Sometime after supper, Louisa followed a maid down the stairs to Lord Charleton’s study.
“His Lordship said you were to meet him in there,” the girl said, offering a tremulous smile before beating a hasty retreat.
As bad as all that, Louisa mused as she drew in a deep breath and went to the door.
The room was cast in ominous shadows, with only a solitary candle burning on the desk, while a soft glow radiated off the coals in the grate.
The large winged chair the baron favored was turned toward the fireplace and all she could see of him was his hand curled around the arm of the chair.
Taking another deep breath, Louisa stepped into the room and launched in. “I fear I’ve failed you, my lord. I did my best to help your nephew, but I’ve only made matters worse for him.”
To her never-ending regret. Dragging him into society’s glare. Into the middle of her scandalous ruin.
How he must detest her.
As well he should.
As for Lord Charleton, he said nothing. Just sat there with his back to her.
His silence gave Louisa the fidgets. Her father was prone to such moody displays when he was displeased.
What was it Papa always said? Something about the truth.
“I had hoped Lord Wakefield might find a measure of happiness in . . .”
My kiss. In holding me in his arms. As I found with him.
Instead, she continued, “In having his house in order. At the very least, he approves of Mrs. Petchell. Or so I believe.” Though he hadn’t at first. She couldn’t help herself, she smiled at the memory of him blustering across his yard all determined to send the woman packing until a pair of orphans had tugged at his heart. “It’s why I fell in love with him,” she said aloud without thinking.
And once she said the words, she pressed her lips together and wished them back.
But did she really? Really want to take that declaration back?
She loved the viscount.
“Everyone calls him beastly and rude and uncivil, and he is all those things—”
The hand on the arm of the chair tightened its grasp until his knuckles practically glowed white.
Well, Lord Charleton could hardly be insulted by the truth. He’d said as much himself about his nephew.
“Yet Lord Wakefield is one of the most honorable men I’ve ever met. He’s also—and please don’t laugh—excessively kindhearted.”
She smiled to herself, recalling Bob’s excitement the other day to learn that he was to go to school.
Himself insists. Says I’m as bright as a copper. Me, miss! Me!
“How could I but help to fall in love with him?”
Still the baron said nothing.
“I know it is said that his heart was broken when his betrothed cried off and left him, but I don’t think that is the matter at all. I think it is the loss of someone else entirely that plagues him still. There is no replacing such a hole in one’s heart, but surely one day he will learn to live with it. I had rather hoped I might—”
Louisa had edged forward as she spoke and now stood at the edge of the candlelight. Just beyond lay the shadows in which Lord Charleton sat.
“Please, my lord, say something,” she said, as she came around the chair.
Yet her plea hadn’t been made to Lord Charleton, but another.
For there sat Wakefield. Ensconced in Charleton’s chair with Hannibal in his lap.
And tears in his eyes.
“What did my uncle ask you to do, Louisa?”
For once, the lady was without words. She gaped at him, but he could see her thoughts racing, the questions running through her shock at finding not Charleton, but him.
“What did Charleton ask you to do?” he repeated, this time standing up.
Hannibal yowled and complained to be abandoned so abruptly, and showed his displeasure, giving his half a tail a lofty wave and stalking out the door. If you cannot give me the attention I deserve. . .
Wakefield stopped in front of Miss Tempest and with one finger tipped her chin up so she looked at him. “What did he ask?”
“To keep up what I was doing,” she whispered.
“Which was?” His hand curled beneath her chin, gently caressing her.
“Annoying you, I suppose,” she told him, her gaze never wavering from his. “You had ordered me out of your house and he—”
Wakefield could see where this was going. So she’d taken to the gardens.
And drawn him out like a moth to a flame.
As no one else could.
That was the part that left him a bit gobsmacked. Just as Tuck had earlier. As Poldie’s letters had. None of which he would have gained without her. Without her dogged interference.
Her love.
