With This Kiss (20 page)

Although he had never before found the sight of a woman clipping roses the least bit erotic, her movements struck him as dazzlingly sensual. A memory of Julia as she had appeared last night, naked and tranquil in repose, blurred with the sight of her as she was now: damp, warm, and gracefully lithe as she moved among the rosebushes. It did not require a great leap of imagination to combine the two images and envision what she might be like in his bed. In a reaction of pure adolescent idiocy, Morgan felt himself stiffen in response to the lecherous conjecture; his manhood grew thick and hard against his thigh. Annoyed by his inability to control his response to his own wife, he shifted slightly to make his dilemma less obvious.

Julia glanced up at him and frowned. Clearly misinterpreting his impatience with himself with a desire for her to finish her task, she tucked her pruning shears into her basket and briskly announced, “I believe that should do.”

He stood and extended a hand, helping her to her feet. Either his dilemma was not as apparent as he feared, or she was simply too intent on brushing the dirt from her gown to notice. In either case she looked up at him and said, “I suppose I should have asked permission before clipping so many of your roses.”

“Not at all. But you needn’t bother with the chore. I’ll direct the servants to see to the flowers.”

“I wish you wouldn’t. I don’t mind at all. In fact, I quite enjoy it.” She hesitated, looking around with a small frown. “The lawns are magnificent, but it appears the groundskeepers haven’t quite put their hearts into the flowers.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your peonies are choking. They’re hopelessly tangled in this holly bush.” An expression of bossy exasperation showed on her face as she pointed to a clump of weak green stems. “And I can’t imagine when your rhododendron was last pruned. Furthermore, all of your bulbs need thinning if you expect the poor things to bloom next year.”

He folded his arms across his chest, regarding her with undisguised amusement. “You’re determined to save everything you come into contact with, aren’t you, princess? Even the flowers.”

“Almost,” she replied, studying him with an expression of cool intractability. “Not everything is redeemable.”

The implication that she was referring to him was unmistakable. Instead of taking affront, his smile only widened. “Wise of you to come to that understanding so quickly.”

Without commenting further, he took the basket from her arm and carried it for her. Rather than returning directly to the house, he escorted her on a more circuitous route through the gardens in order that they might enjoy a bit more privacy. “It occurs to me that we may have made a fundamental error in our strategy regarding Lazarus,” he said after a moment. “Receipt of his letter is quite encouraging, but it is not enough. If we intend to prod him into making his presence known, we must dangle a bit of bait. Unfortunately, that bait is you.”

“Yes.”

“To that end I have directed my secretary to accept every invitation we receive. We must flaunt the fact that you, Lazarus’s true desire, have taken refuge in my arms. You rejected him for me. With any luck that will serve to further flame his fury.”

“That seems logical.”

“If we hope to be successful, it will require that we appear disgustingly happy and in love. Positively enraptured with one another.”

“Yes,” she agreed, her expression giving nothing away.

“I thought we might begin this charade tomorrow night, at Lord and Lady Winterbourne’s affair.”

“Very well.”

She was taking it so matter-of-factly that Morgan doubted she fully understood what he was driving at. As they approached his home, he paused beneath the shade of a tall cypress to finish their conversation. Intent on making himself as clear as possible, he lifted his hand and lightly stroked it against her cheek. “I take it you can list persuasive acting skills among your considerable accomplishments?”

While she didn’t flinch, neither did she give any indication that his touch was welcome. “We made a bargain,” she said. “I understand what needs to be done.”

He felt himself go cold. “How very commendable,” he said with a tight smile. “A woman of her word, willing to make the ultimate sacrifice.”

“You know how fond I am of lost causes.”

“Indeed.” Deciding it would be pointless to pursue the matter further, he let the subject drop and guided her up the front steps. “By the way,” he remarked as they stepped into the foyer, “my congratulations on the formidable wrath of your pen. I conducted an informal survey this morning and discovered that my secretary’s mother has ceased purchasing Matthews and Hornsby soap.”

“Has she? That’s wonderful.”

“Apparently there is a method to your madness after all.”

