The Bridemaker

by Rexanne Becnel

  “Are you implying that everyone who stayed here embraces those rules?” Adrian asked.

  “No. Of course not. Even within Britain there are various strata of society. No doubt you can easily find places where bare hands, crossed legs, and people fond of overly familiar names are quite welcome.”

  He grinned. “But not in your parlor. Am I right?”

  Their gazes clashed and held, his need to best her just as evident as her need to put him in his place. And yet, what was that place?

  Horace coughed, jerking Hester’s attention back to him. How could she have let herself become embroiled in such a heated exchange, and before an audience, no less?

  To his credit, Horace did not comment on it. After all, a true gentleman or lady was never critical or rude, or made another person ill at ease. Adrian Hawke could take a lesson from him, she decided.

  Then again, so could she.

  Chastened by that realization, Hester folded her hands together and counted to ten. Twice. Only then did she raise her gaze to Adrian Hawke’s face with its sardonic grin and predator’s eyes.

  “You must have come here for a reason, Mr. Hawke. Perhaps you ought to tell me what it is so that Mr. Vasterling and I might get on with our work.”

  “Fair enough. I came to ask Horace if he and Miss Bennett have made arrangements to go riding, and if they have, whether you and I might join them.”

  Why did her heart leap so? It was utterly ridiculous, yet Hester couldn’t deny the truth. Her heart jumped at his casual, offhand, presumptuous invitation. Did he think by involving Horace and Dulcie that he could coerce her into agreeing to such a crude invitation?

  Hadn’t she turned down the very same invitation yesterday?

  But that was before he’d kissed her—which ought to have strengthened her resolve but which, to her horror, did quite the opposite.

  “I haven’t asked her yet,” Horace said, his expression thoughtful as his gaze moved from his friend to her and back to Mr. Hawke. “However, I’ll do so today. But only if both of you agree to join us. Both of you.”

  Hester stared at Horace, trying to decipher the intent in his insistent words. But his expression was bland, just pleasant, well-intentioned Horace. “Please, Mrs. Poitevant. It would reinforce my confidence immensely to have you join us. Anyway, I doubt Miss Bennett’s mother would allow her to ride out with me without a suitable chaperone.”

  Even more doubtful was the likelihood that Dulcie’s mother would allow her to go riding with Horace Vasterling at all, unless the wealthy Adrian Hawke was included. That should have been sufficient reason for Hester not to go along with them.

  But in spite of that logic, she found herself saying, “Very well, Horace. Make your arrangements. If it’s convenient I’ll try to be there.”

  She didn’t look to see the smug expression sure to be painted across Adrian Hawke’s face, and he left shortly after that, behaving perfectly, she noticed. But then, why shouldn’t he? He’d accomplished just what he’d set out to do.

  Hester wanted to be angry with him, only she found it too hard. Despite his blatant manipulation of her and Horace, her primary reaction to today’s turn of events was anticipation. The man had in essence thrown down a challenge to her: he was pursuing her in earnest, no matter her protests, no matter the fact that he might pick from among dozens of other far more willing women.

  But were there truly any that were more willing than she?

  If the liquid warmth settling into her lower parts was any indication, or that breathlessness that overtook her whenever she thought of him, or that hot lava of emotions that spread through her whenever she remembered last night, then perhaps there was no one more willing.

  Though her mind told him no, her body shouted a resounding yes.

  To her shame and confusion, she suspected he’d received the latter message loud and clear.

  Hester’s only riding habit was one left over from her days on the marriage mart. Though a sedate spruce green, the cloth was a finely woven wool, boasting a tiny tucked-in waist, a double march of brass buttons down the bodice, and elaborate gold braid edging the vee-shaped neckline and collar. Even though it still fit, it was altogether too fetching an ensemble for a middle-aged widow, she decided as she twisted and turned before her mirror.

