The Reluctant Governess Read online

  No matter what you called it, it felt good. Nick felt almost human for the first time in days, his body humming with alertness. Eliza’s every little gasp was music to his ears, her touch electric against his needy flesh, the taste of her impossibly sweet.

  But he had to break the kiss, if only for a few seconds.

  She looked up at him, eyes clouded, lips wet and pink.

  “Come into my room, Eliza,” Nick whispered.

  “I—I shouldn’t.” She didn’t say it with much conviction.

  “I promise I won’t do anything you will not like.” Nick hoped he could keep his promise. It was hard to know when the old Miss Lawrence would return, and she was not apt to like anything he had in mind.

  “Just for a few minutes,” he coaxed, thumbing her cheek. “I want to kiss you properly, not up against a wall. You can’t be comfortable with the doorframe digging into your back. And quite frankly, I’m not sure how much longer I can stay on my feet.”

  “Only kissing. I cannot—” Her words were raspy silk, as if her tongue had forgotten one of its purposes.

  Nick stilled her objections with one finger. “Don’t worry. I have no nefarious designs upon your person. Well, I do, but I value my life, and you terrify me a little. I still see you with that sword, you see. I will do nothing more than kiss you. You’ll leave tomorrow as pure as you are right this minute.”

  “You swear it?”

  “May I be struck blind and never paint again,” he affirmed. He dearly hoped the gods weren’t listening—it was just his luck that he’d forget himself, tread over the line, and spend the rest of his life in darkness. Right now the only darkness Nick sought was in his bedroom, though he hoped Eliza would allow the glow of his bedside lamp. He wanted to watch her flush with desire and writhe beneath his hands and mouth.

  “I will not take my clothes off.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of asking you to,” Nick lied. She would ask him if things went his way, or he’d work his way around the obstructions. He’d see enough of her to imprint his mind with her beauty—he almost could not wait for dawn to paint her.

  But first things first. Nick reached for her hand, gave it a gentle squeeze, and led her into the shadowed room.

  “Shut the door, please,” Eliza said.

  It wouldn’t do to have Sunny come upon them, so Nick locked it for good measure. He could swear he heard Eliza swallow at the resolute turn of the key.

  He turned to her and opened his arms. Eliza stumbled over one of his bedroom slippers and he caught her before they both crashed to the carpet.

  “It seems I’m not the only one who is having difficulty remaining upright. Shall we lie on the bed?”

  “The bed?”

  “You know, that big white thing over there. Soft. Cozy and warm.” Nick felt her tension right through the fabric of her clothing.

  “What else will I step on to get there?”

  Nick had not made an effort to tidy up his room as he dressed earlier, never expecting Eliza to grace it with her presence. “I’m not sure. Let me turn on a light.”

  “Must you?”

  “I want you and your precious toes unharmed, my darling. There could be deadly collar studs or dastardly neckties about—I was a bit hasty coming down to dinner.” Exhausted, too, but it had seemed important to be with Sunny and her delicious governess.

  Nick left Eliza standing by the door and switched on the bedside lamp. The shade was thick and fringed, and very little actual light pierced the grayness. “There. Not too bright, but enough to see the battlefield. Mind the stocking.”

  Eliza bent to retrieve it. “You mean mend the stocking. There’s a huge hole in it.”

  Surely they were not discussing sewing at this moment, were they? Nick tugged it from her hand. “Which is why it was rejected tonight.” She was slipping away, no longer the breathless girl in his arms. He had to mend that.

  “Come, my beauty. We haven’t got all night, have we—just a few precious hours to give each other bliss.”

  Eliza frowned. “You said minutes. And no one said anything about bliss.”

  Nick ignored her caveat about the time. “One doesn’t speak of bliss when one can show it. You’ve liked my kisses, haven’t you?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Is that a trick question? If I admit to it, you’ll preen like a rooster. I have no interest in feeding your alarmingly large sense of consequence. You’ve had years of kissing practice, after all.”

