Chapter Fourteen
Henry stepped back from her, his bare feet treading upon his clothes, which he’d dropped to the ground seconds before grabbing her from behind and pressing her against the rough bark of the tree. That had been his first mistake—putting his hands on her at all. His second had been in not sending her home the minute Remi left. His third…well, the state of his engorged body was proof enough of that.
As if in response to his thoughts, Irina’s eyes dropped to his naked front, and the stain of color on her cheeks intensified. Her eyes rounded in shock as her mouth, those perfect lips he’d been plundering seconds before, parted in unconcealed astonishment at the unobstructed—and unabashed—view of him. Henry crouched and took up his trousers, pulling them on with angry tugs as she spun away, averting her hot stare. He suppressed the sudden, demented urge to drag her to the forest floor and bury his rigid arousal in her warm, willing body. The cling of her dewy skin on his fingers had been drugging, her moans and whimpers even more so.
“You are intent on ruination,” he muttered, buttoning the fall quickly over his straining anatomy, gooseflesh rising on his arms and stomach despite the heat of exasperation simmering just beneath his skin.
“I—I only wanted to run the course again, and I thought you were still in London,” she said, turning slightly to see him.
His shirt was damp, the linen sticking to his wet arms as he dressed. Noticing her perusal, Henry’s jaw clenched. She’d been at the pool, he knew, watching him. His ravaged back must have been on full, grisly display then. Had she felt horror? Revulsion? Or worse…pity?
“Did you tell Lord Remi about this place?” Henry asked, finishing with his shirt and grabbing his stockings and Hessians. “Did you intend to meet him here for a rendezvous, believing I was still in town?”
“Of course not,” she answered, and from the insulted tone of her voice, he believed her. “He followed without my knowledge. How dare you suggest I intended for a tryst.”
Henry stepped toward her, water dripping from his hair and soaking his collar. “Intended or not, you received one just the same.”
He stormed past her, toward the path that led to the small cabin in the clearing, unable to hold her livid glare. He’d lost control the moment he’d tucked her against that tree, his dripping wet body plastering the back of her shirt and trousers. Even as Remi had called for her, his eyes searching the thick wood for any movement, Henry had felt the weightlessness of abandon lifting him. Dressed as she was, the full curve of her backside on such luscious display, he had wanted only to sink into her.
He heard Irina following him now along the path, her feet breaking small sticks as she rushed to keep up.
“Why are you acting as if I am the one who has done something wrong?” she asked.
Henry faltered in step. She had done nothing—nothing—wrong. He was the one who couldn’t seem to stop making these mistakes, even though in the moment, they felt the furthest thing from wrong. He’d been standing under that waterfall, fantasizing an erotic scenario, one in which Irina joined him, stripping herself slowly before wading into the pool to meet him. He’d been at full mast even before he’d seen her.
Henry had been yanked from his fantasy by the sound of a male voice calling Irina’s name. And when he’d turned, Henry had seen her figure standing stock-still on the brink of discovery. He’d stared at her for a half second before swimming toward shore, irrationally concerned—and elated—that somehow his thoughts had summoned her.
“You should not have come here,” he replied, wishing to hell she had stayed away.
“So why did you just… What was that back there, then? Punishment?”
He strode into the clearing, relieved to see Lord Remi had not hung about, waiting for Irina to return to her horse.
Henry turned to her, his gaze snapping to hers. “Did it feel like punishment to you, Princess?”
She drew back, those violet eyes of hers going heavy with the memory of what had just transpired between them. A furious blush rose, warming her neck and suffusing her cheeks. God, he’d wanted to strip her bare and take her right then and there. Had she been wearing a skirt, easily tossed up over her hips, instead of those damned breeches, he was not quite certain he wouldn’t have. He’d reached into her instead, touching and stroking her, until she cried out, his name upon her lips.
Without waiting for an answer, Henry turned away, toward his horse, hoping to shield from her the renewed ridge of his erection.
“We cannot be found here,” he said, thinking only of the possible firestorm of scandal that would smudge her reputation. But when she spoke he grew disappointed in himself yet again.
“No. I imagine Lady Carmichael would not like to hear such gossip.”
He had not thought of Rose. Not once.
“That is a business arrangement. In name only. Rose is aware of what that entails.” Henry drew a calming breath. “If you’ll meet me back at Hartstone—” he started to say, but Irina went to her mount and began untying the mare from the post.
“I cannot stay,” she said, unable to look at him.
