Bound by Your Touch (26 page)

The smile dimmed into something more human. "You came to find me," she said.

"They thought you lost, up at the house."

"Oh, dear. I hope no one was worried."

Something else clicked in his head. Her sister had not been worried. She hadn't even expressed surprise. "Not at all. That is—you like it, don't you? You were not caught out here in the storm; you came out after it."

Her lips quirked. "Perhaps I felt in need of a bath." Then she shrugged. "I didn't think I'd be missed."

It was an odd little statement, but her expression was tranquil, accepting. As he stared at her, his embarrassment ebbed. A dozen discomforts dimly registered: his clothes were damp and clammy, his shirtsleeves sticking to his skin, and the rain pricked his cheeks like needles. But—it came to him suddenly—she had a point. There were things to be admired here.

He exhaled and looked around. Nothing to be seen for more than a few feet; the mist had thickened. But the smell of the startled earth was sharp and heady, as if everything were rising under the slap of the rain: rich loam, raw young green things, sap and grass, broken flower stems. A faint note of ozone overlay it all. Lightning lingered invisibly around them.

Lydia stepped past him, off the pier. After a moment's surprise, he slowly followed. As she trailed to a stop, her hands reached into the mist and pulled back into visibility, as if from the ether, the soft crimson nap of a rosehead. "They thrive in the rain," she said softly. "See how they open to it?"

The words registered low in his gut. Everything in him tightened. It was the remark of a voluptuary—of the woman she could be, if she only let herself. If only she were able.

A strange feeling moved through him, then. It was something like affection, but softer, more harmful to his balance. Of course she ran into storms. Like rooftops, they were safe for her. No one around to see her break the rules. She knew that no one had missed her at the house, she had counted on no one bothering to chase her. They were idiots, all of them.

He breathed deeply. He could smell the roses, now.

But she was wrong; they didn't like the rain at all. The rain forced the petals open; the roses merely submitted to it.

She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. He met the regard squarely. He'd expected her appeal to be a passing fancy, a temporary madness—that the next time he saw her, or a few weeks from now at the latest, the novelty would pall. How odd. How astonishing. "Is it some game by which you amuse yourself," he began to ask—
letting everyone think you standoffish, cold, disinterested
—but his throat closed over the rest of it. His curiosity was swamped by a strange fear that she would not answer honestly.

She frowned. She had no idea what he meant. Or perhaps she did, for now she looked away and shifted on her feet, uncomfortable. It was occurring to her that she had revealed too much of herself. He studied her long nose. Perfectly straight—it was a wonder her spectacles were not always slipping. Her mouth was plump in repose, carefully expressionless.
Too late,
he thought with sudden, fierce pleasure.
Too late, Lydia. I have seen you now.

The mist flashed a bright white. She gave a small smile, quickly quashed. Well, then. She was still enjoying herself, but did not like his audience. She did not need to uphold this pretense. Not with
him,
for God's sake. That she continued to do it felt, bizarrely, like a betrayal. He remembered out of nowhere the day he'd discovered what Boland was doing, the helpless sick anger it had roused in him. And the hurt, as if his feelings were at all important in it. He'd put the wrong words to Stella, that day. What he wouldn't give to be able to take them back.
My God,
he'd said.
I'm going to kill that son of a bitch.
And then:
Why the hell didn't you tell me?

He was not going to ruin this moment, or speak truths that would only give her cause to run. He took her arm and pulled her toward the boathouse.

For a moment, she resisted. It provided him an opportunity to channel his frustration. Beneath his tightening fingers, her muscles and flesh were firm. Here was the most elemental hypocrisy imaginable: to be younger than one wanted to be. She had decided herself too ancient for the more limber emotions, but she could not change her flesh. She could not change the way it spoke to him, or the fact that he could care for it, could tend its needs, better than she knew.

