Henry to kiss her. She had wanted it all evening and now it was happening. Her whole body tingled with surprised delight and a sudden fierce triumph.
With one hand Henry pulled the ribbons on her bonnet and cast it aside on the grass, and then his arm was across her back and his fingers were tangled in her hair, sending the neat pins flying, tilting her face up so that he could kiss her more deeply and more urgently still. Margery felt sweet lassitude seep through her body, weakening her knees, filling her with the most agreeable sensation of pleasure that she had ever known. She wanted more of it; suddenly she felt starved and greedy for it, her senses waking into life.
She drew closer to Henry, sliding her arms about his neck and opening her lips beneath his, kissing him back. He tasted of brandy and fresh air and something she had never known before, something that was elemental and special only to him. Her breasts were pressed against his chest as he held her close. There was a lovely, painful ache in the pit of her stomach. She had never known anything to compare with this combination of driving need and wanton weakness.
Henry’s mouth left hers, but only to press kisses against the tender line of her neck and to linger in the hollow at the base of her throat. She trembled now, alive to his touch, as he slid the striped spencer from her shoulders and dropped it to join the discarded bonnet on the grass. His hand cupped the curve of her breast through her gown, his thumb insistent as it rubbed over her nipple. The friction of rough cotton against her skin was exquisite and Margery stopped thinking abruptly, her mind swamped instead by pure, hot desire. She gave a keening little cry and Henry’s lips returned to hers in a ruthless kiss that swallowed her cry and drew her tighter still into a spiral of need.
If she had thought his touch through the material of her gown incendiary, it was nothing to the experience when he slid his hand inside her bodice and she felt his palm, warm and firm, against the side of her breast. The heat and the longing exploded inside her.
It felt as though the very stars were spinning in their courses. She had long ago forgotten to think. She was consumed by sensation only, her whole body clenched in such desperate wanting that she thought she would scream with it.
Her back was against one of the trees now. She could feel the bark snagging against the thin cotton of her gown. She tilted her head back to allow Henry greater access to the bare skin of her throat and shoulders, delighting in the nip of his teeth and the caress of his tongue. There was no shame or hesitation in her. This was a part of her nature that she had not suspected for a moment, but now it drove her.
When Henry tugged down the neck of her gown and she felt his mouth at her breast, she was shot through with such intense pleasure that she would have crumpled to the ground had he not held her pinned against the tree.
A moment later she realized that he was lifting her. The bark scored her bare back but the roughness of it was no more than additional and delightful stimulation against her nakedness. His hands were beneath her thighs, somehow her legs were wrapped about his waist, and her palms were flat against the solid hardness of the tree trunk. She could feel the kiss of the night air against her breasts.
She was filled with a ravenous greed to take Henry completely. She did not want to give herself to him. That felt too passive for the need within her, which was hungry and concentrated. She wanted to take. She was learning so much about herself and so fast. Her mind could not grapple with it, but her body knew what it wanted. It knew it with a knowledge that was deep and primitive. Henry’s mouth was at her breast again, his tongue licked, his teeth tugged on her nipple and she arched back against the hard trunk of the tree, bending like a strung bow.
“Henry, please.” Her words came out a whisper.
Taken by such pleasure she had meant to urge him on to more, but her words had the opposite effect.
She felt the loss of his touch first as he let her slide gently to the ground. She stumbled, disoriented and confused, and he steadied her. She could see his face in the moonlight now, see the vivid shock in it before a frightening blankness replaced it.
“I’m sorry,” he said. He was breathing hard and his tone was rough. There was a note of furious anger in it but Margery instinctively knew it was at himself, not her. “I’m very sorry. That should never have happened.”
The pleasure vanished. Margery felt cold all of a sudden, shivering in the summer breeze, shamefully exposed in the silver moonlight. She pulled up her bodice, tidying it with fingers
that shook.
It felt as though her mind was trembling, too, at the enormity of what she had almost done. The thoughts, the images rushed in on her; she could see herself abandoned to all modesty and sense, pinioned against the broad oak, half-naked in Henry’s arms, begging him to ravish her.
