His Lady Mistress (22 page)

A hot blush mantled her cheeks. ‘I know it wasn’t very good, but—’

Max’s quiet tones cut her off. ‘It was exactly right, although I must say Richard got the better bargain with a portrait of the dogs!’ His smiled warmed her. ‘Thank you.’ he continued. ‘I meant to say something earlier today and when I came to find you just now, but I…we got…distracted and…’ His voice died away and Verity felt hot all over remembering what had distracted them in the stillroom, and saw that queer hardening of his jaw as their eyes met.

He spoke again. ‘Which reminds me, you must tell me when your birthday is.’

Her birthday. Her knife and fork clattered on her plate. ‘I…no. No. I don’t have a birthday.’

The blank astonishment on his face would have been funny if not for the pain cutting at her deep inside. ‘Well, of course you do. Everyone has—’

‘No!’ She struggled to stop her voice wobbling. ‘Please. I hate having a fuss made. I would rather…please, Max.’

‘But…’

‘Verity, I understand your father was Max’s Colonel,’ said Richard.

Relieved, Verity nodded. Anything was better than explaining to Max why she no longer had a birthday.

‘He must have been quite a fellow to keep Max in order. Max always said what a fine officer he was. I’m sorry I never met him. Not to mention thank him for saving Max’s life—’

‘Stubble it, Ricky.’ Max’s growl barely penetrated as Verity froze, slowly, from the inside out as the wound deep within cracked wider, leaching cold…guilt…anger…and bitter shame, slicing like a jagged, icy knife.

Her father had saved Max’s life. And she had destroyed, then taken, his. Because of her birthday. Somehow she returned an answer—what, she had no idea. It was hard enough holding her voice steady, emotionless, without listening to what she said as well. Embarrassment at her rudeness scorched her cheeks.

Richard continued as though he hadn’t noticed. ‘And Max always said your father could wipe him off the chessboard. Tell me, did he teach you?’

Shaking inwardly, Verity assented.

‘Excellent,’ said Richard. ‘You can give me a game some time, then.’

‘I…I…yes, of…of course.’

Surely she could play chess without remembering her father? Without remembering those dreadful games just after his return, when he was still making an effort to hold himself together, when he could still bear to look at her. Just. Before he would suddenly sweep the pieces from the board and walk away.

She gripped her hands together to still their shaking. Richard was talking cheerfully about chess; gradually her turmoil steadied and she looked up.

Max’s bright eyes blazed into her, a frown knotting his brow. His mouth looked set, hard, as though she had angered him again. The icy knife twisted cruelly. If he knew what she
had done, anger would become outright loathing. How long could she live with him without confessing the truth? She looked away, her cheeks flooded with shame.

Three hours after retiring Max was still pretending to read in bed. He had stopped trying to remember the title of the book some time earlier. The words danced before his eyes as he finally acknowledged his mistake. He should never have kissed her again. Not in the stillroom and certainly not at her bedchamber door three hours ago. The clock on the chimney piece chimed in unrelenting correction.

All right then! Three and a quarter hours ago! Who was keeping count?

He was. Every aching, yearning minute felt like a life sentence in frustration.

Guilt didn’t help. He knew damn well that she had understood and responded to his desire. That she had every reason in the world to be waiting for him to walk through that blasted door and make love to her. At some point he would have to explain to her the truth of their marriage. Not tonight, though. Right now, despite the white-hot desire that held sleep at bay, he wanted to shake her.

Tonight he had finally seen the real Verity. Laughing over nonsense. Actually eating without looking as though every mouthful was an effort. With a pang he realised that he had never before seen her completely happy, without the lurking shadows in her eyes.

All the shadows had rushed back with the mere mention of her father. She was ashamed. Scott had not deserved that. He deserved to be remembered with pride by his daughter, not shame. Somehow he had to help her see that. He’d talk to her tomorrow, make her see, remind her of the sort of man her father had been. Tomorrow.

So what was he doing at the door between their rooms with his hand on the doorknob?

She sat writing at her father’s old campaign chest. He smiled as he remembered the times without number he had reported to Colonel Scott and seen him working at it. A typical officer’s chest, it had a drop front in the top section that formed a small desk. Battered, its brass corner mounts dull, the Baltic pine struck an incongruous note in the luxury of the room.