They stepped together into the small shed. A line of paddles hung along one wall and the air smelled of wood varnish and wax. She pulled away, her sodden skirts hissing across the planks. He shook his head vigorously, taking a childish pleasure from the knowledge that the droplets spattered over her. Inexplicable, this need to provoke some, any, reaction from her. It writhed inside him with a life of its own. It wanted to reach out and grab her, to shake her and make her pay attention.

She refused to grant him satisfaction. Her concentration was all for the straightening of her skirts. Long moments she spent fussing with them, until, in the silence, it perhaps became apparent to her that they no longer offered a credible pretext for her interest. She looked up, and her eyes widened as she found him watching her.

She was not playing a game. She had no idea of the effect she had.

The realization should have assuaged his annoyance. It did not. Christ, he had made a fool of himself over her how many times now? And still she remained naive. How could a grown woman be so fundamentally ignorant of her own appeal?

Apropos of nothing, she said, "I miss the country. We are always in town now, it seems." From the note of apology coloring her words, he gathered that she was offering this tidbit—aggravatingly impersonal, as if they were strangers—by way of explanation.

But he listened more deeply than she assumed. There was something about her voice, he thought. Surely he had noticed it before. At their first meeting, surely, he had remarked the huskiness beneath those carefully gauged tones. A bit of savagery there, no? As though she were biting down on the things she had really rather say.

She would say them to him. Again and again, for as long as she liked, until she no longer feared to speak honesdy of herself. The decision crystallized in his mind, bringing with it a deep satisfaction, as though some long-pondered question had finally been resolved.

For the moment, though, he merely smiled. "You might try gardening, then. Running out into storms is decidedly de trop."

One brow winged upward. "Viscount," she said, as staidly as a chiding nursemaid. "Do you now offer etiquette lessons? And here I thought you were an
original"

Poor girl. She hadn't realized it yet, but her game was up. The starch could no longer fool him. "Miss Boyce," he replied, in a fair imitation of her tone. "I know you take pleasure from disparaging the manner in which I live, but let us recall that
you
are the one who chose to go haring into a storm."

She calmly regarded him. "I did not ask you to come after me. I expect it was Sophie who requested it?"

His smile grew into a taunt. "Correction. You wonder if she even knows that you're out here. Alone with me. Whether anyone knows, for that matter."

"I have been alone with you before."

"Oh yes," he said softly. "Some of my fondest memories concern those times."

She was not easily flustered, in this mood. "How fearsome you are!" Humor flickered at the corner of her mouth. "I suppose I should run back into the storm to escape you."

He considered it. "You could try." No time like the present to begin a project. "It might be amusing."

Her smile faltered. She looked away. Knowledge unfurled in his brain: the idea of being chased excited her.

His own breath was suddenly not quite steady. He could picture it. Her hair coming unbound, streaming behind her as she crossed the lawn. "Has no one ever done it?"

"I beg your pardon?"

It was all coming together in his mind. A picture had been assembling, and now he had a sense of the outlines. In a few more moments, it would emerge in high clarity. He'd have her figured out. Pinned. Nailed to the wall. As a scientist, she would appreciate his thoroughness. "Has no one ever chased you, Lydia?"

She laughed, and the look she gave him was so frank, so direct, that his breath caught. "Yes," she said, "it seems someone has done. The question is why. Why are you here, Sanburne?"

"James," he murmured. She had decided to go toe-to-toe with him. Good for her. "Is it so odd that I should be here?"

"This isn't your sort of crowd,
Sanburne"

"Perhaps I long for country company."

"Ha! I don't believe it. Far too pedestrian for a man of your son."

"Smart girl," he said. "Why do you think I'm here?"

"Boredom, maybe."

"You know I'm not bored in the slightest."

"Oh," she said, drawing out the word, making it mock him. "I'm meant to be flattered by that."

"Are you?"

"Let me think on it."

The nastiness of her tone took him off guard. And then, just as quickly, delighted him. The sarcastic, prickly little thing.

