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“Kitty …” he started and stopped.
“Yes, my lord?” she repeated. What did she know about the art of dalliance? Felicia had experience on her side. She had none.
“I’m fighting a losing battle …” he said and swept her into his arms, closing the door at his back with his foot.
His kisses took her into a dark sky where the stars exploded like fireworks. Her heart beat so fast she thought that it would burst. A yearning formed between her thighs, and she knew, absolutely knew, what that meant. She wanted him. A maid was supposed to wait till marriage, but at that moment she didn’t care what society said she was supposed to do. Their rules were for their convenience, not hers, and those rules didn’t make sense.
He shrugged out of his coat, and she helped him with his waistcoat and shirt. He unbuttoned his pantaloons and slipped out of his shoes and socks, all the while kissing her neck, her shoulder, lower to her breast, where he kissed, licked, suckled until she wanted him so badly she felt herself get wet with need. She looked at him as she made him stand there and looked at him from the top of his head, down, down to his manhood erect and dripping with his desire.
He made a primal sound and backed her up to the bed. She dropped off her nightdress completely, but just as she was about to clamber up onto the bed, he picked her up cradle-like, placed her there gently, and climbed up with her, whispering, “Kitty … I want you so.”
“What does that mean?” she asked. “Show me, for although I said I would show you, the truth is I don’t know what I am about.”
He kissed her long, so long, and the words sounded as though they were wrenched from him. “This … it means this … but hell … bloody hell, you are an innocent, and I am a scoundrel. You don’t know …” And then, as though he had been poked with a hot iron, he was up and off her bed, gathering his clothes and rushing out of her room and uttering as though in agonizing pain, “Forgive me.”
Kitty watched his naked butt as he ran out of her room, and although she felt bloody frustrated, she smiled. Not only did he want her, he cared for her. She had seen more than lust in his eyes. She had seen love. She had felt more than hunger in his touch; she had felt genuine adoration. Now, all she had to do was make him realize that the next step would not be so awful. Right, but how to get him to the next step and make him declare what he felt? That would take some thinking, for the man had a will power she had not anticipated.
How had he stopped? What had she said to make him stop?
* * *
It was a clear, bright April morning. Spring was flourishing, and Kitty took a long breath of the fresh air. Her spirits were high. She had quite made up her mind that the earl was in love with her, and she meant to show him this was so in a variety of ways.
Harry’s arrival in town was beyond soothing, though she never did find out what brought him to London. She left the dowager to haggle with the hawker over some ribbons and strolled away a few feet to look into the large window of a nearby bookstore.
“Kitty,” Magdalen said and made her turn her head around.
She gave him a haughty look and said, “I am not certain I wish to converse with you.”
“What? Why?”
“I am not certain about that either,” she said, relenting and giving him a half smile.
He grinned and said, “If we weren’t out in the open I would crush you in my arms right this minute.”
This made her laugh. “Well then, I am thankful that is where we are. I shouldn’t like to be crushed.” Unless it was the earl doing the crushing. Something caught her eye, and she glanced across the avenue and saw what that was: Felicia Saltash hailing the earl, who had just stepped to the curbing.
Alex followed her line of vision and said, “Ah … so your guardian picks up where he left off.”
“Does he?” she said, her chin up.
He eyed her and laughed. “Why you should care is beyond me.”
“Care? I don’t care,” Kitty said irritably.
His eyes narrowed, and he said, “Careful, Kitten. If you let your heart move in that direction you will find it broken.”
“You speak in riddles, and I was never any good at them,” she answered.
He was not destined to answer her, as at that moment the earl looked up and locked gazes with Kitty. He turned away from Felicia Saltash, and Kitty could only imagine the woman’s chagrin as the earl crossed the avenue and came up to greet them.
The earl glared at Alex and said, “Why is it, Magdalen, that you are always about when you are not wanted?”
Alex laughed and said, “Brandon, you madman, don’t look so black. I am but behaving the honorable gentleman, not the bold hunter. I was only keeping your ward company while you were … er … otherwise engaged.”
“My ward is in the company of my grandmother.” The earl inclined his head and spoke with his eyes as the dowager joined them. “And needs no other protection. However, as I am not otherwise engaged and am at both my grandmother’s and Kitty’s disposal, you can take yourself off.”
“My lord!” Kitty gasped at the earl’s rudeness.
