Relentless Lord (3 page)

Chapter Four

It really was a lovely day. So unlike what Hannah had gotten used to since coming to England. She had not seen nearly enough sunshine in the last couple years. She wished she could toss her bonnet aside and feel the warmth on her bare head.

But such behavior would be frightfully unseemly, and she could not risk any stragglers from the party ahead of them catching a glimpse of her in such a state. In thinking of the others, Hannah lifted her gaze to scan the path ahead. She and Lord Whitely had been walking for nearly fifteen minutes at a pretty good pace, surely they should have met up with members of the other group by now?

Then again, he had said they were taking a scenic route…

She glanced at the ridiculously handsome lord strolling along beside her. She sincerely hoped this wasn’t some trick to get her alone. He had been pretty quiet so far, no inappropriate flirtation or attempts at unnecessary touching. Basically, none of the sorts of things she would have expected from someone who had declared he planned to seduce her.

But then she knew very little of such things. Maybe the English thought of seduction in very different terms than what she imagined.

In truth, the renowned scoundrel had been rather circumspect over the last couple days. If she were a trusting sort, she would have thought he had changed his mind about pursuing her. But she was not so foolish to dismiss those times she had caught him watching her—and it had been often enough—with a quiet little grin barely hiding on his lips.

It did not bode well that his attention, however brief or covert, managed to warm her as intensely as the desert sun. In fact, it was quite aggravating since Hannah knew full well nothing would come of it. Nothing could.

As though sensing he was the focus of her thoughts, Lord Whitely slid his gaze to the side and gave her a wide grin and a wink.

She told herself it was the fact that she had begun thinking of seduction that had her insides dissolving in delicate tingles. But she knew it was him—and his flashing green eyes—that had her twisted up so neatly.

Her oldest cousin, Jacqueline, had been so very right to bemoan her acquaintance with this man. Though Beatrice had often called her sister silly, Hannah could easily see how Lord Whitely had managed to ruin Jacqueline during her cousin’s first season two years ago. It should have been Hannah’s first season as well, had her uncle not decided she needed more training in the areas of decorum and deportment before he would allow her out in society as a representative of their family.

If Hannah had had access to her own money, she would have purchased a ticket back to Africa many months ago, though by now, her parents had likely moved on to another location. They rarely stayed anywhere for very long. As it was, her uncle held her purse on short strings. He had been burdened with the task of seeing her settled into a proper English marriage and that was what he would do. Whether Hannah wanted the same or not.

“Did you really climb a mountain carrying a pack on your back and leading a mule?” Lord Whitely asked, bringing her back to the present moment.

Her uncle would prefer that no one know how she had lived before coming to England, but Hannah did not like lying. Besides, she saw nothing wrong with the life she’d lived with her parents.

She gave a short nod. “It was just the foothills, but, yes, I did.”

“Fascinating,” he replied.

He didn’t seem particularly shocked by her admission. Anyone else who learned of her unusual upbringing tended to stare at her as though she had just admitted to being from another planet.

“I almost think you mean that,” she said.

“I do,” he answered as he lengthened his stride to step in front of her and turn around to continue their conversation face-to-face while he walked backwards. “I imagine you have done many things that would astound the average Englishman. I would love to hear more.”

Hannah was conflicted. Was it a ploy?

Likely so, but she didn’t really care just now. The sun was shining, reminding her vaguely of home. And for the moment anyway, she and the puckish scoundrel grinning at her were the only people about. She could almost pretend they were not smack dab in the middle of the dreary English countryside.

“You do not find me odd?” she asked with an impish smirk of her own.

“Certainly,” he answered. “That’s exactly what I find fascinating. The moment I saw you lift your skirts, I knew you were not the typical sort of lady.”

Hannah narrowed her gaze and pursed her lips to keep from laughing. He certainly had a way of lightening the tone. “I imagine you thought me an easy mark.”

The laughter faltered in his bright green eyes. Instead of answering, he swung around again to fall into step beside her. The shift in his demeanor was almost startling.

“I am not everything they say about me, you know.”

Hannah considered what she had heard. “Hmmm. You mean you are not a conscienceless flirt and indiscriminate seducer of innocents and sophisticates alike?”

“Would you believe me if I said I had absolutely nothing to do with the women who claim to have been ruined by me?”

“Not at all,” she replied without a second thought.

“Do not get me wrong. I do like to flirt.” He tossed her a wink. “But I have not done half the things people have claimed.”

“I admit I find that hard to believe.”