‘Verity?’

She spun around in palpable shock and jumped up, dropping her quill. ‘My…Max?’

The question in her voice, the yearning softness speared him mercilessly. Along with the suddenly flushed cheeks and trembling mouth. Oh, hell! What now was he to say?

Shaken to his foundations, he blundered in. ‘He used to talk about you. Did you know that?’

‘I…I beg your pardon?’

He went on relentlessly. Somehow he had to make her see. ‘About how pretty you were. How clever. He was so proud of you. He used to read bits of your letters occasionally. He said you were as lovely as your mother. That must have been such a comfort to him after she died. Doesn’t he deserve better from you now?’

Verity had turned away, whitefaced. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You use his campaign chest. Don’t you think he deserves a little more than shame from you?’

Slowly she faced him. ‘You think I’m ashamed of
him
?’ The pain in her voice shivered through him. ‘Do you think I would have that chest if I were ashamed of him? It’s the only thing of his that’s mine. I stole it.’

For the first time he heard bitterness in her voice, poison welling from a wound buried deep.

‘Stole it? But surely—’

She broke in. ‘When the law says “everything” they mean just that:
everything
.’ Understanding raked him and he saw that she was shivering, that her eyes were bright with unshed tears.

In a dead voice, she continued. ‘I didn’t even know what the law was. If I had…I might have thought to hide things before I ran for help. But I couldn’t believe he was dead…’ Her ragged breath sliced at him. ‘God—what a little fool I was…how could I have
not
believed it…Do you have any idea what it does to a man? He’d put the pistol in his mouth…When they came…they said it was self-murder and they started to take everything…he was wearing Mama’s wedding ring.’

‘Verity,’ he whispered, seeing again the terrified child staring out of her haunted eyes. He knew exactly what a pistol fired into the mouth would do to a man. That she should have seen such a thing…His guts churned, leaving a sour, metallic taste in his mouth. Words strangled in his throat and he reached for her.

She jerked away and his hands dropped to his sides. The deadened voice continued, chilling him to the core. ‘I begged them to leave the ring…to let me have it, but they said everything was…was forfeit…everything. So I ran upstairs and stuffed what I could into the chest…his books…his sword…the medals. Then I dragged it into my bedchamber and used the sword to scratch away part of the “W”. When they came up…I…I lied, said it was mine. I’d put my own clothes on top…’ She shuddered. ‘They didn’t believe me and they started to drag it out, but the magistrate, Sir John, came. And the Rector. I don’t think they believed me either, but they made the men leave me the chest at least and his journal. Everything else went…’

‘Oh, God. Verity…’ He stopped. Her eyes were blank, seeing only a nightmare past. He had no idea what to say anyway. Had she ever told anyone this before? He tried to imagine her telling the Faringdons. And felt sickened.

‘I was so angry,’ she whispered. ‘Because of what he’d done. And then I hated myself for…for being angry. But all I could think was that he’d finally abandoned me, that he hadn’t loved me at all. I wanted to hate him. But it hurt so
much. And it was all my fault anyway…because I…’ She shuddered. ‘I try not to think of him because I feel angry and then…then I hate myself. That’s why, when your brother asked…’ She shivered and said dully. ‘It doesn’t matter any more.’

That hit him like a body blow. She sounded as though she no longer cared. Then he reached for her, past her instinctive, defensive recoil, and dragged her into his arms. He meant only to comfort her, to reassure her that she was safe.

He reckoned without the yielding curves of her body, and without the wildfire burning in his veins. The moment he felt her in his arms, her trembling body pressed against him, his resolve incinerated. Need flamed in him and he sought her mouth, taking it in a surge of possession. Only one thought remained, hammering in his brain with every pounding heartbeat:
He must not take her. He could enjoy her, pleasure her, comfort her with his body. But he dare not take his own release in her body.

Hope, which in three hours had died to an aching ember flared up all around Verity, engulfing the barriers she had so painfully rebuilt. She resisted, tried to control her response. But her arms slid around his waist, her hands felt the heat of hard muscle beneath his nightshirt and the walls cracked around her besieged heart. His mouth whispered over hers, destroying her defences and rebuilding all her dreams. For a moment she continued to resist, trembling behind the crumbling barrier, but it burned around her, leaving her exposed and helpless.

