After the Kiss (17 page)

He froze. “Beg pardon?”

“Not about that,” she said, further reassured by his reaction. “I mean, I think
I
should remove your trousers.”

“Oh. Please proceed, then.”

She pulled him onto his back. Wherever this wanton, brazen miss had come from, she was glad of it. After all, he’d said that he wanted her, but she wanted him, as well. And she might as well be an active participant in her own ruination.

His dark trousers tented at the crotch. For a second the
brazen miss nearly turned tail and ran, but Sullivan pulled her down across his chest and kissed her again. His skilled fingers flicked across her sensitive nipples, and she writhed against him.

“Touch me,” he breathed, taking her hand and placing it over the bulge in his trousers. “I want you to touch me.”

Even through the material he felt warm and hard. Tentatively she squeezed, and he dropped his head back, moaning. Isabel shifted so she could reach him, and with shaking fingers she unbuttoned his trousers. It was impossible to concentrate with his hands roaming her bare skin, but she managed to open the last button. “Lift up,” she ordered.

“As you wish.”

Sullivan complied, and she tugged his trousers down his hips. He came free, erect and magnificent. “My,” she breathed. “That—”

“Is about to be inside you,” he finished, shrugging his trousers the rest of the way off and kicking them aside.

And she’d thought she hadn’t been able to breathe before. He rolled them so that she lay on her back again, looking up into ice-green eyes made darker by the gloom of the stable. With his knees he nudged hers apart, sinking down between them so that she could feel his hard erection pressing against the inside of her thighs.

Ruined. She was going to be ruined. And she wanted him to hurry up with it. He kissed her again, nibbling at her lips and her throat, driving her half mad with desire. She felt drawn tighter than a bowstring.

“Sullivan, hurry,” she panted.

“Hurry with what?” he whispered. “Tell me what you want, poppet.”

Good Lord.
“I want you inside me,” she said, using the same phrase that he had.

“As you wish.” He angled his hips forward, sliding between her folds and pressing inside her.

She could feel every inch of him as he entered her. Time stopped. Nothing existed but him and her heartbeat. For a second a sharp pain made her gasp, and he covered the sound with his mouth over hers.

“I’m sorry,” he said unsteadily, stilling over her. “You may have to pretend feeling that again for your husband.”

At the moment she did not want to be reminded that the two of them had absolutely no future together, but as he slowly began to move again, she didn’t care. Not about anything but the sensation of his body inside hers. Isabel grabbed on to his shoulders, lifting her legs to lock her heels around his hips.

Again and again he entered and retreated, driving her into the rough horse blankets. Her body felt both a part of her and separate, all of her moving swiftly toward the edge of a very high cliff. And then abruptly she went over the edge.

“Oh, my,” she squealed, muffling the sound against his shoulder. She stiffened and convulsed, shuddering.

Sullivan’s own movements quickened, and then he pulled away from her, shaking. She didn’t know everything, but she had a sense that lovemaking was not supposed to end that way.

“Sullivan?”

“Apologies,” he grunted. “We can’t have you getting with child.”

She hadn’t even considered that. Paling, she stroked his arm as he grabbed a cloth to clean himself. “Thank you.”

“You’re still ruined, my dear,” he returned, softening the words by leaning down to kiss her again, very gently.

“Half the people I know considered me ruined yesterday,” she said, breathing hard and still feeling weightless. “Facts be damned.”

With his brief smile, Sullivan lay back, tucking her against his shoulder. “I’m glad you see it my way,” he said quietly, twining his fingers through her hair.

“Your way?”

“The stupidity and backbiting arrogance of the
haute ton
.”

“Oh.” She wished that her brain would begin working again, because she wasn’t entirely certain what he was talking about, or that she would agree with it if she was. “Not everyone’s like that, you know,” she ventured anyway.

“I admit the exceptions. You, Bram, Lord Quence and his family, one or two others.” He lowered his fingers from her hair to draw lazy circles around her breasts.

Low heat began in her again. “Is that why you kept wanting me to order you to ruin me?” she asked, half wishing she could just keep her silence. “So that I could be one of your exceptions?”

