Wicked, My Love (9 page)

“Just forget it,” he cried. “Maybe I'm not my own man. Maybe I should just read from a script. That would make everyone happy.” He spun on his heel and began to stalk away.

“No!” she cried, panicked. She grabbed his arm. “I'm sorry, so sorry. You know I never say the correct thing. You always read people well. You see into their hearts and know that they don't mean to upset you. You are so smart that way…in so many ways.”

He bowed his head, released a huff of breath, and rubbed his eyelids. For several long seconds, he remained silent, then he said quietly, “I'm sorry.” His hand slid down her arm and his fingers interlaced through hers. “Please forgive me. It's a lot—the election, Harding, Powers, the newspapers filled with articles criticizing me, my mother trying to marry me off. I usually control myself better.”

She instinctively moved to draw him into an embrace but stopped, feeling awkward and clumsy. For all the years she had spent trying to provoke and upset him, she had never learned how to comfort him. She didn't understand why people didn't just want to be alone when they were upset, but insisted on hugging and holding hands, like all those callers after her father's death.

“People will say anything,” she stammered, retracting her hand. The warmth of his touch lingered on her skin. “You have to be unemotional and look at the numbers. Did repealing the Corn Laws help people? Yes, thousands of starving Irish. Is Harding overextended? All the numbers point to it. Of course he's going to lie.” She laughed tentatively, trying to get Randall to join. “He has to build confidence in the love market. You know, those promising openings. But underneath the illusions are numbers.”

A smile tugged at his lips. An odd combination of relief and confusion swept through her. Since she could remember, she had tried to make him irate at her for weeks at time. Simmering hostility was the normal state of their relationship. Why did his anger suddenly affect her after all these years? Why was she desperate to make him happy again?

“Thank you for
helping
me.” He freed a strand of hair that was stuck in the hinge of her spectacles. “You're an intelligent woman with an extraordinary mind. Don't sell yourself short. Be proud of yourself and your book.”

Her cheeks burned. She didn't like how his kind words made her feel: nervous and fluttery-like.
He
didn't really mean what he said.
He
butters
up
everyone. You're not special, Isabella. Don't think that you are.

Still, trapped in his vivid gaze, she understood how women found him irresistible. Her sacred parts throbbed from his heat. If she were younger, prettier; used only two-syllable words; if her papa had been an influential Tory and her family had the tiniest toehold in Debrett's—all Randall's marital perquisites—she could fall madly in love with him. Then, out of nowhere, Judith's words echoed in her brain.
One
in
your
position—intelligent, financially independent, and educated—shouldn't have to sacrifice her freedom to some ape-ish, ignorant man to satisfy those
desires.

Her imagination lit up with images of Randall stripped to his bare skin. The muscles of his chest, belly, and arms, as well as that enigmatic bulge beneath his trousers, were all exposed and pressing against her. His lips—oh, she remembered the sweetness of those lips—trailed little kisses along her jaw to her ear as he whispered promises about filling her and soothing that maddening tingling, the pulsing, hungry ache. Her tongue turned heavy in her mouth as a low, deep groan escaped her throat.

“Isabella, are you well?”

“Yes!” she cried, pressing her hands to her flaming cheeks. “I just…just need some lotion. I'm throbbing…I mean, itching all over.” She snatched something knitted and stringy from her belongings. “Milton's toy? How did his toy get packed and yet I have no lotion?”

He continued, saying something about fetching her for dinner, but she had trouble hearing him for the loud vision of his male part rubbing barbarically against her, satisfying that wet, heavy, thick, pulsating, pesky need in her sacred feminine vessel. Then he finally, mercifully, left.

