Chapter Fifteen
The lecture was being held in a small room on an upper floor of the museum which was already filled with people. The chairs that had been set in neat rows were fully occupied, leaving only standing room around the outer edges of the space.
He was a few minutes late, so the lecturer was already standing at the podium in front of his audience.
Edmund had no idea what the topic of the lecture was, but he knew Lady Lydia was expected to be there.
A few people turned their heads to eye him curiously, but for the most part, everyone was far more concerned with whatever the aged gentleman up front was starting to drone on about.
Edmund slid past several people to a spot along the side of a wall.
Once there, he scanned the crowd for pert features, dark hair, and storm-sea eyes.
It was starkly evident that this crowd was not at all the same as one would find at events of the haute ton.
Made up of almost entirely gentlemen, dressed in prim brown suits with stiff postures and intellectually furrowed brows, the very few women made it easy for him to locate Lady Lydia almost immediately.
Seated across the room in the second to last row of chairs, the lady was staring intently back at him.
The deep scowl of her brow and hard press of her lips told him she was not particularly pleased to see him there.
That didn’t stop his body from igniting in a firestorm of awareness as it seemed to do in greater intensity every time he saw her.
In response to her stern expression, he gave a tilted grin and subtle shrug.
She rolled her eyes and turned her attention to the lecturer. For the next hour, she refused to glance his way again. Edmund, however, couldn’t seem to stop looking at her. Even when he told himself his interest would undoubtedly be noted by someone, his gaze was continually drawn in her direction.
He wished he had a portrait depicting her in exactly the way he saw her now.
Sitting in profile, her hands folded in her lap, her gaze focused forward and her chin lifted as she listened intently, absorbing the rather rambling treatise on one of Socrates’s arguments.
Honestly, the man didn’t seem to be saying anything particularly brilliant, which made it easy for Edmund’s mind to wander to other things.
Things that soon had him shifting his weight as his body awakened in very inappropriate ways.
Perhaps this wasn’t such a grand idea to intercept the lady here.
His intention had been to show her that he could also appreciate the things which drew her interest, but he couldn’t focus on anything but her. And what he wanted to do to her as soon as they were alone.
Lost in his rather lurid thoughts, it took him a moment to realize when the lecture ended. As people started to shuffle past him, he watched as Lady Lydia stood and easily slipped from the room.
Did she think to evade him?
Edmund grinned.
Weaving through the slow-moving crowd as people stopped to chat with acquaintances here and there, he finally made it into the hall beyond. A glance in both directions spotted Lady Lydia a significant distance ahead as she made her way to the stairway.
Edmund lengthened his strides. His hope to intercept her before she left the building was dwindling.
He lost sight of her for a while, but caught a glimpse of her as soon as he stepped outside the building.
He managed to close the distance as she crossed the courtyard to a hackneyed cab.
Just as she lifted her skirt to climb into the closed carriage, Edmund stepped up beside her, taking her hand to assist.
She froze with a small gasp, her eyes colliding with his.
In that second, he saw the tension lining her features, subtle but present.
There was a hitch in her quiet, rapid breath before she flicked her gaze past him toward the building and around the courtyard.
No doubt, looking for who might witness this moment.
Edmund was still and patient as she did this, waiting to see if she would rebuff him or accept his silent offer.
When her gaze returned to his, something mysterious swirled in the gray-blue. Something that jolted his chest before angling to his groin. Then her arched lips tilted into a soft, secret little smile. It was a smile he’d never seen her give before and it stopped his breath.
“Thank you,” she said softly as she turned to climb into the carriage. Her hand slipped out of his, but once she was seated, she looked at him from the interior with expectation.
A sharp thrill shot through him.
She’d accepted.
Edmund climbed into the vehicle and closed the door, taking the seat across from her. Almost immediately, the carriage started off, apparently already knowing the intended destination. If she was returning to her home in Mayfair, they did not have very far to go. He only had so much time.
He was determined to make the most of it.
Finding her gaze, he smiled. “Did you enjoy the lecture?”
She tipped her head to one side. “It was alright. Did you find it interesting?”
Edmund shrugged. “There were moments of insight. But much of what Mr. Dunworthy said had been said by many others before.”
She stared at him for a long moment, her expression curious. Then she gave a slow nod. “I thought much the same.”
He grinned. “It’s strange to think that the rambling conversations of a man long ago are actually studied and debated around the world yet today.”
“Not just a man. A philosophical genius.”
“Some genius is just a breath away from insanity, depending on who’s listening.
There was a man in our neighborhood when I was a lad.
Ol’ Jack o’ the Bin, people called him, not too kindly.
He couldn’t keep any work and wandered the streets begging for food or coin or digging through bins, hence the name.
The first time I saw him sitting on a stoop, dressed in mismatched clothes, his face and hands dirty, his hair wild and unkempt, he was arguing with himself rather vehemently.
” He chuckled. “Frankly, he scared the hell out of me until my da noticed and explained that Ol’ Jack was cursed with more thoughts than most men and a mind that moved too swiftly between them.
So swiftly, that when he talked it sounded like nonsense.
My da believed that if someone were ever to sit patiently with Jack, they might discover the key to his ramblings and learn that he spoke truths the rest of us were too slow to understand. ”
Lady Lydia’s expression was pensive as she listened, and when he paused, she lifted her brows. “Do you believe that?”
Edmund smiled. “I don’t know. But it allowed me to look on the man with less fear and more compassion after that.”
She nodded and said nothing as she stared steadily back at him. When he began to feel as though she might be able to see a bit too clearly through the dusky light, he asked, “Why hire a hack? Surely, you’ve liveried carriages at your disposal.”
