Intentions of the Earl (26 page)

Brooke needed no more convincing and pulled
his head back down to hers. This time it was her turn to be in
control of their kiss. Andrew groaned and he rolled her onto her
back. He carefully ran his thumbs along the sides of her soft
breasts; as she relaxed more under him, his caresses got
bolder.

Andrew heard her let out an excited sigh when
he ran his thumbs under and around the sides of her breasts. “Do
you like that?” he asked between kisses.

“Yes, oh yes,” she breathed.

He had certainly gotten lucky with Brooke.
Not only did her body respond to his, but she openly admitted to
enjoying his kisses and touches.

As his lips went back to kissing hers, his
hands went to work on the front of her gown. It didn't take him
long to learn the bodice of her gown was too high for him to be
able to free her breasts just by tugging it down. If he did, it
would rip. His hands roamed while his brain tried frantically to
think of another way to expose her chest to his thirsty eyes. He
reached up to her shoulders and found that her sleeves were not
very tight. If he were able to slip them over her shoulders and
pull them down a bit, he could free her breasts.

Brooke offered no resistance when Andrew
grabbed her sleeves and started pulling them down from her
shoulders. She gasped when his lips left hers and began to kiss her
cheeks, then her jaw, and finally down her neck and along her
collarbone.

His hands were still working on getting the
sleeves down and revealing her breasts, but her shoulders were bare
and his lips ached to kiss them, then they did. He gave them slow,
gentle, lingering, open mouth kisses.

Brooke let out a soft sigh, her head rolled
back and her eyes closed.

Andrew worked her gown down far enough that
given only a little jerk, her breasts would be bared for him. He
moved his lips from her shoulder up to the sweet hollow of her
neck. He kissed her there with an open mouth, running his tongue in
the depression. When she let out a gasp and arched her back from
the sensation, he gave her gown that little jerk it needed.

Andrew was torn between feeling rather proud
of his maneuverings and too lust fogged to care. His eyes connected
with her wonder-filled brown eyes before lowering. His gaze
traveled from her eyes to her swollen ruby lips then descended to
further down her body. When his gaze settled on her chest, he
blinked.

Chapter 21

Brooke had been lost in the moment, so taken
with Andrew’s kisses and caresses, she hardly registered that he
was trying to get her gown down. Not that she was completely
unaware, mind you; she did know that he had gotten her shoulders
bare. Maybe she didn’t know at first, but when he started to kiss
her there, she knew.

When he gave her gown a jerk though, her daze
started to rapidly fade. But to be honest, his confused face
complete with blinking eyes brought her all the way to reality.

Trying her best to suppress a giggle, born
equally because of his confusion as much as her own mortification,
she said, “I um…ah…as you can see,” She took a breath. How exactly
does one say that they bind their breasts?

Andrew’s face was one of complete
bewilderment. “Why on earth did you bind your breasts?” he asked
flatly, without regard that he had just asked her a question about
a topic no gentleman should speak to an unmarried lady about.

He's so confused his brow didn’t even arch,
she thought with a smile.

Absolutely nothing on this Earth would make
her tell him the real reason, which was because they were rather
small, so small in fact, that even corsets that were meant to push
them up did not help. At least if she bound them, she could add as
much padding to them as she felt necessary with no chance of it
being revealed that she stuffed or just how small they really were.
She knew her mother and sisters knew she stuffed, but she
desperately hoped Papa didn’t. She honestly doubted Mama and her
sisters knew exactly how much of her bosom was rolled up linen
though.

“Well, you see, in their natural state, my,”
she gestured to her chest, not being as brave as he was to say the
word, “do not quite fit this gown appropriately, so I had to bind
them to make them fit.” She’d let him draw his own conclusion, and
if it were the wrong one—which was likely—that was his own
fault.

Andrew nodded. Then his face took on a bright
smile that Brooke would have bet her life meant that he assumed the
wrong reason for the binding.

Their eyes locked and Andrew swallowed so
loudly that it sounded more like a gulp. Then wordlessly, he
started running his hands along the top of her bindings.

“What are you doing?” she asked shakily, her
eyes growing wide and terror starting to form in her chest.

