Swept Away By a Kiss (31 page)

Valerie’s lips pursed. Of course, her disgust for Sylvia’s provocative behavior had nothing to do with the fact that the flirt had made the Viscount of Ashford the principal object of her attentions. Nor that Valerie had witnessed Sylvia hang several bunches of mistletoe in the hall only the previous day.

“Dearest Miss Sinclaire,” Mr. Fenton said, ambling forward. “This tree is simply too tall to climb without a ladder. Isn’t that so, gentlemen?” He glanced about for corroboration. Lady Cassandra giggled and several of the others nodded. “I propose we modify the tradition to make it serve our wishes just this once.”

He took Sylvia’s gloved hand. She glanced at Steven with guilelessly wide eyes as Mr. Fenton drew her away to stand beneath the milky bunch of berries. “Mistletoe is mistletoe, after all, wherever it hangs,” he said, and kissed her upon her ruby lips.

At the look of satisfied delight upon Sylvia’s face and Fenton’s smug grin, laughter erupted from the group. But instead of blushing and moving from under the berry-laden branch, she turned to her former companion.

In painful awareness, Valerie watched Steven step lightly to Sylvia’s side. He lifted her hand with elegant grace, bowed, and placed a kiss upon her gloved fingers that would have sent Valerie’s heart into the boughs of the giant oak. Instead, Sylvia’s classically beautiful face wrinkled into a pout.

“Come now, Ashford, that’s not at all how it should be done,” Lord Michaels said cheerily, grasping Sylvia’s hand. Drawing back her glove, he kissed her bared wrist. Sylvia’s face instantly brightened.

“Are married ladies unfit for such antics?” Anna murmured to her husband. Valentine pulled his countess under the bough and kissed her upon the lips, but Sylvia was still waiting beneath the mistletoe. With a smile, the earl offered her a chaste kiss upon the cheek. Lord Michaels led Alethea from the circle of laughing onlookers to buss her soundly upon the cheek as well, followed by a less-modest peck from Mr. Fenton upon her lips, and a beautifully executed kiss on the forehead from Steven.

Caught up in the laughter, when it dawned upon Valerie that soon she would be drawn into the fray, she panicked. She might exchange bantering words with him among her friends, but nothing in the world could induce her to accept a public kiss of any sort from Steven Ashford.

A burst of rowdy laughter offered her opportunity to escape. Slipping past a cluster of watching servants, Valerie ducked behind a broad fir. Not far ahead, another group of revelers wandered through the wood, trailed by a pair of spaniels. Valerie clapped her attention upon the dogs’ wagging tails and set off after them.

Steven guessed at the reason for her flight. All he had wanted since releasing her hand upon the castle’s doorstep the night before was to drag her into his arms and kiss her.

Since the night before? Since July when she disembarked from his ship. Since June when he first saw her on the merchantman’s deck and heard her name called. Since before he’d been born, it seemed. He had wanted her forever.

She knew who he was now, and he felt as though he’d been released from prison chains. He no longer needed to pretend disdain or even indifference to her. He could speak with her freely. Or perhaps not freely, but at least as he spoke with other ladies.

His mouth still tasted sour from his affected flirtation with the Sinclaire chit. A necessary evil. Valerie might know who he was, but the remainder of the party still thought him a frippery fellow without a thought in his head.

The longer they believed that about him, the better. He’d only been in society for a fortnight. Soon, when the party at Castlemarch dispersed, the rumors would begin. Speculating upon how he came into the title, someone would recall his father’s death and his mother’s arrival in England. Gossips would remark on how he left as a child, so far from the succession to the title it did not seem to matter what happened to him upon the Continent. By then it would be common knowledge that his mother was not of pure English blood, not even pure European blood. That she had been Catholic.

Gossip would flow. The typical aristocrat had little mind for anything more useful.

So Steven would continue to make pretty with the jades and innocents until he got what he had come for and was free to leave the
ton
behind again.

He would regret only one loss. Profoundly.

Flirting with Valerie would not leave a sour flavor in his mouth. And kissing her would be sheer pleasure. But not in a crowd of drunken revelers, however chastely. Even a lifetime spent training himself to self-discipline could not overcome the fever that ran through him when he touched her. He trusted Valerie to keep his secret. He simply did not trust himself to keep his other one.

She wove her way through the snow-bedecked trees unsteadily. He had driven her to drink, perhaps by leaving her to chew all day upon their last encounter. If he hadn’t gone to the vicarage to check on Jeremiah earlier, he would have already sought her out. Not to kiss her, of course. To talk with her and learn what she knew of Clifford Hannsley.

The villain mustn’t discover that she meant anything to him. If Steven’s suspicions about Alistair proved true, Hannsley would know to be wary of him, further reason to maintain his imbecilic flirtation with everything in a skirt. At least then, any attention he paid to Valerie would not seem marked.

Presently, however, Hannsley was closeted at the castle with Fredericks playing chess, and the others still giggled drunkenly over the weed hanging in the oak. Casting a glance about to make certain no one noticed, he moved off after Valerie.

He found her standing amid a cluster of ancient, thick-boughed fir trees. Her back was to him, her arm bent behind and hand lodged within her collar. Even in such an awkward pose, the sight of her took his breath.

“May I be of assistance, my lady?”

She whirled around. A sliver of ice fell from her fingers. She wiped her hand upon her cloak.

“You are too kind, Lord Ashford, but no thank you,” she said in a dampening tone, swaying a bit.

