She touched her bosom—full and rising with increasing rapidity he couldn’t help but notice—and looked up at him with real fear in her eyes.
“Mr Grayling, we shouldn’t be alone,” she whispered, stepping back and finding a solid tree trunk behind her, regarding him as if he were suddenly the devil incarnate and seeking her first opportunity to flee.
What choice did he have but to arrest her flight with what he was sure would have her in raptures?
Closing the distance before she could say another word, he brought his lips down to hers in a deep and resounding kiss, wrapping her in his arms as he pulled her to him, the hardening of his member almost painful as he anticipated how quickly her shock would turn to ecstasy.
It did not. An unprovoked kick upon the shins as she tore out of his embrace was instead her unexpected reaction, and dumbfounded, he watched as she picked up her skirts and ran towards the clearing as if the hounds of hell were nipping at her heels.
“Miss Thea, stop!” This was unprecedented. No woman had ever run screaming from his arms. He only ever initiated intimacies when he was confident of his reception, and the shy, interested looks this young woman had been sending him had given him every reassurance.
He caught up with her when she was back on the bridle path, hailing the distant figure on horseback as if she were in the most desperate plight.
“Miss Thea, forgive me!”
“You had no right to take such liberties, sir!” She swung round, her face suffused with anger before she presented him once more with her back, stumbling in her haste to reach her approaching cousin.
Mortified, Sylvester was by Miss Brightwell’s side by the time Lady Fenton reined in, her expression a picture of both guilt and confusion.
“Thea, dearest, what’s happened?”
Miss Brightwell shook her head and Sylvester experienced a great wave of embarrassment as she cried, “I can’t tell you here, Cousin Fanny! Please, let us return home immediately.” With a sideways glance at Sylvester, she added, “There’s been a terrible misunderstanding. I’m sorry if I gave you a false impression of the kind of young woman I am, sir. Clearly I am at fault for you to have behaved with such…liberality.”
This was begun in a tone of uncertainty and finished on one of great irony, before she dismissed him roundly with, “And now I must bid you good day.”
Chapter 8
IN a fog of mystification, Fanny rode with Thea back to the estate. Only when Thea was met by Antoinette and Bertram in the drawing room, and they refused to release her until she explained the reason for her disordered spirits, did Fanny get to the bottom of the matter.
“I don’t know what I could have said to have made him behave in such an ungentlemanly manner,” Thea wept as she collapsed onto the chaise longue. Raising her head to untie the ribbons of her bonnet, which she tossed upon the floor, she buried her face in the crook of her elbow. “Oh, the indignity! I thought he was the most charming and gentlemanly of gentlemen but he was nothing but a rogue!”
“Because he tried to kiss you?” Antoinette enquired, looking as mystified as Fanny felt.
“Because he did kiss me!” Thea’s body shook.
“And you didn’t enjoy it?” Antoinette asked.
“That’s beside the point!” Thea responded, jerking her head up angrily. “I told him I had not a penny to my name.”
“Why would you say that?” Bertram’s eyebrows shot up into his hair. “Why would anyone tell anyone else they had not a penny to their name?”
Fanny turned to him. “Men must bluff about such things but for women, it’s a different matter. But Thea, my dear,” she turned back to her cousin, “why do you think he kissed you for any other reason than he thought you most charming? Are you not delighted you’ve gained his interest?”
“He saw me as an easy target. A man with honourable intentions would never behave with such impropriety. I thought he was a gentleman but he merely saw an opportunity to take advantage.”
She began to cry in earnest now. The three siblings shook their heads. Fanny cleared her throat and moved to take a seat beside Thea.
“I’m afraid I’m more deserving of your rage than poor Mr Grayling, who consulted me on how best to go about winning your regard.” She sighed as if for Thea’s benefit when really her irritation was centred on herself. Oh dear, this had not gone to plan. “Thea, Mr Grayling already knew you had nothing, before you told him, for I informed him of the same in the very conversation when I, er…warned him to be mindful of that fact and not proceed if his intentions were…er…not honourable.”
