Chapter Seven
For a moment, there was no sound but the clatter of coach wheels on bricks and the thudding of her heart in her ears. He was closer now, studying her with those fascinating eyes and making her feel a little out of her depth. Then he reached up and pulled a couple of pins from her drooping braid, and it fell in a jumble onto her shoulder. He looked it over and slowly pulled the ribbon from the tail of the loose braid.
He was so overwhelming and so sure of himself, she couldn’t bring herself to protest. That, and to be honest, she wanted to see what would happen next. He was exploring, which meant he was as curious about her as she was about him. She recognized within her confusion a distinct feeling of wanting to be near him like this . . . a longing that was as irresistible as it was risky. This was the second time she’d felt this way.
Being so close to him made her body come alive, made her skin tingle and her lips grow sensitive. Every part of her experienced something new and delicious. It was attraction, she realized. This was what Daisy had been talking about when she described her overwhelming reaction to Ashton.
Maybe this man-woman thing wasn’t so off-putting after all.
Except, it was happening with Reynard Boulton. Arrogant bounder. Gossip hawk. Keeper of secrets. If it was happening with him, imagine what it would be like with a man she truly cared about.
She refused to run from this awakening part of her, but neither did she know what to do with it. So, as she often did in confusing moments, she turned to teasing instead.
“What if rosy lips had said, ‘Oh, Reynard, I’m yours’?” She leaned toward him. “What if comely curves had beckoned, ‘Oh, Reynard, make me a wicked girl?’ Would you have resisted then?”
His surprise faded into something she couldn’t quite read. He stared at her as if deciding something before leaning to meet her with a determined gleam in his eyes. His nose was an inch from hers; she could almost taste the whiskey on his breath.
“Marcella is a gargoyle in women’s clothing. As coarse and ugly on the inside as she is on the outside. But I wouldn’t have married her if she had looked like Venus herself. I won’t be coerced or bullied into a commitment that is abhorrent. There is nothing honorable in making a marriage I do not want.”
“Exactly.”
She should have felt some pleasure at scoring so def initive a hit on his arrogant male reasoning. But his gaze registered yet another thought she wished she were privy to.
She felt her throat constrict as he plucked another pin from her hair and inserted his fingers into her loosened braid, freeing her hair and drawing it out across her shoulder. Every strand seemed connected to the secret sensitivities of her body as he wrapped it around his hand and then studied the feel of it gliding through his fingers.
“You seemed awfully sure of yourself back there,” she said, trying to drag her thoughts away from her excitement and the pleasure evident in his eyes. “Were you that conf i-dent in your aim or were you just lucky?”
“I am quite proficient with firearms.”
“Prof icient enough to slice a man’s vest and shirt without slicing his skin?” She searched his angular face as he nodded, seeing a casual certainty in his gaze that masked other thoughts. “Wow. You’d make a heckuva gunslinger. Or a trick shot in a Wild West show.”
“Gunslinger?” He made a soft noise that sounded like indignation. “I take it that was meant to be a compliment.”
In the silence that fell, she studied his neatly shaped hands, long legs, and devilish eyes. Fair was fair, came a passing thought. If he took liberties with her hair, she was entitled to do the same. On impulse, she reached up to touch his hair, finding it every bit as soft as she had imagined. Then she touched the spot she’d hit, just above his left eye.
“Where did you learn to shoot like that?” she asked.
“Paris. Barcelona. Florence. Vienna.”
His hand moved on to her face, stroking the curve of her cheek. She felt her blood rushing to meet his touch. Was she blushing?
“You fought duels in all of those places?” she continued.
Wonder of wonders, he produced a small, genuine smile. The unexpected warmth of it sent pleasure spiraling slowly through her.
“Hardly. I trained. There are contests here and on the Continent. Americans aren’t the only people good with firearms, you know.”
“You entered sharpshooting contests?” She shivered as the pad of his thumb crossed her lower lip. Lord, he was melting her skin, inch by vulnerable inch. She was going to be a puddle on the floor by the time they got to . . . wherever he was taking her.
