Page 14 of A Delicate Deception
“I have all day,” he said, and she felt his cheek warm under her touch. What must it be like, to have your emotions rush to the surface like that? Amelia couldn’t even imagine. It must be like living one’s entire life behind a window. “Let’s be off, then,” he said, and offered her his arm for the first time yet.
Chapter Five
Sydney had been looking forward to seeing Amelia since parting with her the previous day. He woke with her on his mind, and seeing her in person was as much of a relief as he had hoped. This was dangerous, he knew. Being with her, touching her, felt the same as nearly falling through the attic stairs due to his own poor planning. He was proceeding without a shadow of forethought; it was exhilarating but also more than a little terrifying.
Her hand rested on the inside of his elbow, and their sides frequently brushed against one another as they walked. She occasionally tilted her head up to look at him while she talked, and he caught himself helplessly gazing down at her. It was a wonder they didn’t tumble headfirst into a briar patch.
When they reached the place she had wanted to show him, she kept her hand on his arm even after they stopped walking. It was a prominence with a good view of the valley below, and a conveniently placed boulder from which to watch the clouds make shadows on the opposite hillsides. But instead of looking across the valley, she looked up at him, which he knew because he was already looking at her, because his brains were completely addled by sheer proximity to her. Then, God help him, she licked her lips. When her tongue darted out of her mouth and moistened her lower lip, Sydney thought he might freeze to the spot.
“Sydney,” she said, her bare hand resting on his arm. “Are you quite all right?”
“Look at that very interesting sight over there,” he said, gesturing in the general direction of the hills on the opposite side of the valley.
“It’s... sheep,” she said. “You’re familiar with sheep?”
“They seemed fine specimens,” he managed to say.
She smiled a particularly wolfish smile, as if she knew exactly what she was doing to his powers of thought.
“I’m wondering,” he said, after they had sat on the boulder and passed his flask of ale back and forth a couple of times, “whether you plan to continue looking or if you have any further plans for me.” He told himself he said the words to put her off, to let her know she was not being discreet and shock her into behaving in a more prudent manner. But he knew that wasn’t the truth. He was goading her, daring her to do more.
“Well,” she said consideringly, “I daresay that depends on what you’d like.”
His mouth went dry. “Oh?”
“I’m hardly an expert but I believe the general belief is that best practice is for there to be two participants. Possibly more, in theory, but I don’t see anyone else nearby.”
“Participants,” he repeated, his voice hoarse. Of course he knew what she meant. All morning she had been looking at him as if he were a table laid out for a banquet. She wasn’t making any secret of liking what she saw, and he knew that she was capable of making her face keep any secrets she wanted.
She waved her hand impatiently. “Use whatever words you like.”
He made a strangled sound. “I take it back. There are to be zero participants. You can’t carry on like this.”
“Like what? And why not? I daresay I can carry on precisely as I please.”
His cheeks flamed with heat. “I can’t—you are an unmarried girl—”
“No.” She wrinkled her noise in disgust. “Do better. I mean, if you’d rather not kiss me and so forth then I’d be pleased to learn more about steam engines.”
“Pardon?” he asked faintly. He was unaccustomed to approaching sex without a healthy dose of anxiety. With a man, he worried about being caught; with a woman, he still worried about being caught but also about pregnancy. In short, he worried.
“Do come up with a better excuse. Even if the reason you won’t... participate with me is that you don’t want to sully my honor”—here she made a particularly unladylike gagging sound—“do come up with a more creative reason.”
“More creative.” This was perhaps the least sensible conversation he had ever participated in, and he was certain he should not be enjoying it.
“I suppose you could say you don’t fancy me, but we both know you’ve been looking at me as much as I’ve been looking at you.”
“Impossible. Nobody has ever looked at anyone as much as you’ve looked at me. I feel quite cheapened.” And then, because he was an idiot, he glanced at her chest, then hastily glanced away. Oh, hell. In for a penny. He returned his gaze to her, starting at the top of her head, then down to her forehead, where one eyebrow was arched in wry amusement. Then he traveled down to her lips, pale pink and quirked up in the beginning of a wry smile. He could lean in and kiss her—but no, now he was only looking. With his gaze, he traced the column of her neck, then the long sleeves of her gown, and back up again. He took in every curve, watched the way her chest rose and fell with every breath, and for one moment he let himself imagine what it would be like to let himself really want her, what it would be like to stop checking his admiration and fully experience it.
When she spoke, her voice was low, a bit throaty. “You owe it to yourself to invent a better excuse for not touching me. A vow of chastity, perhaps. I assure you I would be most respectful of any vows you’ve taken. A rare condition that causes you to lose consciousness when you become aroused. An insurmountable fear of redheads with ample bosoms. I could list a dozen more.”
The woman was pathologically averse to the truth. Surely Sydney should not be so charmed. “I can’t,” he rasped. “I...” He swallowed, and she watched his throat work. “I took a vow of chastity,” he blurted out.
“What?”
“As you said earlier. I took a vow of chastity and that’s why I can’t touch you.”
“As long as it has nothing to do with my virtue.”
