Chapter 5 #2
Her fingers dug into the fabric of her skirts.
“Of course, you would do something like that, wouldn’t you?
Now I will be awake all night, thinking of how frightened I would be, even if I’m hidden behind a column.
And I will wonder why, since it is an imaginary scenario, I don’t simply stop you.
Why I don’t ask to be taken someplace less dangerously exposed—but let you continue to do everything you want. ”
Objectively, he had heard far better love banter, steamy words accompanied by a great deal of nakedness and no inhibitions at all.
Miss Cantwell, with her reluctance and her inability to go into greater details than “let you continue to do everything you want,” should have struck him as awkward and amateurish.
But her inexperience, contrasted against her immediate embrace of being made love to in a semipublic place…
He could see it, too, now. Except he saw it even more perversely.
His guests would not be in the house, but on the grounds for the bonfire party that always marked the last night of his summertime hospitality.
Most would remain near the manor, but some would venture farther afield and almost stumble upon them, hidden in the shadows, still fully clothed, but with her skirts pushed up above her waist, and him hilt-deep inside her.
Her eyes met his. She swallowed: She had understood the direction of his thoughts.
“Would I have to keep a hand over your mouth to keep you quiet?” he asked, surprised to hear a slight hoarseness to his voice.
She swallowed again. “Probably.”
He approached her slowly. “And I’m sure you understand that would only be the beginning of the night. You will need to come back to my apartment and remain there until dawn.”
She gripped the doorjamb. “How many more times do you plan to make love to me that night?”
Her question was barely audible.
Until you beg me to keep you at Huntington all year round.
He stopped only when his lapels brushed the bodice of her gown.
Her eyes were nearly black, with their dilated pupils.
The heat rising from her skin was palpable.
Her lips parted wider, as if she expected all the air in the room to be taken away shortly—as if she expected him to lean in and kiss her.
He leaned in, his lips almost grazing hers. This close, her eyes were all willingness and surrender. It took every ounce of his control to cant his head a few degrees and whisper into her ear, “You have come to say yes, haven’t you?”
She only panted.
“If the thought of exposure arouses you, there is another folly at Huntington, in the style of a Roman temple, with a belvedere on the upper level. The whole structure sits on top of a hill and commands quite a view of the surrounding countryside.”
She breathed even more erratically.
“Do you know what would make it even more exciting than the Greek folly? We will do this one in daylight—perhaps not broad daylight, but at sunrise, let’s say.
And because you are a woman of perverse tastes, making love in public might not stimulate you as much as it ought to when the locale is too isolated to present immediate and tangible danger.
So I will disrobe you. And for miles around, if anyone should think to point a good field glass toward the belvedere… ”
Her hand came up to her throat.
“Say something,” he ordered. “Or I might decide to take your silence as assent.”
She blinked several times—he noticed for the first time that she had the most perfectly arched eyebrows. She pressed her gloved fingers against his lips, soft, warm kidskin that smelled faintly of cedar.
His heart stopped. He could already feel the sensation of her body against his, the paroxysms of pleasure that would rack her, just as the literal fireworks of the bonfire night set off into the sky.
“I’d better go now,” she dropped her hand and mumbled. “Or Lady Balfour will wonder where I’ve been.”
Now he was the one touching her, his gloved hand on her jaw to keep her gaze raised to his, when she would have looked away. “When will you admit you’ve changed your mind?”
Her eyes said she would toss and turn for hours when she reached home, that perhaps she would even be driven to touch herself. But she only replied, “Good night, Lord Wrenworth.”
And escaped from his clutch.
Leaving him to slowly recover from his disorientation.
And to realize, well after she was gone, that the music room was actually quite dimly lit, and that his earlier impression of the brilliance of its illumination was only that: an impression.
* * *
It sounded as if someone on an upper story was dragging a table across the floor.
Louisa looked up at the ceiling of the bookshop for a moment, before she turned her attention back to the books.
She always volunteered to pick up Lady Balfour’s book orders.
It was rare that she could afford a volume for herself, but she never passed up a chance to walk between walls of groaning shelves, running her gloved fingertips over rows upon rows of clothbound spines.
