“Jane,” he said softly before dipping his head and setting his lips to hers.
He did not touch her anywhere else. She did not touch him. But their lips clung softly, warmly, yearningly for many moments before one of them drew back—he was not sure who.
Her eyes were dreamy with latent passion, her cheeks flushed with desire. Her lips were parted and moist with invitation. And his own heartbeat was drumming in his ears and threatening to deafen him to reality. Ah, Jane, if only…
He searched her eyes with his own before turning and opening her door. “It is as well that I have guests below, Jane. This will just not do, will it? Not for much longer. Good night.”
JANE FLEDINTO HERroom without a backward glance. She heard the door close behind her before spreading her hands over her hot cheeks.
She could still feel his hand at her waist as they waltzed. She could still feel his heat, still smell his cologne, still feel the sense of perfect rhythm with which they had moved to the music. She could still feel the waltz as an intimate, sensual thing, not the sheer fun it had been when danced with Charles.
Yes, it was as well there were guests downstairs.
She could still feel his kiss, not fierce, not lascivious. Much worse. A soft, longing kiss. No, it would not do. Not for much longer. Not foranylonger, in fact. A great yawning emptiness opened up somewhere deep inside her.
11
HE BRIGHTON RACE WAS TO BEGIN AT HYDEPark Corner at half-past eight the following morning. Fortunately it was shaping up to be a clear, windless day, Jocelyn discovered when he stepped outside, leaning on his cane.
He climbed up unaided to the high seat of his curricle, and waved away his groom, who would have jumped up behind. He was only going to the park and back, after all. He was going to give Ferdinand some last words of encouragement—not advice. Dudleys did not take well to advice, especially from one another.
He was very early, but he wanted to spend a few minutes with his brother before the crowds arrived to cheer the racers on their way to Brighton. There were a number of gentlemen who would ride their horses behind the curricles, of course, so that they could witness the end of the race and celebrate with the winner in Brighton. Ordinarily Jocelyn would have been one of them—no, ordinarily he would have been one of theracers—but not this time. His leg was considerably better than perhaps it should feel when he had waltzed on it last evening, but it would be foolish to subject it to a long, bruising ride.
Ferdinand was flushed and restless and eager as he checked his new team and chatted with Lord Heyward, who had arrived even before Jocelyn.
“I am to be sure to tell you from Angeline,” Heyward was saying with an ironic lift of one eyebrow, “that you are to win at all costs, Ferdinand, that you are to take no risks that will break your neck, that the honor of the Dudley name is in your hands, that you are not to worry about anything but your own safety—and a great deal more in the same contradictory vein, with which I will not assail your ears.”
Ferdinand grinned at him and turned to bid Jocelyn a good morning.
“They are as eager as I to be on the way,” he said, nodding in the direction of his horses.
Jocelyn raised his quizzing glass to his eye and looked over the curricle, which his brother had bought impulsively a few months before entirely on the grounds that it looked both smart and sporty. He had complained about it ever since, and indeed there was something clumsy about it that one detected only in the handling of it. Jocelyn had driven it once himself and had never felt any burning desire to repeat the experience.
The odds were against Ferdinand in this race, though Jocelyn did not despair of his wager. Youth and eagerness were on his brother’s side as well as a certain family determination never to come in second at any manly sport. And those chestnuts were certainly a pair that Jocelyn coveted himself. The curricle was the weakness.
Lord Berriwether, Ferdinand’s opponent, was driving up amid a veritable cavalcade of horsemen come to cheer him on. All of them would have wagered on him, of course. A few of them called good-naturedly to Ferdinand.
“A prime pair, Dudley,” Mr. Wagdean cried cheerfully. “A pity they have three lame legs apiece.”
“Even more of a pity when they win,” Ferdinand retorted, grinning, “and show up Berriwether’s pair, which has no such excuse.”
Berriwether was showing his unconcern with the opposition by flicking at an invisible speck of dust on his gleaming top boots with his whip. The man looked more suitably dressed for a stroll on Bond Street than a race to Brighton. But he would be all business, of course, once the race was under way.
“Ferdinand,” Jocelyn said impulsively, “we had better switch curricles.”
His brother looked at him with undisguised hope. “You mean it, Tresham?”
“I have a better regard for my wager than to send you off to Brighton in that bandbox,” Jocelyn replied, nodding at the red and yellow curricle.
Ferdinand was not about to argue the point further. In a matter of minutes—and with only five minutes to spare before the scheduled start of the race—his groom had unhitched his curricle from the chestnuts and switched it with the duke’s.
“Just remember,” Jocelyn said, unable after all to resist the urge to give advice, “it is somewhat lighter than yours, Ferdinand, and more instantly responsive to your maneuvering.Slow downon the bends.”
Ferdinand climbed up to the high seat and took the ribbons from his groom’s hand. He was serious now, concentrating on the task ahead.
“And bring it back in one piece,” Jocelyn added before stepping back with the rest of the spectators, “or I’ll skin you alive.”
One minute later the Marquess of Yarborough, Berriwether’s brother-in-law, raised the starting pistol skyward, there was an expectant hush, the pistol cracked, and the race began amid a roar of cheers and a cloud of dust and a thundering of hooves.
