Harlequin Historical May 2020--Box Set 1 of 2

by Sophia James

  ‘All we have is now. There is no “real life” for us.’ She made her case gently, aware that they sat on the edge of a quarrel, a conversation that perched on precarious old truths about a past they couldn’t easily talk about. ‘What do you think happens after Boscastle? Even if we speculate that everything is settled satisfactorily with my father, what happens then? I go back into society? I think not. I can never go back, Inigo. All I have left of this particular life is the next few days.’ And in those days she wanted him. She let him see it in her eyes. He was not the only one who had suppressed desires. The difference was that she was willing to admit to them, to own them in full.

  Inigo rose from the table, his face suddenly thunderous. ‘I am sorry, Audevere. I cannot give you what you want.’

  ‘You, Inigo. I want you and you are not oblivious to that or to wanting me.’ Audevere rose to meet him, her restraint breaking. She’d not mistaken his desire, only his eagerness to deny it and it angered her. ‘You once thought I was too low for Collin.’ Her anger bubbled close to the surface. ‘Am I still too low for you?’

  ‘I was wrong to have said that.’ Inigo was all quiet stoicism, his face a blank mask in his stiffness.

  Audevere came around the table, her temper flaring. She wanted nothing more in the moment than to jar him out of his careful neutrality, to expose it for the weak façade it was. It did not fool her. ‘Why not admit you have feelings for me that go beyond admiration?’

  ‘Audevere, please. You are alone and perhaps more frightened by that realisation than you’re willing to admit. It’s natural to want to reach out to someone at a time like this. We’ve had a long day and perhaps too much wine.’ He was giving her every excuse, every possible chance to retract her boldness.

  But Audevere pressed on. She was making him uncomfortable and that intrigued her. It meant she might be close to…something…something he didn’t want her to see. What could he be hiding? A man like Inigo didn’t have secrets. ‘Perhaps I’ve had just enough wine to see things clearly.’

  ‘What is it that you’d like to see? To know? This?’ There was the slightest flair to his nostrils, the smallest of warnings that his cool reserve had broken momentarily before his hand grabbed her about the waist and dragged her to him, his mouth stopping hers with a reckless kiss, bruising in its intensity, savage in its possession. But it did not stun her, or stop her. This was what she’d asked for, this was what she’d wanted to know: what would it be like to kiss Inigo. To feel all that passion, all that intensity, bottled up inside him channelled into a single moment.

  She answered with a fierceness of her own, her teeth sinking into his bottom lip, ferocious and hungry. She sensed she was both the challenged and the challenger in this wicked game, her own mouth begging him not to relent. His hands were in her hair, tangling in the thickness of her tresses, pins scattering on the ground as he bore her back against the wall, a gasp escaping as her back met with panelling and the tenor of their kiss changed. The fierce onslaught of emotion became a slow duel, tongues feinting, testing—a lunge here, a parry there. He was all skill and seduction, leading them on a passionate chase.

  She was entirely aware of the press of his body, warm from the fire, from the heat of anger and newly roused passion slipped of its leash. The last sent a wave of desire cresting through her so thorough in its intensity it begged the question—how long had this intensity lain banked? How long had he wanted to hold her, feel her against him, drink from her mouth and to know that she wanted the same? To drink from him? How long had he dared to fantasise that she might respond in kind, not compelled by the rules of a silly party game? How long had he resisted the pull of the passion that devoured them now?

  Her hands worked the knot of his neckcloth, their breathing coming hard, bodies melding together, hardness to softness, curve to muscled contour, against an inn wall in the middle of nowhere England, halfway between the past and the future. Inigo dragged his mouth from hers. ‘I will not take you against a wall in a fit of desire.’ His eyes blazed, his own breathing ragged, a testament to how much the effort cost him. No. There would be no talking him out of it. He was not that sort of man. The need to resist was there in his eyes as well.

  ‘I must beg your pardon,’ Inigo said, calling on centuries of Boscastle breeding to see his way through this retreat. ‘This was not well done of me.’

  The leash was firmly back on his passions, but not before Audevere saw something else in those eyes as well. Guilt.

