Cecilia Grant - [Blackshear Family 03]

by A Woman Entangled

  He did pull away from her when the time came to shrug out of the sleeves and toss the coat over the back of the sofa. She put up a hand to stop him from coming back to her, and kept him there at arm’s length while she made a survey of his coatless self. Waist, chest, shoulders; the arms half lifted, ready to reach for her; the simple folds of his cravat. Chin. Mouth. Eyes. All of it so familiar, and yet so strange.

  She moved a step nearer and lifted her hand from his chest to his cheek, the one she’d slapped. She couldn’t quite believe she’d done it, and yet she couldn’t be sorry for it, either. Not when it had made him kiss her.

  He smiled, as though he understood her thoughts. His hand rose and settled on her wrist, stroking up the kid leather until her glove gave way to bare flesh. The sofa, facing away, was a step or so behind him: he walked backward, towing her by his hold at her elbow, and sank to a perch on the sofa’s back. “Come closer, Kate.” He planted his feet apart to make room. And when she came closer, stepping into the fraught intimate space between his knees, he had to bend only a little forward to kiss her collarbones.

  And then to kiss her bosom. Scarcely breathing, she followed his progress as he covered seemingly every inch of flesh the gown left bare. Across, a bit lower, and then back up again as though his very purpose was to drive her insane. His hands meanwhile swept up to cup her, and his thumbs, both his thumbs at once, commenced the same sweet wickedness through silk that he’d committed when they stood by the hearth.

  She felt for a grip on his shoulder and splayed the fingers of her other hand on the back of his head. Yes. Do that. Don’t stop.

  He made a sound, when her hand tightened on his shoulder, but he didn’t stop. His tongue came out to trace a path across the rise and fall of her flesh, and she wanted … oh, she didn’t even know what it was she wanted; she didn’t have the words.

  But he knew. He lifted his head and watched her face, his eyes burning as his immensely clever fingers slipped one breast free of her bodice. Then he dipped his head and kissed what he’d exposed. “I’ve wanted to do this.” His whispered breath on her flesh felt so dreadfully intimate. “God, Kate, you’ve no idea how I’ve wanted this.” He kissed her nipple again, and this time he touched her with his tongue. Delicately, at first. Then less so.

  She stood, not breathing at all now, paralyzed by shock and pleasure. The sight of him, head bent with such sinful, private purpose, her hand spread out over his close-shorn scalp as though to urge him on, stirred up strange, ferocious hungers in the pit of her belly and below. She wanted to caress him with infinite tenderness. She wanted to tear him limb from limb.

  Want. The word was in her every thought now, and apparently in his as well. You’ve no idea how I wanted this. People got into trouble this way. Men and women threw away judgment, and their good names with it, because they lost the ability to think of anything but satisfying that aching want.

  She sucked in a sharp breath, because she’d gone too long without one. He’d apparently only been waiting for such a sound: he took it for permission, and in a rush of movement too quick for her to parse, he had her off her feet, over the back of the sofa, and then flat on the cushions underneath him, part of his weight braced on his arms, the rest pinning her gloriously down. He took liberties with her bodice again, bringing the other breast out, and when he put his mouth to this one she could only pray he wouldn’t try anything further, because she mightn’t have the strength any longer to stop him.

  He brought his mouth away and shifted his hips. “Put your legs apart.” His voice was terse and intent.

  No. Strength and good sense came roaring back from their slumber: she could not let this happen. It was different for him; it was just a diversion, but she’d have nothing if she gave away her virtue here. She squirmed to get out from under him, pushing at his shoulders, panic narrowing her throat. “No,” she said, the syllable thin and high-pitched.

  “Wait. Listen. Katherina. Wait. Trust me. Listen, please.” Barely enough moonlight fell over the sofa’s back to show her his face, drawn with urgent conviction. “I won’t lift your skirts, I promise. I won’t undo a single one of my buttons. Only let me be against you. Here.” He flexed his hips, either to show her what was meant by here, or for the sheer animal pleasure of it. “Only for a minute or so. Only as long as you like it.”

