Chapter 18
Afraid to leave Clarissa in the house alone, Beth pleaded a headache and kept to her rooms. She even took her dinner there, sharing it with the girl.
She desperately tried to think of a place Clarissa could find safety, but the only possibility was the Delaneys.
Though they seemed so warm and welcoming, the acquaintance was too slight to boldly ask them to be her accomplices in an illegality.
If necessary she would do so, however, rather than meekly hand Clarissa back.
Beth lent the girl a nightgown and saw her tucked up in the bed. At least it was warm weather so the unaired sheets were not too cold. All they needed was for Clarissa to take sick.
Then, seeing no need to put off the matter, she prepared for bed herself and gave Redcliff the evening off.
Sitting curled up on the sofa in her boudoir, fretting uselessly hour after hour over her problem, she had completely forgotten about Lucien until he walked into the room carrying a decanter and two glasses.
Red wine, just like on their wedding night.
His blue eyes were bright, his beautiful mouth curled in a happy smile. “Dutch courage,” he said lightly, “though I’m not sure which of us will need it most.”
Beth could not hope to conceal her shock and alarm. Her principal thought was that Clarissa was in the very next room and might walk in at any moment.
Lucien’s expression dimmed. “You perhaps?” he said and poured her a glass. This time her hand did not shake very much, and she gratefully gulped the encouraging claret.
He studied her before he spoke. “I thought your note was unambiguous, my dear, but I’m beginning to wonder. Would you prefer that I leave?”
There was a great temptation to say yes, but Beth did not want him to leave and quailed to think what such an answer might do to their fragile relationship.
“Of course not,” she said, holding out a hand to him. “I … I just did not expect you so early. You have been out late these last few nights.”
He relaxed and smiled again as he came to sit beside her. “Am I to be under the cat’s paw? I might like it, I think. Truly, I thought you needed a break from my company.”
He seemed so honest. She wished she could believe him. “Of course I didn’t,” she said. “I’ve missed you.”
He didn’t move. There was no significant change in his expression and yet something altered. Something took her breath away. He gently took the empty glass from her hand. “Have you? You may be right, then, about eliminating our anxiety. I thought you’d taken me in dislike again.”
Beth felt her heart hammering in her chest, a warmth spreading through her body. He raised her hand and kissed it, his lips soft and warm against her fingers. She watched his lowered head breathlessly as he turned her hand and pressed a kiss into her sensitive palm.
“Oh.”
It was a meaningless little exhalation on her part. She had to breathe sooner or later. He looked up, and she had the impression fire danced in his eyes. His cheeks were beautifully touched with color.
He pulled her gently and she swayed into his arms. “I should have seduced you that morning, shouldn’t I have, my little radical?” he said softly.
Beth remembered. “Yes, I think you should.”
He buried his face in her curls and she felt his lips at her neck. Her hands sought him but found, unsatisfactorily, the fabric of his jacket.
“Lucien,” she said. “You have too many clothes on.”
He choked with helpless laughter against her shoulder and then pushed back slightly to look at her “Of course I have. It would have been a trifle brash, though to have come in my night robe, wouldn’t it?”
“Would it? You weren’t ashamed of your banjan before.”
“But then,” he said, “I was fairly sure I wouldn’t be your lover. Now, my wonderful angel-light, I’m fairly sure I will.”
There was the slightest question in the last phrase and, by way of answer, Beth raised a hand to touch his face. So that quotation hadn’t been an insult. “I am not quite sure I see the logic in that, my lord,” she said lightly, over the staccato of her heartbeats and the singing of her nerves.
He turned his head to kiss her palm again. “In my state, you expect logic, dear one?”
“Oh.” She understood what he meant. She seemed to be reduced to incoherence herself.
“I think,” he said, smiling, “I will see how many times I can make you say, ‘oh.’”
She expected to be kissed, but he traced her lips with a delicate finger, leaving them tingling, hungry.
Then he licked his finger and traced them again.
“Ohhh.”
He smiled as he slowly unbuttoned her nightgown and slipped his fingers to nestle between her breasts. She waited for his hand to move over a breast, rub a nipple as he had that evening; waited in shuddering expectation for that deep, stirring excitement, welcome now.
He leaned forward and sucked softly on her earlobe.
“Ohhhh.” It was a long-drawn-out moan.
Then she became aware that his hand had moved and was rubbing butterfly soft over her nipple through the silk of her nightgown.
