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When she stopped alongside him, he saw that her face was wet with tears. He dismounted, waiting as she swung her leg over and slid to the ground.
“Victoria, I—” He took a deep breath and tried not to sound furious. He was unsuccessful. “Did you completely lose all sense today? I was practically on the verge of challenging my best friend to pistols at dawn over that bit with the rose. I knew to expect some sort of theatrical declaration, but not that.”
Her smoky eyes chilled to winter rain, and her voice whipped out like a blade. “That was not my idea. After the disaster in the stables, I pressured him to act quickly to repair the damage. We did not have time to plan, and I had no way of predicting his actions. I guess when he saw the roses, he thought it the best way for him to truly convince Amelia of his intent without actually laying hands on me. I had no choice but to accept it. Had I refused, she would have known we were lying. He didn’t really mean anything by it. You should have seen him afterward. He was—”
“Yes, I know,” he said. “He told me. I stopped him after we left the grounds. I rather lost my temper, I’m afraid.”
Her eyes widened. “You didn’t…”
“No. But it was a near thing. You should have heard him trying to explain himself.” He smiled sheepishly. “I’m honest enough to admit I’ve made a right muck of things. I should have just gone to your father and asked for you from the start.”
“That would have been far a worse disaster.” Her eyes lit with mischief. “On the bright side, Amelia was completely livid.”
Her grin was infectious, and he found himself laughing. “She was beside herself. You really enjoy tweaking her nose, don’t you?”
She attempted to look contrite, to no effect. He knew better. “I can’t help it,” she said. “She really is a terrible busybody and meddles in everything I do. The only real freedom I have is here, riding my horses—and now she’s trying to take that away. Everyone already thinks me an eccentric, and now she’s telling people that I’m mad and that I talk to horses.”
It was hard for him not to smile. “But you do talk to horses.”
She glared.
“And I don’t think you mad for it,” he added, moving closer. “Even if I did, well…perhaps I’m the sort of fellow who finds a little madness intriguing.”
“I’m sure you’ll feel quite differently once the gossips pick up the story,” she replied sourly. “It’s bad enough having your own family making fun of you, but that’s nothing compared to public ridicule.”
He grasped her by the shoulders so that he could stare right into her wide, grey eyes. “I’m not so easily frightened off.”
Taking her in his arms, he determined to prove it to her, now that they were finally alone. Her lips were like berries at the peak of ripeness. He ran his tongue across their crease, teasing until she opened on a sigh. Slowly he plundered the sweet darkness of her mouth, tasting her, learning her.
She was dressed like a boy, but the curves he felt beneath his hands were lush and womanly, unhindered by stays. By Jove, her natural form was crafted to drive a man to madness. With reverence, he confirmed her shape, pulling her into him, pressing her against the sudden ache in his breeches.
To his surprise, she yielded and leaned into him rather than going stiff. Her softness against him was a revelation of pleasure so acute it made his whole body tighten with need. He burned with the desire to touch her.
Pulling her shirt out of her breeches, he reached beneath it to cup a warm, full breast. The goddess in his arms moaned aloud and stilled as he gently massaged the sensitive flesh, lightly rubbing her rigid nipple against his palm. Lifting her shirt, he bent and closed his lips over it.
She moaned and her knees gave. Gently, he laid her down on the grass. When he treated her other breast to the same attention, she tightened her grip on his shoulders in a silent plea for more.
But even as his hand slid downward, Julius stopped. The fact that she was wearing breeches gave him pause, if only because it felt exceedingly odd to encounter a man’s button flap that was not his own. Her hips rose invitingly. Looking down at her all flushed and lovely, he knew he could quite happily take her here and now. But she deserved better than to be ravished in an open field.
With a pang of regret and no small amount of physical discomfort in his nether regions, he rolled away.
Her eyes popped open, the question in them clear.
“I’ll not take you here in the field like a peasant wench,” he rasped, struggling to control himself.
“The hell you won’t,” she muttered, hooking a leg over his midsection and rolling to sit astride him.
The sudden pressure of her lithe body atop him was a pleasant shock. A shock that instantly galvanized his lust. His arms snapped up, dragging her down across his chest.
It was a kiss that was reckless and uninhibited, a kiss that stole his breath away completely.
She was obviously driven beyond reason by her innate passionate nature and wasn’t thinking of the consequences. Not that he would care, himself. He already knew he wanted her. But should there be a babe, she would be ruined. Regardless of a hasty marriage, people would talk, and it would never be forgotten that she’d lacked the self-discipline and chastity expected of a duke’s daughter. The whispers would follow her forever.
It was a dash of cold reason to his befuddled mind, which was just now registering the fact that his hands were grinding her bottom into his pelvis even as hers were unbuttoning his shirt.
She leaned forward, her hair falling like a dark veil about him, and ran her tongue down from the hollow of his throat to circle one of his nipples.
The sensation was exquisite torment.
