School For Heiresses 2- Only a Duke Will Do (13 page)

“No ladybirds, either. I have been as celibate as a monk for seven years.”

She looked skeptical. “I’m no longer a naïve girl, so you needn’t protect my delicate sensibilities. I’ve seen and heard enough at Newgate to know that men don’t usually deny themselves…certain things. You can tell me the truth.”

“Why would I lie about it?”

“So that I would think you’d saved yourself for me, or some such nonsense.”

He cast her a rueful smile. “My reasons were more practical. I did not want to risk exposing myself to disease—or treachery. I had plenty of opportunity to observe the dangers of taking an Indian mistress, especially for a man in my position.” Given the alternatives, pleasuring himself had seemed the most prudent.

Louisa, however, did not look convinced. “Then you should get yourself to a bawdy house straightaway, sir.”

“I beg your pardon?” Surely she had not just suggested that he—

“I’ve seen how cranky Marcus gets when Regina is away more than a few days, so I can only imagine how vexing seven years of celibacy must be. Which explains why you’re courting a woman who doesn’t wish to marry you. You need a less permanent solution, some ladybird or a mistress—”

“I don’t want a ladybird.” He’d seen enough ladybirds during Grandfather’s “training” to last him a lifetime. That was the most important reason for his restraint in India, though he could hardly tell her that.

“And I certainly don’t want a mistress.” Not after his encounter with Grandfather’s heartless mistress Betsy. He cupped her cheek. “I want a wife. I want you.”

As he ran his thumb over her lavish lower lip, it trembled. “But I don’t want you,” she protested, a hint of desperation in her voice.

“Then why are you jealous of my supposed companions in India?”

He had her there and she knew it, for she blushed.

“We were meant to be together, Louisa.” He backed her against a tree, trapping her. “And we both know it. So there is no point to your fighting it.”

And flush with his triumph, he lowered his mouth to hers once more.
Chapter Ten

Dear Charlotte,

You know I admire your accomplishments. But surely you are lonely. Yes, your marriage was disastrous, but if you could live your life over, isn’t there some fellow with whom you might have been happier? And wouldn’t you have set aside your ambitions for this man?

Many apologies from your cousin,

Michael

L ouisa groaned when Simon began kissing her again. This was not what she wanted, this sweet…heady

…good heavens, he was doing it to her again, him and his hard, heated body flattening her against the elm. How could he annihilate her resistance so easily?

This never happened to her with any other men, only with Simon. Only he seemed able to tempt her to forget her purpose, her fears…

“Simon, please,” she whispered as he scattered kisses along her jaw. Perhaps if she begged—

A triumphant laugh escaped his lips. “I told you I would have you calling me Simon before the day was out.”

Now she’d never convince him she didn’t want him. And he would take full advantage of that knowledge

…as always. “You know my wanton nature so well,” she said bitterly.

“Not wanton—passionate,” he breathed. “Nothing wrong with that.”

Only as long as she kissed him, she thought acidly.

If I thought you were a wanton, Louisa, I wouldn’t be courting you. She froze. Could the way to discourage his suit be that simple?

Any man who’d spent seven years celibate to avoid complications or disease wouldn’t want a promiscuous wife. And she must do something before she found herself married to a man who might take her from her cause so she could bear his children—

No, that mustn’t happen. “‘Wanton’ is exactly what I mean,” she murmured against his whisker-rough cheek. “You were right about the ‘idiots at court.’ They taught me to kiss. And more.”

He paused, his mouth against her throat. “More?”

Heart pounding, she embellished the lie. “Yes. I’ve tried to fight it, tried to hide it, but you’ve found me out.”

He drew back to stare at her, his eyes the searing heat of blue flames. “What are you talking about?”

She hesitated. She risked much by making this claim. After her hard work to overcome her family’s reputation, did she dare ruin her efforts?

Did she dare not? Though he’d helped her with Lord Trusbut, that didn’t mean she could trust him. His persistent interest in their candidates was alarming. And if she gave in to his advances, only to find they were part of another scheme—

No, she couldn’t bear it. Besides, he was the only man who couldn’t or wouldn’t hurt her reputation. He wouldn’t risk bringing scandal down on his sister’s family. If he tried, she’d simply tell people he was lying to wreak revenge on her for having him sent to India.

