Thornton looked into her eyes and a most wicked smile curved his mouth. “Now that I’ve got you at my mercy, will you call me Alex?”
“Thornton,” she began.
“Naughty, naughty,” he said in a low voice, pulling her wrists higher. With his free hand, he untied the lacing of her jaunty cape and sent it to the ground. His dark head sank to her exposed décolletage and he kissed his way to the tip of the valley between her breasts. “Do you repent, my lady?”
“Repent what?” she asked, breathless and feeling cheeky. “I have not sinned, my lord.”
“Not yet.” He caught the edge of her bodice and yanked it down, revealing her breasts entirely. She felt his hand slide to her back, working at the lacings of her habit. “Limited undergarments. Good girl.”
“You seem to forever be making free with my…ah.” She could not complete the sentence. His demanding mouth had closed over one of her nipples, dragging and sucking. Cleo attempted to tug her wrists free of his grasp, but he was unyielding.
Thornton glanced up at her, flicking a lazy tongue over the aching peak of her breast. “I am making free with your what, darling?” He blew a tantalizing breath of warm, moist air onto her skin. “With your breasts? I do love your breasts, but I’ve already told you that, haven’t I?”
“You said they were brilliant,” she moaned.
“Did I?” He smirked. “And you remembered?”
“It is not a compliment I receive on a daily baaaaasis.” Oh heavens. He was at work on her other breast now and his incredibly talented hand had undone the fastenings on her dress. With one firm shove, it went spilling to the ground around her feet. She stood before him in nothing but her drawers, not even a shift. Even so, if the autumn air was chill, she could not feel it for the heat of his body on hers.
“No?” He cupped her buttocks, molding her against him so his rigid cock pressed into her stomach. “You mean to say that during the course of breakfast, it is not de règle for the company to compliment the sheer brilliance of your lovely breasts? I am aghast, I confess, at such a travesty.”
She laughed, charmed by the combination of his wit and his sensual grace. “Perhaps I have been breaking fast with the wrong crowd?”
“Indeed.” Thornton glanced up, meeting her eyes again. “It has not been me.”
“But I have it on good authority that you are an utter bear in the mornings,” she pointed out with a saucy smirk of her own.
He kissed her neck, nipping the tender flesh. “Touché, my love.”
“Let me touch you,” she begged, both aroused and frustrated at not being able to feel his skin beneath her fingertips. He still wore all his clothing, which was dreadfully unfair. She wanted to free his cock from his trousers, suck him deep into her mouth. Just the thought made her sex pulse with anticipated pleasure.
“Not yet.” His mouth met hers for another scorching kiss. “You must want it very badly first.”
“I do.”
“But not enough.” He kissed the corner of her mouth, his lips teasing hers in a gentle, seductive manner that belied the urgency of his words and the haste with which he had divested her of her riding habit. “And I want you naked first.”
His words sent shivers of pleasure skittering over her, warming her blood. “Then finish undressing me,” she ordered, her voice bold. Never in her life had she been so forward and yet nothing had ever felt so right.
“With pleasure,” he growled and in a breath’s span, her drawers too were gone.
She stepped out of them, naked save her stockings and her boots. It was a truly glorious sensation to wear nothing other than cool air and Thornton’s devouring stare. Cleo shivered.
“And are you cold, my dear?” Though he had asked the question as politely as he would have done had they taken a turn about lady Cosgrove’s formal gardens, the wicked slant to his mouth quite spoiled it. His free hand roamed to cup her.
“Yes,” she sighed, tipping her head back against the rough tree trunk.
“But you do not feel particularly chilled to me,” he whispered, gazing intently into her eyes as he worked her nub.
“No. I meant to say no,” she bit out. Pleasure swirled through her, fast and demanding.
“Really? No?” His hand stilled.
He was, possibly, the most sinful man in all of England. Certainly, he was the most sinful man in her acquaintance.
“Do not tease me, Alex,” she returned, knowing her capitulation at using his name would affect him. Dare she hope it may earn her a reward?
