A Gentleman Says "I Do" (25 page)

With a quick look, his gaze traveled down the length of her body once, twice, three times before settling on her eyes again. He placed his fingertips on her forehead and watched every movement as he gently began to trace a slow path down the side of her face, over her jaw, along her neck, shoulder, and chest, across the tip of her breast, lingering there for a few moments. The trail resumed with his fingers skimming down her midriff to the indention of her waist, along the slender plane of her hip and across her abdomen, and then blazing a trail down her thigh, over her knee, along her leg to the end of her toes. With breathtaking slowness and featherlight caresses, he took the same sensuous path back up to her face. She remained quiet, wanting to be everything to him as he was to her.

When he was finished, he looked into her eyes and smiled. “It’s official,” he said.

Apprehension shot through her, her mouth went dry, and her body stiffened. “What?”

“You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. I’ve just checked every inch of you, and you have no equal.”

Catalina relaxed and laughed softly. She lightly touched his cheek, letting her forefinger trace the outline of his lips. “I’m sure that is not true, Iverson, but I don’t care. I loved hearing it anyway.”

“I wouldn’t have said it had it not been true.”

Catalina reached up and hugged Iverson as tenderly as she knew how. She whispered into the crook of his neck, “I don’t know why, but you have made me feel beautiful from the first moment our eyes met.”

He gathered her up against his chest. “That’s because you are.”

Catalina leaned back and let her gaze caress his strong face. She wanted to tell him he was the man of her dreams, the faceless man she had always imagined when she read poetry and books about deep, soul-shattering love. Instead, she said, “You have teased me long enough with your kisses and caresses. My body aches for you. Show me what comes next.”

Iverson slowly skimmed his trousers down his lean hips and legs, taking his stockings with them as he kicked them off his feet. For the first time, shyness overtook Catalina, and she averted her eyes while he straddled her thighs.

He held his weight off her legs and asked, “Will you not look at me?” in an amused tone.

Slowly, she lifted her lids and gazed on the man she had given her heart to, and her love for him overflowed inside her. “You are extraordinary, amazing.”

He grinned. “I’m the only man you’ve ever seen, right?”

“Yes.”

Iverson chuckled softly and then, as he stretched his legs down beside hers, he lowered his head and took an erect nipple into his mouth and tugged on it possessively.

Catalina wound her arms around his torso and let her hands rove freely over his back, shoulders, and down low over his hips. Iverson’s open hand drifted down her ribs to her abdomen, and then to the downy thatch of hair between her legs. Catalina tensed from the intrusion. The muscles of her thighs clenched tightly, even as a feeling of exhilaration washed over her. His finger touched her with soft, circular movements, and her stomach quickened with surprise at the sensation.

“Relax,” he whispered against her skin. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“I know,” she answered, breathless. “It’s just—”

“Your first time,” he finished for her. “I will be gentle, I promise.”

“I have no doubt about that, Iverson, but whatever you are doing is going to drive me mad with pleasure.”

He chuckled. “I have to take it slow, so I can please you.”

“Then why is it I feel as if my body needs some kind of urgent release right now, this moment, no, this instant?”

“Because what you are feeling is what making love is all about. And I’m going to keep doing it a little longer, all right?”

“Yes, please,” she managed to say between erratic, raspy breaths that seemed to be coming faster and faster.

“You need to be ready for me. There will be a little pain the first time.”

“I’ve heard that, too, but I don’t believe it. How can there be pain when I am drowning in immense pleasure?”

He chuckled lightly. “I’m told there is.”

“You are too gentle to hurt me, Iverson.”

“Your words please me, Catalina.”

“And your touch pleases me.”

Iverson placed his lips on hers and kissed her fiercely, passionately. Their breaths, sighs, and moans of gratification mingled softly. As Iverson continued to kiss her and touch her, Catalina felt her breasts and abdomen tighten with thrilling new sensations. With every second that passed, she felt she was getting closer and closer to the brink of something, but she didn’t know what.

Iverson carefully positioned his body over hers and settled his weight upon her, fitting his lower body between her legs. His warmth was promising, his hardness evident, and Catalina’s body unfurled and opened to him. With caution and gentleness, he positioned himself at her womanhood.

Catalina lovingly surrendered to Iverson. Her arms circled his strong back, and she pressed him to her. She basked in the enticing way Iverson’s naked chest felt pressed against hers. She couldn’t keep her hands still as she closed her eyes and sighed with pleasure.

She felt a thick, probing pressure, and an intense, constant pushing, but his fingers never stopped moving and working their magic of sensations. His touch was exquisite torture. He didn’t stop kissing her or touching, and gradually she realized he had joined his body with hers.

“Are you all right?”

