“I’m glad,” he said, pleasure warming his voice as he pulled her closer, leading her deeper into the room. “I took the liberty of sending the bundles of lemongrass you made down to the others with a footman.”
Oh! It was awful of her, but she’d completely forgotten about the others. “The bundles weren’t solely my idea. I offer the credit to your clever and thoughtful gardener.”
“My gard—” He gave her a quizzical glance. Then he issued a sound that was something of a laugh. “Oh, yes. My gardener is invaluable to me.”
Stopping when they reached the windows, she watched as several footmen, below, were snuffing out the torches one by one. “He is quite fond of you as well. Then again, I believe all your servants are.”
“Most men, I imagine, wish to earn the regard of those not in their employ,” he said wryly.
“You have that as well, and no doubt in abundance.” Playfully, she nudged him with her shoulder. Yet by the time she felt the puffed sleeve of her lutestring dress crumple against her skin and connect with the firmness of his arm, she realized her error. If holding hands caused her pulse to riot, then she should have known that pressing another part—any part—of her body against him would have a similar if not substantially greater response.
Instantly, she bloomed with heat, their contact lighting a firework inside her. At the same time, the thick muscles of his arm bunched and a breath staggered out of him.
“How can you be certain?” he asked, his voice an intimate murmur.
It sent a shiver through her. “Well, I know my aunt is fond of you.”
He angled toward her, his boots shifting to the outer edges of her slippers. The lapels of his coat were only a breath away from the rise and fall of her breasts. Lifting his hand to her cheek, his fingers glided along the slope of her jaw to her chin and tilted her face up to his. “And what of her niece?” The rapid beat of her heart made it difficult to release a breath. It was locked inside of her like so many recent hopes and dreams. Her lips tingled, plumping under his dark, searching scrutiny. And when the tip of her tongue darted out to wet them, his head dipped toward hers, close enough that she caught the clean, spicy scent of his shaving soap and felt the heat of his breath.
Her eyes drifted shut of their own volition. “I have it under good authority that she likes you. Very much, indeed.”
His other hand released hers, his fingertips skimming up the length of her bare arm, setting off a shower of tingles. Cupping her face, he drew closer, his nose nuzzling beside hers. His lips brushed one corner of her mouth and then the other. “Enough to permit me to kiss her?”
A soft laugh escaped her. “I believe you already are.”
And it was heaven, these slow, searching nibbles at her lips, the feel of his warm breath against her skin.
“Not yet,” he said with more sampling tastes of the corners of her mouth and a sly sweep along the center. Cradling her face in his hands, he went still, waiting for her answer.
Restraint emanated from him in the small vibrations through his fingertips and in each shuddered breath between her parted lips. He would take only what she was willing to give. He was not selfish. His honor and decency were not merely for show. These qualities were part of him and in his every action.
And she loved him all the more for it.
But this was not the time for hesitation. They’d been patient for long enough. Ages and ages. She wanted him to know that he didn’t need to hold back. Not with her.
Slanting her head, she whispered against his lips, “Then show me.”
On a low groan, he dragged his mouth across hers. The hot, firm pressure caused pleasure sparks to explode behind her eyelids, and she melted against him, feeling the faint rasp of his whiskers. A series of wanton tingles spiraled through her body and shuddered out of her throat.
“Do you like that?” His heavy breath brought the rich, earthy flavor of him into her mouth, his tongue skating across the plump, sensitive inner swell of her bottom lip. Then, nudging her lips apart, he fed his tongue to her in small sips, easing himself deeper into the warmth of her mouth. “And this?”
She couldn’t speak but only emitted inarticulate mews of pleasure. He swallowed them down in ravenous open-mouthed kisses. Long, scorching kisses that incinerated any vestige of hesitancy or uncertainty. Wanting more, she slipped inside his coat and splayed her hands over the cashmere of his waistcoat as she rose up on her toes.