Icy shame seeped through her, yet at the same time the blazing demand of her body could not be denied. It felt as though she were split in half, part shamed, part wanting. She could neither make sense of it nor put back those sensations that had almost devoured her. She could not go back to the way she had been before.
She reached for her spencer, struggling to slip it on, making a small noise of distress as it slid from her grasp. Henry helped to arrange it about her shoulders and she felt profoundly grateful for the scant cover it gave her. His hands lingered against her bare skin for one long, aching moment and she shook. Even now, full of shock and mortification, she could feel the flutter of desire echo through her body. She did not know how she could have behaved so badly. It seemed impossible. And yet her body was awakened now and it possessed a dark and disturbing set of desires that were quite beyond the control of reason.
She wanted to run but Henry was too quick for her and caught her arm.
“I’ll take you back.” His voice was his own now, cool again, distant, while she still felt lost and utterly adrift.
“No.” She could not bear to be with him another moment. She was so embarrassed she thought that she would melt with it. Those wicked, delicious sensations of his mouth tugging at her breast…the mere memory of it turned her hot. She did not know how she could have permitted it but she wanted to permit it all over again. She was a wanton and worse still, she actually wanted to be wanton. She was bad through and through. And how lovely that felt. No wonder the church deplored such licentiousness. No wonder everyone warned about the dangers of lust.
“I’m not leaving you here.” Henry’s tone brooked no argument. He walked beside her to the gate and waited patiently as she tried to turn the key in the lock. She was all fingers and thumbs. Eventually he sighed, took the key from her and locked the gate behind them, quickly and efficiently.
They walked back to Bedford Street an impeccably respectable two feet apart. They did not speak. The five minutes it took felt like an hour, but at least it gave the heat in Margery’s blood time to cool. She could see what had happened now and mostly it made her feel like a fool. She had met a handsome gentleman and she had liked him rather too much for her own good. She had been in some danger of tumbling foolishly into love with a man she did not really know. As if that were not bad enough, she had discovered that far from being indifferent to carnal pleasures, she rather liked them. In fact she liked them a lot. And between liking and loving she had almost been undone.
“Goodnight, Mr. Ward.” Once she was within sight of the area steps Margery was itching to be gone. She knew she would not see Henry again. Her silly Cinderella dream was over and she had almost been fatally burned by it. There was a reason why maidservants were warned to steer clear of handsome gentlemen. It was all too easy to tumble from virtue. She knew that now.
Henry put out a hand and touched her wrist, a light touch that seemed to sear like a flame. “Margery,” he said. “There is something you should know.”
He’s married, Margery thought. She felt another thud of disappointment and grief. Of course he was. Well, she had learned her lesson good and proper tonight.
“Best not,” she said. She pressed her fingers to his lips to silence him and smiled even though there was a prickle of tears in her throat. Better to pretend that she had not been hurt. She did not want him knowing that, as well.
“Goodbye, Mr. Ward,” she said.
She hurried down the steps without looking back and closed the door behind her.
Before tonight she had been an innocent but she had not been naive. She had possessed no sexual experience herself but she knew full well what happened between a man and a woman. She had witnessed plenty of passion in the lives of her scandalous ladies. The mistake she had made was to assume that such passion would never touch her, that she, plain Margery Mallon, was an observer in love, not a participant.
Henry’s kisses, Henry’s touch, had changed all that.
CHAPTER SIX
The King of Pentacles: A man who holds considerable responsibility, wealthy and shrewd
HENRY WALKED TO ST. JAMES, the cool night air helping to clear his head. On the way, he repeated every creative curse he had learned in a long and active army career. There was a sharp edge of anger in him and something that felt disturbingly like guilt. It was not an emotion that generally troubled him but tonight he felt plagued by it, guilty for deceiving Margery when she had been so candid with him and guilty for coming so close to seducing her. And he had been so close. He had been within a whisper of dishonoring her. He did not know what had possessed him. It was the first time in his entire adult life that he could remember being at the mercy of his passions. Really, it was quite inexplicable.
