CHAPTER EIGHT #3
A knock at the door brought the butler, bearing a tray which he set down on the desk.
Pouring a measure of golden liquid from a decanter into two glasses, he laid them on a small silver salver which he brought over to proffer to Lucy.
She took one of the glasses and sipped cautiously.
The liquid stung sharply on her tongue, burning as it slipped down her throat.
Stefan took his glass. “Thank you, Hawkesbury.”
The butler bowed and quietly withdrew. Stefan raised his glass to his lips and drank.
Feeling fortified, he looked again at Lucy.
“I will pay you a salary, of course,” he said, and smiled at her look of surprise.
“Lucy, I do appreciate your wish for independence. It is a point of honour with you not to be beholden, is it not? To me, or anyone.”
At last he was rewarded as her eyes lit and a perfectly spontaneous smile curved her mouth. The warmth which spread in his chest owed little to the brandy.
“I cannot sufficiently thank you,” she said, and he thought there was a tremor in her voice. “I had not the remotest guess you would think of something so much in tune with my feelings.”
“Do you think I have not learned to know you, Lucy?”
His tone was soft, and lulling to Lucy’s senses. She felt cradled and comforted, despite the few feet of distance standing between them. At the back of her mind she knew this was dangerous, but the change was so welcome she pushed it away. “I had not supposed it,” she said.
“Evidently.”
She sipped again at the golden liquid, feeling its sting less this time. A sensation of intimacy began to overtake her. Caution fled away.
“What else had you in mind? You spoke of more than one projected solution.”
Stefan’s lip curled in the old ironic way. “Best to keep my own counsel on those, I think.”
Lucy giggled. “Why, would I dislike them?”
“Let us say I have more regard for my skin than to try you with them.”
She opened her eyes at him. “You are piquing my curiosity.”
He moved and Lucy found herself looking up directly into his face.
“Then I fear I must keep you guessing,” he said softly. “Having pleased you once, it is scarcely in my interests to provoke a less welcome response.”
He put his glass to his lips again, and Lucy watched the remainder of the liquid disappear into his throat.
Recklessly, she followed his action, tipping what was left in her glass into her mouth.
It swept like fire down her throat and she almost choked.
Coughing, she staggered, the empty glass wavering in her fingers.
Stefan seized the glass and caught her before she could fall, supporting her while she recovered her breath. “What in the world did you think you were doing?”
“Only what you did,” she gasped out, her voice a little rough.
“You little fool! I am accustomed to it.”
She was holding on to his arm, but she let go then, and Stefan had to catch her about the shoulders again. “It is not the first time I have had brandy, I’ll have you know.”
“But I’ll wager it’s the first time you’ve knocked it back in one go.”
Lucy chuckled. “True. And it may well be the last.”
“I should hope so.”
She gazed at him owlishly. “Are you becoming autocratic with me again, my lord?”
Stefan grinned. “I should not dare, Miss Graydene.”
“So I should hope,” she retorted, and hiccupped.
Stefan drew her towards the desk so he might set down both glasses. “That’s better.” He turned to her, and found her leaning back in the circle of his arm, her eyes gazing up at him, in their depths a dark burning that spoke straight to his soul.
“Oh, Lucy,” he uttered on a groan, and lowered his mouth to hers.
The touch against her lips was feather light, but liquid flame swept down Lucy’s body. His mouth moved on hers, the pressure gentle and shifting, sending a warm breeze snaking after the initial flame.
The next she knew, she was caught up in an embrace so violent the breath felt as if it were knocked from her chest. Her lips were seized, tightly pressed against his, and all down her body she could feel the hardness of muscle.
Into her mind seared remembrance of the feel of Stefan’s thigh against her own when she was tightly closed with him in the curricle. And with it, a pulse ten times the power she had experienced before thudded in her secret well.
The sensations lasted but a moment, for Stefan released her abruptly, pulling back with his hands at her shoulders, and staring into her face with shock in his eyes. Lucy stared back, her mind cloudy with a need she barely understood.
