dear.’ Hal sounded vaguely regretful. By tipping her head back Julia could see Fellowes’s jaw clench. He was no more fooled by the mild tone than she was. He began to edge backwards, keeping her between himself and the other man.
‘You know,’ Hal continued, close now, ‘I was ready to settle this with just your grovelling apology to Miss Tresilian and your word that you would not trouble her again. But now I am going to have to hurt you.’ Fellowes went very still. ‘Of course, if I am to do that, you will have to let Miss Tresilian go and stop skulking behind her like a coward. But perhaps you are that, as well as being no gentleman?’
‘Be damned to you, Carlow.’ Fellowes spun Julia round and pushed her towards Hal. For the second time, she landed painfully against braid, buttons and solid man, but this time it took an effort of will not to cling on for dear life.
‘Miss Tresilian, are you unhurt?’
Except for frogging imprinted all over my bosom, she thought wildly. ‘Yes, thank you, Major.’
‘If you would care to sit on the fallen tree, ma’am? Just while I deal with this—’ He waved a hand towards the other officer.
‘Of course. Thank you.’ Julia suppressed the urge to curtsey—Hal’s manner was better suited to the ballroom than to a brawl in a woodland glade—and retreated to the log. ‘You won’t kill him, will you?’
‘I would remind you, sir, that duelling between serving officers is forbidden,’ Fellowes cut in.
Julia sat down and tried to tug her clothing into order while keeping her eyes riveted on Hal. Fellowes was right. If Hal fought a duel he could be in serious trouble with the military authorities. If he assaulted a fellow officer without the benefit of a duel’s formalities and killed him, then things would be even worse.
‘He is a blackguard,’ she said, controlling the shake in her voice. ‘But Wellington will not thank you for killing any officer of his just now.’
‘Exactly,’ Fellowes blustered.
‘Thank you both for your flattering, and quite accurate, assumption that I would best Major Fellowes,’ Hal remarked, and despite everything, Julia felt her lips curve at the arrogance in his voice. ‘What would you like me to do with him, Miss Tresilian?’
A well-bred lady should have fainted by now. Or, if conscious, she might say, in a forgiving and dignified manner, Send him on his way with a warning. Julia smoothed down her skirt, straightened her bonnet and said, ‘Hit him, please.’
‘With pleasure.’ Hal took two long strides, doubled his right fist and hit Major Fellowes squarely on the point of the jaw. The taller man went down on his back, scrambled to his feet and launched himself at Hal, meeting a solid left hook that threw him back against a tree. Hal closed in, hit him in the stomach, took a blow to the side of the head, countered with another left, and Fellowes slid ungracefully to the ground, legs sprawling.
Hal took him by the lapels, hauled him to his feet and gave him a push that sent him staggering out of the clearing. ‘And if I ever find you have been bothering Miss Tresilian again, I really will hurt you.’
He turned back to her, blowing on his grazed knuckles. ‘Are you all right?’
There did not appear to be much breath left in her lungs. Julia collected what little she could find. ‘Yes. Thank you. I feel a little…odd.’ He frowned, as he came towards her. ‘He didn’t hurt me; I am just not used to violence.’
‘You did say to hit him,’ Hal pointed out, not unreasonably. ‘Running him through would have been—’
‘Messier,’ she finished faintly, then got a grip on herself. ‘Thank you, Major Carlow. That is the second time you have rescued me from Major Fellowes. You must think I have been encouraging him, but really, I have not.’
‘I know.’ He stopped, perhaps six feet from her, and grinned. Her stomach swooped in a most disconcerting manner. Really, the wretched man had far too much charm to be allowed out. As for the effect on her of the way he had dealt with Fellowes—that was too shamefully primitive to contemplate. ‘But I am surprised you didn’t give him a lecture on his morals. It worked with me,’ he continued, managing to look penitent.
Julia bit back a gurgle of laughter. It was the shock, it was making her positively hysterical. ‘Indeed, Major Carlow? Are you telling me that you have reformed?’
‘I am working on the gaming, ineffectually so far I am afraid, and I am not making much progress with the fighting or the drinking either, but otherwise, yes, I am completely reformed.’ He looked convincingly serious.
‘Gaming, fighting, drinking—what does that leave?’ Julia asked and then realized: women! Opera dancers. Lady Horton. ‘Oh! Major Carlow, you should not mention such things to me!’ As if he is going to give up womanising because I do not approve!
‘I very carefully did not,’ he said, his lips twitching in the way that made her want to smile back. ‘I am afraid you have just revealed a surprising indelicacy of mind, Miss Tresilian.’
‘You—’ Julia bit back the words, seeing the wickedness in the blue-grey eyes. ‘I know what you are doing: you are teasing me to take my mind off Fellowes.’
‘Did it work?’
‘Admirably,’ she acknowledged. ‘Do I look respectable enough to go back to the meadow?’
‘Yes.’ He studied her, frowning. ‘Although one of the flowers in your bonnet has come unpinned. I can fix it well enough for you to get to the retiring tent.’
‘Thank you.’ Julia got up and took a step towards him, rather too hastily she realized as her feet tangled in her trailing shoe ties. ‘Ah!’ She pitched forward and was neatly caught. Hal did not seem inclined to release her, and she found she had no will to step away either. ‘Major, I have to say that, however magnificent officers’ uniforms are, they are not comfortable if one is propelled into them…’
Her voice trailed off. Hal was looking down at her, all the laughter gone from his eyes. And all the blue, too. Stormy grey stared down into her wide gaze and her breath caught up as though in that storm. His hands curled lightly around her upper arms, holding her away from his chest where she had landed, but not so far that she could not see the pulse beating hard in his throat above the rigid neck cloth or the way his lips had parted fractionally.
He is going to kiss me, she realized, heart pounding. Her first kiss. She had imagined it would be a chaste and respectful salute by a gentleman who, once they were betrothed, would only commit such an intimacy in the presence of a chaperone.
Only Hal’s kisses would not be chaste, or respectful or subject to the dictates of a chaperone. His would be exciting and dangerous and she had no vocabulary to even fantasize about them. But she wanted them. Mouth dry, Julia stared back into the troubled, stormy eyes above her and became very still, waiting.
Julia was waiting for him to kiss her. Hal could see it in her wide, trusting eyes, in the softly parted lips, in the way her breathing had become faster as he held her. Had she ever been kissed before? Kissed, as a man like him would kiss her? Of course not. And he wanted to take that first kiss, that first taste of innocence. He wanted to mould her lips with his, to open them and explore with his tongue, plunder the sweet, moist secrets of her mouth. Taste her,
