Suddenly, Roselie was back at Pierson’s side, tugging at his arm. “What have you done? You’ve gone and ruined everything!”
Not quite.
That was yet to come.
“Have you killed him?” Roselie demanded as she peered warily down at the prone fellow.
“Look, there, he’s moving. I only tapped him a bit,” Pierson told her.
He should have put a bullet in his chest, if only to stop him from spreading such tales.
But it was probably too late. Scandal—at the depths of what Ilford was hinting at—was like wildfire. Once lit, it wouldn’t stop until it had no new places to burn.
Out of nowhere Tuck arrived. A bit rumpled, his jacket askew and looking as tipsy as he had when he’d arrived for dinner. He stepped over Ilford and said quite succinctly, “Dreadful fellow.” Glancing back over his shoulder, he added, “Never really liked him. Always underfoot.”
“Yes, quite,” Pierson agreed. “Where have you been?”
Tuck shifted from one boot to another, as he had when they were kids and had been caught out in some mischief or another, but now added to that was the quantity of brandy he’d most likely consumed. “On the dance floor. Bit of trouble out there. Thought it best I make my bow and resort to a hasty exit.”
Roselie gasped as she glanced out at the dance floor, where there was a grand pile of ladies and gentlemen on the floor, all trying to gain their feet and their dignity.
“Tripped on a hem,” he admitted. “Though your business here, Piers, will most likely trump mine. You’ve done me a grand favor, my old friend.”
“A favor!” Roselie burst out. “He’s gone and ruined everything.”
On the floor, Ilford was starting to come to, groaning and rolling about, his hands clapped over his bloody nose.
Tuck slapped the viscount soundly on the back and grinned. “I never thought you could improve Almack’s. Well done.”
Even as Pierson regained his footing, Roselie whirled on Tuck, in an indignant huff of silk. “Well done? Are you mad?” She spared only a glance at Lord Charleton’s heir, as if the answer was rather evident.
Yes, utterly.
“Mother is going to have apoplexy when she hears this.” Roselie wagged her fan under her brother’s nose. “As if it isn’t bad enough that you’ve gone and ruined my chances, if I am orphaned by all this, you will answer for it.”
Ruined. At that word, Pierson glanced up and spied Louisa, standing beside Lord Rimswell and gaping at him.
Like most everyone else was doing. The gaping part, that is.
Where the devil was Charleton, or Lady Aveley? What were they thinking, leaving her unprotected?
Pierson glanced over at the still prostrate marquess and realized he probably hadn’t done her any favors in that regard.
In fact, he’d made a mess of everything.
Get her out of here, his better judgment prodded. Get her out now.
Yes, exactly. He pushed his way through the room, leaving Roselie and Tuck staring after him. The last thing he wanted was for Louisa to hear Lord Ilford’s ugly contentions being bandied about.
It would be bad enough in the coming days as the gossip ran through the ton like wildfire.
Did you know their mother. . .
Pierson shook his head. No. If there was any way to get her out of here before . . .
He’d failed someone once before. He wasn’t about to let it happen again.
Yet to his consternation, he arrived at her side just as Bradwell Garrick, Lord Rimswell did.
“What do you think you are doing?” Brody demanded as Pierson took Louisa’s hand and began to tow her from the room.
“Getting her out of here,” he replied over his shoulder.
“I was just about to do the same thing,” Rimswell declared, following behind with the same sort of determination Poldie used to display.
Pierson snorted and spared a glance at Poldie’s little brother. “Not if I have anything to say about the matter.”
“Do I have any say—” Louisa began.
“No!” both of the gentleman barked.
Pierson could see she was all too close to digging her heels stubbornly into the marble beneath her slippers.
“I won’t go without my sister, Lord Wakefield. Not without Lavinia,” she told him, trying to pull up to a stop, which was only drawing more attention to them. “She’s in the middle of that muddle.” She tipped her head toward the nasty stew of overturned dancers Tuck had managed.
How like Miss Tempest to want to wade right in. And it seemed she had gained a champion willing to help her.
He turned to Lord Rimswell, telling the fellow, “Do something useful. Go tell my uncle to fetch the other Miss Tempest out of that”—he pointed toward the mess of ladies, many of whom were now quarreling and pointing fingers—“and take her home. Immediately.”
