Recklessly Yours (20 page)

“Yes, damn it. I could have spared you the entire unsavory experience had I not deemed my interference less than welcome.”

“You thought I'd gone to tryst?” Her stomach tightened into a ball of dismay.

It was his turn to lower his face in silent rumination. Holly slipped a hand beneath his chin, his evening bristle rough against her fingertips, disquieting and oddly reassuring at the same time.

Reassuring? By his own implied admission, he had believed the worst of her. The fact of it stung, but she couldn't help repeating her question, though this time it came out as a statement. “You thought I'd sought an assignation.”

His nostrils flared. His eyes flashed defiance, but beneath it, uncertainty. Apology. “Yes. I am sorry. But yes.”

“You think that because I enjoy riding fast, I
am
fast.”

He seized her wrist. “Damn it,
no
.”

“I
came back,” he said, the words both an avowal and a plea. Her wrist was small and warm, so delicate in his hand. He gazed down at it, then upward to the satiny whiteness of her arm, the skin so much paler, purer, than his own. “If I had believed you to be fast, I would not have come back to stop you. I would not have wished to save you from a grievous error.”

The error of giving herself to an undeserving boor like Bentley, or for that matter any other man on the face of the earth.

Any man that wasn't
him.

Never mind that he was the one man who couldn't have her, not now, not at any time in his foreseeable future.

“You came back for me. . . .” Her voice melted to a soft little whimper that undid his remaining composure—and his resolve.

“Yes. God yes, Holly.”

He released her wrist and rose onto the settee beside her. Then she was in his arms, sinking into him, her fragrant warmth spreading across his shirtfront. Months and months of standing firm fell away like a house of cards in a sudden draft, leaving him exposed, vulnerable, wanting.

He tried telling himself he'd allow nothing more than a brief touch of their lips, a small taste of what he could not have. But her lips were full and moist and at the slight prod of his tongue, they parted for him, invited him in, and sent him spiraling headlong into pleasure. She tasted of sherry and sweetness with a dash of spice, and every irresistible thing he could think of.

Until he could no longer think at all.

His hands began moving, exploring her through her clothing, and once or twice beneath as he raised her hems to reveal a silk-covered ankle, a shapely calf. His fingertips trembled over long, elegant lines and tight, exquisite curves. He had been correct about the riding. Where other women were soft and malleable, she was firm and sculpted, an artist's masterpiece, but warm, alive, unknowingly seductive.

His lips trailed his fingertips down the curve of her chin, the underside of her jaw, and down, slowly down to the silky skin of her throat. He set his open mouth on the pulse in her neck, savoring the tease of her pulse point against the tip of his tongue. With her lips curved and her head tossed back, she gave a purr and arched in his arms, bringing her body more tightly against him. The slight wiggling of her bottom against his thighs made his throbbing erection unbearable, but he tamped down every urge to proceed any further. If it killed him—which he feared it might—he would take no more from her than could be winked at in the morning.

For he knew—beyond a doubt—that Holly Sutherland would wink at none of this. She was no experienced paramour, no sophisticated, spoiled society lady, and this was no conquest for her, no game of
seduce the earl
with which she would regale her friends afterward.

He would have bet a piece of his soul that each kiss, each touch, held meaning for her, or she would not be here, would not be kissing him back. All the more reason to let her go before another of their heartstrings tangled. He would not be like his father, a man who dallied with innocence, taking what didn't belong to him without a qualm.

But he didn't let her go. He held on and inhaled the fragrance of her skin and hair so deep as to never, ever forget it. He kissed every part of her that he dared—her throat, her shoulders, her lips—so he would always remember the feel of her, the taste of her on his tongue.

Then a thought, a prayer, sprang to his mind: perhaps someday . . .

But when? How long? With horse thief added to his list of attributes, maybe never. No, he couldn't ask her to wait.

Just another moment; then, one more.
His silent plea hadn't concluded before she lowered her head with a shy smile that held more seductive power than the most practiced flirtation. Her skin was flushed, her eyes darkened with desire—a desire he felt as a sharp and poignant stab that began at his heart and pierced through to his loins.

“And to think I'd believed you didn't care for me,” she whispered, pushing back a curl that had fallen from its pins to dangle against her cheek.

Her voice held a chuckle, but a tear glimmered in the moonlight. That tear might as well have been a bullet aimed straight for his chest.

Ah, God. He sealed the gaps between them. “I am sorry I gave you reason to think that.”

And even sorrier that she would come to think it again. Would there be tears then? He didn't want to hurt her. He wanted only to protect her and preserve his own sanity.

But when she looked at him as she was doing now, her eyes alight, her cheeks flushed, her lips moist from his kisses, he thought
to hell with sanity
. And honor and duty and every other ideal he had been born to. He pressed his lips to hers, taking her mouth deeply, thoroughly, in a kiss meant to see him through the rest of his life.

This was the last time, he swore.

But when the time came to lift his mouth from hers, it was not the steel of his resolve that spawned the action. With her pressed sweetly up against him, her lips ingenuously open to his, he had no resolve.
None
. It wasn't honor insisting he do the right thing, but the echo of footsteps coming down the hall.

Holly stiffened against him. “Do you hear that? Could he have come back?”

He struggled to remember the
he
to whom she referred. His arms still around her, he raised his head and listened. “It isn't a man. The steps are too light.”

“Ivy!” she hissed, and pulled away from him.

“Holly?” The urgent whisper shot along the corridor. “Where are you?”

Holly pressed her lips together and quickly smoothed her hands over her skirts.

“How would she have known . . . ?” Colin narrowed his eyes in puzzlement, but there wasn't time for answers. Holly came to her feet.

“Your neckcloth,” she whispered.

