“What are we doing?”
“It’s a dark garden.” He spoke low. “Guess.”
She could not think, only feel his hand surrounding hers. “Tell me.”
“Making a start on those children the Misses Blevinses encouraged us to have.” He pulled her around the corner of a trellis and to an abrupt halt. But he released her.
Diantha swallowed her cry of disappointment. “You are not serious.”
“A stable is one thing. A ball with half of society in attendance is quite another.” But he stood very close and his eyes glimmered in the crisscrossing shadows of twining vines. “We need a plan.”
She gulped. “A plan for finding a stable?”
“A plan to deal with the Misses Blevinses,” he said patiently, but she could barely hear for the raucous pounding of her heart. His gaze slipped over her neck and shoulders, coming to rest upon her mouth quite as though he did in fact intend to kiss her. Her breaths petered. He wanted her. Still, surrounded by all the elegant ladies of London, he truly wanted her.
“I shall plead a megrim and ask Serena to take me home,” she barely managed.
“That will suffice until I devise a more lasting solution.”
“We are not in a ballroom now.” She could not help herself. “If I touch you inappropriately here will you do things to me for which you will not be held accountable?”
“I misspoke.” His voice was rough. “I must remain accountable. Always with you.”
She laid her palm on his chest and the swift, hard beat of his heart shot heat through her. She slid her fingers down fine fabric to his waist and he remained very still. “Always the gentleman,” she murmured.
“Not a gentleman at present.”
Her hand dipped lower. “Because you have dragged me into a dark garden to hide?”
“Because I am not going to stop you from doing what you are about to do.”
She slipped her palm over the fall of his trousers. He was hard already, from only looking at her, dancing with her, and it made her hot inside. Her eyelids fluttered down as she settled her hand around him. He grasped her arms, his cheek bent to hers. She stroked and his body responded, a sound coming from his chest of pure masculine pleasure. She could not contain her own soft moan. It was so good to touch him.
“Oh, Wyn,” she breathed, “do you think we might get to work on those children right now after all?”
His mouth was so close to hers, his body thoroughly rigid. He grasped her hand and trapped it to his erection for a moment that seemed wonderfully to last forever. Then, with a harsh breath, he detached her and took a step back. His eyes were heavy with desire. “I will call on you tomorrow, Miss Lucas.”
“Wyn—”
“Diantha, if you do not return to that ballroom this moment, find your stepsister, and depart—”
“You will ravish me here and leave me to be discovered by half of society, like a proper villain would?” She flashed a hopeful smile.
“Something like that, except for the leaving part. Go. Now.” Tension locked his jaw and shoulders, but his heated gaze was laughing.
Diantha’s heart did a series of delicious little trills. She grabbed the lapels of his coat, pressed herself fully to him and tilted her face up to whisper against his neck.
“I like you like this. I like you . . .” she whispered, “without the brandy.” The darkness was gone, the desperation of the hunter that had haunted his eyes through Shropshire no longer behind the silver. Before Knighton, the glimpses she’d seen of this man, the man who could laugh with his eyes, had made her long for him. Now he was entirely that man, and she was mad with wanting him. Needing him. He made her feel desired. He made her feel treasured, not because of liquor or responsibility but simply because of her. She feathered soft kisses along his jaw, her hands delving beneath his coat, reclaiming the hard contours of his body.
“Dear God, Diantha,” he groaned, his palms sliding over her behind and pulling her flush against his arousal. “I was serious. I cannot take this.” He pressed fervent kisses against her brow, cheeks, and eyes. “Now go.” He put her abruptly away from him.
She couldn’t move. Her heartbeats raced, her skin was overheated, thoroughly alive.
He looked like stone. Fevered stone. “Go.”
She swallowed hard. “Good night, then, Mr. Yale. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow. Perhaps in the morning?”
“I await the hour.”
She went. She fairly ran. She feared that if she did not run, she would hurl herself back into his arms and force him to make love to her beneath the shining half-moon. But she didn’t want to make him act contrary to his character ever again. He had suffered for her and she would respect the honor that commanded him by behaving as a real lady, albeit somewhat belatedly.
She met her brother at the terrace doors.
“Tracy, I have a horrid megrim. Will you take me home?”
He cast a frowning glance at the garden, then obliged.
Chapter 26
Duncan stepped out from behind a carriage at the end of the long line of vehicles parked along the block. Nearby a trio of footmen threw dice against the curb, lights blazed from the Beaufetheringstone mansion, and coachmen tended to horses jangling harnesses along the row of carriages. It was a typical Mayfair night except for the Highlander assassin approaching Wyn and the lightness of his own step, which even a tricky departure from a ballroom filled with acquaintances had done nothing to disturb.
“Rather spruced up to be skulking about in the shadows, aren’t you, Eads?”
“Playing it cool for a marked man, aren’t ye, Yale?”
“Marked? Quite certain you’re not thinking of some other chap you’ve been hounding, old boy?”
In the dim light cast by the gas lamp above, the curve of the Highlander’s grin was barely discernable. “Damn, but yer nerves are steady as steel. Yer no even wondering why A’m here.”
“Thank you.” He reached into his coat pocket, drew out a cigar case, and proffered it to the earl. Duncan shook his head and Wyn returned the case to his coat. He no longer wanted it. He only wanted the woman with sparkling eyes that he’d had in his hands far too briefly after assuring her that this man posed him no threat. “But I am in fact wondering. Why are you still following me?”
“Because Yarmouth’s still paying me for it.”
At moments such as these, Wyn felt the scars on his spine and the knife tucked into his sleeve rather more acutely than he imagined was physically possible.
“You are not working for Myles?” That he hadn’t managed to learn this weeks ago proved the depths that he had fallen to before encountering Diantha on the road, depths from which he was only now arising.
Duncan’s eyes narrowed. “She didna tell ye A was working for the duke?”
“She?”
“The lass.”
“If you are referring to Miss Lucas,” Wyn managed with credible nonchalance, “she did not. But I am somewhat astounded that you told her that bit of information. Tonight?”
“At yer house when A fetched ma horse.” Duncan studied him. Wyn didn’t like the scrutiny, or the discovery that Diantha had kept yet another secret from him. No doubt she had been trying to protect him, and no wonder her worry over his delayed arrival to town.
“I will dispense with the unnecessary,” he said, “and ask only why Yarmouth is still having you follow me when I have delivered him of his prize.”
“He daena care about the horse, ye damn fool. He wants ye.”
Wyn pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers. “Do not tell me, Duncan, that you intend to kill me on this street corner now. Not tonight.” Not until he told Diantha what he’d learned in his afternoon’s research. Not until he apprised her of her mother’s situation and of the state of his heart.