  He looked so serious. As though everything in his world depended on her saying yes. That was how it was for men, according to Penelope Towne.

  I don’t have the necessary feelings anymore, he’d said. To stop him now would be a kindness. He wouldn’t like to look back later and see how his base, ungovernable lusts had overridden both his judgment and the sentiments of his heart. Nor would she like to remember this incident with a suspicion that he’d spent on her only what he’d been cheated of spending on his auburn-haired lady friend.

  “Only for a minute,” she said nevertheless. She might have regrets afterward, and so might he, but at least she didn’t fear for her virtue. She knew him. If he said he wouldn’t lift her skirts, he wouldn’t. Of that she was resoundingly sure.

  She moved her leg to give him the space he wanted. She’d supposed she might set that foot on the floor, the sofa being too narrow to otherwise allow much distance between her knees, but he had other ideas. He caught her leg behind the knee and angled it up and around, wrapping it behind his own leg. Her hips tilted with the action and he settled himself and resettled himself against her, studying her face with each adjustment as if he were expecting to see some particular—

  Oh. Oh. Her breath caught in her throat and she could feel her eyes go wide.

  “Good?” He didn’t need to ask. The curve of his lips made perfectly plain that he knew.

  She nodded. Her hands had convulsed on him, one clutching at the bottom edge of his waistcoat while the other curled around a fistful of sleeve.

  “Good,” he repeated, an affirmation this time. “Now hold on tight while I make it even better.”

  WITH ONLY a bit of twisting, and the involvement of one hand, he was able to get her nipple in his mouth again. She sighed, the smallest touch of voice in it; not quite a moan, but no matter. He’d have moans from her, too, in another minute or so.

  He let her feel the whole broad surface of his tongue, slowly. She was so damn stiff against the softer parts of his mouth. He would have liked to see her with her bodice restored, her nipples hard and obvious through the silk, announcing to the world how he’d aroused her. For that matter he would have liked to send a hand up those skirts he’d promised not to lift, and find out if she was as wet between the legs as he suspected.

  His hips rolled against her, and there came the first moan, frayed at its edges with the same astonishment her wide eyes had betrayed, in that instant when he’d found the right spot. He’d lay money that she hadn’t ever learned where her best nerves were or what she could do with them. And much as he knew this was a prize he ought to leave to her husband—or hell, perhaps to her explorations and her own hand—he couldn’t. His greed was too great, her moans too bewitching, the memory of his months of hopeless infatuation all too strong. Why shouldn’t he take this compensation, and please her at the same time?

  He put a purposeful rhythm into his hips, and sped up the work of his tongue.

  SHE ARCHED and writhed and moaned, a raw, anxious sound reminiscent of a she-cat prowling for a tom. She would be ashamed, if he hadn’t driven her past all such cares.

  Penelope had said it could be pleasant, with a man who cared to make the effort. Very pleasant, she’d said, low and significant, because apparently her sister had married such a man and liked to speak of the fact.

  But pleasant told you nothing. Pleasant was a warm spring day in a flower-filled meadow. Very pleasant meant especially pretty flowers, and a dry place to sit down in the grass. What word could possibly name the sensations that made your body seethe, shameless and desperate as a she-cat in season?

  Her hands couldn’t seem to find the right
place to settle. His waist. His shoulders. The arm of the sofa, up above her head. “Nick.” She wound her leg tighter, clamping his hips hard to hers. “I want …” She couldn’t say it. Couldn’t admit aloud to what she wanted, not when he’d promised only half a minute ago to keep her skirts down and his buttons fastened.

  He raised his head, his eyes dark and all-seeing. “I know.” His face dipped near and his mouth brushed hers. “Believe me, I want it, too. But we can’t.” He pressed his hard part against her, through the layers of detestable clothing, and rolled her nipple between fingers that had crept to her breast without her noticing. “Let me tend to you this way. You’re almost there. I can feel it.”

  Almost where? She wanted to cry out in despair at her own ignorance, in fury at his refusal to seize the permission she was granting. She dug her fingers into the sofa’s upholstered arm, one solid handhold as the rest of her raged, answering his every touch and demanding more.

