Chapter 15
Chapter
Fifteen
You’re in the park, you stupid fool. Anyone may be watching.
Still, it wasn’t enough to stop him from kissing Isabella.
He cradled her face, tipped up her jaw and finally, sweet Jesus, finally kissed the woman who had haunted his every dream these past weeks.
The kiss began as a soft coaxing of mouths, a joining of lips.
He could tell she had never kissed a man before, but just as he had suspected, Isabella was quick to learn and was soon following his lead.
And of course, he led her toward sin. A place he knew well. She tasted as sweet as he had imagined — all deliciousness, and his to devour.
He cupped her face, sliding his hands into her damp hair, tipping her chin to deepen the kiss. Her hat fell back, her curls clinging to her cheeks from the rain, her breath catching in small, desperate gasps that drove him to madness.
She made a sweet, accepting murmur, and the sound went straight to his groin.
He groaned, wanting her with a fierceness that unsettled him — an urgency that rose from somewhere deeper than lust, something raw and uninvited.
There was something about kissing a woman who, until this very moment, had been so firmly against everything he stood for. They had been adversaries. Prickly acquaintances. Then, slowly, a truce. And now? Now he didn’t know what to call them.
Enemies turned allies? Friends on the edge of folly? Lovers caught between propriety and ruin?
Whatever it was, it had undone him.
And he wanted more of it.
He couldn’t imagine another night passing without kissing her again — without tasting her laughter, her warmth, her defiance, her soft gasp against his lips.
Her fingers fisted into the lapels of his coat, pulling him close, taking more than receiving. Somehow the kiss turned from sweet and coaxing to something wild and consuming — a tangle of breath and want, the sort of kiss that made the world fall away.
He pushed her, perhaps further than she was ready for, yet she met his experience with eagerness, with a natural response that left him all sixes and sevens — his body off balance, his mind spinning.
“Hartley,” she gasped, breaking the kiss, his name a plea and a protest both.
He went to kiss her again, but the sound of approaching hooves brought him sharply back to his senses. He pulled away, looking up to see her groom riding toward them. The rain had ceased — when, he couldn’t say.
He had been too lost in her.
“We must stop,” he said quickly. “There’s someone coming — your groom, I believe.”
She straightened, fixing her hat and adjusting her skirts, her breath uneven.
He couldn’t help but feel a flicker of annoyance — not at her, but at being interrupted. The air between them still crackled, alive with what they had done, with what might have been had the world not intruded.
“I’ve mussed your hair a little,” he said, his voice low, rough. “Best fix it before he reaches us.”
She moved to press several pins back into her coiffure. Within moments, she was once more the respectable Lady Isabella Ravensmere — cool, composed, untouchable.
He, however, felt anything but poised.
In fact, he had a terrible, crawling sense that the kiss had altered something within him — as though a locked door in his soul had been thrown wide open.
What it was, he could not yet name, but a gnawing ache settled in his gut at the thought of the woman before him not being his to kiss again whenever he wished.
You’ve all but won the bet. Tell the duke, claim your thousand pounds, and be done with her. Be rid of her. You weren’t supposed to fall for her charms.
He rubbed a hand over his jaw, feeling the sting of self-loathing. He could still taste her on his lips, still feel the tremor in her breath against his cheek, and it shamed him.
He hated himself increasingly with every moment that passed. She would despise him if she ever discovered the truth — that their courtship, their friendship, this entire charade, had begun as a wager.
What had he been thinking? Other than being a fool at the time. Petty retaliation for her being snappish a the Kenworthy Ball, her disdain of him on full display. A contempt observed by the Duke of Rolle. And now here he was, the fool undone by his own deceit.
“Is there anything you wish to ask me, my lord?”
Her question startled him. He looked at her, confused. “I do not believe so,” he said, searching her expression and his mind on what she may expect. “Why do you ask?”
“You’ve kissed me, Whitmore.”
He blinked. “I—yes, I suppose I have.”
