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All of his senses responded to her, all shouting yes. In the warmth and rightness of their deepening kiss, all the turmoil—the anger and fear and frustration and confusion—melted into simple, inescapable need.
He sank onto her and wrapped his arms about her. He rolled onto his back and she went with him. No hesitation, no thought. Only yes.
The world went away. Nothing remained and nothing mattered but the teasing and tantalizing discovery of a kiss, slowly deepening. Nothing remained and nothing mattered but the ripely curved body melting against his.
He dragged his hands down her back and up again to trace the line of her spine and the angle of her shoulder blades and the slope of her shoulders and the curve of her neck.
Her hands moved over him, too, in the same unhesitating way her mouth had claimed his. He felt that touch in every cell of his body. The barrier of his clothing was nothing. He was acutely aware of his own skin, its nerve endings quivering.
His heart pumped harder and his breath came faster and heat raced downward. He slid his hand up over her waist and belly and higher still, to cup her breast. She made a sound against his mouth like a purr and a moan mingled. Her mouth and her hands roamed as boldly and possessively as his—over his shoulders and back and under his coat, then settling on his buttocks to press him against her, to rub herself against his hardened cock.
He broke the kiss only long enough to roll her onto her back again. She laughed deep in her throat, and his answering laugh was thick. He was drunk with the heat of tasting and touching her, and he drunkenly wanted all and he wanted it now.
He reached down to drag up her skirts.
He was aware of something else, something far away, but it vanished from his consciousness when her hand slid down below his waist to where his erection pushed against the flap of his breeches. That touch emptied what was left of his mind. He grasped a handful of her thick skirt and pulled it up. He slid his hand under the cloth and along her stockinged leg.
He heard noise, somewhere, but it was not important. What was important was his hand moving up over her stocking. What was important was the warmth of her skin underneath and the beautiful curve of her leg.
“Good grief, are you completely lost to reason?”
A part of his consciousness took in the words, but they meant nothing. It was noise to him, a crow cawing. His hand slid further upward.
“Stop it!”
Thwack.
“Stop it! Heaven help me, it is like trying to separate dogs!”
Thwack. “Get off!”
Something was hitting his back.
Thwack. “Now! Do you hear me?” Thwack. “Get off her this instant!” Thwack. “Get off!”
Bloody hell. Not the idiot maid. Not now. Where in blazes had she come from?
He closed his eyes, took a long breath, and summoned his mind back into his skull.
He would kill the maid and throw her corpse into the Serpentine.
He rolled off Zoe, opened his eyes, and looked up.
The maid was there, yes, but well out of reach. She wasn’t the one who’d attacked him. Jarvis stood, shoulders hunched and fists pressed to her mouth, a few feet behind and to the right of Priscilla, mountainous belly heaving as she brandished the tightly furled umbrella.
“Have you taken leave of your senses?” Priscilla cried. “Good God, Marchmont, what is wrong with you? Rutting with my sister in Hyde Park! Like dogs! What will people say?”
Eight
Marchmont didn’t answer. He stayed where he was, regarding Priscilla through half-closed eyes while he waited for his erection to subside and his breathing to return to normal.
Zoe raised herself up on her elbows and glared at her sister. “I am going to kill you,” she said. “Are you a crazy woman, to interrupt at such a time? I do not care how pregnant you are. There is no excuse—”
“Excuse?” Priscilla cried. “You cannot—cannot—” She waved the umbrella. “You cannot do what you were doing. You cannot do that—here—in Hyde Park!”
Marchmont took his time sitting up. After another moment, he swung up onto his feet. He held out his hand, and Zoe took it. She rose awkwardly. Passion having cooled—and far too abruptly—she must be paying the price for her gallop.
“The exceedingly round lady is right,” Marchmont said. “We ought not to do this in Hyde Park.”
“But what is she doing in Hyde Park, I want to know,” Zoe said. “She should not even be awake at this hour.”