“Removing it of course,” he said with a
devilish smile.

She could tell he really meant to do it, but
now she didn’t want him to. Had she not been wearing it when he
tugged her gown down, she may not have cared, but now that her mind
was no longer clouded by lust, she was nervous and rather
embarrassed. “No,” she said quietly. “I think it would be best if
we headed back.”

Andrew’s face fell, but he nodded and said,
“As you wish.”

Together, they righted their clothes as best
they could and packed up the picnic hamper in silence.

Andrew helped her onto her horse then mounted
his own.

“I had a pleasant picnic,” Brooke said after
a few minutes, trying to eliminate the uncomfortable silence that
was choking them.

“So did I.”

Brooke felt the conversation had already run
into a dead end. She’d hoped they could use that as a way to talk
about ordinary things on the way home, but he'd not taken the
bait.

After a few minutes of riding in silence,
Andrew interrupted her thoughts. “How do my kisses rate?”

Brooke’s head snapped in his direction. “What
are you talking about?” she asked tersely, although she had a good
idea. She noticed Gateway and Andrew had spoken briefly before he
came and sat next to her, but she would have never dreamed Gateway
would tell Andrew about their conversation. She groaned. Of course
he would, that was just Gateway’s personality. He liked to stir up
as much turmoil as possible without a second thought to how it
would affect anyone else. He was such a jacknapes.

“I think you do,” Andrew countered, not
unkindly.

“All right, you had your moment of confession
earlier, now shall be mine. I assume you spoke to Gateway about our
conversation on the lawn. It’s true that I kissed Gateway. I found
our time together in the garden disgusting and nothing that I'd
wish to repeat, not even in a nightmare, and I told him as much. As
for other gentlemen I’ve kissed,” she gave a shrug, “there weren't
so many. But there were a few. However, I feel no guilt about it. I
know without a doubt that you’ve kissed more females than just me,
and I expect no explanation about those kisses, therefore, I shall
not give you one.”

Her words brought him up short. Everyone knew
boys past the age of fourteen had kissed a multitude of women, and
it was impolite for women, even their wives, to ask them about it.
Yet, women were only supposed to kiss their husbands, and maybe
their fiancés. Brooke had always found that to be unfair.

“Is it fair to assume by your reaction to my
kisses today that you do not feel an aversion to them?” Andrew
asked, raising his brow.

She flushed. “Why would you ask that when
it's so obvious?” she accused in a tight tone.

“Because I wanted to see your face color,” he
replied honestly.

“I shan’t give you that privilege in the
future,” she said sternly, hoping it was true.

Andrew waved his hand dismissively. “How
unfortunate for you that you cannot control it.”

“I can, too,” she countered sternly. “I’ll
prove to you I can. Say whatever you wish, and I shall not give you
the satisfaction of my face changing.” She was generally good at
playing games with her sisters about not talking, laughing, or
blinking, so how difficult could this actually be?

“How about I describe to you in explicit
detail what I was going to do to you if you were not wearing that
confounded binding,” Andrew teased, his eyes alight with
amusement.

Brooke held her determination, he had not
said anything specific, but she began to have serious doubts that
this would work when she took notice of his eyes and sly smile.

“Do you remember how I was kissing your
shoulders and neck?” When Brooke nodded, his smile became wolfish.
“I would have continued to kiss you like that that on any part of
your body that was bare. Which, had it not been for those
confounded bindings, would have been your breasts,” Andrew said in
a husky voice. “I do believe, Miss Banks, you just lost.”

Brooke just stared at him. She could feel her
skin get hotter and knew she had colored just as he had predicted.
Drat this man. How could he do this to her? His words brought her
back to lying beneath him on the blanket as his hands and lips
caressed her.

Brooke sniffed and inclined her head. “You,
sir, are no gentleman,” she proclaimed. Then she gave Bluebell a
slight kick to increase her speed.

From behind her, she heard Andrew snort and
laughingly say, “No gentleman, indeed.”

Bluebell trotted toward the house at a
moderate pace with Brooke atop laughing as she thought of Andrew
and their picnic together.