She felt an unusual, unfamiliar fullness that was uncomfortable but not painful. “Yes, yes,” she whispered. “I am exhilarated.”

“Ah, Catalina, my love,” he whispered, “you are as passionate as I knew you would be.”

He kissed her deeply as he moved in and out with long, sure strokes. Instinctively, her hips started moving with his rhythm, and soon she was thrusting her hips in perfect harmony with his. A tremor shook his body, and Catalina knew he was as affected by these strange new feelings as she was.

Catalina’s breath trembled. Once again she felt on the brink of something she couldn’t control. There was demanding, mounting pressure in the meeting of their mouths and their bodies.

Her hands found the back of his head, and her fingers wove erratically through his hair. She felt the cord that held his queue, and without thinking, her fingers touched the ends, the tiny, short tassels. He still wore the twine she’d given him that day in the carriage. She smiled beneath his lips. He could have easily discarded it, thrown it away, but he had kept it. All her loving, passionate feelings for him bubbled over, and her body was suddenly racked with one amazing sensation after another. She jerked and trembled as if an explosion had taken place inside her. She pressed her lips into Iverson’s shoulder so she would not cry out with overwhelming, rapturous, and wondrous joy.

Within moments, Iverson gasped and pushed hard toward her. He kissed her deeply. She lifted her legs around his hips and tightened them around him, and his body shuddered until he let out a long, shaky breath.

A wonderful feeling of immeasurable satisfaction flowed over Catalina, and she felt her body relax upon the bed. Iverson rested upon her, burying his face in the crook of her neck. He kissed her skin softly.

They lay there for several moments with neither of them moving, their arms and legs tangled together. Catalina couldn’t bear the thought of disturbing her adoration for what happened between them. She wanted to enjoy the moment for as long as possible.

But far too soon, Iverson rolled over on his side, pulling Catalina with him.

In the dim candlelight, she looked into his blue eyes.

“Is it possible to experience that more than once?” she asked.

Iverson grinned. “There are no limits to the possibilities that stem from making love, Catalina.”

“That is good to hear.”

“I’m assuming that means you were quite pleased with your first experience.”

She rose up on her elbow and whispered, “Oh, it was much more than merely pleasing. It was breathtaking, astounding, overwhelming, and amazing.”

Iverson laughed softly, quietly. “I get the idea.”

“Was it the same for you?”

His penetrating gaze answered
yes
before he spoke the words. “Exactly the same.”

“In that case, may we do it again?” she whispered and then kissed him.

The bosom can ache beneath diamond brooches; and many a blithe heart dances under coarse wool.

—Edwin Hubbell Chapin

The first shards of dawn broke through the parted draperies, bathing the room in soft gray light. Catalina stirred beside Iverson. There was a chill to the early morning air, but his warmth drew her like a blazing fire on a freezing night. She snuggled deeper into his heat and felt his arms tighten around her. She smiled. Even after all her years of reading stirring, romantic love poetry and stories, she could never have imagined what actually happened between a man and a woman or how it truly felt to have one’s body joined with another.

When it came right down to it, she thought, poetry and writings didn’t do justice to the actual act of making love. After last night, she was convinced there were no words to describe all the sensations and the feelings of being transported to that ethereal state where nothing mattered but the essence of being loved.

She finally knew what Shakespeare meant when he wrote:

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

Catalina rose onto her elbow and looked down at Iverson. She loved him with all her heart. She thought about the possibility of telling him. How would he respond? What would he say? That he was not the kind to share just one woman’s bed? That she knew he was a rake when she invited him to stay in her bed? That she must not ask of him things he cannot give?

No, she could not tell him, for she attached no strings or vows to her invitation last night, and she couldn’t present any to him now.

The night had ended. It was wrenching to think about it, but the time had come for him to go. She didn’t know if he would ever come back to her bed. There had been many touches and words spoken, but none concerning the future. Should she ask him if he would return to her, settle her quandary and know for sure, or should she simply stay quiet and hope he might?

She studied Iverson at her leisure and liked what she saw. Not just his strong, handsome face, but the man inside the body, too. She liked that he teased her about Lord Bighampton, that he’d hit the man who accosted her at Madame Shipwith’s establishment, and that he was fiercely loyal to his family and his mother’s memory.

His eyes were closed, though she didn’t think he slept, and she couldn’t let him. She touched his cheek with her palm and felt the scratchy stubble of beard. She ran her hand down his firm neck and across his strong shoulder. He opened his eyes, caught her fingers in his, and kissed her open palm.

“The servants will be up soon,” she said. “You must go.”

“I know, but I don’t want to.” He rose on his elbow and moved her long hair to the back of her shoulder, exposing her breast for his view. “You are beautiful.”

