An Invitation to Sin (21 page)

"Yes, you can," he returned, his own voice unsteady at the edges.

He worked his way down her other leg with the same maddening patience. How could he stand to take his time,when every inch of her body felt such an incredible urgency to be with him?

Finally he knelt upright again and finished unfastening his trousers. He lifted up a little and shucked the dark gray material down past his thighs. "You're the reason artists create sculptures," she breathed, sitting up to look at him.

"I was going to say the same thing about you, love, but thank you." With a warm smile, the expression in his eyes telling her exactly what he intended to do next, he moved over her. Taking her mouth in an open, hungry kiss, he followed her back down to the blanket, trailing his lips down her throat to her breasts again.

"Zachary, we're running out of time," she complained, grasping his hair to tug his face up to hers again.

"The next time, we are not going to rush."

The next time
? She wasn't certain she would survive this encounter. "Please."

"Hold on," he whispered, lowering his hips until his manhood pressed against her. Very slowly, with a care she noted even though she wanted him to hurry, he pushed forward.

She felt a sharp pain when he entered her. She closed her eyes in surprise. Every ounce of her was centered deep inside her as his slow slide continued until he was buried completely.

"Jesus," he muttered, his arms shaking a little. "Open your eyes."

Caroline did so, gazing up at him just a few inches from her face. And then he began to move his hips. Bucking again, she grasped her hands around his shoulders, digging in her fingers at the deep, tight pull inside her. His mouth found hers again, and she drank him in, pulling his hard body as close to hers as she could. Even being joined as they were wasn't enough. She wanted more. She wanted everything.

His rhythm increased, and she couldn't help her small whimpering moans which matched his thrusts. The clenching inside her grew tighter and tighter, until with a gasp she shattered, clinging to him helplessly as her mind shut down completely.

He sped his motions, in out, in out, and then with a groan from deep in his chest, he withdrew and lowered his head to her shoulder. Breathing hard, she kissed his ear and tried to remember where they were, and why it was they needed to stop doing this and put their clothes back on. Not yet. She wasn't ready for the moment to end.

Caroline, though, ran her fingers across his chest, probably memorizing his musculature or something. And then her hand roved further down, her inquisitive touch making him jump. It had taken every bit of self-control and resolve he'd possessed to withdraw at the last moment. If there was one thing she didn't want to be, it was with child.

"You'd have to give me a short while before we could repeat the process," he said, leaning forward to kiss her lightly, "though I don't think we have time today, under the circumstances."

She kissed him back. "That was extraordinary," she

commented, still sounding ragged and out of breath. "What would you do differently if you had more time?"

He lowered an eyebrow. "You weren't pleased?"

"I was very pleased. You just said you'd wished we had more time. So what would you have done if we did?"

Zachary ran the tip of a finger around her nipple, watching the bud contract again in response. "Well, there are other positions, for one thing."

"Goodness," she breathed, arching her back again.

Twenty damned minutes wasn't enough time
. "And—"

"I've seen art books with naughty pictures," she interrupted, clearly trying to regain her strong sense of logic.

"Oh." He stifled a grin at her serious tone. "And there's mutual pleasuring, of course."

She lifted her head. "You didn't feel pleasure?"

"I felt pleasure. A great deal of pleasure. That's not what—"

"I thought you did." Turning her gaze toward his nether regions again, her eyes abruptly widened. "You mean—"

"Caro, Zachary, it's time for luncheon!"

Almost as an echo to Susan's yell, Molly snorted and mumbled something startled.
Bloody hell
. Kneeling again, Zachary grabbed a cloth, then yanked up his trousers and fastened them. At the sound of multiple feet prancing up the path, he grabbed his shirt and waistcoat and cravat. Caroline was struggling into her gown, and he helped her on with her pelisse and pulled it over the open, gaping back of her sprig muslin.

"Tell them I went for a walk," he hissed, and dove into the underbrush.

He found a good spot behind a half-collapsed faux stone wall and crouched down to pull on his shirt. From a few yards away he could hear Caroline calmly saying that they'd finished the portrait and he had felt the need to stretch his legs. Thank God she had sense—and thank goodness she wasn't one of her sisters, mad for marriage. Otherwise Edmund would probably be on his way from the house with a musket in his arms and a parson in tow.

