Page 12 of A Gentleman’s Offer

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It must be considered miraculous that the phaeton didn’t overturn. Sir Dominic said nothing in immediate response, though if his companion had been looking at his face his stormy expression would have spoken volumes, and for a moment he concentrated his attention on his horses, and on making his way back to where he had set down his groom. Had half an hour passed – an hour – a week? He was in no state to tell. But in any case, Fishwick was there, waiting patiently, and Dominic indicated with a few clipped, well-chosen words that the groom should climb up and take the reins and drive home, while he would walk a little with Miss Nightingale, and then escort her safely back to Grosvenor Square. Assuming, he thought but didn’t say, he didn’t instead murder her and throw her body in the lake.

‘Is it quite proper, sir, that we should be seen alone together at this hour?’ she said. He couldn’t tell if she was serious, or if she had instead just commenced on a determined campaign to drive him entirely out of his senses and into Bedlam. ‘There are a great many people about now, and I have observed many ladies and gentlemen nodding to you and otherwise trying to attract your attention, though you have snubbed them all.’

‘Proper?’ he said. ‘Good God, you have the effrontery to speak to me of what is proper, and of your reputation? And if I have really ignored anyone, and you aren’t merely trying to infuriate me further, I am sure that my friends and acquaintances will forgive me, and assume that I am completely and rather charmingly enthralled with my future bride, Christ help me. They don’t know that the woman at my side is not, as she appears to be, a beautiful debutante, but a dangerous escaped lunatic.’

‘You make a great deal of bustle over nothing,’ she said, though a slight flush had crept up into her cheeks, he could not help but observe; he didn’t know, and shouldn’t care, whether it was because he’d called her beautiful or described her as a lunatic. Clearly, both things could be true at once.

They had found their way under a tree once more – Dominic was in no state to be able to recognise whether it was the same one they’d talked under yesterday, or another – and the fresh green leaves provided them with at least a little privacy. There was no doubt that, as she had said, it was not ideal to be seen entirely alone together, even in a public place and surrounded by so many people, but in this moment he was beyond concerning himself over the proprieties. She clearly had no true interest in proper behaviour, however much she might pretend she did.

‘You cannot disguise yourself as a boy,’ he said forcefully, turning to her. They were very close, and he might have thought that his height, his looming presence, would have intimidated her, obliged her to give ground and back away from him, but quite clearly it didn’t. She tilted up her golden head and met his gaze boldly. There were sparkling gold flecks in her blue eyes, he saw – they hadn’t been so close before for more than a second or two, and so he’d had no chance to observe them.

‘That’s a patently ridiculous statement,’ she said. ‘Obviously I can, and I will. It is quite providential that my hair is short, not long like Maria’s. I am sure that nothing could be easier or more convenient. I have done so frequently at home – not disguised myself, precisely, for I intended no deception, but put on breeches and ridden, or climbed trees, when I was younger, with… with a friend of mine. I am sure there are a great number of my half-brother’s clothes put away somewhere in the attics, and I shouldn’t wonder if they fit me well enough for a brief outing in the dark; if there isn’t anything suitable, I’ll borrow something from one of the servants. I am sure once you reflect a little you can have no rational objection to my plan.’

He couldn’t make her see that what she was proposing was insanely dangerous, and yet he must. He reached out, scarcely knowing what he was doing, and took her firmly by the shoulders, his gloved hands grasping the green velvet of her pelisse.

Still she did not pull away from him. He’d been intending to try again, now that he was holding her and making her attend to him, to find new and better words to persuade her of the folly of what she was contemplating. But whatever he had been about to say died on his lips.

He’d never kissed her sister, nor touched her in this disturbingly intimate fashion. He’d kissed her cold hand, he supposed – he must have done that in common politeness, when he took his leave of her after she’d accepted his proposal of marriage. But he hadn’t kissed her cheek – hadn’t at all wanted to – and certainly not her lips.

Meg’s lips, though, were slightly parted, and looked soft, warm and infinitely inviting. They were tantalisingly close. It would be no effort at all to bend his head a little and taste them. He’d been so angry with her, but he wasn’t any more. Anger had been overwhelmed by quite another, much more powerful emotion. He’d just now admitted something to his conscious mind that his body must have known for days. Since they’d first met. A shocking thing.

Her pupils were dilated, her eyes dark pools, and she was breathing a little faster now, her velvet-covered breasts rising and falling, just a few inches away from where his leather-clad hands still held her. He could feel the tension vibrating through her frame, just as it was through his, and though he should let go of her, by every rule and tenet of society and morality and decency, he simply couldn’t. He was paralysed with a bolt of sudden, overwhelming desire, so strong it was almost painful; if he made any sort of movement, he feared it wouldn’t be to let her go, but to pull her close. He wanted very badly to move his hands down her body. The tree trunk was at her back, and he wanted, needed, to push her against it as his mouth claimed hers. He wanted to lose himself in her, to forget everything but his desire to touch and be touched, to know and be known. He thought – though of course he could not be sure of it – that she wanted it too. He wanted the length of his body pressed hard against hers from shoulder to ankle, his hands exploring her, his tongue in her mouth and hers in his, their breath mingling, her hands on him too, under his coat, under his waistcoat, under his shirt. Damn the park and everybody in it. Damn the people and the horses and the whole polite world of London. He didn’t care if they suspected, or even if they saw. The thought of being skin to skin with her…

He didn’t do it. He stepped away, releasing her, and with an effort of will as powerful as any he’d ever exerted in his life before, he didn’t let his hands slide down her body for one precious, forbidden caress before he moved away. One caress could never be enough, and must lead to more. To disaster.

He said, ‘This is madness.’ Even as he spoke, he didn’t know what he was referring to – her crazy scheme to masquerade as a boy, a momentary impulse to kiss her that he hadn’t, after all, indulged, or so much more.