A queer little chill raced up Lilith’s spine, lifting the flyaway curls at her nape and setting her scalp to tingling. For a moment, no longer than it took to draw in a trembling breath and release it on a sigh, she was standing on those cliffs with Malleville, his brawny frame sheltering her from the wind, his big callused hand gently clasping hers. Protecting and anchoring her to his side, to his family and to the untamed corner of the world he called home.
Lilith shook off the odd, unsettling image and pulled her gaze from the jagged line of the cliffs rising to meet the blue sky. Turning toward the house, she discovered Malleville standing on the terrace. With his hands braced on the stone balustrade, he leaned slightly forward, his gaze focused intently upon Lilith as if she were the only person on the lawn, rather than the only one raising a ruckus and knocking balls into the ocean.
“Well, I think on that note we ought to call it a game,” Rossiter called out with forced cheer. “Surely it’s tea time.”
“And nap time,” his wife agreed.
“I’m not tired,” Meg cried predictably. “And I promised Princess Lilith I’d take her exploring.”
Lilith remembered exacting no such promise from the tiny termagant. Still, she recognized the opportunity for a graceful retreat and seized it. “Come along then, little terror.”
TAMING BEAUTY
CHAPTER NINE
“That’s a grasshopper?” Lilith asked. “Ugly little things, aren’t they?”
“At night they sing.” Balanced on her haunches, Meg leaned down until she was nearly eye to eye with the bright green insect. Oddly enough, the grasshopper did not jump away as he’d done before, necessitating a romp through the tall grass during which Lilith had lost a goodly number of hair pins and a slipper.
As it was simpler to remove the second slipper, along with her stockings, than find the first, she was barefoot.
And she’d quite enjoyed the tickle of the warm grass on the soles of her feet as she’d followed the little girl and the hopping insect up one hill and down the other side.
“Stage a musicale for you, do they?”
“It’s their wings rubbing together, but it sounds like singing. Sometimes the frogs join in, but they sound like horns, I think. If you hold your hand out he might jump right up on it.”
“I’ll forego that particular pleasure, thank you.” Lilith settled onto her bum, bent her legs and curled her arms around her knees, placing her hands a good distance from the grasshopper.
She was two and twenty and today she’d seen her first grasshopper. Up close and personal. She felt rather like an explorer who’d traipsed across foreign terrain in search of an extinct species.
“Are you going to marry Uncle Jasper?”
“No, Lady Priscilla is going to marry Lord Malleville.”
And that was that.
Lilith was not going to add her two bits of buggery to the heavy load he already carried on his wide shoulders. Yes, he’d made a foolish choice when he’d opted to exact his pound of flesh from Dunaway in the form of his daughter, but it was Malleville’s choice and the resulting regret or happiness would be his as well.
And as Lilith had told Sissy, more than once, she wasn’t likely to fare any better on the open market. Marriage seemed a dicey venture even when wealth and position factored into the equation not at all. When those elements were added to the mix, as they invariably were in aristocratic alliances, the chances of a happy union appeared, to one looking in from the outside, improbable at best.
“But Mama said Uncle Jasper was to marry a princess,” Meg protested, turning her azure gaze Lilith’s way and pouting for all she was worth.
“You aren’t going to cry, are you?”
“Will you marry Uncle Jasper if I do?”
“Certainly not, but I will leave you here to do your crying alone.”
“No you wouldn’t,” Meg said with a giggle. “No one can resist a little girl’s tears.”
“I assure you, I am the exception.”
“You’re funny.”
Well, that was a compliment she’d never been given.
“And awful pretty.”
The second came as something of a letdown after the first.
“Mama says pretty is as pretty does.”
“I imagine she has her reasons for uttering such nonsense,” Lilith replied. “But don’t you be fooled, a pretty face is a coincidence of birth, or a dab hand with cosmetics in some cases, while pretty behavior is something else entirely.”
