Page 9 of A Lady of Means
She swallowed.“Where are you headed, captain?”
“I’m afraid I can’t say; but wherever I go, I fear you’ll follow me.In my thoughts, at least, my lady.”
She looked away and exhaled, trying to conceal her feelings.More than anything, she wanted-
“May I kiss you, my lady?”
Why did it feel as if he’d stolen her thoughts?
“If you don’t, we’ll both wish that you had.”
One hand lightly caressed his.He leaned in closer, pulling her close enough to hold her soft cheek, her jaw within the palm of one of his large hands.His lips were so close, so indelibly close that the stubble coating his cheek collided with her own, she could claim his air for her own if she leaned just a little closer.But she didn’t.
He didn’t pull away as he said, “I’ll claim my kiss, when the time is right.Until we meet again, my lady.”He took her hand in his, leaving behind a soft, gentle kiss as though he hadn’t been mere moments from taking possession of her mouth right there next to the lake.And as they parted company, lingering glances exchanged like promises, she knew she’d see him again.
ChapterFour
My presumptuous Captain,
I agree to your request.Before your next deployment, you may find me at the Kingsley archery range near Bond Street of any Wednesday afternoon.However, I have only this to request in return: please don’t go and fall in love with me.It would be terribly ungentlemanly of you and very inconvenient for me.I also have impeccable aim, so I hope you come prepared.
Lady Margaret
* * *
My devious Lady,
I never professed to be a gentleman and I would love nothing more than to be extremely inconvenient for you; nevertheless, consider your challenge accepted.Just don’t go and be entirely too loveable.This challenge sounds even more improbable by the moment and I fear I’ve already lost.
Yours,
D
* * *
“You can’t sendflowers or call on a lady you haven’t been publicly introduced to, you dolt.Have you remembered nothing from the etiquette lessons we were drilled on as children or has all of it been replaced by battle briefs?”
Peregrine Winter had at least waited until his younger brother Devyn returned from active duty to call him out.Devyn gave a low chuckle, scrubbing his freshly shaved jaw with an inked hand.“Looking back, I should have known that I was walking into a waiting ambush.That’s on me for not coming here better prepared.”
Devyn took an empty seat across from Perry, where the two sat in (mostly) companionable silence in one of the solariums at the family house in Mayfair.Peregrine had been the only one who had listened during the aforementioned etiquette lessons he and Devyn had been on the receiving end of.In fact, Perry would have been the perfect match for a woman like Lady Moria, having the right training and smooth manners- as well as the earldom he’d inherited from their uncle.
Devyn had been back in London for only five days.Four of them had been spent on drills with his company, and he’d spent an entire day debating about how he’d call on the woman he’d seen every time he closed his eyes.Right there behind his eyelids like a ballerina in a music box, except far less innocent with that wicked mouth of hers and the teasing in her eyes, the curves of her body that could lead him to ruin.He’d written to tell her that he had returned from Belgium, the same day he’d bought a scandal sheet just to see if her name was inside.
It had been over twelve months since he met Lady Moria Pembrooke underneath a willow tree at a coaching inn.She’d replied to his letters; she’d returned his gifts via her ladies’ maid.He’d called upon her family residence, but the butler had said she wasn’t at home.He’d been, as promised, bested by her on an archery pitch.He’d met with her in person twice since their meeting before he’d been sent to Belgium for eight months.
The solarium around him fell away as Devyn remembered one such outing: a boat ride on the River Cherwell in Oxford, one of the days he’d turned over and over in his memory while he’d been playing the part of warrior.
That day, she was all golden haired and gold-and-pink cheeked in a heart-stopping dress the color of a perfect British summer sky while he’d rowed them down the river.His focus had been torn between the steady movement of the oars, and the view his perch offered of the glorious tops of her breasts fighting against the tyranny of the neckline of her dress.She was perched on the opposite end of the boat, holding an obnoxious little matching parasol just above her head like she hadn’t a care in the world that he could tip their boat over in only a few movements.
“You don’t seem like the type of lass who’d agree to step foot in a water vessel with a gentleman of this size.”
“Are we talking of the size of the boat…or the size of you?”
Devyn hated to admit the way his skin had burned beneath her appreciative gaze as her eyes traveled the bulk of his form.“And…do I not?I like to think I seem rather…intrepid.”
She’d been leaning back on her forearms letting the sun dance over her stupidly perfect face with her eyes closed and her little straw and beribboned bonnet dangling between her pointed shoulder blades.The laugh floating out of him was natural and light in an unconscious way he wasn’t sure a woman had ever made him laugh.In the bleakest winter in his memory, the image of the sun kissing her like he wanted to, the feeling of the laugh she brought out of him reverberating in his chest came to his mind unbidden.Not only unbidden; bloody unwelcome, but persistent.
“Well, when you put it like that, I suppose, both?Either?And for a woman who is remarkably fit,” he looked down her body, and she must have felt his eyes scorch her as much as the July sun as she’d turned to look at him with a knowing smirk.“No, you do not seemintrepidat all to the untrained observer.”
