Elizabeth Beacon - Regency - Courtship And Candlelight - One Final Season

Furious, she did her best to bite him, so he deepened his kiss and dared her give whatever she might have had the wits to withhold until now. Defeated by her own need of him, her body seemed to meld itself to Edmund’s powerfully lean one of its own accord and wild heat burst into instant life again. She angled her wanton mouth to his in a way she should think appallingly fast but didn’t. Never mind fast , her deepest buried instincts warred with her training, he’ll still marry you now, even if he doesn’t really want to .

She couldn’t make herself break away, even with that chilly thought in the back of her mind, but she clenched her hands at her sides and refused them the luxury of his lithely muscled body. It didn’t abate the searing wildfire flaming through her like a force of nature, but it made her feel a little better about herself and the self-control she’d once prided herself upon.

Unimpressed, his hands ran over her in an unashamed exploration and she loved it. She’d always denied being capable of deep feeling, in her ignorance of how elemental and out of control she would be with the right man. Now he let his wicked hands find a way between them, despite her body’s ridiculous efforts to plaster itself against him like a poultice, and Edmund ran an approving thumb over a raised nipple that immediately hardened and begged for more without permission from her. She had to fight not to moan and cry out a frantic demand for more, for everything. If not for the half-painful gnaw of need, the half-wondrous goad of heat at the heart of her, of course she would put distance between them and escape the purely physical spell he’d cast over her, yes, that was just what she would do, in a minute.

This was the wild and passionate Kate he’d always known existed beneath that façade of serenely composed beauty. Edmund managed to find enough willpower from somewhere to put a distance between them and convince himself painfully that he’d discovered enough about her most secret passions for now, in public or almost public as they were. He forced his hands away from her delicious body before his fascination with it broke his self-control. She was flushed and breathless, her soft gasps for air drawing his attention to her lush, but firm, young breasts, rising and falling rapidly against the low neckline even a single lady could wear by her fourth Season without being considered intolerably fast.

Her eyes were wild and more beautiful than he could ever recall seeing them even in his dreams as they blazed with feelings he would give half his fortune to read fully. Her lips parted as she fought to get her breath back and his eyes lingered on them with hungry fascination as she slicked them with her sharp little tongue. If he wasn’t to throw himself on her and ravish her on the lower terrace of his hostess’s garden, he must get their engagement rolling relentlessly on before she lost that starry-eyed, just-kissed look and remembered all the doubts and fears that inhabited her contrary thoughts whenever he wasn’t in a position to haze them with merciless passion. An image he’d best not dwell on if he wanted to get the next few minutes over with without causing an even bigger scandal than the one he had in mind.

‘Come,’ he ordered brusquely as he towed her back to the shark-infested waters of the ton , before she balked.

‘I still can’t see why …’ Miss Alstone seemed about to take over from his wild Kate, so Edmund summarily tugged her into the ballroom and put an end to her nonsense.

‘Good heavens!’ Cromer exclaimed at the sight of a stormy-eyed, very thoroughly kissed Kate on Edmund’s arm and just managed to suppress a grin. ‘They’re quite right about that dangerous moonlight,’ he mumbled as he stepped back to let the company see what it had done to so cool and collected a couple.

‘Good heavens, indeed, and yes, very right,’ Edmund replied calmly.

‘I don’t think they had much to do with it,’ his Kate mumbled tartly and Edmund wondered if he was suffering from shock and hallucinating when she didn’t just tear herself away from him and flounce off. It wasn’t every day a man heard murder plotted, and with Kate pressed so close he’d struggled to listen to a word of it. He’d wanted her so mercilessly and now he nearly had what he’d longed for so deeply within his grasp at long last, what had happened so far tonight almost seemed unreal to him for a few moments.

‘I hope you’ll congratulate us, Cromer, for I refuse to wait any longer after three years of waiting for a yea instead of a nay, even if her former guardian and brother-in-law hasn’t agreed to it yet,’ he said with a possessive look at Kate.

‘Carnwood cutting up rough, is he?’ Cromer asked obligingly, managing to look astonished while his eyes told them he didn’t believe a word.

‘You see? Everyone thinks I’m your ideal husband,’ he whispered in Kate’s ear and felt her tense, as if she might jump away and deny every last truthful hint of how they’d been amusing themselves since they left the ballroom that he was building up so carefully. ‘Try it and I’ll kiss you right here,’ he threatened softly.

‘I hate you,’ she told him between clenched teeth and he met the heat and fury of her furious glare with a satisfied smile.

‘Hate away, my fierce Kate,’ he murmured and heard a sentimental sigh from somewhere close by.

‘Mountebank!’ she condemned in a spitting undertone, but still made no effort to pull away or give his apparent devotion the lie.

Looking as if he was trying very hard to come down to earth, Edmund considered his friend’s previous question. ‘No,’ he replied to the clever lead, ‘but I can’t tear myself away long enough to go up to Derbyshire and ask him.’

‘Should think you’ve obtained his permission often enough in the past,’ Cromer said.

‘So I keep telling Miss Alstone, but it took me until tonight to convince her I can’t endure to wait and be wed with the full fanfare and fuss of a grand wedding. I’ll have to go and beard Carnwood in his lair now she’d agreed at last that our wedding must be soon, then maybe we can get on with being my lord and my lady at long last.’

‘Short notice, gossips bound to twitter like starlings in an apple orchard,’ his taciturn friend warned sagely and Edmund gave an expressive shrug before looking significantly about him at the eagerly whispering throng.

‘I’ve waited long enough,’ he said loudly enough for most to hear him and enjoy a fresh wave of delighted speculation.

He smiled wolfishly at Kate, hoping his eyes conveyed a warning to back him up now this was all but irrevocable. She really had the most extraordinary eyes, they were truly ultramarine, he decided distractedly, savouring the word on his tongue as he almost murmured it aloud. Very blue, he translated, and was in grave danger of falling into the wondrous depths of them and not caring where it took either of them. Most blue, he corrected in his head, and freed himself of their spell just in time to stop himself kissing her passionately in public.

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