4. Chapter 4
four
I t had been a mistake to touch her. David could still feel the shape of her in his hands.
Even though she wore a tightly laced corset and layers of fabric, her heat had penetrated her gown…
his skin…the very fiber of him. He fisted his hands to keep them from trembling but it was difficult to eat soup with a fist.
“Thank you,” Jenny murmured to the footman serving her.
She was seated next to him. Something about the timbre of her voice coming from such a short distance away hinted at intimacy.
He made the mistake of glancing at her and their eyes met.
A perfectly arched brow rose in question.
Her lips were perfect and pink and pretty, and a shot of arousal darted straight to his cock, leaving him fighting an erection at the dinner table like some adolescent schoolboy.
“What’s wrong?” she whispered, her brown eyes softening in concern.
“Wrong? The only thing wrong I see is how that pup over there keeps making eyes at you, my betrothed.”
She frowned and glanced down the table to where Harry was making calf eyes at her. The moment the boy caught them looking, he busied himself with his meal. She gave a soft huff. “That’s not what I meant. What’s wrong with you ?”
“Why would anything be wrong with me?” His voice was sharper than he intended, causing her eyes to narrow .
“You look…odd…as if you’re in pain.” She turned back to her soup and made a show of swirling the liquid with her spoon to cool it.
He was in pain. His body had been in a heightened state of arousal since the night he had secretly picked her up at King’s Cross and she’d made that utterly preposterous proposition.
No amount of sex had managed to cure him.
He’d tried. Even as recently as that morning, but here he was, wanting her so badly he could take her on this table.
The problem was that none of those women had been her.
Their voices hadn’t been as clear and lovely.
They hadn’t felt like her. He’d barely touched Jenny, but he knew how she felt in his arms when they danced.
He knew the weight of her hand in his, on his arm, at his shoulder.
And they had smelled all wrong. She smelled of orange blossoms and clean linen.
Christ, he could scent her light and delicate perfume over the crayfish soup.
She was on him. He surreptitiously brought his fingers to his nose and nearly shuddered as she flooded his senses. He shouldn’t have bloody touched her.
Aware that an absurdly long time had passed, he said, “I’m not in pain.” A lie.
Something in his tone made her glance over at him. She paused with her spoon halfway to her mouth… that mouth .
“I don’t believe it.” She forced a calm expression, but her words were blades, honed to a razor’s edge.
He froze and forced himself not to look down. He was almost very nearly certain that the bulge in his trousers was hidden by the tablecloth.
“What don’t you believe, love?”
She sucked in a breath at the endearment.
He’d never called her that before and hadn’t realized he meant to now until it came out.
He liked surprising her and something about it made him feel more like himself.
He settled and dipped his own spoon into the soup.
They ate in silence for a beat, conversation flowing around them, before she answered.
“Not only were you late tonight but when you do put in an appearance, you’re three sheets to the wind.”
That wasn’t what he expected. “What?”
She was stiff as she shoveled in another bite of the creamy liquid.
When she didn’t seem inclined to elaborate, he asked, “You think I am drunk?”
“Not alcohol, no.”
Fanny’s ribald laughter from across the table drew everyone’s attention.
David met his brother’s unamused gaze. It seemed to ask if he was sure about aligning their family with such a woman.
David gave a barely imperceptible shrug and his brother went back to conversing with her.
The only outward sign of his reluctance to entertain her was the subtle tick in his jaw, a tiny detail David had learned from years of being on the receiving end of his brother’s annoyance.
The interruption worked in helping David fight his unruly desire and the first stirrings of anger replaced the fire of arousal in his veins.
“Why would you believe I’d turn up to my own engagement party under the influence of some illicit substance?” he whispered.
She gave a delicate shrug, drawing his gaze to her bare shoulder and how the emerald fabric dropped just low enough to hint that it might fall. Of their own accord, his eyes drifted to the bodice where her generous breasts strained against the fabric. All his blood rushed south again.
Christ.
“How am I to know?” she asked without looking at him. “Your pupils are dilated and your hands are fairly trembling. It’s obvious you’re inebriated. ”
He laughed so hard that he was forced to abandon his spoon, lest he spill soup all over the tablecloth. August sat to his left and looked over. He waved a hand toward Jenny, forcing her to smile and play along as if she had told him an amusing story.
