Although Ever let her go without a word, which, Isabella suspected, was answer enough.
Chapter Nine
Where a rake guards his heart.
Of course, he followed her every directive like a recruit given marching orders. Missives passed between their London residences in quick succession the following week.
Which was how Ever found himself preparing to host his first dinner since his brother’s passing at Langley Park, his family’s ancestral estate—a house that had stood too long and seen too much to bother with nerves.
If only that indifference extended to its new owner.
Naturally, he and Isabella hadn’t traveled to Derbyshire together. Ever was firm on that point. The brazen chit he was pretending to court possessed a talent for disorder that thrived in close quarters, and he had no wish to arrive already undone. So far, she’d tempted him beyond measure in carriages and offices alike. He told himself the distance was forpropriety, for her family, for the smooth running of this impromptu country gathering. In truth, it was to give him two days to collect himself before she blew in—a dazzling tempest disrupting every plan, every thought.
This evening would be their first interaction since what he’d come to think of as thesensual mishap, and the beguiling ride afterward, when he’d nearly forgotten self-possession existed at all. When he’d been forced to cradle a flask to keep himself from laying Madam Mischief across his Brougham’s velvet squabs and sinking inside her.
A swaying conveyance could be a boon, in certain ways.
Ever simply couldn’t forget her tight warmth closing around his questing fingers, her distinctive taste lingering on his lips. Sustenance for a man long starved, as it were.
Like a hapless lad, he’d watched for her arrival. His heart gave a traitorous leap when her carriage appeared on Langley’s pebbled drive, the lawn stretching wide and green beyond the windows of his bedchamber. He’d crossed to the glass without thinking, drawn there as though the moment had always been inevitable.
When the door opened and Isabella stepped down, his breath caught, leading him to believe it might be fate.
Her gown of startling indigo, near the shade of the sky above, lifted in the breeze, catching the light and casting it across the ancient stone walkways. A gilded curl had escaped its pins and brushed her jaw. Her expression was open, alight with curiosity, as though she were arriving somewhere thrilling rather than a place weighted with centuries of expectation.
Herjoie de vivrewas impossible to ignore, her joy casting his home in a different light, offering him a new understanding of a place he loved yet so often questioned, given how much of what he’d experienced there had been heartbreaking.
Ever pressed a hand to his belly and exhaled.
Damn, he had it bad.
In more ways than one.
Indeed, he’d stroked himself to completion often enough since the sensual mishap to bring a faint burn to his cheeks when he tried to calculate the total. The taste of her marked him like a rookery tattoo. So he’d made a promise to himself—a vow—that he would permit the two remaining kisses of the three they’d agreed upon. (He didn’t count the trifling one in the carriage, folding it into the earlier as a matter of basic erotic bookkeeping.)
But they would not,couldnot, engage in further oral activities.
Or, God forbid, make love.
No sampling of her nipples, which he’d longed to taste since catching a glimpse of Isabella’s lush bosom trembling as she came. No more climaxes—for either of them. He would not be the man who awakened something in her only to watch that knowledge carried elsewhere once their ruse reached its inevitable end.
At present, the thought of another man touching her made him want to splinter bone.
Finally, the most confounding element of this entire arrangement was his desire toknowher. She made him laugh, this unconventional young woman, often when he least expected it. Her mind was swift and untethered, darting in directions his own followed with alarming ease. Conversation with Isabella didn’t exhaust him or demand performance; it sharpened him, unsettled him, left him wanting more.
He liked her as much as she liked him, which was a colossal predicament.
His bedchamber door opened without ceremony, admitting MacLeod, a valet who had served the Trentham men since before Ever was tall enough to see over the hedges. Age hadbent him into a permanent forward-leaning stoop, as though perpetually bracing against a strong wind, but his pale blue eyes—clouded and faintly milky—missed nothing at all.
“Well,” MacLeod said, surveying him with critical satisfaction, “if this is how ye look before dinner, I’d hate to see yer wedding day.”
Ever shot him a warning look. “This isn’t?—”
“Of course not,” MacLeod supplied. Crossing to Ever, he took the ends of Ever’s starched cravat in his shaky hands, nonetheless tying the linen strip with brisk efficiency. “She’s a fine one, your lady friend. Sharp-eyed. Curious. Lovely. Took to the west gallery as though it were built for her. Asked about the roof beams, the repairs. Said she appreciated how it still felt lived in, hadn’t lost its origins, being rebuilt and such.”
Ever didn’t like how quickly his chest warmed at that. Helovedthe west gallery—his favorite spot in the house.
MacLeod nodded, as though confirming a private thought. “Reminds me of your mother. Same admiring way of eyeing the place. Not judging it. Listening. Buildings whisper, if ye listen. I always say.”
