Enchanting the Earl (The Townsends)

by Lily Maxton

She hugged the blanket more tightly around her chest. “Abysmal rain,” she muttered.

  Now, she felt his eyes on her. She turned, momentarily taken aback by how close he was. If she leaned forward just a few inches, their lips would touch. She would most certainly not lean forward, she told herself firmly.

  “What is it?” she asked, noting his incredulous expression.

  “I recall you saying something to my brother about how you loved getting caught in downpours.”

  “Oh. That.” Her cheeks heated. She didn’t remember half of what she’d said to Robert during their silly flirtations. “I may not have been entirely truthful about that.”

  “Why?” he demanded.

  She laughed. “I was only flirting,” she said. “There’s no reason to be honest when one is flirting. It’s simply for fun…a meaningless way to pass the time.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” he said.

  She barely refrained from rolling her eyes. “I suppose you’re above such things.”

  He looked away. “I didn’t say I was above it,” he replied gruffly. “I just don’t have much experience with it.”

  Her heart clenched. For the first time, she entertained the possibility that his occasional stiffness could just as easily be the result of discomfort as disapproval. It would be difficult for anyone to adjust to civilian life after the battlefield, and she knew from his brother that he’d never been overly gregarious.

  “It’s quite easy,” she told Theo lightly. “You either say something that sounds like an innuendo or you utter a few lavish compliments.”

  “Lavish?” he looked at her consideringly. “Such as?”

  She returned his glance, feeling much more at ease. This was something meaningless, something easy. Something that didn’t make her feel like she was stepping in high water and would quickly be in over her head. “Well, if I wanted to flirt with you, I might compliment your eyes or your hair or perhaps the breadth of your shoulders. Analogies always work well.”

  “Give me an example,” he said.

  Her eyes narrowed at his studiously casual tone. “You just want me to compliment you, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  She pressed her lips together to control a startled laugh. “Your shoulders are as wide as…” Goodness, this was ridiculous. One couldn’t teach another person how to flirt. It had to happen naturally. “An ox,” she finished, because she couldn’t think of anything else.

  He frowned.

  “A hippopotamus? Have you seen an illustration of one? They’re huge, leathery, gray creatures.”

  His frown deepened as he surveyed his shoulders. “This is making me feel hideous.”

  This time she couldn’t quite repress a burst of laughter. “I’m sorry. Perhaps I’m better at innuendos,” she said.

  “I have one,” he said.

  She straightened, intrigued. “All right then. Let’s hear it.”

  “Your eyes remind me of the green of spring leaves. They’re the color of life and mystery and new hope and awakenings and everything I’ve missed for so long.”

  For a good minute she couldn’t find her voice, and she feared her breath had been sucked right out of her. When she did find it, she forced a note of levity into her words. “Very good, my lord. How much time did you spend practicing that one?”

  “None at all,” he said, his voice quiet. “I have a suggestion for you… I think the best compliments are the ones that are truthful.”

  Her heart warmed, expanded, but was accompanied by a swift shot of fear. “You shouldn’t be saying things like that.” Her voice was oddly quiet as well.

  “Because you don’t prefer my company? You prefer Mr. Bonnie Knees—”

  A startled laugh escaped her. “Who? Do you mean Mr. Cameron?”

  He nodded, suddenly serious. Startlingly serious. “Or…or my brother?” His eyes were so unfathomable and intent on hers that she couldn’t lie. Damn. Damn. She couldn’t lie even if it would be the best thing for both of them.

  On a trembling breath she said, “I like them both, but no, I don’t prefer their company.”

  “And what is this? A meaningless way to pass the time?” His voice was quiet.

  She had no idea what this was. Nothing she’d planned on. Nothing she wanted. But it seemed like she should have seen it, like it had been building, every hour, every minute, since they’d met. “It doesn’t feel meaningless.”

  “Is it—” He hesitated. “Is it pity?” He twisted the word like a curse.

