Pierson left his uncle’s study some time later without a sense of accomplishment. If anything, he was more out of sorts than when he’d arrived.
“She’s hired you an adequate cook,” Lord Charleton had told him with a dismissive wave of his hand.
“More than adequate,” Tuck had added—though no one had given his comment any notice, for the baron was already continuing on.
“Be that as it may,” the baron had said in a tone that wasn’t to be brooked. “She’s done you a favor and there is no reason to be over here finding fault with a fat goose. The matter is closed.”
Before Pierson could complain, the baron added with a firm conviction, “Besides, my boy, Lady Aveley will soon have those two chits far too busy for either of them to spare a moment meddling in your affairs.”
“Or lack thereof,” Tuck had added.
With that decided, there had been nothing left to be done but take his leave—which he’d done before Tuck could add any more of his insulting observations.
Gathering up his hat and coat from the butler, Pierson stomped his way home, wishing he could share Charleton’s conviction that Miss Tempest’s interference was over—given that she’d soon be out in society and haven’t any time for such foolery.
Indeed, he should be overjoyed in the knowledge, yet there was a lingering part of him that was more than put out that Tuck had been summoned for just that purpose—aiding in the sisters’ imminent launch into the marriage mart.
And he, Pierson, had not.
It wasn’t as if he wanted any part of London society. He’d been through that social whirl years before. Even been betrothed to the most sought-after lady in all the ton.
Melliscent.
How odd of Tuck to bring her up—for he’d never approved of Pierson’s pursuit of the Original and had warned him continually of her failings. Not that Pierson had believed him—not until he’d returned from Spain and the perfect and lofty miss who had promised so faithfully to wait for him had departed his bedside in a whirl of silk skirts and disdain.
How can I be held to you? I never promised to marry half a man.
Not that he’d cared at that point. Still, Tuck had been right.
Bother the man.
Pierson heaved a sigh and wished he could stand behind popular opinion that Alaster Rowland was London’s laziest, most useless, careless, feckless, ne’er-do-well who had ever lived—his entire existence hinged on his expectations of inheriting his uncle’s title—living off Charleton’s largesse, his mother’s unfathomable patience and, more to the point, his notorious charm.
But he couldn’t. He knew Tuck too well.
And unfortunately that knowledge was mutual. Which was exactly the reason he couldn’t, nay wouldn’t, look his old friend in the eye.
Still, it would be so much easier if he could dismiss Tuck outright. But seeing him brought forth all the memories he so longed to forget.
Still, whatever had Tuck been thinking? Calling him ‘cuz’ and mocking his solitary existence.
“If you’d deign to show your face,” Pierson muttered, repeating Tuck’s admonishment. Go about Town? Madness! It was all stares and curious glances as he hobbled past, followed by heads shaking in dismay at his reduced state.
Why on earth would Tuck even suggest such a thing? That he go out for display, a curiosity like one of the elephants in the Tower?
Of course that never occurred to Tuck, who went everywhere. Was welcomed everywhere.
Well, nearly everywhere.
Pierson paused, and not so much because he now had to manage the steps up to his own front door, but because of a more wrenching realization.
He was jealous.
Jealous to the core of Tuck and his capering ways. His freedom.
Worse, when he looked at Tuck he saw his own life—the life he’d once had and would still if he hadn’t been caught in a rush of patriotic fever and bought a commission in the Tenth.
Seeing Tuck reminded him all too clearly of the other life that had been lost in that decision. The one that haunted Pierson every waking moment.
And, as always happened with those memories, the ones perpetually lurking about the periphery, waiting for that weak moment when he hadn’t the wherewithal to send them scurrying back into the shadows, they stormed his thoughts, just as the French had come after Paget and his brigades as they’d raced to the coast.
Just as Poldie had rashly rushed into the path of the bullet meant for him.
Poldie. Pierson reached out and caught the railing in a tight grasp as an overly familiar sense of panic and nausea rushed over him.
Different. Everything would be different if Poldie hadn’t followed him—into the Hussars, into the war. Then he, Pierson, would be the one buried in an anonymous grave in Spain and Poldie would still be capering about Town in Tuck’s wake or married and living in the country, breeding horses and hounds.
