Beyond A Wicked Kiss Read online

  "I had not heard that. You didn't, did you?"

  "As you suspected, I was in Sunbury with Beckwith."

  She nodded. Her relief that there was no special license was tempered by her concern that his introduction to Mr. Beckwith might not have gone well. "Am I still employed at the school?"

  "Yes. I did not interfere, though he suggested he would understand if I did. If he is representative of the entire board of governors, then they are not quite as progressive in their thinking as you led me to believe. Apparently they are pleased to employ you, but cannot fathom that the duke permitted it."

  "I am well aware of their confusion on this last count. I am only the second woman to have the position as head of the school since its founding. Except for my immediate predecessor, all the others have been men."

  "What about Miss Weaver?"

  Ria shrugged. "I cannot say. I've told you the school was founded by gentlemen. If Miss Weaver existed at all, she was simply a namesake. There is no record that she was ever headmistress. Pray, do not miss my point—the governors take small steps, but they are always moving in a forward direction."

  "That is your opinion. One might take the position that permitting women to find purpose outside the drawing room and bedchamber is likely to bring about the collapse of society. That is hardly a forward direction."

  "One might take that position," she said, "but you don't. It is far too late an hour to argue the devil's convictions. Tell me what became of your bid to join the board."

  "No invitation was formally made, but I believe Beckwith intends to speak or write to the other governors about my interest. I have reason to hope." The dim light did not prevent West from glimpsing Ria's uncertainty. "You do not find this a helpful development?"

  "I am not at all confident that anything will be gained by you joining the board. Jane Petty is my concern, not the board of governors."

  "Miss Petty is also my concern. This is not a means to keep you on a short tether."

  "I am very glad to hear it."

  West grinned at her clipped accents. Clearly, she was offended by the notion. "Those are Beckwith's words, not mine. I have to say I did not care for the manner in which he said it. I think he has given some thought to the fashion in which he would like to restrain you."

  Ria frowned. There was a meaning in his words that she did not quite understand, something that was being said but not being said plainly. "I do not comprehend why Mr. Beckwith believes I require restraint of any sort. In what way does he think I have overstepped myself?"

  West realized he had just put forth an idea that Ria was not fully prepared to hear. For all that she had initiated this second encounter in his bedroom, she was not worldly. These overtures were prompted by her belief that they were both necessary and urgent, and they were done on Miss Petty's behalf, not out of some carnal self-interest. He would do well to remember that, he decided, though it was a damnable temptation to pretend it was otherwise. Miss Ria Ashby had a splendidly kissable mouth.

  West understood he would have to respond to her question only so far as she could accept the answer. "Beckwith thinks that you should not have told me about Miss Petty's disappearance. He believes your worries are excessive."

  "Excessive? But—" She stopped because West held up one finger.

  "He is of the definite opinion that she will reappear, most likely pregnant and unmarried, remorseful but with her hand out. You must admit that it is a distinct possibility, especially in light of what Amy told us."

  "If it comes to pass, it is because someone took advantage of Jane. He must be made to account for his actions. Does Mr. Beckwith think nothing should be done?"

  "He believes he is doing it. There was approval to hire Mr. Lytton."

  "But there has been no progress."

  "I do not think that concerns Beckwith. He believes the governors have done their duty by Miss Petty."

  "That cannot be true," Ria said. There was a slight catch in her voice and an ache behind her eyes. "You must have misunderstood."

  Offering no argument, West continued to regard her steadily.

  "He was so supportive," she said. "I have his letter at the school. He responded quickly when I wrote to him about Miss Petty, and he shared all of my concerns."

  "Then you are probably right. I must have misunderstood."

  Angry tears made Ria's blue-gray eyes steely. "Why do you do that? Why do you offer your opinion and then not stand behind it?"

  He shrugged. "It is not so important to me that I convince you that I'm right."

  "But I don't want you to surrender your opinion if I am wrong."

  One corner of West's mouth lifted but his eyes remained perfectly grave. "I don't surrender my opinion, Ria. I simply allow you to have yours."

  A tear fell from the corner of her eye. She wiped it away impatiently. "You are maddening. Mayhap I want to be convinced."

  His smile deepened a fraction. "I don't think so."

  Ria's next breath came shakily, but she managed to suppress a shudder. On a thread of sound, she asked, "What will happen now?"

  "Beckwith will speak to the other governors. If we are fortunate, they will decide it serves them better to make me a member."

  "When you told me you meant to join them, I thought you would offer them money to secure a seat. But that was not your plan at all, was it?"

  "No. They would not be moved by money."

  "Then what is it that you're offering?"

  "Power." West sat up and pushed a pillow behind his back to lean against the bedhead. He raked his hair with his fingertips. "I told you Beckwith is not pleased that I will take it upon myself to determine what happened to Miss Petty. It is natural that he will want to have a measure of control over what I do. He can't have it unless he invites me to join them, and he can't invite me without speaking to the others. What I am offering them, Ria, is an opportunity to eliminate me as a threat and protect their positions."