  “No,” she answered truthfully. But she almost wished it was. Pity wouldn’t have scared her. It wouldn’t have tempted her.

  That was all the answer Theo needed. Now he allowed her to see what was buried in his gaze—want and lust and longing. He leaned forward, his hand lifting to cup her cheek almost reverently, and his gentle touch burned like a branding iron. He closed the distance between them, pressed his mouth—his hot, hot mouth—to her still cool lips.

  She was captivated. By his taste—coffee and spice and warm male—by his scent—rain and bergamot—by everything. He was a meticulous man, a former soldier, and it came through in the way he kissed her—a nudge here and a press there and so, so thoroughly, so searching and deliberate, as if he could learn everything about her, even her soul, simply through this one contact.

  Her chest was full and fluttery, caged butterflies struggling to escape. Her head was spinning, and she didn’t know if it was one long kiss or a series of shorter ones. One melded into the next with soft sighs and blissful surrender, dragging, drugging, perfect.

  And then something changed. What had started as a tentative exploration became charged and heavy. The hand cradling her face pressed harder, and his tongue touched her lips. She parted for him, instantly, eagerly—too much so, perhaps, but she didn’t know how to not be eager—and felt the sweep of his tongue against hers, ending their kisses like punctuation marks. He groaned, low in his throat. Her hands rose to his shoulders and she clutched at him, brought him closer.

  His lips—his lips left hers and she tried to follow him blindly, but then she felt the whisper of touch against her throat, against the bare slope of her shoulder. Her head fell back as he pressed lingering kisses along her bare skin, and she was starved for the sensation, absolutely starved for it. Her breath froze in her lungs each time he withdrew, eased back out when she felt his mouth against her again, charting new territory. The hollow beneath her ear, the trembling pulse in her throat, her shoulder, which he bit and then licked.

  And then her breaths weren’t just breaths, but words. Or one word. Theo. She moaned his name.

  Somehow—she didn’t know if he pulled her or if she pulled herself—she landed in his lap, his cock hard underneath her thigh. Her blanket slipped, or perhaps it had already slipped when she’d grabbed him. She had the idle thought that this kind of kissing, in the stables, when neither of them were actually clothed might not be the most prudent idea. But there wasn’t much room for thoughts in her mind, when it was so taken over by feeling. She pressed toward him.

  But he broke away, leaving her cold and aching. “Annabel. You should…you should cover yourself.”

  Goodness, the way he stared at her, with such wild, wanting hunger, made her want to do devious things, unspeakable things. On a flash of wanton impulse, she lifted her shoulder, letting the blanket slip down to reveal the swell of her breast.

  At the sight of her naked flesh, he shot up with a grunt, lost his grip, and dumped her, rather unceremoniously, onto the ground. She felt as though she’d been in heaven and a callous god had tossed her back to earth. And none too gently. Luckily the straw softened the impact or she’d probably have a bruise that covered her whole backside.

  Theo stared down at her sprawled form in horror. “Good God. Are you hurt?”

  “Only my dignity,” she muttered, clutching her blanket to her chest as she scrambled up. She brushed a piece of straw from her wet hair. When she glanced at him again, and his expressio
n still hadn’t changed, she laughed, even though she was still rattled by her own embarrassment and the hazy pleasure that hadn’t quite let go of her body.

  “I’m fine,” she insisted. “I’ve taken worse spills.” She would have outlined them for him—she’d fallen before trying to catch the Highland horses, she’d fallen once or twice on her unguided walks through the moors—but she didn’t think he’d want to hear about that.

  Theo wasn’t meeting her gaze. “I should apologize. I took things too far,” he said, the perfect picture of the remorseful, guilt-stricken man.

  “Oh, please,” she said with a snort, suddenly irritated with him. “If you didn’t notice, I was kissing you back quite thoroughly. And I was the one who tried to reveal myself to you. It’s unfair to assume you did everything yourself.”

  After a beat of silence, he said, “You must be the most contrary woman I’ve ever met.”

  “Thank you.”