His hold on her shifted, one hand sliding to the back of her neck, the other at her waist, her hip. Then, fitting into the curve of her lower back, he hitched her up against the solid length of him. Delicious tremors tumbled through her. There was a sense of inevitability in the gesture, a promise that this was only the beginning.
He slowed his assault, his tongue gliding over hers as deep rumbles of pleasure rippled from his throat. Somehow she knew their kiss would be like this—a hot torrent one minute, a languid savoring the next—as if they were both saying At last, and I need you now, but also Let’s not rush and Don’t ever stop.
Outside, she could hear the distant pops and crackles of the spectacle, but she wasn’t missing anything. Inside, she was on fire, burning for him. His teeth nipped her bottom lip and her stomach clenched so tightly—so sweetly—that she gasped and pulled herself closer, her hips tilting to fit against his.
A stab of pleasure bolted through her, causing another sound to escape, this one throaty, greedy, and foreign to her own ears. But Sam seemed to recognize it, for his hand slipped down to the curve of her derriere, drawing her tightly against him. And when he rolled his hips forward, her knees went weak.
“My legs are trembling,” she said when his mouth left hers, and his damp lips grazed the underside of her jaw in a way that made her entire body clench with untried desire.
He pressed kisses along her throat, his arms locked around her. “I have you. Mmm . . . you smell as sweet as woodbine here.”
His ardent attentions only made her problem worse. Now her entire body was trembling uncontrollably.
“Put your arms around me.” Then he turned her, moving them a few steps along the floor in something of a slow, sensuous dance until the wall was at her back, cool against her bare shoulder blades, while he was pressed along her front, hotter than ever. “Is this better?”
She blushed but nodded, her hands sliding through the cool tips of his soft golden curls to the heat of his scalp. Boldly, she pulled him closer and slanted her mouth beneath his. His lips were well suited for kissing, even more than for smiling and laughing. It was easy—effortless—to lose herself against their broad shape.
In his arms, she began to hope that she could have the life she’d only dared to imagine in her dreams. With a good, solid man to love her as much as she loved him.
She breathed his name, her head falling back as he blazed a new path down her throat, dipping his tongue into the hollow notch.
He groaned against her skin. “You taste like nectar and rain. Somehow, I knew you would. And your skin”—he lifted his head to watch the unhurried progress of his fingertips follow the line of her bodice over her rapidly rising and falling breasts—“your skin is softer than petals.”
Her whole body clenched again, her breasts drawing taut, her nipples newly sensitive beneath her chemise. “And did you know that too?”
“Aye.” He grinned at her and then kissed her again, his hands skimming down the outer swells and settling into the warmth beneath. His long fingers curved around her rib cage while his thumbs swept tantalizingly, back and forth, against the plump underside of her breasts.
Sam’s gaze was hungry, tender, and drowsy all at once. He looked from her face down to her bodice and to the pebbled tips of her nipples outlined against the layers of cambric and blue muslin. They were nearly painfully taut and heavy. As if he sensed this, he slid his hands higher to assuage the ache, molding them around her breasts, his thumbs rasping over the peaks.
“Sam,” she said, choking with a need
she didn’t know how to name. Reflexively, she arched her back, filling his hands. Her lips parted to gasp, to moan, but pleasure clogged her throat, and all she could do was feel those tight buds growing even tighter until she thought she might go mad. “Please . . . ”
He dipped his head, pressing his mouth to the top of the plump globe of flesh. But it was not enough. He continued to press kisses all along the line of her bodice, increasing the ache until it spread throughout her body, seating itself in a tense, throbbing sensation at the apex of her thighs. Dragging the edge of her sleeves down her shoulders, he drew down the fabric, and exposed her flesh to the balmy night air, inch by inch.
And then the worst thing that could possibly happen, happened.
She’d forgotten about the brooch.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It took Sam a moment to realize that something was amiss. He was still deep in a haze of lust and staring at the most beautiful breasts he’d ever seen. They were pale and perfect with ruched, dusky peaks.
