‘The dances?’ There it was; the hint of concern in her voice that let Richard know her coolness was an act. She remembered, just as vividly as he, their last encounter.
She had a feather tucked neatly into her hair. Barely visible, black and white… a magpie feather.
How did she know? How had she managed it? Richard briefly closed his eyes; it was years ago, and he was a child again. The bent old woman was selling heather at the door again, the one with eyes like berries; the one who had placed a magpie feather in his young hand and said, you will fly on water with one of these… and find happiness with two.
But she hadn’t given him two.
Enough polite conversation. Four phrases were more than enough. Richard stepped closer, murmuring low enough for the hum of the ballroom to conceal his words.
‘No. There were no dances.’ He followed the long white line of Henrietta’s neck with his eyes, wishing he could kiss it in full view of everyone. ‘Do you really think I could have attended a single dance, remembering our last encounter?’
He heard Henrietta’s breath catch in her throat. Leaning closer still, hovering on the edge of scandalous proximity, Richard continued.
‘I have barely looked at a woman for over six months. I have tried, and failed, because the only woman worth looking at has been here in Longwater. Sitting here, waiting for me… and I do hope she remembers our bargain.’
‘And what bargain would that be, my lord?’ Henrietta’s whisper was a delicious, deliberate provocation.
‘A night of pleasure, tied at the wrists. The night you denied me.’ Richard’s hands itched with the urge to pull her closer. ‘A night I choose.’
Henrietta’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly. Richard felt a flush of victory; for all her bluster, her cool self-command, this was no game to her. If he waited just a little longer, allowing the silence to grow, she would submit to him…
‘I see.’
Richard blinked. Was that really her reply? He looked at Henrietta with furrowed brow—and had to restrain a look of pure surprise as she turned away.
She had damn near cut him directly. It was a miracle that no-one around them had noticed. Richard held up a hand, wondering what on earth he could say to make her stay, before her perfume washed over him like a wave.
For a moment he stood transfixed; lost in a scent that hadn’t been a part of his life for decades. When he came to, Henrietta was walking away.
No. Richard frowned. She wouldn’t be getting away that easily.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this; not at all. Or rather, it was—goodness, it was progressing even more smoothly than expected—but it was so different, utterly different, from how Henrietta had imagined it.
She hadn’t actually given much thought to how she would feel when confronted with Lord Westlake. Her focus had been on his feelings, his sentiments, and how they could be manipulated with blue silk and magpie feathers—her own desires, such as they were, had been neatly folded away in a drawer with her folio of wanted books. But now, in the flickering candlelight of the ballroom, all drawers and boxes and hidden chests were slowly sliding open… and Henrietta, so sure-footed in her scholarly pursuits, were suddenly lost at sea.
Was it normal to feel a pull, a tug as strong as a tide, when looking at the man across a crowded room? She had felt it the last time she saw Lord Westlake, but the circumstances had been different; he had been tied beneath her, filling the air with profane thoughts. Now that he stalked through the corridors of Longwater, unfettered and trailing an air of disrepute, Henrietta was surprised to feel even more susceptible than usual to his coarse, dark attractiveness.
She couldn’t take her eyes off him. It was embarrassing. And although she had managed to say the things she had wanted to say, with the carefree air she had wished to transmit, Henrietta had the distinct sense of being lucky to escape with her dignity intact. With every glance, every word, every smile, the urge to sink to her knees and beg for Lord Westlake’s attentions became oppressively prominent.
Acutely aware of her own weakness, she had removed herself from temptation. But as Henrietta heard footsteps in the nearby corridor, she wondered if she was acting on an instinct far removed from scholarly rationality.
The door swung open. Lord Westlake, neglecting to bow, strode into the room with the potent, predatory force of an unleashed bear.
‘Tell me how you managed it. The scent.’ There was an anger to his voice; a frustration that thrilled through Henrietta’s core, making sparks fly. ‘The blue could be luck. So could the damned feather. But unless you’re a witch—something I do not discount—I don’t know how on earth you’ve managed to perfume yourself with the scent of my aunt’s cottage in Blackmeade. That’s a trick that would have had you tied to a stake, not so long ago.’
