Seduced by His Touch(2)

Abruptly Jack's mind cleared. "Oh, the ring!"

Light laughter floated through the hall as he patted his pockets,  disremembering in which one he'd placed the engraved gold band. His  irreverent seventeen-year-old twin brothers, Leo and Lawrence, began to  snicker from their places in the line of groomsmen.

Seconds later, Jack located the ring, his fingers brushing briefly  against a note tucked next to it. Ignoring the missive, he extracted the  jewelry. "Exactly where I left it," he announced with a smile. "Thought  I'd give everyone a little extra excitement." With an apologetic glance  at Cade, he handed over the ring. Cade, however, was far too ebullient  to do more than shake his head with good humor and turn back to his  bride.                       
       
           


///
       

As the vows proceeded, Jack couldn't help but think of the note his  fingers had brushed against, the paper suddenly burning a hole in his  breast pocket.

If you want to see Grace, go to Hatchard's this afternoon at four.  She'll be the tall one with red hair. Knowing my girl, she'll most  likely have on her spectacles. Don't be late.



Yours,

E. G. Danvers





A tall redhead with spectacles, Jack groaned in his head. At least it  ought to make her easy to spot! Please God, he prayed, as he watched his  brother join his life with his new bride's, just don't let her be a  gorgon.





The sense of being watched prickled over Grace Lilah Danvers's nerve  endings as she stood in the stacks at Hatchard's Bookshop. She swung her  head around sharply but found no one there.

I am being silly, she admonished herself, looking away. After all, who could possibly be watching me?

Long ago, she'd resigned herself to the knowledge that she was not the  sort of woman who received looks-at least not of the admiring variety.  Although she had often been told that she had a pleasant-some might even  say pretty-countenance, with lovely translucent skin and straight,  white teeth, she was what the vernacular of the day called "a long Meg."

Standing five feet ten inches tall in her stockings, she supposed they  had good reason for applying the term. She towered over all the women of  her acquaintance, and a great many of the men as well. To make matters  worse, she wasn't the delicate, ethereal sort with slight bones and a  wispy shape. Instead she was what her father liked to call "sensibly  built," neither fat nor thin but "as robust and seaworthy as one of his  fleet of shipping vessels." Not that she was without her share of  feminine curves, but thanks to the current fashion for empire-waisted  gowns, that fact wasn't always so easy to discern. Then, too, there was  her need for reading spectacles, unfortunate but unavoidable.

Glancing around once more, she shook her head and resumed her inspection  of the book in her hands. She turned a page and skimmed a passage or  two, then carefully placed the volume back onto the shelf before  selecting another.

As she did, she caught sight of a pair of shoes just visible in the  aisle beyond. Men's shoes. Startled despite her best intentions, she  spun the opposite way and, in doing so, lost hold of her book. The  leather-bound tome hit the waxed wooden floor with a resounding thud and  skidded several feet distant.

At that same moment, another gentleman appeared around the corner, the  book coming to a halt beside the toe of his neatly polished Hessians.  Stopping, he bent to retrieve the wayward volume. He straightened, then  strolled toward her.

"Yours, I presume?" he said in a deep, richly modulated voice that put  her in mind of hot buttered rum on a cold winter day and the sensual  luxury of lying amid warm silken sheets. Inwardly, she quivered. Her  reply, whatever it might be, stuck like a stone in her throat; the  incapacity only worsened when she lifted her gaze to his.

Bold and intelligent, his eyes shone like a set of imperial jewels,  their shade an improbably pure blue that lay somewhere between sapphire  and lapis lazuli. He was sinfully handsome, with a refined jaw, a long,  straight nose and a mouth that seemed the very embodiment of temptation.  His mahogany-dark hair was cut short, the severe style unable to tame a  rebellious wave that lent the ends just the faintest hint of curl.

But most enticing of all was his height-his large, muscular, impressive  height. She guessed he must be six feet three or four at least, his  build broad and powerful enough to make even her feel small.

