Page 15 of The Viscount Needs a Wife (All for Love #2)

Having eaten, she felt fortified enough to venture out for a stroll in the rose garden.

It was another fine day, so she put on her broadest brimmed hat and took a basket and some pruning shears outside with the intention of picking some blooms for the duchess’s drawing room.

She wandered about the rose beds smelling blooms and selecting a range of different colors.

Bees buzzed and the sun shone gloriously, its heat tempered by a nice breeze.

Another perfect summer day. They were really most fortunate with the weather this year.

“You make a picture, Miss Pringle,” said the viscount behind her, making her start and almost drop the basket. She flushed remembering her illicit thoughts about him earlier this morning.

“Are you fully recovered?” he asked, coming level with her.

“Yes, I am. Thank you,” she said, attempting to cover her discomposure. “And you? And more importantly, Ewen?”

“Ewen is sleeping, I’ve just come from his bedside. The inestimable Mrs. Green has him in hand and the other children also. She appears to be highly competent.”

“That must a big relief for you.”

“It is. I must thank you again—”

“It is unnecessary—”

“No, it is not! Your quick action saved his life. I was moments behind you, that is true, but in a situation such as that, moments count!” He took the basket from her and set it on the ground.

“You must allow me to thank you, to express my gratitude, although I am at a loss as to how to do so. Nothing I can say or do would ever be enough!” The rough emotion in his voice threatened to overset her, and when he captured her hands and brought them to his lips her heart flipped over in a cascade of beats that set her pulse racing.

She gazed up at him startled. His eyes were a stormy green, his expression quite anguished. “My lord—!”

“You don’t understand, Miss Pringle. If I had lost him”—his throat worked—“I don’t know that I would have been strong enough to withstand it!”

Her heart clenched in sympathy, and she leaned forward, seeking some way to comfort him. “I do understand! You have already suffered a terrible loss. To lose a child as well would be unthinkable.” She freed a hand from his grip and touched his cheek.

*

At the touch of her hand, so soft and light upon his cheek, and the glow of compassion in her eyes, he lost what little control he still had of his faculties and reached for the back of her head. He brought her mouth to his and kissed her.

Her lips were soft and sweet, and the tingling pleasure of their touch sent his senses reeling. He hadn’t kissed any other woman than Caro in over ten years, and he was unprepared for the flood of heated desire that the touch of her lips provoked in his body.

He swept an arm round her waist instinctively, to draw her against him, and moved his mouth over hers, exploring and appreciating.

Those luscious breasts he had been lusting after pressed against his chest as he moved his head to savor her lips.

She didn’t draw back, but remained frozen a moment in his embrace, and then he felt her soften and respond tentatively to the movement of his mouth over hers.

He groaned in his throat with the delight of her and parted his lips to lick tentatively at the seam of her mouth.

A gasp from her gave him access, and he swept his tongue into her mouth to taste her.

His arm tightened round her waist, as he deepened the kiss, exploring and teasing as she responded in a way that fired his blood and made him hard as iron.

He moved the angle of his head, tightening his hold, wanting her closer, his mouth wanting to claim and devour. Dimly, somewhere in the back of his head, he knew this was wrong, but he couldn’t seem to stop kissing her. She was water in a desert to his parched soul, and he wanted to drown in her.

A bird call nearby disturbed the peace of the afternoon, and she jerked as if coming back to herself and pulled away, fought her way out of his embrace. Reluctantly he let her go. Dazed by the passion of their kiss, he stared down at her dumbly.

Her eyes were wide, their pupils full and black, her lips swollen from the punishment of his mouth, her breasts rose and fell rapidly in the confines of her modest gown.

“This is wrong, my lord. I could lose my post!” she said, breathless. She backed away and fled, leaving the basket at his feet and the scent and feel of her branded on his soul.

He closed his eyes a moment, adjusting to the loss of her from his arms.

She was right. She was Robert’s employee, and he had just taken advantage of her like the lowest and most disgusting of reprobates.

He had always despised men of his class who took advantage of the servants.

Even as a goatish young lad, he had not done it.

Perhaps it was because his sire had been so free with the chambermaids, and he saw what it did to his mother.

They were both dead and gone now, but that didn’t mean he had leave to start emulating the worst aspects of his sire’s behavior.

Disgusted with himself, he turned aside, and then seeing the basket of roses she had left, he picked it up and took it back to the house, leaving it in the duchess’s drawing room for someone to find. He then went to the library in search of a drink.

*

Annis gained her bedchamber once more, shaken to her core. Hot tears stung her lids and rolled down her cheeks as shame excoriated her soul. She was so close to becoming what she had vowed she never would be: a fallen woman.

All her efforts would be in vain if she let him have his way and, God forgive her, she wanted him to. His kisses had scalded her, his hard lean form pressed against her had been delicious, his lips even more so, the tingling pleasure igniting the fire between her legs and making a strumpet of her.

She stumbled to the bed her hand to her mouth to stifle her sobs.

A governess’s life was lonely, caught between upstairs and downstairs, never belonging in either.

She hungered for the felicity of connection and rapport, and even more perhaps for physical touch, for no one touched the governess.

No, that was not entirely true. Her charges gave her hugs on occasion.

But a young lady’s hug was a different matter to an embrace from a virile man.

The truth was she did hunger for the viscount’s touch.

It had crept up on her over the past few days as she spent increasing amounts of time in his company, as he took her hand to help her down a set of steps or over a rough bit of ground, as he smiled at her and engaged her in conversation as if she were an equal.

As he hauled her and his son against his hot, lean body in the lake.

She was a wanton. There was no way round it. She had let him kiss her, encouraged it, responded in the most brazen fashion to his passion. How am I ever to face him after this?

Annis kept to her room for the remainder of the afternoon, only descending to dinner after a lengthy debate with herself over whether she could face the viscount.

But she reasoned that she would have to face him on the morrow anyway, and it was better to get it over with sooner rather than later.

And besides, she didn’t want him to think she was going to make a fuss about it.

She would behave completely appropriately; her demeanor would give no hint of what had transpired between them.

The sooner it was forgotten the better. And she would be careful not to be alone with him again.

It was essential that no one guess there was anything between them.

Her reputation and the security of her position depended on it.