An enjoyment that was more like an ache: an aesthetic appreciation butting up against a perennially unsatisfied craving for ownership.
Why not say yes to Lord Wrenworth? That would keep you knee-deep in books for the rest of your life, if nothing else.
Indeed, why not say yes to Lord Wrenworth?
When he had dropped out of sight for so many days after his initial proposition, she had grown increasingly certain, a sensation like a hole in her stomach, that she had woefully misread the situation.
That what she had thought were but opening volleys actually constituted the entire transaction: offer tendered, offer refused, offer nullified.
That what she had thought to be real and sustained interest on his part was but a soap bubble under the sun, gone with the next blink of the eye.
Lady Balfour hadn’t needed to encourage her to pretend as if she belonged at Lady Tremaine’s ball. Had any servant tried to stop her from getting in, she would have gladly handed over her mother’s pearl brooch as a bribe—so badly did she need to see him.
It was to her credit that she had kept her clothes on—there was something about the man, about the way he looked at her, that made her want to disrobe on the spot. Not languidly, deliberately, but as if her corset and petticoats were on fire and must be yanked off without a second’s delay.
And when he had asked whether she had come to say yes, when he had renewed his offer and her hope, beneath her skirts her legs had trembled.
He would never know how close she had come to giving him the answer he wanted.
Yet for all her shaking relief that he was still interested—still committed to this lunacy of his—she had turned around and left.
Some part of her had recognized that the game was still very much on, and had not wanted to concede it.
But how much longer could she play the game, when she had no idea how, or whether it was even possible, to win?
Was she just playing to keep from losing, then?
And what exactly did losing entail, in this particular instance?
Thunder like a field gun being fired right next to her ear made her jump. Rain unleashed as if a dam had burst in the clouds. She realized that what she had thought of as table legs scraping the floor overhead had actually been the low rumble of thunder, which had been going on for a good while.
She would have to remain in the bookshop until the storm eased, not a terrible hardship. And since she was—or at least represented—a loyal customer of long standing, Mr. Richards, the owner, would not complain about her prolonged browsing.
“I’m looking for the young lady who came to pick up Lady Balfour’s order.”
Louisa blinked. Lord Tenwhestle—what was he doing here?
“My lord Tenwhestle.” She came out from the stacks. “I’m here.”
“Of course you are, my dear cousin.” He nodded at Mr. Richards, came toward her, and instead of walking her to the door, led her deeper into the shop.
When they were out of Mr. Richards’s hearing range, Lord Tenwhestle asked, with a mischievous smile on his face, “Have you ever read Pride and Prejudice, Miss Cantwell?”
His question baffled her. “Yes, years ago.”
Mrs. Cantwell had been disappointed that no modern-day Mr. Darcy or Mr. Bingley had ever whisked one of her beautiful elder daughters into a grand manor.
Louisa found it strange that her mother had nursed such hopes at all.
Even Miss Austen herself had not found a real-life Mr. Darcy.
Why should he materialize almost a century later, after his creator had turned into bone and dust?
“Do you remember the part where Mrs. Bennet dispatches her eldest daughter to Netherfield Park on horseback, knowing it would rain and force Jane to stay overnight?”
Louisa bit the inside of her cheek; she saw where this was going.
“My mother-in-law has contrived something similar,” continued Lord Tenwhestle, confirming Louisa’s suspicions. “She sent me to my club on foot, even though it was certain to pour, with the instruction that I must ensure that you arrived home warm and dry in case of rain.”
What would Lady Balfour think if she only knew that while she planned her innocent tricks, Louisa was playing far more reckless games? “And since it is impossible to locate a hackney in this weather…”
“Precisely.” Lord Tenwhestle winked conspiratorially. “When I groaned about my problem, a very fine gentleman stepped forward to put his carriage at my disposal.”
One with more than one folly on his estate? Louisa almost asked.
They were speaking in low voices, but now she dropped hers to a whisper.
“Do you not think, sir, that perhaps Lady Balfour is overly optimistic about my prospects? I’d hate for her to be disappointed, but if the gentleman is who I think it is, I have no reason to believe any offers of marriage will be forthcoming from that quarter. ”