All's Fair in Love and Seduction

Chapter Six

The following day, when Lord Creswell asked her if she’d like to visit Kensington Gardens, Elizabeth was surprised. Flowers, trees and acres upon acres of lush greenery were not the sort of things she’d thought would interest him. But upon their arrival, Missy and James firmly in tow, she’d immediately understood why the viscount had chosen that particular venue.

This was the sort of public place that offered privacy in the midst of a thriving metropolitan city like London. It made one think of the country.

Large elms surrounded a picturesque flower garden directly in front of the palace where a good two dozen people strolled, the ladies holding their parasols in a death-like grip as if fearing mere word of the sun shining high in the sky would wreak havoc on their pristine white skin.

Elizabeth peeked up at the viscount. They’d separated from Missy and James a minute ago and he’d been excessively quiet, not that she knew him well enough to make the observation, but somehow she just knew.

“Are you, by any chance trying to read me, Miss Smith?” He spoke quietly enough to soothe a child to sleep or quite contrarily cause a woman to abandon every last one of her inhibitions to hear him speak to her again and again.

She did not have the luxury of abandoning anything. With her reputation hovering on the precipice of respectability, mistakes would not be afforded her. Lady Danvers had seen to that.

“You have been quiet. I was pondering at the cause.” She could be frank about this.

The white of his teeth glinted like a pearl catching the ray of the sun as a smile tugged the corners of his mouth upward.

Elizabeth was immediately short of breath. She wanted to remove her gloves. It had grown overly warm in the past minute.

“And I was pondering the exact same thought about you.”

He was right in that.

“So tell me, Miss Smith, where is it you hail from? Cartwright has told me your father recently came into a barony and this is your first Season.”

Personal questions, as inevitable as her next shaky breath, but how forthcoming could she be with him without him guessing the truth? This was a minefield she had to cross with pinpoint precision. One wrong step…

“I live in Wilton.”

They walked slowly, truly barely walking at all. The wide path meandered through towering Hawthorns and horse-chestnut trees. There were couples and children’s giggles and excited cries off in the distance, all in their own secluded world.

As were they. Or so it seemed.

“Wilton you say? I’ve had cause to go there a time or two.” He didn’t expound on his statement and fearing further discussion on the subject would lead them down a far more dangerous path than the one they traversed today, Elizabeth was content to leave it at that.

“So tell me, Miss Smith, why did you allow me to kiss you if you weren’t hoping to secure a good marriage for yourself?”

He asked it oh so casually, as insouciantly as if society hadn’t been founded on certain moral codes and forms of address. She should have been offended. And she didn’t know he hadn’t meant to offend. There was something today, something different, in his piercing gaze, as if he were measuring her like a tailor did his clients, knowledgeable enough in the subject to accurately guess the breadth, width and length of the cut.

Had he meant to catch her off guard? Fray her with his candor.

“I’m certain you know the answer to that? Have you chanced upon a mirror of late? Has no woman before succumbed to your looks and charms? I certainly can’t be the first and I very much doubt I shall be the last. Although, I shan’t tolerate an faithless husband.”

Such impertinence. But it was best she laid her expectations of marriage bare for him to ponder.

His black brows rose slowly. He stopped right there in the middle of the path and observed her as if she was a puzzle he was trying to solve. And Lord above, he even did that in such a way that caused every nerve in her body to quiver as if touched.

It was difficult not to be aware of him in that very visceral, basic way, but with his penetrating stare, that awareness was ratcheted up several notches. She was cinched into her corset, her petticoats riffled between her silk walking dress. But for all the fine muslin and silk, she felt bare under his stare. Naked and wholly exposed.

“To look at you, I would never imagine you could be so…frank.” He spoke softly, almost as if he’d inadvertently uttered his thoughts aloud. “Are you this frank about everything, I wonder.”

It wasn’t precisely a question, but the way he regarded her indicated he expected an answer.

“I suppose I am.” Was that her voice, so small and timid-like? Half-truths did rather come out that way, didn’t they?

“And fastidiously honest?”

Had he shot her with an arrow, the question couldn’t have pierced her more. But she soldiered on. There would come a right time for that particular confession. Here and now was neither the time nor place.

“I would like to consider myself so.” Which was not a lie. Up to this point in her life, she had been fastidiously honest. In any case, she hadn’t lied to him. An omission wasn’t precisely an untruth.

He resumed walking, his long legs encased in fine navy wool, carried him easily and steadily down the path. The infinitesimal pause in his stride she presumed was for her benefit, so could catch up with him, which she did without thought.