“Nothing quite so common.” He tore his gaze from her for a moment to glance out the coach window and assess their location. “Private lessons and selective competitions were arranged.”
He trailed his fingers down her chin and throat but was stopped by her stiff collar and tie. Her toes were curling in her shoes. One word was all she could manage.
“Why?”
“Why what?” He was close enough for her to feel his breath again.
“Why would a future viscount want to become a dead shot?”
She could have sworn his lips were fuller, darker.
“As you said, I am reputed to be a ‘gossip hawk.’” His attention focused on her mouth. “People take exception to having their closely held secrets uncovered. There are times a man must defend himself, and the availability of weapons is not always what one would wish.”
“Really? I wouldn’t have taken you for such a dangerous fellow. In what other ways are you ‘proficient’?” She looked down and searched his hands, finding and tracing a scar on his knuckles. “Fisticuffs?”
“Really, Miss Bumgarten, are you always this nosy?”
“I confess, I am.” She laughed softly. “We have that in common, I’m afraid. I can’t seem to keep my nose to myself.” She explored the backs of his hands and then their hardened palms and sensitive fingertips. “A grave failing in a young woman, according to my mother. But then, her nose is always in everyone’s business—especially her daughters’—so she’s not really one to talk.” She tucked one leg under her on the seat and wove her fingers experimentally through his, feeling the gentle pressure of his in response. “So, fisticuffs?”
He sighed with exaggerated forbearance.
“Lacking other means, I have been known to defend myself with bare fists.”
“That I would pay to see.”
He raised one eyebrow.
“I wager you would, reckless hoyden that you are.”
For the first time in days, she felt the tension in her core melting. And with it, went her defenses and discretion.
“You should be thanking your lucky stars that I was reckless enough to speak up for you the other night.” She looked up into his gaze. “In fact, you owe me.”
“For what?” He seemed less outraged than she might have expected.
“For saving you from a fate worse than death: matrimony.”
He studied her, then gave a short laugh. “I believe your well-intentioned interference merely pushed Sir Marion to extreme measures.”
“You owe me, Reynard Boulton,” she said emphatically.
“Just what price do you think your invaluable
assistance is worth?”
She tried to think, but—distracted as she was—everything that came to mind involved his lips, his hands, or his lean, muscular body. Hardly something she could demand at the moment.
“I’ll have to think about it. I’ll take your marker.”
“God forbid I ever give you a chit. You would pauper me in days.”
“Oh, I’m not interested in money. I have plenty of that.” She rolled her eyes toward the roof of the coach as if thinking. “However, there are times a girl needs help.”
“As I have seen,” he quipped. “Dallying with Prussians and Frenchmen . . . snooping at doorknobs . . . attending duels . . . dressing as a man . . . you do need help.” One eye narrowed. “At the very least, you need advice on headgear. That bowler you were wearing is hideous. Ready-made, I wager.”
“See there—half a dozen excellent reasons I shouldn’t be married. Not a man alive would want his wife dallying with Prussians, snooping, spectating at duels, and dressing like a man, all in the same week. But it seems to me the pot is calling the kettle black. Why aren’t you married and begetting heirs? You must be at least thirty
. Surely there have been a few young ladies nearsighted enough or desperate enough to show interest in you.”
“Barely thirty,” he declared, indignant. “Not a codger yet, by any stretch. And there have been a few sighing maidens—though, fewer than one might expect, given my charming nature and lucrative prospects.” He leaned a shoulder back against the seat with a faint curl to his nose. “It may have to do with my reputation as a scandalmonger.”
He hadn’t had time to fully button his shirt and vest. A slice of skin dusted with light hair captured her attention. She licked her lower lip.
“I won’t marry until my uncle dies and I bear the title myself.” He removed one of his hands from hers and ran it back through his hair.
“Does your uncle require that?”
He paused for a moment, riffling through inner thoughts that drained some of the pleasure from his expression.
“My uncle requires nothing. And everything.”
“Must be the side of the family with all the charm,” she muttered.
The set of his jaw made her regret bringing up the subject. Their delicious teasing, their tantalizing brush with intimacy was over.