Brody looked ready to argue the point, but being young and full of romantic notions, it probably mattered not to him which damsel he rescued.
Besides, Miss Tempest gave him an encouraging nudge. “If you would be so kind, my lord. I would be in your debt.”
The young baron nodded and turned to go find Lord Charleton, pushing his way through the crush.
Pierson retraced his course, Louisa now in tow, until he reached Roselie and Tuck. “We’re leaving.”
“So soon?” Tuck jested, following in step behind them—though his path was far from steady. “I’d say the evening just got interesting.”
“Don’t you think you’ve made it interesting enough?” Miss Tempest shot back.
Tuck laughed. “So this one is your harridan, isn’t she, Piers?”
Pierson flinched slightly and decided to avoid looking at Miss Tempest, not that his sister wasn’t adverse to continue the wigging Tuck most likely deserved.
“Do shut up,” Roselie told him, marching past the man and coming up beside her brother and Miss Tempest. “You’ve ruined me, you know.” So much for his sister turning her wrath on Tuck. “Whyever did you demand I come with you to Almack’s if all you ever intended to do was cause a ruckus?”
“Believe it or not, Roselie, I hardly came to Almack’s on your account,” he told her.
She glanced across him at Louisa. “Yes, I can see that now.” Nor was his sister done. “Whatever was Ilford prattling on about that left you with no choice but to screw up his ogle?”
“Screw up his ogle?” Pierson repeated, more scandalized at his little sister’s usage of boxing cant than he was by her calculating glance at Louisa. “Wherever do you hear such things?”
“This is my third—”
“Third Season, yes I know,” he replied, cutting her off. “I think you would be better served by not reminding everyone how long you’ve been out.”
Behind them, Tuck laughed. A dangerous choice on his part, for given the murderous expression on his sister’s face, Rowland might be the next one in line to have his eye blackened.
“So I will point out that you’ve gone and ruined us both.” She cast another glance at Louisa. “I fear we haven’t been properly introduced, nor do I have any faith my brother can accomplish the feat, so I am Miss Roselie Stratton. I do believe you are one of the Tempest sisters—”
“Yes. I’m Louisa,” she told her. “It is so lovely to meet you.”
Both Pierson and Roselie gaped at her very proper response—for here they were making a very improper retreat out of Almack’s, down the steps and nearly to the carriage-clogged street outside and Miss Tempest sounded like the finest graduate of a Bath school.
“I might be cowhanded, my lord,” she told him pertly, “but I am not rag-mannered.”
“I like her,” Roselie told her brother.
“I don’t think you are alone in that regard,” Tuck muttered, though no one was paying him much heed.
Roselie continued on, “Yes, well, I suspect you are going to wish you’d never become acquainted with my brother after tonight. He’s done you a horrible wrong, Miss Tempest, by dragging you into his folly.”
Then, the lady in question surprised Pierson, her fingers curling a bit around his. “I think he was being rather splendid.”
“Splendid?” Roselie heaved another sigh. “You’re all mad.”
Pierson’s heart stopped. And it wasn’t from the dangerous tendrils of desire that wound up his arm as Louisa had touched him. No, it was because she thought him a hero.
And there was nothing further from the truth. He was no one’s hero. Not hers. Not Roselie’s. Not Poldie’s.
They had gotten to the edge of the street and Pierson paused to take their bearings, drawing in a deep breath and exhaling it with the panic that was starting to overwhelm him. He couldn’t do this. She couldn’t continue to believe he’d save her.
Because eventually he’d fail, and she’d be the one to pay the price.
Behind them a flurry of activity erupted.
“Wakefield, I’ll have satisfaction for this affront!” Ilford called out as he pushed and shoved his way out the door, a bellicose bear roaring his displeasure.
“Can I hit him this time?” Tuck asked, looking all too gleeful to help out. “That would satisfy me. Immensely.”
“No one is going to hit anyone,” Roselie told them both.
“Wakefield!” Ilford bellowed as he came down another step. “I’ll send my seconds around in the morning, mark my words.”
Pierson glanced up at the steps, seeing not the Marquess of Ilford, but the lady standing silhouetted in the doorway. Melliscent.
