Regency 09 - Redemption (10 page)

Dare gave him a lazy look
from beneath half-lowered eyelids. “Are you still here?”

The man sputtered a moment
in indignation. Jenny rescued the situation, placing a hand on the
lord’s arm. Dare wanted very badly to rip the man’s arm off and
take Jenny severely to task for daring to touch another
man.

“Lord Grissom, I realize
you only worry over my welfare, but I assure you, Mr. Prestwich
will do me no harm.” Her eyes met Dare’s briefly,
questioningly.

He smiled in as
nonthreatening a manner as he could, considerably sure he resembled
something quite feral. Lord Grissom bowed stiffly, firmly dismissed
as he was by the lady present.

Dare took Jenny’s hand,
placing it on his arm. “Ah, my beautiful damsel, I finally have you
all to myself.”

Jenny laughed lightly,
casting an amused look around the crowded ballroom. “Hardly, my
dear sir. Would that you did.”

He stared at her. Had she
truly said what he thought he heard? When she smiled, he knew he
had and, amazingly, he was flummoxed.

“Have I finally managed to
render you speechless, Darius Prestwich? I have to admit I am
delighted.”

He shook his head, trying
for a semblance of reason, trying to ignore the sudden clamoring in
his veins to take her somewhere, anywhere, and make her fully aware
of what it was she so wantonly offered.

“Did I really solicit this
dance?” he asked instead.

“Of course not. I was
heartily sick of Grissom’s tiresome lectures on proper behavior. As
if he has room to talk,” she grumbled. “The man has two mistresses
that I know of whom he openly visits—they actually share a
house—and I’m sure they are not the first.”

Dare
released a short bark of laughter. “Ah, but you miss the point, my
dear girl. Gentlemen are
allowed
to have mistresses. Ladies are not allowed to even
dally without severe consequences.”

“How unfair is
that?”

Dare groaned. “Jenny, my
girl, don’t wish for things that are better left unexplored. You
are far too inquisitive for your own good.”

She frowned up at him. “You
begin to sound like Lord Grissom.”

Grimacing, he began walking
the edge of the room, keeping a careful eye out for her family, the
male members especially. The last thing he wanted was a public
scene.

“I have no intention of
sounding like the prosy Lord Grissom, I assure you,” he told her
sincerely. “I just thought a word of caution necessary as you
sounded quite like you actually wanted to be”—he searched for a
word that was not terribly insulting—“fast.”

“I don’t. Want to be
labeled fast, I mean. I just wish men were held up to ridicule the
same as women. It’s clearly unfair to condemn one for one’s action
simply because she had the misfortune to be born female while
praising a man for hopping from bed to bed with not a care in the
world for his family at home.”

Dare gave her a long
considering look. “I must say I agree, Lady Genevieve, but to
actually say what you just did in such a public setting is courting
censure.”

Jenny spared a
surreptitious glance for the assembled guests, noting a few within
hearing were giving her queer looks. She sent them a beatific smile
and turned back to her companion.

“It is no worry. Mrs.
Garber is no gossip and Lord Woods only pretends he can hear. He is
actually deaf as a post.”

Dare chuckled. “Thankfully
for your reputation, my dear.”

“Yes.” She paused a moment.
Dare wondered what was going on in that fertile brain of hers but
was patently afraid to ask. “Do you mind very much if we sit this
dance out?” she finally inquired, turning innocent cornflower eyes
up to his.

It was a second before he
actually realized the orchestra had started the next dance. He
smiled back at her, inclining his head ever so slightly and
steering her in the direction of some empty chairs along the
wall.

“Oh, do you think we could
go out on the terrace? It is a bit stuffy in here.”

“Certainly,” he agreed,
against his better judgment. He moved with her to the tall doors
leading out into the rather chilly March night. He eyed her a bit
skeptically. “Are you sure? There is a chill wind in the
air.”

Her answering smile should
have warned him she was up to mischief. But part of him recalled
that odd note she’d sent round earlier that night and he wanted to
speak with her privately about it.

He led her out, staying
carefully within sight of anyone who happened to look in their
direction.

Jenny had other ideas,
however.

“Oh, what a beautiful
fountain! Let’s take a closer look, shall we?” Holding out her hand
for his arm, there was really nothing he could do but escort her
halfway across the rather vast English garden to the misting
fountain in the center.

