“I miscarried,” she confessed. “Shortly after marrying John and you had gone to America by then, already embarking on your great political career.”
“I would have returned.” His face took on a savage quality that almost frightened her with its intensity. “Damn it, if I had only remained, if I had demanded you listen to me instead of being so wrong-headed and foolish and full of my own pride. Maybe you wouldn’t have lost the babe.”
“Thornton, no.”
“To hell with Thornton. We are Cleo and Alex, nothing more. And we had a child together.” He ran his hands down over her flat bodice as if he could feel the slight mound that had once been there. “Cleo, we had a child.”
“I know.” Tears gathered in her eyes, crystallized on her lashes. “Alex, I’m sorry.” A horrible, embarrassing sob emerged from her.
He crushed her against him, burying his face in her neck. She could hear the harshness of his breathing, could feel the small heaves of his powerful chest against her own and knew that he too wept for their child. It was the first time in seven years she had truly been free to mourn the loss.
“I’m sorry, Cleo,” he breathed. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you when you and the babe needed me.”
She held onto him as tightly as she could. Their hearts beat against one another, hard hammers she felt into her core. She breathed deeply of his familiar, beloved scent, taking solace in his presence. In his arms, she had never felt more complete or more fully at home. He was her home and she knew it now with devastating certainty. Though they may fall apart once more, go separate ways by the week’s end, become strangers once again, he would always be the one who understood her, the one who knew her like no one else could or would again. There would be no other for her. There was only Alex. Her Alex, the handsome, charming young man who had danced with a bumbling country girl and found something in her to love. Something worth cherishing.
“I’m sorry I did not trust in you,” she told him, pressing a kiss to his neck, to his ear, to his hairline. “My heart is filled with regrets.”
“Let me erase them,” he whispered, his mouth finding hers.
Chapter Eleven
“Alex,” she whispered against his mouth, clutching at his broad shoulders. She experienced the frightening desire to press herself against him, become a part of him. Her tentative hold on her resistance broke. She kissed him back, raking her tongue against his.
“My love.” His hands slid from her waist to her breasts, cupping them possessively through her bodice and the stiffness of her corset.
Cleo moaned, arching her back and falling against the ceiling-to-floor bookshelves. A musty tome fluttered to the floor but they paid it no heed, caught up in one another. His scent, spicy and delicious, filled her senses. She shucked his coat, frantic to have him, desperate for what they had been so long denied.
He ended the drugging kiss, drawing away to deliver tingling, tantalizing kisses to the corner of her lips, her jaw, her cheek, her ear, her neck. “Christ, I’m mad for you,” he rasped. “I thought I could go slowly, but I can’t wait.”
“Nor can I,” she whispered, fingers sinking into his soft, thick hair.
“Good.” The distinctive sound of fabric rending filled the air between them and then her breasts were bared to his gaze, mouth, and hands.
He had ripped the front bodice in two so both pieces hung open, revealing her completely. He yanked her corset down to free her nipples and she let out a slight yip of pain as her stays bit into her waist. Any discomfort she experienced was dashed away by his wicked mouth suckling her, drawing her taut nipples into his warm, wet mouth until she cried out.
“Yes, love.” His hand moved to bunch up her skirts, then disappeared beneath them.
He found the split in her drawers. Deliberate, knowing fingers skimmed over her slick flesh softly at first, then with greater insistence. He found the nub of her sex and worked it until her every breath tore from her in heaving gasps and she feared she would expire from the maddening pleasure of it.
And then he sank a finger slowly into her, followed by another, beginning a strong, wicked rhythm that threatened to undo her entirely. “Put your leg ’round my hip, darling,” he cooed, licking the side of her breast.
She did as he asked, hooking her left leg around him, opening herself to him more fully. “Kiss me, Alex,” she begged. “I want to feel your mouth on mine.”
