A Dangerous Man (27 page)

He took advantage.

Slowly, he lifted his hands and bracketed the sides of her face, his thumbs resting near her parted lips, his forefingers grazing the downy hair at her temples.

Stop. Now, before you scare her
. But he could not.

Her eyes widened. The gold-ash irises glinted in the firelight. Her lashes fluttered, sweeping feathered silkiness against his fingertips. He moved closer, oblique and cautious, his breath shallow, trying not to alarm her, thief that he was.

It was so easy.

She tilted her head and he stooped over her and kissed her. It was as ravishing as he remembered. His lips touched a silken brow, each lid, the corner of her soft, trembling mouth. She sighed—sweet, sweet sound, delicious and erotic—and he grew rock hard and full with an urgency he’d never before known. He found her mouth, aware in some appalled recess of his consciousness that his restraint had vanished but unable to call himself back from the edge of the passion engulfing him.

She was here and while he could hold her, devour her with hand and mouth and breath, she held back the night, her sweet body offered a sanctuary. His heart raced and his thoughts spun
blackly, panic gibbering futilely in the corners of his mind while he felt her supple curves, tasted the salty tear, breathed the hot, excited scent of her. Panic couldn’t compete with this. It didn’t stand a bloody chance.

She started to speak and he closed her mouth with his. He would not let her speak, would not let her breathe, would not let her say no. He kept his mouth over hers, molding her lips against his, tasting and moving and touching the plush softness, the yielding warmth, until he was light-headed.

He dipped and caught her behind the knees, swinging her up into his arms. She was light and tensile and her breasts, covered in that ridiculous boy’s shirt, were unbound. He could feel the voluptuous mounds crushed against his chest. She whimpered and lust careened through him. She clung to him, overpowered by his insistence, her ardor, his passion.

He strode with her to the great, dark-curtained bed and laid her upon the dark, shimmering counterpane and followed her down. For an instant he hung above her braced on his arms, his stiff sex against her belly, the last vestiges of restraint shredded upon the ever-sharpening edge of his need.

He bent his head, nuzzling open her collar, his mouth prowling the forbidden flesh of her neck. He fumbled between them, finding her breast. It was soft and lush and he cupped the swell, lifting it and kneading it and stroking it and, God, oh God, her nipple beaded against his palm.

He wrenched the shirt away, exposing her young, supple body. Her round, pale breast jiggled ripely. He moaned, dipping his head and taking the dark nipple into his mouth and wetting it with his tongue. She gasped, arching, and the flexion thrust her breast deeper into his hungry mouth. Her hands flew to his chest, his throat, his face, seeking a bastion on which to cling.

He suckled harder, holding her shoulders down, pinning her beneath him. She panted, surprised passion in each staggered exhalation. He could taste pleasure on her skin, scent hot excitement on her. His body quaked with an uncoilable skein of shame and exultation as her hips lifted fractionally in a tense, instinctive response to passion.

With a harsh, triumphant sound, he rocked back on his knees, settling between her legs, and jerked her breeches open. She gave a startled mewl. He ignored the sound, the blood ran thick and insistent in his body. He was only here now. With her. The night terror was a spectator, waiting without as the predator within took precedence.

He yanked her breeches off as she stared at him with moon-dark eyes, her breasts pale and clean in the shadowed corridors of the bed, her lips parted, her hands curled into fists on either side of her face.

He fumbled with his own trousers until he felt himself spring free. With a low growl he sank onto her, hissing when he felt the crisp, silky curls against his sex. His forehead fell against her throat,
his head spinning with the sheer pleasure of it. She was so damn small. He’d never been more conscious of his own weight, his size. He must crush her and yet, and yet, God help him, he only wanted to sink deeper onto her,
into
her, to absorb her. Take her. Bind her to him.

She moved and every conscious thought was devoured by instinct. He was nearly there. His hardness was shoved against the jointure of her thighs, a slick, warm sheath enveloped the very tip him—exquisite sensation. So close.

