Free Bared to the Viscount (The Rites of May Book 1) by Lara Archer Page A

that he thought about it, was still an apt description of Mary as an adult, though she hid all but the kindness from most people who knew her.
    He couldn’t see her face now as she stood on the ladder, only the side of her head with its tight-coiled hair, and the length of her very serviceable brown frock. Funny how dull she could appear if you didn’t look beyond that illusion, if you never really looked into her eyes.
    Miss Lawton, in contrast, was all vivid color and glow. The blonde curls, the blue eyes, the radiant rosy skin, the prettily sprigged muslin of her dress with its thousands of tiny pink and green flowers, and a glossy bright green ribbon in a bow just under her very full breasts.
    By rights, Miss Lawton should be the object of his sexual fantasies. He should be thinking about lifting her skirts, looking his fill at her round tits, burying his mouth and nose between her soft thighs. She was the sort of plump, silken, scented, pliant creature most men wished to spend their lusts upon.
    But his thoughts were much more powerfully drawn to the drab-looking young lady on the ladder. That pale little mouth and those small firm breasts and that spine stiffened by a rather prickly, stubborn sense of pride provoked him so much more intensely than Annabel Lawton ever could.
    He’d let himself forget what Mary was over the years he was away from home; he’d let himself be fooled by his old friend’s surface plainness. But once they’d gone up that hill and gotten tangled in the blackberries, he’d caught sight once more of the bright flame that burned just beneath the surface.
    Lord, his cock twitched just thinking of her.
    Just watching her lean into that tall tree trunk.
    If he moved just a bit closer to her, got just below her on the ladder, he could probably see up her skirts, at least to her ankles, perhaps a bit of her calves. She might ignore him now, but if he climbed up the ladder behind her, slid his hand up behind her knee, stroked his way up towards her thigh, he felt quite sure he could get her full attention.
    His blood started beating hot again as he thought about it. If no one else were here, if no one could see them, what might he be able to do with her on that ladder? The possibilities were intriguing—if she faced the other direction, sat down on one of the steps, he could hoist her skirts and get his mouth on her in a way that would have her shouting with pleasure within a minute. And then he might turn her the other way again, climb a few steps higher, hold on the sides of the ladder to steady himself, and bury himself inside her from behind and….
    He startled. Miss Lawton had tapped him on the forearm again.
    “When you dance about the May Pole, my lord,” said Miss Lawton, “you must hold a blue ribbon, and you must wear that waistcoat of yours with the blue stripe through the white cloth. The two blues are very like, are they not? You shall look quite sprightly. I daresay no man in the county shall look more like a proper celebrant of the spring!”
    “I daresay,” he replied dryly. “Of course, you are quite wise in such matters, Miss Lawton.” He tried to smile, though his head was beginning to hurt. If he did as Mary insisted and married Annabel Lawton, conversations this inane would be his doom every remaining day of his life.
    Surely he’d spent enough time mollifying the ego of Miss Lawton. He stepped up beside the ladder, his heart pounding as though he were the most callow of swains. “Are you quite all right up there, Miss Wilkins?” he asked, lifting his armful of ribbons in a helpful sort of gesture. “Perhaps I could assist you?”
    Mary speared another ribbon through the ring. “Thank you, no, Lord Parkhurst. I am managing quite nicely.”
    Of course she was. Mary managed quite nicely at everything. He was the one who was of no use to her.
    His heart sank.
    Damn it all, he wanted her to look at him. He wanted her to talk to him, not soldier on with her task as