Page 23 of Temptations of a Wallflower
The three seemed to be waiting for something. Jeremy wished he wasn’t a vicar so that he could pick up a nearby painted porcelain vase and smash it down on Lord Lynde’s head, followed by a punch to the man’s gut.
“How bloodydarethey?” he growled.
She exhaled. “They dare because I’m an easy target. Haven’t you heard? You will soon enough. I’m called the Watching Wallflower.”
He longed to curse roundly. Damn Society. Damn everyone. Her honor demanded defending.
The hell with it. He started to take a step toward her three tormentors.
“Don’t,” she said quietly, fiercely. “I won’t give them the gratification, and you shouldn’t, either.”
“I’ve got todo something,” he said through clenched teeth.
“Prove them wrong,” she answered lowly. She looked him full in the face. Hope and fury and courage wavered in her expression. “Stay with me.”
“You aren’t . . . you aren’t going to leave?”
“Not if it pleases them to have me do so,” she said. “Besides,” she added, almost conversationally, “it’s interesting, the art. Informative.”
As informative as having all the secret hungers of his heart and body displayed for all the world to see.
“So, will you?” she pressed. She continued to gaze up at him, her heart in her eyes. “Stay?”
Refusal was his first impulse. He wanted to drag her out of there, away from those sniggering buffoons, away from this place that celebrated all things carnal and sexual. Things that she oughtn’t, as a young womanof quality, see. Really, the insult the threesome had presented to her would have to be addressed. Jeremy had no skill with pistols or swords, but he’d gotten into a scrape now and then, and hoped he could at least challenge Lord Lynde to fisticuffs. He’d beat that dandy into a smear on the ground. It would be more problematic and require other means of redress with Lady Donleigh and Miss Green, but he’d find a way.
The artwork spurred dangerous thoughts, too. He already thought of her too much in a sensual way as it was. It would tax his every ounce of self-control to look at people engaged in bedsport, Lady Sarah standing right beside him, without it shaking him deeply. He was only a man, after all. A man with boundless desires that he tried desperately to ignore.
So, no, he didn’t want to stay. But looking down at Lady Sarah, he saw something in her eyes—defiance, and a kind of plea.Don’t make me face them on my own,she seemed to be saying, her gaze determined.
“Yes,” he said at last. He could deny her nothing. “Yes, I’ll stay.”
Chapter 7
Oh, reader! The way the highwayman and I shook the carriage with our enthusiastic sport. We thoroughly ravished each other, using a multitude of creative postures to accommodate what limited space we had. Indeed, my highwayman was a most imaginative and vigorous lover. He quite took my breath while pleasuring my body. We hadn’t the patience to undress completely. He lifted my skirts to my waist, revealing my . . .
The Highwayman’s Seduction
Sardonic amusement filled Sarah at what was supposed to be a joke. Her erstwhile friends thought that they were scandalizing her with this erotic art. Little did they know . . .
She would not give those fools the satisfaction of leaving. She must prove to them, to herself, and to Jeremy that she wasn’t someone to be toyed with, the way a cat batted at a baby bird fallen from the nest. She had her own claws. And, by God, she would skewer Lady Donleigh, Miss Green, and Lord Lynde in hernext story. A trio of nincompoop aristocrats who die awfully in a horrible boating accident.
There was some gratification in this, but not enough. No, she had to show them that she was made of stronger stuff than they’d imagined.
The joke was on them. Seeing this artworkbenefittedher. Made her more powerful as a writer. They had no idea she was the Lady of Dubious Quality, but at the very least, Lord Lynde must have read her books. The girl he deceived was none other than the woman who made his cock hard. Now she had the means to torment him even further.
Most of what she knew of sex came from books. A few of those books were illustrated, but not nearly enough. She’d had to make do with her thoughts to envision sexual acts. Here, in this gallery, she had the images presented to her, ready to be savored. Ready to be hoarded by her imagination to use later.
She could use a scene very like this one in one of her books. Lady Josephina might visit a gallery showing erotic art. She would meet the handsome gallery owner, and then they would act out the scenes. That could do very well.
Oh, in another world . . . she and Jeremy would race, hand in hand, back to her pristine bedroom. There, they’d throw the room into chaos as they played out the pictures. Their bodies would grow damp, fevered, their limbs supple as they tested out pose after pose, straining themselves to the utmost in their exploration.
She mentally shook herself. No. That could never happen.
Yet . . . here they were. Standing beside each other.The limits of her hungers stretched and strengthened with him so near. He, who was both pure and deeply—perhaps unknowingly—carnal.
She wanted him to stay with her. She needed it. Needed him, in a marrow-deep way that made her ache.
So she’d stared up at him, rebellious and also imploring. His own blue, blue eyes fixed on her face. So much conflict lay behind his gaze, so much uncertainty, but also, yes, a thread of wanting, of hunger. For her? For something more? Whatever that need was, she craved it.