She smiled. “Thank you, kind sir, but you still must go.”

Iverson looked deeply at her and said, “I have been in bed with many women in my life, Catalina, but your bed is the first one I’ve not wanted to leave.”

His words made her heart beat faster, but not daring to hope, she said, “That would be dangerous.”

“I know, yet I want to linger here until I’ve had my fill of you.”

She gave him a teasing smile. “How long would that take?”

He grinned. “Much longer than we have right now.”

“Does that mean you will come back?” she asked hopefully.

The loud slamming of a door startled Catalina and made her jerk. From below stairs, she heard her name called.

Her heart jumped into her throat. “That’s my father!” she exclaimed. “He’s home.”

“Damnation! At daybreak!” Iverson threw off the covers and jumped off the bed.

“Yes.” Catalina grabbed her nightgown from the floor and slid it over her head.

“I can’t believe your father chose this moment to come home,” Iverson complained, quickly stepping into his trousers.

“My father has no appreciation for time. He goes and comes, wakes and sleeps at his own pleasure.”

“Bloody poet,” Iverson murmured, snatching his waistcoat, neckcloth, and collar from the floor.

Catalina picked up Iverson’s shoes and stockings and shoved them into his full hands. “I hear him coming up the stairs. There’s no time to make the back staircase, you must hide in my wardrobe. Hurry!”

“Catalina, I will not hide among your clothing,” he said. “I will go out the window like an honorable rake. It won’t be the first time I’ve jumped to the ground from a lady’s room.”

“I have no doubt about that, but there is no time to do it, and you and I will get caught.” She ran over to the wardrobe and with racing heart and trembling hands, opened it. “There is no time. Please, Iverson, hurry. He’s coming down the corridor.”

Reluctantly he climbed into the tall chest, and Catalina shut the door behind him. She rushed to her bedroom door and turned the key just as her father turned the knob. The door burst open. Sir Phillip Crisp picked up Catalina and swung her around several times while laughing heartily.

“I knew I could depend on you to rise and greet me. How has my fair daughter been?” He set her back on her feet.

“Well, Papa,” she said, swallowing a dry lump of fear. “I’ve been well. I—” For an instant, she had a great desire to bury her head in his chest, weep, and say, “I’ve needed you. Where have you been?” But the moment passed quickly, and instead, she whispered, “I missed you.”

He reached down and hugged her again. “I missed you, too, my lovely Catalina.” He stepped away and looked at her. “And you look even lovelier than the day I left. In fact, I see something different in your eyes.”

Catalina tensed. Did he know a man had spent the night in her bed? Could he tell by looking at her that she was no longer a maid but now a woman who knew the thrilling joys of a man’s gentle touch?

“What, Papa?” she asked breathlessly, thinking her heart might beat out of her chest.

“You don’t look like a child anymore. You look like the beautiful young lady I know you are.”

“Is that you, Phillip?”

He turned around and spoke toward the door. “Yes, Elle, it’s me.”

“It’s about time you returned,” Aunt Elle complained.

“I know. I know. I’ve been an unforgivable beast, but I had many places to go and many people to see, which I will tell you about later. Go back to sleep. It’s too early to rise. Sorry to disturb you, dear Sister.”

Catalina heard her aunt’s bedroom door close again.

Suddenly Catalina was overcome by a wave of panic. She had to get her father downstairs so Iverson could slip out of the house.

“Papa, why don’t we go below stairs? I’ll get Nancy to make us some tea.”

“This early? No, no, not for me. I have been traveling all night and want to get some sleep. But first I must take the time to thank you for taking care of everything for me while I was away, just as you always do.”

“I don’t need thanks, Papa. Come, I’ll walk you to your room. We will talk after you have rested.”

“Ah, but first I must thank you for finishing
A
Tale
of
Three
Gentlemen
for me.”

Catalina froze. “No, Papa, no!” she whispered almost soundlessly.

“You did an excellent job on the ending, my dear.”

Catalina looked frantically at the wardrobe and then rushed to her father and placed her hand to his lips. “No, I beg you, do not say more.”

“What’s this?” he said, pulling her hand away from his mouth and holding her wrist. “Don’t be shy about accepting my praise.”

“No,” she whispered earnestly again. “You don’t know what you are saying. Papa, please don’t say it.”

Her father paid her no mind and continued to talk. Her body and mind grew cold. She felt so rigid she feared she might break if anyone touched her.

“Excellent idea on the ending, dear girl, excellent. I wouldn’t have let Sir Mortimer die as you did. That was a stroke of brilliance, though you did get that from me.” He stopped and laughed. “You are the one who deserves praise. All the praise I have been hearing in my travels. I’ve heard what a huge success the story has been. Everywhere I go, people are talking about it, and I owe it all to you. I had planned to finish it before I left, but when I realized I hadn’t, I knew you would and turn it in for me.”

