She stretched her body against the length of his, curling her hips up to press against his thigh. "Don't tell me what I want," she whispered. In truth, she had no name for what she wanted. She only knew that she would turn into a block of ice if he left her now, if he did not kiss her and hold her, and drive the ghosts from her mind.
A cold wind whipped around the house, rattling a window downstairs. But it was safe here, with him. She dropped her head to his throat and, nuzzling the curve of his shoulder, breathed deep to take in the scent of him. It excited him. She could feel it in the tension of his arms, in the stirring hardness on her belly. She opened her mouth on his hot neck, pressed her teeth to his skin and sucked gently, then tasted him with her tongue.
His reaction was instant, turning her beneath him and gripping her waist. Now that she was here - on her back, on the bed, all of his power hanging over her - she felt the first hint of fear. That he could unleash all his strength, overwhelm her and hurt her, she had no doubt.
But she was tired, so very tired of being afraid. Tired of worrying over the things he might be, of what he might hide. He was not Henley. He was not. Oh, how glad she was that he was so very different. How astonishing, to feel this curiosity about his touch, about what it might be like.
She didn't give him time to consider his morals and propriety. She wanted all of him, not the polished veneer he gave to the world. She pulled on the ribbon that closed the neck of her night rail, reached down and grasped his hand, laying his fingers across her breast. Her body arched up, filling his palm, kindling flames all along the surface of her skin and burning away doubt and fear.
She watched his face, resisting the urge to close her eyes, wanting to see that it was him and no one else who touched her, who firmed his clasp on her breast and lowered his head to her bared body. It made her want to weep, the tenderness and hunger in his touch. Her hands gathered the fabric of his shirt, pulling it off and away until nothing between them.
It overwhelmed her, his bare skin next to hers, his mouth at her breast. She didn't know, had never imagined, that she could feel this way. Hot and lascivious. Wanton. His fingers were inside her, wringing a gasp from her as she parted her legs further, opening herself to him without hesitation. His legs shifted, his boots falling to the floor with a thud. The urgent intent in his movements surged around her and brought back unwanted memories that she fought off with the sight of him. His lips came to hers again, a fierce possession of her mouth while he worked to free himself of the breeches.
She helped him, furiously beating down the nervousness that fluttered in her stomach. She was not afraid. She would not let herself be afraid of him, of anything, ever again. He kicked free of the last of his clothing and lay fully on her, his weight pressing her into the bed. He let out an explosive breath and dropped his cheek to hers. She felt the restraint in him, how rigidly he held himself, but he must move now or her courage would be lost. She slid her hands down his back, to the place where soft flesh curved into the hard muscle of his thighs. She gripped him there, pulling him to her desperately, her whole body straining toward him.
His head came up again, looking into her eyes. She felt the slide of his belly on hers as he shifted and stopped, staring at her as though seeing her clearly for the first time. His eyes gained focus, looking to the very depth of her, and he began to move, her eyes fixed on him as he pushed forward, filling her slowly.
It did not hurt. He would never hurt her, she knew that, never with his body. She felt the catch in his breath against her lips, but she didn't want him to hold back. She wanted the power in him unleashed inside her. This once, she wanted him to lose himself and forget what was expected of him. And he knew – he always knew what she needed, even when she did not. He moved in answer to it, driving to the center of her, the wild pleasure growing with each second. Everything she touched or felt or saw, the very air she breathed, was him.
She watched his face change, heard the sounds she made, each exhalation of breath carrying a little panting moan as the sensations rippled through her. But she stubbornly refused to succumb to the urge to close her eyes, not wanting to know what images awaited her in the dark behind her eyelids. Let him lose himself. Let her see it. She felt him fight against it, but urged him on with her hands until he gasped against her mouth, his eyes squeezing shut as he drove deep once more, a harsh groan through his teeth, and then he stilled above her.
She lay panting beneath him, still throbbing. He did not open his eyes, but after a long, long moment, he dropped his head to the curve of her neck and relaxed in her arms. She lifted herself up again, tentatively, looking to ease the excited tension she still felt.
It was in that moment, her body still yearning and his face hidden from her, that she realized what she had done. The enormity of it engulfed her in a wave of dismay.
To pull him to her, to press against him like this. To become in truth what everyone, what he himself, believed her to be. Her head jerked in denial of it, staring blindly at the ceiling. At the same moment, she remembered what she had stubbornly fought against: the smell of wet grass in the forest, the bruising grip holding her down. It made her stomach lurch.
But still her body moved against his, wanting more.
The shock of it hit her like cold water, full in the face. She finally understood, after all this time. She understood the Odious Henley, what drove him, what had motivated him that day. A lust as pure as the one she felt now, with no regard for anything else.
She pushed him away, feeling the shaking in her gut, squirming out from under him until she reached the edge of the bed. She rolled off, landing on her knees and groping under the bed for the chamber pot, where she heaved up everything inside of her – all of the desire and disgust, vomited into the painted white porcelain.
Chapter 11
"You were ill? You lost your supper?"
"Marie-Anne, it isn't at all funny!"
They sat together in chairs pulled close to the fire, shoes off and feet curled under them.
