Chapter 9

Caught. Ben couldn't be caught. And by a moan he'd wrenched from Lady Prudence's lips. The moan made him proud, made him want to return to those kisses he'd been scattering on the gentle swell of her breasts above her bodice.

Thankfully, some sense remained. He pushed to his hands and knees and peered through a crack between two dogs' backsides.

Lady Prudence grabbed his cravat, yanked him back down.

"Like me just here, do you, Lady P?" He shouldn't tease. But teasing came so easily around her, a bit like breathing. No work at all. No thought. Just words popping out of his mouth and her pink mouth settling in an O of shock. If he were the kind of man to think things were adorable, that would be at the top of his list.

Lists. She made lists, and now here he was—composing them as well. An infectious plague of compulsion. One he likely needed to catch. For his own good. He'd miss fewer meetings that way.

"Shh!" She pressed her palms flat against his chest, putting distance between their bodies. "I'm trying to keep you from giving us away."

Not enough distance. Their legs alternating on the ground—his, hers, his, hers. His cock burrowing against her softness.

Needed more distance. Now.

He moved to stand. She jerked him back down, her brows settling into a V and her hands busy at his waistcoat. Was she undressing him?

And was he considering letting her?

Hell.

He pushed back onto his heels, ripping from her grasp, and held out a hand. "Norton and his estate manager are gone. We're safe."

She stayed right where she was, back on the marble, face still curled into confusion, eyes on her prize.

"Hell," he mumbled. "Forgot I put that there."

She shook the miniature notebook, its spine lumpy from the small pencil nestled near it inside the book's page. "What is this?"

"You should know. You recommended I procure one."

She scooted away from him and sat up, then flipped through the notebook's pages, her face brightening. "You've written appointments here!"

He sighed. "I always have them written down in my office, but it doesn't help when I'm out and about, so it made sense to keep a notebook. Like you suggested. But I haven't yet remembered I have it. It's singularly unuseful if I can't remember to use it."

Her eyes glowed bright as she closed the book and held it out to him. "I'll help you. I'll remind you."

He shook his head and stood, waved his hand at her. "Will you let me help you?"

She took his hand and jumped to her feet.

"You're bouncy," he grumbled, moving out from behind the statue. Norton had flung open a curtain, and sunlight now flooded the room.

"I am."

"And why's that?"

"Oh, any number of reasons, but the notebook mostly. You took my advice. Remembered something I said after leaving me and acted on it." Standing before him, she sighed and peeled the inside edge of the waistcoat away from his chest, found the hidden pocket there, and slipped notebook and pencil inside. "You remembered me even after I was out of your sight. Who knew something like that would feel so lovely?" Her soft gaze landed on me. "Almost makes me like you, Mr. B."

Mr. B. A tease?

His arms flinched. To run. To her. And drag her into an embrace. And kiss the hell out of her until she moaned again.

Who knew a tease from her would make him feel so… lovely? Her word. Not his. But also his. Where she'd lightly brushed his chest while replacing his notebook tingled. Might never stop. The feeling might spread. Felt like an impending illness.

Ah, hell.

"But," she said, strolling aimlessly down the length of the room, "I'm also a bit bouncy about all those kisses." Her hand stroked down the curve of her bodice, over the swells of her breasts, right where he'd kissed her earlier. Unthinking little things driven by instinct. He'd been a man lying atop a sweet-smelling woman, after all. She gave a little laugh that wrapped about him like chains. The softest chains. Velvet. "I did not think you would go so far."

He strode after her. "You pulled me down on top of you, Lady P."

"An accident." Still, she strolled away from him, her lithe figure and those wispy tendrils of escaped hair melting between sunlight pools and shadow as she passed each window. Her pale-green gown and dark-blonde hair making her a silhouette of spring. Not much curve to her waist and hips, but just enough—he knew now—for a man's hand to find a home.

He shook his head and pressed on. "And you did not think a man courting you would take advantage of such an accident?"

She turned to face him. "Not you."

"Why not me?"

"Because you don't really want to court me. You have ulterior motives."