Fanny knew it was wrong to lie outright, but Thea’s precious sensibilities were not going to be satisfied with anything but some serious creativity with regard to the erstwhile object of interest’s motivation in her charms.
Thea slanted a suspicious look up at her. “You did?”
Fanny nodded. “I was quite emphatic that Mr Grayling be under no misapprehension as to how matters stood.”
“And…what did he say?”
“He told me that was immaterial, as he’d been won over by your sweet charm. He said he merely wished to know you better to gain a clearer ideas as to…”
She cleared her throat and proceeded with what she knew to be a very wicked untruth, but goodness, she had only the girl’s best intentions at heart. Thea and Mr Grayling were ideally matched, and if Thea had only a modestly acceptable dowry he’d be proceeding with a marriage offer. All he needed was a little prod to reinforce the fact that the unfortunate lack of dowry meant nothing when compared with her cousin’s abundant charms. Charms he’d never know unless he was persuaded to discover them.
She straightened and launched into her lie without a backward look. “He wanted to know whether you were possessed of passions that were aligned to his.”
“Cousin Fanny!”
“Don’t sound so shocked, cuz, these things are important,” Antoinette chimed in. Fanny was not surprised this would be a point of great interest to her wickedly daring sister. Antoinette had a wondrous love of the opposite sex and a vast desire to help any of her collective sisters who might benefit from a little matchmaking assistance from herself. “Poor Mr Grayling.” Antoinette shook her head sadly. “After his last disastrous foray into love, you can imagine he’d be very careful to ascertain he was courting the right kind of potential wife.”
“What do you mean ‘poor Mr Grayling’? I don’t understand.” Thea looked in perplexity from one cousin to the other.
Fanny had no idea what Antoinette had in mind, but Antoinette could credit fair success, so she let her sister continue. Of course, Antoinette had not Fanny’s keen intellect but she could be creative when it came to matters of the heart. Or anything of a sensual nature. Antoinette didn’t usually let either her heart or her head get in the way when it came to matters of the flesh. Fanny supposed she was simply a woman who took what she wanted without thought for the consequences—so it was a good thing she had an elder sister like Fanny to ensure she got away with what she did.
Though right now, Fanny was quite happy to defer to the younger, who went on, “Some years ago, Mr Grayling married a French woman. A beautiful French woman who showed every sign of loving him deeply but who turned cold the moment his ring was upon her finger.” Antoinette raised her eyes heavenward in a gesture of great sorrow.
“Mr Grayling is a widower?”
Antoinette nodded. “But do not ever speak of his late wife. It was a disastrous marriage, and a secret one, too, for she had no money and he knew his family would cut him off without a penny should they discover what he’d done.”
Fanny watched Thea’s eyes grow large while she herself wondered where this story was going.
“They need not have worried, for there was no unworthy heir resulting from the match.” Antoinette shook her head. “The couple lived in France, where this beautiful but cold French woman, who had no tender feelings for him whatsoever and wanted only his money, refused him her
bed for the entire year they were wed.”
Fanny saw the fiery hue that swept from Thea’s bosom upwards. She put her hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Do you understand what Antoinette is saying, Thea?” she murmured. After all, most young women didn’t have the liberal education in carnal matters mother had ensured they’d had. Fanny and Antoinette had been trained to use their bodies as lures for prospective suitors, to go as far as might entice a marriage offer, but on no circumstances to sully the sanctity of their greatest and perhaps only asset apart from beauty: their virtue. The fact that both girls had taken a great leap of faith and had succeeded in their marital aspiration was a reflection on circumstances and a liberal dose of luck—though cunning on Fanny’s part had been crucial, she reflected, while Antoinette had simply been fortunate.
In this instance, however, Fanny felt it necessary that Thea take that important next step. The girl probably didn’t even know the effects a passionate kiss or a little sensual exploration would have upon her, but the only way to draw Mr Grayling into her orbit was if she loosened up a little.
Thea was avoiding her cousins’ eyes—and little wonder, for Fanny was conscious of the undercurrent of prurient interest overlaid with suppressed amusement that must emanate from them.