He shrugged. “For the most part, I enjoy the notoriety. It is amusing to see what people will believe about you with no actual proof. But for some reason, I would rather you know the truth.”

Hannah couldn’t be sure he wasn’t just saying what he thought she’d like to hear.

“Which is…?” she prompted, curious about him despite herself.

“I am not the scoundrel and libertine everyone makes me out as.”

“Hmm,” she responded with a noncommittal sound.

He laughed. “I can see you are unconvinced. I suppose I should not be surprised.”

They lapsed into a sort of uneasy silence for several minutes as the terrain they walked tilted upward and grew rocky and uneven enough that some concentration was required.

After Lord Whitely assisted her with climbing over several groupings of boulders, which she honestly could have leapt over far easier on her own, she finally paused to ask him, “Are you sure we are heading in the right direction?”

Her hand was still in his after he had hoisted her to the top of a particularly large outcropping of rock. His other hand rested on the small of her back. It was a rather inappropriate position, she realized now that she took a moment to think about it. Of course, she had the excuse that she was unaccustomed to all the rules and limitations regarding casual physical contact amongst men and women of the upper classes. Such would not be his excuse, however.

“Most definitely,” he replied with a hearty grin.

Hannah knew she should pull away, her uncle’s voice in the back of her mind screamed at her for her loose manner.

But Whitely’s eyes were so blasted green, and his hand at her back and the other holding hers were so warm and strong. And his lips were a ridiculously pleasant shape, as were his shoulders and legs and hands and face. Everything about him was quite agreeable, actually. Not just his appearance, which in truth was a few steps beyond such a mediocre adjective, but also the way he talked to her. Like she was a real person.

As they stood there, balanced together on the top of the rock, she felt suddenly lightheaded and confused.

“Do you hear water?”

Hannah blinked.

He turned and squinted into the sun, throwing his face into sharp profile. She found herself distracted by the line of his jaw and the shape of his ear.

“Yes, I see it. Come on.”

Without warning, he jumped to the ground and clasped his hands around her waist to lift her down after him. Then he clutched her hand in his as he practically dragged her along the trail, twisting around more rocks and leaping ditches formed by water running from the higher ground.

Hannah couldn’t help but laugh at his obvious enthusiasm. She grasped her skirts to lift them out of the way as she leapt agilely after him.

“Where on earth are you leading me?” she questioned good-naturedly. “What did you see?”

“This,” he answered as he stopped and pulled her up alongside him.

Hannah followed his sparkling gaze to the stunning sight of a crystalline pool of water trapped by a formation of boulders and fed by a stream of water tumbling down a rock wall. The water reflected the bright sunshine with watercolor hues of blue, green and gold. It was picture perfect.

“What on earth,” she murmured as she stepped closer to the edge. The pool was quite deep and big enough to hold perhaps five men comfortably. The water, so clear and bright, looked unbelievably refreshing.

She glanced around them and realized for the first time that they had been slowly making their way up into the hills. The path going back the way they had come sloped slowly downward and the path ahead only went up. She didn’t recall anyone mentioning such an incline on the way to the picnic spot.

A forest-green coat dropped to the rocks at her side. With a start, she turned to see Lord Whitely unbuttoning the front of his waistcoat.

“What are you doing?” she exclaimed.

His grin was boyish and naughty. “I am going for a swim.”

He tossed the waistcoat aside and bent over to pull off his boots.

A flash of panic seared through Hannah.
This
was certainly not appropriate.

“No, you are not. Someone from the party may come back this way and see you.”

He shrugged and continued to strip off his stockings and then went for his neck clothe. Stopping finally as he stood in nothing but his buckskin breeches and thin white shirt, he turned and gave her grin.

“Won’t you join me? I cannot imagine it is so deep you won’t be able to touch the bottom.” He wriggled his brows suggestively. “Though if it is, I won’t mind if you wish to cling to me for safety.”

“You are not really going in,” she insisted. Of course he wouldn’t.

He just lifted his brows and stepped up to the edge. Before she could say a word to stop him, he made one long leap.

Hannah gasped as the cold water splashed back at her.

He resurfaced with a shake of his head and a wily grin.

“Come on then. The sun is hot and the water is cool. It feels amazing. You know you want to,” he challenged.

“Not a chance,” she said, holding back a smile. The man had no boundaries to his behavior. “My uncle would throttle me. He may still if someone catches me talking to you like this. I am sure this is breaking at least a dozen rules.”

