Captives of the Night (41 page)

He leaned on the banister. "No, do not tell me. I can guess. After I left, the party became insupportable, and you died of loneliness and boredom."

"I died of
mortification
," she said.

"Then you must punish me. It cannot be helped."

Slowly she ascended the stairs, dangling her bonnet by the strings. The soft hall light glimmered in her hair, picking out threads of copper, bronze, and gold. Straightening, he moved to meet her. He took the bonnet and tossed it aside, then folded her in his arms.

"I missed you very much," he whispered against her hair. "All the time I stood before you and could not touch you and all the time I waited for you to come home."

"You shouldn't have gone to the soiree," she muttered. "You made it very difficult for me. You're an expert at deception. I'm not."

He drew back and looked at her. "But you did very well. You did not tear off my clothes and throw me to the floor and ravish me."

"Ismal."

"You did not make me scream and beg for mercy."

"Ismal."

"How terrible it was to wait, trembling with fear. Any moment, I thought. Any moment, the fire will blaze in her eyes and she will leap upon me and plunder and despoil my innocent body. I was aquake with… anticipation."

"You evil man. You found it all
exciting
, didn't you?"

"Yes. Also very frustrating." He took her hand. "Come to bed."

"We need to talk," she said.

He kissed her nose. "Later. After I have calmed down."

He tugged her along, on up the next flight of stairs and into her bedroom. By the time he closed the door, his heart was drumming with impatience.

"Calm me down," he said.

"You've ruined me," she said. "You've
decimated
my morals."

"Aye, they are gone. Forget them."

"Or maybe I only imagined I had them." With a small sigh, she reached up and loosened his neckcloth. Then, slowly, she drew it away. "Tear off your clothes, indeed," she said as she let the linen drop from her hand. "Wishful thinking."

She began to unfasten her bodice. "I'm not that desperate."

"I am." He watched while, one by one, the jet buttons sprang from their moorings, slowly baring an expanse of creamy flesh and embroidered black cambric.

A dark snake of heat coiled in his loins. He wanted to reach for her. He curled his fingers tightly into his palms.

She stepped behind him and eased him out of his coat as smoothly as the most practiced of valets. "Throw you to the floor, will I?" she said. "You're living in a dream world."

"A beautiful dream."

She unfastened her skirt in the same unhurried way. The black dress rustled to the floor, revealing a black demi corset and short petticoat.

She relieved him of his waistcoat, his shirt.

She surveyed his rigid torso. When he saw her gaze settle on the ugly scar in his side, he tensed, but she didn't touch it. "Guess what you're going to explain later," she said.

"Never." He managed a smile.

"We'll see." She untied the petticoat, and he watched it slither down over black silk drawers to pool at her feet.

He sucked in his breath.

"You're going to explain a lot of things," she said.

He shook his head.

Sitting down on the bed, she untied her kid slippers and lazily removed them. "Come here." She patted the mattress.

He sat. She knelt, and took off his evening slippers. Then she rose and, while the blood thundered in his ears, methodically unlaced her corset. It fell to the floor. Then the chemise. Then the silken drawers. Then the stockings.

No trace of black remained. There was only creamy, supple flesh… the tawny rose peaks of her lush breasts… the triangle of dark gold between her long legs.

"I like you very much," he said hoarsely.

"I know."

She found his trouser buttons. Clutching at the bedclothes, his eyes shut, he let her strip away the last of his garments.

"You said something about begging for mercy," she whispered. "About screaming."

He shuddered as her fingers stroked his thickened manhood. He didn't have to open his eyes to know where she was. Kneeling, between his legs. The awareness made him delirious. No. Yes. No.

Her tongue flicked over the hot flesh and searing pleasure tore through him. Yes.

He clamped an iron will upon his maddened body, and only a small groan escaped him.

And he endured, while she put him on a rack of erotic torture, toying with him, tantalizing, caressing with her ripe, wicked mouth.

He held himself in check, denying his body the release it screamed for until at last the iron bands of his will began to give way.

"
Enough
," he gasped. He pulled her away and up onto his lap to straddle him. "
Méchant
." He quickly found the center of her heat — slick, ready for him.

"I'm wicked. All day long I wanted you." Her voice was thick, dazed, her eyes dark with desire.

She gave a low moan as he smoothly eased into her. "Wicked," she repeated, wrapping her legs about his waist.

He crushed her softness to him, and she clung, her body answering the urgent rhythm of his possession. She was his. He had waited all this long day and half the night for the door to close on the outside world and shut him in with her. He had waited all these endless hours to hold her, be with her, part of her. No woman in all of creation loved as she did.

"Love me, Leila," he groaned against her mouth.

"I love you."

He took her love in a deep, searing kiss, and carried her with him to the last pleasure… and sweet release.