She looked down at him with something akin to feral pleasure. A dangerous admiration that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. The look in her eyes was an offer and a promise.
In that moment, he realized how little he knew her. Had known her. The woman he once thought to marry. The woman he’d been mad to possess.
Then he glanced over at Louisa and he was struck by the contrast between the two—Melliscent, a cool, cold goddess, demanding of admiration and conquest. And Louisa, her quiet beauty asking for nothing, but giving everything in return.
Which left him considering how little he knew of Louisa.
How well could any man know the mysteries inside a woman?
But one thing he couldn’t shake was the sense that Louisa, unlike the woman on the steps, wouldn’t have left him broken and tormented.
She’d have persevered out of loyalty. And love. For she would never agree to wed unless her heart was engaged.
Deeply and thoroughly.
Look at how she’d seen to getting Bitty new dresses, and breeches that fit Bob. Nothing missed her attention.
On the other hand, Melliscent wouldn’t have even noticed creatures so far beneath her skirts, or worried over Pierson’s linen closets, or cared beyond her own sphere.
No, Louisa Tempest was like the plants she carefully tucked into his garden—she would only take root where she was certain of her heart, where she could thrive and grow and blossom, year after year.
Where there was no question of anything less than love.
Meanwhile, Pierson’s world came crashing back into his reverie.
“Wakefield, I will ruin you!” Ilford continued to threaten, repeating his earlier challenge “Expect my seconds to call in the morning.”
“No, they won’t,” Tuck said, sounding more than a bit disappointed. “Never do. He clamors and wails about ‘satisfaction’ and then decamps for one of his father’s Scottish hunting boxes until it all blows over.”
“There’s always a first,” Roselie pointed out, though Pierson wasn’t really listening.
Tuck took a glance over his shoulder and shuddered at the angry mob behind them. “What the devil did Ilford say that got you milling about like Gentleman Jim? Thought you’d given up fighting.”
“Leave it be, Tuck.” Pierson spied his coach and started to wade into the street, Louisa’s hand still caught in his grasp and Roselie following, muttering as to her undeserved fate.
“Leave it be?” Tuck shook his head. “That is what you always tell me to do. But it seems I have a horse in this race, cuz. Always have had. Just as I did the last time you told me to ‘leave it be.’ You recall that one? Just after you came home. Alone.”
That word stopped Pierson cold. Alone. Yes, he’d come home alone. Without Poldie. He hardly needed reminding of the fact, but here was Tuck, dancing on that razor’s edge.
Then again, Tuck’s timing was never what one would call well thought out.
“What are you going to do, Piers? Tap my claret as well?” his old friend taunted as he came closer. “You know I won’t hit you back. Or call for seconds. But I will keep asking. What happened to the two of you in Spain? Poldie was my friend as well.”
“Is this really the time to be having this discussion?” Roselie interjected, shoving herself between the two men, most likely fearing she was about to witness another bout of fisticuffs.
Tuck turned on her. “As if Poldie’s death wasn’t a boon to you, Miss Stratton. Elevated your heart’s desire right up to an eligible parti, didn’t it? No small favor, eh? Not that Brody has noticed. Not once in all three of your precious Seasons.”
His sister sucked in a deep breath, her cheeks flushing with a dark blush, but more to the point, her lips moved to argue the point, to deny the accusations being flung at her, but nothing came out.
Roselie loved Brody?
Pierson swayed at the realization that his little sister had grown up without him, and how much he had missed, lost, by locking himself away.
He shook his head, for as he’d said before, now was not the time for the squabbling around him. His sister’s romantic entanglements—or lack thereof—would have to wait.
His own entanglements, as knotty as they’d suddenly become, were difficult enough.
“Begone, Tuck. I don’t have time for this,” Pierson told him. They’d gotten to the carriage and he yanked the door open. Roselie scrambled in quickly, most likely all too happy to be out of sight. “Or I will hit you.”
Tuck, his face a mixture of anger and hurt, stumbled back a few steps, reopening the breach between them. “One day you’ll have to answer me, Piers. You’ll never be done with all of this until you do. You owe me that much.”
Owe him? Pierson wasn’t the one who’d squandered his commission money away on a table of loo just before they were to set sail.