“It’s a good thing I was,” Priscilla said. “And why should I not be here at this hour? It’s not as though I have entertainments to keep me up late. Augusta said we must not show our faces at Almack’s until you’ve made your curtsey to the Queen—whenever that is, if it ever is, which, given today’s escapade, I think highly unlikely.”
If the Queen refused to meet Zoe, it would be his fault. He’d promised to make her respectable.
“You know no one does anything else of any importance on Wednesday nights,” Priscilla raged on. “It is the most vexing thing, to be trapped in the house with a husband who is determined to be contrary in everything. I could not abide Parker’s sarcasm and went to bed early. Then, when I went to visit Mama this morning, I saw Jarvis returning to the house—without you—and knew instantly something was wrong.”
“Did Jarvis not tell you that I was dealing with the matter?” Marchmont said.
“Indeed, you are dealing with it splendidly, I see,” said Priscilla.
“Of course Jarvis told her,” Zoe said. “But my sisters will not leave me in peace.” She reverted to Priscilla. “None of you will let me out of the house. Marchmont is too busy with his concubines to take me out.”
“I don’t have any concu—”
“I cannot meet the Queen for a fortnight. Today, all I want is to enjoy his body—but no, you must interfere, even though nobody is here to see what we do.”
“You’re not allowed to enjoy his body!”
“It was only kissing and fondling,” Zoe said.
Only, he thought.
“Only?” said Priscilla. “He’s a man. Did you imagine he’d be content with preliminaries?”
“I know what to do to content him,” Zoe said.
“Heaven help us,” said Priscilla.
Amen, he thought. He looked at Zoe. He could still taste her, and her scent seemed to have entered his skin. Remembering the press of her hand on his swollen cock, he stifled a groan.
She didn’t know how to say no. Neither did he—even when his honor depended on it.
Priscilla’s fit continued. “You are most fortunate I did come,” she said. “The world is more than ready to view Zoe as damaged goods. If anybody else had witnessed this, she would be ruined, and you’re the last man on earth who’d
be able to restore her reputation then.” She turned toward the maid. “If you utter one syllable of this, you will be turned off without a character.”
“Leave Jarvis alone,” Zoe said. “She is not your maid and she would never do anything to make trouble for me. Give her back her umbrella, in case somebody tries to kill me and she must beat them off.”
“You’re as ridiculous as he is,” said Priscilla. But she returned the umbrella to the maid, who said, “I’ll be on the footpath, miss, if you need me,” and moved out of hearing range.
Priscilla wasn’t done with them yet. “If anyone gets an inkling of what happened here today—”
“Enough,” said Marchmont. “I’ll marry her.”
Zoe stared at him.
“You weren’t taught how to say no,” he said. “I’ve never had to.”
She remembered the taste of his mouth and the wicked game his tongue had played with hers and the fire his hands had made on her body. She remembered the possessive way he’d squeezed her breast. She remembered her hand upon the front of his breeches and the heat and size of his arousal.
That was wonderful.
But she remembered, too, the way he’d ordered her about and showed no regard for her feelings. She remembered Lady Tarling.
He would never be a faithful husband, not even a loving one. He would never give his heart fully. He would engage his wife’s heart, then he’d grow bored and abandon her. That wasn’t the kind of marriage Zoe wanted. She wasn’t that desperate. If she had to, she’d run away to Venice or Paris. If she did wed, she must have a marriage like her parents’. After twelve years in the harem, she would settle for nothing less.
Her problem was simple enough: She had no perspective. She needed to meet other men.
“I can say no to this,” she said. “You’re not thinking clearly, and no wonder. You’ve been aroused and all the blood has gone out of your brain to fill your membrum virile. Even I am confused, and I’m a woman and women are not so much ruled by our lust. The trouble is only that Priscilla is making us feel ashamed.”
“You ought to feel ashamed,” said Priscilla.