“You cannot say that is a normal thing for a gentleman to do,” she said, her voice calm, steady. “Are you not going to marry me now?”
“Marry you?” The words burst from him before he could stop them.
He nearly choked. “You think that I ought to ask you to marry me now?” Panic hit him, swift and sharp.
His breath caught, his chest constricted.
For a moment, he thought he might truly faint.
He could still feel her lips beneath his, still hear that soft murmur, still want her — and the realization made him dizzy.
“It was only a kiss, Lady Isabella,” he said finally, trying to sound composed. “I thought—well, when you mentioned the duke, and that you threw yourself at him, that it was something you wished to…experience. I was merely—”
Her laugh cut him off.
He stared, utterly lost.
“I do not wish to marry you, Lord Whitmore,” she said, her lips curving. “Any more than you wish to marry me. But I thank you for the kiss. I did enjoy it quite a lot.”
His mouth opened and then closed.
“In fact,” she added impishly. “I would not have thought the tongue could be so…sensual. But there you have it.”
Her grin made him gape. “You are jesting,” he asked faintly.
“Not at all.” Amusement danced in her eyes. “I merely wanted to see you squirm. The panic on your handsome face was reward enough.”
He exhaled, somewhere between a groan and a laugh. “You’re a minx.”
“But if you were any type of honorable gentleman,” she said lightly, “of course you would have asked for my hand, instead of looking as though you’d swallowed a wasp.”
He frowned, but she only shrugged, perfectly at ease. Her calm unsettled him far more than her anger would have. Did she not care at all? Perhaps she really did not. Perhaps she truly had no interest in him — beyond curiosity.
“I wanted to see,” she said.
“To see what?”
“To see and to know,” she replied. “Now I do.”
“See and know what, Isabella?” Feeling his patience slip.
She tilted her head. “What has happened here today merely confirms what I have always known. You’re a veritable rake.
A man who takes opportunities afforded to him and then rides off into the sunset, no matter the damage he leaves in his wake.
You will never change, but at least I know your true self.
A shame for I had started to think you may have finally matured. ”
“Matured?” he echoed, stung.
She straightened in her saddle, every inch the proud lady he knew her to be. “You need not seek me out at any more balls or parties. I shall not expect your company, nor shall I believe any further kindness from you is given with validity.”
He shut his mouth with a snap, his mind furiously thinking of what to say.
“I do enjoy spending time with you,” he said finally, his voice rougher than he intended.
“But perhaps your question threw me, that is all. It does not mean I am not ready for marriage.” He paused, wondering where the hell that thought came from.
She raised her brows, lips curling in quiet triumph. “Do not fool yourself, my lord. It is not becoming.”
“This—” he gestured helplessly between them “—has been enjoyable. It has...”
“I agree,” she said. “And now it is finished. I really must return home. I imagine you’ll be at the Hadon ball this evening?”
“I will,” he said, though he could hardly remember agreeing to it or why she should care after her harsh words.
“I shall be in attendance also,” she said, gathering her reins. “But I think it best if we do not speak.” She turned her horse and rode off, meeting her groom halfway down the Row.
Hartley did not follow. He watched as she rode away, the hem of her riding habit darkened by the weather, her posture proud despite their conversation.
“Damn it,” he muttered. He ran a hand through his hair. The scent of her — faint rose and rain — still lingered on his fingers, tormenting him.
He was such an ass. Sounded like one too. And she knew it.
But he was free now. He could go on with his Season, return to his lovers, drink, laugh, and forget her entirely. He’d kissed her. He could claim his blunt and be done with the stupid wager.
All should be well.
But as he sat there, the ache in his chest said otherwise. The thought of her laughter — of her clever, cutting words — haunted him. He had kissed her to win. Yet the feel of her lips had branded him like sin. Branded him as the property of hers.
“Damn it,” he swore again. “What the hell was that?”
Because for the first time in his life, Whitmore realized he no longer knew what his next move would be, but bedamned it would involve them never speaking again. That was for sure.