Chapter Nine
If Cleo had been hoping for a reward, she certainly hadn’t anticipated it arriving in the form of fat rain droplets splashing onto first her face, then her bared breasts. They began coming faster and harder until both she and Thornton had been abruptly ensnared in a deluge that was no longer of the passionate variety. Indeed, it was most distressing if not highly vexing to be in the midst of lovemaking one breath and clamoring to scramble back into one’s hastily discarded dress the next. This simply wouldn’t do.
“My darling, I fear we are once again to be thwarted.”
“I’ll not have it.” Her breath escaped her. She was attempting to regain her garments, but the sodden fabric was proving rather tricky. Devilish tricky, if she were truthful. She had been so heated mere moments before and now the chill autumn storm lashed at her tender skin.
He kissed her, his hands moving over hers to help her restore her bodice to a hint of its former formidable glory. Thornton even had the gall to laugh. “As you fear, I suspect you’ll not have it at this particular juncture.”
“Dare you laugh?” She stilled, arms trapped inside acres of sodden fabric.
“If I don’t, I shall cry, my darling.” His eyes sparkled with mirth.
It was unfathomable to her how he could possibly find the situation amusing. The rain was cold and miserable, the lovely curtain of ringlets Bridget had carefully crafted felt as if it were hanging down her neck like a rat and her dress was in utter shambles. Not to mention that she would have to return to the household in such desperate straits.
“Is my hair utterly ruined?”
A great clap of thunder sounded.
“Your hair is a moister version of its original styling,” he told her with politic kindness.
She wanted to smack him. Would have done, maybe, had her dress been more accommodating. “Where is my hat?”
He bent low, retrieved it and held it out to her. A large, muddied footprint marred the brim.
“You’ve stepped on it, you oaf.”
“So I have.”
“Well?” Really, the man was infuriating. “Aren’t you going to apologize?”
“Cleo, I just nearly took you against that tree, we’re in the midst of a thunderstorm, we’ve a half hour’s ride back to the house and I don’t find an apology for having trod on your bloody hat—which, to be honest, wasn’t the most fetching piece of millinery I’ve ever seen—necessary at the moment.”
“Are you losing your temper with me? Really, Thornton, that is quite inexcusable. This entire mess is your fault, if you will but think on it. And how dare you ridicule my hat? I frequent only the finest milliner in London, I’ll have you know.”
“The best milliner in London wouldn’t have sold you a hat with a brim the size of Australia. I’m merely surprised you aren’t hiding convicts in it.”
“It’s a Gainsborough hat!”
“My love, it’s an abomination. But your questionable taste in hats aside, I do think it imperative we seek shelter at once. The rain seems to have no appreciation for millinery debates.”
Her teeth began to chatter. “Is it truly a half hour’s ride back to Wilton House? It seemed so much shorter before.”
Another ominous boom of thunder clacked overhead to punctuate the end of her sentence. Thornton grinned down at her, clearly exhilarated by what she could only presume was a combination of their encounter and the storm. He looked reckless, wild and a little da
ngerous. Her stomach tipped like an upended teacup. Right there, in the midst of the lashing rain and their silly argument over hats and his rude mockery of her millinery taste, with her garments soaked and stiff and her hair a bedraggled ruins, her greatest fear came to fruition.
She fell in love with Alexander de Vere, Marquis of Thornton, her sometime almost betrothed and now a man whose heart she could never truly claim as her own. She had no right, no expectations, no hopes. But there it was, simple and true, depressing as the gloomy cast of the afternoon.
“Cleo, are you well?” Thornton dropped her sodden cloak around her shoulders and his grin dissipated as worry furrowed his brow. “You’re pale.”
She drew her cloak around herself as if it were a protective shield. “I am…” Drat. What could she say? She fought for the words and could only finish, “I am getting a bit of a megrim, I think.”
“Let’s get to the horses.” He took her hand in his and began guiding her out of the forest with large, ground-eating strides. “I don’t want you to take ill.”
“What will we tell the others? Surely it will be well noted when we arrive together.”