She hadn’t noticed Andrew hadn’t caught up
with her yet when not far ahead of her on the path came Liberty
careening toward her. Her sister's face was flushed and she was
waving her hands wildly, she actually looked as if she were running
away from a band of attackers who were bent on burning her at the
stake.

“Liberty, what’s the matter?” Brooke shouted
to her sister.

“
Him!”
Liberty exclaimed. “That awful,
dratted man is the matter. I swear, Brooke, I cannot abide him a
moment longer, we must hatch a plan to send him back to whatever
hole he crawled out of.”

Brooke didn’t need to ask who Liberty was
talking about, she knew. She thought there was something a little
bizarre about Mr. Grimes, but nothing that would lead to any
rational human being having such an adverse reaction to him. “What
happened now, Liberty?” she asked as she slowed her horse to a
walk.

Liberty opened her mouth to tell her when
Brooke put up a hand and said, “This time, please do not leave any
crucial parts out of the story.”

Her sister turned a little pink, but shook
her head as if to shake off any guilt about leaving out why Mr.
Grimes had insulted her the day before. “We were playing bowls; you
know that game where your roll your wooden ball toward the target,
which is called a jack.”

“I do not think that I need a run down on how
the game is played, Liberty,” Brooke exclaimed rather rudely. “Just
get on with what happened. I haven’t got all day, and I am not
particularly comfortable atop this beast.”

Her sister nodded. “I wanted to play. When I
asked to join, nobody told me no, but several players lost
interest, including Mr. Grimes.” She gave a little sniff. “I called
him back, and talked him into playing.”

Brooke rolled her eyes. Knowing Liberty, it
was more likely she had coerced him into playing.

“We began to play and everything was going
well until someone suggested we bowl in teams. What I had not
realized when I agreed was that I would have to partner Mr. Grimes.
I tried to act gracious—even though he was snarling—and took my
spot next to him. When his turn came, someone rolled him a bowl
from the rack and he made no move to catch it and it rolled right
on my toe.”

Brooke tried not to laugh at her sister’s
outrage at what she knew was probably an accident. “What happened
next?”

“He mumbled an incoherent, and insincere
might I add, apology, took his bowl, and sent it toward the green.
I was still upset about my toe, which seemed to be of no concern to
him, so I might have…well, I may have overreacted a bit in
retaliation. But that is no excuse for what he did afterward.”

Brooke held up her hand again and gave
Liberty her piercing stare before demanding, “What exactly did you
do?”

Liberty’s face went redder and said very
quietly, “I may have elbowed him.” Then her eyes began to burn with
rage and she went on with her story, “But not as hard as he would
have everyone believe. I pretended I needed his help, and when he
came up behind me, I quickly dropped the ball to the ground and
brought back my elbow, where I made direct contact, you would have
been proud.” Her bight smiled faded when Brooke didn't immediately
congratulate her.

“What happened after you elbowed him?” Brooke
asked sharply, piercing Liberty with her gaze.

Liberty just stood still and stared over
Brooke’s shoulder. Brooke turned her head to see what Liberty was
looking at. There, just a few feet away, Andrew was sitting on his
horse listening intently to Liberty’s story.

“Miss Liberty, do you know where you hit the
man?” Andrew asked carefully.

Brooke looked at him with a puzzled look. Why
should it matter where the man got hit?

“I—I don’t know,” Liberty stammered. “In his
midsection, I expect.” Her brow furrowed in confusion and her mouth
was set in a prim line.

“You don’t know?” echoed Brooke. “He didn’t
say?”

“No, because a gentleman does not discuss
body parts in mixed company,” Liberty said archly, inclining her
head.

Brooke flushed. Liberty’s comment reminded
her of her earlier conversation with Andrew about her breasts.

Andrew coughed. “What happened next, Miss
Liberty?”

“Well, he let out this high pitched yelp.
That’s how I knew I had not truly injured him; his reaction was too
false to be of true pain. He leaned over for a minute before
hobbling away. I thought that would be the end of it. But then Papa
summoned me and said I must make amends.” Liberty’s tone had gone
from excited to full of hatred. “I saw Mr. Grimes was in the room,
and that beast had the nerve to say, ‘I would prefer that she just
stay away from me from this point forward, that’s the best way for
her to make amends.’