A Seductive Lady For The Scarred Earl (Steamy Regency Romance)

by Olivia Bennet

  He led her out of the unused bedroom and back out into the hallway. His skin prickled at her nearness. When he realized that he could hear the swish of her dress as her legs took each stride beneath, it made his chest feel oddly tight. He could smell her perfume, the light, sweet floral scent that haunted him in the long nights.

  How long has it been since a lady had willingly touched me? How long since I have walked arm in arm with someone?

  He tried to think back. But there was no other moment to remember. He’d never been this close with a woman. As a lad, he had a couple dalliances with young ladies, but dalliance was too strong a word for such childhood attachments. Before the fire, when he’d been young and handsome and full of promise there had been plenty of girls who had looked twice at him.

  But not since then. Not once.

  The weight of Barbara’s hand on his arm felt heavy, and more meaningful than he could care to admit.

  “I can see why you bought the townhouse.” Her voice broke into their gentle silence suddenly as he led her toward the vast, empty ballroom.

  He looked down at her. “Can you?”

  “Yes,” she nodded. “This building is magnificent, of course. You must understand that I mean no offense. But there is no sign of you here. No mark of your personality. The townhouse…at least what little I saw of it, was entirely…You.”

  Jeffrey’s heart warmed.

  “When you came to the townhouse, I was ashamed. I was certain that you found it dreary and grim. Or perhaps you find me dreary and grim? Perhaps that is the personality that so colors my home?”

  “Not at all, Jeffrey,” she said. They were standing before the large double doors that led to the ballroom, and she turned to face him. She made his name sound like a secret between just the two of them. Her face was illuminated by a nearby candelabra, the flames sending flickering shadows across her features as she gazed up at him. Her eyes were, as ever, unflinching in the face of his scars. She seemed to see through his exterior and into his very thoughts. He felt exposed, shivering and vulnerable under the piercing scrutiny of her knowing looks.

  “Your own home looks like the landing of a man whose heart remains at sea,” she continued. “A bit neglected, perhaps, but only the more fascinating for that.”

  “You romanticize me, Barbara,” he said in a low voice. Reaching for the handle of the double doors to the ballroom, he flung them wide.

  A cool rush of air greeted them, and Barbara seemed like she was distracted from her train of thought as she stepped into the ballroom.

  The empty space seemed to hum. The marble floors echoed every step and every sound. A fine film of dust covered what scant furnishings were available, illuminated by the full moon that rose outside the tall windows that lined the room.

  He thought he saw her shiver, and he moved fluidly nearer to her.

  “You must excuse my tendency toward the romantic, Jeffrey. But what can you expect my mind to go to in a place such as this?”

  “Some of my best childhood memories took place in this room,” he said. Even his almost whisper of a voice seemed to rush to fill the waiting emptiness of the ballroom. “My mother’s midnight Christmas parties were a sight to behold. I was young enough that I went to bed with the sun just after dinner and had to be woken up again for the party. It was always so dreamlike…all our mothers and fathers dressed in their finery in the middle of the night. The enormous Christmas tree dominating that end of the room.” He nodded toward the back corner.

  “Oh, you spoiled thing,” she answered in that teasing way that sends his blood rushing. “I was never allowed to attend vigil parties.”

  He laughed. “Don’t worry, I was half asleep through all of them. Those memories could as well be memories of dreams. No matter where I am at Christmas now, though, I always wish I was here. Imagine this room…heavy laden with evergreen boughs and glittering decorations, stuffed to the gills with candles.”

  He watched her eyes as they shimmered in the blue moonlight. He could almost see the gears in her mind working as she furnished the empty room with the garlands of her imagination.

  “Imagine being a child on a night like that. Everything looming so large above your head, scurrying like a mouse between the legs of the fine lords and ladies.”

  She chuckled again. Every time he could bring a giggle to those lips, he felt his chest puff up with pride. Her pleasure felt like as much of an achievement as any of the naval awards he’d received.

  “It’s difficult to imagine you as a child,” she said.

  “Is it?” he asked.

  “I can only call to mind the image of a smaller version of you as you are now, frowning in your officer’s uniform.”

  “You find me too serious?”

  She narrowed her eyes at him.

  “I was not always so,” he said. “I was once young and carefree, too. I’ve danced across this hall with a pretty girl or two in my time, when we were both too young for a dance to mean anything more than a way to pass the time until our parents sent us to bed.”

  She smiled again. “I will say, I was surprised by the lightness of your dancing. I expected something altogether more taciturn.”

  “Were you, indeed? There’s something quite challenging in your tone, Barbara.”

  “Challenging? I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” she said, though the way she pursed her lips to keep from smiling said that she knew perfectly well what he meant.

