Page 9 of The Forbidden Lord
“Yes, we have,” she said inanely. The carriage shuddered to a halt as she continued to peer out the window.
But once everything was silent, she heard it. Voices. In the garden and quite near. “Oh, no, I think there’s someone out there.”
He edged toward her, peering over her shoulder out the window. “I see them. They’re passing the apple tree now.”
The couple was a man and a woman of indeterminate age, talking and laughing as they strolled arm in arm. Suddenly, one of them looked up and spotted the carriage.
Emily jumped back from the window so quickly, she found herself practically in the earl’s lap. When she turned toward him, his face was mere inches from hers. “I can’t get out now,” she whispered.
He rapped his fist on the ceiling. “Another turn around the drive, coachman.”
“Yes, milord,” the coachman answered and prodded the horses into a trot.
For a moment she sat frozen, plastered to him for fear that the moonlight would reveal her face. But when they cleared the garden, the earl said in choked tones, “You can remove your hand from my leg now, Miss Fairchild.”
Only then did she realize her fingers had a vise-like grip on his thigh. Mortified beyond belief, she snatched her hand back,but not before an impression of the hard muscle beneath his superfine breeches burned itself into her palm.
He was too close, too ... too ...there. She tried to slide down the seat from him, but there was no more space. Nor did he move away. When she glanced up in alarm, it was to find him staring at her, his eyes fathomless and mysterious in the moonlight.
“Fate seems to be conspiring to throw us together,” he said in a rumbling voice.
“Oh, don’t say that! Our plan may still work!”
“And if it doesn’t?” He was so close she could feel the ragged cadence of his warm breath on her lips.
“Then I’ll deal with the consequences. Though I would prefer not to have been caught riding in a carriage unchaperoned with a man, it is mostly my fault it happened. You mustn’t concern yourself with it, my lord.”
“But I must. To be honest, the thought of a continued association with you isn’t as ... unappealing as it was at first.” His gaze drifted down to her lips, intimate and interested.
Her pulse raced wildly. “You needn’t say that to spare my feelings.”
“Believe me, sparing your feelings has nothing to do with it.” He lowered his head until his mouth hovered inches from hers. “The truth is, I’m having a devil of a time resisting the urge to kiss you.”
“Oh, but youmust!” she protested feebly as her head swam.
“Yes, I must.”
Yet he didn’t. Before she could protest or even move away, he covered her mouth with his.
It was the most sublime shock she’d ever had in her life. Who would have guessed a man’s lips could be so soft ... or so fiendishly tempting? His breath mingled with hers, spiked with brandy, though he didn’t seem the least bit drunk. His mouthcaressed hers in such a leisurely fashion that it seduced her into stillness.
She exhaled on a sigh, then caught her breath when he clasped her shoulders to draw her closer. In a futile attempt to dispel the fog forming in her brain, she turned her lips away, but he only shifted his mouth to drop short, delectable kisses along the curve of her cheek to her earlobe, following the line of the mask.
“Sweet Emily,” he whispered, his breath tickling her ear. “Sweet, innocent Emily.”
Her name sounded foreign to her ears when he rasped it like that. How did he know it anyway? Oh, yes, he’d overheard her conversation with Sophie. “You mustn’t c-call me that,” she stammered. He nibbled on her earlobe, and she gasped. “You ... you must call me Miss Fairchild.”
“All right. Kiss me, Miss Fairchild. Or I shall surely kiss you again.”
“I ... I would prefer that you not ... kiss me, Lord Blackmore. It’s not proper.”
“As if I care about propriety.” He planted a kiss on the pulse in her neck. “Remember my scandalous reputation? And my name is Jordan. Say it.”
“I-I can’t. It’s too intimate.”
“Exactly.” Sliding one arm about her waist, he tugged her close, then tipped her chin up with his free hand until she was staring into his glittering eyes, her heart beating a wild, staccato rhythm.
“Say my name,” he whispered hoarsely. “I want to hear you say it.”
