The Dangerous Love of a Rogue. Jane Lark

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СКАЧАТЬ know, Papa, but my head hurts.” Her fingers pressed to her temple. It throbbed with the pain of bottled up tears. She wished to cry over her insanity.

      His brow furrowed and his fingers stroked her upper arm gently. “We will get you home.”

      “I must use the retiring room first though, Papa.”

      “Very well, you go up. I shall have the carriage called for, and tell your mother. We shall await you in the hall.”

      Mary turned away, her head pounding. She felt a little sick as she climbed the stairs. The retiring room was quiet. Her mother’s maid was not there; she must have already been told they were leaving.

      As Mary left the room, her fingers shook and she walked along the silent hall, with her thoughts screaming.

      “Miss Marlow.” Her arm was gripped, firmly and she was pulled aside, into an alcove, and then pressed back against the wall as Lord Framlington’s mouth came down on hers.

      She lifted her arms about his neck instinctively kissing him back with a longing that raged through her and took away the pain in her head, but then common-sense prevailed and she let him go, gripped his shoulders and pushed him away, whispering. “What do you think you are doing?”

      “You have been playing a good game of ignoring me, but we both know you cannot. As I cannot ignore you.” His breath brushed over her lips his voice low and quiet. She would have turned and walked away but he gripped her wrist and held her still.

      “Miss Marlow. Mary. Darling. Do not deny this. I know what you feel, because I feel it too.”

      “I feel nothing.”

      “And that is why you kissed me a moment ago, and at that garden party. You feel. You want. But I cannot come to you in a place like this, so if you want what I can give you, you will have to come to me…”

      “What you give—”

      “Kisses, darling. Happiness. A life filled with moments like this. You know I am looking for a wife, I know your brother has told you—”

      “Most men do not look for a wife in the shadows of a hallway, or a narrow garden path—”

      “I am not seeking any wife, I am seeking you, and if you wish to explore that, you will have to come to me, Mary.”

      “No.” She pulled her wrist free, and turned away, her heart pounding as she began to run.

      She heard his deep voice echo down the hall. “You may run but I know you do not wish to… You will come back when you have had chance to reflect and understand what you will miss… I will give you time, Mary, and then we’ll see.”

      * * *

      Drew watched her hurry away. She was scared but interested despite her better judgement. She had kissed him back. Her denial was pretence. He’d felt her attraction in her body, her breasts had pressed to his chest, as her slender arms had clung about his neck.

      He sighed.

      The power of emotion in him had caught him off-guard. At the garden party she had answered his kiss hesitantly, but tonight, it was as if she had longed to kiss him again. In the first instant when the shock had silenced her fears, she had thrust herself at him, and thrown herself into the kiss.

      He smiled.

      She had kissed him with innocence on both occasions.

      His hand gripped the back of his neck for a moment, then fell. What if he had been the first man to kiss her? God that thought pierced through his chest, like a spear surging through him.

      The first to press his tongue into her mouth.

      Lord. The idea floored him with a sudden punch. But then he smiled, as the novelty of it bloomed, uncurling in him like a shoot from a seed, it rose up. Hope.

      He walked along the hall; she had already reached the stairs and disappeared.

      She was becoming more and more essential to his future. No other woman would do. She was his choice, and he was not going to be deterred.

      She simply needed time.

      Hell she had kissed him back with hunger tonight, albeit a little clumsily, but who cared. Who cared when he had been the first man to claim her lips – like a pioneer, and he intended to claim much more.

      There was only one way he knew how to woo women, and that was with his body, he could teach the woman things she could never have imagined.

      Innocent. He could not even remember how that had felt. But he knew how to make her feel good. He would give her the gift of sensual discovery and then she would never be able to refuse him. He would have her then.

      But if she was running from kisses, she was not ready for that yet.

      He needed another approach for the present and he had one; if the girl wanted to play hard to get, let her. If she wished to fain disinterest, then so could he.

      He laughed.

      He would give his little fish more line. Let her have some time to contemplate her choices. He doubted any of her young beaux made her heart race, or her bones melt. He doubted she had thrown her arms about their necks, and he had a very strong feeling she had never kissed any of them.

      He would reel her in in a week or two when she’d had chance to realize his kisses were better than a hundred dances with the children she had danced with here.

      What he had said to her was true, he felt the same… He knew she desired him, as much as he desired her.

      * * *

      Mary sat in her family’s coach bowling towards her brother’s town mansion.

      The coach swayed on the uneven cobble. Its motion made Mary feel sick.

      “It is unlike you to suffer with headaches, Mary, is something wrong?” her mother whispered.

      Mary shook her head, then stopped as pain hammered in her skull.

      “You look pale,” her father stated. “Has something happened?”

      “I just need to sleep,” she whispered. She’d done very little of that in recent nights, and she feared she would not sleep tonight. The strength of Lord Framlington’s kiss still trembled through her nerves. “I will be well tomorrow.”

      Leaning forward her mother pressed Mary’s knee. “We will be home soon. Would you like me to sit with you a while when you retire?”

      “No, thank you, Mama.” Their kindness was cloying when Mary knew she was living a lie. She was not who they thought she was, she was not good, she was bad, or rather, she wanted to be bad. Everything Lord Framlington had said was true, she wanted to meet him, and kiss him again. He tempted her.

      Now she felt as though he had poured himself into her blood, her body throbbed from the memory of their sudden encounter in the dark, and she could still feel his gentle grip on her wrist.

      When СКАЧАТЬ