Company Of Rogues: A Shocking Delight Part 24

Lucy did get some sleep, but not much. Being so madly in love was the ruin of rest. Even so, she woke early, full of antic.i.p.ation.

The park!

The day was overcast. It might even rain. She cared not one whit. Soon she was out of doors and on her way, decorously accompanied by Hannah. She entered the park, seeking him, fretting that she was too early, too late, in the wrong part of Hyde Park. . . .

"Miss Potter. How delightful."

David.

He was in his country clothes. He raised his hat as he greeted her, and surely his eyes were warm.

"Do you walk here every morning, my lord?" she asked for Hannah's hearing as she turned to stroll with him along a path.

"Whenever possible. I miss open s.p.a.ces and greenery."

"Look around, my lord. Open s.p.a.ces and greenery in abundance."

"Surrounded by a million people."

"Hyde Park sits on the edge of London, not in the middle," she pointed out.

"Precise as always."

"You make that seem a fault."

"Not at all. I admire a clear mind. I admire much about you."

Lucy had to work not to show all her hopes and expectations then and there.

"Where shall we go so you can pay your daily debt?" he asked. "That stand of trees looks promising."

Extremely promising.

"You can sit on that bench there, Hannah, and wait. Lord Wyvern and I are going to study those trees."

No wonder Hannah gave her a look as she sat down, but it was as much of a smirk as a frown.

They strolled across the gra.s.s, and then the first shade of green leaves came over them. Green, greenwood, greenery. Terms often used for wicked behavior. A green-skirted la.s.s was one who'd lain on the gra.s.s with a man.

"Such interesting bark," he said, stroking the textured trunk of a tree with his bare hand. She hadn't realized before that he wasn't wearing gloves. The informality seemed like a warning.

Lucy studied the tree. "Brown and gray, but mostly brown."

"This one is more gray."

She went with him to the next. Deeper into the cool, moist greenwood, but with the happy cries of children still nearby, cut with a sharp command from a nursemaid.

She traced a gloved fingertip over grayish bark. "A smoother texture."

"Beech." He took her hand and drew her on. "This is a similar color, but rougher. You can't truly appreciate it wearing this." He unfastened the mother-of-pearl b.u.t.ton at her wrist and pulled off her glove, finger by finger. Then he pressed her naked hand on the fissured trunk. "Linden."

His hand was large and warm over hers, skin on skin. "Do you know all the trees?" she asked on a breath.

"Don't you?"

"No." She pulled her hand free and turned to face him. "But I could name you types of s.h.i.+ps, and often what sort of goods they carry and what parts of the world they voyage to. I could a.s.sess fair value of most goods brought into the Port of London, and tell good quality from poor."

"I questioned your education?"

"You did, but also we should know the truth about each other."

"We come from different worlds, Miss Potter."

"We do. Green and brick. Cliffs and flat. Yours is plagued by dangerous mists."

"And yours by dirty fogs. Didn't people have to use candles at midday last January?"

"A rare occurrence."

"Unheard of in Devon."

"Where you have no lit streets at all!"

"Certainly not where I live. There's nothing you could call a street. You're correct. You wouldn't like it there."

The blunt statement stunned her. Why hadn't she seen where that verbal contest was going? She clung to what she had. "That doesn't affect our bargain. Are you not going to claim your kiss?"

Some expression moved across his face, but she couldn't interpret it, nor his tone when he said, "It's your debt to pay."

"Then I'll wait until you've earned it."

"I've walked in the park with you."

"In sight of children and nursemaids."

"And enticed you into this private bower."

"With no one of significance to notice."

She found the strength to turn and walk away. He stopped her with a hand on her arm. Not a grip. Only a touch. But it froze her in place.

She hoped he'd weakened, that he'd claim a kiss as boldly as he had the night before, but he remained still. And unreadable.

She surrendered. She reached to draw his head down, only realizing when her hand touched his warm skin and crisp hair that it was still gloveless. She froze like that, palm tingling, breath held, body tensing in a most extraordinary way.

In his eyes she glimpsed something. Surely a longing as powerful as hers.

She pressed her lips to his-more than a peck, but trying not to reveal too much. But then, with a sigh, she lingered, softening at the sweet intimacy and warm desire, moving closer.

He pulled her hard against him, and when her lips parted in a gasp, said against them, "Perilous Aphrodite."

"Am I?"

"Your kisses are. Be warned."

His lips crushed onto hers, compelling her to open fully to him, to capture him, to belong to him. She gripped his jacket, his hair, pressing to him even more than he pulled her into him, moving a leg, turning . . .

Wanting!

She thrust backward and he let her go, but then grasped her arms to steady her. She might well have tumbled.

Down on the gra.s.s.

A green girl in the greenwood . . .

"That was . . ." She didn't know what.

"Payment for the whole fortnight."

He wanted to escape their commitment. She could understand why, but she couldn't allow it. This was all dangerous and beyond sanity, and they came from different worlds, each disliking the other's. But she couldn't set him free.

"The nature of the kisses is mine to decide," she reminded him, as steadily as she could. "I'll be at Lady Ludlow's ball tonight. Don't fail me. I will have my eight days."

"Shouldn't you play Portia rather than Shylock?"

"Surely I'm the merchant in that play."

"Ba.s.sanio. The one whose s.h.i.+p was lost?"

"But which came safely into port in the end."

"You expect a happy ending from this?"

She couldn't answer, for the only honest one would be the one written on his face. No. They l.u.s.ted, perhaps they loved, but their worlds could be too different for them to join together.

"I expect my eight days," she said, and headed for open ground and sanity, pulling her glove back on. Once she was in suns.h.i.+ne again, she sought something to say. Something safe.

He got there first. "As we're to endure the full eight days, shouldn't we progress to Christian names? You are Lucinda."

"Lucy. To my family and friends."

"Your aunt and cousin are family," he pointed out.

"Not in the same way."

"Poor Lucinda."

"She is. Quite paltry."

"Your wilting alter ego."

"Even Lucinda doesn't wilt."

"I'm sure she doesn't. I'm David."

"I know."

"How?"

"Your friend, Mr. Delaney, mentioned it."

"Ah."

"Do you, too, have an alter ego?" she asked. It was merely an attempt to keep the conversation going, but she saw a reaction.

"Davy," he said at last. "I'm not a lad anymore, but some of the family still use it."

A mere baby name hadn't caused the reaction. "By family, you mean your sister, Lady Amleigh?"

"No, she calls me David. I mean my aunt and uncle and some cousins." Perhaps she looked puzzled, for he added, "Uncle Nathaniel and Aunt Miriam raised Susan and me."

She noticed his tone. "You love them."

"Of course. They're good people. The sort that glue families and communities together with generosity and kind hearts. The world would fall apart without them."

"That's lovely."

"You seem surprised," he said.

"Perhaps I don't think of you as coming from a comfortable home."

"Why not?"

"I must have read too many novels. What of your mother? What does she call you?"

"If she called me anything, it was David."

"If . . . ?"

"We were never on close terms."

Lady Belle, who'd taken up with a smuggling tavern keeper, abandoning her children to relatives.

"That must have been hard."

"Abandon conventional thinking. Aunt Miriam was my mother from the moment of birth. If anything distressed my childhood, it was the fear that Lady Belle would take the whim to claim us back."