He finally opened his eyes, rearing back his head, and ran a hand from her waist to her ribs. “May I?” Her eyelashes fluttered open. Thaddeus’s mind reeled, trying to find names for that blue. “In the 1100s, the color blue was considered divine,” he added.
Her lips tipped up. “Consider me your neighborhood goddess. Yes, you may.”
His hand slipped around her ribs and cupped one breast, their eyes still locked together. Her mouth formed an almost comical circle as breath slipped soundlessly from her lips. He didn’t have to ask if his caress felt good: She instinctively arched into his hand.
His thumb rubbed across her nipple, and he felt the shudder through her entire body.
“You’re not wearing a corset.” His voice had dropped at least an octave.
She shook her head. “My corsets are built to make my breasts look larger than they are. That is not the effect I wanted when playing Hamlet.”
He took up a gentle rhythm and watched as pleasure rippled over her face. “Hamlet with breasts. I would like to see that.”
“You would?” The silky invitation in her voice was unmistakable.
They kissed until everything faded from the little glade: the song of birds, the skitter of the squirrel, back for more crumbs. Nothing existed but Joan and the involuntary sounds she made.
Until she tore her mouth away, panting, and cried, “Bloody hell, Thaddeus!” Then she froze, eyes on his, obviously waiting to see if he was shocked.
He was shocked, but by himself, not her. He came up on his knees, a bellow of laughter coming from his chest such as he hadn’t experienced in years. More than years. Perhaps since childhood.
“It’s long been an ambition of mine to see a Hamlet with breasts,” he said, eyes on hers so he could see the faintest sign of hesitation.
None.
She smiled, but it wasn’t the practiced sensuality that she’d wielded like a weapon against unthinking mankind. This smile was joyful, a little shy, mischievous, desirous, sweet.
The real Joan.
The realization rocked him to his core.
“As it happens,” she said with an enchanting giggle, “I can help you with that ambition.”
She untied the simple knot at her neck. And began pulling handfuls of linen from her breeches.
He watched, unmoving. No gentleman would disrobe a lady. But if a lady disrobed herself? There was nothing he could do in the world, at this moment, other than watch Hamlet disrobe.
Some part of his mind was dimly aware that he wasn’t acting like himself. That the whole being whom he’d crafted—the future Duke of Eversley—had deserted him, leaving:
Thaddeus.
Thaddeus, his inner self, sprang to life with the same joy with which he used to argue about astronomy in school, certain that individual stars hid galaxies behind them. The way he used to dedicate himself to an injured animal, nursing it, coaxing it to live, no matter how abused it had been.
Only Thaddeus, not a future duke, watched Joan pull her shirt up until a pale band of skin showed at her waist, the color of new cream. She crossed her arms, ready to pull it over her head. “Shall I?”
He swallowed hard.
Her smile widened, and she took his silence for an answer, because the shirt made the squirrel jump as it thumped the ground. Out of the corner of his eye, Thaddeus saw the young fellow take an enormous leap in the air and then settle back down, coming up on his back legs to launch into an angry monologue.
“He’s cross,” Joan murmured. She reached slender arms up in a casual manner, and crossed them behind her head. She looked mischievous more than anything—but he saw a pulse beating in her neck, and her breath was unsteady.
His hands came out, hovered in the air. “You’re the most beautiful—” He caught the words back. She hated empty compliments, even when they were true. “Did you know that every star is unique?” he asked instead.
She shook her head.
“They look the same from our vantage point. But were we able to approach them, we would see that each flames in its own way. Men compare breasts to apples or melons.”
Joan quirked up one side of her mouth. “I’d put my own in the apple category.”
“You’re like a star: so perfect that you are dangerous to the naked eye.” The curve of her breast looked like a mathematical theorem, the explanation of the universe.
Or of man’s desire.
“May I?” he asked, desire pumping through his blood, his voice a rumble. She raised an eyebrow, so he ran a finger along the curve of her mouth. “Touch you? Caress you?”
“Yes.” It was a simple word, but with independence and confidence behind it. Something in him calmed. He wasn’t taking advantage of her, because Joan considered herself his equal.
Perhaps it took a woman with no claims to birthright to dismiss his title, to view him as a man and nothing more. Everything in him rejoiced.
His hands rounded her delicious curves as if his fingers had grown to this size in order to caress her. A shudder went down her spine, and she closed her eyes, holding her breath. Thaddeus bent down, watching Joan’s silky skin quiver when he gently blew on her nipple. Hearing a squeak when he licked her for the first time. Feeling her slender body shake as he closed his lips around her nipple.
“Hell,” Joan breathed.
He stopped kissing her in order to laugh. Her eyes popped open and she stared at him, annoyed. “That wasn’t a reproach. Feel free to return to your former activity.”
“I was told, growing up, that cursing was a sign of lack of control.”
“Me too,” Joan said. She squinted her eyes. “Pretend I am Miss Whittier, the most proper governess of all who entered the castle.”
He teased her nipples, one with each hand. “Never a fantasy of mine, but all right, Miss Whittier.”
Joan’s breath caught. And then: “I didn’t mean that!” Her face changed and somehow, improbably, she looked older and very stern. “Lady Joan, I pray that I never hear such an exclamation from your lips again. Such a one as you must be even more prudent with your language than must a true lady.”
Thaddeus’s hands stilled and his brows drew together.
“My father sacked her,” Joan said cheerfully. “I didn’t tell, but Viola did. My stepsister may seem shy, but she’s a fierce protectress. From that moment, I decided that the rules governing ‘true ladies’ didn’t apply to me.”
She wiggled, arching her back into his hands. “You might continue what you were doing before.”
With no hesitation, Thaddeus bent to the highly enjoyable task of driving his lady, “true” or not, from hoarse noises to the occasional unladylike exclamation. By then, his erection was straining the front of his breeches, and he could feel sweat on his back.
The world had closed to her curves, her body, her smell and taste. He felt as if he were snatching a moment from time, dizzyingly heady, impossibly delicious. Forbidden.
“I never thought you . . . Who are you?” Joan murmured at some point. Her arms were over her head, her creamy breasts spangled by sunlight.
Whoever he was, he was following instinct rather than rules for the first time in his life. Thaddeus moved from kissing her lips again to kissing her breasts, and again, until she was shaking beneath him, her nipples hard, her fingers tugging at his hair.