She cast him a brazen glance of the sort she figured her mother would have worn. “After you went to India and I went to court, I was very angry. So I did some things I later came to regret. I allowed several men to sample my affections.”

His eyes narrowed. “Sample how?”

“You know—kiss me and touch me intimately, and…well, things a lady shouldn’t do.”

“Like let a man make love to her?” he said coolly.

She fought down a blush. “I-I am my mother’s daughter, you know.”

“Apparently you are,” he said in a tone as unreadable as his expression in the rapidly dimming light. “

Though it’s odd that such a thing hasn’t been whispered about you. If anything, people say you’ve been a model of propriety.”

“I was careful and discreet.”

“I see.” But he hadn’t released her, and she couldn’t tell if he believed her.

“It happened at court, so the king was honor-bound to hide it, you know.”

That got a reaction. “The king knew about these…dalliances?”

The lie caught on her lips, but if Regina was right, the king and Simon were at odds, so Simon would never try to confirm her claim. “Certainly. He had to be the one to hush it up and force the gentlemen to keep their silence.” She thrust out her chin. “If you don’t believe me, ask him about it.”

“I would not want to cause you any more trouble,” Simon said, an odd note in his voice. “Though I wonder why you would tell me your little secret.”

She managed a shrug. “You want to court me, so I thought it only fair that you know I’m not chaste. Before this goes any further, you understand.”

“Ah—I do understand. And I am relieved to hear of your past.”

“You…you are?” She hadn’t expected quite that reaction.

Nor the way he was holding her now, leaning into her, his hand stroking her waist with a gossamer touch that made her blood race. His mouth brushed her ear. “Oh yes,” he whispered. “I’ve always desired you. Surely you know that.”

That he could say it despite her claim to be a wanton shot a thrill right through her. Then he ruined it. “And now I need not marry you to have you. That is why you told me, is it not? To let me know you will allow me certain liberties?”

“Absolutely not!” The scoundrel, the cad—

“Care to be my mistress, Louisa?” With his heated mouth still hovering near her ear, he unbuttoned her spencer, then slid his hand inside to cup her breast through her gown. “It is not as if you have anything to lose. And I can be as discreet as any of your other lovers.”

A pox on him, this wasn’t going according to plan. She tried futilely to shove his hand down. “I wasn’t trying to suggest—”

“Of course, I might be wrong, and you might have invented this Banbury tale about your sordid past merely to put me off.”

She froze, then drew back to find amusement shining in his face.

The arrogant scoundrel was laughing at her! Oh, she should have known he wouldn’t believe her. He was always so dratted sure of himself, always so sure of her. She’d wipe that taunting smile off his lips if it killed her.

She forced her hand to press his more firmly against her breast. “Lie about it? No, indeed. I’m only giving you fair warning.” Looping her arms about his neck, she undulated against him as she’d seen some of the lewd females at Newgate do to male prisoners.

To her satisfaction, his smile vanished. Only then did she stretch up to kiss him, putting lips and tongue and teeth into it in a kiss as bold as she could make it.

But her triumph was short-lived. His hand moved against her breast, fondling, kneading, teasing. She felt it even through her muslin gown and linen chemise, even through the thin cotton of her stays. The firm caress sent a jolt of sensation right down to her toes, hardening the nipple into an aching knot, dragging a moan up from deep in her throat.

Then he took command of the kiss, too, and she was lost, drowning in the taste and scent of him. The twin assaults of his tongue and hand made her reel, especially when coupled with the rigid pressure of his thigh pressing into the softness between her legs, making her ache for something unknown. She was falling into that heady heaven where only the two of them dwelt.

Half-dazed, she felt him tug out her fichu, then slide his shameless hand inside her gown and chemise and stays to stroke her bare breast. How outrageous!

How delicious. She tore her lips from his in shock, but he didn’t even pause in his caresses. With his gaze settling warm as summer rain on her, he thumbed her nipple, wringing a gasp from her lips, making her yearn for more.

“Don’t you understand yet?” The stark hunger in his face was a wild complement to the hunger he roused in her breast. “I don’t care if you kissed the whole bloody army, if you took one man or ten into your bed. I want you. I have always wanted you. You’ve been a fever in my blood for years. So I mean to have you. Lie to yourself and lie to me all you like, but in the end, you will be mine.”