“We need to talk,” he replied, thinking of the betting book at White’s and the reason he’d come to Essex in the first place.
“There is nothing to say. Nothing that will change anything. Leave me be,” she said, setting her booted foot in a stirrup and hoisting herself into the saddle. “I must find Max before he alerts Lana or Gray that I’ve gone missing in the Earl of Langlevit’s woods.”
“It is Remi we must talk about.” He was trying to think of a way to tell her what he knew without mentioning the bets. Or perhaps he should mention them. If she knew the truth about why men kept falling at her feet, making fools of themselves, perhaps she’d be more cautious at society events. Not that the bets were the reason he seemed to keep making a fool of himself. He wished it were as simple as money.
Irina gritted her teeth and gathered the reins. “Why must I say this yet again? Max is my friend.”
Henry took her mount’s bridle and stopped her from riding away. “That is what he would have you believe. I have it on good authority, however, that he has other designs upon you.”
“Whose good authority is this?”
“That does not matter.”
“It does if you expect me to listen.”
He groaned. There was something off about Lord Remi, and Henry needed her to listen. Needed her to believe him. There could be no skirting around the issue any longer.
“There are wagers being placed at White’s,” he said. “They involve you.”
He’d expected a scathing glare or an immediate refusal, but instead Irina broke into a slow smile. And then she laughed.
“What do you find so humorous?” he asked, still holding tight to her bridle.
It was as if she’d found his revelation lacking in some way.
Her laughter calmed. “Nothing, nothing at all. I’m only curious…Max hasn’t wagered anything…has he?”
Henry curled his fingers tighter around the leather bridle. “You don’t seem surprised in the least to hear that men have been betting on your favors.”
Because she isn’t, he realized. The hellion. She’d known.
Irina shifted uneasily in her saddle, the mare trying to prance away from Henry. The animal likely sensed his simmering anger.
“Oh, stop. The wagers are innocent enough. A stroll in Hyde Park. The first dance at a ball. Why, I think the most scandalous wager I’ve heard of yet involved touching a palm to my lower back while guiding me to the dance floor.”
Again, she laughed. Henry released the bridle and instantly wished for the neck of that bet’s winner to strangle.
“Oh, trust me, Princess, there are wagers in that book that are far from innocent, and your dear friend Max is encouraging them. As are you.”
“He is only having a bit of fun—”
“Yes, at your expense and at your peril.”
“Peril!” she scoffed. “I’m hardly in danger!”
“Yes, peril. As the book is at White’s and women are not permitted, I am certain you have not seen the current list of wagers. I have, however.”
Irina’s mare, restless, trotted in a tight circle. “I do not believe it. Max would never play with my safety. What sort of peril?”
He wanted to drag her out of her saddle and shake sense into her.
“A kiss,” Henry replied. “And not a chaste peck upon the lips.”
Her brows pinched in confusion. At least she was not dismissing it with another lighthearted chuckle. She appeared to be mulling it over at first, but then, with a shrug, said, “It seems you’ve won that bet.”
“I don’t want to win any ridiculous bets,” he bit out, his frustration boiling over.
“What do you want then?” she shouted, her horse’s legs shifting forward and back in response to her agitation. “One moment you’re professing that you feel nothing for me and that you never will, and the next you…you’re touching me in ways no man ever has. You’re either lying to me about how you feel or you’re lying to yourself, and I don’t know which one makes me more furious!”
The mare whinnied and spun, nearly breaking free of his grip, but Irina managed to hold her in check. Henry had lied, yes. He’d lied to them both. And he was as tired of it as she.
“You desire the truth? The truth is uncomplicated. I want you. I want you in ways that would shock you, ways you cannot begin to imagine.” He stepped forward, the grass against his bare feet somehow urging him onward with the truth. “The things I want to do to you, Irina, they are…base. Far too sordid for even that damned book at White’s.”
Going still, she stared down at him with an unreadable expression, even the mare quieting beneath her. “So it is only lust? You wish to bed me.”
“Yes, it is lust. Yes, I want to bed you,” he answered without a moment’s hesitation. God, yes. But it was also more. He wanted to be in her presence. He wanted her to look at him and smile and laugh at the things he said. He wanted to hear her voice whenever one of his memories paralyzed him. He wanted to keep her far away from the arrogant pricks in London making wagers on her as if she were a racehorse. They knew nothing of her, or of the real prize she offered.
How in hell was he supposed to say these things without laying himself bare?
Or perhaps that is exactly what he needed to do.
