The Virgin's Auction (21 page)

He was a lure to her. She wanted to turn to him, touch him,
learn him. See the smile break out across his features and warmth rise in his eyes as he looked at her. She wanted to know him, understand the mystery he posed.

It had never occurred to her a man could hold such attraction the desire to be near him could be stronger than the fear. This, then, was why women did foolish things with men. Men like this one, charming and impossibly well formed, the epitome of feminine fantasy and desire.

He made
her
want to do foolish things.

Thought the most foolish was already done: her chastity gone, never to return.
So why not? Why in hell not take the life she wanted, sin and sin again for the sake of a truer freedom and joy than she had ever known? Why the
hell
not? she repeated silently to herself, feeling the thrill of the taboo word resonate with her reckless decision.

“Mr
Carstairs?” she said.

“Yes?” He turned to look at her with his eyebrows raised.

She did not know how to be subtle or charming in this, how to describe her feelings or hint at the delicate furls of hope that lay within her. So instead she said with almost militant firmness:
“I want a house. A townhouse in a good area of London, in my name. A small staff suitable for . . . ” she thought ‘catering to your needs’ but said:  “. . . hospitality. Cloth for good clothing. And most of all, schooling for Peter and your patronage if it is needed.”

She watched his face carefully and saw a spark light and burn in his eyes, but his tone was calm and businesslike when he said: “That sounds quite reasonable. I s
hall make you an allowance also; and pay for the best modiste. As skilled as you are, I think you might prefer to spend your time in other pursuits. And we shall fill your library together, perhaps? A pleasing diversion.”

He pulled in the horses, bring
ing the carriage to a halt, and looped the reins. Then he turned to her, taking her hands in his own and looking full in his face, that warm light she had imagined in his eyes, and a tender little smile about his mouth. “This is a good choice for you. I swear you will not regret it.”

She said nothing, but found her gloved fingertips resting on his cheek, an impulse not restrained in time by her more sensible self. But it pleased him, she saw, as he put his hand on her back and drew her close in to him, resting his forehead on hers for a long moment as he smiled into her eyes at close quarters.

Then he dipped his head a little to take her mouth in a gentle, languorous kiss and she discovered to her surprise yet another sort of decadence: to be calmly kissed by a fully clothed man in an open carriage in the spring sunshine for all the world to see. To let her eyes slowly drift closed as she gave herself over to the subtle pleasure, her hands sliding up until her arms were wrapped around his neck and he was taking her weight. Until he lifted her into his lap and tilted her back; until she felt submerged in the sweetness of it, her nostrils full of the scent of clean linen and warm man.

She sighed and drifted, letting herself enjoy the moment. She had bought this dearly, and would pay for it in many tomorrows. So for now she would savour the goodness of kissing a beautiful man in the
sun. Tomorrow could wait.

Chapter Eighteen

As afternoon faded into evening the traffic on the road became heavier, carts, gigs and carriages to and from the capital crowding the highway and requiring more attention given to driving. But Mr Carstairs made the task look simple, maintaining a witty flow of conversation as they went. She took her own part, feeling at times shy and self-conscious. More than once he took her hand to kiss or to hold in his lap, though always she drew it back when some other vehicle came into sight.

She thought him a little peculiar, truly, to want to touch her so constantly. She was not used to such physical contact with another. It made her feel tingly and unsettled, super sensitive to him. His thigh lay closer to her, brushing her skirts sometimes. She did not draw away, but she took note, and blushed, and wondered if he did it deliberately to stir her, and why.

It was a different world: the world of touch. Foreign to her. Not quite comfortable. But she would not let on. If he liked the feel of her then she would learn to like the feel of him too, beyond the initial startlement.

Once she took his hand and brought it to her own lips, experimentally, and he laughed and kissed her ear then gave her a seductive glance that – even half-teasing – sent a bolt of fire through her to centre between her thighs and make her squirm on her seat.

He talked about the planting they could see going on in the fields, and mentioned his own land where crops were also going in. She asked intelligent questions about his methods and was surprised when he knew only a little of the specifics of the topic.

He had a factor for such matters, he said, and she thought if she had land of her own she would know everything about its care and make the very most of it. But then those who had always known plenty could perhaps afford to be casual about what they possessed, and its care.

She had not, and she felt the lack keenly. She longed to accumulate security for herself and for Peter, beyond the funds he had taken that she still hoped to recover.