The grasshopper chose that moment to jump high in the air, startling a laugh from Lilith and a tinkling giggle from Meg as she mimicked the motion and hopped to her feet. She spun in a circle before lifting her hand to wave it wildly through the air. “Uncle Jasper! I showed Princess Lilith a grasshopper!”
Malleville was making his way down the hill, his stride long and leisurely. The wind caught his hair, tossing the curls all about like spilled claret. His shirt, open at the collar as usual, clung to his chest. Muscles bunched and shifted beneath a pair of buff breeches tucked into tall, black boots.
Heart racing, palms sweating, Lilith scrambled to her feet, brushing dirt and grass from her wrinkled skirts with one hand and shoving loose tendrils of hair back into her listing coiffure with the other.
“Tonight we’re going to sneak down from the nursery to hear them stage a musicale,” Meg continued, hopping up and down and inventing things as she went along. “And tomorrow I’ll show Princess Lilith the best path for climbing down from the cliffs and we’ll go swimming.”
“That’s nice,” Baron Mallevile replied, coming to a stop some two dozen feet away. “Run on back to the house, Meg.”
“I don’t want to,” his niece whined.
“Go on, little one,” Lilith murmured.
Malleville clearly wanted to speak with her in private, likely to berate her for spewing nonsense about kisses and breasts on his lawn for all the world, including the children, to hear. Lilith would take the tongue-lashing with as much dignity as she could muster for she rightly deserved it and she knew it.
“All right.” Meg launched herself at Lilith, wrapped her skinny arms around her hips and gave her a good squeeze.
“Oh,” Lilith peeped, unsure what to do with the warm little body pressed flush against her. She waved her hands about for a moment before allowing them to fall to the girl’s back. She patted awkwardly, afraid she might bruise her somehow.
When she looked up, Malleville was standing as still as a statue, watching her from beneath hooded eyes.
“Well, that’s enough of that.” Lilith gently disengaged the girl’s arms and stepped back out of harm’s way.
“You must come for me just after dusk,” Meg called as she turned and ran up the hill. “That’s the best time to listen to the grasshoppers and frogs!”
“Will she find her way back to the house?” Lilith asked, watching the girl scamper to the top of the hill. “She won’t get lost, will she?”
Malleville said not a word but only continued to watch her until Meg disappeared over the other side.
Then he stalked her, prowling across the space separating them, slowly and purposefully.
Lilith lifted her chin and eyed him, enjoying the fluid grace of his movements, so rare in a man of his size, while she waited for him to commence with the lecture on propriety and children and dirty laundry strung about and flapping on the breeze for all to witness.
Malleville did not halt a proper distance from her, nor did he halt an improper distance from her, but kept coming until he was almost upon her.
Then he was upon her, his strong arms lashing out and winding around her, lifting her clear off the ground. In the next moment they were falling, tumbling into the tall grass. Malleville twisted to take the brunt of the fall, landing with Lilith splayed along all those hard muscles, her legs tangling with his, her breasts flattened to the hard wall of his chest, her fingers clutching his shoulders.
Before Lilith could offer u
p a single word in protestation or entreaty, he rolled, taking her with him and tucking her under him with his elbows resting beside her pinned arms and his legs clamped along the length of hers.
He was going to kiss her. Lilith knew the prelude to a kiss when it knocked her to ground, even if it was unfamiliar ground, soft and springy and faintly prickly.
It wasn’t until his lips touched hers that she realized she knew precious little about kissing.
Malleville’s lips were cool, blessedly cool and firm. And unbelievably soft.
He didn’t plunder but took his time, pressing tender kisses along her upper lip before exploring the lower with little nips and nudges that had her mouth falling open on a gasp of surprised delight.
His tongue swept from one corner of her lips to the other, as if he must discover every texture and taste before accepting the invitation she offered.
Cradling her head, he sifted his fingers through the wayward curls unleashed from the bun atop her head, exploring the tangled locks with the same gentle diligence and patience.
Lilith sighed, awed and undone by the tenderness she hadn’t anticipated, hadn’t realized had been missing from her life for years, for eons. Forever.
