Lady Belling's Secret (17 page)

“You are such a beautiful woman. I can’t believe I am so lucky.” He lifted a palm to caress the peak of one already hard nipple.

“Well to be fair, I was only a girl when you left,” she replied, raising her hand to his chest. She placed her fingertips at the indentation of his throat and caressed her way down between the planes of his pectoral muscles, ending on the flat of his stomach.

He wrapped his free arm around her waist and drew her flush against his body. He took her mouth with his, the kiss demanding and fierce. His only regret was that he hadn’t noticed her years ago. And that he’d almost noticed her too late. That horror was not even worth contemplating.

God, he loved how her tallish frame fit his so ideally. He had never been with a woman as tall as she, and it was magnificent. The softness of her belly perfectly cradled his aching cock, her breasts just below his chest, her upturned face only requiring him to duck his head to kiss her.

Her hands played along the skin of his back, tickling the sensitive flesh of his spine. They rounded his shoulders, and she clung there as he left a trail of open-mouthed kisses down her throat. He settled briefly at her collarbone, paying exquisite attention to the cleft in her throat. He arched her back, supporting it with one arm as the other brought her perfect breast to his mouth. She inhaled sharply through her teeth when he used his on her tight, rosy nipple.

As he moved to the other nipple, he was gratified to notice her knees weaken. Without losing concentration on the exhaustive attention he paid to her breasts, he cupped the globes of her bottom with both hands, lifted her up and plopped her on the dressing table. It took just the slightest nudge of one of his legs and her knees parted.

She was at the perfect height. Thomas broke the kiss and adjusted himself to rest against her opening, wet and ready. Looking into the endless green of her eyes, Thomas grasped her legs and circled them around waist. Francesca locked her ankles behind him, welcoming him in. She leaned back, her hands holding his shoulders, allowing him to fill her deeper with each roll of his hips.

Thomas had a fantastic view: her neck arched back, her head resting against the mirror of her dressing table, her hair wild around her shoulders and the table underneath her. Her breasts jiggled oh so enticingly with each thrust. He kept his hands under her rear, kneading the soft muscles there.

He could stay in this exact position forever, slowly loving her at his leisure. At least he could have until Francesca brought things to the next level by participating more fully. She had been allowing him to control the pace, but when she experimentally tightened her legs on his next inward thrust, and by result bringing him more forcefully inside her, she let out a little scream.

Emboldened by her newfound knowledge, she brought him back harder and harder each time. Francesca writhed beneath him, bottles and hairbrushes falling off the table as it jostled under their activity. Thomas’s control slipped with each panting breath.

When she finally exploded, her fingernails dug into the flesh of his shoulders, and Thomas had the presence of mind to shush her scream with his mouth. It only took a few swift thrusts and he was with her, careening towards the sky.

They stayed there on the dressing table, all of Francesca’s pretty things previously assembled with such care by her maid now askew and strewn about the floor at his feet. Francesca, her skin glowing and damp from the exertion, leaned against the mirror. The flesh from her back left messy smudges, turning her lovely body into a smeared reflection. Thomas slumped with her, his head resting on her chest, his knees shaky.

Eventually they moved to the bed, the room growing too cold with no one tending to the fire. They snuggled under the counterpane, spooning in the darkness. Both of them knew they were in an impossible situation. When the clock in the hall chimed twelve times, Francesca’s wedding was just over one week away.

Chapter Fifteen

Thomas awoke after only an hour or so of sleep. Some sort of clock in his brain reminded him that he was asleep in the arms of an unwed and naked debutante. It was funny how that survival instinct kicked right back in after all that time away from society. It had certainly served him well before. Not with debutantes necessarily, but with many a married lady of the
ton
. Regardless of who he’d been in bed with, it certainly didn’t pay to get caught.

He rose on one elbow and gazed at a peacefully sleeping Francesca. A sliver of moonlight through the window provided enough illumination to see the lovely profile of the remarkable woman who had so changed his life. He could see a future that held everything he had ever desired, a wife who loved him and children to love back. He was almost giddy with the delight of it. He wanted to marry her this month, this week, tomorrow.

