Read Online Lord of the Rakes by Darcie Wilde - Free Book Online Page B

sensation of his hand closing her fingers around the linen drove away all Caroline’s impulse to laughter. His laughter had also faded, replaced by a curiously determined expression.
    “Do you know we have not been introduced?” he asked, and Caroline realized he did not plan to let her go. Instead, he lifted their hands together and guided the handkerchief toward the corner of her eye. “Philip Montcalm, at your service.”
    The distant, wavering torchlight turned Philip Montcalm’s face into an arresting mask of shadows. But at last Caroline could see the color of his eyes. They were a deep, stormy blue, made rich and mysterious by the night around them. He made no apology for keeping hold of her, offered no explanation as to why he did not release her. He moved her hand as he saw fit, first to daub one eye, then to dry the trail of mirthful tears on her cheek with a single, slow downward stroke of the cloth.
    “Lady Caroline Delamarre,” she croaked, rather astounded she could remember her name at all. Caroline felt suspended, wrapped in a spell cast by this man’s presumptuous and insistent hold on her. His gaze did not flicker from hers as he brushed the cloth along the curve of tender flesh beneath her eyes. This soft sensation combined with the inescapable awareness of how close he was made Caroline dizzy. The desire to touch him blossomed inside her. She wanted to run her free hand across his broad chest, and up around his powerful shoulders. She wanted to lean into his warmth and brush her lips against his throat where it was bared above his collar and simply tied cravat. She wanted to kiss him, hard, passionately. Immediately.
    “There.” He set her hand down in her lap and gently took the handkerchief to return to his pocket. “Is that better?”
    Time and breath returned in a rush. Her face had been cool from the touch of the breeze against her tears. Now it burned, as much from Mr. Montcalm’s intimate ministrations as from the impulses flooding her.
    “Yes, thank you, Mr. Montcalm,” she said. “It is much better.”
    “I’m glad.” How could a man’s smile do so much to her? It stripped away the last of her propriety. She wanted to close what little distance remained between them. She wanted to explore his body with her hands, to understand every aspect of this exquisitely masculine presence.
    “Given the unusual nature of this introduction,” Mr. Montcalm continued, “I was hoping you might consent to call me Philip.” He pulled her lily from his buttonhole and held it toward her. The gallant gesture was only somewhat diminished by the fact that the lily’s delicate petals had been all but flattened from when he’d pulled her close against him earlier.
    “It is a little worse for wear, Philip,” she remarked as she turned the flower in her fingers. It felt wonderfully daring to call this stranger by his Christian name, and to see the expression of approval on his sculpted features as she did.
    “Then I shall have to replace it, Caroline.” Mr. Montcalm, Philip, took the flower back. She thought he might press it to his lips. But it seemed he was not going to stoop to anything so conventional. He simply tucked the battered blossom into his pocket, the same one where he’d placed the handkerchief. Then he settled back, laying one arm again across the back of the iron bench and stretching his legs out in front of him. Caroline could not stop her eyes from traveling the length of those legs. Pure white stockings encased his calves. His breeches’ pale silk shimmered where it curved across his muscular thighs. She had no business looking at any man like this. Caroline struggled to summon at least some ladylike reserve. She might not be able to play out this scene in the way she had imagined, but she did not have to fall immediately into this man’s arms.
    That thought, she realized belatedly, was a serious mistake.
    Fortunately, Philip did not seem at all shocked by the impropriety