The Shadow and the Star (48 page)

He held her with one arm and caught her flushed nipple between his fingers. She cried out, a female cry, bashful and surprised as her hips twisted hard against him, her fingers clutching, her body closing around him with a long, desperate shudder, and then voluptuous quick pulsations.

It sent him to climax without even moving—his senses exploded in response; his muscles convulsed; unbearable pleasure washed over him as he held her impaled, trembling and winded and crushed against his chest.

Nothing that Lady Tess had told her had prepared her,

Leda felt herself wholly embraced, cradled in every part by his arms and his body. The only places that hurt were where she was pinned against the rigid edge of the vanity and a faint smarting stretch inside her, no worse than a kid glove that was too small for her hand.

She'd anticipated "nice"—the agreeable warmth of a hot brick in bed, perhaps; that was what Lady Tess had led her to expect. Not one word of warning did Leda recall. Not one mention of the wild euphoria, the flooding sensation that had possessed her.

But she remembered Lady Tess' teasing eyes, and thought:
She knew of this
.

She hadn't tried to describe it; how could anyone? How could anyone say how it felt to be held in this way, bare skin pressed to black-and-white silk, embarrassed and not embarrassed, still feeling the tremors of his passion flowing through him.

She felt him draw a deep breath. He released a harsh sigh, as if the air had been repressed and finally burst out. He bent his head beside hers. "I can't help myself," he murmured roughly. "I can't—stop myself."

Leda bit her lower lip, hiding her face in his coat. She traced her fingers along the lapels. "Dear sir," she said. "It's not wicked. Not now."

A heavy shudder ran through him. His breathing grew deeper. Slower. His head drooped toward her ear, and then he twitched and straightened, like a person falling asleep on his feet.

Leda didn't feel sleepy at all. Now that her heartbeat had slowed, she felt light and clearheaded for the first time in weeks. "We must put you to bed," she said, giving his collar a brisk tug.

He lifted his eyes. Leda looked up into that drowsy gray intensity and smiled, patting the black expanse of his shoulder.

"Only stand back, sir, if you please, and leave this to me."

He didn't, right away. He leaned his arms on the vanity and kissed her mouth. There was a taste on him like nothing she'd tasted before, like the earth on a damp day, the sea tide on the Thames, thick and salty but not disagreeable. Really rather alluring in a strange sort of way; she kept wanting to put her nose as close as possible to his skin and draw the opulent spice into her lungs.

Suddenly he moved, taking her up against him, lifting her as if she weighed nothing. She said, "Oh!" as his invasion slipped away and he set her on her feet. She glanced down, and said, "Oh," again.

That was all there seemed to be to say. She felt the abundant moisture between her legs, but none of it was blood this time. And him… but he passed his hand before the opening on his trousers and turned away, which rather vexed her. Lady Tess had
explained
everything, in words, but one wouldn't mind seeing with one's own eyes whether such things were perfectly possible.

She knelt and picked up her robe, pulling it around her. Dressed—more or less—she felt herself mistress of the situation, and began to issue proper orders.

"Dear sir, I'm sure when you think of it, you will find that it has been a most fatiguing day. I'm not at all tired myself; in truth I feel refreshed. You'll allow me to help you with your dress, and take your coat and just give it a brush before I lay it down."

He stood still. With the carpet under her bare feet, she went to him, reaching up to find the stiff pique of his tie and pull it free. She laid the length of cotton over a chair and smoothed her hand down his chest, finding the buttons on his waistcoat.

"You don't have to do this," he said.

"And who else is to do it, pray? I daresay you think that I don't know anything about gentlemen's clothing�which is true, in the strictest sense, but I assure you that I understand the importance of proper care of costly fabric." She paused. "But I don't—I fear I don't know quite how to manage removing it from your person. Your coat, sir?"

For a moment, she wasn't sure that he would lend his cooperation. Then he shrugged out of the morning coat in an easy move. She caught it from his hand and took it to the wardrobe to lay down carefully in the lower drawer.

When she turned back, he'd already taken off the waistcoat and was standing at the vanity, unbuttoning the close button at the top of his collar. Leda paused a moment, admiring him. Really, he was quite the most handsome man of her acquaintance, not only in his face, but in the grace with which he moved, the admirable proportion of his shoulders and limbs.

He dropped the pearl studs from his shirt into a glass bowl on the vanity with a little clink. Miss Myrtle would have decried his sun-darkened skin as common, but Leda found it pleasing, most particularly when he loosened his cuffs, pulled the white straps from his shoulders, and removed his shirt.

He didn't see her watching him. He rested his shoe on the needlepointed vanity bench—there was a man for you—to untie the laces. He was tanned all over his back and chest, the contours of his body just like the classical statues, only alive and moving, perfectly fascinating to watch.

He looked at her over his shoulder. Leda quickly manufactured a reason for her interest. She nodded toward the straps that hung in pale loops from his waist. "What are those?"

His hands stilled. "What?" he asked curtly.