With a guttural groan, he fused their mouths together. Suddenly, her sex was the center of her body, filled with need, so wet she could hear his fingers slipping in and out of her. He increased his rhythm, using deliberate pressure to bring her to the brink of release.
Then he stilled, abruptly taking them from her. He kissed her, then met her gaze. “I want to make you mine in every way,” he said lowly. “I need you, Cleo. God, how I need you.”
“Yes.” She was helpless, trapped in his thrall. “Make me yours, Alex.”
Before she realized what he was about, he lowered himself to his knees. “Hold up your skirts,” he ordered.
“Alex?” Cleo was sure she should be scandalized by what he was about to do. He had done it before, long ago and she had been so ashamed she hadn’t been able to face him for an entire week. Now, she wanted it.
“Trust me, my love.”
“I do,” she said, meaning it. She clutched at her voluminous satin and raised it to her waist.
He pressed his mouth to her inner thigh. “Hook your leg over my shoulder.”
She did as he asked, hesitant but titillated. When his sinful lips burned a trail over her, his tongue flicking over her most sensitive places, she cried out with the pleasure. “Oh heavens, Alex.”
This time, there was no answer. He sank his tongue inside her in a glorious, slippery stroke. He laved her, tasted her as if she were the finest dessert. Just when she thought she’d expire from the decadence of his ministrations, he rubbed his face over her. The abrasion of his stubble nearly drove her mad.
Her skin had never felt more alive. Her nipples tightened, her breasts tingled, and her thighs weakened. She’d never been given to swooning, but she felt quite certain that at any moment she may topple over in an indecorous heap of satin, lace and bustle. The sight of his beautiful dark head at the juncture of her limbs, the exquisite sensations he evoked…the combination was positively delicious. His word again.
“Delicious,” she whispered.
In the next moment, he increased his pressure on her nub and dipped his fingers inside her again. She cried out, arching against him, entire body trembling with the power of her release.
“Precisely my sentiments,” he rasped as he stood, his gaze never leaving hers.
And then he was unfastening his trousers, his cock springing free. She took him in her hand, admiring the length and satiny heat of him. He was thick and long, perfectly formed, hard and tempting in her palm. He groaned, his ordinarily sullen mouth going slack. Cleo was mad for him, desperate for every inch of his skin she could caress or kiss or lick. She leaned into him, kissing his strong neck, reveling in the divinely spicy scent of him. Unable to behave herself, she licked and nipped as her hand guided him to where she wanted him most.
He lifted her so her sex met his. He was inside her in half a breath and it was deep and good. She exhaled on a moan. “Christ,” he muttered, his hands on her breasts. “You feel so bloody sweet.”
“Take me,” she urged him, scarcely recognizing herself for the wanton she’d become in his arms. “Take me now.”
“I’ve been wanting this from the moment I saw you again, darling,” he gritted, his face taut with the strain.
In response, she gripped his firm buttocks, driving him deeper. Her sheath tightened, pulling him inside until she was filled and nearly mindless with sensation. Alex began a fast, driving thrusting that she eagerly met. Once, twice, thrice and she was coming undone again, tears pooling in her eyes at the sweetness of it. She would have screamed had he not swallowed it down with a vo
racious kiss. Then, he too climaxed as her passage contracted with delightful aftershocks. He surged inside her again and again, his seed a hot spurt within her.
They collapsed as one against the bookshelves, sobbing and laughing, their mouths grazing every bare expanse of skin on one another. Cleo had never been more certain she was desperately in love with him.
“My darling,” she whispered against his neck, kissing a path up to his jaw and strong chin before moving on to his wonderful lips.
Their mouths came together in a slow, consuming kiss that spoke more eloquently of their feelings for one another than words. Somehow, the years and delicate deceptions had fallen away and ceased to matter. They were once again Alex and Cleo, man and woman.
Alex’s hands framed her face as he broke their kiss, his eyes unfathomable and dark. “Cleo, sweet. That was incredible.”
