PortraitofPassion (4 page)

In one fluid motion she tucked her foot into the stirrup and
threw herself upon the horse’s back. Thank God he was a well-mannered horse,
she thought with some humor. She’d hate to add to her humiliation by falling
flat on her backside. Hooking her knee around the pommel, she settled into the
saddle and reached for the reins.

Easton was at her side in an instant, grabbing the dangling
reins and handing them to her. His hand gripped hers. Unable to lift her eyes,
she stared down at their hands, resting upon her velvet skirt.

“Beatrice, look at me,” he commanded. But she couldn’t. She
was afraid of what she would see in his expression. Anger? Embarrassment?
Disgust?

“Please,” he whispered. And how could she refuse the plea
she heard in his voice?

Slowly she turned her head to look at him where he stood
beside her, still holding on to her hand.

And what she saw in his eyes caused her breath to hitch in
her throat. There was no anger, no disgust. Perhaps there was some
embarrassment, but mostly there was humor. He smiled, with his lips and his
eyes. She told herself that it couldn’t be joy she saw in his lopsided smile.
It couldn’t be happiness she saw in his sparkling eyes. But she thought it
might be.

He shook his head slightly and chuckled softly. He gave her
hand one final squeeze before releasing it.

“That’s a powerful weapon you have there.” At her look of
confusion he continued. “I can’t imagine what that’s like, having a will strong
enough to force a man to kiss you.”

As she sat there, mouth hanging open in surprise, he vaulted
into his saddle and reined in his horse, bringing the stallion close beside her
mount. He reached out to touch a stray lock of hair that had fallen to lie
against her neck and curl down across her bodice. The back of his hand softly
brushed her breast. The same breast he had so recently held in the palm of that
very same hand. He twirled the strand around and around his finger. She looked
down and watched as her hair became entangled with his fingers. She raised her
eyes to find him watching her. That small hint of a smile lingered on his lips.
Lips that had kissed hers for one brief moment.

“I wanted to kiss you the moment I saw you,” he said as he
released her curl and it drifted on the breeze between them before coming to
rest once more upon her breast. She felt it like an echo of his hand. “I’ve
wanted to kiss you every moment I’ve spent with you since.”

“Oh,” she managed to whisper.

“I want to kiss you now,” he went on. “I want to pull you
into my arms and crush your lips under mine. I want to free your hair and bury
my face in it. I want to strip you bare and explore every inch of your luscious
body with my hands and my mouth. I want to come into you and hear you cry out
my name. I want to stay inside you until we are both too exhausted to move.”

Oh my God.
The picture he painted with his dark,
dangerous voice. She could see it. She wanted it. She wanted his hands and his
mouth on her. She wanted to feel him inside her.

She gripped the reins tightly. To keep from reaching for
him? Yes, she admitted to herself.

She knew she should say something. She should say something
amusing so that they could laugh together. She needed to erase the desire that
pulsed between them. She couldn’t want him. She couldn’t have him.

You’ve done this a hundred times
, she admonished
herself.
You can do it now. Find the words.
But she couldn’t so she
continued to stare at him in silence.

“I am sorry if I have shocked you,” he said and now she saw
the spark of laughter come into his eyes.

“What?” She finally found her voice, but not her wits. “Are
you…what are you saying? This…what you said…” Bea knew she was stammering. Her
mind just couldn’t seem to catch up with her words. She couldn’t quite
comprehend what he had said, what he had done. She thought perhaps he was
playing with her now. But what he had said to her, the image he had created in
her mind, was that real or a game?

“I think you are a woman who needs to be shocked.” He barely
got the words out around the laughter that came rumbling from deep in his
chest. He threw his head back and laughed into the wind. And what a laugh it
was, thought Bea in wonder. His big body shook with it, tears came to his eyes
and he fell forward over his horse’s neck, still shaking as he urged his mount
forward. Bea was left to stare after him in astonishment.

“What was that between you and Beatrice?” Henry asked as
they rode side by side from the park to his town house on Berkeley Square.

“To what are you referring?” Simon asked, although he
suspected he knew. His body tensed in anticipation of his cousin’s answer.