  “Good, sweetheart, good. Don’t fight it. You’re so close.” He kissed her face all over, murmuring such meaningless words in between. Then he lifted his head to watch her. His gaze tracked from her face up her arms to where she gripped the sofa, and his eyes narrowed. He liked to see her this way.

  She’d triumph in having pleased him, if she were capable of any thought so clear. But all was fierce sensation now, the industry of his fingers, his pressure between her legs; and her brain could only flash and spark ineffectually, like a pistol that someone had forgotten to load.

  She thrashed against him, faster and faster as the pleasure built. He swore through gritted teeth; she didn’t mind. She screwed her eyes shut and loosened her grip on the sofa to fling her arms round him, binding his whole body to hers as rapture came crashing over her, forceful and astonishing as a wild ocean wave.

  Let it drown her. She didn’t care. Let it sweep her out to sea, past the reach of any rescue. She didn’t need rescue. She would stay right here, adrift and unrepentant for the rest of her days, because nothing else in life would ever again feel so right as this ruin.

  FOR EIGHT or nine different reasons, he should have been sorry. He wasn’t. He lay still, feeling all her muscles go slack. His breaths and hers played a whispered duet in the otherwise silent room.

  “Kate.” He kissed her cheek. Would he ever be able to call her Miss Westbrook again? “Don’t go to sleep. You’ve got to go back downstairs.”

  “When did the music end?” Her words came out a bit sluggish. Her eyes opened only halfway. She was too intoxicated, still, to feel any urgency about getting back to the ballroom.

  “A minute or so since. No more. You’ll be just in time for supper. But you mustn’t linger.” He eased himself off her as he spoke, and sank into a crouch at her side. “Do you mind if I put your bodice to rights? There’s no mirror in here.”

  “Um. Yes. If you please.” She struggled to a sitting position and he helped her get everything straightened away, bosom put back out of sight, shift in its proper place, silk smoothed over all. “Do you not mean to go to supper, too?”

  “Eventually. But I’ll need several minutes of very dull thoughts first, preferably while standing in a draft, in order to make myself presentable.”

  She puzzled it out, darting a not-quite-intentional glance below his waist to confirm her interpretation. “That … didn’t happen for you, then? As it did for me?”

  He shook his head. “A good thing, too. It’s not so tidy an event for a gentleman as it is for a lady. Not advisable when one is wearing breeches.” Besides, I needed to keep my head so I could see every second of your pleasure, he didn’t say. I’m going to recall it in vivid detail when I get home tonight. Two or three times at the least. Certainly he didn’t say that.

  “Ah. I didn’t know.” She put up a hand to feel whether her hair was disarranged. She was gazing straight ahead now, embarrassment beginning to overtake her as the aftertaste of her climax faded.

  “Kate, look at me.” One more time he took her chin in his fingers. Here and here, he’d kissed her but a moment ago. “You may rely absolutely on my discretion and my respect for you. No one will hear of this from me, and there will be no alteration in my manners toward you. I hope you won’t avoid me, or be ill at ease in my presence.”

  She nodded, her eyes not quite meeting his.

  “We’ve done no worse than many, many young men and women before us. We did better than most, by leaving your virtue intact. There’s no reason you shouldn’t accept a marriage offer with a clear conscience, when the time comes, and no reason you and I cannot go on as we were. As friends, with a shared interest in keeping the knowledge of this event from ever coming to light.”

  He wasn’t saying the right thing. He could feel her sinking deeper into mortification with his every word. She kept her eyes on his face, but with visible effort.

  He let his hand fall from her chin, and picked up her hand from where it was restlessly smoothing a wrinkle in her skirt. “We’re allies in this. Not adversaries. We’ve no need to be embarrassed before one another.” Still he wasn’t sorry, but he was beginning to see that he probably would be, if this awkwardness persisted—and why would it not? If a kiss had been enough to alter their friendship, why on earth should he expect that they could recover from an impropriety of this order?