There it is. That is happiness. Damn Ilford. To hell with the Lady Kipps of the world. Love this woman. It is all she needs.
All you need.
Her. Miss Tempest. This busybody, chatty miss with her heart on her sleeve.
Even now, he could see her mind at work, the bit of panic in her eye. Did he hear what I said?
“Yes, I heard you,” he told her softly. “You love me.”
“I—I—I didn’t realize,” she began, her gaze fluttering toward the chair. “That is. You weren’t being very honorable by not announcing—” she protested, pushing him back with her hands on his chest.
He caught hold of her wrists and held her there. “By not announcing myself? And look at what I would have missed. Besides, you said I was honorable. And kindhearted. Whatever are you doing, telling such Banbury tales?”
“They are both true,” she shot back, this time notching up her chin on her own, once again defiant.
“Beg to differ,” he told her, drawing her close, winding one arm about her waist so he could hold her, and the other hand began picking at those dreadful pins in her hair. “If I were honorable, I wouldn’t be doing this.”
Whyever would a woman with such a gorgeous head of hair want to pin it up in some ugly knot? So he set those silken strands of mahogany free, one pin at a time.
“You shouldn’t,” she whispered as her hair began to fall about her shoulders. Chiding him because she should, not because she wanted him to stop.
Because each time he pulled a pin from her hair, he could feel a sigh slip from her, feel her body ease closer to him, sense the tremble of her heart.
“I’m ever so glad you love me,” he told her.
“Why is that?” Her words were a whisper of hope.
Pierson leaned closer and began nibbling on her neck, letting his lips and tongue trace over her skin. She was soft and supple and wavering within his arms. “Because I find myself in quite the same state,” he confessed.
Her lashes fluttered open as he made his confession. “You do?”
How could he not fall in love with her? La Tempesta with her meddling ways and orderly closets and kisses that tasted of strawberries and desire.
A woman who looked at him and saw straight to his heart.
But his silence was hardly what she wanted. “Do say something.”
“There is nothing more to say,” he told her as he went to the door.
“Please don’t go,” she whispered, urgency in every word.
“I’m not,” he told her as he got to the door. And then made the decision that opened his heart.
By closing one more door.
And throwing the latch shut.
“Where is Louisa?”
The question gave Charleton a start. He spun around and found Amy coming down the steps.
Never Lady Aveley to him. She would always be Amy in his mind.
“Ssshh!” he warned, and took her by the arm and led her up to the first landing. “You’ll ruin everything.”
“Ruin?” Amy’s brows arched with alarm.
Probably not the best word to use in front of a matron charged with the care of two young ladies.
“Where is Louisa, Charleton?” This time her words were an insistent demand, all starched and proper.
“Which one is Louisa?” he teased, blocking her path.
“Don’t play coy with me,” she shot back, trying to look over his shoulder at whatever was to be found in the foyer and beyond.
He supposed it was the shadowy beyond that had her at sixes and sevens.
“I was just in their room and Lavinia informed me that you requested Louisa in your study. And now I find you here lurking about—”
“I hardly lurk—”
“Lurking, I say. You haven’t looked so guilty of something since you spent a fortnight catching frogs to let loose at Lady Duddington’s ball. What are you doing, Charleton?”
“I’ve arranged—”
Downstairs, the sound of boots crossing the floor could be heard, then the slam of the study door as it closed, followed by the very distinct sound of a latch being thrown.
Amy’s mouth fell open and her face drained of color. “Was that—”
“Wakefield?” the baron nodded. “It was, indeed.”
“Don’t tell me that Louisa is—”
“In there?” He glanced over his shoulder at the closed door and grinned. “I couldn’t say. Not when you’ve asked me not to.”
“Oh, what have you done? This is highly improper!” Amy went to move around him, and he caught hold of her arm and held her fast.
“I certainly hope so,” Charleton told her. It was such a small thing—to take hold of her. But suddenly, everything that had happened in the last fortnight had boiled down to this choice.
To live in the past, or look forward once more.