It had worked. Henrietta struggled not to show her glee at the victory; keeping her composure was paramount, even when far from prying eyes. She curtseyed with exceptional formality, meeting his ferocious stare with a cool gravity that certainly wasn’t genuine.
‘It was a process of elimination.’ She had to sound detached; how difficult it was as he stood before her, giving off a masculine energy so intense that it practically shattered the library windows. ‘If a man expresses a liking for night-scented flowers, which flowers will they be? Most well-loved scents are childhood ones—a young Richard Westlake spent his boyhood summers in Blackmeade, a market town famous for its flowers.’ She slowly reached her hand upward, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear; Richard’s eyes followed her fingers. ‘The flowers for which it is particularly famous are a dark-petalled lupin, which smells a little of pepper, and a very sweet-smelling rose named Madame Blanchard… both flowers which, by happy chance, are grown at Longwater.’ She shrugged. ‘Thanks to a perfumer in Bath, preparing a distillation was rather simple.’
Richard’s eyes narrowed. He started forward; Henrietta tried not to flinch as he stopped, recovering himself, before moving towards her. His face was full of something she couldn’t categorise; it wasn’t rage, or confusion, although it was close to both… the only thing that Henrietta knew for certain was that she felt it too, the nameless sentiment, rising in her soul like a storm.
She moved backwards, pressing herself against the richly-patterned library wallpaper. Richard came closer; politely close, then impolitely close, then inappropriately close, his strong arms inches from Henrietta’s head as he rested them against the wall.
She was trapped, as surely as if he had tied her. Henrietta breathed in the dark, warm scent of him, trying her best not to sigh as she took in the tall, rough-hewn magnificence of the man.
‘You tie a tiger, trap a tiger, tease a tiger… and then you bait him.’ His voice in her ear was a low, silken murmur; Henrietta felt a ripple through every one of her extremities. ‘It’s as if you have no idea of the danger you are in.’
‘Danger? My goodness.’ Henrietta attempted to laugh, even if the sound became more of a sigh as it left her lips. ‘From a man I managed to bind in less than a minute? What possible danger could await—’
She stopped, her mouth open in a silent, shocked gasp, as Richard’s lips met her neck. His mouth rested there, his breath hot against her skin; her skin that had become a sudden blaze of fire, every nerve in her body tingling from where he touched her.
How could she be so rooted to the spot, so helpless, all because of a kiss so light it was practically the ghost of a kiss? She quivered as his lips moved higher; a kiss became kisses, a long, slow line of kisses along her neck, over her jawline, up to the exquisitely sensitive corner of her mouth… and there he rested, never quite kissing her lips, as Henrietta trembled with want.
‘The danger, Miss Hereford lies in compromise. More specifically, me compromising you here and now, in your family’s house, up against the wall of this room. Or on the desk—or both.’ Richard let his lips rest against the corner of her mouth again; Henrietta couldn’t restrain a small, high whimper. �
�On our first meeting, I allowed convention to constrain me. I was a guest, and did not wish to put my hosts in difficulty.’ His mouth moved her ear, his voice a whisper. ‘Now, I have no such qualms.’
‘I see no danger in this plan, apart from the threat of discovery.’
‘And the threat of marriage?’ Henrietta could hear the smile in Richard’s voice. ‘That’s a fate I wouldn’t subject any woman to. Especially with me as the groom.’
‘How fortunate.’ Henrietta turned her head, forcing Richard to look her in the eye. The power of his stare was newly shocking; how had she ever thought this man would be easy to tease? ‘I never intend to be subject to such a fate. Marriage will never be something I willingly choose—compromised, or not. Ruined, or not.’
For a moment, Richard was still. He looked at her, his eyes full of a strange, intoxicating mixture of shock and calculation.
Henrietta began to feel uneasy. ‘I… I suppose it is a horrid thing to hear a woman say. But to me… well, it is freedom as opposed to bondage.’
