Leslie Lafoy (30 page)

If that was all the objection she was going to offer . . . “Then let’s move out of the sight line,” he said, easing his hands free of her dress.

“You don’t fight fairly,” she accused as he took the whiskey glass from her and set it aside.

“I’m not the least bit interested in fighting with you, my dear Caroline,” he admitted, drawing her toward the far corner of the room and into the space between the wall and the backside of a chair. “Can’t you tell?” he asked, stepping behind her again, glancing at the mantel clock and then putting his mouth and his hands back to their tasks.

“Yes,” she whispered. Reaching up, she twined her arms around his neck as he freed her breast from the confines of her bodice and opened another button.

“I love your sensibilities on dress design,” he said, gently pinching her nipple and slipping his hand into the opening to lay his palm on the soft warm pillow of her bare abdomen. “It makes you so wonderfully accessible.”

“That wasn’t,” she protested, turning her head to nip at his chin, “my primary motivation.”

He slowly slid his hand off her abdomen, moving it downward and countering, “But you can appreciate it, can’t you?” His fingers slipped into the moist curls and arrowed to the hooded nub nestled in their midst. “Ah, yes,” he murmured, as she choked back a moan and her knees buckled. “You do.”

There was no denying it, no denying him. Or her own desperate need. “This is wicked,” she gasped, grinning as wave after sweet wave of pleasure rippled through her body.

“And you’re enjoying it immensely.”

She could feel his smile, hear it in his voice. “God, yes. Aren’t you?”

“As a prelude, it’s quite good,” he admitted, his fingers gliding along her cleft. “Do you know how long I’ve wanted to do this to you?”

“Since teatime?” she guessed breathlessly as they slipped inside her and her muscles tightened in welcome.

“From the very beginning, dear Caroline,” he crooned. “But in the last hours fantasy has become need.”

He was asking for permission, giving her a chance to escape if she wanted to. “So has mine,” she whispered, turning her head to kiss him. “Whose shall we make real first?”

“Mine,” he moaned against her mouth as his hands eased their delicious torment to take her arms from around his neck.

No. No, she’d die if she couldn’t have release. “Drayton, what—”

“Sssssh,” he whispered, placing her hands on the chair back in front of her. “Not a sound or we’ll be caught. Or do you want to be caught, dear Caroline?”

She gasped as he lifted the back of her skirts. “This is too outrageous even for—” No, it was perfect, she admitted, closing her eyes, shivering in delight as his hands skimmed over the tops of her stockings to the bare skin of her upper thighs and then upward to caress the curve of her backside.

Yes, it was beyond wanton. Yes, it was dangerous. And she’d never in her life wanted anything more intensely, more immediately. If he didn’t get his trouser buttons undone in the next two seconds, she’d—

The growl of her frustration slipped past her lips, twined with a moan of gratitude as he filled her with his heat and power. Her knees weak, her senses reeling, she sagged forward, surrendering her mind, body, and soul to the sheer brilliance of the pleasure, to the breathlessly swift spiral of satisfaction.

Drayton closed his eyes and threw his head back, clenching his teeth and swallowing a groan as she shuddered in achievement and pulled him blessedly to his own. God, for as long as he lived . . . Breathless, his heart pounding and his body quaking, he forced himself to think beyond the heady pleasure, beyond the desire to lay her down on the floor and do it all over again. Later, he promised himself, holding her hips and withdrawing. After dinner. And slowly. Much more slowly, he vowed,
easing her upright as he stepped back and let her skirts fall between them.

With one arm around her waist, he held her steady as he quickly buttoned his trousers. Her head fell back against his shoulder, her blond curls bright against the black of his dinner jacket, the soft curve of her sated smile thrilling his heart. So honest in her wanting, so unaware of how rare a creature she was. Feathering kisses along her brow, he reached around her and gently eased her breast back into her bodice.

“Seven minutes,” she said on a sigh as he turned her in his arms and drew her against him.

“You looked at the clock?”

She tipped her head back and smiled lazily. “You didn’t?”

He grinned in admission. “With eight minutes left for that delightfully naughty flush of satisfaction to fade from your cheeks before Mother Aubrey arrives.”