She felt the rise and fall of his chest as he drew a breath. “You are an exception,” he said after a moment. “We shouldn’t stay; someone might come around to check on the horses.”

“So you’re finished with me now?” Isabel sat up. “You did what you needed to do, and now off you go?”

“What would you have me do, Tibby, ask your father for permission to marry you?” He scowled. “And I’m not finished with you.” Putting a hand on her shoulder, he drew her in close again for another heart-stopping kiss. “This is complicated. I find myself…obsessed with you. Keeping my hands off you…I couldn’t do it. I can’t.”

That sounded delicious. “Obsessed. I can sympathize with that feeling,” she said. Unable to resist touching him, she drew a finger along his left shoulder. A hard knot in his skin stopped her. “Is this where you were wounded?”

“Yes.”

She let her hand glide down to rest on his left thigh. “And this is from the splinter you got the other night?”

He chuckled quietly in the near-darkness. “Keep touching me there and we’ll never leave here,” he whispered. “And yes. A large splinter.”

“More like a fence post,” she returned, gingerly running a finger along the bandage he’d wrapped there.

“Are you talking about the wound, or my physical attributes?”

“Very amusing. And you’re changing the subject.”

“What subject? That I want to have you again?”

Oh, my
. “That you’re disparaging everyone I know. I’m not certain how I feel about that.”

Sullivan climbed to his feet, naked and stunning as any Greek statue she’d ever seen. He pulled her robe off the wall and handed it to her. “You should dispose of your night rail,” he said.

“I suppose I would have a difficult time explaining the fact that it’s been torn in half,” she agreed, becoming annoyed that he continued to avoid discussing the way he’d pulled her into his little world of hatred.

He sat again, pulling on his trousers and his boots. “And I shall see you in the morning.”

“Why are you suddenly in such a hurry?”

“I’m not. You know we can’t stay here.”

“But…”
But I don’t want you to leave.

“Whatever you seem to think, I don’t want you ruined.”

She eyed him as he donned his shirt and tucked the tail into his trousers. As he pulled his dark waistcoat and jacket on, the answer occurred to her. He had another appointment this evening. “You’re going to burgle someone else. That’s why you’re in such a hurry.”

He helped her to her feet, curling her hair around his fingers again. “Not tonight. Tomorrow,” he returned, tugging the front of her robe closed and knotting the tie for her. “Be careful, Tibby. Neither of us will be able to explain this. I’m in a hurry because if I don’t leave now, if I lie here with you in the dark, I won’t want to leave at all. Good night, poppet.”

With a last soft kiss he was gone. Isabel stood where she was for a moment, listening to the sounds of the stable again. So that was that. He’d wanted her, he’d taken her, and now he’d decided it was perfectly acceptable both to just go off to his other amusements and to inform her in advance—
again
—that he had another burglary in mind. And she hadn’t even told him not to do it, this time. Perhaps he had a reason for thinking she’d turned against her own kind, after all, and perhaps he was correct.

Putting aside the thought that he meant to risk his life by stealing a painting from someone who’d be happy to put a ball through him, now she seemed to have become an accomplice. If she said nothing, she
was
an accomplice. And if she spoke, she would be responsible for Sullivan being jailed or hanged or transported.

But even with all those doubts, foremost in her mind was the question of when she could be with him again. Oh, she’d made a terrible mistake. And what had been complicated before was now so tangled she doubted she’d ever be able to find her way through it to the other side.

Sullivan made his way behind the Chalsey House stable. Once he was out of view, he stopped and leaned back against the wall.

For a moment he tried to form a plan of action, decide what he needed to do next, but nothing came to him. Nothing but images of Isabel spread beneath him, of the heated enjoyment on her face as he’d moved inside her, and of the abrupt disappointment there when he’d mentioned recovering another painting.

What the devil had he expected? That bedding her would make her other than what she was? “Idiot,” he muttered, sinking farther into the shadows as she emerged from the stable, barefoot and her ruined gown in her hands, the robe held tightly around her lithe, otherwise nude form.

