Regency High Society Vol 4. Julia Justiss

her forget. Talking to him.

      “If you’ll only take credit for saving Abigail’s life,” she said slowly, “and not mine with it, will you let me at least thank you for that?”

      He raised his brows with feigned surprise. “A Sparhawk offering thanks? What’s happened to your pride, Miss Jerusa?”

      “Oh, hang my pride, Michel, and let me be grateful!” Before she lost her nerve she leaned over and kissed him quickly, her lips barely grazing his. She sat back on her heels, breathless at her own daring, and unconsciously licked her lips as if to taste the fleeting memory of his.

      He looked at her blandly. “Were you telling the truth that time?”

      “About what?” she asked, flustered by the way he seemed to be studying her mouth. “About being grateful?”

      “Of course not, ma chère. About kissing me. That tiny souffle was so slight I’m not sure but that I imagined it entirely.”

      “You don’t believe I kissed you?”

      “I don’t know what to believe, ma mie, not where you’re concerned.”

      “It’s not as if I’m in the habit of kissing every man I see, you know,” she said indignantly. “But I’d have thought you’d have the decency to believe it when I did!”

      He smiled with lazy charm, his teeth a white slash against his dark beard and soot-smudged face. She didn’t have to defend herself so vigorously—he’d known from the start that her bumbling popinjay of a fiancé hadn’t taught her a thing—but at least she’d forgotten entirely about the fire.

      And so, for that matter, had he.

      “I told you before, Rusa, I’ve never lied to you,” he said. “Decency or not, I haven’t begun now.”

      With an exasperated grumble she threw herself against him, seizing his shoulders to steady herself as she planted her lips soundly against his. There, she thought triumphantly, he wouldn’t forget that!

      But suddenly his mouth was moving against hers in a way she hadn’t intended at all, surely, seductively, and she forgot all her triumph as his lips slanted across hers to deepen the kiss. She shuddered as his tongue invaded her mouth, teasing and tasting her in dizzying ways she’d never dreamed possible. Shyly she let herself be led, echoing and responding to his actions until she realized that he, too, felt this other fire flaring between them.

      Her fingers tightened into the hard muscles of his shoulders beneath the soft lawn shirt, and when she felt his hands circling her waist and spreading across the soft curve of her hips, she let herself be drawn closer to his body, relishing the new sensation of him beneath her. She was alive, gloriously alive, and he had saved her for this. He pulled her back with him onto the grass and she kissed him hungrily, as if she were famished, as if she hadn’t feasted on strawberries or—

      Dear Almighty, what was she doing? Abruptly she tore her mouth away from his, pushing herself up on her arms to stare down at him. Her heart was pounding and her body ached in strange places that had nothing to do with her fall, and, to her shame, she realized she was sprawled across his body with her legs spread on either side of his.

      “Oh, Michel,” she said breathlessly, unable to think of anything else to say as the color flooded her face. “Oh, my goodness.”

      He laughed softly, and she felt it vibrate through her own body before she hurried to untangle herself from him. “Ah, Rusa, now I believe you’ve kissed me.”

       Chapter Nine

      With the storm done, Jerusa scarcely met Michel’s eyes as they prepared to leave. Even when for the first time he’d made a tiny fire so he could offer her tea, real, hot tea from his saddlebag, her thanks was no more than a swift, curt nod.

      But he knew what she was doing as clearly as if she’d spoken. More clearly, maybe, than she did herself. Self-righteously she believed that he’d tricked her into kissing him so that she could blame him for the fact that she had enjoyed it as much as she had.

      He hadn’t been quite that devious, but he’d admit to taking advantage of the opportunities that life—and pretty, sooty women—offered him. Why shouldn’t he? She had been the one to kiss him. What harm could possibly come from a single kiss?

      At least that was what he tried to tell himself, and that was where his own confidence faded. Jerusa wasn’t some merry barkeep’s daughter or femme du soir who forgot each passing pleasure as soon as she found the next one. No, Jerusa Sparhawk was his enemy’s daughter, and she was supposed to be his prisoner. So why the hell was he rolling around in the grass with her like some besotted farmer on market day?

      But it was worse than that. Much worse. Kissing her was unlike kissing any other woman in his life. She was hotter, sweeter, more fascinating, more beguiling. The innocent eagerness she’d shown with him today had very nearly shredded his self-control, the untapped passion of her lush young body crying out to be freed.

      Yet if her passion could burn him with pleasure hotter than any fire from lightning alone, then it could also scorch a path to his soul if he let it. And he wouldn’t. All he had to do was look at his mother to see the disastrous results of loving and caring. Love led to ruin and madness and pain that lasted forever, and he wanted no part of it. He’d spent his whole life carefully building a wall of indifference around himself as protection. He wasn’t about to tear it down for the sake of one spoiled little English virgin who would cringe with horror when she finally learned who he was.

      He looked at her graceful profile, staring resolutely ahead as she rode beside him. He must not forget who she was again. There would be no more kisses, no more dallying on the grass.

      No more caring.

      They had not been riding a quarter hour before they saw the dim shape of the other horses coming toward them on the road ahead. Four horses, guessed Michel, four riders, four men he’d no wish to meet, and he swore to himself.

      Jerusa looked at him sharply. “What’s wrong?”

      “Company, ma chère.” He pointed toward the horizon ahead. “Four men at least coming our way. I know why we travel by night, but I’m not sure I want to know their reasons, too.”

      She understood at once; no decent men would be on the road at this hour. “We can run, can’t we? The horses are fresh.”

      “In this open country? No, if we’ve seen them, then they’ve seen us, and there’s no help but to meet them.” He was glad he’d checked his powder after the rain. Not that he intended to use the pistols, but it was comforting to know the guns were there if he needed them. He sighed and smiled wearily at Jerusa. “You’re not frightened, are you?”

      She shook her head quickly, and he thought of how much she’d changed. Only a few days ago she would have been racing up to meet the others, shouting about how she was one of Newport’s own anointed Sparhawks.

      “Good girl. Let’s pray they’re as anxious to be on their way as we are.”

      As the two parties drew closer together, Michel slowed his horse to a walk and Jerusa followed.

      “Good evening, sirs!” he called in his best bluff English. “Good evening, friends!”

      The others slowed, too, then stopped. In the lead was a stout man whose white-powdered wig seemed strangely out of place on the open road as he stood in his stirrups to scowl down at them. The other three, servants or hired men, hung back a deferential distance. One more self-important provincial Englishman playing at being a squire in Connecticut, thought Michel irritably as he forced his face into a cheerful smile.

      “My wife and I have passed through a dreadful storm not an hour ago,” he said to the man in the wig.