In My Wildest Dreams (15 page)

She would obey him . . . but not about this. “I will return and find you as soon as I've taken the children upstairs.”

The dark, menacing, overgrown bully beside her placed a hand on her arm. He exerted no pressure, but clearly he would if she tried to move. “I will speak to you now.”

“I don't mind, miss,” Mr. Kinman said in a placating tone. “I was going that way, anyway.”

He held out his hands to the girls. Penelope walked over to him, and Kiki skipped after them.

Hands on her hips, Celeste watched them walk toward the house, and she refused to erase the note of disapproval in her voice. “You shouldn't allow the girls to trust a stranger so unquestioningly.”

“Penelope knows to trust those I tell her to trust.”

“Mr. Kinman said he came out for a smoke, but I don't believe him.”

She thought Throckmorton inspected her critically, but when he spoke he sounded mildly surprised. “Not smoke? Why do you say that?”

“I didn't spot the glow of his cigar, and he didn't smell like smoke. I don't know why he was out here, but I don't trust a man who lies.”

At first, she thought Throckmorton didn't believe her. Then he looked down and scraped his boot against the gravel path. “You've found him out. He's shy, hates parties, slips away every opportunity he gets. Look around anytime, and chances are you'll see him standing just on the outskirts of any celebration.”

“Oh.” She thought about Mr. Kinman's face, unrefined and plain.

“He really is a good man. I would put my life in his hands.” He smiled without humor. “Indeed, I've done more than that. I've put my daughter's life in his hands.”

“Very well.” She should, perhaps, allow Mr. Kinman his bashfulness. “When next I see him, I'll try to draw him out of his shell.”

Throckmorton coughed, then in a rasping voice, said, “That would be kind of you.”

He was laughing, and she didn't know why. Probably she'd said something an English lady wouldn't say. Perhaps she had presumed where she shouldn't. She didn't like having Throckmorton laugh at her.

He didn't realize it, or else he thought he could jolly her out of her chagrin, for in a jesting tone he asked, “Why are
you
so suspicious, Celeste? Do kidnappers and murderers lurk on every corner in Paris?”

“In
Russia
.” She considered. “Sometimes in Paris, too.”

“You must tell me about your travels. I begin to suspect you've had some fascinating adventures.” Taking her around the waist, he sank down on the blanket and took her with him.

14

“M
r. Throckmorton! A gentleman would never use his strength against a lady.” Celeste wanted to kick him in his soft parts, but as a girl she'd been taught to hold him in respect. And she was off-balance, fighting to keep her petticoats from flying up around her knees.

“I thought we would rest on the grass as you were doing with the children. Rest, look up at the stars, and you could tell me about Russia.”

He sounded benign, but if it had been any other man than stodgy old Mr. Throckmorton who had tumbled her onto the ground in the night, used his voice like dark velvet close to her ear, and spoken of looking at the stars—well, with any other man, she'd have been up and running.

Even with Throckmorton, she was rightfully alarmed. Two nights ago he had kissed her, and although she had warned him further attentions were not welcome and
although he had thus far listened, she realized a hitherto unintelligible fact—Throckmorton was not merely a money-making engine driven by power and omnipotence. He was also a male, sharing traits with all other males, both animal and human.

But it wouldn't do to show her wariness, so she pulled herself up to lean on her elbows. Looking down at him, she established her poise by chuckling. “Throckmorton, I never suspected you of being a
bon vivant.”

He undermined her aplomb with a long moment of silence. Then, in a thoughtful tone, he said, “Nor I. It must be you who has brought out the vivacity in me.”

Vivacity seemed a strong term, but then, if three days ago someone had told her Throckmorton would be next to her on a blanket in the night, flat on his back, relaxing . . . vivacity was perhaps an apt description, after all.

Or craft. Father said Throckmorton never did anything without purpose. What could Throckmorton's purpose be now?

Tilting her head, she looked up. The stars were there. She knew they were. But she couldn't concentrate on them
and
on conversation, for she'd kissed this very man only two nights ago. So the capacity to observe the stars—indeed, to observe anything—had to be sacrificed to the effort of discourse.

“I was wondering,” he said, “why you aren't inside dancing with Ellery.”

“Oh.” Unerringly, he put his finger on a source of uneasiness.

“He did invite you to the party, did he not?”

“Of course! After the shooting contest today, he told me I must come.” Which she had intended to do.

