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Chapter 15
Everything at dinner had gone according to Isaac’s plan. He’d had time to get to know Louisa’s mother better, and although she was an unusual woman, he found her to be very pleasant. They had also briefly discussed the price of the house, but only in vague terms, which Isaac was fine with. Talking about that in more detail would give him an excuse to call upon Louisa more.
And finally, he’d got to have a moment alone with her. Best of all, she seemed to want to engage in the same type of playful flirtation that he had. Isaac may not have been skilled in social circumstances, but he excelled at playing games, and so if he just thought of courting Louisa like a game, it was the easiest thing in the world.
Louisa and Isaac next saw each other two days later when he came to her home and they spoke in hushed tones in the sitting room, mostly about the house. But at one point, Louisa had left her chair to fetch some water for them both, and so Isaac seized his opportunity to get back at her for grazing her arm against him the other night upon leaving the room. When she passed by him, he simply allowed his upper arm to flop down against the arm of the chair, which caused his hand to run along her skirt as it fell. Louisa looked back at his arm to see what had just happened, but when Isaac did not turn to face her, she said nothing and walked out of the room. The next move was now hers to make.
When the pair met again the next day in the garden at Isaac’s home, he could not wait to see her. Issac thought he was on guard for whatever she was going to do to him today and kept trying to guess when she would make a move. However, when they had discussed the price of the home enough, and it was time for Louisa to return home and she had not done anything, Isaac began worrying she might not make any moves.
But then, when they were passing through the library on the way to the front entrance, Louisa suddenly stopped in front of Isaac, and he almost bumped into her. “Oh, I’m sorry,” Louisa said, “I didn’t mean to stop so suddenly, it’s just ...”
And then she trailed off and became entranced by something on Isaac’s face. It took him a moment to realize that she was once again gazing longingly at his lips and then looking away quickly. Isaac’s breath caught in his throat because he thought she was actually going to kiss him. But then, her eyes unfocused, and she jauntily said, “You have something on your face. Here, let me get it for you.”
She quickly rubbed something off of Isaac’s cheek very near to his lips, and he could have smacked himself.Not everything has to be about how badly she wants to kiss you, you fool. Sometimes it is just that you have something unfortunate smeared on your face, and she wants to save you the embarrassment of having someone else discover it.
But when Louisa drew her hand away, Isaac could very clearly see that she had wiped away nothing at all. “Thank you so very much for taking care of that; I’m rather embarrassed. What was it that I had on my face?” he asked.
Louisa didn’t miss a beat. “It was just a spot of dirt from the garden. I’m not sure how it got there, but you have nothing to be embarrassed about! It happens to me all the time,” she replied, not-so-subtly slipping her hands behind her back.
Isaac, however, had caught on to what she had done. “Oh, really? Then you certainly won’t mind if I just ...” Isaac reached behind Louisa’s back and gently took her wrist in his hand. He drew it towards him, but she kept her palm closed. “Now, why won’t you let me see what you took off of my face?” he asked coyly.
“I am doing no such thing!” Louisa mockingly protested. “I wiped it on the back of my dress so that you did not have to see it. And now ... my hand is just seizing up.”
“Oh, is it?” Isaac teased. “So you’re saying that you’resurethat there was something on my face and that you weren’t simply ... gazing at it?”
As he watched, Louisa’s cheeks went bright red. “Absolutely not!” she said defiantly.
“Well then, how about we focus on doing something to relax your hand?” he said gently. The teasing tone was gone from his voice, and he now looked rather adoringly at Louisa, and she could certainly tell that the tone had shifted. Isaac was not sure what confidence had seized him, but he brought her hand up to his lips and then kissed the soft underside of her wrist.
When his lips touched her hand, it instantly relaxed, as did her face. Isaac looked up at Louisa with his lips poised to kiss her again and said, “Is that better? Shall I try once more?”
Louisa said nothing but nodded with her eyes wide with arousal. Isaac maintained eye contact, and this time, he kept her hand in his left, and with his right, he pulled back her sleeve the smallest amount and kissed further up her arm. This time, Louisa made an audible sound of pleasure rather similar to the one she had made when he walked up behind her in the forest. That was altogether too much for Isaac to take, and so he whispered, “Miss Louisa?”
“Yes?”
“Might I …” but Isaac didn’t even have time to ask to kiss her, for she took his face in her hands, and their lips met hard and fast. They kissed desperately, feverishly, as though the other’s lips were their salvation, and they wanted nothing more than that. Isaac pulled Louisa close to him so that he could feel her tiny body pressed up against his, and when he felt her breasts pressing against his lower chest, it took all of his self-control not to pull her into a more secluded room and have his way with her.
But he was a man of honour, and Louisa was the kind of woman who he did not dare rush into anything with, feeling that he might very well be falling in love with her. As they continued kissing, it slowly turned from kisses of intense passion into slower, more meaningful ones.
And then, Louisa pulled herself away and looked at him, horrified. She placed her hand upon her lips, as though she could not believe that what they had just done was real. Isaac began to panic. “Did I do something wrong, Miss Louisa? I apologize most profusely if that was not what you wanted, for I would never …”
“No, no,” Louisa stopped him, placing her hand upon his arm. “I began that. And I ... I wanted to do that. It is just that ...”
“What is it? What is bothering you?” Isaac gently pressed.
Louisa backed away from Isaac slowly, looking ashamed of herself. “I’m so sorry, Mr Quince, but I must be gone. It isn’t ... it is not because ... farewell.”
Louisa ran from the room, and Isaac was left standing by the still-open door feeling as though he had been standing next to an explosive when it went off.I must have done something wrong,Isaac cursed himself.Perhaps I was not an adequate kisser, or perhaps that did not unfold in the way that she wanted it to. But why did she not stay and tell me those things? She ran from the room as if she had seen a ghost!
In the end, Isaac could not entirely put together why Louisa had been so ashamed and had run from the room so quickly. That did not, however, stop him from worrying and thinking over it constantly until the next time that he saw Louisa.
