Tentatively, she lifted her hand and just touched the crown of his head. His hair was springy, yet soft. He half-opened one eye and peered up at her quizzically. She held her breath, bracing herself against a caustic comment. For he never seemed to want to indulge in any behaviour she would regard as affectionate. And stroking a man’s hair, as he lay with his head in her lap, most definitely came under that category.
‘That would feel much better,’ he said, eventually, ‘if you were to remove your gloves.’
And then he closed his eyes again, freeing her to breathe out and then to remove her gloves and put them down on the grass at her side.
Stroking his hair with her bared fingers did indeed feel much better. And, since he’d pretty much given her permission to do it, she not only ran her fingers over his hair, but plunged them through the thick, springy softness.
After a while, he reached up and caught her hand, but only to kiss her fingers, one by one. Which sent lightning bolts of excitement winging all over her body.
Making her wish she could be as bold as Betsy Woodly. Because thanks to that afternoon she’d spent stuck halfway up Farmer Westthorpe’s oak tree, she knew that he enjoyed, um, sporting with females in the open air. And now he’d brought her down to the ground, in this sheltered little spot, with the birds mewing overhead and the waves shushing dozens of feet below, she was starting to think she could see the attraction. It would certainly be a most elemental experience to feel the sun, and wind, upon naked skin.
She snatched her hand from his and pressed it to her mouth. Good lord, what was happening to her? Thinking such wicked thoughts?
Such tempting thoughts.
‘I have changed my mind,’ she said. ‘I think I would like to explore the walk and the gardens, and perhaps even the caves, as well.’
CHAPTER TWENTY
It didn’t help. Not even stumbling around in the chilly, gloomy caves had been able to damp down the feelings that he’d started up on the cliff top by laying his head in her lap. By telling her that he’d truly wanted to marry her so many years ago. Because that meant that all the snide things he’d said to her since, the way he’d mocked her and taunted her, hadn’t stemmed from disdain, but thwarted desire.
By the time they returned to their lodgings her insides felt as though they were melting, and her blood was fizzing through her veins like champagne. She hadn’t felt as ready for him, in a sexual way, since…
She shook her head. She’d never wanted him this much. Well, she’d never allowed herself to want him. At all. Not when she’d believed the attraction was one-sided. But now, oh, how she wished she could drag him into her room and tear off her clothes, and then his, and push him to the bed. Only Nancy was bound to be waiting in her room with a basin of water and her evening clothes laid out in readiness. As though she’d been watching out for her return. It wouldn’t surprise her to learn that Nancy owned opera glasses which she used for just that purpose.
The thought of Nancy in possession of opera glasses acted on her like a glass of water to the face. She actually did splash her face with water some moments later, when she reached her room to find everything exactly as she’d foreseen. For Nancy was the kind of servant who prided herself on giving superlative service.
Clare washed herself briskly and went to the dressing table where she sat down with her back to the maid.
‘You should have taken a parasol out with you,’ said Nancy with a little shake of her head. ‘Your cheeks have become quite pink in the sun.’
It wasn’t the sun that was making her cheeks pink. Clare was pretty sure she was blushing all over.
‘The wind would have blown a parasol away, if I’d taken one up to the cliffs,’ she retorted, irritated by Nancy’s determination to ‘improve’ her. ‘In fact, it did blow his lordship’s hat away.’
‘No!’ Nancy giggled. For the first time since coming to work for her. As though she was a friend, rather than a maid.
And Clare saw that, actually, Nancy wasn’t that much older than her. It was just the severe way she styled her hair and the sombre hue of her clothes that made her look so strict and stuffy.