Lavinia was shiny and fashionable.
But his Lavinia was shy one moment and bold the next. Gasping with desire, and then laughing. Her breath hitched when his fingers closed around her hip, and she made a bewitching little pleading sound in the back of her throat. She held him as if she’d never let go, and he knew in his bones that she was stopping herself from running her hands over his chest.
Last night her eyes had taken on a feverish look after he stripped off his shirt. Who would have thought that it would be so damned satisfying to have one’s future wife dazed by one’s body?
Aunt Knowe adored Lavinia, as did Ophelia. But his realization that he would have married her even had the Wildes disliked her?
Too sobering to examine.
“I must return to London tomorrow morning,” he said abruptly.
She nodded. “You plan to escort Elisa here for the wedding.”
“I have work to do in London. And I’m captivated by you, not Elisa.” The words came from his lips as flatly as he might say, The interest rate is acceptable. Or: Sheep farming is rarely a profitable venture.
Her mouth curled into a generous smile.
“I don’t suppose you wish to accompany me to London?”
“Absolutely not. We are not wed,” she pointed out. “And I will be very busy.”
That was true. He’d rarely seen anyone work so hard. It reminded him of the men whose ideas he’d backed, the ones who had helped him make a fortune.
He escorted her to the door of the sewing room in silence.
“When will you return?” she asked.
“For the wedding,” he said, because part of him wanted to tell her that he would turn around directly. He’d be damned if he found himself at a woman’s beck and call.
Not that Lavinia had beckoned or called.
He had spent the previous night after they parted thinking about her breasts, when he wasn’t thinking about other, more delicate parts of her. Though sometimes he varied that by thinking about her voice. The way she pleaded for more, for example.
Quietly. Almost under her breath, as if she didn’t want to hear her own words. Lavinia was not a woman who would ever beg.
Was she disappointed by the fact she wouldn’t see him for weeks? There wasn’t any sign of it. Lavinia’s features wore their usual cheerful expression.
“Do you become melancholy once a month?” he asked.
Her eyes rounded. “What are you implying?”
In for a penny, in for a pound.
“A husbandly question,” he said. “When you have your monthly courses, do you find yourself weeping?”
“No!” she snapped.
“Angry? Ready to throw things?”
“Are you really asking me this?”
Parth shrugged. “We shall be married. It’s to my advantage to understand your temperament.”
Lavinia glowered at him. “Men and women do not ever discuss that sort of thing between themselves, and I’ll thank you never to bring it up again.”
“Why not?” Parth was genuinely confounded. He had never discussed it with any other woman, obviously, but he had dimly envisioned marriage as a relationship in which one did discuss the unmentionable.
“It’s private.” Her mouth closed mulishly, and Parth felt that errant tremor of laughter again. Lavinia was always merry; it was absurd to find that he liked making her prickly.
He edged closer, enough so he could smell her honeysuckle scent, and took a slow, deep breath. “I thought marriage was about private matters. Sharing them, that is.”
Lavinia narrowed her eyes. “Do you mean to share personal things as well?”
He couldn’t help it; he put his arms around her. “Is it shameful to want to kiss you as much as I do?”
Lavinia’s body relaxed and humor threaded through her voice. “No.” She turned her face up, and when he didn’t immediately put his mouth on hers, she rose on her toes and brushed her lips against his.
A kiss. A kiss from her.
Parth brought her toward him and their bodies met with a barely audible kiss of worsted against silk. Lavinia relaxed against him and made a little humming sound in the back of her throat. He didn’t stop kissing her until it occurred to him that he had to pull away or he would pull up her skirts.
“Is it shameful to need to bed you day and night—and not always in bed?”
She didn’t seem to mind that so much. In fact, a smile was hovering on her lips. Beautiful, raspberry-colored lips.
“I could take you on the breakfast table, for example. Push the oatmeal to the side, lay you on your back, and paint your breasts with hot chocolate. Not too hot.”
Her eyes rounded and she finally managed to splutter, “It’s time to go to work.”
Lavinia said goodbye to Parth at the door to the sewing room and went inside feeling disconcerted. He wasn’t precisely who she had thought he was. He had a wicked streak, if that was the right word. She always thought he was solemn, but he wasn’t. He was protective, and domineering—
But also naughty. She had a strong feeling he meant it about the breakfast table. She caught herself smiling into the distance.
Late in the day, Parth entered the sewing room and strode over toward her with no more than a nod for the assembled women. Before Lavinia could say a word, he picked her up and carried her from the room with a brisk “Good evening!”
The door closed on a storm of giggles.
“What happened to the idea of telling no one?” Lavinia inquired. Her arms were wrapped around his neck.
“You’re mine and I want everyone to know it.”
“I’m perfectly capable of walking.”
He dropped a kiss on her lips. “I like to hold you.”
“Huh,” Lavinia said. Not exactly articulate, but she was tired. Whenever she closed her eyes, lines of stitches reeled in front of her. Everything hurt, especially her fingers. She leaned one cheek against him with a sigh. “What did you do today?”
“What gentlemen do,” Parth said, an edge in his voice. “Visited the stables and decided a mare was in foal.”
