by Cheryl Holt
Out of the blue, she inquired, "Are you happy that you're here?"
"What?"
Shifting uncomfortably, he was disconcerted by her as-
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sessment. She peered far into the core of his black heart and made him wish he'd never been so idiotic as to seek her out.
"You keep imploring me to go home, but I must concede that I could say the same to you." She squeezed his fingers encouragingly. "You don't belong in Bedford any more than I. You're so discontent"
How had she noticed? How could she be so unerringly perceptive? "I'm not discontent" he was compelled to assert, “just bored."
"No. You're distressed—and dismayed because of it."
"For a woman who's scarcely acquainted with me, you're categorically convinced of your opinions."
"It is peculiar, but I comprehend much more about you than I ought. Why is that? Can you explain it to me?"
Nervously, he brooded over why she was able to glean so much. The enhanced awareness that drew them together defied all logic, and he hated that she felt confident enough to delve and pry. He'd never confirm her excessively accurate appraisal of his condition, so he didn't corroborate or deny her judgment, but still, she gazed at him with a genuine admiration that threw him off guard.
Wanting to lessen her impact, he grasped her arm. "Let's take a walk, shall we?" If they were strolling side by side, he'd not have to directly confront her during her annoying examination, and if he was clever in the route selected, he could maneuver her back to the house before she guessed what he was about.
"No, I'd rather not," she replied infuriatingly. "I'm quite cozy where I am."
Did she move just a tad bit closer? His hand was now unacceptably pressed to her side, and his naughty fingers— despite his strict command that they remain stationary-massaged against her tiny waist in a slow circle. However, his impropriety met with no complaint, so he didn't desist.
For an untried woman whom he'd nearly ravished two days prior, she'd become inordinately complacent! What had transpired to bring about this transformation?
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"I don't think"—he fought to sound stem—"that it would be fitting for others to observe you loafing on this bench with me."
"Your reputation must be horrendous," she reflected, composed as you please, as though she'd been thoroughly apprised of his disgraceful notoriety and was wholly indifferent.
"It is." Amazingly, he was blushing. With the exception of his mother, he'd never cared what females thought of his character, yet he was ashamed that Sarah might have uncovered some of the less savory aspects of his constitution.
"I've never before been introduced to a despicable cad," she said lightly, "so I shall consider our meeting to be an adventure. It will be a learning experience; perhaps I'll finally ascertain why women are so regularly beguiled by a scandalous figure."
A definite twinkle glimmered in her eye. The impertinent woman was laughing at him! "You're evidently not bothered about appearances when you should be."
"Why don't you leave this place?" she queried softly, cutting off further dissection of his distinction or disrepute. "What is troubling you so?"
When had he become so bloody transparent? "There's nothing troubling me."
"You're upset. Has something happened?"
Before he could check himself, the words spewed forth as though bubbling from a fountain. "Well, I've always lived with my mother and my older brother, but my mother recently married a man I can't abide."
"That would be difficult."
"And a few minutes ago, I was informed that my brother has also wed someone whom I don't particularly like."
"Are you and your brother close?"
"We were."
"I'm sorry for you."
Bewildered by his folly, he endeavored to grasp why he'd divulge so much to this virtual stranger. He exhaus-
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tively shielded his privacy, yet he'd blurted out exceedingly personal details to her with barely any contemplation of the consequences.
Striving to mitigate the admission, he declared, "The matter is of no great import."
"You miss him."
He shook his head against her penetrating deduction. "No, I don't."
"Not true, Michael."
As she spoke his name for the first time, his heart hammered with an unaccustomed gladness, and with an unwavering conviction, he yearned to hear her murmuring it over and over again.
"So," she mused, "if you left this party, you'd have nowhere to go, would you? Is that why you stay?"
Instantly, she'd homed in on the very conundrum that had been driving him these many months. Life—as he described it—had ended when his mother had wed Edward. He had no home. No family. He was drifting because of it, and couldn't seem to find any good reasons to go back to London.
