The Bad Luck Bride (The Brides of St. Ives #1)(25)

“Would you call that a brotherly kiss, Alice?” And then he let out a harsh laugh that Alice could only interpret as triumphant. As if that kiss was only a means to teach her a lesson, which she supposed she deserved. Apparently she had wounded his pride when she’d compared his kiss to a brotherly peck and he had used all his talents to prove her wrong.

“Hardly,” she said, taking a shaking breath. “It was nothing like any kiss I’ve experienced.” There, she’d put him in his place, implying with her tone that she’d not been altogether pleased with the kiss and reminding him that she had been kissed—and more than once. Why she felt the need to gain the upper hand, she couldn’t say. Perhaps it was because she was standing there with knees still shaking, with a dull throb between her legs, and he was standing there, arms crossed casually across his chest, smiling at her. His eyes flickered at her words, but then his smile widened.

“I do apologize. I am used to kissing women who have, let us say, a bit more experience.”

“Please do spare me your false apology. You were trying to teach me a lesson and nothing more.”

“Perhaps. You did seem in need of one.”

Alice put her hands on her hips, outraged. “You needn’t be so smug. It wasn’t that good.”

His burst of laughter was even more annoying than his smugness. “Of course it was.” He waggled his eyebrows. “But I have done better.”

Alice wrinkled her nose. “I suppose it was passable. And certainly nothing I would like repeated.”

Henderson took up the reins of his horse, which had been happily munching on the grass at the side of the road, and pulled out his watch. “We’re still on time for tea,” he said happily, and Alice shot him another look of annoyance. Food. How could he think about food when they’d just kissed…like that? With tongues and bodies and moans? Then he stopped and leaned toward her. “I don’t understand what you are in such a huff about. The prize was your idea, if you recall.”

Alice’s cheeks flushed instantly, because in truth, that was what she’d been hinting at, though she would die before admitting such.

“You are utterly conceited if you think that ever in a hundred years I would have guessed you would ask for a kiss,” she said with a toss of her head.

“And utterly correct.”



*



Alice walked ahead of him, still in a snit, and he stared at her back, angrier with himself than he had ever been. He hadn’t meant for that kiss to be so carnal, but when she’d likened kissing him to kissing her brother, it had driven him a bit mad. Now he knew what she tasted like, how soft her lips where, the way she sounded when he pleased her. It was only a small leap to picture her beneath him, naked, looking up at him, her eyes drowsy with desire. The way her eyes had looked when he’d pulled away, like a woman who was aroused and wanted more, would haunt him this night and all the nights to come.

Oh, God, how would he ever get that image out of his head?

“Are your father and brother in residence?” he asked, being careful to keep his tone neutral.

“No. They both stayed in London. Why?” She paused on the path and looked up at him from beneath the brim of her bonnet, her cheeks flushed, her lips rosy and slightly swollen. His cock, which had finally begun to grow small, jumped to life and he tugged on his jacket to make certain he was covered.

“I should like to go fishing whilst I’m in St. Ives,” he said with a shrug. And I plan to ask your father for permission to court you. To marry you.

And after that, he wasn’t sure what he would do. Henderson was still committed to helping those starving in India, but he wasn’t certain he would be able to leave Alice behind even for a few months. He would never make that mistake again. Once she was his…God, that was a beautiful thought.

Feeling as if the steel band that had been surrounding his heart for four years had loosened, Henderson started lightly whistling a Gilbert and Sullivan song, and Alice cast him a small smile. Apparently he had been forgiven.

“My mother will likely insist you stay at Tregrennar, you know.”

Henderson instantly decided that would be a bad idea. It was difficult enough to be in the same town as Alice; living in the same house would be far too dangerous. No doubt Alice would want to continue their talks in the library, but he was not a young man anymore and she was not fifteen. She was a woman and he wanted her more with every breath he took. Sitting in the library, late at night, with her in her night rail—oh God, he was not strong enough to resist trying to touch her, not now, now when he knew how responsive she was. He would have to talk to her father immediately, for it suddenly became imperative that he stake his claim on her now before she went and got herself engaged again.

Just then, they left the path and there it was, Tregrennar, looking gloriously familiar. “The old girl looks exactly the same,” he said, hearing the wistful note in his own voice. No, he could not stay at Tregrennar, not with echoes of Joseph still there. His heart tore as if it were only yesterday when he’d heard the terrible news that Joseph was dead.

That night, after he’d left Joseph to find other amusements between the soft thighs of a local widow, he hadn’t given his friend another thought. He’d spent a pleasant evening with Mrs. Patterson, slaking his lust in the way only a young man can—with enthusiasm and little finesse. He was on his way back to Tregrennar when he decided to stop in the White Hart for a pint before making the rest of the walk back, and was surprised to find one of the lads Joseph had been planning to see that evening sitting at a table.