  “Ooh, now that’s a cunning piece,” Mrs. Dobbs said as she brought up Hester’s freshly polished riding boots. She smiled and circled around Hester, fluffing the generous skirt, plucking at a bit of lint on the sleeve. “You look perfectly lovely in that, m’dear. Perfectly lovely.”

  Hester scowled at her reflection. Too lovely. She sighed, enjoying the feeling of being pretty for a change, imagining the fun of being pretty out in public with a man’s admiring glance following her. And the truth was, she always used to enjoy riding. But like dancing and flirting, riding was one of the pastimes she’d given up when she’d donned her respectable widow guise.

  “Here. Put on the bonnet.” Mrs. Dobbs handed her the smart piece with its Robin Hood’s brim lined in a lighter green velvet, all tied with a wide matching ribbon.

  “This will never do,” Hester said, though she loved the effect of the lighter color around her face. It gave her eyes the dark cast of emeralds. “No.” She whipped it off. “I’ll have to change the light green to black.”

  “But why?”

  “Because this is too youthful a look for a widow like me.”

  “It’s not as if you’re an old drudge. Besides, it’s been six years.”

  “Mrs. Dobbs.” Hester turned from the mirror and thrust the hat at the woman. “If you would be so good as to have Mr. Dobbs take you to the milliners directly? I’ll write down my instructions for Mr. Goswell. If he has time, tell him you can wait for it. If they can’t manage that, tell them I must have it no later man Monday morning.”

  Though she didn’t like it, the meddlesome housekeeper did as she was told, only tsk-tsking a little more than usual. Once she and her husband were off, Hester collapsed on the parlor settee.

  It was a dangerous step she was taking. Like a moth, fully aware of the lantern’s fatal appeal, she was fluttering nearer and nearer Adrian Hawke. The heat of their interaction last night ought to send her fleeing in the opposite direction. Hadn’t she been singed enough ten years ago by men of his sort? Hadn’t she seen her mother fall over and over into this same fire fueled of passion and blind hope? Did she need to be burned again, and this time to cinders?

  On the other hand, her circumstances were nothing like they’d been ten years ago. Then she’d believed in love and marriage. She’d believed that she could find that one perfect man who could complete her life, something her mother had never been able to do. But she’d learned swiftly enough that when so-called gentlemen made offers to women of her background, it had nothing whatsoever to do with love.

  So, what did she believe in now?

  Certainly not in love. Staring blankly at the ceiling, she loosened the top button of her bodice and kicked off her low-heeled shoes. As for marriage, she supposed there were some that worked. But they were based on affection and compatibility. Mutual respect between married people.

  Did passion have a place in those relationships?

  In all the years Hester had worked to help her students make compatible matches, she’d never once considered the passionate side of marriage. In her opinion, the so-called pleasures of the marriage bed were better termed the rigors of the marriage bed. For even should the woman experience pleasure in the physical act, it was inevitably offset by the miseries the man was certain to inflict. He might not do it right away, but eventually he would.

  The few times one of her students had asked through her giggles and blushes about passion, Hester had brusquely referred her to her mother. Now, however, the subject of passion confronted her. How did such powerful physical feelings fit into her life? What was she to do about Adrian Hawke and how he made her feel?

  Without warning Fifi jerked up from her spot on the su
nny window seat. Peg too perked up, and the two of them headed down the stairs, Fifi scampering in excitement, while Peg limped more slowly behind. Was Mrs. Dobbs back so quickly? More likely they’d forgotten something.

  In her stocking feet Hester padded down the stairs, following the dogs to the front door. The Dobbses would not come to the front door.

  A brisk knock came; she hesitated, conscious of her bare feet.

  They expected the coal man today, but he should also come to the back—unless he’d seen the Dobbses leaving.

  She opened the door and peered through the crack. “Could you go around through the yard—Oh!”

  “Front door. Back door.” Adrian Hawke stood there smiling at her. “Whichever you prefer, Hester.”

