Delicious (28 page)

“Don’t cry. Please don’t cry.”

Fresh tears rolled down her cheeks, warm rivulets against his thumbs. Before he knew what he was doing, he’d leaned down and kissed her tears, tasting the salt and faint bitterness of it.

Her skin was not flawless softness, but that was on a par with saying that Helen of Troy did not excel at embroidery. It simply did not matter. It was
her,
her jaw, her cheek, her eyelashes fluttering against the corner of his lips, her hair and clothes and skin that retained the lingering scent of the madeleines.

She tilted her face a little and suddenly their lips were only a fraction of an inch apart. He imagined he could see her exhalation as little puffs of ghostly vapor. She was breathing fast; her breath smelled of warm apple pudding. And he was hot all over, hard and hungry and impatient for his downfall.

He wanted to sink his mouth against hers, lick the inside of her lips, and stroke her moist, mobile tongue. He wanted to roll her gorgeous nipples between his fingers and feel them engorge. He wanted to push up her skirts and take all the liberties that she would allow him—many, he was sure, for her breath shook and trembled in anticipation.

It would be simple and sweet to take her right here, to ease the ache of desire that had never subsided since the moment her chocolate custard had first touched his lips. A quick, mindless fuck, to wean himself from this irrational lust that had gone on too long already. A quick, mindless, explosive, luscious, incendiary, staggering—

With his last iota of control he took a step back, and another. He was to be married, to a dear girl with whom he’d chatted warmly only hours ago as they took their round in the park, a dear girl who did not deserve the disgrace of a fiancé who shagged the help seven weeks before the wedding.

And even if he’d never proposed to Lizzy, his reputation could ill survive this. No one had forgotten his origin; they but refrained from mentioning it when they could find no fault with his conduct. The moment he started consorting with undesirables, the gossipmongers would nod at each other and concur that it had always been only a matter of time before he revealed his true heritage.

“You are all right, I take it?” he said, making sure that his voice was free from inflections.

“I’m perfectly well. Pray do not let me keep you,” she said, her breathing under control.

There was something commanding, even imperial to her formal answer. It astonished him. Somehow he’d never noticed before that despite her strong accent—she spoke the throaty French of the South—her grammar was impeccable and her verbs, from past pluperfect to
futur antérieur,
perfectly conjugated.

He wasn’t aware that French cooks were culled from a higher social stratum than English ones. Where had she come by her educated speech? From Bertie? He could see Bertie helping her with her English perhaps, but teaching a Frenchwoman to speak better French?

In the end, it was she, not he, who first walked away, her footsteps echoing on the damp stone floor. She did not go up the service stairs, but entered the kitchen, shutting the door behind her before turning on the light.

He listened for a few minutes to her quiet, purposeful motion in the kitchen. And then he and his still heavy loins fumbled in the dark until he found the beginning of the steps that would take him up to the green baize door and out, back to his world, a world that had no tolerance for passionate mistakes—at least not for a man like him.

Chapter Fourteen

L
izzy loved a good dance, but it must have been two years, at least, since she’d last attended one. Mrs. Mortimer’s dance was her reward for herself, an evening of fun and frolic to bid good riddance to her overlong stay on the shelf. And during the first hour, she enjoyed herself thoroughly. She talked; she laughed; she showed off her engagement ring and danced every set.

Then, in between dances, Mrs. Douglas, a junior minister’s wife, approached her. Lizzy did not care for Mrs. Douglas, an avid gossip and busybody who never met a rumor she couldn’t spread like so much manure. But she pasted a smile on her face and received Mrs. Douglas’s congratulations in good grace.

“And we shall see you at Mr. Somerset’s dinner next week, shan’t we?”

“But of course,” said Lizzy. “Come prepared to marvel, my dear Mrs. Douglas, for Mr. Somerset has inherited the most astonishing cook.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t miss it for the world. But…” Mrs. Mortimer looked about them, leaned in, and spoke from beneath her fan. “A piece of advice, my dear Miss Bessler. Sack the cook as soon as you are married.”

“Mrs. Douglas, I must have misunderstood you,” Lizzy said coolly. “Have reliable cooks become so easy to replace these days?”

“No, of course not. Goodness knows, mine is a nightmare and still I dare not let her go.” Mrs. Douglas giggled nervously. “But you know what people have said about that woman and Mr. Somerset’s brother.”

And you know what people have said about
your
brother and that governess,
Lizzy was tempted to retort. But she was to be a politician’s wife and such open skirmishes were best avoided.

“I will keep that in mind,” she said.

That encounter wasn’t enough to spoil Lizzy’s mood on its own, but she turned around only to be confronted with the sight of Henry and his new wife, a sweet young thing who looked as if she’d stepped out of a beauty soap advertisement, arriving at the dance.

Word was that it had been love at first sight. He’d proposed to her within a month of their first meeting and three months later they were married, ten days before Sweet Young Thing’s eighteenth birthday.

“Are you an admirer of the great philosopher, Miss Bessler?”

Lizzy started. Mr. Marsden stood at her elbow, watching her. He tilted his chin in Henry’s direction.

“No,” she said. Her gaze returned to the happy couple.

“Allow me to phrase it better.
Were
you an admirer?”