“No one is going to come this way,” he assured calmly. “You are entirely safe from censure, I promise.”

Something in his confident tone struck a note of caution in her mind. “How can you be so sure?” Before he could speak, she answered her own question. “We are not following the party, are we?”

His expression was unrepentant and just a little self-satisfied. “No.”

“You
are
a scoundrel,” she accused.

“Listen,” he said as he swam forward to the edge of the pool, basically to her feet. “No one will ever know we came up this way together. Not unless you tell them. So why don’t you simply enjoy the unexpected respite and take advantage of this slice of paradise?”

Hannah did not answer right away. The man had a valid point. And the water did look heavenly. She used to swim a lot before coming to England, before she was advised such frolicking was reserved for children.

But, no. She could not risk it.

She glanced away from him.

“Fine,” he said, a stubborn tone coloring his voice. “I will just stay submerged until you change your mind.”

Hannah glanced back at him just in time to see him pushing off from the rocks to fall back under the surface with a rolling splash. She shook her head at his antics. Did he really think to convince her with that?

She crossed her arms over her chest as the rippling water stilled over him. It was clear enough to see his wavering form sitting on the bottom of the pool.

How long had he been down there? Twenty seconds maybe?

Another ten went by, then twenty more on top of that.

Hannah untied her bonnet and set it on a rock beside his coat. How long could a man hold his breath? She kicked off her shoes. Thirty seconds to a minute on average, perhaps? She had once seen a pearl diver off the coast of Persia hold his breath for four minutes easily. But that had been accomplished after years of training.

Lord Whitely was a pampered Englishman.

And he had already been underwater for nearly two minutes.

“Drat,” she muttered as she reached for the back of her gown and pulled the buttons free with a rough yank and tug, sending several bouncing down onto the rocks. “I am going to have to save him.”

Chapter Five

Hannah gasped as the water closed around her. It was a great deal colder than she’d expected. Holding back her panic, she kicked off the rock wall and dove toward his wavering image.

The water was not very deep and she reached him in seconds.

As soon as she grasped the front of his shirt, he brought his arms up around her and propelled them both toward the surface in a rush.

She blinked the water from her eyes. Opening them wide, she found herself staring directly into his ridiculously handsome face, which was split with an engaging grin.

“I knew you could not resist.”

“Bloody hell,” she whispered. “You’re mad.”

He just smiled bigger and arched his winged black brows. “Were you attempting to rescue me?”

Feeling exceeding disconcerted, not only by the realization he had not been in any danger at all, which was astounding, but also by the fact that he continued to hold her against him in a way that had them pressed to each other from chest to knee. His arms were tight enough around her middle that she was lifted off the floor of the natural pool while the water lapped just below her breasts.

Planting the heels of her hands against his shoulders, she exerted some pressure.

He didn’t budge.

“Admit it,” he said, narrowing his gaze to strips of vivid green.

She did not miss how his voice lowered to a warm drawl. Nor did she miss how the muscled shape of his shoulders felt hard like marble yet far from cold beneath her hands. Nor could she possibly ignore the heat that seeped from his body into hers even while the water swirled frigidly around them.

“You were devastated by the thought I might expire down there alone in the murky depths.”

Hannah executed a gentle eye-roll at his last statement. “This pool is hardly murky. And how on earth did you manage to stay down there so long without breath?”

He shrugged, and the movement caused an interesting friction against the peaks of her breasts.

Hannah shook off the delightful sensation.

“When I was six years old, I got a cramp while swimming in the pond on our estate and couldn’t get to the surface. One of my brothers saw me thrashing about and rescued me, but I discovered I rather enjoyed the attention I garnered from my brush with death. Mother was so rattled she did not allow me back to the pond the rest of the year. I spent my time practicing how to hold my breath, extending the time I could resist the urge to inhale. When the next summer came along, I played a little prank on my siblings.” His smile turned naughty and Hannah’s heart took a little dive. “They didn’t think it was nearly as funny as I did.”

“I imagine not,” she chided. “That is a terrible prank.”

“I learned early that in order to be noticed in a family the size of mine, one often needed to go to extremes.”

That explained a lot. “Just how large is your family?”

“Ridiculously large.”

“How ridiculous?” She was curious despite herself.

“I have two older brothers, four younger, and five bright and beautiful sisters, the youngest having been born just three years ago. She was a bit unexpected.”

“You have got to be joking,” she accused. To an only child, the numbers were simply astounding.

“Not at all,” he said with a wide grin. “My parents are still very active, you could say.”

