“Ahh.” He accepted that with a hint of relief. “Then why are you not at the party?”
All her life, she had imagined herself flirting with Ellery. Smiling at Ellery. Dancing with Ellery. That was what she’d wanted, what she dreamed of. Yet today, every time she’d dreamed that dream, a tall, thin, female figure had hovered on the fringes of her conscience—Ellery’s fiancée, Lady Hyacinth.
“I thought I should get to know the children,” Celeste said. As the moon rose higher, the sweet scent of night-blooming nicotiana grew stronger, carried by the gentle breeze.
“You shouldn’t teach them yet. Not until we know what your role will be in their lives.” He sounded sincerely disapproving.
Not that she relished being disapproved of, but she rather welcomed a gentleman who involved himself with his child’s welfare. She looked down at him again. “I told them we hadn’t decided if I should remain as their governess. I assured them that this week would be the proving ground. I told them tonight was only for fun. I believe they enjoyed it.”
“Celeste, I suspect you feel derelict because you are not working.”
She started. Only the faintest shadow of guilt that had haunted her since she set foot into Blythe Hall—the guilt of a working woman taking unearned leisure. She had scarcely noticed it. How had he? “I assure you, sir, I did no harm.”
“I have the solution to your guilt.” He tucked his arms under his head and gazed up at her with earnest candor. “I would like you to translate messages for me.”
First she thought, But I don’t like Mr. Stanhope. Then she realized, But I would be spending yet more time with you. And that increasingly had become a dangerous prospect. “Mr. Stanhope has always been your translator.”
“You proved to me he isn’t quite as competent as I had hoped.”
“What about the children?”
“You aren’t acting as their governess yet.”
“The guests would wonder what I was doing.”
“We shan’t tell them.”
“They’ll notice.”
“Dear Celeste.” He drawled with all the bored assurance of a dandy. “The last place party guests wander into is a chamber where work takes place.”
She scrabbled for an excuse and produced one strong enough for any misogynist. “Women cannot be secretaries.”
“You, Celeste, will be whatever you put your mind toward being.”
She could see the glint of his teeth. Throckmorton was smiling. He continued, “You needn’t worry Stanhope will be unhappy with you for supplanting him. I told him he’d been working too hard and since you were here he was to take this week as a rest.”
“Generous of you.” To give him leisure and take mine away, and make us both happier. Irked and afraid she would show it, she stared up at the stars once more, but this time she didn’t care if Throckmorton noticed the curve of her throat.
“Of course, Stanhope will want to know what’s going on in the office. I hope you don’t mind speaking to him occasionally.”
Actually, she did mind speaking to him. When she was in Throckmorton’s presence, she never remembered that his education far exceeded hers, that his acumen made him the awe of the business community, and that his foreign experiences gave him a shrewd edge.
With Mr. Stanhope, she never forgot that she was the gardener’s daughter and he the aristocratic explorer.
What could she say, but, “Of course, Throckmorton, I’d be delighted to work for you as your secretary and report to Mr. Stanhope as he wishes.”
“Good. Thank you.”
She waited, but he said nothing else.
She’d been posing for him. Posing, suffering a kink in her neck from some bizarre feminine desire to show off her handsome figure and carefree attitude, when she didn’t care whether Throckmorton noticed her at all. Probably he hadn’t, anyway. The man’s veins ran with ice water. Not champagne, like Ellery’s. Ice water. With a silent huff, she flounced backward—and when she laid her head back, it landed on something. Something warm, something firm . . . how had he managed to get his arm out from under his head and under hers? He might have ice water in his veins, but he also had excellent reflexes.
She would have sat back up, but Throckmorton utilized that dark velvet voice again. “I’ve never been to Russia,” he said. “Tell me about Russia.”
Unwillingly, she relaxed. If it wasn’t Throckmorton beside her, she’d have called that a “seduce-you” voice. But Throckmorton was too sensible to think a starlit sky and an interest in her journeys would bring her to his bed. Not when he’d just been so dreadfully manipulative.
