Chapter 12
It was to be dread then. Anticipation that stirred itself through her like butter into bread dough.
Distress, she was certain. Fear, although somehow it felt like exhilaration.
Whatever it was, she didn’t have the courage to face Grey with it.
She stared hard at the little window in the front of the carriage as if the back of the coachie’s head fascinated her.
“Is it that frightening?” Grey asked, his voice soft.
Georgie could tell he was smiling. He would, she thought unreasonably. He probably talks about this sort of thing all the time.
“I don’t know,” she finally admitted, trying so hard to keep what distance she could from him. She wanted so badly to curl back up in his arms, close her eyes and pretend her grandmama would never have interfered in her marriage.
“I think you had better tell me,” he suggested, taking gentle hold of her hand, “before you expire from nerves.”
She instinctively shook her head, but that wouldn’t do. She wanted to know. She wanted an answer before she did expire from nerves.
Only the question itself was enough on its own, really.
So, she gently pulled her hand free of his, as if that would protect her somehow.
“We were…well, we were speaking of this marriage,” she said, looking down to where his hand now lay on her thigh.
Unable to ignore the elegant grace of those fingers, unwilling to forget the memory of them roaming her body.
Hoping suddenly that her grandmother hadn’t been wrong.
His voice was gentle. “What about it?”
She couldn’t quite face him with her question. Closing her eyes, as if that would protect her from her own brazen behavior, she pulled in an unsteady breath and leapt into the fray.
“She said...she said that there were...em, other ways than...than...what I cannot allow, in which to express our...er, regard for each other.”
She felt him go abruptly still and all but jumped out the carriage door, moving or not. Only the lure of that unknown promise, of the memory of those wicked hands held her in place. Only the determination not to be thought a coward by this man who had faced cavalry charges.
“She said you would know.” Blast. Her voice sounded so small.
He dipped his head toward her. “I do know,” he said quietly, as if afraid he would spook her. “I know several...options you might enjoy immensely. I would very much like to show them to you.”
“Without…?” She looked back up at him, needing to see his eyes.
His smile was kinder than she’d expected. “Without.”
She wanted to close her eyes again, the only way she could hide.
She wanted to stop the carriage and walk away, as if added space would calm her racing heart or dry her palms. She realized she was wiping them on her lovely green pelisse like a deb sitting at her first ball.
She hadn’t realized how very much she wanted this until he’d asked.
“You can trust me,” he murmured, leaning forward so that his mouth was just alongside her ear, his voice almost a purr.
She turned to face him eye-to-eye, needing more than pat assurances. “Can I?”
Rather than answer, he smiled, the kind of smile that made a woman hungry for the feel of it, for the comfort and promise and joy of it. Of him. Lord, if her heart ran off any faster, it would tumble completely out of her chest.
He still didn’t answer. He bent towards her, ducking under her bonnet as if he’d been there before, his eyes so clear, so seemingly honest and sure. And he kissed her.
He did not touch her with his hands; didn’t wrap both arms around her and hold her up as Grandmama had promised.
He met no part of her body but her suddenly sensitive lips.
And he courted her. Gently at first, a quick brush, a meeting, a nibble from lips that were impossibly soft and warm.
Lips she suddenly wanted to explore herself.
So, she leaned in, laying her hand against his chest to find that his heart was suddenly racing almost as fast as hers.
Why would that be? He should be used to this kind of thing.
She knew better than to think this was his first time sharing a prolonged kiss.
She couldn’t help it. She backed away, leaving her hand right where it was against his heart. “Your heart is simply galloping. You cannot be frightened.”
His smile was wistful. “Can’t I?”
That brought on a scowl. “Don’t be—” She shook her head. “I know. I already said that. I am very new to this,” she said. “I had assumed you are not.”
He finally lifted a hand to stroke her cheek. “Truly? You’ve never sneaked down a garden path at a ball to enjoy the embrace of some young blade?”
She felt as if all the air in her lungs was caught in her throat. “Not like this.”
That just widened his smile. “Good. It’s selfish, I know, but I was hoping to be the first to see those amazing green eyes go languorous.