Well, damn. He opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened again, found half a word, produced a squeak.

She laughed again. "You do not have to waste breath denying it. I won't believe a word. I don't know why you want my secrets, likely for some ugly newspaper article, but—"

"No."

"Do you know, Mr. Bailey—"

"Where'd Mr. B go?"

"I think you are the type of man to allow himself to be compromised if he truly wanted the lady. But you were happy to stay hidden just now. You do not want me." When she turned just her head to look out the window, he realized he'd never paid much attention to her cheeks. Of course not. Cheeks were not universally accepted pleasure points. They were mundane. Ordinary.

Not hers. They rounded more from the side than from the front, giving away her innocence.

"If you were courting me with your heart instead of with your brain, you would have allowed us to be discovered."

He snorted. "And dishonor you?" A good excuse as any, a good argument. But hollow. Because she spoke the truth. If he wanted to marry her, he'd not balk at compromising her. "Perhaps you do not know me as well as you think."

"Always a possibility."

What to do now? The game over or changed at the very least.

"You might as well leave, Mr. Bailey," she said. "There is no story here. Only a woman forced to marry a man and her friends gathered around to comfort her. Lady Templeton, Lady Macintosh, and Mrs. Garrison are here to help. They have experience with… married life, you see, and Cora does not."

"Lady Norton possesses a mother. I believe we saw and heard her the night Lady Norton became an engaged woman."

"Yes, well, she was not particularly informative. But the ladies invited here are informative and willing to share their wisdom."

"Then you should not be here. You've no need for information on married life."

"Not yet. But soon. My brother is rather adamant on that point."

"Don't you think a woman's husband a better instructor on such matters than women of an older generation?"

"Not at all. We require knowledge from a feminine perspective."

Was that it then? The nefarious secret Clearford feared? His sister sought out the knowledge provided by older women because some mothers, like Lady Norton's, refused to provide it, and other mothers, like the duke's, were dead. He felt deflated, like an empty water skin. Not nefarious at all. Rather… it made his heart ache a bit. For Lady Prudence. For the duke, too, who didn't have a father to help him figure out how to court a lady, so he had to figure it out on his own.

And for ladies to seek such knowledge… yes, dangerous. A secret to hide. Particularly from an older brother who likely didn't want to think about such matters. All because they'd lost their mother.

Hell.

Ben found his way to the window and tapped a finger against the glass. The lake beyond resembled a mirror, still and silver and reflecting the clouds above. Deeper, though, it would be alive with the ripples of fish moving through the water, the gentle wave of grass at the bottom, the stirring of silt.

Something in him just as deep stirred, rippled.

"My father taught me how to swim," he said. "And how to fix a printing press. And how to treat a lady." And his father would not be proud of how Ben had treated this one.

"Is he still in the Americas?"

"Yes. In the ground."

"Ah."

"Mother, too. Just like…"

"I am sorry." Soft footfalls. Then she joined him at the window. "I know. What that is like."

"I know. My father printed political pamphlets. And a newspaper. I learned the trade at his feet. We were well-off, but—"

She poked his shoulder.

He looked down. "Yes?"

"You were well-off where?"

"Boston."

"A thriving city. Not the wilds in the middle of nowhere. You probably had a nice house."

"One of the largest in the city." He shifted from foot to foot. "I'm missing your point, Lady P."

"It's just that you traipse around London as if you've no idea how to comport yourself, but… you know. How to dress, how to behave. That is why all this"—she gestured to his frame or, likely, more specifically the new clothes, the hair, the gloves, and she huffed—"does not seem so foreign on you. What a trick you're playing on all of us."

"Not a trick," he grumbled. "The way I dress—dressed—is convenient for what I do. I need to be able to move comfortably, not worry about ruining a suit which cost more than one of my workers make in a year. And I don't wish to set myself too far apart from those workers, either. They need to know they can trust me."

"You're a man of the people who prefers labor to luxury."

