Proof by Seduction (Carhart 1)

His hands slid up her waist, sliding over her chest. Jenny gasped as he thumbed her breasts. His fingers circled the tips, coaxing them into hardness. And then he pulled away from her mouth, and placed his lips around her nipple through the material of her dress.

A white blaze of light seared through the layers of cloth, and Jenny threw back her head. His practiced hands adjusted the bodice of her dress and pulled down her loose chemise and the thicker stays. He lifted a firm globe free. The cool air touched it for only a second before he closed his mouth around the tip. He licked it and a wave of pleasure crashed against her. He sucked it, and the wave became an ocean rising up eagerly to meet her.

Another kiss, this time on her mouth again. She drank him in, as tipsy on his taste as he appeared to be on hers. His hands came around her fiercely, and he fumbled behind her. Thank God for simple gowns. Her dress loosened. He pulled it down around her shoulders and it fell to her waist. Stays followed, and then her chemise.

“God,” he whispered, tracing the contours of her breast with one long finger. “You have no idea how many times I have fantasized about this.”

Before she could come up with an answer, he took her other breast in his mouth, and all possibility of words washed away in a hot surge of desire. Jenny clutched his shoulders, pressed herself against the hard ridge between his legs.

“You’re even more passionate than I dreamed,” he said. “The smallest touches. The way you move against me. Oh, God, Meg. Tell me your name.”

His mouth came down on her nipple again. This time he bit it lightly, and Jenny made a sound in her throat. She was drowning against him. But he showed no signs of letting her catch her breath to answer.

He lifted his head. “Tell me your name.”

Jenny, she thought. It’s Jenny Keeble. Her thoughts moved at a snail’s pace; her nails dug into his back.

“Can’t you feel it?” he whispered. “We’re going to explode together. Tell me your name. And I can be inside of you.”

Her inner muscles clenched at the thought.

He slipped his hand under her skirt and found her wet slickness waiting for him. He touched her between the legs, rubbed her where she was hot and slippery. Where she was sensitive, and those featherlight touches sent pulses of pleasure from head to toe.

“Yes,” he whispered. “God, I know you want me. Let me—”

Jenny shook her head to remind herself. “I won’t be your mistress.”

He kissed her throat. “At present, I’m not interviewing for the position. I’m here because of what you said.”

“What I said?”

“I am lonely. Damned lonely.”

She closed her hands on his shoulders, his words scalding into her.

He nodded. “You don’t like numbers. I’m trying to think what we have in common. That was what you said, right? Find what we have in common?”

It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. He was supposed to stay cold and distant. Instead, he tempted her with her deepest desires.

“Right,” he said, setting his jaw. “I can think of one thing we both enjoy.” He put his lips back around her nipple. He teased the sensitive bud back and forth. And then his hand circled down below, rubbing the sensitive flesh between her legs.

“Oh, my God,” she moaned. “Lord Blakely—”

He lifted his head, his eyes hooded. “Gareth,” he said.

“What?”

“My name is Gareth. Don’t call me Lord Blakely. Not now.”

He leaned his head against hers, nose to nose. Their breath mingled into sweet perfume. His hand, still trapped between her thighs, stroked gently. Jenny thrilled, half pleasure, half shame, that he touched her in that intimate way.

His eyes glowed. “Tell me your name,” he insisted.

“Nobody’s called me by my name in twelve years.”

“Nobody’s called me Gareth in twenty-four. I’ll not go another day without hearing it.”

Church bells struck the hour. It was the first event outside the two of them Jenny noticed. The heavy vibration from those deep tones echoed through her, a reverberation of the pleasure he sent through her with his touch. She counted the strokes. One, two…

His thumb stroked across her bare nipple again. “God almighty,” he whispered against her neck. “Please tell me your name.”

Three, four, five. Jenny rang like that bell. She tried to remember all the reasons why she couldn’t tell him her name. Six. Why she couldn’t allow him, naked and virile, into bed with her. Seven. Why he couldn’t sink into her right now, stretching her wide. Eight, and the bells stopped.

