Chapter Eleven
“Yolanda?”
Worth knocked once and let himself into his sister’s room without pausing. He was greeted by the sight of his housekeeper, sitting on the bed next to his sibling, Jacaranda’s arm around Yolanda’s waist, Yolanda’s head on Jacaranda’s shoulder.
“Hessian is here, my girl, and he’d like to make his bow to you.” Worth injected briskness into his tone, false briskness, but it might fool an adolescent who didn’t know him well.
“Tell him to go back to his hounds and grouse moors.” Yolanda offered that, then turned her face to Jacaranda’s shoulder. “He can return to Grampion and tell everyone I’m crazy.”
Worth sought Jacaranda’s gaze, looking for some help or insight, but Jacaranda only stroked a hand over the girl’s hair and gave a small shake of her head.
“I’m angry at him,” Yolanda said, sitting up. “He left me like a lame horse, dragged about from one stranger’s house to the next, embroidering until my eyes crossed, and now he wants to make his bow to me?”
“Yolanda, perhaps his lordship knows an apology is in order,” Jacaranda suggested.
Yolanda pulled away from her. “He’ll clear his throat like an old man and look at the ceiling, his tea cup, or the nearest piece of art, and he’ll get out a lot of long words which basically say he did the best he could with a baggage like me, and then he’ll pack me up and haul me to the Arctic and tell me that’s the best he can do as well.”
“You do know him.” Worth sat on Yolanda’s other side. “The business about staring at art or out the window, or anywhere but looking a person in the eye, that’s Hess.”
“He might be a wonderful earl. He’s not a very impressive brother.”
Jacaranda smoothed back a lock of Yolanda’s hair. “He’s taken care of you, seen you educated, and spared you his company for a bit. He isn’t all bad, and he’s here now.”
“Listen, Lannie.” Worth risked taking his sister’s hand, because Jacaranda’s small touches seemed to soothe the girl. “Hess and I haven’t even begun to discuss your circumstances. I’ve just met you, and Avery and I are entitled to some time with you before he spirits you away. Then too, you’ll need a come out, and last I heard, the Queen wasn’t making any progresses to the north, or the Regent either.”
“Are you saying I can stay here? With you?”
“No, I am not.” He spoke quite firmly, because females taking notions could completely ignore all reality to the contrary. “I’m saying if you have to go, it won’t be just yet, and it won’t be forever.”
“Do you know how long winter is in the north, brother?” She snatched her hand away with an air of adolescent long-suffering, but all Worth heard was her use of the word “brother.” She had two brothers, both well situated to provide for her, and only a few weeks after meeting Worth, Yolanda was choosing him over Hess.
The south over the north, too, but that was a detail.
Then he saw Jacaranda regarding him, solemnly, and knew he was at one of those points of decision that came upon a man without any warning, and forever changed the course of his situation on earth.
Worth was a brother, but what kind of brother, and to whom?
“Come.” He possessed himself once more of his sister’s hand. “Give Hess a chance, and when the time comes, I’ll argue strenuously for letting you stay here with us at Trysting. I’m not your guardian, so I make no guarantees, but I’ve been known to be persuasive when I’m motivated.”
He gave Jacaranda a look over his shoulder. She was smiling, and Yolanda was looking less mulish and martyred, so perhaps mediating between his siblings would bear all manner of desirable fruit.
The introduction went fairly well, with Yolanda offering her older brother a silent curtsy and Hess’s mouth all but coming unhinged.
“Good God, you’re beautiful,” he said, walking a circle around her. “Not merely pretty, but beautiful.”
“I do believe he’s serious,” Worth observed.
“I am utterly in earnest,” Hess said. “Nobody at Grampion will recognize you as the hoyden who left us a few short years ago.”
“Assuming Yolanda graces Grampion again,” Worth replied. “We can discuss that some other day, when no picnic awaits us in the back gardens, yes?”
“A picnic!” Avery crowed. Then she was off in half-French, adoring picnics, and to fly the kites, and eat lots of cakes and take off the shoes and make the feets wet.
“Come, Avery.” Yolanda led her niece from the room. “We must make sure the blankets are in the best spot. Footmen can’t know such things.”