“Russia. Very, very far away. Immense. Overwhelming.” She didn’t like to talk about that trip. The experience had been too colossal for mere words to encompass, and when she tried people got bored, or they just couldn’t comprehend the vast horizons, the contrasts of heat and cold, poor and rich, and her own sense of alienation from everything familiar. “We left Paris in March to spend the summer on an estate in the Ukraine. The travel took weeks by rail, by ship, by carriage.”
“To a land where everything is strange and new.”
With a jolt, she recalled that Throckmorton had been to the Americas, to India and to places beyond. “The food, even the food I liked, tasted different,” she said.
“The clothes are wild brilliant weaves, or primitive skins, or so dirty one can’t tell the original color.”
“Everything smelled like smoke or sweat or horses—”
“Or something so exotic you couldn’t even guess at its origin.”
“Yes!” He did understand! She turned her head—to find him so close they were nose to nose. He reclined on his side, facing her. Their lips almost met. His breath whispered warm across her cheeks.
She stopped breathing, stopped moving, and just stared. In the darkness, she could see only the outline of him, but she had observed him far too closely these last few days not to know his expression held that grave intensity he wore when he wished to kiss her. When he would kiss her.
Her eyes fluttered shut, a tacit consent.
The arm beneath her head wrapped her closer. His other arm embraced her, pulling her close against his warmth, his strength. His mouth touched hers . . . and it was the same as it was before. Better, because she knew what to expect. The warm, firm pressure, the gentle urging. She opened her lips to him, allowed him access, curled her tongue around his in the intricate, ancient dance of desire. Pleasure spiraled deep in her belly and everything she felt and knew and was—was Throckmorton.
As she yielded, his tempered passion changed. He tasted her more greedily. He held her more tightly. The grass, crushed and rich with summer, gave off its growing scent and mixed with the scent of him—the scent of citrus soap, of starch, of leather and of masculine warmth, faint but enveloping. She would recognize his scent anywhere, for it made her mouth water and her body yearn.
Finally, he lifted his mouth with an impatient grunt. Rolling her onto her back, he rose above her, dominating her with his height, his breadth, his scent and strength.
Her eyes opened, seeing him as a silhouette against the stars. The stars that were still there, but no longer familiar. Brighter, cleaner, and changed somehow. Instead of the constellations that had illuminated the night sky from time immemorial, they had shifted to form different shapes—flowers blossoming in the eternal night, lacy gowns of white, lovers wrapped in each other’s arms.
Then he leaned over her, blotting them out. He kissed her lips urgently. He tasted of velvet night sky, of darkness that went on forever. He tasted of stars burning far away, of grandeur barely glimpsed, of worlds lost in the ether where exotic emotions held sway and he could command her body and all its responses. Each stroke of his tongue took her farther away from this place, this world, and she went willingly, not knowing where she wandered or why.
He kissed her cheeks, tilted her head aside, kissed her neck. Her throat. His mouth traveled, open and damp, up to her ear. His weight
pressed her into the blanket. He wanted. She surrendered. But she wasn’t afraid. Instead she wrapped her arms around his waist and whispered his name. “Garrick. Garrick.”
Without warning, he hurled himself off of her and flung himself to his feet.
Lifting herself onto her elbows, she pushed her hair from her eyes. “Garrick?”
He stood with his back to her, hands on his hips.
“Throckmorton, what’s wrong?”
“Go dress in your finest gown.” The velvet voice was gone, replaced by the guttural tone of a beast who had barely mastered the power of speech. “Dance with Ellery. Flirt with Ellery. Let me see you with Ellery, or you will find out just how little I care that you love Ellery.”