  She must have fallen back in shock, for before she could turn him away, he stepped inside, closed the door, and overtook every one of her senses.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I’ve come to call.”

  “But… But…” She sucked in a sharp breath. “If you’re looking for Horace, he isn’t here right now.”

  “I’m not looking for Horace.”

  I’m looking for you. Though unsaid, those words crackled between them, a streak of white-hot lightning. From last night’s carnal tryst to this morning’s more circumspect meeting, to this moment of inevitable confrontation, that lightning streak of physical awareness arced and struck with an intensity that scared Hester to death. Yet its very power drew her, heart pounding, breath forgotten, body melting from the inside out. It drew her to him when she ought to be running away.

  All she could manage was, “You shouldn’t be here,” though she knew she didn’t mean it.

  He took off his hat and set it upon the demilune table beside the door. “We are two adults free to indulge ourselves as we wish.”

  Oh, Lord! “How like a man to couch an improper proposition in such a sensible manner.”

  He smiled and strolled toward her. “Yes. How like a totally besotted man who can think day and night of only one woman to tone down his words so dramatically.”

  Besotted? He was besotted with her? The words should not have affected Hester, but they did. They enveloped her with their seductive power, overwhelming her. Step by step she moved backward toward the parlor. But it was not a retreat. Even she, as worried about propriety as she wanted to be, knew it was not a retreat.

  As he followed he left his gloves on a chair seat, and flung his coat over its back. With every item of clothing he shed, another facet of Hester’s will—of her logic— was shed as well. She deserved a little pleasure in life, she told herself. No one knew he was here, and no one need ever find out. Besides, everyone knew that so long as a widow was discreet she had more freedom than other women of the ton.

  Except that she was not truly a widow. Worse, she was still a virgin.

  She almost laughed out loud at the notion of regretting she was a virgin. But it wasn’t funny. How would he react if he found out that truth?

  His hand came up to cup her face. “I don’t understand how you do it, Hester.”

  “Do what?” she whispered, undone by the burning desire in his eyes. So blue. So hot. So endlessly enticing.

  “Tempt me to such madness.”

  He rubbed his thumb across her lower lip, a slow caress that made her knees turn to rubber. Reflexively she parted her lips. One thought only consumed her. Oh Lord, please kiss me!

  His head lowered as if to do just that, and her chest began to hurt from the frantic pounding of her heart. Kiss me as you kissed me last night.

  But he went on speaking. “I don’t know if it’s the way you shield your beauty behind those spectacles and those ugly dresses.” His hand trailed down to her neck.

  “Or if it’s the barely restrained wealth of your hair that torments me.” His other hand slid into her careless chignon, releasing it from its pins.

  “Or maybe it’s the primness you affect, that fastidious adherence to the rules of society.” One of his fingers traced the gaping opening of her neckline. The tip was so warm as his nail followed a dangerous path downward, making her quiver.

  “But now I know you’re not nearly so prim. So fastidious.”

  His hand dipped lower and she stopped breathing. “You were made to break all the rules of society, Hester.” She could feel the movement of his breath against her cheek, the heat of his body so near to her own. “You were meant to break them with me.”

  Then finally he kissed her. Thoroughly. Deeply. Erotically. And the erotic part was the best part of all. His lips slanted over hers and his tongue claimed the rest of her. One stroke of fiery bliss and she succumbed completely. Less than an entire day had passed since their first kiss, but it might only have been moments so far as her body was concerned. She was alive for him, waiting for him.

  Dear Lord, but she’d been waiting for him since long before she’d ever laid eyes on him.

  He kissed her, claiming the right as no man ever had done. When he pulled her body snug up against his she was ready, primed, damp and oozing desire. She felt him move and heard the parlor door close with a firm, final thud. They were alone in her house. Had he planned it so?

  He couldn’t have. She’d sent the Dobbses on their errand. Adrian had simply arrived at the perfect time. Perhaps she’d summoned him with the very strength of her longing for him. If so, this couldn’t be wrong, could it?