When August turned back to her dinner companion, David pulled himself together to see Jenny staring at her bowl in obvious fury.
Before he could speak to her, a footman swept his bowl away and a small plate of shrimp in prawn sauce replaced it.
He sat still until everyone had been served their next course and conversation resumed.
When the noise had picked up enough to disguise his words, he leaned over and whispered near her ear, “I am not inebriated.”
“Do you deny—”
“It’s you, Jenny. I’m trembling from want of you.”
Shocked, she turned her face to him, leaving only inches between them.
“Everything you’ve observed is the truth, but it’s because I haven’t stopped thinking about you since our agreement.”
Her gaze moved from his eyes to his mouth and back again, as if she couldn’t believe it. The air between them heated and thickened and he trembled inside. He was indeed inebriated, but it was all her. Only her.
Fanny’s laughter broke the spell and they both fell back to stare at their plates.
He shouldn’t have admitted it to her. Giving voice to it had only made it worse.
The gnawing hunger in his body wasn’t from want of food.
It was from want of her. If they were in another place and another time, he could see himself taking her off over his shoulder, claiming what she had pledged to him without the endless social niceties to get through.
Recovering first, she whispered, “You’re lying.”
He let out a soft laugh and reached over to take her hand, which was resting on her napkin in her lap. He’d rarely touched her without gloves between them. Her warm soft skin felt like silk. She watched him curiously as he drew her hand to him beneath the table.
“I can prove I’m not.” He grinned at her.
She frowned, confused. “How?”
Like a lamb to the slaughter, her small, perfect hand rested in his. Anticipation clawed at him, vicious in its need, exultant in the victory it sensed. Her touch would be upon him soon, an eventuality that kept him up every night.
“Feel for yourself,” he whispered, placing her palm on his thigh, close to the need that only she could feed.
She stared at him. Her fingers flexed on his leg, tightening as she understood what he meant.
Her mouth dropped open. Christ, that mouth.
Blood rushed in his ears. Her gaze drifted to his lap, hidden by the tablecloth, and back up to his face.
She didn’t pull away. She was going to touch him. Arousal rolled through him.
Her hand inched closer. His own had moved back up to rest on the table, where it clenched in anticipation. The very moment her fingertips touched him, she jerked her hand away, hiding it safely back in her napkin.
He grinned and she huffed, turning her attention to Lord Ballachulish, her mother’s new beau, on her other side.
Left to his own devices, he worked on slowing his breathing so no one would realize how indecently close he had been to starting their wedding night early.
He was still staring at the shrimp when the dish was removed and replaced by roast partridge.
They ignored each other for the rest of the meal, which he didn’t mind, because it was the only way he could get through it.
He managed to eat, but he noticed she ate very little, which made him feel a twinge of guilt at his little trick.
He hadn’t meant to offend her, or worse…
frighten her. Though they teased and flirted at social events, he sometimes forgot that he didn’t know her very well. It felt as if he’d known her forever.
When dessert was finished and the women were excusing themselves for coffee and tea, leaving the men to cigars and port, he dared take her hand again when she rose to leave. She glanced at his fingers on hers and then at his face.
“I’d like to speak with you privately.”
She shook her head. “Not now. I must ready myself for my performance.”
“Performance?”
“I’m to perform a selection of arias.” She nodded, more serene than he might have thought given her displeasure with him. “Devonworth thought it necessary given my intended profession to give a public display, in the hope of making it more acceptable. Did no one tell you?”
He shook his head. To be fair, they might have, but his only concern was the wedding and wedding night.
“After, then.”
Her brows drew together. “Why?”
“I’d like to add a small addendum to our agreement.”
Suspicion clouded her features, but they couldn’t speak more now. Already, most of the women had left. To stay any longer would draw attention.
He kissed her hand to cover the awkward pause. The gesture was met with sounds of approval from a few of the guests, but he couldn’t look away from his betrothed to see who. She wasn’t pleased and fire was warring with her better sense.
In the end, she nodded and said, “After,” before all but snatching her hand from him and taking up her skirts as she quit the room.