Ravishing in Red (24 page)

He just looked at her. If she was sure, she was sure. She was not a woman to have flights of fancy.

He got out of bed and went to a window and threw up the sash. The night air was chilled but he did not care. He looked out at nothing while the cold cleared his head.

“There was a doctor, a German, who said there was hope. He advised certain exercises. My brother could not bear it and stopped soon enough.”

“I know. Dr. Fenwood told me.”

He looked back at her. “Did you tell him about this?”

“I only asked if the damage was total and permanent. No one had ever explained before, so I thought perhaps some small movement has always been there.”

He turned his attention to the night again. “I do not know what to do with this. He is so . . . fragile. His health, his spirit . . .”

“If there is a chance, surely he will want to try and see if he can be whole again.”

“One would think so, but I am not so sure.” He faced her. “I will speak with him. I must find a good time, when I think he will listen reasonably. Do not tell anyone else about this. Especially do not mention it to our mother.”

She nodded. She gathered up her billows of white and began climbing off the bed.

“Where do you think you are going, Audrianna?”

She halted in mid motion. “To my chamber. To sleep.”

“I don’t think so.”

She settled back down. That white froth enclosed her and her hair tumbled around her. Only remnants remained of the storm now, but her silent anticipation drenched the air and his body responded forcefully.

He burned. Not in angry possessiveness now, but with flames that aroused more than his body. He still wanted to take the parts of her that were his right, but this conversation had at least dulled the darkest edges of his desire.

All the same, he was not feeling much like a gentleman tonight.

 

 

 

 

H
e just looked at her, with his thoughts deepening the depths of his eyes. Time slowed, its pulse throbbing between them and also inside her. Little beats of rising expectation teased her.

Perhaps he wanted to devastate her with his mere presence. He could still do that. It was getting worse, not better. Or maybe he debated whether pleasure with her was worth the time now. The night had grown old, and the hour was closer to dawn than twilight.

“It is very late,” she said, when the anticipation had made her taut. “Perhaps tomorrow—”

“No. You came to me. You do not get to leave yet.”

“I did not come for this. You are under no obligation. If you are tired, or . . .”

“Or what?”

“Sated.”

She had accepted where he most likely was when her watch passed two o’clock. Stupidly enough, it had come as a shock to her, that sudden explanation. The whole world had warned her. She had accepted the inevitable, and yet when it happened she was surprised and . . . hurt. Terribly hurt. For a long, horrible moment the weight in her heart had been too heavy to bear.

She expected her allusion to it to amuse him. Or anger him. Instead perhaps it surprised him. He looked at her much as he had when she announced his brother’s leg had moved.

He turned thoughtful and dark. Brooding. His gaze sharpened just enough to send a thrill down her core.

“Is that what you think? You can be an innocent sometimes, Audrianna. I am not convincing myself to want you, out of obligation. I am restraining myself from stripping you and taking you without ceremony, or—”

That “or” hung there, like a dangerous taunt. She recognized the tension in him, visible now in his body and face. He was right. She could be an innocent sometimes. Tonight he found that inconvenient. Still, he had not sought out someone less innocent instead.

She plucked at the bow of her nightdress. “I do not mean to deny you the stripping part, but I would rather this not get torn.” She let the fabric slide down her shoulders, and slid her arms from the sleeves. It puddled around her hips.

Whatever debate he had been holding ended then. He gazed awhile longer, enough to leave her flushed and titillated. Then he walked to the bed. He did not get on it, but stood tall beside it, the dark silk of his robe in front of her face. His hand reached and lightly stroked one nipple.

That was enough to make all the tantalizing sensations collect into a focused hunger. It was wanton, really, how easily she succumbed now.

“Look at me.”

She gazed up while that light caress teased her mercilessly. Her body savored the pleasure trickling down.

“Touch me.”

She reached for the dark silk. She ran her palms over it, following his chest from shoulders to waist, feeling the edges and swells of his torso. Still he maddened her. Both hands touched her now. Wicked fingers did their worst until her own touch needed more. She slid her hands beneath the silk and caressed him more surely, relishing the skin beneath her fingers.

“Kiss me.”

They were not requests or little instructions. He spoke commands that he expected her to obey.

His face and mouth were too high. He did not bend to her. She realized he did not mean his mouth at all. She leaned forward, until her lips touched the warmth of his torso. She flicked her tongue, to taste. A new pleasure flowed, warm and dark, like a deep current beneath the others.

Fascination now, with the feel of him. With the soft velvet surface of his skin and the hard form it covered. She drew her legs beneath her and kneeled so she could caress more freely. She traced muscles and arms and shoulders with her hands and mouth.

She pushed the robe off his shoulders so she could feel more of him. It fell to the floor and he stood there, more naked than she had ever seen, his strength and male beauty and arousal fully visible to her.

She extended her arms and caressed up the length of him while she looked. Her gaze reached the beauty of his face, harsh now from passion’s tension.

“Touch me.” His gaze penetrated her. Knowing. Demanding. She could not pretend that she did not understand what he meant. She looked down and tentatively laid her fingertips on the tip of his phallus. It hardened even more. His whole body did.

Breathless from both arousal and her own audacity, she slid her fingers up and down its length.

He pushed her shoulders and she fell back on the bed. He joined her, bracing himself over her while his head dipped to kiss her deeply, then use his mouth on her breasts.

She clutched his shoulder with one arm and continued stroking him with the other. The pleasure and intimacy were heavenly, and she fought not to lose herself and her awareness of it.

He looked down at what she was doing to him, then in her eyes. “That day in the garden, when I gave you the necklace.”

“Yes?”

