He cradled her face with one hand, then bent his head slowly, as if they had all the time in the world. This time he kissed her in a far less savage manner, as though—yes, that was just what it felt like—as though he was savouring her.
And she savoured him right back. Pressed herself as close to him as she could. Slid her hands inside his coat and wound her arms round his slender, hard waist. Raised one foot and ran it up and down the back of his booted calf. Feeling all the while as though her body was bursting into song.
‘Oh, Gregory,’ she moaned into his mouth when he paused to take a breath. ‘Oh, please don’t stop.’
‘I must,’ he growled against her lips. ‘I thought I could kiss you for ever, but the truth is that I’m starting to find it hard not to throw you down behind the bushes and ravish you.’
‘I don’t think I’d care,’ she admitted. ‘I know I should, but somehow—’
‘No. Don’t say it. Don’t tempt me.’ He closed his eyes as though in anguish and rested his forehead against hers.
‘Oh, very well,’ she grumbled. ‘I suppose you are right.’ After all, she didn’t really want her first time to take place out of doors, on the ground, did she?
‘Come on, then,’ he said with a sort of gentle determination. He took her hand. ‘Let’s get you into the house, while we can both still walk, and set things in train to make our union respectable.’
He picked up the valise and headed for a gap in the rather overgrown shrubbery.
‘Gregory,’ she said, when he let go of her hand for a moment to raise the branch of an overhanging beech sapling so that she could pass. ‘Can I ask you something?’
He blinked. Visibly braced himself. ‘You may ask me anything,’ he said.
‘Well, I’m sorry if you think I’m prying, but I simply cannot understand how it is your wife went with someone else. If you kissed her the way you just kissed me...’ She blushed, suddenly realising that this was one of those topics properly brought up girls didn’t mention.
‘I told you—my wife hated intimacy of any sort. With me, that is. I never managed more than a peck on the cheek.’
Good grief. The woman must have been a complete imbecile. If only she’d let him kiss her, thoroughly, he would have made her feel gloriously wonderful. Although he’d only been a stripling when he’d been married. Perhaps he hadn’t yet learned how to kiss like that.
How had he learned to kiss like that?
‘You kissed other women, then, didn’t you?’ she blurted, after turning over the thought for a while. ‘I mean, you have been a widower for a very long time. I suppose you’ve had a few...er...liaisons?’
He froze in his tracks. Turned and glanced over his shoulder at her. ‘I’ve had more than a few “liaisons”, Prudence, and you may as well hear about them now. But understand this.’ He turned and looked her straight in the eye. ‘I was angry. Bitter. I’d stayed true to my marriage vows while she...’ His mouth twisted. ‘Can you imagine how it felt to know I’d been faithful to a faithless wife?’ He seized her hand. ‘Just think how you felt the moment you knew that your aunt and uncle—the people you relied on to guard your welfare—had conspired to rob and humiliate you.’
‘Yes, I think I see.’
‘Do you? Then you will understand my burning need to make up for lost time. Why I bedded as many women as I could. Why I never risked feeling anything approaching affection for any of them. Why I made sure they knew exactly what their purpose was. Which was why I never kissed them the way I just kissed you. I may have kissed their hands in flirtation, or used my mouth or my tongue on sensitive parts of their bodies to arouse and inflame them...or—’ He broke off, looking exasperated. ‘Good God, Prudence, how do you manage to get me to tell you things like this?’
‘I only asked you about kissing,’ she pointed out. ‘I didn’t force you to tell me anything about your...liaisons.’ Even though what he’d said had helped her understand him better. ‘You could have just told me to mind my own business.’
‘For some reason I don’t seem to be able to tell you any such thing,’ he growled, before turning his back on her and stalking off through the undergrowth.
She had to break into a trot to keep up with him. But neither the fact that he was walking so quickly nor the grumpy way he’d spoken to her could cast her down very much. For one thing, the confidence with which he was striding through the undergrowth proved that he was very familiar with the layout of the grounds. Which laid to rest her fear that they might be trespassing. For another, she couldn’t help being pleased that he couldn’t keep things from her. Last night’s confidences might have been due to some after-effect of the drug. But there was no trace of it left in either of them today. If he couldn’t keep anything from her, then it was because somehow she’d got under his guard.