She sat on the bench just outside the door, using the gown to clean off her feet. Once she’d pulled on her slippers she
took a last look around the stable yard and then ducked back into the house. That was as far as he could watch over her; once inside she was on her own.

It had never aggravated him before that he wasn’t welcome inside most of the elegant houses of London; he’d simply grown up that way. It aggravated him now. Because yes, in the back of his mind the thought of having Isabel, the belle of every ball, the perfect daughter of a perfect family, had appealed to the dark parts of his soul. But in knowing her, in talking with her and holding her, he’d never met a more witty, forthright person. And he’d told her the truth. He had become obsessed.

And if he stayed about any longer tonight he would end being caught staring up at her window with a damned moon-eyed smile on his face. With a quiet curse he slipped off the Chalsey property and retrieved Achilles from the public stable where he’d stashed the stallion.

He knew bloody well what he was, and what he’d managed to do with his life despite it. Even becoming a thief hadn’t bothered him—those people had acquired something that belonged to him. Now, however, for the first time in a very long time, he felt…wanting.

So what was he supposed to do about it? Go talk to Bram? He wasn’t in the mood for jaded observations or sticky questions from the too-observant cynic. It would have been good to talk with Phin, but Phineas Bromley was somewhere in Spain. Any bit of clever strategy and logic was there with him.

As he looked up, he realized he’d turned up Bruton Street. He pulled Achilles to a stop. Directly on his left, its orderly windows overlooking the street above a precisely planted rose garden, stood Sullivan House. He’d probably find a few of his mother’s paintings inside there, but he would not step
foot through that front door—or any of the two dozen windows. Not for anything.

This, in fact, was probably the closest he’d been to the house in years, if ever. When he’d confronted Dunston about the missing paintings, he’d been in Warwickshire, at Dunston Abbey. And that encounter had occurred outside.

He swung out of the saddle and led Achilles to the foot of the drive. Just short of the drive, rather. For a long moment he looked up at the dark windows. Inside would be the Marquis of Dunston and his mousy wife Margaret Sullivan, the marchioness. Oliver had his own residence, but Dunston had two other brats aside from his eldest—another boy, Walter, and a young daughter named Susan.

Slowly Sullivan squatted down and picked up a loose rock from the drive. He straightened, hefting it in his hand. It was petty, and foolish, and probably beneath him, but he threw it anyway. Hard.

With a sharp crack and brittle ring, glass shattered. Mounting Achilles again, he reined in and watched as one by one lights flickered on in the windows. It didn’t improve his mood any. With a grim shake of his head, he sent Achilles trotting off into the darkness again.

“What the devil happened to you?” Bram Johns asked.

Sullivan looked up from saddling Achilles. “Beg pardon?”

Bram motioned at his face. “You’ve gone black and blue. Not a new fashion, I hope. Looks ghastly.”

He’d nearly forgotten the beating. Had that only been yesterday? “Apparently I overstep where I shouldn’t,” he said dryly. “What do you want?”

“Can’t a friend simply stop by when the occasion presents itself?”

“For you to be awake and about before ten o’clock in the
morning, Bram, is an occasion in itself.” It took a great deal of effort not to jump on Achilles and charge off to Chalsey House. He wanted to see Isabel again, and with an urgency that surprised and worried him.

“Very well, you’ve caught me out. Yes, I have a reason for being here.”

Sullivan counted to five. “Which would be?” he prompted.

Lord Bramwell glanced at the busy stable around them. “Do you really wish me to speak of your affection for sheep here, in front of every—”

“Oh, stop it,” Sullivan grumbled, noting the chuckles coming from his employees. “Outside, then.”

Bram led the way outside. When they were out of everyone’s earshot, he stopped. “I have a favor to ask of you. Two, actually.”

Sullivan eyed him. “What are they?”

“Firstly, I’m having dinner tonight with Quence. Have luncheon with him.”

Sullivan frowned, dread tightening his chest. “Why? Did something happen to Phin?”