***

Randall discovered the floral motif had spilled into his chamber as well. But he paid no attention to the decor, as his mind still turned over his little outburst with Isabella. Had she really thought he was some power-hungry politician? And why did that surprise him? He never sought her good opinion. Yet his heart had flooded with peace when she assured him that he wasn't a beautiful face with little substance, floating by on his power to charm, and he could charm the angels from heaven if he desired. He could caress with his words, tantalize with his eyes, seduce anyone when on the parliamentary floor. But who was underneath the beautiful façade, the illusion he created? Not numbers, as Isabella insisted, but nothing. He was nothing.

He set his bag down, crossed to the pitcher, and poured water into the basin. He splashed some on his face, unbuttoned his shirt, and let the drops cool his skin. He was the man who had angered half his party when he'd sided with the embattled prime minister to vote down the Corn Laws as starving Irish poured into the city; to enact laws against child labor; to dare and question the most powerful railroad baron in London. He wanted to help people; he wanted to do the right thing, and yet he only managed to alienate himself.

Now he was panicking, terrified that his charming world was falling apart. He was ready to recant everything he'd said just to have the party welcome him back with open arms. Even now, he was racing across the countryside to find that damned Powers and shut him up before he could finish off Randall's career in the House once and for all. Did Randall have any substance? Any backbone?

He glanced in the mirror. Droplets of water fell from his hair. His eyes burned in their sockets, and little bluish crescents had formed around the lids. His lips were tight, his cheeks slightly sunken. He was not the smiling, congenial man he showed the world.

He might tell himself that he wanted to do the right things, but perhaps Isabella was right. Did he want power and adoration more? If this scandal hit, if the run on the bank occurred, Isabella stood to lose her home and money—the bare essentials of survival. Meanwhile, Randall would lose his reputation, his integrity, his parliamentary position, and his ambitions for power, which once included prime ministership. He dried his face.

Starving Irish children with swollen bellies and gaunt faces flooded the hospitals. What were his power-hungry ambitions in the face of such suffering? And if he tried to help them, he lost more
political ground.

He opened the curtains, lay down on his bed, set his pocket watch on the table beside him, and stared out the window. He tried to clear his mind as he watched the sun set on the train station, casting the horizon in a lush, jeweled orange and the heavens a purplish blue. But still the thought whirled in his mind:
Who
are
you underneath?

He wished he hadn't left Isabella. He wished she were still near him, distracting him with her odd ways. He glanced at the watch—six thirty. An hour before he was supposed to fetch her for dinner. He laid his arm across his eyes, all of his anxieties coming back to roost. It was going to be a long hour.

***

Fifty-three minutes were close enough to an entire hour, Randall decided. Dandied up as Mr. Randy, he crossed the corridor. He knocked on her door, but the second his knuckles struck the wood, the door swung open, as if it hadn't been shut properly. He heard Isabella call from the bedchamber, “Oh, thank you. I can't believe I forgot my lotion.”

After impregnating her that afternoon, he assumed that a new intimacy existed between them. He strode to where the bedchamber door was ajar. He expected to find her fiddling with the final details of her toilette, the kind that required a man's keen eye. He knew from Cecelia and other mistresses that those fine, last-minute fashion nuances could be the most torturous—
Do
these
earrings
make
my
face
appear
too
round? I think this new coiffure hides my cheekbones; don't you think I have nice cheekbones? Do these emeralds clash with the blue-green color of my dress?

He opened his mouth to say something about not having lotion, but no word left his lips. Isabella was reclined in a tin tub before a roaring, hissing fire. Her long, wet, black hair fell in shiny waves down the back of the tub, while she warmed her long legs by the grate. And her breasts—oh, those luscious, creamy creations—glistened in the water. Her nipples weren't the cute pink buttons that he had imagined, but rosy, succulent tips that caused his tongue to thicken. This was what had been underneath those frumpy clothes all these years?

“Oh God,” he whispered. His cock ached from getting so hard so fast. Her head jerked around. Without her spectacles, her enormous eyes were the color of water at night…shiny, inky pools that he could drown in.

“R-Randall?” she asked, suddenly tentative, nervous, crossing her arms over her breasts.