Thornton gave her cold fingers a reassuring squeeze. “Don’t worry. I’ll think of something to spare you the scandal.”
*
“My horse was spooked by the storm,” Cleo related to her enraptured—and mostly female—audience from the safe haven of a warm and dry drawing room. As it happened, Thornton’s explanation was rather self-serving. And as she delivered it to the eager ladies surrounding her at afternoon tea, she had to admit she was a good deal put out with him for it.
“Poor darling,” Margot Chilton interjected with a false air of concern. She gave her curls a subtle boost with her hand and glanced around the room in search of her quarry. “You must have been terrified until the marquis rescued you. My lord, you are a hero.”
A small round of feminine applause ensued, much to Cleo’s dismay. In their effort to blunt the speculations of the gossipy house guests, they had made Thornton into a Gawain. Several young ladies cast him admiring looks just now, each most likely picturing herself being rescued by the dashing marquis.
Having been distracted from his conversation with Mr. Whitney, the Duke of Clarence and Thornton’s cousin Ford, Thornton had the grace to appear embarrassed. Well he should for reaping the rewards of a false rescue. If the ladies swooning over him knew he’d been ravishing her in the woods, their hearts wouldn’t beat nearly as fast.
“Truly, I cannot claim a hero’s status. I was merely gratified that I could assist the countess in her time of need.”
Cleo choked on her tea. Tia gave her a curious look and offered her a discreet tap to the back. Her time of need indeed. She would murder him in his bed tonight. Better still, if he happened to appear in hers yet again, she’d kick him in his tempting backside.
“My son is too modest,” the dowager broke in with her best vicar projecting in church voice. “I’m sure Miss Cuthbert will be pleased to hear he has become the hero of Lady Cosgrove’s Shakespearean Theater.”
Miss Cuthbert? Cleo’s eyes flew to Thornton, who had an angry gaze only for his mother. Who was this person the dowager spoke of as if she had a claim upon the marquis? An ill sensation skittered through her.
“Indeed,” Tia chimed in, looking in high dudgeon. “I am equally certain that Miss Humpbert shall be pleased, whomever she may be. She is unfamiliar to me, but is nevertheless a lovely example of English womanhood, I’m sure.”
Oh dear. The dowager took on a purple hue and appeared quite apoplectic. Tia could be so very condescending when she chose. It was an admirable, impressive and simultaneously crushing trait. No one could deliver a setdown like Tia. She was good ton and she lived as if all the world should know it or feel the sting of her wrath. One could have easily mistaken her for a younger, much more attractive version of the queen herself.
“The weather is lovely,” Cleo interrupted before a petticoat brawl ensued. Besides, she felt partially responsible for the current contretemps. Who needed to celebrate Shakespeare’s plays when her own life had all the pitfalls and romps of a modern-day comedy turned tragedy? She sighed to herself and sipped her tea.
“The weather is dreadful,” the dowager harrumphed, “unless one enjoys a storm. Since you were so recently trapped in this cruel rain, one would think you less forgiving, Lady Scarbrough.”
Double oh dear. She’d quite forgotten about the rain since she wasn’t seated near the high arched windows on the opposite end of the drawing room. How could she have recalled it in their current indoor hailstorm? And how dare the dowager imply with such an open, casual air that Cleo had gotten trapped in the storm so she could throw herself at Thornton?
“Storms are aesthetically pleasing for those of us with an artistic temperament,” Helen came to her defense. “Although I dare say we prefer not to become drenched by them. Cleo is quite accomplished with charcoal, aren’t you my dear?”
“I would not say so,” she hedged, though it was true she still often relaxed by sketching the world around her. Cleo hardly fancied herself accomplished, even if her sisters and friends professed to cherish the sketches she bestowed upon them. She did not fool herself. They were not likely to tell her she was horrid.
“My sister is too modest,” Helen continued in a tone that, while warm and conversational, disallowed refutation. “The truth is apparent to anyone with a pair of eyes.”
“Quite so,” the dowager agreed with a sour frown. She glanced from her son to Cleo and her lips compressed until they became nigh invisible.
