Читать книгу The Wallflowers To Wives Collection - Bronwyn Scott - Страница 20

Chapter Twelve

The little issue of propriety and a chaperon wasn’t going to stand in the way of a grand adventure. It had taken some planning on her part and a slight almost-lie to her mother, but Claire had done it. She was going to Evie’s. She just wasn’t going to stay there. Going to Evie’s covered a number of problems, the foremost being the need for her maid to accompany her. Evie only lived a street away and she’d been going to the Milhams for years on her own.

‘Are you sure you don’t mind covering for me?’ Claire asked for the tenth time as they waited for Jonathon in the key garden. She’d lost the fight an hour ago to contain her excitement and she was fairly bristling with unbridled anticipation.

‘It’s only for a few hours,’ Evie insisted, almost as excited as Claire was over the prospect of an illicit adventure. ‘I can manage until you get back. Besides, my mother thinks we’re going to May’s.’

Claire worried her lip. ‘It’s just that I don’t want you to get into trouble if anything should go wrong.’ Nothing would though. She’d thought this through and it was only a trip to a little French bookshop in Soho. Bookstores were harmless venues. More was the pity.

‘Do you think he’ll kiss you again?’ Evie asked in a whisper, her cheeks turning pink.

‘No, I doubt a musty old bookshop would do much to spark a man’s ardour.’ Claire gave a small smile and a laugh, but deep down she rather regretted that the bookshop wasn’t a more inspiring venue. It seemed unlikely Jonathon would be encouraged to kiss her again amid the tall aisles of bookcases. ‘He didn’t even mention the first kiss.’ On those grounds, it would take far more than a bookshop to inspire a second one.

‘In that case, maybe you should kiss him?’ Evie suggested quietly. Coming from Evie, the idea was positively shocking. It was the kind of thought Claire expected Beatrice or May to have. But Evie? ‘Bookstores inspire you, Claire. Perhaps you could read to him from a French romance, an old troubadour ballad or some such, and then lean over and just kiss him, nice and soft on the lips, and see what he does. If it’s a little kiss, there’s no harm in it. Now, if it were a big one, all open-mouthed with a little tongue, that might be a bit more difficult to come back from if he’s not up for it.’

‘Evie!’ Claire smiled in shocked surprise at her quiet friend. She’d never guessed thoughts of that nature filtered through Evie’s brain. Apparently they did and in great detail. ‘How do you know about such things?’

Evie smiled back. ‘I read books, too, Claire. I’ve picked up a few pieces of knowledge on the way.’

‘I’ll take your idea under consideration.’ Claire hugged her friend. ‘Hmm. There are hidden layers to you, Miss Evie Milham.’

‘Everyone has them, Claire. We just need to know where to look. Just look at you.’ Evie’s eyes shone with admiration. ‘You’ve always been pretty, but it hasn’t always been obvious. These past weeks, you’ve been livelier, more outgoing. Jonathon has been good for you. I think you’ve inspired us all with your quest.’

The gate to the key garden swung open and Jonathon stepped through, promptly on time as if he, too, understood the importance of every second. They only had the afternoon. They couldn’t waste it. He bowed to Evie. ‘Miss Milham, good afternoon.’ He offered Claire his arm. She didn’t think she’d ever get tired of taking it, of feeling the flex of his muscles beneath his coat as she lay her hand on his sleeve. ‘Claire, are you ready? My carriage is outside.’

The adventure moved from theory to practice the moment she took her seat beside him on the curricle. Anyone seeing them here in Mayfair would see that Jonathon had his tiger with them, riding on the shelf in the back. There was nothing odd about a gentleman taking a lady for a drive this time of day, she told herself. Unless, of course, the oddness lay in who was driving whom.

If there was any real danger in their being together it was in the Soho portion of their trip—a gentleman and an unchaperoned, unmarried lady of good breeding out together, alone. But no one would recognise them in the bohemian neighbourhoods bordering the West End.

‘Relax, Claire, what’s the worst that can happen on a jaunt to a bookshop?’ Jonathon teased her as Mayfair fell behind them.

‘People would say you compromised me. We could end up married.’ She voiced the fear that plagued her without thinking.

Jonathon laughed. ‘You say that like it’s a bad thing. Would that be so horrible? A fate worse than death?’

‘It’s not funny.’ She tried to hold on to her chagrin, but it was useless. Jonathon’s laughter was infectious. Claire felt herself smiling. ‘Still, I wouldn’t want a husband who was forced to marry me. I certainly wouldn’t want a husband who was spineless enough to bow to a silly rule and let it decide the rest of his life.’ Even if it was Jonathon. That might be worse, to know she’d ruined the life of someone she truly cared about.

Jonathon arched a dark eyebrow. ‘Your suitor must be quite the paragon then. Those are high standards.’

