Chapter Ten #2
He watched her tilt her head back and drink, lowering his gaze to admire the elegant line of her throat, and the very pretty dark blue silk gown she’d donned, dusk with yellow leaves sewn into the bodice and skirt.
And it wasn’t just the gown that held his attention, but the curves and shadows of the woman. “That’s a lovely dress, by the way.”
“Thank you. And Polly and I have already altered the riding habit you sent over. It’s quite pretty, too.”
“It’s a good ten years out of fashion, I’m afraid,” he returned, taking the bottle back. Stop looking at her, Beckett, you idiot.
“I don’t mind that. I’m rather excited to go riding again, truthfully. I hope I haven’t forgotten how it’s done.”
“Well, you sit so that you’re facing the horse’s front end. I know that much.”
Iris chuckled. “What time did you want us to appear for our lesson?”
“Let’s say ten o’clock. I have Parliament in the afternoon, followed by what I hope is a quiet evening at home.” He glanced at her again, caught by the moonlight dancing in her eyes. “You should join us for dinner.”
“You just finished saying you wanted a quiet evening at home, Beckett.”
“I can have a quiet evening with you and Edmund over.”
Laughing, she jabbed a finger at his chest. “No, you can’t. We’re quite noisy.”
“Yes, but it’s tolerable noisiness. Not pointless noisiness for the sake of showing off.”
“I recall you enjoying parties and dinners a decade ago,” she commented, sending him a sideways glance. “Is it so different now?”
“Are you asking me, or for yourself?” he countered. “My life feels nothing like it did then. I’m certainly not the overly confident idiot who believed in love at first sight and that his life would proceed exactly as he envisioned it.”
“And the man you are now prefers quiet evenings at home and having tea parties with his daughter?”
“Yes, he does. Are there things I miss about that foolish man’s life? Yes. Mostly, the sex. God, I miss that sometimes.”
“Oh, so do I. Two people who know what they’re doing, just wanting a moment of intimacy and release.” She handed him back the bottle. “But without the trouble of finding someone else who wants precisely the same thing.”
“Just a moment of being an adult rather than a parent. A living, breathing human.”
“God’s sake, yes.”
That had been emphatic. Perhaps it wasn’t just him addled by the brandy and the moonlight this evening. With a breath Beckett set the bottle onto the top of the wall and faced her. “Yes?”
With a short sigh Iris stepped into his arms and planted her palms against his chest to kiss him.
Not just kiss him. Devour him. Beckett wrapped his arms around her, twisting to put her against the wall, and kissed her back.
Feelings, skitterings, desire, went tumbling through him as he pushed the wrap off her shoulders and slipped his hands over her breasts.
She nibbled at his lower lip, and his eyes rolled back in his head.
Connection, closeness, arousal, intimacy—all those things that he’d done without for better than nine years, all leapt about vying to be first in line as he dipped, taking the hem of her gown and running his hand back up her leg to her thigh with the material in tow.
He’d never really had a female friend before he’d met Iris Silbern, but thank Christ he had one now.
Who would have thought there would be benefits in addition to her wit and sense of humor and ferocity?
Her hands unfastened his trousers and yanked his shirt free.
Iris slid her palms up his stomach to his chest as he shifted to lick the base of her throat.
They could go back to their worlds later.
Who the devil would care that he and she had shared an interlude in the Grove House garden, then gotten engaged to other people and never mentioned tonight again?
“Wait,” she groaned, grabbing his shoulders and pushing at him.
Beckett kissed her mouth again, then straightened. “What?”
“This is not a good idea.”
“It’s a fine idea. I want you, you want me, and neither of us has any expectation of anything more.” He leaned in again.
Iris moaned. “Beckett. Lady Pauline is in your house, expecting a marriage proposal at any moment. Because you need an heir in order to protect Becks. And a lady who can teach her how to be proper. Not how to punch people and be so, so very angry and barely tolerated by her peers.”
All the blood in his brain had already begun traveling south. Taking a hard breath, he straightened. “That has nothing to do with this.”
“What would happen if Lady Pauline wandered out here looking for you, or if the duke hobbled out here looking for me? Do you think they would understand our … unique relationship?”
Beckett blew a raspberry. “We do have a unique relationship, don’t we?” he murmured, kissing her once more, savoring the taste and feel of her mouth—so soft compared to how sharply she defended herself and her life. “Damnation.”
