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Chapter Five

She was such an impertinent wench.

Phillip stepped out of his bedroom onto the balcony and pulled a slim cheroot and a box of matches from the inside breast pocket of his favorite smoking jacket. What great delight she’d taken in teasing him tonight. But then, he reflected as he lit the cheroot, she always had enjoyed that particular pastime.

He sat down in one of the painted wrought iron chairs that overlooked the back garden, and stared up at the moon, a dim orb amid the thick haze of London coal soot and wood smoke, her teasing words echoing through his mind.

You look as if you are paying a visit to the dentist.

If that were true, he could hardly be blamed for it. Having Lawrence drag him down through the tradesman’s entrance of a shop at midnight was bad enough, but to do so for the purpose of visiting Maria Martingale, the very woman he was taking great pains to keep his brother away from, made things even worse. Then there were the social ramifications of the situation, which only he’d had the sense to consider. Calling upon an unmarried woman who lived alone was unthinkable, and a presumption that, despite her words to the contrary, could not be excused by the fact that she was in trade. No bakery would ever be open at such an hour of the night.

He’d never dreamt Lawrence would make a beeline for her shop the moment they arrived home tonight. His brother had been halfway down the steps to her door before Phillip had even stepped out of the carriage. But, there, that was Lawrence for you, all bounce and go, acting on the impulse of the moment with never a thought to appearances. And Maria was no less careless.

How like you, Phillip, to know what’s best for everyone.

The biting undertone in those words quite nettled him. It wasn’t that he always knew best. It was that she usually didn’t. Maria had always had more sauce than sense.

No doubt she’d been pretending a cavalier disregard for her reputation just to needle him. He took another pull on the cigar in his fingers and exhaled the smoke with a sound of exasperation. Maria had always been a provoking bit of skirt with no regard whatsoever for the proprieties.

His mind flashed back twenty-two years, to a pair of big hazel eyes staring down at him–and quite rudely, too–from amid the branches of a weeping willow tree. He’d been alone that afternoon, he remembered, for Lawrence had been confined to the nursery as punishment for stealing a tray of tarts behind the back of the new chef.

He’d settled himself beneath the willow by the pond and had just begun to practice his Latin when a sound had made him glance up. He could still remember exactly how Maria had looked that afternoon–the rays of sunlight that filtered between the leaves and glinted off her long, gold curls, the gray dress and white apron she wore that told him she was a servant, the fat red apple, half-eaten, in her hand.

The apple, he reflected, had been quite metaphoric.

“What’s veritas mean?” she’d asked him, taking a hefty bite of the fruit, making him realize that sound was what had called his attention to her presence. The crunching of an apple.

He’d frowned at her question, rather taken aback. Servants weren’t supposed to speak to him unless he spoke to them first. “I beg your pardon?”

“Veritas,” she repeated, not seeming to care that her mouth was full. Had the girl no manners at all? She chewed and swallowed, then waved the half-eaten apple toward the book in his hand. “You were saying it out loud. I don’t know that word. What’s it mean?”

He glanced down at the thick text that was open in his lap, then he looked back up at her. “It’s Latin for truth. I’m studying Latin.”

“Oh.” She considered that information for a moment, watching him, then she sunk her teeth into the apple, and with her hands free, she shimmied down the tree. Her descent obligated him to put aside his book and stand up.

She hopped lightly to the ground in front of him and removed the fruit from between her teeth with her left hand. “I’m Maria,” she said, thrusting her right hand toward him as if actually expecting him to shake it.

He’d bowed instead. “I am Viscount Leighton, eldest son of the Marquess of Kayne. At your service.”

She didn’t seem suitably impressed. She didn’t even curtsy. She took another taste of her apple, then held the half-eaten piece of fruit out to him. “Want a bite? I’ll share.”

Even after all these years, the delicate scent of apple under his nose and the sharp sting of saliva in his mouth as he’d taken a bite were still vivid in his mind, for from that moment on, his life had never been the same.

“Studying Latin doesn’t sound like much fun,” she said as he chewed and swallowed the fruit. “Wouldn’t you rather play? If we had a rope, we could make a swing.”

Tempting as that suggestion was, he shook his head. “Thank you, but I have to study.” He stood up a little straighter, his shoulders back, feeling quite proud of himself. “I’m going to go to Eton.”

