Chapter 15 #2
On impulse she raised a hand to his silky hair.
But he caught her wrist, just as he had last night in the kitchen. “Claire,” he growled.
“What?” She fluttered innocent lashes. “Didn’t you realize we’re standing under the mistletoe?”
Scowling up at the sprig that dangled from the chandelier, he edged them out from under it. “Let’s not do that here.”
“Why not?” She pouted, hoping he might growl at her some more.
“Because if you touch me like that…” He made a wry face. “Well, surely you recall what nearly happened in the sleigh.”
She surely did. She found herself licking her lips. “Let’s skip dinner and sneak upstairs.”
He groaned. “You think we can sneak anywhere in a house so full of servants and guests? Everyone will know what we’re doing.”
“I don’t care.”
“Your brother will. Are you trying to make me duel him?”
Scarcely listening, she reached for him with the other hand. He caught that wrist too, and she cursed his quick reflexes.
“Wait a few hours,” he bid her with laughing eyes, and obliged her to obey by tucking both her hands around his arm. He pinned them there with just one of his own (considerably larger) hands. “I’ll come to you tonight, after everyone’s gone to bed.”
“But that’s hours from now,” she grumbled.
He was already propelling her toward the library. Though she submitted to his manhandling with good grace (or rather, secret relish) she was by no means resigned to the rest of his dictates. But she kept her silence at present, busy devising a method of persuasion.
For Jonathan’s part, he looked forward to a long and languid d?ner à deux, to be spent chiefly in catching one another up on the past year, and how they’d each frittered it away in pining for the other.
And though Claire didn’t precisely thwart his plan, she seemed to have some parallel plan of her own.
For while she happily partook of both the fare and the conversation, her manner was anything but languid. She didn’t exactly rush. But she ate with efficiency and conversed with divided attention, as though some vital concern were occupying her mind.
And unless Jonathan was imagining things, she seemed to be touching him quite a bit. It started with innocuous touches: her hand grazing his arm when she passed him a crock of butter, or her leg nudging his when she changed position.
He knew for sure by the end of the first course, when he realized she’d been slowly, centimeter by centimeter, scooting her chair and place setting down the table—till she’d drawn close enough to settle her knee against his.
But with one of several footmen stationed just a yard away, Jonathan dared make no comment.
Nor could he comment when her stockinged foot (which must have discreetly shed its slipper beneath the table) intruded on the hem of his trousers.
Nor when, after laying her utensils aside to signal she’d finished eating, one of her hands came to rest on his thigh.
At that point he quickly finished his own meal, finding his appetite had been supplanted by one of a different sort. He couldn’t help but recall the words she’d written, the way he’d come to her in her dream: Jonathan knew what he wanted, and he took it—for he knew I wanted it, too.
When he helped her rise so the footmen could clear the table, he drew her out of their range of hearing.
“Is it your aim,” he asked with deceptive mildness, “to surrender your virtue right here on that sofa?”
She gave a little start of surprise, but recovered quickly. And after glancing at the sofa in question, looked up with a glint in her eye. “That will do nicely.”
He laughed low, shaking his head. “This is hardly a proper setting for your first time…”
“I already had a first time in a proper setting—or half of a first time, at any rate. And it was lovely. But I’ve been waiting a year to finish what we started, and the truth is”—darting a look toward the footmen, she moved closer and lowered her voice—“I should infinitely prefer to have you now on that sofa than to wait a moment longer.”
Jonathan’s mouth went dry. This was much plainer speaking than he’d ever heard from the lips of an innocent (or half-innocent) lady. She’d disarmed him in an instant. If not for the footmen’s presence, he suspected he’d have her pinned to the sofa before he could think twice.
But since the footmen were present, he was forced to rein himself in—allowing ample time to think twice, thrice, and beyond.
He searched Claire’s eyes. “You’re certain you won’t regret rushing things?”
“Very certain.”
“Even if you have pain again?”
“I shan’t care.”
He narrowed his eyes shrewdly. “Even if you’re cold with no bedclothes to keep you warm?”
That gave her pause. But her expression very soon cleared, and she leaned close to whisper triumphantly in his ear: “I shan’t be cold, for you needn’t undress me! I’ve got nothing on beneath my chemise.”
Good God, the visions that conjured…
“Oh, but I do need to undress you,” he said with feeling. He couldn’t resist brushing back a curl that had escaped its pins. “If you only knew how much…”
He was close enough to hear her swallow. “We’ll have time for that when you come to me later,” she told him.
He was close enough to soak up the heat emanating from her body. To inhale her sweet-spicy scent. To forget all his scruples and fall under the mad spell that had seized him in the sleigh.
And in madness he found clarity. He knew what he wanted, and he knew she wanted it, too.
And by God, he was going to take it.
But as he reached for her, a figure intruded on the corner of his vision. “Your grace, my lady—”
“Mr. Evans,” Jonathan interrupted him with firm courtesy. “It is imperative that you and your footmen leave us at once.”
The butler raised his brows. “Very well, your grace.”
Automatically Jonathan pressed a shilling upon the fellow. “Please see that we are not disturbed.”
When the door shut behind them, Jonathan and Claire looked to each other in the suddenly still and silent room.
Though her eyes gleamed, her smile was uncharacteristically bashful. “What now?”
A little noise escaped her when he jerked her into his arms.
“Now,” he said, letting his voice deepen in the way that he’d noticed had a certain effect upon her, “we finish what we started.”