Seduction & Scandal (26 page)

Meandering through the throng, Isabella fanned herself. The room could do with an open window, for the air had grown stuffy and close. She was fighting the onset of another headache, and knew that any more time caught in this room would be her undoing. Deciding on a glass of punch, she made her way to the refreshment table, hoping a cool drink would help her. She wanted to find Lucy, who, the last time Isabella had seen her, had been promenading with Sussex and Elizabeth.

“You've been avoiding me.”

The velvety timbre of Black's voice whispered over her, and she closed her eyes, savoring the sound, while steeling her wits. Black was the last thing she needed now. Wendell, she noticed when she opened her eyes, was casting anxious glances her way, and her head, which was suddenly pounding fiercely, was not clear enough to do battle with the enigmatic earl.

“I saw you in the park yesterday, and I know you saw me.”

Yes, she had been strolling with Lucy and Elizabeth, and she had glanced him from afar, and purposely set out on a different path. “No, I'm sorry I didn't,” she lied.

“And last night, at the Renfrew ball. You saw me coming toward you and you fled before I could reach you.”

“I was merely engaged for that dance, my lord.”
No, she had hid like a coward.

“I sent you a letter this morning.”

“Oh? I'm afraid I didn't get it.”

She felt him press against her, his breath caressing the exposed flesh behind her ear. She wanted to shiver—in pleasure. But she stood firm, hiding any signs of her desire.

“Why are you avoiding me?”

“I have been rather busy, my lord.”

“Busy evading me.” He stood behind her, and she felt the barest touch of his fingertips along her spine. He was close, far too close. Someone would see, and she could not allow that. “But why? I wonder.” His fingers glided softly, like the fluttering of butterfly wings, against her skin. “I have asked myself the same question these past seven days. ‘Why would Isabella Fairmont be avoiding me after that magical night in my library, and that moment in the carriage when I tasted your pleasure, and you came for me?'”

“Please, someone will see,” she hissed. “You mustn't…that is, you're much too close to me. And your voice…lower it.
Please
.”

“Then take a turn with me about the room. No one will talk then.”

“No.”

“The hall. Meet me there where we can be alone and unencumbered by roving eyes.”

“My lord, you know I cannot.”

“Cannot, or will not?”

Glancing over her shoulder, she met his gaze and was startled by the dangerous expression he wore. She had never seen him like this. He was always amazingly controlled, but tonight he was wild—feral. She could easily see how he could be the most dangerous man in England.

“Well?”

“I fear the answer is both, my lord.”

“Why?”

“I think we both know the answer to that, Lord Black. Now, if you will excuse me, I see a few friends. Good evening, my lord.”

She made to move away, but he reached for her wrist, giving her no opportunity to flee. She could struggle, but then that would cause a scene. She had no other option but to do his bidding—for now.

“Walk with me.”

He moved through the crowded room, stopping occasionally to admire some object or another. They did not speak. After a few minutes, Isabella found herself staring up at a picture of a Templar knight. In the background was the Holy City, and Solomon's Temple. Behind them, the guests mingled and conversed, heedless of her standing beside Lord Black.

“I will quit the room now. In ten minutes, you will come to me. Walk through the doors to your right—no, don't look,” he murmured. “There is a hallway beyond the doors. I will wait for you there. If you do not appear, I will be forced to come into this room and drag you out. Do you understand?”

She nodded. And she felt him soften the slightest bit as he stood beside her. He reached out, caught himself and forced his hand back to his side.

“Ten minutes,” he whispered. And then he was gone.

 

W
ENDELL
K
NIGHTON CAST
an anxious glance around the room only to discover that no one was watching him. Slipping into his workshop, he reached for a sulfur match and lit the oil lamp that sat on his desk. Fumbling with his keys, he fitted the skeleton key into the lock and pulled open the desk drawer, only to find it empty.

“Looking for something, Knighton?”

From the shadows, Black emerged, holding the tome he had been searching for. “How did you get in here?”

“That's irrelevant.”

“And my book!”

“Also irrelevant.”

“You bloody bastard, what do you want?”

“I want to know what you've discovered.”

Wendell tried to make certain his gaze didn't dart between Black and the back cupboard. Black was a clever
bastard. He would notice, and then he would be compelled to search for the chest. Wendell could not allow that.

“I don't know what you mean.”

