He ran the tips of his fingers across her lower lip. “Tell me,” he said before he could stop himself, “how does a woman who has lived most of her life in the desert manage to have skin as soft as velvet?”
Her mouth opened against his fingertips. “I—” She stopped, drew a deep breath, let it out in a puff of air against his fingers. “I worked under a tent, always.”
“Did you?” He traced the outline of her mouth. So, so soft.
“Yes, and wore a hat, and a veil, too, much of the time.”
Her sangfroid was admirable. Only a slight, momentary quiver in her jaw told him she was at all affected by what he was doing. All that passion just under the surface. What would happen if it were ever allowed to come out?
“Do you know,” he mused, running his fingertip along the line of her jaw, “almost no one calls me by my name? Your grace, or Tremore, but only Viola calls me Anthony. Even amongst my friends, and there are few I trust enough to call them friends, my rank is always an inevitable barrier. Even they do not call me by my name.”
He touched the tiny mole at the corner of her jaw, and her hand moved as if to push his hand away, but stilled in the air, hesitant.
What would it take, he wondered, for her to let down her guard? He had always prided himself on his own self-control, but she was a master at it. “If we were friends, Miss Wade, would you call me Anthony?”
She turned her face away. “I do not think that would be appropriate. I would ... I would rather not.”
He moved closer. If he kissed her, the dam might break, something might snap, all that passion might come out. He cupped her cheek to turn her face toward him.
“Do you want us to be friends, your grace?” she asked.
“I do. Believe me, I do.” He could feel her desire and her apprehension in the rigid tendons of her neck beneath her ear, in the shallowness of her breathing. He bent his head.
“Do friends take such advantage as this?” she asked, her words more effective at stopping him than a slap across the face.
Anthony froze, his lips an inch from hers, his fingertips against her neck. He pulled back a bit and studied her profile in the dappled sunlight that filtered between the leaves of the chestnut tree. For the first time since he was a boy, he felt the agony of uncertainty.
He had no personal experience with virgins. He’d been sixteen when he had chosen his first mistress. In the thirteen years that had passed since then, he had provided himself with quite a few female companions. He also enjoyed the pleasures of London demireps on occasions when he went to Town. But of all the women he had intimately touched in his life, not one had been a virgin.
Desire had nothing to do with experience, and he felt Daphne’s desire as much as his own, but she was in his employ, and at this moment, she seemed so very vulnerable, almost fragile. If he pushed, he could win a kiss, at least. But honor, which dictated everything in Anthony’s life, dictated his decision now.
He sucked in a deep breath, summoning the iron will that had made his reason the master of his emotions since he was a child, and let her go.
He told himself the entire incident was innocuous. There was no harm in simply touching a woman. No harm at all. Nonetheless, he moved a safer distance away from her, and they finished their meal in silence on opposite corners of the blanket.
Chapter 15
Daphne did not know quite what to expect from her first real dance lesson, but she had thought it would begin with dancing. She was proven wrong at once.
“You want me to what?” she asked, staring at Anthony in astonishment.
“Walk.” He took her arm and ushered her through the doorway to the long corridor outside his childhood room.
“Silly of me,” she murmured, “but I thought I was going to learn to dance.”
“You will, but first I want to study you as you walk.”
That was the last thing Daphne wanted, but when he clasped his hands behind him and started down the long corridor, she fell in step beside him. “To dance well, Miss Wade,” he added, “you must walk well. Dancing, especially the sedate steps of a quadrille, is little more than walking to music.”
They had barely taken a dozen steps before Anthony came to a stop. Daphne paused beside him. “Why did you stop?” she asked.
Instead of answering, he turned toward her and pressed one palm against her diaphragm and the other against the base of her spine. She sucked in a deep, startled gasp at the contact, but he did not appear to notice, for he pressed his palms into her body with the pragmatic comment, “Remember to keep your back straight. Tonight you are not the antiquarian bending over a table of bronze tools or scanning the ground for pieces of clay pots. You are a young lady of fashion out for a leisurely stroll.”
He let his hands fall away, but the warmth of his touch lingered as he continued walking down the corridor, and she felt anything but the proper young lady. She resumed walking as well, but her heart was pounding in her chest as if she had been running.
She was not used to being touched, she told herself. That was all. He had touched her several times now, and the unbelievable pleasure of it always took her by surprise. Just the memory of the odd, melting sensation he could evoke when his fingertips grazed her cheek or he laid his palm against her back set her nerves on edge, for she did not want to feel that way. Not about him.
They strolled up and down the long length of the room countless times, their conversation minimal but for an occasional word of correction from him. Chin up, shoulders back, slow down.