“Malleville,” she whispered, curling her arms around his neck and dragging her fingers through his hair, mimicking him, wanting desperately to give him the same careful ministrations.
“Jasper,” he murmured, smiling against her lips.
“Jasper.”
“Christ, you are so sweet.” He punctuated the words with a foray, slow and languid, into her mouth. His tongue lightly stroked over hers, curled under and around before retreating to trace her lips once more.
“You taste of sunshine,” Lilith said on a stuttering breath.
Jasper groaned, his big body trembling above her, all around her.
“We shouldn’t…we…” she whispered, losing her wits and the ability to speak when he wedged his knee between legs and settled his weight over her.
“Shh, we won’t,” he said, gently rocking against her, allowing her to feel his arousal but making no demands. “Only let me kiss you.”
“We mustn’t,” she panted even as her hands clutched at his shoulders and she lifted her head, pressing her lips to his and taking in his shuddering breath.
Jasper tilted his head, changing the angle of their joined lips, changing the tone and tempo of the kiss. His tongue swept inside, lashing over hers, tangling and curling and driving from her head every last notion of restraint or resistance. Wrapping one leg around his thigh, she lifted her hips to meet the next gentle thrust of his manhood, desire coiling low in her belly and spreading outward until her entire body came alive. They fell into a luxurious, languorous rhythm, locked together, twisting and undulating, urging one another on with soft moans and dark groans.
Lilith met each parry of his tongue, followed each retreat until their kisses no longer possessed beginnings and endings but became one long, achingly decadent, endless kiss. Tender and wild, sweet and carnal, Jasper kissed her as if he had all the time in the world to savor her while Lilith kissed him as if this time, this stolen sliver of time, was all she would ever have.
On and on they kissed, lips fusing and clinging, tongues curling and caressing, breaths mingling until Lilith was dizzy with the need for air, dizzy with the wonder of his body moving over her, covering her, surrounding her, sheltering her.
“Jesus, Lilith,” Jasper groaned, lifting his lips from hers long enough drag in a breath. “You’ve no idea how you entice me.”
It took a moment for his words to penetrate the sensual haze swirling through her mind but when they did all the joy and wonder evaporated, leaving Lilith feeling tossed about like so much flotsam on a riverbank.
As his lips descended for what promised to be another earth-shattering kiss, Lilith turned her head away sharply. “I did not intend to entice you.”
“Shh, I know you didn’t,” he soothed, his lips skimming along her jaw. “How could I help but know it, seeing as you felt the need to holler about it on the lawn.”
“I will admit that was poorly done of me,” she agreed, pushing at his shoulders in an attempt to roll him off her person, an entirely useless endeavor considering he outweighed her by a good eight or nine stone. “Still this wasn’t quite the tongue-lashing I expected.”
Jasper rose up onto his hands and knees above her, staring at her as if he hadn’t any idea how she’d come to be sprawled in the grass like some sort pagan sacrifice.
“Not that it wasn’t lovely, mind you,” Lilith said, feeling an unaccountable need to soothe the beast. “But we cannot allow it to happen again considering you are soon to marry Sissy.”
“Marry Sissy?” he repeated, sounding as confused as she felt.
“Surely you remember Lacy Priscilla,” she said, reining in her scuttled emotions as best she could. “The bride whose familial connections and unsullied reputation you foolishly buggered yourself to claim.”
“Ah, right, I very nearly forgot I am to marry your sister.” His voice was a raspy snarl and again Lilith was taken by the queer notion he was battling amusement. At her expense, no doubt.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” she exclaimed, tugging her skirts from beneath his knee and scrambling out from under him. “Sissy is not my sister.”
“Well then, no harm done,” he replied, rising to stand and offering his hand to help her up. “Seeing as I wasn’t kissing my bride’s sister.”
“No harm at all.” Lilith recognized the words for the lie they were as soon as his strong, callused fingers curled around her hand, lifting her gently to her feet. She felt harmed, battered and bruised and altogether betrayed. “It was only a few kisses, after all.”
