One Touch of Scandal (27 page)

His mouth going dry, Ruthveyn willed himself to slow. To savor her. To take in her every delight before he lost
himself in the rush. Grace's belly was softly rounded, with a navel that turned inward. Her hips were slender, her last ribs lightly visible above the turn of her waist. Her small, perfectly formed breasts were high and tempting.

He wondered, fleetingly, what she would look like with those small breasts growing round and her belly swelling with his child. Then the sadness of it almost unmanned him.

That
he could never ask—nor suffer through again.

The pain made him gruff. “Lie down, Grace.”

Her eyes wide, she did so, her golden hair dragging over her pillow as she scooted lower.

Again, he set one knee to the bed and eased a hand down his erection. He wanted, suddenly, to shove her legs wide and push himself at once inside her. To rut with her like a beast. The feminine in her seemed to stir something deep and animalistic in him.

It was the strain of wanting, perhaps—or better put, the conflict of wanting too much, for unlike Angela Timmonds and all the other women in recent memory, he could not see a time when throwing her off would come easy to him.

But it would not matter. Grace would be the one to leave him.

“Do you want me, Grace?” he whispered.

“Yes.” Her voice was small.

He lay down beside her, desperate to feel her bare flesh against his, and took Grace into his arms. He kissed her again—never, he thought, would he tire of it—then kissed his way down her breasts, her belly, slowly dragging lower. Setting his hands against the soft flesh of her inner thighs, he pressed gently, then kissed her there, too.

Grace gasped again, a sweet, uncertain sound. “Adrian?”

“Lie still, sweet,” he said, “and let me please you.”

He watched the muscles of her throat work up and down, then he dipped his head and stroked his tongue lightly through her feminine heat as she quivered instinctively beneath him. He teased her with short, sweet strokes until her breath came fast, and her hands twisted at the sheets to either side of her hips.

“Oh!” she sighed. “Oh, I can't—I can't—”

But she could. She did. And the vision was sweet to him. Her thighs went rigid, and her breathing ratcheted up to sweet gasps of need. And then he felt the pleasure coursing through her—his own moment of triumph.

While she was still sated and languid, Ruthveyn drew himself up and eased his cock into the warm, wet valley of her thighs. He couldn't wait. Couldn't find the words to ask. Her hands came round his neck, but her eyes were still closed, her breathing still audible in the quiet of the room. The scent of feminine arousal and the faint heat of lovemaking was erotic beyond anything he'd ever experienced, and when he pushed himself inside her, it was without hesitation.

She cried out softly at the intrusion, her hands going to his shoulders again as if to hold him back. Ruthveyn could feel the sheen of sweat on his upper lip as he stilled himself.

“
Adrian
—?” His name was a thin, breathless whisper.

“You'll grow accustomed, love,” he rasped. “Hold…ah, yes, hold still.”

Sliding his hands beneath her hips, he lifted and tilted her slightly. He felt her breathing ease, and yet it took all of his self-control not to drive deep and spend himself inside her.

But good God, he was a better, more skilled lover than that, surely? In recent memory, never had he left a bed
mate disappointed. Grace was inexperienced, yes, but she was passion personified, and if he tutored her—if he took his time and let her learn the siren's song of her own body—he might bring her to that height yet again.

A part of it was purely selfish; he wanted to enslave her to him if it was humanly possible. But a part of it was knowing what real lovemaking was, and it had been a long time since he had joined his body with a beautiful woman for the slow and graceful thing the sexual act should be.

Perhaps it was time he steeled himself and found the discipline he knew he possessed. Perhaps it was time he sought something other than a quick release and instead opened himself and took what came. Bracing himself, he pushed deeper, causing Grace's eyes to widen. Good God, he didn't want to hurt her. He was a generously made man, in almost every physical way, but for an instant, he felt almost brutish. And then he moved back and forth inside her, his cock tugging sweetly at her feminine core, and he felt Grace sigh and relax beneath him.

Slowly—oh, so slowly—he stoked the passion inside her, thrusting all the way in, then drawing out with exquisite slowness at what he hoped was the perfect angle. Again. And again. Holding himself ruthlessly in check, he moved inside her, bringing his body fully against hers and lifting her hips against him.

“Adrian—?” she said again, with an edge of urgency in her voice.

That was good. Torment was very good.

“Be still, sweet,” he cautioned, never flagging in his exquisitely slow, painstaking rhythm.

“Adrian…” Her breath was soft against his cheek. “I want…”

“Patience, love.” Opening his mouth against the turn
of her throat, he drank in their mingled scents and raked his teeth lightly down her neck. “Lovemaking can be slow, Grace. It can be a prolonged, worshipful act. We could find divine ecstasy together, perhaps. We have all night.”

