Page 119 of The Ladies Least Likely
The shadow moved again, and her heart thumped.
Ren . She had to see him. Harriette clenched her teeth and pulled herself up through the foliage, feeling her skirts catch in a hundred places, hoping the fabric proved heavier than the clutching branches.
She crept along an upper branch and finally threw a leg over the decorative railing that lined the upper floor.
It held her weight, thankfully, and she swung both legs over, then inched along the tiny platform until she came to the window where the shadow moved.
Her heart slammed her chest with the force of her excitement, nervousness, and fear. Before her mind could cast up the many reasons this was all a terrible, terrible idea, she forced her way over the threshold of the window and into the room.
The man stood at the far side, his back to her.
Her heart stopped beating. He was tall and intimidating and his stride was firm and long.
He wore a small white wig, and the black ribbon tied back a small queue that hung down a back that was broad and very firm-looking under a tight expanse of dark blue silk.
The tails of his coat brushed a rear that was equally firm and well-shaped, and the blue silk breeches and white stockings fitted legs that were muscled and straight.
This couldn’t be her Ren, but perhaps he knew where Ren was, and whoever he might be, he was a well-formed fellow.
Harriette held her breath waiting for him to turn around.
She’d risk being thrown out on her ear, or into the watchhouse, just to see what kind of face went with such a splendid, well-proportioned body.
He appeared to be pacing the room, a large dressing room, probably his, and when he reached the end of it he wheeled around. Harriette’s breath stopped altogether.
His face was a gift from the gods, strong-featured, clean-lined, with the kind of elegant symmetry perfected in ancient Greek sculpture.
Strong jaw, straight nose, and a noble, thoughtful brow that drew into an immediate scowl when he spotted her.
He froze, and they stared at one another while the rest of the world melted away.
The blue of his suit made his eyes searing, brilliant.
They burned into her, scattering thought.
“Well, that’s luck,” Harriette breathed. “I got the right room. Hello, Ren.”
He’d grown into a man, but she knew those eyes.
She flung herself across the room at him, wondering if he’d feel as good as he looked.
She lifted her hands to slip them around his neck, thoughtless in her relief and surprise and something else, something unnamable and unknown, that shook her powerfully at the sight of him.
Faster than her eye could follow, his hand moved. He caught her wrists and held them away from him, hauling her up short. His eyes were the blue of deep ice and his frown forbidding.
“You presume much, miss, when we do not know each other.”
Her mouth fell open. The cool, distant expression on his face doused her like a cold rain, freezing her veins. In every scenario she’d run through in her head, never had she thought of this one.
She tried to tug her hands free. He was much, much stronger than she was, holding her wrists in his powerful grip. She stared into his stony face with astonishment and despair.
“I know you,” she whispered. “You’re Renwick. How can it be you have forgotten your Harriette?”
The vision in red silk, up close, was a bigger shock than she had been across the room.
His senses reeled under the onslaught. Her enormous eyes were an earthy brown color with golden flecks that seemed to shift and sparkle.
She was quick and lithe, the hands he held warm to the touch.
Her skin shone with a healthy rosy hue that looked warm and soft all over, including the tops of her breasts, pushed up toward his eyes by the tight bodice of her gown.
Her hair was dressed in enormous puffs but was the dusty-red color he remembered, sunset behind a veil of smoke.
Once she had dared him to eat the mushrooms they’d found, the small yellow-brown discs that she swore gave one magical visions.
Instead the mushrooms had made him feel wobbly and off balance, foolishly excited over the smallest things, and that was exactly how he felt now as her eyes, her skin, her hair, her scent overwhelmed him.
Somehow she always smelled like fresh wind and new-mown hay, and he wanted to close his eyes and revel in the giddy tide that threatened to drown him.
Harriette .
Harriette? This exquisite creature in taunting red, with the mouth-watering curves of a woman full formed, bore no resemblance to the scruffy, frizzy imp who had led him on tramps through the meads and woodlands of Shepton Mallet that golden summer.
He stared into her face, searching for anything he recognized.
Her lashes were thick enough to get lost in, making the golden flecks in her eyes stand out brightly.
Her red mouth had an enchanting pucker to the corners, as if she were smiling at some inner delight.
Her neck was smooth and long and it led down, down, to that beckoning shadow between her perfect breasts that made a man want to burrow in and discover what lay beneath.
He knew her. He knew the moment he touched her. He knew, actually, the moment she landed in his room. Who else but Harriette Smythe would dare?
But beautiful women did not throw themselves at the Earl of Renwick. Even now, he couldn’t afford to let down his guard.
“Rhette?” His voice rasped in his suddenly dry throat.
Impossible. In his memory, in his dreams, she had simply been a taller version of herself, with the sprinkle of freckles across that nose that turned up at the tip, that same tendency to set her jaw when she was annoyed or angry, that same long stride, and the ability to face life head on, usually with colorful language.
Never had he imagined she would become—delicious.
The pucker at the corners of her delectable mouth deepened into an impish smile. “Of course it’s me. Aren’t you going to kiss me hello?”
He stared stupidly at her luscious lips, feeling lost. Harriette, here. She’d found him after all. She’d come for him.
Eleven years disappeared, erasing the composure he’d acquired and the persona of the polished gentleman that he’d constructed with much effort and help.
The wisdom, the guard, the studied distance he’d learned to assume around others—all of it vanished and he was the tongue-tied, stammering, ill-gaited Earl of Renwick that the village boys laughed and threw stones at.
And unlike before, this new, crimson-clad, dangerously alluring Harriette didn’t offer escape or rescue or refuge.
She was danger and temptation and sin. If he kissed Harriette Smythe, he knew with utter certainty, he would tumble down some well deeper than the caves that laced Shepton Mallet, and there would be no retrieving him.
If he kissed Harriette Smythe, he would cross some threshold, enter some new knowledge, and be lost to this world completely. He wasn’t ready to disappear like that.
“You’re as bold a baggage as I remember, Harriette Smythe,” he said, lowering her wrists and releasing her. He took a step backwards and a bracing breath of air. “All right, let’s have it out then. What is it you want from me?”