Mary Balogh (59 page)

He dragged off his coat, grimacing as he did so from the wetness of it. He pulled free his neckcloth and began to unbutton his shirt.

“By the time I go to my room and change and comb my hair in a fashion that suits it when wet, and don a few jewels to impress you,” he said, pulling his shirt free of his pantaloons and drawing it off over his head, “the storm will be over and I will have lost my chance with you, Mary. Besides, by that time you will probably be a blithering idiot.” He grinned at her. “It is going to be overhead soon. I think my arms had better be dry and available for you when that happens. Your teeth are beginning to chatter.”

She clamped them firmly together, swallowed as he pulled off his Hessians and moved his hands to the buttons of his pantaloons, and turned jerkily away.

“I shall fetch you some towels from the dressing room,” she said. But another flash rooted her to the spot.

“No need,” he said. “A blanket from the bed should do. I will be able to cover myself quite decently, I do assure you. If you do not want to watch the next installment, Mary, you had better turn away again for a moment.”

She did, and crossed the few feet to the bed to pull free one blanket. He took it from her hand before she turned back to him, and had wrapped himself in it by the time she did.

“Come a little nearer,” he said as the storm grew closer and louder and more intense. “But I have had second thoughts about these dry arms holding you, Mary. All this stripping off to the skin and talking of seductions has made me dangerous. Not to mention certain delicious memories of the last storm. Just stand close and we will talk our way through the height of the storm.”

She moved closer and curled her hands into fists at her sides.

“Don’t you think I should have a laurel wreath for my hair, and perhaps rope sandals for my feet?” he said. “Is that what the ancient Romans wore on their feet? I think this blanket looks distinctly like a toga, don’t you, Mary? How did they fasten the things about them? Do you know? They surely did not stride about the streets of Rome clutching them as I am forced to do. How would they shake hands with anyone? Did the Romans shake hands? And what if a particularly nasty gust of wind came along? It could all be a trifle embarrassing, don’t you think? You are not being fair, you know, Mary. I have asked enough questions to form the basis for a fifteen-minute discussion, and you have answered none of them. Help me out. It is your turn.”

“You were a classics scholar,” she said. “You must know all the answers.”

“I merely follow the methods of Socrates,” he said. “He never told his pupils anything. He merely asked endless questions. Yes, it is close, is it not?” he said as she cringed. “Must I hold you? Don’t trust me, Mary. I don’t trust myself.”

His pale blue eyes gazed intently back into hers when she raised them to him. She was almost past reason.

“I have been trying so hard,” she said. “I know it is something I must conquer.”

But the lightning and thunder happened simultaneously even as she finished speaking, and she found herself being drawn against warm and naked safety. Strong arms came about her, enclosing her in the blanket. She buried her face against warm chest hair and rested her hands against it, too.

“It is all right, Mary,” he was murmuring, his cheek against the top of her head. “I have you safe, love. Nothing is going to hurt you.”

He rocked her in his arms during the five minutes or so that the storm was overhead. She listened to the rain lashing the windows and to the strong steady beat of his heart. And the terror was suddenly all gone. She could almost enjoy the fury of the elements while she relaxed in her warm and living cocoon.

She drew back her head and looked up at him.

“No,” he said. “A big mistake, Mary.” And he set one hand behind her head and drew it none too gently against his chest again. “Don’t look at me. If you don’t look at me, I can pretend you are a frightened maid or my niece or my sister-in-law or some elderly dowager. If you don’t look at me, I have a chance.”

“Edmond,” she said.

“Christ!” he said. “And that was no blasphemy, Mary.
That was a fervent prayer. What has happened to ‘my lord’? Call me ‘my lord.’ ”

Through the thin muslin of her dress she could feel the stirrings of his arousal. And she could feel a tightening in her own breasts. Edmond! She kept very still.

“Whose idea was this blanket, anyway?” he said. “What I should have done, Mary—but hindsight is always pointless—was take you along to my room and stand you with your back to me while I changed into dry clothes … into decent armor. You know enough about human anatomy to know very well what is going on here, I suppose? No, don’t answer that. You might try to be tactful and say no, you had not noticed, and that would be a dreadful blow to my masculine pride. Why am I the only one babbling?”