"I suppose you can say that. My father believed in work, in a man finding his own purpose instead of following blindly a purpose handed him through birth. He left England to find his purpose. I wish to honor him by upholding those values. No matter how much it stains my clothes, my skin, or my reputation, I will follow my own path. My father had only the clothes on his back and a small sum given to him by my grandfather when he arrived in the States. He met and married my mother, and they opened their shop. Bailey's Prints. A thriving business until they fell ill. A fever that spared me but not them. Took too many that winter."

"I'm sorry." Her head popped up, and she blinked. "You have a grandfather?"

"Mm. Baron Brightly."

Her eyes widened. "Baron? I did not know your grandfather possessed a title. I should have known that. I've studied Debrett's. Well, I was supposed to study Debrett's, but… other books have occupied my time, and… hmm. I thought you were allowed into polite society because of my brother's affinity for you."

"Likely that as much as or more than my grandfather's influence. A duke's opinion weighs more than a baron's after all." He tried not to sneer the words, but his grandfather was one of the best men he knew, and that anyone could determine his worth less than another man's because of a title he'd inherited… made him want to snap a neck. "But maybe also because"—he inhaled deeply, not wanting to say it, but also needing to say it for her, no matter how little it made sense—"I'm his heir." He winced, the word heir a bit like a paper cut every single time he said it.

She snapped out an arm and wrapped her fingers tightly around his elbow, swayed a bit. He steadied her, both hands on her shoulders.

"It's not that great a shock. Don't bloody swoon, Lady P."

She laughed. "It is. It is a shock. I think I might need to sit down."

Fine. If she could partake in theatrics, so could he. He picked her up and slung her over his shoulder.

She screeched as he strode for a nearby chaise longue. But her screeching turned to giggles, then uncontrollable guffaws as he sat on the chaise and yanked her off his shoulder and onto his lap.

"Laugh your fill. Get it out." His words were gruff, but he smiled as she lost control in his arms, her own arms wrapping around her belly and tears dripping from beneath her tightly closed eyes. A lovely lass. He'd never noticed before the masquerade, the garden. She'd always seemed a shadow, hard to pin down, hard to see. He saw her now, joy leaking from her eyes and spilling like sunlight into the air. She was beautiful. And her soft little arse curved against his hip like perfection, and her breasts shook with her laughter above the line of her bodice where he'd kissed her earlier. And he wanted to kiss her now, kiss those pink lips to taste her mirth.

But he also wanted to simply watch her laugh. Because he'd never seen any damn thing in his life so entirely beautiful.

Slowly, her laughter died, and she wiped tears from the corners of her eyes with a soft sigh, a little hiccup, and then her gaze skittered to her upper arm. Where he stroked his fingers up and down below the small puff of her green sleeve. When had he started that? Why didn't he stop? She looked at him, holding her breath.

"Done?" he asked, still stroking up and down her arm.

She nodded, taking halting breaths that he thought had nothing to do with her bout of laughter. "I only laughed so much because I realize one day—" Her lips twitched. "It is only that one day you will be—" Another twitch. "You should not be holding me so, Mr. Bailey. Kissing is one thing. Hiding in a narrow space is one thing. Laps are quite another."

He hugged her more tightly against him. "Spit it out, woman. One day I'll be what?"

"Benjamin Bailey, Baron Brightly." She spilled the four words into the world all at once, then rolled her lips between her teeth, her cheeks twitching, her eyes bright.

He cursed. "I had hoped no one would notice."

"You are going to have to change your name. Far too much alliteration."

"You change it for me."

"I'll make you a list of possibilities."

God, he wanted to kiss her.

So, he did.

As soon as their mouths touched, her arms snaked around his neck. And as soon as those arms had locked him up tight, he parted her lips with his tongue. Not the correct kiss for a first kiss, but the right one for their first kiss. Laughter tasted like lemons and smelled like something sweet.

First kiss? It implied more to come, a second and third and a hundred and one. That thought entirely odd. Didn't matter what oddness his brainbox cooked up now because he swept it all away. All of it irrelevant in the heat of her mouth, the clinging pleasure of her fingertips at his nape, the sweet pain of his cock surging against his fall, against her arse.

