Educating Caroline (18 page)

She laid the pencil down. When he lifted his gaze from her mouth to her eyes, he saw that she was looking at him very seriously through the lenses of her spectacles.

“Mr. Granville,” she said, severely. “Perhaps you’ve misunderstood. I did not come here out of a desire to be added to your harem. I am not at all interested in having a love affair with you. I am, as you know, engaged to be married.”

He felt a strange spurt of delight shoot through him. It was quite inexplicable. He had never felt anything like it before in his life.

“As am I, Lady Caroline,” he said, spreading his hands wide. “But you don’t see me quibbling over the propriety of my teaching you these things. Why should you quibble over the propriety of learning them? After all,
you,
Lady Caroline, came to
me.”

“But,” she said, in a voice that was a good deal fainter than the one she’d used before, “I don’t see why you can’t just
tell
me—”

“I told you.” He pushed back his chair and stood up. “Because it isn’t the sort of thing you can tell.” He came around his desk quickly, before he could talk himself out of it, and while he still had her flummoxed. “I have to show you. It’s the only way,” he said, bending down to take the notebook and pencil from her limp hands, “you’ll learn.”

“But,” Caroline said, weakly.

“You want to impress the marquis, don’t you?” He’d taken her hand, and now he pulled her firmly up from her chair.

“Yes,” she said, in the same unsteady voice. “But—”

The spectacles, he realized, would have to come off. He reached up, and gently disengaged them, speaking to her in the same low, reassuring voice, the sort of voice a groom might use on a nervous horse.

“Everything will be all right,” he said. “You’ll see. You might even enjoy it.”

“I don’t think so,” Caroline said, anxiety written plainly in her enormous, expressive brown eyes.

“Well,” Braden said, “I do.” He reached up and swept a wayward amber curl from her forehead. While she was distracted by that, he stooped down, and with a feeling of urgency, pressed his mouth against hers.

13

C
aroline could hardly believe what was happening. One minute, it seemed, she’d had the situation perfectly under control, and the next, Braden Granville was kissing her.

How had it happened? How had she allowed things to get so out of hand, when she had been on such vigilant guard against this sort of nonsense? After all, Braden Granville was the most notorious rake in all of England. It was only to be expected that he would try something like this.

Only he had made it so clear, that first day she’d come to him, that he wanted nothing to do with her. She had thought he quite disliked her, that she’d horrified him with her forwardness, that he thought her a stupid, foolish virgin not worth a second glance.

And now, here she was, with her face cupped in Braden Granville’s enormous, calloused hands—she could feel the callouses, rough upon the skin of her cheeks—and instead of feeling gratified that he obviously didn’t find her as repulsive as she’d first thought, she felt only panic.

Because he was kissing her in a manner quite unlike any she’d ever experienced before. Not that he’d thrust his tongue into her mouth—not at all. He was merely moving his lips over hers in the lightest, gentlest kisses imaginable. His lips, unlike his hands, weren’t at all hard, which was a surprise. He certainly
looked
as if he’d be very hard, all over, but his lips were shockingly soft.

There was strength behind that softness, though, and it was that strength which Caroline found herself responding to. There was something seductive about it, about the restraint he was exercising. She could sense that restraint in the careful way he held her head, not allowing his hands to go roaming anywhere else—sense that it was only with an effort he did not snatch her closer to him, bend her body back, and crush her against his rock-hard frame.

And it was that realization which caused her to relax. Her arms, hanging limply at her sides, seemed suddenly impossible to lift. Her knees seemed to have gone the consistency of butter. She felt as if Braden Granville’s hands alone were keeping her upright.

Even her mouth, which she’d been holding tightly closed, seemed to loosen under the petal-soft caresses of his lips. She felt her lips part, and then go slack, as if he had uttered some magic word, and opened them.

But no mere word could have made her feel so deliciously languorous, and yet so thoroughly alive. There was magic involved, no doubt about that . . . but that magic lay in Braden Granville’s gently persuasive lips, not in anything he had said.

And then, before she was even aware of what was happening, he had neatly, expertly—the work, clearly, of a master—slipped the tip of his tongue through her moistly parted lips. Just the most fleeting of contact, and then it was gone, and Caroline, hardly knowing what she was doing, opened her mouth even farther . . .

. . . and there it was again, his tongue, flicking against her own.

How extraordinary! Because it didn’t feel disgusting at all. In fact, quite the opposite. She reached out with her own tongue, shyly at first, and then with growing confidence as she realized, wonderingly, that it really
was
like he was drawing her soul into him. She could feel it spilling from her, tumbling from her mouth into his mouth, until he tossed it back again. It was a lovely feeling, really. Miraculous, almost.

Even more miraculous was what Braden Granville’s kiss was doing to her below the neck. Because she was feeling things down there she’d never felt before—a strange tingling sensation over most of her skin, as if she were a cat someone had stroked the wrong way. It caused the tips of her breasts to harden into sharp little peaks, and her thighs to tighten defensively against a sudden rush of warmth where they joined together.
What,
she wondered, fuzzily,
is happening to me?

But she’d barely had a chance to marvel at her own reaction to what Braden Granville was doing to her before he abruptly stopped doing it. Just like that, he broke the kiss, releasing her face and tearing his mouth from hers. Caroline, whose eyelids had drifted closed, opened them bewilderedly at the sudden rush of cool air where his lips and hands had been, and almost fell down, since her knees hadn’t yet recovered. Braden thrust out an arm to steady her, and Caroline, clinging to it as the only steady object in a universe that had, just a second before, been spinning out of control, lifted her dazzled gaze to meet his.

