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His booted feet shifted, crushing the lush grass, filling the air around them with the smell of it, bringing with it a swirl of memories and emotions long buried. Confused, Hal opened his eyes. The sunlight through the branches sifted shadows over her spread hair, and he was shaken out of the present, back to another wood, another time—with a girl as innocent and sweetly generous as Julia.
The sup pressed memory surged back: shouting and discovery and a rural idyll exposed as ado les cent desire that had got out of hand. Whoreson rakehell… The voices filled his head, stabbed at his conscience, killed his desire.
Hal rolled away from Julia and sat up, raking his hands through his hair, breathing hard through clenched teeth. Damn it, he had learned expertise and with it, control, so that a whoreson rakehell he might be, but he was a skilful one, utterly in command of himself. So command yourself now.
‘I am sorry.’ He made himself look at Julia as she sat up, her mouth swollen with his kisses, her eyes wide and confused by his assault on her senses and his with drawal. ‘Did I hurt you? I’m as bad as he is. Hell…’
‘No,’ she said, her hands fumbling blindly with the bodice of her gown. ‘No. You would have stopped if I had asked you, wouldn’t you?’
‘Yes.’ Please God that is true. He rested his head on his knees for a moment, fighting the dread that he might not have listened. ‘I’m sorry, I warned you what I am, but I should not expect you to under stand.’
Julia was silent. He made himself look at her and found she had fastened her gown and was standing up, brushing at her skirts, her hair still tumbled around her shoulders. Just the sight of it sent a spear of lust through his groin. Hal got to his feet and went to pick up her bonnet, holding it while she twisted her hair up, fixing it with the pins that remained, then trapping it under the hat.
‘No, I do not under stand,’ she murmured at last. ‘I do not under stand what I felt just now, why I…when I know I should not.’
He had no answers for her, no excuses. ‘If you take that path there, you will find you come out very close to the tents.’ Hal pointed back to the way he had entered the clearing, just wanting her gone, safe, away from him.
He made himself stand still while she smiled a little un certainly and walked away, vanishing in seconds into the green foliage. Then he went to sit on the tree trunk, clasped his hands, leaned his forearms on his thighs and stared at the crushed grass. He must stay away from her. There were a number of perfectly pleasant men—worthy men, he had no doubt—who were taking a respectable interest in her. She would marry one of them. And then she would be safe from men like Fellowes. Men like himself.
There was a small scrap of blonde lace lying by his boot. Hal bent and picked it up, smoothing it between his fingers for a long time—until he thought he could master his expression—then he slid it into the breast of his jacket and walked out of the clearing.
‘Have you ever been kissed, Felicity?’ Julia asked without preamble as they sat side by side on a rug, under their parasols, waiting for Mr Smyth and Mr Fordyce to fetch them ices. Half an hour in the ladies’ retiring tent, and she was tidy and composed enough to make the grass stains on her skirts plausibly the result of a trip.
‘Kissed?’ Felicity simpered, blushed, then asked, ‘Properly kissed?’
Julia nodded.
‘Yes, once.’
‘What was it like?’
‘Oh, wonderful…’ She smirked, glanced sideways at Julia, then admitted, ‘No, actually it was horrid.’
‘Horrid?’ No, Hal’s kiss had not been that. It had been wonderful, terrifying, puzzling. ‘It was wet. He wanted me to open my mouth and—’ Felicity lowered her voice even further ‘—he tried to put his tongue into it.’
‘What did you do?’ Julia fought the blush rising to her cheeks at the memory of that shocking intimacy.
‘I kicked him,’ Felicity said, smug. ‘And told him he was a beast. And so he slunk off.’
‘Well done,’ Julia said weakly. Her nerves were tingling, her pulse still erratic; a strange, un familiar restlessness was making it very difficult to sit demurely on the rug as a lady should; and her conscience was struggling to make itself heard against those novel physical messages.
‘Why do you ask? Has someone tried to kiss you?’
‘Well, er, yes,’ Julia confessed. Was that all it had been: a kiss? It had seemed more somehow.
‘Mr Fordyce?’ Felicity hazarded. ‘I think he is very nice. So is Mr Smyth, but he’s a clergyman, so I don’t expect it was him.’
‘No, neither of them. Ssh, here they come.’
Julia ate her ice and talked and strolled around and was introduced to people, drank lemonade and joined in the applause at an impromptu cricket match. The sun began to dip in the sky, and the restless, nameless yearning became stronger, harder to ignore, no easier to control and her eyes searched fruitlessly amongst the crowd, seeking Hal’s face.
Whatever these feelings were, they had everything to do with a lean, hard body against hers making her feel, at one and the same time, both recklessly abandoned and utterly insecure. I must not see him again. I must not.
When stumps were pulled and the company began to wander towards the tents for tea, Lady Geraldine said, ‘There is talk of a torch-lit carriage drive through the forest after dark. Do you think your mamas would object if we kept you out so late?’
‘Why no, I do not think Mama would mind; she said that as I was with you, Lady Geraldine, she was not at all concerned what time I was home.’ Felicity nodded energetic agreement.
‘Well then, we will all take part. And, Julia, if one of your beaux should ask, you may ride with him in his carriage—provided that it stays close to ours at all times.’
