‘I don’t need to find anything wherever you are taking me, unless one of your fellow scholars is holding a masquerade ball, and my father would have found out and told me.’

  ‘No, they are not and, yes, you do need something, but you just don’t know it yet.’

  ‘I could kick you,’ she whispered, and his low rumble of laughter felt even more intimate than his warm hand in hers and the closeness of his powerful body. ‘And fashionable people don’t walk to masquerades, they are driven to them.’

  ‘We are not fashionable people tonight and we’re on our way to Vauxhall Gardens, not a private ball.’

  ‘Don’t people have to unmask at midnight?’

  ‘Some of them can if they want to, but you don’t have to,’ he said. She could hear from the sternness in his voice that if anyone tried to make her they had him to reckon with. ‘Just stop worrying and enjoy yourself, Lady Mel,’ he added, and, since she didn’t feel like hailing a hackney and dashing home in a huff, she decided she might as well.

  * * *

  ‘This is wonderful,’ Melissa announced an hour or two later and looked around with the wide-eyed awe of a country girl confronted with the joys of city life. Adam thought she must have found it hard to get used to the din and pace of it all after the greenness and peace of the Shropshire countryside.

  ‘So glad that you approve, my lady,’ he said, and it was true. Despite the torture of having her so close and never close enough, he was enchanted by her enchantment. Her wonder at the brilliance and bustle and gaiety of the place seemed to have rubbed off on him and he saw it with new eyes.

  ‘I would be hard to please if I didn’t. The fireworks were wonderful and so pretty, and it must take such skill and knowledge to make them go off so smoothly one after the other like that. I wonder if there’s a book about how they do it.’

  ‘If there is I hope you don’t try to make any. It seems a dangerous trade at the best of times and I suspect the skills of it are a closely guarded family secret that gets passed down from one generation to the next.’

  ‘Gunpowder and things,’ she said wisely, and he tried not to find it enchanting that she took such a keen interest in the world around her. Most of the women he knew would have exclaimed at the dash and sparkle of it all and not given a second thought to how it was made or who had made it.

  ‘Yes, unstable and explosive things,’ he replied dourly.

  ‘I have no intention of blowing my father’s house up trying to make fireworks, Adam. I am only interested in how it’s done, not in doing it myself,’ she replied with a shake of the head and a gusty sigh, as if she couldn’t imagine why he thought she would do such a thing.

  That would be because he suspected she would dare anything if she thought it needed doing badly enough, or if she cared enough about whomever she was protecting at the time.

  ‘Good, and I’m sorry I can’t dance,’ he said, and perhaps the champagne was a mistake. Melissa was so light-hearted and bright-eyed from it he couldn’t regret his own small helping of it to keep her company, but he must keep a brake on his tongue somehow and remember this evening was meant to be a break from her cares and not a seduction.

  ‘I prefer watching to being part of a crowd,’ she said and eyed the revellers in front of the modest seats he had secured for them, away from the boxes where the rich and frivolous were growing more and more rowdy as the night went on.

  ‘Time we went,’ he said with a weather eye on the box where a group of young bucks were being rowdy.

  ‘Must we?’ asked the supposedly withdrawn and self-contained Lady Melissa, as if she wanted to stay out all night.

  ‘Safer to leave before they start a brawl,’ he said. With a great deal more experience of wild young bucks than she would ever have, he recognised a band with enough brandy inside them to forget scruples and inhibitions.

  ‘I suppose so,’ she conceded, and he had almost pushed and shoved a way out for them when a very drunken society buck lurched into their path.

  ‘Here’s a nice little pigeon ripe for the plucking,’ the fool slurred out and wobbled as if his feet were hardly capable of holding him up. ‘Let’s see the goods, then,’ he added, and Adam felt fury rise like a spring tide when the sot reached for Melissa’s domino as if he was about to rip it off and humiliate her in public.

  He gripped the grinning fop’s wrist so hard the fool paled and looked a little sick when Adam twisted it until he let the fabric go with a grunt of agony. As well he had even that much sense, Adam decided vengefully and leaned close enough to mutter a very graphic threat about what he would do if the idiot took one more step in the wrong direction.

  ‘Come,’ he said to Melissa and tugged her into a dark corner before the fop’s friends could round on him and leave her unprotected.

  ‘Thank you,’ she whispered as their rapid escape seemed to spark off the brawl he had felt brewing.

  ‘We should have left half an hour ago,’ he murmured as he searched his memory for the best way out without being caught in the melee. She had been so enthralled by the lights and music and merriment he didn’t want to break the spell, and that made him stupid, or a besotted fool—neither felt attractive when he had her safety and peace of mind to consider.

  ‘Oh, what a brute,’ she whispered after giving a sympathetic ‘Ouch!’ for the next target of the entitled yahoos, and he was ashamed of having been one of them in his dizzy youth.

  ‘Come on, we need to get you home before daybreak,’ he said as lightly as he could, although his knowledge of the high spirits and curiosity of idle bucks said this could get far too serious and he had best get her away before it got nasty.

