Accidental Peers 03 - Compromising Willa (13 page)

A vein pulsed in Hart’s forehead. “If you think what occurred between us after your attack had anything to do with Gus Manning, you couldn’t be more mistaken.”

Willa inhaled sharply at his indelicate reference to their kiss. Cam stiffened, except for his hand, which curled into a fist so tight his knuckles whitened.

“And it was awfully kind of His Grace to retrieve your lost tea,” Addie added.

“What lost tea?” Cam looked from Addie to Willa. This time she did pinch Addie. And she added a little twist to it to make sure her sister received the message.

“Ouch!” Addie jerked away and rubbed her arm, shooting Willa a look of wounded outrage.

Cam’s gaze narrowed. “Why were you taking your tea to the coffee house?”

“You might as well tell him. There is no shame in it.” Addie inched further out of Willa’s reach. “After all, you’re selling your tea for a noble cause.”

“Selling your tea?” Cam’s voice throbbed with outraged disbelief. “Tell me Addie is mistaken.” Wincing, Willa pressed her lips together. Cam exhaled slowly through his nostrils. “Now you’ve taken to engaging in trade?”

“It’s not like that—” Addie began.

“You have said quite enough, thank you.” Willa cut her off. Straightening, she met Cam’s angry gaze. “I donate my tea to the coffee house. It is sold to provide a way for the women who work there to provide for themselves and their children. I do not profit from it.”

Cam’s mouth fell open as a tide of color swept his face. “This is beyond belief. You
are
engaged in trade. Why are you so determined to ruin yourself?”

Hartwell cleared his throat and shifted in his seat. “It is for a laudable cause.”

Cam glared at Hart. “You knew about this?”

“I only suspected.”

Willa turned her attention to Hart. “Is my involvement the reason you are trying to close the coffee house?”

“He is?” Addie looked at Hart. “Are you?”

Hart’s lips pushed inward. “My interest in the building is purely related to business. It is an ideal location for my London headquarters.”

“You will be condemning the women who work there to a life on the street,” Willa said heatedly.

Hart frowned. “Why can the enterprise not be relocated?”

“It is costly to do so and would make it more difficult for the workers to find their way to the coffee house if it is removed too far away.”

“Willa.” Cam interrupted, his frustration plain. “What else don’t I know about your clandestine activities? Have you decided to start treading the boards as well?”

“Willa on the stage?” Addie giggled. “I should like to see that.”

“I am well past worrying about being ruined,” Willa said. “Why shouldn’t I engage in an activity that assists the less fortunate?”

Sighing, Cam closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Having never had sisters, I clearly know nothing about managing females.” He looked to Hart. “I cannot wait until she is your concern.”

“Neither can I.” A slow smile of genuine delight opened across the duke’s face, his midnight blue eyes glowed as they held her gaze. “I don’t suppose Lady Wilhelmina can be managed, but I shall certainly take pleasure in the trying of it.”

Restless and frustrated with Willa’s continued reluctance, Hartwell slipped out for a brisk ride shortly after their arrival at Camryn Park. He galloped over wide expanses of open parkland, releasing tension as he breathed in the fresh country air and enjoyed the cacophony of sounds from swooshing trees and chattering birds. Spotting a glimmer from a pond hidden in a secluded copse of trees, he dismounted and led the animal toward the lush greenery surrounding the pond.

Just before he came out of the clearing, the sounds of splashing water halted him. Someone was taking a swim. He looked toward the noise and his mouth went dry.

A womanly form, clad only in a shift, emerged from beneath the surface, water streaming from her curves.
Willa
. She dipped back to wet her hair. Her full, upright breasts arched up, straining against the wet, diaphanous shift that left little to the imagination. Desire and want slammed through him. Staggering backward, his hand shot up to seize an overhead branch to steady himself.