* * *
Seated at his desk, Throckmorton tapped his pen incessantly on the smooth, polished wood and stared at the blasted girl, head bent over the letter she was translating. Outdoors, rain dripped off the eaves and sluiced down the gutters, making the morning dark and drear. Candles flickered in candelabras set on either side of the desk to light the work so necessary to the perpetuity of the British Empire. And each little bead of light danced in the blonde strands that mixed with the honey brown of Celeste’s hair and lent a creamy patina to the smooth curve of her neck. She was beautiful, she was efficient, and the previous night, she had dared to do just as he told her to do. She had put on a ball gown of white, silken beauty and proceeded to flirt and dance with Ellery.
Throckmorton tapped the pen more quickly.
That hadn’t been how he’d planned it. Oh, he’d commanded her, but he hadn’t meant it. He’d wanted her to hide in her bedchamber, the bedchamber between deaf Lady Francis and hard-of-hearing Mrs. Landor, the bedchamber he thought an advantage should Ellery come to pound on Celeste’s door. Last night he had realized that bedchamber would be an advantage to him, Throckmorton, too. If he were to slip inside, the old ladies on either side would never know of his presence as he schooled Celeste in the luxury of love.
He had better move her into the now finished bedchamber beside the nursery, for thoughts like that could prove dangerous for his sanity . . . and for Celeste’s chastity.
How could she have gone to the ball? Throckmorton had wanted Celeste to dream of him and his kisses. Kisses he had found disturbing, intimate . . . almost uncontrollable.
His only objective, of course, was to save Ellery from her clutches, of course, and to preserve the very profitable union between Lord Longshaw and the Throckmortons.
“Throckmorton?” Celeste gazed directly at him through those hazel eyes. “The spelling on this document is rather erratic. I need to concentrate. Would you please stop tapping?”
“What?” He looked down at his constantly moving hand. “Oh. Yes.” He stopped.
She had the nerve to calmly go back to work.
Didn’t she comprehend how irked he was? Entire countries trembled at his command. She seemed not to care that she distracted him from his work, nor did she note how desperately he wished to rise, circle the desk, tilt her chin back and kiss her until she no longer remembered any other man’s name.
Kiss her.
He laughed harshly.
She paused in her writing and looked at him with the faintly alarmed expression of a woman confronted with a lunatic.
Which, perhaps, he had become. For when had he ever hungered for a woman like this? He currently had no mistress, and no taste for finding one when the only thought on his mind was Celeste, and Celeste, and Celeste.
The truth was, he wanted to do more than kiss her. He wanted to unfasten her bodice, the bodice which laced up from her tiny waist, over the curve of her breasts and just to the narrow V of her collar. That lacing challenged any man worth his salt, leading him into the kind of temptation forbidden in every precept of proper and Christian society.
Yet Throckmorton did not give in to temptation. He wasn’t that kind of man.
No, but he did imagine things. Things like loosening the tie on her lace chemise to view her breasts, with their silken textured skin and their pale, soft nipples. He dreamed of how they would taste, how they would pucker when he suckled on them.
If he were not the man he was, if he were irresponsible and lacked discipline, he would show her that his kisses were but a prelude to other delights which he alone could teach her. When he ran his hands up the silk-stockinged avenue of her legs, he would note each soft secret curve of flesh. At the top, he would open the slit in her pantaloons. At first he would touch her delicately, giving her time to get used to his fingers brushing the tight curls which hid her inner sanctum.
But when she looked up at him with those beautiful, changeable eyes and begged him for more . . . ah, then he would open the folds and find that most precious nub of feminine sensuality. And when he had caressed her until she was sighing and twisting, her marvelous sweet voice begging him for release then, and only then, would he enter her with his finger.
That, too, would be a prelude. He would linger over her like a musician over a fine instrument, and he would prove his competence extended beyond business and espionage. If he allowed himself the pleasure of pleasuring her, he would wipe her mind clear of any name but his. His was the name she would call in her ecstasy. He would teach her that. He would teach her everything.
If he allowed himself.
Which he would not.
He had to remember who he was. He had to remember who she was. He had to remember that her father was his faithful gardener, that he planned to send her back to Paris, that she was a virgin and he would never, ever dishonor a virtuous girl. Not even a girl whose smile brought him a pleasure he hadn’t experienced for too many long, lonely years.