But they did not, in fact, have all night. These were stolen moments, and in another few hours, the servants would stir. And yet Ruthveyn yearned to share something deeper with Grace, ill tutored as he was in the old ways of lovemaking.

Her breathing, however, had begun to roughen again. “Adrian,” she whispered, shifting restlessly beneath him.

“Will you trust me, love?” He kissed the turn of her jaw. “Will you let the journey be your pleasure?”

“But I—” She gasped, her nails digging into his shoulders. “I want…”

He knew what she wanted. And eventually, he meant her to have it. But this was what he had been born for—for her, and for this slow, exquisite bliss—and now, with his body fully under his command at last, he yearned to draw out their pleasure as long as he could. He wanted to drink her in, wanted to become her, and feel the life force surge between them. He rode her slowly, focusing on her every sigh and on every breath that they drew.

He took her mouth and kissed her again, slowly and deeply, thrusting his tongue in rhythm with his cock. He let himself absorb her passion and returned it to her tenfold, until she moved beneath him, arching up hard against his body. Never had he felt such power over a woman. Never had he felt such need. And yet he savored every moment of self-control.

“
Just…don't stop,
” she begged. “
Don't stop.
”

“I won't, but…” Then, spreading one hand wide between her shoulder blades, he sat up, rocking back onto
his heels and carrying her with up him, until he knelt with Grace astraddle him.

“Oh!” she cried, grabbing on to him.

“Grace,” he whispered, holding her perfectly steady. “Grace, open your eyes.”

She did so only gradually, her eyes wide in the lamplight as she clutched him by the shoulders. “
Adrian
—?”

“Relax, love, I have you.” He somehow managed to straighten his legs as he held her against him. He kept one arm banded about her waist, his shaft buried deep. “Keep your eyes open and wrap your legs round my waist. We are heart to heart now, Grace. Relax, and let the tension inside you go.”

Steadier now, she nodded. Ruthveyn smiled into her eyes even as he felt his heart break. “You are going to leave me, Grace.” It was not a question. “Let us experience lovemaking in its purest form. Let us try to be one breath and one flesh tonight.”

“Yes.” She said the word slowly.

“Do you trust me?” It was not the first time he'd asked her such a question, though this time, the context was quite different.

Her answer was the same, and it was certain. “Yes.”

“Take my breath,” he whispered. “Draw me deep inside you.”

Then he covered her mouth with his, his eyes open. She did so, breathing him deep, melting into him. “How…extraordinary,” she whispered.

Her touch on his shoulders was lighter now. “Look at me, Grace,” he commanded. “Look deep into my eyes. Let me breathe through you.”

She did so, and Ruthveyn opened himself to it. The rush toward ordinary orgasm had slowed, and been transcended, and the force within Grace—and himself—
began gradually to spiral up and up. He drew the breath from her body again and again, Grace following suit. The pleasure denied was exquisite.

His cock was fully inside her, rock hard, but the urgency had passed, and after a time felt himself slipping into a deep, almost ethereal state of relaxation. And yet all around them was a sense of total sensual awareness, as if their every nerve was as alive to sensation—as alive as the very point at which his shaft entered her. He moved within her so slowly it was as if they were the moon and the sun traversing the sky. They were Shiva and Shakti, the supreme power and the celestial energy.

For so long he had wished to experience this, and for so long he had resisted it, this complete opening of himself to another. He had not the training, nor even the patience the tantra required, but even so, he could glimpse paradise.

“Look at me, Grace,” he whispered. “Open yourself to me.”

She gazed deep into his eyes now, her body perfectly, exquisitely still. She surrounded him—not just her warm, feminine passage, but her arms and her legs and at least a part of her mind, or so he wished to believe. This sort of intimacy—the giving and receiving, the awareness of the moment, and the elevation beyond the mere physicality of sex—could lead to the deepest opening of the mind possible. To the thing he most feared. Yet with Grace—at least for tonight—he did not fear it.

They moved together thus for what might have been an hour, perhaps longer, slowly and erotically, breathing and sharing of themselves. When she neared orgasm, Ruthveyn would stop, or change position ever so slightly, until he could feel the energy around them heightening and
strengthening again. He felt grounded to Grace, rooted to her with an intimacy that went beyond the physical.

Oh, it would not last. He had little enough practice at this, and if he let his mind slip so much as a fraction, he could feel the earthly lust begin to gnaw at him like a raw, fierce hunger. He shut it away and opened himself to the divine play, but eventually Grace sighed as she drew his breath deep, and at last something inside him seemed to snap.