Her smile was tight. “I don’t, actually. Mother has tried to forbid me from attending salons and events such as these, and when I continued to go anyway, she thought to make my excursions impossible by prohibiting my use of any vehicles, horses, or grooms.”
Edmund chuckled. “The marchioness underestimates you.”
Her laugh was half a sigh. “In a way, I suppose.” Her shoulders lowered and she turned to look out the window. “We have forever been at odds, my mother and I.”
“I understand that,” Edmund replied, thinking of the woman who’d birthed him then spent the next twenty-odd years making sure he knew how much of a burden he was to her.
When Lady Lydia slipped her attention back to him, he dipped his chin.
“You mentioned that your father passed when you were younger,” she noted gently. “But you didn’t mention your mother.”
“Correct,” he replied with a tense smile.
“Has she also passed?”
He made a short, rough sound. “No. She’s just awful.”
The lady gasped. “You shouldn’t say that.”
“Not even if it’s totally true?”
“Well…I…”
Edmund chuckled. “Don’t worry, you’ll likely never have to meet her as she resides in Bath.”
Though she accepted his reply and did not say anything more about it, he could see the curiosity glinting in her eyes.
“To be honest,” he said with a small lift at the corner of his mouth. “I didn’t intercept your departure from the museum to talk of our family dynamics.”
Her eyes widened with false innocence. “You didn’t? How surprising. I must ask what inspired you to attend the lecture in the first place?”
“You don’t see me as a student of Socrates?” he teased.
Her lips twitched. “No.”
“You’re right,” he admitted, “I much prefer the words of Ovid.”
There was a flicker in her eyes as one brow lifted at a skeptical angle. “But the poet has so many words. Which do you find most pleasing?”
A thrill spun through Edmund’s blood as he recited a familiar line from Ovid’s Art of Love. “I am the poor man’s poet; because I am poor myself and I have known what it is to be in love. Not being able to pay them in presents, I pay my mistresses in poetry.”
“Dignity and love do not blend well, nor do they continue long together,” she retorted with another quote from Ovid.
Edmund chuckled. “Often the prickly thorn produces tender roses.”
There was no hesitation as she replied, “When the roses are gone, nothing is left but the thorn.” Lifting her chin, she added, “There is no such thing as pure pleasure; some anxiety always goes with it.”
Holding her gaze, Edmund leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees. Though her posture remained steady, there was a hitch in her breath and a flare in her eyes. He detected wariness in her, but not fear or disinterest. She was cautious, but fully engaged.
“And yet…” He lowered his voice. “I am dragged along by a strange new force. Desire and reason are pulling in different directions. I see the right way and approve it, but follow the wrong.” Before she could counter, he continued in a thick murmur, “We are ever striving after what is forbidden, and coveting what is denied us.”
He could see the flutter of her pulse in her throat and noted the way her gaze flicked from his eyes to his mouth and back again. She took a breath and licked her lips before issuing a clear warning to herself. “Deadly poisons are concealed under sweet honey.”
Was she tempted to taste anyway?
He hoped so.
Shifting his weight forward, he dropped to one knee, bracketing her hips with his forearms on the cushioned bench. Much closer now, but not touching her, he gazed at her from the subtly supplicating position and whispered, “Fortune and love favor the brave.”
She was silent for only a moment, her body still and poised. Then she lifted her chin. Her gaze was dark and fierce and focused, her voice strong and confident—and just a bit sultry—as she issued a challenge. “Either do not attempt at all or go through with it.”
Desire rushed through him, hot and demanding as he grasped her nape and pulled her toward him. There was a quick flash of light in her eyes. She was not surrendering to this kiss; she was demanding it. And for a moment, he felt as though she’d directed them to this moment more than he had.
The thought put a smile to his lips just as his mouth covered hers.
There was undeniable intention in the kiss. A purpose.
For Edmund it was to show her that passion and lust were not to be avoided or feared, but should be explored with revelry and shameless passion.
For her, he suspected, it was to claim something the world said she should be denied. To declare herself in charge of her own choices.
And damn if he wasn’t thrilled to be a part of that.
The initial press of his mouth was firm but chaste.
Until he felt her response.
A softening of her neck beneath his palm.
A deepening curve of her spine. Then her hand reaching out to brace upon his knee.
And just as before, when her touch had sent his lust into a spiral, it did so again.
Every muscle in his body tightened. Blood rushed through him to harden his cock in heavy pulses.
And when her mouth parted against his, he claimed entrance with the need of a man starving to death.
His tongue licked into her mouth, catching her gasp of surprise.
She tasted sweet but in a simple, earthy way. Like sugared violets or honied almonds. Her breath was light and soft and short until a soft sound rolled in her throat. Not quite a moan and certainly not a word, but it communicated to him nonetheless.
Releasing her nape, he grasped her hips and pulled her toward him. The limited space of the carriage forced her legs to one side as his taut abdomen pressed against her outer thigh. He would’ve preferred to have her legs parted around his hips, but he could make this work.
As he teased her mouth with his lips and tongue, luring her into a more passionate exploration of the kiss, he reached beneath the hem of her skirts and slid his hand warmly up the curve of her calf.
She tensed and murmured something against his lips, but she did not pull back. Her hands had lifted to his shoulders when he’d pulled her forward, and she clutched strongly to his form, anchoring herself to him.
Her reaction clutched his belly tight, and though he suspected she would not protest if he continued, he broke the kiss to meet her gaze.
He wanted more than silent capitulation.
He wanted her enthusiastic engagement. He needed her to state out loud what she desired.
Mostly, because he suspected that was what she needed.
Her breath puffed between her glistening lips as she stared silently into his heavy-lidded eyes. There was a flicker of confusion in her expression, then a tensing of her jaw. He easily recognized the light in her eyes and what it meant.
She was preparing to fight for what she wanted.