  Ria absently laced her fingers until her hands formed a single fist. Raising that fist against her chest, she rested her chin on the knuckles. Her regard of West was candid. "You still think of Mr. Beckwith as one of the bishops."

  "He is a bishop. I cannot pretend it is otherwise."

  She nodded faintly. An argument formed in her mind, but she held it back, adopting his manner of not trying to change his opinion when it was at odds with her own. He seemed to know the battle she was fighting with herself because a faint smile lifted the corners of his mouth. She returned it. "I never said I could not learn something from you."

  That raised West's wicked grin. "Indeed," he said dryly.

  Ria could do nothing about the flush suffusing her complexion from her throat to her cheeks. "You have taken a meaning I did not intend."

  "Indeed."

  "Intolerable."

  His grin deepened. "The slight would be more effective if your eyes were not straying to that book."

  "I was looking at you."

  "You were thinking about that book." He took Ria's small sigh as a sign of admission. "What do you want to know about it?"

  "Where did you get it?"

  "Beckwith's study."

  Ria hardly knew what to say. "How extraordinary."

  "I suppose it must seem so to you, but not all men find the poetry of Byron and Shelley to be an adequate aphrodisiac." He gave her a quizzing look. "You do know what an aphrodisiac is, don't you?"

  "Of course I do," she said coolly. "It is derived from Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty to the ancient Greeks. An aphrodisiac is something that excites the manner in which one thinks about love and beauty."

  West nodded slowly, hard-pressed not to laugh. "Yes, well, that is one definition."

  "If there is another, I should like to hear it. I have no liking for being kept in ignorance."

  "And I am not your bloody tutor."

  Ria did not take issue with either his assertion or his way of expressing it. She merely stared him down.


  "Very well. An aphrodisiac is something—usually a food or a drug—that excites the blood." He sighed heavily when she merely furrowed her brow at him. "It rouses sexual desire. I cannot say it more plainly that that."

  "You don't have to. I understand perfectly." She paused a beat, then added, "Thank you."

  It was Ria's thanks that undid West. The crisp accents were so entirely at odds with the heat in her cheeks that the presentation was comical. He wasn't moved to laughter, though. His inclination, instead, was to kiss her.

  He leaned forward and slipped one hand at the back of Ria's neck before she properly determined his intent. His mouth settled on hers, lightly at first, then with more pressure when she did not resist. Her lips were soft and sweet and warm. They parted for him on a breathy little sigh.

  He slid closer until his hip nudged hers. She turned into him, seeking better purchase on the edge of the bed. Her hands rose to the level of his shoulders, hovered, then were lifted higher so she could thread her fingers in his hair. The first tentative touch of her fingertips wrested a low, throaty growl from him and quickened his blood. He felt her press herself flush to him, and he could make out the shape of her swelling breasts against his chest.

  She tugged lightly at the curling ends of his hair. This small encouragement was all he required to lower her to the bed. He followed her down, mouths fused, eyes closed. The kiss deepened; his tongue plunged into her mouth, teasing hers, pushing, tasting, sucking.

  West pushed at the blankets tangled between them. He found the sash of her robe and untied it. The brushed flannel fabric fell away on either side of her waist, leaving only the thin cotton of her nightdress as a barrier to his touch. He laid a hand on her abdomen and felt her skin retract. His palm slid upward and she drew in a ragged breath in response to its advance. When he cupped her breast and dragged his thumbnail across the turgid nipple, her hips lifted off the bed.

  He tore his mouth away from hers and steadied himself. They were topsy-turvy on the mattress, their heads at the foot, their feet at the head. The warming pan was dangerously close to tipping, and he moved it safely away. One of the pillows had fallen to the floor, along with both of Ria's slippers, and the blankets were bunched in a mound in the middle of the mattress. He was aware for the first time how cold it was outside of the quilts, although cold had little enough to do with the shiver that shuddered through him.

  She was watching him through eyes no longer steely, but the color of smoke. Her expression was not vague or unfocused, neither slack nor slumberous. Rather, she was watchful. Desire, as it was cast on Ria's face, was a conscious act of will, perhaps even a bit defiant. Here was wanting emboldened by curiosity, need made lively by the intelligence of a sentient being.

  Whatever he might do to her now, it would not be against her will.

  West touched Ria's forehead with his own. He closed his eyes, and his smile hovered just above her mouth. "Perhaps I shall be your bloody tutor after all," he whispered.

  Her own smile was faint as she repeated words she had spoken earlier in a different context. "I never said I could not learn something from you."

  He said nothing to this, kissing her once instead, and then lifting his head again and rolling away so that he lay on his back. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Ria turn on her side and stretch lengthwise beside him, propping herself on one elbow and adopting much in the way of the pose he had earlier.

  "I have given you disgust of me," she said quietly.

  "No."

  "Then why are you not kissing me?"

  "I am not certain I want the responsibility."

  She rubbed her bare feet against each other, warding off the chill. West started to reach for one of the blankets to give her, but she stayed his hand. "You do not have to take responsibility," she said. "For anything." She leaned over, found a corner of one of the blankets, and dragged it across them. "I would not ask so much of you as that. I would not even want it. If it is that you are my guardian that gives you pause, then—"

  "It has nothing to do with that bit of nonsense."

