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Earlier, when she’d turned away in a huff, he’d taken in the sight of her rounded hips, and her shapely—no!
Contemplating his ward’s arse was one step too far.
She had transformed into a thick-lashed, fae-faced beauty with bright, all-seeing eyes and cherry-pink lips.
Lips topped by a perfectly formed cupid’s bow shooting poison-tipped arrows at an organ he needed to preserve.
“Lenora,” he said in a softer tone, “you don’t understand the line you are asking me to—”
“No line exists! You have long been close to Eliza and Millie. With Cassie, you are thoughtful. With Nettie, you are kind. The only Wainwright sister you continue to avoid is me.”
She placed her palm over his thumping heart, then, distressingly, she stepped even closer. Her touch incinerated his very wise, very logical arguments.
A primal, male part of him was demanding he agree to her outrageous proposition. He was growing thick with want, and for that, he hated himself.
Again, he glanced up and over his shoulder. He could no longer see the parlor window, but he knew his friend Neville was there, along with all four of Lenora’s sisters—Eliza, Cassie, Millie, and Nettie. Likely, Lenora’s powerful brothers-in-law, the Duke of Harbury and Marquess of Redver, had returned.
“Kiss me,” she whispered.
His head snapped back. A single stray lock had tumbled over her forehead. He had the ruinous urge to tuck the curl back behind her ear.
“Kiss me,” she repeated, “and then attempt to refuse me.”
Previously, the world he knew had tilted in the same manner his world was tilting now, and a school year of humiliation had followed. This time, he was sliding, not toward hell, but toward something potent. Something pleasurable. Something not for the likes of him.
He had arguments against giving in to temptation. Lists he’d compiled. Lists that had grown essential on an afternoon last summer, when he’d caught Lenora watching him with interest as he bathed.
Ever since, his present, painful condition had become the consequence of meeting Lenora’s gaze, especially when she gazed at him as she was now—with an intent expression that blended hope, curiosity, and determination.
She’d brought him to crisis again. This time, with nary an icy stream in sight.
“Actually,” she said, “just let me kiss you. You don’t have to do anything at all.”
The sound of her voice was gauze, and she was wrapping his world in haze. She rose onto her toes and, again, slid her fingers beneath his neckcloth and held firm. She’d made a vulnerability of his cravat again.
She softened her lips by sucking them in. When she released them, they were dewy. Her mouth held his focus, blurring as she came closer. Then, seam-to-seam, she touched that mouth to his.
He remained stiff and unresponsive throughout the kiss, if you could call the mere brush of lip against lip a kiss. And yet, his fear, reason, and sense dissolved into her soft, compelling closeness. Surrounded by heat—his heat? hers?—he willed himself to pull away.
“Le-nor-ra,” her name rolled off his tongue, each syllable resonating in his chest. “Lenora.”
God’s pristine teeth; he was lost.
She remained still, breathing slowly. Then, vaguely, he heard sounds.
His ears tuned.
Yes. Other people had entered the maze. And they had come very close to the corner where he and Lenora had stopped.
Instinctively, he drew her close, splaying one flat palm at the base of her spine and placing himself between her and the threat.
He heard a rustle and a loud caw, then quiet returned. A moment later, his friend Neville spoke. Millie answered Neville.
Asquith couldn’t decipher their exchange, but both were furious.
Soon, one set of footsteps receded. Then, finally, the other.
“That was close,” Lenora whispered. “Exciting, no?”
