For Ara did not like the Marquess of Dorset. And she did not like Papa’s disapproving frowns and insistence she marry the odious man. Dorset was ten years her senior, and he had an irritating way of talking above everything she said, as though he could not even hear a word she spoke.
But she did like the mystery gentleman in the woods with his strapping form, his dark hair, and his broad face, an arresting complexity of strong angles and chiseled perfection. She had been seated on the forest floor, her back against a large old tree trunk, reading a book, when the snapping of branches and rustling of leaves had alerted her to a presence.
From the moment he had first appeared, jogging and stripped down to nothing more than a shirt and plain dark trousers, performing all manner of athletic feats she supposed served to enhance the lovely strength of his body, he had robbed her of breath. She had looked upon him, and something in her belly had tightened. Her mouth had gone dry. A tingling sensation had blossomed in a forbidden place. She had wanted to know him.
But to her shame, she had simply watched him in silence, drinking in his body’s fluid motions without alerting him to her presence. She had stayed silent and still as moss until he had gone, jogging away as if he had never been at all.
The second day, she made excuses to Mama and returned in the hopes she would see him again, though she told herself she simply wished to go for a ride and take the country air once more. She had been about to leave in disappointment when he had appeared, bounding into the forest with his vitality and his magnetism and his formidable size. He was so very enormous, the sort of man who would dwarf her. As she watched him, she had wondered what it would be like to be held in such large, long arms. To be cradled against that broad chest. To be touched by a man who was strong enough to do anything he wished.
Dorset was not strong or vital. He possessed a paunch that spoke of his fondness for spirits and a thinning pate. Occasionally, spittle collected in the corners of his lips as he spoke, and she found it revolting.
For three days, she watched the unknown young man perform his athletic coups in silence from her hiding place, dreaming of emerging and speaking to him. Of introducing herself, though she had not possessed an inkling of what she would have said.
And finally, on the fourth day, when she had summoned up her courage enough to storm forth from the shadows of the forest, he did not materialize. She had appeared at the same place where her father’s lands bordered with the Duke of Carlisle’s, at the same time, and had waited for what seemed like an eternity. Still, he had not come.
Ara sighed. Perhaps it was time to return home.
A stick snapped behind her, and she scrambled to her feet, spinning about.
There he was.
This close, she could see him even better. Could appreciate the slash of his nose, the fullness of his lips, the regal ridges of his cheekbones, the wideness of his jaw. There was a wildness about him, a ruggedness, and a draw that made her long to be closer. To be so close she could touch him, could trace the breadth of his shoulders, the column of his neck. His hair was black as ink and so long it nearly brushed his shoulders, falling in luxurious waves. His eyes were dark, focused on her now with an intensity that stole her breath all over again.
“How many days have you been watching me?” he asked.
She felt a fiery rush of shameful heat coloring her cheeks.Dear heavens.How could he have known? He had never once even glanced in her direction, and she had been so careful—so very, very, careful—not to move or rustle or make even the slightest sound that would alert him to her presence.
She summoned all the frost she had in her being, which was a feeble fraction in the face of his great, pulsing fire. He was like the sun blotting out everything else in the sky. “I beg your pardon?”
He stepped closer, and she could smell him. Man and sweat and leather and musk. Nothing had ever smelled better. She wanted to press her nose against the Adam’s apple of his throat, inhale the essence of him directly so she could recall it wherever and whenever she wished.
A smile flirted with the corners of his lips. “You heard me correctly. How many days have you been watching me? Three by my count, though I daresay it could have been more. I tend to get lost in my own thoughts.”
He had thoughts? How odd, for he owned all of hers at the moment. She could not think of anything but him. Something deep inside her, some unknown and primitive part of her, said this was the man for her. That he was hers and she would be his.
With great effort, she shook free from his spell, chastising herself.Oh, do cease being a ninny, Araminta! Little wonder everyone is always thinking you so silly. You cannot fancy yourself in love with a man you do not know.
But it was not that she thought herself in love with him, not precisely. Rather it was that she felt, in that moment, with just the two of them, she could love him. One day. That this queer, indefinable rightness she felt in her bones meant something. All foolish, all so naïve. Little wonder her father ever despaired of her making a match when she could not help but to spin tales about a man she did not know while the suitors who vied for her hand were always uninteresting and unwanted.
Swiftly, she recalled he had spoken to her. That he was awaiting her response.
He knew how many days she had watched him. Knew she had watched him all along, and yet he had never shown even a hint of awareness of her. How humiliating to have been caught ogling a stranger in such fashion. If Papa ever learned of her disgrace, he would never forgive her.
“I have not been watching you,” she lied, tipping up her chin in defiance and daring him to gainsay her.
His smile deepened to a grin, and her heart thudded so loudly she swore he must have heard it. “Youhavebeen watching me, and we both know it. You may as well dispense with your prevarication, for it is futile.”
She rather supposed it was.
Feeling out of her depths, she huffed out a small breath, staring at him, wishing she could read his eyes and know his thoughts. “What have you been doing?”
He raised a brow. “Truth at last? I have been training.”
“Training,” she repeated, frowning as she tried to comprehend precisely what that meant.
“Also, I have been giving you something worth watching.” He had the audacity to wink then, the knave.
Her heart sighed.