“No. But Phin’s older brother is not doing as well as we might have hoped. For some reason he likes you, so you should visit him. God knows Phin would never ask, even if he knew, so I am. Asking, that is.”

Another piece of the puzzle that was Bramwell Lowry Johns. He broke female hearts with regularity, but the condition of the crippled brother of a friend was a cause for action. And there
he
was, Sullivan reflected, throwing rocks through windows. “I’ll send over a note inviting myself to a late luncheon with him and Beth,” he agreed, frowning. “How well is not well?”

“A cough and a low fever, according to Beth. It could be nothing, but then it could be something.”

Sullivan nodded. “What’s the second favor, then?”

“Don’t visit Fairchild’s home tonight.”

That surprised him. “You’re the one who told me the painting was there,” he shot back.

“Yes, but the last time you housebroke, the duke nearly put a hole through you, and Fairchild’s got an even fouler temper and a sharper aim than Levonzy.”

“You’re worried about me?”

“It’s entirely selfish, I assure you. You’re one of the few people who has a worse father than I do. It helps me maintain a certain perspective.”

“I see. Well, as luck would have it, I believe I’ve already been shot and shot at enough times that I’m well nigh invulnerable now. So go do whatever it is you do in the mornings, and I’ll see to my own affairs.”

“That’s a bit harsh,” Bram returned.

“Well, I’m in a hurry. I don’t wish to be late.”

“To your horse training appointment? I think you’re safe there, Sully. If Lady Tibby was going to hand you over to the authorities, she would have done it by now.”

Tibby
. Mentally shaking himself free from the abrupt image of Isabel with her long blonde hair framing her face, her heated gaze steady on his as he entered her, he shrugged. “I’d prefer not to take that chance.”

Bram folded his arms. “So you’re going to visit Fairchild tonight?”

“Yes.”

“You’re taking this too far, Sullivan.”

“With you as the voice of reason, I’ll take my chances.”

“If I had a heart, it would be wounded. What do you truly want from this? You’ll never be able to show them off.”

“I want justice. The rest doesn’t signify.” After last night he couldn’t even express in words what it was he wanted any
longer, but he did know one thing. These people—Dunston, especially—had taken enough from him. And if it took getting caught to finally expose the marquis for the hypocrite he was, Sullivan was willing to risk it. Or he had been, until yesterday. Until last night.

He arrived in the stable yard of Chalsey House just as the area church bells rang the ten o’clock hour. By now the stableboys knew to expect him, and Molly had already been saddled on the chance that Isabel would wish to ride her. The stable hands had left Zephyr to him; it wasn’t that he didn’t trust them to know their jobs, but rather that this horse would bear responsibility not only for Isabel’s safety, but for her continued peace of mind.

Today he put a bridle on her again in addition to her harness, and then cinched the saddle around her middle. He led her out of her stall and, talking to her softly, placed two bags of sand over the saddle. Zephyr fidgeted a little and flicked her ears, but other than that made no sign of being distressed. “Good girl,” he murmured, giving her an apple out of the barrel.

A soft breeze brushed across him through the open stable doors, a faint scent of citrus above the smell of horses and hay and leather. The hairs on his arms lifted. Isabel.

He closed his eyes for a moment as he inhaled, then pulled himself back in to the present and turned around. “Good morning,” he said.

She stood in the doorway, her hunter-green riding gown snug on her slender figure, and a matching hat perched jauntily on her head. Warm desire hit him again, softly at first, and then stronger and deeper like ocean waves during a storm. God, he wanted her again.

“Good morning,” she returned, color creeping up her cheeks.

“I came on time,” he went on after a moment, knowing that he’d begun to babble.

“Yes, I see that you did.” Her gaze swept the length of him, and his cock stirred in response. “I’d like to try riding again today.”

That only reminded him that he’d ridden
her
last night. “Good. Let me work Zephyr a bit, and then I thought we might take a ride through Hyde Park.”

“Out of the stable yard?” Her color fled again.

“At a walk. And I’ll be right there.”

“I don’t know about this.”

