The Bed and the Bachelor (32 page)

“And if he can’t? Or worse, if he won’t? I’ve met the duke, and he strikes me as a man who follows his conscience, regardless of what others may wish him to do, even his brothers.”

“Ned is fair. He’ll hear you out and understand that you had your reasons for what you did.”

“That still might not be enough.” Then a new thought occurred that made her stomach ache. “Anyway, how do I know you aren’t going to turn me in the moment we reach Britain? You said yourself you wanted revenge. How can I be sure you won’t act on that and betray me yourself?”

His eyes glittered like emeralds in the low light. “You don’t,” he said bluntly. “You’ll just have to trust me, as I’ve agreed to trust you. And don’t forget about Vacheau and what he’ll do if you stay here. Better a refugee in England than dead here in France.”

Yes, better alive and possibly in prison than used and murdered.
Still, there had to be a way out. There were always options, even in the darkest of times—though at present she couldn’t think of a single one.

“If I agree,” she said quietly, “will you give me your word that you’ll look after my family no matter what may happen to me? My brothers are innocent boys, and you know the state of my father’s mind. He is of no harm to anyone.”

Leaning forward, Drake took her hand. “Matters may yet work out better than you imagine, but yes, I give you my word. I swear to you upon my honor as a gentleman that I shall care for your family.”

At that, she relaxed, a strange calm sliding through her. The decision was made, and it was now out of her hands. Whatever happened would happen and she would have to let destiny decide the outcome.

“Very well,” she agreed. “As for leaving tomorrow, I don’t see how it can be done. We’ll need at least a full day to prepare. The boys will want to say good-bye to their friends, and my father will insist on taking some of his books.”

Drake shook his head. “We can’t afford to travel with books, but if it will satisfy him, I’ll promise to replace your father’s library once we’re back in England. As for your brothers, they cannot be allowed to say good-bye to anyone. No one can know we are leaving.”

She drew in a breath. “Yes, you’re right. I suppose I was thinking of their feelings and not the dangers involved. But what shall we tell them? They don’t know anything about Vacheau.”

“In Julien’s case, I wouldn’t be too sure of that.”

Her stomach gave a flip.

“If it allays your worries, however,” Drake hurried on, “we can say we’ve decided to take a trip. We’ll tell them the destination once we’re out of harm’s way.”

“I’m not sure that will work, but we can make the attempt. Still, I’ll need the day. Morning isn’t enough time.”

“It’ll have to suffice though I suppose we can depart in the afternoon if that will make things easier for everyone.”

“It would, yes.”

She tried to let the fatalistic calm roll through her again, but this time it didn’t want to come. “If that is the case, then we should both get as much rest as we can. I’ll need to pack some food and clothes and other essentials . . .”

Her voice trailed off at the prospect of what she and her family must do. They’d lost so much already, but to lose their home and virtually everything they held dear, why, it was unthinkable.

How could she ask them to go?

Yet how could she not?

Still, people were of infinitely more worth than possessions, and the lives of those she loved was the only thing that really mattered.

Raising her gaze to Drake, she traced her eyes over his face, and knew she included him in that equation. For better or worse, she loved Drake Byron and knew she always would.

“Yes, it is late,” he said. “I suppose I should return to that rack you call a sofa.” But even as he said the words, he made no effort to leave. Instead, he leaned forward and slowly extended his hand.

She could have stopped him, she supposed, but she didn’t. Holding still, she let him stroke a length of her hair, twining it around his fingers before he let go again. Using only his fingertips this time, he glided them over her cheek and along her throat in a way that made her shudder. Her eyelids slid low, her lips parting as he moved his palm so that he cradled her head, his thumb pressed against the pulse point just under her skin so there was no hiding the maddened drumming of her heart.

“Did you mean it?” he murmured with raw seduction.

“Mean what?”

“About being sorry? Are you really?”

“Yes,” she swallowed convulsively. “I truly am sorry.”

“Good. Then perhaps you’ll give me a chance to change your mind about the sleeping arrangements.”

Her eyes flashed back open.

“Don’t send me away, Sebastianne,” he whispered. Bending closer, he brushed his mouth over hers, warm, slow and easy. “Just say yes. That’s all you have to do. Say yes.”

Chapter 30

A
firestorm of longing swept through Sebastianne the instant Drake’s mouth met hers, memories burning in her brain and blood as she thought about the last time they had kissed, the last night they’d made love.

Mon Dieu,
how she’d missed this.

Missed him.

The taste of his mouth, the scent and touch of his skin, were like nothing else she’d ever known. Being in his arms was sweet heaven—although perhaps hell might be a better description, since there was nothing the least bit saintly about the way he made her feel.

Giving free license to her hunger and to the power of her love, she matched each slide of his mouth, every sultry, devastating stroke of his tongue. Yet she knew they could not go on, however much she might wish it to be. He wasn’t hers to keep, and she would be a fool to forget it.

“Drake, we can’t,” she said breathlessly, wrenching her mouth away from his.

“Why not?” he murmured darkly, kissing a path along her throat as he reached up a hand to cover one of her breasts through the thin material of her nightgown.