Wearing nothing but the silk robe Leila had laid claim to the night before — and wearing it only at her insistence — Ismal had crept down to the kitchen. He returned bearing a tray that held a small decanter of wine, wineglasses, and plates heaped with bread, cheese, and olives.

Sitting tailor fashion opposite each other amid the tumbled bedclothes, they ate and drank. She told him about Andrew's Parisian investigations, and how the dowager had handled the hapless solicitor, and he told her what the dowager had learned about the Duke of Langford.

Leila did feel that as a murder suspect, His Grace was vastly preferable to David or Fiona. On the other hand, she wasn't pleased by certain implications of the theory.

"I assume this means you'll be cultivating Helena Martin next," she said.

"You overestimate my stamina," he said. "Or perhaps you taunt. For you must be well aware that after you are done with me, there is nothing left for another woman."

"Oh, certainly I believe that," she said. "I also believe in gnomes, pixies, and goblins. How did you get that scar?"

"I thought we were speaking of Helena Martin."

There they were, the tight lines at his eyes.

"I'm tired of Helena Martin," she said. "Was it a bullet or a knife?"

"A bullet."

She winced inwardly.

He looked down at the scar and wrinkled his nose. "I am sorry it offends you."

"Not a fraction so much as it offends you, I collect. Who did it, then? One of your jealous wives? Or someone's outraged husband?"

"I have no wives," he said.

"At present, you mean. Nearby."

Sighing, he picked up an olive. "None. I never wed. Now what shall I tease you with instead, I wonder?" He popped the olive into his mouth.

No wives. The beast. She eyed him balefully. "Don't you think it was a trifle unkind to let me think you were married?"

"You were not obliged to think it."

"I wish Eloise had not pitted those olives," she said. "I wish there were a stone and you choked on it."

He grinned. "No, you do not. You love me very much."

"Really, you are so gullible," she said. "I
always
say that when I'm heated. Cats howl. I say, 'I love you.'"

"You howl also. You make strange little cries."

She leaned toward him. "You make some strange ones yourself." Drawing back, she added, "Are you going to tell me the story behind that scar or do I have to figure it out on my own, as usual? I've already got an intriguing theory, you know."

"You also had the intriguing idea that I had a hundred wives." He set the tray upon the nightstand. "Me, I have some intriguing thoughts regarding dessert." He stroked her knee.

"Why were you so upset when Andrew mentioned Lord Edenmont?" she asked.

"I must find some way to get even for what you did to me before," he murmured, trailing his fingers along the inside of her thigh.

She caught his teasing hand and brought it to her mouth. Lightly she bit the knuckle of his index finger. "Jason Brentmor spent more than two decades in Albania," she said gently. "That's common knowledge. He married an Albanian woman and produced one daughter, Esme. Edenmont married her in Corfu ten years ago. Fiona once mentioned that Lord Lackkffe told a romantic — and probably highly imaginative — story about it. He and Sellowby had been in Greece at the time. Lackliffe was at the soiree tonight."

She was aware of the muscles tensing in Ismal's hand. "It's very easy to get him to talk about his adventure ten years ago," she went on. "About taking Edenmont and his new bride back to England in a mad race across the Mediterranean. Apparently, it was the most exciting thing that's ever happened to Lackliffe. He said he has a poem written by a Greek about the two handsome princes who fought for the hand of the Red Lion's daughter. One prince was a black-haired Englishman. The other was a golden-haired Albanian whose name was Ismal."

She released the stiff hand to touch the scar. "It's an old scar," she said. "Is it ten years old?"

He had turned away while she spoke. He was gazing steadily at the window, the telltale lines at his eyes deeper than she'd ever seen them.

"The sun will rise in less than two hours," he said. "We have so little time. We could be making love, my heart."

The words made her ache. "I just want to know where I stand," she said. "I know ours is just an affair. I know what I've got myself into. But I can't help being a woman, and I can't help wanting to know if you love her still — if that's why you never wed."

"Oh, Leila." He moved closer and brushed her hair back from her face. "You have no rivals,
ma belle
. I was two and twenty, and I can scarcely remember what I felt. A youthful infatuation, and like other youths, I was arrogant and rash."

"Then it’s true. I guessed aright." She let out a sigh. "I wish you wouldn't make me guess and drag things out of you. I wish you'd just tell me something on your own once in a while. Like about youthful infatuations. Not but what I'll probably want to scratch her eyes out if she so much as bunks at you," she added irritably. "Lud, I am so jealous."

"And I am truly frightened." He tilted her chin up to study her eyes. "How in the name of heaven did you connect my scar with Edenmont?"

"Woman's intuition."

"You said I was upset about him," he persisted, still holding her gaze. "How did you know? You must tell me, Leila. If I betray myself to you, I might to another. You do not wish me to endanger myself unwittingly, I hope."

The words chilled her, reminding her that his life depended upon deceit, concealment. The scar was old, its cause in the past. But it was vivid testimony that he was human… that she could lose him.