"Those white straps. I should like to begin to learn the nomenclature of gentlemen's furnishings."

An almost imperceptible tension in his back relaxed. If Leda had not been aware of every curve of muscle and bone, she would not have noticed it. "These?" He flipped one loop and went back to his shoes. "Braces."

"Oh." She picked up his waistcoat where he'd tossed it over a chair and laid it away, then lifted his shirt. The scent of him clung to it. Surreptitiously, she held it to her mouth and nose, breathing deeply for just an instant, before she put it aside to be laundered.

There was a very awkward moment, in which they both seemed to find nothing to say. He stood in his stocking feet and trousers; Leda saw no evidence that a dressing gown had been provided for him—who should have done that? Did he not have one? Surely gentlemen must.

"Would you prefer that I go somewhere else?" he asked abruptly. He walked off to a side door beyond the wardrobe and opened it, looking through. "There's a sleeping couch in here."

Of course there was. Leda had not even noted the dressing room; most probably that was where his dressing gown and all his clothes had been placed, too. When the late Lord Cove's cousin and wife had come to visit Lady Cove, Leda recalled that such had been the arrangement—and much toil and trouble it had been, endless conversation and question and flutter over the provision of coat-brushes and slippers to outfit the dressing room and obtain a borrowed cot for the gentleman, who had never used any of it.

Not even the cot, when she came to think.

From this recollection, Leda made a leap of logic. Perhaps married gentlemen did not really care to sleep in their little dressing rooms. Perhaps the unfortunate husbands were required to make the request every night, hoping that their wives would grant permission for them to sleep in a comfortable bed, but relegated to the cots if approval was not forthcoming.

"Certainly I don't wish you to go anywhere else." Leda gave him a bright and magnanimous smile. "You must feel free to sleep here in the bedroom. You needn't ask me, on any night, Mr. Gerard."

"Samuel." He sounded rather annoyed as he picked up a silver snuffer. "We're married, for God's sake. My name is Samuel." He walked to the mantel and lifted his arm to extinguish the candle in the mirrored wall sconce. Reflected light focused on his hand.

She had opened her mouth to reprimand him for his language, but she closed it.

If Lady Tess had not told her, Leda would not have instantly recognized the slight scar across his wrist. She would not even have noticed it. But the intensity of candlelight heightened the contrast, picking out an unmistakable band of paler skin across the base of his hand. When she looked at his other hand, she could see it there, too, just distinguishable.

"You should not swear, Samuel," she said, in a quieter tone than she had meant to use. She almost said nothing at all, but that seemed somehow uncomplimentary—as if, like some jungle-raised creature, he could not even be expected to conduct himself in a civilized manner.

"I beg your pardon." He gave her an ironic look.

To show a spirit of full conciliation, Leda smiled. "I'm honored that you should prefer the informal address. I would be pleased if you also would—" A sudden shyness caught her unexpectedly. She clasped her hands and turned a little. "If you would feel comfortable to—do the same�and call me Leda."

He snuffed the last candle. The room went to darkness and firelight, tinged with the faint pungency of smoke. "I already have, haven't I? In certain moments of forgetting myself." His disembodied voice seemed strangely angry still.

Leda pulled her robe around her and went to the bed, feeling with her bare toes in the chilly shadows for the step stool. The collar of her robe pulled at her as she tried to lie down, but she had no intention of removing the garment. She dragged the bedclothes up, fluffing and arranging them, and lay carefully close to the edge.

She stared up at the orange glow of the fire on the underside of the canopy. Then she closed her eyes.

It seemed a long time before he came. The motion of the bed surprised her; his touch surprised her even more. He took her in his arms, pressing himself close to her all along his body. He had nothing on; she plucked her hand away—and then had nowhere to put it.

He nuzzled his face into the curve between her shoulder and her neck. She blinked up at the canopy.

"Good night, dear sir." She barely whispered it.

"Leda," he murmured. He curled his fist in her hair. His arm lay across her, tight at first, and then slowly, slowly relaxing. She felt every small slackening of tension in his body and easing of his breathing as he fell asleep. "Dear sir," she whispered again, and laid her hand on his forearm. "Pleasant dreams."

Lady Kai, in her friendly way, wished to go with Leda
to see the South Street ladies off at the station. This required a little adjustment, as the carriage was not quite suited to five persons, and while everyone knew that Mrs. Wrotham must be seated next to a window to relieve her traveling sickness, and the younger ladies of course offered to occupy the forward seat, Miss Lovatt insisted that she would take the middle as a compliment to Lady Cove, who felt that it was not perfectly right that her elder sister should give up the more comfortable position by the window.

Lady Cove attempted to precede her sister to the lesser seat, eliciting a brisk remark to the effect that after forty-two years as a peeress, one might think that the common notion of proper precedence would have finally made an impression upon the mind of some people, who apparently still had no idea of their rank as the wives of barons. Lady Cove was no proof against such sisterly kindness, and meekly stepped aside.