Ellen smiled meekly and dropped her arms. “Joseph, you don’t have to go to all the trouble to—”
“It’s no trouble at all,” he interrupted her, then did something entirely unexpected. He stepped forward, slipped Ellen into his arms, and slanted his mouth over hers in a kiss.
A voice in the back of his head gasped with shock at his actions, warning him that he’d never kissed a woman before and he didn’t know what he was doing. The rest of him let his body guide him. He knew he was supposed to open his mouth and do something with his tongue, but that was as far as his knowledge took him.
Instinct carried him the rest of the way. It felt so good just to hold Ellen against him, and to brush his tongue across her lips. He sucked in a breath when she lifted her arms over his shoulders and joined him in the kiss, sliding her tongue along his. In fact, within seconds, she was directing their kiss, showing him how to mold his mouth to hers by doing the same to him. He imitated her movements, and in no time, everything clicked.
By God, why had he never attempted this kissing magic before? It was wonderful. So much so that he pushed Ellen firmly back against the wall and teased his tongue into her mouth the way she’d invaded his mouth moments before. He was even vaguely aware that she’d hitched one leg up over his hip to draw him closer. Both of them were making mad sounds of passion, but that meant nothing to him other than increasing the pleasure of the way their lips and tongues entwined.
Someone dropped something around the corner of the building, startling Joseph back into sense. He pushed away from Ellen, panting and gasping for breath, the same as she was. He couldn’t drag his eyes away from hers as she stared intently at him. His heart pounded furiously, and from more than just the shock of whatever had been dropped.
Farther in the distance, he heard the sound of an announcer calling out that the race would start soon.
“We’d better…it would be wise…they might….”
“We should find our seats,” Ellen finished for him.
Joseph hummed, still not able to drag his gaze away from her. “Yes, our seats.”
Another fluttering moment passed in which Joseph considered kissing her again, then Ellen burst into a laugh. She covered her kiss-pinkened lips with one hand.
“We could get up to so much mischief,” she giggled, her eyes dancing with excitement.
That was what Joseph needed to drive sense back into him. He laughed along with her, but pushed away from the side of the building, tugged at his coat—and thank God he was wearing a coat, because he could feel the state of his body and knew his trousers were tented—then offered Ellen his arm.
“We could indeed,” he said, barely able to contain his own laughter as he escorted her around the edge of the building.
“Walk slowly,” Ellen whispered as they emerged onto the path and came into sight of anyone who cared to look at him. “And if anyone asks, you’re only flushed bright red because of the cold and the wind.”
“Good Lord,” Joseph said, twisting to find something that would show him his reflection so that he could see how dire the situation was.
It wasn’t particularly cold or windy, but fortunately, he didn’t have to use the excuse as they made their way back to the public seating area, then dodged through the crowd, heading toward where his mother and Aunt Josephine had secured seats with Mr. and Mrs. Mercer. The four of them glanced almost in unison at Joseph and Ellen as they reached them, but Joseph was spared having to explain anything by the well-timed starter’s pistol firing.
The crowd bristled with excitement as the race began, and Joseph breathed a sigh of relief as he and Ellen were saved from disaster. Ellen let go of his arm and glanced to him briefly, winking in a way that was far too cheeky for a crowded racetrack, then slipped around Joseph’s mother and Aunt Josephine to stand with her sister. She leaned over to whisper something to Mrs. Mercer, but whatever she said was drowned out by the cheering of the crowd and the thundering of horse’s hooves.
Joseph considered that it would be a good idea to cheer along with everyone else as the horses flew past them, but he seemed incapable of doing anything but grinning like a fool. His lips still tingled with the force of the way he’d kissed Ellen, and he could still smell her perfume and feel the heat of her body. Was that the sort of thing that his brothers had teased him about missing out on for so long? If it was, they were absolutely right to have needled him about it. Kissing was glorious. He wasn’t too proud to admit he wanted more.
That would have to come some other time, though. Once the race was over—and a few subsequent races as well—the crowd of spectators began to disburse to go about whatever other business or social calls they had for the day. That included Mr. and Mrs. Mercer making their apologies for taking Ellen away, as they both had more things to attend to that day.
“I will call on you as soon as I can so that we might further our plans,” Joseph told Ellen in parting, kissing her hand.
“I will be waiting,” she answered with a smile.
When he straightened from his gallant gesture and watched her for a moment as she left, then turned to his mother and aunt, he found the two women staring at him with barely-hidden smiles.
He wasn’t in the mood to be teased, but he did recognize that his mother and aunt could help him in his endeavors to find Ellen the place in society she wanted.
“Mama, Aunt Josephine, I believe I need a favor from you,” he said as he escorted them along to the gate that they’d entered through. Fortunately, he had already spotted their family’s carriage waiting as part of the line picking up those who had attended the race.
“Does this favor involve one of your great-grandmother’s rings?” his mother asked.
Joseph smiled at the idea before he could stop himself, then schooled his face into a frown when he caught his mother’s and aunt’s knowing grins.
“No, it’s not that,” he said, pretending to brush the idea away. In fact, he was beginning to see that Ellen was right when she considered their eventual marriage a foregone conclusion. “I need your help in improving Miss Garrett’s standing in society.”
That surprised his mother and aunt.
“Are you certain that is even possible?” Aunt Josephine asked, one eyebrow raised.