"Of course it is! Oh-ho! You vomited, and it was" – Marie-Anne could not contain her laughter – "immediately after?"
"Yes," said Helen, catching her friend's hilarity and struggling to speak through a fit of giggles. "I– I fell off the bed and g-grabbed the ch-chamberpot!"
Marie-Anne fairly whooped with laughter.
"Oh, the poor man!" she said, wiping away tears. "What on earth did he do, Hélène? What did he say?"
"He was very solicitous, of course," said Helen, who now felt herself blushing even as she continued giggling at the memory. "And then he said he thought himself experienced, but that he'd certainly never experienced that!"
This proved entirely too much for Marie-Anne, who slipped to the floor, clutching her sides. "Hah! Mon dieu, help me off the floor. No, don't – I'll only fall off again if this gets any better. He never experienced such a thing! I would hope not. It was very...very original of you, Hélène!"
"You must stop, my sides hurt! I wanted to talk to you seriously, and now you have me laughing like a lunatic. Oh God," she said, mortification returning, "How very original indeed."
"But then what? What happened next?"
"He wrapped a blanket around me, and tucked me in the bed like I was a child. It was better than I deserved, I'm sure. And when I woke this morning, he was gone."
"But he stayed by you through the night," said Marie-Anne, who apparently thought this noteworthy.
Helen lowered herself to the hearth rug to sit next to her friend. "And he left without a word. I fear I may have driven him off for good."
Marie-Anne snorted at this. "You will have to work much harder to achieve that. But tell me, mon amie," she looked closely at Helen. "Why do you blush? What else happened?"
"It's just that I was the one – I mean, it was I who initiated everything. I didn't mean to. I just wanted... And you know how very proper he is."
"You think he's more disgusted by you wanting him? For God's sake, Hél�
�ne, don't hide your face, you wanted to talk of this. And I know that you didn't repel him by desiring him."
"How can you be so sure?"
Marie-Anne shrugged as though it were the most obvious thing. "He is male."
"I defer to your wisdom, Marie-Anne. But I must have driven him off with something. I suppose I must seem terribly difficult – hiding everything, then shouting at him, then telling him the truth, and then–"
"And then making love to him and vomiting! It's priceless!"
"Stop!" But she could not help joining in Marie-Anne's renewed laughter. "Oh good Lord, I am absurd. It's all absurd, isn't it?"
Marie-Anne wiggled closer, an impish grin on her face as she slanted a knowing look at Helen. "But did you not like it? You must have, now you turn almost purple!"
"Don't tease, Marie-Anne. It was... He was lovely."
"Yes, those broad shoulders of his," said Marie-Anne appreciatively, almost dreamy. "And he has marvelous big hands."
"Wicked woman," admonished Helen, laughing at little. "I can hardly say what it was like, except that it was… what you have previously given me to understand it might be like." She shrugged, suddenly shy about putting words to it.
"Patient and tender?" Marie-Anne asked gently, putting a hand over hers. Helen nodded. "And exciting and delicious?" Another nod and yet more fierce blushing, which elicited a warm smile of satisfaction from Marie-Anne. "I knew I was not mistaken in him. And now you know, ma chère, and your body knows. This is good, I think."
Helen could not be quite as categorical as that. "But now he's gone and I may never see him again. I don't know what comes next."
Marie-Anne waited, her brow furrowed in thought, and then simply asked, "What do you want to happen?"
She looked into the fire and pulled her knees up to her chin, wrapping her arms around her legs and considering all the possible outcomes.
"I don't... I honestly don't know."
He rode through the mud until he reached the stream that marked the midway point between his home and Helen's. It was more than a stream now, flooding over the sides and swollen to twice its normal width, the waters roiling around fallen branches. It would be difficult to cross.
It stopped him. Why go home anyway? He could just as well curse Alex Dehaven, Earl of Whitemarsh and bloody son of a bitch right here on a muddy bank in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Where the bastard had banished his perfectly coherent sister for the horrific crime of objecting to a marriage with a murderous blackguard. Where the admirable Lord Whitemarsh sent the ever-willing, never-indiscreet, always noncommittal, base animal who had bedded a woman in despair. A woman who had obviously not been herself. A woman who sighed most sweetly, and at all the right moments. Who had told him not to assume he knew what she wanted.
What she wanted. He couldn't guess at that. He hoped she wanted him to find her brother, or Henley, and beat both of them to a bloody pulp. He could do it quite easily in this mood, ride straight to London and find her precious brother and horsewhip him for being such a monster. Henley may have ruined her, but it was her brother who had assured her downfall.
Stephen had known it, had been resenting the fact for months. The injustice was nothing to the utter cruelty of it – to abandon Helen Dehaven entirely only because of an ugly rumor. When rumors were nothing, he realized now, to the truth of her. That her brother professed to have been so close to her, and her only protection in the world... It was heartless. A more direct wound than the one Henley had inflicted on her.
Only seventeen years old. She had only been seventeen, blithe enough to give herself to the man she loved and had planned to wed, but strong enough to recognize her mistake. She had stood up to Society, to her brother, and to Henley himself – and refused to go through with it, even knowing the ruin that awaited her. It was really rather awe-inspiring.
