Chapter Five
The way Jack saw it, she had two choices before her.
Very well, that was three choices. As none of them were viable—although the vase certainly had merit—there was nothing left to do but make the best of a terrible situation and hope it ended quickly.
“You’ve met before,” Kitty said slowly as her gaze went from Jack, to Byron, and then back to Jack. Her head tilted. “Jacqueline, dear, why didn’t you tell me you had made His Grace’s acquaintance?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Jack said airily. “Perhaps because he didn’t make a very lasting impression.”
Byron’s eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly. “I’m afraid I cannot say the same, Miss Colborne. Since our meeting at the recital, you are all I have been thinking about.”
“How sweet,” Kitty exclaimed, her gaze shining. “Why don’t you two make yourselves comfortable here, and I’ll just be over there, by the bookshelves. Not listening at all.”
As she flitted away, Jack stepped forward and said in a low voice (because Kitty was definitely trying to listen), “What the devil are you doing here? Get out!”
“I’ll get out,” Byron replied in an equally subdued tone, “when you return my flask.”
“I never said I had your stupid flask.”
“But we both know you do.”
“Go away!”
“Give me what’s mine and I will. Gladly.”
They glared at each other as Jack reconsidered choice number three.
“Are you enjoying the tea?” Kitty called out. “It’s a new blend of Hyson, I believe.”
“The best I’ve ever had,” Jack replied without taking her eyes off Byron. “Have you tried it yet, Your Grace?”
“Knowing you, it’s probably poisoned.”
“I should be so lucky.”
He glowered at her a moment longer, then raked a hand through his hair and gestured at a chair. “Sit down. Let’s discuss this like civilized adults.”
“Civilized?” she scoffed as she perched on the edge of the leather seat and Byron sat across from her in a matching chair. “You’ve come here under false pretenses—”
“I came here to see you, what’s so false about that?”
“The implication is that you’re here to ask for my hand in courtship, and you know it.” She glanced at Kitty, then jerked her gaze back to Byron. “You’ve gotten her hopes up. Worse yet, she’ll blame me when you leave and we never hear from you again.”
“I assume that happens a lot,” he said gravely. “Gentlemen coming to call and then fleeing for the hills once they realize what you are.”
Inwardly, Jack flinched.
Outwardly, she bared her teeth.
“And what am I, exactly?” she challenged, as if his words hadn’t stung.
“Exasperating. Vexing. Infuriating.” He leaned forward. “Enchanting.”
“Take that back!”
The corner of his mouth lifted in a rakish half-smile. “Which word?”
This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. She’d spent enormous time and effort building a wall around herself.
A wall with a dragon at the top of it that breathed fire and burnt nabobs like Byron to tiny little black crisps.
But sitting in front of her, his dark eyes sparkling and his dimple doing strange things to her belly, he didn’t appear burnt. He didn’t even look singed.
Enchanting?
She wasn’t enchanting.
She was the opposite of enchanting.
“Fine,” she bit out, crossing her arms. “You can have it back—the flask.”
“The flask that you didn’t take? That flask?”
“Yes, that flask.”
His grin slowly faded as he studied her, a pensive crease appearing between his ebony brows. “Lady Kentwood,” he said, raising his voice, “I should like very much to ask your permission.”
“What are you doing?” Jack whispered furiously.
“My permission for what, Your Grace?” Kitty trilled, sailing over as if floating on a cloud.
“To take Miss Colborne on a carriage ride through Hyde Park,” Byron replied without taking his gaze off Jack who stared at him in equal parts bewilderment and horror. “The cherry blossoms are in full bloom, and I should like to look upon something that surpasses their natural beauty.”
“No. No, no, n—”
“Yes,” Kitty said emphatically. “Yes, Your Grace, of course you have my permission.”
Jack slumped in her chair.
She should have gone with choice number three.
*
“You needn’t look as though I’ve just kicked your favorite puppy,” Byron commented, biting the inside of his cheek to suppress a grin when Jack rolled her eyes.
