Romancing the Countess (34 page)
For a moment Sebastian didn’t breathe, more than aware of the import of her voluntary action. She’d touched him. True, it wasn’t another kiss, but it was something more. An act of trust—a small one, but one nonetheless.
“What happened with Ian? Did he do something to make you shy away from me at times, or is it simply me?” he asked, then cursed himself as she stiffened against him. He’d assumed she would draw away, but she didn’t. She held still, though she averted her gaze. When she didn’t speak for several minutes, he cursed himself again. “I apologize. I shouldn’t have asked.”
She made a slight motion with her head—almost a nod—and he could hear her deep, indrawn breath. “Do you remember when you compared me to Angela at Linley Park?”
“Leah . . .”
“You assumed Ian couldn’t bear to come to my bed, that that’s the reason we never had any children. You thought that was why he’d turned to Angela.”
Sebastian remained silent. He might want to apologize a million times more, but it was clear she would always remember.
“The truth is, my lord—”
“Sebastian.” He would at least remind her that he was her husband now. He was no longer her dead husband’s betrayed friend, callous and vengeful, intent on hurting her to assuage his own pain.
“The truth is, Sebastian, Ian came to my bed every night.”
Sebastian had once thought nothing could hurt him as much as the knowledge that Ian and Angela had both betrayed him. But he was wrong. Somehow, these words were worse.
“It wasn’t long after I discovered the affair that Ian confronted me. It should have been the other way around, but . . . I didn’t want to acknowledge it. Perhaps, I thought, if I didn’t speak of it, then it would end, and he would return to me. He would love me again. But he made me discuss it. And he apologized. Profusely. I cried. He didn’t. And I felt even more wretched because there I was, pouring my heart out to him, and none of it mattered. He didn’t love me anymore.”
Her voice was deadened, emotionless, dry as the fallen leaves scattered by the wind below the trees.
“I don’t know why he did it—perhaps he thought it would make me feel better. And I let him, because I—” She laughed, a disbelieving sound. “I thought that, even though he couldn’t say the words, that his lovemaking was proof he still felt something for me.
“When it was over, and he apologized again, this time for making love to me, I didn’t know what to think. I was—confused. By him, by myself, by the entire situation. I told him that I didn’t care about his affair with her, but that I wanted a baby, that I deserved a child of my own, to love and cherish. And it was true. I did want a baby—desperately so. I’ve wanted to be a mother since I was a child, playing house with Beatrice. But I still managed to convince myself that he couldn’t agree to such a thing unless he still wanted me. Perhaps he didn’t love me any longer, or at least he didn’t think he did. But if he could come to my bed every night, at least I knew he desired me. It was a little piece of him, one I thought could be enough.”
Sebastian glanced down, caught by the motion of Leah’s hand curling into a fist on her thigh.
“He kept to his end of the agreement. A man of his word,” she scoffed. “Every night, he would come to my bedchamber. He smelled of sex, of vanilla, and some other scent—”
“Lavender.” Sebastian clenched his jaw.
Leah nodded. “Her scent. He smelled of Angela. And he would come to me, take off my chemise, kiss me, caress me. I wanted to think he took care to pleasure me because he wanted me, but . . . as weeks passed by, and his nightly visits were all that he gave me, I realized that he was trying to absolve himself of his sins. To make me feel better. Each time he made love to me, it was a silent apology.
“It didn’t take long before I dreaded the nights. I could have turned him away, but I didn’t. I wanted a child. A child. That was all that mattered. But I never carried, and—don’t you understand? I became his whore. And he became mine. My body for a baby. His for repentance. God, how relieved I was when he died.”
She was trembling against him. Trembling so hard that the side of his body she was leaning against started shaking as well. And he couldn’t think of anything to say.
“I’m sorry, Leah.” He lifted his hand from the branch, as if to put it around her shoulders, then lowered it again. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s terrible, isn’t it? That I’m not sorry? I never wished he would die. I accepted it for what it was, praying every day that I would conceive. And yet now that he’s gone . . .”
She inhaled, exhaled. He could feel every movement of her body. The gentle sulk of her shoulders as air escaped her lungs. He wished he could wrap his arms around her, that she would welcome his embrace. But, more than ever before, he didn’t want her rejection. He would not be equated with Ian.
“He wasn’t a monster,” she continued quietly. “He could have treated me badly, but he didn’t. He simply . . . fell in love with someone else.” She didn’t say anything for a while, then tilted her head back and looked at him. “I’d like to climb back down now.”
“All right.”
And it was almost as if she’d never revealed any of her past with Ian. They climbed back down the way they had come, Sebastian going first to steady her. On the way to the house, she talked about Henry and how she looked forward to playing in the snow with him when the first snowstorm hit. She talked about what she and the housekeeper had planned for dinner that night. She talked about the birds flying overhead and how warm the house appeared, and she challenged him to race her the few remaining yards inside.
But she didn’t speak of anything else that would help him see past the wall she’d reerected, and when she rushed through the front door, laughing as she pretended to shut him out, Sebastian felt another door—this one invisible—close between them.
As soon as Leah entered her bedchamber, she sat on the edge of her bed and buried her face in her hands. Why couldn’t she let this fear go? She wanted Sebastian, knew he desired her.
She had a choice, just as she’d had a choice with hosting the house party, with wearing the organza dress, with leaving her parents’ home rather than marrying the butcher. The repercussions of each of those choices had been greater, more uncertain. This one should be so simple.
She cried again, missing the strength of Sebastian’s embrace. Her future with him was clear: she either chose to continue giving in to her vulnerability and the fear of losing herself again, or she chose him.