“Irina—”
“You’ve made yourself clear,” she said, blinking rapidly. “I will not lie and say your…attentions have made me feel nothing.”
Good. It would have been an obvious lie. Her response had been more magnificent, more honest, than any woman he’d ever encountered before.
“However, you’ve made your promise to Lady Carmichael, and regardless of the nature of your agreement, I will not help you treat her with such disregard.” Irina spoke with a lofty air, as if she were addressing a royal assembly instead of the man whose naked body had just been pressed against her, whose hands had pleasured her, coaxing her to blissful release.
“Do not kiss me again,” she added. “It will only serve to further lower my opinion of you. And of myself. Good afternoon, Lord Langlevit.”
And with that, she dug her heels into her mount and shot across the clearing, kicking up clods of dirt and grass in her wake. He watched her disappear into the trees, along an overgrown path that would lead back toward the lane instead of Hartstone.
Henry’s opinion of himself had already been as low as he’d imagined it could sink, and it had been a long time since it had bothered him. Since he’d felt a scorching disgust for what he’d let himself become.
But with that cold and brutal set down, Irina had swiftly reminded him.
…
Irina was so furious and so intent on escaping both the man she’d left behind as well as the bright prick of her conscience, she didn’t realize she’d ridden clear past Stanton Park. She and the mare came to a lathered stop in a meadow she did not recognize.
“Sorry, Primrose,” she murmured to the horse as she dismounted, stroking her damp flanks. “We’ll walk back, shall we?”
Her body ached. Her heart, even more so.
Henry wanted her.
Of course, he did. Irina had seen the evidence of that clearly. Heat swamped her as the memory of the glimpse she’d caught made her breath hitch. In Paris, she’d seen enough nude sculptures to know what the male form looked like, but none of them had prepared her for the staggering and unapologetically erect eyeful of him she’d gotten.
He wanted her in ways she could not begin to imagine.
Irina’s core went liquid. She’d be lying if she said she didn’t want him as well. In her bed. On the floor of that clearing. Anywhere. She craved his hands on her as they had been, and hers on his glorious body, exploring her fill. She wanted to give him the same incandescent pleasure he’d given her.
“Deep breaths,” she told herself, coloring at her wanton, indecent thoughts. Irina drew a restorative breath as she approached the drive for her sister’s estate. One of the stableboys—Percival, or Percy, he was called—rushed up the lane to take the horse. “Give her a good rubdown and some extra mash, Percy,” Irina said to him. “She deserves it.”
“Fer sure, Your Highness.”
The boy led the mare away, and Irina straightened her hair on her walk to the manor, hoping to God she didn’t look like some light-skirt who had just been ravished by a devilishly charming highwayman. It wasn’t far from the truth. Langlevit may not have been a highwayman, but he was every bit as much a rogue. A handsome, seductive rogue who had made her completely forget herself.
Intent on ruination, he’d accused.
Little did he know that at the sight of him in that waterfall, she’d been desperate for it. She flushed at the memory. Irina’s lips burned. The space between her legs tingled. Though frustrated afterward, Henry hadn’t seemed displeased while he’d been kissing her. He’d been…tender. For a moment while he’d been touching her, it had felt much like him needing her. And when she’d found her release, he’d held her close.
Right before pushing her away.
Irina sighed. The man was impossible to fathom. Hot one minute, cold the next. As arctic as a winter storm. She huffed a laugh. He deserved some of her old nicknames more than she did. Despite what he’d confessed about his platonic arrangement with Rose, in a few short months, he would be a married man. And if everything went to plan, she would be married, also.
To Max.
“Where have you been?” her sister shrieked as she entered the foyer, already dressed in a lovely light blue gown and looking frazzled. “Rolling around in a barn? Hurry, we’re going to be late.”
“Late?”
“Dinner with Lord and Lady Bradburne.”
Irina groaned. She’d completely forgotten. The last thing she wanted was to go anywhere and have to be social, but she’d promised her sister, and Max couldn’t very well go alone. With his cutting sense of humor, he’d likely end up offending someone.
Frowning as she went directly to her chamber, she recalled what the earl had told her about the latest wager and felt instantly irritated. Though why she was annoyed Max was participating baffled her. She was the one who had encouraged him to do so. Max was simply playing the part of a gentleman in her thrall. He was a performer at heart, after all. Still, it rankled slightly that he would pen in a wager for such a scandalous bet.
