The River of No Return by Bee Ridgway (best novels of all time txt) 📕

his voice. He reached for her, but she held back. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re such an innocent. I was teasing you. I take it back.”

She turned her face to him again. “I cannot help that I am innocent.”

“I like it.”

She put her chin up. “Other men have liked it, too!”

His eyes flashed dark, and with a quick jerk he pulled her against him and kissed her. She kissed him back fiercely, but he pulled away. “You wicked girl,” he said. Yet he was smiling as he said it, a real smile instead of that wretched knowing one. “You make it hard to stop kissing you.”

“I don’t want you to stop.” She put her hand on his thigh. “I am not that sweet girl you thought about all those years. I’m glad she could help you. But she isn’t me. You made her up out of the shadows and light of that afternoon.”

“I know it,” he said.

“I want you to keep kissing me, Nicholas. Why won’t you?”

“Last time I kissed you, you didn’t want to hear about my reasons for stopping.”

She looked at her hand on his leg. “I know your reasons.” She pushed her hand up his thigh, feeling the way the lean muscles swelled.

He put his hand over hers to stay it. “Stop that,” he said. “My reasons are very simple today. We have to call a halt now or we won’t be able to.” He bent to the white book on the floor, and the acorn still perched on top of it. “The acorn is mine,” he said, palming it. “But read these.” He handed her the book. “Ignore the one called ‘Julia’! Donne didn’t like his Julia, whereas I like mine, very much. But I think you will find the last poem informative.” He stood up. “I’ll go downstairs now. You stay here for a while, then come down when you are sure I’ve had time to be elsewhere. And, Julia?”

She looked up at him.

He tossed the acorn into the air and caught it. “I said I would kiss you again, and I did.”

“Oh!” She made as if to throw his little book at him, and he ducked, laughing, and ran lightly down the stairs.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Julia frowned at her reflection in the mirror. For an hour or more she had stared at the ceiling, then at her reflection, then out of the window, then at her reflection again. Eyes, nose, mouth. Neck, arms, breasts. Hands. Belly, sex, thighs. Knees, feet, toes.

Trouble.

But now the clock and her troublesome body were both telling her it was almost time to go down to dinner. Her dress was laid out upon the bed; her combs and ribbons were on the dresser. Everything was in waiting. Julia rang for the maid.

When she was dressed and the maid dismissed, Julia pinched some color into her cheeks. The clock ticked loudly but slowly. If she went down now she would be a mite early. If she was early, she would have to watch his face as he entered. If late, she would have to watch his face as she entered. These seemed like completely different possibilities, and yet no matter which she chose, she would still have to see Blackdown over dinner, she would have to talk to him, she would have to look at him and pretend that nothing had ever happened. That had been easier before, when they had only kissed once, under a tree in the rain. She had struggled with her desire after that, but ultimately she had managed to pack it away. Or so she’d thought. Give her Blackdown alone in a pretty little glass room high up over the square, and it turned out that her neatly folded desire was a jack-in-the-box, ready to spring up.

In the end, it happened that Julia and Blackdown met at the top of the stairs. He smiled when he saw her, and his expression was neither knowing nor distant, but simply his own. She relaxed and fell into step beside him.

“Have you read the poem?”

“Not yet.”

“Enough excitement for one afternoon?”

“Quite!” She swept past him, enjoying the sound of his laughter tumbling down the stairs after her.

The dowager marchioness and Bella were dining in Greenwich tonight, and staying the night as the guests of Lord and Lady Latch, which meant that the table was set for only four. When Nick and Julia entered, Clare and the Russian were already seated and chatting away in that light manner they had. Julia could not understand how Clare could bear the count, but she seemed actually to like him. The Russian got to his feet and bowed when Julia entered, and Clare explained that he had been telling her about how best to escape wolves in Russia. “It is all nonsense, of course,” she said. “But he claims that they cannot bear the sound of French. All you must do is speak French to a wolf, and he will run away.”

“It is true, I swear it,” the count said, pulling out Julia’s chair but never turning his attention from Clare. “Do you speak French?”

“A few words.”

“A few words, they are enough for a wolf. Here, we try.” He leaned across the table toward Clare and growled.

“Bonjour, Monsieur Wolf,” Clare said. “Comment ça va?”

The Russian whined and yipped like a puppy in pain. “There, you see?” He grinned at Clare, and Julia thought his big teeth were rather lupine. “Very simple.”

Julia looked at Nick to see what he thought of this display. His face was a careful blank. She looked back to her empty plate and prepared herself for an uncomfortable evening.

Once they were served, Nick turned the conversation to the Corn Bill and engaged Clare in a heated conversation about its merits and failings. The Russian was so clearly repelled by political talk that Julia wondered if Nick had chosen that topic on purpose, to keep his friend from conversing with his sister. Indeed, the count tried several times to intervene.

“The Corn Bill! Bah!”

He was