Mischief by Moonlight (20 page)

When Colin stopped by to visit Jasmine House the next day, intending to invite Josie to stroll with him in the garden as part of his plan to besiege her defenses, she refused to leave the house. She told him she and her siblings had undertaken a plan to get Mrs. Cardworthy off her divan, and that it was her turn today to be a companion to their mother.

When he pointed out that her mother had always liked him and that perhaps he could be helpful, she deflected his offer of help and urged her brothers, who were just on their way to the lake down the road to test a skiff they were building, to take him with them.

So Colin went to the lake. The skiff turned out not to be lake-worthy, and Will was thoroughly dunked. Colin rolled up his sleeves and helped the boys refasten its muddied bindings. When he returned to Jasmine House with the boys afterward, Josie was suspiciously absent, and he had to go home without having a real chance to see her.

The next day when he came again to visit, she just smiled with a pleasant but impersonal cheerfulness and said her brothers were already down at the lake with the skiff and ardently hoping he would join them and offer more assistance. Then she muttered something about her mother and disappeared inside, closing the door in his face before he could reply.

He was glad if she was engaged on a worthwhile occupation, however much it did not look likely to succeed, and it had brought a spring to her step that had been missing the last times he'd seen her. If there remained a reserve and a tentative quality to her smiles, that was not surprising. But he could also see she was using this undertaking to keep him at arms' length. Clearly, he was going to have to make a grander effort.

The following day, he sent out invitations for a neighborhood ball.

It had been more than six weeks since they'd received the news about Nick, and though his loss must always leave a lingering sadness for all who'd loved him, it was time for both of them to rejoin society, and the smaller scale of a neighborhood ball should be the right amount of gentle festivity.

He worried that Josie wouldn't accept the invitation and that he'd have to find a way to force her to come, but on the night of the ball, both she and Edwina, along with their brother Lawrence, appeared, the other Cardworthys being too young, and their mother still declining to leave her divan.

From a vantage point at the corner of his grand ballroom, Colin stood watching Josie, Edwina, and Lawrence enter. The three siblings stood hesitantly to the side, aware that many in the village might still resent the way the family had kept to themselves, even if their presence tonight was a mark of the Earl of Ivorwood's favor.

But it would have been a hard-hearted person indeed who would have continued to hold on to the local grudge now that Josie had lost her valiant fiancé to the war, and the gentle efforts that Josie and Edwina and Lawrence made toward friendliness were quickly welcomed.

Before long the kindly old mayor of Upperton was leading Josie onto the dance floor. The mayor was, thank God, ancient, because she looked incredibly beautiful, a temptation to any man in her pretty hyacinth-blue silk gown with its violet satin ribbon tied under her bosom. Her glossy brown hair had been caught in a soft knot at her nape and wound around with a violet ribbon, but a few sections of her hair had escaped and were flirting with the tops of her shoulders. One strand lay invitingly against her neck, drawing his eyes repeatedly.

Already he'd noticed Freddy Lightfield staring at her with the look of a man who couldn't wait to dance with her. Young Freddy would have to get in line.

Colin made sure he was nearby when her dance with the mayor came to an end. As the opening notes of a waltz began, he was at her side. “Josephine, will you dance with me?”

She blinked, and a mocking smile teased her lips. “Surely you're not asking me to dance?”

“But I am.”

Her smile slipped away. “But aren't there any animals requiring your attention? Sheep? A spotted dog? A lonely snake?”

“Nothing. I'm completely free tonight. Shall we?” He held out his hand and she stared as though she didn't know what to do with it.

Josie was dismayed at the apparent demise of their never-dancing joke, and she couldn't think of any polite way to decline. She hadn't thought she'd ever be dancing with Colin, or that she'd ever need to touch him again, though that hadn't stopped her eyes from following him since the moment she'd arrived. He looked incredibly handsome in his black coat and breeches and snowy cravat. A hank of his black hair fell across his forehead, giving him a careless, wicked air that made her a little unsteady.

There was nothing for it but to put her hand in his. They made their way among the other couples as the music swelled, and he set his hand on her waist and took her other hand in his. She conjured the mildest expression possible as they began to dance, though they were so close she thought he must surely notice the heavy thudding of her heart.

His hands felt warm and large on her and so welcome, but she forced herself not to think about the last time they'd touched each other, in London, when her bare hands had run over the hot skin and taut muscles of his abdomen and explored the width of his chest…

Stop
thinking
about
it!

He danced remarkably well, and she told herself to enjoy this, that it was enough to be twirled around the room by him on a cloud of beautiful music. She would make herself be carefree with him, just as she'd been with him before the summer, before she'd fallen in love with a man who scorned the messy emotions that were so much a part of who she was.

“Sometimes I forget you're an earl and that you've been trained to do all sorts of useful things like dancing,” she said. Conversation was good; it would crowd out other things.

“Don't you want to know why I finally asked you to dance?”

Did he have to tease her? True, they used to tease each other all the time, but now this special attention from him felt like too much. Maybe she wasn't going to be able to be with him after all. She repressed a heavy sigh.

“Very well, why did you ask me to dance?”

He leaned closer so his mouth was next to her ear and said in a low, husky voice, “Because everything's different now. And I wanted an excuse to touch you.”

A tingle ran through her, as quickly as a ball of paper catching fire. She blinked and shifted her head so she caught his eye as he lingered close to her face. His gaze held a smoky look that startled her.

What was he doing?

“Colin?” she said. Surely that look in his eyes was just a trick of the light, because she thought she saw a flash of vulnerability.

Did
Colin care about her more deeply than he'd said? Good God, she'd hadn't dared believe… No, it couldn't be.

