Sitting down next to Kate, he said, “There is little we can do to prevent people from talking, especially with Portia Featherington as a witness. I don’t trust that woman to keep her mouth shut any longer than it takes her to return to the house.” He leaned back and propped his left ankle on his right knee. “So we might as well make the best of it. I have to get married this year—”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you have to get married this year?”
He paused for a moment. There wasn’t really an answer to that question. So he said, “Because I decided I would, and that’s a good enough reason for me. As for you, you have to get married eventually—”
She interrupted him again with, “To be honest, I rather assumed I wouldn’t.”
Anthony felt his muscles tense, and it took him several seconds to realize that what he was feeling was rage. “You planned to live your life as a spinster?”
She nodded, her eyes innocent and frank at the same time. “It seemed a definite possibility, yes.”
Anthony held himself still for several seconds, thinking he might like to murder all those men and women who had compared her to Edwina and found her lacking. Kate truly had no idea that she might be attractive and desirable in her own right.
When Mrs. Featherington had announced that they must marry, his initial reaction had been the same as Kate’s—utter horror. Not to mention a rather pricked sense of pride. No man liked to be forced into marriage, and it was particularly galling to be forced by a bee.
But as he stood there, watching Kate howl in protest (not, he thought, the most flattering of reactions, but he supposed she was allowed her pride as well), a strange sense of satisfaction washed over him.
He wanted her.
He wanted her desperately.
He wouldn’t, in a million years, have allowed himself to choose her as a wife. She was far, far too dangerous to his peace of mind.
But fate had intervened, and now that it looked like he had to marry her . . . well, there didn’t seem much use in putting up a big fuss. There were worse fates than finding oneself married to an intelligent, entertaining woman whom one happened to lust after around the clock.
All he had to do was make certain he didn’t actually fall in love with her. Which shouldn’t prove impossible, right? The Lord knew she drove him crazy half the time with her incessant arguing. He could have a pleasant marriage with Kate. He’d enjoy her friendship and enjoy her body and keep it at that. It didn’t have to go any deeper.
And he couldn’t have asked for a better woman to serve as mother to his sons after he was gone. That was certainly worth a great deal.
“This will work,” he said with great authority. “You’ll see.”
She looked doubtful, but she nodded. Of course, there was little else she could do. She’d just been caught by the biggest gossip in London with a man’s mouth on her chest. If he hadn’t offered to marry her, she’d have been ruined forever.
And if she’d refused to marry him . . . well, then she’d be branded a fallen woman and an idiot.
Anthony suddenly stood. “Mother!” he barked, leaving Kate on the bench as he strode over to her. “My fiancée and I desire a bit of privacy here in the garden.”
“Of course,” Lady Bridgerton murmured.
“Do you think that’s wise?” Mrs. Featherington asked.
Anthony leaned forward, placed his mouth very close to his mother’s ear, and whispered, “If you do not remove her from my presence within the next ten seconds, I shall murder her on the spot.”
Lady Bridgerton choked on a laugh, nodded, and managed to say, “Of course.”
In under a minute, Anthony and Kate were alone in the garden.
He turned to face her; she’d stood and taken a few steps toward him. “I think,” he murmured, slipping his arm through hers, “that we ought to consider moving out of sight of the house.”
His steps were long and purposeful, and she stumbled to keep up with him until she found her stride. “My lord,” she asked, hurrying along, “do you think this is wise?”
“You sound like Mrs. Featherington,” he pointed out, not breaking his pace, even for a second.
“Heaven forbid,” Kate muttered, “but the question still stands.”
“Yes, I do think it’s very wise,” he replied, pulling her into a gazebo. Its walls were partially open to the air, but it was surrounded by lilac bushes and afforded them considerable privacy.
“But—”
He smiled. Slowly. “Did you know you argue too much?”
“You brought me here to tell me that?”
“No,” he drawled, “I brought you here to do this.”
And then, before she had a chance to utter a word, before she even had a chance to draw breath, his mouth swooped down and captured hers in a hungry, searing kiss. His lips were voracious, taking everything she had to give and then demanding even more. The fire that glowed within her burned and crackled even hotter than what he’d stoked that night in his study, hotter by a tenfold.
