Her cheek twitched, Arabella simpering in response. “I’ll tell you what. I will ride astride if you ride sidesaddle.”
Black eyes burned at the word astride, provocative where no other could see.
The amusement slipped off her face. Arabella looked away, saying goodbye to the family waiting at the portico to see them off.
Mr. Harrow, far less polite, merely mounted and rode off.
It was impossible to miss the hurt feelings of Lilly as the man left her in such a way. When the beauty’s lip quivered, Arabella looked at the profile of the retreating scoundrel and scowled. A good distance from the house, the trees behind them and the waving landscape of the moors their only audience, she turned and accused, “You hurt her feelings riding off as you did.”
“Do not point that finger at me. If you had not tried to deny what passed between us, smiling only at that insipid, milksop boy, then I would not have had to draw your attention in other ways.”
Her jaw dropped. “Draw my attention? Are you mad? If your cruelty to her was supposed to punish me then you must be blind as well if you failed to notice that I am not the one crying right now. Miss Jenkins is.”
The cocky smirk turned to a sneer. “Oh, but you are affected. Look at you all flushed and wound tight in your sick compassion for revolting strangers. Even now you regret her wounded feelings... Miss Jenkins would laugh should the roles be reversed.”
Signaling for Mamioro to stop, she yelled at his back. “You are impossible!”
He jerked, circling her horse, blocking the wind that made Arabella’s eyes squint. “You clung to me in your sleep.”
Arabella did what she had been unable to do that morning—looked him dead in the eye. “Enough...”
Reaching forward, warm fingers tucked a windblown curl into her bonnet, Gregory taunting, “Does the White Woman desire a kiss? Will it soothe her raging spirits?”
Slapped his hand away, she hissed, “Stop mocking me!”
He leaned down with a dark, self-satisfied smirk. “There is one way to end this.”
Before she could argue, his lips crashed down and claimed hers with such passion she would have lost her seat if not for the arm he snaked around her middle. Never once in her life had a man kissed her in such a way, with such desperation and soul shaking eagerness. Everything she had known from others had only been debasing and grotesque. Clinging to him so she would not fall, Arabella’s gloved fingers curled around the back of his neck. Forcefully she exercised her own frustration, consuming even as she was consumed, until he somehow stilled her, lulling her into a gentle, slow moving caress.
Gregory breathed heavy at her ear. “Should I have kissed you last night, White Woman? Is that what would have made you smile at me today as you smiled at that simpering fool?” He did not wait for an answer, simply began to run his lips over her neck, sucking gently as he worked the buttons at her breast.
“Was I not gentle?” he growled, petulant and sullen, kissing a path where her redingote parted above her breasts. “Was I not patient?”
Arabella did not know what possessed her, but her hand came to his cheek urging him to raise his eyes to her. Staring down at such beauty, she found his mouth swollen and slightly open, utterly enticing. “You are so warm I can hardly bear it.”
Gripping her nape, he kissed her hard. “I should have finished what we began last night. I should not have been merciful.”
“Finished?”
One question and he knew she did not understand—she had been no virgin, and by her own admission her dead husband had used her badly.
The words came, tempting and low, from the man fingering the small swell of breast exposed above her dress. “There is so much more. So many ways I could please you.”
Those words brought a twinge between her thighs. “How did you know which room was mine?”
“That was once my mother’s room. Seeing how very fond you are of her portrait, I was not at all surprised to see you took to her bedchamber as well.”
A soft smile came to her lips. He did share the blonde beauty’s black eyes. “I did not know she was your mother.”
“Does that alter your opinion of the painting?” He hooked his finger under her bodice as if to pull her closer.
Something in his acerbic tone reminded her of another he spoke to in such a way. Gregory was playing with her just as he played with Lilly.
“You are angry again, Imp,” he chuckled at her fallen expression.
Arabella pressed her swollen lips into a firm line, feeling she had made some terrible misstep. Mamioro sensed his mistress’s temper and shied to the side, separating her from Mr. Harrow.
“And now you are going to run away?” Gregory outright laughed, the entirety of his expression cruelly amused.