Page 11 of Her Honorable Viscount (Noble Pursuits #3)

CHAPTER 11

E dward was being suffocated.

Suffocated by the young women who wanted more from him because of who he was and what he could offer.

Suffocated by the gentlemen who wanted to speak of his brother and his lady friend who had found themselves swimming in the Serpentine.

Suffocated by the fact that the one woman he wanted was one he could not have.

When the men passed around cigars after the meal, he found that the smoke only proved to choke him further, and he waved the offer away before telling them that he needed a minute.

He stepped out onto the terrace off the drawing room, taking in a deep breath of fresh air before he heard a voice beside him.

“I see we had a similar idea.”

Lady Dot was sitting on a stone bench, looking off into the distance. Were those tears staining her face? They better not be.

“What happened?” he demanded, approaching. “Did Lady Carroway say something to you?”

“Nothing.” She shook her head, turning her face away from him as she furtively scrubbed her cheeks. “She tried to, but I avoided her and slipped outside instead.”

“Then what is the matter?”

“Why does everyone keep asking me that?”

“Because you have a distraught look about you.”

She laughed, almost humorlessly. “You always say exactly what you think, don’t you?”

“I prefer direct communication.”

“I understand,” she said, standing. “Well, I will leave the terrace to you, Lord Mandrake. Good evening.”

When she began to walk by him, he held out a hand and stopped her.

“Where are you going?”

“Inside.”

“Dot,” he said gently, realizing his lapse in protocol when she looked up at him sharply. “Lady Dot,” he amended. “Please stay. Tell me what is wrong and how I can make it better.”

To his horror, her eyes filled with tears again, even as she tried to blink them away. “That is the very problem. What is most wrong is something that you cannot make better. You should fix Lady Clarice’s problems. Even though a woman like her probably doesn’t have any.”

“Lady Clarice?” he said, mystified for a moment. “Oh, the young lady I sat next to at dinner?”

She scoffed. “Do not pretend you do not know who she is. I saw how captivated you were by her.”

He heard what she was saying, but it took him a moment to realize just why she was saying it.

“Why, Lady Dot, are you… jealous?”

As he said it, he couldn’t help the smile that slowly spread across his face, even though he knew he shouldn’t show her how happy her jealousy made him. But it meant she cared, even if she didn’t want to.

“She would be perfect for you,” Lady Dot continued. “She would be the perfect wife. So unlike me.”

“Dot,” he said, realizing again that he was speaking to her informally but not caring at the moment, “Lady Clarice is nothing to me.”

“She could be.”

“But she’s not.” He closed his eyes and leaned against the ivy-strewn gray brick wall behind him. “The truth is, I cannot see any other woman in a romantic light because I cannot stop thinking about you.”

“You shouldn’t,” she said, furiously trying to bat her tears away, losing in her fight against them.

He reached into his pocket, finding his handkerchief. He drew it out, but instead of handing it to her, he did what felt right and he leaned toward her, wiping her eyes himself.

“Please don’t cry,” he pleaded. “I cannot stand to see you weep.”

“I am just frustrated,” she said, sniffing. “I am not at my best now. It would likely be better that I am left alone.”

“I will not leave you alone,” he said. “I seem unable to do so now or at any other time. Why would you think that I would do so?”

“It is foolish.”

“Tell me.”

“All through dinner, you did not look my way once, while I couldn’t look anywhere else but at you.”

“I only didn’t look at you because I knew if I did, I would never be able to look away. I cannot take my eyes off you. You are beautiful, yes, but more than that, you captivate me. You have to know that. Dot…” He reached out and took her hands in his before using his index finger to gently lift her chin so that he could look into her eyes. “Our future is uncertain, and the way forward seems blocked. But I know one thing. I cannot keep myself away from you.”

She bit her lip before whispering, “Nor I you.”

He knew this wasn’t the time. He shouldn’t be putting his hands on a woman who could never be his wife.

But he needed her more than he needed to breathe.

He leaned down and captured her lips with his.

He felt her swift inhale as he drew her closer to him, his arms wrapping around her back.

He wished he could say this wasn’t his every dream come true.

She had talked about perfection, but nothing could ever be more perfect than her body pressed against his. She fit into his arms as though she belonged there, and he never wanted to let her go.

Her lips were warm, soft, and even though a warning bell sounded in the back of his mind that this was wrong, that he had no right to kiss her when she didn’t belong to him nor had any inkling ever to be his, he couldn’t help how badly he wanted her – and how right this felt.