Poldie, I’m so sorry.
And for some wry reason, he swore he could hear his old boon companion whisper back, Don’t pity me, pity Tuck.
Pity Tuck, indeed! Pierson thought. For what?
As he went to go up the steps, setting his cane as he went, he had his answer.
If he wasn’t lame and, as Miss Tempest so eloquently put it, “a rare beast,” he’d be in much the same straits as Tuck right this moment—with Lord Charleton insisting that he do his share in escorting and squiring the Misses Tempest about Town.
Possibly being leaned upon to take one of the sisters in marriage.
What the devil was his uncle thinking? Not even the most desperate of cits was likely to dangle a daughter in front of Alaster Rowland, and yet here was Lord Charleton doing just that.
Pierson ignored the fit of pique that flared up inside him. It wasn’t like he could dance attendance on any woman.
Couldn’t dance, for that matter.
But it also occurred to him that for all his assertions that Miss Tempest—at least his Miss Tempest—was a plain harridan, a practiced rake like Tuck would eventually find his lie amusing . . . and worse, draw unsavory conclusions as to why Pierson had told such a Banbury tale to begin with.
Especially since the gel was an all-too-temping bit of muslin.
No, he wouldn’t put it past Tuck to court Miss Tempest if only to add salt to Pierson’s ever-present wounds.
Demmed bastard.
Tightening his hold of the railing, he hauled himself up the stairs, grimacing with each step, but managing it. By the time he got to the top, Tiploft had the door open and looked to say something, but the strained expression on the viscount’s face kept his butler from uttering whatever was on his mind.
“I’ll be in my study,” he muttered as he handed over his coat and hat and gloves.
“Very good, my lord,” Tiploft replied.
Pierson started down the hall, but found his way blocked—someone had left one of the closet doors open—and he was guessing it wasn’t Tiploft. Probably one of Mrs. Petchell’s brats. He shifted under his walking stick so he could reach out and close the door, yet as he did, a bolt of pain ran up his leg, bringing with it his all-too-familiar ire.
But this time it was more than just the discomfort—it was Tuck and his gallivanting ways, it was the slight of his uncle not asking him to dance attendance on a pair of chits, that he wasn’t good enough to court some country miss, that he’d lost everything when Poldie had stolen his fate, and suddenly, the very small thing of finding the closet door wide open when it should be shut propelled his anger forward like a champagne cork prodded from its prison.
He exploded.
“Demmit!” he bellowed, and shoved his shoulder into the door.
Only instead of the satisfaction of hearing it rattle in its casing as it slammed shut, there was an indignant yelp from inside and the door came rounding back on him, hitting him squarely in the chest.
Sending him toppling over in an indignant heap.
Louisa sighed as she got up on her tiptoes and surveyed the array of mismatched linens on the top shelf of Lord Wakefield’s linen closet.
Dear heavens, however could a house be run amid such chaos?
Certainly she didn’t blame Mrs. Petchell in the least for being in such a pet; the kitchen, well, the entire house, was a disorganized mess. No wonder the poor lady had asked her if she, meaning Louisa, could spare an hour and do something to bring some sort of order to the linen closet—so when Mrs. Petchell sent Bitty for some rags, the poor child wouldn’t fetch some fancy doily meant for the dining room.
This sentiment was echoed by Tiploft, who apologetically explained, as he showed her into the large walk-in closet that held all the tools of household cleaning, that the management of such things quite escaped him.
He was a butler after all, and what was needed was a housekeeper, but until His Lordship would agree to hire one, well . . .
Having been raised in Kempton, she could hardly refuse. The lessons of neighborly kindness had been drilled into her since the tender age of ten, when she and Lavinia had gone to their first meeting of the Society for the Temperance and Improvement of Kempton.
As Lady Essex always said, A lady never shirks her duty when asked for help.
No matter if the recipient of such kindness thought her plain and a harridan.
Louisa paused in her sorting as her thoughts flitted back to what she’d overheard.
Fetching? No. Not particularly. Rather plain in my estimation.
She huffed a bit and reached for another stack of linens. If anything, knowing his true sentiments made it easier for her to continue thinking him a beast—even if she’d nearly changed her opinion of the man when he’d begrudgingly allowed Mrs. Petchell and the children to stay.