She’d positioned herself as far away from him in his phaeton as she possibly could, her left foot all but dangling out the side.
Her spine was rigid. Her mouth taut. Her muscles tense.
There wasn’t a single thing about her that signaled she was taking even an ounce of pleasure in their spring morning outing, and he had to respect her commitment to her misery, if nothing else.
When he’d called on her yesterday, he hadn’t planned on extending their association beyond a brief meeting disguised as a potential courtship. But then something had happened. He couldn’t explain it. Couldn’t put it into words. Couldn’t understand it, really.
It was a feeling.
A sensation.
A yearning.
For the red-haired hellion glaring daggers at him.
His request to take her out today had been impulsive.
Had he thought it through, he likely would have changed his mind.
After all, he wasn’t searching for a wife.
He wasn’t in particular need of a mistress.
He had enough friends. Why, then, had he asked Lady Kentwood’s permission to court her ward?
It was a question he didn’t have an answer to.
He’d gone for a flask, and now he was navigating his phaeton along a busy bridle path while passersby openly stared at the unprecedented sight of the Duke of Bradford in the company of a young lady of marriageable age.
This was doing hell all for his reputation as a confirmed bachelor.
And he . . . didn’t care.
For once, he wanted to spend his time with a woman outside of a bedchamber.
Where the sight of an approaching debutante usually sent him heading for the nearest exit, Jacqueline was here because he’d asked her to be.
Well, he’d asked her guardian and her guardian had forced her to be.
Now he could all but see the seconds ticking by in her head as she calculated how many more minutes stood between her and her freedom.
He might have been insulted, if he weren’t so amused at the irony of it all.
He had finally found a woman he was utterly fascinated by, and she wanted absolutely nothing to do with him.
“Would you like to drive?” he queried, transferring the leather reins to one hand and holding that hand out to Jacqueline.
He half-expected her to decline—she’d barely spoken two words to him since he’d picked her up half an hour ago—but to his surprise (and rapidly mounting concern for his own safety), she removed her gloves, grabbed the reins, slapped them on the horse’s haunches, and sent the large bay lurching forward into a canter.
“Ah . . .” Byron grabbed onto the front rail of the phaeton as they whipped around a slower moving carriage, dodged a puddle, and bounced a rear wheel onto the grass before finding the road again. “Ah, you may want to—damn it, look out!”
With inches to spare, they avoided a head-on collision with a second carriage and the entire phaeton tipped heavily to the side as Jacqueline braced her foot on the footboard while turning the horse sharply to the right.
They skidded off the main thoroughfare and onto a lesser traveled path lined on both sides with cherry trees in varying shades of pink.
As fast as it had begun, the terrifying journey ended when she pulled the horse back to a walk, gave the prancing mount its head, and returned the reins to Byron with a smirk.
“What the hell was that?” he snarled. “You nearly killed us!”
“You’re the one who asked if I wanted to drive,” she pointed out, turning her wrist inward to casually examine her nails.
“How was I supposed to know you’d drive like a madwoman?”
“Why did you assume I knew how to drive at all?”
He stared at her. “Why would you take the reins if you . . . never mind.”
The phaeton rolled onward at a leisurely pace while Byron seethed in silence and Jacqueline went back to ignoring him. Without warning, he abruptly hauled the horse to a halt, knotted the reins around the anchor tie to ensure the phaeton wouldn’t move, and yanked Jacqueline onto his lap.
Her green eyes flashed with fury, but before she could protest or take out a knife to stab him, he kissed her.
A hot, potent, virile kiss fueled by anger and the remnants of fear.
She clamped her lips together and with a muttered curse he began to draw back, already regretting his actions, but then she softened, her lips parted, and she wound her arms around his neck as she returned his kiss with a passion that nearly sent them both toppling off the seat and onto the ground.
He tasted her like a man half-starved, his tongue sweeping boldly into the damp, delicious cavern of her mouth as his hands skimmed along the voluptuous lines of her body before settling on the rounded curve of her buttocks.
He brought her closer, turning her with ease and spreading her thighs apart until she was straddling him, her knees pushing into the crease of the cushions.
