In the Arms of the Heiress (A LADIES UNLACED NOVEL) by Maggie Robinson

Author:Maggie Robinson [Robinson, Maggie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical romance, Fiction
ISBN: 9781101613849
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2013-07-01T21:00:00+00:00

Chapter

21

It had been a near thing after lunch. All Charles had wanted to do was tip Louisa back on the blanket and kiss her senseless.

Do more.

He’d never removed trousers from a lady before, but how hard could it be? After all, he undressed himself every night. But he had promised Louisa—promised himself—to avoid unwanted intimacy.

Well, he wanted it, that was certain. He wondered if she noticed how hard he was as he lifted her on top of Emerald. Charles had held her longer than was strictly necessary, even after she assured him she could mount the horse perfectly well by herself.

For a long hour, he’d watched her bite into the white flesh of her apple and imagined those teeth somewhere else. Watched her tip her golden head back and swallow her wine. Watched her lick the sticky fruitcake off her fingertips.

Lunch had been agony. For a man who had been dead to women’s charms for more than a year, he was suddenly—uncomfortably—alive.

Time to tame the unruly beast within. He had a job to do—to support her against her family. Charles had made the first inroads and would continue to behave as Louisa wanted, though he wasn’t sure she should give up her home so easily. If he possessed an estate like Rosemont, it would pain him to sell it.

Of course, he’d never own such a place. He’d be lucky to get his old room back at Mrs. Jarvis’s when this was all over.

What would he do with the rest of his life? For Charles was fairly certain he didn’t want to put a period to his existence now. Funny how one night with a beautiful girl could cheer him up so. He felt almost happy—sexually frustrated, of course, but it was exhilarating riding across Louisa’s property.

They’d climbed up the beach path and set off to the west over the fields. The landscape spread before them like a gray-green quilt, marked here and there by tenant cottages and hedgerows. Charles’s heart had been in his throat as Louisa had sailed over bushes and fences. She was an excellent horsewoman despite the fact she’d been deprived of riding for so long. He let her get ahead of him, enjoying the view of her flying braid and her occasional backward glances. The sun felt as warm as summer, and Christmas seemed very far off.

Red-cheeked, Louisa waited for him beneath a copse of trees. “I am going to take you to the Hermit’s Grotto now. It was a folly of my grandfather’s design. I think truly it started out as an abandoned shepherd’s hut, but he made improvements to it. It’s just over the rise.”

Charles couldn’t help but laugh when he saw the collection of rocks and stunted trees hard against a small hill. An amazingly ugly gargoyle stood sentry in front of a low opening to a stone and daub outbuilding. There was no door, but a window covered thick with ivy gave a hint to the building’s original purpose.

“That’s Randolph,” Louisa said, pointing to the winged creature.

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