Thea Devine - Fascinated

Well, Regina thought, that wasn't too promising. She had better reconcile with him right now, or Jeremy would never fall for her plan.

She uncoiled herself from the sofa and went to him, her hands outstretched. "Jeremy, it's been ages too long."

"So it seems," he said in that deep burnished voice of his.

Oh lord, he was tall, taller than he had seemed last night; she didn't remember him being that tall. Or those hands being so warm. Or those eyes so penetrating. Nor had his face been that old. She remembered the youth of that face, before the lines now there had been etched that deep.

He wasn't going to help her either.

"Do sit down. Father, go see to something to eat. Or drink. Would you care for…?" She couldn't even think what this early in the morning.

"Tea and toast will do. I assume you've eaten."

"I could eat some more," Regina said staunchly. She wasn't some faint-away female. And anyway, food in hand helped. She didn't know how, she just knew it would. "I'll take the same. Father!" She had to get him out of the room. "Do see to it."

"I'll ring"-Reginald looked from Jeremy to Regina. Lord, she looked so sweet and innocent this morning. And yet she had danced with Raulton the night before and looked at him as it he were a god.

Jeremy eyed him meaningfully, and Reginald changed course. "Of course, my dear, I'll see to it." Anything to get out of the room and leave her with Jeremy. He could trust Jeremy. Thank the fates Jeremy had come and none too soon.

Regina closed the door behind him and whirled around to face Jeremy.

"Oh, Jeremy. Did I not see you last night at the Skeffinghams'? Why didn't you come to me? Oh, no matter, you're here now. You cannot know how grateful I am that you came."

She came toward him and edged him farther into the room. This was the moment; she could not fiddle around with niceties or building the story up any further than what Jeremy had seen with his own eyes. She had to preempt him.

She had to take action now.

"You must help me." She looked up at him, her eyes wide and beseeching, the very essence of femininity and innocence. She hoped.

"Must I?" Jeremy said repressively. "Are we not to have a moment's civil conversation before you beg a favor of me? After all this time?"

Odious, odious man! Anyone else would have been at her feet, promising her the moon if she wanted it. "We could have done so last night," Regina returned tartly, "but you chose not to. In any event, I will not ring a peal over your bad manners-today. This is serious. I need your help, Jeremy, and I haven't a moment to lose. You cannot refuse me."

"Oh no? Appearances are deceiving: here I thought to bask in the company of a childhood friend, and instead I find a spitting hell cat. If I hadn't walked in the door, who might you have dragged off the street to abet you-a sniffing torn?"

Blast it. It was as if she was fifteen again and they were back snipping and sniping at each other. "Jeremy! Be serious. Sit down."

"I have a feeling I will want to be standing." This wasn't going quite the way he had planned either. He waited stoically for the ax to fall.

No choice now. She must dive into it and hope she didn't land half seas over. "There's a man."

He hadn't expected that-that she would immediately confess to her interest in Raulton. It undercut everything.

"Isn't there always?" he said dryly, warily.

The bounder! Of course he would make it as difficult as possible. Which made her all the more determined. And besides, hadn't he had enough time to ask her about Raulton? Any man with guts and gumption would have, immediately. Blast him. He deserved the torture she was about to inflict on him.

"Jeremy, be serious. Here's the thing. I want you to teach me…"

"Teach you…?"

Yes, he was looking a little green around the gills. It was time to toss the bouncer.

"Well," she went on as artlessly as the child he thought she was, "he's an experienced man, much more so than any man of my acquaintance. Well, I mean-except you, of course. But I haven't seen you in years. Not that it matters. He is the man I would marry. So all I want you to do is teach me everything I need to know-everything a worldly woman would know-so I can fix his interest."

"That's all?" Jeremy said in a strangled voice.

She was immensely heartened by his anger, she had gotten to him, as she intended, and she felt a wash of triumph that she had scored on the first gambit.

It was a game, after all, even if he didn't know it yet.

She smiled at him brightly. "That's all."

He was thunderstruck. This was the last thing he expected her to say; but he couldn't let her see that, so he turned away from her to collect his thoughts.

This was Regina, grown-up, God help him, beautiful, spirited Regina, handing herself to him on a silver salver, giving him the reason and wherewithal to carry out Reginald's plan, and she didn't even know it.

What man could resist that offer? A man wouldn't even care that he was not the ultimate object of desire. A man was a man, and a willing woman of good breeding was the stuff of dreams that brought him to point at night.

Ah, but she didn't know what she was asking. And he was bound to go forward with Reginald's best interests in mind.

His own didn't enter into it. He had made it plain to Reginald: he wanted no woman, no entanglements, no more being in love. In short, he was the perfect man for the job. No matter what it was, no matter what it took, he was the one who could remain detached, removed, and indifferent.

He turned to face her, his consent to her wild proposal quick and intended to shock her to the point of crying off now. "Very well, Regina. Lock the door. We'll start your lessons now."

Now? Now? It was too soon, too soon. She hadn't thought he would make a move this soon, blast it.

Oh lord, here he came, stalking her as though he was the fox and she was the hare. Wasn't it just like a man to take advantage? He didn't give her a minute to think.

Blast him.

"Jeremy…" Never show weakness, never. Whatever would happen would happen. She was no green girl, after all. She had been kissed. She had made this proposition to him. She knew what she was getting into.

"Exactly what did you have in mind?" Jeremy asked, when he had her backed up against the door and stood but six intimidating inches away from her.