Henry raked a hand through his hair. He wondered if the fact that Margery was denied to him had acted as some sort of perverse incentive to make her fatally attractive to him.
Damn it all to hell and back.
He liked Margery. He had not expected to like her. He had not wanted to like her. It was unnecessary; all he had to do was fulfill his duty in reuniting her with her grandfather, and that did not require any emotion at all. He mistrusted emotion. Too often it was a sign of weakness.
Truth was, he liked Margery very much and that was most definitely a weakness. She possessed candor and sweetness and he found her very appealing. She had almost made him believe that in this harsh world such generous qualities still existed. Almost he was persuaded that Margery could make the world a sweet and sane place for him once again.
He shook his head sharply. He had lost those illusions in his youth. The world was not a sweet, sane place and his impulse to take Margery and lose himself in her was foolish and misplaced. It had almost led him to do something unforgivable.
He straightened his shoulders. Tomorrow he would go to Bedford Street and acquaint Margery with her inheritance. He would escort her to Templemore and then he would be gone from her life. It was the best way. It was the only way. He would forget the beguiling softness of her body and the scent of her hair and the generosity of her nature that had worked on his parched soul like dew falling on dry ground. He would forget it because there was no alternative. In fact, tonight after he had spoken to his cousin, he would go directly to Celia’s bed and forget Margery in the most fundamental ways possible.
The cold lack of response in his body told him that it was not Celia he wanted, no matter how willing, no matter how skillful. He swore under his breath. The sooner he had done his duty in delivering Margery to her grandfather the better. He would return to his home at Wardeaux, immerse himself in his latest project and forget her.
The quiet opulence of White’s welcomed him. Henry felt a little odd, as though he were an impostor. Once, he had taken all the discreet luxury for granted, the deep armchairs, the excellent brandy, the smell of money, privilege and power. After tomorrow, his title and a handful of land was all that would be left to him. His lost inheritance would be the talk of the ton, at least until the next scandal came along. He did not particularly mind; society’s gossip had always been a matter of supreme indifference to him. What he did mind was losing Templemore, not from pride but because he loved it.
“Henry!” His cousin Garrick Farne was waiting for him. Garrick was eight years his senior, his cousin on his mother’s side. He pushed out a chair with one lazy foot, gesturing to Henry to join him at a table scattered with the day’s newspapers and adorned with a half-full bottle of brandy and two glasses. “I had almost given up on you,” Garrick said. “Not that I am complaining. Our appointment saved me the tedium of Lady Dewhurst’s rout.”
“My apologies for keeping you waiting,” Henry said. He shook his cousin
’s hand.
Garrick made a dismissive gesture. “Always a pleasure, Henry, late or not.” His dark eyes appraised him. “We see far too little of you, but I know that you dislike Town.”
Henry settled in the chair and accepted the glass of brandy Garrick proffered. “I hope that Merryn is well?” he said. He liked Garrick’s wife. She was a bluestocking with an intelligence as sharp as Garrick’s own.
Garrick smiled. “Merryn is very well, thank you,” he said. “She is enceinte.”
“Congratulations,” Henry said. He knew how much Merryn wanted a child. She and Garrick had been wed several years and there had been much speculation on when they might set up their nursery.
“Thank you.” Garrick inclined his head. “Merryn is very relieved. I think she was afraid we might never have an heir for Farne.”
One of Garrick’s sisters had died in childbirth. The provision of an heir for a grand estate was often a dangerous affair and the pressure to provide one was huge.
“I imagine that you would rather have Merryn than any number of heirs,” Henry said.
It was a well-known fact in the ton that Garrick’s second marriage had been a love match. Many people thought Garrick odd for it. Some pitied him. Garrick did not give a damn and Henry admired him for that.
Garrick shrugged. There was a ghost of a smile about his lips. “How perceptive of you, Henry,” he said lightly. “As long as Merryn is in good health I am sure all will be well.”
The silence settled between them, comfortable as it often was between old friends. There was no sound but for the tick of the clock on the mantel and the hiss of a log falling in the grate. A servant passed by, soft-footed.
“I have news for you, too,” Henry said, after a moment.
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