Nicola Cornick - The Notorious Lord

She felt Cory stiffen beside her. ‘The blackguard!’

‘Oh, do not worry,’ Rachel said airily. ‘I sidestepped him in time, so it ended up as a sort of kiss rather than a real kiss.’

Cory laughed. ‘It seems to me,’ he said, ‘that a kiss is a kiss is a kiss, Rachel. How can one have a sort of kiss?’

‘A sort of kiss is when you miss,’ Rachel said. She looked up to see Cory watching her with interest and felt a faint stirring of the disturbing emotions that had captured her before. Talking about kissing was not a good idea. She hurried on.

‘I did think it was rather clever of Sir John to try to gain my sympathy with his tale of gallantry and near death,’ she said. ‘It might well have worked on some other, more susceptible lady.’

‘I imagine it has worked a score of times,’ Cory said drily. ‘You are hard-hearted, Rachel.’

Rachel started to pack the remains of the picnic back into the basket for her parents.

‘The Midwinter villages are full of rakes at present,’ she said. ‘A young lady must protect her reputation as best she may.’

Cory shifted. ‘And do you consider me to be one of those dangerous rakes in question?’

Rachel looked at him through her lashes. ‘I cannot believe that you are dangerous to me, Cory. We are such old friends that I do not imagine you would either wish to seduce me or be successful if you tried. Such things do not happen between friends.’

There was another pause that felt curiously alive with all kinds of emotions. Rachel drew a short breath to retract her remark, but Cory forestalled her.

‘You are mistaken,’ he said smoothly, and the tone of his voice sent a shiver squirming down Rachel’s spine. ‘I cannot guarantee the outcome, of course, but I can assure you that it would be a positive pleasure to seduce you…’

He put a hand about her wrist and tugged, so that Rachel, taken by surprise, tumbled beneath him on the picnic rug. Cory’s grey eyes were dark with some emotion she did not understand, and she lay still, looking up at him. And suddenly it felt as though she had been waiting for this moment for all her life without really knowing what it was she was waiting for. Cory’s mouth came down on hers and Rachel’s lips parted beneath his and the sensation tore through her like wildfire in the blood, and Rachel was lost.

Cory had never intended to kiss Rachel. He had been struggling for days to subdue his most predatory of instincts and treat her gently. Then she had looked at him and he had seen the mixture of passion and shyness shimmer in her eyes when she had spoken of kissing. He had known then that she was feeling the same disturbing awareness that he was and he had been totally unprepared for the effect that this knowledge had had on him. Desire had ripped through his body and when Rachel had smiled and said innocently that no doubt he would never wish to seduce her anyway, Cory had known that he had to show her the error of her ways. He had succumbed to his deepest impulses and taken her in his arms.

He had never expected to fall in love with Rachel Odell. He had thought that he had known her too long and too well. Yet as soon as he had seen her again that day by the river his attraction to her had known no bounds. It had lain below the surface of their friendship the whole time, leaving him permanently half-aroused and wholly frustrated. He had been tormented by Rachel’s involvement with James Kestrel and John Norton and Caspar Lang. It mattered not one whit that she had engaged in nothing more than a few harmless carriage rides with her admirers and a few hands of cards. All that was primitive in Cory had wanted to stop her and claim her for his own and now he had her where she was meant to be.

She lay in his arms, her lips open beneath his, her mouth soft, ripe and very inviting, and already Cory had taken this far, far further than he had ever intended. He could not help himself. When she parted her lips so readily for him he felt an astonishing mix of protectiveness and sheer, dazzling male triumph, and he touched his tongue to hers, revelling in the ripple of delighted shock that he felt echo through her entire body. His arms tightened about her and when he felt Rachel’s fingertips tentatively brush the back of his neck and delve into his hair, his body reacted with a tense and surging need. He deepened the kiss, his tongue invading her mouth, his senses ablaze. He could feel the roundness of her breasts pressing against him and he let his hands skim the curves of her body, down to the flare of her hips and back up to the swell of those full breasts. Rachel moved against him, making a tiny incoherent sound against his mouth that did nothing to dampen Cory’s ardour or help him gain a grip on his self-control. He was dimly aware that he wanted Rachel more than any woman he had ever known, and that he was about to do something utterly irrevocable.