“Goodness,” Lavinia said, stifling a yawn.
“Then we migrated to the billiard room where Jeremy bet recklessly and won two games. When he sat down so North could take his place, he slid under the table and we discovered he’d drunk an entire bottle of brandy.”
“He’s very handsome,” Lavinia said, covering her mouth as she yawned again.
“Hideous,” Parth corrected. “Weak chin. Terrible hair. Habit of sleeping under tables. Damned good at billiards, though.”
“You don’t know anything about his chin,” Lavinia said, an undignified giggle escaping.
“I know that you called him handsome.”
Lavinia thought about that and a hazy idea made its way through her exhausted mind. “Are you jealous?”
“Of a man who sleeps under the billiard table?”
“That jaw,” she said, dropping her voice. “Like an Adonis. Well, perhaps not an Adonis,” she said, remembering who they were talking about. Jeremy’s good looks were matched only by his foul temper. “A fallen angel!”
Parth snorted. “Devilish, all right.”
“Lucifer,” Lavinia said, feeling more awake every moment. “That smoldering look is so romantic.”
“I can smolder,” Parth said, looking down at her.
Lavinia felt the shock of his gaze all the way down her legs.
“Here, you,” he said, his voice dropping. “No looking at me like that. Damn, I wonder if other men realize how effective this smoldering business is.”
Lavinia squirmed. “Put me down, won’t you?”
They were in one of the interminable corridors that wound around and seemed to go nowhere other than rooms that no one frequented.
In short, they were alone.
He instantly complied, and then leaned one shoulder against the wall, looking down at her with a lopsided grin. “Please tell me you’re done with m
anual labor for the day.”
“It would seem you gave me no choice.”
Lavinia came up on her toes and tugged at his cravat, pulling it free of its simple knot. His eyes darkened but he said nothing. When she began to unbutton his waistcoat he silently moved her a few steps to the right, opened a door, and backed in.
“No lace,” she said, surveying his plain shirt, ladling mock sorrow into her voice.
He shook his head.
Lavinia wound her arms around him. He was warm and strong, and he smelled wonderful. Like home, she thought dimly. Like . . .
Like the man she would marry.
“My mother isn’t coming to Diana’s wedding,” she told him, nestling closer. “Lady Knowe had a letter saying that there’d been an ‘incident,’ whatever that means.”
His arms tightened around her, and she felt his cheek on the top of her head. “I’m sorry, Lavinia. I know you miss her. I look forward to coming to know her better.”
Even two years ago, when they first met at Diana’s betrothal party, Lady Gray had spent much of her time in bed. Shame was a corrosive emotion. “I wish you didn’t have to leave tomorrow morning,” Lavinia whispered.
“I can stay,” he said, pulling her more tightly against him.
“No, you must go. I shall be sewing morning, noon, and night.”
Parth backed up a few steps, and then dropped onto a bed, bringing her with him. The next instant she was lying on top of him, her body tingling. She’d be a fool to take the risk . . . look what had happened to Diana.
But it had been such a long day.
“This must be what marriage is like,” she whispered, turning her head just enough that she could press a kiss on his chest. Or rather, on his shirt, so she pulled until she was able to kiss a broad swath of golden chest.
“A good husband must minister to his exhausted wife,” Parth said, his voice a lazy invitation. His hand on her back began a slow journey downward. “This particular husband—or husband-to-be—is very grateful that you have left off those outlandish panniers. They hide your hips. And your hips are marvelous.”
Lavinia wriggled, enjoying the unusual mattress beneath her.
“We mustn’t be intimate again until I can ask your mother for your hand in marriage.” His hand stopped its caress.
That would not do.
Lavinia engaged in a somewhat prolonged wriggle that managed to make her opinion clear without words. Then she raised her upper body—which pushed her lower half directly against Parth’s—and began kissing wherever she could reach.
“I suppose I could be persuaded,” Parth said, after her lips grazed his left nipple.
It was copper-colored and flat, not at all like hers. Lavinia stole a glance at him and then, holding his gaze, licked it. The expression on his face was entirely satisfying, as was the hoarse sound from his throat.
An unplanned sound.
She liked that.
And she liked the unmistakable evidence of desire throbbing against her belly. Almost as much as the desperate look in his eyes. Parth was never desperate.
She had the feeling that he didn’t allow himself to care enough to be desperate. If a business transaction wasn’t successfully negotiated, why, there were others to be had.
But every time she wriggled against him, and every time her tongue caressed that flat nipple, the look in his eyes deepened. His hands were hovering now as if he was afraid to touch her, afraid he’d lose control.
“Lavinia.” It was a groan. And a plea. That was another thing Parth never did, she thought with deep happiness. He never pleaded.
“May I break our agreement?”
That was a plea.
She gave one last wriggle and then sat up. In such a way that the softest part of her was in direct contact with the hardest part of him.
Yes, he was desperate. She grinned, running her fingertips down his powerful neck, hesitating at his nipples, and then—because unladylike wickedness seemed to come naturally—she gave him a pinch, to see what happened.
