The Truth About Lord Stoneville (13 page)

Chapter Twelve

The air left Maria’s lungs. Did he mean it? She was never sure with Oliver; he tended to say things just to shock her. Yesterday he’d succeeded, but she was rapidly coming to realize that it was his way of holding people off, keeping them from rejecting him first. If he swaggered about, proclaiming himself a devil before others could say it, then in his eyes he had won.

It was much the same way Papa had acted about his bastardy. He had never kept it a secret—he’d offered his pedigree to anyone who asked, as if daring them to look down on him for it. How odd that the two men were alike in that.

The difference was that Papa was always belligerent in his assertions, while Oliver delivered them in a coolly bored manner.

Except for now. He looked surprised by his words. Then his gaze steadied and started to smolder, igniting a heat within her, and she was suddenly aware of how very alone they were.

“Ah, but since I
am
deplorably virginal,” she said, striving to keep her tone as casual as his, “the point is moot.”

“Let’s say you weren’t,” he persisted, his voice a rough rasp. “Just for conjecture’s sake. You could stay here under my protection until we tired of each other, and then return to America. No one need know how you’d spent your time in England. Hypothetically speaking, of course.”

Something stirred low in her belly at the idea that he might seriously be making her an indecent proposition. No man had ever done that to her, especially one so sinfully attractive. How did he manage to make something insulting sound so flattering?

Careful, Maria,
she cautioned herself.
He came by his reputation honestly.
“Hypothetically speaking, you’ve known me only a day—surely you need longer than that to choose a mistress.”

“I wanted you the first time I saw you.”

His look held such primitive hunger that she knew there was nothing hypothetical about this discussion.

Fighting to hide how badly his words had thrown her off guard, she quipped, “And what would I be . . . fifteenth in your long line of mistresses?”

His breathing seemed as unsteady as hers. “The first, actually.” The low rumble of his voice resonated in every nerve. “I’ve never had a mistress.”

She choked out a laugh. “As if I would believe
that.
”

“It’s true. I’ve always preferred less permanent connections with women.”

That shouldn’t surprise her, but it did. “Am I also supposed to believe that you’d alter that preference for me? Hypothetically, that is.”

The carriage felt too small to contain them both. He didn’t move from the seat opposite her, yet his very presence overpowered her. “Why not? People change.” His gaze darkened to a fathomless black as it scanned her face. “I would treat you very well. You’d want for nothing, I swear.”

She arched one eyebrow. “Except respectability.”

“To hell with respectability,” he ground out.

“That’s easy for you to say. You lose nothing. I, on the other hand, would lose everything.”

He looked ready to devour her whole. She shifted nervously on the seat.

“I’d make sure you were cared for,” he said, his voice ragged and deep. “That you had a roof over your head. After Gran gives up her mad scheme, she’ll return to supporting my siblings and I can live on my income. We wouldn’t need much—a cottage in Chelsea. You could use as little of your inheritance as you wanted once you came into it. At least you wouldn’t be bound to a bastard like Hyatt, who didn’t even have the courtesy to send a letter to you when he changed his address.”

That stung. “Perhaps he couldn’t,” she said, voicing the worst of her fears.

“He took his leave of London Maritime in person, according to Freddy. Freddy also told me that Hyatt’s rent at the lodging house was paid up. That doesn’t sound like a man who went missing after meeting with foul play.”

Curse Freddy for his loose tongue. No telling what other secrets he’d revealed while Oliver had been shuffling him off to a club.

“You don’t know Nathan. He wouldn’t . . . he couldn’t . . .”

“Abandon you without a word? Apparently he could, and did.”

His blunt words drove a stake through her heart. “I’ll have you know, Oliver, that I don’t need him
or
you. If he really is running away from marrying me, I’ll inherit Papa’s money and I can do as I please with it.”

“Once you get it. But until Hyatt shows up or can be declared dead, you’ll be in a sad state financially. It could take years to have your estate untangled.”

“I-I’m sure Papa made provisions for that.”

“Yes—like the one he made for buying you a husband.”

“He didn’t buy me a husband!” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “He didn’t.”

The hurt in her voice seemed to spark something desperate in Oliver. He leaned forward, his eyes lit with an unholy fervor. “Even if he had made provisions and you got the money soon enough to beat the wolf from the door, what would it give you, except a life as a chaste and respectable spinster?”

“I could marry,” she protested.

“And you’d never know if the men courting you wanted you for yourself or your money.”

“That’s no worse than being wanted for my body alone.”

“It’s not just your body that I—” He broke off, clearly agitated by what he’d almost revealed. “You can’t imagine what it’s like to have a passionless marriage. My parents had one. The only emotion in their marriage was resentment. Between arguments, they barely breathed the same air.”

Slowly he peeled her gloves from her hands, his gaze immobilizing her. “And now I’m watching you head blithely for a marriage to some fellow who will set you up on a shelf with his other possessions, and take you down only when he has a use for you.” Tossing her gloves onto the seat, he took her hands in his, kneading the backs with his thumbs. “
If
you even see him again.”

The words struck at the very heart of her fears about Nathan—that he desired her only because of how she could serve his ambition. She didn’t want to hear it. She didn’t want Oliver so close, reminding her that he alone made her heart race and her blood rise, when Nathan should be the one to do so. She didn’t want him touching her, making her want things, making her yearn.

Jerking her hands from his, she slid over to the window to look out. “How far is this dress shop, anyway?” she choked out.

Oliver reached past her to yank the curtains closed, then moved to sit beside her. She stiffened, but didn’t resist as he looped one arm about her waist to pull her back against his hard body.

