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He shook off the image.
Why must she make harmless words sound like the lewdest innuendoes?
“I believe you mean I must supervise your wardrobe selection,” he said.
She shrugged, and the motion seemed to travel the length of her body. She moved like a cat, he thought.
She walked on, and he became far too aware of the way she moved: the slow, beckoning sway of her elegantly curved figure. He walked alongside her, and he knew he was too close, because he could hear the brush of muslin against his pantaloons and he could smell the womanly scent, clean and warm.
It seemed to him that the grey spring day had turned into sultry summer.
“You oughtn’t to walk that way,” he said.
“What way?”
“That way,” he said. “An Englishman would get the wrong idea.”
“To desire me? But that’s the idea I want the men to get. I must be popular and receive many marriage proposals.”
He hadn’t thought of that—or had he? Other men, watching the way she moved her body. Other men desiring her. Other men, tempted.
“You’ll get other kinds of proposals,” he said.
“Like what?” she said.
“Like this,” he said.
He closed the small space between them and brought his arm round her waist. He only meant—or so he lied to himself—to teach her a lesson.
To his shock, she put up no resistance whatsoever. Not even a show of it. She simply melted into him.
She was warm and soft, and the scent of her was like a summer garden with a woman in it. He drew her against him, and the warmth and softness and scent enveloped him.
He slid his hand up her back and along her neck and drew his fingers along her jaw. He tipped her head back and she looked up at him. There was the deep blue sea of her eyes, and there was he, wanting to drown.
He bent his head and brought his mouth to hers.
It was only a touch of their lips, not even a proper kiss, but he felt it ricochet inside him: a stunning jolt of feeling. He didn’t know what it was and didn’t try to find out. He drew back. It was then, before he could shake off the surprise, that he heard a bird sing out lustily.
The sound penetrated the warm fog of his brain and called him back to his surroundings. The Green Park was far from deserted, and a public embrace was unforgivably, perhaps catastrophically, stupid. It would undo all the work he’d done thus far to make Society accept her.
He drew back. He took his hands away. Then he took himself a pace away, to leave a proper space between them.
He was furious with himself.
“Don’t do that,” he said.
“Why not?” she said.
He stared at her. “Why not? Why not?”
She brought her index finger to her lips and touched the place where he’d kissed her. “A little caress, a little teasing.” She studied his face. Then she laughed.
“It isn’t funny,” he said.
“That’s what you say because you can’t see the expression on your face.”
Expression? He didn’t wear expressions. “Zoe.”
“Did you not like it?” she said. “I did. I never kissed or touched any man but Karim, and that was like caressing furniture—soft furniture,” she said with a laugh.
“Zoe, you can’t talk like that.”
“Oh, I know,” she said. “My sisters tell me. You cannot say this, Zoe. You cannot say that. But you aren’t my sisters. You’re a man of the world.”
“I’m a man,” he said, “and I am not at all accustomed to resisting temptation. If you wish to have a proper launch into Society and be sought after and marry well, you had better not tempt me.” A thought struck him. “Ye gods, Zoe, do you even know how to say no?”
She shook her head. “Not in the way you mean. Not to caresses and kissing. All I ever learned in that way was yes.”
“Oh, my God.” If he had been any other man, the kind given to emotional displays, he would have flung his hat on the ground and commenced tearing his hair out.
It was at this moment, finally, that the Duke of Marchmont fully grasped the enormity of the task he’d undertaken.
He could pave her way into Society, but she’d be undermining him at every turn, all innocently. Or perhaps mischievously. This was Zoe, after all.
But Zoe was the daughter of the man who’d stood in place of a father to him. In any event, Marchmont had said he would do it, and he never broke his word.
“Very well,” he said. “I can deal with this.”
Nothing could be simpler.
The words hung in his mind, mocking him.
He looked about him. Nobody who mattered seemed to be about. Perhaps they hadn’t been observed. The intimacy had lasted not a minute, after all.
He said, calmly, oh so calmly, “I attended the Princess Elizabeth’s wedding last night. The Prince Regent wasn’t there—he was ill. But the Duke of York—that is his brother—”
“I know,” she said. “I had to memorize all of them.”
“Good,” he said. “The Duke of York promised to speak to the Regent and see that you received an invitation. He said the royal family were deeply affected by the story in the Delphian. The Duke of York thinks it likely that you’ll be invited to the Drawing Room being held to celebrate the Prince Regent’s birthday.”
“On the twenty-third of this month,” she said. “This is not his birthday. But his birthday is in August, my sisters told me, and the Season ends in June and everybody goes to the country. No one would be in London to celebrate it then.”
Her sisters were the most irksome of women. Still, they’d saved him a good deal of tiresome explanation.
“Exactly,” he said. “It isn’t like ordinary presentations. You won’t be stuck among all the schoolroom misses.”
She nodded. “Then it won’t be so obvious how old I am.”
“Yes, there’ll be many other antiques attending.”
She smiled. “Good, because I have no idea how to appear young and naïve. It’s only a little more than a fortnight from today, and I have more than enough to learn as it is without having to learn how to act innocent.”
“Can you contrive not to do anything outrageous or scandalous before then?” he said without much hope.
“If I do not become too bored,” she said. “I’m becoming a little bored now.” She turned and started back.
He wondered if his hearing was failing. Bored? With him? No one was bored with him. Women never walked away from him. On the contrary, they did everything possible to prolong conversations.
He told himself she was merely being provoking. Bored, indeed. He should have kissed her until she fainted. That
would teach her.
Oh, yes. And so much for his promise to make her respectable.
He went after her. “You can’t continue wandering about London on your own.”
“I am not on my own. My maid is with me.”
“A maid is insufficient, and she should not have let you bolt in the first place,” he said, though he doubted whether a cavalry could have stopped Zoe.
“I made her do it,” she said. “My sisters were coming to the house. They come every day and tell me how to talk and how to walk and how to sit and pour tea and what to say and what not to say.”
He felt a twinge of something that could have been the conscience with which he was only distantly acquainted. On the other hand, it could have been fear—far more reasonable in the circumstances.
Zoe let loose in London. Zoe, on her own. Zoe, who didn’t know how to say no.
He said quite, quite calmly, “You complained about being cooped up in the house. You’ve been cooped up in that filthy hackney. What you need is a drive in my new curricle.” He leant toward her and sniffed. She still smelled too deliciously like a sunny garden. He made himself draw away, before scent and sight and sound could lead him to another gross error of judgment.
“You badly need an airing,” he said. “I think you’ve contracted mildew.”
She walked on a few steps, then paused and looked everywhere but at him. “I know what a curricle is. An open carriage. Two horses, Papa said. It is dashing. And it goes fast.”
Marchmont discerned the gleam in her eye. She was not as indifferent as she pretended.
“I shall take you for a drive in my curricle,” he said. “We’ll air you out, then we’ll drive to the best dressmaker in London, and you may order as many frocks as you like.”
He certainly didn’t care how much they cost. He couldn’t have them billed to him, because word would get out and everyone would assume that Miss Lexham was his mistress. Still, he’d settle finances with her father. Whatever Zoe’s wardrobe cost, the price would never approach repaying what Marchmont owed his former guardian.
She continued down the hill. “I have sat in a carriage for long enough. The seats are hard and my bottom hurts.”