"I stay because this is precisely where I belong." He thought of the decadent women, the lewd couplings in which he engaged, the sick, ribald sport he instigated in his meager attempts to relieve his doldrums through sexual satiation.
Now, it seemed his entire existence was one, lengthy episode of debauchery and vice with nary a pleasant intervening interlude. He'd fallen so far into the abyss of corruption that he couldn't locate the road that would return him to a sane system of carrying on. There was no reality for him but these perpetual days—and nights—of dissolution and iniquity, and even if he determined to switch his course and tread a more virtuous path, he wasn't sure how to alter his direction.
"We've a lot in common, you and I," she contended.
He sniggered disdainfully. "Stuff and nonsense."
"Why would you say so? I don't really have a home,
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either. Everything I've held dear is being taken from me. Perhaps that's why I feel this incredible association with you; we've both been cut off from all that's familiar."
A hideous stab of unbidden guilt slithered through him, but he quashed it ere it could flourish. "Kindred spirits?"
"Exactly."
'"That's ridiculous."
Boldly, she set her hand on his chest a second time. Her steady gaze slid to his mouth and fixated on his lips, inducing him to crave and remember things that were best ignored.
She prompted, "Do you ever think about that night you came to my room?"
"No," he lied. "Never."
"I do. Constantly."
His thundering heart skipped several beats. She'd been reflecting upon their tryst? About their truncated foray into pleasure? About how they'd touched, kissed, connected? "Why would you?"
"I've just been speculating as to what might have occurred if I hadn't said no."
The earth seemed to stop spinning on its axis. On a thousand occasions since that despicable event, he'd pondered the same. If they'd forged ahead, if they'd coalesced in sexual ecstasy, would he now be languishing so wretchedly? Why was he so inanely positive that physical knowledge of her body would be a cure for so much of what ailed him?
"You've taken leave of your senses," he muttered, and he removed her hand. With it floating so near to his heart, it created the queerest sensation that she was massaging his woes. "It's this house that's making you contemplate such wicked subjects. All the better that you depart."
"But if I left, I'd never see you again."
"There isn't any reason you should want to," he stated, though the identical notion had crossed his mind. Somehow, she'd niggled into his consciousness, and he'd never be fully shed of her. With the information that Pamela had
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imparted—that Sarah's brother was Scarborough—any man who possessed a shred of integrity couldn't help but fret over her future.
"I can't account for why, but it just seems so ... so vital that we spend time together."
"For what purpose?"
She deliberated, vexation wrinkling her smooth brow, her incessant attention captivated by his mout
h. A weighty supposition clearly engrossed her, for she couldn't look away. The pink tip of her tongue flicked out, wetting her bottom lip, making it glisten, and the sight made him dream about the fabulous games she could be taught to play. That he could be her tutor!
A flush darkened her cheeks, her pulse elevated and pounded at the base of her neck. She probed far inside his being, examining his shallow depths, hunting for emotion that was long absent, and finally, she wrenched her torrid gaze to his own.
Humbly, fantastically, she requested, "Would you kiss me?"
He nearly fell over. "What did you say?"
"You heard me." She blushed a bright scarlet and stared at her lap. "It was difficult enough to ask. Don't be so crude as to insist that I repeat myself."
"I heard you, all right. I simply can't believe my ears."
A rush of images swamped him as he recalled his previous fleet effort at seduction: her slender body, impertinent nipples, and taut pussy. When her cascade of crimson hair was hanging loose, it shimmered and swirled about her hips.
Astoundingly, he could picture her in his bedchamber in London, a site where he'd welcomed no other paramour. He'd lay her back, sample and savor, have her until she was begging and pleading for him to cease, then he'd begin anew. He'd continue until he was drained, satisfied, replete.
Vividly, he recalled their one and only brief kiss. How delectable it had been! How undone he'd been afterward! And for so many hours! He'd craved so much more from
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her. More than she could ever give. More than he should ever receive.
"No, I will not."
"But why? You've come to dabble with the female guests. Why not with me?"