With a soft cry she slipped her arms around his neck and clung, felt him gather her closer, felt his fingers stroking, caressing, searching. All resistance melted as his arms tightened to lift her effortlessly. An instant later she was on the bed, his tender hands stripping her with shocking speed. A part of her mind remembered Lady Arnsworth’s warning. She must remain unmoved, silent. Tender hands and kisses trailed down her throat, sparking a riot of rebellion under her skin.
Heat pooled in her belly, between her thighs, moist, trembling heat that ached in its emptiness.

Still. Silent. Virtuous.

His tongue touched one taut nipple, laving it. A gasp escaped her. Her body jerked uncontrollably, pushing her breast upwards to his mouth. With a groan of satisfaction he accepted her gift, taking her flesh deep into the moist heat.

She screamed as he suckled, hard, branding her as his, and all restraint was incinerated as her body melted in surrender. He turned his attention to the other breast, until she was only dimly aware of the cries and sobs rippling from her throat, of his fingers teasing over her belly, over the soft curls at its base. When his hand pushed between her thighs she moved them willingly, eagerly, frantic for his touch.

She twisted against him, fighting to get closer, wild to feel his weight crush her in a prelude to the final possession. His body slid lower and his mouth left her breasts, drifting in heated seduction over the tender curves to her belly where he bit and licked gently.

Even as his tongue circled and probed her navel, his fingers echoed the searching, stabbing action between her thighs until she sobbed, helpless and urgent beneath him. She was barely conscious of her own cries and whimpers as he caressed her. His weight shifted and she instinctively relaxed her thighs, expecting his powerful body to settle between them, expecting the hungry pressure of his need.

She froze in shock as she felt him shift lower yet, felt his shoulders wedge her thighs even wider and felt the first hot touch of his mouth and tongue on the soft skin of her thighs where his fingers had trailed fire. A stunning realisation pierced her—where his fingers had led, his mouth followed…and where he stroked her now…Her breathing shattered as one long finger caressed her deeply…no, surely he didn’t mean to…he couldn’t…

Struggling for breath, she gasped, ‘Max…what are you…ooohhh!’ Her protest ended in a strangled gasp as he
kissed her with an intimacy that nearly tore her world apart. Winged pleasure speared her body at the hot, silky caresses that consumed her in fire, held her quivering on a rack of incandescent need.

Max clung to self-control as she sobbed and writhed in his grasp, as the sweet essence of her passion wreathed through him. Tenderly, mercilessly, he loved her, in the only way he could permit himself. Glorying in the abandoned innocence of her ecstatic response, he savoured every sob, every whimper.

Slowly he brought her to the edge and held her there until her cries became desperate, almost frightened with the cataract of sensation pouring through her. He could feel her need in the frantic shift of her hips between his hands, in the strength of her fingers clutching his scalp. And in the soft, heated liquid pulse of her body.

Grimly he fought the urge, the savage need to surge up her body and take her, to feel her body shatter in release around him. He couldn’t, didn’t dare…if she quickened with his seed…

His control cracking, he pushed her over into the abyss and heard the achingly sweet scream of ecstasy as she broke, shimmering and convulsing in his arms. Scarcely daring to breathe, he eased himself back up her body and gathered her into his arms, trying to ignore the violent pain of his own aroused flesh. He ached to roll on top of her and sink into her passion-soft body, driving her to completion again. He mustn’t. He didn’t even dare show her how to ease his aching need. The edges of his control were smoking.

He should leave. Now. Before he lost control. Before he broke his promise. He dragged in a breath that felt like broken glass and tensed, ready to pull away. She shifted in his arms, nestling against him in soul-shattering trust, snuggling her cheek into the curve of his shoulder, her ragged breath a caress on his heated skin. And something else…He lifted a
wondering hand to her cheek. His heart shook in his chest as he felt tears.

Dear God
…‘Verity—are you all right? I didn’t hurt you?’ His voice cracked at the thought. Had he frightened her…or shocked her? She was so damned innocent…she couldn’t have been expecting what he had done.