4
The skin on the back of Mary’s neck prickled. Trying her best to ignore it, she looked very deliberately at the line of dancers. The sensations were caused by Lord Framlington’s stare. He had been staring at her for an hour, as though he expected her to respond. Perhaps he thought she would seek an assignation. She could hear him in her head, meet with me, Mary.
It was nonsense of course, she was not psychic. It was her urge. Yet he would applaud her weak conscience if he heard the words, and say, do what you want to do, not what you should .
I know you feel the same for me as I feel for you! His shout had echoed ever since.
How could he know? And how had he managed to invade her thoughts so completely after one kiss? But it had not just been since his kiss; ever since she’d danced with him, he had taken up lodgings in her head.
She felt the moment he looked away, she had no idea how, but it was like a physical touch sliding off her skin. She glanced across the room as she skipped in a round with other dancers. He set a half-empty glass on the tray of a passing footman and left the ballroom, and she presumed the ball.
A sense of desertion tugged low in her stomach and an ache settled like a cloak about her heart.
Was it over? Had she spurned him successfully? That had been her intention, to cut him dead. Perhaps he’d tired of playing with her. There were a dozen other heiresses on the market. She was not his only choice.
But you were his choice. Her traitorous heart thought it a compliment that a man of Framlington’s looks and reputation wanted her as his wife.
‘Idiot,’ Mary said aloud as the dance ended.
‘What have I done to deserve that charge?’ Derek, her good-natured partner had heard the exclamation that was aimed at herself. ‘Did I step on your toes?’ He offered his arm to walk her to her parents.
She shook her head, forming the false smile she’d relied on tonight. ‘I was speaking to myself. I have agreed to dance with two partners for the supper set, I must apologise to someone.’
He accepted the excuse. Why would he not? Mary was not in the habit of lying. She had told her first lie the day of the Jerseys’ garden party. Now she had lied twice. On both occasions, Lord Framlington was the cause.
When she reached her parents, Derek gave her knuckles a chaste kiss and bowed. The kiss did nothing to her innards. Unlike the kiss on her lips that had twisted her stomach in knots. Physical memories clawed. Mary longed for home. The burden of pretence was too tiring.
‘Is something wrong?’
Her gaze turned to her father.
‘I have a headache.’ If sulking made her pathetic, she did not care. ‘May we go home?’
‘They have not served supper yet.’
‘I know, Papa, but my head hurts.’ Her fingers pressed to her temple. It throbbed with the pain of bottled-up tears. She wished to cry over her insanity.
His brow furrowed and his fingers stroked her upper arm. ‘We will get you home.’
‘I need to use the retiring room first.’
‘Very well, you go up. I shall have the carriage called for and tell your mother. We will wait in the hall.’
Mary left him. Her head was pounding; that was not a lie. She felt sick as she climbed the stairs. The retiring room was quiet. Her mother’s maid was not there; she must have been told they were leaving. Mary used the chamber pot behind a screen and left the room quickly.
The landing was silent. Her thoughts screamed.
‘Miss Marlow.’ Her arm was gripped firmly and she was pulled into an alcove, pressed back against the wall and Lord Framlington’s mouth came down on hers.
Instinctively she kissed him back with a longing that raged through her and took away the pain in her head. Then, almost as quickly, common sense prevailed; she held his shoulders and pushed him away. ‘What do you think you are doing?’
‘You have been playing a good game of ignoring me, but we both know you cannot. As I cannot ignore you.’ The scents of wine and tobacco were on the breath that brushed over her lips.
She moved to turn and leave him, but he caught her wrist and held her still.
‘Miss Marlow. Mary. Darling. Do not deny this. I know what you feel, because I feel it too.’
‘I feel nothing.’
‘And that is why you kissed me a moment ago, and at that garden party. You feel this too. But I cannot come to you in a place like this, so, if you want what I can give you, you must come to me.’
‘What can you give m?—’
‘Kisses, darling. Happiness. A life filled with moments like this. I am looking for a wife.’
‘Gentlemen do not look for a wife in the shadows of a hallway or on a narrow garden path.’
‘I am not seeking any wife, though, I want you, and your family will not let me court you openly. If you wish to explore what we might be, you must come to me.’
‘No.’ She pulled her wrist free, turned away and, her heart pounding, walked quickly to the stairs. Her parents would be waiting below.
‘You may run now, but I know you will come back.’ His voice was low, but she heard him.
* * *
Drew watched her hurry away. He knew she was scared but interested despite her better judgement. She had kissed him back. Her denial was pretence. He’d felt her attraction in her body, her breasts had pressed to his chest, as her slender arms had clung about his neck in the moment before she’d pushed him back.
A sigh escaped his lips. The force of her emotion had caught him off guard. At the garden party she had answered his kiss hesitantly. Tonight, in the first instant when shock had silenced her fears, it was as if she had longed to kiss him again.
He smiled and his palm rested at the back of his neck for a moment, then fell. What if he had been the first man to kiss her? God, that thought pierced his chest like a spear surging through him. The first to press his tongue into her mouth. She had kissed him naively on both occasions.
Lord… The smile lifted his lips higher, as the novelty of it bloomed, uncurling in him like a shoot from a seed, it grew. Hope.
He walked along the hall.
She had already reached the stairs and disappeared.
She was becoming more essential to his future by the day. No other woman would do. He would not be deterred. She simply needed time to fall for him. There was only one way he knew how to woo women, and that was with his body. He could teach her things she could never have imagined. She would fall. He would give her the gift of sensual discovery, and he would have her then.
But if she was running from kisses, he needed to be patient. Let her feign disinterest, he could feign it too, and he would see who gave in first. He would give his little fish more line. Let her have some time to contemplate her choices. He doubted any of her young beaux made her heart race. He had a strong feeling she had never kissed any of them.
He would reel her in in a week or two when she’d had a chance to realise his kisses were better than a hundred dances with those childish fools.