Fair Juno (14 page)

Martin saw it. His brows rose superciliously, but by then Ferdie Acheson-Smythe was already dwindling in the distance. Then Martin’s sharp ears caught the muffled giggle as his companion tried to suppress her reaction. Martin relaxed. ‘Tell me, fair Juno, am I still considered “too dangerous”, despite my exemplary behaviour of recent times?’

Helen shot a startled glance up at him. Reassured by the teasing glint in his grey eyes and the laughter bubbling through his deep tones, she smiled and gave due attention to his question. Considering the matter dispassionately was a decidedly tall order. Eventually, knowing he was waiting on her answer, she ventured, ‘I fear, my lord, that there are some who see your “exemplary behaviour” as merely the wool beneath which a wolf is disguised.’

Martin’s heavy sigh startled her anew.

‘And here I was thinking none could discern the truth.’

Helen’s eyes flew wide. His tone held equal parts of dejection and chagrin but the expression in his eyes was still
gently teasing. She tried to read his meaning in their depths, but the subtle glint defeated her. Was he warning her that Ferdie was right. Or was he merely making light conversation, teasing her, knowing she was easy to twit on that score?

Uncertain, Helen spent the next ten minutes inwardly wrestling with the possibilities while outwardly playing the social game. They had finished their first circuit when Martin broke into her thoughts.

‘I still haven’t made the final decisions on the pieces for the parlour.’

‘Oh?’ Helen had heard about the redecoration of his London home, now in its terminal phase, in some detail. Discussions on the relative merits of damasks and chintzes and the impracticality of the current craze for white and gold décor had filled many of their hours together.

Martin was frowning thoughtfully. ‘There’s a piece of furniture on which I would greatly appreciate your opinion. It’s at a house not far from here.’ He glanced at Helen and raised an enquiring brow. ‘Can you spare me a few moments of your time, my dear?’

Swallowing her instinctive response that such matters should be reserved for the consideration of his bride, Helen smiled her acquiescence. One subject she had no intention of mentioning was matrimony. ‘I dare say I could manage a moment or two.’

Courteously inclining his head in acceptance of her boon, Martin headed his team for the gates, a slow smile of satisfaction curving his lips. They were wending their way through the traffic when Helen asked, ‘What is this piece?’

‘An occasional sofa.’

Seeing his attention was fixed on his horses, given to nervously jibbing in the crowded streets, Helen forbore to press him for details. Doubtless she would learn soon enough why there was any question about the suitability of this particular sofa.

To her surprise, Martin drew the horses to a halt in front of an imposing residence in Grosvenor Square. He turned to smile down at her. ‘This is it.’ Relinquishing the reins to Joshua who came running from his perch at the rear, Martin jumped to the pavement and turned to assist Helen. Once on his level, Helen eyed the elegant façade then realised the sofa in question must presently be in the possession of the owner of the mansion.

Surrendering to the subtle pressure of Martin’s hand in the small of her back, Helen went up the steps before him. Martin paused before the door and glanced down, his eyes locking with hers, an unfathomable expression in the steely grey. Suddenly, Helen could not breathe. But before she could register more than a flush of unnerving excitement, Martin raised a gloved fist and beat a peremptory tattoo on the polished oak. The door was opened immediately by
an imposing if portly butler, who bowed them into a spacious hall.

‘M’lord.’ The butler turned to her. ‘My lady.’ He reached for her coat. Uncertain, Helen raised an enquiring brow at Martin. When he nodded, she surrendered her pelisse and bonnet. Clearly, the Earl of Merton was well-known to this household.

‘The room at the end of the hall.’ At Martin’s nod, Helen walked forward over the black and white tiles, towards the door that stood open at the far end of the hall. Martin started in her wake, then hesitated and turned back, handing his gloves to the butler. Hearing his footsteps falter, Helen glanced back. Martin smiled his encouragement. Reassured, Helen continued.

As she drew closer to the open door, she noticed a peculiar light glowing from within the room. Almost as if the curtains were drawn and the fire ablaze. Puzzled, Helen gained the threshold and looked in.

‘We don’t wish to be disturbed, Hillthorpe.’