A kiss, of all things. And apparently not a chaste one, either. What had Max been thinking when he’d made the wager? Had he entered it, too? She had no intention of kissing him in public. Or kissing him at all. Something like that could indeed lead to her ruination, though one could argue she’d already been well and truly ruined in that clearing. Her body shivered in vivid response at the memory of the earl’s stroking touch, and she willed herself to forget it. It had been a mistake.
Oddly disgruntled, she washed in the slipper bath while her lady’s maid readied her gown for dinner at Worthington Abbey. For the evening, she had chosen a pale lavender silk Parisian concoction with a high waist and long sleeves. The modest bust line only served to accentuate the stunning feature of the dress—a rather shocking expanse of her back. A special corset had been cleverly designed to accommodate the scandalously low rise. The gown was one of Irina’s favorites, and why she felt the need to wear it, she had no idea. Perhaps because she knew she could never wear it in London, not after Henry’s warning. It was far too daring, and as much as she had scoffed at the idea of being in peril, she had noticed an increased level of intensity on the heels of those damned wagers. Not that she’d ever admit that to anyone.
Particularly Henry.
“A loose knot will do,” Irina told Jane as the maid finished combing her hair. “Quickly, and use those matching combs.” It only took five minutes for Jane to complete the task, and Irina thought she’d done a perfectly acceptable job. Her dark hair was secured at the crown, with a few tendrils pulled loose at her ears.
“Don’t you look beautiful,” a sardonic voice said from the doorway. Max stood there, dressed in showy evening clothes and looking quite dashingly handsome.
From the coy looks she kept darting in his direction, Jane obviously thought so, too. Max winked at her and nodded toward the door. The maid scurried from the room as Irina rose, attempting to clasp a diamond bracelet to her wrist. She vaulted an eyebrow. “Do you wish to incite my sister’s wrath and cause a scandal?”
“Then you will be forced to marry me.” His smile was lazy as he approached. “Allow me.”
She frowned at him as he reached for the bracelet. “I’m already marrying you, remember?”
“Yes, I can tell you are eagerly awaiting my proposal,” he said as he deftly fastened the clasp. He kept a firm hold on her wrist. “Where were you this afternoon?” The sour waft of wine drifted toward her.
“I told you I went for a ride.” She narrowed her eyes at him, noticing the high color of his cheeks and his bright eyes. “Are you foxed?”
Max ignored her question and instead brought her fingers to his lips. “I followed you to Langlevit’s estate. Hartstone, is it not? But somehow, I managed to lose you.”
“I may have ridden through his estate, what of it?” She wrenched her hand from his. “And why would you follow me in the first place?”
“You seemed agitated,” he replied mildly. “I was worried.”
“Max, I am a grown woman.”
“Who seems intent on putting her reputation at risk by riding on strangers’ properties alone and unchaperoned.”
She shot him a glare. Max was the last person who would give a hoot about reputations, hers included. Otherwise he never would have written in that damned wager. Scowling, she swallowed the accusation on the tip of her tongue. Seeing how he was her sole source of information on the White’s wager log, Max would know instantly that she’d heard it from someone else, and she wasn’t prepared to have that conversation.
“The Earl of Langlevit is no stranger, and anyway, he is in London.”
Max looked at her strangely for a moment before shaking his head. “Langlevit is here in Essex. Lord Northridge has just told me that he will be in attendance at dinner tonight.”
“Is that so?” Irina’s throat grew constricted at the announcement, but she forced her face to remain composed, knowing Max’s perceptive gaze had not slipped from hers.
Taking hold of her nerveless fingers, Max squeezed gently. “Irina, if Langlevit gets wind of what we are planning, it will all be for naught.” He softened his voice. “I’m not blind. I know you care for him, but he has chosen another. You need to let him go. Deep down, I know you know this. In a few months, we will be done with this dreary old place and back in Europe where we belong, with nothing but pleasure awaiting us. Will that be so bad?”
Irina said nothing. She didn’t know when it had happened, but she didn’t think England was so dreary anymore. At least not this part of it, and even London was a bit beautiful and stately in certain areas. Her grand scheme to return to St. Petersburg after bringing London to its knees had somehow lost its luster, too. Irina felt lost. She cared for a man who wanted her body but could never return her affection. She craved a storybook ending that was out of reach. She had never been one for fairy tales, but for once, her heart pined for the impossible.
But Max was right. Perhaps there were no happy endings to be had.
“You’re right,” Irina agreed softly. “It wouldn’t be so bad.”