She turned her head toward him at last, rewarding him with the full effect of her beauty, the high forehead, delicate tawny brows, luminous eyes, the lush mouth, slightly retroussé nose. Even her ears were lovely, goddamn it, the plump little lobes calling for him to bite and lick.
“I didn’t think of you at all, Lord Ravenscroft. I thought of my home, the place where I belong. I thought of freedom, of the scent of the earth in Virginia after a summer rain, of the sun rising over Richmond. I thought of the call of whip-poor-wills and a sky that isn’t blanketed in noxious fog and endless drizzle.”
Her impassioned reply had him knowing a sharp pang of jealousy. What would it be like, he wondered for a fleeting moment, to be thought of with as much unadulterated passion as the woman before him directed upon a place on a map? The urge to usurp her homeland in her affections rose within him, as ridiculous as it was unrelenting. Tea was not a panacea, it seemed. Nor was an eight-minute turn in the gardens with a grim, window audience.
He leaned nearer to her, just near enough to maintain propriety but capture the full attention of the woman before him. The woman who expected him to believe she carried a mere place in the same regard as a man’s touch. Virginia couldn’t damn well make her come, now could it?
“Perhaps I was remiss in my efforts.” He allowed his gaze to dip to her lips. “Next time I shall use my tongue.”
Her eyes flew open wide. He’d shocked her again. Such an innocent, his future countess. But just as quickly, she schooled her features into unaffected elegance once more. “For what purpose, Lord Ravenscroft? I’m sure you’ve already wielded your tongue upon me with your verbal prowess on each occasion of our meeting. Sometimes with manners, but usually without.”
Ah, she wanted to play the game? He hoped to hell that Lady Bella wasn’t about to swoop down upon them and put an end to their invigorating tête-à-tête, for he was enjoying himself immensely. “Sweet, innocent darling, you cannot think I meant to use my tongue for something as boring as speaking.”
She swallowed. “My lord, this conversation is quickly becoming improper.”
“If you wanted proper, you sought out the wrong earl, little dove,” he reminded her with a touch more bitterness than he intended. “Proper is for clergymen and maiden aunts. Proper is dull as hell. Improper, however, is infinitely more rewarding. Do you want to know what I’d do to you with my tongue?”
She did. Her expression, her sparkling, intelligent gaze, all clamored with curiosity. “Perhaps you ought to bite your tongue, my lord,” she suggested airily, refusing to give in to that inquisitiveness. “That seems to be the wisest course of action for all concerned.”
“Wisdom and desire so rarely go hand in hand,” he returned, smiling at her rejoinder before bemusement overtook him.
He enjoyed her wit, her determination, and even her dedicated love for her homeland, her wrongheaded pursuit of liberation from her father’s perceived tyranny. He liked bantering with her as much as he liked kissing her and touching her. Now there was a rarity indeed. Few women had ever called to him on a deeper level than mere animal lust. That this innocent firebrand from Virginia, this slip of a girl with golden hair who smelled like sunshine, who’d shown up in his study and proposed marriage to him did—somehow, this seemed like God’s greatest joke of all upon one of His most sinful servants.
“On that notion, my lord, we are in agreement,” she said, interrupting his musings with such abruptness that for a moment he wasn’t certain what she referred to. “You’ll not sway me. A marriage in name only. I don’t care how handsome you are or how fine a kisser.”
As she said the last, she raised her fingers over her mouth as though doing so could recall the words. Color still tinged her cheeks. With his free hand, he covered her fingers where they rested in the crook of his elbow. Just a slight touch, but she was teaching him that there could be power in the smallest of gestures.
“You think me a fine kisser, Clara?”
She glared at him. “You must already know that you are, sir.”
“Perhaps.” He considered her with great care. “But hearing it from you is the greatest of compliments. I do believe your delightful stepmother is about to swoop down upon us any moment. But do think tonight when you’re alone, darling, where you’d like to have my tongue. You’ll find I’m a most obliging sort.”
Think about where you’d like to have my tongue.Indeed! The man was a rake, a cad, a voluptuary, a… Why, Clara had run out of insults already, but there it was. Plain and stark and true. The Earl of Ravenscroft was every bit as wicked as she’d been led to believe. She didn’t know which was worse, his obvious dearth of morals or the way he’d managed to intrude upon her thoughts far too often when he was nowhere in sight. His sinful suggestion had stayed with her, and she was ashamed to admit that her fanciful imagination had envisioned more than one place upon her person where she’d like to have the bounder’s tongue.
It was wicked, wanton, and altogether at odds with her plans for a hasty marriage, even hastier dissolution, and her happy return to American shores. She took a calming sip of the champagne she’d forgotten she held. Then another. And another. She’d tucked herself into a corner of the Duke of Devonshire’s ballroom, where she hoped she could remain undetected by her fellow revelers, her stepmother and father chief among them, for as long as possible. Invisibility wasn’t a virtue, but in the maelstrom of her life, it had suddenly become a condition she craved.
“Clara, dear heart.” The familiar, feminine voice in her ear had Clara whirling to find her closest friend, Lady Boadicea Harrington. Bo was auburn-haired and tall to Clara’s petite fairness. The two of them had become fast friends in finishing school, bonding over their mutual hatred of such an insufferable institution. They’d both been seen as too spirited by their families, too rebellious in nature, desperately in need of some ladylike polishing.As though we’re candlesticks, Bo had once lamented, rolling her eyes.
Bo grinned at her now in that vibrant, carefree way she had that made anyone who looked upon her feel as if they were sharing in a great secret. “I feel it’s been ages since we’ve seen each other. I’ve missed you so.”
“And I’ve missed you.” Clara was relieved to see her friend and confidante at last. “There’s so much I must tell you.”
She hadn’t dared to write Bo with news about her plan for fear her father was reading her letters after all the trouble she’d brought raining down upon him. Lord knew he’d done it before when he suspected her of becoming too familiar with the Earl of Dalmain’s third son. In truth, Henry had kissed her but twice, though his long and ardent love letters—intercepted by her irate father—would have suggested otherwise.
Henry’s kisses had been nothing at all like the earl’s. They had been pleasant but hasty, a quick press of his wet mouth upon hers. Not entirely unpleasant, but neither had it left her longing for more in the way Ravenscroft’s masterful mouth had. Lord have mercy, there her wicked mind went again, at full gallop into enemy territory. She had to grab hold of the reins.
“Has your plan commenced?” Bo asked quietly, her eyes sparkling with mischief. Bo enjoyed larks. In finishing school, she’d once switched out the headmistress’s cheese plate with a rather convincing array of sliced soap. Madame Desjardins had not been impressed to be the butt of such a joke. “Do tell.”
Clara nodded. “My plan has more than commenced. I’m marrying the earl in a week and a half’s time.”
“Truly?” Bo’s eyes went wide. “How can it be when I haven’t heard a word?”
“My father is doing his best to blunt the scandal. Unfortunately, I’m being forced to endure two weeks of proper courtship before we can wed.”
“Shrewd of Mr. Whitney,” Bo agreed before a frown creased the otherwise flawless cream of her high forehead. “But does this mean you’re really going to leave me here in this unforgiving wilderness on my own?”
“You have sisters,” Clara reminded her.
