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“What are you doing here?” she whispered, before striding to the opposite door and turning the key. “And did you have to pick the single most unorthodox way of visiting?”
Abashed, he fidgeted his fingers against his thighs. “Your garden gate was unlatched.”
She put her hands on her hips and glared at him like a teacher about to lecture a naughty schoolboy. “And you couldn’t make a social call like a normal person?”
“I had intended to but…” But had lost his head the moment he spied her through the windows on his way down the alley, the memory of their clumsy kiss still searing his lips. When she’d tugged him down, he’d been shocked, both by the fact that she’d done it and his body’s fierce reaction to her touch. When her tongue had traced his lips, he’d nearly tossed her down and flipped up her skirts right there. It had been such a visceral, shameful urge that he’d panicked and acted a blustering idiot, fleeing like the devil himself was on his heels. No doubt she’d been supremely insulted. The stricken look on her face when he’d lurched away still haunted him.
“But what?” Lady Aircourt pressed.
“I wanted to apologize,” he said, diverting her question entirely.
She blinked. “You’re apologizing to me? But why?” A becoming blush bloomed on her cheeks, and for a moment the adorably embarrassed expression on her face transfixed him. “I was the one who insulted you with my untoward behavior,” she said.
Well, this would not do. “I wasn’t insulted.” Far from it, actually. Thoughts of her had haunted his dreams for the past two evenings. Images of her sprawled invitingly beneath him, thighs parting to display her slick quim, had assailed him to the point where he’d needed to take himself in hand to get any sort of sleep at all. “I was merely surprised and unsure what to do about it.” More than unsure, if he was being honest. The fact remained that, despite their apparently mutual attraction, giving in to his lust would be most unwise. “My reputation is…”
“Questionable, I know.” She took one plump lip between her teeth, and he focused on his breathing to stem the heat skittering up his spine. “I am glad you weren’t disgusted. I was quite embarrassed that I’d read you wrong.”
“You read me perfectly well. But…”
“But we shouldn’t,” she finished for him. “That is wise.”
Wise but unwanted. That truth hung in the air between them, so much that he could almost feel the tension swirling around. Perhaps it was her giving him a second chance so readily, that he hadn’t been with anyone for a very long time, or a bit of both, but the fact remained that he wanted Eliza Hestings with a ferocity he’d never felt for any woman before. But for once in his life, James would do the right thing, and the right thing certainly was not taking a lover whilst attempting to repair his reputation, a lover who would only suffer from her association with him.
Lady Aircourt remained silent, her emerald eyes stormy but resigned. She clenched her fists. “Dalton?”
“Yes?” he said, bracing himself for her inevitable agreement. They would part on awkward terms, and he would do his best to stay away from her for the rest of the season. Sophie would be able to help him with their mother. Even now, the story was already being spun in his favor, with several columns lauding him for his decisive actions. Truly, he no longer required Lady Aircourt’s aid. She had already given so much, and it was no longer necessary to burden her.
“You’re an idiot.”
He stared at her angry form, dumbstruck. “Pardon?”
She prowled forward, stopping mere inches before his person, so close that he could smell her fresh floral scent. “You heard me.”
He might have made some fuzzy, scrambling reply had she not proceeded to lean up on her toes and kiss him in one swift, decisive action that sent his mind reeling. Her lips were softer than the most delicate of rose petals, just begging for him to take the bottom between his teeth as it caressed the seam of his mouth, and he might have done just that had she not backed away and lowered her feet almost as quickly as she had risen them. He watched, dazed and more than a bit confused, as she returned his gaze with a contemplative frown.
“I’ve decided to acknowledge it.” She gestured wildly between them. “This thing between us.”
“The lust, you mean?” Though lust could hardly be the right word to describe this aching, scorching, almost agonizing yearning he felt.
For the first time, Lady Aircourt appeared discomposed. Her eyes widened, her face flaming as she sputtered some indecipherable sentence under her breath. He liked the look, James decided, liked to see the normally staid beauty so undone by him. Sadly, she got ahold of herself in short order, flattening her lips and closing her eyes with a small exhale. “Yes,” she finally replied. “That.”
“So then, what do you propose we do about it?” The sensible course, as they’d begun to discuss earlier, would be to disengage from one another entirely. But now he was certain that was the last thing she wanted, as foolish as such a thing was. As for himself… well. Knowing what was right and being able to go through with it was another thing entirely, especially where Lady Aircourt was concerned. And yet, nothing but harm would come to her from any sort of affair, and he refused to be so selfish as to let his attraction damn them both. Perhaps that did make him an idiot as she’d charged, but he would at least be an idiot who could sleep soundly knowing that his actions hadn’t tarnished yet another innocent person.
He braced himself, knowing she wouldn’t like the answer about to leave his lips. “I like you. More than like you, so please do not think that your overtures disgusted me. But I—”
“Don’t want an affair,” she finished for him, the disappointment on her face palpable.
“We could be marvelous friends,” he tried. “I am sure a perfectly polite, appropriate amount of company spent together will not cause a fair amount of trouble, given the progress I’ve made.”
But Lady Aircourt shook her head. “I cannot be friends, my lord. Before I had convinced myself that it was possible to ignore this thing simmering between us, was confident, even. But I know that isn’t possible. Just look how erratic I have been, pushing you away and haling you towards me in equal measures. It is too—” She audibly inhaled, her eyes glimmering as if tears were imminent. “Too tumultuous for me to deal with at the moment.”
“I’m sorry.” Melancholy seeped through him, his heart screaming that this was all wrong. But his rational mind knew better, and so an apology was all he could give.
“Don’t be,” she replied. “I respect and understand your decision. Now, I ask that your respect mine. We cannot see each other again, Lord Dalton, not if you want things to remain as they are.”
“I don’t.” His knuckles went white from the strain of preventing himself from taking her in his arms and going back entirely on his decision. “But I must.”
A knock sounded on the door. “My Lady,” a concerned voice he recognized as the butler’s sounded on the other side of the door. The knob jiggled gently. “Is everything alright? Sally heard you shout a few minutes ago and alerted me.”
“I’m fine,” she called back, her voice thick with an emotion that made him feel all the more a cad. “One moment.” She turned her attention back to him, blinking rapidly before whispering, “You need to leave.”
“Lady Air—”
“Go,” she snapped, deftly swiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
Wanting to take that awful look away but knowing he couldn’t without making things worse, James could only agree with a tight nod. Unable to even tell her goodbye, he turned from the devastating scene and quietly slipped out the back door from whence he came. He savored the scents of the now pristine garden as he walked through it, hoping to catalogue them in his mind as one last memory of her, knowing he would never return to this place again.