“I hesitate to broach a subject of some delicacy, but perhaps you are in need of a ball gown . . .”

“No!” Throckmorton's almost-offer horrified her. “Not at all.”

“On a governess's salary . . .”

Was Throckmorton suspicious of her honesty? She tilted her head further, knowing that the moon shone off her right shoulder, and she presented Throckmorton with the silhouette of her throat's slender length. This time her chuckle was genuine and amused. “The ambassador's wife was most generous with her cast-offs.”

“Ahh.” He accepted that with a hint of relief. “Then why are you not at the party?”

All her life, she had imagined herself flirting with Ellery. Smiling at Ellery. Dancing with Ellery. That was what she'd wanted, what she dreamed of. Yet today, every time she'd dreamed that dream, a tall, thin, female figure had hovered on the fringes of her conscience—Ellery's fiancée, Lady Hyacinth.

“I thought I should get to know the children,” Celeste said. As the moon rose higher, the sweet scent of night-blooming nicotiana grew stronger, carried by the gentle breeze.

“You shouldn't teach them yet. Not until we know what your role will be in their lives.” He sounded sincerely disapproving.

Not that she relished being disapproved of, but she rather welcomed a gentleman who involved himself with his child's welfare. She looked down at him again. “I told them we hadn't decided if I should remain as their governess. I assured them that this week would be the proving ground. I told them tonight was only for fun. I believe they enjoyed it.”

“Celeste, I suspect you feel derelict because you are not working.”

She started. Only the faintest shadow of guilt that had haunted her since she set foot into Blythe Hall—the guilt of a working woman taking unearned leisure. She had scarcely noticed it. How had he? “I assure you, sir, I did no harm.”

“I have the solution to your guilt.” He tucked his arms under his head and gazed up at her with earnest candor. “I would like you to translate messages for me.”

First she thought,
But I don't like Mr. Stanhope.
Then she realized,
But I would be spending yet more time with you.
And that increasingly had become a dangerous prospect. “Mr. Stanhope has always been your translator.”

“You proved to me he isn't quite as competent as I had hoped.”

“What about the children?”

“You aren't acting as their governess yet.”

“The guests would wonder what I was doing.”

“We shan't tell them.”

“They'll notice.”

“Dear Celeste.” He drawled with all the bored assurance of a dandy. “The last place party guests wander into is a chamber where work takes place.”

She scrabbled for an excuse and produced one strong enough for any misogynist. “Women cannot be secretaries.”

“You, Celeste, will be whatever you put your mind toward being.”

She could see the glint of his teeth. Throckmorton was smiling. He continued, “You needn't worry Stanhope will be unhappy with you for supplanting him. I
told him he'd been working too hard and since you were here he was to take this week as a rest.”

“Generous of you.”
To give him leisure and take mine away, and make us both happier.
Irked and afraid she would show it, she stared up at the stars once more, but this time she didn't care if Throckmorton noticed the curve of her throat.

“Of course, Stanhope will want to know what's going on in the office. I hope you don't mind speaking to him occasionally.”

Actually, she
did
mind speaking to him. When she was in Throckmorton's presence, she never remembered that his education far exceeded hers, that his acumen made him the awe of the business community, and that his foreign experiences gave him a shrewd edge.

With Mr. Stanhope, she never forgot that she was the gardener's daughter and he the aristocratic explorer.

What could she say, but, “Of course, Throckmorton, I'd be delighted to work for you as your secretary and report to Mr. Stanhope as he wishes.”

“Good. Thank you.”

She waited, but he said nothing else.

She'd been posing for him. Posing, suffering a kink in her neck from some bizarre feminine desire to show off her handsome figure and carefree attitude, when she didn't care whether Throckmorton noticed her at all. Probably he hadn't, anyway. The man's veins ran with ice water. Not champagne, like Ellery's. Ice water. With a silent huff, she flounced backward—and when she laid her head back, it landed on something. Something warm, something firm . . . how had he managed to get his arm out from under his head and under hers? He
might have ice water in his veins, but he also had excellent reflexes.

She would have sat back up, but Throckmorton utilized that dark velvet voice again. “I've never been to Russia,” he said. “Tell me about Russia.”

Unwillingly, she relaxed. If it wasn't Throckmorton beside her, she'd have called that a “seduce-you” voice. But Throckmorton was too sensible to think a starlit sky and an interest in her journeys would bring her to his bed. Not when he'd just been so dreadfully manipulative.

