Page 8 of Buon Natale, My Wicked Rogue (Wicked Widows’ League #18)

Evan seemed to gape at her, his eyes dazed, his expression uncomprehending. Then he grinned, his eyes still hooded with passion. “With pleasure, love.”

That one word. Love. It sent currents of delight through her. How silly. It was an endearment that a man like him must have said to many women. How many? She didn’t wish to contemplate actual numbers. It was sobering enough to remember just who she was with.

An experienced seducer who knew how to make a woman feel exactly as he had just made her feel. It was earth-shattering to her.

It was Wednesday afternoon for him.

He might even have her name written on the palm of his hand to remember it.

Oh, mercy, Angela, stop this. You’ll ruin the encounter.

He took her hands and placed them on his shoulders. Then he lowered his head towards her. This time, the touch of his lips was firm yet gentle and warm. He moved his mouth over hers slowly, sensually.

She slid her hands down his arms, over his well-developed muscles, enjoying the feel of his body through the fine wool of his coat, and became lost to sensation. This was why she had come here. Her carnal adventure was just beginning.

When she entered the chamber, two trays with covered dishes had been set up in front of the chaise longue. The same chaise longue where they had shared the blazing hot kiss earlier in the day.

Evan reclined there, reading a newspaper. He looked up as she entered the room and laid his newspaper down. He immediately stood and came to her. He pulled her into his arms and drew her close.

The feel of his lean, hard body against hers made her catch her breath.

She looked up into his eyes. The hunger to feel his mouth on hers once more made her gasp, and he lowered his mouth to hers.

The brush of his tongue against hers made her heart pound and her nipples ache.

She lost track of time as she thrust her tongue against his and felt the responding thrust of his, a hot, wet blade of flame that sent her senses reeling.

When they pulled apart, each gulping for breath, he still held her close and caressed her cheek with the back of his hand. The little hairs on his hand tickled her skin most deliciously.

“I hope you like venison,” he said.

“I am famished. Venison would be heavenly.”

The dinner was good. Plain English cooking, to be sure, but well-prepared.

She’d talked her father-in-law into hiring an Italian cook who could prepare some French dishes.

She wasn’t sure she would get used to English cooking, but this was some of the best English food she’d had yet.

Freshly baked white rolls, green peas, carrots, and stewed pears in a sweet sauce.

Wonderful cheddar cheese. A fine red wine.

After they had eaten, he pulled her close to him on the chaise longue. “Tell me about your marriage.”

The question startled her, and even more so, the note of genuine interest in his voice surprised her.

She wasn’t facing him but staring into the flames that danced in the fireplace.

It would be easier to speak of such a personal, painful topic like this.

Maybe he understood that and had contrived their position for that reason.

It spoke of a considerate nature. Another proof that he possessed sensitivity to other people’s needs and attention to detail.

“What do you want to know?” she asked.

“How did an Italian girl come to be married to an American, especially with the wars and embargoes?”

Ha! She wished that wars and embargoes could have kept her safe from Jacob. She laughed softly. “As unromantic as it sounds, Macon’s Bill Number Two opened the way for Jacob to find me.”

Jacob.

At the sound of the name, Evan’s chest tightened. Mr. Berry had held an impersonal tone, but hearing her say her late husband’s name with such casualness underlined the intimacy she had held with this man. And it didn’t make Evan feel any better to have had this reaction.

He wasn’t familiar with feeling jealousy.

“What was your marriage to Jacob like?”

She tensed in his arms, and he regretted needing to ask her that. There was something painful there.

“He was only a year older than me. He was young, handsome, and dashing, and he swept me off my feet. We were both so eager to be wed. But I disappointed him.”

Her voice sounded so sad. His heart contracted for her.

“Is that what you wanted to know?” she asked.

This was hard. Extremely hard. He must get her to talk about her marriage and her life with the Berrys. But he didn’t know what pain might lurk in those topics. And he’d found out just now that he felt her pain as his own. He’d never experienced that with any other woman.

She said had disappointed Jacob Berry. How had she disappointed him? With her affection? In their bedchamber? How could she possibly disappoint any man with blood in his veins?