An unmistakable glint of victory entered her soft sherry eyes. “Wise of you to come to that understanding so quickly.”

Julia leaned back against the plush leather squabs of Morgan’s coach, listening to the rhythmic drumming of the horses’ hooves as they journeyed to Lord and Lady Winterbourne’s. The crowded streets made their movement slow, negating any chance they might have had for stirring a breeze through the open windows. Although she had taken a cool bath less than an hour earlier and thoroughly dusted herself with a sweet-scented talc, the effects of her ministrations were already beginning to lessen. She felt warm and damp, her nerves as strained and excitable as those of her Aunt Rosalind.

In an effort to distract her thoughts from the coming evening, she turned her attention to her gown, running her fingers over the intricate pleats to prevent their wrinkling. She had selected a deep apricot silk with cap sleeves, a square bodice, and a full bustle that gave an elegant sway to her movements. Her elbow-length brown kid gloves, made to match her shoes and reticule, rested in her lap. She wore her hair piled high, with just a strand or two left to curl softly against the nape of her neck. The gown was too tight to be comfortable, and as a result she found herself constantly fidgeting with the fabric, gently tugging at it in a vain attempt to gain a bit more room.

“You needn’t fuss with your gown,” Morgan said after a moment. “You look lovely.”

Julia instantly stilled her hands, unaware he had been watching her.

“An interesting color,” he continued. “I wouldn’t have selected it, but it suits you well.”

She felt a gentle bump. Their movement, sluggish as it had been, abruptly halted. “We’ve arrived?” she asked breathlessly.

He glanced out the window. “No,” he replied. “There’s a queue. Blocks long, by the looks of it.” He released an impatient sigh. “One of the reasons I’ve taken to hiding behind my gates, as you so eloquently put it. Rarely does the effort required to attend an event equal the enjoyment one receives once arrived.”

She made a noncommittal noise and shifted her gaze to the long line of coaches. “Do you think he’ll he here tonight?”

He didn’t pretend to misunderstand who she meant. “Lazarus?” he said, lifting his shoulders in an indifferent shrug. “Possibly.” Returning his full attention to her, he observed, “You’re nervous.”

The note of condescending amusement in his voice was unmistakable. “Hardly,” she replied.

“Then it must be the prospect of being introduced to all of London as my bride that has you aflutter.”

She stiffened her spine, arranging her posture into one of prim disapproval. “Contrary to what you obviously believe, not everything that occurs in life directly revolves around you.”

Smiling broadly, he leaned back in his seat and crossed his right leg over his opposite knee. “Is that what I believe, princess?”

Something in his voice caused her to raise her eyes to his. Unable to stop herself, her gaze moved assessingly over her husband. His scars notwithstanding, he was still a strikingly beautiful man. He wore a black formal suit of lightweight wool. Having removed his jacket before entering the coach, he sat opposite her in a shirt of starched ivory linen, his cravat tied in an intricate knot that managed to simultaneously suggest a careless yet fashionable air. It wasn’t simply the elegance of his attire that made him appear so compellingly regal, however. He seemed to project an air of aloof, aristocratic authority, as though he were watching and judging from afar — a Greek god surveying the petty mortals from his seat upon Olympus.

“You’re amused by this,” she said.

“What?” he asked, arching one dark brow. “The Season? Society?” He waved his hand in a coolly dismissive motion. “The lords and ladies of the peerage taking turns making a spectacle of themselves fawning over one another, parading about like the naked emperor of legend, each convinced his robes are the richest in the land. Perhaps Lazarus is right to set us all aflame.”

His words seemed vaguely prescient. The darkness of that intuitive recognition caused a chill to run down her spine, doing little to ease her nerves. Deliberately choosing to steer their conversation to a somewhat brighter tone, she said, “It’s all fairly new to me. I’ve never had a Season.”

“Not even a coming out?”

“No.”

He frowned. “Why?”

She managed a light shrug. “My parents wanted me to have a Season, of course. That’s what this gown was intended for, as well as the others you’ve seen. They were all ordered for my eighteenth birthday, in anticipation of my grand debut in society.” She paused, sending him a self-deprecating smile. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the gowns are all a bit tight now. Apparently I don’t enjoy the same lithesome, girlish figure I did when I was eighteen. Particularly —” She lifted her hand to indicate her bosom, then stopped abruptly, horrified at her gaffe.

