Read Online Daring Miss Danvers by Vivienne Lorret - Free Book Online Page B

loveseat at the back of the parlor for himself and Emma.
    Taking their seats a moment before the music began, Rathburn drew in a breath.
    Instantly, he stilled. Something was definitely different.
    For starters, he’d never thought a spray of tiny white flowers would bring him to his knees. Or else, he never would have sent them in the first place. Now, he couldn’t stop thinking of them, or wanting to pluck them from where they rested in Emma’s hair.
    Emma glanced up at him from beneath her lashes. “Is something amiss?” Her whispered words blended in with the first strains of violin and cello, but they were seated in close enough proximity that he could hear her plainly. Close enough to catch the sweet scent of jasmine perfuming the air around her.
    “No,” he said, shifting in his seat. “Nothing. It’s just that . . . you’re quite lovely this evening.”
    When he’d arranged for the flowers to be delivered to her earlier, he’d done so as a lark, playing his part of the besotted beau mostly out of the need to rile her. Their verbal parries always served to brighten his mood. He’d been certain that by the time he saw her this evening, she’d have daggers at the ready. He assumed she’d have tossed the flowers into the bin and prepared to give him an earful. Or, at the most, accept them blandly and put them into a vase.
    He never thought she’d wear them.
    To make matters worse, she’d fashioned her hair in a stylish mass of curls drawn up from the nape of her neck, and in a spill of rich, glossy tresses over one shoulder. Besting him at his own game, she’d woven the flowers into her hair with the last little buds nestled in the curls against the curve of her breast.
    Now, he couldn’t stop thinking about jasmine and her. Mostly her. Of how her lips tasted of jasmine tea, and how lovely she would look on a bed of white flowers, her dark hair spread out over the coverlet, her body bared to him . . .
    She frowned, the flesh between her brows puckering. “Then why do you look as if you’re in pain?”
    He laid the program for this evening’s music on his lap, hoping no one would notice swell of his erection in his form-fitting evening clothes. He didn’t know what had come over him, or why everything seemed so alive and new to him. This foreign sensation was overriding the semblance of better judgment he’d adopted these past years.
    He only knew one cure for it . . . to unsettle Emma as well. After all, she was too cool and calm, taking all this in stride as if certain of how it would end. Damn it all, but she gave every appearance of trusting him.
    “If you must know, I was contemplating whether I would prefer cups of chocolate or jasmine flowers on a rainy morning.” Flirting was good, he told himself. It was a behavior he knew better than breathing. Right now, he even needed a reminder on how to do that.
    Catching his meaning, she blushed. Quite prettily, as a matter of fact, and looked askance to ensure their conversation was private. “You mean jasmine tea , surely.”
    “Do I?” Rathburn couldn’t help it. He lifted his hand and plucked one of the blossoms from the spot just below her ear and lifted it to his nose.
    Emma’s lips parted and she looked every inch the innocent miss about to be embroiled in scandal. She went so far as to place her gloved hand over his forearm, forcing him to lower the flower. “That is hardly necessary.”
    He looked down at the way her slender fingers curled over the sleeve of his slate gray, superfine jacket. He even imagined he could feel the heat of her hand, and that she held on to him for a moment longer than was proper before she released him and clasped both hands in her lap. “Necessary?”
    “Your flirtation . . . this pretense . . .” She gestured between them.
    “Ah.” He grinned, enjoying the way her teeth pulled on the corner of her mouth when she was flustered. Withdrawing a handkerchief from the inner pocket of his jacket,