That evening, Leah met Sebastian in the drawing room as was their usual habit before dinner was served. She’d taken special care in her choice of gown: a dark rose-colored dress which sloped at the shoulders and curved at the middle of her chest. It was a modest dress in terms of evening gowns, but the way the material moved against her body didn’t insinuate innocence as much as sensuality. There were few times in her life Leah had ever dressed for the sole purpose of attracting a man’s attention. Tonight was one of those nights.
She smiled and chatted with him as he escorted her into the dining room, and she tried very hard to focus on each course of the meal, but in the middle of pushing around the duck with turbot sauce, she realized Sebastian had ceased talking. And apparently he’d been staring at her for quite some time.
“Is something wrong?” he asked.
Leah set aside her fork and folded her hands in her lap. Biting her lip, she looked at the servants. Sebastian dismissed them with a motion of his hand.
“What is it?”
“I’m not hungry,” she said.
“Are you ill?” he asked, a frown creasing his brow.
“No. I’d like to go to my bedchamber.”
Although he still appeared bewildered, Sebastian stood as she rose to her feet. She stared at him.
“Leah?”
“I . . . I would like for you to go with me.” They were only words, and yet once they were said, she felt as if all the strength had been drained from her body.
He didn’t understand. She could tell by the way he came swiftly to her side, as if she might faint at any moment, wrapping his hand around her upper arm. “Shall I send for a physician?”
“No,” she said, then straightened her shoulders as she drew in a breath. “I’m inviting you to come to my bed.”
His fingers tightened on her arm, and his eyes lowered, concealing his reaction.
“Of course, I might shut you out at the door,” she jested, and smiled when he looked up.
“Are you certain?”
“Yes,” she said, her answer barely more than a whisper. “Yes,” she repeated, her voice stronger, firmer.
He nodded and led her out the room, down the hall, and up the stairs. When they reached her bedchamber, he paused, and she knew he was waiting for her to change her mind.
“Open the door,” she said. He did, sliding his other hand down her arm to twine his fingers with hers. He pulled her inside.
They faced each other at the foot of the bed, and she could hear his breathing, equally as loud as her own.
“Shall I undress you?” he asked. She nodded, and turned her back toward him. His hands were sure as he unfastened the buttons, steady unlike the faint trembling of her legs, and soon the gown gaped at her waist, her bodice dipping forward from her chest. Leah withdrew her arms from the sleeves and closed her eyes as she felt Sebastian reach low for her skirts and pull the gown over her head.
She kept her eyes closed as he continued to undress her. First her corset, her petticoats. Her shoes, her stockings, her drawers. Her chemise. Each article of clothing fell to the floor beside her, and she only moved at his direction.
“Lift your arms.”
“Bend your knee.”
“Move your foot.”
He made his commands, and she obeyed him, imagining each order as if it came from her lady’s maid. She didn’t try to cover herself but retreated mentally, focusing on the darkness behind her eyelids, not speaking a word.
Then his fingers were in her hair, plucking out the pins, and heavy locks began to fall over her shoulders, down her back, across her naked breasts. She could feel him move around until he stood in front of her.
His hand cupped her cheek, warming her skin as he tilted her face upward. “Leah.”
When she opened her eyes, she found herself staring directly into his.
“You’re beautiful.”
And she closed them again, for they were the echo of Ian’s words, repeated by Sebastian’s voice.
“I’m not going to do anything more unless you tell me to do it.”
She nodded.
“And I won’t do anything you tell me to do unless you look at me. It’s me, Leah. Sebastian. I’m not Ian.”
“I know,” she said, and looked at him. It was a lie, however, for even though her eyes told her differently, her heart and mind were convinced that it would be just as it had been before, with Ian.
He stepped forward, not close enough that they touched, but enough that she could feel the heat of his body warming her own as he bent his head. “And I promise you,” he murmured in her ear, “I want you more than he ever did. Much, much more.”
“I believe you.” Another lie.
He moved back and removed his evening jacket, his waistcoat, his cravat, his shirt. He held her gaze until he stood before her, bare to the waist. “Do I look like Ian?”
Leah allowed herself to admire him, to let her eyes trail over the carved contours of his shoulders and arms. A fine matting of dark hair covered his chest and spread downward across his abdomen which was defined by even more muscles. He was broad where Ian had been narrow, thick where Ian had been lean, dark where Ian had been golden.
“No.” She returned her gaze to his. “You don’t look like Ian.”
“Touch me,” he said. “Put your hand over my chest.”
She did, placing her palm in the center, over his breastbone. The hair was surprisingly soft, and his hand was hot as he moved hers, until she could feel the beating of his heart.
He held his hand over hers, imprisoning her. “Do you feel how it pounds? How it races? Being this close to you is nearly unbearable. It’s difficult to breathe, difficult to look at you, knowing that you don’t desire me as I do you.”
She moved her fingers, smoothed them over his skin as much as his hand would allow. “I do desire you,” she said, staring at his chest.
“Do you?”
Heat rose to her cheeks, and she tried to pull away, but he held her fast. “I wouldn’t have invited you here if I didn’t.”
“I see. It’s not a test, then, to see how far you can push yourself?”
“No.”
He released her hand, and it dropped back to her side. For the first time, Leah became fully aware of her nakedness, the aloofness and isolation she’d tried so hard to maintain suddenly disappearing. She would have attempted to cover her breasts and the juncture of her thighs, but he was watching her, his gaze knowing, as if he understood her better than she did herself.
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