Page 17 of Surrender to the Earl (Brides of Redemption #2)

Mr. Sanford had a gruff voice that made Audrey feel like he put up with a mistress because he had to. But he seemed to listen respectfully to Robert’s military-orderliness suggestions, and they had a discussion about stable management that Audrey listened to but felt outside of.

Once they were alone again, she said, “Robert, those things could have gone on my list, the one I’m preparing for my discussion with Mr. Sanford.”

“Forgive me—was I not supposed to speak to the man?” he asked, amusement in his voice. “I was a cavalry officer, so I’m considered an expert on horses.”

“I want the servants to trust and listen to me, not you. You won’t be their master, although we’re letting them think otherwise.

” She hesitated. “This is a valid consideration, and one I wouldn’t have to worry about if we call off the engagement now.

There’s no need to keep up the pretense,” she hurried to add.

“That’s a mistake, Audrey,” he said in a low voice. “Come sit by the pond with me.”

“Where we can be alone?” she said just as quietly.

“Exactly.”

As they walked, he described the reeds around the pond, the little dock where a rowboat could be tied up.

“Or I could jump off the dock for a good swim,” she countered, just to shock him.

“ That I would like to see.” Then he turned her about. “The bench is right behind you.”

She sat down as gracefully as possible, then noticed how small the bench was when she could feel the line of his thigh against her skirts. She didn’t quite touch him with her own thigh, but if she moved just a bit …

Oh, what was she doing? “Robert, the engagement was just to get me away from my family. That’s over. I won’t even write to them that we have called it off.”

“So they can learn from gossip?”

She said nothing.

“And do you know how it will look? Like I used the engagement as a ruse to get you alone, away from your family, for only one reason.”

She felt overly warm with a blush.

“And then after a night in the inn, maybe I already took all I wanted.”

For a frozen moment, she imagined that, his kisses, the seduction she couldn’t resist, his hands on her body.

She was no innocent maid—she knew exactly what he meant.

Yet the thought of being intimate with him seemed so exciting, even though as a widow she knew the reality of it.

The heat in her face spread lower, languorously across her breasts and down her body, full of fevered need and desperation.

That’s what it was, desperation, she realized with a start. She was lonely already, lonely and uncomfortable and too needy. But she was under no one’s command but her own. Giving in to these treacherous, fleeting feelings would be a disastrous mistake.

But …

“You are right, of course,” she said at last, embarrassed at how soft and breathless her voice sounded. “I would never want you to seem like an unscrupulous rake.”

“I didn’t say this on my own behalf,” he insisted. “An earl can afford to care little about his own reputation.”

She thought of his scandalous past, and the man who’d killed himself.

“But you, Audrey, would be …” His voice trailed away.

She felt her lips twist into a wry smile. “A Society widow? Is that not what some scandalous widows do, take a lover once their husbands are gone?”

She’d expected him to laugh, but when he didn’t, she grew uncertain. “Robert?”

“Is that what you want, Audrey?” he asked in a husky voice.

She felt the pressure of his thigh, no longer just next to her skirts, but against her own.

“To have people think you a scandalous widow?”

“Surely better than having them think me an invalid, or weak-natured enough to allow myself to be used.”

She thought of the servants she was trying to win over, imagined the rumors of their blind mistress they were already spreading to other servants, and hence to Hedgerley, to the people she hadn’t even begun to meet yet.

“No,” she said at last. “I want to be respected, to become part of the village society, not the fast London Society.”

He eased his thigh away. “That’s what I want for you, too, Audrey. So we will remain engaged for a while longer. Shall we continue our walk about the grounds?”

He took both her hands and pulled her to her feet, and for just a moment she stood before him, skirts tangled with his legs, their hands joined. The autumn wind tugged at them both, but they heard no other sounds, as if they were alone on the grounds.

Suddenly, she felt him looming over her, bending near.

“But if we’re engaged,” he whispered, “cannot a fiancé steal a kiss?”

Even as she gasped, she felt the press of his lips against her cheek.

His skin was rougher than hers with newly shaved whiskers, but his lips—ah, his lips were soft and warm and lingered a heartbeat too long.

She could smell the cleanliness of soap, even beneath the scents of horse and leather from his ride to see her.

She leaned into him, unable to help her weakness.

Yet still their hands were clasped between them, the backs of his hands against her stomach. He felt solid, and she remembered him shirtless in the inn, and her hands on his hot skin.

She swayed, beginning to turn her head into the kiss, wanting more.

But she couldn’t want more—wouldn’t be so weak.

She took a step back, and the backs of her knees hit the bench hard, but at least the kiss was broken.

She cleared her throat, yet her voice trembled. “So you’ve stolen a kiss and proved to everyone we’re engaged for a reason. Very … smart of you.”

He chuckled. “I stole a moment of intimacy, but I’m not sure how much of a true kiss that was.”

“Enough to seem convincing, Robert. Thank you for thinking of my reputation as an engaged widow.”

Now he laughed aloud, and she felt her own smile grow wide. They started back to the house, but her ebullient mood didn’t last.

She’d felt some of these same feelings when Martin Blake had first paid attention to her—flattered and embarrassed and too afraid to hope.

But they’d all been misconceptions. She’d thought Martin cared for her at least, but their wedding night had revealed her true worth in his eyes.

He’d treated her maidenly shyness as an inconvenience, had done nothing to encourage any romantic feelings a bride should experience—or so she’d been told by Molly.

After that, she’d known the twin blows of embarrassment and self-doubt, as if she were unworthy of even a husband’s attention.

And now to feel such desire again for a man who was openly falsifying their attachment—she was so disappointed in herself.

But she was a woman, and he was a man who knew how to seduce a woman’s senses. Was he a rake, then, one of those notorious men who slept with many women, regardless of what the Grand Dames of Society said?

But he’d been gone since he was twenty-one—hardly enough time to be considered a rake. But service in India might have changed him, and not in a good way.

She had to stop these doubts. She’d committed to this course, and she would see it through. He’d be returning to his estate, surely getting caught up in everything an earl had to do. It would be easy to pretend that their attachment was slowly dying.

But not so easy to pretend that she was strong, when she had trouble distinguishing between reality … and the fantasy of her own fevered dreams.