  “Thank you for saying so. I ought to go.” She was all but squirming to get her hand out of his; to get away from this conversation. She was right, too. He endangered her reputation with his selfish wish to get them back on easy footing before she left.

  “Indeed you ought. Forgive my detaining you.” He rose and helped her up, and no other words passed between them before she departed the room. And a gnawing sense of disappointment ultimately did just as much as Latin declensions and the chilly air by the window to render him fit for polite viewing once more.

  SHE WENT to supper with Lady Harringdon, who was delighted to have an attendant again and thoroughly unaware of her having been gone from the ballroom for so long. No one, for that matter, appeared to have noticed her absence. So easily could a lady get up to mischief, without a zealous chaperone.

  In small bites she consumed a polite portion of her tomato aspic, conversing as well as she could with the matrons among whom she and the countess sat, and trying not to wonder which of them had in her youth ever let a man take liberties. Trying even harder not to wonder whether each had experienced, within marriage or without, that unspeakable explosion of pleasure that echoed in her body even now.

  Penelope Towne had implied a woman’s enjoyment depended on the skill of the man. Thus there must be women, even long-married women, whose husbands had never brought about that private cataclysm.

  Mr. Blackshear had done it so easily, without even removing his clothing or hers. Was that merely a testament to some sort of impersonal expertise, honed through practice with Lady Attainable and other worldly women? His attentions had felt expert, to be sure. They hadn’t felt impersonal.

  God, Kate, you’ve no idea how I wanted this. She carved out another neat forkful of the red-tinged quivering dish before her, but didn’t bring it to her mouth. A lady could not wallow very deeply in the memory of a gentleman’s stirring words to her when he’d said other, less-gratifying words as well. Concerning how it was too late now for her to return his affection, and assuring her of the propriety of her one day accepting some other man’s marriage proposal.

  “A passable aspic, no more.” Lady Harringdon leaned close to issue this opinion in a confidential tone. “Lady Cathcart never would engage a French chef, even when the war ended. And here we have the fruits of her patriotism.” She’d eaten but a quarter of her own serving, and pushed the rest about her plate as though to disguise the quantity remaining. “We shall hope for better from the succeeding courses, though we shan’t hope for anything to rival what we enjoyed last week at Lady Astley’s.”

  “Lady Astley’s supper was very fine,” Kate said, and wished she’d never gone to Lady Astley’s. Wished s
he’d never indulged the hope of one day being Lady Astley, never set out to charm Lord Barclay, never caused pain to Louisa Smith.

  She wished Mr. Blackshear had been the eldest son of a titled man, with spotless connections.

  This whole thing is impossible. He’d told her nothing she hadn’t already known, with those words. Why was the fact so much more troubling when he was the one to voice it?

  She ate a forkful of aspic, and then another, because it was a point of pride that she show better manners than Lady Harringdon. Each bite went down like a lump of cold tar.

  At the next table sat the Captain Williams who’d hoped to waltz with her. He was tall, broad, dashing, and elegant in his red coat and neat whiskers. She could not imagine ever writhing underneath him and making desperate she-cat sounds. Nor could she imagine doing so with any of the men who’d partnered with her tonight, Lord Barclay included.

  She wouldn’t have minded, before. She would have made the best match she could, and counted herself lucky if marital congress turned out to be sometimes pleasant. Her body would never have known itself to be deprived.

  Now, her body trained its attention on the room’s open door, keen and poised as a dog waiting for a stick to be thrown. And when Mr. Blackshear appeared, she felt it in her skin, in the hairs on the back of her neck, even before she glanced that way to confirm his arrival.

  He didn’t look as though he’d been up to anything improper. He’d restored his coat, of course, and … thought his several minutes of dull thoughts. No evidence of his arousal remained, unless you counted the fiery imprint his masculinity had left in her most private places. He looked like nothing so much as a barrister who’d been called away from the party on some professional business, and returned almost grudgingly to this frivolous affair.

  He caught her eye and smiled, quick, encouraging, and not very intimate. Don’t worry, said his expression. Remember my promise. I’ll never tell a soul, and you’ll see no change in my manners toward you.