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He offered his arm and smiled warmly as she placed her hand in its crook and allowed him to lead her to his coach.
~*~
Tarrant helped Taffeta inside his coach, and took the puppy from her to set him down on a blanket at their feet. The pup looked adoringly up at Tarrant who shook his head and said, “No, don’t look at me like that; I’m not your benefactor.”
Taffy laughed, picked Valiant up, snuggled him with her fingers and chin, before putting him back down. Sitting back up, she turned a grateful face to his lordship. “It seems I am once again putting myself deeper in your debt.”
“I am well pleased with that.” He grinned and teased her.
She looked into his eyes. It was dark in the carriage, but she could see a strong bright glitter in his dark orbs as he returned her look. “When do you mean to call in your marker and be done?” she asked, trying to press the issue, not sure if she wanted him to say he would forgive her the marker. Part of her wanted him to call it in…
“In time…” he said, his expression enigmatic.
She sighed. The next thing he did was to put his arms around her and draw her close.
“However, I wouldn’t mind a down payment,” he whispered as his mouth first brushed lightly over hers, teasing her with sensations. As her lips parted, his tongue found its mark and lapped at her own in an erotic, slow, and sensual movement that set her tingling with desire.
What was happening? It was a kiss … just a kiss and yet, rockets exploded in her head and fireworks went off in her blood, traveling throughout her body. She gave herself to his kiss and realized she had been hungry for it—waiting for it. What was wrong with her? She was behaving like a tart.
His tongue drew on hers and taught it a new rhythm, as his hand moved to cup her breast beneath her cloak. She should have been shocked—not at his action, but at her reaction. She should have been horrified with herself, but she wasn’t. She wanted his touch, and owned it to herself. She heard him then as he whispered her name.
“Taffeta … you are delicious, but that is all for now. It is bad enough we are alone in my carriage, without giving fuel to the gossip mongers. We might be seen.”
She was off her game, taken off guard, and she couldn’t find the words to respond. She should have come back with something witty or offensive or… But all she could do was lick her lips and look up and into his seductive eyes.
He held her face with his ungloved fingers, “You beauty you … do you know what you do to me?”
“I know what you do to me.” She surprised herself by answering him.
And then he shocked her by saying, “Don’t allow it. You must not find me desirable. You must not think me as anything but the scoundrel you have called me. I have made a deal with you and mean to cash it in when it suits me—remember that. It is a deal—nothing more. That is who you must know I am. For I will never be more—it isn’t in me.”
His words slapped her in the face and ruined the dream. A dream that had developed because of her premonition, a premonition that was blocking her ability to have the visions she had come to rely on. He looked so serious. She had to buck up and handle this—it was all part of growing up, wasn’t it? “Then call in your marker, and let’s be done,” she said softly.
“I am not ready to be done, but I shall call it in, sunbeam. Believe me, I shall call it in. Will you be ready when I do, or is it all bluster?”
She eyed him ruefully and turned away to pet her sleeping pup and stare out the window at the passing traffic.
~*~
Tarrant surprised Taffeta again when they reached her aunt’s town house. He insisted on accompanying her inside and to the kitchen where she rummaged for just the right sized basket.
“Do you have the Chronicle about?”
She hurried off and returned, waving the newspaper about. She saw he had cut out a portion of the basket to allow the small pup to get in and out of it at will and smiled. He seemed to know what he was doing, so she simply watched as he took the paper from her and shredded it into the basket, spreading a few leavings of paper on the floor around the front of the puppy’s new sleeping area.
While she waited, she finely chopped some cooked chicken and fed it to the weak little Valiant, cooing to him all the while. He fell asleep chewing on a final morsel, and Taffy sighed contentedly.
“Come along…” he said taking her hand.
“I mean to take him to my bedroom.” she answered. “But I will put him in here when I can’t watch him.”
Without another word, he dropped her hand, bent, and picked up the basket and the pieces of the Chronicle, and said, “Right then…”
“Well … but … you can’t…”
“Lead the way.”
“You can’t go to my bedroom,” she answered, frowning.