“Grace,” he whispered, “come with me.”

Then he tumbled her forward into the softness of the bed again, his shaft buried deep, her body fisting around him greedily. He hitched her knees over his shoulders and bent her back until her eyes widened with delight. She said something in French, breathless and thready. Then the orgasm took them as one, surging through him and into Grace like an avalanche too long repressed.

For one glorious moment, it was as if he left his physical body. As if his entire mind was a core of pleasure, radiating and pouring into Grace like a liquid sun. He felt her shudder and rock beneath him, heard her keening wail of pleasure and swallowed it, drawing it inside him like breath and energy, and breathing it back to her again in pure, unadulterated joy.

When he left that place beyond himself and returned to the bed, he rolled to one side until they lay entwined in one another, her head tucked on his shoulder.

“Good heavens,” she whispered, long moments later. “What
was
that?”

He bent to kiss the top of her head. “That was lovemaking, I think, as it was meant to be,” he murmured. “Or as it is meant to be at least some of the time.”

She said nothing more for a while, but he could hear her
breathing slow and steady. “Is that really how it is done?” she finally asked.

“In some cultures,” he agreed. “But that sort of oneness of energy is not something easily achieved.”

“Did we…achieve it?”

He drew a deep breath. “On some level, yes.” He kissed her again. “But to reach a plane of true harmony and shared energy takes hours oftentimes—and practice. Lots and lots of practice. One must cultivate self-discipline, and a capacity to delay pleasure in favor of the journey. We are, I fear, mere neophytes.”

“Hours and hours,
hmm
?”

She was twining that finger in her hair again, a little-girl gesture of pensiveness he had come to find endearing. Then she planted that hand in the center of his chest and rolled over him, her eyes pure seduction.

“I do not think there are enough hours in the day for that,” she whispered. “Adrian, that was…I felt…I cannot even find the words to tell you what that felt like. It was nothing, then everything all at once. It was like…experiencing the divine.” Then she bent her head and kissed him.

And that was it. He fell. Whatever little scrap of himself he'd managed to hold back from her went slithering over the edge and into the abyss.

R
uthveyn drowsed for a time with Grace in his embrace, her head curled upon his shoulder. He could not remember a time when he had felt such bliss. Such comfort—though that seemed the wrong word for what he felt when he was with her. But whatever one called it—rest, ease, or pure emotional sustenance—anything like it had been sadly lacking from his life for…well, nearly forever. Perhaps to find that comfort in another was the greatest compliment one could pay one's lover.

Tonight he had given in to the manifestation of the eternal energy between man and woman in a way he had never dared, nor even dreamed possible. He had opened to Grace his mind and his heart, and there had been nothing beyond it: no sudden, blinding flash of impending doom; no insight into her darkest recesses; no visions of a
fate as yet unfulfilled. With Grace, he was normal—with a normal man's needs, and with a woman who caused him to lose himself inside her in the way God had surely intended.

Was it possible?
Was it just remotely possible that this was how it would ever after be between them? Was Grace the lover who had been meant for him all along? Or had the tantra merely blinded him to what was to come?

It should have been just the opposite. Edging into that state of universal awareness—even as superficially and inexpertly as they had done—should have opened every path of communication between them. Instead, he had felt the
prana
—the vital life force—coursing through him unimpeded, perhaps for the first time ever. He had been able to reach the divine, or at least glimpse it, by sharing of himself so deeply with Grace. Had he ever believed such a thing within his grasp, he would have listened more carefully to the old wisdom.

He wished he understood more fully, wished he had not, on some level, rejected the part of himself that was his mother. There was always Anisha, of course, could he but bring himself to talk of it with her. Unlike him, Anisha had been encouraged—or at least not actively discouraged—in her study of the tantras. She had been female, and her Gift—if she had one—had been carefully cloaked in the veil of Hindu tradition; first by their mother, and later by their servants.

But Ruthveyn had been brought up by the rod in the Company schools of Calcutta, and later, at university in Scotland, where they had not taught much in the way of esoteric Hindu philosophies. Certainly they had taught nothing of sexual enlightenment. Most of his fellow students had believed lovemaking was a drunken pump-and-tickle up an alley wall behind some village tavern.
Ruthveyn had known better—but he had behaved no better.

Beside him, he felt Grace stir. She nuzzled against him, her lips warm on her throat. “
Umm,
” she said. “So serious, that face. What can you be thinking?”

He turned to her and managed a smile. “Oddly enough, I was thinking of my mother.”

Grace set a small, warm hand against his chest. “Anisha told me a little,” she said, looking up at him. “What was her name?”

