Chapter Eight
LUCY HAD HAD every intention of greeting the masseur coolly and politely, but at the last moment shyness held her completely paralyzed.
She heard his soft tread advancing across the thick carpet toward her bed and heard also the disapproving swish of Sheena’s skirts as she escorted him.
Her maid had been with her ever since she had left the schoolroom.
She was extraordinarily protective as well as very conservative.
Sheena had thought that Lady Kenton’s suggestion of a masseur had been both outrageous and scandalous.
Now, when it was too late, Lucy was inclined to agree with her.
Lying on the velvet chaise longue, aware of the cool air caressing her bare shoulders and back and certain that the man was watching her, Lucy felt horribly exposed.
Lady Kenton had said that Anton was a professional and, further, that he was not interested in women, but even so this felt awkward and embarrassing.
In two seconds she would grab her dressing robe, sit up and dismiss the masseur curtly with no explanation given. Two seconds, one...
He touched her. His hands were warm, not cold as she had imagined.
They swept in a long glide from her neck, over her shoulders and down across her shoulder blades.
She could smell lavender from the oil that Sheena had prepared earlier, but on his skin, or on hers, it had warmed and was scented of other herbs, as well, scents that were sweet and heady.
Lucy felt a startled sense of well-being.
She began to relax. His hands swept over her again, down her spine to span out across her lower back.
Her tight muscles started to ease as he built up a rhythm, stroking over the line of her neck and spine, then spreading out over her ribs and back, down and up again, forward and back as soothing as the tide until she started to lose track of time and lay there conscious of nothing but sensation.
“That feels very good.” Lucy kept her eyes closed as his hands moved over her.
She was drifting now, her aches dissolving delightfully into pleasure.
Her voice sounded a little blurred even to her own ears.
She jumped when Sheena shifted sharply, close by.
The maid must have heard some note of abandonment in her voice, for she said:
“It’s medicinal, madam. Remember?” Then, turning to the masseur: “It’s my lady’s shoulder that troubles her, the left one, from all the writing.”
“And my back,” Lucy murmured. “It aches.”
The masseur changed position and now his fingers were kneading Lucy’s shoulder harder and the sensation hung between pleasure and pain and for a moment she was almost tempted to stop him.
Yet the persistent throb that had plagued her was already softening, melting beneath his clever hands.
She gave a sigh of relief and heard his low laugh.
“Better?” The word was no more than a deep rumble.
“Oh yes. Thank you.”
She heard Sheena mutter something disapproving and did not care.
The massage continued, alternating between the deep kneading of her shoulders that she moved to meet now with keen pleasure, and a gentler, softer sweep down the length of her back to the waist. His hands spanned out, sliding up, brushing the side of her breasts.
It could have been accidental; or it might not have been.
Lucy lay still, breathing suspended. He did it again.
This time Lucy felt her body grasp greedily after the sensation, and when it happened again she felt a sweet melting warmth swamp her entire body and it twitched with recognition and desire.
She was depraved. This was supposed to be a purely therapeutic process.
Shockingly she realized that she wanted to pull the covers away entirely and to experience the masseur’s touch over her whole body.
His hands stroked up her sides again and she almost moaned.
Her nipples had hardened against the velvet of the chaise longue.
It felt exquisitely arousing to rub against the rough material.
In fact, her body seemed to be coming alight now in a curious way she had never experienced before.
Her skin felt as though every inch was alive.
It was acutely sensitive. She had always lived in her mind before with thoughts and ideas jostling for space.
She had never really been aware of her physical body apart from those occasions when she had hurt herself: a fall from a horse or this pain in her shoulder.
Now, though, her head was full of how she felt, not of what she thought.
All she was aware of was the way in which his touch rippled over her and how her body rose to his hands, begging for more.
Sheena tweaked the covers higher. Lucy, suddenly aware that she had been wriggling beneath the masseur’s hands in a most abandoned manner, tried to school her body into stillness.
It was too late. She could not dismiss the sensations.
They were pent up tight within her, waiting to burst out in a shower of pleasure.