‘He’s not a suitor, not in truth, you know that. I told you from the start he hardly notices me.’ Claire paused looking for the right words. ‘He’s more like a wish.’

Jonathon looked over at her, his smile making her stomach flutter. ‘Don’t worry, Claire. We’ll make him notice you yet.’

She doubted it. ‘The wish’ in question had kissed her and hardly noticed. If he hadn’t noticed her then with his mouth on hers, their bodies pressed to one another, she doubted he ever would. She’d merely been a convenient outlet for his desperation. ‘Turn right here, the bookshop should be the next street over.’ It was time to stop daydreaming and start thinking about the outing. ‘We’ll try to speak French the whole time. Don’t worry, I’ll be there if you need me. Just relax. You do very well when you don’t think about it. Remember, we’re looking for a copy of Diderot’s Le Neveu de Rameau.’ At yesterday’s lesson they’d designed and practised a script about what today’s interactions might include. He wouldn’t always have the luxury of preparing a script, but for now it seemed like a good way to ease him into real-life interactions.

Jonathon found a place by the kerb to park the curricle and came around to help her down. His hands lingered at her waist, an energetic grin taking his face. ‘Allez. Que les jeux commencement.’ He was possessed, too, of the same eager brand of anxiousness she was. This would be a real test of what they’d accomplished in her garden and they both wanted him to pass.

She spoke French to him as they walked the short distance to the bookshop, warming up like actors before a show. She didn’t want Jonathon to face the shopkeeper without some practice to ease himself into the situation. If she was right about him having performance anxiety, she didn’t want him freezing up the moment he was under scrutiny. That was what today was about for her, a diagnostic of sorts. How far had he come? Where were his weak points?

The bell over the door jingled and they stepped inside. Jonathon greeted the bookshop owner with a flawless bonjour and asked for the Diderot book, which the shopkeeper found immediately. So far so good. They were off to a nice start, but this only proved he could memorise a script and execute it. Claire had no intention of settling for that. She wouldn’t always be there to write and practise scripts with him.

Claire wandered down an aisle of poetry, engaging the shopkeeper in a discussion. They were off script now and she wanted to see how Jonathon responded, how quickly he could adapt. After a few minutes, the door jingled and the shopkeeper excused himself to help the new customer. Claire selected several slim volumes and headed towards a table in the back where customers could sit and read.

She opened a book to a random page and slid it towards him. ‘Would you read? I think you will like Machaut. He’s considered the last great French poet who was both poet and composer.’

‘Le Remède de Fortune.’ He looked up from the book with a sly grin, never breaking his use of French. ‘Is there a personal message in this for me?’ he teased, his French easy and fluent as he made the offhand remark. His eyes scanned the work and flipped through a few pages. ‘Ah, perhaps your suitor should read this. The hero in our story needs to be taught how to be a good lover before he can succeed with his lady.’ Jonathon wagged his dark eyebrows in play. ‘Perhaps I will take a few notes, too. A man can always improve.’

They laughed a little too loudly, earning a look of censure from the shopkeeper. How had this happened—that she should be sitting in a bookshop, laughing in French with Jonathon Lashley over love poetry? What a difference a few weeks and a few pretty dresses made.

Don’t forget the enormous amount of courage and the urging of your friends. You were against this at the start. You were still protesting it as late as a few days ago, her conscience reminded her.

It hadn’t been as simple as changing her appearance. The first lesson had been a disaster and she’d been nervous during the lessons that had followed, overly conscious of every time he touched her, every time he spoke. It had taken all of her concentration to focus. But now, if one overlooked the ill-fated kiss, there was a comfort between them. When had that sprung up?

‘Est ce-que j’ai deux têtes?’ Do I have two heads? Jonathon dropped his voice to an appropriate whisper. ‘You’re staring.’

‘Pardon.’ Claire smiled and shook her head. ‘And you’re stalling.’ She didn’t want him to break down now. He’d done extraordinarily well on this outing. Maybe she was pushing for too much too soon. She reached to take the book from him. ‘Perhaps I should start.’

* * *

Jonathon watched Claire’s mouth. It was rather convenient that their lessons required it of him. She had the most delicious lips, pink and the bottom lip carried just a hint of sensual fullness to it, promising delight to those who might tempt to drink from that mouth, a promise that was born out in her kiss. Kissing her had been a misstep, though.

He could not bring himself to think of it as a mistake, merely a wonderful misstep. One did not kiss their teachers. Usually because those teachers were male. But also because it blended business with pleasure and it was easy to confuse gratitude over having learned something with other more passionate emotions.