  "Then what is it?"

  "You are without experience."

  "But that is exactly my point. I am four-and-twenty. I am resolved that the time has come to acquire some."

  "Your confidence is misplaced. You don't know enough about the inclinations of men to say that."

  Ria sat up and turned her back on West while she lighted the candlestick on the bedside table. She picked up Beckwith's book and lay down again, this time on her back. Opening the book, she held it up so they could both view the illustrations. The drawing of the woman on her knees in front of the man was the one that was right side up.

  "Tell me about this, then," she said. Though it was her intent to be bold, the slight catch in her voice gave her demand a slightly tentative edge. Having managed that much, however, she was determined to persevere. "She looks as if she means to put the whole of him in her mouth."

  West could not recall that he had ever had a conversation such as this with a woman. The tone of it, though, was not unfamiliar to him. Ria communicated the same uncertainty and awe he remembered from his Hambrick days when he and the rest of the Compass Club had seen pictures such as this one for the first time.

  "I believe that is her intent, yes," he said carefully.

  "She might very well choke. It is uncommonly large, is it not?"

  West made an effort to concentrate on the illustration and not on the part of him that she might term uncommonly large. "It is of the length and girth one might expect for an aroused male." He was pleased he could address her question in such a composed manner. "As to whether she will choke, that depends on whether she has the knack of it."

  "The knack of it? I take that to mean it requires some special talent and practice." She fell silent as she considered this, then offered thoughtfully, "I saw a Gypsy fellow once swallow a flaming sword almost to the hilt. It must be rather like that."

  West realized he might very well choke on nothing more than his own spit if he did not take Ria in hand. "Yes, I suppose it is."

  She glanced at him, frowning slightly. "But you're not certain?"

  "You will perhaps comprehend that I have had neither occasion to swallow a sword nor suck on a—" He stopped short, knowing he had said entirely too much. So much for taking Ria in hand. That caution was best applied to himself, and after she left he was determined to do it in the most literal manner possible. "I think enough has been said," he told her. "There is no sense in talking a thing to death."

  Ria held the book away when he would have taken it from her. "If this is the only way I am to acquire knowledge, then you should not deprive me of it. Now, tell me if it is a thing to be enjoyed by both of them."

  He groaned softly and placed his forearm across his brow. "By the man, certainly. By the woman, sometimes."

  "Why only sometimes?"

  "It depends on what enjoyment she derives from giving pleasure."

  "I see," she said slowly, loath to admit she was still uncertain of his meaning. "You know this from your own experience?"

  West lifted his forearm just enough to give Ria a quelling glance. He was satisfied when she blushed deeply and went back to studying the illustration. There were limits to what he would tell her, he thought, and she had just pushed that question against one of them.

  Ria's fingers trembled slightly as she turned the page. She regarded the next drawing for a long moment before she spoke. "This one is just like the one before it. I fail to understand the point of that."

  "Not exactly like the one before." He reached for the book again, and when she was hesitant to give it up, he asked for it. "May I? I promise to return it." He plucked it from her hands when she held it out to him. Angling it until her view was better, West grasped all the pages between his thumb and forefinger, then let his thumb slip from the edge of each successive page so they flew by quickly.

  Ria blinked widely, fascinated and a little frightened as the figures
of the man and woman were set into motion by the rapidly flipping pages. The woman was pulled forward, swallowing the man's erect member as deeply as Ria recalled the Gypsy taking in the fiery sword. "To the hilt," she said under her breath, scarcely aware she had spoken aloud.

  "An apt description."

  Ria took the book back and held the pages just as he had, then let her thumb slip. The movement of the figures was jerky, almost comical, but there was no denying their purpose. "How is it accomplished?"

  West chuckled. She was more curious about the method the artist used than the content. "As I said, each page is not identical to the one before. There are subtle differences that account for the movement when the pages are thumbed through quickly." He directed her to open the book to an illustration that was at the midpoint. "You can see the differences between this one and the one at the beginning. Now look at the final illustration. The woman has released him again."

  "You must allow that it is very clever."

  "That is what South said the first time he saw a book like this."

  "How old were you?"

  "Eleven. Perhaps twelve."

  She nodded, sighing. "And I am twice that age. Boys are more fortunate, I think, to know of these things early."

  "I do not remember having that opinion when we were caught out."

  Ria smiled. "Well, perhaps twelve is rather young. Still, girls would be better able to secure their place in society if they knew what they might be asked to embrace or endure."

  "Embrace or endure," he said softly. For all that Ria was inexperienced, he thought she had neatly captured a woman's dilemma. It had certainly been his own mother's. He watched her face as she riffled the pages a third time. Her features were no longer awash in color, and every aspect of her countenance was set in concentration. There was a fine crease between her fair brows, and her eyes had narrowed a fraction. Her lips were flattened and twisted slightly to one side. He had no difficulty imagining she had applied the same formidable intelligence and consideration to her studies in the schoolroom, a student much prized by her teachers.