Page 35 of The Society Catch
‘Oh.’ Joanna gasped at the stinging frankness of his words, even as she recoiled from the volume of his voice. She had never heard Giles raise his voice or lose control of his temper, now she was experiencing both at very short range indeed. ‘I wouldn’t let anyone take liberties,’ she began, wincing at the vapid euphemism even as she used it.
‘Like you are not letting me take liberties now?’ Giles enquired, his voice suddenly silkily quiet. Joanna realised that she could not only feel the weight and lines and heat of his body, but that also the fact that he was powerfully aroused. Without conscious thought her untutored body shifted, accommodating itself more closely to his and instantly he snarled at her, ‘Lie still.’
Joanna froze. After her marriage Grace had been asked by Mama to talk to Joanna about married life. She had given some indication of the changes necessary in a man’s body to allow lovemaking to take place, but she had been very reticent. Giles was so very… but then he was a big man, obviously everything was in proportion.
Blushing hectically at her own thoughts as much as at the shocking intimacy, she closed her eyes and waited for what would happen next. Then opened them abruptly as she realised just what she was thinking, what she was hoping. Her body was beginning to ache very strangely, not with his weight, but from the inside, with an unfamiliar hot yearning. She wanted to move against him, wrap her arms around him, incite him to kiss her again, but the expression in his eyes was so darkly fierce she dared not. ‘Giles, you said I could trust you.’
‘Damn it, Joanna, if you could not, neither of us would have a stitch of clothing on by now. And stop looking so scandalised. Your dream lover, whoever the hell he is, is a man too and if you think you can behave with such recklessness with him without provoking a reaction, then you are deluded.’ The hard stare softened. ‘If I let you go, will you promise not to run away again?’
‘What not run away now, or not run away again ever?’ she temporised, forcing herself to think about anything but the immediacy of his body, of the thin barrier of clothing between them. About the fact that he undeniably desired her and that she wanted nothing more than for him to prove just how much.
‘Never again. I warn you, Joanna, you have reached the length of my patience. Any more and you will discover exactly what that means. Promise me.’
‘No.’ She shut her eyes, the only defence against his will which overwhelmed her, mastered her as surely as his long hard body had subdued hers beneath it.
‘Promise me.’ He was speaking against her lips, his breath feathering the sensitive flesh like a kiss, his hands cradling her head. She could feel the pulse in his wrists beating strongly and the rhythm of her blood leapt to echo it. ‘Promise me.’ It was a whisper, soft yet compelling. Her lips parted to deny him but no words came. There was only the heat of his mouth over hers, the insidiously gentle pressure of his fingertips tangling in her hair,the bliss of him fitting so perfectly to her as she lay beneath him.
Time stopped. Around them the flowers opened to the warm sunlight, to the thrumming bees which pillaged each golden heart for its pollen. Overhead a lark spiralled upwards into a cloudless blue sky, singing as though its heart would break, rising, rising, until the human figures below it were a dot in the green of the meadow.
They breathed with one breath, shared the same heartbeat. Without conscious thought Joanna breathed, ‘I love…’
Chapter Seventeen
Abruptly Joanna found herself free of Giles’s weight, jerked upright, shaken until her eyes snapped open.
‘I know you love him.’ She was kneeling facing Giles, his hands hard on her shoulders. ‘I know you love him,’ he repeated quietly. ‘But how does running away help? What were you going to do?’
Her breath was coming as though he were still riding her down. His own, despite the control she could feel vibrating through his hands, was short. Shaken out of all attempt at pretence she gasped, ‘I was going to my aunt near Norwich. I knew you would never find me there.’
He smiled at her wryly. ‘In fact I know all about Aunt Caroline, your mama suspected you might go to her. But even without that knowledge, did you think I would give up? Did you really believe I would rest until I had found you again? Joanna, look at me.’
She shook her head, bending her neck until her hair, loosened in the struggle, shielded her expression from his eyes. Giles lifted his hand from her right shoulder, smoothing back the curtain of hair. Joanna found her chin raised inexorably and met his gaze.
The anger had gone, and with it the blackness, leaving once again the cool grey stare which seemed to transfix her. ‘You have no hope of eluding me, Joanna. Believe it.’ She nodded, resisting the impulse to turn her cheek against the hard, gentle palm with its calluses from years of riding and weapon-handling. ‘Promise me you will not try to escape and I will take you to Tasborough and Hebe. No chaperone, no carriage. We will ride, stay at out-of-the-way inns.’
It was difficult to speak, her voice cracked. Joanna swallowedhard. ‘And if I do not promise?’
‘I will tie you to the horse and there will be no inns. I will find barns to sleep in.’
She met his eyes, met the implacable resolve in them, and believed he would take her back trussed and thrown over his saddle bow if that was what it took. ‘But if we are together for days I will be compromised.’
‘I am escorting you with your parents’ permission. This is not what they had envisaged but I can assure you, as I will assure them if necessary, you are going to be delivered into Hebe’s hands in as perfect condition as you left your own home.’
Her gaze shifted under his. ‘Being alone is enough. Spending nights alone, however blamelessly, is enough if it is discovered.’
‘Then we had better be sure we are not discovered, because believe me, Joanna, I have no wish to find myself married to you.’ He smiled grimly ‘I find myself strangely sentimental. I require love in marriage.’
‘So do I,’ she snapped back, hating herself for the jealousy which flooded through her.
‘Then we are agreed.’ She stared back and nodded. ‘You do not try to escape? You give me your word?’
‘Yes. I give you my word.’ Joanna held his gaze long enough for him to read the truth in what she said, then twisted away to sit with her profile to him.
Giles let out his breath in a long exhalation and let his body topple back onto the lush grass beside her. Joanna was conscious that he was letting the tension ebb out of him like a big cat relaxing in the sun as he lay on his back at her side, his eyes narrowed against the glare of the summer sky. He turned his head to look at her, crushing buttercups under his cheek. ‘Did I frighten you? I am sorry if I did.’
‘You meant to frighten me,’ Joanna said without rancour. After the almost unbearable closeness and emotion of thepast few minutes there was a sense of release. She felt very comfortable with him all of a sudden, just so long as she did not let herself think with her body. ‘It worked. I should not have run when you came into the field, but I had been asleep, you see, and you seemed like someone from a dream which had suddenly become a nightmare.’
‘You were dreaming about that…that man?’
