The footsteps moved away.A horse nickered, luckily not one of theirs, and then he heard the sound of hooves retreating through the forest.
Jonathan didn’t move.Neither did Lise.They both were barely breathing, as the sounds of the French patrol faded into the distance.It could be a trick.The soldiers might be waiting, hoping to flush out their quarry.But he highly doubted it.They were finally gone.
Slowly, the normal sounds of the forest returned.Birds began to chirp again.A breeze rustled through the leaves overhead.And Jonathan became aware of just how close he was standing to Lise.
He could see the pulse beating at her throat and the way her lips parted slightly as she breathed.She was looking up at him with those large, blue eyes, and he recognized the expression on her face because it mirrored exactly what he was feeling.
Want.Need.The desperate desire to touch and say,Damn all the consequences.
“We should wait,” Lise whispered.“To make sure they’re truly gone.”
“Yes,” Jonathan agreed.“We should wait, but not too long.”
Neither of them moved.
“Thank you,” Lise said softly.“For protecting me.”
He felt like a thatch-gallows, a dissolute rogue.For what he’d already done and for what he very much wished to do.
“I have not protected you properly.”The words came out more fiercely than he’d intended.“And you mustn’t thank me.When we get out of here, you must never let me alone with you again.”
Her lower lip quivered.“I know.”
“If given the chance, I will continue to make the same egregious assault upon your person.Do you understand?Because I want you.I wish to possess you in every way.”
She paled, nostrils flaring.“I know,” she said again, but she still didn’t move away.“I want you to know something.Whatever happens, whatever I have to do, I will never regret London, nor the kiss in the garden.I can’t regret learning what it feels like to want and to be wanted.To be chosen.Not for my family’s connections or my dowry or because someone else chose for me, but because a man looked at me and saw ...me.”
The words broke something inside him.
“Lise —”
“Let me finish.Please.”She dragged in a shaky breath.“When I marry Friedrich, which I shall, I will do so willingly, as my duty.I will be a good wife to him.I will honor the commitment my family made to his.But there will be a part of me, a secret part,” she lay her palm flat against her own chest, “that no one else will ever know, that belongs to you, Lord Bowen.It will always belong to you.”
“Don’t say that.”Jonathan’s hands were shaking.He fisted them to keep from reaching for her.“I don’t want to hear those words when you aren’t willing to let me take you away from here.If we left for Britain, you would be safe under His Majesty’s protection and mine.”
Her smile was thin.“You know I’ll never abandon my family.Were you really sent to this area to do surveying work?”The question seemed almost accusatory.
“I promise you that I was sent to Holstein.I didn’t come here to torment either of us.”
“I see.”She almost appeared disappointed.That was the only reason he expounded on his explanation.
“I’m supposed to be charting the coast and the inland waterways and the overland routes that aren’t heavily patrolled, not hiding in a giant’s berries,” he said.
“There is no waterway here,” she stated the obvious.“The creek would not support any boats.And the nearest coast is two hours away on a steady horse.”
“That’s true enough.I didn’t need to come to Eutin precisely, but when I suggested it, Colonel Ashworth thought it a splendid idea.The KGL can evade the enemy in a forest such as this, and I had to see you again,” he admitted.“Even knowing it was wrong, even knowing you were betrothed, I couldn’t come to Europe and not seek you out.”
Shaking his head, he had another confession.“I knew Henrik would be away.He’d told me his schedule.I’m sorry I lied to gain a place at your father’s table.”
But he wasn’t sorry.Not really.He was Lord Bowen.Life was an adventure of his making, and nothing had ever been out of reach.Lise was turning out to be the only time he could recall not being successful.Obviously, he could seduce her.Right here, right now.And the way she was looking at him, Jonathan believed she would let him strip her bare and kiss every inch of her softness.
Closing his eyes briefly at the hot rush of desire, he accepted that the pull of her inspired in him more than sheer lust.But he could not have her honorably, so he would not have her at all.
“From the moment you opened your saucy mouth and spoke to me,” he told her, stroking her cheek.“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about what it would be like if you were mine.”
She gasped at his bold words.So forward, so inappropriate.And they locked gazes.
“If I could wake up every morning and see your exquisite form beside me, if I could build a life with you, give you my children,” —had things been different, perhaps even planting his seed in her right then, in the forest— “and God willing, grow old watching the sun set through the windows of my house on Bedford Square, then I would say my small exaggeration of the importance of mapping the areas around your home had been well worth it.”