  “Eliza, Eliza, you wound me. I’ve never known such perfect kisses as you’ve given me. All else pales in comparison.” Lord, he was overdoing it, circling her palm with a fingertip, willing her to gaze into his eyes to see mostly the truth. Nick was smitten. And harder than marble, which he had to ignore if it killed him. He had given his word, and a Raeburn never broke his oath.

  Blast the Raeburn honor. It was dashed inconvenient tonight. Most nights, really. Nick never made promises he wouldn’t keep. He had never sworn love even if it would have paved his way, not even to Barbara, who was lovable indeed. He wasn’t swearing love now, for Eliza would snort in his face and reach for a flying object if he did. But Nick liked her even if she was prickly and prudish and quite unlike any of his conquests.

  Nick had a feeling no one would conquer Eliza Lawrence, but he would give it his best effort. He led her to the bed, sitting down beside her. At some point he hoped they’d topple over onto the mattress, but for now he was satisfied to have her close. Her scent reminded him of the lemon groves climbing gentle Italian hillsides under a brilliant sun.

  She sat up so straight one could have measured a right angle with her bottom and back. Lifting her chin, he made her look at him. “Relax,” he whispered.

  “Easy for you to say,” she hissed. “You do this sort of thing all the time.”

  “Why wouldn’t I? Kissing is most pleasurable. I admit, I try not to deny myself much. What is the point? Tomorrow we might all be dead and then what’s the good of all that self-abnegation?”

  “Carpe diem. How convenient a philosophy.” Her lip-chewing would not be far off in coming. Nick thought of the many lazy hours spent in Parisian salons and Italian penziones discussing the purpose of life and the nature of love. Perhaps if he plied Eliza with sufficient wine she might see things his way, but she was probably the one woman on earth immune to Bacchus’s charms.

  “Is yours any better? It’s criminal that you’ve never been kissed. What is wrong with all your beaux?”

  “I haven’t had any,” she snapped. “I’ve been too busy.”

  “Then I’m grateful you’ve taken pity upon me in my weakened state. You do me great honor.” He stroked her cheek. Really, it was so soft, as downy as a peach and just the perfect color.

  “Why are you still talking?”

  She sounded so cranky Nick almost laughed. “Patience, my sweet. Sometimes the anticipation is half the fun.”

  “I’m not here to have fun. Just get on with it.”

  Just get on with it? She made it sound as if he were a dentist with a drill. “Where’s my Eliza?” he asked. “The girl who trembled in my arms?”

  “I am not your Eliza. I am my own.”

  “We belong to the universe and its fickle gods,” Nick murmured, pulling a tortoiseshell hairpin from behind Eliza’s ear. She snatched it from him and thrust it in a pocket of her skirt.

  “I lost too many the last time. I don’t suppose you saved them for me.”

  “In the bedside drawer.” He’d had a devilishly uncomfortable night until he realized her hairpins were poking into him in places they had no business being. Nick reached over her as if to get them and brushed her breasts with his arm.

  “I don’t need them right now!”

  “After, then. Remind me—you are bound to cloud my senses and make me forget my own name.”

  “Piffle.”r />
  He quirked an eyebrow and immediately regretted it as the stitches pulled. “Piffle? You underrate yourself, my dear. You are young and beautiful. Hot-blooded—just filled with passion. Look how you’ve wanted to throttle me in our short acquaintance, even now. Your hands are clenched and your pearly teeth are grinding. Why, you’re coiled as tightly as a spring. A golden tigress, or would it be lioness? I’m not sure my kisses will be enough to satisfy you.”

  “This is the most ridiculous conversation of my life. You make me sound like an insane person. I can assure you that until I met you, I was every bit as boring as you accused me of being.”

  “Boring? Surely I was not boorish enough to suggest such a thing.”

  “You said my life was boring.” She had a mulish set to her mouth Nick wanted to kiss away.

  “Well, isn’t it, just a little? You’re a dutiful daughter, an exemplary employee. But where’s the fun, Eliza? Do you never get tired of being good?”