  ‘We should stay and help the next victims,’ she argued, tugging against his hand as he tried to get her to safety, and how right he was about the impulsive and headstrong nature under her pretend coolness. Their first meeting seemed a nice peaceful dream world as he pulled her after him willy-nilly and cursed himself for thinking he could show her some city life without risk of hurt or exposure. If they were caught and she was unmasked, the thought of the gossip if reclusive Lady Melissa was caught slumming with Limping Lord Lathbury made him shudder.

  ‘Think how delighted your father’s detractors will be if the constables are called and we have to admit who you are,’ he muttered and felt her stop fighting and follow him willingly.

  * * *

  It wasn’t until they were back in the relative safety of Mayfair that he dared relax and slow their pace to take account of the ache in his damaged knee. ‘I should never have taken you there,’ he murmured as she slowed her pace to match his halting one. He hated his infirmities when he thought what could have happened to her if he had not managed to hustle her out and scurry away in time to avoid fighting at least one drunken sot.

  ‘Yes, you should. I had a wonderful time,’ she argued robustly.

  He thought of her delight in the fireworks and the music and laughter before she nearly had her mask ripped off by an idle young fool. ‘Did you indeed?’ he asked and revised his resolution never to put her in harm’s way again. She had endured too much sheltering from harm these last few years from her family so this terror for such an innocent about the wider world was a price he would just have to pay.

  ‘Yes, I did. Could a woman go masked to a play if she didn’t want to be recognised?’ she said with all the eagerness for all the pleasures she had been denying herself for so long in her voice, and he had better not think about all of those right now.

  ‘Not without making you more noticeable than you are without one, but I dare say there are ways of disguising you if you truly want to go. Why not go openly, though? You must have cousins or aunts who would be happy to chaperon you on a visit to the theatre.’

  ‘Can you imagine the stir it would cause if Lady Melissa sat in a box with even the most modest of parties? I can almost hear them whispering. It’s never her, you must have imagined it, but do let me have those opera glasses just to make sure.’

  Her bitter parody of a grande dame almost made him chuckle, except she sounded so bitter he hurt for her instead.

  ‘And it would look like the thin end of the wedge to my father,’ she went on. ‘He would think I am about to relent and take my place in society and start having all sorts of wrong-headed ideas about my success.’

  ‘You might well be one of those if you tried,’ he said grumpily and felt as if lovely and restlessly intelligent Lady Melissa was even more distant from the likes of him than when they began their odd acquaintance.

  ‘No, I never will. I can’t imagine anything worse than having all those eyes focused on my every move,’ she told him as if she truly meant it. ‘But if you can get me into a theatre unnoticed I would really love to see a good play performed as I hear only London theatres can put them on.’

  ‘Is that what you really want?’ he asked, softening towards the idea as he sensed the genuine eagerness behind her odd request.

  ‘Yes,’ she told him with a little squirm of anticipation that said she thought she was being terribly daring to want to fulfil what sounded like a long-time wish.

  He found her idea of a grand treat touchingly humble and knew he would have to find a way to make her wish come true. That meant forgetting his resolution to drop his self-torturing scheme to help her see more of the world around her and stop hiding in the tight little shell she had grown around herself at such a painfully young age she didn’t even know what she was missing.

  Chapter Thirteen

  A heady mix of excitement, a little too much champagne and a snicker of fear for Adam when that brawl started and he had seemed ready to fight the world for her made Melissa feel she as if she had all the energy it took to keep walking at his side until daybreak. But she felt the halt in his step grow more pronounced and knew it was time they went home to their beds so he could rest. Tonight she wanted to be in his bed instead of hers even more than she did last night. Lord, what a shameless hussy she was and how good it felt to be alive and feeling so much she could hardly contain the hum and shimmer of excitement flowing through her veins.

  Sensible Melissa had had to take the seat with her back to the horses when outrageous, wanton Melissa read that secret message from His Lordship here and decided they were going on this outing with him wherever it led. Now that her inner hussy was a bit castaway as well as wanton to her fingertips, she longed for him with every breath of sooty, smelly city air.

  ‘There, we have got you home again safely and at long last,’ he said softly, bending as close as a lover so there was no risk of them being overheard out here in the stilly watches of the night where she wanted to stay with him.

  The possibilities and dangers of sensual tension stretched so fine between them that it felt as if it might break and cause mayhem as he bent over her in the shadow of the high garden wall. She opened her mouth in a sultry invitation to kiss without even thinking of rights and wrongs. She felt his clean breath on her pouting, wanting lips. Now he was so close she was triumphantly sure he had to kiss her before he finally gave in and bridged the gap between them.

  She squirmed eagerly closer in a daze of sensuous relief that this time he wasn’t going to back away from her and wish her a distant goodnight. He couldn’t leave her longing and needy tonight as he had done in this very same place yesterday. He probably meant her to know he was going to kiss her witless this time, she thought, with a half-smile of tenderness for the mistaken gallantry of the man. He was giving her time and space to flinch away from him but why would she do that?

