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“Well, it is surprising you should admire her to that extent. My first thought when I saw her was that it is inconceivable that my grandson would fall for such a plain girl.”
“Who said anything about falling for her,” he said drily.
“Then what moved you to want to marry such a girl who has little wealth and connections, if not a violent passion? I had thought that she must be a remarkable beauty given her lack in other areas, but it is not so.”
Hell. He belatedly recalled he had crafted Jane so, in the event his mother or grandmother tried to discover her true identity and connections. A smile curved his lips at the accuracy of Felicity’s initial assessment of his family’s expectation of love between him and his plain Jane.
“I enjoy her wit.”
There went that look between his nanna and mother again. The cravat drew tighter, and he sat up in alarm when his nanna suddenly wilted against the cushions of her chair. His mother rushed to her side and then helped her up.
“I believe I shall rest a bit,” she said, her voice now leeched of all its strength.
“Allow me to escort you to your chambers, Nanna,” he said quietly.
As he left his grandmother’s chamber several minutes later, he almost snarled his frustration. He had produced a fiancée, and nanna was still not at rest. She seemed too suspicious and anxious over the whole matter. It would be a disaster should she uncover he had damn well pretended. Her heart would not be able to take it, and he still recalled the doctor’s order that she should suffer no shock or anything upsetting.
He would have to be more loving and flirtatious with Felicity. Phineas stumbled at the burst of lust and anticipation that darted through him. The unexpectedness and visceral nature of it had him slowing his steps and taking a steady breath. Speaking of the temptress, she ascended the last step of the stairs and walked toward him, her head held down. A quick glance showed that she had a book in her hand, and it was opened. Something about how she looked, her hair unbound, and her toes bare caused his mouth to go ridiculously dry. As she drifted closer, he subtly inhaled. Her fragrance was clean and sweet and rousing. She smelled like temptation.
Phineas would never say what possessed him, but he deliberately allowed her to collide with his body and caught her about the waist, pulling her up against him.
The book fell from her hands with a thud, and she stared up at him, her lips parting. Delicate fingers glided over his chest and gripped his jacket to steady herself. There went that nervous dart of her tongue to wet her lips. His heart raced, and hot and urgent desire coiled in his gut.
Her eyes were widened, and her face was flushed becomingly. “My lord!”
And damn it all to hell, he swooped down with the firm intention to kiss her until they were both breathless with want.
CHAPTEREIGHT
Her head swirling, Felicity braced for a carnal assault against her mouth. The brief hunger she had seen in his eyes before the book dropped had been primal. Surely he would ravage and bruise her mouth. His fingers dug into her hips, and his chest exhaled on a harsh breath, but her mouth remained untouched. “What is happening?” she whispered.
He froze. “Ah, the terms of our deal, of course; I will not dishonor them. Forgive my…impulse,” he said ruefully. “I thought my mother was coming. I wanted us to appear sufficiently scandalous for an affianced couple,” he said with some humor.
Felicity snapped her eyes open. She’d braced herself for a kiss that wasn’t coming. Worse, an aching want to feel his lips atop hers, to maybe taste proper passion for once in her life, had curled through her entire body. “Of course, I…I…”Oh God. Her throat tightened over the flippant words she’d wanted to say.
His gaze sharpened. “Felicity?”
That curious way he said her name made her heart trip. Felicity caught the faint tread of approaching footfalls. “It is now we are about to be caught,” she murmured huskily. “And I…I…please, my lord, release me.”
He did so at once, and she felt bereft by the loss of heat and sensual expectations. Mortified at her stammering and the desire that must have been plainly written on her cheeks to shock him, she hurried down the hallway and spilled inside her chamber, closing the door behind her.
“You fool,” she whispered, pressing her hands to her heated cheeks. “This is just an act…a game to convince his grandmother he is…”
Yet when he had hauled her against him, all of that had been forgotten in a surge of want and excitement. The man she had taken long walks with back in Berkshire and had been so sure she would marry, had never hauled her against his body as if he were overcome with passion. Yet the Earl of Wyndham had.
Stop it, Felicity!
She would remind him that there should only be negotiated, practical, businesslike kisses between them. That way, she would never be caught unawares by this coil of heat that had wrapped around her body and still had yet to loosen. What had he thought to take her into his arms so? She was tempted to ask but did not want this to be normal occurrences between a man as worldly as the earl, and she came off gauche and…and…well, just plain gauche. She was five and twenty, not a blushing debutante to be so disconcerted by the idea of a kiss.
Perhaps it was in the realms of unmarriageable spinsters to feel this curl of want and might even find it plausible to indulge. Her breath caught at the wicked thought, and a languorous ache rolled through her limbs. A soft knock at the door had her stiffening. “Yes?”
The rough clearing of a throat informed her it was the earl. He had come after her. Turning around, she rested her forehead on the door.
“There was no one coming, Felicity; I wanted to kiss you.”
That bemused confession stole her reasoning and stroked over her skin in a trail of heat. “Why are you telling me, my lord?” she asked after a tense silence.
“Because I lied to you to hide my needs, and I did not like it. I am already acting out a farce, one I now regret to have created. There is a part of me that only wishes for honesty between us.”