  She gave him a look he couldn’t interpret. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  “Indeed you are, and I am wasting our time together talking, as you so wisely pointed out earlier. Come, let us be friends, if not lovers.” He pulled another pin and handed it to her.

  Nick was careful as his fingers moved through the glorious mass of her hair—this was as close as he would come to “undoing” her. He’d pledged not to remove her clothes, though she hadn’t said anything about rearranging them. Eliza sat still as her curls cascaded past her shoulders, her eyes downcast as he dropped the pins into her upturned palm. What was she thinking? He hoped she wasn’t thinking of anything at all.

  “Lovely,” he whispered, smoothing a strand behind her shoulder. “Like honey and silk.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  He placed a finger against her lips again. “Hush. I say nothing I don’t mean. Word of a Raeburn. We only fib when it’s a life-or-death emergency, and this hardly qualifies, though you will kill me if you don’t permit another kiss.”

  She stared up at him for a second, then dropped her lashes. Nick knew he was not at his most attractive, but the bruise was fading and the light dim. If he did his job, her eyes would be closed soon anyway. He leaned in and took her exposed earlobe in his mouth.

  Eliza sucked in a breath but didn’t pull away. Nick gave a gentle tug, then released it, licking down her throat to her rumpled collar. She tasted sweet and salty. Smooth. She was cream and gilt and entirely at his mercy. He nuzzled, careful not to mar the sanctity of her skin. Nick felt her tremble at each nip and worked his way back up to her jaw.

  Eliza was delicately made, though he’d seen signs of a stubborn chin. He pressed against it with a finger, turning her lips to his. And then his careful seduction became complicated as he quite forgot who was seducing who. Whom? No time for grammar when her warm tongue curled with his, playing at a pace that was both perfect yet too slow.

  Nick wanted to devour Eliza Lawrence and her lemon trees, fall onto the coverlet and explore her body. Could he convince her?

  He could try.

  Chapter 18

  Eliza felt the starch leaching out of her spine as Nicholas held her, kissed her, drove her relatively mad with desire. She wondered if her hair was on fire or her lips flamed, as urgently as his hands and mouth soothed them. Eliza reminded herself to breathe, unknotting her hands and moving them from her lap to his shoulders. The fabric of his jacket was as lush as his kiss. Everything about Nicholas Raeburn was polished and diamond-bright, matching the stone in his ear.

  She could kiss him there as he had her, but with her luck she’d swallow the earring and spend the rest of the night in hospital. Best just to concentrate on the usual kind of kiss, the sweep of tongues, the softness of inner cheeks, the occasional click of teeth. His mouth slanted over hers in complete possession, and for once Eliza did not want to get the last word in—or any words at all.

  She could see why women would toss away their virtue to a man like Nicholas Raeburn. He was so very good at what he was doing, easing her against him, peppering her throat with tiny kisses, touching her with mere fingertips that made her toes curl. Who knew that her scalp was so sensitive? She’d brushed her hair every day for over twenty years, and never had she expected to shiver.

  Her linen blouse was hot and itchy against her awakened skin, and any moment she might choose to pull it over her head and present her corseted torso for Nicholas’s delectation. No—she couldn’t go that far, but how she wanted to. This kissing business was all very fascinating. No wonder girls were warned against it, for one thing certainly seemed to lead to another.

  Eliza was too dizzy to sit up, and it was such a relief when Nicholas tipped her onto the feather mattress. Her head hit the pillow, but the kiss was uninterrupted. Nicholas lay at her side, taking care not to crush her. Crushing her did not seem like such a bad idea to Eliza, but he was displaying remarkably gentleman-like behavior, merely stroking her bare shoulder. He’d managed to release the rest of the hooks on her blouse. She’d had nowhere near the trouble with his shirt and waistcoat, which, unfortunately, he was still wearing, along with his jacket. There were altogether too many layers of fabric between them, but Eliza recognized that as her fault.

  She had said she wouldn’t take her clothes off, but had made no similar demands to Nicholas. Idly, she wondered if she could pull his sleeves down from this position. Doubtful.