There was a sudden clatter above them, followed by the intrusive sound of voices and a flare of light that was as shocking as it was abrupt. Cory reacted completely on instinct, rolling over, sitting up and pulling Rachel into the curve of his arm so that they were both sitting looking out over the river, her head on his shoulder. She felt boneless against him, soft and sweet and completely spellbound. He knew that she had not had time to recover herself properly, had no idea where she was. A swift tenderness took him and he pressed a kiss against her hair.

‘Are you all right, sweetheart?’

He felt her nod very slightly, but she did not speak. Then Arthur and Lavinia Odell were coming down the bank and greeting them with satisfaction.

‘Cory! And Rachel! Are we too late? Is there any food left for us?’

There was a pause. In the flare of the torches, Cory could see that Rachel’s face was blank and bemused. He felt a little worried, but he could not deny that he also felt a certain arrogant pleasure to have had that effect on her. It made him want to kiss her again.

The expression came back into Rachel’s face and she focussed on her mother. ‘There is some food, Mama, but I think it better if we retire to the house. It is getting a little chilly here by the river.’

Sir Arthur consulted his watch. ‘I say, it is close on nine thirty! Thought I felt a little peckish. Could not tear myself away-discovered a fifth-century pot in a particularly good state of repair.’

Cory heard Rachel sigh. She got to her feet, stumbling only slightly. Cory leapt up and put out a hand to steady her, but she was already turning away. She was being very careful not to look at him.

‘I will come back with you, Papa,’ she said. ‘I would not wish you to lose your way between here and the dining room.’

Cory thought that she did not intend to say goodbye to him, but at the last moment, she turned and flashed him the briefest of looks.

‘Goodnight, Cory. Th…thank you for…’ She hesitated and Cory had a ridiculous thought that she was about to thank him for kissing her. ‘Thank you for your company,’ Rachel finished.

Cory bowed formally. ‘Thank you, Rachel. I enjoyed our evening. I will bring the hamper back for you.’

That brought him another glance from troubled hazel eyes. He could tell that she wanted to escape his company. Rachel’s lips were swollen from his kisses and now she ran her tongue along them uncertainly. Cory subdued an instinctive movement towards her.

‘Pray do not worry about the hamper,’ she said. ‘I will send one of the servants down to collect it.’

Cory smiled a challenge. ‘I insist.’

Rachel frowned. ‘No-’

‘It is no trouble.’

He saw a flicker of displeasure in her eyes. Evidently she wished to be free of his company as soon as she could and to forget what had happened.

‘Very well, then. If you must,’ she said.

She set off up the path to the house at so brisk a pace that her parents and Cory were left floundering in her wake. By the time that Cory reached the hall, she was nowhere to be seen. He fancied that he just spotted a flash of daisy-spotted muslin whisking around the newel post at the top of the stair. He smiled to himself. If Rachel’s strategy was to pretend that their kiss had never occurred, his would be to make sure that it recurred within as short a time as possible.

‘Please say goodnight to Rachel for me, sir,’ he said politely to Sir Arthur Odell as he propelled the baronet and his lady into the dining room and placed the hamper on the table. ‘I shall see you tomorrow.’

On the hall table he found the copy of the Ipswich Chronicle that he had requested earlier in the day. Tucking it inside his jacket, Cory went back out into the night. He did not turn his footsteps towards Kestrel Court, however, but retraced his steps to the river, where he divested himself of his neckcloth, jacket and boots-without the aid of a valet-and jumped in the river. It was cool and refreshing. And it was getting to be rather a habit with him.

Rachel sat on her bed in her nightdress. In her hand she held her hairbrush, but the strokes she had started to brush vigorously through her long chestnut hair had stilled some time ago. Now the candle was burning down and she had forgotten the brush and she was only in her room in body rather than in mind or spirit.

She was not quite sure what had happened to her. One moment all had been comfortable and familiar. She had been talking to Cory in the way in which she had done year on year for as long ago as she could remember, sharing confidences. Then she had made her foolish remark about seduction, and then there was a moment when everything had been poised, waiting, before Cory had kissed her with a desire and an intensity that she had thought would steal her very soul.