The Wedding Wager Page 14

  Pushing her scarcely touched breakfast plate away, she excused herself from the table. “I’ll fetch my cloak and bonnet and join you shortly.” She could not bring herself to meet his gaze, lest she should catch him savoring her discomfort.

  In the next ten minutes Leonora donned and doffed her cloak a dozen times at least.

  Yes, she would walk with Morse—what harm could it do?

  No, she couldn’t possibly. He had come to mean too much to her already. She could not afford to care more for him.

  On the other hand, he had only invited her to stroll the grounds—not tumble about on his bed.

  Her conflicting inclinations batted her heart back and forth like a shuttlecock until her thoughts spun in a dizzy rondeau.

  When she descended the staircase and saw his eyes light up at the sight of her, Leonora was temporarily convinced she had chosen the right course.

  He held out his arm to her. “I wondered if you had thought better of the idea.”

  Beneath his light, jesting tone, she sensed a note of disappointment, which her delay had provoked and her arrival had banished. His offer to instruct her in the ways of pleasure meant more to Morse Archer than he dared acknowledge. Somehow, the notion eased her own misgivings.

  “I did,” she admitted, unable to suppress her accustomed candor. “Then I didn’t. Then I did again. Who knows but I may change my mind again before we’ve walked a hundred yards.”

  Morse laughed as they stepped out into the mild sunshine of a world on the verge of spring. “Then it will be up to me to convince you to stay. Or coax you not to leave, at any rate.”

  He crooked his elbow tighter, imparting a gentle squeeze to her hand. That simple chaste gesture of fondness flooded Leonora with all the golden warmth and light of spring sunshine. The kind that caressed the frozen earth each year, luring it to thaw and flower once again.

  Yet it frightened her, too. For with softness came vulnerability. She was not in control of this situation. On the contrary, she was very much at its mercy. Oddly enough, this apprehension did not quell her desire for Morse Archer, only buoyed it to new heights.

  Battling her own ambivalence, she increased the pressure of her fingertips on Morse’s arm in reply. She knew he felt it and understood, perhaps better than she understood herself. A smile, somewhat sheepish, tugged up the corner of his bowed mouth.

  “Shall I practice up my courtly manners to employ upon the heiresses at Bath?” he asked, one full brow raised in devilish fun. “Captain Archibald goes a wooing. That’s what Algie will expect of me. He’s already given me some pointers.”

  Leonora wrinkled her nose. “Not that, I pray you. Whatever the ladies of Bath may think on the subject, I am far more partial to Sergeant Archer than to Captain Archibald.”

  He said nothing for a while as they walked at a halting pace over the garden paths. Songbirds twittered from the bare tree branches, as if calling forth the first tight green buds. The clean, sterile air of winter had given way to the pungent smell of new life quickening.

  At last Morse broke the companionable silence between them. “I do believe that’s the kindest compliment a woman has ever paid me.”

  He looked around and for a moment Leonora wondered why. Then she divined it. Morse was checking to see if they might be visible from the windows of Laurelwood.

  Realizing they were well screened by a cluster of amber-needled larch trees, Leonora surrendered to a fluttering, breathless sensation high in her bosom.

  Morse turned to her. Still maintaining a tight grip on his walking stick, he gathered her close with his other arm and bent to kiss her.

  Determined to not be completely mastered, she raised her hands to hold his face. That way, she could push him back if need be.

  As his lips took gentle possession of hers, however, all thought of stopping him fled her mind. His breath whispered over her cheek, quickening in tempo, enticing hers to race likewise. The subtle movements of his lips upon hers played a concerto of delight that reverberated through her whole body.

  Returning his kiss with an intensity to compensate for her lack of skill, Leonora thrust her hands around his neck and tugged the gloves from her fingers. When they were free, at last, she let them subside. One to Morse’s face, where she grazed the firm smoothness of his freshly shaven cheek. The other to his crisply trimmed hair and the contrasting softness of his side-whiskers.

