In her clumsiness, she had caught her hem as she had descended from the carriage Callie had sent for her tonight. One moment, she had been intent upon finding the ladies’ withdrawing room so she could make a frantic repair, lest any of the fellow guests suppose her more gauche than she already felt. The next, she had collided with the one man who had never been far from her thoughts ever since she had first crossed paths with him.
The one man who was not supposed to be here.
He had returned early. She should lament that fact. She ought to break away from his kiss, to turn and flee back to the safety of the drawing room and the conjurer’s entertaining antics. But she could not stop kissing him back.
He was dressed as if he had just come in from the outdoors, still wearing his greatcoat. How she resented that extra layer of wool keeping her from him. Despite the thickness of the finely constructed garment, however, there was no denying the breadth of his shoulders, the barely leashed strength of him. Somehow, she had imagined all lords were lean, pallid creatures of aesthetic persuasion as Henry had been. But the Duke of Westmorland gave a lie to her every preconceived notion.
His tongue in her mouth was hot and wet, so carnal. None of the kisses she had shared with Lord Lambert—those fleeting fancies she had entertained in her wild youth—had ever been so intimate. They had been uninspired pecks, a mere press of dry lips to hers, over in a blink.
But this…
The Duke of Westmorland kissed her and set her aflame. She was incredibly attuned to him. His harsh breaths, the decadent scent of his cologne, the rasp of his whiskers over her skin as they kissed. Her heart was pounding. Warm prickles of sensation seeped through her, radiating from her core. The fire at the opposite end of the orangery crackled. His lips were satin-smooth and hot and hard and demanding.
His kiss was more intoxicating than wine. She was drunk on him. Drunk on the desire he brought to life. Perhaps it was the darkness of the room, the lush earthen scent permeating it. They were surrounded by leaden glass windows. Not far from them, a drawing room laden with guests meant they risked discovery with every minute they lingered here.
Still, Isabella had no wish to stop this madness. In the deepest depths of her heart, she could admit to herself alone that she had spent all the days since she had last kissed him yearning for more. And now, as she knew she ought to be repairing her tattered hem, that she needed to return to the drawing room, all she could do was press herself closer to him.
His tall strength was delicious. He nipped her lower lip, his fingers in her hair tightening as he angled her head to deliver a kiss that was somehow deeper and more ravenous than the last. She kissed him back furiously. Her grip on him was every bit as tight as his on her. It was as if they feared they would be ripped from each other.
Just when she thought she might combust from those knowing lips owning hers with thorough, wicked kisses, his mouth left to trail a path of fire along her jaw. He kissed to her ear, his hot breath making her shiver, before he caught the fleshy lobe in his teeth.
An answering pang resounded deep in her womb.
“You neglected to answer my question,” he whispered before kissing the hollow behind her ear.
She shivered. Had there been a question? She did not think she could speak. Her brain was a hopeless muddle. Her lips still burned with his kisses. At any moment now, reason and common sense would return to her, she was sure of it, sending her from his arms. For now, there was only one place she wanted to be, and that was precisely where she was.
His tongue flitted over her skin in a wicked caress. “I asked you if you dislike me, Isabella.”
Good God no.And that was the problem, was it not? She liked him far too much.
“I…” He rendered her once more speechless when he kissed a path down her throat.
His hand disentangled from hers at last, coming to rest upon her thudding heart. Her bodice was unusually low cut for her ordinary standards, but this gown was a rare treasure. She had commissioned it several years ago, when she had aspired to a different sort of future from the path she had ultimately chosen. She had reached too high before, she reminded herself, and had nothing but a heartache for her troubles.
This dress was a reminder of her past folly, a call to trust only herself and her independence. But the bold cut of the gown was making it difficult to remember old mistakes or the reasons why she must put an end to this madness.
Her décolletage was a square that revealed her breasts. His glove yet retained some of the winter chill from outside. She shivered at his splayed hand. Part of her wished he would do what he had done before, find his way inside her bodice…
“Your heart beats so fast, Isabella.” The deep rumble of his baritone did wicked things to her senses as well. His lips grazed her throat as he spoke.
A frisson of desire skittered through her, pooling between her legs as an ache she could not ignore. She pressed her thighs together to stave it off, but the action only heightened the sensation.
“You ought not to be so familiar,” she whispered, but there was no sting in the words she somehow summoned. There was only desperate need.
Even she could hear how much she wanted him. To a man who—judging from his expert kisses—was no stranger to seduction, her willingness must be all too apparent.
“You can hardly expect me to call you Miss Hilgrove now.” Briefly, he removed his lips and hand.
In the moonlight glinting through the windows overhead, she saw him catch the finger of one glove in his teeth and tug. He discarded the glove over his shoulder, and it landed somewhere on the stone floor, perhaps amongst the glossed leaves of the trees making an exotic backdrop behind him.
He had a point. She had allowed him far too many intimacies for her to cling to formality now. But then, all coherent thought fled when his bare hand was upon her breast, and his mouth sealed over hers once more.
This kiss was slower than the others, and thorough. This kiss made a liar of her and everything she had believed about herself. Had she thought she could exist without ever kissing him again? Had she thought herself strong enough to resist him?
She had been wrong. So wrong.
“Isabella,” he said against her lips.