  The question came again. How long had he wanted this? How long had he fought this attraction? A thought flickered through her mind, slipping away before she could hold on to it.

  ‘Excuse me, I need to consult with the coachman.’ Inigo made a short bow, a complete master of himself as if the moment had not happened. Of course he wouldn’t want to stay in the parlour now. The thought came again, and this time, in the still of the parlour, she held on to it. He’d wanted her for years. He’d wanted her before Collin had died. His honour would be shamed by that. She pressed her fingers to her lips. Dear lord, what had she done? In a single kiss, she’d forced him to confess his darkest secret, something he’d hidden for years. Her own self-loathing swept her. What had she done to a good man? The old doubts returned in a rush: perhaps there was no good in her after all. And this time, there had been no push from her father. She and she alone had done it. She needed to make this right. Today, he’d offered her absolution in the carriage. Perhaps she could do the same for him.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  She was waiting in his room when he came up the stairs, her hair unbound, her profile catching the lamplight. His gut tightened at the sight of her. How much torture did she think he could stand? Why couldn’t she scurry off to hide like a sensible virgin after that display downstairs? He’d nearly had her up against a wall, for heaven’s sake, in the parlour of a coaching inn! If she wasn’t safe there where anyone could walk in, how did she imagine she’d be safe in his room where they would not disturbed?

  ‘You shouldn’t be here.’ His tone was gruff. Her hair was down, her lips puffy. He was hard with the wanting of her, his trip outside in the cold having done nothing to alleviate the ache.

  ‘How could I sleep after a kiss like that?’ She ignored him. ‘You are full of surprises, Inigo. All these years I thought you didn’t like me. But that wasn’t true.’ She didn’t even bother to ask it as a question. He’d hidden nothing tonight and it had backfired on him. It had not driven her away, had not repulsed her. It had only drawn her in.

  ‘If you have it all worked out, why are you here?’ Perhaps rudeness was his best defence, his best chance of getting her out of his room before he embarrassed them both. Perhaps she would do him the courtesy of not mentioning his greatest and guiltiest secret, which she had unmasked.

  She rose and came to him. ‘Because I hurt you tonight and I didn’t mean to. In my own way, I forced a confession you didn’t want to make. Can you forgive me?’ She reached for his hand, but he stepped back. If she touched him, he would be lost.

  He shrugged out of his jacket. He needed to keep himself busy. He did not want to look at her, did not want her to see any more than she already did. ‘You’re not the one in need of forgiveness.’

  ‘Neither are you. There is nothing to forgive.’ She persisted in following him about the room.

  ‘Nothing to forgive?’ He turned on her sharply, intending his words to shock. Bald-faced truth was usually an effective weapon against cajolery. ‘I coveted my best friend’s fiancée.’

  She didn’t give him a dratted inch. ‘And you did not act on it. What could be more honourable and loyal than that? You did nothing to be ashamed of; you did not put your desires above your friendship with Collin and you certainly did not wish him death. There is no such thing.’ She was making him out to be a saint. ‘You are so much better than I.’ She reached up a cool hand and stroked his hot cheek. ‘Shall I tell
you a secret? It’s been five years and I can hardly remember his face. Soon, I won’t remember him at all,’ she said softly. ‘I was supposed to marry him, supposed to love him until death do us part. And now I can’t remember his face, the feel of his arms, nothing.’

  ‘You were young—’ Inigo said, but she cut him off.

  ‘No, I do not get absolution if you will not grant it to yourself as well. What is your guilt, Inigo? That you lived? That you get to be here now? Collin would have wanted you to help me.’

  ‘But not, perhaps, to bed you.’ The words were out of his mouth before he could take them back. They were harsh and honest. This woman had him tied in knots, a man who invested huge sums of money calmly, who approached most of life with a cool detachment, who knew the rules and played by them without question.