  Ripples of doubt drowned in a frothy, crashing breaker of exultation. Leonora felt herself overcome. Lost in the warmth of the moment and the sweetness of pure sensation. A brooding hunger kindled in her. More acute in some parts of her body than others—but nowhere immune.

  They clamored to share in the indulgence of her lips and hands. When Morse’s hand swept down from her waist to cup deftly beneath her backside, a gasp of bliss erupted from her throat.

  “Leonora?” Algie’s cheerful hail scraped against her tautly wound senses like an unskilled fiddler torturing the strings of his instrument. “Morse? Hullo—where have you got to?”

  They hastily detached from one another. Leonora felt as though a sticking plaster had been ripped from a green wound. One that covered her entire body.

  Her tender flesh quivered and her heart threatened to hammer its way out of her chest.

  “Oh, there you are!” Algie’s voice and footsteps drew nearer.

  As Leonora stooped to retrieve her gloves, her hands ached to box his rather prominent ears.

  “Took a notion to join you, the day looked so fine.” If he noted anything amiss in their guilty fumblings or embarrassed silence, Algie showed no sign of it. Likewise, he seemed impervious to their cold welcome. “Worried Morse’s game leg might give him trouble. He’d need a stronger arm than yours to lean on then, Leonora.”

  “As a matter of fact, I did feel a twinge,” said Morse.

  Piqued by the husky timbre of his voice, Leonora dared a sidelong glance at him. A curious golden luster is his dark hazel eyes told her that twinge was not in his leg. She covered her lips with one regloved hand to stifle a giddy laugh.

  “We had just decided to turn back,” Morse added.

  “Good thing I happened along, then.” Algie wedged his arm beneath Morse’s shoulder and ushered him back toward Laurelwood, keeping up a hearty banter that rasped on Leonora’s nerves.

  With no other alternative, she fell into step behind them, devouring Morse in the only way possible—with her eyes. She wondered when he would find another opportunity to be alone with her, and what new tangent their lessons might take.

  She found herself hoping it would be soon.

  Try as he might, it was three full days and three very long nights before Morse had another opportunity to hold Leonora in his arms.

  Every time he tried, Algie or Sir Hugo or Miss Taylor would blunder along, poaching on their privacy. Blithely insensible to even the broadest hint that their company was unwelcome.

  Morse had been forced to rely on his voice and his eyes to convey his admiration for Leonora. Likewise, he’d been thrown back on his faculties of sight and hearing to satisfy his admiration for her.

  The ripple of her laughter, which came so much warmer and more readily of late, seemed to pipe a tune that set the blood dancing in his veins. The arch of her neck or the sweep of her creamy forearm as she played the pianoforte transfixed him with their unique beauty.

  And if she should glance up at him unexpectedly with those incomparable gray-green eyes, laughter still lilting from her lips, it was as though some wondrous missile, swift and sharp, had pierced him to the very core.

  At night, she waltzed through his dreams. Always so achingly elusive. Yet when they met in daylight, he sensed she craved his touch with the same ravenous desire he craved to touch her. For when they managed to brush hands while reaching for a bread roll at dinner, a hot blush would flood her cheeks, and her breath would catch in her throat, as his did.

  At last, when he’d begun to despair of securing another minute alone with h
er, Morse overheard Sir Hugo ordering the butler to fetch a particular bottle of wine for their dinner.

  “I’ll save you the trouble,” Morse offered, knowing poor Bramshaw had his hands full preparing for their imminent departure to Bath.

  He glanced around to discover Lady Fortune smiling upon him. Leonora was just descending the stairs.

  “If I can prevail upon Miss Freemantle to show me the way to the wine cellar,” he added.

  One hand raised to pat a dark curl in place. She knew what he had in mind—intuitive creature!

  The way she murmured, “It would be my pleasure,” left him in no doubt.

  After they took possession of the key, she led the way below-stairs and he followed, savoring the delicious sway of her walk. Intoxicated by the faint bouquet of lavender that rose from her hair, as he would not have been by ten bottles of her uncle’s fine wine.

  “Here it is.”

  Was it only his imagination, or did her voice carry a slight tremor? Did her fingers fumble as she turned the key in the lock?

