The Last Duchess (The Lennox Series)(47)
“It’s aggravating to you, no doubt, but there may come a time when you’re glad to have him at your back. I confess I misjudged your brother and have a newfound appreciation for his honor and character.”
“I’m so glad. He’s a good man.” She looked away, toward the lily. “Would that I could find a man of like nature and integrity, one whom I might feel the slightest attraction to, I might consider remarrying.”
“It will be impossible if you don’t make yourself available. But that’s stating the obvious, isn’t it?”
She looked at him again and nodded. “Perhaps I’ll come up to London with William. Spring is here, and the Season in full swing. I can take him into the park, and to Gunther’s for an ice, and in the evenings, I can attend a few parties. Are you sincere about escorting me?”
“Most sincere.” He blinked then and smiled wryly. “How very peculiar this conversation is. Does it seem so to you?”
“On the contrary. I have the oddest feeling that I’ve known you for years.”
Their gazes met and something very different and far beyond friendship passed between them. He dropped his foot and stood straight. “Good God, Lady Bonderant, this won’t do at all. I believe I should take you home now.”
She rose to her feet and faced him. “Yes, undoubtedly wise, Sherbourne, but I’d really rather you made good on that look. I vow my curiosity is killing me.”
“I’m old enough to be your father.”
“But you are not my father, and your gaze is not in the least fatherly.”
He looked somewhat pained. “This is absurd! You are still young, while I am—”
“Not old. Mature, but not old. I daresay old men don’t contemplate what just went through your mind. Do not deny it.”
He stared at her with those deep-blue eyes, fringed with dark lashes, lined with years of laughter. Lucy stood outside herself for a moment and tried to tell herself she was being ridiculous, that she didn’t really want the Earl of Sherbourne to kiss her.
She told herself to be quiet, that yes, she really did. More than she’d wanted anything in a very long time. “Either kiss me, or say you absolutely do not wish to. I may go mad, standing here, waiting.”
“It should be James, or Jack, or any of the others escorting you about this bit of paradise, wondering if you’ll allow them to kiss you. I am ludicrous, ma’am.”
“You are incredibly attractive, and I haven’t wished to kiss anyone in five years. If you’re a gentleman, you’ll grant me my wish and stop blathering on about it.”
“Blathering, am I?”
“Oh, good heavens.” Lucy moved very close and slid her arms up the front of his coat, round his neck and tilted her head back. He was a fair amount taller than her, so she really couldn’t kiss him without his cooperation. “Now I shall die of humiliation if you don’t kiss me, and surely a friend wouldn’t allow the other death by mortification?”
“Devil take it, Lady Bonderant, this is just not right.” His hands grasped her waist and he bent his head to hers for a chaste kiss, before he stepped back, forcing her to drop her arms.
Lucy didn’t know what had come over her. She’d not been aware of a man in this way since Matthew, but she appeared to be making up for lost time. Her body fairly hummed and her center flooded with heat and longing. “Please kiss me as you want to, and my curiosity will be assuaged, and you may take me home and pretend it never happened.”
“Do I have your word?”
“My solemn word.”
He reached for her then, and drew her to him slowly, his eyes on hers, his expression a disparate blend of doubt and desire. One arm slid over her shoulder and his hand splayed across her back, drawing her nearer, while the other arm moved about her waist to pull her body snugly against his. “You are so very beautiful, it’s unnatural, perhaps even a crime for you to lock yourself away as you do.”
“I’m trying to rectify things, if only you would cooperate.”
He bent his head until his nose was close to hers. “I’m far too old and jaded for you.”
“If you’re too old, why do I feel the evidence of your desire against my belly?”
“I’m old, not dead.”
That was putting it mildly. “You don’t actually know me at all, so as to being jaded, perhaps I’ve my own manner of experience. Had you thought of that?”
“No. You were an innocent when you married, and your husband was taken from you a year later. You’ve as much as said you’ve been with no other, so I fail to see where you might have become experienced. Bonderant was not much older than you, so I doubt he might have taught you anything out of the ordinary.”