She looked uncustomarily blowsy, the brilliant blue of the sky reflected in her overbright eyes, her cheeks stained with pink.
“They are all inside playing cards.”
“While you are out picking dead flowers.”
She rolled her eyes. “I abhor cards.”
“Then don’t play.” Ben reached for his book again. She stalled his hand.
“How can you be here when your guests are all within? Almost all of them. Several went to the lake for a stroll.”
“Why didn’t you, then, if you are so displeased with indoor activities?”
“You are wasting time.” Impatience tinted her voice. “Isn’t this supposed to be a business gathering? Can you not complete your business and let us all go back to town?”
“Constance, you may return to town any time you like. Nothing holds you here.”
She leapt up and spun away from the bench. “I enjoy some of the company. Especially Miss Pierce. Quite a bit. She is forthright and kind and quietly clever, and I think she and I could become great friends if it weren’t for that bothersome Lord Crispin constantly demanding her attention.”
“Hm. Bored and jealous. An ill-favored combination.”
“Don’t be silly. I am not jealous.” She darted him a sharp look. “Are you?”
Ben stood and pocketed his book.
“You know, Connie, you make an excellent point about the purpose of this gathering. As I still have work to do along those lines, I beg you to excuse me now.” He moved along the garden path toward the house.
“I don’t know why you will not talk to me,” she called after him, flouncing onto the bench anew. “And now you are irritated with me.”
He strode along the slate walk toward the formal garden, another of Jack’s renovations in anticipation of the estate someday becoming his. Even as a young man, Ben’s eldest brother had a fondness for English order.
He entered beneath the long, low trellised walkway and paused. In the shade of the vine-covered path stood a woman. The woman he wanted.
At the sound of his footfalls on gravel she turned. The contemplative smile on her lips faded.
“Good day, my lord.”
“Is it?” he replied without thought, without wisdom.
“The sky is clear and the sun bright. But now I hardly know whether the day is good after all.”
She remained still as he moved toward her. She had never run away, and she would not now. Of this, he was certain.
“Does it require more than fine weather to render a day acceptable to you, Miss Pierce?”
“Why do you do that—speak to me as though we are strangers even when no one else is present?” She paused. “Except perhaps briefly at Lady Ashford’s party.”
He scanned her face. He had been wrong to relegate her girlhood entirely to the past. The slight sharpness of her chin was still there, the faintest dusting of freckles on the bridge of her nose, the single red-gold lock that escaped her chignon to dangle over her temple. Spellbinding details of a woman he once thought he knew but never did.
“I was under the impression that we are, in fact, strangers,” he replied.
Her gaze retreated, twisting something uncertain inside Ben.
Mistaken uncertainty. She was like all the others. He must believe that.
“Strangers, you see,” he added, “do not bother telling each other pertinent personal information.”
“What do you mean?”
He lifted a brow.
“I did not—” She took a tight breath. “It was not my information to share at that time.”
“If not yours, then whose, I wonder? Or does he like to be the showman, drawing the attention to himself as he did when he made the announcement in such grand style?”
“You were the one to call for champagne. What was that, gracious hosting or mockery?” The corners of her lips grew taut. Ben could soften them with barely a touch, he knew. Her mouth had always mesmerized him, mobile when she spoke her mind, exquisite when she smiled, and sweet as honey when he kissed her. Until it turned hot. Then it was beyond him to describe the things he imagined that mouth doing to him.
“Would it matter which?” He tried to rein in his thoughts, to no avail.
“I do not know, precisely. I have not quite decided, but you do not make it easy.” Her gaze dropped to his lips.
“Thinking to trade up, were you?” he murmured, the rough quality of his voice unsurprising to him. “Crispin is only a baron, after all.”
“No. No.” A look of horror suffused her features. “You kissed me.”
“You wanted me to.” He stepped toward her. “You want me to again.”
“No. Yes.” She backed against a trellis post, a thin ray of light setting her hair aglow like the sky at sunset. “Yes, I did want you to kiss me. That does not make me a criminal. It only makes me—” She broke off, her gaze running across his chest and shoulders. “—rash.”
“It makes you a liar, shalabha.”
“Don’t call me that. I know it makes me a liar, and I am not happy with myself.”
“Would it bother him to know you are kissing other men?”
“Of course it would. And I am not kissing other men, in the plural.”
A hot finger of warning pressed at Ben’s spine, but he took another step, closing the distance between them.
“Does he care so much for you, then?”
Her lips were parted. She pulled in audible breaths, but her shoulders were back, her chin high.
“He said he does.”
“Do you return his sentiments?”
“That is none of your business.”
The heat intensified, grabbing at Ben’s gut and spreading. He flattened a palm on the post beside her head.
“Then you do not.”
“That is not what I said. What are you doing? Don’t kiss me again.” Her lashes fanned, her breasts lifting upon short inhalations to press at the edge of her gown, beautiful swells of woman. He bent his head.
“Please do not,” she whispered. “I may have changed my mind about wanting you to kiss me.”
“Walk away.”
Her gaze swam. “What?”
“You are not bound to that trellis.” Her scent filled his senses, Indian roses like he hadn’t known in years, rich and wild, moonlight in a garden and a girl in his arms he could not touch enough. “Walk away now.”
“I want to, but m-my legs—”
“Losing your courage?” He slid his hand over her hip and she exhaled a sharp sound. His palm moved along her thigh, his blood pounding. This was insanity. She belonged to another man. She was soft, slender, her gown tangling in his fingers like it had that night, driving him mad, only to find nothing beneath but her. Pure beauty. At that moment in the tropical garden with his hands on her damp, satin skin, doubt had seeped into his pleasure. But he had wanted her too much to listen to the warning.
“No.” Her whisper was barely audible.
“Then walk away.”
“I cannot.” Her tone pleaded. “My knees are too unsteady. I will fall. But you could be a gentleman.”
“I could.” He brushed his cheek against hers, her trembling beauty working through him like strong wine. “But why would I?” He touched his lips to the spot of feminine grace beneath her ear where she was softest silk.
He had not remembered poorly. She was perfect, her scent, her flavor, the intoxicating caress of her quick breaths against his skin. “You want this.” He trailed the tip of his tongue along the delicate sinew of her neck. She did not resist. Instead, she tilted her head back to allow him closer, a light sigh fluttering her throat. “And, I have been here before.” He covered her breast with his hand.