He experienced the frisson of attraction as he felt her gaze. Why not? Why not try to forget all of his incomprehensible attraction to Lady Eleanor in Lady Vale’s arms?
“Perhaps I could escort you home and we could discover those more enjoyable things?” he said, deepening his voice.
Her eyes gleamed. “That would be lovely. My husband is out of town, you see, and I would appreciate an escort.”
Alexander took Lady Vale’s hand and tucked it into his arm, walking with her toward the entrance determinedly not looking in her direction any longer.
It was difficult, even for someone with as poor eyesight as herself, not to notice when a particularly tall gentleman left the room.
And it was even more difficult when that tall gentleman was the only one who’d ever kissed her properly and who was also the brother of her future betrothed. And seeing him leave in the company of a woman who, a quick conversation confirmed, was Lady Vale, made it the most difficult of all.
She had never felt so—so heated before. As though she wished she could march up to both of them and demand what they were doing together.
As though she couldn’t guess. She’d seen the pictures, after all.
“Are you all right, dear?” The question came from the Countess of Hartsdown, one of her mother’s friends, since goodness knows her mother would never ask such a question.
“Yes, my lady, I am. I am just a bit tired.” And angry, and jealous, and frustrated. She knew it wasn’t fair, but she wished he was smitten with her as much as it seemed she was smitten with him. Or at least smitten enough not to escort another woman home.
But what claim did she have on him? None. Two kisses and a few inappropriate pictures was probably just a usual day for him, at least from the gossip she’d overheard.
“Actually, I think I should go home soon.” Eleanor didn’t see her mother anywhere about, but that was because she couldn’t see. She presumed her mother was somewhere, no doubt sharing all the details of how her daughter had asked for more time when Lord Carson proposed. Or just sharing the details of the last trifle she’d eaten; either topic would be pursued with as much alacrity as the other.
“Can you tell my mother I have gone?” Eleanor said. Now that she’d said it, there was nothing she wanted more in the world—to go home, to lie in her own bed by herself, and try to talk herself out of this madness that seemed to have overtaken her mind. A single madness not shared by him.
“Are you certain that is wise?” It wasn’t, of course. “Going home alone? Shouldn’t you find your mother and tell her you wish to depart?”
Eleanor hesitated before replying, and the marchioness laughed. “Ah, of course. I understand completely.” She was friends with Eleanor’s mother, after all. “Let me send you home in my carriage.”
“Thank you,” Eleanor said, relieved that the lady understood.
She curtseyed and walked swiftly toward the entrance, hoping nobody would stop her, and she could just go home where she could be herself. Even though it seemed nobody else wanted her that way.
“You’ve changed your mind?” Lady Vale said, frowning.
Alex released his hold on the frame of the carriage and stepped back, putting his hand on the door in preparation for closing it.
“I have. Thank you, but I just cannot.”
She shrugged, her beautiful face in a pout, as he swung the door shut, leaving him on the pavement.
He raised his hand to gesture to one of the servants to call the carriage. As he turned, a spot of white caught his eye, and he felt something inside of him—not that part, although that part was certainly intrigued—leap as he realized who it was.
Had he been waiting to see her again? Had he known he’d be seeing her?
“Lady Eleanor,” he said, walking toward her. She held her cloak in one hand, the other holding a small purse, one so tiny it probably only fit a handkerchief. Or her spectacles. But not both.
“Lord Alexander,” she said in a surprised voice, and then that part did indeed make itself known.
“Are you leaving? Where is your mother?” he asked, glancing behind her. The only people he saw, however, were the various servants running for carriages.
“I left on my own. I am tired,” she said, emphasizing the last word as though it had more than just that meaning. “My mother’s friend offered to have her carriage take me home.” She glanced to the servants waiting, as if about to summon the carriage. “And I thought you had already left?”
So she had seen him. Had she known what he was about to do? What did she think?
But he couldn’t ask questions, not standing out here where anybody could see them. He took her wrist in his hand and stepped close to her, so close nobody could overhear their conversation. “Can I escort you home? I was just about to call for my carriage.” Though even he knew that an unmarried lady getting escorted home by an unmarried gentleman was the height of impropriety.
Well, perhaps not the height—he could think of more improper things—but it was close to the top of the list.
“Are you certain?” she paused, and he saw a swath of emotions cross her face, and he wanted to know about each one. “Because I thought you were already—?”
“No,” he answered in a firm tone. “I am not. I am here, with you. Right now. So I’ll repeat myself. Can I escort you home?”
“That would be lovely,” she said, her mouth widening into a smile that made all the parts of him feel as though they’d been caressed by the sun.
Caressed by the sun? That turn of phrase was even more egregious than some of what that poet had come up with. Though far less scandalous.
They stood in silence as they waited for his carriage, her glancing up at him every so often as though to check he was still there. It didn’t feel like an awkward silence, however; it felt fraught with emotion, but not the unpleasant kind. More like an anticipation of what might happen. What should not happen as well, but what might happen.