“What did you think would have happened if I did not stop?”

Her mind went back to her surprise that day. To the way he kissed her leg, then her thigh.

“What did you want to have happen?” he asked.

She had wanted nothing. Not really. But her scandalous woman’s body had anticipated something very wicked, and too shocking to say.

He saw it in her eyes. She could tell he did. He kissed her cheek, then her breast. His body lowered. Her breath shortened with each second. Her physical reaction stunned her. The sensations of the night lowered too, and pooled into a vital and erotic sensitivity.

When he spread her legs, she closed her eyes, to hide from him and herself. She instinctively moved her hand in a gesture of modesty.

He kissed her thigh. “You will not stop me. You are mine. All of you.”

He lured her with kisses that softened his command. Devastating touches ensured she would not stop him and prepared her for the rest. When it came, she no longer was shocked, no longer wanted to retreat.

She abandoned herself to a forceful, inconceivable pleasure that had her helpless, and crying out her madness until a glorious release obliterated all her other senses.

Then he was with her, in her, in a furious, feral joining that kept the pleasure trembling through her in a long, beautiful echo.

 

 

 

 

D
awn broke with Audrianna still in his arms. He still lay entwined with her, where he had fallen after that climax ripped through him.

He eased himself off her as carefully as he could. It still woke her. She turned on her side and opened her eyes. A deep acknowledgment showed in the glance she gave him, and also a touch of confusion and embarrassment.

Her awkwardness passed soon enough. Nakedness breeds familiarity, and she found the accommodation of both that had marked their marriage from the first afternoon.

They would go their own ways soon. He to his day’s plans and she to hers. Right now, however, he put that off and drifted in the stillness of early morning.

“The season will start soon, and we will both be busy day and night. Before it gets under way, I want to bring you to the family’s seat, and introduce you to the people there. They will expect me to.”

“I would like that. I do miss the country, now that I am in town all the time again.”

“We will linger if you like it there. We will depart at the end of this week.”

“Next week would be better.”

“I have something I must do on the way, and it should not be delayed. Why would next week be better?”

“Your mother has some plans for me at week’s end.”

“She can change the plans. We will go on Thursday, so tell Nellie to prepare.”

She was in no hurry to depart this bed. That pleased him. Yesterday’s storm was miles away now. The night had banished those clouds for a few hours at least.

“There is something else that I have to tell you,” she said.

She was not in the habit of chatting in bed. Her overture raised a very male, instinctive caution. If she were a different kind of woman, now is when she would wheedle for expensive gifts.

“Something else about my brother?”

“No. Much worse, and it grieves me. Lady Ferris told your mother yesterday that Celia is a courtesan’s daughter, brought to town a few years ago to join her mother in trade.”

A memory nudged at him, of a country-bred daughter of a celebrated woman of pleasure, being trained by her mother. There was an auction for her virginity that was all the talk at the clubs. He had not participated, but many had. The girl was reputed to be lovely and went for a high sum.

“I am going to write to Celia and ask her if it is true,” she said.

“That is the wisest course.”

“If it is true, I will not invite her here. I will respect your mother’s wishes on that, and not entertain her or be seen with her.”

“I regret to say that in this my mother is correct. I am sorry it must be that way.”

“I understand why it must be. However, I wanted to tell you that I will not break with her and the others completely, the way that your mother demands. I will visit them privately, and call no attention to myself, but I will not abandon my friends.”

He did not miss that she was not asking for his permission or advice. “Did my brother suggest this option?”

“Not at all. He agreed with your mother on every point.”

“As do I.”

“They did not forsake me because of my father’s disgrace, but accepted me into their home. They did not turn me out when our scandal threatened to stain them by association. I must be as loyal to them as they were to me.”

“And if I forbid it?”

“It is my hope that you will not make such an unreasonable command.”

He could probably command all he wanted and she would do as she chose.

At the moment he did not give a damn about that. She knew it too. She had planned this announcement’s timing very carefully.

He reached for her. Right now he was more interested in commanding in ways that she enjoyed obeying.

 

 

 

 

T
wo days later, Sebastian told his brother about Anderson’s story. The news subdued Morgan, as all reports about that massacre did.

“I will give this to the army, of course, and to the Board of Ordnance. I am also going to trace that gunpowder to its source, however.”

“It is unlikely that you will find its source.”

“The keg had markings. I will see what I can learn. It is not much, but more than I had a month ago.”

“Do not feel that you must play the runner for my sake. I know that is why you have not let this go.”

“At first, yes, but I have other motives now. I am now doing it for Anderson. And, I confess, I am hoping that I learn that Kelmsleigh was innocent.”

“And if he was not?”

“He has already paid, and it will be over in any case.”

“That would be good. For it to be over.”

He said it wistfully, but not in the vague, sad tone that he so often used to use.

“Your spirits seem to have improved of late, Morgan. You have been spared those deep melancholies.”

“As the weather warms, I have convinced Dr. Fenwood to move me to the window in the afternoons. Even a few minutes of fresh air have improved my health, I think.”

“I am glad to hear it. I want to talk to you about that too. I am curious. Has there been any change in your legs?”

“No. Of course not.”

“None at all? No sensations? Nothing?”

“These are odd questions. Why would you ask them?”

“Your spine was not crushed or broken. There is always the chance that—”

“There is no chance, damn it. You sound like that German quack.”

“His theories were controversial, but he was a celebrated scientist.” He waited until Morgan’s burst of anger calmed. “Audrianna was with you a few days ago. Sitting on the floor beside your chair.”

“She was distraught because she learned one of her friends is not what she thought. You must tell her to break with the girl.”