Once he'd fastened the buttons on his waistcoat and tied his cravat as well as he could, he circled past the edge of the ruins to the path that led around the pond. Then, with a deep breath and a last check to make sure everything that should be fastened was, he headed back for the clearing.

"I thought I heard someone say luncheon," he said as the gaggle of females came into view.

"You should see the ballroom," Joanna said, prancing forward to take his arm. "I think Mama's bought all the yellow ribbon in Wiltshire. It's everywhere."

"It looks like a spider's web," Anne commented.

"No, it doesn't. It's lovely. And the yellow irises and lilies are being delivered right now." Julia took his other arm.

What he wanted to do was take Caroline's arm. Angling their retreat, he headed the twins toward the portrait. "Did you see the finished result?" he asked, freeing his arms to indicate the painting.

"It's lovely, Caro," Anne said, taking her eldest sister's hand. "Monsieur Tannberg will love it."

"Thank you," Caroline returned. "You go ahead. I need to bring it up to the house so it can finish drying."

"I'll help you, Miss Witfeld," Zachary said quickly. "We'll be along in a moment."

Zachary thought Anne threw him a suspicious look, but it might very well have been his own nerves. That had been a very close call. As the girls, complaining loudly about Caroline's monopoly of his time, vanished back down the path, he moved up beside her.

"I couldn't find my shoes," she whispered, picking up the painting and carefully settling it into its crate so she could transport the piece without smudging it.

He glanced down, catching a glimpse of bare toes as she leaned over the crate. Unexpected lust rolled down his spine again, heavy and hot. "I'll get them."

Climbing back over the fallen pillar, he rummaged through the undergrowth until he found the pair of pale green slippers. The rumpled blanket still lay there as well, and for a moment he stood gazing at it. Something had happened there; something other than the obvious. But he couldn't figure out what it was, exactly, that had transpired. Shaking himself, he folded the blanket and placed it on the far side of the pillar, so it would look as though he or Caroline had brought it outside and then simply forgotten it.

"Here you go," he said, surreptitiously dropping the shoes at her feet, then moving between her and the maid so she could step into them.

"Thank you."

Zachary cleared his throat. "And thank you, for not… panicking when your sisters arrived. That would have been awkward, to say the least." It wasn't precisely what he wanted to say, but one of them needed to speak.

She adjusted the portrait in its box. "I should thank
you
," she said as she straightened. "You've given me a valuable anatomical insight. Would you mind carrying that into the house?"

When she went over to gather up her paints and her easel, he spent a few seconds looking at her backside. It was a very nice bottom, and one he wished he'd had more time to explore. Apparently, though, she'd been perfectly satisfied, both physically and in terms of higher education. Either that, or she was angry that he'd escaped and left her to tell the lies.

"Caroline, you know we couldn't be seen together," he said in a low voice.

"Of course we couldn't. I told you that I don't want to marry. And I certainly don't want to mislead you into thinking I'm going to become your mistress or some such thing. We had a bargain, and you fulfilled it admirably." She started off down the path, gesturing Molly to precede her. "Come along, my lord."

Grabbing up the box, he caught up to her. "Now just a damned minute," he grunted, catching her arm to slow her down and put more distance between them and the maid. "I had no intention of asking you to be my mistress. And I certainly don't need your reassurance over my performance. You knew as well as I did that we only had twenty minutes."

Her mouth twitched. "Perhaps I misspoke, Zachary. I only wanted to assure you that I wasn't going to make a scene or become clinging and missish. I have no designs on you." She reached over and patted the side of the box. "Or rather I do have designs, but only on your portrait."

So that was that. Damnation. Not only was she not missish and no longer virginal but she had also recovered her wits more quickly and more thoroughly than he had. Foremost in his mind was the thought that he wanted to taste her sweet lips again and lay her down somewhere secluded where he could take more than twenty minutes to run his hands along her soft skin and make her cry out with pleasure.

He understood her rationale very well. She had better things to do than spend time making love with him. Fine.
Fine
. "I suppose this means you'll have time to spare this evening," he ventured.

Unless he was mistaken, her step faltered a little. She'd probably forgotten what it was to have free moments. "Yes, I suppose I will."

"Good. Then you'll waltz with me. According to your sisters, the orchestra will be playing at least a dozen of them."

"I doubt that. Even Mama would notice the scandal of that many waltzes."

"But however many there are, one of them is mine."