He glanced over at her as they heard the hubbub of conversation behind them. Some other guests leaving the party, apparently. She stepped in front of him, making him into a shield from the eyes that might be looking their way, and he had to swallow against the swell of emotion that brought up in him. To protect her, to be her actual shield against something that might harm her—the feelings that summoned up in him were entirely new, overwhelming, even. Feelings he knew he would be reluctant to let go of, once the time came for him to do so.
“There you are, my lord,” the carriage boy said as Alex’s coachman brought the carriage up. He was grateful he’d chosen to ride in his own carriage this evening; Bennett’s curricle was too flimsy to bring to an evening such as this one. There were too many other vehicles that might crash into it, and the curricle was made for speed, not for sturdiness. He’d given Bennett a lift over, but he’d already told his brother he’d have to find his own way home.
Not sharing that he would be escorting Bennett’s potential betrothed home, scandalously alone in an enclosed carriage. And not just because he hadn’t known at that time.
He spoke in a low tone to his coachman, giving him the address as discreetly as possible, placing Eleanor between his body and the carriage so nobody would see her. He paid his coachman’s wages, and he’d had past interludes that required discretion, so he had no doubt the man would stay silent about tonight’s adventure.
He held the door open for her as she stepped in, her hand on his arm for assistance. The spot where she’d touched him felt as though he’d been burned—more time in the sun, he could only presume with a wry twist of his lips—and he vaulted up after her, closing the door quickly after them.
Leaving them alone in the dark together. He felt his pulse quicken, and his cock harden, and he had to slow his breathing. Had he ever been so responsive to a female before? He didn’t think so.
“I’ve given the coachman your address,” he said, sitting down beside her and immediately stretching his legs out. This coach h
ad been especially constructed to accommodate his height, and there was a greater than usual space between the front and back seats.
She looked at him with an amused expression, then stretched her legs out as well, uttering a sigh of satisfaction as she got herself into a position no respectable young lady would be seen doing in public.
That made him oddly pleased, that she felt so at ease around him that she would forgo convention in order to feel comfort.
Although he was anything but comfortable in her presence, he had to admit.
The lights from the street lamps cast sporadic yellow gleams onto her face and body, highlighting the curve of her smile or her breasts.
She wore an evening gown, of course, which made her less covered up than he’d seen her on their outings or at the bookshop. Her skin glowed in the darkness of the carriage, and her scent—something light and floral—tickled his nostrils.
“Why are you leaving so soon, and without your mother?”
“Why aren’t you with Lady Vale?” she said in what he recognized as a jealous tone. He wished that didn’t delight him.
But it did.
“I wanted to dance with you, and I knew that people might talk if I did so.” He avoided talking about Lady Vale; perhaps now wasn’t the time to admit what he was planning with her. As though she didn’t know already.
“And you didn’t think to ask me yourself?” she replied in a short, brittle tone. “Why do gentlemen defer to other gentlemen when they could just ask the lady in question what she thinks?” She uttered a snort. “I know the answer to that—because most gentlemen, most people, in fact, believe that ladies can’t possibly know their own minds.” He felt her turn toward him in the darkness, and then she caught his hand in her own. “I wanted to leave because I wanted to spend time with you, not your brother, pleasant though he might be.” She paused, and then spoke in a slower tone of voice. “And then I saw you leave with her, and it hurt. It hurt, and it wasn’t fair to anyone. Not your brother, at the very least.” She exhaled. “I didn’t want to compromise, so I decided to just go home. Only now you’re here.”
“What are we going to do about that? About us being together now?” he asked, squeezing her fingers. Feeling as though he was doing something he’d never done before, felt things he’d never felt before.
Which was true. He hadn’t ever dallied with an unmarried woman—he’d kept himself to widows and wives such as Lady Vale. Nor had he ever felt as though he cared just as much about her brain as her body.
“What aren’t we going to do about it?” she said in a tart tone, and then she pulled on his hand so he was forced to follow it, getting closer to her. “Your brother has made it clear he sees me as nothing more than a transaction to be ticked off. But you—you see me as something else. As someone else.” And she tightened her hold on him. “That is important to me.”
He felt her warmth, her softness, and he knew he was on the verge of making the biggest mistake he’d ever made.
But then again, so was she.
“Kiss me,” she demanded, placing his hand at her waist.
Lady Eleanor’s Good List for Being Bad:
Be bad. It’s as simple as that.
Chapter 15
She didn’t think, for once. She just did.
She plunged her fingers into his hair, drew his head down to hers, and lifted her face. His fingers tightened on her waist as he stared down at her.
“Are you certain about this?” he asked, his gaze on her mouth.
No. “Yes,” she replied, craning her neck up even more to reach him.
She did admire his height, but she had to admit it was an impediment to carriage-kissing.
But the strain of it paled in comparison to how it actually felt when his mouth met hers—his lips were warm and firm, and his hand slid to the small of her back, tugging her up so she found herself half on his lap, one hand holding on to his hair, the other sliding up and down his arm.
