She seemed to fight to get her breathing under control. “We can’t do this here.” She touched her fingers to her overheated cheeks. “I want to, though. God, how I want to.”
“You destroy me—piece by piece. And I welcome it.”
Her eyes were wide, her face flushed. He’d kissed her lips into overripe temptation. He felt a muscle work in his jaw as he struggled to calm himself.
Still, he glanced toward the deeper shadows, calculating the distance it would take to hide them both in the darkness and give in to their aching need.
Her gaze skimmed down his body, and her eyes widened to see the length of his cock pressed snug in his breeches.
A hint of a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “No elegant or witty words from me now. I want you.”
Need was written in her face—the finest text he’d ever read—yet a battle was fought behind her gaze. He held himself still. This was her choice to make.
“We ought to get back,” she said regretfully. “The others might be looking for us.”
Much as he wanted to protest, he nodded. Working quickly, he smoothed out his waistcoat and adjusted his neckcloth. She had almost completely untied it.
She tugged on her bodice and shook out her skirts, then patted her hair. “My coiffure must look like a windblown hayfield.”
“Let me.” He stepped close, and their fingers tangled as they both worked to put her hair in order. She sighed when he stroked his hands along her scalp and down the nape of her neck.
“How do you know so much about ladies’ hair arrangements? Do you help your lovers reassemble themselves when they rise from your bed?”
He did not want to speak of any other lover. He would never be so crass as to judge one woman against another, but more than that, he wanted to honor what he felt with Jess. There would be no comparisons. “I have two sisters and was frequently impressed into service dressing their hair.”
“They had no maid of their own?”
“At that age, they had a nurse who spent too much time flirting with an under-groom. So the task of making them into tiny ladies fell to me.” Fondness warmed his words. His sisters had been the bane of his existence when he’d been a boy, and he’d missed them terribly when he’d been sent to Eton. Now he saw them and their families every Christmas, and he enjoyed his role as indulgent uncle. “Have a look in the pond and see if I did your coiffure justice.”
She did so, peering at her reflection in the water. “Excellent. If you ever decide to relinquish your claim to the dukedom, you’ve a bright future in women’s hairdressing.”
“Tempting.”
She turned to him and smiled—then realized he wasn’t speaking entirely in jest. Disbelief in her voice, she said, “You’d give up countless country estates—”
“Four. No, six. Damn, at the moment I can’t recall.” His first realization that not every boy stood to inherit half a dozen estates had come at Eton. Granted, most of the boys there had come from the ranks of the elite, with their own sizable inheritances, but almost none of the other students could claim the level of wealth and holdings that he had.
“Half the country’s wealth, and the ear of Lord Liverpool himself?” Her look was puzzled.
He gazed skyward. “It’s the height of churlishness to complain about everything I have. I live the best life a man can have. That’s undeniable.”
At first at school, he’d been so proud of himself, smug in his superiority. But then he’d met four boys in the library who’d taught him that a person’s value wasn’t predicated on their coffers or land.
Thanks to them, he felt the responsibility of tending to his estates and tenants. It was a privilege to have as much—but damn if it didn’t also sometimes weigh heavily on him.
“And yet . . . ?”
“And yet . . .” He exhaled. “I’ve good friends, men for whom I’d do anything. Beyond them . . .” It struck him now, the facts of his world, and a sudden hollowness resounded within him, at odds with the lingering heat from kissing Jess. “I’m often alone.”
“You’re seldom alone,” she said gently.
“The throngs you’d find surrounding an animal trained to entertain. There are my four friends—but to most others, I’m a well-dressed ladder. A means to climb higher.” His smile for her was small, but genuine, and the locked cabinet of his innermost heart opened. But it didn’t