  “Do you recall what vintage Uncle asked for?” She held the candle high as she stepped through the low door frame.

  Morse pushed the door shut behind them and plucked the candle from her hand, setting it on a high shelf within arm’s reach.

  “I don’t recall the vintage.”

  He would have pulled her into his embrace, but there was no need, for she pivoted and hurled herself at him.

  “I’m lucky to recall my own name,” he gasped as their lips found each other.

  It was true. In the past few days all concern of wagers, social status and inconstant women had fled his mind. He’d been preoccupied with Leonora and how much he wanted her.

  The force of her impact against him propelled Morse backward. Fortunately a low cask broke his fall. His leg protested as he sat down hard, but the rest of his body rejoiced as Leonora pitched into his lap.

  Morse forgot that he was supposed to be doing her a favor, initiating her into the mysteries of sensual pleasure. Modern, rational, nineteenth-century thought deserted his mind entirely, ousted by a host of feral instincts as old as the stone circles of Salisbury Plain.

  He wanted to take possession of this woman, and to be possessed by her in turn. He wanted to drink her in until he sated his senses upon her. He wanted to feel her alternately melt and stiffen in response to his touch.

  With fierce abandon he kissed her, but she did not cower from it. Instead she countered his desire, flame for flame, fueling his ardor until it threatened to consume them both.

  He broke from their kiss, anxious to acquaint himself with more than her lips. Grazing her cheek on the way to her neck, he nuzzled the spot just below her ear and slowly quested his way down to her shoulder. She responded by arching toward him, a sigh of pleasure mingled with a moan of further yearning.

  He brushed his hand against the brief bodice of her dress and felt the hard straining of her response that echoed his own. His lips strayed lower, to press against the soft flesh of her bosom. With his other hand, he fumbled at the hem of her skirt, tugging the cloth up over her calves and thighs.

  In the cool dampness of the wine cellar, the lone candle cast bewitching shadows upon the dusty, shelved bottles. The earthy odor of the underground chamber fused with the must of ripe grapes and the subtle tincture of a man and woman roused. Stone walls echoed the rapid rasp of their breath, the soft sounds of pleasure given and received. The muted whimper of urging.

  The heavy fall of footsteps and the bray of Algie’s voice drowned out those faint intimate sounds.

  “D’you suppose they might have got locked in? Hullo, Morse, Leonora! Where’s that wine, eh?”

  As Leonora jumped from his lap, Morse heard a squeal deep in her throat, the remnant of a stifled shriek. Somehow, it made his own frustration more bearable, knowing how deeply she shared it.

  Algie grappled with the latch, throwing the door open just as Morse rescued their candle.

  “I say, what’s taking the pair of you so long? At the rate you’re going, we’ll have to drink our wine with breakfast. Ha, ha!”

  “We couldn’t recall what sort of wine Uncle had asked for.” Leonora’s tone was hard as flint. If Algie didn’t watch it, she might break one of these bottles over his head. “Morse and I got to arguing about it.”

  Algie reached past her to pluck a dusty bottle from its shelf. “And here it was under your noses all the time. Well, do come along before dinner gets any colder or Sir Hugo’s temper gets any warmer.”

  As Morse followed Algie, with leaden feet, Leonora clasped his hand and gave it a quick squeeze. The trifling gesture communicated so much—trust, affection…regret. His heart constricted in his chest as though it, too, had been squeezed.

  Soon they would be departing Laurelwood. A month at Bath—two at most—and he’d be parting from Leonora. Parting forever.

  That alarming prospect took the stomach out of Morse. Yet somewhere deep inside him, a spark of desperate hope flickered. But did he want to act upon it?

  Did he dare to act upon it?

  Chapter Thirteen

  Bath.

  Leonora’s throat constricted as their barouche crested Widcombe Hill and the stately spa town came into view.

  She had been planning and working toward this moment for weeks, yet now that it had arrived she wanted nothing so much as to turn tail and bolt back to the rustic security of Laurelwood. Gazing down at the tiers of elegantly proportioned town houses of golden stone nestled among the trees, she tried to quell her misgivings with a dose of cool logic.