  ‘Why not if that’s you want, what I want too?’ She levelled her green gaze on him and he felt his resolve slip in the wake of her arguments. Why was he resisting indeed? ‘Inigo, the past is buried, the future is uncertain. All we have is now.’ She let a smile play across her lips, a smile that asked him to break all his rules, to set aside the self-imposed guilt he’d been carrying since Collin’s death. Her voice dropped, low and smoky. ‘You feel it, too. You kiss like a lit powder keg, all fireworks and explosions, like it’s the last night of the world. And in your heart you know you are not far wrong. There is only now and the days before we reach Boscastle. We are guaranteed nothing beyond that.’ She licked her lips. ‘I know what I want. I want you to be my lover in the time that remains. I want you to kiss me again like the whole world is on fire and this time I don’t want you to stop.’

  He wanted that, too; his body ached with the wanting of it, even if the logic of it confounded his mind. At her words, the sum of the world shrank to the space of the small room. Nothing outside these walls mattered. All that mattered was to burn with her. To burn away the past, to cleanse himself of the guilt. His blood was already roaring with it. Fire was the great purifier. He shrugged out of his waistcoat. He would not disappoint her by pretending he did not understand what she asked, what she wanted: to burn away her past as well, to burn away the hands and mouths of men who had no claim to her, no right to her, but who had touched her anyway. She wanted to make love with a good man, an honourable man whom she could trust with this invitation. He was to be her crucible, the place where she could burn away all her impurities. And perhaps, in return, she could be his.

  Inigo kissed her, his mouth firm and insistent in its acceptance. He drew her to her feet, his hands covering hers where they lay at the sash of her robe. ‘Allow me. Let me do it,’ he breathed. He would reveal her, unwrap her like the most precious of gifts. He untied the sash and pushed the robe from her shoulders, letting it fall to the floor in a pool of silk. The lamplight framed her from behind and his breath caught at the sight of the form revealed in the long silk slip she wore. The garment itself had been tailored simply and exquisitely, unadorned by ruffles and tucks or even ribbon. Its only adornment was the body that wore it. High, firm breasts, unaffected by corsetry, rose beneath the silk, the press of their peaks evident against the fabric while the material spilled over the round curve of her hips and the narrow line of her waist, the flat plateau of her belly.

  His hands slid beneath the thin straps at her shoulders, taking them down one by one, until her breasts were revealed, then her stomach, her hips, and the silk fell away to join its partner on the floor. ‘You’re beautiful, Aud.’ His voice was hoarse, his throat dry and the words did not do her justice. She was exquisite, beyond words, a goddess with her golden hair, her smooth porcelain skin, the silhouette of her body limned by the flame, the shadow between her legs dark, mysterious and inviting.

  ‘Now you,’ Audevere breathed. ‘I want to see you. All of you.’ She slid on to the big bed and curled on her side, ready to watch. He could not recall ever being studied so intently. His mistresses had undressed him, made wicked games out of it, but this was not like that. She was asking him to reveal himself, piece by piece, much like they’d revealed themselves to one another in the coach with their stories.

  He divested himself of the waistcoat she’d undone, his fingers working the buttons of his shirt, pulling the tails free from his waistband. He watched her eyes go wide at the sight of his bare chest, watched her gaze drop as he pulled off his boots and worked loose the fall of his trousers, letting them slide down narrow hips, leaving him in his smallclothes. His arousal was blatantly evident, but he would not be ashamed of it. He desired her and he wanted her to know it beyond mere words. He saw her eyes rivet on the core of him as he finally stood before her, naked.

  * * *

  Dear heavens, he was magnificent! A god of old come to life as the clothes fell away from him, revealing sculpted muscle limning the smooth expanse of his chest, her eyes following down the lean hips to the long thighs of a fencer. Here was a man who took care of himself, who did not indulge in the dissipations offered by a life of luxury. At his groin, he rose, hard and powerful, a fitting match for the rest of him. Her hand reached out involuntarily as if she could stroke him at this distance. ‘Come to bed, I want to touch you.’

  ‘And I want to touch you.’ The words were framed around a growl that sent the hairs on her arms prickling in delighted anticipation. The bed took his weight and Inigo settled beside her, a hand warm and flat on her belly as his mouth sought hers.