She asked about hunting – thinking it a typical pastime for a young man of means – and found him far more knowledgeable there, able to discourse at length on the subject of his horses, his dogs,
the type of ground he liked and the virtues of different parts of the countryside for different game. In another man she might have been quickly bored by the topic, but he told funny stories of his adventures, of spills and of things his companions had said or done, that made her laugh out loud.

He was not boastful, and was quick to tell an amusing tale that made him the butt of the joke as much as anyone else.

As night drew on he asked her if she wanted to stop and continue their journey the next day.

“Oh no!” she exclaimed, and then amended: “At least, if you are asking my preferences then I would prefer to start tomorrow in the city, for I think there is no time to be lost.”

“In that case I wish you will come and stay at my house, rather than some inn. With my sister away from home there is no need to be circumspect.”

“But the servants . . .”

“My staff can be trusted to be discreet; though we can certainly smuggle you upstairs without anyone knowing, if you prefer.”

She remembered being smuggled in another night, and blushed in the dim twilight. “And leave early in the morning,” she said in tacit agreement.

“I know you are good at that,” he said with a raised eyebrow, proving his thoughts had run in line with her own.

“Discretion seemed the better part of valour,” she acknowledged, then changed the subject. When it was almost too dark to see, he lit the carriage lamps. They provided scant illumination on the road, close to the ground as they were, but with the moonlight and a slower pace it was enough for the horses.

He raised the hood to reduce the wind and fetched blankets as well, from the same cubby where he had stored her portmanteau, wrapping one solicitously about her.

Oh, but it was odd to be taken care of so. She murmured her thanks, drew the blanket up close under her chin and snuggled into the corner, exhaustion creeping over her after the day’s many upsets and the long hours in the carriage.

When he put an arm around her and drew her in to his side, she started out of her doze. He shushed her and told her to go back to sleep. For long minutes, uncertain, she sat awkwardly stiff under his arm, but eventually she surrendered and let herself relax onto him, her head falling naturally into the curve of one shoulder.

He managed the reins one-handed with no visible discomfort, and he was deliciously warm in the chill of the evening. She burrowed in against him, yawned once, twice, fought to keep her eyes open and failed.

She roused briefly when they made the transfer from dirt road to cobbles, the horses’ hooves ringing out noisily on the stones. She blinked hazily out of the blanket that had been pulled up around her head like a hood, then sank back down through the layers of sleep.

An unknown length of time later she woke again as he pulled up in a good-sized stable yard. When he got down and reached out his hand for hers she realised they must be at his home, as she looked up at the back of the house and tried to match it with her recollections of the front. She did not know the
time but it must be very late, or extremely early in the morning, as the city was almost silent.

He brought her to stand in the shadow of the doorway, her bag at her feet and the blanket still
hooding her, before going to the stable and rousing a boy from the quarters above the stable. The lad came out yawning and rubbing his eyes but took the head of the horses willingly and began to unharness them. He was awake enough to catch the coin his master flicked to him and to grin and touch his cap.

Mr
Carstairs came to her and let her inside, keeping his body between her and the yard so the stable lad should not catch sight of her even in the dim of the inner hallway. Inside was a single candle burning on a hall stand.

“Were they expecting you?” she asked.

“These past three days, as I said. Though even if not there is always to be a light. I frequently change my plans, and prefer not to rouse the house falling over things in the dark. Now this way, and no talking, miss. Or some nosy someone will be sure to poke their head out. Shush.”

Obediently she trailed in his wake on silent feet, eerily recognising the hall though she had not realised she would remember it so clearly. He took her hand to lead her up the stairs and again she felt the echo of the earlier night.

She could feel her heart crowding high in her throat as she realised he must expect her to share his bed again. Stupid, but it had not occurred to her. And what reason could she possibly give to shy off? None, of course.

She began to tremble, but was not certain if it was from fear or excitement.

They reached the top of the stairs. He did not release her hand, instead drawing her onward, opening his bedroom door and entering with her still in tow. When he released her to step towards the candlestick on the mantel, she spoke sharply: “Please, don’t light them. Leave it dark.”

He turned towards her but she was outside the circle of candlelight now, and she was sure he could no longer see her. So she walked towards him. “I’d prefer not to be reminded of . . . to be reminded.”

He examined her face but she kept it calm and serene, wishing to give no hint of the emotions churning inside her. Finally he held out a hand to her and she placed her own in his without hesitation. He smiled at this. “Show me what you
do
want, then,” he said.

It took a great deal of her courage to pull him towards the bed, take his candlestick and put it on the bedside table, then turn back towards him and reach for his cravat. He watched her quietly but did nothing other than walk where she wanted. His chest rose and fell more swiftly under her fingertips as she began to unknot the
crisp, white cloth, but he stayed still.