“Lovely kisses,” he replied in the same gravelly voice. “Tasting of sunshine.”
“Clearly I did not do a thorough job of it if you had the presence of mind to remember what I said between kisses.”
“Between lovely, tongue-lashing kisses tasting of sunshine.” Jasper laced his fingers through hers, his thumb caressing the back of her hand.
“You truly are a beast,” Lilith huffed out around a wobbly laugh, amused and bemused and befuddled.
“And you truly are a beauty,” he replied on what sounded suspiciously like a chuckle but might have been a growl.
“Beauty is as beauty does and you’d do well to remember it.”
TAMING BEAUTY
CHAPTER TEN
The ninth Baron Malleville did not recognize the warning as he led a silent, rumpled and barefoot Lilith up over the hill and down the other side.
Nor did he recognize it when he spotted the gray and blue carriage sitting on the weed-riddled front lawn, Dunaway’s servants scurrying around, offloading trunks, portmanteaus and hat boxes. Lord Dunaway and Lady Priscilla stood off to the side in animated conversation with two slender, elegantly dressed ladies.
Lilith tugged her hand free of his and increased her pace until she was nearly running down the incline. Jasper allowed her to take the lead, his gaze drifting from the wispy curls that had escaped the lopsided coil atop her head to spill down her narrow back, to the sway of her hips above long legs hidden beneath wrinkled and grass-stained yellow skirts.
He’d nestled between those legs, had one of them curled up over his flanks, pulling him tight against her swiveling hips, rendering him insensible to everything but the need to take her, to mark her and claim her as his own.
“Lilith!” One of the newly arrived ladies on the lawn called out, watching their approach from beneath the brim of an outrageous bonnet festooned with flowers and trailing ribbons.
The other lady spun around, bright blue skirts swirling about her, one gloved hand rising to shade her eyes. Sunlight glinted off golden hair pulled into a long braid resting over her shoulder.
“Good God, what are they doing here?” Lilith’s husky voice carried on the breeze, trembling with what might have been shock or even horror.
“F
riends of yours?” Jasper caught up with her and reached for her hand, thinking to offer whatever support or comfort he could.
“What are you doing?” she hissed, sidestepping and batting at his hand. “Have you lost your mind?”
“Quite possibly,” he replied with a rusty laugh.
“Stop growling at me.”
“I wasn’t aware—”
“This is all your fault.”
“My fault?”
“Why, oh why did you have to turn up stubborn?” she asked. “And honorable, of all things?”
“Look who’s come to visit,” Lady Priscilla called out with a giggle.
“Yes, kitten, just look who’s come to visit,” Dunaway echoed around a chuckle, taking hold of his daughter’s arm and holding her back when the two ladies started across the lawn.
As they neared, Jasper was struck by their youth and beauty, but still the warning did not quite register.
The bonneted lady was perhaps eight and ten, with wispy tendrils of flaxen hair falling to frame a faintly square chin and wide mouth. Her skin was as pale as parchment without so much as a freckle dotting her straight, narrow nose or high, sculpted cheekbones. Dark brows winged up beneath a smooth, patrician forehead and equally dark lashes surrounded eyes as green as new grass, a cynicism beyond her tender years lurking in their depths.
The other lady was likely still in the schoolroom, though there was nothing of the innocent ingénue in her wide-set turquoise eyes. Her complexion was beyond sun-kissed, bordering on bronzed. She possessed the same high cheekbones, angular jaw, and perfectly arched brows, though both her brows and her lashes were fair. A dimple flashed as her lush lips curled up at one corner, offering up a lopsided smile that struck Jasper as faintly mocking.
Both ladies were dressed in the height of fashion, their gowns clearly chosen to match their eyes and call attention to their willowy arms and long necks.
There was something oddly familiar in their graceful movements, in the tilt of their chins and in their inquisitive gazes as they landed on Lilith, ignoring Jasper as if he weren’t standing close enough their shadows merged and melded like two lovers sprawled across the lawn.
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