“Yes. Oh yes.” She wriggled her bottom against him.
That was the wrong answer and the wrong action. He clenched his hands to stop them from sliding under her nightgown and touching the ripe flesh he knew would be waiting.
He pushed harder against her, making sure she felt his length. “Last chance to run to your chamber.”
“I’ll stay right here. Take me.”
Ewan released her and with a curse turned away. He slammed a hand against the marble of the fireplace, letting the pain wash over him until he could think of something besides his aching arousal. Why the hell did she have to be so perfectly wanton?
“Why did you stop?” she asked. The roaring in his ears and the throbbing of his hand made her sound miles away. “Did I say something wrong? I’m too forward.”
“You are too forbidden.”
She waved a hand. “Everything is forbidden. The long list of do nots makes me weary.”
“This is at the top of the list.”
“Of course it is. Anything enjoyable is always forbidden.”
“If we were discovered—”
She held up a hand. “I know. I would be ruined. My family would be disgraced. It would be the scandal of the year. Well, not the year, but the Season. Someone else is bound to do something worse before the end of 1816. I know all of this, and yet”—she looked up at him—“I still want to kiss you.”
He held out a hand to keep her at bay. “No.”
She blinked at him. “I won’t attack you. I’m not that desperate…yet,” she murmured. “But I won’t promise not to try and see Francis again. I don’t want to be ruined—I mean, I do want that, but that’s in theory. In fact, I am really quite opposed to ruin and scandal and—”
“Is this a long speech?”
She sighed. “I must marry, and sooner rather than later. Before I do something I regret.”
“You will not elope with Francis.”
“And the fact that I love him?”
“You don’t love him.” He’d expected her to argue, but she seemed to accept the statement. Had she finally realized she did not love the man or had she given up trying to convince Ewan that she did?
“I won’t elope with him.”
He heard the condition even before she spoke.
“But I want something from you in return.”
“No.”
She shook her head at him in exasperation. “You haven’t even heard what it is.”
“No.”
“I want to teach you to read,” she said as though he hadn’t spoken at all.
“No.”
“We meet here every other night or so—”
“No.”
“—and I will teach you to read. In the meantime, you will be able to keep an eye on me and be certain I do not attempt to elope.”
“No.”
Her hands settled on her hips. “That is a perfectly reasonable plan. Why do you reject it? Is it because we have no chaperone? I’ll bring Welly. He can chaperone us.”
“No.”
“I will sit on this side of the desk.” She pointed to her father’s chair. “And you will sit on this side. Nothing can happen when we’re separated by a desk. If anyone walks in, we’ll say we met by accident and are reading. It will look perfectly innocent because it will be innocent.”
“No.”
“Stop saying no. It’s a perfectly good plan. Don’t you want to be able to read the next letter your father sends you? You can’t like being ignorant.”
He didn’t like it at all, but she couldn’t help him.
“Then why won’t you allow me to try?”
“Others have tried. I cannot read. I’m too—”
She stepped close, cutting him off. “Don’t say stupid. You are not that. I will figure out a way to help you. I’m amazingly resourceful, you know. Have you noticed that yet?”
He thought it better not to comment.
“And I’m tenacious. We won’t give up. Mr. Mostyn, you are really doing me a favor. I need something to focus on besides the banality of what to wear for this ball or that, and if I don’t have anything to keep me occupied, then I will only begin planning my elopement. You may have cut the tree limb, but there are other ways I could make my escape. For example—”
“No examples.” Dear God. He would kiss her just to make her stop talking. “Fine.”
He started for the door. She was right on his heels. “Fine? Does that mean yes?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, I will tutor you or yes to something else I said? I confess I can’t remember everything I said. Did I ask another question?”
Ewan turned around and did the only thing he could think of—other than kissing her into silence. He put his hand over her mouth. “Teach me to read.”
She mumbled something under his hand.
He frowned for a moment. “Yes, tomorrow night. After the…whatever it is we must attend tomorrow night.”
She mumbled something else, but Ewan, who had gagged his fair share of the enemy, had no trouble understanding. “Fine. An hour after they go to bed, though. Take no chances.”
Another mumble. He sighed. “Fine.” She might as well bring the damn dog. She had more chance of teaching the dog to read than she did Ewan learning anything.
But she’d see that tomorrow night.
Eleven
The fete seemed interminable. Lorrie generally enjoyed balls and musicales and routs and the theater—as long as it was not opera—but tonight she could think of nothing but returning home and seeing the Viking again.
Alone.
Oh, she’d promised not to attack him, and she would not, but just the thought of being with him made the skin all along her spine tingle with anticipation. She glanced over her shoulder and caught him looking at her. He was always looking at her. That was his job, but she rather liked finding his cool blue gaze on her right now. In fact, she liked it so much, she blew him a kiss.
The line between his brows deepened, and he gave her what she liked to think of as his warning look. And then a dark-haired lady—Lorrie had noticed quite a few ladies had been brave enough to approach him lately—touched his arm, and he was obliged to look down at her. The lady was at least ten years older than Lorrie, but no less lovely, and it did not take a bluestocking to deduce what she talked to the Viking about.
His service with Lieutenant Colonel Draven. The Viking was more than a former soldier. He was a war hero. Now that Society had become used to seeing him about, stories about him had begun to circulate. He’d once killed a dozen men with his bare hands. He’d carried Lord Jasper out of a burning building and ten miles to safety, all the while pursued by enemy soldiers. He’d been shot three times and had removed the balls and sewn himself up without so much as a whimper.
Ewan Mostyn was a veritable Goliath to Napoleon’s scared Israelites.
It was no wonder the ladies sought him out. He was handsome—in that dangerous sort of way—and eligible and a hero. But Lorrie did not have to like it.
“I’ve been waiting all evening for an opportunity to speak to you.”
Lorrie glanced over her shoulder, and Francis stood before her.
“Francis!” She was genuinely pleased to see him, but she was also aware of a vague sense of annoyance that she could no longer see the Viking and the lady commanding his attention.