Oh, it hadn’t been easy to reach this place—ever since his house had been flung open, it had been nothing but torment. Girlish laughter ringing through the halls. The doorbell being pulled from morning to night with invitations and notes.
And perfume! The house seemed to breathe with it.
All painful reminders of the life, of the love, he’d lost.
And then had come Almack’s and the horrible ruin of that evening. He’d awakened the next morning and realized that he’d failed these girls—horribly. Against Izzy’s wishes, against everything she’d desired.
Oh, Isobel, what would you make of me now? It was then that he’d finally unlocked the drawer where he’d hidden her letter.
And for some time he’d merely run his fingers over the familiar script, so curved and beautiful.
As she’d been.
Eventually, he’d taken a deep breath, and with trembling fingers opened her missive.
The first words had been a shocking reminder of who his wife had been. While he preferred to remember her soft smiles and kind words, he had forgotten why she had enchanted him in the first place. Her very forthright manner.
I am gone, Charleton. Forevermore.
That statement, clearly all Isobel, had been like losing her all over again.
He didn’t know how long he’d stared blankly at those words, trapped in the same state of denial he’d been in for nearly two years.
She wasn’t gone. Just lost. Yet there were her words, so utterly final.
For some reason, he finally laughed. Oh, Isobel. So very practical. She would have loved Louisa Tempest.
And it seemed she had, for her goddaughters were foremost in her thoughts.
Help them find love, Charleton, as I found my heart with you. That is the greatest gift you could ever pass along in this world—the continuation of love.
“Oh, Izzy, I’ve failed you. I’ve failed them,” he told her.
Why had he been so demmed stubborn? Then he continued to read, instructions she’d underlined, as if she knew he would do his utmost to admire her penmanship and ignore their message.
Your heart was meant for love, Charleton. Please, my dearest, give it to another, for I can no longer share it with you. And a heart that is not shared with others, beloved by another, only withers and dies. Laugh with another. Love another. Take her to your bed. Make her your wife. You were never meant to marry me, and yet you did against everyone’s wishes.
Now surprise them all again, and marry anew.
While he had scoffed at the very notion of marrying again when he’d read the words the first time, now it was another line that haunted him as he dragged himself back into the present.
You were never meant to marry me. . .
He hadn’t been. His future had been pledged to another since childhood.
That is until Isobel had come dancing into his path.
But it wasn’t Isobel he held at the moment, but Amy. His childhood companion. The girl next door.
“Charleton, you must go in there and stop this,” she was saying.
He glanced over his shoulder at the closed study door. “Why?”
“Why? Because Wakefield is in there with Louisa. Alone.”
“I think her bloody cat is in there.”
As if on cue, Hannibal came around the corner and began scratching the post at the bottom of the stairs.
When the beast finished, he glanced up at them with an expression that said, What?
“This is ruinous,” Amy persisted.
“How else are things to move along if they aren’t alone?”
“Move along?” The lady appeared horrified. “This is not the way these things are done, Charleton!”
“George,” he told her. “You used to call me George.”
Beneath his fingers, she quailed and then suddenly pulled her arm free of his, as if she’d just realized that he was holding her.
Wherever was the indomitable, impossible, Miss Amy Strathaven he’d once known?
The one who had helped him catch those frogs and carry them across three fields to get them into Lady Duddington’s ballroom just as the first dance was being called.
His scandalous, devilish Amy.
He glanced over at her and saw her as he hadn’t in years. She looked much as she had that night all those years ago, her hair done in a simple braid, wearing nothing more than a plain gown.
No ornaments, no pots of paint for Amy. No unnecessary frippery. Just her fair cheeks and her bright eyes.
And suddenly his body tightened. His breath stilled.
Now surprise them all again . . .
“I will not condone this,” Amy declared, going to push past him and in desperation, Charleton did the only thing he could think of to stop her.
Something he hadn’t done to her in years. He caught her in his arms and pulled her close.