“There,” he said. Was it her imagination, or did his voice not sound quite as steady as it had before? “That wasn’t so disgusting, now, was it?”

It was her imagination. It had to be. Braden Granville was a jaded man of experience. He would not be feeling as Caroline did because of their kiss, as if she couldn’t speak. Her lips felt numb, her tongue heavy as lead.
All
of her felt heavy as lead. In fact, as she plunked back down into the chair from which he’d pulled her, it occurred to her that she needed to rest a minute.

“Now,” Braden Granville said, reaching for her notebook and pencil and thrusting them back at her, “write that down. Are you sure you got the feel for it? If you want, I could do it again.”

Caroline shook her head stupidly. She felt as if there were cobwebs in her skull. “No,” she said, faintly. “No, I think I’ve quite got it.”

“Good.” Braden Granville, instead of going back to his seat behind his desk, sat down in the chair beside hers. But not, she was quite certain, because his legs felt as if they contained no bones, as his kiss had made her feel. “You’re quite a quick learner.”

Caroline heard herself murmur, “I always got very good marks in school.”

“Excellent. Well, what shall we go over next? You asked about my, er, touching you last night just here—” He raised a finger toward the base of her ear. She must have flinched, however, since he quickly dropped his hand, and said, “Unless you’d rather go back to the topic of designing a romantic atmosphere for your seduction. . . .”

“I think,” Caroline said quickly, closing her notebook, “that that’s enough for one day. Perhaps we should meet again tomorrow—”

He rose politely as she climbed, not very steadily, to her feet. “That would be fine. But are you certain you’re feeling all right, Lady Caroline? You look—”

She bent to retrieve her gloves, which had slipped off her lap when he’d pulled her from the chair. He said,

“Allow me,” and scooped them up before she had a chance to touch them, then presented them to her with a gallant flourish.

“Thank you,” Caroline murmured.

“Don’t be offended,” he said, reaching down to help her gather up her bonnet, parasol, and reticule, which also lay scattered about the floor beneath her chair, “but your color’s quite . . . high. Perhaps you ought to stay and have some tea. I could ring for it—”

“No, no,” she said, quickly. “I can’t stay. And I was, um, playing badminton the other day, and it was quite sunny, so I suppose I’m only a little burnt—”

“That must be it.” He handed over her reticule, and she slipped the pencil and notebook into it. “So. Same time tomorrow, Lady Caroline?”

“Um,” she said, as she pulled on her gloves. “Yes. I think so. If it’s all right with you.”

“Perfectly fine,” he said, passing her bonnet to her. “Thank you.”

Her bonnet secured, she reached for the parasol he held. “Thank you,” she said, politely.

“And will you,” he asked, politely, “be attending the theater again tonight? Perhaps we’ll be seeing one another again.”

“No,” she said. “We’ve a private dinner party to go to, I think. Good day, Mr. Granville.”

She started to go, thinking that really, except for the fact that she’d obviously been blushing quite a bit, she really hadn’t handled the situation too badly. But his deep voice arrested her midstep.

“Lady Caroline?”

She turned and blinked at him. He really was a terrifically large man, quite imposing. It wasn’t hard to imagine him as a boy, eking out a rough existence in the squalid Seven Dials district, where Thomas had told her he’d grown up. He’d have had to be quick with those massive fists, simply in order to survive.

And yet, for all his size, he’d been surprisingly gentle with her.

“Yes, Mr. Granville?” she said.

He held something out toward her. “You forgot your spectacles,” he said.

“Oh,” she said, stepping forward to take them from him. “Thank you. I, um, only need them, you know, to read. And write. And so on.”

“And so on,” he said, with a grave nod. “Of course.”

“Well,” Caroline said. “Good-bye again.”

She hurried out this time, before he had a chance to call her back, or even to say another word.

It was with a good deal of relief that Caroline found herself standing with Violet on bustling, familiar Bond Street. But no sooner had the door to the offices of Granville Enterprises closed behind them than the magnitude of what she had just done hit her.

Good God. She had kissed Braden Granville. She had
kissed Braden Granville.

Not just Braden Granville, either, though that was quite bad enough. No, she had kissed another man, a man to whom she was not even engaged.

Never mind that barely a week earlier, she herself had stood and watched her fiancé do a good deal more than simply kiss another woman. This wasn’t, she told herself, about Hurst. Well, except in a roundabout way. This was about her. This was about her and a man with whom she had made a bargain.

A bargain which had very expressly included a notouching clause.

She hadn’t the slightest idea what compelled her to do what she did next. She only knew that one minute, she was standing on Bond Street, and the next, she’d asked Violet to wait a moment, and was stalking back toward the great black door.

She did not bother ringing the bell. She laid a hand upon the latch and shoved, and the great portal swung neatly open. She did not pay the slightest bit of attention to the questioning looks she received from Braden Granville’s many employees. She paid no heed to the little man who asked if she had forgotten something. She merely stalked toward the door through which a few seconds ago she’d exited, and threw her weight against it.

Braden Granville turned from the window where he’d been standing alone, his hands stuffed into his trouser pockets.

“Lady Caroline,” Braden Granville said, in tones of great surprise. “Have you forgotten something?”

“Indeed I have,” Caroline said.

She strode up to him, brought her right arm back, and struck him across the face a good deal harder than she had ever swung a badminton racket.

The resulting sound of her skin smacking against his was quite loud, and extremely satisfying. And when she brought her arm down again, Caroline had the further satisfaction of seeing an imprint of her hand, starkly white, against his cheek. An instant later, the white mark filled with hot color.

She said, “Consider that
your
first lesson in lovemaking, Mr. Granville.”

Then she turned and stalked from the room again.