As she’d watched him capitulate—seen his face soften as the children had offered their promises to him—she’d thought for a moment she’d glimpsed the man Lady Aveley had hinted was beneath all the bluster and beastly manners.
Yes, well, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know who this other Lord Wakefield might be—if he was kind and caring and a gentleman, that only made his terrible assertions to Mr. Rowland that she was plain all the more stinging.
And whyever would he say such dreadful things? Especially when just yesterday she’d thought . . .
Oh, bother, she didn’t even want to remember what she’d thought.
That he might kiss her . . . and that she wanted him to.
Oh, it was all so ridiculous. Why would she want such a wretched beast to kiss her?
Well, she wouldn’t be led astray, not by him or any other man, she thought as she tossed several well-used towels into the rag bin, hoping her errant thoughts would follow.
But she couldn’t forget the brush of his hand on her cheek, warm and sure. Gentle, even. Which rather belied the overbearing man she’d come to know.
Instead the viscount had touched her and plucked desires from the shadows of her heart as easily as one might pluck the petals from a daisy—each one a wish and a prayer.
Kiss me. Devour me. Take me.
No. No. No! Louisa added another frayed towel to the rag bin—as frayed as her nerves. Proper ladies didn’t become entangled with gentlemen.
Not. Like. That.
She’d vowed to spend the Season helping her sister find a nice, respectable match with a gentleman who had a proper, respectable, orderly household in the country, far from gossips and where a bit of breakage wouldn’t be an issue.
Nor would he mind that his wife was a bit madcap. And ungainly.
Louisa paused. For that very image of a proper gentleman suddenly seemed all too tame and, quite frankly, boring.
Her vision of an overly patient paragon came to a sweeping end as a pirate of a man stormed through her thoughts, a man who would capture her in his arms and carry her up the stairs of his dark and dangerous lair and . . . well . . . make her feel as she had before . . . when she’d thought the viscount meant to do just that.
Ravish her.
And when this pirate growled about and acted ever so beastly, Louisa never minded because just as quickly he would remember that he had better things to do and would return to plundering her heart.
As it was, she barely gave any note to the sound of the front door being opened, or the thudding of boots on the stairs.
That is, until she heard an indignant curse and the closet darken as the door came slamming shut.
In her defense, Louisa would note, she wasn’t overly fond of small, enclosed spaces to begin with, but the very notion of being locked in a dark closet sent her into a panic.
“Dear me, I am still in here, Mr. Tiploft!” she cried out and pushed the door back—no, more like frantically shoved it—which was then followed by a wrenching curse, the clatter of something hitting the floor and then a large thud.
Followed by a truly awful groan.
A beastly one.
Louisa flinched, her eyes screwed shut. Oh, no. Lord Wakefield.
If only it were possible to wish oneself well away from a disaster.
Not that she hadn’t been in this predicament before. The small fire at Wheldale. The bunting incident of ’07. The punch bowl last Christmas.
However did she always end up in these circumstances?
As she let the sequence of events unfold in her mind’s eye—the door coming shut, her panic and push, the clatter of his walking stick hitting the floor, followed by the horrible thud of him, Lord Wakefield, landing akimbo—she cursed her ill luck.
Opening her eyes just a bit, she wondered if it would be possible to remain in the viscount’s linen closet for an hour or so?
At least until he managed to gain his feet and his temper cooled a bit.
Then to her dismay, he cursed again as he made what sounded like another effort to right himself.
No, if his choice of vocabulary was any indication, it would be Michaelmas before she dared poke her nose out the door.
Yet when she heard him groan again, she could hardly remain still. Sighing in resignation, she peered around the door.
Only to find that it was worse than she thought—for Wakefield was completely sprawled out on the floor and his walking stick well out of reach.
“Oh, let me help you—” she said, hurrying around the door.
“You!” he growled, looking up at her. “I should have known.”
Well, whatever did that mean? As if she went about bowling over viscounts as a matter of habit.
Shattered punch bowls were more her calling card.
“Are you determined to be the death of me?” he complained as he struggled to reach for his walking stick.
