Page 17 of Lady, Behave
“Upon your glorious body.”
Her heart stopped. “And you’d never leave me.”
He shook his head. “I’d ensure you would never want to go.”
She leaned closer to him, his cologne a heady lure, his lips a ripe temptation. “I don’t want you to go now.”
He swallowed loudly, then shot to his feet. “I must now, before I sweep you away with me.”
She rose and, standing so close, she realized for the first time that the top of her head reached only to his chin. She felt so protected by him. No man had ever been her bulwark against the unknown of tomorrow. “I would love to be swept away by you.”
He laughed so deeply in his throat that she felt the vibrations to her toes. “You tempt me to abduct you this minute. But I have a few things to do before we speak again. Give me time?”
She was bursting to have him now. To have him kiss her, caress her, take her away with him. “I will.”
“I vow, Addy, no one else may ever have you.”
“Nor you, sir. No lovers, old or new.” Her pride and peace of mind demanded it of him.
“None but each other. Good day to you, my darling. I will see you tomorrow, and we will speak of this again.”
“I cannot wait.”
“Nor I,” he said, kissed her hand, and, as if torn from her by an invisible rope, he marched away.
Chapter Five
Gyles’s head swamwith visions of Addy naked on a rich carpet before a blazing fire as he took his seat in the Banqueting Room of Prince George’s sprawling Pavilion that evening. His Royal Highness gave a dinner party for his house guests and close friends—and Gyles criticized himself that he had agreed to spend hours in this tedious company.
Twenty-eight sat down, men interspersed with women, side by side at one long rectangular table. Heaped with every sort of dish from English silversmiths, Manchu porcelain china, and Irish crystal, the table groaned with endless delicacies. Above the guests’ heads hung an immense iron Chinese dragon who held in his claws a giant crystal chandelier. The creature looked so lifelike, Gyles feared the monster would swoop down and gobble the food off his plate. But one look up at the sparkling glass, and Gyles saw the first flashes of a headache.
He squeezed shut his eyes and ground his teeth. With a vow to get through this dinner, he set his purpose to enjoy the evening as best he could—and speed it to its end.
Among those here were courtiers or hangers-on like Gyles’s father, who gave homage and took favors from the Regent. The women in attendance, young and old, were favored by their ability to navigate the upper reaches of society, like his mother or those who flaunted every rule of man and heaven. The lady who sat to Gyles’s right was one such creature, who boldly reached beneath the table linen to find his cock and cup it. He’d removed her grasping fingers from his crotch twice during the fish course and looked forward to the end of dessert—and the last of her gropes. The lady to his left was more interested in running her stockinged foot up his calf and murmuring her hopes that he might come to her rooms “after the candles are doused.”
He politely claimed a headache, which sadly was not far from the truth, and hoped both ladies spread word of his disinterest in the finer elements of life. He had them in abundance. He simply did not hold them now for anyone but Adelaide Devereaux. Her discussion with him this afternoon over tea had sparked his desire to create the sort of ethical life she declared she desired. The kind of life he suddenly needed.
His father, who sat across from him, scowled at his rejection of the lady to Gyles’s right. “My son weds soon,” he announced in slurred syllables, signaling the duke had imbibed too much good wine.
Gyles cast his sire a long dark glare.
But both ladies on either side of Gyles reacted. One with a titter. The other with pleasant surprise.
“I say, Heath,” said the one on his right, a countess of forty with an earl reputed to always stay at home in bed with his mistress, “who is she, my dear? Do we know her?”
“I have not declared myself yet, Lady Forbish.”
Damned if the woman didn’t slide her hand beneath the fine table cloth and give him a squeeze that crushed his nuts. “Perhaps you’d like to savor a few more varieties before you settle to one kind of dish, eh?”
He set his teeth. Removed her hand, too. “I’ve finished with sampling.”
“No, he hasn’t, Lady Forbish,” said his father with stiff-lipped spite. “The one he favors carries a taint on the family line.”
His father was now demeaning him in public? He’d stand for much from the sire who had always been kind to him, even if the man had not borrowed money to save him from French prison. But Heath would not stand this criticism. “No one says that, Father.”
“I do. Had proof years ago.”
“Ah.” Gyles would shut him up. “How does it compare to others you’ve known?”