She was his. It was unfathomable that she could marry someone else.

If he had been only two weeks later returning to London, she would have married Dalton and he never would have known what he missed. The idea nauseated him. Thomas reflected about what a slim margin of error the world allowed for lovers. Absentmindedly he slid his fingers into the long tubelike curls covering the pillow. He wound the tresses around his fingers and then his wrist. He used a bit to tickle her ear, and when she stirred again, he gently kissed the tender skin behind it.

She smiled as she was roused from her slumber. She stretched like a cat, her arms above her head, her toes pointed. Thomas maneuvered his body over hers and settled between her thighs. “I’m going to need to slip back out that window soon.” He tempered his regret with a sweet kiss.

“What time is it?” she asked and glanced towards the window. It was still full dark.

“I’m not sure, well past midnight,” he guessed. “Probably two or so. Your family should be home soon.”

“They know I went to bed with a headache so they won’t disturb me when they return.” She sounded deliciously drowsy.

“That’s not the point,” he gently explained, rolling his hips ever so slightly, grinding himself against her swollen sex. She countered by arching her back. “As you so like to point out, I still have your reputation to consider.”

She didn’t reply. Instead he sensed the tension enter her body like a harp string.

“I’m just teasing.” He kissed her neck but she didn’t soften. “After we’re married, no one will have anything to say about it.”

“Are you asking me to marry you?” she inquired with disquieting calm, as if the answer held some trap he was leading her into. Or worse, some trap in which she was leading him.

“I’ve been pretty clear about that desire, haven’t I? Besides, isn’t it what you want? You still love me, don’t you?” Really, wasn’t this the most important question?

“I’m beginning to regret you know that.” She moved to the left and pushed herself out from under him. She sat up, brought her knees to her chest and looked at him with tear filled eyes.

“Why? How can that be a bad thing?”

“It sure makes everything easy for you, doesn’t it?”

Clearly he wasn’t going to entice her back for another round, so with a sigh of resignation, he pulled himself up to sit across from her. “Why do you think any of this is easy for me?”

“Aren’t you getting everything you want?”

Thomas stared at her in disbelief. “How’s that exactly?”

“I’m probably the easiest seduction you’ve ever had.”

“What? Don’t be ridiculous. You’re not a seduction.” He implored her to listen.

“What more can I possibly be?” She looked away and swallowed hard before she continued. “Nothing can become of us. I’m fooling myself that anything ever could.”

“No, you’re wrong. Listen to me…”

She slid out of the bed and pulled on her wrapper, cinching the tie tight around her waist with swift, angry movements. “No, you listen. I can’t keep doing this.”

Thomas swung his feet over the side of the mattress. What the hell was happening here? She was the damnedest, most mercurial woman he had ever met. “Then run away with me.”

“You’re insane.”

“What else do you want from me?” he demanded.

“I want you to have come home a month ago before I promised myself to another man.” She dashed away tears before they could run off her chin.

He held out his hand to her, but she rebuffed him with a huff.

“Dearest, please don’t do this. Come here and talk to me.” He wanted to fold her in his arms and take away the hurt, but he was afraid to touch her. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what it was she needed.

“There’s no point. It’s over.” She stepped even farther from his grasp.

“But you love me.”

“Please don’t keep doing this to me. You know why it will never happen.”

He stood from the bed and realized too late he was naked. He grabbed the sheet from the bed and wrapped it around his hips. Maybe wooing was the way through to her. “You’re unbelievably lovely. We are fantastic in bed together. I want you more than any other woman I have ever known.”

She crossed her arms and glared in response.

Words kept coming even though he could see from her darkening expression he was missing the mark to a tragic degree. “We’ve known each other all our lives. Your family usually adores me. We’re great friends, so you know we’ll be compatible.”

“I see.”

“Why isn’t that enough?” He knew he was sunk—at least tonight.

