Betrayed by Your Kiss (14 page)

And again.

Olivia fought to regain control of her senses. Fought to stop the desperate cries coming from deep within her. Fought to keep from giving in to him so completely. And failed. With his mouth on hers, his hands kneading her breasts, and her hips pressed hard against his, she welcomed every demand he made of her.

Then, with an agonizing roar, he dropped his arms from around her and pulled away from her as violently as he’d first taken her.

Olivia stumbled as if the ground had shifted beneath her feet. She braced her hands against the corner of the desk. Her legs no longer had the strength to support her while her chest heaved with one ragged gasp after another.

She wasn’t sure what had happened. Wasn’t sure how they’d reached the point they had.

With as much dignity as she could find, she pulled her gaping bodice together. Her gown was open to the waist, her cotton chemise unlaced, exposing her breasts. Breasts that still tingled from his touch. With trembling fingers, she pulled the thin material together, then fastened the satin buttons of her gown. Her cheeks burned with humiliation. What had she let him do?

She slowly lifted her shoulders and nervously straightened the twisted folds of her skirt. When she had some hold on her composure, she turned around. Facing him was hard. Seeing the regret on his face would only add to her shame. But she would not back down from him. She would not cower. She hadn’t started what had just happened. She hadn’t been the one to precipitate the kiss. With chin high, she turned.

He’d stepped to the other side of the room where he stood with his back to her. His hands were braced against the wall as if he needed support to help him stand. His head hung between his outstretched arms and his legs were braced wide. The dark material of his jacket stretched taut over his shoulders and his whole torso heaved from exertion. He hadn’t recovered yet and she waited for his breathing to calm.

She would not be the first to speak. She would not be the first to make excuses for what had just happened, or point an accusing finger. He alone would have to come to terms with the mistake he’d made.

“You need to go home, Olivia,” he said, his voice strained, rife with emotion. “You need to get out of here,” he whispered from the far corner of the room. “I’ll pick you up shortly before five. I’ve promised you a ride through Hyde Park, and we still need to attend the Maddenly ball.”

“I haven’t finished entering—”

“Just go,” he ordered. “I’ll enter them.”

Olivia shuddered at the anger she heard in his voice. She suddenly wanted nothing more than to take herself as far away from him as she could.

She grabbed her cloak from the hook by the door and whirled it about her shoulders. Her fingers trembled when she fastened the satin frog at the base of her throat and her legs shook beneath her. She walked to the door and stopped with her hand on the knob.

“The girl you thought to marry four years ago is dead, Damien. Just as the man I dreamed of marrying is. It is impossible for either of us to resurrect what we had before. And useless to try.”

With her heart in pieces, she walked out into the dreary, afternoon gloom. A light mist was falling but Olivia hardly noticed. How could she care about a little rain ruining her bonnet when she’d just lost so much more?

Chapter 18

The Maddenly townhouse was filled to overflowing for their annual ball. There were more guests than usual, many of whom had come only to see if Damien and Olivia would make an appearance. They’d nearly been disappointed.

Damien had waited for Olivia to come down for more than an hour, and finally, when he’d had one more drink than he should have had and his patience was long gone, she’d joined him.

She was stunning. Her gown of emerald green perfectly complemented her coloring. The décolletage was lower than he might normally approve, revealing more of her lush, creamy breasts than he thought necessary, but its cut enhanced her figure. The shimmering satin hugged her narrow waist to reveal curves he wasn’t sure he wanted the rest of the world to realize she possessed. Her thick, dark hair was loosely pulled back from her face and hung down her back in spiraling curls, partially concealing the flesh at her shoulders that her gown didn’t cover. Her features were the same: a heart-shaped face of creamy clear complexion, huge dark eyes, high rosy cheekbones, and dark, lush lips just begging to be kissed. He couldn’t deny she made a magnificent picture.

As long as one didn’t look at the lifeless stare in her eyes or the dark circles rimming them.

She’d spoken little on their way through the city, answering only the questions directed to her, and with the briefest reply possible. She’d spoken to him even less once they’d arrived, directing her attention to those around her. It wasn’t lost on him that she chose the first opportunity to escape him. Or that she hadn’t returned.

Damien looked across the room where she stood with a circle of friends. She nodded her head as if someone were pulling strings to make it move, and she wore a dull smile that appeared as if it had been painted on her face. Then she laughed, the sound forced and hollow. Damien could take no more.