There was a rap at the door. The masseur’s hands checked into stillness for a moment before he resumed the slow sweep and stroke.
The loss of his touch more than the sound pulled Lucy from the cocoon of pleasure.
She opened her eyes. Sheena had gone to the door.
She appeared to be arguing with someone; her head was shaking vigorously.
Then she gestured the newcomer to step into the room and came hurrying back to the chaise.
“Madam.” Her tone cut straight through Lucy’s languor like a cascade of cold water. “There is a gentleman here who says your godmother has sent him. He claims to be the masseur. In which case—” Sheena turned and pointed. “Who is this?”
Lucy sat up, grabbing the blanket and holding it up to her chest, and looked up straight into Robert Methven’s eyes.
For a moment she could not believe that he was there. It was impossible; impossible that he was the man who had been touching her so intimately only a second before. Yet since there was no one else in the room, it had to be him.
He picked up the small towel that Sheena had put on the side and wiped his hands on it. He did not look remotely surprised or indeed disturbed to have been caught masquerading as a masseur.
“What the devil are you doing?” Lucy said. Her voice came out as an outraged squeak. She felt at a very distinct disadvantage holding the blanket up to cover her nakedness. Again she was very aware of her body and this time not in a pleasurable way.
“Your maid mistook me,” Methven said.
“I had worked that out for myself,” Lucy snapped. “The mystery is why you did not correct her.”
He smiled wickedly. “I’m not sure that it is much of a mystery, at least not to a gentleman.” His gaze swept her from head to foot, making his meaning explicitly clear. She felt more heat build inside her, sliding over her skin.
“I was helping ease the pain in your shoulder and back,” he added. “I flatter myself that I was doing rather well. I have a little experience in such matters, having been taught the art of massage on my travels—”
Lucy cut him off with an exasperated chop of the hand and he fell obligingly silent, although his blue eyes still danced with amusement.
“Send Lady Kenton’s masseur away, please, Sheena,” Lucy said.
Her head was starting to ache. She wanted to press her fingers to her temples to ease it, but that would involve dropping the blanket.
She turned back to Methven. “You, sir... You will leave too. Such outrageous behavior—” She stopped when she realized that her voice was shaking.
“You’re upset,” Robert Methven said.
“I am not upset,” Lucy snapped. “I am angry.”
She was lying. She was upset, disturbed, shocked, any number of emotions.
What troubled her most was the memory of his hands on her and the way her body had sung beneath his touch.
Perhaps—no, most definitely—no one should feel such a sense of arousal during a massage.
It was medicinal. Everyone had told her so, but she had forgotten and instead had behaved in the most abandoned manner.
Even now her nerves still hummed with awareness, her body still ached with thwarted need and she seemed powerless to dismiss those feelings.
She waited for Methven to apologize for his appalling behavior. He did not.
She frowned at him.
“What are you waiting for?” she said. “I asked you to leave. If you please.”
She would never, ever be able to face him again. The kiss in the library at Brodrie had been bad enough, inexplicable, out of character. This was something else entirely.
He walked over to the window. Strolled. It infuriated her to see it. He was completely in control, while she was sitting there feeling absurdly embarrassed. It was quite wrong that their roles should be so reversed when he had committed such a shocking social solecism. He turned back to face her.
“I would like to oblige you,” he murmured, “but I think we should discuss the damage to your reputation that this incident has caused.”
“You did not think of the damage to my reputation when you decided to impersonate my godmother’s masseur,” Lucy said.
There was a curious little silence.
“In point of fact,” Methven said, very gently, “I did. Compromising your reputation was exactly what I was thinking about. Fate presented me with an opportunity and I—” He gave a slight shrug. “I took it.”
Oh. Oh. Lucy felt her heart jolt with shock as though she had missed a step in the dark.
He had intended to compromise her. He had done it on purpose.
A cold feeling of dread crept into Lucy’s chest, smothering her breath. She felt shocked, panicked and suddenly desperately afraid.
“I don’t understand,” she said slowly.
“I think you do,” Methven said. She met his eyes and they were so hard and ruthless that she felt a second punch of shock. The panicked sensation in her chest intensified.