  Jeffrey chewed his lip nervously, then reached out and took her hand. She seemed to read his movements and offered no resistance as he swung her gently into a soundless dance. The blueness of the moonlight hid any blush that might have painted her cheeks, but her eyes glittered as they whirled around the ballroom.

  Her body was lithe and responsive to his every touch. Even with no music to guide her, she kept in time with him, in perfect sync. He longed to pull her closer, closer than any society-approved dance would allow. And he could swear that she was thinking the same, were he not so well convinced of his own undesirability. She seemed to lean into him, her lips slightly parted.

  Barbara, do you have the slightest idea how inviting you are? With manners like these, it is a wonder that you have not ensnared a man yet.

  He glanced down at her lips and his blood went hot at the thought of embracing her there, in the middle of the empty ballroom. Her warm, soft lips parting beneath his in the midst of the chilled silence.

  Then, she stopped.

  Her eyes were wide, reflecting the lightened windows. In the thrumming silence he could hear her breathing coming in short, staccato gasps. She looked suddenly frightened, and his heart sank.

  “I really ought to be heading home. I’ve just realized how late it’s gotten,” she said.

  “Of course, Barbara. Forgive me if I—”

  “No,” she shook her head. “Do not apologize. It’s my fault.”

  “Fault? What fault--?”

  “Please,” she urged. There was something frantic in her expression.

  Frantic to be away from me before I go too far.

  “Of course. I…I’ll see you to your carriage.”

  * * *

  Barbara could feel her rudeness like a thousand pinpricks to her skin, but she simply had to get away. It was too overpowering. That silent ballroom, the feeling of his hands on her, the way his eyes seemed to drink her in. She had watched as his gaze dropped to her lips. Like a physical sensation, she could sense his thoughts. Never before had she been more aware of a man’s desire for her.

  Immediately, images flashed across her mind’s eye. Her dream. Her nightmare. The man of fire whose touch was like rivulets of molten glass across her skin. The heat of his mouth in the dream when he kissed her. Fear and desire, inextricably linked in her psyche, had overpowered her in that ballroom. She needed to get away.

  Or else what?

  With a shudder she knew that, in her present state, he could have done anything to her, and she would not have resisted
. Like the maiden in a fairy tale she would skip merrily into darkness with the entrancing man who could be her ruination.

  It was unnerving, feeling so powerless and yet so thrilled. He overpowered her in every way and yet she was drawn to him. If she had not insisted upon leaving, she could only imagine what she might have allowed to happen in that shaft of blue moonlight.

  His hand grasped hers as he helped her into the carriage. Her heartbeat was fast and insistent. “Go back, go back, go back,” it implored her.

  “Thank you, again, for the pleasure of your company, Barbara.” He said. And, Christ, how shy he looked. How wounded.

  You should have let him kiss you.

  “The pleasure was mine, entirely, Jeffrey,” she said. “Do give my regards to your mother.”

  “I will.” His voice was cold. How she longed to warm it once more.

  “Will I see you at the orphanage tomorrow?” She asked, though it sounded much more like a plea.

  “Do you wish to?”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  “Barbara…” he leaned forward, his voice pitching to a low whisper, out of earshot of the coachman. “I am utterly at your command.”

  Her heart thudded and a rush of treacherous heat gathered scandalously slow in her stomach. No words came to her, other than: “Goodnight, Jeffrey.”

  “Goodnight, Barbara.”

  Chapter 19

  Jeffrey went immediately to the sitting room where his mother had gone into hiding. He had a hunch, a suspicion that he hoped was baseless, but he had to check it anyway.

  He knocked gently on the door before pushing it open. He glanced around the warm little room, looking for the distraught friend that his mother was meant to be comforting.

  The room was empty, save for his mother who sat placidly in a chair near the fire, her stockinged feet up on a footstool and a hoop of embroidery in her hands.

  “Caught in the act,” he said, stepping into the room and closing the door.

  “Well, I achieved my goal of finding out if Lady Barbara Cluett was suitable. There was nothing else for me to do, and a man can’t be expected to woo a lady with his mother there.”

  “You arranged this with the butler?”

  His mother laughed. “Did you propose?” she asked.

  “Of course not.”

  She put the embroidery down on her knee. “Why ever not?”

  Jeffrey stuttered. Where should he begin? With the fact that they’d only just met? What about the fact that she was too good, too kind, too beautiful, for him? What about the fact that she could never truly love a man as damaged as he? Or perhaps he could begin with the fact that she’d be mad to consent to marry a man who spent most of his life at sea.

  “You mustn’t waste any time, Jeffrey. A lady like that can swear up and down that she remains unmarried by her own volition, but at her age she is certain to accept her next proposal, no matter who it’s from. Be sure that it’s you.”

  He scoffed. “Thank you, Mother, for the compliment.”