“In the park, after the race,” Henry replied. “I looked back
to find you standing very close.”

“Were we?” Simon hoped that was all he had seen.

“I couldn’t quite see around that great beast she rides, but
you both appeared absorbed.”

Simon relaxed back into his saddle.

“Hmm, I’m not sure what you mean,” he answered. “We had
stopped at one point while she checked her mount, he seemed to have developed a
slight limp, but it proved to be uneven ground.”

Henry looked over at him with open skepticism.

It would not do at all for Henry to have witnessed that
interlude. She had said that they were not lovers. Plain as day, she had spoken
the words.

“I think you are a man who needs to be shocked.”

And she had shocked him, repeatedly. Beatrice, for that is
how he now thought of her—she could never be Miss Morgan again—had been subdued
as they rode back to the entrance of the park. She and Moorehead had left them
to return home to change for their visit to Bond Street. She had avoided his
eyes when they had taken leave of one another.

Simon rode with Henry to his town house and then on to his
own two blocks farther. He told himself he would not accompany the group on
their shopping expedition. He bathed and stretched out naked upon his bed, his
hand idly stroking his cock as he contemplated their heated encounter.

God. In Hyde Park, in the early-morning light. What had come
over him? He didn’t behave that way. He wasn’t impulsive. He did not, under any
circumstances, lose his head over a woman.

But Miss Beatrice Morgan was magnificent. He had sat upon
his horse watching her soaring toward him, her hat lost and her beautiful
golden hair flying out behind her. And then she had won the race, that silly
impromptu race for a new bonnet, and let loose a husky laugh followed by a
triumphant yell, arms raised and head thrown back. She was a goddess, Athena,
the warrior goddess. She was alive in a way he couldn’t comprehend. He couldn’t
comprehend it because he’d never known anyone like her. She was unique, and in
the world he inhabited no one was unique. And if they were, they were not long
for that world.

That elusive quality he had seen in her the previous night,
he couldn’t quite put a name to it—call it natural, elemental, alive. Whatever
it was, it had been more pronounced this morning. It was as if she were some
fairy creature stolen from a fantastical forest somewhere and plopped down in London,
with no notion of how to go on. She behaved with almost no propriety. It was as
if no one had ever taught her how a lady should behave.

Who was she? The need to find the answer was fast becoming
an obsession.

Henry had called him suspicious. He could admit to himself
that suspicion played a part in his desire to uncover her secrets. She surely
had secrets. Christ, everything about her was a secret, a great mystery.

“And then I willed you to kiss me!”

He hadn’t planned to kiss her. He certainly hadn’t planned
to grope her breast in Hyde Park. He was still amazed at how quickly things had
gone from calm to chaos. He was more amazed by how quickly he had been
transformed from a sober, cautious gentleman, carefully hiding the desire that
raged within him, into a wild, careless brute, openly fondling her in the
middle of the park for all to see.

“I practically threw my breast into your hand.
”

Simon laughed. That much was true. He had only reached out
to keep her from falling. And the next thing he knew his hand had been holding
her breast. And instead of backing out of his reach, she had leaned into his
caress, filling his hand with her warm flesh until he had thought he might go
mad.

Every word he had said to her had been true. He had wanted
to kiss her, to strip her and bury his cock in her heat. He wanted her with a
need that bordered on madness.

He thought that perhaps he could have her. She was no shy
maiden waiting for Prince Charming to come along and marry her. She was an
independent woman, earning her way in life, an artist.

Simon wondered, not for the first time, if she had followed
Henry to London in the hopes of securing him as protector. Never mind what
Henry had said about that kiss they had shared in Paris. Henry was young and
relatively naïve when it came to women and the games they played.

She hadn’t been playing games this morning. There had been
no dance of advance and retreat. She had wanted him. Her desire had been in her
eyes, in her soft moan, on her lips lifted up to him in offering.

Just thinking about how quickly desire had sprung up between
them and the many ways he wanted to explore that desire had Simon tightening
his hand on his throbbing cock. He was tempted to bring himself to spend before
rising and getting on with the many responsibilities awaiting him.