“Mr. Throckmorton, please!” Celeste was glaring at him.
Had she read his thoughts?
No. She was glowering at the pen in his hand, which tapped and tapped and tapped.
“I cannot work any more quickly, and you are distracting me.” She sighed in aggravation. “Why don’t you walk out and consult with Esther on what she’s making for tonight’s entertainment? I understand it’s a musical evening, and I’m sure you’ll enjoy hearing the ladies display their gifts.”
His gaze dropped to her bosom, but he knew she didn’t mean those gifts.
Unaware, she continued, “When you get back, I promise I’ll be done.”
Carefully, he placed the pen on the desk. “I’ll stay.”
Because under no circumstances would he stand and display himself in this aching, aroused, desperate condition.
15
A burst of laughter from the conservatory stopped Celeste in her tracks. The rainy morning had turned into a rainy afternoon, and the youthful group who surrounded Ellery had taken up residence among the marble columns, the half dozen soft sofas, and the blaze of Milford’s cherished flowers.
Ellery’s smooth, practiced voice said, “You’re witty as well as handsome, Lady Napier.”
Lady Napier. Celeste allowed herself a private sneer. That smiling, flirtatious, covetous beauty. Last night she had dared raise questions about Celeste’s sudden appearance and mysterious antecedents.
If Celeste was still the Celeste who had arrived from Paris, she would march right into the conservatory and snatch Ellery out from underneath Lady Napier’s thin, aristocratic nose. But that Celeste had danced until three in the morning, eaten too much rich food, drunk too much champagne. Some intermediate Celeste had spent the morning translating documents from unintelligible Russian into pristine English for an ominous, snarling Throckmorton. Now the Celeste who stood here found retrieving Ellery to be too much of an effort.
So when he shouted, “Let’s go gamble away our ill-gotten inheritances,” Celeste pressed herself against the wall behind a miniature potted orange tree and watched as the whole, silly bunch of them fluttered and stomped out on their way toward another afternoon spent doing . . . nothing.
The scent of citrus faintly wafted from the white blossoms. A few fledgling green orange
s hung with the promise of fruit. Celeste stared at the waxy, emerald-veined leaves and pressed her fingertips to her forehead. She really had to get over this onslaught of fastidiousness. She had wanted Ellery forever, and she didn’t understand her own confusion, her appalled attraction to stodgy old Garrick.
And when had she begun to think of him as Garrick?
She didn’t think him more attractive than Ellery, so she hadn’t gone completely mad. But Garrick interested her; he was an enigma, a puzzle of darkling glares, fascinating insights and bone-melting kisses.
His kisses had driven her to the ball last night. She had needed the music, the dancing, the sight of Ellery to drive the sound, the feel, the sight of Garrick from her senses.
She had succeeded. If only she had not agreed to work with Garrick . . . not that he’d given her a choice.
She peered around the orange tree. Ellery and his crowd had rounded the corner. When the noise had died and she was sure the corridor was empty, she stepped out and prepared to go in the opposite direction—when the stifled sound of a sob within the conservatory stopped her. Somehow she knew she shouldn’t go to see who was crying. Some higher power warned her she would be sorry.
But whoever it was followed the first sob with a second, and a third, and the most long, pathetic sniff Celeste had ever heard. So with no more intention than to offer her handkerchief, she stepped into the conservatory.
Windows covered the outer wall and looked out onto the garden and the circle drive where carriages assembled to discharge their passengers. Potted blue clematis climbed up trellises between the windows. In the winter when the winds blew cold, and during the hottest days of summer, the velvet drapes of royal blue could be drawn, but even then the conservatory exuded the warmth of a much-loved chamber. Huge blue vases of yellow roses stood on tables and in corners, and in the center of the long room, two orange trees grew in huge pots, scenting the air with their delicate, spicy fragrance. The slender branches met overhead to form a dense green tangle, and like a flood of gold, alyssum frothed from the base of the trunks and down the sides of the pots.