  “I’m merely being rational. She’s a perfectly sweet little thing. And she does seem to like you.”

  “I must insist that there is no more of this trickery from you when we are invited to her home for dinner. It’s one thing to have such meddlesome schemes play out in your home, but for others to see your plotting ways would be an embarrassment to me.”

  “Of course, dear.”

  He raised a brow at her, not trusting her for a moment.

  “I’m going home now.” He bowed politely, but rather coldly. “Goodnight, Mother.”

  “Goodnight,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand before returning her attention to the embroidery.

  Once back in the dark familiarity of his townhouse, however, Jeffrey found that he could not settle down to sleep. He kept replaying the scene in the ballroom over and over in his mind.

  She had looked so tantalizing, so ripe for the picking. She had been so pliant under his hands, and her lips had been so welcoming. He’d been moments away from taking his chances and kissing her.

  But something had happened. Something had changed. It was as though she had woken up from a dream only to find that the reality was a nightmare. He’d never seen a woman so desperate to get away.

  She must have known what he was thinking. Something on his face must have given away his intention to kiss her.

  She was a friendly person. Kind. And she did not judge him harshly for his unpleasant looks. But her friendliness only went so far. That was what his mother did not understand. Just because she was not cruel in the face of his many deficits, it certainly did not mean that she longed to be kissed by him. Let alone married to him.

  In his frustration, he went to his writing desk and began to pen a letter. Perhaps he never would woo Barbara. It was enough to have her friendship and her companionship. He would prove that his fondness for her was not contingent on her romantic interest.

  * * *

  That night, Barbara had the dream again. She stood in the decrepit house, the dust of the place clinging to her skin. The man, this time, was taller, and surer of himself. His kiss was insistent, a ravishment that awakened her senses even as she lay asleep in bed.

  When she woke, she gasped, sitting up in bed. Her heart was racing, and she felt out of breath. In the gray, early morning glow, she had the distinct feeling that she was not alone. She laid back against her pillow, turning her face to the side and gently rubbing her cheek against the silk of the pillowcase. Her lips felt raw, they tingled, and she tried to bring herself back to the dream. The dream that both frightened her and made her feel so alive.

  She thought of Jeffrey. If he had kissed her in the ballroom, would his lips feel as hot as the lips of the man in her dream? Would his hands roam over her skin, seeming to follow the whispered dictates of her deepest, secret desires?

  Or would he be clumsy and unsure of himself? Would he fumble? Would he shy away, put off by the unladylike wildness of her desire?

  No. I have felt how he dances. I have seen the heat in his eyes. He would be like the man in my dream.

  She rolled in her blankets, sighing deeply into the stillness of her bedroom. As always, after the dream, she felt fitful and disturbed. It was worse this time, though. Knowing that, if she had not been so proper, if she had not been such a maidenly coward, she might have experienced the kiss of a man by now. She might have been lying in her bed reminiscing over a real event, not the fevered imaginings of her sleeping mind.

  She had been so surprised when he had taken her hand and led her in a dance. Alone together in that capacious room, with nothing but the moonlight and the feeling of his nearness to convince her that it wasn’t a dream.

  There had been something so shy about his expression. But the shyness was overpowered by a determination that she could feel in the way his fingers grasped her waist.

  He had wanted to kiss her. There was no denying it. And she had wanted him to do it. Her entire body and soul had screamed out for it to happen. But the need had been so overpowering, so alarming, that she had grown terrified.

  She tried to go back to sleep. The sun had not even broken above the horizon yet. But as she tossed and turned there, trying to ignore the insistent yearning of her body, she found that she could not shut off her mind. Finally, she had nothing else to do but give up.

  She sat up, swinging her legs over the side of the bed, and padded across the cold floor to the window.

  He will be at the orphanage today. He said he would.

  That isn’t all he said.

  She glanced over her shoulder at the new dress that was draped over the back of her chair and decided she might as well get ready.

  That morning at breakfast, she had to force herself to meet her father’s eye. She had this ridiculous but unshakeable notion that if he looked in her eyes, he would be able to tell the sort of dreams she was having, and how near she had been to ruination the night before.

  “How was dinner? I ass
ume you remembered to extend our invitation?” he asked.

  Barbara nearly choked on her tea, swallowing quickly. “It was lovely, Papa. And yes, of course I remembered. They seemed to agree, and I said that I would send a note with more details.”

  “Wonderful,” he responded, leaning back in the chair and taking a leisurely sip of his tea.

  Barbara was eager to begin her walk that day. She felt sure that the cool air and brisk exercise would cool her fevered head. She needed to clear her mind before she saw him again. She was still wound up so tightly by her dream that the thought of facing him with that energy still upon her could be nothing but a disaster.