No. He’d gone. Fought. And by all accounts, lost everything. While Tuck . . .
Tuck had the audacity to stand there and accuse him?
It wasn’t to be borne.
“Then perhaps you should have come along,” he replied. “Done as you promised. Seen to him yourself. Poldie kept his word.”
“And died,” Tuck pointed out, before he turned on one heel and stalked off.
All the while, as Viscount Wakefield practically dragged her toward his carriage, Louisa was assailed by images of what had just happened—and all in the mere course of an evening.
The loathsome Lord Ilford and his intimations . . . The sight of Wakefield in the doorway . . . The realization of why he’d come to Almack’s . . . Melliscent and her icy beauty . . . Wakefield knocking the marquess to the ground . . . Lavinia’s cry from the dance floor.
Lavinia!
“I won’t leave without my sister,” she protested as Wakefield all but tossed her into the carriage. His sister had already scrambled inside, though of her own volition. “My sister—I cannot—”
The viscount’s large frame blocked her escape. He was closing the door and rapping on the roof even before he took his seat—as eager as his sister to be gone. “Charleton and Lady Aveley have her well in hand,” he told her. “I saw them going toward his carriage just now.” His dark gaze was enough to pin her to her seat.
Which was good because the carriage jolted forward.
“Then maybe I should join them and—” Louisa tried to catch her breath, but the man sitting across from her left her breathless. Suddenly the carriage was too close—and she wanted out.
She must get out.
He must have sensed her panic, for he shoved one of his long legs out in front of him, blocking the door, leaving her trapped even as the carriage quickly left Almack’s behind. There was nothing left but for the shadows of this disastrous night to close in around her. After all, her life was in ruins.
Lord Ilford would see to that. And not because the viscount had knocked him down. But because he was the sort of man who delighted in such mischief.
But whyever had the man chosen her as the object of his interest?
If Louisa had been smarter, she’d have gathered up Lavinia right after she’d danced with the marquess and bought tickets on the first mail coach going within thirty miles of Kempton.
Oh, dear heavens! Louisa bit her lips together. Lavinia!
“Miss Tempest, I can see you are distressed,” the viscount’s sister began. “I’m certain all of this will—” She stopped and glanced at her brother, as if seeking his confirmation.
That all this would just blow over.
But the viscount gave a slight shake to his head and his sister pressed her lips together, trying to push them up into an encouraging smile.
“Thank you, Miss Stratton,” Louisa managed before she looked out the window and up toward the sky. There she thought she saw the tiny light of a star through the endless London haze. It blinked and fluttered for a second and then was gone.
Extinguished.
Rather like the starry hope that Viscount Wakefield’s kiss had ignited inside her.
That she might . . . find love right across the lane. An unexpected bit of happiness all her own.
As she glanced furtively across the carriage at Wakefield’s stormy expression, she knew that whatever bliss she had found in his arms was lost forevermore.
She’d pulled him into a whirlwind of scandal and notice. Quite likely ruined his sister’s chances as well.
Across the carriage, Miss Stratton shifted, and settled back in the leather recesses. “Well, if you won’t answer Rowland, you will answer me,” his sister began. “What foul thing did Ilford say? I am assuming it was most foul—or it had better have been, if only to justify that scene you caused.” Miss Stratton crossed her arms over her chest and stared at her brother. “Well?”
“I’m not discussing the matter with you. It isn’t a fit subject for your ears.” He paused for a moment. “For any lady’s ears. Even one with three Seasons.”
“If that is your decision . . .” Miss Stratton’s response trailed off, ending with a little sniff. “You won’t be able to put off Mother so easily. She’ll be on your doorstep at dawn.”
“Dawn?” Wakefield replied, his brows quirking as he smiled slightly.
His sister smiled as well, if only for a moment. “Oh, bother. You know very well what I mean.” She turned to Louisa. “Mother never rises before one,” she explained. “She says it is unseemly to get up early.” Then she turned her attention back to her brother. “But mark my words, when she hears about this debacle, she’ll make an exception.”
“I doubt word will reach her that quickly.”
Miss Stratton snorted and turned her head to look out the window. With three Seasons of experience, she most likely knew just how fast a scandal could travel through the ton. “The theater will be getting out any time now, and she’ll have the news before she reaches her carriage.”
