When a Girl Loves an Earl (Rescued from Ruin Book 5) (11 page)

He was delicious. A tingly, delicious drink. A hot, hard, ferocious, pine-scented man who she would be deliriously happy to kiss for the rest of her life. With tongues. And probably more touching.

Of their own accord, her hips writhed against his waist. She needed him to do … something. What that was, she did not know, because his kiss was divine. Gentle strokes of sleek, wet tongue mingled with the firm, grinding pressure of his lips. Oh, she wanted to do this forever. But she wanted more. Was there more? There must be.

He hitched her up higher against his chest, causing her breasts to signal a response. Good heavens, she’d had no idea this much pleasure existed. Her nipples were hardened points, deliciously pressured against him as though they’d craved this all along. The strength of his arms and hands was a marvel. The feel and smell and sensations of him like nothing she could have imagined.

Indeed, she had imagined something sweet. Something chaste. Like a painting of a maiden and her gallant suitor.

Instead, she’d been set afire, the longing a deep ache in her belly and chest, the kiss both a release from the heat and its ever-burgeoning source.

And just when she thought it all might go on forever, his arm loosened around her. And she slid downward against him, startled to feel an odd, stone-like bulge against her belly. Then her feet touched the ground. And his warm, strong hand left her neck to stroke her cheek. And his mouth eased its pressure. And his tongue withdrew.

Then his heat was gone.

And then he was gone.

And all her breath had gone, so that the only sound she could make was her mouth shaping his name.

And the only thing she could feel was a breeze that smelled of rich pine and new roses and the endless sea.

*~*~*

CHAPTER EIGHT

“A temporary victory is merely a meandering path to defeat. And I do not accept defeat.”
—The Dowager Marchioness of Wallingham to Lady Gattingford regarding her efforts to persuade the intractable Lord Tannenbrook of his continued folly.

Mists rose off the River Fenn as James threw his fly fifteen yards upstream, just above a promising eddy. He watched it drift into place, calmly drawing the line through his fingers in small strokes and letting the slack pool at his feet. Within seconds, he felt the tug, gave a flick of his wrist, and lightly set the hook. Then he watched the end of his rod bow alarmingly and jerk as the trout struggled against its fate.

“Good God, man,” murmured Wallingham, sitting ten feet away beneath a rustling willow tree. “What the devil are you using?”

“Green drake.” James employed first his hand then his winch to play the fish, carefully drawing up the remainder of the slack line and following the creature’s course.

“Do you suppose this catch will be weightier than your fourth?”

“Must land him first.” The tension on his rod indicated the fish might be as much as ten pounds, quite large for a trout.

He did not care. For the first time in his many years of angling, he felt not a drop of excitement, nor a crumb of peace. For this, he blamed Viola Darling.

Minutes later, Charles helped him net what was likely his largest catch of the morning. The ordinarily serious-eyed lord grinned like a lad of thirteen as he held the wriggling thing aloft, as pleased as though he’d caught it himself.

“I say, it must be twenty-five inches. Remarkable.” Wallingham moved to stow it with the others in James’s borrowed basket. As he crouched over the creel, he glanced over his shoulder to where James stood gathering up his tackle and securing his line. “I should think you’d be pleased, Tannenbrook.”

James’s frown deepened. “I am,” he lied. He could not explain his discontent to Wallingham, even though the man’s fifteen-year resistance to remarriage paralleled James’s own decision to remain unwed.

In simple terms, Viola had tempted James beyond his sanity. For a brief moment beneath the moon and stars, he had taken the thing he wanted more than breath, more than his own life. And he had not known a peaceful moment since.

How could a man sleep when his body burned hotter than a blacksmith’s fire? The answer: He could not. So, instead, he’d set out at dawn, joined by a surprisingly agreeable Wallingham, who’d been preparing to take a ride about Grimsgate’s abundant acres.

He wanted to forget. Her lips. Her smell. Her sweet, murmuring cries of need.

“You wish to concede early, then?” Wallingham inquired now, hefting the basket and adjusting his hat.

James blinked, wondering what the older man was asking. Did he know of the kiss? Did he know of James’s hellish battle against his own desires?

“Tannenbrook?”

He could not possibly know, for James had told no one. Not even Viola knew his reasons—and, unless he wished her admiration to dissolve into disgust, he would never tell her the truth.

A soft breeze eased past him to ripple the slow water. “I mustn’t concede,” he murmured. “I would destroy her.”