A thrill shot through her as powerful as it was alarming. “Your mistress, you mean?” she asked, her hands tangling in his hair.

“My wife.” He untied her bodice and chemise ribbons. “Although I am not averse to having the wedding night before the wedding, believe me.”

As she caught her breath, he trailed kisses down her jaw and throat to the exposed swell of her upper breast, then dragged down her layers of clothing just enough to expose one breast. Her eyes went wide. “Simon—”

“I just want a taste of you. To hold me until we share a bed.”

“We are never going to—”

He closed his mouth hotly over her breast.

Heaven help her. What insanity was this? It was far more exciting than the secret fantasies that regularly troubled her nights, far more tantalizing than even her own furtive caresses at night. His tongue was doing things to her nipple that dragged a strangled cry from her throat. Then his hand rubbed her lower down through her walking dress, in a most scandalous fashion. Sometimes she touched herself there, too, but it never felt like this…like she was tinder to his flame, sparking and burning so fiercely…

“You taste like nectar,” he breathed against her breast. “So damned sweet.”

She bent her head to bury a kiss in his golden hair. “You feel like…oh…heavens…” Now his other hand worked her other breast through her layers of clothing, and the flames blazed brighter in her belly, coursing through her like wildfire, consuming her. If he didn’t stop—“Simon…Simon…don’t…”

“Ache for you?” He scattered rough kisses from her breast to her throat. “Need you? Have you any idea what you do to me?”

He angled his hips against the place he’d just been rubbing, and she felt something unmistakably hard bulging against her. “This, sweetheart, is what you rouse in me every time I see you.” His lips brushed her ear. “I want to be inside you. I want to prove that passion between us is never a mistake. And I can, if you will just give me the chance.”

He bent his mouth to her other breast and laved it so deftly, teased it so expertly with his teeth, that she arched against him, lured by the promise of him driving inside her to satisfy her hot, aching urges—

A furry ball dropped onto Simon’s head, chattering and jerking his hair and shocking them both out of their sensual haze.

Simon sprang back, eyes alight with frustration as he grabbed for his pet. “Damn it, Raji, you have the worst bloody timing!”

“Or the best timing, depending on how you look at it,” she whispered. She’d just ventured close enough to the inferno to feel its flames licking at her. Thank heaven Raji had jerked her back. While Simon wrestled with his angry monkey, she frantically tried to restore her clothing. How could she have allowed Simon…what sort of hussy was she, consumed by desires and fires and sweet, heady—

Raji leapt to her shoulder, then turned to snarl at Simon. Judging from Simon’s startled expression, his pet had never done that before. “What the deuce are you—” The monkey chattered at Simon so furiously that Simon scowled. “Oh, for God’s sake, you can’t possibly think I was hurting her.”

When Raji threw his arms about Louisa’s neck, Louisa clung to him. “I do believe that Raji is staking his claim on me,” she said shakily, afraid she could never be serene again after this.

“The devil he is.” Simon reached for Raji, only to have his pet slap his hand. Simon glared at Raji. “Now see here, you little scamp—”

“Don’t chastise him!” she said as she soothed the agitated monkey. “At least he has sense enough to know that we shouldn’t be doing…these things.”

Simon’s gaze shot to her, his blue eyes dark as midnight in the dusk. “You’re right, of course.” A shuddering breath escaped him. “I’m sorry, I got carried away. But I can control myself, I swear. You have to give me the chance—”

“To seduce me? To ruin me?”

“No!” He thrust one hand through his hair. “Of course not. To court you.”

“But I don’t want you to court me!”

His conqueror’s gaze fell hotly upon her. “Yet you melt in my arms whenever we kiss. Don’t try to deny that you desire me, when I can feel—”

“Yes, I do,” she said hastily, before his words further tempted her. She hadn’t yet recovered from his startling assertion—You’ve been a fever in my blood for years.

Just because he desired her didn’t mean she could trust him…with her heart or her dreams. He hadn’t been on the side of reform before—could his sojourn in India really have changed him that much? She doubted it. And she dared not risk finding out that it hadn’t. Last time he’d betrayed her, it had nearly destroyed her. “I’ll admit that you tempt me. And you’re right—I still feel…a connection to you.”