Helen’s gasp stuck in her throat. It did not need the butler’s deferential ‘Yes m’lord’ to confirm her wild conjecture. The proof that, in the case of Martin Willesden, rake of the highest standing, she had been wrong and Ferdie perfectly right lay before her startled gaze. The heavy velvet curtains were indeed drawn, the fire fully stoked and crackling voraciously. A bottle of wine, uncorked, reposed in a
silver bucket of ice on the sideboard. Automatically, irrelevantly, Helen searched the room for the sofa she had come to see—the occasional sofa. At first, she could not find it. Then her eyes widened in shock as they focused on the large piece of furniture standing squarely before the hearth. The most massive daybed she had ever seen.

Flee
! was her first thought—immediately followed by,
How
? Martin’s footsteps rang on the tiles; he was but feet behind her. If she turned and tried to escape, he would simply pick her up and carry her through the door. Certainly, his butler would be no help.

Helen drew a deep breath. Danger lay across the threshold. She tried to step back into the relative safety of the hall, only to find that she had hesitated too long. Martin, directly behind her, slipped an arm about her waist and she was swept, effortlessly, into the room.

‘Martin!’ Breathless, Helen swung to face him, to see him shut the door and turn the key. She was only slightly relieved to see that he left the key in the lock. It was him she had to escape; after that, escaping the room would be child’s play. Summoning her defences, she took refuge in indignation. Drawing herself to her full height, in this case unfortunately insufficient to allow her to intimidate the reprobate before her, she fixed him with an affronted glare and prayed her voice would not betray her. ‘You tricked me!’

A slow grin twisted Martin’s mobile lips. ‘’Fraid so.’ His gaze, heated grey, rested, intent, on her face. Slowly, he moved towards her.

He did not look the least bit contrite.

Helen tried to ignore her skittering pulse and let her temper grow. It was the only thing that might save her. She narrowed her eyes, shutting out as much of the potent male presence approaching slowly but, as far as she was concerned, far too fast, as she could. Forced to tilt her chin up as he drew nearer, she struggled to overcome her suddenly breathless state. ‘Your behaviour over the past week has all been a sham, hasn’t it?’ To her horror, it was all she could do not to squeak. What was he about?

Stopping directly in front of her, Martin allowed his grin to develop into the deepest of smiles, a smile of disturbing magnitude and unnerving intent. ‘You’ve unmasked me, fair Juno.’ Eyes glinting, Martin spread his hands in supplication. ‘What can I say in my defence?’

Transfixed by the warmth in his gaze, Helen struggled to collect enough wit to tell him.

Smoothly, confidently, Martin reached for the comb that held her curls in a knot on the top of her head. With a deft flick, he drew it free, sending golden tresses cascading over her shoulders, down her back.

Helen gasped, instinctively putting up her hands to stem the tide. But Martin caught them gently in his and drew
them down. Glinting, his eyes roamed the tumbled gold. ‘You’ve no idea how often I’ve considered doing that.’

The idea that he might have done that in the middle of some fashionable ballroom suspended the few faculties Helen had managed to reassemble. His hands released hers, long fingers rising to slip in among the silken strands. The fingers played, sampling the texture, removing loose pins and dropping them like rain on to the floor, then they firmed about her chin, tilting her head up until her eyes locked with his.

Held mesmerised by the smouldering heat in the cloudy grey gaze, Helen felt all thought slipping from her. Martin’s hands left her face; he reached for her and drew her into his arms.

Belatedly, self-preservation jolted Helen back to reality. She braced her hands against Martin’s chest. ‘My lord— Martin!’ she amended, accurately reading the comment in his eyes. ‘This is unseemly. Scandalous—and worse! If you wish to atone for your behaviour—your deceit—you can escort me back to your curricle this instant!’

She tried to sound firm but her tone was weak and wavering, her diaphragm refusing to lend strength to her words. The smile on the dark face hovering closer and closer to hers only deepened. His arms, already about her, tightened.

‘I’ve a much better idea of how to atone for my sins.’

Martin kissed her. And kept kissing her until every
vestige of resistance was overcome, overwhelmed, drowned beneath their passion.