Cleo and Thornton shared an intimate yet troubled glance. It was too quickly severed for propriety’s sake, but even so, they could convey volumes to one another. What are we to do? I will explain.
They were words they had shared before, in different scenarios, in different places and times. But they were words that resonated now. She wanted—nay, she needed—to know who Miss Cuthbert was to him. She yearned for the comfort of Tia and Helen’s counsel.
Being secretive was not in her nature and she longed to confess all to her dear sisters. They were such champions of her. They did not deserve her artifice. And yet, what could she possibly tell them when she didn’t even know what maelstrom had enveloped her? Was she in love? Utterly. Was she frightened? Terribly. Thornton could never be hers, not truly and not as she wanted him to be. The awful reality of it was that he could very well be betrothed to this Miss Cuthbert person and she could not say a word about it. She was helpless to intervene. She had no claim on him save passion. A mad passion, as he had said, for neither one of them had anything of substance to freely give the other.
She drained the dregs of her teacup in lieu of openly weeping. Never in her life had she felt more miserable. Not even holding her head high amidst Scarbrough’s conquests and tawdry scandals compared to being within steps of Thornton after so much had passed between them and yet being unable to touch him. She wondered for a moment’s folly if everyone in the room could see so plainly that she was falling in love with him, that his mother knew it and disapproved severely, that Bella sat at the edge of her Louis Quinze chair as if she expected it may bite her tournure at any moment, that Tia and Helen sought to give their sister strength and support, that Thornton tried to stop himself from looking at her and couldn’t keep from stealing glances. Their lives had intertwined and she had become as disguised as any actress who trod the boards in a role other than her own.
“Lord Thornton,” Margot Chilton interrupted Cleo’s frantic musings then, “you must tell us about your connection to the incomparable Mr. Whitney. However did the two of you meet up in the first place?”
Before Thornton could manage a reply around the bite of cucumber and watercress sandwich he’d just taken, Lady Cosgrove interrupted their gathering. The dear lady rang her husband’s family silver against her teacup with such vigor that the cup broke. White fragments dropped to the carpet like egg shells. Only the handle remaine
d in her grasp.
“Oh bother,” Lady C. mumbled as the company grew silent and watched. An efficient servant sprang forward and began cleaning up the pieces. “That was, while suitably dramatic, entirely unintended.” She cleared her throat and straightened as she realized her guests waited. “My darlings, what better time and place than now and here in the drawing room to amuse ourselves by reciting the scenes assigned to us during the scavenger hunt?”
Cleo wanted to plead a headache and retire from the room. The very last thing she needed was to enhance their scandalous attraction by playing lovers before the entire assemblage. Besides, she recalled only too well the naughty turn their rehearsal had taken. While Thornton gave it highest praise, she had no wish to bare her bosom to the house party at large.
“That was a damn fine teacup, Lady Cosgrove,” grumbled Lord Cosgrove. His bulbous nose was shiny and red even from across the large room. “Does anyone else feel that draft in here? I’m for a draught of whiskey!” He hobbled away from his place at his wife’s side, the notorious souse Lord Chilton following closely, no doubt deliriously happy at the mere mentioning of Lord Cosgrove’s impressive stores.
“In the spirit of today’s dramatic storm and Lord Thornton’s equally dramatic and chivalrous rescuing of our delightful Lady Scarbrough,” their hostess continued, unperturbed by her husband, “I thought the pair may wish to entertain us first. Lord Thornton? Countess? Will the two of you be so gracious?”
Thornton gulped the last of his dreadful sandwich—really, cucumber and watercress was an appalling culinary combination—and nearly choked on it at his hostess’s trilling voice.
Not the benighted scene they were to have memorized. Thornton cursed inwardly. He’d forgotten all about the bloody thing and with good reason. He was too busy being tempted by a beautiful woman to care two pence for committing a scene from…whatever play it had been to memory. He had to confess he’d never been a lover of Old Will’s work. Except for the sonnets, of course, which often gave one a great advantage with the fairer sex.
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