But Beatrice and Henry were to meet on Bond Street to
purchase a bonnet that was ever so pretty, both in looks and price. Today a
bonnet, tomorrow a set of ear bobs. By next week, she might be set up in a cozy
little house in Bloomsbury with his naïve cousin handing out lines of credits
to every modiste and jeweler in Town.

And any possibility of hearing Beatrice Morgan call out his
name as he buried his cock in her body would vanish.

“Christ,” he growled as he sprang from the bed. He rang for
Tibbons, his valet, who came running from his dressing room.

“Are you going out then, after all?” the valet asked,
steadfastly ignoring the erection his employer was sporting.

“I am,” Simon responded. “Shopping. Bond Street. With a
lady.”

“Very good, my lord.”

* * * * *

And so he joined Beatrice and Henry and Moorehead on Bond
Street. He carried Beatrice’s new bonnet in its hat box. It was a silly, frilly
thing, little more than a circle of straw and rivers of trailing pink ribbons.
He couldn’t imagine her in pink. He had seen her in scarlet silk, burgundy
velvet and now an emerald muslin walking dress, surprisingly modest but for the
vibrant color.

She had apparently regained her composure. In fact she acted
as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. She was charming and friendly
to all she encountered, from the toothless old man selling meat pastries, which
she had to have and ate while walking down Bond Street, leaving a trail of
crumbs in her wake, to the rather snooty assistant in the milliner’s shop.

She alternately took Moorehead’s arm, then Henry’s, then his
own. She chatted and laughed and flirted, first with Henry, then with him and
back to Henry.

Simon noticed that she did not flirt with Moorehead. Nor did
he flirt with her. They acted like devoted father and daughter. He spoiled her
with praise and purchases, while she looked to him for his opinion on every
purchase and laughed at every one of his jokes. It was clear to him now that he
had missed the mark entirely when he had suspected her of being his mistress.

He also noticed that she was friendly with men who she met
throughout the day, either by introduction from one of her three escorts, or,
much to his surprise, on her own, for she seemed to have no hesitancy in simply
beginning conversations with strangers. For all that, she did not flirt with
the men she met. He certainly wouldn’t call her behavior proper, but he
couldn’t call it loose or vulgar either. She seemed to have a sincere interest
in the people around her.

So the day progressed from shopping to lemon ices at
Gunter’s. It was at Gunter’s that Simon saw the first hint of unease in
Beatrice Morgan.

They had just sat down to enjoy their frozen dessert when
two fashionable young ladies entered arm in arm, followed by a liveried footman
carrying half a dozen parcels.

Henry immediately jumped to his feet and Simon and Moorehead
followed his lead.

“Olivia and Miss Fairchild, what a pleasure,” Henry
exclaimed. Simon suspected he was anything but pleased. What an awkward encounter.

The initial greetings over, Henry had no choice but to turn
toward Beatrice, who had also risen to stand beside the table, watching the
ladies and gentlemen make their bows. She held a bowl of lemon ice in one hand
and her spoon in the other, and upon her face she wore an arrested look. Simon
watched her carefully. Something had clearly upset her. Jealousy perhaps?

“Allow me to introduce Lady Palmerton, my sister, and Miss
Fairchild. Ladies, this is Miss Morgan.” God, Henry looked pained. It was all
Simon could do not to laugh at his expression. Imagine having to introduce
one’s sister and one’s nearly intended to—but what was Beatrice really? Simon
knew she wasn’t Henry’s mistress. Beatrice named Henry friend. It was unheard
of, a single gentleman and a single lady being friends. But Beatrice was not a
lady, was she?

Simon stepped back a pace to better watch the scene as it
unfolded. He saw Moorehead step up beside Beatrice and lay a hand gently upon
her back. She turned to him and he smiled at her. Simon couldn’t see Beatrice’s
expression, as her head was turned away from him, but she quickly turned back
to look at the ladies and he was able to see her once more. Her eyes were wide.
She blinked once, twice, and Simon saw her eyes fill. She looked as if she
might cry.

There was clearly more to this encounter than met the eye.

