The Devil Earl (24 page)

Prudence clutched the material of her gown in a death grip, tighter and tighter, while her blood rushed faster and faster, and Sebastian continued to…She had no name for it, but all her senses sharpened and sang, rolling and coiling and growing under his attentions until she felt like a bowstring, taut and helpless. “Sebastian, whatever it is you are doing to me, please, do not stop,” she whispered.

His kisses became more insistent then, and his tongue seemed to move…inside her. Prudence moaned, and her head fell back, her glasses slid unheeded down her nose and her breaths became rapid pants. The pleasure was insistent, demanding, nearly painful in its intensity, and she thought she would surely die if it went on…or if it did not.

“Please,” she whimpered. “Oh, please.” In response, Sebastian lifted her up, burying his face at the juncture of her thighs, his tongue moving in a lush rhythm that her body recognized and responded to with abandon. Then passion overtook her, and she was out of control, out of herself, plunging headlong into a void where at last she found surcease.

P
rudence lay sprawled across the chair, her delicate crape gown bunched about her waist, her long, silky legs spread wide, her hair tumbling down from its topknot in disarray and her spectacles askew. Her eyes were closed, just as if she could not bear to look at him, and Sebastian could not have blamed her. He had never meant to…but when he found himself between her glorious thighs, he could not help himself. He had reverted to his old, wicked ways in a heartbeat.

And now, all he wanted to do was tear open his breeches and get inside her. Here. Now. Kneeling. On the chair. On the floor. He clenched his jaw against the raw need throbbing through his groin and told himself that he was not fit to touch her.

“I’m sorry, Pru,” he whispered as he tried to rearrange her clothing. “I intended to go slowly, but I am not accustomed to…”
To what? Restraining yourself?
Sebastian swore softly, feeling the worst sort of heel. Had he not warned her? “I have no sensibilities,” he muttered as he gazed up at her. Her closed expression bothered him. Had he hurt her? She was, after all, a virgin, and he had been rough with her, if only with his mouth.

“Pru?” he asked, afraid to see her reaction, but too cowardly to hide from it. “Are you all right?”

Her lashes fluttered open then, and she looked at him for a long moment before her eyes focused on his face. “Sebastian…’ She said his name in a soft whisper that caressed his shattered composure and made his body rock-hard once more. Lifting a hand to her forehead, she sighed, smiling sweetly. “Oh, my, Sebastian…”

He was elated, ecstatic, euphoric. It was ridiculous, he knew, and yet, despite the ache in his groin, Sebastian felt better than he ever had in his life. Decent and strong and…noble. With a wry twist of his lips at that absurd notion, he leaned toward her and gently removed her glasses.

“Oh, Sebastian, I feel as limp as an old stocking. I truly do not think I can move. If you mean to sleep, you shall have to carry me to the bed.”

He chuckled, amazed at how she could evoke so many different responses in him: desire, exaltation, amusement, affection. No, a stupid word, that last. What he felt for her was much deeper, much darker, much
more,
than simple caring. It was so strong that it was almost alarming, so fierce that it threatened to overwhelm him. But he was not to question it now. Not at this moment, when she had the look of a woman well pleasured. Smiling, Sebastian removed the pins from her hair slowly, letting the golden strands slide through his fingers to pool about her shoulders.

“I will be happy to carry you to bed, Pru, dear, but I have no intention of sleeping…yet,” he said, enjoying her startled reaction.

“You mean there is…more?” she asked, her beautiful hazel eyes wide as they gazed up at him.

He smiled. “Ah, yes. Much more. A whole night more. Pru, dearest, we have just begun.”

He helped her to stand then and turned her around to undo the tapes of her gown, lifting her arms from its confinement and pushing it down her hips to the floor. The black slip came next, and, though his body throbbed and
hummed, Sebastian took his time. Layer by layer, just as he had always imagined, he removed her clothing to reveal the woman hiding beneath.

All that was practical and sturdy and scholarly about Prudence Lancaster slowly fell away, until he was left with a stranger: a tall, long-legged beauty with shining hair, standing before him in her shift. He turned her back to face him and, with a look, asked her permission to remove her final covering. Her gaze flicked hotly in answer. Sometimes there was no need for words between them, Sebastian thought as he lifted the hem.