Her legs tumbled wider, nestling him, opening to him. He tangled his fists in her hair and found her mouth again, thrusting his tongue in, desirous, willing her to catch fire, to want him and … and God! … he was in her, gripped in a velvety fist, pressing against some smooth, hot barrier.

She arched, whimpering, and he shoved his hands beneath her buttocks—pleasure too intense, softness filling his palms. And then, God help him, he felt it. Despair and fury pulsed in equal parts through him as he held her still, realizing what he pushed against. Her maidenhead.

She moved, clutched his shoulders, squirmed beneath him. He swore. He was going to explode.

He tried to withdraw. God, he would swear he tried. But she surrounded him, tight, hot, and each small movement she made rippled through her body, ending in a contraction about him, wringing tears of effort from him. He strained above her, teeth clenched, jaw knotted, and lust rode him even as he rode her, spurring him with killing
blades. Nothing had ever felt like this. Nothing had ever been so compelling. And he would have it.

With a thick moan he thrust deep into her, past the thin web, drinking the startled gasp from her lips and giving back his own hoarse cry. He moved, closing his eyes, his hips convulsing with the unbearable pleasure of each thrust.

Breath no longer mattered. The blood pounded in his temples, pounded in his loins, surging through him, and he could feel her own blood coursing, feel the frantic rhythm of her pulse, feel the tightening of her body. His senses exploded, burst upon him, engulfing him, shattering him with sheer intensity, washing through him and leaving him eviscerated.

When it was over, he laid his forehead against hers, spent and exhausted. Slowly he became aware of her heartbeats, still a rapid staccato. Her breath came in tiny pants. Her skin was damp and hot. Beneath him her body felt terrifyingly vulnerable and slight. He rolled away from her, awareness of what he had done banishing the lethargy, remorse cutting as sharply as passion had but seconds before.

“Did I hurt you?”

“I’m not sure.” Her voice sounded stunned and faint.

“Jesus.” He stared at where her pretty breasts were chaffed by his beard, pink where they should still be virginal pale. Her nipples were swollen and bruised-looking. His gaze slipped lower to the boy’s breeches tangled about one ankle and returned
with a gut-knifing sense of dismay to her thighs.

Dark stains laced their delicate inner flesh. He rolled away and stood up, his back to her. He yanked his trousers up and fastened them. He heard the rustle of the coverlet behind him and closed his eyes.

“What can I do?” he whispered, knowing there was nothing. “Mercy, whatever can I do? Anything.”

He did not know what to expect from her and found to his amazement that this was his greatest grief: he did not know her well enough to anticipate her thoughts, her emotions.

He hazarded a glance over his shoulder. She was curled on her side beneath the satin brocade. Her hands clutched the glowing fabric to her waist, as though to protect herself from further invasion.

Too little and far, far too late.

“I’m sorry. God, I am so …” He would not offer her weak self-recriminations. She deserved more than a litany of self-blame as useless as it was hypocritical. “Mercy. I … God, I hope I haven’t hurt you. Shall I send for the maid?”

“No!”

Of course not, fool!
he thought savagely, turning and staring down at her stricken face, her imploring eyes. She would not want this broadcast.

“What can I do?” he begged.

She swallowed, the working of her throat looked painful. Her gaze drifted away from meeting his. “I … I don’t want to be alone. I … 
please.” She sounded proud and vulnerable and lost. “Don’t leave me alone.”

He raked a hand through his hair. She should be in the tender embrace of her husband. This should be her wedding night. There should be lace and flowers in vases and light; much light. She should have been taught lovemaking in sunlight, on white Irish linen, with the windows open and a heather-laden breeze caressing her.

She should not be huddled under a dark counterpane in a cold room, a boy’s shirt hanging open across her sweet, soft breasts, her hair gnarled by his fists, tears streaking her flushed face.

“I’ll stay here. I’ll watch over you.” He made to turn. Her hand darted out, snatching his wrist.

“Please.”