“Incredible,” she echoed, a sliver of fear piercing her heart. What if the emotion she read in his actions was instead mere lust? What if he was simply having an affaire before wedding Miss Cuthbert and she was to lose him yet again? After all, there was his career at stake. Rising stars in the Liberal Party could not afford to engage in open seductions of married ladies, particularly ladies who were married to peers.
He must have sensed her thoughts for his arms tightened around her, holding her to him. “Cleo, please don’t worry.”
“I must worry for us both,” she told him, sadness replacing the fear. “You have much to lose.”
He pulled back, meeting her gaze once more. “I will not lose you.” His tone was vehement, brooking no opposition. She fancied he used it on his political enemies.
“You haven’t got me,” she reminded him. After all, it would not do for either of them to spin fairy tales. She was married to Scarbrough and Alex was about to become betrothed to another woman. “Our circumstances are inextricable, are they not?”
“Nothing is inextricable.” He shifted, withdrawing from her and beginning to rearrange his riding clothes.
“You don’t mean to suggest?” Cleo tugged at her bodice only to recall that he had thoroughly ruined it. She pulled the rent seams together and shuffled her skirts back into place.
“Divorce?” He raised a black brow. “It is not entirely unheard of.”
“For the scandal and shame it brings,” she snapped, irritated to have to face such depressing realities so soon after their transcendent lovemaking. “You know as well as I it is very nearly hopeless for a woman to obtain a divorce. Her husband may beat her, ill use her, spend all her funds and still she cannot escape.”
“Women have been legally able to sue for divorce since the fifties, Cleo. True, it’s damned complicated if not impossible, but why not consider it? You certainly have grounds on charges of adultery. God knows Scarbrough makes no secret of his paramours. The aggravating circumstance bit would prove more difficult. You’d need to prove cruelty, incest, or bigamy.”
“Are you asking me to divorce my husband?” She stilled. No peeress could manage such a feat and well he knew it.
“Are you telling me you do not wish to?”
“Thornton, I—”
“Ah.” His features hardened. “I’m back to Thornton now that you’ve had your fill of my prick.”
She gasped, shocked by his almost violent reaction. Visceral rage emanated from his powerful body. “It is not that I do not wish to divorce Scarbrough but that it is, as you say, complicated if not impossible. I cannot prove bigamy or incest, likely not even cruelty though he’s an intolerable brute. He hasn’t yet beaten me, after all.” She gave a bitter laugh. “I fear too for the ramifications of doing so for my family and friends. For you, Alex. Even if I were, by some sheer miracle, able to divorce him, I would not be any more available to you. Do you think that you’ll be able to keep your career, as Gladstone’s aid, to continue with your good reputation, if you were to become involved with a divorced woman?”
“I’ll do as I bloody well please,” he bit out. “I won’t sit back and allow him to have control over you. Do not ask it of me.”
She began to understand. “If your concern is that he will demand his conjugal rights, you need have no fear. We have not shared beds or homes for years.”
“It’s more than that, Cleo. It’s freedom.”
Freedom. The word struck her with exceptional force. It was a long abandoned dream for her. There was no escape from unwanted matrimony, from a husband who was an unfeeling scoundrel, who had manipulated her into wedding him in the first place. There was no freedom to love and live as she wished.
“You misunderstand.” She clutched at her bodice as if doing so could make more sense of the jumbled emotions skittering through her. “It’s different for women, Alex. We are born without freedom. It’s something to which we never grow accustomed, having been fashioned by man to live without it.”
He exhaled on a long sigh, closed his eyes and rested his forehead against hers. “Forgive me. Don’t let’s have a row.”
She gave in to her weakness and dropped a lingering kiss on his so-close mouth. “This is a tangled web. At the moment, my greatest concern is how on earth I shall pass discreetly back to my chamber with a ruined bodice.” It was a lie. Of course her worry centered on the impossibility of their future together. But she strove for lightness, needing to break up the pall that had settled over them.