He raised a hand to straighten the knot. A glow filled the hallway outside the doorway.

“My hair . . . is it . . . ?”

He took her hands in his own. “Your hair is fine. Just follow my lead.”

The approaching footsteps fell silent. He turned to see Ivy poised in the doorway. She raised the candlestick she held.

“Holly?” she whispered. The light spread through the room and she saw them both. “Oh!” Then she clamped her lips shut.

Before questions could form in Ivy's mind, Colin walked a few steps toward her. “Ivy, I'm glad you're here. Your sister needs you.”

“Oh?” she said again. She shot an anxious glance past him. “Holly, what is it? Has something happened?”

The subdued alarm in Ivy's eyes, alarm that had been there
before
he spoke, most garnered his interest. It was no accident, her showing up this way. She obviously had known where her sister would be, and Colin suspected she knew exactly why Holly had come to this part of the house.

Behind him, Holly said, “The ball had grown wearisome, and I thought I'd find a quiet corner all to myself for a few minutes. I went searching for the duchess's reading room.”

Ivy's puzzled gaze shifted back and forth between them. “Yes, and . . . ?”

“There was a man,” Holly said.

Ivy's eyebrows surged.

“In the corridor.” Holly gestured unnecessarily to the doorway. “He must have thought—that is, he reached for me. . . .”

“Good heavens!” Ivy rushed to Holly and threw her arms around her. “Did he hurt you? Who was it? Colin, did you apprehend him? Where is he now?”

“Please, one question at time,” came Holly's muted plea, spoken against Ivy's ruffled neckline.

Before many questions were answered, Colin bade Ivy to take Holly to their rooms. “She can finish telling you the details, but see to her comfort first.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Ivy agreed. “You poor dear. What a fright. And such an insult.” Her eyes snapped. “What I wouldn't give to have that villain here before us . . .”

“I'll walk you to the main corridor,” Colin said, “and see that you arrive safely. I'll send Miss Willow up as well. Then I must find my mother and apprise her of what has happened.”

“I wish you wouldn't do that.” Holly clasped her hands at her waist. “Your mother has been so kind, and I wouldn't want this incident to color her opinion of me.”

“My mother would not think less of you for something that was not your fault,” he said.

“Many people would think less of me because of it,” she replied quietly, “no matter who was at fault.”

He couldn't deny it. Many a young woman had been ruined for less. If others had seen Holly leave the ball, they would already be wondering why, speculating about whom she might have gone to meet. If the slightest hint of what had happened to her became common knowledge, there would be no stopping the gossip.

He wanted to go to her, take her in his arms again, and assure her she had nothing to regret, not about the man in the corridor, and not about what happened here between them. He wished to do so much more than that—wished he could make everything right by openly declaring for her.

That wish was nothing new. Neither was the fist that closed around his heart each time he thought of her.

 

“How can you be certain that man has no connection to the one who attacked Laurel last year?” Ivy asked.

“Yes, that horrible Henri de Vere,” Willow said breathlessly. “Did you get a good look at him? Did he speak French?”

The question triggered a memory that drew a gasp from Holly's lips. “He called me
mon amie
,” she said. Then she frowned. “Oh, but many an Englishman uses that term. And the way he whispered . . . I cannot say for certain if he spoke with an accent or not.”

Ivy sat on the bed beside her. “Holly, tell us again exactly what he said to you.”

She tried to focus, to see past the glorious images crowding her brain, to think past the earl's masculine scent still lingering on her skin. He had called her Holly, and the sweet timbre of it vibrated against her ear even now, a rumbling caress not unlike the touch of his callused palm, or the bristle of his chin across her cheeks . . . her bosom.

Steeling herself with a breath, she repeated the few guttural words spoken by her assailant, while the things Colin had said—yes,
Colin
now, and never again Lord Drayton—floated through her soul on gossamer wings.

But as her sisters compared the details of tonight's incident with Laurel's attack in Bath last year, Holly acknowledged that those moments in the library had been anything but joyous and carefree. Like those calluses marring his palms, those moments had been marred by . . . sadness. And when he had bid her and her sisters good night and his gaze had fallen upon her, it had seemed as if a curtain had been drawn across his eyes, sealing in their light, their life. She had heard
good night
fall from his lips, but the echo inside her had been of
good-bye.

Pain pressed upon her heart as she admitted he wasn't coming back to her, not in the way he had revealed himself tonight, with his defenses down and his heart open. No matter how naturally passion had sprung up between them, no matter how utterly right it had felt, it would not be repeated. Her throat tightened until she could barely breathe. She might see Lord Drayton tomorrow, but
Colin
would not be back.

Beneath her sorrow, questions hovered. Why had he pushed her away previously, and why again now? What did he fear? What might he be hiding?

“Assuming this man
was
one of the guests,” Ivy was saying, “and assuming it was drink and not malice that prompted his deplorable behavior—”

Holly blew a strand of hair away from her face. “I doubt very much he'll remember what he did come morning.”

Ivy nodded. “It would still behoove us to proceed with care. We mustn't go anywhere alone, any of us.”

“Agreed.” Willow removed her necklace and placed it on the dressing table.

Holly said nothing. She could make no promises other than that she would not be caught unawares again. She had an investigation to complete, a colt to find. And two sisters to protect, not to mention a tiny niece or nephew who must not, under any circumstances, come to harm.

She waited until she heard both sisters breathing evenly from their beds before wrapping her dressing gown around her and slipping from the room. She had a plan for tomorrow and she would need help, but not from her sisters. Quietly she made her way down the corridor and around a corner. The light shining from beneath a closed door filled her with relief. Her hunch had been correct that the person inside would still be up. She knocked softly.

The door opened, and a surprised face blinked out at her. “Miss Sutherland.”