“Could you … would you hold me? Like you did in the carriage?”

She could not want him. Not after what he’d done, he thought in bewilderment. But then—the bitter thought bloomed with malevolent logic—who else did she have? What had he left her?

He’d taken the worst advantage of her. She was alone, without family or friends in a strange country, and he’d all but raped her.
Yes
, he thought, forcing himself to acknowledge the word.
Rape
. When had he given her the opportunity to say no? When had he done anything but press her, force her, overpower her?

He sat down wearily on the bed and pulled her, wrapped in that damn coverlet, over. She clung to him, seeking some solace. From him. And
as ironic as he knew it to be, he would find some comfort to give her.

He leaned back against the headboard, carrying her with him. Her hair spilled across his naked chest, coiling along his rib cage in cool satiny ribbons. Her breath trembled against his throat. Her fist lay like a hard stone on his chest. She did not move again.

Fatigue and an odd, bittersweet contentment weighted his limbs. He inhaled. She smelled musky with exhaustion and lavender soap and the subtle, evocative fragrance their bodies had made. He closed his eyes, exhausted.

She nestled closer. Her breath slowed, became a warm rhythm. Her fist relaxed until her hand lay slack over his heart. He drifted for minutes, then longer ones, finding comfort where he’d sought to give it. Finally, lulled by the sweet weight in his arms, the face pressed to his naked chest, the unexpected ease with which she slumbered, he yielded to his own fatigue.

And for the first time in eight years, the Earl of Perth rested as well as slept.

Chapter 23

“H
art, for heaven’s sake, where are you? The maid here said she knocked but you didn’t answer and Richard is waiting to go and Fanny refuses to leave until you say good-bye—Oh, my God!”

Hart fought his way up through thick shrouds of lethargy. Muzzily, he searched for the source of the voices.

Two feminine figures stood in the doorway, outlined by a nimbus of early morning light. He squinted and shook his head. Annabelle and some maid. He heard his sister gasp before he could form a word. With a snap of whirling skirts she disappeared.

“ ’Scuse me, sir!” the maid sang out. The door slammed shut and Mercy, snuggled against him, stirred.

With a growing sense of despair Hart stared down at her. The coverlet had slipped during the night and the sun, angling low in the autumn sky,
streamed across the bed, bathing her naked breasts in golden, soporific light. Her hair rippled in a tangled veil over his naked chest. Her hand splayed intimately across his chest.

For an instant he closed his eyes and tightened his hold on her, savoring the pleasure of sheltering her in his arms, however illusional he knew that to be. She made a soft, objecting noise. A smile touched his lips and died. He would give his soul to hear that grumbling complaint each of the rest of his dawns.

“Mercy, wake up.”

“What?” Her voice was husky. She lifted her face. Her skin was flushed pink. She looked so damn young and fresh and innocent.… He wanted to howl. “Hart?”

“Yes.” There was no time to talk. Each minute counted toward rectifying this unrectifiable situation. “Mercy, you have to go back to your room. People are starting to rise. They’ll be in the corridors soon.”

She pushed herself up on her arms. Comprehension sharpened the soft cast of her features. She looked down at her open shirt and her hair fell forward, veiling her expression from him. She jerked away from him, sitting back on her heels. He ached to haul her back into his embrace. With unsteady fingers she began buttoning her crumpled shirt.

“I’ll send for you,” he said. “Within the hour. We have to talk. But not now. Annabelle was just here. She saw you.”

“What timing!” Her voice shook. “It’s a wonder she doesn’t tread the boards.”

“Damn it to hell,” he muttered. She blanched.

No time
.

“You have to go
now
, Mercy.” He stood up, pulling her to her feet beside him. She moved away from him and for the first time he noted that her feet were still encased in their soft leather half boots and this, of all the acts he’d perpetrated on her virgin body, seemed the most monstrous: he’d taken her maidenhead while she’d still had her boots on. She moved carefully and he cursed when he realized what made her wince with each footfall.