  She wound her arms around his shoulders and neck, rising on her bare toes to embrace him. As consents went, it was as blatant as they came.

  At once he angled them down onto the settee, her in his lap with her bottom nestled against his rigid arousal, as he kissed her into utter submission. Her hair tumbled down around them, as did all her inhibitions. So long as he kept kissing her, sliding his tongue between her lips, drawing her tongue into his mouth, and in the process making something in her belly liquefy, she was his. She felt his hand stroke across her breast, hot even through the wool of her riding jacket, then hotter and forbidden when the jacket came open to expose her chemise.

  He thumbed her already erect nipple, and against his mouth she gasped. Again he thumbed that sensitive peak, then did the same to the other. Thumbed it, rolled it between his fingers, pressed his palm in a hot circle over it. Around and around each breast, back and forth between them.

  Eyes closed, Hester dropped her head back and reveled in the mindless pleasure. Then bending down, he moved his mouth to her breasts, drawing one nipple in with a powerful sucking movement.

  She arched up with a cry of exquisite agony. It felt as if he had tugged something all the way down to the throbbing place between her legs. So hot, so sweet, so… so necessary.

  “Ah, Hester. My sweet Hester. I knew you would be passionate.” He did the same to her other nipple, and again she cried out. It was too powerful, too much. And yet the abandoned breast longed for what the other one had.

  But he knew. He went back and forth, and each time he grew more fierce in his assault, sucking, biting, rolling the engorged tips of her nipples between his teeth.

  She didn’t know when he’d nudged her chemise down to bare her breasts. She didn’t feel his hand push her skirts up, baring her legs all the way to her bottom.

  But she felt when his hand curved into the warm vee between her legs. She gasped and stiffened, then submitted when his mouth once more captured hers. For his hand mimicked his lips, and his fingers mimicked his tongue. Circling, claiming, delving deep.

  She should have been ashamed, but she wasn’t. It felt too good, too hot and urgent for her to make him stop. Somehow he knew how to touch her, something she’d never quite known how to do. When she’d ached down there in the past, she’d only squirmed and suffered, not certain how to react. But he knew. He made all her previous yearnings seem like nothing.

  They were nothing compared to this.

  He set her on fire, and with his finger slipping in and out of the most private part of her, he was rousing the flames to new hei
ghts. Yet that also seemed the only way to ease the conflagration. Burn it hotter still.

  Burn her hotter.

  Then with his slippery, wet fingers he found another place, a little nub of a place buried deep within her curls, and he began to rouse it. Like a volcano it rose to him, hot, swelling, near to bursting.

  But he was a man unafraid of fire, for he delved deep into the hottest part of her even as he circled the aching nub of her desire.

  She couldn’t bear to continue. She couldn’t bear to stop. Her head thrashed back and forth as she fought the two conflicting forces.

  Then he bent his mouth to her breasts once more, sucking in as he thrust deep inside her with his finger and pressed a hard circle around that nub, and she erupted.

  She jerked up against his mouth, his hand, and kept on bucking. “Oh, God—Oh, God—”

  He thrust up too. She barely felt it she was so caught up in the mighty upheaval that was killing her, it was so strong. He had her speared upon his finger, pressed against his rigid arousal, and spread bare-breasted across his lap, a feast displayed like some pagan offering to him, her god of fire.

  She couldn’t say how he slid out from under her, how he propped one of her legs on the back of the settee while the other draped to the floor. She was beyond sensible thought, beyond logic and reason when he kissed the inside of her knees, then moved a hot line of kisses up the still quivering flesh of her inner thighs, it was no more insane than what had gone before.

  He raised his head to stare deeply into her eyes as his hand slid up her thighs. She stared back, utterly ensnared by this man, so unlike any man she’d ever known.

  “I knew you would be passionate,” he repeated, his voice thick with passion of his own.