Her shoulders squared. "You might ask instead of issuing a command."

A command? That was usually Melbourne's forte. Besides, if he asked, she might say no. "Will you waltz with me?" he asked anyway.

"We've done so before. I don't see why we shouldn't tonight."

"Good." Hopefully by this evening she would have had enough time to at least consider how pleasurable it would be to roll around naked with him again. If not, the waltz would remind her. He'd make bloody certain of that.

Once back at the house he sat and had luncheon, then borrowed one of Edmund's almanacs and went upstairs to do some research on local cattle breeds. He had the feeling that Dimidius hadn't been the result of a simple crossbreeding—otherwise someone else would have deciphered the secret already. Luckily Witfeld had taken copious notes on Dimidius's lineage; now Zachary needed to figure out where the cow's ancestors, both direct and more distant, had come from, and which ones had contributed to her particular attributes.

Harold jumped up, barking, when someone rapped on his door. Hoping it was Caroline, Zachary straightened from the table beneath the window. "Come in."

Aunt Tremaine swung the door open. "Hiding?"

"No. I'm doing research."

She closed the door behind her, leaning down to give Harold a scratch between the ears. At least the dog hadn't leapt up on her this time. Patience—and training—did seem to have some merits.
Good dog
. "Research on what?" she asked.

"Cattle."

"Ah."

He returned to comparing Edmund's notes with the almanac, but he could feel her gaze boring into the top of his skull. With a sigh he looked up again. "Is there something I can do for you?"

"You're sending our coach away with Caro's portrait tomorrow."

"Just to meet the mail stage in Trowbridge. I'm making certain it gets to Vienna before her deadline."

'That's a gentlemanly thing to do."

As opposed to bedding Caroline, which had been exceedingly ungentlemanly. Aunt Tremaine, though, didn't possess the ability to read minds any more than Melbourne did, and Zachary wasn't about to confess to anything. "I delayed her by at least a day.It seemed a fair exchange."

His aunt trundled over to the bed and sat on the near edge. "I've been thinking of continuing on to Bath," she finally said.

Zachary fought the urge to lurch to his feet and shout a protest. "I am at your disposal, of course," he made himself say, "but if you're asking for my opinion, as I said before, I would like to stay for another week or two."

"And why is that again?"

"The cows," he returned, daring her to read something more into it. "I wrote Melbourne about beginning a breeding program. I don't suppose you've been introduced to Dimidius?"

"The milk cow? Sally mentioned her as one of Edmund's silly little projects."

"If I'm correct, it's not so silly, and I wouldn't call it anything close to little. It could be monumental."

Aunt Tremaine idly twirled her cane from one hand to the other. Over the years she'd become so adept with the thing that she'd likely be lethal with a sword. "Well," she said after a moment, "I certainly have no objection to staying on. It's rather refreshing to be so far from Society's politics."

He smiled. "The curse of being part of the extended Griffin family."

"Not so much a curse as a responsibility." She winked as she climbed to her feet. "Though after the ball tonight, I may be agreeing with you." Halfway to the door she paused to look back at him. "You do know that half of Wiltshire is expected to attend."

"Oh, joyful day," he muttered, and went back to his notes.

As Caroline made her way downstairs she could hear the musicians tuning their instruments and the loud buzz of early arrivals. Apparently word of their blue-blooded guest had spread even farther since the assembly rooms, and no one wanted to miss viewing him.

None of the eager guests tonight had seen him naked, though. None of them had been in his arms or felt his passion. None of them—

"Caro," Anne said, reaching the landing behind her. "You look lovely. I don't think I've ever seen you in violet before."

She shrugged, pretending that she hadn't spent two hours trying on gowns. "I ordered it for the spring and never wore it." She glanced down at the low-cut bodice. "It's not too much, is it?"

"Heavens, no. You finished your portrait; you deserve to enjoy yourself a little tonight."

"Thank you. I shall do my utmost."

Anne laughed, wrapping her hand around Caroline's arm. "I like that you can tease again. You've been so serious over the past few weeks."

Caroline did feel lighter. After all, the portrait would drive off to London tomorrow afternoon; she'd done all she could to impress Monsieur Tannberg. It wasn't just that, however; she felt more… confident, more relaxed… more adult, she supposed, as though her world had widened. And that, she suspected, had a great deal more to do with what she and Zachary had done this afternoon than with finishing a painting.