“It is my pleasure to make your acquaintance,” she said,
extending the hand that still held the spoon. “Oh pardon me,” she said with a
wobbly little laugh. She stuck the spoon into her ice and once again extended
her hand. If he hadn’t been watching so intently, he might have missed the
tremor in that hand.

“A pleasure I’m sure,” replied Olivia as she placed her
gloved hand into Beatrice’s bare one. Beatrice’s eyes closed for one long
moment as she seemed to absorb that slight touch. When she opened them she
blinked rapidly, her mouth loosening into an open smile, dimple and all. It was
the same welcome-home smile she had gifted him with the previous night.

“How do you do?” asked Miss Fairchild. Miss Jane Fairchild
was a silly girl of nineteen with strawberry-blonde hair and big china-blue
eyes. Her skin was fashionably pale and her figure voluptuous. In Simon’s
opinion there was nothing to her beyond her pretty looks. She hadn’t a brain or
a heart that he’d ever seen.

Beatrice tore her enraptured gaze from Olivia and finally
relinquished her hand. She extended her hand toward Miss Fairchild. Left with
no other choice, the girl was forced to extend her own. This time Beatrice
barely touched her fingers to the other lady’s gloves before she dropped her
hand down to curl it into her skirt.

There was an awkward moment of silence before Simon stepped
up to ask, “Will you ladies join us?”

Two extra chairs were brought over from a vacant table while
a waiter took the orders of the two new additions to their party.

“I see you’ve been shopping, Olivia.” Henry stated the
obvious and conversation finally began to flow, Miss Fairchild dominating it as
she so often did. She spoke of the dresses she had ordered and the people she
had seen, barely stopping for breath. It was exhausting to listen to her.

Simon continued to watch Beatrice from his vantage point
across the small table. She continued in her odd behavior. She said not one
word, but continued to smile across the table at Olivia, the Countess of
Palmerton, Henry’s sister, older by a year. Occasionally she allowed her gaze
to wander from Olivia to Henry and back again. She did not look upon Miss
Fairchild even once. Odd indeed.

Olivia was clearly aware of Beatrice’s eyes upon her. She
was much too well-bred to acknowledge the attention, but she must wonder at its
reason, as did Simon.

“We must be on our way home,” Miss Fairchild said after
twenty minutes of endless chatter. “I will save the first dance for you, Lord
Hastings.”

“The first dance?” asked Henry, confusion evident in his
wary gaze.

“We shall begin the dancing tonight,” she said with a smile,
“at my mother’s ball.”

“Yes, of course,” Henry replied.

“Surely you have not forgotten?” she asked and Simon heard
the censure in her voice. Good Lord, was this what Henry had to look forward
to?

“No, no,” Henry assured her. “How could I forget? I have
been looking forward to it for weeks.”

“I should hope so.” She rose as she spoke and turned a
determined smile upon the group. “I look forward to seeing you all tonight,”
she said before her eyes landed on Beatrice. Simon saw the cunning look and
knew what was coming. “Oh pardon me, Miss Morgan, how rude. Of course I shall
not see you this evening.”

Beatrice dragged her gaze from Olivia and rose to her feet.
She towered over the petite Miss Fairchild by a good head. Simon watched as she
looked straight down her elegant nose before replying in the sweetest, most
dulcet tones he had yet heard from her, “Please, think nothing of it. Viscount
Moorehead did mention attending your grand ball, but London offers so many
amusements, and alas, we cannot attend them all. We have decided upon another
for this evening.”

Miss Fairchild sucked in a startled breath before turning to
march out of Gunter’s with a crisp, “Come along, Thomas” to the footman
hovering nearby, arms laden with parcels.

“Good day, Hastings, Easton, Moorehead,” Olivia said with a
slight bow of her head. She turned to Beatrice with a smile. “It was a pleasure
to meet you, Miss Morgan. I hope we shall meet again.”

“It is my fondest wish,” replied Beatrice, silly grin back
in place.

Simon stood staring at Beatrice before looking to Henry and
Moorehead. They were also looking at her, Henry with confusion clearly in his
eyes. Moorehead looked about ready to burst into laughter.