“I leave it up to you.” Her older brother walked up behind her. “My lady,” Sullivan finished, not certain whether he was more annoyed or grateful that they couldn’t stand there just looking at one another all morning.

“What?” Lord Chalsey said, pausing to kiss his sister on the cheek. “You’re going riding this morning? That’s splendid, Tibby.”

“I’m not certain whether I am or not.”

“I’d love to go with you, but a group of us who graduated from Oxford are going up to see one of our professors. He’s retiring before the next term begins.”

“You mean he’s retiring and you want to show off Ulysses,” Isabel put in, her gaze still on Sullivan.

“Yes, yes, I can’t help if I have the most splendid hunter in London. Well, actually, I can help it.” With a chuckle, he offered his hand to Sullivan. “Thanks to you, Mr. Waring.”

If Chalsey had any idea what he’d done last night, they would be exchanging blows rather than quips, but since he had no wish to beat or embarrass Tibby’s brother, Sullivan forced a return smile and shook hands.

As the earl moved past them, Phipps in tow, Sullivan shook himself. “If you’ll excuse me,” he said to Isabel,
motioning for her to step aside so he could leave the stable with the mare.

“Certainly, Mr. Waring.”

Their hands brushed as he walked by, and he briefly squeezed her fingers, releasing her before anyone could notice. Good God, this was a hundred times worse than before, when he’d wanted her without seriously thinking it could ever happen. Now her scent, her touch, her taste—they filled him so full he could barely think straight.

“Come with me,” he said, just barely resisting the temptation to brush a stray strand of honey-colored hair from her face.

Nodding tightly, she followed him to the center of the yard. He let out the lead line, allowing Zephyr to trot about in a wide circle for a few moments while he watched her move with the bags of sand on her back. She had a smooth gait, thank God, because the last thing Isabel needed was a tooth-rattling every time she rode her prize mare.

“She looks very fine,” Isabel said from beside him.

“So do you,” he murmured back.

“Stop it.”

Yes, he probably should. “Whoa, Zephyr,” he said aloud, the longe whip still on the ground in front of them. The mare pranced to a halt. Taking a breath, Sullivan held the line out to Isabel. “Take her through her paces.”

“But I don’t know how,” she protested.

“You do, but I’ll be right here. Zephyr should become comfortable with your voice and your touch.”

Again she gazed at him, clearly reading more into his words than what he said aloud. For a moment he thought she would refuse, put her hands behind her back, and move away as she’d done before. Instead, and after a lengthy hesitation, she held her hands out for the line.

Zephyr’s ears flicked again, and she stomped one foot against the soft ground. “What do I do?” Isabel asked.

“Flip the line once, and tell her to walk on. Keep the line loose and a little ahead of her. When you want her to stop, say, ‘Whoa.’ Or ‘Trot’ if you wish her to trot. Be confident.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” she muttered. “Don’t go anywhere.”

“I won’t.”

She took a deep breath. “Walk on, Zephyr.”

Lady Darshear sat back in her chair by the sitting room window and looked at her husband. “I think we may have a problem.”

Harry Chalsey, the Marquis of Darshear, took a last look at the clock on the mantel. He’d missed most of the early session of Parliament, and he wasn’t certain he was happy to have stayed home this morning. “He’s helping her with something we’ve tried and failed at for years.”

“That’s not brotherly affection in his eyes.”

No, it wasn’t. Nor was it sisterly affection in hers. “Sending him away now might confirm those blasted rumors.”

“Or it could signal that we’re attempting to maintain a proper household. Harry, we have to do something. He’s…common.”

“He’s not common. And he has a damned fine reputation.”

“As a horse breeder! You can’t want him for a son-in-law. Or worse. His own family won’t recognize him. And what if he has nothing honorable in mind at all? You’ve seen what just rumors can do. Heaven help us if it becomes fact. Heaven help Tibby.”

“Perhaps we’re reading between lines that aren’t there,” he said after a moment, not certain he believed what he was
saying, himself. “There’s nothing wrong with a friendship. And as soon as the next scandal erupts, the few rumors there are about this will vanish.”