“I don’t know, Thomas, but it isn’t.” She knew exactly what she wanted to hear from him, but if he didn’t feel it, then she didn’t want to hear a lie either. And she sure as hell wasn’t going to cry in front of him. She wasn’t.

She tossed his pants at him. “Go ahead and climb down the tree.” She strode across the room to the fireplace. There were only coals now. She sat in the chair and wrapped her arms about herself in an effort to keep a lid on her emotions.

He didn’t love her. It couldn’t be more apparent. And she was not strong enough to marry him without that. She could not go through a lifetime as Thomas’s
friend
no matter how good the lovemaking was. She understood herself well enough to comprehend that marrying him under those conditions would kill her. It definitely wasn’t worth ruining her family over. She would rather marry Lord Dalton, who she really did care for if only as a dear friend, and there was no risk of getting hurt. At least then she would have a typical
tonnish
marriage with no chance of suffocating slowly in her misery.

She wanted him to get out so she could cry. She simply would not give him the satisfaction of witnessing the event. Thomas pulled his jacket on, his shirttails loose over his trousers and his weskit unbuttoned. He watched her the whole time, but she refused the satisfaction of meeting his gaze.

Only a few minutes ago they were both warm and snuggly in bed, and now her eyes were burning, desperate to cry, and he was sulking away.

“Francesca?” His voice was soft and gentle.

“Just go.” She only had a few words in her before her voice would crack, and she would lose every bit of dignity she was making such an effort to maintain.

“I hate to bring this up again, but what if you’re carrying my child?”

Francesca closed her eyes and breathed through her nose. She waited until she could talk without her voice wavering. “It’s unlikely.”

“But possible. You can’t deny it’s possible.”

Drat, she was going to cry after all. She mustered up some anger instead. “We’ll never know, will we? I’m to be married in a matter of days. You’ll never know if it’s yours or Dalton’s.”

“What are you going to do when he looks like me? Everyone will know then.” He strode several steps in her direction and raised his voice. “I’ll never let some other man raise my child.”

Francesca stood tall in the face of his onslaught. “You need to go now, or I’m going to scream.”

His face she loved so much and had held so dear for so long, was twisted in anger. He was still hopelessly beautiful, and her gut wrenched at the finality of ending the affair this way. She was hurting him, but it needed to be done.

“I’m sorry.” He turned and exited the window in the same manner he’d climbed in. She closed and locked it and pulled the drapes closed tight before he reached the ground.

She never looked down.

Chapter Sixteen

It was ten o’clock in the morning, and Francesca could no longer ignore the gentle raps on her bedroom door. “Enter,” she said, but she didn’t rise from her bed. Rather she pulled the coverlet even higher and tried to sink farther into the feather bed.

“Frankie?” Anna’s voice was gentle in her inquiry. “Are you not out of bed yet?”

“No.” Her voice was muffled, and as much as she loved her best friend, she longed for nothing more than to be left alone in her wretched misery.

Anna’s slippered feet silently tread across the carpet, and before Francesca had the opportunity to protest, her friend pulled the coverlet away from the bed and slipped inside next to her. Francesca sighed a beleaguered breath, but she also welcomed the concern from her friend.

“Frankie,” Anna began again with a cautious whisper, “are you quite all right?” When Francesca didn’t answer, Anna continued. “I am quite sure I heard crying from this room this morning. I have been able to keep your mother away, telling her that your headache continues from yesterday, but she’s bound to come in eventually.”

“You may tell Mama that my head is much improved, thank you.”

“I’m afraid you’re actually going to have to arise from this tomb you’ve hidden yourself in and prove to her yourself that you’re alive.” When there was still no movement under the covers, Anna pulled the covers back in a sweeping gesture that left Francesca exposed to the bright morning light.

Francesca blinked against the light, sat up and grabbed the covers then drew them back up to her chin. Her only concession that she was in fact awake and not dead was that she turned her head on the pillow to look at her friend. “I am alive, as you can clearly see.”

“I also see that I was right, you have been crying.”

“I am through with crying,” Francesca bravely told her. “I will cry no more for that man.”