Page 37 of Brave New Earl (The Way to a Lord's Heart 1)

It was a delightful sound. Benjamin realized he hadn’t heard it nearly often enough. Irresistibly drawn, he stepped closer. “Or impertinent admirers.”

“The gentlemen wore heels, too,” Miss Saunders said. “So it would have been an equal race, mincing along the cobblestones in a satin-draped procession.”

She looked up at him, still smiling. Her eyes were suffused with warmth now, her lips a little parted, and Benjamin couldn’t help himself. He moved closer still and kissed her.

Just a brush of his mouth on hers, an errant impulse. He pulled back at once.

She leaned forward and returned the favor, as if purely in the spirit of experiment. Benjamin felt a startling shudder of desire.

In the next moment, she’d twined her arms around his neck, and they were kissing as if their lives depended on it. He buried his fingers in her hair, as he’d been longing to do for days. It sprang free and tumbled over his hands, a glorious profusion of curls. Hairpins rained onto the attic floor.

She kissed with sheer inexperienced enthusiasm. One of the open trunks pressed against the back of Benjamin’s legs, and he nearly lost his balance and fell in. Her borrowed dress fell off one shoulder, revealing more of her underclothes. He was so tempted to help it along to the floor.

Then she pulled back and blinked at him, her eyes wide, dark pools. Her arms dropped to her sides. She took a step away, and another. “Oh.”

The small sound was a breath, a worry, an astonishment. Benjamin struggled with his arousal, glad now of the long, concealing coat.

Miss Saunders put her hands to her wild crown of hair. The lovely lines of her body were outlined in peach brocade and sunlight. “Oh dear.”

“I could help pin it up, if you like.” Benjamin bent and gathered a handful of hairpins.

“No, you couldn’t.”

He gave her the pins. “I have a deft hand,” he said.

“My hair is beyond deftness. It has to be wrestled into submission.”

He nearly lost his careful control at the phrase and the thoughts it elicited. “I have strong fingers.”

Miss Saunders flushed from her cheeks, down her neck, and across her half covered bosom.

She was delectable, Benjamin thought, so very alluring. She was also an unprotected young lady and a guest in his house. He’d very nearly crossed the line here, and he wanted to, desperately, still. He had to leave before he did. He reached for his coat. Miss Saunders moved when he did. Not a flinch, he decided, but a demonstration of uncertainty.

Benjamin snagged his coat. Rapidly, he shed the antique satin garment and resumed his own. He turned, reluctantly, and spotted a small white face peering from behind a broken cabinet near the stairway. “Geoffrey?”

His son darted from hiding and scurried down the stairs. Benjamin knew there was no catching him.

“He looked angry,” said Miss Saunders, her tone subdued.

“Only curious, I think.” In fact, Benjamin couldn’t have defined his son’s expression, seen so fleetingly. The boy had surely witnessed the kissing. There was nothing to be done about that, and nothing useful to say just now. Was he required to explain it to him? Benjamin found he couldn’t imagine that conversation.

As he walked to the steps and down into the inhabited parts of the house, he realized that he’d never spoken to his son about his deceased mother. Not one word. He had no idea what Geoffrey thought about Alice. Or knew about her, beyond the portrait in the library.

Part of him argued that this was best. He hadn’t burdened a child with the weight of his grief. Should Geoffrey have heard him rail against the cruelty of fate? Seen him pound the desk drunkenly and weep?

But another part wondered how he’d let his life grind to a halt. And so many responsibilities lapse.

When she was certain she was alone again, Jean’s knees gave way, and she sank onto one of the closed trunks in a welter of peach brocade. One sleeve of the gown fell off her shoulder. She didn’t notice. She simply reverberated, body and mind, with the aftermath of those kisses. She’d never felt anything likethat.

She wasn’t a complete novice. She’d been kissed before. More than once, actually. Gentlemen would flirt and seize their chances, and she’d allowed a few of them to take minor liberties. When she felt curious, or temporarily beguiled. But she’d never been tempted beyond a fumbling embrace or two—those empty bits of nothing compared to what had just occurred. Jean put her hands to her blazing cheeks.

Everyone expected her to marry, of course. Her birth was genteel, and she had a tidy little fortune. But marriage meant putting her person, and her money, under another’s power. Jean couldn’t contemplate such a step without a shudder.

And so she moved from hostess to hostess, shedding complications with the changing scenes. The next time an importunate gentleman looked for her, she was gone. By the time they met again, the incident was long past, its lack of consequence obvious. None of these beaus had followed her about the country to press their suits. None had made her head spin. How could fingers running through her hair turn her weak with desire?

But Geoffrey had seen! She’d come here to save him, not dally with his father. What had the boy thought of their embrace? He’d certainly scowled. Hadn’t he? She couldn’t be certain now.

Jean’s hands shook as she changed into her own gown and tidied up the trunks. Alone in the dim, cavernous space, she could admit that she would very much like to kiss Lord Furness again. Even though that was probably a very bad idea.

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