by Dare, Tessa
With that, he turned her toward him and captured her mouth in a searing kiss. His hands made possessive sweeps, caressing her breasts and thighs and hips. Awakening her body the way dawn woke the earth.
When he lifted his head, his eyes had a devilish gleam. He nudged her backward until her spine met the library shelving.
Then he sank to his knees.
Chase’s skin tightened with anticipation. He’d been waiting for this.
“Chase,” she whispered. “Chase, get up.”
Get up? The hell he would. He was just getting started.
He gathered her skirts with both hands, hiking them high enough that he could dive under. Her frothy petticoats drifted down around him. They smelled of starch and soap, that faint hint of orange-flower water—and the intoxicating feminine musk of her skin. The draped fabric around him was the hushed, sacred temple of a pagan goddess, and he was a supplicant on his knees.
However, the offering he had in mind would be no sacrifice.
He slid his hand down one of her stocking-clad calves, bent her leg at the knee, and hooked it over his shoulder. That accomplished, he reached to grasp her by the hips and tilt her pelvis forward.
There. Now she was open to his view, to his touch. To his kiss.
He nuzzled the slope of her bare thigh, reveling in the satiny texture of her skin against his cheek. Beginning at her garter, he trailed kisses upward in an arrow-straight path to her cleft.
Her thigh tensed.
She squirmed in his grasp. “What are you doing?”
Chase decided demonstration was the most useful answer. He ran his thumb down the seam of her sex, parting her with a gentle touch. Then he leaned into her heat, sweeping his tongue along the sweet, silky furrow.
Her hips jerked, and she kicked him in the kidney. “Chase.” Her hands patted around his back and shoulders, meeting atop his head. She gave him a shake. “Chase. We can’t do this. Not here.”
“Certainly we can.” He wasn’t sure if his words reached her, given that his voice was muffled by her skirts and his mouth had more pleasant tasks at hand than enunciation. He explored the treasure before him with slow, gentle passes of his tongue, giving her time to adjust to the sensation.
She gasped and bucked. “This is so very wrong.”
Beneath her skirts, he grinned. “That’s what makes it so very good.”
“A servant could come by at any moment.”
“Then stop interrupting.”
Her fingers still clutched at his hair, but she ceased struggling.
With that, he returned to his task. He found the swollen bud at the apex of her cleft and fluttered his tongue.
Her breath escaped on an erotic sigh.
That’s it. Surrender to the pleasure. Surrender to me.
He slid his hands to her bottom, clasping tight with both hands and drawing her closer, the better to kiss, lick, suck, nibble. Using her reactions as his guide, he learned the ways to make her sigh, moan, whimper, and dig her fingernails into his scalp.
“Chase.”
Hearing his name from her lips was the most heady triumph of all. It told him he wasn’t an anonymous lover to her, but a man—one with whom she would share her most intimate places and sensations. A man she deemed worthy of her body and her pleasure. Even if he could never be worthy of her heart or her hand, this was enough.
At least, he would tell himself it was enough.
She began to roll her hips, seeking more contact, wanting it faster. A muscle in her thigh quivered. He knew she was close.
Come, he silently willed. Come for me.
A few more flickering pulses of his tongue, and she went over the edge. She came with a series of shuddering whimpers, bracing herself on his head and shoulders. He didn’t let up until her pleasure eased, and even then he couldn’t tear himself away. He pressed his mouth to her inner thigh, sucking and biting until a bruise rose on her tender flesh.
There, now he’d left his mark: Chase Reynaud was here.
Once her breathing slowed and the leg draped over his shoulder went limp, he extricated himself from beneath her skirts and carefully rose to his feet, making sure to support her weight as he did so.
God, she looked beautiful. Throat flushed, chest heaving, her glazed eyes looking up through thick, dark lashes. Her hair had been mussed in the back, from where she’d reeled and rubbed against the shelves. The early-morning light painted her skin with a palette of golds and rosy pinks.