“Of course not. Nor the uncles, but we are here to help them.”
Worth took his brother by the elbow. “Come along, your lordship. We’re to be shown the best spot, which no doubt lies in full view of an ant heap.”
“Yolanda will not give in, will she?”
“Regarding?”
“I neglected her, and she’s wroth over that, and the last place she wants to rusticate is at Grampion with me, even though sparing her such a fate is precisely why I so-called neglected her.”
“Hess, she’s female and young and has some reason to be put out with you. Two years she went without glimpsing you, and you’re the head of her family. Did you miss her?”
“Of course I missed her.” His mouth snapped shut, and he strode along beside Worth for half the length of a long corridor. “I wrote.”
“She wrote back, I’m guessing, horrid little notes about embroidery and spotty boys?”
“She wrote about the animals she’d met, Worth. The house cats and cart ponies. As if she wouldn’t allow me the satisfaction of hoping she might make new friends or see new sights. She punished me with those notes, and she was only fourteen years old.”
“We use any weapons at hand when we’re young and powerless,” Worth said, hustling down the corridor, lest he take his meal in proximity to an ant heap. “You can apologize for what you believe you did wrong, and then it’s up to her whether she meets you halfway or stays on her high horse. You don’t have to take her north.”
“I don’t?” Hess stopped as if to admire the view out an oriel window that looked over the rose gardens. “What does that mean? She’s too young to marry, Worth, I don’t care what the old people say about it.”
“The young people are usually the ones kicking over the traces to get married, but consider that Avery is only a year into living with her English uncle, and she seems quite taken with Yolanda. Then too, Yolanda will be back south in a year or two to make her come out. Why not leave her here with me and Avery?”
“As to Avery…”
Beyond the window, Yolanda and Avery were pointing at some shade beneath a towering oak while a pair of footmen moved blankets and hampers.
Worth knew what was coming, and perhaps it was best they have it out now, before too many fences had been mended. “As to Avery?”
“As head of the family, I’ve looked into the legal provisions for assuming guardianship of an orphaned child of a near relation,” Hess began, gaze out the window.
Worth kept a hand on his brother’s arm, until Hess was at least looking at where Worth touched him.
“You’ve been here only a few hours. I’m Avery’s legal guardian, have been since before she arrived, and you needn’t trouble yourself. Looking after the child helps me atone for Moira’s death, if you must know, so don’t feel you have to step in.”
“Atone? For her death? What rot are you spouting, Worth?”
“I gave her money to go to Paris and join our maternal cousins, I gave her funds to seek instruction, I gave her the sense she had backing in case Papa cut her off. But for my short-sighted indulgence of her dreams, she’d be alive and raising her own children with a perfectly jolly English husband.”
He hadn’t planned on that confession, but really, who else could he make it to?
Hess looked him up and down, frowning a truly ferocious frown. He looked not like their father in that moment, but like their paternal grandfather when thunderously displeased.
“Don’t be an idiot, Worth. I gave her money, too, and so, too, did Grandmamma. Moira wanted to go to Paris more than anything. Had we denied her, she might have been miserable instead of happy for the last years of her life. Think on that when you tire of beating yourself with the club of guilt.”
“You gave her—?”
“Grandmamma did, too, and some jewels.” Hess’s gaze swung right back to the window. “Now let’s rescue our luncheon from that ant heap.”
Worth let him stride off, confident the ant heap would be vanquished. He was unable to do more than stare out the same window and watch as the other members of his family assembled for their meal.
Even Hess, notably cautious with his coin, had abetted Moira’s dreams.
Jacaranda appeared at his side, a comforting presence he’d sorely missed while dealing with his brother.
“Get out there, Worth. They won’t wait for you, and you won’t get even a single chicken leg between now and tea.”
Nor did he want a chicken leg.
He slipped an arm around her waist and whispered, “Come join us.” He needed her near, now more than usually, given what his brother had told him.
She moved away to crack open the window and allow an eddy of rose-scented air into the corridor.
“This is your first meal as a family. You should be a family, not a family plus a housekeeper. Don’t worry about Yolanda.”