“Sarah,” he answered. “Sarah Forsythe.”

“Sarah,” Grace echoed. “It sounds so…English.”

He laughed, but there was little amusement in it. “She was called Sarah after her marriage,” Ruthveyn clarified. “Her name was Saraswati, but my father wished it anglicized—he wished
her
anglicized—though that didn't happen. But Sarah she became.”

Grace winced a little. “How did she feel about that?”

“Do you know, Grace, I daresay you are the first to ask or care,” he said quietly. “A wife's wishes—especially an Indian wife's wishes—were rarely consulted. She made her own peace with it, I think, whatever my father's disappointments were.”

“Disappointments?” said Grace, curling more tightly about him. “I thought she was a great beauty.”

For a long moment Ruthveyn hesitated, weighing how much to say. “My mother was…unusual,” he finally said. “Ordinarily, a Rajput woman would never have been given in marriage to an outsider, but her family had had difficulty finding a husband for her.”

“A great beauty?” said Grace. “And the daughter of a wealthy prince? How odd.”

Ruthveyn slicked a hand down Grace's hair. The gesture oddly soothed him. “My mother's people were a
little intimidated by her,” he said quietly. “They believed her a powerful
rishika
—a seer or a mystic—and no man wished to marry such a woman. It was a gift, you see, and yet a curse. So a political marriage was arranged for her.”

Grace was silent for a moment. “There it is again, that ‘gift' business,” she murmured. “We seem to keep talking circles round it. Your father, was he afraid of her?”

Ruthveyn had crooked his head to look down at her. “Merely surprised, I think,” he said, wondering what she was getting at. “He was not told the truth before their marriage. But it little mattered. He had no wish to move in her society, and the English…well, mixed marriages were more common then, but rarely at so high a level. Mamma just never really fit in anywhere.”

“But she loved you?” said Grace hopefully. “You and Anisha were her happiness, I imagine.”

“Yes,” he said simply. “We were her life and her breath.”
And leave it to Grace,
he thought,
to understand something so fundamental.

Just then, she stretched and threw one leg across his, the nest of curls between her legs brushing his thigh. And suddenly—and a little sickly—he realized. He must have made a sound of dismay.

“What?” Grace lifted her head to look at him.

Ruthveyn turned to face her, easing a hand between them and settling it lightly over her abdomen. That was the problem with attempting to become one with the cosmos, he supposed. One tended to forget the world's problems and practicalities.

“Grace,” he said softly, “when did you last bleed?”

She colored furiously.

“Grace.” There was gentle admonishment in his voice.
“We are lovers now. There should be no embarrassment between us. Not in this.”

She rolled onto her back, reality dawning on her face. “A fortnight past?” she whispered up at the ceiling. “A little less, perhaps.”

Inwardly, he cursed himself to the devil. But outwardly, he made a light circle over her belly with the palm of his hand and forced a smile. “Well, my Grace,” he said quietly. “It is possible you will not see Paris at all—not unless it is on your honeymoon.”

She rolled up onto her elbow and looked him in the eyes. “It will not happen,” she declared. “It will
not.
”

“It might,” he answered. “I forgot myself, Grace. I'm sorry. I pray you do not pay an unbearable price for my error.”

“Unbearable—?” She looked at him poignantly and shook her head. “Is that what you think it would be to me? Because…why? Because you are different? Is that it?”

“Different?” he murmured. “How?”

Grace looked away. “Different in that way we don't talk about,” she answered. “You do not trust me—indeed, we will not likely be together long enough for you to learn to trust me. But Adrian, I am not stupid. And yes, I want a child—not like this, when we have not committed to one another out of choice—but it is the sum total of my hopes and dreams, to have a child. Can you say that? I somehow doubt it.”

She was distraught, he realized, looking across the pillow at her. But what was he to say? There was much truth in her accusation. And he was not a man to run from the truth. He had tried, and found it did no good at all.

“Grace, you would make a good mother—a
wonderful
mother,” he answered. “But no, I do not want a child. I had a child once, when I was a younger man, and wanted so desperately for life to be full of hope and promise. And to lose her—to see her, and to know that no matter what I did…” He let his words trail away and was compelled to pinch hard at the bridge of his nose.

“I am sorry,” she whispered, her gaze piercing him. “I did not know.”

He regained himself, for the years had taught him well. “Her name was Hannah,” he said. “She was born a few weeks after the withdrawal from Kabul, but I was delayed. I could not get home in time.”

She cupped a warm hand round his cheek. “Your sister said you traveled widely,” she said. “Were you there as a diplomat?”

