Someone Wanton His Way Comes

by Caldwell, Christi

  Clayton froze.

  Or perhaps that was her?

  Mayhap it was the both of them?

  Everything again was unclear.

  A vague, powerful energy sizzled to life, sprung from her boldness and fed life by her wantonness.

  “You had a strand loose,” she finished lamely, jerking her arm down and swiftly tucking both limbs behind her back, lest she once more do something born of folly.

  In the end, she was saved from embarrassment by the shout of her maid.

  She and Clayton looked off to the rise where Marin stood, waving her arms frantically. “They’re gooooone. The little ones have gone.”

  “Oh, bloody hell,” she whispered as reality came crashing through that momentary madness. Gathering her skirts once more, Sylvia charged on.

  “I’ll look this way, my lady!” Marin shouted, pointing beyond her shoulder.

  Panic threatening to swarm her, Sylvia raced off in the opposite direction.

  Catching up to her, Clayton took her lightly by the arm and halted her flight.

  She looked questioningly back and opened her mouth to speak, but just as his sister had done a short while ago, he touched a fingertip to his lips. “When she has the upper hand, she always laughs,” he said from the corner of his mouth. “It gives her away every time.”

  As if on cue, from somewhere near came the paired giggling of two children even now delighting in the havoc they wrought upon the grown-ups attending them.

  Together Sylvia and Clayton set off racing through the copse of narrow birch trees, onward to the laughter that grew in frequency and sound. He sprinted through the brush, and she trailed along at a slightly slower pace, panting hard as she ran after him.

  She came crashing through the brush and found them at the lip of the shore with only water and a small gathering of pelicans floating upon the serene lake. Vallen and Eris had been effectively trapped.

  Dropping her hands to her knees, Sylvia fought to get her breathing under control. All the while, she gave her son the look she’d inherited from her own mother. His lower lip quivering, Vallen dropped his tear-filled eyes to the ground.

  Clayton folded his arms at his chest, and the little girl, Eris, studied the tips of her boots.

  Sylvia frowned. “I am very disap—”

  Jumping with his front foot forward in a fencing position, Clayton held one arm before him, and the other stretched toward the two children. “Caught!” he exclaimed, waggling a makeshift sword at that pair and startling Sylvia into complete silence.

  Vallen and Eris immediately dissolved into laughter.

  Clayton joined the pair of children and, falling to his haunches, said something that only caused a redoubling of their mirth.

  And Sylvia stood there . . . wholly unfamiliar with all of this. Any of this.

  Her family had always been a loving one, her siblings endlessly loyal. And yet, they’d not ever been so free with mirth. They’d been strictly instructed by the sternest governesses—and for Henry, tutors. Everything about how they’d conducted themselves had come down to being proper and following the rules laid forth by the ton. There’d certainly not been games and teasing the likes of which Clayton engaged his young sister with.

  It was foreign, knowing that a gentleman could be this way, and that he could be this way with two small children.

  From over the tops of their heads, he caught Sylvia’s gaze and winked.

  That little flutter of his lashes as devastating as that earlier glimmer in his eyes.

  Smile. A breezy one. That is what is expected of you, here . . .

  She needn’t have worried, however, at feigning breeziness, as his attention was already back on Vallen and Eris.

  “Can we play still, Clayton?” Eris pleaded, gripping the lapels of his cloak. “It is only fitting since I defeated you that I should claim a prize.” The girl scowled up at her brother. “I’ll be ever so upset if you say no.”

  Clayton jumped to his feet and sketched a low, gallant bow. “Far be it from me to be the brother responsible for your upset.” The pair had started to race past him when Clayton spoke, staying them in their tracks. “Alas, I fear the decision as to whether you two scamps are free to continue playing after the tomfoolery you’ve been up to is not mine to make.” Clayton gestured to Sylvia.

  Both children looked hopefully at Sylvia.

  Ambling over, Vallen yanked hard at her skirts. “Please, Mama. Pleeeease?”