One probably shouldn’t dance with their tutors either for the same reasons. In the last few weeks he’d done both and enjoyed them far more than he should. Just as he was enjoying this outing, which wasn’t really supposed to be an outing. He wasn’t ‘out’ with her, he was on a field trip with his tutor and yet he couldn’t quite convince himself this was the same thing as visiting the botanical gardens with his tutor, Mr Hadley, when he was a young boy. Probably because he wasn’t a boy any more and probably because he hadn’t kissed Mr Hadley or spent countless hours staring at Mr Hadley’s mouth, which as he recalled, had a small wart on the left side. He spent most of the time trying not to look at it. He’d never wondered about Mr Hadley the way he wondered about Claire Welton.

She paused from her reading and he let his question tumble out, in French of course. ‘Why so many languages, Claire?’ He was gratified to see the question startled her, she was always so in control during their lessons, directing their conversations with an enviable coolness.

She stared at him, a little furrow forming between her brows. ‘What does that have to do with Machaut’s poetry?’

‘Nothing.’ Jonathon gave her a wide smile and didn’t back down. He continued in French. ‘It has to do with you.’

Lovely and intelligent, Claire Welton was becoming a potent temptation. It was hard to imagine the woman across from him was the same Claire Welton who had started the Season timid and dressed in what could only be described as ‘adequate fashion’. ‘Are you going to answer or do I have to stare at you all afternoon?’

She set down the book. ‘You won’t laugh?’ His Claire had a vulnerable side. His? Hardly his, not in the usual way.

Jonathon shook his head. ‘Of course not.’

‘For the same reason I read. Words are escape, freedom. I can go places I’ve never been. Best of all, I can see the world differently. Languages all have unique words that English doesn’t have equivalents for because the cultures they represent have different experiences than we do, different understandings.’

‘Donnez-moi une example.’ He was truly sucked into the conversation now, barely aware of how easily he responded in French to her French.

‘Votre ami, Diderot.’ She gestured to the book the shopkeeper had left on the table, ‘He coined a phrase l’esprit d’escalier—the idea that one does not think of an appropriate response to a remark until one has left the party, or quite literally, reached the bottom of the stairs and it’s too late to respond. I don’t think we have an exact phrase for that concept in English.’

Fascinating. There was no other way to explain what it meant to sit there in the dusty bookshop and listen to her talk about escape, about freedom, about her desire to travel and see the world. To do so in French was only a small part of that fascination. She could have spoken in Turkish and it would have fascinated him. Admittedly, the French should have appealed much more given what he had at stake and what he’d struggled to overcome in the last seven years.

With Claire, he did feel he was on the road to recovery, but he wasn’t quite there. One successful outing did not a victory make. He knew before she said, ‘We should get back to our reading’, that he still had a way to go. If he tried to read from the book of poetry, he would stumble. It wasn’t exactly the note he wanted to end their day on. He prevaricated and Claire rose from the table, sensing his reluctance. Perhaps she, too, didn’t want to risk the little successes of the afternoon.

‘Maybe something different? Machaut can be difficult at first.’ She went to an aisle, no doubt intending to find another text. When she didn’t return immediately, he followed her, finding her engrossed in a slim volume, her back to him, her head bent just so, exposing the nape of her neck left bare from the upsweep of her hair. She made a pretty picture and an irresistible one. An urge to claim this moment, to claim her, swept him in a powerful wave. What would she do, if he kissed her here? Would she come alive as she had in the Rosedale garden? Would he?

He strode up behind her, his hands gripping her arms in gentle alert to his presence, his mouth close to her ear. ‘What are you doing, Claire?’ She jumped a little, startled out of her reading by his nearness, perhaps by his touch. It was a familiar touch, the kind a lover would use, but he didn’t let go.

‘Looking for something we can read.’

‘Je ne veux pas lire, Claire.’ His whisper sounded hoarse. Good, let it be a foreshadowing of what he did want, of what he meant to have if she would allow it. Was any of the intrigue he felt returned on her part? ‘Je veux te baiser.’ He kissed the bare space of her neck. Claire stiffened and he knew a moment’s trepidation. He’d overstepped himself, once more swept away by the moment.

‘You mean, je veux t’embrasser...’ She whispered the correction, breaking from the French for the first time since they’d entered the store. ‘You want to kiss me.’

‘Oui.’ Jonathon let a slow smile creep across his face. ‘What did I say?’ He had her backed to the wall now.

‘That you wanted to f—’ She blushed. ‘It’s a naughty word, Jonathon.’ Well, maybe he wanted to do that too. Just because he had manners didn’t mean he didn’t have baser desires too. The two were not mutually exclusive. He was a man after all and she was a beautiful, intriguing woman.

He started to reframe his question, but she cut him off, a finger pressed to his lips. ‘The answer is no. You may not kiss me.’ Her eyes danced and she made no effort to move away.