It worked. He gave a rare laugh and kissed her in return. “Apologies for the damages.”
“It’s quite ruined, you know.” A smile curved her lips even as she admonished him. Truly, she didn’t have a care for the ruined gown. There would always be the convenience of a servants’ stair nearby.
“I’ll buy you another.”
“It was specially designed for me by Worth himself.” She frequented the famed couturier, but she wanted to inspire at least a bit of remorse in Alex. “And very dear, too, at a hundred pounds.”
“I prefer you naked,” he countered, apparently immune to her attempts at goading.
“One hundred pounds too much for your purse, my lord?” She gave him a coquette’s pout.
He grinned. “I’m merely partial to your skin, darling.”
Cleo couldn’t help herself. She leaned forward and kissed him again, stopping only when his hands glided back inside her torn bodice.
“We can’t.” She stilled his hands even though her body protested. “We’ve been in here long enough as it is. If someone should discover what we’ve been about, scandal will erupt.”
“This is insupportable.” He rubbed his thumbs over her sensitized nipples.
“What are we to do?” She kissed the corner of his mouth.
“Come away with me.”
Her heart tripped. He could not be serious, could not mean such an impossibly scandalous suggestion and yet…“To where?”
“The Continent.”
“We’d be excommunicated by society,” she whispered.
“Would you care?”
“Not terribly. I would miss my sisters, I dare say. What of you? Parliament, the Prime Minister, your betrothed?”
“Christ.” He kissed her again. “Leave him.”
“Throw your betrothed over.”
“I haven’t got a damned betrothed,” he gritted.
“But you’ve an understanding,” she persisted. “I heard so from my maid, who heard it belowstairs.”
It was hardly fair of him, she reasoned, to be so demanding of her when he had a Miss Cuthbert hanging over them like a veritable thundercloud. While divorces were not unheard of as he’d said, making a social recovery from one certainly was. Moreover, the laws rendered it far easier for a man to divorce his wife, and Scarbrough would not be likely to relinquish his hold on her. There was too the sobering Mordaunt case to think of, not five years past. Lady Mordaunt had notoriously carried on affairs with numerous men—the Prince of Wales among them—and her husband had sued her for divorce. In the process, the poor woman had gone mad. She could leave Scarbrough as Thornto
n requested, but the taint would remain. The freedom for which she yearned would prove elusive.
His mouth thinned. “What do belowstairs gossipmongers know of such things?”
“I am afraid for my heart,” she confessed. “It’s my greatest fear that this is a mere country house fling to you, that I am no more than a ghost brought back into your path for the moment and that when we part ways in a week, you’ll return to London and forget about me. Indeed, I could not fault you if you did so, for it would be the most prudent course for your future.”
“Listen to me.” He took her hands in his, pulling her against him, his eyes intense once again. “The only obligations I have to Miss Cuthbert are those of a gentleman. She deserves to hear from me that my heart has changed and after this house party, I mean to seek her out and do so. A marriage settlement has not even been broached. I’m free to do as I wish and what I wish is to be with you.”
“Cleo?” The less than subtle whisper, accompanied by a rather frantic series of knocks on the library door, interrupted the heavy conversation.
“Not your bloody sister again,” he groaned.
Cleo winced. It did sound unmistakably like Tia’s dulcet voice. “She is a mother cub,” she defended, “with good intentions.”
“Terrible timing.” He grimaced. “Can we not marry her off again? What of the Duke of Claridge? My young cousin Ford, perhaps?”
“The Duke of Claridge is too boring for Tia and your cousin Ford is too unsuitable, being both impecunious and fond of house maids.”
“House maids?” Thornton’s dark brow went up.
“Belowstairs gossipmongers,” she informed him archly. “Poor Lucy is quite in love with him, telling all the other servants they may run off to Gretna Green.”
Heart’s Temptation Books 1–3 Page 14