  Being free of Clayton—and his family—was the wisest, safest, and necessary course. And yet . . . the excuses she’d intended to make died upon the hopeful, eager glimmer in Vallen’s eyes. Vallen, who had never had other children to play with. Who’d never had and never would know the affections of a father. And not even fear of herself around Clayton, the Viscount St. John, was powerful enough to be the one responsible for Vallen’s dashed hope. “Oh, off with you now, but you are to stay with Marin.” She called that last part more loudly after the two children, who’d already set off running toward the maid still calling for them in the distance.

  Until Sylvia and Clayton were left . . . alone.

  Another faint breeze sent the tree limbs gliding back and forth, their leaves swaying like an emerald canopy that let the occasional slash of sunlight through.

  The earlier levity was gone with the children who’d left, so all that remained was a palpable tension that now sprang up between them.

  Clayton returned his hat to his head. “I take it we’ve arrived at a truce from our last meeting?”

  And it was the perfect thing for him to say, the ultimate reminder of the reason she’d been so put out with him that day . . . which was vastly safer than everything she’d witnessed from him and experienced with him. Only . . . he’d allowed his sisters to remain as members. “I . . . suppose a truce is called for,” she said grudgingly, “given that you’ve acknowledged you were wrong about the Mismatch Society.”

  His high brow puckered. “I didn’t admit I was wrong.”

  Sylvia narrowed her eyes. “What did you say?”

  Chapter 9

  What did you say? she’d asked him.

  Apparently the wrong thing.

  Again.

  Nor were those verbal missteps an awkwardness he reserved for this woman. It had once been quite the opposite, in fact. He’d had a rather easy time speaking to her.

  Alas, he’d returned to his same fumbling-about-for-the-correct-words state.

  When he didn’t immediately speak, her lashes came sweeping down in a dire warning.

  “I . . .” To give his hands a task, he doffed his hat and knocked it against his leg, as he was wont to do.

  “Yes,” she pressed in a husky, smoky voice he’d no place noticing was husky or smoky. “You were saying?”

  It would go better for him if he let Sylvia to her incorrectly drawn opinion, one where he’d come to see the error of his ways and she was left triumphant in their disagreement.

  A lifetime living amongst a houseful of women of all ages had given him sense enough to know the never-failing way out of what promised to be a contentious matter.

  And yet, his mind had gone to all mush where she was concerned.

  “All men of the peerage require heirs.”

  That dangerous spark flashed bright in her eyes. “Annnd?”

  There was a warning there. A grave, big, flashing warning that urged retreat.

  He tried again. “And it’s . . . certainly unfortunate for both men and women.”

  She stalked over, leaving a foot of distance between them so she could better hold his gaze. “Do you truly believe that requirement the same for men and women?”

  “Well, in a way it is.”

  Once again, by the flash in her eyes, it was the wrong answer.

  He edged away from her. “I’m not saying that it is fair. I am not saying that it is a system without flaws and that it shouldn’t be changed. But rather that it is a necessity for both. There cannot be a legitimate
issue without a legally recognized union. It is simply the way. It is what ensures property lines maintained and inheritances retained. As such, men and women both stand to benefit from the security provided by marriage.”

  She was motionless, and then a little bark of laughter burst from her. “You speak like one who’d committed to memory your every tutor’s lesson on viscountly responsibilities.”

  That’s because I have . . .

  She cupped a hand. “What was that? I cannot make out what you are saying.”

  “I was simply remarking that it sounds like words uttered by my tutors because they were words uttered by them.”

  Her eyes lit, and then she dissolved into a bout of laughter. “Of course it is.”

  And her laughter transformed her from magnificent into otherworldly. It was a joyous expression, contagious, and he found himself laughing with her.

  Sylvia abruptly stopped, and with it cut a knife right through that shared merriment.