But she was too late. Following the path of her gesture, his gaze had come to rest directly on the creamy expanse of skin revealed above her bodice. Molding her body to the hourglass shape dictated by the gown had necessitated the use of an almost painfully tight corset. As her lungs were already tightly constricted, the unavoidable chore of breathing could only be accomplished by lifting her breasts and pushing them out and upward. Although the gown remained well within the bounds of fashion and modesty, Julia felt dreadfully exposed. Particularly now, when she could feel the heat of Morgan’s smoky gaze on her skin as clearly as if he were touching her. The breathless tension she had experienced when he had shocked her with his kiss at Tom’s Rest ran through her again.

“Yes,” he said, his voice like dark silk, “so it would appear.”

She cast about for something to say to relieve the awkwardness of the moment, but her mind refused to cooperate. “My mother abruptly fell ill,” she said, doggedly continuing her story, “and my Season was cut short after just one night.”

“What about the following year? You could have made your coming out at nineteen.”

“Perhaps. But my heart wasn’t in it. It seemed like such a frivolous waste. And my father…” She hesitated for a moment, searching for the right words. “He was never quite the same after my mother passed away. He had always been so competent, so strong. But he began drinking heavily, and his business affairs fell apart. Then there was that awful scandal, the smuggling and the trial that followed…” She paused, toying for a moment with a beaded fringe that hung from her reticule. “We lost everything: our money, our reputation, our home.”

“Did you hate him for it?”

Her shocked gaze flew to Morgan. “My father?”

“Most women would. He owed you more than that.”

“No,” she replied softly. “No, I didn’t hate him.”

He searched her face for a moment, as though judging the truth of that statement. Apparently satisfied or perhaps merely indifferent to the true state of her emotions, he shifted his posture, extending one long arm along the seat back. “So you had just the one night,” he said. “One brief night to glory in the wonder of London’s exalted society. Tell me about it.”

“It was crowded.”

“Come now, you can do better than that,”

“I don’t underst—”

“I’ve yet to meet a woman — any woman — who hasn’t experienced an impassioned epiphany on the eve of her first Season. I believe it’s practically a requisite. Surely some dashing Lothario managed to sweep you off your feet and fill your head with dreams of romantic nonsense.” Although Julia didn’t reply, the blush that heated her cheeks must have been evident, for a triumphant smile curved Morgan’s lips, “I thought so.”

She looked pointedly away. “It’s a silly story.”

“Did you fall madly in love?”

Julia considered her reply. Harboring the vague hope that if she opened up a bit to him, he might be coaxed into doing the same thing, she answered honestly, “Yes. Or at least I imagined myself so. For an entire week.”

He smiled. “As long as that?”

“An eternity when one is eighteen.”

“True. So who was your mysterious Lothario?”

She shook her head. “His name doesn’t matter. He was dashing, wealthy, self-assured; a rake and a bounder as well. He moved through the room with an air of utter domination, as though the gala were being held solely for his amusement. At the same time he was completely captivating. One couldn’t help but watch him. You know the kind.”

“Pompous, self-indulgent asses, the lot of them.”

She smiled. “That was my father’s opinion as well. But I thought he was wonderful.”

“What happened? Did your eyes meet across the room? Did he shower you with praise for your delicate beauty, claim your every dance, steal you away to a secluded corner for your first real kiss?”

Julia hesitated, debating the depths of her honesty. But as Morgan apparently had no idea they were discussing him, she felt safe in replying, “Not exactly. Our hostess introduced us, but evidently I made little impression upon him. He barely noticed me.”

“Foolish man.”

“Yes,” she replied, regarding him levelly. “Foolish man.”

“So that was all it took,” he said, his expression registering his disgust. “One brief, meaningless introduction and you were thoroughly smitten with this strutting ass.”

“As was every other woman in the room.”

“I believe there’s a moral to this tale, isn’t there? Something about casting pearls before swine.”