Flames rippled over her skin. “B-because the cottage is small, and Papa and the boys might awaken.”

He reached an arm around and shifted her so he could unfasten the short placket of buttons along the front of her bodice. “Your brothers are upstairs in the loft and won’t hear anything. As for your father, he was snoring so loudly when I made my way here to your room, I doubt anything less than an earthquake could wake him.”

Papa did sleep soundly, it was true. Still . . .

“B-but I’ll know. Besides, we have to awaken early tomorrow and have much to do before we depart. We need to sleep.”

“Oh, we’ll sleep,” he drawled thickly. “Later.”

Slipping open the front of her nightgown, he exposed her naked breasts to the warm night air. She trembled, damp heat collecting between her thighs. But when he lifted his hand to touch her again, she wrapped her fingers around the width of his wrist to prevent him.

“No, Drake,” she said. “Don’t.”

His head came up, his verdant, spring-colored eyes flashing warningly as they locked with her own. “No? Why not? Or was your former desire for me equal only to your need for information? Have I outlived my usefulness in that regard?”

“
No!
That’s not it at all. I just . . .”

“Just what?”

And her real hesitation, one she hadn’t been able to fully reason out, not even in her thoughts, came surging to the surface. “Are you marrying her? Are you engaged? When we go back to London, will she be waiting for you?”

An expression of utter confusion moved over his face. “Who? What are you talking about?”

She swallowed, forcing herself to continue. “That young woman, the lady in the park who had you hanging on her every word. Are you going to make her your wife? Mrs. Tremble said—”

“Oh?” One of his brows arched high. “And what did Mrs. Tremble say?”

“She told me it was quite the expected thing that you were going to propose to that girl . . . Miss Manning, I believe she was called.”

“Manning? You mean Verity Manning?”

“If that is her name, then yes.” Sebastianne tried to shrug away from him, but Drake held her in place.

He stared for a moment before tossing his head back on a laugh.

“Do be quiet,” she admonished, “or you really will wake all the others.”

With obvious effort, he stifled his mirth, his lips continuing to twitch. “So you’re worried I’m going to marry Miss Manning, are you?”

She shot him a fulminating glare. How dare he taunt her, his callous attitude slicing an even bigger hole in her heart. Perhaps this was how he planned to take his revenge. Maybe he wanted her to know she was nothing more than a plaything and how little she truly meant to him.

“I had no idea you could be so jealous,” he remarked cheerfully. “I must confess I rather fancy seeing you like this.”

This time she genuinely struggled to free herself from his hold.

“Calm down,” he said, fitting her more tightly inside his arms. “I’m not engaged.”

As soon as his words penetrated, she fell still. “You’re not?”

“No. Although considering everything that’s happened, I probably should have tortured you a bit longer over the possibility that I was. A little more spark and fire on your part might have been amusing to see.”

“So you’re not planning to marry her?”

He shook his head. “No, I’m not. Despite my cook’s often excellent judgment, she is grievously mistaken in this instance. Verity Manning is most assuredly not my style.”

“But you seemed so attentive to her that day, and she is an eligible English debutante.”

“I am often attentive to eligible English debutantes. Such overtures are what is known in Society as ‘being polite.’ That doesn’t mean, however, that I have any interest in marrying one of them, since I most emphatically do not.”

“Oh,” Sebastianne said.

“Oh, indeed.” He caressed the side of her face before slipping a bent knuckle beneath her chin. “There is only one woman I want, and she happens to be you.”

“Oh,” she said again, slightly breathless. And yet, she was unable to help but notice that he’d said want rather than love. But she supposed she was tilting at windmills if she expected to hear that she’d won his undying devotion. Knowing he wasn’t engaged and that he desired her above any other woman was more than she had dared let herself hope.

It is enough,
she told herself.
For tonight. For as long as he wants me.

For propriety’s sake, she supposed she ought to resist and send him back to his solitary bed. But why, when their time together might end at any moment? Why, when she loved him so dearly that it pained her not to always be in his arms? With her mind at ease, tension flowed from her body.

“So, may we continue where we left off?” he asked softly, brushing kisses over her forehead and temple and cheek.

Her eyelids slipped to half-staff. “
Oui
, though we must still take care not to be heard.”

A slow smile moved across his face. “I can be quiet as a mouse if need be.” Peeling back the edges of her bodice again, he took one of her breasts in his hand, circling the tip with his thumb. “Let’s find out if you can be too.”

She bit her lip to hold back a moan, her eyelids sliding shut again as a fiery rush of sensation burst through her. He kissed her, claiming her mouth with a dark possession that demanded no less than her full and unrestrained cooperation.

They’d been lovers when she’d left England, and now that they were together again it seemed as if no time had passed at all, as if they’d never truly been apart. Wrapping her arms around him, she held tight, her palms roaming at will as she explored the hard, tensile shape of his shoulders and the long, lean curve of his back. Reaching lower, already in search of skin, she tugged at the fine linen material of his shirt to free it from the waistband of his trousers.