Her startled gaze flew up to meet his. It was a terrifying moment of indecision. For both of them.
And it was then he realized how much he had changed in the past fortnight. How much he had lost in the last two years. And he knew he wasn’t about to let that continue one moment longer.
So he pulled Amy closer and bent his head to capture her lips.
Louisa watched the viscount stalk back across the room.
She counted every step. For each one brought him closer. Brought him back so she could find herself in his arms, feel his lips on hers.
She had yet to tell him they were leaving. That she and Lavinia were being sent home, but she didn’t want to think of such things.
Right now, right this very moment, all she desired was to be kissed.
When his arms folded around her, Louisa went quite willingly, her hands splaying out across his chest—hard and muscled—and then his lips trapped hers and he was kissing her again, his tongue running over hers. Each swipe, each teasing exploration left her hungry, wanting so much more.
She wanted to touch him. Her hands slid boldly under his jacket and she pushed it over and off his shoulders. In an instant he’d finished the job, shrugging it off and sending it flying over the back of the chair.
Undoing the buttons of his waistcoat, her fingers caught hold of his shirt and tugged it from his breeches. Then holding her breath, she ran them over his bare skin. Up his chest, over the crisp dark hair there.
It was heady and delicious all at the same time.
His hand caught hold of the hem of her gown, pulling it up, until his fingers could cup her buttocks and tugged her up and against him, where he was long and hard. He held her there and she found herself moving against him, for it was like having his fingers there, easing this madness that was tightening inside her.
Her hands went to work, opening the buttons at the front of his breeches, tugging at the stubborn ones until they came open and brazenly she slid her hand inside—where she immediately found what she had sought.
His manhood. Hard and ready for her. She drew it out—not that he needed much coaxing—and ran her fingers down the entire length, and if it were possible, he grew harder and longer, filling her hand until he seemed ready to burst with need.
The viscount made a sort of strangled sound, and she continued stroking him, opening her mouth to him so he could kiss her deeply, plunging his tongue into her mouth as she stroked his length.
Mesmerized by the length, the soft rounded head, the veins beneath her fingertips, Louisa sank to her knees.
The advantage of having spent so much time in Lady Essex’s house was that it had gained her access to Her Ladyship’s library, including the handful of books on the top shelf.
French books. With prints.
She might not have known the foreign words, but pictures . . . Well, pictures were hard to mistake.
And one had always fascinated her. Perplexed her. Could this be pleasurable? She put her mouth over the rounded end of his manhood and sucked him inside her.
“Oh, God!” he gasped. “Oh, damnation.” His hips rose and thrust at her, and Louisa continued to run her tongue over him, cupping his balls in her hand, licking him as he continued to gasp and groan above her and then it was for him as it had been for her in the carriage.
At least she assumed so, for suddenly he began to gasp, his eyes closed and his body thrust forward, and he reached his climax. She reeled back a bit as his seed shot from him. She continued to stroke him until he dropped to the carpet in front of her, kneeling before her.
“Devilish minx, you quite stole my march,” he teased, and then pushed her back on the carpet, so he covered her, their mouths once again fused and his tongue tormenting her.
Not just his kiss, his touch. For he explored her eagerly, teasing her nipples into taut tips, then lower, where he found the curls between her legs—without hesitating, she opened herself to him.
She wanted his touch, wanted him to find that spot where her need left her begging and hungry. Anxious and half mad.
And when he touched her, teased her open, slid his finger over the wetness and inside her, her hips arched up, welcoming his touch.
“Oooh,” she gasped, as his finger slid over her again, swirling in a circle and then pressing down right where it was the tightest and vibrating against her until she was nearly at her peak. “Please—”
Yet he stopped and when she wrenched her eyes open, ready to protest—most vehemently—she found him moving down her, exploring with his mouth the spots his fingers had already ignited. Her neck, her shoulders, a heated trail over her breasts.
Her protests died quickly as a blaze of desires ignited inside her. She shivered in a heavenly state of delirium—so close to her completion and yet held there on the pinnacle by this master of seduction.