As the two siblings argued the matter, Louisa did her best to sink into the deep recesses of the leather seat and pretend she wasn’t there. In this carriage. With Lord Wakefield.
For she didn’t want to think of what Lord Ilford must have said to the viscount.
Yet it was all she could think of—unfortunately—and how Wakefield must detest her now.
Then there had been his reaction when she called him “splendid.” He’d looked horrified by her admiration.
He hadn’t wanted her praise. Not in the least.
All too soon, the carriage rolled to a stop at a residence, and Lord Wakefield pulled his long legs back up and turned to his sister. “This is your stop.”
Roselie glanced first at Louisa and then at her brother. “I hardly think it is proper for me to get out first. Mother would not approve.”
“Miss Tempest lives next door to me. I will not have the coachman dallying back and forth across Mayfair in the middle of the night to suit your sensibilities, Roselie.” He opened the door and got down to let her out. “And Mother need not find out if you don’t tell her.”
There was a finality to his words that had the age-old ring of tell-her-and-I’ll-cut-off-your-pin-money.
His sister huffed a bit. “As if I want to speak a word of this entire evening,” she told him tartly. “Miss Tempest, my apologies again. Do know that the only reason I am leaving you alone with my ogre of a brother is because you appear far too intelligent to be easily frightened. But if he tries, please know for all his threats and fisticuffs, he isn’t as horrible as he wants the world to believe. No matter how hard he tries.” She pulled a face at her brother and sauntered up to the door. “One scandal per evening is the limit, Piers. One doesn’t need three Seasons to know that much.”
And then she was gone into the house and Louisa was alone with Lord Wakefield.
Again.
He climbed back in and rapped the ceiling with his walking stick.
The coachman was only too happy to continue on—most likely he had his warm bed in his sights.
“My lord—” she began.
Even as he said, “Miss Tempest—”
“You go,” he said, nodding to her.
“No, you,” she insisted.
“I wanted to say—” he began, and then faltered to a stop, taking a furtive glance out the window.
“Yes?” she urged.
“It’s just that I—” He pressed his lips together. “This afternoon, that is—”
“Yes, my lord?”
“I . . . I . . . I planted the remainder of the strawberries for you. So you needn’t have to come back, that is, if you don’t wish to return.”
“Is that what you desire?”
Louisa’s lips snapped shut. Desire. Goodness, couldn’t she have used another word? Such as want. Or need. Oh, bother, every word she tried spoke of one thing.
Desire. And there it was. She desired Lord Wakefield. For he was, as his sister had said, not beastly at all. But rather heavenly. Even if he was a tad difficult.
Which, she decided, came in handy at times. Especially with the likes of Ilford around.
Oh, Ilford. That horrible man.
Louisa glanced up at Lord Wakefield. “If I may ask, what did Lord Ilford say that gave you cause to strike him?”
To her surprise, the viscount laughed. “You have fewer Seasons to your credit than my sister. What makes you think I would share such tattle with you?” He glanced out the window and then said, “If you must know—”
“I must.”
“Well, then, he spoke ill of someone and I cared not for his inferences.”
“I had the same experience when I danced with him,” she said, notching her head up. “So I trod on his foot. Twice.”
Wakefield smiled. “The marquess claims it was thrice.”
“Yes, it was three times. The first one was an accident. Well, it seemed an accident.”
Wakefield nodded with approval. “I doubt he will ever dance with you again.” His words were quiet and dark. And not merely a statement. More like a promise.
Louisa shivered, for she’d never heard such vehemence behind a man’s words. “I don’t want you to fight a duel with him. Not over me. Can you refuse his seconds?”
“There won’t be any seconds,” he told her. “It’s as Tuck said, Ilford will curse and bluster a bit, but he won’t make good on his threat.” His fingers curled into a fist, then slowly unwound, and in a flash of lamplight, Louisa saw the blood.
He’d hurt himself defending . . . Well, defending someone. And it didn’t matter who, for in an instant, she crossed the desert between them and took his hand in hers.
“You shouldn’t have,” she murmured, as she turned his hand over so she could see his injury more clearly.
Wakefield would have none of her fussing. He pulled his hand free. “It is nothing.”