“Edmond?” She raised her head again and looked up into his eyes.

He sighed. “You will have no respect for my title, then?” he said. “Listen, Mary, if you do not want what is about to happen to happen, you had better drag up some courage from somewhere and remove yourself from this blanket. And I mean now, or preferably five minutes ago. The storm is moving off, I do believe. Devil take it, woman, I am only human. Too damned human, I’m afraid.”

“So am I,” she said. “Too damned human.”

“Such language,” he said, and his head moved down to hers and his eyes closed and he spoke against her lips. “God, Mary, I have not wanted this to happen. Not any longer. I have been trying to do something decent at last. But it seems one cannot change oneself after all when one has lived a selfish and self-indulgent life for years.”

“Then let it be said that I have seduced you,” she said, her arms going up about his neck. “You are merely my victim.”

He groaned. “There is only one thing more exciting
than your naked body against mine, Mary,” he said. “I have just discovered it. It is your clothed body against my nakedness. I don’t have a chance, woman. I swear I don’t.”

“I know,” she said, and she angled her head and opened her mouth wider, inviting him to deepen the kiss.

He accepted the invitation without hesitation, widening his mouth over hers, teasing his tongue over her lips, up behind them so that she shivered with a sharp ache, and into her mouth, sliding over surfaces, circling her tongue, and finally beginning a firm rhythm of thrust and withdrawal in promise of things to come.

“I have always loved long hair on women,” he said against her throat, pushing the fingers of one hand into her hair. “Hair to wrap about the breasts and waist. But your short curls drive me wild, Mary. Don’t ever grow them out.”

His hands roamed over her, finding the hardened nipples of her breasts, fitting themselves to her small waist, spreading over her hips. And her own hands followed suit. She felt the muscles of his shoulders, the rippling muscles of his back, the narrow waist and hips, the firm, hard buttocks.

“I suppose,” he said, “I had better make the ultimate admission of defeat and undress you and lay you on that bed, had I not?”

“Yes,” she said.

“You are no help at all, Mary,” he said, feathering kisses over her face.

“No.”

“So be it, then,” he said, and he slipped his hands beneath her dress and shift at the shoulders and slowly drew them down over her arms until, loosened about the waist, they fell away to the floor.

“Ah,” he said, drawing her against him again, speaking against her mouth. “Maybe I had better take that
back about clothed bodies after all, Mary.” The blanket was also in a heap at their feet.

She drew breath slowly. She was far more aware of what was happening than she had been on the Vauxhall night. She could feel him with every part of her body. He was all hard muscle and warm flesh and hair. He was magnificent. And she loved him. She rested her hands on his shoulders.

“Edmond,” she said against his mouth.

“You have me persuaded,” he said. “You do not need to say more. Onto the bed, love.”

She wondered as he turned back the bedcovers and she lay obediently on the bed if he realized what he was calling her. She reveled in the endearment. Even if it were only the occasion that was provoking it, it was enough. The occasion was enough.

“Mary.” He came immediately on top of her, his hands moving down her sides, his mouth finding hers. “I don’t want to wait any longer. Do you? Say no.”

“No,” she said.

“Good girl,” he said. “I like obedient women. Have I told you how much I like you?”

Like! She smiled ruefully against his mouth. But her body was on fire for him, and her love needed to be fed by him in this physical way—just one more time. One more time would be enough.

“This much,” he said, parting her legs with his knees, pushing them wide. “This much.” He positioned himself at the entrance to her so that she could hear her own heart beating. “This much, Mary.” He came into her, stopping only when he was deeply embedded in her. “I like you this much. Do you like me? Just a little? Tell me you like me just a little. You would not allow this otherwise, would you?”

Light blue eyes looked down into hers in the candlelight.
There was a hint of anxiety behind the passion in them.