She gasped when he moved his hips and the friction between their bodies intensified, her head falling to the side when he kissed her neck.
He raised his hips again, the hard pulse of his manhood pressing directly into the soft folds of her feminine center through the sheer cotton layers of her undergarments.
A rough tempo ensued, a lifting and falling in rhythm with the desperate beat of their racing hearts.
He claimed her mouth again, possessively thrusting his tongue into the sweetest pool of honey as his grip on to her bottom tightened and their surroundings blurred, the cherry blossoms melting into a thousand different shades of pink.
Her fingers streaked through his hair, nails sinking into his scalp when he brought her to the brink .
. . and sent her flying over the edge with a throaty growl of masculine triumph as she cried out, her thighs convulsing around his sides before she burrowed her face in the crook of his shoulder.
When she shuddered, he wrapped his arms around her back, his hands moving in circles meant to soothe as a surge of protectiveness overcame him.
Mine, he thought. You’re mine.
Her eyes opened, vibrant emeralds framed in halos of gold.
He gazed into them, humbled by the uncertainty and vulnerability swirling in the depths of her irises. “Jacqueline,” he said huskily, brushing his thumb across her jawline. “I apologize. I never meant for that to go as far as it did. And in a bloody carriage. There’s no excuse for it.”
“Then don’t make one,” she said, sliding off his lap. “I didn’t ask for your apology, and I don’t want it.” After adjusting her skirts, she glanced at the anchor tie and her lips curled in a mischievous smile. “Should I drive us back, or would you care to do the honors?”
Her laugh rang in the air like windchimes when he hastily took control of the reins and directed the horse up into a bouncing trot.
As they traveled beneath a fragrant canopy of flowers, Byron realized he’d been right.
Jacqueline’s beauty did surpass the very best that spring in full bloom had to offer.
But while he couldn’t deny he found her countenance fetching (and her body pure heaven), it was her mind that entranced him.
He never knew what she was going to say, or what she was going to do, and her spontaneity of spirit appealed to him as no other woman ever had.
Even when she stole his flask, or cursed at him, or made his life flash before his eyes .
. . he was engaged, hanging on her every word.
She had captivated him. Utterly. Completely.
Wholly. He was . . . well, if he wasn’t in love with her yet, he was falling in that direction.
And for the very first time, he had no interest in catching himself.
“Don’t call on me again,” she ordered when he brought the carriage to a halt in front of her Grosvenor Square manor. A curtain stirred immediately, a glimpse of blonde hair in the window revealing Lady Kentwood had been awaiting their return.
“Give me my flask, and I won’t.” He braced his elbow on his knee and grinned at her. “My address is on my calling card. Have it delivered by end of day, and you never need to see me again.”
“Excellent. If I come upon your flask—because it is not currently in my possession—then I will do that.”
“Good,” he said.
“Good,” she echoed.
His grin widened. “Are you waiting for something?”
“Aren’t you supposed to help me down and walk me to the door?”
“That depends. Would you like me to?”
She chewed her bottom lip. “No. Of course not. But . . . it’s what Kitty would expect.”
“Ah,” he said seriously. “Well, if Lady Kentwood expects it—”
“Oh, just get on with it! No need to make a fuss.”
Byron chuckled as he secured the reins and jumped down from the phaeton. Circling the rear of the carriage, he bowed before extending his hand. “At your service, Miss Colborne.”
“You’re ridiculous,” she scoffed, but she did take his hand, her fingers rigid before they curled, ever-so-gently, around his.
If he weren’t intently aware of Lady Kentwood watching them like a hawk, he would have been tempted to draw Jacqueline into his arms and send her off with one last kiss.
A kiss that would last them until they with each other again, because they both knew damned well she had no intention of returning his flask.
As it was, he couldn’t resist lingering over her longer than he should have, his mouth lightly suckling on her knuckles before he released her.
“It was a pleasure, Miss Colborne.”
“Hmph,” she replied, but as she turned away from him and made a show of stomping up the steps to the front door, he saw her smile.