“Tell me more about Jacob.” He winced with the pain of pressing her about the topic. He didn’t want to put her through this.

But his mission demanded it.

“Jacob preferred the company of his friends to me,” she said.

“They mocked him for having married an Italian. They felt I was too different from them. But one of them had a sister. Jacob and that sister, well, his father and her father had a sort of understanding since their births. Everyone expected them to marry. Jacob always resented the pressure to marry her. I suppose I was an instrument of his rebellion.”

“Your father-in-law held this against you as well?”

“At first, until he came to know me.”

“What was it about you that he came to like and accept?”

“He said that I am better educated than most women of his class. And he liked that. But I know that many of his male associates don’t approve of their daughters being too highly educated. So, I am not sure how fair-minded he was in his assessment.”

“How did you come to be well educated?”

“Though I never met him, my own father saw to my education from a distance. He paid for the best tutors.”

“Who is your father?”

“He was a merchant back in Italy...He lived in Rome. He died when I was a baby. I never knew him.” Her voice shook, and she turned away from him.

At these signs of her discomfort with the subject, he paused. “It must have been painful to lose your father early in life.” He hugged her closer. No more questions. Not tonight.

He reached for her, pulled her close, and held her. After a few moments, she turned to him, and he drew her into a long, slow kiss.

Several nights later, Angela tossed and turned, alone in her chamber.

The bed was wonderfully comfortable, and the mid-November night made her feel so cozy beneath the quilts.

And she’d had two glasses of wine. But for the fourth night in a row, Angela couldn’t sleep.

She had lied to Evan about her father. What upset her the most about it?

Knowing that she had lied because she didn’t trust him.

At least she did not yet trust him fully enough to share something so personal and painful. Traveling so far to see her father, the Duke of Amesbury, and then being rejected by his family had been too much.

She had told Susan. Well, she told Susan about some of it. But she didn’t want anyone else to know how she had been rejected and humiliated by her father’s wife. A few months after her father-in-law had died, she’d received a letter from her natural father.

He’d said that he might be dying, though he said he didn’t trust the doctors and didn’t think they could be that accurate. But just in case he died soon, he wanted her to come to England with all due haste and to see him.

He’d sent funds. Generous funds.

And his letter had filled her with hope at the lowest time of her life.

Yet, those hopes had been crushed by his family. They said that he was too ill to risk such an emotional visit.

Her spirit had been crushed so thoroughly.

Now, she just couldn’t tell Evan about it.

She didn’t want to open that vault of anguish.

She wanted Evan to make her feel good and to have fun with him, and to forget all the pain of her marriage, the death of her father-in-law, and her rejection here in England.

As the days passed, Angela’s sense of nagging guilt over her deception faded to the periphery of her awareness.

There were so many lovely things to experience.

Like today, the noon sun sparkled on the water, and the wind was barely perceptible.

She snuggled her hands into her fur-lined muff and enjoyed the play of sunlight through the trees along the lake's shoreline that ran along the border of Evan’s property.

A mélange of brilliantly colored red, gold, orange, and yellow leaves clung to their branches, but many trees were already bare.

“You’re not cold, are you?” Evan asked as he rowed their little boat.

“Not too cold.”

“Do you want to return?”

“No, the weather is so lovely today. How lucky are we to have such a day?”

He grinned at her, flashing white, straight teeth against his tanned, handsome face.

She knew a sense of disbelief to be here with this aristocrat.

He had removed his coat, and the deep green of his waistcoat contrasted sharply with his snowy white shirt and cravat, tied into a simple knot.

The casualness of his clothes made their sharing the little boat seem even more intimate.

“Somehow, I never pictured us doing all these wonderful things. I never pictured an English nobleman rowing his own boat.”

“But isn’t it romantic for a gentleman to row his ladylove around the lake so that she can view the autumn colors before they fade?” His grin broadened, and heat pooled in her lower stomach as a bit of giddiness swept over her. Was it his sensual appeal that caused those sensations?

Or was it the motion of the boat?

“It is very romantic,” she said, giving him a smile, feeling just a bit wistful. A small part of her wished that she might actually be his ‘ladylove.’