“No, an outright blessing,” she explained. “I shall confess because it is easy to do so when I cannot see your eyes, but I donotwish to be here.”
Lord Perish barked out a laugh. “Nor do I.”
Shocked, she tightened her fingers on his arm. “But you are a man!”
“I am,” he agreed halting and turning to face her. “What of it?”
“It’s unlikely you have a parent pushing you to make a match. You don’t have the threat of becoming a spinster hanging over your head. Nor did you have to inconvenience a family member, such as my cousin, into coming all this way. What’s more, you don’t look like an unmarriageable wall-prop.”
“The idea!” he said, sounding affronted. “I am perfectly eligible and have never propped a wall at an assembly in my life.”
Delia sighed, sorry to have pricked his pride. “I am sorry to have offended you. I am averse to speaking with strangers — although for some reason I find you easy to converse with. Therefore, I am speaking too freely.”
Lord Perish squeezed her hand, and she felt another sizzle snake through her.
“I am here taking the place of a friend,” he told her, “to whom I lost a bet.”
“Coming to a matchmaking party is so odious, it was the penalty,” Delia mused. “Do you think all the male guests were coerced in some way to attend?”
“No more than I think all the women were,” he replied. “I believe most of the women hope to find a husband, while many of the men hope to enjoy a dalliance in a dark garden.”
“I see,” she said, realizing whom he meant. “I am a fool, then. For despite not minding being sent home, I certainly do not wish to throw away my good reputation upon Lord Crenshaw.”
They were silent for a long moment. She would swear the atmosphere between them became charged like the air after a thunderstorm.
“How about on me?” he asked, his voice lowering to a husky tone that sent a deliciously intriguing shiver down her spine.
“I thought you preferred horses,” she quipped, meaning to say something equally alluring but failing dreadfully. She all but accused him of some bestial equine antics.
Luckily, he didn’t take offense. Instead, he drew her close before making a jest out of her awkward statement.
“I can make an exception in your case,shrubbery shrew.”
With those words, he claimed her lips. Lord Perish didn’t ask, he didn’t warn, he just kissed her. Delia ought to be frightened or at the very least offended.
She was neither.She was in heaven.
That hint of something special when she’d first touched him sparked into a full-blown inferno. Heat sluiced through her from where his mouth covered hers down past her thumping heart and into the pit of her stomach, which flittered and fell as if she were on a rope swing.
And dare she say, her lower body reacted too, with a disconcerting pulsing sensation between her legs.
Adjusting to the novel experience, she tilted her head. It felt natural to angle one way while Lord Perish slanted the other. When his tongue touched her lips, she trembled, about to give in to the wicked urge to part them.
“Dilly! Where are you?”
Chapter Four
All the thrilling feelings evaporated when Lord Perish leaped back, releasing her so swiftly Delia almost sat down upon a rose bush.
“I am here, Frances.” She wished he could see her regretful glance over being interrupted, because she had most heartily enjoyed his kiss.
“Go closer to her,” he suggested on a whisper.
“Are you coming with me?” she whispered back.
“I think it best if I come afterward, don’t you?”
“But I shall tell my cousin how you rescued me. She’ll be as grateful as I am.”