Wallingham appeared deeply perplexed. “Her?”

“Miss Darling.”

Wearing a thoughtful expression, the marquess climbed the bank to where James stood. He set the basket on the grass beside his boots. “How much have you slept?”

“Last night?”

“Yes.”

“Not at all.” James could not be certain why he kept speaking. Perhaps because, in the buttery light of early morning, Charles Bainbridge looked a good deal like Hargrave. And he missed having someone older, wiser to advise him. Perhaps he was a fool.

No ‘perhaps’ about it,
he thought.
You become a bleeding mooncalf every time you think of her. A daft, lustful sod.

Wallingham nodded, a wry smile forming at one corner of his mouth. “Some females will do that—drive you half mad one moment, enchant you the next. Have you considered altering your stratagem regarding marriage?”

James’s hand tightened dangerously on his fly rod, but he stopped himself before it cracked. “Impossible. I do not intend to marry.”

“Yes, so you have said.” Wallingham clasped his hands behind his back and gave James an assessing glance. “I had a similar notion, myself, only a short time ago. I have since … reconciled myself to a new course.”

Swallowing, James squinted at where the sun began topping the willows along the winding bank. He wished to know what would prompt a man like Wallingham, after resisting the fiercest of opponents for fifteen years, would suddenly change his mind about something so fundamental. “Why?” James grunted, against his better judgment.

Wallingham’s smile grew mysterious. “Why else? I am enchanted. Half mad.”

“Lady Willoughby.”

“Mmm. Indeed.” The smile changed again into one of affection. “Now, this is not to say you should follow my path, necessarily, for it has not yet ended happily, as one would hope. But, I will tell you this: Ambivalence is your enemy. If you are firm in your resolve never to marry, then state it clearly—brutally, if you must. Cutting her bond to you can only be a mercy, in that instance. Do not mire yourself in regrets. If, however, you cannot abide the thought of another day without seeing her laugh or hearing her speak your name, then do not hesitate to change course, and do so with all haste.” Wallingham dropped his gaze to the toes of his boots then turned to stare out across the water. “We are men, Tannenbrook. By definition, men are creatures of imperfect vision. A decision made at age twenty-four is a decision made by a boy. We are boys no longer.”

For James, he’d been seventeen, but he took Wallingham’s point. Still, James was not acting out of some momentary pique. He was trying to protect Viola from a union she would come to bitterly regret.

Eyeing the other man’s patrician profile, the white flags at his temples, the faint creases at the corners of his eyes, James flashed to a memory of Hargrave, gazing out the window of the library at Shankwood, explaining to a boy of seventeen why taking his seat in Parliament mattered. It felt good to remember him. Comforting.

“I am glad for your company this morning, Wallingham.” He leaned down and picked up the heavily laden basket, giving it a shake to settle the fish more firmly inside. “You appear to be good luck.”

Wallingham chuckled and followed James as they made their way back toward the castle. A quarter mile on, they heard barking in the distance. “Blast,” muttered Wallingham. “Mother’s hound. Must have caught our scent. Deuced creature could track a man from here to London.”

As they came over a small rise with waist-high grass, they saw the unlikely pairing of a determined Humphrey all but dragging a tiny sprite in a blue dress and spencer, holding the dog’s lead in one hand and the top of her bonnet with the other.

James’s heart kicked wildly. His feet halted.

“Humphrey! Slow down, for the love of heaven.” She laughed breathlessly, the sound like a fountain beneath a skyful of stars.

Her beauty washed him with a tingling current. Stole the air from inside his chest. Made him remember the sweetness of her mouth, the softness of her breasts.

“Steady on, Tannenbrook,” Wallingham said quietly.

It was enough to start him breathing again, but he still could not move. Those magnificent blue eyes flared over his shoulders and up to his mouth. Set him to burning inside his skin.

As the dog’s snuffling nose came within inches of his boots, Humphrey wagged his tail and let out a triumphant howl.

Viola laughed again and tugged at the brim of her bonnet. “Good morning, Lord Wallingham. Lord Tannenbrook.” She nodded toward James’s creel. “I see the fish found your offerings enticing. You must be terribly proficient with your rod.”

A thousand responses ran through his mind, all of them inappropriate. Before he could utter a word, however, Wallingham answered, “Tannenbrook had great success. Would that I could say the same.”