Steven lifted a brow. She was foxed and piqued with him, an unpromising combination. But then, he didn’t want her promises. He wanted her mouth, her hands on him, her body beneath his, her hungry gaze upon his skin.

He took her arm.

She stiffened. “What are you doing?”

“When I encounter a lovely lady in need, I feel compelled to assist her.”

She jerked around, eyes snapping.

“Do not hand me flummery, sir. After last night, after everything”—her eyes flashed eloquently—“do you think I’m simple? I am not silly little Sylvia Sinclaire, to be easily distracted by your charming smiles and pretty words.”

“Thank God for that,” he murmured, her jealousy settling unreasonably well in his chest.

“And I said I do not need your assistance.” She wrenched free and stumbled away. Steven grinned. Even inebriated she was determined, and exquisite.

She righted herself again and her chin rose in defiance. The movement was so slight, so unconscious, it grabbed at his gut. He wanted her. She knew him—better than she realized even now—and he was tired of holding her off. Tired of resisting.

“I would like to know what would distract you, dear Valerie.” He moved to her. “Mistletoe, perhaps? Or like my words and smiles, is that winter treasure destined to be appreciated only by silly girls?”

He glanced up. Valerie’s gaze followed. Her mouth fell open as she saw the modest bunch of tiny white berries nestled in a bough above. She looked back at him. Her eyes were wide and sparkling with longing.

In an instant, everything changed. Nothing—not a crowd of revelers, a ship full of pirates, or even Clifford Hannsley’s looming presence—could stop Steven from kissing her.

“Mistletoe is mistletoe, after all,” he whispered, closing the space between them and bending his head, “wherever it hangs.”

It was only a kiss. On the lips, with little else involved. Given that two nights earlier he had touched the most intimate parts of her body with his hands and mouth, Valerie should not find it remarkable.

But it was like nothing she’d ever experienced. Perhaps because she had longed for his kiss for six months. Perhaps because he had denied it to her two nights ago even while drawing her body to frenzied pleasure. Perhaps because of the effects of brandy upon her bewildered senses.

Perhaps because she was so utterly, desperately in love with him.

Ever so gently, he brushed his lips against hers as his hands slipped beneath her cloak and around her waist, holding her still.

Valerie’s eyelids fluttered closed.

With the tip of his tongue, Steven traced her lower lip. Pleasure burst into warm, tingling life in her belly, spreading through her legs, to her fingertips, and into her breasts. Her nipples prickled. She sighed and leaned into him, tilting her face up and gripping his arms.

He kissed the corner of her mouth softly, lingering. She shifted to meet his caress and he caught her lower lip, tugging gently until hers parted upon another sigh. He barely touched her, yet every iota of her being felt him, sensed his warm, masculine scent, his hands firm around her waist. A sound rose in her throat, of need laced with desperation.

He took her mouth fully, and Valerie fell into paradise. With confident, delectable pressure he opened her farther, filling her with heat, kissing her as though her mouth was all he wanted, all he needed. His tongue stole along the inside of her lips, washing frissons of pleasure through her. His big hand cupped her head beneath the fall of her hair, and he deepened the caress until nothing remained but his mouth and strength holding her so close, captive, driving her mad with yearning.

It ended much too soon. Through her foggy senses, the laughter of the others came to Valerie. Her eyes fluttered open.

Steven’s gaze focused upon her face. His fingers came beneath her chin and he bent and touched his lips to hers again briefly, with infinite tenderness. He stepped away and took a breath, as though struggling for composure.

“Sweet Valerie.” His voice was low and not in the least bit level. “I have wanted to do that for months.”

Chapter 29

A
spiral of nerves spun through her. “You have?”

“Indeed, I have.” His eyes shone warm and astoundingly candid. The voices of their companions, full of spirits and merriment, were close by. She had run away trying to escape this man’s effect upon her, and now he was looking at her as though he didn’t want her to run, as though he wanted to take her back into his arms and kiss her again.

She could not believe it. He lied. The only truth was that once more he had made her his prisoner, without offering anything for her to trust other than her reckless desire.

She stepped back, wavering upon wobbly legs before jamming her heels into the snow.

“Then why didn’t you kiss me the other night, Monsieur le Prêtre?” she demanded. “I certainly gave you ample opportunity to do so.”

Valerie stared, the breath knocked out of her as a grin split across Steven’s handsome face.

“You are angry,” he said, his tone lighter. “And you are somehow even more impossibly beautiful than usual when you are in a passion.” He adjusted his tall-crowned hat, setting it at a rakish angle atop his shining gold locks.

“Passion? Of course I am in a passion,” Valerie exclaimed. “I am foxed.”

“I noticed that.” The corner of his beautiful mouth curved up again. Valerie’s insides responded as though he touched her there. She groaned.

“Is that why you chose now to finally kiss me?”

“Not very gallant of me, to be sure.” He shrugged, still grinning.

Valerie shoved her fists into her hips.

His eyes sparkled. “It seems I could not prevent myself,” he murmured.

Valerie gulped in a breath. “But what if I do not remember it once I am sober again?” Oh, Lord, had she really just said that? A pox on brandy. A pox on her heedless heart. A pox on noblemen-priests with heated amber eyes.

He stroked her cheek. “I will remind you.” His voice was unmistakably husky.

It took every ounce of her will not to throw herself at him. Beyond his shoulder, Valentine and Lord Bramfield stepped into view from around the trees, the remainder of their party following. Steven pivoted with an open, easy countenance to the others. Dizzy pleasure still coiling through her, Valerie took a deep breath and cast a bright smile toward her friends.