“You’re reprehensible,” she accused, her eyes sparkling and the color of her cheeks deepening.

“I won’t argue with you. As long as you’ll admit to being perfectly, lusciously willing.”

“Too willing,” she countered, sighing and stepping from his arms.

“That’s
not
possible, Caroline.”

She laughed softly and turned slightly away to adjust her bodice. “You bring out the absolute worst in me. Common sense doesn’t even so much as whimper in protest when I am near you.”

“For which I am eternally grateful,” he allowed, stepping up behind her and slipping his arms around her waist again.

“Drayton,” she murmured, tilting her head out of the
way so he could better kiss her shoulder. “This is insanity and we both know better than to keep taking the risks.”

“Apparently the bloom is off the satisfaction already.” He laid a lingering kiss on the curve where her shoulder swept up into her lovely neck, on the spot where a touch always melted her knees. “I promise to do better next time.”

“There can’t be a next time,” she protested on a breathy whimper as she sagged back against him. “Please don’t make me be the only sensible one.”

Why the hell she was suddenly feeling guilty for the pleasure they so easily gave each other . . . If he had another seven minutes, he’d gladly use them to prove to her that she didn’t have any more sense—or regrets—than he did. But since he didn’t and he knew that words wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference, he decided that he was better off deferring the contest of wills until later. Until after dinner when he could ever so slowly and deliberately make his point.

He kissed her in the sweet spot one more time, and as she shivered, he stepped back to take her hand and lead her out of the corner, saying, “We’ll continue our negotiations after we’ve retired this evening. I’m going out to smoke a cheroot so Mother Aubrey’s sense of propriety isn’t strained.”

“There’s nothing to be negotiated, Drayton.”

“We’ll see.”

“No we won’t.”

He stopped and let go of her hand. Taking her chin gently in his hand, he tilted her head up until her gaze met his. “Have I mentioned how utterly alluring I find your obstinance?” he asked, noting the confusion in her eyes, but not letting it deter him. “Challenges are so incredibly stimulating for the imagination.”

“I think I could easily loathe you.”

“That could be an interesting edge,” he said softly, taunting her lips with a feathery kiss just before releasing her. “I can’t wait to see what it feels like. You will promise to bring it to bed with you tonight, won’t you?”

Caroline watched him walk away, her refusal caught in her throat, hopelessly snared in a simple net of possibility that she didn’t dare give voice to. No, she didn’t love him, she assured herself as she buttoned her dress with ridiculously trembling hands. She was smarter than that, more self-possessed. They hadn’t just made love; they’d had a kind of sex that was, at best, a rather simple bestial exchange. And yes, she’d enjoyed it. Immeasurably and wickedly, she had to admit. Her body had been sated, delightfully and quickly and quite thoroughly. For all of a few seconds.

Until he’d put their clothing back to rights, wrapped her in his arms and held her close. Desire had blazed to life again as she’d looked up at him. And deep in the center of the renewed wanting had been the horrible flicker of first realization. She’d tamped it down, tried to be rational. She’d called an end to their affair even as she knew that if he eased her to the floor, she’d go without a fight.

Whether she’d driven him out to smoke his cheroot or he’d always intended to go didn’t matter. He’d left her alone with her chattering mind and her sinking heart. And it hadn’t made any difference at all. In fact, in the silence and solitude the tiny, dreadful spark of possibility had become a pulsing, undeniable reality.

She wanted to spend the rest of her life making love with Drayton Mackenzie. And only him. If he didn’t feel the same way about her . . . Caroline swallowed down the bubble of panic and marshaled her pride. If he didn’t
want her the same way, she’d survive. She’d do what she had to do, what she was expected to do. When he announced that he’d given his heart to someone else, she’d smile and wish him the best and then go back to the life she’d had before he’d turned it upside down and inside out.

Yes, that’s exactly what she’d do. She’d stay as far away from him as she could, becoming the best excuse maker the world had ever seen in the effort to keep the distance between them. Because if she didn’t . . . Because, until the day she died, if he gave her one of his easy, seductive smiles and nodded toward the corner of any parlor, she’d glance over her shoulder to make sure his wife wasn’t anywhere around and then she’d go with him. She’d be his mistress, whenever, however he pleased.

