Page 53 of The Baronet’s Bartered Bride

She faced him down, her chin at a cool angle, her eyes blazing. “Perhaps what I desire is company. It is very lonely up there in the attics.”

“Oh, we can’t have that!” Smith One rushed to say. “Do join us in our parlor. We are the Amesbury Philosophical Society, and we are currently discussing the recent publication by Dr. William Withering. A Botanical Arrangement of all the Vegetables Naturally Growing in Great Britain.”

“Vegetables.” Inez blinked. “The kind you eat? What’s to say about them?”

“Withering has undertaken a survey of all the vegetative matter that grows in Britain,” Smith Two elucidated. “Or I believe that is his aim. We have been discussing the first volume. Marestail to toadflax, with helpful directions in identifying species, and preserving them.”

Joseph’s attention swerved suddenly. “His is the catalogue based on the system developed by Linneus? And he discusses the plants by their common English names?”

“Being an attempt to render them familiar to those who are unacquainted with the learned languages,” Smith the Second quoted. He seemed as eager to impress Joseph as he had Inez, and he furthermore seemed the type to lack a grasp of the learned languages.

“I’ve consulted the first volume,” Joseph said, diverted. “Withering’s. I noted he discusses the medical properties of plants, including poisons.”

“Useful knowledge,” Inez remarked, but the group’s attention had moved to Joseph.

“Then you must indeed join our discussion,” said the Squire, puffing around his pipe. “You would be the same Joseph Illingworth who wrote on the optative mood for Greek verbs, and gave an explanation of the aorist tense? The essay that appeared in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.”

“That was I,” Joseph said, embarrassed and pleased. “Would you agree with my distinctions about the future optative?”

“Don’t recall a bit of my grammar, for how hard my tutor tried beating it into me.” The Squire pulled an unused clay pipe from a pocket of his coat and held it out. “Should be tobacco enough left in there for a scholar such as yourself to edify us.” He nodded toward Inez. “Bring your gel. We don’t mind the ladies listening in. Gives us something to occupy our eyes while we exercise our minds.”

Inez’s eyes blazed with anger, but her voice was honey sweet. “Oh, how I would adore to listen to the men talk.” She swayed closer to Smith the Second, seeming to have fixed on him as her most gullible object. Her victory was assured by the look of his face when she fluttered her eyelashes at him again. “Perhaps I might sit next to you?”

She tipped forward slightly, her smile one of supplication. The gesture brought her breasts into full frame in the tight bodice. The edges of her dark aureoles showed in a sliver behind the ruffle of her shift.

Joseph’s mouth went searingly dry, and blood rushed to his groin, leaving his head. In a second he was at her side, hand on her arm. She was warm and firm and her glare ought to have sizzled him like an egg in a pan. He was burning for her already.

“You and I have something to discuss.”

“But the Botanical Arrangement,” a Smith cried, seeing his prize escaping.

“Forgive me, gentlemen, for stealing this one away,” Joseph said without the slightest trace of contrition. “But my ward and I must settle a small matter between us.”

She kept pace with him as he marched up the stairs like a general leading the attack. Her flesh was so warm, and she smelled of some intoxicating blend of spice and florals. At the first landing, a swath of shadow falling between the lamps below and above, he turned to her. “You little, conniving⁠—”

She charged him. More correctly, she kissed him, her lips crashing against his. She pulled his lower lip into her mouth and bit down.

With a groan he pushed her against the wall with his body and held her. She fisted her hands in his hair and pulled as if she could not get his face close enough. His tongue in her mouth tasted of herbs and savory and so, so much sweetness.

She lifted a leg and wrapped it around his hip, fitting his cock neatly between her legs. He thought his head might burst with the jolt of sheer pleasure, his brains spilling out before his seed could.

“Upstairs,” she panted against his mouth. “My room. Not here.”

She didn’t unwrap herself from around him, so he simply carried her, a luscious armful of woman. No one passed them in the hall or stair, and if inhabitants of other rooms heard their passage, they wisely remained inside.

At the door to her room Inez reached behind her and pushed at the wooden portal, banging it against the jamb.

“You ought to leave it locked,” he growled, crowding them inside.

“What’s to steal?”

The table stood where they had left it, two plates still atop it, with the bottle of wine and the untouched pudding. The room swelled of nutmeg and currants. A candle in its lamp had been carefully trimmed, batting back the evening shadows. She hadn’t meant to leave the room for long; likely she knew he would fall upon her.

Yes, he’d tumbled securely into her trap, and he didn’t care to fight his way out. He wanted to be here, alone in a room, her in his arms, a bed before them. He was done pretending he wanted anything else.

He tipped her onto the bed, and she pulled him down atop her. The rope springs creaked, and the tick rustled. She deserved feathers of down beneath her and satin bedsheets against her skin. She deserved a full-scale seduction that would include red rose petals and expensive French wine and, oh, what all he didn’t know, because he had never waged a full-scale seduction on a woman. He had always been awkward and unsure of himself and fumbling at the crucial moment.

She cradled him against her body and he propped himself on his elbows so he didn’t suffocate her. Her body shaped to his so perfectly, full breasts pressing against his chest, her hips his anchor. He stared into her face, taking in her beauty. Her eyes held a deep red-brown flame, and her lips were plush and pouting at him.