“The girl is plotting to overthrow the government as she knows it,” Worth countered. “If I were Hess, I wouldn’t turn my back on her.”
“The worst that can happen is she has to go north at Michaelmas. She’ll put up with one more winter at Grampion knowing you’ll make her welcome next year, and once she’s eighteen, Hess will have no reason to keep her up north. The better crop of bachelors always lurks near Town, and your brother can let her come south feeling like he’s done his duty.”
Hess gestured to a patch of grass in the sun, and Yolanda folded her arms. The blankets remained spread in the shade.
“Duty is Hess’s middle name, and if you watch him, you’ll realize he isn’t arrogant so much as shy. He and Lannie have more in common than they think.”
“She liked that, that you gave her a nickname, but Worth, you are the shy one now. Go have a meal with your family.”
Worth. He was becoming Worth to her.
Out on the shady blankets, Hess pulled off his boots, Avery chattered away in at least two languages, while Yolanda arranged her skirts just so.
“You’ll be fine.” Jacaranda looked around, then went up on her toes and kissed his cheek. “You can tell me all about your ordeal later.”
“Do you promise? My ordeal is likely to be harrowing in the extreme. Arachnids are quite the menace.”
“Cook made chocolate crème cakes to ameliorate your suffering, but Hess won’t leave you any sweets if you continue to hide here. Bide here, I mean.”
“Nattering little besom.” He kissed her cheek and headed down the steps, fortified by those few hints of understanding from her. It shouldn’t be so. He was a grown man, wealthy, thriving in all the ways that counted, and he wasn’t even really her lover. Barely her friend, in fact.
But it was so.
* * *
“Confound it, woman, budge over.”
Jacaranda tugged the covers more tightly around herself. “Go away.”
“I will do no such thing.” Worth’s weight dipped the mattress. “What in blazes are you doing with a brick in your sheets at the height of summer? You’ll take a brick to your bosom but not my handsome self?”
“What time is it?”
He bounced and tugged and wiggled his long frame around until the last vestiges of sleep fled Jacaranda’s mind.
“Past midnight,” Worth said, sounding infernally comfy. “Hess was of a mind to get back his own over the cards. I am traumatized and exhausted by my day, also relieved of two pounds six.”
“Why not seek your own bed, and then we’ll both get some rest?”
Her brick, wrapped in several layers of flannel, made a solid thunk when Worth set it on the floor.
“You said I could tell you all about lunch,” he reminded her. “When, pray, might I do that, when you dodged the evening meal with some taradiddle about a tray in your room? You evade me at every turn, so I’ve tracked you to your lair.”
He lined his chest up along her back, and his arm came around her waist.
“Worth, begone. I mean it.”
“You’re denying me my audience?” His lips held a little audience along the top of her shoulder, and his hand gently pushed the strap of her nightgown aside. Under the cozy warmth of the covers, Jacaranda felt a shiver, a thrill along the path his fingers traced.
She was a good ten years too old to admit to thrills of any kind.
“Now is not the time,” she tried again, but her voice lacked conviction, and his bodily warmth offered luscious comfort.
“Now is the only time. Yolanda addressed not one sentence to Hess directly at the noon meal, which made for a lovely verbal game of battledore, I can tell you. Hess’s French is in good repair, but I fear his Italian is in worse shape than my own. My dear, you must relax.”
“How can I relax when my bed has been invaded by the realm’s largest magpie?”
“I’m visiting, not invading. You let bricks visit you and probably house cats.”
His tone was playfully chiding, but beneath the banter lurked a question, too. If she insisted, he’d go, and he’d likely not come back until she invited him—if she invited him.
“Do I gather the brick was in the way of a hot water bottle?” he asked. “You toasted it up and brought it here to soothe a female ache?”
“You are too big for me to physically remove from this bed, but are you also too rude to comprehend the indelicacy of the topic you raise?”
He shifted to crouch over her beneath the covers, confirming Jacaranda’s suspicion—her hope?—that he was naked. “I guessed correctly. The female complaint makes you cranky and out of sorts. I suspected this was the case.”
Under him, Jacaranda rolled to her back, glad they had only moonlight to illuminate this exchange.