“Oh, isn’t that the way of it?” Her smile was dazzling—and focused upon Wallingham. “My cousin and I were constant companions as children. I recall our rambles about the lake near my father’s house in Cheshire. We collected butterflies. I could never understand how she managed to capture five when I had none. As it happened, she later confessed to dabbing her flowers with honey.” She rolled her eyes and laughed. “Silly me, I hadn’t thought of luring them with a sweet.”

Wallingham chuckled lightly and nodded. “I fear my angling methods may require similar diabolical strategies, for I haven’t the patience to improve my technique.”

Viola continued chatting with Wallingham—and entirely ignoring James—for several minutes. They talked of Cheshire and how she missed the scent of bluebells that bloomed near her home in spring. They laughed about Humphrey’s overdeveloped sense of smell and Lady Wallingham’s fondness for his pendulous ears. They traded recollections of Lord Gattingford’s more egregious choices of waistcoat.

And all the while, James stood in his boots, wondering why she did not look at
him
. Why she did not speak to
him
. Why she’d never told
him
about the lake in Cheshire. Or her fondness for lemonade. Or her contrary dislike of the color yellow, particularly in waistcoats.

Because, you daft sod. You have been beastly to her. Treated her as little more than a pest. How else is she to respond?

But she had kissed him. She had claimed to love him, though that could not be true. She knew nothing of who he was.

A cold, canine nose rubbed the back of his hand where it was clenched into a fist over the top of the creel. With a pitiful whine, Humphrey mouthed the upper edge of the basket where several fin tails splayed, the fish too big to be contained completely inside. James idly nudged the dog away and returned to following the conversation between Viola and the man she apparently found terribly, unspeakably fascinating. So much so that she hadn’t stopped bloody speaking to him and smiling at him and laughing at his every quip for ten bloody minutes.

His only warning was a tug. Then Humphrey was charging across the open grass, his prize clutched between droopy jowls, his ears flapping like banners, the lead trailing behind, loosed from Viola’s grip.

“Humphrey!” she shouted, clapping her hands as though the damned hound would heed any sound over the scent of victory.

Then, she bunched her skirts in hand and gave chase.

Bloody hell.
He didn’t care a fig for the fish, but he would not have Viola running about after that stupid hound, who could knock her tiny form flat with one overzealous leap. Dropping his rod and creel in the grass, he barked at Wallingham, “If he comes back this way, take hold of his lead.”

Then, James was running. Chasing a girl who was chasing a dog. Like a bloody, besotted fool.

He watched her stop suddenly and veer to the right as Humphrey rounded the trunk of a willow. He took the left, anticipating the dog’s reversal. But he didn’t anticipate Viola’s speed. She reached the trailing lead before he could get to her. And her breathless shout of triumph ended in a yelp as she was yanked forward, her feet stumbling on the exposed tree roots.

He pushed harder, wrapping one arm about her waist and gathering her into him half a second before the bloody, stupid dog nearly cracked the side of her skull into the trunk of the tree. His free hand wrapped around the lead and yanked hard, growling at the dog to stop. It took every ounce of his control not to choke the careless thing. Not to squeeze Viola Darling until her skin merged with his.

But he could not do either one. The dog did not belong to him. And neither did Viola.

He released her tiny waist. Pulled away before she felt how he’d reacted. Then, more calmly than he had any right to, he pried open the dog’s jaw and retrieved his mutilated fish.

“T-Tannenbrook. I am so sorry. Your poor fish.”

“It doesn’t matter. Wallingham!” he shouted.

Wallingham approached through the tall grass.

James handed him the leash. “I trust you can manage him. You may wish to inform your mother that her hound requires further training and should not be handled by young ladies until he can be trusted not to pull them off their feet.”

Perhaps his tone was severe. He did not care.

“I shall,” Wallingham replied solemnly, his eyes understanding far too much. “Miss Darling, my sincere apologies. Humphrey will not harm you again, I promise.” He tugged the lead and started back across the grassy clearing, a chastened Humphrey loping behind, head lowered and ears swinging far less merrily.

“Oh, no,” Viola protested. “But, he is still just a pup! He didn’t mean any harm. Tannenbrook, don’t punish him. Really, Humphrey is a delight. He was simply … caught up in the moment. He would never purposely hurt me.”

James braced one palm against willow bark and leaned down until his face was directly in front of hers. “No. Because he will not have the opportunity.”

Her eyes dropped to his lips. And just like that, she was too close. Too damned close.