Then, suddenly, they were gone, wrenched out of his sight in a flurry as Gemma turned away, her gaze lowered to the floor.
Only vaguely had he heard something fall. Now he looked down as well, trying not to pay attention to the thick, throbbing erection straining against the fall of his breeches. The task proved to be quite difficult. He still had the sweet taste of her skin on his tongue and her lush scent filling his nostrils, permeating every breath. His hands were still tingling, imprinted with the softness of her flesh, and his entire body pulsed with the desire to hold her against him again.
Without conscious thought, he took a step toward her but then paused when he caught sight of the object on the floor.
Strange. “That’s Lady Tillmanshire’s brooch. I recall seeing it at the picnic,” he said, carefully bending to pick it up. “Gemma, why do you have it?”
Her shoulders stiffened, the movements of her hands briefly stalled in the process of setting her sleeve aright. Then, after clearing her throat, she finished and turned to face him.
Her lips were red and swollen from his kiss, her cheeks still flushed. She swallowed, her gaze darting from his face to the brooch in his hand. “You automatically believe me capable of stealing it?”
Actually, that hadn’t occurred to him . . . until now. Suddenly, Holt’s words from just a day ago resurfaced. It must be difficult to know that her father is very like the men who nearly took your father’s life.
In Gemma’s eyes, Sam glimpsed what he thought was a shadow of hurt. But could it have been guilt instead? “It was in your possession, and I do not know what to think.”
Two voices were at war inside him. The one in his heart told him that Gemma was not a thief simply because her father was. Then his head reminded him that he’d known her for less than a fortnight. How could any man know a person’s character in such a short time?
Gemma lifted her chin, her throat tight. “I found it in my bedchamber a few moments ago, and I was going to return it.”
“But that doesn’t make sense,” he said, logic winning over feeling. “The baroness would not have mistaken your bedchamber for her own, and neither would her maid.”
“Correct.”
Sam waited for her to say more, to offer something of an explanation. Instead, she simply stared at him with that unnamed emotion roiling in the depths of her green-blue eyes.
So he tried to put the pieces together on his own.
“You found the brooch and decided to return it directly,” he said carefully. “And that was when I encountered you on the stairs . . . leaving the second floor with Lady Tillmanshire’s brooch tucked inside your clothing.”
“In truth, it was in my hand at the time. I only managed to slip it inside my bodice while you and I were walking to this room.”
He frowned. There it was—that striking frankness of hers. And yet it did her no favors. She’d just admitted to purposely concealing the brooch from him, which left him with a renewed sense of doubt and dread.
“Was this the reason you kissed me, to conceal it?” He didn’t intend to ask the question—especially not with so much bitterness in his tone—but now that it was between them, he wanted to know the answer.
Nothing had ever felt so right as having Gemma in his arms. In those moments, he’d had no reason to question her regard. The uncertainty that had plagued him suddenly evaporated in the heat of her passionate response.
Now, however, with the brooch between them, he wondered if he’d been blinded by his own desires, unable to see the truth. Yet again.
She flinched, then quickly averted her eyes. “I thought you wanted me to be exactly who I am.”
“Yes. And I thought that person was honest and true. Tell me I was not wrong.”
When she did not answer, his hands curled around the brooch in frustration, his fist falling to his side. Then the rumbles of excited chatter drifted upward from below stairs. Combined with laughter, the sound was dissonant, pinging like hailstones on glass during a fierce storm.
The last thing he wanted in this moment was for his guests to return. But they had, nonetheless.
“We cannot be discovered alone,” he said. For the sake of her already fragile reputation, he would not reveal any of the events that had transpired. “We will continue this discussion in the morning. In the meantime, should the other guests comment on your absence, I will say that you had taken ill to avoid any . . . repercussions. Are you amenable to that?”
Turned away, her face in profile, she offered a crisp nod.