  If he was less of a man, she might have been able to let him think he didn’t matter to her, that his limp was the handicap he thought it was. Since he was this one she gave a soft sigh of relief and leaned back against that wall so he would lean in even closer and ravish her waiting mouth with kisses. It felt delicious to be so wrapped up in his hard male body again. It didn’t matter if her legs refused to do their job and hold her up properly since he and this lovely wall would do it for her. The fire inside her shot to white heat as he kissed her as if she was crucial to his continued well-being, as if he needed her as much as his next breath.

  It felt as if he had been hot and hungry for her since the moment their eyes met across that shadowed room the first night as well. She was so willing and fluid under his exploring hands she forgot to be ashamed of herself for wanting him so badly. She was so glad he shifted them about without stopping their kiss and letting common sense flood back in. Now he was the one with his back to a hard wall and she was even more open to his exploring touch in the shadows, and how dearly she needed his hands on her, urgent and strong and just like that.

  She was starving for the wondering touch he ran over her feminine curves, then he rested his hands on her backside as if it felt like the perfect place for them to be for him as well, and heat raged inside her. And now he was busy with the ties of her round gown. His hands shook and showed her vulnerability as well as power, need as well as wanting. He took his mouth away from her hungry one long enough to slick the chord of her neck with kisses and follow the gap he had created until he found where her silky chemise met the full swell of an aching breast with his tongue.

  She had to bite her lip to stifle a moan of sensuous delight. Reminded they were in the street in the middle of the night by the noise she had almost let out, she still could not call a halt and pretend to be outraged or the innocent party. She was so hungry for his touch, so desperate for his mouth to sink that bit lower and seize her eager nipple in his mouth and suckle on it until she didn’t care where they were and what time of day it was for the sheer outrageous pleasure of it.

  ‘We can’t.’ He raised his head to whisper shakily in her ear and even that only made her want him more. The feel of his accelerated breathing against that workaday organ made her not want to listen to his words, but long to feel his tongue exploring the curlicues and sensuality of newly sensitive skin. Then he could lick and kiss his way down the side of her neck and they were back to the pebble-hard ache of her craving nipples and if only they were. If only he would let his mouth dip and find the tingling, throbbing needy welcome he would find there as he finally forgot to be so confoundedly noble.

  ‘You err,’ she finally managed to mumble grumpily as he still held off from that longed-for, giddying pleasure that would surely take her beyond willing and on to ravenous for everything they could have with one another. He was using his hands to hold her a little bit away from all the potential glory she wanted so badly and he apparently did not want as much, but he could not walk away from her anyway.

  ‘We can, but you won’t let us,’ she added bleakly. Correct and cautious Lady Melissa forced her way through and screamed at her sensual other half that she was a blind little fool who deserved to be locked in the nearest dungeon until she had learnt to be quiet if she could not be good. Her weak and wanton inner idiot still longed for him so badly it felt as if something terrible might happen if she didn’t have him, but he wasn’t going to give her the choice. He was distancing himself from her with far more than space and it hurt so much she was almost ready to wish she had never met him.

  ‘No, I won’t let you make love in the street like a bangtail with a client,’ he told her gruffly and as if the burn and frustration of saying no to this cost him dear, but what would it have cost her if he wasn’t better at remembering the world than she was?

  ‘Oh, no,’ she said as shock ripped through her. Of course that was what she had wanted, what she was silently begging him for in order to sate hot needs and dreamy desires that were knotting up the core of her with silken bonds. She was as wild and reckless and every bit as wicked as the shocked tabbies at Wiston Veryan had sworn she was when she was sixteen and rode bareback about the countryside in man’s breeches and did whatever she thought would shock them, until that lie about her eloping for Gretna with an unsuitable rogue got out to thrill them all. If they knew what she had really done they would have decided she was a she-devil, a wicked destroyer of a good boy’s life.

  Memory of that time brought her back down to earth with a sickening thump. Reminded that her son must never be found because her sins would fall down on his innocent life like a ton of bricks that would stifle him, she flinched away from her fiery inner rebel and what she had been inviting so wantonly.

  ‘Let me go,’ she demanded flatly. She wanted to hide away, go back to the countryside and lose herself in some anonymous place where she could start a blank and respectable life anew. The most remote place on her father’s estate was impossible since she had gone there when she was growing Joe’s baby in her belly, then birthed him without a father or a wedding ring. And hiding wouldn’t unknot the shameful twist of need that still whispered how much she would miss this very different man if she never saw him again.

  She should not want to see him again so badly or have this bleak hollow in her heart at the thought of never knowing another thing about him. Never seeing him again, never longing for his touch and all the delicious intimacy they could have had if only she was different felt like a bleak punishment for her wayward youth, but she would learn to bear it; she had already endured so much bleak separation from those she loved one more ought to be easy, but something told her this one could break her if she let it.

  ‘No, marry me,’ Adam said much too seriously.

  For a moment she let herself dream it could be, that she could spend the rest of her life with this brave, wounded and magnificent man. Then the truth crept back in and she knew she could not wed him or anyone else. According to church and state she was a lost and fallen woman, so even if he loved her he couldn’t marry her. And she could not do him such a backhanded turn.