It was really nothing
extraordinary that he could tell, but Jenny seemed quite taken with
the thing. He imagined it was supposed to represent Aphrodite or
some such mythical goddess but the weather and time had eroded it
down to something closely resembling a dyspeptic squirrel holding a
water jug.

“Isn’t it lovely. So
romantic.”

Alarm bells went off in his
head. Lady Genevieve Northwicke couldn’t possibly have dalliance in
her inventive little mind…could she?

His question was answered
about a second later. Turning slightly, she stretched up and placed
her lips firmly against his.

He wasn’t doing anything,
she thought in sudden panic. Jenny didn’t know what to do. She’d
never kissed a man before. She had assumed he’d take
over.

And then, suddenly, he
groaned—or growled, she wasn’t exactly sure which—low in his throat
and did exactly what she wanted…and then some.

His arms came around her,
crushing her body tightly against his hard muscular form. She
caught her breath as feelings she’d never begun to imagine crashed
through her, making her knees go weak and her stomach flutter
alarmingly.

One hand moved up to her
neck, cradling her head as his mouth took greater possession. Jenny
clung to him, positive she could no longer stand on her
own.

Dare coaxed her mouth open,
drawing her very breath from her lungs. For a moment, she thought
she would faint. Another moment passed and she thought she would
expire if he didn’t touch her.

The feelings she
experienced were purely elemental, she told herself. They had
nothing to do with the man that held her, kissed her. It had
everything to do with the fact that Dare obviously knew what he was
doing.

As the one hand cradled her
head, the other moved up from her waist, traveling slowly, over her
bodice. When his hand gently brushed the underside of her breast,
Jenny stopped thinking. All she did was feel.

Dare gasped into her mouth
when her small hands traveled somewhere they really shouldn’t go.
He tore his lips from hers, grabbed her hand, and stepped firmly
away.

Dear God, it was the most
difficult thing he’d ever done. She stood there in the pale
moonlight, lips swollen from his kisses, eyes shining with promise
and a little bit of wounded pride. More than anything, he wanted to
take up where they’d left off, exploring every bare inch of her
with his tongue.

A tremor wracked his body.
If his thoughts continued in that particular vein, he’d do the
unthinkable and take her right there on the ground, before the
fountain—the ugliest, most unromantic fountain in
existence.

“Jenny,” he croaked.
Clearing his throat, he tried again. “Jenny, I’m sorry, I don’t
know what came over me.”

She
snorted. He stared at her in utter disbelief. She actually snorted.
And it wasn’t even one of those
ladylike
snorts.

“Please
don’t pretend it was your fault like a
proper
gentleman
”—she said the words like a curse—“should. I was the one who
initiated the embrace and as such, take the responsibility for it.”
She shrugged with apparent nonchalance.

He cocked his head
slightly, studying her intently. “Very well, if that is what you
wish. However, it was not your actions that made me take greater
liberties than was offered.”

“How stuffy you sound,” she
mused, smiling faintly. “I am astonished you failed to realize
exactly what was being offered. Did you not receive my
note?”

He moved a step closer,
suddenly needing to see her eyes better. “I did. Why did you send
it?”

“I would have thought that
was plainly obvious.”

His eyes widened. She
couldn’t possibly be suggesting…

Of course she could. She
was Lady Genevieve Northwicke, insatiably curious, headstrong,
willful Lady Genevieve Northwicke.

His temper flared. “Are you
out of your mind? You asked for an assignation to…dear God, woman,
you are insane!”

“No,” she snapped right
back. “I’m not insane. I’m lonely!”

That shut him up proper. He
stared, unable to fathom the idea that the rich, cosseted blond
beauty before him was lonely. People like her didn’t get lonely.
They surrounded themselves with other people just like them and
talked about their money and possessions, never letting ordinary
cares touch their sparkling existence.

“I thought…” she sighed
deeply. “I just thought…you were, too.”

“Oh, Jenny-love,” he
whispered, feeling her pain tear a hole in his chest, “that’s no
reason to indulge in something you should only share with your
husband.”

Their gazes met, held. Both
were darkened by moonlight and bitter thoughts. Hers shimmered with
repressed tears. He would not have been surprised if his did as
well.

He wanted to take her in
his arms, comfort her, but he knew if he touched so much as a
strand of her honey-gold hair, his tenuous control would slip. He’d
wanted her since he first met her and he suspected he always would.
When a single tear slipped down her pale ivory cheek, he stepped
forward, his control be damned.

Jenny, horrified at her
confession, doubly horrified at her shattered pride, and triply
horrified at her loss of control, fled.