“You,” she sighed, “are terrible.”
“You”—he pressed his lips to her forehead—“are delicious.” He kissed her cheek. “Beautiful.” Then the corner of her lips. “Irresistible.”
He leaned in, hungry for more.
She put her hand to his chest, holding him in place.
He took a step back, then cocked his head and searched her expression. “Is something the matter?”
“No.” She wet her lips. “Not really. It’s only . . .”
“Dropsy.”
Chase wheeled about, searching for the source of this abrupt diagnosis. What?
Rosamund stood in the corridor. “It’s dropsy today,” she repeated. “The funeral is prepared.”
“Right.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Miss Mountbatten and I were just . . .”
“Looking through books,” Alex finished.
“Well, yes.” Rosamund gave them a quizzical look. “That is what one does in a library, isn’t it?”
“Precisely,” Chase declared. “Go on, then. We’ll be up directly.”
Once Rosamund had left, he and Alex exchanged looks of relief.
“That was close,” he said.
“Much too close.”
“I concur.”
“If she’d been three minutes earlier, Chase. Just imagine.”
“No,” he clipped. “I refuse to imagine. You can’t make me.” He stood aside for her to precede him as they left the room.
“You’re right. There’s no use fretting over it now.” She repinned her hair as they went. “Dropsy, really? I thought that was an old person’s disease.”
“Well, you know what they say. Only the wood die young.”
She stopped in the middle of the corridor and burst out laughing. “That,” she wheezed, “was dreadful. Criminally bad.”
“It made you laugh, didn’t it?”
Finally.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Chase? Chase.”
Chase tore his gaze away from the clock. “Hm?”
“And . . . ?” Barrow gave him an impatient look. “What did you want to do about the mining interests?”
“Which mining interests?”
“The ones we’ve been discussing for the past hour. The coal in Yorkshire. Is this jogging your memory?”
“Right. The coal. Sorry.”
Memories weren’t Chase’s problem. His mind was full to bursting with memories. The problem was, they were all memories of Alexandra beneath him, naked, gripping the bedsheets in ecstasy. Even if his body was in the study with Barrow, his mind was downstairs in his retreat. Which wasn’t even his retreat anymore. Over the past fortnight, it had become their retreat.
Chase straightened in his chair and sifted through the report before him. “Hold on to the mines. The seam is nowhere near exhausted, and the demand for coal will only increase.”
“Agreed.” Barrow dipped his quill and bent over the writing desk. “Chase, I know how you feel about me meddling in your personal affairs, but this is different. You must put a stop to it.”
“To what?”
“Whatever it is you’re doing with Miss Mountbatten.”
Chase looked up sharply. “What makes you think I’m doing anything with Miss Mountbatten?”
“Oh, come along.” Barrow threw down his quill. “Whenever she’s in the room, you steal hungry glances at each other. It’s obvious.”
“It is not obvious.”
Barrow lifted his eyebrows, and Chase realized too
late that he’d given himself away.
“That’s not what I meant. It’s not obvious because it’s not happening.”
“Work on that ‘gentleman’s retreat’ seems to have stalled. You haven’t demanded my opinions on satin bedding or erotic etchings in weeks.”
“I was going to solicit your preferences on perfumed sensual oils,” Chase said idly, “but then I decided not to spoil your Christmas present.”
Someone knocked at the door.
“Cha—” Alexandra popped her head around the door. Her lips clamped shut, and her cheeks flushed pink. “Oh. Mr. Barrow. I didn’t realize you were here. I beg your pardon for interrupting.”
“Not at all,” Barrow said. He slid a meaningful glance in Chase’s direction. “We were discussing nothing, apparently.”
“If that’s the case . . .” Alex came out from behind the door and entered the room. “Mr. Reynaud, I thought you’d want to know that Rosamund and Daisy are ready.”
Ready? Ready for what?
Once again, Chase had completely lost hold of his faculties. Because she stood in the doorway, dressed in a gauzy, daffodil-yellow frock, and the only readiness that mattered was how ready he felt to pull her into his arms.