With his attention focused directly in front, he offered her his profile. If she was a painter, she’d like nothing better than to paint him for he had one of those faces. His nose was perfectly shaped for his squared-jawed face; not too large or too small. And dare she even look at his mouth too long, her center would ache, the pulling sort that compelled a body to do something to either satisfy it or make it cease at once.

She was staring at him rather boldly now. There was nothing not to like about his face. Nothing.

Aware he was being intently observed, he angled a glance down at her, his eyebrow raised. As if he knew her thoughts and was thusly amused by them.

“Like what you see?”

A question only the most arrogant man would ask of a lady.

Elizabeth refused to blush, cooling her cheeks with the force of her will. “If I said that I do, would you think me too forward?”

The path rose to a gentle sloping hill. He didn’t speak until they’d crested the top. The sun dappled the leaves with brilliant white light and skittered across his head making his hair take on a sheen that reminded Elizabeth of newly shined, black Hessian boots.

“Are you this frank with all the men you meet, Miss Smith, or am I the exception? Should we marry, I would hate to think that my wife can be so easily led by a handsome face, some whispered words and she’d be fair taking for one and all.”

Elizabeth came to a halt with the jarring suddenness of a wall going up directly in front of her. Her mouth sagged and an assaulted breath expulsed from her mouth. Although, he posed a question, there was no mistake it had been a warning. She took her time forming her response in her mind before speaking them aloud.

“By the same token, my lord, I too hope you aren’t as easily led. Speaking for myself, I know I have kissed only one man…ever. And I have met my share of handsome gentlemen. Can you say the same? Should we marry—and it would appear you have some question that we shall—do I need to worry about you taking liberties in the gardens with every woman who strikes your fancy?”

Elizabeth had worked herself into a righteous indignation that had her chest falling and rising rapidly.

In the distance, a child’s playful shriek rippled the air. The viscount waited until silence wafted over them before he replied, “Touché. And if it will put your mind at rest, I don’t normally kiss women I don’t know. And I’ve never done so at a ball—at least not since I was much younger. You mightn’t think it, but I’m usually overly cautious in guarding my personal affairs.”

And just like that, her anger died. “Yet you kissed me.” The viscount had taken a big risk kissing her as he had. Which meant something did it not?

“Yes, I kissed you.” His eyes were half-mast now as they focused on the very place he’d kissed. Her mouth.

But no, she couldn’t permit it. This was her seduction not his. And by the look on his face, his would be carnal lust, scorching kisses and unadulterated passion. The nature of those very emotions would incinerate everything, pull the focus from where it ought to be, which was them getting to know each other.

“So tell me, my lord, what are you interests? Are you an avid hunter?” Lord, she hoped not. She quite despised it as pure sport, the shooting of helpless animals.

He lifted his gaze from her mouth and his own curved the barest little bit as he looked into her eyes. I will drop the subject of the kiss…for now, his smile seemed to say.

“No, I’m not a hunter. Gave my father palpitations when he realized it. I don’t think he ever forgave me for it,” he said, with a quiet chuckle.

His father had died three years ago. The news had filtered back to her parents in Penkridge, which was how she’d come by the knowledge. Her sympathies had immediately gone out to the viscount and she’d thought of him often in the following months, wondering how he was bearing his grief.

“No, I’d rather work with my hands.”

She searched his expression for signs of mockery but found none.

“I make things out of wood. Carve them,” he elaborated quickly.

Now this intrigued her. A man who was good with his hands. In other ways.

Miss Smith was good. Very good. If her sister had even half her…charms, it was no wonder his brother had become so smitten with her. But with foresight came the ability to guard himself against whatever spell she was hoping to cast over him. Her interest in him was hardly genuine. She was playing a role the way she was no doubt instructed to play.

And why he’d even told her about the hobby he taken up as a boy, he didn’t know. So very few of his friends knew of his love of carving.

“What sorts of things do you make?”

She was better than good; she could star in her very own play on Drury Lane. But he’d indulge her until he decided just what to do with her.

“Animals. Sometimes people if I find them interesting enough.”

She smiled at that, a tiny dimple appearing at the corner of her mouth. He idly wondered what it would be like to kiss her there, taste the soft concave skin with his tongue. He could feel himself hardening, which annoyed him more than a little bit.

“What kind of wood do you use?”

“Lime.”

“Why lime?”

Since she was making such a good show of it, he’d indulge her a little longer. “Because it is a soft wood, easy to work with and has very little grain.”

She appeared genuinely pleased by the information as if digesting something of great value. “And are you very good?”

The breeze tangled with the ribbon of her bonnet, sending it rippling languidly over the brim. She batted it away with a gloved hand.