“I have a headache, one that makes my eyes hurt and my neck sore. Now that you know I’m indisposed, will you take yourself off?”
“Settle your feathers, dear heart.” He kissed her forehead, an odd gesture that eased aches in various parts of Jacaranda’s body and heart. “I haven’t come to importune you, not that I won’t at some point. See here.” He found one of her hands and brought it to his—his member. “Hardly a prurient thought in my body, at the moment. I truly did want to talk.”
He wasn’t exactly flaccid, but he wasn’t rampant, either.
“What did you want to talk about?” Jacaranda removed her hand two instants after she realized he’d removed his.
Worth hung over her, so she had to smooth back his hair with her fingers lest it obscure his eyes.
“I couldn’t sleep,” he said, climbing off of her and rolling to his back. He grabbed her hand again and kissed her knuckles. “Having Hess underfoot is disquieting.”
“Family is always a challenge, which is part of the reason I’ve resisted orders from my siblings to return home until recently. In what way is his lordship disquieting?”
She didn’t truly want to chase her visitor away, and she had told him they would talk, so she rolled up against his side and let her head fall to his shoulder. Maybe they could even talk about her upcoming return to Dorset.
“I blush to admit it,” he began, his arm encircling her, “but I’ve treasured a sense of injury regarding the way I left Grampion all those years ago, and while I blamed my father, Hess had the last clear chance to thwart Papa’s machinations.”
“How old would he have been?” She set aside the question of what the young lady had been about—the young lady who’d had an understanding with Worth Kettering but had fallen out love with him “posthaste,” to use his word. Jacaranda had reason to know no gently bred Englishwoman could be married against her will, thank God.
“Hess was all of twenty. No Town bronze, no tour of the Continent. He might have gone grouse hunting up in Scotland a time or two, but he was a stripling more than a man.”
“You’re having trouble clinging to your anger?”
He kissed her temple and spoke against her hair. “Worse than that. I feel sorry for him.”
Oh, that was much worse. Jacaranda felt sorry for Step-Mama, whose situation was far from difficult. “Sorry, how?”
She aspired to feel sorry for Daisy, some distant day.
Worth snuggled her closer, and something tense and tired inside Jacaranda eased up, gave up. To be held, to have Worth’s warmth and scent all around her in the dark, was lovely. Better than lovely, wonderful in fact, to cuddle up and chat in the depth of the night.
“Hess is so alone up there,” Worth said, stroking Jacaranda’s hair in an absent-minded caress. “I may not have bosom bows twelve deep, but I like my clients. Some of them could be friends. I like my staff, I like the neighbors you’ve introduced me to here. I have Avery, I have you, I have people moving about in my life. Hess has his stables and nobody to share them with. No wonder he missed Yolanda and wants to take her home with him.”
I have you. As flummoxed as Jacaranda was by his casual claim, she did not allow herself to tarry over it.
“You have me for now, as a housekeeper, but we need to discuss that. Will you allow Hess to retrieve Yolanda?”
Worth heaved a mighty sigh, and this time he kissed her ear. “Hess is Yolanda’s guardian. I can’t stop him, but in his mind, I think he regards such an arrangement as fair somehow: I have Avery; therefore, he should get Lannie.”
“Why can’t you all have each other?” Jacaranda posed the question rhetorically, because her mind would not let go of those earlier words… I have you.
“We haven’t the knack, my dear. Does your neck still trouble you?”
Not as much as her heart.
“That was not a gracious change of subject, Mr. Kettering, but because you won’t desist and it’s too dark for my blushes to affect you, yes, my head aches. I suspect the blooming flowers affect me badly.”
“Poor lady. You’re reduced to Mr. Kettering-ing me. On your side, and let’s see if I can’t help out.”
Her complicity in this scheme was irrelevant, because he gently maneuvered her into the position of his liking, while he angled himself behind her.
“Close your eyes, my dear,” he instructed, “and tell me more about your cottage. You had a name for it.”
“Complaisance Cottage,” she said, surprised he’d recall. “What on earth are you doing?”