He kissed her hard until he could not breathe, until the skin-rippling ache of needing more turned into something deeper, something patient, something that could wait. Then he kissed her softly, gently, taking his time, listening to the music of her ragged breathing. He'd made her that way. He grinned and rested his forehead against hers, let her find a rhythm once more, catch her breath as she clung, still, to him.

His mother had told him once, sometime in the year before her death, about the moment she'd known she loved his father. It was the most ordinary moment. Every word we'd ever said seemed to be a prelude to it. One breath I guessed, and in the next, I knew. Couldn't say it then, though. Needed courage. It's easy to fall in love, Ben, but much harder to own it.

Why that memory? Why now? His brainbox cooked up all manner of odd things today. Must be because his cock had stolen all his blood, and his brain had none to rely on for more a logical cogitation.

Air slowed between them as the rapid rise and fall of her chest gentled.

"Thank you for telling me," she said. "About everything. Your father and grandfather. The four Bs."

"Don't make me regret it. I don't want to hear those four Bs on the lips of every lady from here to London."

"No. Only on my lips." Her fingers floated up, gently touching those lips.

Hell.

He kissed her again, unable to stop himself, each nip and peck more needy than the last. "I don't know why, Lady P," he said between each one, "I can't stop kissing you."

"Don't stop."

He stole her mouth once more, thrusting his tongue deep, biting her bottom lip. "Won't."

She groaned. "We must."

"Make up your mind. No, I'll make it up for you." He continued kissing her.

"This… this feels like it could lead to more."

"Nothing more. Just kissing." Just that. Surely just that.

She wiggled in his arms, ducked out of his hold, scurried away from the chaise, away from him. "We should continue the tour of the house."

He stood with a sigh and an uncomfortably hard cock. Clearford likely would rather Ben not use such measures to achieve his means.

But kissing hadn't been about gathering information. He already possessed that; she'd told him the secret, finally, and it was harmless. Women talking about womanhood, preparing those younger, more inexperienced than them for marriage. She'd spilled her secret, and now he'd completed his task. That kiss… no ulterior motives. He'd merely enjoyed kissing her, having her perched atop him. Teasing her from such an enjoyably close distance. Her lips had moved with the hesitancy of a novice but also with the eager curiosity of a woman who had enjoyed his kisses as well.

They excelled at kissing each other.

"It's not really a tour, remember?" he said. "It's kissing. Was always supposed to be about kissing. Private corners and all that. You, attempting to distract me."

"Distract you?" A nervous laugh. "No. You are the one with unclear motives. You don't really want to kiss me. Remember?"

"Can't say I do remember any such nonsense. Those are your words, your accusations. And entirely contradicted by my actions." His unwise actions. Clearford would kill him, choose an internal organ, take aim, and hit the bullseye with a blade sharp enough to defend a sister's honor.

Lady Prudence smoothed her skirts and headed for the door. "Join me if you wish, but no more kisses."

"Just so, Lady P." He ambled after her.

So much changed. He knew what she hid from her brother now, for one. And that meant he no longer had to stay here. He could return to London today, tell all to Clearford, and return to his printshops.

But ink and paper would keep. Wouldn't spoil with a week spent in the country. Besides, someone needed to teach him how to manage a schedule. And Lady Prudence seemed an expert. Perhaps his purpose required staying longer, participating in an exchange—she could teach him how to run a business on time. God knew he needed such instruction. And he'd teach her how to…

No. He'd not finish that thought (even though the word kiss still rang between his ears).

Because she had the right of one thing—he wasn't the type of man to compromise a lady if he didn't intend to have her.

And he had no intention of claiming Lady Prudence.

The kisses? The mere natural result of having been pulled down onto a soft female body. What man wouldn't be roused by that? The kisses had been nothing more than release. That low undercurrent of wanting to drag her back into the protection of his body currently humming through him? Merely the aftereffects of a good kiss.

Good? Something more than that. Much more.

No matter. The nodcock notion would dissipate in time. His beard would grow back and this urge to kiss her again. And again and again. Would fade. He looked forward to the occurrence of both. Truly he did.