She opened his greatcoat,
then under that the horn buttons on his coat of navy superfine. Beneath that was his lawn shirt half-covered by his waistcoat.

When she took a single step nearer him to make it easier to see the tiny buttons
at his throat, he dropped his head and inhaled just above her hair, and she remembered what he had said about the scent of her and trembled even more, drawing in a laboured breath. She wanted to do this, and yet at the same time could not quite believe she really was.

Still she unbuttoned him, one little mother-of-pearl circle at a time, down his chest to his waistcoat, unbuttoning that too, then on with the shirt to his navel, where it disappeared into his trousers.

She paused for a second, uncertain, but when he moved as if to take over she forestalled him by pulling the tail of his shirt out of his waistband and continuing down to the hem.

A line of his bare skin was exposed to her down the centre of his chest though he stood yet in all his clothes, cravat lying around his neck. She ran her index finger down the gap, from collarbone to waist, and he took a breath and tipped back his head, nostrils flaring. His hands clenching by his sides instantly drew her attention, but after a moment’s vigilance she realised it was a gesture of restraint, not of anger, and she relaxed.

She slid a hand from his chest to his shoulder, under the clothes, gathering the layers in one motion. He dipped his shoulder, letting her take them, shrugging off the other side as well so she had the whole weight. And it was a weight, the expensive, high-quality cloth dragging her arms down towards the floor. She sought and found a chair in the shadows of the room, walking in quick steps to place her burden there with a care for the creases she might create.

Turning back she paused to take him in, the powerful lines of him a study in contrast, light and shadows, planes, rolling hollows and swells.
A man who could control a pair of horses all the hours of the day and into the night with no apparent fatigue. A horseman, a hunter, a boxer – he had told her that too, while they drove – a man of action. Trousers low on lean hips, shoulders wide and big hands hanging loose by his sides.

The sheer mas
culinity of him made her afraid; the power and the potential of it; the potential for savagery. But he waited, quiescent, upon her. She could see the particular swell of his desire for her, outlined at the front of his trousers. Still he waited, let her take him in. Waited for her return.

And she came, slowly, but she came back, looking into his eyes the whole way, taking courage from his steady, warm gaze, measuring the fine, thrumming tension in him and finding no threat, only promise.

She knew from last time how gentle he could be. But back then she had been awash with terror, until that had been lost in the greater swell of sensation. Now she felt only the faint twinges of it, so faint she could take the lead, could pretend to be calm and self-assured. It amazed her she could know him so little, and trust him so much. She would not have credited it. Yet here she was.

There was a wonder and newness to it, as she pulled off his gloves, then her own, taking one of those broad, naked hands between her two much smaller ones and feeling the raised veins on it, the blunt square fingernails,
the pounding pulse at his wrist. Slowly he curled the fingers closed around one of her hands and raised it as he had done before, to his lips, but he tilted it at a different angle, baring her pale inner wrist and nipping her there, painlessly, before soothing the spot with his tongue.

Her mouth fell open in wonder at the intimacy of it, the warmth of him on her sensitive skin. He glided his lips over her palm then took her index finger in his mouth, cheeks hollowing as he sucked on it. She felt the sensuous slide of his to
ngue over the pad of her finger and quivered, caught in the spell of that wet, subtle touch.

He took her other hand and placed it palm down on his chest in a clear invitation, releasing it to wander at will. She flexed her hand to feel the curve at the edge of that great slab of pectoral muscle,
then glided a little sideways to sample the texture of his small, flat nipple. His breathing grew harsher, then stopped altogether for a long moment, his whole body stilled, when she stepped even closer and flicked that nipple with the tip of her tongue.

“God,” he sighed, before resuming his ministrations on her fingers, eyes falling closed and free arm snaking around her waist to pull her in closer. Without his hot gaze on her she felt freer to explore, stroking down the ripples of his abdominals to the indent of his navel, and the mysterious place where flesh became cloth as his trousers began.

She toyed briefly with the button there, before releasing it with a flick, repeating the action with its four companions. It took a delicate manoeuvre to one-handed free the trousers where they were caught between her skirt and his bulging response to her, and he groaned quietly as she managed the task, the rush of his breath hot on her wet finger.

His undergarments tied with a drawstring, which was difficult to unknot at an angle and with only one hand available. But she persevered and finally wiggled it free, sending the fine cambric to bunch with his trousers around the top of his boots.