“You know damn well what I mean,” Black thundered as he slammed the book on the desk. “You found something in Jerusalem, Knighton, and I want to know what it is.”

“That book,” he snapped, glancing at the tome.

“There's more,” Black said, his voice lethally soft.

“That's it, I swear it.”

Black watched him closely, his eyes roving over him. “We have unfinished business, Knighton, and it's more than just what you're hiding.”

“Isabella,” he replied, his body stiffening.

“Isabella,” he answered.

“What is left to say, Black? You attempted to steal her away, and she wasn't interested in what you were offering. There is nothing left to be resolved.”

“You little prat,” he shouted, then reached for him. Wendell was forced to move behind the desk, but Black lunged across the wooden top and grabbed him by his jacket.

“Black, stop.”

It was the Marquis of Alynwick's voice coming from the door. He ran into the study, shoved Black away from him, put his body between the two of them. “Enough,” he said over and over until Black appeared to be once more in control. But those eyes… Wendell could very easily imagine he saw his own death in Black's eyes.

“Sorry about that, Knighton,” Alynwick said, “Black here has had a bit too much. Always full of vinegar when he's in his cups.”

Wendell straightened and smoothed his waistcoat. “Just get him out of here.”

“We're not done, Knighton,” Black growled. “I'll be coming for you.”

The door slammed behind them and Knighton locked it, then hurried to the chest of drawers, emptying the sheafs of paper and the maps. Tossing them on the floor, he frantically dug to the bottom. His fingers came in contact with the smooth grain and silk and he sighed deeply, and pressed his eyes shut. In his hands, he felt his prize.

Gently he pulled out the ancient white cloth and lovingly peeled it back to reveal the glittering gold goblet in his hand.

The chalice. He smiled, his body soaring with energy. How fortunate he'd found it first. It had been a stroke of luck to discover that the passage that ran beneath the Masonic lodge led to the fourteenth-century Templar church. He had spent the night searching the catacombs, his fingers bloody from clawing away at rock and loose mortar. And then he had seen it, hidden behind a rock at the base of the floor. He wouldn't have noticed it at all if the white cloth had not been disturbed and the candle he held in his hand had not glinted off the gold, drawing his eyes.

He studied it from all angles and felt the pendant he wore around his neck begin to hum and vibrate against his skin.

He only needed the scroll now. And after Orpheus had informed him which of the families protected each relic, he knew where to look. Alynwick. He'd made an attempt before to search his house, but he'd been disturbed. Tonight he would try once more.

One step away, he though with awe. One more relic to claim and the world would kneel at his feet.

I
SABELLA FOUND HIM
standing in the hallway before a large transom window. The glow of the moon outlined his tall form, and she stood there just drinking him in. The magnetic pull that she so often felt around him lured her, and she walked toward him, powerless to break whatever spell he was weaving. There had been an altercation between him and Wendell. Lucy had told her about it—she had heard the raised voices of both Black and Wendell when she had passed the office on the way to the ladies' retreating room—right before Isabella had left the gallery to meet him.

She could not fathom what Black's intentions were to corner Wendell in his workroom.

“You would tempt me into a seduction, and then a scandal,” she said quietly as she came to stand beside him. “You would see me ruined.”

“No.”

His refusal was swift. Hard.

“Then what is this, my lord, this clandestine meeting in the dark—all alone?”

“Desperation.”

“And meeting with Knighton a moment ago? Was that also desperation?”

“Yes.” He turned to her, and lifted his hand to her face, where he cradled her cheek in his palm. “Sheer desperation, Isabella. I can't go on like this.”

“You got on quite well before my uncle's ball.”

“Do not tell me you don't feel this, Isabella.”

“What should I feel?”

“This…this thing between us. From the first time our gazes collided in Stonebrook's ballroom there has been a force drawing us together. That night in my library—how can you refute it? What happened was inevitable—from the moment I first saw you, I knew that I would one day have you naked in my arms. In that moment when our gazes met, and we suddenly fell into each other's arms without thought or fear, I knew it was an inescapable fate. It was the only thing to be done—to taste the pleasure in each other. You felt it, I know you did. This connection between us…it crackles. It's a living, breathing entity of its own, and that night…what we did was not just about my desires. It was about yours, too.”

“To deny this and pretend ignorance is missish. I will not do you the dishonor, and myself the disservice, of acting in such a way. Yes. I feel it. This force as you call it. It's called reckless passion, my lord. My mother succumbed to it and it left her disgraced and ruined. Her recklessness ruined my life as well, and I will not have it.”

