Flirting with His Forbidden Lady--A Regency Family is Reunited by Laura Martin (good novels to read txt) 📕

‘One more time,’ he repeated, guiding her as if they were coupled in a dance until the pebble skimmed over the gentle waves.

‘You’re a good teacher,’ Beth said, leaning her head back a little so she could look up at him. He smiled down at her. There was warmth in his eyes, but she also sensed some of the desire she’d seen up on the clifftop as he’d handed her the flower. Every time she looked at him, every time she saw the desire flare and burn, she wanted to forget that she was meant to be an impeccably behaved young lady and give herself to him completely. His hand rested casually on her waist, his fingers pressing through the riding habit as if searching for the skin below. Beth knew he was as conscious of her as she was of him, but somehow he still seemed to be able to maintain a normal conversation.

‘Thank you. You’re a good student.’

Beth laughed. ‘My governess didn’t always think so.’

‘I can’t believe you were mischievous?’

‘We had a very dull governess when we were growing up. Our lessons were hours on end of her reading something from a book in a flat voice. Even a saint would have had to find some other way of amusing themselves.’

‘What did you do?’

‘We would play little tricks on her, nothing malicious, just things like changing around bits of furniture when she stepped out of the room or bringing small creatures into the schoolroom. Mainly to see if she noticed and to try to get a reaction from her.’

‘Did you succeed?’

Beth grimaced. ‘At the time we thought she was completely in her own world, seeming not to notice when her chair was moved from one side of the room to the other or the tables turned around, but, looking back, I think she just chose to ignore the behaviour.’

‘Certainly one tactic,’ Josh said with a smile.

‘What about you? Did you go to school or were you educated at home by a tutor?’

‘A little of both. I had a tutor until I was twelve and then spent a few years boarding at a very small school. It was for the children of the wealthy British and at one point only had eight pupils.’

She liked hearing about his life in India, liked imagining the totally different way he had been raised. It was fascinating, thinking about how the British had transported their culture halfway across the world and clung to it, all the while letting just a little of the local customs slip in.

Josh stepped away and sat down on the pebbles and Beth was about to join him when he began pulling at his boots.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Taking off my boots.’

‘I can see that. Why?’

‘I’ve never been able to go to the beach and resist a paddle in the sea.’

‘This is a bit different from one of your Indian beaches.’

‘It’s still the sea.’

‘A much colder sea.’

He looked up at her, an encouraging smile on his face, and Beth had the realisation that she would do anything this man suggested. It wasn’t logical, but it was a fact. He could persuade her to climb a tree in just her undergarments if he wanted to.

‘Come on. The others will still be a while. There’s no one else here. We can paddle our feet and still have time to sit in the sun and dry off before they arrive. No one will ever know.’

Beth had loved dipping her toes in the sea as a girl and had often enjoyed swimming from one of the safer beaches in the area when she was a child, but as she had grown older it had been drummed into her that daughters of earls did not take their boots off in public no matter how inviting the sea looked.

Glancing over her shoulder, she tried to calculate how long it would be before Annabelle and their guests arrived in Seaford. It was quite a detour up the river to get to the bridge and she thought Josh was probably right—they would have plenty of time to put their boots back on before anyone appeared over the crest of the hill. For a moment longer she hesitated, wondering what Leonard Ashburton would think if he found her barefoot on the seashore. She didn’t think he would approve.

Let him disapprove, a rebellious voice in her head protested. If he was that bothered by her enjoying the cool water on her toes on a deserted beach, then perhaps he should find himself another wife.

‘Just for a minute,’ she said, sitting down next to Josh and pulling at her boots.

The water was cold, icily so, and Beth was reminded that, although the air temperature was unseasonably warm, it was still only May. The sea hadn’t had the chance to warm up yet and as the gentle waves lapped at her toes she felt them start to tingle before going ever so slightly numb.

‘This is glorious,’ Josh declared, happily splashing along in the sea. He had rolled up his breeches to just below the knee but she could see splashes on the material as high up as his thighs. It didn’t seem to bother him.

‘Do you swim in the sea in India?’

‘Oh, yes. There is a beach about a half an hour’s ride away with the most beautiful golden-white sand and the sea is so clear you can see the bottom even twenty feet from the shore. I try to get there at least once a week for a swim and sometimes just sit on the beach, contemplating the view.’

Josh always seemed animated, always active but, as with his taking time with the sunsets, she liked that despite his hectic life he still managed to find time to pause. It was something she was bad about, something she didn’t do enough. There always seemed to be something to fill her time: dresses to be altered, the garden to be tended, appearances to be kept up. A hundred different