Chapter 11 #3
“Uncle said the same thing to me,” Cam said, brushing his thumb over Alice’s knuckles while setting a more deliberate pace.
“That you were smart.” At first, Cam had pushed the observation aside as just another backhanded slight to a boy who was not smart, or quick, or charming, but Alice was right—Uncle had been kind and honest.
Lady Josephine had doubtless thought she could manage Uncle into a bishop’s robes. She, or life’s many frustrations, had managed Uncle into the brandy decanters and an early grave instead.
“My lord?”
“Cam.”
“I am not feeling very bright right now. I am feeling…”
Cam stopped and took her other hand in his. Let her say amorous. Please let her say she’s feeling amorous. “Yes?”
“Muddled. I am quite, quite muddled, and when I am muddled, I make foolish choices.”
What was she going on about? “You could not possibly be foolish, Alice.”
She looked at their joined hands. “You are so wrong. You are so wretchedly, abysmally wrong.”
Never argue with a lady, particularly when she appeared to be contemplating mischief.
Alice shook a hand free and wrapped it around Cam’s nape, then pressed her lips to his. “It’s my turn. I want to take my turn.”
Cam put his arms around her waist and waited until, take it, she did.
Alice was as thorough and energetic about her kissing as she was about everything else.
She explored, she tasted, she investigated and invited Cam to take reciprocal liberties.
This was no spinster tolerating a few chaste overtures.
Alice taking her turn was like a Valkyrie taking to the skies, determined on achieving victory over every inhibition and prohibition.
By the time she rested her forehead on Cam’s shoulder, he was breathing heavily, and his back was braced against—of all things—a half-grown white birch.
“Not here,” he rasped, tunneling his fingers into the warmth of Alice’s bun.
Alice peered up at him. “Beg pardon?”
“Not… I cannot believe I said this out loud. Not here. Not among the bracken and rocks, in the forest damned primeval, where any village boy could come along…”
Alice brushed her hand over his hair, her eyes alight with amusement. “I was only kissing you.”
“Only. Woman, you have no idea.” Except, she did, apparently. Alice was no innocent, and the relief of that realization was enormous. The best negotiations were between equals, between parties with similar degrees of confidence, skill, and determination.
Somebody had afforded Alice the opportunity to develop the skill. Sheer determination was hers by right of birth. Confidence had been less in evidence. If pressed, Cam would have said that Alice’s kisses, while passionate, also bore an edge of desperation, of anxiety.
Who was he? Cam would no more ask that question than he would have laid Alice down among the ferns and commenced rutting. The temptation was there, but so was the common sense—and the respect.
Do not rush. Perhaps Alice had had a succession of disappointments or frolics—Cam had certainly had a few of the latter—but her past was not his concern.
“I need…” He breathed in attar of roses and shut his fool mouth. He did not need to step away from her, regain his dignity, and saunter out of the forest as if nothing had happened.
He needed her. He needed to hold her, to feel her, to be hers.
“I need time,” Alice said. “If I was muddled before, I am completely at sixes and sevens now. You kiss fiendishly well, my lord.”
“Cam. You provide fiendishly spectacular inspiration.”
She brushed a hand over his falls and muttered something about spectacular being in the eyes of the beholder.
“Alice, please don’t tease.”
She withdrew her hand immediately. “Sorry. I presumed…”
Cam seized her fingers and kissed them. “You did not presume, and were we guaranteed privacy and time, I’d be… naked, for starts, and teasing you right back. Let’s leave it at that, shall we?”
She smiled that beguiling, sweet, infernal smile. “So would I—be without clothing.” She paced off a few steps, head bowed, then rounded on him.
“I was planning to tell you that while your overtures are very flattering, and I am tempted, that we would not suit and to please take yourself back to London.”
All the bubbling, warm, amorous sensations inside Cam froze in an instant. “You did not tell me that, and I hope you aren’t about to embark on such a hopeless announcement now.”
Her smile faded to something infinitely sadder. “I should.”
No, she should not. “Alice, we got a little carried away, I agree, but courting couples kiss. They do more than kiss.” Wonderfully much more.
“I haven’t given you leave to court me.”
Cam rather thought she just had. “Trying my paces, were you?” To his chagrin, he was not enjoying this negotiation, if that’s what it was. Not at all.
“Or testing my own.” Alice sighed, closed the distance between them, and winnowed her fingers through his hair again. “I love touching you. Nobody touches me, but with you… I am in very great trouble, my lord. You really would simplify my life by returning to London.”
“I will soon enough. I’d like to take you with me.” A complicated undertaking, given that they were not married—yet—but some chaperone or other could be hired for the duration.
“Not possible. Harvest has some weeks yet to go and there’s still a great deal of work to do before winter arrives.”
Cam tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Are you tempted anyway?”
She caught his wrist and cradled his palm against her cheek. “Of course. I am besotted with you. I have no dignity and less than no sense where you are concerned. I know better. I know how fragile my reputation is, and—”
Cam kissed her busy mouth. “I know that I care for you as I have never cared for another, ever, and that conclusion is closed to debate. The feelings are there, as real and substantial as the Dales, and I make a gift of them to you. Let me court you, Alice.”
Her scrutiny was nearly solemn, and Cam braced himself for a rejection. A setback, rather, and only a setback, because he’d spoken the plain truth.
“I want to be courted by you,” she said, “but I have much to consider, and we must not be hasty. Other people will be affected by the decisions we make, and haste has never served me well. Please consider that I might be toying with your affections and exercise appropriate caution.”
She was warning him? Confirmed spinster, parish do-gooder, all-around over-competent, dowdy, nobody martyred to Lady Josephine’s pious conceits? She was warning the man-about-London turned peer?
And yet, Cam could not dismiss Alice’s words or the foreboding they dashed all over his unruly desire.
“You be warned,” he said, once again offering his arm.
“I am determined to a fault, Alice, and I can be both endlessly patient and ruthless when necessary. I have never sought permission to court a lady previously, and if you refuse my addresses, then Lady Josephine might well be the mother of the next baron. You would not want that on your conscience, would you?”
His attempt at humor—albeit humor based in fact—did little to lighten the moment.
Alice took his arm, and when they emerged from the trees, she stopped, dipped a curtsey, and left him standing in the shadows without another word, and certainly without another kiss.
Which meant… it was now his turn, and the second commandment Cam kept ever near his awareness, the directive by which he had become modestly wealthy and enviably successful, was: Once the course is set, do not hesitate.
He watched Alice disappear into her grandpapa’s cottage and had to force himself to leave rather than stand about like a gormless boy hoping for a glimpse of his adored as she passed by a window.
And Alice believed she was besotted.