“How can you deny it?” The words were said in a deep, dark whisper that made her body heat. “Even now it is crackling between us. You don't want Knighton. You want me.”

How she wanted him to kiss her. To draw her into his arms and hold her, taste her lips and touch her flesh as he had that night in his library. His hand left her cheek, and now his thumb was brushing against her mouth, rubbing her bottom lip, and she wanted to taste him. To touch her tongue to his skin and feel his flesh, taste the salt and maleness of him. But it would not stop there. She knew that.

She tried to think of her mother. The life of poverty and shame she had endured because of her mother's wild
behavior. She summoned up every painful childhood memory and forced them to the front so that she would not think of this—would not remember what it was like to be in his arms, his mouth hungrily moving over her neck and bosom.

“My God,” he rasped. “How can you deny it? I ache with it, Isabella. A week without you…the pain of it haunts me. You must know that.”

“As much as you know that I feel the same way, my lord.” The words were spilling out of her. She was baring her soul to him, but it was so easy to do. With hardly any effort he stripped her bare—emotionally she was exposed, when she sought never to tell him her true feelings.

“Then come to me,” he whispered. “End this suffering—for both our sakes.”

“I cannot. Feeling and acting upon such things are two very different things.”

“Forget Knighton, Bella. He's not who you crave. Who you come alive for. You are so warm, so alive beneath my hands,” he murmured as he swept his finger along her lips. “I can feel the heat from you, your breath on my finger, yet you wish to kill these feelings. To cut me dead.”

“No.”

He moved so swiftly, Isabella didn't see his intent until she was encased in his arms and pressed against the wall. The stone was cold against her back, and Black…oh, Black was hot against her breasts, and she was melting beneath those pale blue eyes that could see deep inside her.

“Seduction, yes,” he said as he reached for her hands and entwined his long fingers with hers. “The most intense and pleasurable kind. The kind that will make you weak and satiated, unable to run from me. But scandal? Never.”

“The sort of passion that has flared between us ends in one of two ways,” she said. “It dies out as swiftly as it
flared, or it is put to death beneath disgrace. Either way, it ends. I would rather it stop now, before it truly starts. I don't want any pain between us, Black. I…don't want to hate you when the passion wanes, and we are left with nothing but regrets “

“You fear it, this current between us.”

“I fear the results,” she whispered. Her body was weakening, her resolve waning. Isabella did not know how much more of this she could take.

“You are no naive little girl, Isabella. You know what you want.”

She turned her face to look up at him, her mouth brushed his chin and she closed her eyes, absorbing the feel of his night beard abrading her lips. “There is passion between us, a desire that is strong, breathtaking in its intensity, yet it is all we have. There is nothing more than that. We don't even truly know each other.”

He moved against her, brushed his long, hard body into her softness, and she bit her lip to keep from moaning. He was a master of seduction. He knew how to make her weak. She was a woman, and he used his body against hers—a perfect foil to make her give in to his masculine power.

Black dropped his head until she felt the brush of his lips against her ear. “There is a deep knowledge in intimacy, Isabella. Deeper, more profound than a hundred conversations. To be so deeply inside you, our bodies connected, to feel you pulse around me, is to discover you as no other ever could.”

The vivid images of him atop her, his muscles gleaming in the firelight, consumed her. He would be magnificent naked, his strong arms caging her as he made love to her. She could see it, and it made her weak—wet—made her curse the imagination she had been born with. It had once been her salvation, now it was her damnation, for all she could see was Black looming above her,
while moving lazily inside her. He would be beautiful, his lovely eyes trained on her every movement, her every sigh. He would love her long, and slow, even if she wished for something else. He would do as he pleased, knowing it was what she truly needed. No man would ever know her like that. Would be able to read her secret desires like Black.

“A month with Wendell Knighton, and how well do you know him, Isabella? How well does he know you?”

She squirmed, the statement hitting too close to the truth. She needed to quit this conversation, to remove herself from this space where all she could feel and smell and touch was Black.

“Does he know you like to kiss? That you have a sensitive patch of skin behind your ear that when kissed, or touched with the tip of the tongue, makes your knees weak? Does he know the sound of your surrender, as your breath leaves your lips and you give yourself up to a kiss?”