He hadn’t realized how lush her breasts were. They were full and heavy under the now transparent chemise that outlined their every curve. He could see the rosy pink outline of her areolas and the hardened nubs at the center of them.

She turned away and dove back under the surface. He lost his breath when her shift floated up in the water as she did so, exposing an exquisitely rounded, white bottom which curved above the water for a tantalizing moment before disappearing under the surface. Re-emerging, she flipped over to float on her back and he almost lost his mind. Her lavish breasts jutted skyward as if in exquisite offering to the sun gods, the cold water swelling their rosy tips to pert splendor beneath the gossamer cloth. His gaze trailed downward to the shadow between her legs.

Heat pooled in his groin. It was as if he were seeing the genuine Willa for the first time. She moved with pure abandon, seizing the pleasure of the sun and water for herself, meshing with the natural surroundings. It was not only the sight of her body, smooth and rounded to feminine perfection, but also the way she moved through the water with simple, unrestrained pleasure, that shook him. That cool aloofness she usually showed the world fell away. Stripped of all artifice, Willa was spellbinding. The pure intimacy of the moment made his throat ache. Any lingering doubts about making her his wife melted away.

She floated along, eyes closed, with an occasional lazy swirl of her arms. Her languorous gaze turned in his direction and they locked eyes. His heart sped up as silence stretched between them, as if she didn’t comprehend his presence in the midst of her private, sun-dazed revelry. Then her eyes widened.

“Hartwell?” She startled into action—jerky, panicked movements of flailing arms and shapely legs splashing in the water. And an abundance of other wiggling feminine parts that made his mouth go dry. She finally sank, leaving only her head bobbing above the water’s surface.

He belatedly remembered himself. Much too late, of course. In a strangled voice, he uttered, “I do beg your pardon,” and pivoted, giving her his back.

“I most certainly will not beg your pardon!” Her outraged voice trembled with agitation amidst more splashing noises. “How long have you been standing there ogling me?”

“I had no intention of—” His tongue tangled. He
had
been leering at her like the worst kind of lecher. He hadn’t meant to watch her. He certainly shouldn’t have. But really, what red-blooded male could have looked away from Willa’s lush, womanly form floating in the water as if she were Aphrodite herself? He half expected flowers to spring up under her feet once she stepped back onto dry land. “I took my mount for a run and spotted the water. My intention was to give my animal his fill.”

“It appears you looked your fill instead.”

The sound of rushing of water behind him suggested she’d pulled herself out of the pond. His mind didn’t have to work terribly hard to imagine what she looked like with the water-drenched translucent fabric of her shift plastered against the hard pearl tips of her breasts.

“It was the behavior of a scoundrel and a blackguard.” His back still to her, he focused on his mount grazing nearby. “I shall leave you to your privacy.”

“A little late for that, don’t you think?” she muttered.

“Whatever I can do to make it up to you, I shall do.” As if that were possible. They both knew he couldn’t unsee the vision of her damp, nubile body glistening in the sun.

Clothes rustled behind him. “Actually, there is a way you can make amends.”

“There is?” The calculation he heard in her voice made his skin prickle.

“I’ve wanted to meet with you alone.”

“Dare I be hopeful?”

“Do not be disgusting,” she said sharply. “You may turn around now.”

He obliged, steeling himself to meet her accusing gaze. Only he turned to find she wasn’t looking at him. Instead, she’d turned away to wring water from the white cloth in her hands. Which allowed him to sneak another look at her. Good lord, she was a goddess. Her cascade of chestnut hair fell in ringlets about her shoulders. Water rivulets dampened her dress, which clung to her sweetly curved bottom as she squeezed liquid from her shift. He swallowed hard. Her shift. Which meant that under that gown, she wore…nothing.

He felt lightheaded. Surely the god of temptation was punishing him for some grievous sin from his past. “What did you wish to discuss?”

“How to put an end to this ludicrous betrothal.”

The words hit him like a blow to the gut. “So Cam was correct in assuming you had cause to delay the announcement of our happy news.”

