Once Tempted (39 page)
But it seemed the Marquis and Marchioness of Bradstone cared little for society or its opinions, preferring to spend time in the country with their children, which left the Dowager full use of the London house. The arrangement had gone a long way in changing the good lady’s opinion of Olivia Sutton, since the arrangement had been Olivia’s idea along with a generous allowance from the Bradstone coffers to keep the esteemed lady in the style and fashion of her peers.
As for his lordship and his lady, with four sons to their credit and rumors of the marchioness once again breeding, there was no doubt that the couple enjoyed their privacy . . . and their marital bed.
“Oh, Robert,” Olivia said, looking up from her letter from Lady Finch, her eyes sparkling with mirth, “you are going to love this.”
Robert didn’t know what to expect, given whom the letter had come from. “What?” he asked hesitantly.
“Lady Finch has heard we are expecting another child.”
He cringed.
“Oh, yes,” Olivia said. “And she feels it is high time I took another room far from your lecherous advances. She says at my advanced age, ‘bearing the burden of your insatiable lust’ will be the death of me.”
Rising from his chair, he crossed the room, snatched the letter out of his wife’s hands and tossed it into the fire. “That is what I think of Lady Finch’s advice.”
Olivia rushed to the fireplace to save her letter, but it was too late. The flames had consumed it. “You didn’t need to do that,” she scolded playfully “Besides, I was just getting to the good part.”
“And what, pray tell, was that?” he asked.
His wife giggled. “She suggested I find you a mistress.”
Robert caught up the poker and made several futile attempts to save the now charred remains. “Why didn’t you say so? Now, that is advice worth offering.”
She prodded him in the side with her finger, and he made a painful grimace, then they both collapsed in front of the grate in a fit of laughter.
When they finally found their breath, Robert leaned over and kissed her. After all these years, after four children, this was the only woman for him. She had stood by him through the remaining years of the war, braved the hardships of the final campaigns and had refused to leave his side when Wellington had recalled him to service to fight Napoleon one last time—this time on the field of Waterloo.
And each time he kissed her, whether before a battle or here before their home fire, safe under their own roof, his body stirred to life, his desire for her only growing with the passing of years.
Olivia Danvers, Lady Bradstone, was and would always be the other half of his heart. No mistress could offer him more.
Her arms wound around his neck, and she pulled him closer until they lay on the floor, entwined and entangled, their bodies falling together like pieces of a puzzle.
Olivia felt the familiar stirrings as his hands curved over her hips, down along her legs, and began pulling at the hem of her gown. The heat of the fire bathed her now bare legs in warmth, while Robert’s touch sizzled them with passionate heat.
His fingers trailed a slow path to the very center of her need for him while his kiss deepened, his tongue stroking her as she knew his hardened member would soon fan her own fires.
“Did you lock the door?” she whispered glancing up at the parlor entrance.
“An hour ago,” he told her, nibbling at her ear.
“And what have you been waiting for?”
“You to finish your confounded correspondence with Pymm.”
“He needed me to decode some messages one of his agents intercepted,” she said, defending their lost hour.
“If I had done this,” he said, drawing his lips to her breast and suckling at it until the nipple rose in a nubby peak, “would that have been enough to convince you that the British Empire would survive another hour without your linguistic aid?”
Olivia laughed, arching her back to his touch. “For that, I would have condemned it all to the fireplace.”
“I’ll remember that,” he said.
His fingers dipped into her, touched the honeyed flesh, drawing the wetness over her raised nub and leaving Olivia breathless with anticipation.
She hurried to rid him of his breeches, her fingers quickly taking care of the buttons, including sending one bouncing across the hearth.
He looked up at her. “How am I going to explain that to Babbit?” he asked, referring to his valet.
“That is not my problem,” she said, as she finally freed him, relishing the feel of his hardness, the satiny length that gave her so much pleasure. She caressed him, kissed him, drew him into her mouth and left him on the edge, as he had done to her.
Very quickly he divested her of her gown, his body covering hers, filling her with him in one slow movement, just the way she liked it. Olivia was more than ready for him, and her body met his in an anxious thrust, her hips rising and falling, urging him to move faster to meet her need.
And Robert did just that. Stroking her depths, until that familiar light of surprise rose in her eyes, when her mouth opened to say something but nothing but a sigh came forth, when she shuddered around him, telling him she’d found that pleasured place of bliss. That was all it took to send him speeding along with her, his seed spilling forth, his body taking a final last surge into her to draw out every moment of that fleeting rapture.
He sighed and curled her into his arms, cradling her, surrounding her with the heat of his body, with the warmth of his love for her.
“You never cease to amaze me, my love,” he said.
“I’m glad,” she told him. “I want to be the only one you ever turn to with that ‘insatiable lust.’ ”
“And you always shall be,” he said, kissing her again.
His senses took in every bit of her, the faint scent of roses from her favorite French soap, the fullness of breasts now once again growing in anticipation of the coming child and the hard, rounded fullness of her stomach.
His hand went there. It was too early to feel the child moving from the outside, though she assured him she had already felt the faint flutterings of life within.
Another child. Another miracle in their life. Robert couldn’t help but kiss her again.
“I want a daughter,” he whispered to her.
“Whatever for?” she asked, her hand covering his, Caliopa’s ruby betrothal ring sparkling on her finger. With the great treasure restored, the Spanish King had sent the ring to Olivia as a token of his country’s appreciation. “What do we know of raising daughters?”
“I would want her to have your hair, your eyes and your bright smile.” Then he grinned. “And my temperament, so she doesn’t turn out to be a regular termagant.”
Olivia’s mouth opened in a mock insulted moue. “Then you had better hope for another son,” she told him.
He ruffled her hair and pulled her close, kissing her deeply again. And when she wiggled closer, intimating that she was ready for him again, he laughed. She was right.
One termagant was enough for him. Enough to fill his heart for a lifetime.
T
hough
El Rescate del Rey
and the tragic story of Caliopa and Álvaro are products of my imagination, the horrible conditions of the siege at Badajoz unfortunately are not. The carnage and loss of British soldiers was so great that Wellington was reduced to tears when he saw the piles of bodies the next morning. He was also shocked by the horrible and disgraceful pillaging that the angry British soldiers unleashed upon the hapless city once it was taken. For three days the soldiers raped, looted and burned what was left. It turned what was to have been a triumphant start to the removal of Napoleon from the Iberian peninsula into a sad chapter in British military history.
E
LIZABETH
B
OYLE
, a former pirate hunter for Bill Gates and now a full-time writer, has written stories since childhood, including tales about her imaginary friend, an oversized Holstein named John Clapper, eventually graduating to notebooks of the usual bad, adolescent poetry that only an angst-ridden teenager can conjure. After college and a stint of solo travelling, Elizabeth began writing what she loved to read: romance novels. Since selling her first novel in 1996, her writing has garnered numerous awards including the prestigious RITA Award from Romance Writers of America.
Once Tempted
is her fifth historical romance and her second book for Avon Books. When she isn’t conjuring worlds of romance and adventure, Elizabeth happily resides in Seattle with her husband and young son, or as she calls him, “a hero in training.” Readers can write to Elizabeth at P.O. Box 47252, Seattle, Washington 98146, or visit her website at
http://www.elizabethboyle.com.
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This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ONCE TEMPTED
. Copyright © 2002 by Elizabeth Boyle. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
ePub edition October 2005
ISBN 9780061751172
First Avon Books paperback printing: July 2002
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