What happened was wondrous. His eyelids fell to half-mast; he surged up to kiss her and did that so thoroughly that she didn’t even notice the moment when he rolled her onto her back.
She did notice when he managed to pull down her apron and wrench her bodice down enough to free her breasts. “My nipples are so different from yours,” she said, gasping, because his hands were shaping her breasts, and the expression in his eyes . . .
“Very,” he agreed, bending his head and leaving searing kisses on the slope of one breast. “Yours are so deliciously red.” His rough caress made them swell and then when he sucked them into his mouth, Lavinia found herself writhing against him, and pleading.
Who was desperate now?
“More,” she whispered, her voice rasping. It was embarrassing, but before she could dwell on that thought, he took one of her nipples between his teeth and gave it a small bite.
That was no ladylike moan; it more closely resembled a shriek. And her hands wound into his hair to hold him in place at the same time her legs wound around his hips. She put the erotic demand that was fueling her body into a kiss, her tongue winding around his, her breath sobbing into his mouth.
Parth’s hands settled on her hips and he pulled her sharply against him. “I want you.”
“Yes,” Lavinia sobbed.
“You’re sure?”
Lavinia’s eyes opened and she made a face. “Stop being so . . .”
“So appalling?” She could feel his laughter like a caress all down her front.
“Yes!” Lavinia said, a smile breaking out against her wishes. She reached down and tugged up her skirts but they were tangled in his legs.
He took over the task, and a moment later she was surrounded by mounds of petticoats, underskirts, a silk overskirt. “Bloody hell,” he growled. “Do you suppose that women will ever wear sensible clothing?”
Lavinia was beating down the heaps of cloth to her left and right so she wouldn’t be swallowed in crushed fabrics. “You mean like Egyptian queens?” Since he had wrenched open his placket and pulled down his breeches, she wrapped her legs around his hips and tried to pull him down toward her.
He laughed as his hand stroked up her leg, making her gasp. Her eyes glazed over, but even so, she could see the possession in his eyes as he came forward over her on his knees, braced on one hand, the other hand stroking her. “Cleopatra was a demanding woman. Caesar couldn’t satisfy her, so she turned to Mark Antony. Or maybe it was the other way around.”
Lavinia slipped her hands down the tight muscles of his waist. The smile fell from his face and his jaw tightened. “Cleopatra was a woman who knew what she wanted,” she retorted, smiling. “She was an excellent dresser as well.”
“Not the time to discuss clothing,” Parth growled. “Are you sure, Lavinia?”
She nodded.
His hands settled on either side of her, and he stroked inside with one smooth movement of his hips.
Lavinia’s gasp turned into a deep moan. It felt wonderful, a fierce intrusion of the best kind.
But it was the look in Parth’s eyes that made her light-headed. Her breath shuddered as he slowly lowered his head and his lips met hers. Below the waist was raw erotic passion as their bodies slammed together in a shameless rhythm. But that kiss? It was tender and . . . and respectful.
She knew that Parth wanted her. He liked to laugh with her.
But this kiss felt like the kind a man gave a woman whom he really admired. For the right reasons. Lavinia could only breathe in shallow pants, and yet she couldn’t stop her heart from blissfully adding up the tender look in his eyes, and the sweet way he was stroking her forehead with his thumbs.
Men had lusted after her since her first Season. They had supposedly fallen in love with her, and then wasted paper describing her eyes and her skin. They had danced with her and walked with her.
But they hadn’t ever really come to know her. Probably that was her fault
. She didn’t reveal much of her character to others, because she was certain she was shallow.
The way Parth was looking at her, the way he was kissing her . . .
It felt as if he was looking deep into her soul and seeing all her fear of being unlovable. Not unloved, but undeserving of love.
Her breathing was growing more shallow, and she was starting to snap her hips up to meet his, chasing a sensation in her legs, that burning, crawling, utterly pleasurable storm.
She couldn’t have remembered it right. It couldn’t have been—
It was.
She stiffened and screamed. Parth threw back his head with a muffled oath and urged her on, making one explosion of pleasure lead into another until the tide of it swept him under as well.
Afterward, he lay on his back, gusty breaths shaking him. Lavinia tucked her head against his shoulder and ran a hand down his sweaty body, feeling shy and loving, both at once.
But she held her tongue. She couldn’t say, “I love you.”
Even if it was true.
Once they were truly betrothed . . . when he knew everything about her mother. But meanwhile, she loved his tattered breath, and the salty gleam on his chest, the greedy way he had lost control at the end, the way joyous pleasure shot down her legs.
It was all mixed up in her head, but mostly she thought about the look in his eyes when he kissed her. She propped herself up on one elbow. “You’ve traveled to China; have you thought about visiting India?”
“England is my home.”
“Yes, but India was your home as well. Perhaps you still have family there.”
He stared up at the ceiling and didn’t answer. Lavinia sat up, so she could see his face. Finally, she asked, “What do you remember of your parents?”
“I was terrified that I’d forget them,” Parth said, just when she thought he wouldn’t answer that either. “Aunt Knowe knew I wasn’t sleeping, and on the third night after the news of their death she strolled into the nursery well after midnight.”