She blinked those green eyes, feeling more and more confused, frustrated, uncertain. “But it’s not new to you. Why is your heart beating so fast?”
“Because, my inquisitive wife, it is new with you.”
That did not calm any of the turmoil that battered at her. “But...”
“I can see that I didn’t sufficiently make my point.” Lifting her chin, he stroked the corner of her mouth with his thumb. “We may not...without...but I am very anxious to show you how lovely with can be.”
Even now she couldn’t quite escape her logical mind. “In a moving carriage?”
He grinned. “There is something enticing about the sway of a coach.”
His eyes were like lights in the shadow, compelling, incandescent. She couldn’t seem to look away, even as his thumb strayed, tracing its way down her jaw, her throat, to come to rest on the first button of her pelisse.
“If you allow,” he murmured, “I’d dispatch with this. It seems to be in my way.”
She opened her mouth to answer and somehow couldn’t manage to make a sound.
She was still caught in those ice-blue eyes whose pupils had dilated as he spoke.
As he used his finger and thumb to ease the button out of its hole and open the material a bit at her throat.
As he slid open the next and then the next.
She should have been at least chilled. There was a late afternoon breeze sweeping in through the windows. Thank heavens, was all she could think. It was the only thing keeping her from incinerating on the spot.
His thumb...his fingers stroked along her collarbone, back and forth, inciting showers of chills that tightened her nipples to buds that were suddenly unbearably sensitive against the silk of her dress.
Her breasts seemed to grow heavy and taut, just from his touch along her perfectly innocent collarbone, and she realized that if he didn’t move that hand soon, she would rip the bodice of her own dress to give him access. Sweet lord, what was he doing to her?
He was bending forward to drop a kiss where his thumb had rested, right at the hollow of her throat.
And then...oh, was that his tongue? How could he…
but he was, licking at her as if sipping up water from the cup of a leaf.
And suddenly she lost the strength in her spine.
Her body was arching quite without her permission so she could allow him better access.
So he could explore beneath the fairly modest collar of her dress.
So he could kiss her collarbone and then run his tongue along the slight ridge, and… sweet God, was that her moaning?
“Should I stop?” he asked, his breath skimming against her slightly damp skin and setting off more chills that glittered through her like fireworks.
She grabbed his hair and pulled him against her. “Don’t you dare.”
His chuckle resonated right through her. She was suddenly having trouble breathing, and her own heart had long since outpaced his.
Oh, his hair. She hadn’t thought of how luxurious it would be.
He kept it so neat, but it was like thick silk, curling just enough to cling to her fingers as she winnowed through it.
She wanted nothing more than to explore him herself.
His throat, his chest, that hard, flat belly that was so well served by his beautifully tailored uniform.
She loved that uniform. But she wanted it off. She wanted everything off.
Again, she pulled back, gasping for air and good sense. “You promise me,” she demanded. “Your oath.”
His smile this time was the stuff of a mother’s nightmares. So sultry and sinful that it curled her toes in her slippers, and she felt a sharp heat low in her own belly. Very low. Exactly where she didn’t want him to be.
“On my oath as an officer and a gentleman,” he purred, dropping a series of small kisses along her jaw. “I am quite talented enough to instruct you in every way your grandmother promised without you risking pregnancy. Of course, it would help if you did some participating of your own.”
She sighed. “I was hoping you’d say that. It’s just…”
He slid his forefinger around the shell of her ear.
“Stop that. I can’t think when you do that.”
He chuckled. “Which is the precise purpose of doing that.”
She shook her head. “Please. Can’t we...
.” Another sigh, this of frustration as she looked out that small window at the front of the coach again.
Where the coachie sat and the groom, who only had to turn a bit to see right into the carriage.
Where she sat, her body arching right into the busy hands of her new husband.
In the space between heartbeats, the heat died. Trying not to groan in frustration, she pulled away. “I’m sorry.”
He froze, his breathing just as harsh as hers. “Something is the matter.”
She gave a faint wave to the front of the coach. “I am not comfortable with an audience. I’m a very private person, if you must know.”
He stopped and just looked at her, his expression much softer. “It means we’ll have to wait. Servants. Dinner.”