An Heir of Deception (7 page)

Then perhaps my mother should marry Lady Mary herself.

“I shall consider that my loss.” Lady Mary was lovely if somewhat frivolous and would have made an adequate wife, carrying out the duties of a duchess with aristocratic aplomb. But many others could fill the role just as nicely. He’d have to select someone after he’d concluded the whole affair with
her
.

“Mary is still young. Perhaps—”

“With all due respect, Lord Cranford, but on this matter, my mind is set.”

“Your parents—”

“My parents do not have a say in who I choose to marry,” Alex said, hardening his tone.

The earl stared at him and then as if realizing the futility of his mission, sighed and making full use of his cane, rose slowly to his feet.

“Very well. I shall take my leave. I have taken up enough of your time.”

Alex stood, relieved the visit was at a close. “Then I shall bid you
adieu
, my lord.” Alex turned to one of the footman who never ventured far when he entertained guests—although that itself was a rarity—and now stood framed in the opening of the drawing room. “Please see the earl out.”

With a nod to Lord Cranford, Alex quietly departed. He then made his way to his study, a place where he could bar the outside world from entry. But he didn’t bar the door, he merely closed it, instinctively crossing the room to the sideboard. He pulled himself up with a vigorous shake of his head just as his hand reached for the crystal decanter, the fingers of his other hand already curved in anticipation of the glass.

The decanter was empty. The glass was naught but a decorative piece of etched crystal. Both had gone unused for two years. Alex abruptly dropped his arms, curled his hands into fists and strode over to the black leather armchair.

Memories of why he sought comfort in this particular room assailed him. It was in this very room he’d so often found solace—oblivion—at the bottom of a glass of rum. When all the rum was gone, he’d start on the whiskey. He had spent hours in a day—days on end—sinking deeper and deeper under its spell.

But not anymore. But damn, he needed a drink.

Damn her!

Tugging off his necktie, Alex pushed himself back into the sloping pocket of the high-backed chair. The duke would think he’s been handed heaven on earth when he learned about Nicholas. A living replica of his late beloved son would be like a dream come true. His mother, in her own dramatic fashion, would clutch her hands to her chest and cry copious tears. The
ton
, of course, would not only relish the scandal, they’d all but wallow in it. Something else to befall the future Duke of Hastings whose misfortunes had begun even before he’d been jilted at the altar. They’d practically rub their hands in glee.

Damn her!

This time, Alex refused to allow it to get that far.

“Alfred!”

Seconds later, his butler appeared in the doorway. “Yes, sir?”

“Where is Conrad?” Alex inquired of his steward.

“He’s—”

“Never mind that. Instruct him to arrange a meeting for me with Mr. Reynolds on the morrow. Tell him the matter is urgent.” Bloody hell, at the moment not only did he require the counsel of a solicitor, he needed a vicar. Not to mention a constable to prevent him from wringing her deceitful, lying neck the next time they met, which would be soon enough.

“I shall inform him directly, sir,” Alfred replied, but made no move to leave.

Alex shot him an arched look. The last time his butler had worn that particular look of consternation was two and a half years ago, during one of Alex’s more memorable drinking episodes.

For failing to monitor the inventory of the rapidly diminishing alcohol closely enough, Alfred had suffered the indignity of having his capabilities, and worse yet, his hearing called into question.

Didn’t you hear me when I told you I needed more rum? If you weren’t so quick to run off, you’d take heed of half the things I ask of you.

Sober, Alex had apologized for his tirade. That had been three days later.

Now, Alfred never missed a word or a syllable, always fastidiously awaiting a nod of dismissal before departing.

Alex curtly obliged him.

Charlotte’s chemise was not removed but caressed from her trembling body. Cotton linens woven so tightly, she thought it was satin or silk against her skin as she lay spread like a wanton on her back, her hands kneading and caressing sinewy muscles and damp flesh.

His finger traced her nipple in slow, delicious concentration. Her back arched as her fingers bit deeper into his shoulders. Heat ripped a fiery path from her breasts, down the dip in her belly, and then set fire to the notch between her thighs. The wanting was excruciating madness, yet she knew she would die if he stopped.

“Does it feel good? Do you like it?” he asked, his voice rough with desire, his gray eyes dark with passion.

His breath fluttered on her nape and his finger continued its erotic dance with her nipple, reducing her to inarticulate gasps and moans.

She yearned. She writhed. So desperate was she to find surcease from the ache building and spiraling inside her, she was ready to beg for completion.

“Open for me,” he said, before lowering his head and drawing a pink, beaded nipple into his mouth. His cheeks hollowed as he began to suckle. The chamber echoed her cry of delight and her moans of satisfaction. With knees bent and her feet flat on the mattress, her legs fell open in eager anticipation and welcome.

Easing his finger into her center, he found her slick, hot and tight. Soon another finger joined. Charlotte thrust her fisted hand into her mouth to muffle a scream. His withdrawal caused pleasure to scorch every inch of her sensitive inner flesh. Then he plunged back in. Helplessly, her hips began to move in counterpoint to his sumptuous thrusts. Soon his fingers weren’t enough for either of them.