His very strong, muscular arm, she couldn’t help but notice.
She clutched onto that arm, onto his bicep in particular, her eyes closed, her head tilted back against his other arm. He kissed her, yes, but what was most enthralling to her was that she was kissing him back.
She licked at his mouth, and he opened for her, his tongue finding hers in what should be something entirely unpleasant but what was absolutely and totally not.
No wonder that Italian poet had so much to say about all this. She had to admire his skill; if she had to write some sort of poetry it would be:
Oh
Oh!
My goodness!
Heavens!
More, please
So perhaps she shouldn’t be so quick to castigate the poor poet who had to figure out a way to describe all of this—this feeling.
And now it seemed she had moved herself entirely onto his lap, her legs twisted to one side and dangling off the seat, her bottom resting right there.
And that feeling would require an entirely different poem, one consisting only of various moans, sighs, and exclamations.
He pulled her closer, and her breasts—somewhat bared because of her evening gown—pressed up against his chest, the fabric of his coat and shirt rubbing against her skin. She felt a tingling all over her body, both hot and cold as their tongues tangled, his large hand splayed against her back, holding her tight against him.
She was most definitely overwhelmed.
And now his hand was moving, sliding lower, along her hip to caress her bottom, a place she didn’t know was quite so sensitive. Until now.
Her breasts ached, and she squirmed even closer into him, causing him to utter some sort of noise, she couldn’t tell if it was dismay or delight, as she wriggled on his lap.
He drew back, breathing hard, leaning his forehead against hers. He slid his hand back up her back, resting it at her waist again.
The rest of her body immediately missed his touch.
She heard him swallow. “I didn’t mean for this,” he began.
She shook her head, removing her fingers from his hair and placing them on his mouth.
“I know you didn’t.” A pause as she discovered it was difficult to speak, what with how tight her chest felt, how her whole body wanted something she couldn’t put into words. “But I did.”
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” he said. If he truly meant not to continue any of this, he would have pushed her back onto the seat. Instead, his grip tightened, and she felt the strength of his fingers on her arm, holding her to him. Aha! a triumphant voice shouted inside her head.
“I don’t,” she agreed. She took a deep breath. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying.”
She felt an oddly welcome surge of anger bubble up through her body, and she moved herself over to her side of the seat, looking at him in the dim light. “You can’t continue to think I am stupid,” she said, keeping her gaze locked on him. “First you say I don’t know what I am doing, then that I don’t know what I am saying.” Not that she did necessarily know what she was saying; for once, she hadn’t thought it out, she was just speaking, letting the words flow as she felt them.
It was entirely freeing, and she wished she had adopted his mode of blunt speaking long before this. But if she had, she would have been ostracized by society and her parents wouldn’t have wanted to marry her off to Lord Carson, and she would never have met Lord Alexander in the first place.
It was an equation of time and roads not taken she didn’t think even Ida could unravel.
“But I do know that right now I feel entirely and absolutely alive.” She lifted her chin as she regarded him. “I left the party this evening because it was dull. Everything seems more muted now. Now that I know what it is to attend a cricket match, of all things, or do something productive and useful with my education, even if it is translating scandalous poems,” she added in an aside. “Or kissing you. I asked you to overwhelm
me, and you have. But I can tell—I know, that there is so much more you can show me. Or that I can show myself,” she continued, reasoning it out as she spoke. “But I want you to be there as I do it. I want to find out more about this.” And she gestured at the space between them, as though he didn’t know just what she was referring to. “I don’t want to end up average and pleasant.”
“Average and pleasant?” he repeated, then shook his head as though annoyed at himself. “I’m doing it too,” he said.
“Wha—?”
“Fine,” he interrupted. He reached forward to take her hand, laying both their hands on his thigh. His thigh. “I don’t want you to end up average and pleasant either.” He uttered a rueful noise. “You’re far from average, Eleanor.”
“What about pleasant?” she heard herself say, then brought her hand up to her mouth to suppress her giggle. Although—why? And so she dropped her hand, letting herself laugh as she thought about how bizarre this whole situation was, and how she could never explain it to anybody.
He stared at her for a moment, then began to laugh also, until they were both curled in on each other, laughing so hard she was surprised she could breathe.
It wasn’t that it was so humorous, because it wasn’t. It was just—it just felt free, and open, and overwhelming in an entirely good way.
Their laughter subsided as the carriage began to slow, indicating they were approaching her house.
He straightened, raising his hand to push the stray lock of hair that had fallen onto his face. “What adventure do you wish to go on next?” he asked, his tone low and intimate.
And now she just wanted to launch herself onto his lap again and kiss him for a few more minutes. Days. A lifetime.
She was in more trouble than even she suspected.
“A gambling den, I think,” she replied instead, sitting upright in her seat as well, placing her hands in her lap as though she were paying a social call, not alone with a rakish gentleman in his custom-fitted carriage.
Lady Be Bad Page 14