Another crack of lightning split the sky. She mistook his movement toward her for alarm. Amusement crossed her face. "Frightened? Think we'll be struck?"

"Oh, most definitely," he said, and took her hand to pull her to him.

Chapter Twelve

She
did not let him draw her forward. The storm
CJ
had activated some electric impulse that moved her to take the step willingly. His jacket felt cold and sodden. She didn't like it. It had to go. She pushed her hands beneath his lapels to force it off. It hit the floor with a wet, thick, slapping noise that pleased her. Her aggression pleased her. It dizzied her, made her drunk She squeezed his bicep more tightly than could feel pleasant to him, but he made no complaint. Did he like it? Oh, she did not care. This restless, breathless feeling knocking through her might have been desire, but it could as easily be anger. The only thing clear to her was that she'd had it wrong, worrying about what she revealed of herself, of what he or anyone else might think about her. It was not
their
opinions that mattered. "I do not do this for you," she said.
I do it for myself.

The barest hesitation. And then, very low, he said, "Fair enough."

Her mouth twisted. Of course he would not mind. What matter to him if her motives were selfish? The man could not be hurt; he had an immunity to others' opinions.
Hers
would not deserve more import than any passing strangers. For all he knew, she would have lain down with any man to wander across her tonight. She was in a mood; he was there; it was convenient. He did not question this. And it should not matter to her that he failed to care.

His lips touched hers. Their heat threw her off. She had been cold without realizing it. She leaned into him. His tongue teased her lips too gently for her mood. She was not some frightened girl in need of solicitude. She started to pull back to make a nasty remark but his hand fisted in her hair to hold her still. She gasped as pins popped free, tinkling onto the floor. His fist tightened, holding her to him as his kiss became forceful.
Yes,
she thought,
this
—he was ravishing her mouth as though he'd done it a thousand times, as though there were no longer room for any fear or uncertainty, only an ambition to uncover new ground, to produce something that would surprise them both. He was always turning out to be cleverer than she'd imagined.

Dimly she became aware of his free hand pressing on her waist, turning her as though to dance. She had told the truth: she did not like to dance. Men assumed that a spinster wanted for excitement.
Dried-up.
They made a point of spinning her wildly across the floor. Once she had fallen, and thereafter she'd declined all invitations. The humiliation echoed through her now like a premonition. She would embarrass herself, here. She would make some mistake.

But he did not kiss her as though she were a spinster. He never had done. And the deuces with it! Even if she fell, she did not care!
She
would lead. She pulled out of his arms, her feet skipping backward soundlessly, light and fleet. Rain muttered dimly against the roof, but the air within this little shed felt hushed and full, heavy with expectation. She had been amazed, sitting by his side in the museum, to realize she was flirting; but only now, when she had left flirtation behind, did she realize its true nature. It was light and easy and aimless. Her backward retreat was too deliberate for flirtation, his steady advance too focused and silent. Both of them shared a goal now, and they pursued it with primal intent. His expression, in the dim light, looked grave, almost grim. She had no urge to smile as the wall touched her shoulder blades.

His palms struck the wall on either side of her head. Over his shoulder, the line of windows flooded white, and the sky beyond them blanched, revealing, for a second, a bank of moving clouds. And then his mouth was addressing hers. She groped with one hand to find the point of his elbow, letting it fill her palm as his tongue filled her mouth. Her other hand cupped the hollow at the base of his skull. It was unexpectedly soft, and an odd tenderness rose in her, quite at odds with the fierceness of this kiss. Every person was his own country, she thought, governed by a private language, a personal reason and custom. She was still discovering herself, but she thought she might use him as a guide: he was not the least complicated of her acquaintances. Whatever passed through his mind, whatever drove him to kiss her like this—he kissed her as earnestly as a prayer—it was right and good. And all of it, all the complex curious intricacies of James Durham, were here, bound by muscle and warm flesh, in the span of her hands.