“You don’t even know what you’re giving up,” he rasped, “what it’s like to shatter beneath a man’s touch. If you knew, you wouldn’t be so eager to throw that away for the cold comfort of a respectable marriage.”

She closed her eyes against his words, but they were designed to tempt her, and tempt her they did. Last night had only roused her curiosity. Now, with the spicy scent of his cologne in her nostrils and his breath warming her cheek, she wanted to know more,
feel
more.

His voice lowered to a whisper. “Let me at least show you what you’d be missing.”

She felt rather than saw him shrug off his cloak, leaving him in his shirtsleeves. That sent a wayward thrill down her spine.

“Have you forgotten that I’m deplorably a virgin?” she said, attempting to regain control over the situation.

“No. And you’ll still be one when I’m done.” He pressed his lips against the bit of neck below her bonnet, making her shiver deliciously. Then he untied her bonnet and tossed it onto the opposite seat so he could press a kiss into her hair. “I only want to give you a taste of passion, sweetheart. Enough for you to see what it could be like between us.”

“Oliver . . .” she protested, turning toward him.

That proved a mistake, for he caught her head in his hands and kissed her. Boldly. Deeply.

And she couldn’t even bring herself to stop him. Mercy, how fiercely he kissed! He scarcely allowed her breath as his mouth plundered hers over and over, startling her pulse into a wild gallop. She curled her fingers into his shirt, not sure whether she was trying to hold him closer or push him away.

It didn’t matter. He had full command of her, and he knew it. His large hands held her still as his tongue tangled with hers, and his thumbs slid down to caress her throat with a tenderness at odds with the wild abandon of his kisses.

He reached back to close the other curtain, then tugged her onto his lap.

She tore her mouth free. “Oliver, you really shouldn’t—”

“Shh,” he murmured against her lips, then dragged his mouth along her jaw, kissing a path down to her neck. “Let me do this. I swear I won’t hurt you.”

Maybe not physically, but he had the capacity to hurt her far worse in other ways. Before she’d known the horrible scandal plaguing his family, she could dismiss him as a scoundrel. But now she saw the angry boy inside the man, railing at the world for taking his parents from him, daring people to gossip about him.

It broke her heart. It made her ache for him as she hadn’t ached before. And that was dangerous with a man who knew women only as vessels for his desire.

Yet even as he untied the ribbons of her redingote, she didn’t stop him. He did it with a reverence she wouldn’t have expected, his breath sweetly unsteady and his eyes haunted.

“It’s not as if I’m entirely ignorant of . . . what happens between a man and a woman,” she whispered to cover her embarrassment. “I do know a few things.”

“Do you?” he said as he finished unfastening her redingote. His features sharpened. “Things that Hyatt taught you?”

“No.” She spoke the word so quickly that Oliver’s eyes locked with hers, a curious triumph shining in them. “My aunt . . . told me a bit.”

“Ah.” Flashing her a faint smile, he pushed her redingote off her shoulders, then dispensed with the pelerine, baring her low-cut gown to his dark gaze. “And what did she tell you?”

“She told me that . . .” She trailed off as he bent his head to press a kiss to the upper swell of one breast. Her heart seemed to leap beneath his mouth, beating more furiously with every caress of his lips. “She said . . . men would want to . . . touch me in . . . places they shouldn’t.”

“Like this?” Raising his hand, he covered one of her breasts.

Great heavens. A blush heated her cheeks as he kneaded her breast, slowly, sensually. When he thumbed the nipple through her gown, she thought she might die if he stopped.

“Yes,” she breathed. “L-Like that.” She shouldn’t be letting him do this. But she yearned to know the things he meant to teach her. Besides, he’d promised not to take her innocence, and she trusted him. How odd was that?

His mouth moved lower now, down the slope of her other breast. “Did she tell you that a man might want to do more than touch?” he asked in a husky voice. He dragged down her bodice, then her corset cups.

She caught her breath as he untied her chemise.

“That he might want to do this?” he growled as he bared her breast. Then his mouth was covering her nipple, sucking it, teasing it.

Pure, unadulterated pleasure shot through her. Anything that felt this good had to be naughty. Yet when she closed her hands in his thick black hair to pull him away, she found herself holding him there instead, so his tongue could lick and flick over her nipple, and his teeth could tug at it in a most astonishing fashion.

No wonder women were always falling at rakehells’ feet. Heavens alive, his mouth was teasing her in ways she’d never even dreamed of.

“Oliver, are you sure you should be—”

“Do you like it?” he murmured against her breast.

“It’s . . . oh, mercy . . .”

“I’ll take that as a yes.” He laid her back in his arms until she was sprawled shamelessly across his lap, her breasts lifted for his devilish hands, her throat bared to his questing lips. “I’ve never done this with a virgin, did you know that?” he whispered against her throat. “I’ve never wanted to until now.”

The words lodged in her heart, no matter how much she tried to block them. She drew his head back so she could stare into his eyes. They were slumberous, the lids heavy. He looked like a man just awakening from a deep sleep.

So why did it feel as if
she
were the one awakening?

“Why now?” she asked. “Why with me?”

His gaze turned a molten black. “I don’t know.” He kissed her again, ravenously, with a raw need that roused an answering need in her, especially when his fingers fondled her breast wantonly, smoothing the damp nipple, rolling it until he made her gasp.

Then his hand left her breast to slide down and lift her skirts.

She jerked her mouth from his. “What are you doing?”

“There are other places a man wishes to touch a woman.” He slipped his hand beneath her skirts. “I take it your aunt never told you that.”

“She told me. But she said only a husband should do so.”