A dizzy hunger surged in her, and she turned her head to meet him in a desperate kiss.
His arms around her, pressed to him, she wanted only to eliminate all their clothing and be skin to skin, and more.
When the kiss died and his hot lips trailed down her throat, Beth said, “Oh and oh and oh. Please will you take some clothes off?”
He laughed again, so hard he had to stop kissing her. “You’re adorable! What a terrible amount of time we’ve wasted.”
Running a wondering hand through his curls, she asked. “Why did you not seduce me that morning? I was more than half willing.”
He captured her hand. “I have never forced a woman,” he said softly. “You had so little choice in events that I feared I would have been forcing you then.” With a teasing smile he asked, “How willing are you now, my courageous one? Still more than half? Three-quarters? Four-fifths?”
Beth pretended to give the matter deep thought. “Ninety-nine one hundredths,” she said at last.
He drew her back into his arms. “I’ll have to work on that fragment of doubt, my enchanting schoolmistress….”
Like an icy shock, remembrance of Clarissa, so close, stiffened Beth’s muscles.
He frowned in perplexity. “Beth, there’s no need to hurry into this,” he said, drawing back. “I’m sorry if you feel I’ve been neglecting you, but I require no price for my presence.”
If he left her now, Beth thought, she’d tear the room apart. “Lucien,” she said, “stop being so noble, damn you!”
He burst out laughing. “Oh Beth, I do love you.”
That shocked her into a semblance of sobriety. “You do?”
He met her eyes calmly. “Yes, I really do. I think I fell in love with you at Hartwell. I’ve missed our time together these last few days.
I’ve missed your challenging way of looking at things and your wit.
You always catch my jokes first time, and often cap them.
Do you mind very much being loved by your enslaver, my darling houri? ”
Mind? She felt as if she could float away with happiness. “How could I mind? I’ve been trying to persuade myself for weeks that I don’t love you. And failing.”
As he took her in his arms again she murmured, “Do you think we can keep it from the duke, though?”
His lips were against hers as he said, “Why?”
“He’ll be so pleased with himself.”
He laughed even as his mouth came down on hers and the magic started again. With playful hands and velvet lips, he teased and tantalized her into delight but always, a barrier to ecstasy, was the knowledge of Clarissa.
Then Beth had an inspiration. “Lucien!”
“Yes, my darling,” he said against her breast.
“Lucien. I want you to make love to me in your bed.”
He looked up into her blushing face, his eyes bright with delight. “You are a box of wonders, my angel. What strange fancy do we have here, and where did you find the courage to demand it?”
Beth could only think that in his bedroom they would be four doors away from Clarissa. “Am I not a flaming radical, my dear baboon?”
He laughed and swept her up in his arms, twirling her round and round on the way to the door.
“What do you expect, I wonder? It’s a perfectly ordinary room, exactly like your own.
” He stopped with her high in his arms and lowered his head to gently torment one swollen nipple with his teeth.
Beth arched and gasped as an aching need filled her.
When he looked at her, she knew her eyes spoke for her, though she was beyond speech. She knew her eyes said, “I need you. Now.” His breathing became ragged and his eyes were strangely dark with passion.
They were at the door to her bedroom. He hesitated as he considered the situation.
“Do you know, delicious wanton, I will either have to put you down or ask you to manage the knob. I prefer the latter.” He bent slightly and twisted so she could reach it.
His lips took the opportunity to brush again across her breasts so that her fingers trembled as they tried to grasp the knob.
As she twisted to reach it, she felt him stiffen.
“What—”
He put her down so abruptly it came close to a drop.
Shocked, senses adrift, left leaning against the wall, Beth watched him walk over and pick up a man’s tricorne.
He turned with it in his hand and stared at her.
God knew what he saw in her face, but it was doubtless guilt. It bleached his fine skin.
“Lucien—”
“No.” It was quietly violent.
He walked a few paces, stiffly as if in pain, and picked a crumpled cravat from a chair. When he turned to face her, he had regained a kind of control, brittle and terrible to see. “Part of your new habit, perhaps?” he queried, his eyes like chips of blue glass.
“You know it isn’t.” She tried a smile, but fear was icing through her, surely without cause. She would have to tell him about Clarissa. He wouldn’t be pleased, but he wouldn’t be too angry. Despite reason, instinct was screaming, Danger!