‘Nothing you say is horrid. In fact, everything you say is quite damnably lovely.’ Richard slowly moved one hand to Henrietta’s face; Henrietta shivered, her lips parting, as his palm cupped her cheek. ‘And as for bondage… I seem to recall promising to pay you back in kind, the next time we met. To bind those pretty wrists.’
Henrietta swallowed. ‘I cannot recall.’
With a sound that was something between a growl and a sigh, Richard’s lips moved back to her neck. Henrietta’s knees buckled; she had never felt so weak, so divinely liquid from head to toe… and then his mouth was on hers, finally, and every previous feeling was washed away in the flood.
Were kisses meant to give one wings? She was flying, she was sure of it; weightless in a tide of pleasure, a thrill that sang through every one of her bones. She sank into his arms with a soft, yielding sigh of pure indulgence; the sensation was one of luxury, splendour, her core full of sparks that had only just been kindled into life. He seemed to know just what to do to make those sparks rise higher; his tongue lightly brushed against hers, teasing and soothing and exciting all at the same time, as his hands moved to her waist. Henrietta felt his fingers burning against her flesh, her gown suddenly far too restrictive as his mouth gave her all kinds of new, splendid hungers.
‘Mmm.’ She whimpered through the kiss, ashamed of her inability to conceal how good it felt. Richard’s answering sigh took away a little of that shame; he was as taken by the moment as she was, his thumbs stroking over the silk of her bodice with rapt attention as he pressed his body tightly against hers.
With a swift show of strength that left Henrietta dizzy, he lifted her clean off her feet. She was weightless, floating, the brute strength in Richard’s forearms the only thing keeping her from collapsing into a puddle of pure feeling. Richard’s thigh moved underneath her, insistent; Henrietta whimpered again as he lifted her higher, her legs spreading to accommodate the pressure of his thigh.
The most intimate part of her now rested against him. Henrietta shivered at the scandal of it; her skirts enveloped them both, as if they were caught in a blue ocean. Richard tensed his thigh; Henrietta trembled, her mouth hot and pleading against his, wondering why the smallest movement the man made had her thirsting for things she couldn’t name…
A whispered, laughing voice sounded in the corridor; a woman, speaking to someone. Henrietta’s eyes widened, before Richard’s mouth moved back to her neck and made her throw caution to the wind. Yes, someone might see them, but the pleasure was worth the risk…
Another swiftly-moving pair of feet ran past the corridor, perilously close to the door. Henrietta couldn’t help tensing; with one chance of discovery she could be courageous, but not with many.
With a quiet, but evidently deeply-felt expletive, Richard gently set her feet back down on the floor. As Henrietta stood, one hand still pressed against the wall, he walked over to the door—turning to look back at her with ferocious, blazing eyes.
‘This, Miss Hereford, is not over.’
There were a thousand clever things that Henrietta could say to that. What a pity, then, that she could think of precisely none of them. Neither was silence an option; how could anyone keep quiet when facing a man of such evident command…
‘You are right.’ She whispered the words, filling the room with them. ‘It is not.’
For a moment, she was sure he would come back. Stride back across the room and take her in his arms again; kiss her again, give her deep, searching, shivering kisses that made every part of her quiver and crumble and burn… but then more feet sounded in the corridor, more laughing voices, and the spell was broken. Only the deeper enchantment remained, singing in the air between them as loudly as a choir.
Richard nodded, once. Then, without looking back, he left the room.
‘Oh, Lord.’ Henrietta barely realised she had murmured the words to herself; why, it was almost a prayer. An appeal to someone, anyone, who would help her understand what had just occurred. She leant against the bookshelf, one hand on her neck, still quivering where he had kissed her.
‘Oh, Lord.’ She whispered it. ‘This… oh, Lord.’
The corridor back to the ballroom seemed infinitely long, and full of people designed to be as atrocious as possible. Richard barged impatiently through all of them, wishing uniquely horrible fates on those who looked as if they had strayed too close to the library. Only with a glass of champagne, snatched from a tray and drank with a clenched fist, brought his mind and body to a state approaching respectability.