Antoinette giggled as she settled herself on the arm of the settee. “What has Aunt Minerva told you to expect when you get married, Thea?”
Thea’s cornflower-blue eyes flickered away before returning to her cousin’s face. “Aunt Minerva told me nothing because she doesn’t ever intend that I shall get married,” she said crisply. “But I always remember Mama telling me before she died that after the marriage, the babies come before one knows it.”
“And why do you suppose the babies come?” Antoinette asked. “Your family kept a cow and some pigs and a couple of horses. Don’t pretend you don’t know, Thea.”
Thea looked away. “If having a baby requires doing what I’ve seen in the farmyard then I think I should prefer to remain unmarried.” Her shoulders shook and she began to cry. “Oh, I can’t believe that I let Mr Grayling think I should entertain feelings for him when I know I could never bring myself to do a thing like…that!”
Her dismay was so genuine that Fanny, who usually was the first to behave with an appropriately cool head, hushed her with a sympathetic hand on the girl’s back. “Well, you do know you cannot have a baby from just a kiss, Thea,” she told her. “And it’s wrong of you to blame yourself, for it was not you who let Mr Grayling kiss you. He was the one who instigated it through his feelings of passion. He told me of his overwhelming feelings for you when he sought permission to…get to know you better.”
“That’s right, because he wanted to ensure you weren’t like the cold, frigid, and loveless piece he married.”
Bertram whistled. “Gad, what a nobleman. To be married a whole year and to let one’s wife dictate whether one can get into her bed, much less into her—”
“Bertram!” Fanny held up a warning hand with a meaningful look at Thea who had raised herself and whose luminous, teary eyes looked as if they might pop out of her head.
“So Mr Grayling’s wife agreed to marry him but wouldn’t let him…?”
She trailed off and Antoinette asked wickedly, “Wouldn’t let him what, Cousin Thea? What do you think he wouldn’t let her do?” She put her arm about her cousin’s shoulders and grew serious. “Oh, we’re shameless and you must think we’re making the most terrible fun of you but we truly do want what’s best for you.”
“Indeed, we do,” Fanny agreed. “But as you’re an innocent, and because we’re shameless, we also feel it’s important to make you more aware of what was explained, or perhaps not explained, to you by your dear Mama and Aunt Minerva.”
“And the farm animals,” Bertram added.
Thea looked more nervous than grateful. “I know it’s necessary to lie in the same bed.” She shivered as if the thought appalled her. “It’s a woman’s duty, I suppose.”
Antoinette giggled. “There’s more to lying in the same bed to get a baby! Oh, do let me tell her, Fanny!”
Fanny glanced at Bertram and then Thea. “You can hardly do so with Bertram in the room.” She indicated the door to her brother with a nod. “Sorry, brother dearest, but there are some things a lady can’t share with a man.”
“Something of an irony, wouldn’t you say, when it’s the very essence of what a man and a woman do together when the moon is high in the sky and a man’s body is on fire.”
“And hopefully a woman’s too, Bertram.” Fanny said, warningly. “I hope you ensure that’s the case every time. Now go! Right, my dear Thea,” Fanny said, once it was just the three of them. “I don’t know if you’ve ever experimented with the way your body feels when it’s touched a certain way…?” She looked enquiringly at her cousin, who simply looked blank.
Antoinette squealed, “Dear Lord, can she really be related to us?”
“Now, now, Antoinette, there was no call for that. It just means that Thea will find herself completely overwhelmed when she allows herself to relax a little more with Mr Grayling, and if he happens to be sufficiently encouraged to be allowed a little licence to be…exploratory.”
Thea bit her lip and closed her eyes. “I couldn’t possibly,” she whispered. “Not if you’re talking about things that only married people can do. And even then a woman has to steel herself to…”
“To what, Cousin Thea?” Antoinette whispered. “Allow him to lie next to her, to feel the line of his muscled thigh as it tapers up to his manly buttocks and, oh, my dear, you really do need to find out what else a well-endowed gentleman has in store for you.”