Moments later, so was the ride.
The coachman shouted to his team and the hum of the wheels on a brick street stopped as the carriage rocked to a stop. She blinked and lurched to the window. This was her street.
“We’re here.” She tried to collect her hair as she strained to see who might be on the street in front of her house. Then she stopped, struck by another thought. “My horse—I have to return it to the livery.”
“Which livery?” he asked, grabbing her hat and pressing the oversize bowler down over the messy coil of her hair.
“The one on Trinity Road,” she answered.
“I’ll take it back for you.” He watched her straighten her coat and trousers and tug at her collar, and smiled. “And we’ll be square.”
“Ohhh, no.” Her eyes narrowed. “I’m saving your marker for something bigger than letting my mount trot behind your coach to a stable. I’ll hide the horse in the alley and take him back to the livery myself.”
He bounded out of the coach ahead of her, and when she paused in the opening, he reached up for her with both hands.
“I thought you were in a hurry.” He beckoned emphatically and as she made to step out, he lifted her down. When her feet touched the ground, he didn’t release her.
* * *
Reynard looked down into eyes as deep and blue as a Swiss mountain lake and couldn’t make his hands give her up. Even wearing men’s clothes and that ridiculous hat, she was something to behold. Rosy lips, flushed cheeks, lashes that framed those heart-melting eyes . . . he felt just the way he had the first time he encountered a Rembrandt in a museum: fascination that turned to awe that turned to gooseflesh. He’d never met anyone like her. She was beautiful and desirable enough to capture his senses, and fresh and forthright enough to turn his self-possession inside out.
What the hell was he doing? He had no business enjoying the fact that a mere swatch of cloth separated his hands from her delectable curves, or the warmth that she exuded with every breath, or the devious charm of her no-holds-barred conversation.
But he did, God help him.
“You should thank me,” he said, his voice tellingly husky.
“For what?” She made no move to escape his grasp.
“For keeping your scandalous secrets, and for shielding you from the infamy you so richly deserve.”
She chewed the corner of her lip, sending a wave of something like longing through his chest. “I will.”
He was unprepared for her to grab him by the lapels and pull him down to her, but was even more unmanned when she planted a warm, lingering kiss on his cheek
.
Before he could react, she had pulled away and headed for her horse. A moment later, she and the horse were trotting side by side down the alley toward the kitchen door—the location of the encounter that started this madness in his mind and body.
He touched his cheek where sensation lingered. That was his thanks? A buss on the cheek that was suitable for a father, an aging uncle, or a younger brother? After what they’d just shared? The “sharing” part was the most embarrassing.
Accursed female. Somewhere in her family tree there had to be a witch or some other such practitioner of allurements and the diabolical arts.
He charged back into the coach, barking an order for the driver to take him to Tannehill House in Exeter Square. By the time his arse hit the seat, he was red-faced and his ears felt like they were on fire. A kiss on the cheek—she may as well have patted him on the head. Good boy, Reynard
. The little witch roused his desires, then used them to blow a hole in his pride.
But as the coach rumbled through the streets and across the Cheswick Bridge, his irritation dissipated enough to allow a cooler analysis of the encounter. The way she’d submitted to his touch and entwined her fingers with his, the glow in her luminous eyes—he would swear she had been as fascinated by those sensations as he was.
One other detail came to mind: her disgust at the notion of sharing her body with a husband. It made him wonder about her experience with the opposite sex. Her unbridled conversation would give one to think she was as game and bold in sexual matters as she was in conversation. But given the ever-present scrutiny of her ambitious mother, that might not be the case.
In that light, her reaction made more sense. If she were a true novice at sensual games and physical pleasure, she might be testing the waters. That dance of will-she-or-won’t-she could be the natural steps of a young woman exploring new sensations and desires. Innocent then provocative, sweet then sultry—it was a maddening dance that surely kept a man’s attention.
Damn it! He was doing it again, letting her invade his thoughts and spin webs of now-what, what-if, and if-only. He had more important things to consider, like checking his sources, remaining solvent, and keeping body and soul together long enough to find out . . . what he needed to find out.