“Oh goodness, I would rather you didn’t.”

“Does the idea of procreation make you nervous?”

She eyed him warily. His tone was light and joking, but he still hadn’t loosened his inappropriate embrace.

And she had long since stopped trying to get him to.

“Of course not,” she replied honestly. “It is a natural occurrence in the animal kingdom. For all our airs as human beings, we are far more animalistic than we would like to admit. We have simply learned to disguise our instincts behind manners, or we have forgotten them altogether in the hopes of distancing ourselves from the natural world.” She sighed, thinking of her life before England. “It is rather sad really.”

“You are a source of unending astonishment.”

Hannah studied his face for evidence of ridicule. “Don’t you mean amusement?”

She gave another push at his shoulders. He shrugged again and finally loosened his hold enough for her to step back.

“Sure,” he agreed. “Amusement as well. But then I try to find amusement in just about everything.”

Hannah did not doubt him. She already knew his humor was as much a part of his personality as his penchant for flirtation. She lifted her hands to push back strands of her hair that had fallen from her coiffure to drip on her face. As she did so, she watched his gaze fall to her breasts.

She glanced down at herself. Now that he wasn’t holding her against him, the front of her body was quite exposed. The thin muslin of her chemise was soaked and had become entirely transparent.

Too late, she recalled that the British tended to be rather uncomfortable with openly displaying the natural state of the human body. To Hannah, who was familiar with having to bathe in public rivers and other watering holes when necessary, such forced sensibilities seemed a bit unnecessary. Not to mention contradictory when some ladies of the
beau monde
were known to dampen their skirts to display their charms more clearly, or rouged their nipples to make them more obvious.

Lowering her arms, but refusing to cover herself despite the bold admiration in his gaze, she tipped her head to say sardonically, “I know how people look at me.” Her words brought his gaze back to meet her eyes. “They think me strange and find it enjoyable to make subtle little digs against my background or my respectability or what have you.”

She sighed, and although his gaze flickered, she admired that he kept it on her face.

“Frankly. I do not care what most people think.”

He smiled then. A low and widening grin that lit his whole face. “Bravo. You shouldn’t. And neither do I. Unless their opinions make me laugh, which they often do. Then I might be guilty of encouraging them.”

Hannah laughed. She couldn’t help it.

“Oh ho,” he exclaimed in mock surprise. “She laughs! Perhaps Miss Walpole is capable of having fun after all.”

Hannah threw him a spirited glare but couldn’t keep her lips from curling upward.

“Can I help it if I find this country repressive and dull?”

He snorted. “Darling, we all find it repressive and dull. That is why I claim my joy wherever I can.”

Without warning, he dove under the water. Hannah had only a second to step back and gasp a breath before he wrapped his hands around her ankles and pulled her under. He released her once her head submerged and she used her momentum to twist around him as he rose back to the surface. By the time she came up for air, she was directly behind him, and without thought of the decorum, she reared up and grasped his shoulders as she threw her weight to the side. Effectively dunking the much larger man.

She did not need to think about the propriety of her behavior because she knew quite well it was not done for young ladies to engage in any kind of horseplay, let alone with a man while in the water and barely clothed. But she didn’t give a damn. Somewhere in the last few minutes, she had decided to take his advice and seize the unexpected respite she had been gifted with that morning.

Though she’d managed that one bit of surprise, he had amazingly quick reflexes and was exceptionally agile in the water, nearly as agile as she was herself. In the end, his strength won out over her quickness and they both came up for air with his arms once again secured around her body. Only this time, he held her aloft against his chest. One of his arms wrapped around her back and the other beneath her legs.

She had nowhere to go.

Laughing, she pushed her sodden hair out of her face, the full length having long since fallen from the elaborate style her cousin’s maid had created that morning.

“All right, Lord Whitely, I accede this skirmish to you. You have earned your victory.”

He shook his head like a dog, his thick black locks sending water flying everywhere.

Hannah laughed again and wrapped her arms around his neck as she closed her eyes to await the end of his final assault.

“Won’t you call me Miles?” he asked once he had finished.

Hannah opened her eyes and her gaze slammed hard into his bright green ones. Water still dripped from his thick black lashes and ran down the side of his handsome face from his temples, over his strong cheekbones to his angled jaw.

Wet and disheveled, he looked more like a man than a demigod. Stripped of the fine high-society veneer, he was even more dangerous than Hannah could ever had anticipated. Because in his current state, she got a glimpse of who he truly was—a flesh and blood man with a grin that made her knees weak and eyes that saw her as she was beneath the layers of her uncle’s reformation.

