A few more breaths and she felt like she’d regained herself enough to open her eyes again, only to catch her next inhale on a gasp when she saw how close they stood to each other. With his head bent toward hers, she looked directly into his eyes. Her skirts brushed against his boots and at some point, she’d lifted one hand to grasp his wrist where his hand wrapped warmly around the side of her throat. Her fingertips rested against his pulse.
It was a terribly intimate position. Indecent. Improper.
Lovely. Safe. Exciting.
“Better?” he asked, his voice low and softly graveled.
Eleanor’s fingers tightened instinctively around his wrist and her lashes fluttered briefly as she nodded. She still wasn’t quite capable of reclaiming proper use of speech.
His smile widened, shifting from a subtle amusement that curved just the corners to something else, revealing a flash of teeth as the upper arches curled with a wickedness that weakened her knees.
She was entranced. Lured by his smile and his eyes and his warm strength and his roguish confidence.
Bridget was right. Sheyearned.
For the darkness surrounding them. For his voice, his touch.
She wasn’t sure how he did it, but when she was with him, she felt less like a duke’s daughter and more just a woman. A woman with her own wants and expectations that had. nothing to do with her station in life. When the viscount looked at her…it felt like he sawher.
Gazing intently at her face, a new light entered his eyes and he brushed his thumb in a whisper-light caress over the pulse in her throat. Then he slowly brought his other hand to her waist. His palm was large and warm and subtly possessive as he slid it around to the small of her back.
She didn’t even consider resisting when everything inside her thrilled at the sensations he inspired as he brought her even closer tohim. Close enough to feel the sturdy brace of his thighs against hers as her breasts pressed against the firm wall of his chest. With the slightest pressure of his fingers at her nape, he encouraged her to tip her head back until her mouth lifted toward his.
“I’ve wondered what your lips might taste like,” he murmured, his voice rough and low. “I’ve dreamed of it, alone in my bed, believing I’d never know…”
Eleanor’s belly fluttered in a chaotic dance. Her gaze flickered to his mouth then back to his glinting, heavy-lidded stare. She wished she could think of something to say, but her mind was a complete muddle. All she could perceive was that he was going to kiss her. And that was all she wanted in the world just then.
“May I…?” he asked gruffly.
Eleanor made a weak sound of assent.
As he lowered his head toward hers, her breath caught and her heart shuddered. She allowed her weighted eyelids to drop over her gaze as she waited for the first touch of his lips. His breath wafted gently across cheek and his hand tensed against her low back. But just when she thought she felt the lightest caress against her lips, his entire body stiffened and his arm suddenly curled around her waist so tightly it stole her breath. Lowering his mouth to her ear, he whispered, “Someone’s coming.”
Icy heat rushed through her in a tidal wave. Her body froze in his embrace.
Was this how she was ultimately ruined in society’s eyes? Caught in a scandalous embrace in the wilderness of Vauxhall Gardens.
A new kind of panic rose within her and she tried to pull out of his arms.
But his grip tightened. “Shh. Don’t move.”
This time, she heard the iron thread of caution in his voice. It was more than concern for causing a scandal, and she recalled him telling her of danger surrounding the necklace and people watching.
A new kind of fear rolled through her then and she pressed more firmly against him.
Though his breath released in a steady exhale, he kept her close as he seemed to be listening and scanning the darkness around them.
She tried to detect what had alerted him, but all she heard was the mechanical roar of the waterfall and the rapid beating of her own heart.
Then a voice drifted from the darkness of the deeper forest behind her. The tones were heavy with malice and intent warning, but there was no disguising the cadence of her grandmother’s homeland. “You cannot keep it. You will give it to us.”
“Bloody hell I will,” the viscount replied in a scathing whisper, directing the words over her head as he drew her more to his side.
“Do not fight what must be done,” the voice warned in anger. “It will only bring blood.”
With fear rolling through her, Eleanor was torn between wanting to turn and see the threat behind her and pressing her face into the viscount’s cravat so she could pretend there was nothing there.
Instead, she remained frozen in place, tucked beneath the solid curve of Waring’s arm, her hand fisted in his coat, her gaze locked on the hard line of his jaw.
