Treacherous Temptations(28)

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“What I’ve bloody well always wanted to do.” He grinned back at her. “I’m going to frolic like the rustic rabble in the pools. Would you care to join me?”

Mary stared at him aghast. “Here? Now?”

“Yes, here and now. I’m a grown man now and can do as I damned-well please, and it would please me greatly to get out of these insufferable clothes and immerse myself in the cool water. But if my suggestion injures your sensibilities…”

“My sensibilities?” Mary replied with a burst of uncontrolled mirth. “It’s not that! I was quite accustomed to bathing in the pond at Welham Grove. But the countess was most condemnatory of such a hoydenish practice. She would never approve of this!”

“Is she here?” he asked with a flicker of his brow.

“Well, no.”

“Then who is to tell her?”

Mary looked to Jenny who exchanged a conspiratorial look with Lord Hadley. “I see nothing, miss!” the maid replied. “Indeed, I think I’ll go unpack the baskets for your nuncheon.” Stifling a giggle, Jenny tripped off without a backward glance. Lord Hadley laughed and held out his hand, but Mary still hesitated. “I cannot,” she protested. “What of my gown?”

“Remove it,” he answered. “You can bathe in your shift, can’t you?”

“M-my shift?” she bit her lip and looked longingly at the shimmering waters.

“Fear not for your virtue, my sweet, for I have seen a woman in her shift before without feeling the least compulsion to ravish her.” He gestured again to the shimmering water. “It beckons to you, Mary.”

She laughed, her unease beginning to dispel. “But what if we are caught?”

“We will not be disturbed. I obtained permission to use the park from the Montagu’s.” He was already working on the buttons of his waistcoat.

She wrinkled her forehead, “You are quite certain about this?”

“Where is your sense of adventure, my dear? Or has Lady Blanchard managed to vanquish it altogether? I suppose you would rather return to the countess’ drawing room?” His look taunted.

He had dropped the gauntlet and Mary hesitated no longer. She spun her back to him. “Your assistance please?” she asked as primly as she could manage. He went to work on the laces of her gown with fingers as deft as the most competent ladies maid. In seconds, Mary’s bodice was sliding from her shoulders. When he made to loosen her stays, she stepped away with a wary look.

“You won’t be able to swim in those,” he warned her.

“I’ll manage,” she replied. She withdrew behind a hedge for modesty’s sake where she wriggled out of her gown, laying it over the shrubbery and then removed her shoes, garters, and stockings. Divested of outer garments, she contemplated her stays once more. He was right. They were so tight she could barely breathe, let alone swim. Choosing common sense over propriety, she returned to Lord Hadley.

His cravat was now discarded leaving him in breeches and a loose linen shirt, the latter open enough to reveal an indecent amount of bare male flesh. Mary’s gaze was drawn to the column of his throat, and tracked lower to the swirls of dark hair scattered over his chest. Just looking at him in this state of partial undress made her mouth dry. Mary didn’t understand why she was so profoundly affected by him. She couldn’t tear her eyes away. Her gaze drifted lower, over a body that looked lean, and muscular. She wondered what he looked like without the rest of his clothes.

He met her stare with a knowing grin that suggested he read her thoughts. Her face enflamed. She hastily spun to give him her back. “You were right, my lord. They are too tight. Perhaps if you just loosen them a bit?”

“Certainly.”

But instead of attending directly to her laces, she felt his hands at her waist, sliding up her sides, and back down again, slowly skirting over her ribcage, and then coming to rest level with her breasts. “Perhaps it would be best to remove them altogether,” he murmured in her ear.

“But, it wouldn’t be proper,” she whispered back, her heart thumping erratically against her breastbone. Although she tried to ignore the caress of his thumbs just below her breasts, her nipples could not, tingling and hardening into tight peaks. She could barely breathe now and it had nothing to do with her laces.

“Are you always so concerned with being proper, sweet Molly? Somehow, I don’t think so. Indeed, I think even now that there are some decidedly improper thoughts rattling around in your pretty head.” He nuzzled her hair and then his bristled cheek softly abraded her neck, sending shivers of sublime sensation down her spine.

He was right. She realized how ridiculous she sounded, for nothing about this was proper. She was about to go swimming in her shift…with an indecently attractive man, no less! Yet the longer she spent in Lord Hadley’s company, the less Mary seemed to care about decorum—especially here where it was only he and she.

“You are in no danger, Mary—unless you wish to be. I told you I’ve seen a number of women without their stays.”

“One wonders why you should have seen so many women in a state of undress,” she remarked softly.

“So coy, dear Mary? Do you wish to know if I’ve had many lovers? Is that what you really ask?”