Page 52 of Temptations of a Wallflower
“You’re saying,” he said, “that you’d have me as a husband? Against all the odds, you want me?”
“What if I said yes?” she threw back at him. “What would you do?”
In response, he wrapped his arms around her. Pulled her close. And kissed her.
Heat exploded through him at the touch of their lips. His mind urged him to go slowly, gently. This was their first kiss. He should be a gentleman, show her respect. But at the brush of her lips against his, the feel of her so close, primal hunger and need roared through him. She was soft. Spicy and sweet. And she responded to himimmediately. No fearful, virginal restraint. No uncertainty. She wanted him, as much as he yearned for her. Her mouth opened to his, and she accepted the sweep of his tongue eagerly.
Her body pressed snug against his, soft and curved. The world spun around him.
There was something strangely familiar about the feel of her, the taste. But no—it had to be his lack of experience.
He devoured her, letting her know through this intimate contact that she was all he wanted. And she responded in kind, her fingers curved around the back of his neck, pulling him down, closer, closer. She held nothing back. Her honesty. Her openness. He would take anything she offered him, wanted everything.
At the sound of her moan, he surfaced. Broke the kiss, though it felt as though he was being torn apart.
“We . . .” He panted. “Shouldn’t be doing this.”
Her eyes opened, shadowed by disappointment. “But I want to,” she breathed.
Fire shot along his veins. His cock leapt at her words. “I want to, as well.” He forced himself to loosen his hold of her. “But we both know that a duke’s daughter isn’t meant to be a vicar’s wife.”
Her fingers slid from behind his neck until her fists curled at her sides. She glanced away, a suspicious sheen in her eyes. “I know,” she said on a sigh. “This was my idea. I wanted it so much . . . but it can’t happen. I just wish . . . I’d been born someone different. That we could have known one another under different conditions.”
“As do I.” His throat was raw, his voice a gratingrasp. “We’re not eccentrics, my family. Everything we’ve done has been scrupulously well behaved.”
“Mine, too,” she said, choked.
“But perhaps that doesn’t mean you and I cannot break free,” he suggested.
Her gaze gleamed, as though wet with tears. “I shouldn’t have suggested this. It was wrong. I was wrong. In the eyes of my kin, in the eyes of Society, I’ve more to lose. A man may ascend, but a woman cannot follow her heart, no matter where it takes her.”
Without another word, she turned and strode away. He could do nothing but watch her go, wanting so desperately to go after her.
He was alone. Again. He’d gone from the pinnacle of his existence to its lowestpointin a moment.
Chapter 15
We talked at length, Jacob and I. Dashing as a knight of old, he’d been a cavalryman, riding across the breadth of the globe in service to his king and country. Like all wonderful and terrible things, the war ended. The home he returned to had no use for surplus officers. What choice was left him? The road, and its plunder, beckoned. A highwayman from a cavalryman, his only means of putting food in his belly and keeping the rain from his head. The grim tale pierced my heart. I grew too fond of my highwayman . . .
The Highwayman’s Seduction
Jeremy entered Marwood’s box at the Imperial Theater. His cousin was preoccupied watching the rehearsal of his wife’s latest burletta. But Jeremy could not wait patiently. He needed guidance. Now.
He coughed as a means of announcing himself. Marwood turned around in surprise, but smiled in welcome.
“All the souls here are black as pitch,” he told Jeremy. “Too late, old man.”
“There’s only one soul here that’s too far gone,”Jeremy noted. “I’ll pray for you, but it will be like throwing droplets of water on a conflagration.”
“Much appreciated.” Marwood stood, and Jeremy shook his cousin’s extended hand.
“Normally you can crush coal into diamonds with your handshake,” Marwood noted. “What’s amiss? Aside from the condition of my benighted soul.”
Striding over to the railing, Jeremy looked over the theater. His gaze didn’t linger on anything in particular but danced around, searching for a calm place to land but finding none. Everything churned in him, a tempest.
He asked abruptly, “How does Lady Marwood’s latest work fare?”
“Oh, the usual histrionics between actors—always feuds brewing. But they love each other like a big, messy family.” Marwood crossed his arms over his chest. “I have a gnawing in my gut that tells me you’re not here to discuss Maggie’s most recent burletta.”