“Jude, please,” she begged. “Don't do this.”

“Have you told him you write? That you dream of being a published novelist? Have you shared a meal with him, and gazed at him across the table with desire in your eyes? Have you allowed him liberties in the library?” He moved forward, nuzzled her ear and let his voice drop into a devastating husky whisper. “Have you let him taste you, run his tongue along your folds and make you wet?”

“You know I haven't,” she gasped. He knew it never would be so. No other man would even do such a thing as Black had done to her, most especially Wendell, and after Black, she was utterly ruined, for she would never experience that earth-shattering experience with another—didn't want to, in fact. Instead, she would lie awake and relive those times when Black had awakened her to her true self. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw him—it
would forever only be him, and this fierce pull that was unrelenting in its grip.

“A month of conversation and you are no closer to knowing Knighton than you were before the introduction. But one glance at me, and you knew, knew there was something between us. Five minutes in my arms, and you knew what you desired.”

She was weakening, her traitorous body brushing against his in an attempt for more. Not only could he seduce her with his touch, he seduced her with words.

“You know me, Isabella, the way I kiss, touch. The sounds I make when you arouse me. I know your sounds, the press of your breast, the silken flesh of your thighs against my face.”

She moaned, pressed, brushed, felt hot and aroused, needing more. She could no longer think, just act, and damn her soul, she wanted this—what he was offering. She felt warm and alive, and different from any other time in her life.

“I still taste you,” he whispered darkly. She moaned again, then purred as he brushed his nails over her bodice. “Your nipples are hard, perfect little points for my tongue—”

“Stop it,” she cried, her voice just a sob of pain and aborted pleasure. “Please, just stop! My God, I hate what you are making of me.”

He stilled, pressed his forehead against her cheek and kissed her closed eyelid. “What if I can't? What if I've tried and have not been able to keep myself from you? You're in my blood, Isabella, and that's a bond that can't be severed.”

“Lust always weakens. Soon the bond will become dilute and you will no longer even recognize it.”

“You fear the basis of this attraction is only lust, that it could never develop into anything more, but you're wrong,
Isabella. So wrong. Desire doesn't have to die, nor does it end in shame.”

“You would make a wanton of me. A slave to my own desires. You're a man of the world, you've tasted your fill of such pleasures, but I have been starved for them. The taste is new and exciting, and I hunger for more—and you know that. You understand how intoxicating your touch is, how enthralling your whispered words. You know how to play this game of seduction. But what will happen when you have your fill? When the dish no longer tempts the palate? What then, when I am still left with a ravening hunger?”

“Then I will feed you.”

“Jude…” His name was a pleading whisper that passed through her lips.

“I could never have my fill of you, Isabella.”

“That is what my father told my mother. What the sailors who rolled into Whitby told her. It is the same line that men have used for hundreds of years to make a woman succumb. But I cannot.”

“Come to me and I'll prove you wrong. I will tell you anything you wish to know about me. You already know my deepest secrets. No other woman has known what I told you in that carriage.”

Cupping his cheek, Isabella smiled sadly. She would do anything to be with him. But it would be a short-term solution. No man with this amount of passion inside him could be content for long—and with someone as inexperienced and sexually gauche as she.

“I know the look in your eye, Isabella. Don't do it.”

Raising herself on tiptoe, she kissed his cheek, allowing herself the temptation of brushing her cheek to his. “Goodbye, Jude.”

He reached for her, shackled her wrist and swooped down to capture her mouth, but he stopped as soon as she said, “Please. Don't.”

He released her, but Isabella knew it was not for long. This was not their goodbye. She could sense that much. As she walked away, she could feel his eyes watching her. It took everything she had not to run back to him and fling her arms around his neck and beg him to take her away.

When she entered the gallery, Wendell was there, waiting for her. His eyes were dark, his expression grim.

“I trust you severed all ties with him?”

It did not surprise her that Wendell had discovered she'd met with Black in the hall. Despite his aura of indifference, nothing seemed to get past him.

“Is it over?” he demanded as he shackled his hand around her wrist. “Damn you, tell me,” he snarled.

When she glanced up at him, she was taken aback by the barely tethered anger she saw in his eyes. He was hurting her, and for the first time, she was truly frightened of him.

“Yes, yes,” she whimpered as she tried to tug free of his hold. “It's over.”

“Good. See that it stays that way.”