  His lips twitched, but a moment later he was straightening with a calm resolve that made her chest hurt. He glanced down at his hand, where it rested on his cane, and when he looked up at her again, there was no trace of lust or amusement in his gaze. It was as though the passionate man she’d just been with had disappeared completely.

  “Regardless of who is responsible for what, I think it’s safe to say we were both carried away by the rain and our proximity, among other things, and acted improperly,” he said, sounding as stilted as if he were reading from a page in a book. “Of course, we will avoid such entanglements in the future.”

  Pain seared her.

  Such entanglements?

  She stared at him. She’d just experienced the most glorious kiss of her life—a kiss that made her pulse quicken and her stomach tighten and her skin feel almost alive. A kiss that made her positively burn with want and recklessness and need, and he was explaining it away as lifelessly as if it were just a mistake one made in the normal course of a day…like stubbing one’s toe, or spilling a cup of tea on the rug.

  “I see,” she said stiffly. And then, because she could never just keep her mouth shut, especially when she was shaken with hurt, she continued, “I suppose this would have happened with any woman, then? Of course, I can’t blame you—the smell of horses and soaked clothing and the threat of illness are ever so romantic. You’re quite right. If Ian of the bonnie knees was here, I’m sure I would have been sprawled on his lap in a manner of seconds, as well. And I’m so frivolous, I might not have even noticed the difference.”

  His face turned stark. “Annabel. I didn’t—”

  She lifted her hand to cut him off. “It’s quite all right, my lord. I admit it is a good thing it was you. If you weren’t so in control of your unworthy passions, so readily able to admit your ugly little mistakes, who knows what would have happened?”

  “Annabel.”

  “The rain has lessened,” she said, listening to it patter on the roof in a light drizzle. She didn’t want his explanations. Didn’t want him to placate her just because he’d hurt her feelings. She’d always thought her feelings were stronger than that anyway; she didn’t want to face the knowledge that she was far too vulnerable where Theo was concerned.

  She left with her blanket wrapped tightly around her and Theo’s gaze burning a hole into her back. The rain was gentle but cool against her skin.

  If only it was cold enough to swipe away the confused mire of emotions inspired by a man she didn’t fully understand and certainly didn’t know how to face after all the things she’d just said.

  And anything she may have inadvertently revealed.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Theo sat on the edge of his bed in his makeshift guest chamber—a small room with bare stone walls and a bare stone floor. There were no violent, ancient tapestries coloring his walls, no happy, maddening clutter on his tables. He didn’t know why, but he almost missed those personal touches.

  Theo had changed into dry clothes and removed his wooden limb. He stared down at what was left of his leg. Or not left. Sometimes he could still feel phantom pains in his knee or calf, though the appendage ended at mid-thigh. Though he tried to keep his mind on other things, it kept wandering back to the stables and wondering what the hell had happened to his self-control. It wasn’t as though Annabel had even done anything that tempting. They’d just been sitting next to each other, and talking, and that had been more than enough to drive fire through his blood.

  He’d practically mauled her, and then he’d thrown her to the ground.

  It wasn’t only not gentlemanly. It was embarrassing.

  And what had he been going on about—her eyes were the color of spring leaves? What in the world had possessed him to say something so flowery and so…truthful? Her steady gaze had drawn from the depth of his soul too many things he’d prefer to keep in the dark.

  He’d nearly told her about the battle where he’d received his scar. He’d never told anyone about that battle. Had spent nearly every waking moment trying not to think of it. He’d never even thought he’d be tempted.

  Until Annabel.

  He didn’t know how he felt about that. Terrified, mostly. How many things might he reveal just because she looked at him? How many horrible memories might he relive?

  His head lifted when the hinges on his door creaked. He both wanted it to be Annabel and was scared that it was her.

  But it was his brother in the doorway—of course—it wasn’t as though Annabel was on speaking terms with him, after he’d made those insipid remarks about future entanglements when all he’d really wanted to do was kiss her again.