But the honorable Lord Whitemarsh had not seen that, had chosen not to believe her and left her to her own devices. Stephen had thought it went against good sense, not to mention all that was proper, to stand by her and aid her these past weeks. He had told himself he was still looking for the truth, was looking for a way to do what her brother had not. A gently bred noblewoman should not have to live so, he'd rationalized countless times. He had hoped to fill the void left by her brother, to step in like a knight in shining armor and quietly, privately, do the decent and humane thing by helping her. He had agreed to do so, in exchange for the truth.
The truth. There was little comfort in it. How long ago had he learned not to ask for it, if he did not like it when it finally came? He had hated the first truth she had given him, that she'd loved Henley. He'd been blind, bending her words to his own experience, stupidly likening her to Clara. Clara, who loved him and left him for no other reason than that she'd wanted a duke. And Helen, who'd loved Henley and left him for being a murderer. They were nothing alike. Nothing at all.
He gripped the riding crop and slashed viciously across the branches of the nearest tree over and over again, thinking of the other truth she had given him. Henley. How far to the coast? How far would he have to ride until he reached the water, so that he could swim across the Irish Sea and mete out some sort of revenge? He felt like an animal, a savage in the jungle, howling for blood.
It was Helen who did that to him, brought out the primitive beast that he'd never known lived inside him. She wept and trembled, and he became a faithful hound. She told him the truth, and he dreamt of bloody vengeance against anyone who dared to hurt her. She kissed him, and he became a rutting beast. No matter that she'd wanted it, that she'd pulled him to her, that he'd given her a thousand chances to stop him. No matter that he thought he might live a thousand years and never forget the way her eyes turned dark and deep, capturing him, drowning him, urging the animal in him to be unleashed.
It was outside his experience. He had known love – thought he had known it, anyway, with Clara. But he had never known a potent lust like this. Already he wanted her again, to take the path back and find her in her warm bed. He stared at the ground, feeling drunk, imagining her there waiting for him. There was nothing civilized at all in what he wanted, what he had always wanted with her. She would regret it, of course, all of it: telling him the truth, when it was evident that she did not ever want to think of it; reaching out to him for comfort, only to be used by him as all men wanted to use a woman of her reputation. He vacillated between the conviction that it was what she'd wanted, and the fear that she would never want it again.
That should be obvious enough, he thought sourly. Not five seconds after, she'd retched up her dinner. Better evidence of instant regret, he'd never seen. Methodically, he stripped the twigs from the nearest branch, cursing himself for taking what she'd offered in her distress. He was a gentleman, he reasoned, as little as he'd acted like it last night. Or he was supposed to be, anyway. Hadn't he spent his whole life proving it, putting himself above all those shameless others? He'd been quite successful at leading a spotless life. Until now. Until Helen Dehaven had burst into his life and shown him what honor really meant.
He wanted her, but it was nothing next to what he wanted for her. The hunger for her body was mixed in with the desperate need to hear her laughter once more, to be the one who made her happy, to shield her, to protect her. He would not disappoint her as Henley had. He would not abandon her, never, as her lout of a brother had done.
For the whole of his miserable life he had avoided clinging to anything – to any person, any idea, any belief. But now he believed in Helen. Believed that she deserved the image of shining perfection he'd managed to make himself, the security and comfort that image afforded. No more would he hedge his bets, remain safe by refusing to define his convictions. Never had he come down strongly on the side of anything. It was time for that to end. It had been ending for months, from when he had begun wanting her.
He turned his horse south, a necessary detour in the path that led forever back to her, more sure of his course than ever he ha
d been.
"You are mad."
She hadn't meant to say it, but it rolled out of her mouth. It was the only explanation. He must be mad. Or his brain was addled or he was ill. Upright and proper Stephen Hampton, Earl of Summerdale, the very symbol of all that was untarnished and virtuous, proposing such a thing. To even let it be known that he willingly socialized with her on any level would drag him down. At least somewhat. It was not in keeping with his reputation. People would find a welcome reason to mock him at last.
She had thought about it for hours, laying in the sheets that still smelled of him, and of them together, thinking she would never be able to sleep. She had slept, though – a dreamless sleep that had held her in its grip until he'd come knocking at her door again, bringing the same breathlessness and scattered wits as he always did. She was utterly unprepared for his mere presence, much less what he had come to say.
But this of all things, she had never imagined. She could not imagine it even now. Her face was numb, all the sensation drained out of her.
His grin – that horrible, wonderful smile – spread across his face as he watched her confusion. "Not mad. Or perhaps a little, but only in the best way. The most sane way."
She felt completely dumbfounded. Mad but sane, he said, while he wore that smile. Of course it must be a joke, and she found herself angry, offended that he would amuse himself at her expense when she was turned every which way.
"You mock me," she said stiffly, taking comfort in being able to at least show offense. Anything other than this swaying softness that had lodged in her hips at the very sight of him.
The smile immediately disappeared. His expression was serious, growing more so by the second.
"I would not mock you, Helen. Not now or ever. And never about this."
A Fallen Lady Page 17