Edward waited for her to push him away, to tell him that he was being too forward, that she didn’t want this.

But she didn’t.

Far from it.

Instead, she was kissing him back, her hands looping around his neck as she stood on her tiptoes and pressed her lips against his. One of his hands rose, his fingers tangling in her hair as his tongue ran around the seam of her mouth.

When she parted her lips and pushed her breasts against his ribs while a soft moan emerged into his mouth, he nearly lost all sense of reason.

Kissing her like this was setting his very soul on fire as blood rushed through his veins, fueling desire to take her by any means necessary, midwife or not. So she had a profession. He would find a way to handle it. Keep it a secret. He was keeping every other secret in his family. What was one more?

For suddenly, nothing mattered more than having her in his life.

He was wrestling between his desire to tell her that and his wish to continue kissing her when the latch of the door sounded behind them, and they jumped apart, although he didn’t look back to see who had stepped through.

He was too focused on Dot. Her flush stealing up her cheeks, her few tendrils of hair that had escaped, her eyes slightly wet and hungry – for him.

“Dot…” He started forward when her gaze shifted to behind him, and he turned to find a smug Lady Carroway standing there, arms crossed.

“With your protector again, Lady Dot,” she said, lifting her nose. “You cannot hide behind him forever, you know. I shall call upon you soon. We have much to discuss. Perhaps your brother can join us.”

With that, she turned away, stealing the joy that had built between them. Edward wanted to tell Dot how he felt, needing her to understand, but now was not the right time. He didn’t want their future to be tainted by this woman and her barbed threats.

“Are you all right?” he asked Dot, reaching out and taking her hand in his.

“Of course,” she said, straightening her spine. “I told you that I can handle her. I will do so. I promise.”

He shook his head slowly. “I am the one who made you a promise. I am already trying to find a way to convince her not to continue this vendetta toward you. So far, I haven’t found a reason to do so, but it will come. I am sure of it.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“A woman like her makes enemies. How could she not?”

In truth, he hadn’t had time to make the inquiries he would have liked to. He had been too preoccupied with Michael and Adelaide and Dot herself.

He believed in what he had told her, however. Now he just had to turn his words into actions, so that he wouldn’t disappoint Dot. Not again.

“We should probably return to the party,” he said despite his urge to remain, and she nodded.

“Yes, we should,” she said, reaching up to tuck the fallen pieces of hair back into the arrangement on her head. “Wouldn’t want the two of us to be compromised, now would we?”

He heard the ire in her tone and stepped forward to address it, to tell her that she shouldn’t be concerned, for he was actually planning on being married to her, but the door was opening again, this time revealing Dot’s mother.

“Dot, where have you—oh. Lord Mandrake.” Immediately, her expression changed to one of pleasure. “How lovely to see you. And with Dot. I do hope the two of you are getting along.”

“Of course,” he said with a curt nod. “How could one not get along with a woman so lovely as your daughter?”

“That is certainly what I always say!” Lady Fitzroy said with a high laugh, which caused Dot to roll her eyes behind her mother’s shoulder. Edward had to press his lips together to keep from smiling.

“You must call upon us one of these days,” Lady Fitzroy continued. “Dot so enjoys carriage rides.”

“I do?” Dot said, before grimacing when her mother dug her elbow into her side.

“Of course you do. Especially with a man as handsome as Lord Mandrake.”

“Yes. Well, time for us to return inside,” Dot said, reaching out and looping her arm through her mother’s. “Good evening, Lord Mandrake.”

Once the women were around the corner, Edward allowed the smile that had been threatening to grow to cover his face.

When he had first decided that Dot would make an ideal wife, he was most concerned about whether her family would be a problem. Now, it was his family causing scandal, while hers seemed inclined to see the two of them together.

It was not what he had planned or expected, although he was beginning to learn the hard way that was often how life worked.

He didn’t have a chance to speak to Dot again the rest of the evening – he couldn’t very well ask her for time outside again, not with so many eyes around them. Lady Carroway, for certain, would have paid attention and somehow used it against them; of that, he was sure.

He hoped Dot would follow through with her plan to call upon him tomorrow.

Her true purpose might be to see Adelaide. But he would have to find time alone with her to discuss this. Now that he had been released from his fog of desire, he was still uncertain if he could marry a woman who worked as a midwife. But somehow, they had to come to an understanding.

For he didn’t think he could live without her. He certainly couldn’t see himself with any other woman now.

It had to be her.

One way or another.