“Relax, love.” Lips brushed her nape. “My hand is warmer than that brick. You might as well put it to use.” He put his hand to use, massaging her neck, a firm combination of stroking and squeezing that…
She groaned with the relief of it, and he had the good grace not to gloat aloud.
“What do your back gardens look like, Jacaranda, or does this cottage nestle against a wood?”
She explained how the cottage was situated, how informal plots rioting with flowers ringed the pitch of grass, and the stately old dowager oaks stood at the edge of the home wood as a backdrop. She told him about the sea birds who nipped up any scraps or crusts that fell—or were tossed—from a tea tray taken on the terrace, and about the particular scent of the breeze, depending on whether it was a sea breeze, a land breeze, or some brewing combination of both.
“You long for it,” he said, his voice low and lazy in the moonlight.
“I ache with missing it,” she replied, because it was dark, and that was the honesty she could give him. “Don’t you miss Grampion?”
“The sentiments ebb and flow.” His hand moved slowly over her shoulders now, the same way his words threaded through the darkness. “When the first snow falls here and it’s so much later and less hearty than the first snows in the north, I miss Grampion. When the crocuses march forth, no hesitance or backsliding in their arrival, as if spring is a foregone conclusion, I miss Grampion. When the summer weather gets truly hot and miserable, I miss it. Not so much at other times.”
Which left…? “You don’t miss it in spring?” For she missed Dorset in spring.
“Spring in London is a busy time. I receive the courtesy invitations. I’m nominally heir to an earldom, single, and worth a fortune. I accept occasionally, particularly if it’s a client doing the inviting.”
“When you’re twirling some lady down the ballroom, you don’t miss your home?”
“Hush.” He twisted up and over her for a leisurely kiss to her mouth, a kiss that involved
his tongue flirting with her lips, teasing and implying and promising even as he soothed and reassured. “I miss my home. Are you satisfied to have wrung this confession from me? I miss my home almost as much as you miss yours.”
“I do miss my home, and my family. I’ve missed them for years, and that’s why after all this time—”
He must have sensed that her words would be unwelcome, because he kissed her again, thoroughly, lingeringly.
Jacaranda subsided to her back, all thoughts of disclosures and partings tossed out of the bed like so many more cold bricks.
She kissed Worth back, cuddled with him, and conversed for another few minutes, but in truth Worth’s hand, or his company, or something about his visit had relaxed more than Jacaranda’s body. As she drifted off, Worth spooned around her and her discomforts considerably eased, she had the traitorous thought that it was fortunate she was returning to Dorset, for she could grow accustomed to his nocturnal company.
Sheer folly, that, but what wonderful, pleasurable folly.
* * *
“Do you miss having a wife?” Worth put the question to his brother as they rode out, no grooms, no steward to hinder their privacy. Thanks to Jacaranda’s carping, Worth knew how to get around on his own land, knew which bridle path led to what lane and which fields had the best footing before their stiles.
“I do not miss the wife I had,” Hess said. “I’m sorry if that offends.”
Worth shortened his snaffle reins. “You might offend the lady’s memory, but your words can’t offend me.”
“Why haven’t you married?”
Hess might be shy, he did not lack courage.
“I’ve wondered that myself lately.” Worth settled his weight into the stirrups. “Shall we let them stretch their legs a bit?”
They raced the entire three miles remaining to Least Wapping. Hess was at a slight disadvantage because he didn’t know the terrain, but Worth had put his brother up on a former steeplechaser and Hess was an excellent rider.
Hess thwacked his horse’s neck when they trotted into the yard of the posting inn. “What a prime fellow. Don’t tell me he’s for sale. I’ve no need of another gelding and Alfred’s feelings would be hurt. This one has tons of bottom, tons of it.”
“You truly love it, don’t you? The cross-country romp that would frighten the hair off most people?” Worth swung down and handed Goliath off to a stable boy to cool out. “I haven’t let Goliath have his head like that for months, but he enjoyed it.”
“They weren’t put on earth to pace their stalls, looking handsome and bored.” In the hint of wistfulness in Hess’s voice, Worth gathered an insight into his brother.
“Autumn will soon approach. Why not linger here for some of the informal meets and then stay to attend the lords?”