Had she been? It was difficult to say. To this day she couldn’t adequately explain to herself why she had taken Henry Franklin as a lover. Because life as a failed debutante was one of unending tedium? Because she meant to destroy herself in a fiery act of nihilism? Because since she couldn’t have either the highest title or the greatest wealth, what use was her virginity?

Henry had been a married man from the beginning of their acquaintance, but he never concealed his distaste for his wife, a pale, limp woman who spent her days as a semi-invalid. His honesty and brutal intelligence had intrigued Lizzy, as well as his reputation as the most esteemed philosopher of his generation.

She’d thought herself an intellectual equal to Henry, the sort of woman who fascinated a man. And perhaps she was his intellectual equal, but she was no match for him in callousness or manipulation, for Henry’s fine mind and voracious sexual appetite both paled in comparison to his effortless disregard for others.

When his first wife had unexpectedly passed away of pneumonia, Lizzy had thought Henry would propose to her, only to have him laugh and tell her that she was but one of his mistresses, and that while she was a fine diversion when he was in the mood, he married only virgins.

She’d been speechless. He was the one who’d taken her virginity, or did he not remember? He did, he assured her. But since she had so little regard for it, why should he value it more? And what evidence did he have that she hadn’t slept with other men since then?

It might have been all right had that been the end of it. After all, a man so publicly dismissive of his wife probably had it in him to be devoted to no one but himself. But then Henry had fallen in love, hard, and Society talked of nothing but the vast romance of his courtship, his endless tenderness to the young woman who’d captured his heart, and what a changed man he’d become.

And
that
had nearly destroyed what remained of Lizzy’s confidence.

“Do you think, Mr. Marsden, that had I been an admirer of Mr. Franklin’s, I would choose to tell you, of all people, about it?”

He chuckled. “I would never have told Mr. Somerset anything, you do realize?”

She turned her face to him, paying attention now. He was in dark evening formals, the tails of his jacket cut long, his features perfect as always—Cupid grown up and out to wreak havoc.

“And how do you suppose I should have realized such goodwill and restraint on your part?” she said sharply.

Their eyes met. He smiled, a small, rueful smile, and raised a punch glass to his lips. “I beg your pardon. Of course you’ve no way of knowing.”

The musicians struck up a new waltz. He surveyed the landscape about them. “I see no one rushing this way to claim you. May I have this dance?”

The refusal was on the tip of her tongue. But then Henry glanced in her direction and her answer changed. “You may, sir.”

He set down his punch and swept her onto the dance floor without another word. She expected him to be a good dancer, light-footed and graceful. He was better than good; he was divine. His build had seemed so slender, almost willowy. Yet this close, with their bodies braced together at every turn, he was stronger and more solid than she’d imagined.

“What, precisely, are you doing at a gathering for mostly impressionable young people, sir?” she demanded.

“I was invited. A gentleman who is willing to dance is always a prized commodity—and no doubt I’d make some sweet young thing a suitable husband.”

“You?”

“Why not? I’m generally considered a sensible, reliable man. And even you must acknowledge: I turn heads wherever I go.”

She wasn’t about to acknowledge that, even though she saw, out of the periphery of her spinning vision, young women gawking at them—at him. “Are you not living in dire poverty?”

“Do I look it?”

She had to admit he didn’t. His clothes, if anything, were on the extravagant side. “Impressionable young women have less impressionable mamas who are better informed about your pennilessness. And even if some foolish matron thinks you’ll do for a son-in-law, why would
you
want to do it? Isn’t it a bit like going to a symphonic concert when you are deaf?”

“No, more like taking someone who prefers music hall to a symphonic concert. It’s not my cup of tea. But should all the music halls in England burn down, and I’m desperate for music, I will make do with a symphonic concert.”

Meaning he was quite capable of going to bed with a woman. Somehow she managed not to step on his toes while the significance of his words sank in.

“And since you demand absolute discretion from me, a married man is less likely to be suspect, no?”

“I should dearly pity the young woman on whom you choose to spring this deception,” she said severely.

“Now that is harsh, Miss Bessler.”

“No more than you deserve.”

“I believe I deserve better from you, but that’s a different topic altogether.” He wheeled her out of the way of an inept couple careening around the ballroom. “Do you think there is not one grown-up, sophisticated young lady in all of London who would find marriage to me an acceptable bargain?”

“What is in the bargain for her, other than your penury and your certain-to-come philandering?”

“I’ve been to quite a few symphonic concerts on both sides of the Channel, for one thing, so I’m well at ease with…symphonic concerts. I’ll be a suitably attentive husband, as I’ve no ambition that would keep me at the Palace of Westminster six months out of the year. And she would be the only woman for me—my heart, my anchor, my day, and my night.”

He spoke with an unwavering gaze and a sardonic smile, all the while steering a perfectly elliptical path around the ballroom.

Her heart beat fast, and not from the dancing. “What of music hall?”

“What’s a little music hall in a marriage with much mutual affection and a great deal of symphonic concerts?”

She heated in places that should never heat for
him.
Valiantly she ignored the sensations. “Why have you been to so many symphonic concerts when your natural inclination is for music hall?”

“Convenience. Availability. Acquired taste. Who knows?” He shrugged with one shoulder. “And who cares?”

“I do,” she said tightly. “The last thing I want is a promiscuous man who goes on a boudoir rampage while hungering for what a woman cannot give him.”