“Oh, my God, what have I done?” His voice was guttural, his eyes seemingly on fire.
Lucy could not speak. Her breath came short and fast through parted lips and the only thing in her head was the ardent prayer he would not let her go.
“God help me,” he ground out, and then his lips found hers again.
The kiss began with the selfsame shifting pressure, but stronger, persuasive, melting Lucy’s bones. Then she gasped as the tip of Stefan’s tongue slipped lightly across her lower lip. Fire streaked through her and she opened her lips to his.
Like velvet, the tongue probed gently, seeking for hers. Each little touch flicked like a leaping flame within her, and the deep well pulsed more strongly. Lucy could taste the brandy again, and as of instinct she answered with her own soft touch, matching her tongue to his.
She heard Stefan’s indrawn breath, and his hands at her back slid down, drawing her close so that heat almost overcame her. She moaned softly, powerless as her legs turned to jelly.
Stefan felt her sag, and the sudden weight brought him faintly back to consciousness.
The enormity of what he was doing filtered into his mind until it was too insistent to be ignored.
Groaning, he tugged himself out of the kiss, and opened his eyes to see Lucy flushed and languorous, her lips swollen, her eyes cloudy.
“Oh, dear God,” he uttered, holding her as she lay half-swooning against him. “Lucy, we must stop!”
She did not hear him, or she was too lost to pay him heed.
Stefan could feel the heat of her limbs, and his response made him desperate.
He looked round for succour. He must put her from him before things went far beyond what might be mended.
The nearest chair was his own on the other side of the desk.
He looked again at Lucy. She was incapable of walking.
If he let her go, she would slide to the carpet.
Stefan slipped his arm under her knees and lifted her bodily into his arms. Her head fell against his chest, and one arm snaked up around his neck.
She was only semi-conscious, and he wondered at it but a brief moment.
The brandy! It must have kicked in as he was kissing her.
No wonder she had so readily abandoned herself to his assault.
He carried her around the desk and set her in the chair. She sank down, sliding a little until her head was resting against the chair back. Her eyes rolled and closed.
Stefan looked down at her with dismay tinged with longing.
He ought to carry her to her bed. But he could not trust himself so far.
There was no further purchase in denial.
He had desired her from the first. She had unsettled him almost from the moment he set eyes on her.
But Lucy was taboo. He remembered the moment in the night hours in the Half Moon, when Lucy’s fear had surfaced that she might resemble her wanton mother.
But Stefan was no rake, and he liked Lucy too much to treat her with such contempt.
He must thank his stars she had approved his plan for her relief. The sooner she was removed from here the better. She was temptation, and he could not give in to that.
Once more he moved to the bell-pull. He would have to send for Dion. He devoutly trusted she would accept his tale of Lucy having suddenly been taken ill.
Lucy woke to a headache and hazy memories that made her sit bolt upright in bed.
The movement caused hot pokers to jump into her skull and she clutched at her head.
It was a moment or two before she was again able to think coherently.
But her thoughts were so appalling Lucy almost preferred the pokers.
Could she truly have been kissed in a fashion as ruthless as it was devastating? Her body juddered with horror, and an echo of the sensations she remembered. Lucy’s hands went to her abdomen, pressing down as if to still the fateful risings in an unmentionable area.
There had been an argument, had there not?
Then how was it possible she had allowed Stefan to assault her lips in so scandalous a fashion?
She must have dreamed it. Which argued so strongly in her mind as the likeliest possibility that Lucy was inclined to believe it.
How else could she account for the images and the feelings they prompted?
Her affection for Stefan was reason enough for betrayal of her senses in sleep.
It was unthinkable he should so far forget himself as to kiss her like that.
Nonetheless, she was relieved, after she had washed and dressed, moving gingerly for the pounding at her temples, to discover only Dion sitting at the oval table in the breakfast parlour.
