In the distance, a child’s playful shriek rippled the air. The viscount waited until silence wafted over them before he replied, “Touché. And if it will put your mind at rest, I don’t normally kiss women I don’t know. And I’ve never done so at a ball—at least not since I was much younger. You mightn’t think it, but I’m usually overly cautious in guarding my personal affairs.”
And just like that, her anger died. “Yet you kissed me.” The viscount had taken a big risk kissing her as he had. Which meant something did it not?
“Yes, I kissed you.” His eyes were half-mast now as they focused on the very place he’d kissed. Her mouth.
But no, she couldn’t permit it. This was her seduction not his. And by the look on his face, his would be carnal lust, scorching kisses and unadulterated passion. The nature of those very emotions would incinerate everything, pull the focus from where it ought to be, which was them getting to know each other.
“So tell me, my lord, what are you interests? Are you an avid hunter?” Lord, she hoped not. She quite despised it as pure sport, the shooting of helpless animals.
He lifted his gaze from her mouth and his own curved the barest little bit as he looked into her eyes. I will drop the subject of the kiss…for now, his smile seemed to say.
“No, I’m not a hunter. Gave my father palpitations when he realized it. I don’t think he ever forgave me for it,” he said, with a quiet chuckle.
His father had died three years ago. The news had filtered back to her parents in Penkridge, which was how she’d come by the knowledge. Her sympathies had immediately gone out to the viscount and she’d thought of him often in the following months, wondering how he was bearing his grief.
“No, I’d rather work with my hands.”
She searched his expression for signs of mockery but found none.
“I make things out of wood. Carve them,” he elaborated quickly.
Now this intrigued her. A man who was good with his hands. In other ways.
Miss Smith was good. Very good. If her sister had even half her…charms, it was no wonder his brother had become so smitten with her. But with foresight came the ability to guard himself against whatever spell she was hoping to cast over him. Her interest in him was hardly genuine. She was playing a role the way she was no doubt instructed to play.
And why he’d even told her about the hobby he taken up as a boy, he didn’t know. So very few of his friends knew of his love of carving.
“What sorts of things do you make?”
She was better than good; she could star in her very own play on Drury Lane. But he’d indulge her until he decided just what to do with her.
“Animals. Sometimes people if I find them interesting enough.”
She smiled at that, a tiny dimple appearing at the corner of her mouth. He idly wondered what it would be like to kiss her there, taste the soft concave skin with his tongue. He could feel himself hardening, which annoyed him more than a little bit.
“What kind of wood do you use?”
“Lime.”
“Why lime?”
Since she was making such a good show of it, he’d indulge her a little longer. “Because it is a soft wood, easy to work with and has very little grain.”
She appeared genuinely pleased by the information as if digesting something of great value. “And are you very good?”
The breeze tangled with the ribbon of her bonnet, sending it rippling languidly over the brim. She batted it away with a gloved hand.
“Have you seen the Statue of David?” he asked.
“I’ve seen pictures in a book.” She now looked suitably impressed.
“Well I’m not that good.”
When she let out a burst of laughter, Derek realized how much he’d wanted to hear that sound. He loved the slight throatiness of her voice, the way her eyes danced and her shoulders shook. And her smile…captivated him.
“I would love to see your work one day.” She held the errant red laced ribbon in her grasp to keep it out of her face as she stared up at him.
He stopped and led her a few feet to stand beneath a horse-chestnut tree whose knotted trunk was bigger than the rear wheels on his barouche. “Would you like some help with that?” he asked, pointing to her ribbon.
She pondered his question a moment too long. He slipped the ribbon from her motionless fingers and proceeded to tie it in a bow. When he was finished, she tipped her head up, her eyes wide watching him.
Her mouth looked plush and pink and meant to be kissed. His cock stirred urging him to do just that.
Panic flared briefly in her eyes as he lowered his head. She quickly dropped her head and took two steps back.
“Thank you,” she said, her voice breathless, her face flushed and not from the heat of the day. He liked that he could do that to her.
“You want me to kiss you,” he stated, not about to pretend that hadn’t been his intent.
The color on her face deepened, spreading to wash the gentle jut of her collar bones and down to sweep over the expanse of creamy skin exposed by her square-shaped neckline. “I don’t think that would be a good idea. We are in a public park.”
Derek looked around briefly. “No one is about.”
She buried her hand in the folds of her skirts and he saw her fingers moving restlessly over the ice blue silk material.
“What scares you more, Miss Smith, that I won’t stop or that you won’t want me to?”
Her head jerked sharply up and he saw the truth there in her wide eyes.
“I would never force myself on a woman.”
If Lord Creswell had meant to reassure her, she remained anything but. He was correct, she had no fear of him. It was the emotions he stirred in her with so little effort.
Elizabeth blinked and shook her head in denial. “I never said anything such thing.”
Lord Creswell smiled. “Then it would seem I have my answer.”
He moved with the swiftness of a snake striking, his gloved hand firmly palming the nape of her neck and tipping her head up for his kiss in one clean motion. His mouth settled on hers gently coaxing, rubbing. Her lips parted instantly, her response as natural as breathing. His tongue plunged into the wet, warm caverns of her mouth with the single-minded purpose to conquer, possess, plunder.
All tenderness was gone and in its place was greed and the most basic sexual desire. Like a ferocious vortex, she felt it pulling her under buffeted by her needs and her own wants.
But she couldn’t let this happen, not again. It was this same sort of reckless desire that had women wringing their hands in heartsick despair after the men took their fill and walked away without a glance, promises broken, leaving the women's and left hand bereft of a ring. It had happened to Madeline and if she wasn’t very careful, it would happen to her.
She broke the kiss with the inexorable press of her hands against his shoulders. He allowed her to push him away for it was the only way she could have managed it. For a moment he looked as if he was about to protest. He narrowed his gaze down at her.
Slowly, as if fearing any sudden movement on his part would cause her to bolt, he caught her arm in his and lifted it up for inspection. Elizabeth had no idea what he was looking for but permitted him to turn it gently in his hand. Her gown had small capped sleeves and her gloves came to her wrist so there was a length of pale flesh to peruse and to touch.
“So soft,” he whispered, lazily stroking her forearm with his index finger. “Whoever thought something this slim and fragile in appearance would have so much strength,” he mused, his mouth twisted.
Not yet recovered from the sheer wonder of the kiss, Elizabeth’s arm tingled every place he touched.
He ran the back of his gloved hand along the now prickled skin of her bicep. “Do you play croquet, Miss Smith?”
She shook her head both in bemusement and response to the question.
“I will teach you soon. It would be a shame to waste this arm keeping gentlemen at bay.”