When the last bit of material came off, Sebastian stood clutching it and stared. He could not breathe. For an instant, he could not draw in air, and then he sucked in a deep draft and another and another, while he tossed her garment aside in dazed wonder.

She was beautiful. Perfectly wrought. For him. The candlelight caressed her golden skin, her small, high breasts, peaked with dark nipples, her slender waist, and those incredibly long legs. There was nothing light or fluffy or dainty about her. She was strong, smooth and supple, and she glowed with an inner radiance, intelligence and passion that made him feel boldly, cleanly alive.

“Beautiful,” Sebastian whispered, lifting a finger to stroke her shoulder. Fine bones. Infinite facets. For all her innocence, Prudence did not shy from him, but stood as poised in the nude as she had clothed. But then, he knew her secrets, and the knowledge was heady. He alone had tapped the fires that burned beneath the woman she showed to the world.

Resting both hands on her lovely shoulders, he stepped toward her, drawing her to him until her breasts pressed against him. “Pru, dearest Pru,” he whispered before leaning down to kiss her.

Her skin was like silk, yet warm and responsive beneath his explorations. Her mouth was eager, vital and giving, and
her tongue dueled with his without hesitation. When he felt her fingers sliding through the hair on his chest, he groaned. Taking her hand, Sebastian pressed it to the bulge in his breeches.
Now!
his body demanded, rubbing against her, but he satisfied himself only with her touch.

“What is it?” she whispered, her fingers moving over him with curiosity.

“It is for you, all for you, Prudence,” Sebastian murmured. “To pleasure you, inside you.” And, suddenly, he, who had reduced sex to something meaningless long ago, felt a certain reverence for the act. He, who had scoffed at marital bonds all his life, was abruptly struck by the imagery of the wedding ceremony. “With my body I…will worship you,” he said.

And he gathered her in his arms and laid her on the bed, her shining hair spread out upon his pillow, her body and all that she was waiting for him. His hands fumbled with the fall of his breeches, and then he had them open and pushed them down and off, kicking them aside.

He joined her on the cool sheets, moving over her, pressing her back into the softness, astonished by his own delight. Her mouth met his, lush and warm and full of greeting, and he felt as though he had never been dead inside, but always like this—awake, aware, and bursting with emotion. He kissed her eyelids, her cheeks and the curve of her chin, her throat, her silken shoulder, her breasts.

Her soft sighs were like music, and Sebastian drew them out by taking a nipple in his mouth. He suckled her, and she arched against him, burying her fingers in his hair. Her sounds danced across his taut nerves, but he was beyond desire. He felt so alive that every breath, every nuance of her body, was sharp and fresh.

He readied her with his hand, and when he slipped a finger inside her, she writhed and moaned, begging him for his body. He responded, fitting himself to her entrance and entering slowly. Just as if his own need were an otherworldly
thing, Sebastian managed to slide in and out, over and over, until her maidenhead gave way gently before him. She opened her eyes wide then, surprised at the breach, but she shed no tears. He was the one who felt pressure behind his lids, because of her precious gift to him.

And then he could think of nothing but how he filled her. Deep. Forever. Sebastian let out a long breath and felt the heat of her all around him. He wanted to stay buried inside her always, but she was making small, urgent sounds, and his blood was pounding in his ears, urging him to take action. He withdrew and surged forward again, slowly, intent upon making their union last into eternity. Her heart beat next to him, and he had the ridiculous notion that their blood flowed together, that he lived and breathed Prudence Lancaster.

Then she wrapped her legs around him and clung, calling his name, and his control left him. He grasped her hips and lifted her. Faster. Higher. Until she cried out her pleasure, and his body spasmed in a release that took him somewhere he had never been before.

Prudence woke to find the candles guttered and the faint tendrils of dawn snaking through the shutters. The infamous tower room did not look so strange without eerie night shadows and cracks of thunder adding their effects. In fact, it looked rather welcoming, but for the lack of a fire in the hearth. Shivering, Prudence snuggled closer to Sebastian’s warm body.