Eight o’clock.

Another echo, this one in her own mind. His words, at the beginning, before he’d even entered her rooms.

It was now eight o’clock in the evening.

Jenny straightened, her hands flying to her cheeks in horror. “Ned!”

“Ned?” She felt his thighs contract. He drew back, a scowl on his face. His tone was formal, with just a hint of offended sanctimony. “My name is Gareth.”

Jenny shook her head in exasperation. “Your cousin Ned.”

He sat, still and wary as a crouching leopard. He didn’t even blink. But she felt understanding come to him in the gradual contraction of his muscles. First the thighs that supported her. The tension traveled up his shoulders, through his hands. Finally, she saw fine, dark lines spread like a net across his face.

He let out a breath. “Ned. Ah, yes. Ned. I had completely forgotten. Do I have to go to him?”

The last question made him sound like a plaintive child. But he made the decision without Jenny saying a word. She could see his choice in the squaring of his shoulders. As if he were hefting a great weight in donning the mantle of Lord Blakely. He’d said he would meet his cousin at eight, and so meet the boy he would. His implacable honor and responsibility allowed no other option.

She stumbled to her feet, freeing him of her weight. He adjusted his clothing—fastening buttons, brushing his coat into some semblance of order. He didn’t look at her.

“I will return.” He fastened his cravat around his neck with the air of one tying a hangman’s noose. “As soon as is practicable. It’s only fifteen minutes there and back. This shouldn’t take long.”

He paused, his hand resting on her naked shoulder. And then he walked away.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

A BLAST OF HEAT from the massed, milling bodies struck Gareth in the face as he entered the crowded room at the Arbuthnots’. He was already overheated from hurrying, and tense with thwarted desire.

Under the best of circumstances, he despised crowds. They made any room feel a bit too small. They stank, scents of human sweat layering atop rosewater an

d jasmine in nauseating fashion. And even though he knew rationally it was not so, he always felt as if everyone were looking at him.

This crowd was no more appealing than usual. He scanned male faces, attached to somber black suits, looking for his cousin. Next to him, a majordomo announced him in a carrying tone.

So intent was he in his search for Ned that at first Gareth didn’t notice the preternatural hush that fell. But it was unmistakable. For several moments, there was neither a clink of glass nor one single out-of-place whisper. At first, he attributed the odd sensation to temporary mental disorder brought on by unfulfilled lusts. Then he thought it a simple lull in conversation. A statistical anomaly, to be sure, but the anomalous occurred all the time.

But the sea of surrounding wide-eyed faces aligned toward Gareth like iron filings in a magnetic field. In a single gut-clenching moment, he realized the silence was not happenstance. Everyone really was looking at him. And—a quick check—he’d buttoned his jacket properly and his cravat was not askew.

Three seconds after the hush fell, conversation swelled about him in renewed fervor. He snatched pieces of conversation. “Carhart” he heard from an elderly lady. He strained his ears listening for others. But they were indistinct in the hubbub. “Embrace,” he heard quite clearly. And “compromise.”

Not three words he wanted to hear in close connection. Perhaps there was a perfectly reasonable explanation. There was no need to panic just yet. For instance, what the matron had whispered could very well have been something like, “It’s a good thing Mr. Edward Carhart has finally decided to embrace reality and come to a reasoned compromise with his cousin.”

It could have been.

And the hostess could have suspended the law of gravity for this fête.

Slowly, Gareth made his way through the densely packed crowds. They opened around him. Nobody spoke to him. Nobody even looked at him.

As he walked, those he neared shut their mouths and kept quiet. It was incredibly annoying. The first time he actually wanted to overhear a conversation, and nobody dared oblige him. Gareth did manage to grasp a few pieces here and there. Every phrase he heard was like picking up a sharp shard of glass, painted in a distinct color. Individually, the pieces meant nothing; a blur of color, a few lines. But by the time he reached the other end of the hall, he’d obtained enough bits to construct a damning—and damnable—mosaic.