“I hardly meant to do this—you were about to lock me in a closet,” she shot back, retrieving his walking stick and handing it to him—for which he rather ungratefully snatched it out of her grasp.
“Miss Tempest, you have a talent for being the most bothersome, meddlesome female I have had the misfortune to—”
And a wry part of her noted that he hadn’t added plain to that list of sins.
However, as much emphasis as he put into his scold, when he began to get up—even with the help of his cane—she could see what a struggle it was for him and silently went to his side and caught hold of his arm, adding her own strength and will to his determined resolve.
Yet the moment she caught hold of him, she realized that as damaged as he might appear, as beastly as he most certainly was, Lord Wakefield was entirely male beneath his ragged exterior, for her fingers wound around thick, corded muscles that bespoke of an unyielding power—as hard and unforgiving as the man himself.
Something about that buried, hidden strength left her oddly unsettled—her breath catching in her throat, her knees quaking. That, and she suddenly had an unfathomable desire to trace her hands up the length of his arm to his shoulders, to the planes of his chest, if only to see just how hard the rest of him might be.
Good heavens, whatever was wrong with her? Every time she got close to this man, she began thinking like the worst sort of jade.
Worse, her heart began thudding with an unsteady, unnatural tattoo—each beat like an enchanting, beguiling wish: Draw closer to him.
When she looked up, she realized he wasn’t in his usual state of dishabille—his unruly brown hair was tied back, though his shave could only be called rough. Yet with that much of the stubble scraped away, she discovered just how strong (or rather, stubborn) his jawline was, and how the hollows of his cheeks lent him a hungry, piercing profile.
A beast still, but a strikingly handsome one without his ragged trappings.
Whatever would it be like to be desired by such a man? she wondered. Until, that is, she realized she was staring at him—well, gaping actually—and worse, clinging to him, even when he was up and standing on his own two feet.
She knew he no longer needed her support but she found herself unwilling to let go, pinned by his furious expression, trapped in the glare of his dark eyes.
Lost in the scandalous desire to be carried off.
That is until she remembered what he’d said about her earlier.
Rather plain in my estimation. . .
Louisa’s hand dropped from the crook of his arm and she hastily stepped back—out of reach and well out of that dangerous sphere where Lord Wakefield was so . . . so monstrous, and came so close to being . . . something most tempting.
But that didn’t stop her heart from twisting a bit, knowing that when he looked at her, he found her wanting.
“What are you doing in my house?” he demanded, his tone punctuating his disfavor with her, and thankfully lessening his appeal.
“I’m nearly done and then I’ll be gone,” she told him, retreating into the linen closet and wishing this task hadn’t taken so long. She had hoped to be well and done before he’d returned.
To her chagrin, he followed her into the tight confines and with his commanding height and wide shoulders, he took up the remaining space.
He seemed to steal all the air as well.
“What are you doing in my house?” he repeated.
She drew another deep breath, one that barely seemed to fill her, and turned around, having picked up a stack of tea towels that had been mistakenly placed atop bed linens. “I think that would be evident even to you, my lord. I am sorting linens for Mrs. Petchell.”
“That’s not necessary,” he told her, taking the tea towels from her and shoving them back on the sheets. His dark brows furrowed together and silently finished his statement with an emphatic Get. Out. Of. My. House.
Louisa took a deep breath. “It is most necessary—a cook needs to know which of the linens can be used as rags and which cloths can be used in the kitchen. This,” she said, with a flutter of her hands at the tumbled collection of linens and sheets, “is a mess.”
He took a skeptical glance at it all. “No one else has ever complained before.”
“Then you haven’t hired competent help.”
His jaw set. “There isn’t a finer butler in London than Tiploft.”
Louisa stepped around him, her skirt brushing against his legs.
Long, hard legs, she recalled. Muscled and lean . . .
Quickly she set aside the memory of his naked limbs and went back to sorting tea towels. “Mr. Tiploft would be an excellent butler if he were allowed to do his job. Instead he must also be your valet and the housekeeper, all the while seeing to the shopping and managing the accounts. Worst, you’ve failed to notice that he is too old to be doing so much. He should have been retired years ago.”
Her censure had no impact on Lord Wakefield—as if he hadn’t the least notion how a properly run house was managed.