“Excuse me,” he said to the group of men who surrounded him, eager to gather any bit of information as to where he’d been the last four years.

Damien wended his way through the crowd, stopping only long enough to not be rude when spoken to, then pushed his way to where Olivia stood. She had her back to him, and when he approached, everyone saw him but her. Their wide-eyed reaction was one to which he had become accustomed. Not many in polite Society could view his scarred face without showing some sign of surprise.

Damien knew the second Olivia realized he was close. Her shoulders lifted and her back stiffened as if she were being forced to face something—or someone—unpleasant.

“Excuse me, ladies. I hope you don’t mind if I steal Lady Olivia from you. I’ve gone without her at my side far too long.”

The ladies all sighed, but Olivia ignored their reaction by saying, “But Lady Warren was just telling us who—”

“I’m sure Lady Warren can tell you later, my love. I, unfortunately,” he said, placing his arm around her shoulder in a most possessive grasp, “would like for us to greet my mother, who looks like she’s most anxious to speak with us. Then, I’d like to view Lady Maddenly’s garden.”

Damien didn’t give her a chance to argue further, but hooked her arm through the bend of his elbow and walked to where his mother was visiting with several of her friends. When they neared, she held out her hands to welcome them.

“Damien. Olivia.”

Lady Iversley kissed him on the cheek, then greeted Olivia with the same affection.

“Oh, Olivia. I can’t tell you how happy I am to have Damien home again and to know the two of you can pick up where you were before Damien was forced to leave London. I can’t wait for you to set a date. You’ve had to wait far too long as it is.”

“Yes,” Olivia answered, “it has been a very long time.”

Olivia’s restrained response was polite and respectful, but her voice contained none of the warmth of the girl he remembered from four years ago. The hollow look in her eyes exhibited none of the exuberance from before. Damien wondered if he were the only one who noticed.

Olivia smiled, her expression cordial, even pleasant, and Damien doubted his mother noticed the detached expression on Olivia’s face, or her lack of color. His mother was too excited by the possibility that her remaining children might marry within mere months of each other. She was so elated that Penelope seemed to have captured the attention of the Marquess of Tumbledon that she didn’t notice that Olivia wasn’t as happy about Damien’s return as everyone assumed she would be.

Damien held Olivia next to him for a few more minutes while his mother gushed over how perfectly everything had worked out for her family, then he and Olivia took their leave. He escorted Olivia across the room toward the patio door, then stepped with her onto the terrace.

“That was unnecessary,” she said when they reached a quiet corner of the garden. “We hardly need to appear so companionable for your mother. She’s already convinced nothing has changed between us.”

“And if you continue to ignore me, it won’t take long for my mother, as well as the rest of Society, to realize a lot has changed.”

“People see what they expect to see. And they expect to see two people still in love with each other.”

“And we’re not?”

That brought her first reaction. “Don’t mock me.” She glared at him, her full lips pursed in a show of anger.

Damien smiled. “I seem to recall a kiss we shared earlier that—”

“Do not confuse love with lust, Damien. There is a vast difference between the two emotions.”

“You are an expert on the difference?”

She took a small step closer to him. “I was a participant in that kiss. There was a goodly measure of dominance and control. There was even more anger. And there was an unbelievable amount of lust in what we shared.” She lifted her chin and glared at him. “But there was no affection. Only a foolish lack of control on my part. As well as your own. It shouldn’t be hard for us to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

“It shouldn’t?”

“No.”

She turned and took a step away from him. “Now, I’d like to go in, if you don’t mind. I’ve been looking for my uncle, the Earl of Pellingsworth. I’m not sure he knows you’re back. I need to talk to him. Perhaps soften the news.”

“Why should my return concern him?”

Olivia smoothed her hands over her skirts then clutched them together in front of her. “It’s not your return that will concern him. It’s the news that Father left you Pellingsworth Shipping. He’s shown quite an interest in it for the last few months and has made an offer to buy it.”

“He wants to buy Pellingsworth Shipping? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I had no intention of selling. I just want him to know the ships are no longer mine to sell so he doesn’t think there’s a chance I’ll change my mind.”

Damien felt the first wave of unease. “Why does he want them?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps because he carries the Pellingsworth title. Perhaps because they were Father’s, and he doubts my ability to run them proficiently as Father would have.” She glared at him with more intensity. “Perhaps because he is a man and can’t abide the thought of a woman intruding into his world.”

