“I like knowing things. It makes me feel…”
“Less like a leaf on the lake.”
Curse it. Another thing she had revealed.
She pressed on. “Therefore, to delay or prevent the wedding, we simply remove one or more of the essential elements, namely: the vicar, the church, the witnesses, the bride, or the groom.”
“I’m sure you have a suggestion.”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it? We kidnap the vicar.”
Guy whirled to a stop. Kidnap the vicar? This was her solution? Bloody hell. Why did he keep forgetting this about her? When would he learn that she was—
Joking. Of course she was. Laughter danced in her eyes, along with a touch of defiance as if she knew his first thought.
“We should do it immediately before the third banns,” she continued. “Perhaps the Saturday night, so there is no time for the curate to stand in.”
Guy tried to look stern. “Arabella, we are not kidnapping the vicar.”
“We wouldn’t hurt him. He might even enjoy it.” Her face brightened. “We could take him to the seaside.”
“No,” he said, but he was laughing.
“I suppose you won’t let me burn down the church either.”
“Not if we can avoid it.”
She sighed dramatically. “You never let me do what I want.”
“You’re just trying to make me laugh.”
“I like it when you laugh. You become appealing.”
“And the rest of the time I am not?”
“The rest of the time you have that furrow.”
She touched her thumb to the spot between his brows, and he wasn’t laughing now. Her gloved hand was a blur before his eyes, the caress of soft, cool leather like a benediction that made him want to drop to his knees and—
He flung the stick aside, shoved his fists into his pockets, and when she lowered her hand, he was seeing her again, her smiling eyes, her mocking brows, her temptingly parted lips.
“As though you are always annoyed at the world generally,” she added.
“Not always. Sometimes I am annoyed at the world specifically.”
“But when you smile and laugh, you get these deep furrows here, beside your mouth, as if your smile is so important that everything else must make way for it.”
Then she was touching him again, both hands cupping his face. The pale sunlight caressed every enticing detail of her dark brows, her thick lashes, her soft skin, her curved lips. If only she had removed her gloves; he craved her naked touch.
“I cannot decide if you are handsome or not,” she went on. “Your features are too bold, and you let your complexion become weathered, and you have these faint lines, under your eyes, here, from squinting at the wind and sun.”
“Did you not notice that I’m brown on my torso too?” he said without thinking. “This summer, I stopped on my way back to England to work in an orchard in Valencia, and when it was hot, we took off our shirts.”
“I suppose the señoritas did not object.”
“Their grandmothers did not either.”
She laughed, the breathless sound carried by the wind, and he wanted to capture her sudden bright beauty. When she dropped her hands, the cold wind rushed through him. He did not move away. Neither did she.
“But it will all fade,” she said. “Disappear like those calluses on your hand.”
“Indeed. I shall become soft and pink, and fit for nothing but eating roast beef and lecturing on topics I know nothing about.”
“Your hair will darken too, once you wear a hat and stay only in the English sun.” She caught a few strands of his windblown hair, then set them free. “Juno Bell used to wash her hair in lemon juice to make it golden like this.”
“I shall suggest it to my valet.”
Again she laughed. And before he knew what he was doing, his hands were out of his pockets and tugging at the bow of her bonnet.
“What on earth are you doing?” she asked, as the untied ribbons fluttered wildly.
“I have not seen your hair in the sunlight.”
“It is only hair. It looks the same at any time.”
He slipped off her bonnet and she grabbed it from him, but made no attempt to hide. Within the glossy, dark mass, a tiny comb winked at him. He tugged at it, claiming it—
“Don’t!” she cried. “It will get messy.”
—and a thick lock of hair tumbled alongside her face, then rose and waved in the wind. He tucked the comb into his pocket and curled her hair around his fingers, letting the silken strands slide over his skin.
“You are appealing when you smile too,” he added softly.
“I’m not smiling now.”
“You smile with your eyes. It is enough. Besides, your lips are always slightly curved, in the promise of a smile.”
He touched his thumbs to each corner of her mouth. It occurred to him, suddenly, that they had never kissed merely for the sake of kissing. They had kissed as a dare, a dangerous game between nemeses, after which they had been naked and in the middle of their—whatever that was. They had it all upside down and back to front. Even if he kissed her now, they could never start again, because everything between them would always be wrong.
The thought gave him the strength to drop his hands, to pivot, to put several yards between them. Keep walking, he told himself. Walk away, walk away! But his body disobeyed; he needed to see her again.
She stood motionless by the lake’s edge, worshiped by a weak beam of sunlight, while the wind tormented her wine-red skirts and her bonnet danced at the end of its ribbons. The loose hair whipped about her face, and Guy fancied he saw her as she truly was: magnificently proud, heartbreakingly vulnerable, standing in defiance of the elements themselves.
He had to walk away. Walk away from the temptation to kiss her, from this risk to his plans. Walk away from her unexpected charm and her secret nobility, and her strength, that splendid strength that rendered him weak.
“Walk away,” Guy said out loud, but the wind swallowed his words and spun him around and pushed him back toward her.
Chapter 15
Arabella was staring at Guy’s back, but then it was not his back. He spun on his heel. He strode back toward her. A thrill pulsed through her with every step of those long, powerful legs.
His greatcoat streamed out behind him, as he charged at her, eyes fierce, face scowling, heated, furious, intent.
She could not move. There was nowhere to go, nothing but him and his approach, shrinking the world and thinning the air and heating her blood, so that it rushed through her veins and swirled and pooled and throbbed.
He hardly slowed even when he reached her. Still moving, he caught her face in one hand, her waist in the other. Their bodies slammed into each other, and she was reaching into him, gripping him, her hungry mouth meeting his. His lips were hot and demanding, and she answered with demands of her own. She twisted one hand in his hair and the other in his waistcoat, and she must have dropped her bonnet, but who cared, she had a million bonnets and only one chance to kiss him. Only one chance to own his lips, to claim his mouth, to taste, to explore, but—curse him!—his tongue was in the way, and she had to battle it with her own, until he made a noise in his throat— Was that laughter? Did he dare laugh while he kissed her?