“Stefan has gone out riding,” said his sister by way of greeting, but Dion’s intelligent gaze widened as she looked Lucy over. “Gracious, you look perfectly wan! What in the world is the matter?”
“I have the headache,” Lucy told her, looking with disfavour upon the dish of ham from which she had removed the cover. “I can’t eat that.”
“Not if you have the headache.” Dion reached for the coffee pot. “Sit down and I will find you something light.”
She poured coffee into a cup and handed it to Lucy as she sank into a chair with her back to the windows, even the weak winter sun proving painful to her eyes.
Presently a small plate appeared in Lucy’s place, with two rolls neatly arranged together with a pat of butter. “There is honey, if you wish for it.”
Lucy accepted the honey pot, but refreshed herself first from the welcome coffee.
She felt altogether conscious, as if the imprint of her harlot dreamings could be showing on her forehead.
She was permitted to eat and drink in silence for a few moments.
But it was not long before she became aware of Dion’s curious gaze. She looked round. “What is it?”
Dion twinkled. “I am not entirely surprised you have the headache after last night.”
Lucy’s pulse skipped a beat. “What do you mean?”
“Stefan sent for me to his study. He said you had been taken ill suddenly. I must say, it took the two of us to persuade you to get up and walk to your bed. You leaned on Stefan all the way.”
Appalled, Lucy could only gaze at her.
Dion giggled. “It is of no use to look like that.”
“I don’t know how I look,” returned Lucy snappily.
“No, and you don’t want to know how you looked last night.”
Worse and worse. “I have no recollection of being ill.”
Dion’s eyes danced. “I dare say you don’t. One does not, I understand, after carousals of that nature.”
Appalled, Lucy grabbed her hand. “Carousals? What in the world are you talking of?”
Dion burst into laughter, tugging her hand free. “You should see your face! I beg your pardon for teasing you, dear Lucy, but I could not resist.”
A half-sigh escaped Lucy. But she was not yet satisfied. “Pray tell me just what happened.”
“Well, I can’t because I don’t know,” said Dion candidly, her mirth subsiding. “Stefan would have it you had fallen ill. But I saw two glasses alongside a decanter on his desk, and — do not mind me saying this, for you did ask — I could smell the alcohol on your breath.”
Lucy looked quickly away, putting a hand to her head.
Dear Lord, was it not then a dream? Or had she merely drunk more than she was used to?
Which might give rise to the sort of tangled amorous dreamings she recalled.
Papa had warned often of the dangers of drinking to excess, so many of his parishioners being guilty of that fault.
“Don’t look so downcast,” begged Dion. “I am sure you are not the first woman to have fallen victim in such a way. But what I wish you will explain to me is why you and Stefan were drinking at all. Had you something to celebrate?”
Highly unlikely. Lucy tried to think back to the events of last night and found her memories too foggy to recover more than snatches. Another of the consequences Papa had outlined — loss of memory.
“I have little recollection of any of it,” Lucy uttered fretfully. “I think I was upset.”
“You were,” Dion told her flatly. “By our discussions at dinner. Stefan went after you when you excused yourself. But he won’t tell me what happened after that.”
“And I cannot,” Lucy said hastily, “so it is of no use to plague me.”
Dion eyed her for a moment in silence, a mulish look in her face. Thankfully, she opted to let it lie, instead reminding Lucy to eat her rolls, now sliced and larded with butter and honey, and took trouble to refill her cup from the silver coffee pot.
Lucy would have liked to enquire more closely into the discussion at dinner that had evidently sent her out of the room in a state of distress, but she dared not bring it up for fear of Dion’s demanding tit for tat and enquiring more particularly into her dealings with Stefan.
Lucy’s headache had receded a little, but she felt so little her usual self she could not trust herself not to blurt out her fears about those torturous dreams — if dreams they were.
A heavy tread in the room beyond drew Dion’s attention. “Ah, this may be Stefan himself, come in from riding. Now we shall see.”
But the person who entered after the opening of the door proved far other.
“Paulina!”