His smiled widened when she said nothing, as though he understood her sudden distraction. Which was really rather annoying once she considered it.

“I think our relationship has extended past stiff formalities, don’t you?” he asked again.

“We have no relationship,” she replied, needing to create some distance, in theory, if not in physical actuality.

“Not yet.” He lowered his tone. “I have to admit to being a little disappointed in your efforts to convince me to marry you. It makes me think you may not be taking this challenge seriously enough.”

This time, Hannah snorted. “You would be right. I am most certainly not taking your silly challenge seriously.” She squirmed in his hold, trying to signal to him that she wished to be released. Instead, he shifted his hold beneath her legs to grasp her more securely around her thighs. She narrowed her gaze but continued, “I have no desire to wed you, Lord Whitely.”

“You forfeit already? Wonderful!” he exclaimed. “Seduction it is then.”

“No,” Hannah denied quickly, though heat flashed through her blood at his words. “I told you I will not be seduced and I meant it.”

His smile curved into a very masculine depiction of satisfaction and triumph. The expression made Hannah’s toes curl and her stomach flutter distractingly. Then he tipped his head toward her until his mouth was just a breath away from hers.

Hannah could only stare into his eyes. They had darkened around the edges so that only a ring around the center remained vivid green.

“I have already seduced you, Hannah. You are just too stubborn to admit it.”

And then he kissed her.

Boldly. And with a little growl in the back of his throat that went right through Hannah’s resistance like lightning through the night sky.

Her resistance would have been token and futile anyway.

The instant his mouth touched hers, Hannah knew he was right. She was seduced. From the moment he had crouched beside her to free her garter and grinned up at her with his devilish gaze to ask if she required anything else.

When she responded to his kiss with a tightening of her arms around his neck and a shift of her shoulders that pressed her breasts to his chest, he flicked his tongue past her teeth.

Hannah gasped. That small invasion sparked a conflagration throughout her body.

She opened to him and twisted in his hold, seeking some deeper connection.

With another bold and delicious sweep of his tongue, he shifted his arms. Keeping one arm around her shoulders, he released her legs, which allowed her to form the front of her body against the hard planes of his chest and abdomen. The heat of him was startling and consuming, especially when she felt the hard, hot ridge of his erection against her trembling belly.

She held him tighter, loving the way his large hand palmed her right buttock, kneading and forming her flesh with strong fingers.

She also loved the taste of him, so masculine, unrestrained and erotic.

She did not realize he had been moving her through the water until her back came up against the rock wall of the pool, worn smooth by ages of water lapping at its surface.

Trapped between the rock at her back and the insistently sensual man at her front, Hannah broke from the kiss to draw a desperate breath.

He did not let up his assault and lowered his mouth to her throat. Gripping her buttocks in both hands, he lifted her against him. Her legs parted naturally around his hips as her breasts came nearly level with his face.

“Ah,” he said raggedly, his warm breath bathing her collarbone just before he dipped his chin to draw the hardened tip of one breast deep into the hot cavern of his mouth. The thin layer of her soaked chemise was no barrier against the dance of his wicked tongue over her nipple.

Again, the contrast between his body heat and the chill of her skin roused sensations that strained for expression. She wrapped her arms around his head, cradling him to her breast as she tightened her thighs around his hips.

Suddenly, she sympathized with all the young ladies who had come before her to be ruined so thoroughly by this man.

Just as quickly as that thought formed, another followed in its wake.

She did not want to be another in a long line of his conquests.

With immense reluctance, she released her hold about his head and shoulders. She brought her legs down along his.

He did not cease the assault of his mouth, even when he tightened his hands on her rear in resistance to her retreat. She eased her hands against his shoulders. This time, he did not ignore her.

He lifted his head with a low growl and allowed her body to slide down his until her toes met the sandy bottom of the pool.

Looking into her eyes with his emerald gaze, he offered a gentle smile.

“Too much?” he asked with a quirk of his brow.

She gave a stiff nod. “Quite.”

“You realize this has only just begun,” he said.

“Begun and ended, my lord,” Hannah said with conviction. Now that she knew how far he was willing to go—how far
she
had been willing to go—she was not going to allow anything like this happen again.

“Are you certain?”

She tensed at the sardonic confidence in his tone, but she was not able to prepare her resistance when he lifted his hands to cradle her face and brought his mouth to hers once more.