“Have you seen the Statue of David?” he asked.

“I’ve seen pictures in a book.” She now looked suitably impressed.

“Well I’m not that good.”

When she let out a burst of laughter, Derek realized how much he’d wanted to hear that sound. He loved the slight throatiness of her voice, the way her eyes danced and her shoulders shook. And her smile…captivated him.

“I would love to see your work one day.” She held the errant red laced ribbon in her grasp to keep it out of her face as she stared up at him.

He stopped and led her a few feet to stand beneath a horse-chestnut tree whose knotted trunk was bigger than the rear wheels on his barouche. “Would you like some help with that?” he asked, pointing to her ribbon.

She pondered his question a moment too long. He slipped the ribbon from her motionless fingers and proceeded to tie it in a bow. When he was finished, she tipped her head up, her eyes wide watching him.

Her mouth looked plush and pink and meant to be kissed. His cock stirred urging him to do just that.

Panic flared briefly in her eyes as he lowered his head. She quickly dropped her head and took two steps back.

“Thank you,” she said, her voice breathless, her face flushed and not from the heat of the day. He liked that he could do that to her.

“You want me to kiss you,” he stated, not about to pretend that hadn’t been his intent.

The color on her face deepened, spreading to wash the gentle jut of her collar bones and down to sweep over the expanse of creamy skin exposed by her square-shaped neckline. “I don’t think that would be a good idea. We are in a public park.”

Derek looked around briefly. “No one is about.”

She buried her hand in the folds of her skirts and he saw her fingers moving restlessly over the ice blue silk material.

“What scares you more, Miss Smith, that I won’t stop or that you won’t want me to?”

Her head jerked sharply up and he saw the truth there in her wide eyes.

“I would never force myself on a woman.”

If Lord Creswell had meant to reassure her, she remained anything but. He was correct, she had no fear of him. It was the emotions he stirred in her with so little effort.

Elizabeth blinked and shook her head in denial. “I never said anything such thing.”

Lord Creswell smiled. “Then it would seem I have my answer.”

He moved with the swiftness of a snake striking, his gloved hand firmly palming the nape of her neck and tipping her head up for his kiss in one clean motion. His mouth settled on hers gently coaxing, rubbing. Her lips parted instantly, her response as natural as breathing. His tongue plunged into the wet, warm caverns of her mouth with the single-minded purpose to conquer, possess, plunder.

All tenderness was gone and in its place was greed and the most basic sexual desire. Like a ferocious vortex, she felt it pulling her under buffeted by her needs and her own wants.

But she couldn’t let this happen, not again. It was this same sort of reckless desire that had women wringing their hands in heartsick despair after the men took their fill and walked away without a glance, promises broken, leaving the women's and left hand bereft of a ring. It had happened to Madeline and if she wasn’t very careful, it would happen to her.

She broke the kiss with the inexorable press of her hands against his shoulders. He allowed her to push him away for it was the only way she could have managed it. For a moment he looked as if he was about to protest. He narrowed his gaze down at her.

Slowly, as if fearing any sudden movement on his part would cause her to bolt, he caught her arm in his and lifted it up for inspection. Elizabeth had no idea what he was looking for but permitted him to turn it gently in his hand. Her gown had small capped sleeves and her gloves came to her wrist so there was a length of pale flesh to peruse and to touch.

“So soft,” he whispered, lazily stroking her forearm with his index finger. “Whoever thought something this slim and fragile in appearance would have so much strength,” he mused, his mouth twisted.

Not yet recovered from the sheer wonder of the kiss, Elizabeth’s arm tingled every place he touched.

He ran the back of his gloved hand along the now prickled skin of her bicep. “Do you play croquet, Miss Smith?”

She shook her head both in bemusement and response to the question.

“I will teach you soon. It would be a shame to waste this arm keeping gentlemen at bay.”

He smiled, a banked irony glinting in his beautiful eyes. Lifting her arm, he watched her steadily as he placed a soft kiss on the vulnerable skin just above her glove. Her chest rose on a swift inhale of a startled breath. And then the heat swept in like an invading army making a mockery of all her good intentions

No sane person fell in love in the span of a single day. But she could feel herself taking a headlong plunge into some foreign emotion more heartfelt than a girlhood crush, leaving her vulnerable in a way she’d never been.

He released her with the same languid speed. He smiled but it wasn’t a smile that reassured a woman intent on retaining her virginity until she was securely wed.

“Shall we find Lord and Lady Windmere?” He proffered his arm, his expression cryptic, his manners exquisite.

As Elizabeth took his arm, she had the distinct feeling she’d just relinquished more of herself to him than just her hand.