  “Security for whom, exactly, Lord St. John?” she shot back, all earlier levity gone. Sylvia didn’t allow him a word in. “Men get their heirs, and women receive what, exactly? A broken heart. A life of tedium and solitude while their husbands go off and enjoy their freedom?”

  His gut clenched into a thousand painful, twisted knots. She spoke of herself. She spoke from experience of the marriage she’d had with the man she’d loved and trusted. And he hated himself just then. Not for the first time. He hated himself for having been the one who’d introduced the pair.

  “Hmm?” she pressed, sweeping back over so quickly her skirts whirled and slapped at the tan fabric of his trousers.

  This new, mature Sylvia was also . . . a good deal more confrontational than he’d ever known her.

  When Clayton again spoke, he did so in a way meant to calm and placate. “The truth of the matter is, the way of the world isn’t fair. Not for men, and certainly not women. The requirement expected of both is that in order to ensure security and prosperity, one must marry. Do I think that is fair? No. Is that the way it is? Yes.”

  “You’ll marry, then, all to do your duty by the line.”

  Bitterness iced the lady’s question.

  Once more, was it a product of her union with Norfolk?

  “Will I protect my sisters by sacrificing myself in marriage?” He took a step toward her. “Yes. Yes, I will, because they need their futures secure, and I need to know that if”—when—“something happens to me, they will not fall at the mercies of a relative. And perhaps you’ll judge me for that, but they come first, and I will happily make that sacrifice for them.”

  They stood there, chests heaving, volatile emotion thrumming in the very air they breathed.

  And all at once, he became aware of other details: their nearness. Just how very close they stood to one another.

  His throat worked . . . painfully, the reflexive motion of swallowing suddenly a struggle.

  He lowered his head . . . and she raised hers, and almost as one, their mouths were on one another’s.

  Passion blazed to life in all its reckless, delicious glory.

  He passed his mouth over hers again and again until a little moan escaped her, and he swept inside a cavern so moist and hot it threatened to consume.

  Sylvia kissed him back. She dueled with him, tasting him. Possessing him as he possessed her. Setting him afire until his length throbbed, an acute sensation that brought pain and pleasure together in an unlikely harmony.

  And it was the first time in his life that he’d ever known a passion so powerful as to cloud reason.

  A desire that crushed good judgment.

  A hungering that erased thoughts about what was proper and what he should or should not do.

  Because making love to Sylvia’s mouth certainly fell into the very firm category of forbidden.

  He nipped at her, tasting and teasing her lush lower lip, and she bit him back with a feisty aggressiveness that nearly drove him to the brink of madness. They dueled with their mouths, each fierce joining of their lips, each glide of their tongue against the other’s a battle for mastery and control in a skirmish he’d be content to see without a winner so that it could go on forever.

  Clayton filled his hands with her ample hips, sinking into that flesh as he reversed their positions so she was anchored against the trunk of the birch tree.

  Sylvia panted, her body sagging and her legs slipping apart, and he slid a knee between them to steady her. To keep her aloft.

  Except . . . she only sank lower onto his thigh. She rubbed herself against him in frantic, jerky little movements.

  Clayton groaned, sweeping his tongue against hers, lashing at that delicate flesh, and she returned every stroke. Tangling her fingers in the front of his cloak, she dragged him closer, all the while pressing herself against him.

  And it was bliss the like of which he’d never known, and he fell, sinking deeper into the web of desire that had been spun over logic and reason and—

  Wait, no. Clayton really was falling.

  He wrenched his mouth away, but it was too late.

  He tumbled back into the water, inadvertently taking Sylvia with him. They landed with a damning splash that sent the pelicans into noisy flight. The water closed over Clayton, flooding his nostrils, burning.

  Gasping, he shoved himself up on his elbows and gave his head a hard shake, dispelling the water from his eyes.

  Sylvia’s hair was a tangle of wet curls plastered to her cheeks, several strands crisscrossing her face, forming a curtain across her eyes.

  Bracing his weight with his left shoulder, he reached up and brushed those locks back, clearing the tangle so she might better see.