“I disagree.” She dug into her reticule and pulled out her handkerchief, then reached for his hand, which he held aloft and well out of her reach. “Do you realize how foolish you look? Give me your hand.”
“It is my hand,” he told her, a mulish expression on his handsome features.
Ignoring his protests, she caught hold of his sleeve and pulled his hand back down into her grasp. “A hand injured over my honor.” This time she wasn’t letting go. No matter how much he blustered.
“I never said it was you.”
“Well, I know it was,” she said. “And you shouldn’t have.”
“Why? Because I made matters worse?”
“Oh, I suspect matters were ruined before you planted that facer.”
“Not you as well,” he moaned at her use of cant.
“I used the term correctly, didn’t I?” she asked, suddenly feeling a bit shy, for the warmth of his hand was filling her senses with all sorts of notions.
“Yes. Unfortunately.” That last part was added like a scold. No, it was a scold.
“These will need to be washed when you get home, but for now—” She began to wind her handkerchief around his broad, scarred knuckles. This wasn’t the first time he’d used his fists thusly. And she glanced up at him, realizing how little she knew of this man. “If you must know, I heard Harriet Hathaway’s mother use the expression—at the Midsummer Eve’s Ball a few years ago, just after Benjamin Hathaway had landed a most excellent facer on his twin, Benedict.”
“Lady Hathaway used the expression facer at a ball?” He shook his head. “I have been out of society for too long.”
Louisa laughed a little. “Perhaps. But I don’t think Lady Hathaway can help herself—she does have five rather unruly sons to contend with. Nor would it be a very good Midsummer Eve’s Ball in Kempton if there weren’t some scandal or another.” She leaned closer and glanced up into his eyes. “In comparison I found Almack’s rather dull . . . that is, until you arrived.”
“I probably shouldn’t have,” he said, his gaze locked with hers. “I rather made a muddle of things.”
She didn’t know if he meant hitting Ilford or just the fact that he arrived at Almack’s.
“Not to me,” she told him. “But why did you—”
“Hit Ilford? I thought I’d already explained—”
“No,” she said, as she finished tying a knot in her handkerchief and neatly tucking the ends in. “Why did you come to Almack’s tonight?”
“My sister—” he began.
Louisa went to let go of his hand, but he caught hold of her fingers and held them.
Trapped them.
She quirked up a brow at him. “It wasn’t your sister.” The words came out in a whisper. A hope.
A wish.
“It wasn’t? How can you be so certain?”
He was looking at her again. His gaze searching hers.
Be certain? She wasn’t, but her heart . . . Oh, her heart longed to know the truth.
To hear it. From him.
“You refused Mr. Rowland earlier—”
“You heard about that?” He shook his head. “Never mind. Of course you did.”
“What changed your mind?”
“You,” he said quite simply.
Whatever had possessed him to make such a declaration? Pierson couldn’t even manage to look at her for fear she’d see the truth, even as he tried to defuse his confession. “Well, rather Tiploft did.”
“Tiploft?” Miss Tempest smiled. “Dear Tiploft.”
“He has a newly discovered talent for interfering. I can’t imagine what, or rather, who, has inspired such an alteration in his character. He was quite sensible up until recently.” Pierson dared a glance at her.
Of course, she met his gaze squarely, surely. “And you, my lord? Have you changed?”
She had to ask?
Yes, she did. This was Miss Tempest. She always asked the impertinent questions.
And had he? Changed?
Yes, unfortunately. In a thousand different ways. All of them terrifying. All of them impossible.
Better than confessing the truth, he chose to tease her a bit. “Yes, I suppose I have. Having an orderly linen closet gives a man an entirely new perspective on things.” He grinned at her and brought her fingers to his lips.
Slowly, hypnotically, he rolled her glove down, leaving her fingers bared to his.
How was it that she could bind his knuckles, tie a handkerchief around his hand, but her bare hand, the feel of her silken skin against his, left him vulnerable, wounded, bruised with something far more dangerous.
Longing.
How could something so simple as her touch pull him to her so easily?
But it did. Her warmth flowed into the ice within him. Her fingers trapped in his grasp made him want so much more . . .
“I don’t think—” she began to protest, trying to pull her hand back.
