Chapter Eleven #2
“What are your skills, then?” He was all curiosity and light, accepting her turn of conversation to a topic less intoxicating. “Tell me who and what you are.”
“Ah. Well.” He was not to be waylaid in his pursuit. But she would see him held in abeyance and stuck to practicalities. “When I have time? Cooking. Roses and tulips. Landscapes.”
“Ah.” A flicker of darkness flashed over his features. “Pastorals, or what? Seascapes?”
“Oui, both.”
“I should like to see them.”
“They are not worthy of examination, sir.”
“It’s time you left off with ‘sir’ and ‘my lord.’ I am Clive to you. As you are dear to me.”
She opened her mouth to object.
A wicked smile curled the edges of his fabulous lips. “If you say it is too soon, I will take that as promise that there will be a future.”
She went wistful, the impossible not hers to claim. But she would reveal what she could…and hope not to delude him. “Oh, Clive, I surrender. I could hope there is a future, but—”
“There is.” He crushed her close. She cared not that others would see or object. To be held by him, seduced with words by him, set her aloft with a thrill she’d never known. “I would make it so.”
“If time permitted—”
“It does, my dear. I command it to be.” He smiled, forcing all her anxiety to drift away. “If you do not come with me to the floor, my Gigi, I will kiss you here now and in such passion that—”
She caught her breath. Two fingers to his lips, she perceived how others paused to stare.
“No kissing?” He arched a devilish, long blond brow. “Then we must dance.”
“Clive…please.”
“I will please you and myself, and soon. Now, come. We are dancing.” He took her glass and put it away, then led her out onto to the chalked floor. “This that the master has called a country dance. Simple and a bit of fun. I’d say, sweetheart, you need some fun.”
Sweetheart. No one had called her that for so many years. Her papa had. Never her husband. What was Clive doing to her to tear down her past and create the shining lure of a love affair with him? “Fun. So rare a treat. I think, Clive, you are too prescient.”
“Thank goodness for that, then.” He held out his hand, and even through the fabric of her silk gloves she could feel his hunger for her.
She glanced about as they took up a place in the square drawn upon the floor. “You must tell me what to do. I’ve danced in Blois and Paris, but not here.”
“You will do beautifully. Just follow my lead.”
The formations were simple, just as Clive described them. The dance was easy as a breeze, and Giselle found herself smiling at him as they parted, faced other partners, then reunited, only to walk hand in hand down a long line of dancers and return to their four-squared positions.
“That was more fun than I anticipated.” She would give him that. After all, she’d been so standoffish that she might have, at any point, alienated him. And she had no desire to do that. Not any longer. She wanted him…closer.
“Would you care for another glass of wine now?”
“I would.”
He spun around. “Ah, a footman. We needn’t hunt at all.”
She took the flute from his long fingers and allowed the frisson of his touch to do its work. This man seemed to flow in her blood, whisper to her heart and linger there.
“Shall we stroll on the balcony? The night is soft,” he said with a look of innocence on his face.
“Let’s.” She asked for trouble. Friendship with him—with anyone—was not recommended.
Not until she finished her final project.
But she’d been captured by his determination to be her swain.
She should not allow her appreciation for his face and form to influence her need to fill her lonely days, let alone her bleak, cold nights.
But he persisted, and she was conquered. Now she wanted him. Tonight.
Few took the air on the balcony, so the two of them wandered to one side. The abutting wall blocked the wind that whirled up from the sea and created a calm nook in which to stand and drink and talk.
“How long do you remain in Brighton?” he asked her, nonchalant, as if he had not mesmerized her with sensuous longing inside the ballroom.
“Indefinitely.” Though that was the truth, she could not predict her departure.
“Do you plan to stay in the hotel?”
“Perhaps.” Did he want to offer an interlude with him? Her heart jumped at the hope. “It affords me privacy, and I prefer that.”
He knitted his brows, and in the silhouette he presented to her, she saw a man confounded. “You have that special grant from His Majesty’s Government that permits you to visit on the southern shore.”
The visa that he’d mentioned before was a paper she guarded with her life. “I do. I can stay as long as I wish.”
He frowned, his concern dark. “To have received it, you must have friends in high places.”
“Friends of friends.” She would tell him nothing more. She did not have to. He could see evidence of that tonight with this invitation from the Ashleys and Ramseys. From that, he might wonder if she also knew Scarlett Hawthorne and her chief clerk, Todd Carlton. But she would not tell him.