  It was only natural that she should feel some apprehension about their visit to Bath. So much rode on Morse’s social success here, after all. If he could rise to the occasion, her future would be assured. She tried in vain to banish thoughts of her destiny—and his, if Morse should fail.

  As if nudged by her worries, Sir Hugo stirred from his doze on the seat beside her. Tipping his tall beaver hat back off his forehead, he blinked his deep-set eyes and yawned. “There already, are we? Bless my soul.” He cast a doting smile at his three young friends. “This is the only way to come to Bath—bring one’s own company, don’t you know. Leonora wouldn’t come with me last spring and I had a perfectly miserable time. Mind you, those foul-tasting waters did wonders for my gout.”

  Algie pulled a wry face. “No waters for me. Grandmama used to bring me here every spring when I was a child and dose me liberally with the stuff. She reckoned the tonic might fatten me up, but it never did a scrap of good that I could see. Quite spoilt my appetite, as a matter of fact.”

  He turned to Morse, who sat silent and uncommonly solemn beside him. “The baths might do your leg good, though, old fellow. If you can spare the time from your heiress-hunting project, that is.”

  Morse acknowledged Algie with a vacant nod. Was it the overcast day, or did he look rather pale? Leonora noted the tightness in his jaw muscles and his brow. Could the soldier who had risked his own life to pull her cousin from a sea of French bayonets be frightened of the poky, respectable gentry who flocked to Bath?

  Somehow the notion endeared him to her even more. She wanted to squeeze his hand and reassure him that all would be well. She longed to embrace him in gratitude for how hard he’d worked on her behalf. She yearned to linger in his arms and soak up the sensation of it—a memory to treasure through the long celibate years ahead.

  Her eyes began to sting just then, much to Leonora’s chagrin. What cause had she for tears, after all, with her wager all but won? She would be able to lead a productive, independent life. A secure life, well within her control.

  And if she had begun to suspect there might be something missing from such a life—something as vital as meat or drink or air—she must quell such traitorous notions. And take care to do nothing that might jeopardize her plans for the future.

  His nerves stretched so taut he feared they would snap, Morse struggled with his unmanageable neck linen. Dickon had made a dre
adful botch of tying it this evening. The fault lay with himself, too, Morse acknowledged with a rueful shake of his head. He simply hadn’t been able to stand still. Shifting from foot to foot. Fidgeting with his watch fob and the buttons of his waistcoat. It was a wonder Dickon hadn’t been overcome by an impulse to strangle him with the troublesome cravat.

  Giving it one last desperate pull, Morse abandoned the project and began to pace the Persian carpet of their rented establishment in fashionable Laura Place. After a few days’ grace to settle in and receive a number of complimentary welcome calls, tonight would be their first foray into Bath Society. Morse had never been this agitated on the eve of a battle.

  His hands felt clammy. His heart raced as though he had run a mile. His stomach churned and a hundred thoughts chased one another in giddy succession through his head. For twopence, he’d have turned tail and scampered back to Laurelwood in disgrace.

  The sitting room door eased open and Leonora entered. For a long moment Morse’s fears fled his mind as he drank in the sight of her. He recalled their first meeting at the military hospital and how little she’d appealed to him then.

  Had she changed so much in the meantime?

  In some ways, perhaps. She wore her hair in looser, softer styles these days. Tonight, for instance, it crowned her head in a froth of fine dark curls, adorned only by a simple riband of silver-gray to match her evening dress.

  Ah, the dress! Whatever the antipathy between he and Miss Taylor, Morse had to admit the young woman was a fine seamstress. Rather than concealing Leonora’s charms, the cut of her gowns now emphasized her lithe grace. Their colors brightened her complexion or, as in this case, complimented her peerless eyes.

  But these were only the superficial changes. The greatest alteration had been in her stance and manner. She no longer held herself so rigid and erect, as if expecting or daring some attack from the world. In the past weeks Leonora had become approachable, and Morse found himself taking every convenient opportunity to approach her.

  Even some deucedly inconvenient ones.