“We could tie the rope on that branch,” she went on as if he hadn’t spoken, turning to indicate a limb that stretched out over the pond.

Curiosity got the better of him. “Why that one?”

“It’s over the water, silly. If you swing out from the bank as far as you can and let go of the rope, you fall right into the pond. It’ll be great fun.”

It sounded like fun, especially on a hot summer afternoon when the alternative was Latin. Resolutely, he shook his head. “Can’t. I have to study. Besides, I’m not allowed to play until three o’clock.”

“That’s all right,” she murmured, looking up at him, a smile curving her mouth. “I won’t tell on you.”

Phillip still remembered that smile. Even then, it had held the power to tempt a fellow into doing things he really, really shouldn’t.

He’d capitulated, pulled into forbidden fun by a slip of a maid who shouldn’t have even dared to speak to him. The result had been a snapped tree limb that had broken his arm, three weeks of punitive confinement in the nursery, and a sound thrashing from his father.

Phillip smiled ruefully to himself. He’d suspected from the first moment he’d laid eyes on her that Maria Martingale was trouble. He’d known it for sure the summer she came home from France.

He remembered that hair ribbon perfectly, though he’d denied it earlier tonight. A sudden tightness squeezed his chest. He also remembered what it had felt like to see her crying over the blasted thing.

The door on the other side of the tall brick chimneystack opened, and he gave a silent groan into the darkness. Speak of the devil, he thought with chagrin.

He straightened in his chair and looked over the short wall that separated his balcony from that of the house next door, confirming that the object of his thoughts had indeed come outside.

She carried a small oil lamp in her hand, and by its soft yellow light, he could see that she no longer wore her kitchen apron. Instead, she was even more informally attired in a long white nightdress and wrapper. She’d also taken off that hideous kerchief, and her curly hair had been caught back into a braid down her back–a long, loosely-woven plait of burnished gold that ended at her waist.

She walked to the wrought-iron rail, pausing about half a dozen yards from where he sat. She placed the lamp on the floor nearby, then straightened and turned toward the rail, lifting one hand to her neck.

Phillip tensed in his chair as she slid her fingertips beneath her braid and began to rub the nape of her neck. She was clearly unaware of his presence, and he knew that in such a situation, offering a slight cough was the appropriate thing for a gentleman to do.

He did not do it.

Instead, he remained perfectly still as she tilted her head to one side and began massaging the muscles of her shoulder and the side of her neck.

She groaned, and with that tiny sound, lust washed over him, an inexorable wave of heat and hunger that was so powerful, he could not move.

Between thin, curling ribbons of cigar smoke, he watched her, riveted, as she raised her arms above her head to stretch her aching muscles. The lamplight outlined the shape of her body through the gauzy layers of her nightclothes, and the dark silhouette of her shape called to something inside him that was deeper, darker, and far more primitive than gentlemanly honor.

Look away, he told himself, even as his gaze slid downward over the deep, inward curve of her waist, the undulating outward curve of her hips, the long, lithe shape of her legs. The lust in him deepened and spread, smothering him until he could not breathe.

She let her arms fall to her sides and leaned forward, resting her forearms on the rail. He suspected the faint, anchor-shaped line that defined the shape of her buttocks was merely his fancy, but real or imaginary, it didn’t much matter. The affect on his body was the same.

She moved as if to turn around, and he jerked his arm down so that if she looked in his direction, she would not see the glowing tip of his cheroot in the darkened corner, though he was sure this attempt to remain unnoticed would be in vain. The wood smoke and other pollution in the London air masked the scent of his cigar, but surely she would sense his presence just the same. How could she not? His body burned with lust.

To his surprise, however, she did not seem to perceive him sitting in the shadows. She bent and picked up the lamp, then crossed the balcony and went back into her rooms without even glancing in his direction.

The door closed behind her, and Phillip exhaled a long, slow breath. He did not move from his chair, however, for he knew that if he stood up, he would go after her. Like a compass needle compelled by magnetic force to veer toward true north, he would follow her. He would enter her rooms. He would touch her. He doubted he could stop himself.

The realization that he had so little governance over his own body appalled and angered him.

He closed his eyes, striving to remain where he was, while inside him, honor warred with lust. He sat there, eyes closed, taking slow, deep breaths, waiting for honor to win. He sat there for a very long time.

END OF EXCERPT. LIKE IT? ORDER IT!

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