“I hardly see how any of this”—he waved his hands at the disorganized shelves—“is preventing Mrs. Petchell from cooking my supper.”
“Lady Essex always says what you need should be in reach. Easily gained and quick to find. Take this for example,” she said, holding up a beautiful linen tea towel, the edges decorated with a delicate and intricate embroidery of roses and vines and leaves. “Such a towel should never be used in the kitchen. What a disaster it would be if Bitty took this by mistake to mop up something—”
“—hideous your cat left behind?”
Louisa ignored his suggestion, turning the beautiful towel over. “This was most likely done by a previous Lady Wakefield in the days before she even knew she would be a viscountess. This is an heirloom, my lord. Made by a young lady for her glory box.”
He scoffed at the notion. “An heirloom? I hardly see how. It’s a towel. I’d wager you have stacks and stacks of this sort of frippery set aside for the day when you drag some man into the parson’s trap.”
Of course he would view marriage as a trap. Hadn’t he done his best to send Mr. Rowland fleeing for the hills rather than be presented to her or her sister?
“Then that is a wager you would lose, my lord,” she told him. “I haven’t such a collection for it has never been my intent to marry. However, I can appreciate the time and effort another put into her dreams and hopes.” She took the towel from him and carefully folded it, placing it on a higher shelf where it wouldn’t be grabbed by Bitty in some mistaken haste.
The viscount crossed his arms over his chest. “Not marry? The devil you say!”
“The devil has nothing to do with it,” she told him tartly.
“But Charleton says—”
“It is my sister who wants a Season, not me. I am here in London under duress.”
Then something happened. The hard line of his jaw relaxed and his lips teased into something resembling a smile. “Yes, I can see that,” he teased. “I suppose you brought that hellcat along with you just to drive away any unwitting suitors.”
“Hannibal has his moments.”
“Warn me before one of those comes along.”
Louisa clapped her lips together to keep from laughing. Who would have known the man had a sense of humor?
“Let me guess, the real reason you have no glory box is because you’ve been too busy being a nuisance to some other gentleman to have the time to stitch up a stack of towels.”
She flinched at his words, but wasn’t about to rise to his bait. “I have no glory box because I come from Kempton. There was no point in using my time collecting such things when it was all but assured that I would never marry.”
This seemed to take him aback. “Why wouldn’t you get married?”
Well, other than being plain and a future harridan? she wanted to snap, but, remembering Lavinia’s admonishment to maintain a civil relationship with the viscount, she took a deep breath and explained the obvious. Even as she said the words, she knew her explanation was only making her seem more ridiculous in his eyes.
“The village I come from, Kempton,” she told him, “has been for some time—well, since forever—cursed. Well, not the village so much, but any lady born there. We are destined to never marry—and for the few who have dared, the marriages have ended rather badly.”
Heavens, she’d never even realized how archaic and foolish it all sounded. Then again, she’d grown up surrounded by the Kempton curse—and never once questioned the soundness of such a belief.
“And yet here you are,” he countered. “In London, and according to my uncle, seeking some unfortunate fellow to apparently curse. As if knocking me over isn’t enough for you.”
Bother the man. Sense of humor or not, he was determined to mortify her.
“Yes, well, the curse has been lifted—or so it seems,” she replied, taking up another stack of tea towels. “As of late there have been a flurry of weddings—the new Duchess of Preston, for example, and the newly wed Countess of Roxley, both of whom are from Kempton. Happily, no one has turned up dead, or mad, or . . .”
Or with a fire iron stuck in his chest. Which, Louisa mused, as she looked over Wakefield, might be well deserved.
Meanwhile, the viscount’s brow was screwed into knots. “Roxley’s married?”
“It was in all the papers,” she told him.
“Whatever sort of harebrained gel would marry him?”
Louisa bristled a bit. “His bride, Miss Harriet Hathaway, comes from a most noble and illustrious Kempton family. Four of her brothers are in His Majesty’s service. And she’s not harebrained.”
His gaze narrowed. “Hathaway—as in Lieutenant Hathaway?”
“Yes, Quinton. You know him? Oh, of course you would. Lady Aveley said you were in Spain.”
