Page 20 of The Dangerous Love of a Rogue
‘I don’t know. I must go.’ She left him and ran across the grass to the courtyard entrance she’d come from. She returned via the servants’ door and went to the retiring room to ask the maid to pin up the strands of hair she had pulled loose to be able to excuse herself.
When she returned to the ballroom, he was nowhere to be seen.
Mary found her father, who teased her about the length of time the maid took to fix her hair. She had lied, again. Deceived and disobeyed him. Insanity had claimed her. What had she done?
‘Miss Marlow, will you dance?’
She turned to face Lloyd Montague, one of her usual suitors. She liked him, she liked many of the men, but they had no intrigue. The only man she wanted to dance with was no longer here.
She accepted Lloyd’s arm and let him lead her into a waltz, her heart racing, her blood running thick with the memory of Lord Framlington’s intimate caress.
Would she go tomorrow? She could, if she took a groom.
But it would not be wise. It could only lead to disgrace.
7
Drew sat astride his horse, waiting by the gates of Hyde Park. Miss Marlow was thirty minutes late. She was making a fool of him.
Impatience bit hard. His hands on the pommel of his saddle, he shifted his weight, and as he did so, he thought of her in his arms last night. Desire clasped low in his belly, a feeling that was much more than lust. She had melted him. Entirely. He had been ice and now he was water. He’d never experienced an encounter with a woman which was so… beautiful… so… real.
His heart had thundered as hard as hers at the end, and he’d wanted to yell out with jubilation. She would have thought him mad, and, of course, it would have meant they may have been caught.
His friends would think him insane if they knew how he felt.
He’d smiled for the rest of the night, like a damned green youth who’d just discovered the sport, and he’d still been smiling this morning.
She had been all that he’d hoped of an innocent woman.
He, Drew Framlington, had been the first to show the beautiful Miss Marlow what true pleasure could be.
Yet she had not come this morning. He was not smiling any more. Waiting on a woman was not his forte. He’d rather walk away than wait. But he craved her too deeply now, he could never choose another woman. Yet, if he did not marry soon, the duns would have him in jail for his debts.
Devil take it. Where was she? She’d shattered in his arms last night, he thought she would be desperate to see him…
He had not thought she would allow him so near so soon, but she had been willing him on, kissing him back with an un-virginal hunger. He wanted this courtship over and Miss Marlow in his bed, just as much as he wanted her damned money. After the climax he’d given her last night, and it had undoubtedly been her first as she had been shocked by it, he thought she would beg him to marry her. Instead, she had run back to her family with no promise made.
He lifted his watch from the pocket of his morning coat. Five more minutes had passed.
She had stood him up.
He would never live this down after he’d bragged to his friends that they could begin their celebrations.
All women were fickle.
Then, he saw her. Surprise and relief took bites out of his heart. Then came the flood of hope on a storm of emotions deeper than he had ever experienced.
She was riding along the street outside the park, the eye of a peacock feather bouncing above her head, protruding from her hat which was the same colour as her sapphire blue habit. The colour a sharp contrast to her pale skin.
Her seat on the jet-black stallion impressed him; her spine held straight and her grip on the reins firm. She looked magnificent on the obviously expensive animal, with its sleek muscular shape and glossy well-groomed coat.
A groom rode beside her, keeping guard over Lord Marlow’s precious package.
Drew smiled, turned his mare, Athena, away from the gate and tapped his heels, commanding the animal to walk across the lawn. Their meeting must appear accidental. His heart raced as though he were galloping not walking the horse.
The sky was a glorious clear blue from one horizon to the other, but the day had not warmed yet, and the grass was damp with dew.
Drew kicked his heels and stirred his horse into a canter, giving her time to enter the park and his heartbeat a chance to recover from the sight of her.