Unable to linger a moment longer, he strode out of the room, intent on returning the brooch to Lady Tillmanshire’s chamber without anyone the wiser.
Gemma had no trouble pretending to be ill. The last words exchanged between her and Sam left her raw and cold from her skin to the marrow of her soul. The shivers that stole over her seemed to settle in her stomach, freezing her until she felt brittle all over.
He thought she was a thief.
It turned out that his opinion of her was no better than anyone else in society. They all assumed she was capable of terrible things, just like her father. She’d been a fool to hope otherwise.
The fear that she would never escape Albert Desmond’s influence over her life had come to fruition.
As she packed a satchel, she held back an incipient sob with short, strangled breaths that burned her throat. Then, desolate, she slipped down the narrow servant’s staircase and eventually found herself outside, in the garden. She planned to go to the inn at Banfern Glenn and, at first light, she would send a note to her aunt.
Surely by then the news of her supposed theft would have spread throughout the house. They would need to leave immediately to flee the tidal wave of rumors that was soon to strike. Perhaps if they set off for North’s country estate or even one of Cousin Liam’s houses toward the north of England, somehow they might escape the worst of it.
But when the truth hit her, Gemma stopped, her slippers scraping to a halt on the stone path beneath the rose arbor.
There was no escaping it. She would be ostracized, and her family along with her. The irrefutable fact broke over her in a wave of hopelessness. Collapsing on the bench beneath the arbor, she slumped forward, expecting the sob to wrench free. But it didn’t. It was trapped inside her, chafing the raw interior of her lungs and blistering her throat.
Why wouldn’t it just leave in one cathartic release? Then she could be done with it.
Still, it stayed with her, taunting her, and reminding her of the misery she’d brought to her family.
Growing up, moving from place to place, living with a man who spewed deception and manipulation from every pore, she’d been so lonely. All she’d wanted was to return to her aunt and her cousins, to love them, to start living a normal life, and perhaps to find a measure of contentment along the way. Yet even after returning to London, she hadn’t truly believed it was possible. Not until she met Sam.
With him, the world seemed different, brighter. O
h, she knew well enough that there would always be darkness lurking around the corner. Yet she’d realized there could also be places where she felt safe. Where she could be herself without fear of judgment. Sam had helped her see that. And she liked this altered perspective, this fresher, hopeful version of herself. She liked who she was when she was with him.
She opened her mouth in silent, frustrated agony, thinking of how she would never be with him again. Shoulders shaking in defeat, she buried her face in her hands.
“What’s the matter, child?”
She jerked upright, dry-eyed, to see the gardener’s troubled expression. When he laid a hand on her shoulder, a miserable, keening sound slipped out of her throat, and she was helpless to hold it back.
“It is n-nothing. I w-was just g-going for a stroll, and something fell into my eyes.” She turned away and pressed a hand to her eyes, hating herself even for this small deception.
“That happens from time to time”—he reached forward and presented a folded handkerchief—“especially during night walks, when you’re carrying a satchel. When your hands are full, it leaves you without a way to shield your eyes.”
Looking askance at him, there was no way to miss the knowing arch of his brows, or the blue eyes that seemed to possess the power to look right through her. She knew he was going to ask why the packed satchel was on the ground beside her feet. And if she gave him the reasons she had to leave, undoubtedly he would offer some wisdom about how worries tend to vanish by morning.
But that would not be true in her circumstance. Things were only going to get worse.
Clutching his handkerchief in her hand, she shook her head and went directly to the point of the matter. “I cannot go back.”
Much to her surprise, he didn’t dispute her. Instead, he nodded sagely and made himself comfortable on the bench beside her.
Long moments stretched on for an eternity, and all he did was sit there with his hands clasped in his lap, and his head titled back to breathe in the warm night air that was turning thick with the scent of coming rain. His patience was almost diabolical.
Just Another Viscount in Love Page 11