The viscount gave a tight nod. “Yes.” And that was all he said, having glanced away.
And yet she couldn’t stop talking. Not as long as he kept standing there in a moody silence. Perhaps if she explained it more clearly, he wouldn’t look at her as if she was mad as a hatter. “So you see how there was no point to using my time for stitching up such fripperies, as you call them.” Folding another tea towel, she added it to the growing stack. “In Kempton, ladies have traditionally put their time to more philanthropic uses.”
This brought the viscount’s piercing gaze back upon her, but she didn’t miss the mischievous twinkle there. “Such as pestering their neighbors?”
“No one in Kempton ever complains when the society takes them under their wing,” she shot back. Well, hardly anyone. There were a few exceptions. Sir Roger had always been a touch difficult, but they managed to see his house properly done every Christmas. And the widow Botton had never taken their help kindly. What with her collection of unruly cats and broken buckets that she thought the entire village was bent on stealing.
“The society?”
Truly, did he have to sound so suspicious? It wasn’t like they were fomenting revolution.
She huffed a sigh. “The Society for the Temperance and Improvement of Kempton. Lady Essex Marshom is our esteemed patroness.”
The immediate look of horror on his face said all too clearly he knew who Lady Essex was.
“Whatever does this society do?” His question had an air of Dare I ask?
“Why, help our neighbors,” she replied, taking one more look at the towels she’d gathered up—most of which were worn thin and needed replacing. Without even thinking, she handed the offending ones to Lord Wakefield.
“Aha! So you have a natural calling for this sort of thing,” he said, looking up from the towels she’d handed him.
“Calling for what?” It was a question Louisa would nearly regret asking.
Viscount Wakefield leaned closer. “Driving men mad.”
No truer words had ever been spoken.
Miss Tempest had the unwitting habit of driving him just that . . . mad.
In the three days since she’d come barging into his life, she couldn’t have done a better job of upending it if she’d arrived with a barrage of cannon fire and a battalion behind her.
Certainly she’d done something to him—thinking of yesterday when she’d left him undone, tangled up with desire.
For a brief moment in the garden, he’d believed. He’d felt. He’d desired.
Yet, by what right did he have to live, to feel every bit of life, when . . .
Pierson drew back from the dark memories of Spain. No, he had no right to be living. To feel such desires. None whatsoever.
Yet here she was. Again. Like a clipped penny constantly finding its way back into his pocket—even when she thought him a complete beast.
So perhaps it was time for a different approach. If she was as proper as his uncle had said, then there was one way to send her off.
For good. Especially if she was as dead set against matrimony and men as she claimed.
No matter how wrong his method might be. A single kiss ought to do the trick.
Yet, when faced with the prospect, he realized he’d nearly forgotten how, even with Miss Tempest’s pair of perfect lips luring him closer.
Yet as Tuck might say, stealing a kiss was nothing more than the turn of a card.
Easily done, Pierson mused, when there was nothing to risk.
And when the lady smelled as tempting as a summer breeze—beguiling and full of promise, he remembered how it was done like the veriest cardsharp.
Yet he wavered with indecision. Fear, one might even say. Perhaps he should just back away and show her the door—just order her out. Yes, well, an ironic sort of voice reminded him, look how that has worked so far.
But this might . . .
And for a man who’d been living in a self-induced winter for so long, the warmth of her lips and the promised delights of her lush body were too much to resist.
“Miss Tempest,” he said, reaching out to gently pull a wayward curl from the confines of its pins, and letting it fall over her cheek. “Didn’t Lady Essex ever teach you the dangers of linen closets?”
She backed up a step, but that was all the room left to her, and when her backside bumped into the shelves behind her, she let out a small, indignant yelp.
“Well, she did say once that a disorganized closet was a sign of . . . a sign of . . .” she began, glancing around him and looking ready to bolt like a fawn in the forest.
“A sign of what?” he asked, his hand reaching out and cradling her chin, stilling her movements.
He gave her her due—she chucked up her chin and met his gaze with a steely one of her own. “Lady Essex says untidy closets are a sign of darker troubles.”
“Truly?” he mused as he leaned over her and inhaled deeply around the shell of her ear. “How dark?”