Sebastian! The memory of all that they had done together came rushing back. It had been a night of revelations, amazing experiences, astonishing intimacies. Prudence smiled sleepily. Now that she knew such secrets, she would better understand her characters, and the lengths they would go to for those they loved…

The thought made her pause, and Prudence moved away from the body beside her. She wondered if she could find a
chamber pot, and started to get up, only to blush ferociously when she realized that she was totally nude. Tugging at a blanket, she thought to take it with her, but Sebastian had it wrapped around him tightly, and she had no wish to rouse him from sleep.

After reviewing her options, Prudence simply slipped out from under the covers and hurried to the freestanding screen set out from one of the curving walls. As she had suspected, it harbored a chamber pot, and she used it with relief. Then she walked back to the bed, more slowly this time. Her steps took on a more confident air, and she was astonished at her own boldness. Despite the chill in the air, there was a certain freedom in being stark naked.

She realized, belatedly, that she ought to feel ruined and disgraced and doomed. If one of her heroines had been so compromised, the poor creature would probably have thrown herself from the high window onto the rocks below. After due consideration, Prudence decided she really did not feel like doing that.

What she felt like doing was crawling right back in beside Sebastian. She stood at the side of the bed, looking down at him, and knew a happiness like none she had ever imagined. He was utterly wonderful, she decided, forceful yet tender, mysterious yet so often open with her. And last night, he had shown her things beyond imagining, pleasures that brought bliss to the body and awe to the soul. The blankets had slipped lower, revealing his taut chest with its enticing covering of hair and delineation of muscle, and Prudence felt a shiver of awareness at the sight.

He had one arm flung over his forehead, and she realized, suddenly, that he was regarding her under lowered lids. His gray gaze held a question in them, as if he, too, wondered how she would behave this morning. But Prudence had already made her choice. Declining to despair over her lost innocence, she resolved, instead, to revel in her new-found
knowledge. Smiling in greeting, she bent over to press her mouth to his.

Gothic heroines, she decided, were rather limited, and there were times when she did not care to be one.

“Please be careful,” Prudence said, leaning over the thick stone of the window ledge. Sebastian, having made a rather precarious rope out of the bed linens, was now climbing down the side of the tower. “Perhaps this is how your ancestress escaped,” she mused aloud.

Sebastian did not answer, but moved slowly, hand over hand, sheer strength keeping him clinging to the tautly stretched material. It was a scene right out of a gothic novel, but Prudence found, yet again, that she no longer derived pleasure from the discovery. As romantic as his pose might seem, Sebastian was in very real danger of falling to the rocks below.

Every time he swung lower, Prudence felt her heart leap into her throat. Now that she could see the unforgiving sea crashing against the cliff, she wished there was some other way to free themselves from the tower room. But Sebastian had been insistent, and she could only watch helplessly as the linens strained at their knots and the man she cared about more than anything risked his life.

Her feelings for him were more powerful than anything her imagination might have wrought, and Prudence was forced to admit that they were, no doubt, among the very strongest of human emotions. She was obviously in love with Sebastian, earl of Ravenscar, whom others called the Devil Earl. And it had nothing to do with his abbey or his name or his title or his dark, compelling attractiveness. Well, maybe something to do with that…But she had the suspicion that, whether they were ensconced in a ghostly sepulcher or in the most mundane of environments, she would still feel as deeply for him as she did right now.

He was approaching the bottom of the tower, and Prudence caught her breath when he let go of the makeshift rope and waved up at her. She returned the gesture with a none-too-steady hand as he set off, climbing over the sharp, slippery rocks sprayed with sea foam before he disappeared around the curve of the tower wall.

Prudence released the pent-up air in a harsh exhalation, but she kept watch at the window, hoping that she would not see Sebastian appear again, only to be swept out by the waves that crashed so mercilessly against the cliff. When the minutes ticked by uneventfully, she told herself that he had reached land and gained entrance to the abbey.

What Mrs. Worth would think of the earl and his guest having spent the night together, Prudence hesitated to imagine, but she told herself to expect scorn for now—and for as long as she deigned to stay with Sebastian. Admittedly, no one knew of her arrival in Cornwall except the housekeeper and the coachmen, but all employees carried tales, and Prudence knew she could not remain at the abbey indefinitely. Sooner or later, her presence would become common knowledge. And then?