Mary Balogh - Slightly Scandalous

He had not-he had certainly not-intended kissing her that way. And he had not anticipated her own wild outpouring of passion. Which was foolish of him really. Despite all her haughtiness, he had had ample evidence that she was a woman of forceful character and uncertain temper and impulsive nature.

She would, he suspected now, be all wild, unleashed passion in bed.

It was something he would have been altogether more comfortable not suspecting at all since the only way he could verify such an enticing idea was through marriage, and marriage was just not in his immediate or medium-term plans.

It was fortunate indeed that it was not in hers either.

He escorted her all the way to Lady Holt-Barron's door in Bath and took her horse back to the livery stable from which it had been hired. Then he stabled his own horse and arrived back at his grandmother's in the middle of the afternoon, feeling windblown and full of energy and determined that he must leave Bath within the next few days before he was tempted to step into some further indiscretion with Lady Freyja Bedwyn that perhaps he would not be able to step out of so easily.

His grandmother was entertaining in the drawing room, Gibbs informed him. She had asked that Lord Hallmere call on her there immediately after he returned from his ride.

Joshua followed the butler up the stairs, checking to see that his riding clothes were at least marginally respectable for a brief appearance in the drawing room. But his grandmother had said immediately. He had better not take the time to go to his room to change.

There were two ladies with his grandmother. Joshua had seen neither of them in five years, but there was no mistaking his aunt, the Marchioness of Hallmere. She was of medium height and slight build and looked sweet and frail and even sickly. She had always looked the same way. But the outer appearance, as he had discovered to his cost during his years at Penhallow, hid a steely, domineering will, and a mean, humorless disposition. The younger woman with her, less plump, less plain than he remembered her, was Constance, her eldest daughter.

His aunt never left Penhallow. It was her domain and she ruled it like a private fiefdom. Even the desirability of taking her daughters to London when they reached a suitable age for presentation to the queen and an introduction to the beau monde had not coaxed her away. It must be something of immense importance that had brought her to Bath.

Himself, no doubt.

He had ignored her invitations to come home to Penhallow. So she had taken the extraordinary step of coming to him-informed of his presence here, no doubt, by her friend Mrs. Lumbard. His heart landed somewhere in the soles of his boots.

"Aunt?" he said. "Constance?" He bowed to them both before greeting his grandmother with a stiff smile.

"Joshua," his aunt said, getting to her feet and coming toward him, both slender hands outstretched. Her voice shook with emotion. There were tears in her eyes. "My dearest boy. We have been living in anxiety for too long, my poor girls and I. Hallmere-the late Hallmere-is gone, and Albert is gone. We are entirely at your mercy. You were raised at Penhallow just like one of our own, of course, but the young often forget the debts they owe to those who loved them and sacrificed for them during their growing years."

Good Lord! Could she look him in the eye and utter such nonsensical drivel? But of course she could. Joshua took her offered hands in his-they were limp and cold-and squeezed them before releasing them.

"I am not about to toss you out on the street with my cousins, Aunt," he said briskly. Besides, even if he did just that, she had her more than adequate widow's settlement from the estate.

"But you are certain to marry soon," she said, "and we will be in the way of your marchioness, much as I would welcome her to Penhallow with open arms. No, I have come to Bath to arrange matters with you to the satisfaction of all of us. I have brought Constance with me."

Of course she had brought Constance with her. And one glance at his cousin's pale, set face assured him that she knew the reason as well as he did-and liked it as little.

Why had she not spoken up, then? Why had she not refused to come with her mother? Refused to comply with the scheme his aunt was obviously concocting?

But to be fair to Constance, he knew how near impossible it was to thwart the Marchioness of Hallmere when her mind was once set upon a particular course.

She had obviously decided that her best chance of keeping her home and her dominion over it was to marry her eldest daughter to her nephew.

Lord help him!

CHAPTER VI

It was raining heavily the next morning, and Lady Holt-Barron decided against going to the Pump Room. Freyja spent the morning writing letters to Eve and Judith, her sisters-in-law, and to Morgan. She described yesterday's ride, including the Misses Darwins' fear of riding at anything faster than a cautious crawl and the Earl of Willett's fussy insistence upon treating ladies as if they were delicate hothouse plants. She described her own escape with the Marquess of Hallmere and their race across country, jumping hedgerows as they went.

She did not describe what had happened after their race was over, of course, but she did sit and think about it for long minutes, brushing the feather of her quill pen absently back and forth across her chin.

It had been a scandalously lascivious kiss, and she feared that perhaps she was the one who had made it so. He had had her face cupped in his hands when he started and then he had kissed her lips. No other part of his body had been touching any other part of hers. The whole thing would probably have ended sweetly and chastely if she had not clutched his waist for balance and then leaned right against him and then wrapped her arms about him. And then . . .

Well.

And then.

She frowned fiercely.

But she must not assume all the blame. It was he who had started licking at her lips and putting his tongue into her mouth and doing things there that he must have known very well would drive her to distraction. She felt no doubt that he was well experienced with such tactics of dalliance-and doubtless far more too. He had instigated all that had followed.

But there was no particular comfort in the thought. As usual, she had danced on his string like a brainless puppet. He had probably laughed at her all the way home and all through the evening. He was probably still laughing this morning and dreaming up ways of provoking her into making an idiot of herself again today.

Lady Freyja Bedwyn did not take kindly to being made to look a fool.

But, oh dear-she sighed aloud as she dipped her pen in the ink and prepared to resume her letter to Morgan-that one kiss had awakened hungers she had thought only Kit capable of arousing. Perhaps it was not so much Kit she had been in love with all these years as the exuberant passion of her own nature that had burst into glorious life when she had been with him four summers ago.

Now there was a thought.

Being a twenty-five-year-old virgin was really a rather dreary thing to be, she decided, and she debated with herself for a minute or two longer whether to add the advice to her letter that Morgan look seriously about her for a husband when she made her come-out next spring. But Bedwyns were notorious for never taking advice, even-or especially-from one another. And Morgan would think Freyja was sickening for some deadly disease if she did anything as uncharacteristic as advising her sister to participate willingly in the marriage mart. Besides, there was something mildly lowering about the thought of Morgan marrying before she did.

Her mind touched again upon the Earl of Willett as a prospective husband but she dismissed the thought without further consideration. She really would not be able to bear it. He would insist upon treating her like a lady every minute of every day-and of every night too, most like. She would expire of boredom and frustration and ire within a month.