Someone to Care (Westcott #4)(18)

She would allow it, then. But she was in no danger. She knew what he was about. She understood. It did not matter.

He nudged her head onto his shoulder, lifted her chin with his long fingers, and bent his face to hers to kiss her.

Ah, it was a shock. She was so very unkissed. The boy she had loved when she was sixteen had kissed her once—a fumbling, guilty, swift smacking of lips that had left her in rapture for weeks afterward. And Humphrey had kissed her a few times in the early years of their marriage when he came to her bed. But the kisses had always been a prelude to the bedding and had never been offered with anything resembling conviction or affection or even lust. He had never lusted after her. He had married her—bigamously—for her money because he had none with which to pay off his many debts, but her father had pots of it that he was willing to give in exchange for the titles and prestige that would come through marrying his daughter to an earl’s heir.

She had never been kissed with any expertise. Until now. The first shock was the lightness of it, the unthreatening nature of it. He did not grab her or grind his lips against hers. He did not even turn her and pull her against him. His lips were soft, warm, slightly parted, and he teased her own until they parted too. His breath was warm against her cheek. His hand moved from beneath her chin to cup the back of her head. He took his time. There was no urgency, no hurry, no agenda, no destination. No threat. It was she who turned at last in his arms to come against him—knees, abdomen, bosom. Her hands came to his shoulders.

The second shock was that it did not end, not after a moment, not even after several moments, though he did move his mouth from hers to kiss her face and her throat, to murmur soft words her mind did not even try to decipher. Then he was kissing her mouth again, but again without urgency, teasing her lips farther apart, touching the flesh within with his tongue, reaching his tongue slowly into her mouth, stroking its tip over the sensitive roof.

That was when desire stabbed through her like a raw wound, and she knew herself to be in peril. She was, she understood, an almost complete innocent. She had been married—or had thought herself married—for more than twenty years. She had borne three children. She was a grandmother. But she knew virtually nothing. She had not even had . . . relations for almost twenty years. Soon after Abigail had turned out to be another girl and not the spare for Harry that Humphrey had hoped for, he had given up on their marriage in all but name—and even that was false.

She knew nothing about desire.

If she had thought about it at all, she had expected it to be a fierce thing. On the part of the man, that was. With willing submission on the part of the woman.

But this was not fierce. This was . . .

Expertise.

This was seduction.

She drew back, but only with the upper part of her body. Her hands were still on his shoulders. She could see him only faintly in the moonlight. His eyes were dark and heavy lidded. “We ought not to be doing this,” she said.

“Ought we not?” His voice was low. “Why not?”

She drew breath and . . . could not think of a single reason. “We ought not.” She was almost whispering.

“Then we will not,” said the master seducer, and he released his hold on her, took her hand in his, laced their fingers, and strolled closer to the water with her and along the bank toward the bridge. He led her to the middle of it, and they stood by the low parapet and gazed into the dark water that flowed beneath. The sounds of merriment seemed louder from here. The light of the lamps from the street on the far side of the green was visible again.

She was bewildered and . . . disappointed. That was all? He would answer so promptly the voice of protest? But why was she surprised? When she had told him fourteen years ago to go away, he had gone without argument, and without returning. She remembered now that she had been both bewildered and disappointed then too.

Perhaps this was why he was so successful. He might be a seducer, but he was not a coercer. No woman would ever be able to accuse him of tricking her, of persuading her against her will, of refusing to take no for an answer. At least, Viola assumed he approached all his conquests this same way.

But their hands were clasped, their fingers laced. Perhaps because this time she had not told him to go away. Should she? Undoubtedly. But would she? Where was the harm in strolling alone with him thus? In holding his hand? In kissing him? In allowing him to kiss her? Whom was she harming? Her children? Hardly.

Herself?

She had been depressed for so long that she scarcely knew any other state. So she would be depressed again tomorrow looking back upon today. So what? At least she would have a few memories of pleasure, of desire. Even happiness. There had been so little happiness . . .

“When you told me to go away,” he said, almost as if he were reading her thoughts, “did you expect me to obey?”

“Why would you stay where you were not wanted?” she asked. “You had plenty of other choices.”

“Cruel,” he said softly.

“Oh, nonsense,” she said.

“Did you want me to obey?” he asked.

“Why else would I have asked you to leave me alone?” she said.

“Have you noticed,” he asked, “how some people will almost invariably answer a question with another? Did you want me to obey, Viola?”

She hesitated. “Yes,” she said. “I was a married lady, Marcel. Or thought I was.”