‘Why?’ Jonathon drawled, flirting with his eyes on her lips, not convinced he’d been rejected entirely.

‘This time I’m going to kiss you.’ Her arms were around his neck, pulling him close, her mouth finding his, full, open, and welcoming as it claimed his. Then his arms were about her, holding her against him, feeling the press of her, the curves of her, all warmth and willingness and eagerness, this was her kiss after all. She had initiated it, but the elation was all his. She wanted to kiss him! His bold Claire wanted to kiss him! It would be complicated later, but for now, it was pure, raw, joy and he let it shoot through him in lusty bolts.

The kiss was heady and hot, their mouths devouring each other by turn, his lips moving to her jaw, her throat, the pulse at the base of her neck. Only the last remnants of Claire’s sanity kept him from attempting something more wicked. ‘We have to stop.’ She drew a ragged breath, her hands tangled in his hair, her mouth mere inches from his, her body giving no sign of agreeing with her mind. Jonathon pushed his advantage, reluctant to surrender the moment.

‘Not yet,’ he murmured, lowering his mouth to hers, his hand sliding up the slim width of her rib cage, until the curve of his palms cupped the undersides of her breasts through the muslin of her gown. He ran a thumb over a nipple and felt a shudder ripple through her. This was a torturous game of have and have not he played. It was heavenly to touch her, to feel the firmness, the fullness of her breasts in his hand, but it was hellish to have to stop there, to not take them in his mouth and kiss them as he did her lips, to not see them bared, naked in his hands.

‘Have you ever thought about not stopping, Claire?’ This was madness. His words were evidence of it. He dare not take this any further and yet he dare not stop. ‘Do you want to see what’s on the other side of this passion?’ Jonathon gave a groan, his hips grinding against hers as her sighs filled his mouth. ‘I could show you pleasure finer than this.’ His hand gripped the material of her skirts. It would be the work of a moment to have his hand behind them, the work of a few moments more to slide his fingers into her wet place and give her the pleasure her body was craving.

There was a cough behind him and Claire gave a gasp, her gaze hurtling to a spot over his shoulder, her cheeks flaming in mortification while the shopkeeper launched into a torrent of French.

‘Mon Dieu! Est-ce pas un bordel! Sortir, prendre votre amour ailleurs.’

Honestly, as they hurriedly gathered up Claire’s hat and left money for their purchases, Jonathon couldn’t tell if the man was genuinely offended or if he simply had to put up a pro forma protest because one really should not devour another’s mouth or body in a public establishment. There was no getting around it. That was precisely what he and Claire had been doing. Together.

That kiss had been about as ‘two way’ as it got and he refused to feel ashamed over it. He ushered Claire out of the store as if they’d done nothing wrong and very properly bid the shopkeeper adieu. The shopkeeper glared at them, but Jonathon merely laughed as the door swung shut behind them. He’d not had nearly that much fun in ages. For the first time, in a long time, the smile he wore was there by choice instead of force.

Claire’s face was blazing by the time he pulled the curricle away from the kerb. ‘I’m sorry,’ she began, but he silenced her with a shake of his head.

‘What are you sorry about, Claire? Kissing me? Or getting caught?’

‘Getting caught, of course.’ Claire blushed even deeper, completely flustered once she realised what she’d said. The blush made her beautiful, a woman admitting to her passions. Would she look that way lying beneath him? Sated and replete from lovemaking? God, how he wanted to know. His body was rock hard from the wanting.

Jonathon laughed, steering the team into the traffic.

‘Aren’t you sorry?’ Claire persisted.

‘No, absolutely not.’ He shot her a sideways look. ‘However, having said that, you do understand there’s no good way for a man to answer the question?’ He lifted his eyebrows and pierced her with a direct look. ‘This afternoon was a most pleasant revelation. I’ve discovered I can speak French and you, Claire Welton, are a wild soul indeed. Only one question remains: where shall we go tomorrow?’ That was a lie. There were more questions that needed answering, like the one he’d asked her before the shopkeeper had interrupted them.

‘I shall have to think about that,’ Claire replied, her eyes dancing, her earlier mortification giving way to the hilarity and adventure of the situation. ‘It’s not every day a girl gets expelled from a bookshop for kissing Jonathon Lashley. I can’t imagine what sort of encore would top today’s excursion.’

‘I can, if you’d let me show you.’ It was a bold, wicked thing to say, but then again she’d kissed him. He was not the only interested party. ‘Will you promise me something? Save me two dances tonight and we can discuss it then.’

Claire raised a cocky eyebrow, willing to play the game. ‘Tomorrow’s excursion or the pleasure of kissing you?’

‘Both. I don’t recall saying they were mutually exclusive.’ He gave her a meaningful look. ‘Two dances, Claire. There will be no more running out on me.’