“More or less,” he answered. “I was dispatched by the Government to try to figure what was happening, and I went knowing that…”

“Knowing what?” she asked softly.

He shrugged, but did not look at her. “Knowing that my wife was with child,” he said. “That…all was not well at home. But I had to choose, Grace. I had to choose. If there was any hope of stopping that death and slaughter, I had to go. And so I left her. Melanie died in childbed, but Hannah lived long enough that I did at least get to hold her.”

“I am sorry,” she said again. “I cannot imagine a worse pain than to lose one's wife and child in practically the same stroke.”

“But it is an everyday tragedy,” he said quietly. “We men are expected to cope, and so…we do. I did. No, I have never wished for another child, or another wife. But if it came to it, Grace, that is what we would do. We would marry, and we would do what legions before us
have done—we would make the best of it. And in all likelihood, we would be fine. Perhaps even happy.”

But Grace no longer looked at him. “It will not happen,” she said numbly. “And I will not marry a man who thinks he
might
manage to be happy with me.”

“Grace, it's not—” He lifted his hand, then let it fall again. “It's not you, it's me.”

She turned her head, her hair scrubbing on her pillow. “It will not happen,” she said again. “But the hour grows late, Adrian. It would be best for you to go.”

Yes, it would be that, he decided.

With a sadness he had never expected, Ruthveyn kissed her cheek, then felt about on the floor for his dressing gown. The evening that had begun with such promise now seemed a hollow joy. She was hurt, justifiably. And there was little he could do to explain.

His hand was already on the doorknob when she spoke again.

“Adrian,” she said, her voice like a bell in the gloom, “how did you know?”

He turned to see that she had thrown on her nightdress and now sat up in the moonlight, her knees pulled tight to her chest.

“How did I know what?” he asked.

“That there would be death and slaughter,” she said quietly.

For an instant, he hesitated. Then, “It was Afghanistan,” he said. “There is always death and slaughter. It is a hellhole.”

And since his words were near enough the truth, he left it at that and hoped she did not know her history. But Grace set her chin on her knees and sighed.

“Come back to my bed, Adrian, when you have a better lie than that one,” she said.

He dropped his hand. “What?”

“Come back to my bed and make love to me again,” she said, “and perhaps—just perhaps—you will be good enough, and I will want you desperately enough, that I can be persuaded to believe that pathetic taradiddle. But tonight, I somehow doubt it.”

He stalked back to her bed, the silk dressing gown lashing about his ankles. “What do you want me to tell you, Grace?” he demanded, planting both hands on the mattress and leaning over it. “
What?
Do I bare my soul? You are leaving anyway.”

“Oh, I see!” She let her knees slide down. “
I
am leaving. But were I not, then you would confess everything about your murky past, would you? And we would ride happily ever after into the sunset? You, me, and this child you fear I might conceive?”

“What do you want, Grace?” His voice was hollow now. “Do you want me to tell you I was once little more than a common spy? That I lied and manipulated and pulled any string that the East India Company or Her Majesty's government wanted pulled? That I even backstabbed my own people once or twice? I did those things, yes, because sometimes a man can do nothing but choose the lesser of two evils. I did them because my father told me it was my duty. That I had been born to it. But I don't do those things anymore, Grace. Not for anyone. I prefer to drink and smoke myself into the clouds, as you say, rather than think about it anymore. Or dream about it anymore. So now you've heard it. Is that what you wanted?”

She slowly shook her head. “What I want, I think,” she whispered, “is just not to love you so much.”

“Grace.” He caught her face in his hands. “Grace, don't love me.
Don't.
”

She held his gaze steadily, even as one tear wobbled down the side of her nose. “I wish I did not,” she said. “I have tried to pretend, even to myself that it wasn't coming to this. I wish I could just stay here until this awful business is finished, enjoying a friendship with your sister, and the pleasure of teaching those children, and yes, perhaps even enjoying your bed from time to time. But I wish I did not love you because you are so dark inside. You speak, Adrian, of this cosmic sharing of sensual and spiritual things. But you don't really share anything. That's how it seems to me.”

He sat down on the side of the bed and drew a shuddering breath. “What, then?” he rasped. “What in God's name do you want to know? What can I tell you, Grace, that will make you feel better?”

“Just…everything.” Grace dragged the hair back from her face in a gesture that spoke of weariness. “I want to know if you are one of the Vateis, or whatever they are rightly called,” she went on. “I want to know why, when you touch me, I sometimes feel as if you cast a spell over me, and why your eyes look as if they are a thousand years old and have seen a thousand terrible things. And I want to know why you brought me here. I want to know what you
saw.
”