She stole his breath away.
He rose to his feet. Etiquette didn’t require a gentleman to stand when a member of his house staff entered the room. Alexandra knew it, and her expression reflected the awkwardness of his gesture.
But Chase was unrepentant. A man rose to his feet for a lady, his queen, or a divine being, and she was at least one of those—if not all three.
“I have them dressed and ready for the outing.” When he didn’t answer, she added, “You do recall promising them an outing? I spoke to you about it the other evening, and you said yes.” Her eyes took on a saucy gleam. “Rather emphatically.”
Cheeky minx. Only the Devil knew how many times she’d heard the word “yes” from his lips on any of several recent evenings. She must have tricked him into agreeing to this when he was insensate with pleasure.
He said, “Barrow and I have a great deal of business to attend to.”
“Please. I’ve promised Rosamund and Daisy. The girls will be so disappointed.”
She’d promised them? Damn it. Broken promises were something he avoided at all costs. And the simplest way to avoid them was to not make any in the first place. Tonight he would give her a stern talking-to about making promises on his behalf.
And perhaps a light spanking just to underscore the matter.
But that would be later. As for this afternoon . . . that fetching yellow frock just begged to be out of doors. He wanted to see the breeze whip the flimsy muslin about her legs, wanted to watch her untie the ribbons of her bonnet with a gloved hand and then give him a bashful smile.
And what he didn’t want was to spend another afternoon in this study with Barrow.
“Give me an hour to make a few arrangements,” he said. “Tell the girls we’ll be going to the park.”
She smiled. “Thank you, sir.”
When she’d gone, Barrow turned to him and said dryly, “Oh, that wasn’t obvious at all.”
“Do you know, I’ve been thinking.” Chase reached for his coat and hat. “We spend entirely too much time together.”
“I can’t disagree.” Barrow tapped his quill on the edge of the inkwell and continued in a quiet, serious tone. “Be careful, Chase. She’s not the only one who stands to be hurt.”
“Don’t worry. The girls have no idea.”
“I wasn’t referring to the girls. I meant you.”
Chase snorted. “Now you’re just being absurd.”
“Am I?”
“Yes,” Chase answered as he quit the room, sounding far more authoritative than he felt.
“Are we there yet?” Daisy dragged her feet along the well-trodden path.
Chase didn’t even break stride. “No.”
“You might slow the pace a touch,” Alex suggested in a murmur. “For the girls’ sake.”
And for mine.
After trotting alongside him for nearly a half hour, she and the girls were breathing hard and perspiring in the summer’s afternoon sun. They’d reached the halfway point of Hyde Park now, where the Serpentine widened into a lake.
“Are there ices in this park?” Rosamund asked.
“I’ve no idea,” Chase replied.
“We were promised a treat. Not a military march.”
Daisy halted in the path. “Millicent has dysentery.”
Chase groaned. “She does not. She was perfectly well a moment ago.”
“The grueling pace was too much for her. Now she could die at any moment.”
Alexandra decided to intervene. “Here.” She untied the ribbon knotted at her nape, removing her coral pendant and tying it about Millicent’s neck instead.
“But that was your mother’s,” Daisy said.
“Millicent may borrow it for the day. It’s especially effective against dysentery. And Mr. Reynaud promises to walk a bit more slowly.”
“Actually, we don’t have to walk much farther at all,” Chase said. “There’s your surprise, girls. It’s waiting over there, on the bank.”
When Alex saw what he’d pointed out, her stomach knotted. A neat little skiff bobbed atop the rippling water, tied to a tree branch at the side of the lake. The miniature craft had been gaily painted, and it boasted a crisp white sail and a jaunty red flag.
“You . . . you mean to take the girls sailing on the lake?”
“No, we’re going to skate on the lake. Yes, sailing—if you can even call it that, on this small scale. And I don’t mean to take only the girls. You’re coming, too.”