He gave her a searing sidelong glance…and changed the subject. “Bella asks for you. Won’t you meet us tomorrow morning for a walk and a kite fly?”
Oh, how she wanted to do that. Fly and laugh. Find freedom again. “You test me and tempt me.”
“I won’t stop.”
“You should.”
“You should accept my invitation. Bella would be so happy.” He was once more a man, enraptured, whispering, “And so would I.”
“I find it difficult to…to…” she said, gulping past her desires and her griefs. “Oh, Clive, I look at Bella and I see my daughter.”
“And?”
“She is gone. Dead these past three years. But I see Bella and my heart lifts. It’s a new and startling feeling for me.”
“A way to heal, I think.” He drew near and enveloped her with a tenderness that made her heart yearn and her knees weak.
She faced the dark night and the rolling sea. By the light of the moon, she could see the rounding arch of white surf as it rushed to the shore. “I have carried my grief over her loss with me for so long that I am surprised to find it waning when I laugh with Bella.”
His arms went around her, and as if she had not proof enough before now of how much taller and sturdier he was, she leaned into him and found safe harbor.
He kissed the crown of her hair. “To have lost her must have been a trial.”
“She was my laughter and my sunshine. After she was gone, I could find none for ever so long.”
He stroked the hair at her nape. “And now?”
“The other day, I saw a moment’s hell when Bella ran into the sea. It was like losing my girl all over again. I could not—” She burrowed against him, tears burning her eyes. “I could not let her go.”
“Thank God you did not.” He lifted her chin. “Cry. It helps. I am here to catch your tears.” He touched her cheek, his fingertips an angel’s touch as he caught a teardrop.
How could she want this man so dearly? He was a stranger, a beautiful fortress of a man, but she had needed him—hadn’t she?—for all her life.
*
He brushed her bottom lip with the pad of his thumb. She was soft and yielding, her eyes closing, her long lashes sweeping the arch of her cheeks. He had never wanted to comfort and keep a woman so desperately. So completely.
“I want to kiss you,” he whispered, tormented by the knowledge that he should wait. He should think. He should treat her with all the patience a worthy lover would grant her.
Her answer had her opening her eyes, caressing him with them—and making him yearn for her.
He gathered her up. She was so delicate, fragile as china, yet firm and resilient, all eager woman. He pressed her torso to his. Her breasts were lush and hard.
He took her mouth, a gentle claim at first that quickly turned to triumph and the wild desire for more.
She mewled, lifted her arms around his neck, and ran her fingernails up through his hair. She wanted him.
He swelled with pride and broke away, breathless.
“Again,” she murmured, and rose on her toes to frame his face with cool, soft hands.
He’d not deny her nor himself. He groaned and lifted her off her feet and whirled her to the wall, to the alcove where, in his maddening need for her, he hoped they had some seclusion.
Yet when her lips were on his once again, he confirmed only that this luscious woman wanted him. He took her mouth, a brazen claim. He could not stop.
Only for breath did he tear his lips from hers.
“Come upstairs.”
His burning brain barely fathomed her words.
She drew his face down to hers with a hand to his nape and kissed him with an urgency he’d rarely known from a woman.
“Come. Won’t you?”
He’d be a fool to deny her or himself. But he had to be wise, go slowly—not devour her but treasure her. “Leave me first,” he told her, his mouth to her ear. “I will follow in a few minutes.”
“Come now.”
“I can’t, sweetheart.” He grasped her hand and put it to his lower belly. He dare not move it lower, but her blue eyes flickered in knowledge and delight. He smiled, but the pain of parting from her was like cold water to his veins. “Go.”
She drew away, unsure, yet eager. “You’ll hurry?”
He put a finger to her mouth and drew her soft, plush lower lip down. “I am there now. Go!”
She picked up her skirts and disappeared into the ballroom in a wild rustle of royal-purple silk.
He ran a hand through his hair. Was he foolish? Did he care?
Yes! For her!
And logic—that element which had ruled his life since his marriage failed—flew to the stars.
He bit his lip. He must not regret this night. He’d go upstairs. He had promised. He’d walk inside her rooms, and yes, by God, he would kiss her again.
But that would be all. That would be enough for tonight.