Page 64 of A Hint of Scandal

Any other person might have pushed him to say more. Not Serafina. She just tightened the grip she had on his hand as though in comfort. And it was comforting. More comforting than any words could have been. Unfortunately it did nothing for his state of arousal.

She stared ahead of herself, continuing with their conversation as though she hadn’t noticed the prominent bulge in his breeches. A bulge he couldn’t hide. “Did you have any favorite places on the estate? I did, as a child. A place I would go to when I was sad and missing my father, and Araminta had been nasty to me.” She shrugged. “Which I have to admit was quite often, especially at first. After a while, I learned to keep out of her way and avoid things that would anger her. And to make myself useful so she might appreciate me.” She paused, as if reflecting. “Not that she ever did. Or not much at any rate.”

“Where did you go?”

“When my brother took over the estate after my father’s death, he decided to take back some of the farms from our tenants. Not that we had many. He said he wanted to make the estate more efficient, and they weren’t paying enough money. I found this out when I was older. At the time, I was too young to recognize what was happening. But I did wonder why the farmhouses were empty where before there’d been families and children I’d played with.”

She stopped and shaded her eyes as a shaft of sunlight slanted through the branches. It brought out the gold in her hair, making it shimmer.

“And did it make your brother richer? Taking away those people’s livelihoods?”

She frowned. “I have no idea. The way he and Araminta scrimp and save you’d think they were paupers. My one hope is that when Ogden dies, little Teddy will become a spendthrift and run through all his father’s hoarded money. I believe children raised in such a parsimonious fashion often do.” She gave a guilty chuckle. “Am I wicked to think like that?”

“No. But where did you go? You haven’t said.”

“I went to one of the farmhouses. I knew where the key was kept, under a plant pot at the back door. The farmer’s wife had shown me when she still lived there, and my father and I would visit, and she’d give me cakes hot from her oven. With her gone, I would let myself in and pretend it was my house and that I lived there with my papa…” Her voice trailed off.

“You pretended he was alive, still?”

“Yes. It helped me. I would have long conversations with him. He was my support.”

“Good to have a support. And a place to go where you could be alone.”

Her smile was radiant. “Oh, I was never truly alone. I had my father.”

His heart could have burst with love for that lost and lonely little girl who’d conjured back her father’s ghost for a companion because she’d had no other. Well, now she had him and she’d never be alone again. Nor unloved.

She tugged at his hand. “But what about you? You haven’t told me if you had anywhere special you went to?”

He halted, turning towards her. “I did. Would you like to see it? It’s not far from here.”

Those wide gray eyes gazed back up at him so full of love he could hardly breathe. So this was what true love was, this breath-snatching, heart-hammering, limb-melting cauldron of longing to protect her forever mixed with an almost crippling desire for her physical body to be his.

She nodded. “I would. Very much so.”

The longing to take her in his arms again and kiss her all over had to be controlled. Instead, he turned off the driveway and into the woodland to their left, heading down towards the ornamental lake some long-gone ancestor of his had caused to be dug. Hidden from the main house, open parkland ran down to it on three sides, and on the fourth a white limestone folly stood, close by the water’s edge. It was to this that he led Serafina.

The folly itself, constructed in the style of a small Greek temple, complete with a pillared portico, nestled in its woodland setting as though it had always been there. As Serafina surveyed it, Max slipped his arm about her shoulders. “My grandfather had it built for my grandmother, nearly a century ago. They used to come here when they wanted to escape the pressures created by being an earl and a countess and having a huge estate to run. Julian showed it to me when I was very small. And when he was gone to Oxford and London, and I was lonely, I used to come here by myself.”

They crossed the grass, mown short by deer and sheep, of which there was no sign, and approached the folly. Four Doric pillars on a small terrace supported an overhanging, sloping, tiled roof. Beyond, a doorway opened into the inner sanctum. Max pushed the door open and led Serafina inside.

It was much as he remembered it from the last time he’d been here. Dusty, a few cobwebs, but he could have left it yesterday instead of more than ten years since.

“It’s beautiful,” Serafina said, on a breath of admiration. “I think your hideaway is far superior to mine.”

A dusty chaise longue stood away from the back wall; a rug covered the marble floor, a few dead leaves had found their way inside; sunlight slanted in through the cobwebby windows to left and right.

Max brushed the dust off the chaise longue and coughed. “In need of a clean, I fear.”

She’d followed him and was standing very close. “Not at all. This is just as it should be. If anyone had cleaned it, we’d know someone else was using it. Like this, it’s ours and ours alone. It’s meant to be a secret and now it’s ours.”

“I like that.” He bent his head and kissed her, and as he did, she put her arms around him, hugging him close, pressing her body against his so hard she must have been able to feel the suddenly springing arousal that had accompanied the kiss.

Her fingers were in his hair, pulling his head closer to hers. Her lips were as hungry as his. He pulled her harder against him as they sank down onto the chaise longue together. Drat that bloody arm for getting in the way.

As soon as they stepped into the folly, Serafina had known what would happen there. Heat had flooded through her body in a tidal wave of pure desire as unexpected as it was alien to her. As he’d kissed her, she’d felt her knees buckle, and together they’d half-fallen, half-sat on the chaise longue. His tongue was on hers, his hand touching her breast through the stout covering of gown and stays, and all she knew was that she wanted more. And she wanted it now. Saturday was too far away.

As though driven by something far from common sense, as Max leaned over her, she wrapped her legs around his body, drawing him in ever closer, feeling that glorious throbbing object he had in his trousers that was thrilling her to her core as it pressed against her through the thin cotton of her gown and making her almost squirm with desire.