“I was not ‘peeking’ at you,” she responded hotly.”I was trying to get your attention to discuss your idea about the problem.”
“So, does that mean that you admit that your sister is a problem?”
Louisa dug in her heels, forcing him to stop walking and spun to face him, snatching back her hand.
“’Tis your brother who is the problem, Hugh. Not my sister. Why, he practically assaulted her at the breakfast table this morning.”
His face was a picture of skeptic disbelief.
“It’s true,” she demanded. “Only for my timely interruption they would have — well, they would have…”
Louisa trailed off, suddenly feeling embarrassed.
She could hardly discuss such things with Hugh.
“They would have what?” he pressed, grinning. He knew, the blighter. He knew she was discomfited.
“They would have engaged in activities entirely inappropriate for a single man and woman to engage in,” she finally answered, quoting directly from the journal of comportment her mother had made them all read after the fire incident.
Hugh looked at her in surprise for a moment before throwing back his head and bursting into laughter.
Louisa positively refused to let herself dwell on the strength of the muscles in his throat, or the husky sound of his laugh, and chose instead to be furious at his laughing at her.
“Where did you hear such a thing?” he asked, still grinning widely.
“I don’t know what you mean?” She sniffed.
He raised a brow and bent slightly to look directly into her eyes.
“There is no way such virtuous drivel came from a hoydenish Bright sister,” he said softly.
Blast the man. He was right, of course.
“We are ladies, Hugh. Not little girls any longer. And we know, ‘how to conduct ourselves in a manner befitting ladies of our station,’” she quoted again before coming back to her point. “And your debauched brother was — well, trying to make her conduct herself in a manner absolutely not befitting ladies of our station.”
He grinned again at her convoluted sentence.
“I shouldn’t worry too much, Louisa. After all, our kiss didn’t steer you down a path of destruction, did it?”
The mention of their kiss seemed to suck all of the air straight from Louisa’s body.
Why had he brought that up? She wasn’t prepared to speak of such things, especially with him.
She glanced up into his distractingly blue eyes and was immediately irritated by the smug, knowing look in them.
The man had an ego the size of Westminster.
It was about time someone deflated it a little.
Giving her best, most believable innocent expression, she answered as sweetly as she could.
“I hardly think one, insignificant, thoroughly forgettable kiss would be enough to send me down a path of destruction,” she said with faux innocence.
Later on, Louisa would wonder how she hadn’t noticed the sudden, dangerous glint in his cobalt eyes. She would wonder why his growl of frustration hadn’t been warning enough of his intentions. But she had paid no attention to these things, and so, when he suddenly reached out and grabbed her in his arms, pulling her body against his, she had been taken completely unawares.
As his lips had descended toward her own, his whispered words sent shivers down the length of her spine.
“Perhaps this one will stay with you longer,” he said before crushing her lips beneath his own.
CHAPTER FOUR
HUGH KNEW THAT THE second he felt Louisa’s lips beneath his that he was in far more trouble than he had ever been before in his life.
He felt every one of her emotions, even while his lips were pressed against her own. He felt her gasp of shock, following by her heavenly capitulation as her fingers moved to wind in his hair, pulling him closer still.
He almost combusted when her tongue tentatively reached out and mirrored the movement of his own.
Had he been in any sort of control over himself, Hugh would have wondered what the hell he was doing once again kissing the girl senseless in his mother’s garden.
But the second he’d tasted her, all thoughts, coherent or otherwise, were swept away by the tide of passion he was currently drowning in.
Had anything ever felt so perfect?
Damn but the girl had a way of getting under his skin. He’d kissed her again out of sheer frustration. She got under his skin like no other. And the fact that he’d been walking around in a permanent state of lust since he’d clapped eyes on her again didn’t help to temper his actions.
Something was shifting between them. Subtly changing. Becoming more than a battle of wills. More even than an intense, fiery attraction.
Hugh was starting to feel perilously close to caring about the girl.
Caring far, far more than he should.
This thought finally brought Hugh crashing back to the reality of the situation they were in. Reluctantly, he pulled his lips from hers, grasping her shoulders and gently pushing her from him.
Louisa gazed up at him, her eyes glazed with passion, a look of wonder in them, and Hugh felt his heart stutter at that look.