Wild Lily (Those Notorious Americans Book 1)(68)

Filled with such ebullience, he danced her toward the open doors and onto the terrace. At the kiss of the night air on her skin, she gasped.

“Are you cold?” he asked as he swirled her along the terrace, the sound of the German waltz muffled by the breeze through the treetops.

She shook her head. “You didn’t forget.”

“I promised you this.”

“So you did.” And she began to hum with the music.

At the edge of the terrace, far from the French doors, he slowed their tempo until they merely swayed together. I love you.

The thought sprang up so quickly, his jaw dropped.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, alarm on her face.

“Nothing.” He stepped toward her and embraced her, the supple curves of her body a sensuous fit to his. “I have to taste you.”

She circled her arms around his waist and closed her eyes as he pressed her near and took her lips with his own. Her mouth was warm, the flavors of champagne and mint a subtle aphrodisiac to his muddled mind. He sent his tongue into the cavern and claimed her, defined her. She moaned and crushed him closer. This woman was intoxicating and best of all, she was his.

His.

He broke away and grabbed her wrist. He’d visited here before, often. He knew the boxwood maze well and so he led her along the far path. Left, right and straight. He recalled a folly, small, secluded, hidden by roses that he hoped to God were in bloom.

“Where are we—? Oh!” She halted as she surveyed the marble and wood structure before them.

He urged her up the steps and whirled her into his arms. “You are becoming necessary to me.”

“Am I?” she said, breathless as he lifted her skirts and caressed her wet feminine folds.

She gasped but didn’t object.

He sank down, careless of his trousers. He needed her and it was here he wanted her. He parted her fragrant lips, and touched his tongue to her sensitive spot.

She dug her fingernails into his coat. “Oh, Julian. Can we not lie down?”

He shot to his feet, glanced around. There. There.

He took her to the wooden seats around the circumference, dotted tonight with cushions. Julian grinned. His host, not so Puritan after all, had the foresight to provide for the lovers who would need an interlude during the ball. He urged his wife to lay down along the pillows, making mental note to thank Val tomorrow for his foresight.

With her skirts up around her waist, her pale eyes twinkling like stars above, his wife was an erotic portrait of bold desire. She opened her arms to him and he went to her and kissed her madly. His hands busy seeking out the treasures of her body, he noted how succulent she was. How ready. How willing. How loving.

That word again.

Love.

He licked her and she bucked.

He sucked her and she held her breath. His two fingers deep inside her, he imitated the act of love he longed to show her and she whimpered. Then she broke apart.

His beauty. His wife.

The woman he loved despite his best intentions.

Julian had debated simply skipping the rest of the festivities and spending the night making love to his wife in the big broad bed provided by his cousin.

But Lily had been appalled and demanded they return to the ballroom.

“If we retired, we’d be a scandal,” she said as they hurried around their suite attempting to repair the damage done in the garden.

He had changed his trousers, the knees of his first pair woefully grass-stained.

She had giggled and clamped a hand to her mouth. “I should call for Nora to iron my skirts.”

“You look fine,” he told her, tracing the line of her naked shoulder with his lips, his hands covering her breasts. “You were magnificent.”

She hooted and twirled in his arms. “As I recall you were the one who was magnificent. I was your passive partner in crime.”

He pecked her on the nose. “Not so passive, my darling.”

She tossed him a narrowed-eye challenge. “You should congratulate me that I didn’t howl like a cat. They would have thought that scene delicious fodder.”

He was reminded how Lily had hated the cartoons of her in the London broadsheets. This tale would be quite different. He arched a brow. “Shocking that a man and wife could actually find pleasure in each other.”

“For years to come,” she joked.

They’d laughed like children and headed back to the ball.

No sooner there, than George Pinkhurst approached with his fiancée, Priscilla Van de Putte. Julian put aside his hope to waltz once more with his wife.

“May I have this dance, Lady Chelton?” Pinklehurst asked Lily.

It was only polite for Julian to offer his hand to Priscilla in turn. He wasn’t fond of her. She’d been the one to stalk him so bluntly last season that he’d sworn off Americans and heiresses.

Julian laughed to himself. That was what he’d thought then. Now? He was a changed man. A happy one. A ridiculously giddy one. Eager for his wife at her smallest smile.

But not just yet. He could bear to take Priscilla out for a few circles of the floor.

“How is your wife getting on with running your household, my lord?”

Dear God, the woman was forward. His Lily was not so brash. “She does well. Very well.”

They took another round and Priscilla beamed at him, her tiny crooked teeth putting him in mind of Josephine Bonaparte whom histories said never fully smiled at anyone because her teeth were uneven and black. Lily’s teeth were white and straight. Her smile was far more beautiful than anyone’s.