“Oh, don't do that,” he murmured.
Don't cover those beautiful things
. He approached, navigated by his cock, a compass pointing to her.

“Randall!” she screamed. She pushed up from the tub, struggling to stand and splashing most of the bathwater over the floor. “Get out!”

He heard her but didn't move. Time seemed to stop, the earth halting in its rotation as he stood, hypnotized by the drops of water dripping from her breasts, falling down to the graceful curve of her waist and thighs. He had a thirst that could only be quenched by licking the beads of water from her areolas, her belly button, from where they glistened on the dark curls near her sex, and perhaps pooled in that sweet place between her legs. If he could open her…

“I said get out,” she screamed. She pummeled him with her balled fists, beating him back into the parlor. “Leave me alone. How dare you! Do you think you can just waltz into my chamber?”

He couldn't react. All he could think about was the becoming flush of anger on her body, the way her eyes shined, and how badly he wanted to take her on the floor, feel her writhing in pleasure beneath him, her nails digging into his skin as she whimpered his name. He wanted to show her a little of his own economic theory—a hard, strong, sustained growth that never peaked too soon.

What
the
hell
are
you
thinking? You're a gentleman. Get out! Now!

Randall heard a scream that wasn't Isabella's and then a sharp crash of breaking glass. Isabella continued to beat his chest with her fists, calling him every wicked name she must know: dirty scoundrel, rogue, cur, blackguard, b-bad person. He chanced a quick peek over his shoulder to find a young maidservant had slipped into the room. Her eyes were large with shock, her mouth gaping open. At her feet were a broken bottle and lotion splattered across the floor. She fled.
Oh, damn.

“Hush, love,” he whispered to Isabella, and seized the balled hand coming for his face. “Shhh. I'm leaving. I'm sorry.” But when he tried to release her hand and step back, she held on.

She grew still, staring at him, her chest rising and falling with her breath. Her lips parted, her tongue resting on the edge of her teeth. She stepped closer, her eyes focusing and taking in his face. She let go of his hand, but he didn't dare move. She let her fingers trail down his face and whimpered—a sad, yearning, and lonely sound.

He could feel the debate raging inside of her. She wanted him, but she was scared. He knew he should walk away. Every moment he remained, he did more damage. But he leaned closer, letting his lips lightly brush hers. Then he pulled back and waited. What would she do? She closed her eyes and released a low
mmmm
. She pressed her mouth to his and remained still. He realized the poor stunning darling had probably never been properly kissed—and last night didn't count. He drew her closer. His cock pressed against her stomach, but there was nothing to be done; he desired her. Despite his urgency, he caressed her with his lips, calming her, coaxing her until she let him into her mouth. Slowly, he swirled his tongue around hers, tasting her, sinking into her softness.

Come
on, love, kiss me back.

Tentatively, nervously, she answered his beckon. He felt a change in her, a realization dawning. She pressed her mouth harder against his, her kiss turning hungry, greedy. The tiny, plaintive cry from deep in her throat broke him. He had the sensation of falling. In the back of his mind, he heard a small voice, possibly his conscience, warning
Good
God, man, this is Isabella.
But those years and years of bickering were transforming into something hot and urgent. All he knew was that he had to fuck her. He had to move inside her, pleasure her, have her call out his name until he had worn away the years of tension
between them.

His hand trailed across her shoulder, down her chest. Her breasts rose in anticipation, meeting his touch. He flicked his thumb over a tip, feeling her body shudder, her nails digging into his scalp. She released his mouth, sighing out a high whimper as she arched her back, pressing her lower belly against his rigid cock, her leg rising and twining around his. He began to rub his pelvis against her belly as his finger circled the hardened tip of her nipple. His cock burned, it was so taut. He reached for the button on his waistband. “I've got to have you. I want to take you here and now.”

Stop, Randall! It's Isabella. You can't marry her or take her as a mistress. All you'll do is hurt her. Don't jeopardize her future.