The rest ofthe evening went beautifully. Belle was a happy debutante, which made Susanne giddy with delight. Giselle met several eligible young men who might have interested her. Might have, if she weren’t completely absorbed with Jonathan. She knew her feelings were not to be trusted. She knew he had abandoned her, for whatever reason. But she couldn’t hold the anger in her heart.
At least not toward him.
It was his father who had destroyed things. And his father who was threatening him now. And so she tried to enjoy the evening, but by the time they departed, she was grateful for the escape.
Enough polishing her social graces. Now it was time for her to do what she did best: send those caught between life and death on to their next step. And once that was done, she would turn her thoughts and her heart toward Jonathan.
Or away.
Whatever the answer, she could not face it now.
Except, of course, when he showed up at her bedroom door, just as she’d asked. His cravat was off, and his jacket gone. He stood in his shirtsleeves with his hair mussed and his eyes bright. And she felt powerless against him. Mostly because she had no desire to fight him.
“Come in,” she whispered as she stepped back.
He entered, his gaze hot as he took in her unbound hair. She was still in her ballgown, but her slippers were off and the ties in her hair were gone. It felt decadent, allowing him in here. Scandalous, decadent, and just like when they’d stolen kisses when they were teenagers.
“Giselle,” he breathed as he shut the door behind him.
She heard the yearning in his voice, and it felt like he thrummed the same string of desire inside her. The two of them playing each other’s notes.
“One kiss,” she said. “That should be enough.”
“Enough for what?” he asked as he went to her.
“To upset your father and bring him out,” she said. It was the truth. She fully expected the old viscount to come roaring in the moment their lips touched. But it was also a lie. She said one kiss was enough because it should quell her need for him. One kiss, for memory’s sake. Nothing more.
But, of course, she’d never been satisfied with a single kiss from him.
Whatever the truth of it, she was kissing him now and there was nowhere else she wanted to be. Memories flooded her, quickly replaced by the delicious sensations of here and now.
She had been kissed by other men in the last ten years. Not a one had meshed well with her. But Jonathan knew her. He responded to her. When she felt urgent, he held her tight, drawing her up to him even as he pressed down into her. Then the moment she resisted, the moment the arch to her back grew too hard, the angle of her neck too sharp, the slightest pressure away had him pulling back to search her face.
“Enough?” he rasped.
“Never,” she whispered. But when his gaze brightened, she held up her hand. “But we should wait.” She did not want to be absorbed in Jonathan when his father decided to make problems.
He nodded, and they stood there. She was still in his arms, the heat of his body adding to the inferno inside her. They kept looking around, wondering when the furniture would start flying about the room.
Nothing happened.
Nothing except time when her mind returned to the feel of her body pressed against his. Of his mouth so close to hers.
“What makes you so impossible to resist?” she asked.
His lips quirked. “I was thinking the same thing.” He caressed her cheek, stroking back and forth with his thumb. “I never forgot you.”
She could say the same, but there was more. He was more. More powerful, more confident, more understanding than when they were teens.
“I talked with your sister this afternoon,” she said. “She told me everything you’re doing in the Cotswolds.”
He blinked as if trying to focus on her words, but his gaze kept returning to her mouth.
“The school,” she said. “You’re funding a school.”
“Oh that. Yes, education is the only way the human species will ever grow. We can’t have every generation rediscovering what we’ve already learned. We need to evolve.”
He said it absently, as if educating the lower class wasn’t such a radical idea among his set. And she knew—against his mother’s expressed wishes—that he was paying families to let their young attend school rather than send them out for work.
