The acknowledgment flared in her face. She wanted to kiss him, too, and he knew it in that instant. She desired him as much as he did her. It was all the permission he needed.
Sebastian bent forward, savoring the moment, controlling the urge to plunder. Her lips were soft, trembling, and cold. He let his own breath warm them, and ran his tongue gently around them. She gasped. He caught it with his mouth, pressing closer. Flame licked at him, burning, a desire such as he had never known. And suddenly she was pulling away, shaking her head, pushing at him. He let her go, stunned by what he had felt as much as from any belated gentlemanly instincts.
There was fright in her eyes. The knowledge sobered him into remembering that he was seducing her, not forcing her against her will. Whatever her birth might be, this was a respectably brought-up young lady.
“My apologies, Miss Greentree,” he said, and didn’t try to hide the regret as well as the apology in his voice. The desire to feel her lips under his again was a powerful one.
She turned away, presenting him with her flushed cheek.
Just then lightning flashed dangerously close to them. A heartbeat later thunder roared. The rain was back and heavier than before, sweeping across the moors, drenching everything in its path. Sebastian could hardly see more than two feet before him. Francesca seemed to have forgotten about the kiss as she hurried along beside him.
Francesca Greentree, Aphrodite’s natural daughter. Did the heart of a courtesan lie buried beneath Francesca’s plain—and now decidedly damp—bodice? He wondered what she thought of being the daughter of a courtesan. Did she revel in the decadence of it, or was she appalled by her own birth? Sebastian considered the questions as he trudged along beside her, trying hard to ignore the exhaustion in his body and mind, and the appalling weather.
“How can anyone live in this bloody place?” he grumbled.
“You are not seeing it at its best,” she said, pausing to wipe the rain from her eyes. She sneezed.
“Bless you,” he muttered.
“There!” Her voice was ragged and she was bedraggled, but when she turned to him, her eyes were burning with joy. Sebastian followed the direction of her pointing finger, peering through the rain. Lights. A house, and a comfortably large one.
“Greentree Manor,” she said. “Come on, Mr. Thorne, only a little farther!” At that moment the wind strengthened, blowing her wild hair about her. She seemed completely at home in this hostile world. Dear God, but she was beautiful, he thought in astonishment. This was no respectable spinster, although she might try to pretend she was. Francesca was a creature of the storm.
“I still want to kiss you,” he gasped, and he didn’t know whether he was shaking from exhaustion and cold, or Francesca Greentree. His blood was drumming in his ears.
“Oh look, the servants coming to help us! Thank goodness…”
“I said, I still want to kiss you, Francesca.”
“Mr. Thorne—”
“I mean to have you.”
She stared at him a moment in astonishment, and then she turned abruptly to the approaching men and cried out, waving her arms. Voices shouted in reply, and lanterns bobbed in the gathering darkness.
He watched her rush toward them, thinking she was saved.
She wasn’t. Sebastian Thorne had her in his sights, and nothing but complete surrender would save her now.
Chapter 4
Francesca wriggled as much of herself as possible down into the hip bath. Lil had lined it with towels to make it more cozy, scented the warm water with something sweet and restful, and she was gradually beginning to feel like her old self.
It must have been the shock. I couldn’t possibly have felt what I did.
But, uncomfortable as it was, she knew that it wasn’t simply an illusion due to the circumstances she had found herself in. There was more. Something she had sworn never to feel. Oh, she had fantasized through her poetry. Byron in particular. The darker side of love attracted Francesca, and she enjoyed dreaming about dangerous heroes, but she’d certainly never felt anything like the wild attraction she’d experienced when she looked into Sebastian Thorne’s eyes.
He was cursing the storm one moment and trying to seduce her the next. He was very possibly unstable. She didn’t know why he was wandering around the moors, but she thought it was probably something illegal. As they had said about Byron, he was “mad, bad and dangerous to know,” but Francesca found herself hooked and wriggling, like a fish on a line.
He’d kissed her!
She could hardly believe it. He’d kissed her, and she’d let him. Francesca supposed she could pretend that she hadn’t known what he was about to do until it was too late, but that wasn’t true. She’d seen the desire in his eyes, and she’d wanted him to kiss her. Wanted it as much as she’d ever wanted anything.
A shiver ran through her now at the memory of his lips on hers, of his body pressed to hers. Oh yes, it had certainly lived up to expectations. And it wasn’t as if she’d never been kissed before—several times she had been the unwilling recipient of the attentions of smitten young men. But nothing could compare to Sebastian Thorne’s kiss. She felt as if he’d opened up a door inside her, and she was having difficulty closing it.
But close it she must.
Because of her heritage, Francesca had long ago sworn an oath to herself that she would never allow any man to stir in her the passions she feared were sleeping just below the surface. She didn’t want to end up like her mother, tossed from lover to lover, without any control over her own destiny. Ruled by her emotions and her desires. The truth was, it had never been a problem, until now.