While he suckled her breast, pausing often to nip at her tip with teeth and tongue, he replaced his fingers with his erection. There was no easing or inexorable push, just a hard thrust, seating himself as far as he could go. Overwhelmed by the force of his possession, Charlotte whimpered, and then let out a gusty sigh of relief, of unadulterated pleasure. Her inner muscles clamped down on him hard.

He groaned low and long. “God, you feel so good.” He wore an expression that ran the line between exquisite pleasure and torture. But Charlotte couldn’t halt the undulation of her hips as she urged him deeper, hotter. Her soft pants filled the sex-humid air. His ragged groans joined hers as he set a rhythmic pace, thrusting heavily into her with long, smooth strokes. His tongue devoured her like a lusty invader, kissing her until he learned all the hidden crevices of her mouth. Charlotte reciprocated wholeheartedly, just as hungry for him as he was for her.

For endless minutes, they mated with the intensity and avariciousness of new lovers, or old lovers who’d been too long apart. The chamber walls echoed their whimpers, moans and the hard slapping of damp flesh, intent on the climb to satisfaction.

As the precipice grew closer, he tore his mouth from hers, panting and making guttural sounds deep in his throat. His hands made forays around her breast and belly, roamed down farther and found the hidden nub above her moist folds, and flicked it as he continued to pound into her, obliterating her every thought but the need for more. More of him. More of his touch. More of everything.

He shifted his hips, and the new angle and his finger on the source of her desire catapulted her up until she was soaring and exploding in a shuddering mass. She convulsed and heaved while he found his own release, before her glide back down to earth.

“Oh God, Alex. Alex,” she chanted into his neck when he slumped atop her, his chest heaving for his next breath. Her hands clutched his muscled shoulders and slid down to the sweaty expanse of his back to pull him close.

And then he was gone.

Her arms lay empty on the tangled white bed sheets. Charlotte reached out again with an urgency that bordered on desperation, endeavoring to stop the panic from taking over. Again she found nothing. That’s when the pain came and she embraced it with harsh, desolate sobs.

“Alex. Alex. Alex,” she cried out in the dark.

Charlotte came awake with a start, her heart a stampede of horses thundering over America’s wide-open plains. It took her a moment to get her bearings and catch her breath. She was in England in her old bedchamber. Tears wound their way down her temples.

She had dreamed him again. Alex and their last time together. The tears rolled their course faster. The dream now came with a frequency that frightened her. For two weeks now, it had made its nightly sojourn into her sleep.

She’d woken up hot, her senses acute and overwrought, but now the coldness seeped into every pore despite the warmth of her bedchamber. The dreams always left her this way, chilled and dissatisfied. But tonight there was something else, a prickly uneasiness. It was then she realized the source of her disquiet wasn’t the residual effects of her dream but something based firmly in reality.

Charlotte heard a slight movement to her right. She bolted upright, her hands clutching the counterpane close to her chest. In the darkened chamber, she could only make out the shape of someone—a man—reposed in the chair close to the fireplace.

Fear so effectively gripped her by the throat, all she could manage was a gurgled exhalation, not the bloodcurdling scream that would bring in the cavalry.

“Don’t scream,” a male voice instructed her softly.

For a moment Charlotte was convinced her ears were playing some sort of cruel trick on her. Had she conjured his voice up from her dream? Was she that bad off?

He rose from the chair with an unmistakable ease and grace. Alex.

Seconds later, he was standing by the side of her bed, half his face illumed by the faint light from the fire burning on the grate. Not like the Alex of her dreams. This Alex was solid and real, and darkly forbidding.

“Alex—Alex what are you doing here?” Charlotte barely managed to croak out the question, hot all over once again.

She could feel his silver gaze scoring her, unreadable, unwavering. After a nerve-wracking pause, he asked in a voice both chilling and calm, “When did you intend to inform me that you bore me a son?”

Chapter Four

Charlotte didn’t know what she’d expected him to say under such circumstances but what had emerged from his mouth did not even come close. The panic now flooding her left her disoriented, breathless, her mind spinning furiously as she debated how best to respond. Or rather, thought up a plausible lie.

How can he know?

While she sat staring at him in stunned silence, he casually lit the gas lamp on her bedside table. It was then she had a clear view of his face, his eyes burning into her when he turned from his task. Despite his tone, that calm masculine cadence, his form was taut and he stood too still. As if he was restraining some violent, volatile emotion from erupting and cracking his outward calm.

“I—I’m not sure what—”

“I swear, if you lie to me again, I’ll make you pay in ways you could never imagine.”

Such a threat should have been either raised in fury, or delivered low and menacing. Alex’s voice rose not a notch while it maintained an even tone. His eyes, however, told an altogether different story. They flashed like lightning strikes displayed in the kind of thunderstorm that could split and fell a hundred-year oak and bring down rain enough to flood a town from cellar to roof.

How could he know with such unshakeable certainty? She had expressly told him Nicholas was three, which made fathering him impossible. But it was obvious he did not believe that.

With her eyes now fully adjusted to the gas light, she could also see his swarthy complexion held a dark-red hue beneath the surface. Charlotte swallowed as she debated how exactly she should respond. How
could
she respond?