  She would take what she could get, and right now she felt inordinately greedy. His chest was smooth and warm, his nipples intriguing.

  Kiss.

  Kiss.

  Kiss.

  Was it three kisses, or just intensity, a variation and deepening of the first? Eliza forgot to count. Her breasts strained against her chemise. She yearned for Nicholas to do something about them, but his attention was fixated on her wool skirt. He was bunching it up—

  She came to her senses through a thick veil of regret and pushed him away. “No! You mustn’t.”

  He blinked. “I’m just going to kiss you, Eliza.”

  “You can’t mean to kiss me there.”

  “Oh, can’t I?” He wore a wicked grin, looking even more piratical than usual. He folded back her skirt and petticoat with neat precision, edging his way down the bed.

  “Lift your bottom, Eliza.”

  She was too shocked to do anything but obey. He untied her drawers and tugged them down to her knees. “Lovely,” he murmured, his breath tickling her belly, and began to kiss her as promised.

  This could not possibly be correct. Or proper.

  Wasn’t that what she wanted? One night of impropriety? Tomorrow she would be—

  Gone. Gone. Completely, utterly gone.

  Eliza had no clear idea what he was doing but she had never in her life felt anything like it. His mouth was hot and decadent, his fingers infallible. He held her in place as if she would want to escape. Not bloody likely.

  There was no sound in the room save for the hiss of the coals and her own ragged breaths as a coil within her tightened. Every inch of her was affected by his ministrations. Her nipples peaked and calves clenched—even her nose tingled. This was unbearable. All the languor from the original kiss was gone and now Eliza was on the cusp of destruction. Her temples throbbed, the blood crashed like ocean waves in her ears. This wasn’t right—she feared she would disappear in a cloud of brimstone any minute.

  Nicholas chuckled at her agonized cry and continued to twist his tongue around her center until Eliza thought she couldn’t bear another second. This torture had to stop. Her curiosity was more than satisfied and now she knew what was possible between a man and a woman beyond the usual.

  And then his thumb—or some finger—pressed into her pubic bone, circled, and the hated tension miraculously snapped. Eliza was vaulting, pulled up to unsuspected heights. Nicholas forced her again and again to lift upward, riding on endless waves
of pleasure, his wicked kiss continuing as she sobbed her relief. Heat flowed beneath her skin until she longed to tear every item of clothing from her body and his.

  So this was what the girls whispered of in school. This flying, this rapture. This incomprehensible joy that crackled within, danced in her blood, rushed through her limbs. Eliza was smiling. Not an ordinary smile to be sure—she knew she was showing far too many teeth for a lady.

  Perhaps she wasn’t a lady after all.

  It had already been established that Nicholas Raeburn was no gentleman.

  Thank goodness.

  But goodness had nothing to do with what he’d just done.

  For a fleeting second, she tried to imagine the Honorable Richard Hurst, Esquire, in such a position doing such a thing and failed. The thought was disloyal to Nicholas anyway—she should not be thinking of any other man.

  Right now there was no other man for her. Probably never would be. Eliza would live out her life as a dutiful spinster, caring for her mother without complaint. She would go back to the Evensong Agency and forget about ever working for Sir Thomas and his artists’ colony. She would never be able to meet the man’s eye, for surely he would know what his friend Nicholas had done to her this night. Men discussed their conquests with one another, didn’t they?

  Beasts.

  Her smile evaporated. Nicholas Raeburn had ruined her even if he hadn’t quite finished the job.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  He had slithered back up the bed, his lips slick from their recent work. He looked damned pleased with himself. Eliza shuddered at what she’d allowed him to do and how stupid she had been. Like Pandora, she’d gotten much more than she bargained for.

  Her throat was dry. “Nothing.” She tried to pull up her drawers but his hand came down over hers.

  “Don’t. I want to look at you.”

  He must have gotten an eyeful when he was down there already. A hot blush swept over her.

  “You are so beautifully made—plump ivory thighs, golden curls, a perfect pink pussy. You taste like heaven itself.”