“Oh.” Her throat worked, but it felt like trying to swallow paper. “That’s kind of you, but I’ll wait on the bank.”
“Nonsense.” He stripped off his coat and draped it over the tree branch before turning up his cuffs. “You must be dying to get on the water again. This is hardly a voyage on the open sea, but it’s something. As close as I could give you at the moment.”
The dear man. He’d arranged this not only as an outing for the girls, but as a gift to her. Now she could understand the reason for his determined clip through Mayfair and across the park. He’d been excited.
Inside, Alex wanted to weep. Everything in her screamed for escape. But how could she disappoint him?
Use your common sense, she told herself. Be rational. As he says, this isn’t a merchant ship bobbing about a wild, stormy sea. It isn’t even a wherry on the Thames. It’s a skiff on the Serpentine, on a Tuesday in August, smack in the middle of London. There isn’t any true reason to be afraid, so stiffen up and get on with things.
She took his hand.
His eyes warmed. “That’s my girl.”
Her heart flapped and fluttered like a loose ribbon caught by the wind.
The girls had climbed aboard the skiff and begun preparing for their maiden voyage as proper pirates. Millicent was placed at the fore of the craft, like a mermaid decorating the ship’s prow.
As the girls unfurled the skiff’s tiny sail, she kept watch on their every move. “Rosamund, come away from the side at once.”
Chase stretched his arm across her back in a stealthy motion. “Take the afternoon off, Miss Mountbatten. I’m relieving you of your governess duties today.”
She could take the afternoon off from being a governess, perhaps. But she couldn’t take an afternoon off from being herself. She was still that shivering girl in the dark, caught between pelting rain and a hungry sea. She was still that stammering woman in Hatchard’s, entranced by roguish green eyes and the scents of sandalwood and mint.
Alex was still Alex. Chase was still Chase. And she could no longer deny that she was mad for him, despite there being every rational argument against it. She’d been ensnared by infatuation the moment they collided in that bookshop, and now she couldn’t imagine ever getting free.
This hopeless yearning w
ould be the end of her. Or at least the death of her common sense.
“I brought provisions.” He withdrew a tiny corked jug from his pocket and lifted it triumphantly. “There’s grog.”
The girls celebrated with rousing huzzahs. Chase unstoppered the jug and passed it to Daisy, who struggled to lift it to her lips.
“Don’t worry,” he whispered in Alex’s ear. “It’s just water and molasses.”
“They’ll have stomachaches.”
Chase clasped the skiff’s prow and grunted as he pushed the craft off the bank. The girls’ second round of cheering was even more rousing than the first. He kept one boot firmly planted on the bank and had the other in the boat, keeping the skiff close.
Then he motioned to Alex. “Come, then. I’ll hand you in.”
She hesitated a few feet from the water. Panic rose in her breast. Her heart thundered so fiercely she couldn’t hear anything but her own frantic pulse.
I can’t. I can’t do this.
“Truly, I’ll wait here. It’s too small for four.”
“No, it’s not,” Rosamund argued. “There’s plenty of room.”
Daisy propped her hands on her hips. “Mr. Reynaud, you must make her come along.”
“I agree. If she won’t come willingly, piracy is the only choice.” Chase lunged, took Alex by the waist, and lifted—parting her from the safety of the bank and swinging her into the boat.
“I can’t,” she said. “Please. I can’t.”
As Chase moved to deposit her on the bench of the skiff, she clung to his neck. From the boat, Daisy tugged at her skirts.
She began to thrash, unable to think of anything other than fighting her way back onto the bank. The boat only tipped further, making everything worse. In her scrambling panic, she made a wild kick.
A kick that connected with Millicent, sending her flying through the air.
The doll landed with a splash in the center of the lake.
Daisy shrieked.
At first, the doll’s wooden head kept her afloat, and for a few seconds it seemed all would be fine—just row to the center, fish her out with a long stick, and she’d be only a bit worse for the adventure. She’d survived far greater trials.