  Theo grabbed the edge of the plain cream counterpane and pulled it over his lap. “Don’t you knock anymore?” he asked. His voice came out harsh.

  “The door was cracked,” Robert said calmly, “but I didn’t hear anything from within. I wanted to make sure you were all right.”

  Shame and frustration flooded Theo all at once.

  His siblings disguised their worry as much as they could; they did their best not to press him. Even after the incident at dinner they hadn’t asked him any questions. But more and more, Theo recognized it—in glances that were too quick, or that lingered too long. It was an ever-present current, running through every part of their lives. Sometimes, Theo felt so stifled by their silent, unassuming concern that he could choke on it.

  And then he inevitably felt guilty, for being such a heartless bastard.

  He shouldn’t resent them for caring about him, but sometimes he did, all the same.

  “Where are Georgina and Eleanor?” he asked, changing the subject.

  “Eleanor is in the library,” Robert said after a moment. “George went exploring after the rain ended.”

  Theo stared at him. “Exploring? By herself?”

  His brother nodded.

  “Why did you not stop her?” he asked incredulously.

  “If you’d been here these past few years, you would know that it’s not easy to confine Georgina. Or Eleanor, for that matter. They were both out by themselves yesterday.”

  Theo stared at him angrily. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because I knew you would react so well?”

  Theo shook his head. “This isn’t a jest, Robert. They could be hurt, out on the moors alone.”

  “They know how to take care of themselves.”

  “This is ridiculous. I’m the head of the fam—”

  “You left,” Robert said mercilessly, staring down at him from his higher vantage point by the door. Theo noticed he hadn’t moved any closer.

  Theo just gaped at him, trying to find the words. “I didn’t know I was going to inherit land. I needed a profession. I needed to do it for all of us. I was serving my king and my country.”

  Now Robert stepped closer. Probably just so he can loom over me better, Theo thought bitterly. “You were serving your own insecurities,” Robert said, an edge to his voice. “You couldn’t have picked a profession that didn’t require you to leave us?
” For the first time, Theo realized that Robert was angry with him, not just annoyed, but a low, steady type of burn. Had he been angry all along?

  “Perhaps you’re right about some things,” he continued. “Perhaps I could have done better, especially with Georgina, but I’ve done my best. Our aunt and uncle were indulgent with her, and you were the one she looked at as a father, not me.”

  Theo blinked at the accusation. “Are you saying I’m responsible for this?”

  “I didn’t leave out of some misguided desire to prove myself. I didn’t nearly get killed and not tell my family until there was no other choice! Do you know how worried George and Eleanor were about you, all the time? Did you think it was fair to put them through that after everything else?”

  Theo didn’t address the comment about proving himself. He was certain that for all he could say about serving a noble cause and trying to make a living independent of his aunt and uncle’s generosity, there was some inkling of truth to Robert’s accusation. A part of him had needed vindication. A part of him had wanted to prove that just because he wasn’t handsome or charming like Robert, he could still be worth something.

  He hadn’t thought about the people he might hurt in the process. Even though he should have.

  “No,” he said. “It wasn’t fair, but there’s nothing I can do about it now.”

  Robert wouldn’t relent, though. “You could have written. We were all terrified when we noticed the pause in your letters, and then they suddenly arrived again without any explanation. We knew something had happened, but we didn’t know what. You could have told us.”

  “Oh?” Theo said scathingly. “Because that’s such a nice topic for a letter: Dear Loving Family, Today was an unusually rainy day. Fought a battle, just like every other battle. I would relate them to you, but they’d probably give you nightmares. I know they give me nightmares.

  In other news, my leg was nearly severed by debris from a cannon blast. It was hanging on by a few bloody tendons and weak bones. Then the field surgeon sawed it off with a hacksaw while I screamed and pleaded for him to either stop or just go ahead and kill me and when the pain became too much I fainted. When I woke up and realized I would never be a whole man again I wept like a child. But I hope all is well and that the weather is better in England. Love, Your Newly Lamed Brother.”