Hess’s features composed themselves into a bland mask. “What of the harvest at Grampion? Is the corn to bring itself in off the fields?”
Why can’t you all have each other?
Jacaranda’s words echoed in Worth’s mind, and he let the subject drop, but in the part of his brain that couldn’t resist a complex negotiation, he began to plot and plan and strategize.
“Let’s grab a pint,” Worth suggested. “The horses can catch their wind before they tackle the five-mile jaunt back to Trysting, and you haven’t told me of the staff at Grampion. Is Homer Gentry still your land steward, and does his wife still make those butter biscuits that melt away all of a small boy’s troubles?”
“And leave him with a bellyache into next Tuesday,” Hess finished the thought.
To Worth’s surprise, Hess allowed himself to be interrogated about each and every person Worth recalled from his boyhood.
Two and a half pints later, Worth mentally conceded it had more likely been a matter of Worth allowing himself to ask.
* * *
“What is Francine up to?” Grey hated having to ask his brother, but her ladyship’s correspondence had reached flood stage.
Will tossed a stick dutifully dropped at his feet by a brindle mastiff larger than some of the ponies used in the mines.
“I am not in Step-Mama’s confidence, Grey, for which I give daily thanks to my Creator. I did see her casting spells over the teapot with Mrs. Dankle.”
The dog waited at Will’s feet, adoring gaze turned on its owner. When Will gave some signal visible only to the beast, it bounded off across the green between the gardens and the home wood.
“Francine is ever imposing on Dankle’s good nature,” Grey said. “You need Ash to invent you a machine for pitching sticks into the next county, lest you tire your arm.”
The dog was back in a half-dozen happy, ear-flapping bounds, the stick deposited at Will’s feet as the hound dropped to its haunches.
“Step-Mama wants to spend the rest of the summer in Bath,” Will said, petting the dog’s great head. “If not Bath, then Lyme Regis. The older set likes to congregate where they have fond memories and to leave the house parties to us.”
Where were Will’s fond memories? He was a handsome fellow in the tall, dark-haired, violet-eyed cast of his siblings and had read law with the same ease some people read the Society pages of the London Gazette.
“I cannot afford to send Francine to Bath, and I’ve told her as much on several occasions.” Painful occasions, for them both.
“I know that. Good boy, George.”
“You name the largest dog in the realm after our sovereign?”
“I named the largest bitch in the realm after our sovereign. Her full name is Georgette. You should ask Daisy what her dear mama is up to. If Francine burdens anybody with her schemes, it’s her own daughter.”
At the mention of her name, the dog’s ears swiveled, for she, like most females, was apparently eager to do Will’s bidding.
“I’d be nervous, were I you, Will.”
“She won’t eat me, will you, Georgie dearest? She eats only meddling older brothers who won’t send Step-Mama away for a few weeks so we can all enjoy some peace and quiet.”
“Which is why I’d be worried,” Grey said, letting the dog sniff at his hand. She was surprisingly delicate about it, for all her size. “I fear Francine’s scheming again to get one of us matched with an heiress. I’ve the title to protect me, because Francine won’t presume to choose our next countess. You’re the next oldest, the best looking, and too fond of the ladies to tell Step-Mama to mind her own business.”
Will tossed the stick again, sending it clear into the home wood. “You’re saying if you deny Mama a house on the Crescent in Bath, she’ll seek revenge by flinging heiresses at me?”
The dog disappeared after the stick, her path marked by rustling bushes.
“I don’t know what exactly Step-Mama’s about. Francine is a woman who’s been discontent with her station for some time, and I haven’t the knack of divining her plots. She was after me to bodily fetch Jacaranda home, claiming that this time Mrs. Dankle truly will leave us for the charms of her son’s small holding.”
“Dankle has earned her rest, and four grandchildren is rather a temptation.”
Three grandchildren had done nothing to improve the lure of home for Francine. With each of Daisy’s babies, her ladyship seemed to grow more desperate to distance herself from her children.
“Be careful, Will. If you’ve a notion to attend some house parties, I won’t stop you.”
Will gave him an odd look. “I thought you hated house parties.”