She turned her head to the side and looked away from him. “I want to make sure he hears how your return will affect him from me, and not from someone else.”

“Very well,” Damien said, extending his arm. He wanted to argue with her, to comment that not all men felt as she thought they did, but he didn’t. Talking to her uncle was more important. She took his arm and made her way back into the ballroom without giving him the slightest notice.

All eyes were riveted to them as he’d expected, but before they’d taken many steps into the ballroom, Damien knew something had changed. Olivia’s footsteps faltered before she quickly recovered. He looked down, expecting to find her faux smile firmly in place, and he wasn’t disappointed. But her gaze wasn’t focused on him. Instead, she stared at a small group of guests on the opposite side of the room.

The Marquess of Rotham and the woman he was with were the center of attention. The marquess laughed at something someone said, then reached for a very pretty woman’s hand and brought it to his lips. They laughed again, and the look the two shared was more than mere friendship.

Damien tore his gaze away from them and looked down at Olivia in time to see her erase the look of despair from her face. Even though the smile on her face hadn’t faltered, the color in her cheeks had. She was even paler than the day he’d walked back into her life.

Damien refused to give a name to the strange emotion that surged through him. He refused to acknowledge the fury raging inside him. He knew some might call it jealousy. But that’s not what it was. Because if one side of the coin was jealousy, the other side was love. And Damien had endured four years of living hell because of love. He knew better than to walk into the same trap again.

They took another step closer to the couple, and Rotham lifted his gaze and noticed them. His reaction was the same as if he’d just spied a very dear friend. He took the arm of the woman next to him and brought her with him to greet them.

Damien now had a physical reason for the discomfort he felt. Olivia’s fingers clamped around his arm with the biting strength of a vice, and another surge of fury belted him in the gut. It was past the time of giving what he felt any name other than what it was.

Damien glanced back to Olivia’s pale face and thought for the first time that the price he might be forced to pay to have her could be more than his heart could afford.

Olivia forced herself to look calm and smile as she watched Rolland reach for Prudence’s hand and bring her with him to where she and Damien stood. He was as stunningly handsome as always, and Olivia was struck by what a perfect couple the two of them made.

She was happy for Rolland, truly she was. She wished him all the joy in the world. One only had to see the happiness in Prudence’s eyes to know that she’d be a much better wife for Rolland than Olivia would have been. The peaceful contentment that emanated from them was further proof that they were much more compatible than she and Rolland ever were.

She tried to keep from trembling as Rolland made the introductions, greeting Damien as if the two of them were well-formed business partners instead of two men who’d both intended to marry her. Blood roared in her head until she couldn’t think. She must have swayed because Damien’s arm wrapped around her waist and he pulled her closer to him for support.

“. . . so happy for you, Olivia,” she heard Prudence say, and Olivia shook her head to clear it.

“Thank you,” she answered when Damien’s touch tightened. “I think I must still be in shock.”

“And I must take full responsibility for that,” Damien added. “I thought it would be easier if I broke the news of my return in person rather than Olivia hearing it in a message. Now I’m not so sure. It was quite a shock for her.”

“I’m sure that no longer matters,” Rotham said, as his gaze locked with hers. “For I know the lady never stopped loving you. I’m sure how she received the news is inconsequential. The fact that she has you back with her is all that is important.”

“It’s what is important to me, too,” she heard Damien say, his words sounding so sincere. Even though Olivia knew they weren’t.

Rotham reached for her hands. “I just want to wish you the best, Olivia, and tell you how happy I am for you. I didn’t get a chance to say it . . . the last time I saw you.”

Her cheeks warmed. “Thank you, Rolland,” she said, squeezing his fingers. “For everything.”

Rolland kissed the back of her fingers, then turned his attention to Prudence.

“If you’ll excuse me, I promised the lady this next dance.”

“Of course.”

Rolland held out his arm. Prudence placed her hand on it, and they turned to walk away.

“Rolland?”

He stopped and looked back at her. “Be happy. Always.”

Both he and Prudence smiled. “We will, my lady. And you, as well.”

Olivia watched them walk away, then lifted her gaze to Damien’s. The look on his face was hard, as if chiseled from stone. She could not read it. A blessing for which she was thankful.

Damien studied the expression on Olivia’s face as Rotham and Lady Prudence walked away. She wore a forlorn look that said Olivia had lost her last means of escape.