She might be doing her best to look unmoved, but he could see her pulse fluttering in her neck, see her lips part slightly, her lashes waver as they softly closed. “I haven’t the vaguest notion—” she began, and stopped as his lips brushed against a spot right behind her ear. “My lord! Whatever are you doing?”
“Discovering your darkest secrets.”
And true to his word, he caught hold of her with one hand and drew her up against him.
For a precarious second, he reconsidered. Realized the folly of turning over a card without knowing what was in one’s hand. That is until she looked up at him, her lips open in a perfect moue of protest, which only left her open to him.
Enticing him.
While he might be out of practice, he knew when to forge ahead, and so he captured her lips with his.
Soft and yielding, she shivered in his arms. And for Pierson, he realized quickly that kissing Miss Louisa Tempest was like falling into a dream. His senses filled with her, roses and something so very feminine, a scent he knew, one that left him trapped with promises.
Her full breasts pushed against his chest, his hand rested at the small of her back, just above the rounded curve of her bottom.
This chit was the most delectable collection of curves and wiles and so he explored, letting his hands trace over her, until they came to her bottom and he let his fingers curve around her, hold her close.
Desire and lust raced through him as he continued to kiss her, his tongue sliding over those tempting strawberry petals, opening her up, and all he could think of was what it would be like to undo the rest of her.
Her prim gown, her tidy chignon—and leave her in the same state as his closets—in complete dishabille.
Naked and willing. His to do with as he pleased.
To devour, to make love to, bury himself inside her, stroke her until he was sated and senseless, and the only thing to be heard was her ragged sighs as she came shivering and crying out in release from beneath him.
Like a starving man, he deepened the kiss, his hand tucking her right up against him—against his arousal, her body fitting to his with exquisite agony.
This is what it will be like, he thought recklessly. Hot and tight. It was enough to nearly send him over the edge.
His hand roamed up, following the line of her curves, rounding over her breast, his thumb rolling back and forth over the tight nipple hidden beneath.
Around him, everything shifted as his body became consumed with desire. However had this happened?
She had done this.
Louisa.
Miss Tempest no more, he realized with stunning clarity.
This minx had unleashed him from his chains, undone the passions that he’d spent so much time tamping down, refusing to acknowledge.
In that moment his entire, hastily drawn plan to send her fleeing shifted.
He was supposed to be kissing her thoroughly, and then send her running for the safety and sanctity of Charleton’s, but he’d forgotten what it was like to hold a woman.
A tempting one. He’d forgotten how close and treacherous that line could be where play could turn to reckless, dangerous want.
His heart hammered a new tattoo. Live. Live. Love.
Love?
No. Not that. Never that.
Pierson wrenched back from her, trying desperately to catch a breath, still his hammering heart. Oh, good God, what had he done?
What had he unleashed?
The moment Wakefield’s lips claimed hers, Louisa was lost.
Oh, not her usual kind of lost where she couldn’t find her way out of the maze of halls at Foxgrove without someone pointing the way, but an entirely new sort of lost . . .
She wasn’t herself anymore.
The viscount’s kiss had awakened the lady within her.
Desires she’d never known burst free from their confines—how had she not known that this was what a kiss could be? Could do?
As Wakefield’s lips covered hers, teased their way past her surprise, it was no mere brush of the lips, no staid and proper kiss from this viscount.
Louisa’s heart hammered in her chest, her breath lost as well, caught in a passion-filled sigh trapped in her throat.
A tangle of thoughts teased her. Run your fingers over his barely shaved chin. Wind your arms around his neck.
Touch him.
That one, so filled with need, nearly shocked her out of her slippers.
Touch him?
She didn’t dare.
But it seemed he did.
Dare, that is.
His hand roamed down her back, leaving a delicious sense of wonder in its sure and deliberate wake. The viscount was no wary explorer—he boldly marched toward his conquest, skilled and confident in the path he forged.
And, having found his way, he caught hold of her—dear heavens, his hand was on her backside!—his touch warm and strong, and then he pulled her up against him.
All of him.
At least, she surmised, the important part.
Damaged and broken he might appear, but he was still a man.
He pulled her closer, hitching her up against him, so close, she teetered on the tips of her slippers and found her fingers winding into the lapels of his coat, if only to steady herself.