She tugged down on his shirt, straightening it beneath the coat and waistcoat he still wore, though her fingers grazing his skin did nothing for his composure.
“We’ve thought about life, and we’ve decided what we needed,” she murmured, her hands pausing at his hips.
“Ruining it for an ill-conceived, possibly public interlude now would be a mistake.”
“There’s always the stable.”
“Yes,” she said immediately, skimming his cheek with her mouth.
“No. We can’t ruin what it’s taken us each years to decide.
And while in another life,” she said, sighing as she kissed him featherlight on the corner of his mouth, “I could perhaps see us together, I don’t bring any of the qualities you want to a marriage.
I’m certainly not qualified to instruct any young lady about how to think or behave.
I’m the widow of a gambler. I’m only accepted by the ton because of one titled grandfather, and I’m evidently willing to bargain myself away in exchange for a better life for my son. ”
It annoyed him that she painted herself as being so unworthy, as if it was her fault that she was one more punch away from being a pariah in Society. “You don’t want love, and you don’t want more children. That is what stands between us, Iris.”
“You don’t want love, either. It’s messy.
It’s painful. And you said yourself, you made an abysmal choice with Lydia.
That’s why you let someone else choose for you this time, isn’t it?
If you turn away Lady Pauline, especially for me, then you’re just making the same mistake over again.
And I don’t want to be ruined by your … confusing a friendship for something more than it is. ”
He cursed. “We should have finished the bottle before we considered doing something naughty,” he grumbled, retrieving the brandy from the wall and taking another drink. “Another ten minutes, and we’d be on the ground, naked, and this conversation would be moot.”
“Then I’m glad we didn’t finish the bottle.” She looked at him for a moment, her expression wistful. “I’m half glad we didn’t finish the bottle,” she amended. “The ch—”
“Beckett? Are you out here?”
Shit. Pauline. “Just getting a breath of fresh air,” he called back, handing the bottle to Iris so he could finish tucking his shirt back into his trousers and refasten them. “Watch your step out here; it’s dark.”
“Go,” Iris breathed, opening the gate and shoving him back through it, handing him the bottle, and closing the metal barrier behind him before she melted into the shadows.
“There you are,” his nearly betrothed said, coming dimly into view. “I hope you aren’t bored. Your friends are here, as well as mine.”
Well, they’d been his friends at one time, anyway. “I’m not bored. I’m just unaccustomed to entertaining these days.”
Lady Pauline looked down at his hand, then reached out and took the three-quarters-empty brandy. “I thought you were inquiring about a delivery. But you came out here to drink?”
“It was half-empty when I retrieved it,” he lied. “I’m … I haven’t done this in a decade, Pauline. I never thought I would be doing it again.”
“Oh, darling. I’m not here to turn your life upside down, you know.
We make sense. We’re compatible. Having me about would mean that when it comes time for some of those trickier conversations with Rebecca, you won’t have to have them.
At least not alone. You’ll have someone to guide her, to assist her, and to support her.
Just as I’m here to assist you, to make your life easier.
” She ran a finger down the buttons of his waistcoat. “And to give you a son.”
He took a deep breath, all his attention still focused on the woman on the other side of the wall. “That is precisely why you’re here, Pauline. Thank you.”
“I came to fetch you because I need a partner for charades. Because we would be good partners. When you’re ready. I’m a very patient woman.” Abruptly she went up on her toes and lightly touched her lips to his. “Though not entirely so.”
“So I see.” Beckett smiled, trying to put the thought of that other mouth, the soft, supple one that tasted like brandy and strawberries, out of his head.
“Shall we return to our guests?” Pauline suggested, taking his hand to tug him toward the door.
If that was as sharp as her rebukes became, he’d been lucky his mother had shoved her at him. And that was a sentence he’d never expected to have in his head. Beckett nodded. “Charades, eh? I may surprise you with my skill. Rebecca and I charade nearly daily.”
Chuckling, she wrapped her hand around his arm. “I’ve chosen my partner well, then.”
He’d been thinking precisely that himself.
She would do as a partner, a hostess, a stepmother to Rebecca, and a mother to any additional children.
In fact, he might as well make it official and offer for her.
Then it wouldn’t matter if he lusted after his neighbor. That door would be shut. “Pauline, I…”