He reached down and kissed her cheek, but Catalina didn’t feel it. She was frozen with disbelief, with fear. There was no doubt Iverson had heard her father implicate her. Iverson now knew she had finished the story. She felt as if her chest was caving in on her lungs. Her breathing became so shallow she felt light-headed.

He will never forgive me now.

“This reminds me, I have a special gift for you.”

Catalina couldn’t speak. She couldn’t move.

“You look sad, my dear. Are those tears I see clouding your eyes? What’s this? Tears? All right, all right, if you are that disappointed I don’t have the gift in my hands, I will go below stairs, open my trunk, and get if for you now. I agree. I should have already gotten it out for you.” With his thumb, he wiped a stray tear from her cheek. “Now, no more crying. I will get your gift and bring it upstairs to you.”

Catalina’s father walked out. She heard his footsteps on the stairs, but her gaze never left the wardrobe. She didn’t want to face Iverson but knew she must. He might have forgiven her for withholding the truth about the continuing story, but he would never forgive her for helping her father write it.

Another fear gripped her heart like a cold fist. What would Iverson do about her father? Would he spread the news all over London that she helped her father write his poetry and stories? Iverson had no reason not to do it, and every reason to make the knowledge widely known. It would be a sweet revenge to get back at Sir Phillip by ruining his career.

The wardrobe door opened with a creak. Iverson stepped out. He had put on his shirt and stuffed it in his trousers. He held his shoes and the rest of his clothing in his hands.

Just as a few days before, she expected to see his face a mask of fury, but once again what she saw was disbelief. Catalina’s heart broke all over again. She swallowed the sob that threatened to burst from her aching throat. She could see he didn’t want to believe it was true, and she’d give anything if she could tell him it wasn’t. She wished she could lie and tell him all her father said was wrong. But while she could withhold the truth from Iverson, she could never lie to him.

“You wrote part of
A
Tale
of
Three
Gentlemen
?”

The anguish in his voice cut her deeply. She nodded. “A few pages. I finished it and turned it in to Mr. Frederick.”

“Why?”

“To get the money he owed Papa.”

“
Money!
” The word spat from his mouth as if it was a filthy rag. “You did it for
money
?”

She was staggered by the pain and incredulity in his expression. Suddenly her stomach cramped so badly she almost doubled over from the pain.

“You don’t understand,” she rasped.

“Then make me understand, Catalina,” he demanded.

The words were almost torn from his throat, and she shuddered at the emotion that stirred and echoed in his voice.

“I had no choice,” she whispered, but even as she said the words, she knew how flimsy, how hollow, how inadequate they sounded. Yet her love for him forced her to continue. “There’s never enough money for the mortgage, the staff, the food, Papa’s traveling, his clothing, Auntie’s tonics. You don’t know how many times we’ve been one step away from the poorhouse, and Papa would just up and leave me to handle it all.” She had to make him understand if not forgive. “I’ve been finishing his work for about three years. He just takes off and leaves us with nothing but words. The debts were mounting. Men arrived at our door to remove us from the house, but I begged for a few more days. That’s when I finished Papa’s work for the first time.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this when we spoke three days ago?” he asked in a gravelly voice.

“I wanted to, but I didn’t trust you.”

He pierced her with a look of agony and slowly repeated her words. “You didn’t trust me?”

“I know how angry you’ve been at Papa for writing the story. I was afraid if you knew I helped him, you would tell someone, anyone, or everyone in order to get revenge. If it was ever made known in Society that I finished some of his works, it would ruin his reputation, and he could never sell anything again.”

Iverson remained quiet, just looking at her. She inhaled deeply and choked back a heart-wrenching sob as tears blurred her vision.

“Iverson, do what you want to about me, but I ask you not to make it known that I have finished my father’s work. Please don’t take his reputation away from him.”

“What reputation does he have, Catalina? A false one.”

She gasped. “No.”

“Yes. He is an imposter. You have been his co-author, and he has never acknowledged it.”

“And shouldn’t,” she whispered loudly. “I don’t finish all his work, and he was successful long before I starting aiding him. And he never asked me to. This is truly my fault, not his. Papa had left the story unfinished. I finished it, Iverson. I turned it in. So only I am to blame.”

Catalina heard her father at the bottom of the stairs, and she frantically turned toward the door.

“I don’t know what I will do about your father, Catalina, but I will not ruin your reputation.”

He walked over to the window and brushed the draperies aside. He slid the window up and threw his shoes and clothing to the ground. He then sat on the windowsill, swung his legs around, and jumped without looking back. She heard him land with a thud.