And yet, he was looking at her with such a hot and tender gaze. Her foot stepped awry, and he caught her and kept her on her feet. Under his silvery green eyes, her lips grew warm, and she knew with sudden, surprising awareness that she wanted to kiss him.

His eyes held hers longer than they ever had before as he danced her around the room so gracefully that she might have been floating.

Our
friendship
isn't ruined, it's simply been broken open
. He'd said that to her the first day he was back, but she hadn't allowed herself to probe his meaning.

“It's heaven to have you in my arms, Josie,” he said quietly.

“What…what are you saying?” she murmured. The music was coming to an end, and around them the other dancers were slowing down.

“I think you know.”

The dancers applauded the musicians, and Josie clapped as well, hardly knowing what she was doing.

“Come out to the terrace with me,” he said. “I want to talk to you.”

A warm blush spread up her neck. That smoky look in his eyes, the strong hints he was giving…she couldn't mistake his sensual intention. And it excited her. Her heart gave a little skip, that old impulsive skip, the one that wanted her to ignore consequences.

But his cool reserve would hurt her if she trusted him. And why was she even thinking about intimacy with him when only weeks before she'd been engaged to his closest friend?

Yet she wanted to hear what he had to say almost as much as she didn't.

Just
think
of
all
the
foolish
things
you've already done
, her conscience scolded.
There
must
be
no
more
impulsive
behavior.
She must learn from her past mistakes and focus on making careful, considered choices from now on.

“It's not a good idea,” she said.

“It's a good idea,” he said firmly, taking hold of her elbow before she could protest and steering her out the open doors that led to the terrace.

Torches had been set up, and the light from the ballroom spilled out into the night. The moon was bright, and the garden and grass were visible as silvery versions of themselves. He led her over to a stone bench at the edge of the terrace and pulled her down on the bench next to him.

“We shouldn't be out here,” she said.

But she so wanted to kiss him.

He took her hand. “I know you've had a terrible time of it. But, Josie, one day soon you're going to wake up and want to make another future for yourself, and when you do, I want to be the man in it.”

She drew in a sharp breath. “If this is to do with what happened in the carriage—”

“It isn't. What I want is the chance to erase all that.” He leaned a little closer. “To give you something new to think about.”

“Something new?” she breathed. The night air was cool, but the warmth of Colin as he moved closer stirred her.

Move
away, move away.

But she didn't.

“Yes,” he said. “Like this.” He bent his head and touched his lips to hers. Softly, but not tentatively. He lingered there, teasing, coaxing her to open to him.

As she sat there, wanting suddenly to melt against him while knowing guilt would assail her the minute she did, his hands came up on either side of her neck, as if holding her so that he could beguile her better. He seemed suddenly masterful at this. She'd never thought…

But she was having trouble thinking, because he was distracting her with slow, importunate kisses at one corner of her mouth, then along her bottom lip, then the top, just as though he knew she couldn't resist him forever.

And what was Colin up to, anyway? He was Nicholas's friend, too. How could he allow himself to do this?

His mouth traveled along her jaw, and he stopped to linger just under her ear.

“Let me in, Josie,” he murmured.

How she wanted to. But how could she trust him with her heart? He was being tender and warm now, but what about the cold way he'd proposed the first time, and the pushy, angry way he'd behaved the second time? She wanted closeness and love, not just desire.

She lifted a hand and placed it on his chest, half to push him away, half, she knew, to touch him more, a sort of exquisite agony. She was so vulnerable to him. The hard curve of muscle suggested itself to her through the exquisite fabric of his coat and shirt.

“We can't. Nicholas…” Her voice wasn't firm as it should be, but Colin wasn't paying attention anyway. He rubbed the delicate rasp of his incipient whiskers under her ear, releasing a shower of shivers.

“Nick cared about us,” he murmured, pressing kisses along her jawline as he moved away from her neck. “He would have wanted us to seize what happiness we could, and not do penance our whole lives.”

Would
Nicholas have wanted that? And what kind of happiness did he mean? If only he would speak of what was in the heart he kept so guarded.

She closed her eyes, thinking to treasure the feel of him for just this stolen moment. Her mind was so fuzzy with desire that she hardly remembered why she was protesting. His strength, mingled with that intoxicating tenderness, made her want to believe she could trust him with her heart.

“I,” she whispered, not even knowing what she wanted to say. His lips hovered at the corner of her mouth, and she shifted so her mouth met his and opened to him.

He groaned and gathered her in his arms and their tongues met in a sensuous swirl. She lost track of everything as they kissed.

When he finally broke away, he buried his face in the crook of her neck. “Josie,” he said in a voice that was almost a groan, “you'll make me wild.”

Wild
. She felt half-wild herself, and the realization brought her back to herself. She moved a little away from him.

“Josie?”

“I don't know what came over me,” she said. In the ballroom yards away, a piece of music was just coming to an end amid enthusiastic clapping. Where they sat on the terrace was shadowy and well away from the louder noise and glow spilling out by the open doors to the ballroom. In the bushes behind them, she could hear the rustling of a small creature.

“I think you do,” he said. “The same thing that came over me. If you only knew how much I want to be with you.”

Did he truly? Now that she wasn't in his arms, she could focus her thoughts, and she was remembering all the reasons this was a terrible idea. But there was a look in his eyes of sincerity. What if there
could
be a chance for them?

Could she trust him with her heart? What if he turned cold again or pushed her away? She was horribly confused by her internal back and forth, and she needed to think, but she couldn't do it with him looking at her.

“I'm a bit hot,” she said.

He chuckled, a sound of masculine gloating. She crossed her arms, forcing herself to be immune to this new, arrogant Colin so she could think clearly.