Page 20 of Too Wylde To Tame
“Oh, no! I have no wish to go outside in the garden right now. I think I’ll have a little lie down. This heat simply leaves me feeling quite wilted,” Delia said.
Marguerite nodded. “It’s just as well that you are going to the garden, Charity. You’d never be able to concentrate on your book with the way Cordelia snores and talks in her sleep.”
Dutifully, Charity retrieved her bonnet from their room. “I shall see you for tea.”
Quickly, before anyone else could ask further difficult or embarrassing questions that she couldn’t answer, Charity made her escape. She headed straight for the morning room, which she knew would be deserted at that time of day, and where a set of doors led out onto the terrace overlooking the garden. She had a general notion of where the folly was simply because she’d seen blueprints of the design before it had been executed. Felicity had labored over every minute decision when it came to redesigning the formal gardens.
The stone path was flanked by well manicured hedges that were no higher than her waist. And within the center of each walled section of the garden were lush roses and other flowering plants. It was truly a work of art. But Charity couldn’t appreciate its beauty at that moment. Instead, she wanted only to reach the folly that was concealed behind well manicured boxwoods.
When she turned the corner, immediately she stopped. Frederick was waiting for her, just as he’d said he would be. With her heart pounding in her chest, Charity approached him.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t come,” he said softly.
“To be perfectly honest, so was I,” she admitted. “My aunt and my cousin were asking impossible questions.”
“Such as?”
“Oh, just nonsense really,” she said, not wanting to admit that her nerves had very nearly spoiled everything and kept her from meeting him.
“Let’s walk,” he said. “I think there is a place that you will like. It’s a very pretty spot.”
She couldn’t say anything. He’d reached out taking her hand in his, holding it gently, his thumb stroking the tender skin at the inside of her wrist in a way that elicited a shiver of excitement, of pure sensation, from her. She remained quiet as he led her along the path and towards a small summer house that overlooked the pond.
“There is a spot very similar to this at Hamden Court—my own estate. It is not so very far from here. Perhaps half a day’s ride. A full day in a carriage,” he said.
Inside the summer house, there were banquettes with thick cushions and a table burdened with a large picnic hamper. “What is all this?”
“We’ve shared a dance. A handful of conversations. We’ve shared one brief outing into town in the company of a dozen or so others,” he explained. “This will be the first time we have had a truly private moment together. I thought we should take advantage of that.”
“You are quire right. We have not had very much time together,” she reflected. “And what we have had has been… not conducive to really getting to know one another.”
He opened the hamper and retrieved a bottle of wine along with two glasses. “So now we rectify matters. Tell me about your family… your life in Bath.”
“Mother and father are… well, father is difficult and our mother is disapproving. Always. They were also quite out of patience with us. We’d had four seasons in Bath and neither of us managed to attract a respectable suitor. That is why they allowed us to come to London with Aunt Marguerite. We managed to convince them we might have more luck in London,” she explained.
“Well, clearly your arguments for it were well founded. Your sister has married well. One of your cousins, as I understand, has also married quite well. And you have attracted a respectable and quite committed suitor,” he observed.
She blinked. “I hadn’t thought of it in those terms… of our arguments being proven by the outcomes for Felicity and Benny… and potentially for myself.”
He poured the wine and passed a glass to her. As she accepted it, their fingers brushed. It was only a whisper of a touch, but it made her shiver nonetheless. Every time he touched her, she had a visceral response to it. And watching his face, she noted that she was not alone. There was an intensity in his gaze, a hunger, that was undeniable. With every touch, with every moment they were together, it only grew stronger.
He stepped closer, the distance between them shrinking until it was negligible. They were closer than they had ever been, even when dancing. Even when he’d been on the verge of kissing her there at the old chapel. With her hands trembling with nerves and anticipation, she placed her glass on the table. “I know you’re going to kiss me.”
He smiled. “Yes, I am.”
“Well, if you don’t mind terribly, could we just get on with it? I’ve no idea what to do or what to expect and that’s positively nerve racking.”
* * *
Her words hadall tumbled out quickly—a clear indicator of her anxiousness. At any other time, he might have considered it endearing. But in that moment, he could focus on only thing. He’d been granted permission to to the thing he wanted most, to taste the sweetness of her rosebud lips.
Wasting no time, he deposited his own glass of wine on the table and then reached for her. Grasping her wrist, he pulled her forward, slowly, until there wasn’t even the space of a breath between them. With far more patience than he believed himself capable of, he lowered his head, brushing his lips softly against hers. Once, twice… and then she let out a soft sigh, a sound of pleasure that fired his blood.
He settled his mouth more firmly on hers, the kiss becoming slightly more demanding even as he closed his arms about her. Pulling her to him, their bodies pressed tightly together, he savored every second of it. All the while, he battled back his own urges to take more, to demand more from her than he knew she was prepared to give in that moment.
She leaned into him, pressing closer, increasing the contact. He couldn’t have been given a more clear signal to deepen the kiss. With the lightest pressure, her lips parted beneath his and he traced those delicate curves with his tongue. She gasped in surprise, but didn’t pull back. But when she kissed him in return, when she mimicked those actions, he was lost. Sweet, innocent, passionate, with an innate kindness and an exuberance for life, he found her positively irresistible.
With two steps, he’d maneuvered them to one of the banquettes. Sinking down on it, he pulled her down with him until she was sprawled across his lap. It was quickly escalating beyond the simple kiss he had offered and that she had asked for. While, he knew he should halt their amorous activities, he couldn’t. Not just yet. Asking him to stop kissing her would be like asking him not to breathe.