“I like you.” She smiled at him. “This much.” She lifted her legs from the bed and twined them about his. “And this much.” She pressed her hips into the mattress, tilting herself to him so that he was deeper in her. “And this much.” She tightened inner muscles, drawing him deeper still.

“God in his sweet heaven, woman,” he said, burying his face in her curls. “Are you trying to prove that I can still perform like a gauche schoolboy? Let me take a few minutes over this, will you?”

She relaxed beneath him, letting his body play with the hum of desire in her own, letting him focus it and build it until she could control her reactions no longer, but tightened her arms about him and twisted her hips, drawing him deep to give her the release she craved.

“Edmond,” she pleaded.

“Yes, love,” he said, finding her mouth with his again. “Oh, yes. Oh, yes.”

And they found it together, that center of the universe, which only lovers experience in the moment of fulfillment. Her body shook beneath his as his relaxed weight bore her down into the mattress.

“There,” he said five minutes later as he moved to her side, drew a sheet up over them, and settled her head on his arm. “So much for reformations of character, Mary. They just do not happen. I am sorry. The temptation was too great.”

“Yes, it was,” she said.

“I did try,” he said. “If only the rain had not made my clothes so infernally wet. I think I might have had a will of iron if I had not had to remove all my clothes.”

She chuckled.

“It’s not funny, Mary,” he said. “Once this storm is over … In fact, I think it is already over—have you
heard any thunder lately? Anyway, once this night is over, you will realize, as you did last time, just what horrors your terror drove you into. And as usual, I was here to oblige with the grand seduction scene. During the next thunderstorm you had better make sure that you are on a different continent, an ocean between us.”

“Edmond.” She turned onto her side and touched his cheek lightly with the fingers of one hand. “Don’t feel bad. It was not seduction.”

“I was not exactly invited into your bedchamber, was I?” he said. “Do you want me to challenge Goodrich? Do say yes. I would like nothing better than the opportunity to draw his cork.”

“I broke off our engagement,” she said. “I am afraid I have behaved very badly to him. He had every reason to be annoyed with me.”

“There is still such a thing as gallantry,” he said. “Did you really, though, Mary? It is some relief, anyway, to know that I have not just been bedding someone else’s fiancée.”

“Have you spoken with your father?” she asked.

He grimaced. “And we cried and slobbered all over each other,” he said. “It was in the best spirit of sentimental melodrama, Mary.”

“And all is well?” she asked.

“He asked me to forgive him,” he said. “Me forgive
him
. Can you imagine?”

“I am so glad,” she said. “I am so happy for you.”

“Are you?” he said.

She nodded and smiled at him.

“Why are your eyelids drooping and your words slurring?” he asked her. “I was not that good, was I? Tell me I was that good.”

She closed her eyes. “You were that good,” she said. “Now you must return the compliment and tell me that you are sleepy, too, and that I was that good.”

“I am talking in my sleep,” he said. “And you were … oh, some superlative.”

She continued to smile. She loved him. And he liked her. She wondered what he would say if she told him her feelings. She wondered if it would make any difference to anything. But it was surely wiser to keep her mouth shut. She had always considered that they were as far apart as the two poles, in everything except physical attraction. Surely not enough had changed to make any sort of relationship between them a possibility. He was right. It was the storm that made everything seem possible. It must be the storm.

And a good loving.

She fell asleep before she could decide whether or not to say the words aloud.

H
E DID NOT
sleep. He lay staring up at the moving patterns of the shadows cast by the candles and listening to the rain easing outside and the distant rumbles of thunder. He lay awake memorizing the feel of her and the smell of her.

And regretting fifteen wasted years, years given up to every imaginable excess of debauchery, years in which he had lost reputation and even honor. He had nothing whatsoever to offer a decent woman, nothing to offer the woman he loved. All he could do, all he could look forward to, was making amends in the future, perhaps making something out of his remaining years. Perhaps eventually, although he was already thirty-six years old, there could be marriage and children. Perhaps eventually he would deserve them.

But not with Mary. Too late for Mary. And so the possibilities brought no comfort.

She stirred finally and opened her eyes. She smiled at him.

“You are awake,” she said.