He drank in her sounds of satisfaction as her fingers stole beneath the garment to retrace all the places she’d already touched, already knew. His own growl of pleasure rumbled against her lips, his fingers playing like a sorcerer against the most sensitive places on her body as he wove his magic around her.

Urging her to lie back across the sheets, he replaced his hands with his lips, the wet, raw heat of his mouth and tongue suffusing her core with a wet, raw heat of its own. Limbs trembling, spine arching, she only barely remembered that she had to keep quiet, that she couldn’t let herself cry aloud from the shuddering wash of delight. Laying her forearm across her mouth, she muffled the long, lush moan that crested inside her throat.

Ah, it is so good, so right.
How had she survived without him? How would she ever be able to survive again?

Stripping off her nightgown, he laid her bare, and in the moonlight she saw the expression in his eyes, as if he were a starving man looking at a feast, as though she were a priceless treasure with a worth beyond rubies or pearls.

He leaned up a moment later and tore off his own clothes, then just as quickly came back down beside her. Parting her thighs, he cradled himself in between. But he didn’t enter her, not quite yet, despite the rampant evidence of his desire.

Instead, he kissed her again, first her mouth, then across her cheeks and chin and throat before gliding lower in a series of caresses that left her trembling, restless and very near the brink. Only then did he take her, sliding deep, in a single, heavy thrust that lodged him as far as he could possibly go.

Dieu merci!
she thought with hazy gratitude, relieved to know he’d had the presence of mind to cover her mouth with his own, since she’d given a cry that would surely have awakened every soul in the house. Maybe even in the neighborhood. Ecstasy poured through her, a honeyed spiral of pleasure that wound itself into her skin and bones and blood. Her mind ceased to function, her body seeming to take on a ravenous will of its own.

Then, suddenly, she was flying, soaring to places only he could take her, as the crisis lifted her in its grip and tossed her like a piece of driftwood caught inside a storm. She quaked, Drake smothering another helpless wail of rapture, as he pushed her toward the final and fullest reaches of her completion.

Only when she had fully claimed her own satisfaction did he claim his.

She held him, her arms and legs locked tightly around his back and hips as he gently eased them both back down to earth. Lying amid the tangled sheets in a haze of delight, she cradled him inside her, relishing the damp warmth of his flesh, the sensual fragrances of his body mingled with her own. She knew they should sleep, but somehow she wanted more.

As if aware of her thoughts, her needs, his body quite amazingly began to respond. “Again?” he said.

She nodded, unable to speak, and for the next while he gave her ample reason to be cautiously quiet once more.

At length, they settled, exhausted but replete next to each other, their limbs still entwined as if they couldn’t bear even a hint of separation.

Brushing her hair away from her face, he kissed her again, soft and tender. “Sleep,” he whispered. “Tomorrow will be a long day. Don’t worry, I’ll wake you come morning.”

Trusting him, loving him, she closed her eyes and let the darkness sweep her away.

T
rue to his word, Drake awakened her early the next morning, a few intrepid birds calling to each other in preparation for the sunrise that was only minutes away. With her thoughts still tangled in dreams, Sebastianne found herself momentarily disoriented, imagining for an instant that she was back in Drake’s bed in the Audley Street town house, and that she needed to return to her attic room to prepare for the day.

But then she remembered that she’d left London, and it was Drake who had slept in
her
bed last night. Her eyes sprang open, as everything rushed at once upon her, the timber ceiling rafters of her cottage bedroom coming into view.

“Shh,” Drake hushed, brushing his lips against her ear as he stroked a soothing hand along her arm. “I didn’t mean to startle you. Go back to sleep for a few minutes more.”

But she knew more sleep would be impossible, and that there was far too much to be done to indulge in more rest, particularly if the whole family were to leave today.

Her stomach sank at the thought and the knowledge that they might never return. How on earth, she wondered, was she supposed to explain her and Drake’s decision to her father and brothers? How difficult was it going to be to convince them to flee?

After another quick kiss, Drake dressed and let himself out of the room. She hoped none of the others met him on the way back to her father’s workroom and the sofa where he was supposed to have slept.

She bathed quickly, then began looking through her garments to decide what to wear and what to pack. They wouldn’t be able to carry more than a single change of clothes. As for their other possessions, nearly all would have to be left behind.

Upon her mother’s passing, Sebastianne had acquired a few fine pieces of jewelry—a diamond brooch, a strand of elegant pearls, and a pair of silver hair combs. There had been more pieces that she’d sold off long ago, but she had never been able to bring herself to part with these. She would sew them into the hem of her spare dress, she decided; that way, if they were unlucky enough to be searched on their way out of France, she might have some hope of retaining them. And if their situation proved dire, she could always use them as bribes.

There was one other piece of jewelry she’d kept, and that was her wedding ring, a plain gold circlet with her and Thierry’s names engraved inside. Taking it out of the wooden box where she kept it, she stared at the jewelry for a long moment.

Once the ring had symbolized everything good—love, hope, and the prospect of a bright and happy future. Now it served as nothing more than a reminder of a lost life, of dreams whose time had come for putting away.