Lord Atten Meets His Match (Regency Romance Book 3) by Jenni James

Author:Jenni James [James, Jenni]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Serenity Brooke Press
Published: 2018-01-25T06:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:

“Miss Charity!” her maid hollered. “I think it’s best we leave now.”

The tension was broken, and both Charity and Everett looked over at the worried girl.

“Certainly. Thank you, Bethany, for your timely interruption. I had not noticed the lateness of the hour.”

“Forgive me,” Everett said. “Tell me she will not go and tattle to your mama about me closeting you just now.”

Charity shook her head. “I do not know what she’ll say and to whom, though I am rather positive we gave quite a show.”

“Yes, all that longing.”

Charity rolled her eyes. How she wished she could push him into the Thames! “Longing? Whoever said either of us were longing for each other?” She quickly gathered her skirts and headed back down the path she’d come from.

“I did. It’s only growing, you know.”

She continued to walk, yet could not in all self-respect ignore his comment like she ought to have. “Of all the hideous things I have heard you speak of, your growing longing has got to be the most laughable.”

He grabbed her elbow and halted her. Charity whirled around in surprise. Then without a thought to anything—the maid, the onlookers (there had to be several), the lateness of the hour, the path they were walking on—he kissed her. Quickly and softly and wonderfully exquisitely kissed her. Her poor heart was pounding, her legs were shaking—her very breath was hard to catch when he released her.

Charity was a veritable mess! And could think of nothing more perfect than to turn around and kiss him once more.

“Lord Atten!” gasped the maid.

“Bethany, I can handle his impertinence, thank you,” Charity scolded the girl before turning very swollen and shaky lips toward Everett and whispering, “Please, I beg of you, do not ever do that again.”

“You lie to me. Your eyes are pleading with me to kiss you again and again, your very shaking center quakes for me to hold you steady, those lips are quivering waiting for me to swoop down and taste you once more—and yet you tell the world’s worst fib and expect me to believe it.”

“Everett! You know we cannot!”

“I know we can’t. But it doesn’t stop me from wanting to.”

“My own mother’s sorrow. I must think of her! And my father, most likely at this moment, pining for your mother now that your father has passed on.”

He winced. “You are correct. I hate it all the same, but you are most surely correct. We cannot continue.”

“Thank you.”

Lord Atten gently cupped her jaw and closed his eyes. “This is nothing. It is merely the thrill of the forbidden.”

“Exactly! Yes. Precisely what this is.” She was relieved to truly understand. “We are only tossed so much around because we can’t be.”

“Yes. And you saving me and mocking me—all of that was only a test of our patience.”

Not exactly what she was expecting him to say. “Yes.”

“And that farewell kiss was everything a farewell kiss should be. Not full of promise, but of goodbye.”

Goodbye. She would never see him again. “Most definitely.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.