Not Proper Enough (A Reforming the Scoundrels Romance) (25 page)

“Beautiful Ginny,” he whispered. “Beautiful, beautiful Ginny.”

She dragged her eyes open and focused on him, and all she could think was that this was the man who’d tried to destroy her happiness, and here she was. Here they were, and she could take whatever she wanted from him. Anything at all. She took one of his hands and placed it over her breast. He spread his fingers, pressing, cupping, then catching her nipple between his first two fingers. Still rocking her hips, she placed her hand over his and showed him what she wanted. “This,” she said.

He complied.

“Yes. God, Fenris, yes.”

His other hand slid back to her hip, fingers closing on
her, increasing the motion of their joining. He shifted his hips and slid into her at an angle that sent her out of her mind with passion.

They ended up with him sitting with his back against the headboard and her tight against his lap. His mouth took hers, his hands explored and delved, and he was astonishingly good at finding places that wonderfully concentrated her mind on their bodies. At one point, she tensed her inner muscles once more and he said, “Do that again.”

She did.

“I am your slave,” he ground out. “More.” He got a hand between them and found the exact spot that sent her hurtling away from herself. She came hard, and if she said his name, she didn’t care. When she opened her eyes after that, it was to lock gazes with him.

“My turn,” he said.

“Yes.”

He put her on her back, and she concentrated on his reactions, his breathing, the change in his thrusts into her, and she wound her legs around him and met him, and stroked her fingers down his back, and she could feel the tension in his body. The sex was hard and fast now, and Fenris’s breath was hot against her skin, near her ear, along her throat.

She held him as if they really were lovers, and when he came, his shout was half groan. She watched the way his expression changed, that inward look while he was in the grip of his climax. She drank it all in, and a part of her adored this, him coming into her like this, so fierce. And just before he was done, when he’d pumped hard once, buried himself in her, and trembled in her arms, she put her mouth by his ear and whispered, “I hate you, Fenris. I hate you beyond life.”

He stayed in her, but pushed up, keeping his weight on his palms to look into her face. He thrust one more time, with a low, soft moan as he shivered. Their mutual stare continued. “I can only think, my darling Ginny, that if you loved me I’d be a dead man right now.”

“Awful, awful man,” she said.

“You’re sublime. I’ve never had a better fuck.”

“Toad.”

“Goddess.” He withdrew from her and lay on his side again, a hand on her belly.

“You’re no god, Fenris.”

“I don’t have such aspirations.” He pressed his mouth to her stomach. “Do you think it will be as good the next time? Because, I tell you, Ginny, my love, I came like a bull.”

“The next time?”

“Yes.” He drew back and trailed a finger along the midline of her body before he slid off the bed. “Later tonight if possible. Tomorrow. The next day. Next month.”

Eugenia frowned at his back as he walked to the table. She hadn’t been with a man as perfectly formed as he was, and she decided that she was a fool if she didn’t appreciate the beauty of his body. She hadn’t ever once thought about the fact that Robert had not been perfect. It hadn’t mattered.

He brought back a plate of food, two glasses, and the wine, all of which he set on the table beside the bed. He sat beside her, cross-legged, and fed her another section of orange, then a slice of beef so thin he had to roll it up to bring it to her lips. “This time more than a drop of the wine. It’s one of my best.”

She sat up enough to take the glass, and while she drank, Fenris lowered his head and took her breast in his mouth. His tongue flicked over her nipple, and then his fingers took the place of his mouth.

“Is St. George’s acceptable to you?” he asked.

“St. George’s is closer to Spring Street. Besides, I never see you there. That’s another reason I go to church there.”

“I prefer to get my sermons at St. Paul’s, but for our purposes the privacy offered by St. George’s will do nicely.”

She looked at him over the top of her wineglass. “Our purposes? You and I have no mutual purposes, Fenris.”

His fingers got clever again. “I can think of at least one.”

“Hush, you. Lord.” She gasped. “Incorrigible.”

Fenris rolled onto his back, one knee raised. He took her
hand and pressed a kiss to the back of it. “Ginny. I came in you.”

Her heart did a peculiar turn in her chest.

He tilted his head on the mattress so he could look at her. “Ginny.” He cocked his chin in her direction. “I don’t want your brother accusing me of impregnating you and leaving you to bear my bastard. More to the point, he wouldn’t permit it.”

Eugenia’s mouth went dry. “We can’t be that unlucky.”

He smoothed a hand over her belly. “Suppose we have been? What will happen when your brother discovers that fact? I don’t know which of us is the better shot, but I hope to hell it’s me.”

“Mountjoy wouldn’t shoot you.”

“If I refused to marry you? Of course he would. And I’d have to let him.” He cupped the side of her face and rolled over to pull himself partially over her. “Did you mistake me or my intentions?”

“You said a quick—” She waved her hand.

“I apologize for my coarse language. Perhaps it led you to mistake my intentions, though you’re more than intelligent enough to understand. You are the sister of a duke. You can’t possibly have thought I would take you to bed even once if I was not prepared to marry you. You can’t have thought I would contemplate abandoning you to the possibility of a bastard.”

“But—” Her throat closed off.

“But?”

“But, Fenris, I don’t love you.”

He laughed. “That is no secret.”

“It would serve you right if I told you yes.”

“I won’t press you for an answer now. But be assured, if there are consequences, you and I must be married.”

A week later. No. 6 Spring Street.

E
UGENIA COUNTED THE DISTANT CHIMES OF THE
clock in the front parlor. Two. In the morning. Her body still vibrated with the emotional residue of her dream, and she didn’t dare close her eyes lest she fall back into that dreaming despair.