  “It . . . seems we’re developing something of a habit of this,” he murmured.

  The lady blinked several times, slowly, and then her eyes went wide.

  With an impressive curse, she pressed her palms against Clayton’s chest, levering herself upright . . . and consequently dunking him under the water once more. The moment he emerged from the freezing depths of the Serpentine, he wiped the water from his eyes once more and found her.

  She’d gotten herself onto the shore, and was frantically wringing the hem of her skirts out.

  He winced, not having the heart to tell her that her efforts were in vain. Her cloak and dress were plastered to her frame . . . a voluptuous figure that not even moments ago he’d had against him, and his hands on, and—

  Sylvia glanced his way. “You are still in the water,” she whispered furiously. “Why are you still in the water?”

  Because apparently logic ceased to exist in her presence. He managed to bring his lips up in a half-hearted smile. “I was rather thinking it was a good time for a swim and all.”

  She paused midwring and looked at him like he were half-sprung.

  “Not a time for jest?”

  “Noooooo,” she said, her voice creeping up several octaves. “Certainly not the time.”

  Yes, he could rather see that.

  Muttering to herself, Sylvia set to work once more in her futile attempts at wringing the remnants of the Serpentine from her garments.

  Clayton got himself to his feet and trudged to the shore. Sitting down on a patch of grass, he proceeded to wrest free his boots. He’d managed to get the left one off when he felt eyes on him. He glanced over.

  “What are you doing now?” she whispered, her voice pained.

  “My boots are wet, and I am attempting to dry them, just as you are attempting with your skirts,” he said, laying out that matter-of-fact breakdown.

  “You aren’t supposed to be undressing. You are supposed to be doing the opposite, Clayton.”

  “But my—”

  “Mama!”

  “Oh, bloody hell,” she whispered.

  The two laughing children crashed through the brush, and both staggered to a stop.

  Eris and Vallen stared, goggle-eyed . . . with the seemingly impossible now proven true: Eris could be brought to si
lence. And shock had made her do it.

  That silence proved short-lived. Planting her hands on her hips, she alternated a fiery glare between Clayton and Sylvia. “This is unforgivable. You should be ’shamed of yourselves.”

  “Ashamed,” he and Sylvia automatically corrected.

  “I expect you are,” his military general of a sister said. Eris’s expression darkened further with her displeasure. “Swimming without us?” she shouted, scaring the remaining pelicans into flight. “What manner of brother or mother are you?”

  He stilled. Oh, hell. No . . . “Eris!” But it was too late.

  The little girl had already taken Vallen by the hand and tugged her partner in crime along, out, and into the water. The duo giggled and squealed as they went swashing about.

  Sylvia slapped her palms over her face.

  “Eris!” he called.

  To no avail. The girl had long been a fish—part mermaid, their eccentric father had proclaimed—and it had been a lore that remained that Eris had dangerously come to believe. Clayton waded back into the water after her and Sylvia’s son.

  Alas, the naughty duo slipped and slithered about like the damned silver eels at Loch Carron, all the while expertly evading Clayton.

  “Vallen, come over here this instant,” Sylvia demanded. Hiking her skirts to her knees, she waded out from the shore, but brought herself up short at where the drop rose to meet her.

  Her commands were met with only more merry giggles.

  The nursemaid burst into the clearing, short-winded, and she took in the exchange: Clayton in the water, racing after the naughty pair at play. Those ebullient children expertly evading his attempts. Her mistress.

  “Oh, my lady. I am ever so sorry. I should have been the one chasing after them.” And with that, the loyal nursemaid dashed in to retrieve Eris and Vallen, splashing water as she went. “Having to go into the waters yourself after them.”

  Clayton and Sylvia avoided one another’s gazes. Saints be praised, however; salvation came in that incorrect conclusion the maid had arrived at. One that explained away any other potential reason for Clayton and Sylvia to be soaked from head to toe as they were.