  He did not merely touch her, he worshipped her. His hands, his words, his mouth, left no inch of her unexplored and Audevere revelled in it, in the sensation of being adored. He sucked at her breasts, his tongue laving each tip. He trailed kisses down the length of her to her belly, his hands framing her hips. He kissed her softly there, blowing a soft warm breath against her skin, then his mouth was at the nest of her, his hands spreading her legs, his thumbs massaging the insides of her thighs, and she opened for him. Her body cried out, this was what she wanted, his hands on her, his mouth on her until her core was shaking. His finger ran up the seam of her and a little mewl escaped her. She felt him shudder in answer and she understood implicitly that her pleasure wrought his. It pleased him to please her. How wondrous that realisation was. That true lovers sought to pleasure one another jointly and intimately.

  He licked, his tongue following the track of his finger, then he looked up at her from the cradle of her thighs, his blue eyes burning. ‘Do you like that, Aud?’

  ‘Yes.’ She could barely manage the one-word response. He bent to her pleasure again, his tongue finding the nub nestled deep in her folds, and licked at it until her mewls became gasps and her hands gripped his head for purchase as pressure built inside her like a wave that crested and ebbed and then crested again until Inigo brought the wave to a final crashing conclusion.

  She was languid after that, floating in the aftermath of pleasure as Inigo gathered her to him, nuzzling her hair. ‘That was extraordinary. I haven’t any words for it,’ she murmured. ‘I had no idea a person could feel like that.’

  ‘We are just getting started.’ Inigo gave a hoarse laugh. ‘There’s more to come.’

  ‘I should hope so.’ Her hand slid between them, finding him strong and hard. She closed her hand about him, hearing the sharp intake of his breath. ‘I want to touch you; it’s only fair,’ she argued softly.

  To his credit, he did let her play a bit, explore the length of him. And she revelled in it—the smooth feel of his tip, the absolute hardness of him. ‘Does it hurt?’ she asked.

  ‘Only if nothing is done about it.’ Inigo laughed and rolled her beneath him. ‘But seeing as I plan to do something about it, it’s more of a dilettante’s ache.’ He fitted her beneath him, pressing himself at her entrance. Even then, his concern was for her. ‘Are you sure, Audevere? There is nothing done yet.’

  She looked up at him, her hands framing his face. ‘I have never been more sure of anything or anyone in my entire life. I want this night, Inigo,
and I want you.’ She opened to him, giving him entrance, knowing full well that once done, this night could not be undone, what she gave him could not be ungiven. But this was her decision entirely, perhaps the first one that ever was.

  He was gentle with her, skilled enough to know what they both needed and disciplined enough to give it gently. Their joining was one of slow advancement and retreat as he accustomed her body to his, his strokes becoming longer, as he slid more easily, slid deeper into her. It was a tantalising, intimate progress that teased her with an echo of earlier pleasure. There was a tender part of her that seemed to weep for him, crying out every time he passed over it, until the fleeting pleasure of that notice was not enough to satisfy her. Audevere arched her hips against him, wanting to claim more of that pleasure. Her breaths came in begging pants now, her legs wrapped about his lean hips, wanting to hold him captive, wanting to hold him accountable for rendering the pleasure complete. She would not let him leave her until the pleasure was done.

  He sensed the urgency, the desire, his own breaths coming in ragged inhalations now, the speed of his thrusts accelerating in tandem with the cries of her body, perhaps even as excited by them as she was. Her hands gripped his shoulders as the pleasure swelled, threatening to sweep her away. In the end, she let it have its way with her, let it sweep over her and carry her out to the depths of pleasure’s seas. She did not care where it took her as long as Inigo was there, her one anchor. And Inigo was with her, right up until the end, his own pleasure coming apace with hers, withdrawing only as she crested one last time to make a gentleman’s finish in the sheets. Honourable until the last. She had no doubts as to the discipline such a consideration demanded from a man.

  She was truly spent now, entirely boneless as she floated in pleasure’s quieter seas now. So this was lovemaking; this was true pleasure. Now she knew and she was glad for it. The experience had not disappointed. How sad, though, that she might never have it again, that she might never have him again. She was not naive enough to think she could recreate these sensations with just any man. Tonight was the product of far more than two people seeking pleasure. Tonight was because of Inigo.