“You saved me from a footpad,” she said in a determined voice. “You shouldn’t be punished for your chivalry by being chained to me into perpetuity.”

“Perhaps I care to be chained.” His deepened his voice. “Especially after today.” Her cheeks warmed. He’d wager her ears were red, too, but that glistening curtain of curls hid them from view.

“Besides,” he continued, “I’m easily bored and, if the past few days are any indication, life with you is bound to be most interesting. What with footpads, clandestine tea enterprises, and a marriage proposal, I’ve barely had time to follow recent developments.”

“A marriage proposal?” She uttered a sound of derision. “I don’t recall being asked for my hand in marriage. You and Cam arranged it.”

“You acquiesced.”

“Under the strain of dire consequences. You threatened to kill my cousin. It was most romantic. Every girl’s dream.”

“To be fair, Cam is the one who challenged me, but if that is all—” He promptly fell onto one knee, taking her soft hand, with its long slim fingers, into his own. “Lady Wilhelmina, I admire you above all others. Will you make me the happiest of men by agreeing to become my wife?”

She snatched her hand away. “No, that is not all and I most certainly will not. Do be serious. We are barely acquainted.”

“After today, I would say that isn’t exactly true.” He pushed to his feet, raking his eyes over her abundant curves. “I look forward with great anticipation to coming to know you much more intimately.”

Heat suffused her face. She parted her lips and brought her hand to her neck, her chest moving more quickly. The air between them swirled with carnal awareness.

“You made your true feelings quite clear at my mother’s dinner party in town,” she finally said, her voice shaky.

Cold remorse filled his lungs. Of course she’d want nothing to do with someone who behaved as caddishly as he had after he’d stolen that kiss. “My behavior was that of the worst blackguard. I deeply regret my actions of that evening.”

“It is in the past,” she said carefully. “What is best is for us both to move forward. In order to do that, you must release me from this betrothal.”

“I will do no such thing.”

“Why must you be so obstinate?”

“It would be dishonorable not to proceed as planned. And I think perhaps you need me to keep you out of harm’s way.”

Her large mocha eyes held his. “I gather we are speaking of Augustus now.”

Bellingham
. The realization she couldn’t get that whoreson out of her mind clogged the air in his lungs. “So that’s the way of it.”

She frowned. “What’s the way of it?”

The lady had no idea what depravity Bellingham was capable of. And honor, in the form of a long-ago promise, prohibited him from enlightening her. But he could keep her safe. Determination hardened in him. “There is nothing to left to discuss.” His words were curt and harder than frozen tundra. “We will marry. It is done.”

…

Exasperated, Willa dropped to the ground to pull on her ankle boots. He’d intruded on her private oasis, piercing the tranquility that always came over her whenever she went for a swim at the pond. She squinted up at him, shielding her eyes against the sun with her hand. The sun shone behind him, casting a bright halo around his darkened silhouette. It outlined his tall, hard body, defining the curve of muscle in his thighs. The sunlight streaming through his white shirt allowed her to take in the turn of strength in his arms. Her pulse flowed faster at his nearness.

She struggled to collect her thoughts. Perhaps the truth of what happened at the inn would cure him of his obstinate resolve to marry her. One he understood she was already as good as ruined, surely he’d relinquish his gentlemanly insistence, and this absurd competition with Augustus. “If you insist on pursuing this course of action, we must speak truthfully about the earl.”

His eyes darkened. “Bellingham?”

Anxiety stretched in her chest. She’d never spoken of this to anyone. “You understand I have a history with his lordship.”

His expression remained inscrutable. “Go on.”

“I did want to marry him once, very much so.”

“Then I can only request that you refrain from any indiscretions, at least until you’ve given me an heir and a couple of spares.” The words were sharp and cold, all traces of his previous warmth gone. “Just so there can be no doubt about lineage and succession.”