She was melting. Dear God, she was melting, and she wanted so much more.
“You shouldn’t do this to me,” he whispered against her mouth. “You shouldn’t. Everything about you is absolutely wrong. And yet . . .”
Kate gasped as his hands stole around to her backside and pressed her harshly against his arousal.
“Do you see?” he said raggedly, his lips moving along her cheek. “Do you feel?” He chuckled hoarsely, an odd mocking sound. “Do you even understand?” He squeezed mercilessly, then nibbled the tender skin of her ear. “Of course you don’t.”
Kate felt herself sliding into him. Her skin was starting to burn, and her traitorous arms stole up and around his neck. He was stoking a fire in her, something she could not even begin to control. She’d been possessed by some primitive urge, something hot and molten which needed nothing so much as the touch of his skin against hers.
She wanted him. Oh, how she wanted him. She shouldn’t want him, shouldn’t desire this man who was marrying her for all the wrong reasons.
And yet she wanted him with a desperation that left her breathless.
It was wrong, so very wrong. She had grave doubts about this marriage, and she knew she ought to maintain a clear head. She kept trying to remind herself of that, but it didn’t stop her lips from parting to allow his entry, nor her own tongue from shyly flicking out to taste the corner of his mouth.
And the desire pooling in her belly—and surely that was what this strange, prickly, swirling feeling had to be—it just kept getting stronger and stronger.
“Am I a terrible person?” she whispered, more for her ears than for his. “Does this mean I am fallen?”
But he heard her, and his voice was hot and moist on the skin of her cheek.
“No.”
He moved to her ear and made her listen more closely.
“No.”
He traveled to her lips and forced her to swallow the word.
“No.”
Kate felt her head fall back. His voice was low and seductive, and it almost made her feel like she’d been born for this moment.
“You’re perfect,” he whispered, his large hands moving urgently over her body, one settling on her waist and the other moving up toward the gentle swell of her breast. “Right here, right now, in this moment, in this garden, you’re perfect.”
Kate found something unsettling about his words, as if he were trying to tell her—and perhaps himself as well—that she might not be perfect tomorrow, and perhaps even less so the next day. But his lips and hands were persuasive, and she forced the unpleasant thoughts from her head, instead reveling in the heady bliss of the moment.
She felt beautiful. She felt . . . perfect. And right there, right then, she couldn’t help but adore the man who made her feel that way.
Anthony slid the hand at her waist to the small of her back, supporting her as his other hand found her breast and squeezed her flesh through the thin muslin of her dress. His fingers seemed beyond his control, tight and spasmodic, gripping her as if he were falling off a cliff and had finally found purchase. Her nipple was hard and tight against his palm, even through the fabric of her dress, and it took everything in him, every last ounce of restraint, not to reach around to the back of her frock and slowly pull each button from its prison.
He could see it all in his mind, even as his lips met hers in another searing kiss. Her dress would slip from her shoulders, the muslin doing a tantalizing slide along her skin until her breasts were bared. He could picture those in his mind, too, and he somehow knew they, too, would be perfect. He’d cup one, lifting the nipple to the sun, and slowly, ever so slowly, he’d bend his head toward her until he could just barely touch her with his tongue.
She’d moan, and he’d tease her some more, holding her tightly so that she couldn’t wriggle away. And then, just when her head dropped back and she was gasping, he’d replace his tongue with his lips and suckle her until she screamed.
Dear God, he wanted that so badly he thought he might explode.
But this wasn’t the time or the place. It wasn’t that he felt a need to wait for his marriage vows. As far as he was concerned, he’d declared himself in public, and she was his. But he wasn’t going to tumble her in his mother’s garden gazebo. He had more pride—and more respect for her—than that.
With great reluctance, he slowly tore himself away from her, letting his hands rest on her slim shoulders and straightening his arms to keep himself far enough away so that he wouldn’t be tempted to continue where he’d left off.
And the temptation was there. He made the mistake of looking at her face, and in that moment he would have sworn that Kate Sheffield was every bit as beautiful as her sister.