She raised her chin, diving in head first, and knowing she might crash hard against his obdurate arrogance. "Everything."

"Delightful thought," Jeremy murmured, his gaze fixed on her mouth. Everything. She hadn't the faintest idea what everything meant. "And all for your irresistible mystery man. It seems such a waste."

"All," Regina repeated resolutely, mesmerized by the movement of his lips. They were very nice lips, she noted abstractedly, firm and curved, with just the hint of fleshy curve to the lower that made her want to bite it.

What!?

"If we are indeed to have lessons, I must know everything," he said.

She raised her eyes to him, feeling heat flare up between them. What was this? He was too close, that was what. She had to get used to him being this close. And closer still. That was what everything meant. She knew that. She did.

She felt a tremor go through her body. She had asked for this; he had every right to demand some cursory knowledge of her experience if he were going to teach her.

"I daresay you do know everything," she said spiritedly. "But the point is, I know nothing, and why should I be at such a disadvantage when the remedy is at hand."

"Why, indeed? Here is the answer to everything. I have met my destiny, lived all my life in preparation for becoming a remedy."

Now she felt impatient. The thing was as obvious as glass. "My dear Jeremy. Look at it this way: you just gave your ladylove her congé. You cannot be looking for another liaison this soon. You won't get involved. And I've known you all my life. Who would be safer than you, Jeremy?"

"Probably not the person you've known all your life," he said sourly. "You give me too much credit."

"No, I merely want to credit what I must know to deal with a man of experience," Regina said briskly, wishing he would move a step or two back. Jeremy up close was nerve-wracking. Looming. Overwhelming, even.

No. She must get used to this. This was what it was like with a man.

"He will not be easy. And I will be competing with two dozen sweet innocents he will devour like candy. So do let's begin before my father interrupts us."

"Aren't you in a tearing hurry?"

"Jeremy…"

"Oh, I'm perfectly prepared to carry on…" But he wondered if he was. This was not going to be simple. There were no instructions on how to teach the seductive arts while distracting the seductee from the object of that person's desire.

It was going to get complicated. At the very least, he had to convince her that she attracted him, as indeed she might have, were she not someone he had known forever and were he not one and thirty and she twenty. Young, artless heiresses were not his cup of tea. But Marcus Raulton seemingly had acquired a taste for them, and for some ungodly reason, Regina wanted him.

"Well then-carry on," Regina said brusquely.

Time to come to point. He moved a step closer and cupped her cheek. She had the smoothest skin, the bluest eyes, the sweetest mouth. She lifted her head defiantly against his touch, almost as if she were pulling away. But she could not escape him. Subtly he moved closer, simultaneously lowering his head and brushing those soft virginal lips with his own.

It was the barest breath of a kiss; he hovered, waiting, watching her response. Her eyes were closed, her lips curved in a faint smile.

She had been kissed then, at least as much as this. Good. Maybe.

He touched her lips then, imprinting himself there, pulling away in a long, slow movement in which he took her lower lip gently between his teeth.

But not kissed quite as much as that. Her eyes flew open. "Oh…!"

"That," he whispered, "was the kiss of a boy." She swallowed. "Oh." Of course, of course-there had to be more to it, or men wouldn't get so stirred up about the whole thing. Or have mistresses for that matter.

"And this…" He lowered his head again pressing her lips, slipping his tongue between them forcefully, and shocking her to her toes.

What was this-this heat, this wetness, this forbidden invasion-ah! She wrenched away from him, her heart pounding wildly.

"… is the kiss of a man." "Oh!" She rubbed her hand against her mouth. "And the least of what you might expect from a man like Marcus Raulton," he added brutally, just as Reginald pounded on the door.

"Open up, open up…" he sang out. "I've got tea and toast and hot chocolate and cake."

Jeremy stepped back, and Regina sagged against the door for one revealing instant. Then she turned and unlatched the door and held it wide to admit her father and the maid who was pushing the tea cart behind him.

"Here we go. Sustenance for the morning," Reginald said brightly, motioning where the maid was to situate the cart and waving her away. "Have some tea, my boy. Regina, you look slightly flushed."

"Flushed out," Regina said tartly, turning her back on them to pour herself some chocolate, her brains utterly scrambled from just that one overwhelming moment of male domination.

Stupid, stupid, stupid, she castigated herself as she sank into a chair in the farthest corner to examine her feelings. She should stop this right now. She wasn't equipped to handle this-either Jeremy or Marcus Raulton. Oh, especially the likes of Raulton.

She took a deep sip of the chocolate and rimmed her lips with her tongue. Dear God, what kind of kiss was that? She felt like a fool. Ancilla was right: why didn't women know anything? Why wasn't there a tutorial for kisses?

She cast a quick glance at Jeremy, who was sitting in the wing chair and jawing away with her father over inconsequen-tials. Men didn't go all topsy-turvy over a kiss, she thought resentfully, and it made her even more furious. Jeremy was as cool as a cucumber, and she was just as green.

She might just as well get it over with now; confess the whole to the both of them and that would be the end of the game.

She gripped the chocolate cup so tightly, she almost broke it. She just couldn't do it. Looking at the two of them sitting there, Jeremy so smug and unmoved by what to her had been a gross invasion of her person, and her father acting as if nothing had gone on behind closed doors when, in fact, he was probably congratulating himself for engineering it-it made her blood boil.