Drawing a shivery breath, she dropped her gaze to the floor. What am I  doing? she chided herself. Acting like some giddy schoolgirl, that's  what. Men like him are out of my reach. As distant to me as the stars.  Men like him are also dangerous, and I would do well never to forget  that fact.

"Dr. Johnson, hmm?" he mused aloud, inspecting the title. "Personally, I  prefer someone with a really cutting tongue. Swift, for instance."

She waited until she could trust herself to speak with calm  self-possession. "Both are fine authors in their own way, each with his  faults and merits, to be sure. I thank you, sir, for retrieving the  volume for me."

There, she thought, that should be the end of that. He would hand her  the book, offer some polite comment, and be on his way again.

Instead he made her a bow. A very elegant, very urbane bow that, she  imagined, charmed ladies wherever he went. In fact, his every word and  movement bespoke the fact that he was a gentleman, an aristocrat.  Further reason why their encounter should have a quick resolution.                       
       
           


///
       

"Pray allow me to introduce myself," he said, much to her surprise. "I  am Lord John Byron. ‘Jack' to my acquaintance. And you are … ?"

A tiny frown settled between her brows, her spectacles inching slightly  lower on her nose. "Miss Grace Danvers. Now, if you will excuse me, my  lord, I must be on my way."

"Surely not so soon. There is your choice of reading material yet to be decided."

"I have books aplenty already waiting with the clerk, and at home as well. I count myself well satisfied."

He paused. "If you are certain. I shall bid you good-day then. A pleasure, Miss Danvers."

"Hmm, yes. Good-day, my lord." Turning, she forced herself to walk away.  As she did, she began the process of putting him from her mind, knowing  she would never have cause to encounter the likes of Lord Jack Byron  again.





Careful to maintain his distance, Jack followed Grace out of the stacks.  He stopped and folded his arms across his chest, then leaned a shoulder  against an end post as he watched her stroll into the open common area  where patrons congregated to read and talk. Clerks buzzed hither and  thither as they strove to be of assistance. It was to one of them that  she applied, the young man moving to retrieve her selections and see  them properly wrapped. Accepting a seat and a cup of tea in the  meantime, she waited.

So that, he mused, is Ezra Danvers's daughter.

As he'd expected, she had not been difficult to locate-her height, more  than her red hair, giving her identity away. When Danvers said she was  tall, Jack hadn't realized just how true that would be. Of all the women  Jack had come to know over the course of his eight-and-twenty years-and  that was a great many indeed-Grace was far and away the tallest.

During their brief conversation, he'd found himself struck by the  novelty of not having to crane his neck or stoop downward in order to  accommodate a shorter female companion. With Grace he'd been able to  remain at his full height, needing to do nothing more than lower his  gaze a few scant inches to meet her own.

And while she was clearly not the most beautiful woman he'd ever met,  she was far from the gorgon he'd initially feared. Her features  were … amiable. Her skin was clear, her cheekbones nicely rounded, her  nose neither too long nor too short, with a full lower lip and a chin  that reminded him a bit of a button.

Of all her rather unremarkable features, her eyes were her strong point,  despite being partially hidden behind a pair of spectacles. A gentle  blue-grey, their color shifted in the most interesting manner from  gentian to pewter depending upon the light. He supposed most people  never noticed such subtle variations, thinking her irises to be either  plain grey or ordinary blue, but he'd found himself intrigued; more so  than he might have expected after such a brief encounter.

As for her figure, she had all the right feminine parts. Her breasts  appeared more than adequately sized-enough to give a man a good handful  to fondle and kiss. Her waist, hips and legs-concealed as they were  beneath the drape of her petticoats and gown-hinted at all manner of  shapely possibilities. What would it be like, he wondered, to lie atop  such a long, agile body? To have legs that must go on forever wrapped  around his waist or hooked over his shoulders? How low down his back  would her heels touch? And what tricks might he be able to teach her  using those lovely hands and feet?