He would have had her. Thoroughly. And now, thanks to these… people… his moment had been postponed. His moment to explore the fierce, world-shaking shock he felt whenever he grew close to her.
She had felt it too; he was sure of it. He had seen it in her eyes; that profound moment of attraction, of connection, that meant he had hooked her as surely as she had hooked him. Now came the part of the dance that Richard had always enjoyed; anticipating a woman’s next steps… but what on earth would Henrietta do?
Come to him? Lord, he hoped so. That, however, would be wishful thinking; Henrietta Hereford, for all her cool self-possession, was not a practiced seducer. There had been a delicious, ardent clumsiness to the way she had kissed him… no, she was not experienced at all. Richard, who normally preferred his women to have developed a pleasurable repertoire, was surprised at how arousing this was.
So what would Henrietta do, now that the scales were a little more balanced in both of their favours? Would she stay here in Longwater, attempting to fill her days in much the same way as he himself had on-board ship?
No. She would go somewhere; not flee, but travel. Increase the distance between them, and thus his longing for her. Then, she would return at the height of her powers.
Richard smiled as he walked back into the sparkling, music-filled ballroom. If that was to be Henrietta’s plan—and it would be, he could practically see it in his head—then it was nothing more than his duty to ruin it. Wherever she ran to, however far away she decided to place herself… well, he would simply have to be there.
There was always the possibility of choosing an incorrect location—but he had time to waste, and an obsession that by now was even more singular and deeply-rooted than before. Even if it took a hundred days, in a thousand dull English villages, Richard was sure of eventually meeting Henrietta Hereford on unfamiliar ground.
The cheerful gaze of Lydia Balfour caught his eye; she was delightedly laughing at something her husband, Andrew Balfour, had said. Richard’s furrowed brow briefly softened; he knew he was constitutionally unfit for marriage, as was Henrietta, but marriage sometimes looked rather pleasant on other people. Lydia and Andrew were perfect for one another; Andrew’s quiet fussiness needed tempering, just as Lydia’s exuberant, talkative nature occasionally needed… well, quietening.
Talkative. Lydia was talkative. She was exceptionally talkative when it came to her sisters… why, she would no
doubt adore to discuss all the places that her sister Henrietta adored, or found restful…
Richard’s lip curled into a smile that was positively feral. He would have his night of pleasure with Henrietta Hereford. Not now, but soon.
The night of the ball had been… revealing. Shocking, if Henrietta was honest with herself. Thinking of what had happened, and what hadn’t happened, and what she had very much wanted to happen… well, it had taken up the entirety of the following week.
She had kept rigorously to her daily studies, of course. Affairs of the heart, or of the body, were no excuse to neglect one’s mind. Henrietta felt fairly smug about her studiousness for at least four days of the seven, before she realised that she had spent a total of six hours attentively reading the same nine pages of a pathetically simple book.
Drastic measures were evidently needed. Henrietta, idly doodling a pencil scribble onto a scrap of paper as she sat dreamily at her desk, made a stark mental list of possibilities.
Perhaps she could wear black, and mope in one of the unused attics? No. Unproductive.
There had to be an unexplored area of knowledge in the Longwater library that required a little study. No. You have looked before.
Maybe… maybe she could pore over the scandal sheets, or read the latest shipping news, or find another, similarly cunning way of informing herself of the movements of one very singular, seafaring baron…
… Oh, Lord.
She found herself sighing at breakfast on the seventh day. Such a loss of control could only be attributed to the company; only Anne, Lydia and Agnes were at the breakfast table, sleepily talking to one another as they buttered and bit into toast. The Longwater menfolk were engaged in various pieces of business; Henry Colborne at his desk, Andrew Balfour at his easel—and Susan Colborne, every inch the proud eccentric, was no doubt beginning her usual morning walk through the Longwater gardens.
So Henrietta sighed. Sighed, and immediately found herself beset by sisterhood.
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