Fanny took Thea’s hands in hers and began to chafe them as she directed a fond look into her cousin’s eyes. “No need to look so horrified. You don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with. All we’re saying is that Mr Grayling is actively seeking a wife who will love him with a little passion. Try not to be too buttoned-up, is really what I mean. Sink into his embrace and let his hands stroke you into wondrous pleasure. That’s my main advice to you.”
“Stroke me?” Thea shook her head as she experimentally held out her arms and began to stroke one with the other. “It is a very pleasant sensation,” she said dubiously.
“Not there!”
Fanny stifled her amusement at the shock on Thea’s face when Antoinette twisted round and clapped her hand to her cousin’s breast.
“There!”
“Surely not!”
Thea jerked away and Antoinette dropped her hand, giving her a quick embrace. “I can assure you, it doesn’t feel the same way when the hand belongs to a very handsome, desirable gentleman.”
Thea dropped her eyes to her hands, now clasped demurely in her lap, and mumbled, “Aunt Minerva will make absolutely certain I’m never placed in such a situation.”
Antoinette sighed. “Then we shall just have to ensure that you are, Cousin Thea, if you are to have any pleasure in this world.”
Thea’s head snapped up. “I’m sorry to be a disappointment, but I’m not pleasure-seeking at the cost of long-term future happiness, Cousin Antoinette.” She sighed and her shoulders slumped, though she managed a wavering smile. “Please don’t be cross or frustrated with me. We’re very different. I just couldn’t bear to tarnish my dear mama and papa’s memories with behaviour they’d consider lax or improper.”
Fanny tried to think of a suitable response. Thea’s intractability could be more of a problem than she’d thought. “An honourable marriage—and a happy one—should be a young woman’s greatest pursuit, for it is through her ability to control her husband that she gains power.”
Thea blinked as if this was a surprise, and Fanny let out her breath in a heartfelt sigh. “The world is vastly unfair to women. We are completely beholden to our closest male relative or anyone else who can provide a meagre living and who manipulates the purse strings so that we perform just as they would wish.” She brushed Thea’s c
heek with the back of her hand and felt a genuine rush of tenderness for the girl whose innocence and determination to do what was right was so different from Fanny’s.
“I don’t want to lead you astray, Cousin Thea, or to contradict any of the good advice you’ve been given by your worthy late parents, but just think on this: What do you think would most please them if they could look down upon you from the heavens above? To see you ten years from now—perhaps even twenty or thirty if Aunt Minerva lives to a great age—pandering to her every whim, rubbing her swollen limbs, bearing the lash of her tongue? For that will be your lot if you don’t have the courage to take a stand for your own happiness.”
Thea looked close to tears. “But I can’t compromise myself in my pursuit of happiness.”
“You can at least be clever about it,” Antoinette all but snapped. Clearly she was not as sympathetic and understanding of her cousin’s conflicts as Fanny was. “What Fanny’s saying is that if you don’t let Mr Grayling kiss and fondle you at least a little bit so he can reassure himself that you’re not going to lead him into such unhappiness as his awful late French wife, you’ll be looking after Aunt Minerva for the rest of your life.” She sniffed. “And under such circumstances, I’d wager she’d outlive you, too!” she added with venom.
Thea covered her eyes and let out a whimper while Fanny put her arms around her. “There, there, no need to cry about it. Who knows what the future will bring? All we’re saying is that it might be a good idea—if the opportunity presented itself—to be a little more relaxed and to take perhaps just a little risk in order to reassure Mr Grayling that you do in fact like him. I doubt Miss Huntingdon would have slapped his face if she’d been in your situation.”
“She wouldn’t?” Thea’s mouth dropped open, then she said as if in explanation, “But she comes with a dowry and not a hint of scandal has ever attached to her name.”
Fanny frowned. “Are you suggesting you’re behaving with even more circumspection than you otherwise might because you’ve heard that Antoinette and I were somewhat daring in our pursuit of happiness?” She couldn’t help bristling. “Have we somehow tainted you with our liberality?”
Rogue's Kiss (Scandalous Miss Brightwell Book 2) Page 8