Cupping her breast in his hand, he drew her nipple into his mouth and Louisa nearly cried out to be suckled so. One hand teased her cleft, the other held her breast so he could suck at her—it was all too much.
Well, not too much . . .
For here he was about to take her to that passionate brink and she reached upward, her hips rising, her breath catching as she dared not even exhale . . .
Yet he stopped, and let himself go farther down, until his lips blew a hot, steamy kiss over her sex, leaving her gasping, and then it was his tongue on her, lapping at her, drawing her into his mouth and sucking at her sex.
He’d slid his fingers inside her again, easing their way in, but it was his mouth, teasing over her, that left her gasping for air, reaching upward, nearly at that brink.
And yet . . . He paused, just before she thought she was going to find her release. Oh, the very devil, she thought as she found him grinning wickedly at her.
Oh, yes, she could see that “stealing his march” was a most grievous sin indeed. He was paying her back. Torturing her with seduction. Leaving her in this limbo of desire and need.
She’d have to remember to steal his march as often as she might . . .
If there ever is another chance . . . something deep and sensible inside her protested.
I don’t care. Let me have this night.
She reached for Lord Wakefield, her hands guiding him upward, until his mouth claimed hers again in a long, slow kiss.
“Make love to me, my lord,” she whispered.
Make love to her?
How could he not? Pierson was hard again, his senses filled with her—her touch, her scent, her very taste. She was strawberries and fire and desire, and he wanted nothing more than to be inside her, to watch her face as she came to her crisis.
To join her in that moment.
He knew he was breaking every rule. He was ruining a girl under his uncle’s protection. Exactly the same outrage he’d been railing on Tuck against.
One might argue he’d already done that—ruined Miss Tempest—but this time, to do this, had more permanent implications.
To do this meant everything.
And when Pierson looked into Louisa’s eyes, he saw just that. Everything.
His future, his heart, his love.
How could he not make love to her tonight, when he planned to do so every night until the stars stopped shining?
She was his, forevermore.
Sometime in the wee hours before dawn, Louisa woke up. She lay curled up in a ball, much as Hannibal might, on the settee in Lord Charleton’s study.
After a few moments of confusion, the preceding hours flashed through her thoughts.
Lord Wakefield closing the door, locking them in.
His kiss.
His touch.
How he’d brought her to . . . Louisa shivered with the memory of how he’d finally carried her to that blissful state.
In his arms, before the fireplace. She glanced over at the spot on the carpet.
Where after she’d made him promise, he’d covered her body with his and made love to her. Entering her slowly and carefully, breaching her maidenhood, and then with kisses and caresses, and his manhood filling her, stroking her, until she’d breathlessly reached her pinnacle, wave after wave of pleasure washing over her. And just as quickly, Pierson had found his release.
“Is Louisa your given name or a nickname?” he murmured in her ear, as he once again nuzzled at that spot behind her ear.
Oh, bother! Did he know what his lips did to her?
He kissed that spot yet again. Yes, apparently he did.
“No, my given name is Louisa.”
“Miss Louisa Tempest,” he repeated, grinning. “Most excellent.”
“How so?” she couldn’t resist asking, even as he began kissing her in another spot, this one a bit lower.
“Because now there will be no mistake of what name I need to have the archbishop put on the Special License—”
After that, the rest of the night had rather turned into a blur of pleasure and passion.
What had he said? Louisa sat bolt upright. He had said Special License, hadn’t he?
Which meant . . . Dear heavens, Lord Wakefield had proposed!
Well, not precisely, she realized. More like made up his mind and told her.
She didn’t know whether to be annoyed at his presumption or overjoyed. Then she glanced down and saw something lying on the carpet that she hadn’t noticed before.
Getting up, she tiptoed over to that place, and found a single rose lying where he’d made his proposal of sorts.
Louisa picked it up and smiled. And then made her way upstairs to her bed to dream of the nights to come.