“Don’t think,” he told her, as he tossed her glove on the empty seat across the carriage, then brought her hand up to his lips, his gaze locked with hers.
Daring her to protest.
When his lips touched her fingertips, when the warmth that seemed an intangible part of her, lured him closer, desire burst forth inside him.
Bottled up for days, one might even argue since the moment they’d met, it sparked to life once again, a blaze of need.
His lips nibbled at her fingers while his gaze told another story.
This is what I would do to you. All of you.
Her eyes widened just slightly, before she sighed, leaning her luscious body toward him.
Offering herself to him.
“Forgive me,” he whispered as he reached out and caught the back of her head and drew her close.
Forgive him? The moment his lips touched hers there was nothing to forgive.
She went quite willingly into his arms, pulling herself up against him.
Letting his kiss pull them ever closer.
His tongue swiped at hers, dared her as his gaze had, even as his hand—the one uninjured from the night—was exploring her, along the curve of her hip, up to her breast and then over her nipple.
“Oooh,” she moaned, unable to stop herself.
His fingers curled around the edge of her bodice, and then dipped the silk down, freeing her for him to explore.
Good heavens, she was exposed to him, and was nearly about to panic with mortification, when he dipped his head down and began tracing that circle once again, this time over the tip of her breast, his tongue both rough and smooth as he explored her, sucked at her, drew her into his mouth.
Any thought of all the reasons why this was wrong—finding herself half naked in the viscount’s carriage—were forgotten in the ocean of desire threatening to swallow her.
Tossing her about in its stormy grasp.
Just then, the viscount looked up from his labors, his expression hungry, his mouth tilted in a wry grin. He paused only for that long moment, and Louisa tried her best to catch her breath. But he hardly gave her a chance—rising up and catching her mouth again, kissing her deeply, exploring her, tasting her, all the while pressing her back into the seat until he covered her.
The carriage bounced over an uneven bit, and her hands caught hold of his hips, clinging to him as she tried to find her balance—but it wasn’t easily done with Lord Wakefield’s lips upon hers, his hands exploring her.
She only spiraled further into the chaotic abyss he was stirring inside her as his fingers began pulling her skirt up, leaving a hot trail along her calf, and then moving slowly upward.
The cool night air hadn’t a chance against the heat he was creating between her legs, as if calling to his fingers to come even higher, begging for him to stroke and tease their way past her thigh.
Louisa knew she should be shocked, she should be protesting, but if anything, his lips, his touch had enticed her, seduced her, left her breathless.
Wanting more.
And more was what he had in mind.
He moved closer, if that was even possible, but there he was, his entire body claiming hers, atop her, his fingers having found their way to her very core, and slowly, languidly, he began to stroke her, tease her to open up to him.
However could she speak when he touched her like that? Left her in this delicious state of wonder. Of need.
Her lashes fluttered shut as she blocked out everything, felt herself drawn toward a single point. An aching, begging place, where all she wanted was him to touch her.
And then do it again.
Wakefield was unraveling her, uncoiling the tightly held passions he’d wound around her in the past few weeks.
Every dream she’d had. Every kiss they shared, every time he’d touched her, had left her waiting for this.
This.
This need, this anxious, desperate desire. For every time she’d awakened restless and full of want, his touch now teased her toward unknown treasures. Whispered for her to follow. As if they were bound together by a single thread.
And when he pulled, she came toward him. Closer ever still. Her hips rising up to meet him.
Slowly, deliberately, he pulled at that thread and teased it out of the knot he’d tied with that first kiss.
“Wakefield,” she gasped, as her world began to tighten, as her hands fisted onto his jacket, her eyes now wide open and looking at him.
They were still dark, still dangerous, so very full of passion, but she would have followed him, devil that he was, anywhere in that moment.
She was lost and he would show her the way.
“Pierson,” he whispered back, his finger delving into her, sliding over her sex and sliding back inside her. Deeper. Harder.
She rocked against him, rode his touch, his strokes.
And when she said his name again, called it, gasped it, it was because he’d taken her over that edge, carried her into a world she couldn’t have imagined.
“Pierson!” she cried out, her body quaking, falling, rising all at once. “Oh, Pierson, yes!”
For now she knew the way.