Trapped in his embrace, Helen reluctantly admitted that it was
their
passion—not his alone. That was what made Martin so very hard to resist. His scandalous advances drew an equally scandalous response from her. Caught on a crest of burgeoning desire, so sweet in its novelty that she was unable to resist, Helen gave up the unequal fight, softening against him. She felt his arms tighten further, crushing her to him. Then they shifted; his hands moved over her back, moulding her yielding form to his hard frame.

Helen struggled against the insidious invitation of his kiss, a blatant temptation to lose her wits and drown in a sea of sensuous sensation, striving instead against the steadily mounting odds to retain some fragment of lucidity.

Martin raised his head to glance down at her, his eyes glowing. ‘Relax,’ he breathed. His lips brushed her forehead. ‘Don’t worry—we’ll take it
very slowly
.’

As his lips returned to hers, Helen wondered if he intended the deep, gravelly words as a threat or a promise. For a full minute, she considered the implications as her will sank slowly beneath the warm web of sensation evoked by Martin’s sure hands. With a mental jerk, she called her wits to order. What was she to do? The way he was progressing, slow or not, she would only have a few more minutes in which to decide.

It was patently obvious to the meanest intelligence that Martin had reverted to form and intended to compromise her beyond all possible doubt, in fact as well as reputation. Helen had not the slightest doubt that he thought thus to force her acquiescence to their marriage, to overcome her refusal to accept his suit. But she was determined to give him his dream—nothing, not even he, could shake her resolution.

However, she admitted, feeling the gentle tug of long fingers at the buttons of her gown, any thought of escape from such a masterful seducer was fantasy. What he had in mind was undeniably scandalous. To her, it was undeniably attractive. If she followed her heart, her truest impulse, she would do as he had said and relax.

Fate had dealt against her, but that did not mean she could not enjoy him, take the moment he offered—this once. This was all the chance she would ever have. Her one touch at happiness—her one chance to touch the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. She had never been there before, had never known the joy she surmised must exist, wrapped in the clouds of love. Martin’s fingers skimmed her shoulders, easing her carriage dress from her. With a little sigh, Helen drew her arms from the long sleeves, letting her dress fall to the floor along with her reservations. Glancing shyly up from beneath her lowered lashes, she lifted her arms and draped them about his neck in tacit acceptance of what was
to come. Anticipation throbbing its dizzying pulse through her veins, she waited to see how he would manage her light stays.

Aware, as only one of his extensive experience could be, of the import of Helen’s tentative movement, Martin drew a deep breath and fought to shackle a desire so strong, it threatened to addle his wits—a thoroughly undesirable outcome. Juno needed to be wooed slowly, gently, seduced like the veriest virgin, skittish and shy. He applied himself to the task with devotion.

Soon, Helen’s mind was whirling, giddy with pleasure. Her past had held no clues to the passion that now engulfed her. Her introduction to wifely duties had been mundane in the extreme; her mother had told her what to expect—she had got that and nothing more. The entire procedure had been so basically boring, she had been only too glad when her husband had returned to his mistresses post haste. But, in the long lonely years since then, she had come to the conclusion that there had to be more to it than that, a positive side to the undertaking she had never experienced—for surely it was that that brought the glow to Dorothea’s pale complexion and the stars to her eyes.

She had thought she would never learn what it was. But fate had decided to hand her one chance—a consolation prize in the lottery of life. Who better to teach her of the delights of love then the man in whose strong arms she was trapped?

For he was a trap, to her senses at least. She would do well to acknowledge that, and remember it when the time for explanations arrived. He was going to be angry. Very angry. He would ask her to marry him, confidently expecting her, overwhelmed by his loving, to agree. And when she refused, he was not going to be particularly interested in her reasons. Which was just as well, for she had no idea how to make him understand and was in two minds whether it was safe to do so.

But right now two minds were two minds too many for her wits to cope with. He had stolen them, along with her stays—and she had not even noticed how he had accomplished the deed. All she knew was that she felt more enthralled, more consumed with desire than ever before in her life. Martin filled her mind, overwhelmed her senses—and took control completely.

There was nothing she could do to stem the tide of urgent need welling within and between them, engulfing them both in its heated embrace. Martin stopped and lifted her, carrying her to the daybed and laying her amid the silken covers. He hovered over her, his lips dipping to hers, his hands skilfully weaving webs of delight over her fevered flesh. Then his lips touched her eyelids, placing a kiss on each.