“Russia. Very, very far away. Immense. Overwhelming.” She didn't like to talk about that trip. The experience had been too colossal for mere words to encompass, and when she tried people got bored, or they just couldn't comprehend the vast horizons, the contrasts of heat and cold, poor and rich, and her own sense of alienation from everything familiar. “We left Paris in March to spend the summer on an estate in the Ukraine. The travel took weeks by rail, by ship, by carriage.”

“To a land where everything is strange and new.”

With a jolt, she recalled that Throckmorton had been to the Americas, to India and to places beyond. “The food, even the food I liked, tasted different,” she said.

“The clothes are wild brilliant weaves, or primitive skins, or so dirty one can't tell the original color.”

“Everything smelled like smoke or sweat or horses—”

“Or something so exotic you couldn't even guess at its origin.”

“Yes!” He did understand! She turned her head—to find him so close they were nose to nose. He reclined on
his side, facing her. Their lips almost met. His breath whispered warm across her cheeks.

She stopped breathing, stopped moving, and just stared. In the darkness, she could see only the outline of him, but she had observed him far too closely these last few days not to know his expression held that grave intensity he wore when he wished to kiss her. When he would kiss her.

Her eyes fluttered shut, a tacit consent.

The arm beneath her head wrapped her closer. His other arm embraced her, pulling her close against his warmth, his strength. His mouth touched hers . . . and it was the same as it was before. Better, because she knew what to expect. The warm, firm pressure, the gentle urging. She opened her lips to him, allowed him access, curled her tongue around his in the intricate, ancient dance of desire. Pleasure spiraled deep in her belly and everything she felt and knew and was—was Throckmorton.

As she yielded, his tempered passion changed. He tasted her more greedily. He held her more tightly. The grass, crushed and rich with summer, gave off its growing scent and mixed with the scent of him—the scent of citrus soap, of starch, of leather and of masculine warmth, faint but enveloping. She would recognize his scent anywhere, for it made her mouth water and her body yearn.

Finally, he lifted his mouth with an impatient grunt. Rolling her onto her back, he rose above her, dominating her with his height, his breadth, his scent and strength.

Her eyes opened, seeing him as a silhouette against the stars. The stars that were still there, but no longer
familiar. Brighter, cleaner, and changed somehow. Instead of the constellations that had illuminated the night sky from time immemorial, they had shifted to form different shapes—flowers blossoming in the eternal night, lacy gowns of white, lovers wrapped in each other's arms.

Then he leaned over her, blotting them out. He kissed her lips urgently. He tasted of velvet night sky, of darkness that went on forever. He tasted of stars burning far away, of grandeur barely glimpsed, of worlds lost in the ether where exotic emotions held sway and he could command her body and all its responses. Each stroke of his tongue took her farther away from this place, this world, and she went willingly, not knowing where she wandered or why.

He kissed her cheeks, tilted her head aside, kissed her neck. Her throat. His mouth traveled, open and damp, up to her ear. His weight pressed her into the blanket. He wanted. She surrendered. But she wasn't afraid. Instead she wrapped her arms around his waist and whispered his name. “Garrick. Garrick.”

Without warning, he hurled himself off of her and flung himself to his feet.

Lifting herself onto her elbows, she pushed her hair from her eyes. “Garrick?”

He stood with his back to her, hands on his hips.

“Throckmorton, what's wrong?”

“Go dress in your finest gown.” The velvet voice was gone, replaced by the guttural tone of a beast who had barely mastered the power of speech. “Dance with Ellery. Flirt with Ellery. Let me see you with Ellery, or you will find out just how little I care that you love Ellery.”

* * *

Seated at his desk, Throckmorton tapped his pen incessantly on the smooth, polished wood and stared at the blasted girl, head bent over the letter she was translating. Outdoors, rain dripped off the eaves and sluiced down the gutters, making the morning dark and drear. Candles flickered in candelabras set on either side of the desk to light the work so necessary to the perpetuity of the British Empire. And each little bead of light danced in the blonde strands that mixed with the honey brown of Celeste's hair and lent a creamy patina to the smooth curve of her neck. She was beautiful, she was efficient, and the previous night, she had dared to do just as he told her to do. She had put on a ball gown of white, silken beauty and proceeded to flirt and dance with Ellery.