No, she couldn’t do that. She couldn’t live with being responsible for the ache of another woman’s heart. But until the day came when she had to exercise good sense and self-denial . . .

Caroline closed her eyes and drew a deep breath. Maybe she was just too tired to think straight and was being foolish and overreacting. Maybe if she stopped fighting the attraction, if she simply surrendered to desire whenever it struck . . . It could burn itself out. Become so routine and boring that his marriage to someone else would be nothing short of a blessed escape for her. Yes, that was a perfectly likely outcome. One Drayton had posed right from the start, she realized. And since he had considerably more experience than she did in such matters, she could trust that he was right.

Feeling considerably more settled, Caroline opened her eyes. She picked up the glass of spirits Drayton had set aside earlier and took a healthy sip As before, it seared a
path down her throat and took her breath away. She had no idea what kind of liquor it was, but it clearly wasn’t the sherry that good and virtuous women limited themselves to sipping from dainty glasses.

But since she wasn’t a good and virtuous woman, at least not at heart . . . She took another drink and decided that she didn’t mind being the kind of woman Drayton Mackenzie wanted in his bed every night. Defiance and impropriety definitely had their rewards. Even if just for a short while.

“
AND OF COURSE THERE WILL BE A BRIEF DISCUSSION OF
making the seats in the House of Lords subject to the vote,” Aubrey said as the footmen cleared away their dinner plates. “It’s a perennial issue. For the life of me, I fail to see why anyone of reasonable intelligence would expect a member of the upper chamber to surrender hundreds of years of privilege so he could stand before the masses and sell himself like a tin of tea. You’d think that . . . ”

Aubrey went on, but Caroline wasn’t listening anymore. You’d think, she mused, watching Drayton swirl the wine around his glass, that Aubrey would notice that he wasn’t the least bit interested in who had what seat in Parliament and how they’d gotten it. Or in what the Conservatives planned to do to block enactment of the Liberals’ anticipated agenda. Not that Drayton was any more interested in the Liberals’ expected plots to overturn the very foundations and traditions of the British world.

His gaze met hers across the length of the table as Aubrey droned on. Too far away to see the depths of his eyes and gauge the nature of his thoughts, she offered him a slight smile of commiseration. Although, quite
honestly, Aubrey’s soliloquy wasn’t yet anywhere near the length his mother’s had been on the importance of being seen in all the right places, wearing the right fashions, and talking with the right people. After the first ten minutes or so of the detailed list of names, Caroline hadn’t paid any more attention to her than Drayton was now paying her son.

Clearly, she and Drayton were destined to be the misfits of London’s elite social and political circles. Not that they’d be ostracized for their nonconformity and allowed to go away to live in peace at Ryland Castle. No, according to Lady Aubrey, rank had its duties and one of the most important of them was to sacrifice themselves to profitable matrimony and beget another generation of titled Englishmen. It was the British Way and to not shoulder their burden would lead to the certain and swift downfall of the Empire.

Unfortunately, if there was anything else she’d gleaned from Mother Aubrey’s dinner dissertation, it was that Society was never inclined to be either patient or merciful with those who stumbled along the way. Considering that neither she nor Drayton had been born to tread the path that lay ahead for them . . . Like dinner tonight, they’d simply have to make the best of it and try not to let on how utterly boring they found it all.

And, she added, hearing the jangle of approaching keys, arrange their escapes well in advance. Drayton’s brow went slowly up as Mrs. Gladder came into the dining room. He hid his smile around the rim of his wine glass as his housekeeper flawlessly executed the plan, then stood and lifted his glass in salute as Caroline begged the necessary apologies before leaving him to fend for himself.

She and Mrs. Gladder were well outside the dining room when she asked, “Is there really a concern with the paint color?”

“Of course not,” the housekeeper replied, chuckling. “The captains of British industry should be properly jealous of our efficiency.”

“And do those working through the night need clarification of their tasks?”

“I tossed that one in just for good measure.”

“I was hoping so,” Caroline admitted. “Would you think terribly of me if I begged for a few hours’ sleep?”