“I most assuredly do. They are the delight of the unhappily married and the downfall of many a contented bachelor. You’d best see what’s keeping that puppy of yours. Mr. Springboth’s hound occasionally gets loose, and as far as he’s concerned, your Georgie would make a prime bit of sport.”
“I’ll be careful, and I’ll keep an eye on Step-Mama. See that you do likewise. You’re not bad looking, you have the title, and for some women, that’s enough.”
Will loped off, his expression promising severe consequences for any presuming hound who trifled with his Georgette.
* * *
“It occurred to me,” Worth said as he settled in beside Jacaranda, “a storm is brewing tonight, and you might appreciate some company. No bricks, my dear?”
“No bricks.” The comment was literal and figurative, because she wasn’t hurling writs of ejectment at him either. Tonight she laced her fingers through his and let his hand rest over her midriff.
His patience was paying off—finally.
“You’re feeling a bit more the thing?” He stole a kiss to her shoulder, the happiest occasion of thievery.
“A bit. That tickles.”
“This?” He ran his nose along the top of her shoulder again. “You’re like a bouquet, you know. Your shoulders have one fragrance, your hair another, you hands yet another. I could cheerfully sniff you for hours.”
He had, in fact. When last he’d called upon her under the covers, her scents had quieted his mind as much as her company had.
“You’d get no rest.” Jacaranda sounded happy to contemplate his misery, and her happiness meant a great deal to Worth.
“You’re either coming to trust me”—he kissed her nape—“or you’ve secreted a frying pan under your pillow and you’re confident you can subdue me with it if I get out of line.”
She rolled to her back, and in the moonlight her features were breathtakingly lovely. “Are you soon to get out of line?”
And there it was, the Jacaranda Wyeth battle flag, demanding honesty and a surrender of privacy from him. He hadn’t been sure even a few days ago that the sacrifice would be worth the reward, but now… He was willing to sacrifice much to have her honesty and her surrender. Willing to wait, willing to campaign all summer.
Except summer was half over, and his dear Wyeth was increasingly restless, for reasons he could not fathom.
“I will never cross the lines you draw for us,” he said. “I’ll push, I’ll tease, I’ll negotiate, and I’ll dare, but you hold the reins, Jacaranda. You will always hold the reins.”
“If I didn’t, what would you do, were you at liberty?”
Bold question. Clever, bold question.
“Honestly? I’m supposed to say I’d ravish you blind, make love to you until neither of us can walk, and those would be sincere sentiments. I desire you until… Well, I simply do.”
He shut up in defense of his beleaguered dignity.
“But?”
“I desire more than a quick tumble, a tickle and a poke. I’m not sure what exactly I mean, but I conclude your timing on the matter is to be trusted more than my own.”
He watched her digest that, not even sure himself what he’d said, what he’d been trying to say.
“Explain something to me,” she said, rolling over to her side again. “When can we pursue this ‘matter’ with the least risk of conception, were I so inclined?”
He couldn’t help himself, he cuddled closer, a hot spike of lust giving the lie to his earlier more philosophical words. He’d meant those words of course—one did not dissemble with Jacaranda Wyeth—but her question boded well for his objectives.
Whatever they might be.
He opened his mouth to breathe in the scent of her neck. “After a lady’s indisposition has departed, it’s reasonably safe for a few days, a few nights. I would love to pleasure you, Jacaranda, all night.”
“Yes, I know, until we’re both lamed, though how that results from pleasure escapes me.” She fell silent as Worth pushed her gently to her back, settling his mouth over hers before she could offer more tart, frustrated observations.
“You want to know, Jacaranda,” he murmured against her mouth. “Your curiosity is consuming you. What would we be like, together? How would I feel, inside you, over you? Under you? Behind you? Just how much pleasure could I bring you with my mouth on your privy parts? Or maybe you’d like to put your mouth on me?”
He cruised that mouth of his over her features, gathering tastes and textures with his tongue: her delicate, delicate eyelashes, the exact curve of her brows, left then right, the span of the bridge of her nose, the soft buttery substance of her earlobes, the pulse at her throat.
“You are delicious, an edible bouquet.”
“Stop. Worth, you must stop, now.”