She might have toppled him over earlier, but now he was upending her world, and she couldn’t do anything but hold on for dear life.
Still, the closer she came, the more she discovered. His lips had teased her mouth open, and now his tongue filled her, tormented her.
Touch him.
A shiver ran down her spine as she realized that this bit of passion was but a taste. A tease. A window to another world.
And windows, given Louisa’s rambling luck, were something she generally tumbled out of.
The real question became, would he catch her?
As if he had felt her shiver, knew the questions chasing through her thoughts, he pulled her closer yet, so while there were still layers of clothes between them, it felt as if she’d been laid bare, that there was nothing between them but desire.
Louisa tried to breathe, willed herself to pull away, flee before it was too late.
But then his hand rose, tracing an intoxicating trail up from her hip, rounding her breast—her breast?—Never had she felt so perfectly a lady as his hand cupped her there, reverently, and then hungrily as his thumb rolled over her nipple.
The sigh that she’d been holding back rushing out in surprise. “Oooh,” she gasped.
His finger teased again over her nipple and it hardened quickly in response.
And here she’d thought that love was all soft verses and lulling melodies.
No, indeed. Love, or rather passion, was hard and full of twisting, demanding desires that left one restless, anxious, frenzied and . . .
For a second his kiss deepened and then in an instant it was gone.
He reeled back from her, gasping, pulling air into his lungs like a drowning man having found the water’s surface.
Louisa wished she could find the wherewithal to breathe as well, for she was dizzy and reeling in a whirlpool of desires.
Then she found herself cut adrift as he let go of her, as if she burned, and she reached behind and caught hold of one of the shelves, trying to steady the chaos whirling inside her. Find her footing. Her bearings.
For here she was as disheveled as his linen closet.
Ragged. Torn.
And in an odd way, made all the more beautiful for the discovery.
She’d never thought of herself as the sort to inspire passion.
Panic, mayhap, but not this blazing black fire that burned in the viscount’s dark eyes as he gaped at her.
At least, she hoped that fire was fueled by desire.
But it was something else.
For, whatever he’d planned when he’d trapped her inside here, when he’d leaned close and caught her lips with his, it hadn’t gone entirely as he’d desired.
Something had changed. For the worse.
Her hand moved to her lips. So whyever had he kissed her? “What are you doing to me?” he asked so quietly, so softly, she thought for a moment she might not have heard him correctly.
What was she doing? He was the one who had kissed her, she would point out, but that hardly seemed the correct answer considering the furious set of his jaw. “Nothing,” she said, shaking her head. “I only came to—” Her words stumbled to a halt for she could see clearly the passion and desire she’d felt moments ago in his touch, in his kiss, had turned to something far more dangerous.
“Go away,” he told her, his voice rising, pleading, while his hand—the one that had teased a gasp from her—now pointed to the door. “Can’t you see what you are doing . . . what you’re asking of me?”
Agony, deep and wrenching, blazed in his eyes. A pain so piercing, she feared it would overtake him.
“Nothing. I’m not—” she stammered, but realized he wasn’t looking at her anymore, his face turned toward someplace far away, his eyes glazed over with a desolation that had welled up from some hidden recesses, a darkness only he knew.
Louisa reached out for him, but he flinched away from her touch and then dropped to his knees.
The man who’d kissed her so passionately was gone. Lost.
“Go!” he ordered. “I beg of you, leave me be.”
Torn between her innate need to help but taken aback by this sudden change in his demeanor, she didn’t know what to do.
Yet one thing was certain, the thorn was back in his paw, embedded so deeply, he roared with rage. “Get out!”
Louisa wasn’t such a fool not to heed him.
She caught hold of her skirt and dashed from the closet, stumbling against him in her haste—but this time it was so very different.
His body was still hard and solid, yes, but it was shaking with fury and barely restrained anger.
And for a second, his pain, his fears were hers as well, and now it was she reeling back from him in shock.
She had done this. There was no other explanation.
Once out of the linen closet, Louisa dashed down the hall and made for the stairs, heedless of her course.
And for once in her life, Louisa Tempest didn’t give a second thought or backward glance to the breakage she was leaving in her wake.