She shook her head. “Thank you, but it would probably be best if I returned inside before someone else mistakesyourassistance for something it isn’t.”
She stepped around him, moving so close he managed to catch a hint of the sweetest perfume. Honeysuckle perhaps? Or peonies? He wasn’t quite sure, but there was no mistaking the heady effect it had on him or how it beckoned for him to pull her close and press his nose to her skin.
He quashed that foolish idea as immediately as it had formed.
“I shall ask Mama or Laura for help,” she said as she started strolling away.
He followed behind while wondering how he could make her stay. Which was silly since there was no point in furthering their acquaintance when he would depart for Vienna soon. Nothing good could come of it. If anything, the longer they stayed out here together alone, the greater the risk of others imagining they’d had an assignation. But he found he regretted their rendezvous ending so quickly. And with him having ruined what would probably have been an enjoyable walk for her and Mr. Bale.
“Can you forgive me for thinking the worst?” he asked.
She drew to a halt and turned to him, her face more visible now that they were nearer the light from the terrace. A polite smile captured her lips. “Of course. It was an understandable mistake.”
“You’re not upset?”
“No.”
He registered the mistruth because of how bluntly it was delivered. “Are you sure?” She’d always seemed honest and forthright, so it bothered him that he’d somehow caused her to put up a barrier between them now. “I am not so sensitive that I can’t handle a set down.” Or at the very least an honest response.
Her chin rose and she crossed her arms, affecting the pose of a woman who was rapidly reaching the end of her patience. Griffin braced himself in anticipation of what she would say. Her words, however, where most unexpected. “You ought to know me well enough by now to realize that I am not the sort of woman who would ever invite a man to ravish her at a social event where anyone might happen to see.” Her eyes were almost black, shimmering fiercely in the moonlight. “The fact that you did so is a testament to your opinion of me, which is frighteningly low.”
“I did not think you’d let Mr. Bale go quite so far as to ravish you, Miss Howard.” And now that she’d put that picture in his head, he was having a damned hard time dislodging it again. Which added a terse element to his voice that she did not deserve.
She marched forward, closing the distance between them “Nor would I throw away a kiss so easily, without a thought or a care in the world.”
Griffin didhis best to come to terms with her statement. There was something in what she had said. Something meaningful just beyond his grasp. “I take it the men you have kissed in the past were important to you, then?”
A sudden dislike for these men swept through him, and his desire to learn their names and discover who he would have to avoid in the future was particularly unsettling.
She stared back at him for a long, hard second and eventually snorted. “No such man exists, Lord Griffin, which is rather the point, don’t you think?” Spinning about, she started toward the terrace once more. Griffin blinked, the relief easing the tension within so soothing, it took him a second to respond. He hastened after her without even thinking and grabbed her wrist before she reached the stairs. She turned, eyes wide with surprise and wonder.
“Kisses are overrated,” he murmured, his voice almost breathless. What was it about her that made him so desperate to keep her out here with him and away from the ballroom? He did not know and wasn’t even sure it mattered. But the fact that she’d never been kissed…thatwas important. And yet, the only thing he could think to say, most likely in an effort to make her feel better, was, “You have not missed much.”
A soft little scoff conveyed her derision. “What a comforting sentiment from someone who’s likely enjoyed the experience a dozen times by now.”
Griffin raised an eyebrow and watched her surprise sink deeper. “Two dozen times?” His lips quirked. “Three dozen?”
“I believe the number’s so high it would take you a while to reach it at this rate,” he muttered.
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, for heaven’s sake.” Her gaze found his and he was surprised to find humor there. “I suppose you’re just as roguish as all the ladies claim then?”
He knit his brow. “I was not aware such a rumor existed.”
“I’m sure it arose because of your scar,” she said as if this was so evident that his not knowing it surprised her.
“My scar,” Griffin echoed flatly. He’d allowed himself to forget about that while they’d been talking, to forget the way it slashed his left cheek in an ugly red line. It was thick and uneven, puckering his skin in a way that was most unappealing.
“There are those who find such things attractive.”
What about you?he wanted to ask.
He dropped his gaze to her lips and wondered if she would retreat if he made an advance. “We should probably go back inside.” Anything else would be a mistake. He meant to return to Vienna, to live a peaceful life there without the complications of marriage. The last thing he needed was to kiss Miss Emily Howard out in the open where anyone might see.
And yet, Griffin desperately wanted to chase away all the anger and pain her comment had stirred by distracting himself in the simplest way possible.She wants her first kiss to matter. You cannot take that from her. But when she licked her lips and whispered, “Yes,” his restraint took off like an army fleeing a battle. Because the truth was he’d wanted to kiss her since the first time he’d seen her at Clearview. So he did the only reasonable thing he could do when she was standing right there, stunning and utterly tempting.
He leaned in closer and pressed his mouth to hers.
Emily couldn’t move, most likely because she was in a bizarre state of shock and dismay. Lord Griffin’s lips were pressed against hers in a soft and perfect caress. She wasn’t sure why he was doing it. After all, they’d been discussing his scar. Finding a logical transition between that and kissing was something of a challenge at the moment.
