Page 44 of Dropping the Ball

That did not stop him from kissing Bernadette with every bit of the emotion that swirled inside of him. He broke from her lips to kiss her cheeks, her nose, her chin, then trailed a kiss down the side of her neck, feeling her rapid pulse against his lips as he dipped lower.

“Alden,” Bernadette sighed, like a wish and a prayer, and tipped her head back so that he could kiss and lick and nip her throat on his way to the exposed swells of her breasts as they strained above the fabric of her gown. He kissed her sweetly and softly, although he wanted to do much more. He wanted to tear both of their clothes off with wild abandon and take her to bed, as he had before, to share glorious, forbidden things with her.

He swept his hand up her waist to cradle one of her breasts and was just about to make the unthinkable suggestion that they abandon the party to retire to his room so that they might make love for the rest of the weekend when a shout of, “Lord Alden, are you in here?” sounded from the other end of the terrarium.

Both Alden and Bernadette gasped and jolted apart, both nearly falling into the mud and grass around them, at the sound of Lady Gladys’s voice.

“Dammit,” Alden hissed. “That woman.”

“Perhaps the alligators will eliminate the problem,” Bernadette said, breathless and flushed.

Alden laughed, but had to cut himself short, as Lady Gladys had started their way. They were concealed behind greenery to the point where she may or may not have seen their intimacy, but within seconds, she would be close enough to see all.

“I am so sorry for this,” Alden said before taking a large step away from her.

He put as much distance between the two of them as he could, climbing over the sunning rock and most likely ruining his good boots as his feet sank into the soft mud beside the stream. At least he made it back to the path before Lady Gladys was anywhere near them.

“Lady Gladys,” he said, striding to meet her as far away from Bernadette as he could. “So good of you to join the tour I was conducting.”

“I see no tour,” Lady Gladys said, her voice flat and sour as she glanced past him to Bernadette. “I only see you behaving inappropriately with a member of staff.”

Alden pretended innocence and glanced back over his shoulder to Bernadette. “Lady Bernadette was searching for green turtles with me,” he said. “But our activities are over. Perhaps you would help me organize afternoon tea for the guests?”

Lady Gladys did not look fooled in the least, but she took Alden’s offered arm and allowed him to escort her across the terrarium and away from Bernadette, who was doing an admirable job of climbing back to the path on her own. Alden hated leaving her on her own, but with Lady Gladys on the prowl, Bernadette was more likely to save herself without his help.

He only hoped that he would be able to resume their intimacies at some later time … and save her from ruin with thetonif the affection between them became known.

Chapter Fifteen

Rarely were the entertainments Bernadette was called upon to organize as physically and emotionally exhausting as those surrounding Alden’s ball. Her moment with Alden in the terrarium, where the rest of the world and the circumstances the two of them found themselves in dropped away until it was just them and love in all the universe, was a brief, shining high point in the afternoon.

The rest of the day was spent keeping fickle and flighty young women from becoming bored, or from bursting into tears and running to their mamas, begging to be taken home. It seemed that every time Bernadette settled one group of ladies, whether it be in lessons in paper folding in the library from a clever and handsome former sailor who had spent time in the Orient or instruction in the latest dances with a charming couple from London who were highly sought after during the season for exactly that sort of instruction in the conservatory, another catastrophe struck.

“I would just as soon spend my days chasing escaped reptiles through the house than shepherd this particular lot of ladies,” Bernadette sighed to her friends as the afternoon was wearing out when they all met in the garden, where the last of the day’s refreshments were being taken away by the worn-looking Lyndhurst staff.

“I believe there is plenty of that for you to do as well,” Minerva said with a sly grin over her teacup. “I must confess, I laughed heartily at the snake which made a stunning appearance in the middle of Lady Avril’s singing in the conservatory earlier.”

Bernadette nearly choked on her tea as she suddenly laughed. Poor Lady Avril had just reached a high note in her lively song when she’d spotted a snake slithering along the wall toward her. The high note had turned into a scream, the musical entertainment had been abruptly ended, and poor Smythe had been forced to console the ladies with humorous tales of his rather large and rowdy family while Bernadette retrieved the snake, handing it off to one of the footmen to take back to the terrarium.

“If Alden’s guests would only stop opening the doors to the terrarium out of curiosity, and then leaving them open instead of keeping the room sealed tight, we would not be encountering these difficulties,” Bernadette said, finishing her tea and placing the cup on the tray one of the maids was using to gather dishes that had been left behind.

“Napoleon is certainly enjoying the entertainments,” Kat said, reaching into the basket slung over her arm to stroke Napoleon’s head. “He’s nearly worn out with all the enjoyment he’s had chasing lizards today.”

“Yes, well, mind he does not feast on any of the lizards,” Bernadette said, one eyebrow raised. “Aside from the fact that Alden is quite attached to even the smallest of his specimens,I cannot say that none of them are poisonous. The tree frogs certainly are.”

“Poisonous frogs?” Muriel asked incredulously. “That seems like something that would be found in a fairy story.”

“I can assure you, it is true,” Bernadette said, helping the maid gather a few remaining cups for her tray. “And that reminds me that I wanted to check one last time that the doors to the terrarium have been secured and as many of Alden’s creatures as can be have been returned to their homes before I go up to dress for supper.”

“You would do best to nap for a moment before supper and come down refreshed later rather than dressed like any one of the peacocks we’ve been subject to today,” Minerva said, her voice showing her disapproval of the other guests.

“Female peacocks are referred to as peahens,” Bernadette corrected her before turning to head back to the house.

“I was referring to the young male guests,” Minerva called after her.

Her friends laughed, and while Bernadette regretted that she could not forego her duties to spend the rest of the day with them alone, she had to admit that Minerva had a point. As she walked up to the house, heading for the door to the terrarium, she conceded to herself that the young bucks Lady Gladys had invited of her own accord were a surprise godsend. They were all marriage-minded young men from reasonably good families, and they’d been enough to keep most of the mothers of the distressed young ladies from bowing to their wishes and leaving. Chances were that more than a few matches would be made that weekend, even if Alden–

Bernadette stopped her thoughts with a weary sigh. Her heart was torn to pieces and far too exhausted from the whirlwind of her ill-fated romance with Alden to know how to finish that thought. Hethersett had not written with any indication that hewould set her free, and he was unlikely to appear out of nowhere to resolve matters. Alden would inevitably choose a bride at the ball on the morrow. That was the purpose of the whole weekend. But after the passion the two of them had shared that afternoon, Bernadette was beginning to think her beloved would choose to risk disaster at the hands of his family’s curse in order to love her. That begged the question of whether she was willing to throw her reputation to the wolves in order to be with him.

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