Caroline and the Captain: A Regency Novella Read Online Free PDF Page B

She looked like a young fawn that might bolt at any moment. What had happened to her? He would learn of it given time. But not now. Now he wanted to enjoy the sweetness of her mouth, and see how her slim body fitted against his.
    Nicholas lowered his head and covered her mouth with his, learning the shape of her lips and the feel of her in his arms. When her full lips quivered, he drew away, resisting the urge to push into the sweet cavern of her mouth. Despite what she’d told him, she kissed like a green girl. Intrigued, he offered her his arm.
    “It’s stopped raining. Let’s go and tell your parents, shall we?”
    “Very well.”
    She was hardly an eager bride. She looked more like she was going to a funeral rather than an engagement celebration. He was wondering why he’d committed himself, he could have looked further afield for a wife, but when the clouds drifted away and the azure sky turned her eyes bluer, he wanted to kiss her again. He was after all by nature an optimist. He just wished she hadn’t held herself stiffly apart from him. What was he getting himself into?
     
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    Caroline had no option but to agree. She knew her father too well. If he should learn that she’d refused the earl because she demanded a year before the marriage was consummated, he would dismiss it out of hand as hysterical nonsense.
    She walked with the earl through the park, reliving the touch of his mouth on hers. His kiss had been surprisingly gentle. With them both chilled in their damp clothes, and the hard marble surface of the gazebo floor the only option for a seduction, she’d felt relatively safe, and that had stemmed her panic. She’d had to gamble on him being a gentleman when she brought him here, for she couldn’t have broached this subject in the house. She was still surprised that he’d accepted so readily. There was no sign of disgust or disappointment in his brown eyes. But when the time came, would his disillusionment turn him against her? Men were so different to women. So much more passionate and proprietorial.
    Rain drops trickled onto her hat from the branches overhead, but at least it had stopped raining. He must think her strange at best and a fool at worst. Now that the earl seemed determined to marry her, she would have to deal with each situation as it arose. His large masculine presence hindered her attempts to think things through, and she’d become muddled. Fear still gripped her ribcage in a vice at what lay ahead after they married. Whatever way she decided to avoid the marriage bed, she must be convincing to hold him off. He was cleverer than George and would be more demanding. She sighed, hating the secrecy. If only it was George she was marrying.
    Nicholas walked beside her with a determined stride. So far, he’d proved to be reasonable, not like she’d expected at all. He was a soldier, however, used to giving orders, and his emphatic refusal of her request to wait a year proved that. She would have to start thinking of a plan soon, and a good one.
    Obviously, she couldn’t hold him off forever, but she feared she would never be able to stand the act. The very thought of it made her stomach roil. She cast him a sidelong glance as he strolled beside her, his long legs taking one step to her two. She could hardly believe he was George’s brother, he seemed so unlike him. George had appeared reassuringly indifferent to the duties of the marriage bed, whereas Nicholas was a man made for sex; it was evident in every move of his strongly muscled body, his startlingly warm gaze, and his kiss.
    They walked up through the orchard. Her fingers trembled when she plucked an apple blossom from a branch as they passed. She held it to her nose, and breathed in the delicate perfume as an idea came to her.
    He gazed at her approvingly. “Your fresh beauty eclipses that flower.”
    Did he think her beautiful? “How poetical, Lord Debenham.”
    “I’ve read the poets,” Nicholas said.