She and Hester had not stayed out late, electing to make an early night of it after a pleasant supper with friends of Hester’s father. Not so most of the Ton, who might only now be coming home from the evening’s entertainments.

With her arms wrapped tight around her upraised knees, she stared at the folds in the canopy overhead and wondered if the void in her soul that was Robert’s absence would ever grow smaller. She’d dreamed about him, so vividly that when she realized what had happened, her heart broke as if she’d only just lost him.

She missed him. She missed his voice and his smile and even the way he scowled when something annoyed him. She missed him telling her about his day and about how his research was going. She missed his kisses and his arms
around her at night. She missed the intimacy, the way their bodies pleased in both giving and receiving.

Tears built up, pressing on her. If she stayed in bed, she was doomed to stare at nothing while she wept, and if by some chance she did fall asleep, she’d only dream about Robert again. She could not bear waking up convinced he was still alive. She didn’t dare give in to the temptation to hold on to that feeling, to imagine that he was only somewhere else in the house or perhaps visiting friends, and that all she need do was find him again or wait for him to come home and tell her how sorry he was to have left her alone for so long.

But she did. She let her thoughts go back to her life in Exeter because she wanted to feel whole again. She closed her eyes and imagined she was home. Not at Bitterward but in Exeter, and that Robert was just downstairs. All the details of their bedroom were vivid in her mind. Burnt orange walls, that spot on the wall where a candle had fallen and made a black mark before Robert had rescued it. The view of the park to the rear of the house. When Robert came back upstairs, he’d say her name. Touch her shoulder, and she’d turn onto her back and look into his face.

He never came. No matter how ferociously she imagined, Robert would never come to her again.

She slid out of bed and rang for Martine. While she waited, she washed her face. The water in the basin was cold enough to raise goose bumps along her arms. Martine came in wearing one of Eugenia’s cast-off cloaks because by now she knew that Eugenia would want to walk. Swiftly. Sometimes for hours before she could stand to return to her empty house. Not empty, for Hester was here, and that helped her loneliness. But Hester wasn’t Robert. Even her company didn’t fill the numbing emptiness of moments like this.

Wordlessly, Martine arranged Eugenia’s still-braided hair in a coil at the back of her head then dressed her in one of the gowns she wore only when she was at home in private. Respectable but hardly fashionable, but then, no one would see her. She put on a pair of half boots and a heavy wool
cloak and added a reticule containing enough money to hire a hackney to get home if Martine was too tired.

Martine picked up the lantern she’d brought in with her. “Milady?”

She nodded.

On their way through the foyer, Martine took one of the umbrellas from the stand near the door. One never knew what the London weather would do this time of year.

Shadows lay deep around them as Eugenia strode out, as quickly as she could, and even this rapid pace wasn’t enough to take her mind off Robert or the feeling that she had betrayed his memory. At home, they’d often walked out at night to see the stars and talk about whatever struck their fancy. Politics. His research. Poetry. Village gossip; he knew everything that went on. He’d hold her hand, and not just because, with his mismatched gait, he needed to steady himself. He held her hand because he wanted to.

Eugenia kept her hood up because she wished to be invisible. A shadow moving through the city. Martine’s boots clicked on the walkway, just behind her. The air was damp and heavy with fog and approaching winter, and that was another reason to be glad of her thick cloak. She stayed to streets still reasonably well lit, but not the most trafficked. Mayfair wasn’t large, though, and it was difficult to avoid the main thoroughfares. Indeed, the occasional carriage passed on the street, a gentleman or two on horseback, and once or twice someone on foot.

She walked until she had to open her mouth to breathe, and she could hear Martine breathing, too. Heart pounding from the exertion, she slowed. They were near St. James’s Street, so she took the next turn to avoid the area. There’d be too many men leaving one of the various clubs having imbibed too much port with their dinner and cards. But she’d come too close to the part of the street where the clubs were. There were more people here, men who saw her and Martine and mistook their reason for walking out alone.

“Here’s a pretty girl,” one of them cried. “Let’s have a look.”

She grabbed Martine’s hand and wheeled around, walking rapidly away. They were followed. Heels clacked on the street. They walked more quickly yet. Not quite running but close enough.

“Hold on there,” the man shouted, and the slurred, drunken voices of him and his companions were much too close. The men crossed the street. She threw a glance over her shoulder and fear shot through her. One of the men had separated from his companions and was now moments from intercepting her and Martine. “A moment, lovely ladies!”

Martine gasped and, closed umbrella in one hand, grabbed Eugenia’s arm and planted herself firmly between Eugenia and their pursuer.

“Mrs. Bryant?” Her name seemed to come from nowhere. A different voice. Not from the man who’d followed them. A voice she recognized.

The man who’d called her name was taller than the other and without the prodigious belly. He left the middle of the street and joined her on the walkway. She recognized his silhouette long before the light from the street lamp identified him to her.

“I’m not mistaken,” he said. “It is you.”

“Lord Fenris.” She curtseyed, aware at the same time of Martine stepping back. She pushed back her hood.

“What are you doing out here at this hour?” He looked down his nose. He wore evening dress. Dark coat, the white of his shirt and cravat against a claret waistcoat. A cream silk scarf peeked from the edges of his greatcoat. “With only your maid? You can’t be on your way home, unless you’re lost. Are you?”

“No.”

His eyebrows rose. “You live several streets in the other direction, I hope you know.”

“Yes.” Why, why, did she have to be so infernally unlucky as to encounter Fenris?

“Well, then?”

This man had been Robert’s friend. He’d sat with her husband, dined with him. He’d had years to know Robert,
and she wondered, if she touched his arm or his shoulder and concentrated, would she feel the remnants of Robert’s friendship with him? Would her fingers tingle from the contact? “I am walking.”