He'd been curious as to where her solicitation was leading, and now he had his answer: His innocent companion was intrigued, hankering for a few love lessons with an adept partner. He couldn't decide if he was angry or amused. "Because, milady, you are a virgin."
She flinched as if he'd slapped her. "What has that to do with anything?"
"I'm conversant with what you may have deduced about my character"—he fumed at the image of her eavesdropping while his indecent antics were dissected by some of the guests—"but I am not in the habit of debauching untried women."
"I didn't invite you to defile me. I merely requested a kiss!" A spark of temper flickered into full view, and he treasured the spectacle. "I may be unschooled, but I don't believe they're similar!"
The volume of their voices had risen, so he bent nearer and hissed, "Have you gone mad?"
"Perhaps!"
"It seems as if you're anxious to be ruined!"
"What if I am?" She haughtily threw out the potentiality, almost as if it was a dare. "It's no concern of yours!"
"That, my dear, is where you are wrong!"
"If you won't accommodate me, I'll just have to ask someone else. I'm sure I can locate another who won't deem the idea to be as unappealing as you obviously do."
The thought of some other man kissing her was so disturbing that he was forced to admit he was ... was ... jealous! How absolutely bizarre!
Perchance if he'd been born to different parents, if his childhood had been contrary to what it actually was, if his life wasn't occupied with immorality and vice, she might have been the sort of woman he'd have chosen as a bride.
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She was good and kind and precious—the total antithesis of himself.
For her to wheedle and feign fondness, to tantalize and entice with a promise of unattainable possibilities, was beyond the limits of what he could tolerate. He was resolved to show her, once and for all, just how incredibly imbecilic she was acting. The insipid ninny was enmeshed in a perilous pursuit, but she was too foolish to realize it.
Glancing around, gaining his bearings, he saw a small gardener's shed at the fork in the walkway, discreetly hidden behind a row of hedges and sheltering oak limbs. He rose, seized her elbow and brought her to her feet, spurring her along as though she weighed no more than a feather.
"Come!" he ordered.
"Where to?"
"You're about to learn why we can't sneak about kissing each other."
With a hasty peek down the footpath, he could distinguish that no one was in sight, so he yanked at the shed door and crept inside, dragging her in behind. Turning the wooden latch, he secured them from detection. There was a window up high that allowed air to flow. Dust and sunlight danced through it.
He stared at her, then rudely and inappropriately advanced, so that her breasts brushed against him, and his abused phallus was cushioned by her abdomen. To her credit, she didn't shy away. She straightened, unafraid of whatever he proposed.
All beauty, temperament, and allure, she was splendid.
"You want a kiss? Fine! I'll give you a kiss/' He grazed his thumb across her bottom lip, loitering, conscious of a gale of stimulation that extended to his extremities. "Close your eyes."
"Why?"
"Just do it," he scolded, exasperated.
Carefully, she studied him, then her eyelids fluttered shut, and without hesitating to debate the wisdom of his decision, he pressed his mouth to hers. Confounded, she
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stiffened but didn't pull away, not hindering him in the least, so he pretended that her placidity was acquiescence.
Holding only the back of her neck, he didn't deepen the embrace, nor did he caress her or flex against her. He simply merged with her and, as he'd suspected, he was immediately overwhelmed.
This is what heaven must be like. The transient concept drifted past, then evaporated.
Sweetly, almost chastely, he discovered her best-kept secrets, using scant pressure and bare coercion. With a feeling approximating joy, he teased and trifled.
Her reaction was just as instantaneous and staggering as his own. Her breasts swelled, her nipples beaded and buffeted against her corset, imploring their release from confinement. Her pulse escalated, her skin heated. Losing her balance, and needing to steady herself, she clasped his waist, her fingers kneading into the fabric of his coat.
A moan—one of bliss and awe—escaped, and he wasn't sure from whom it had emanated. Mayhap, it had been a mutual recognition of their collective exhilaration.
He couldn't have guessed how long he stood, deliberately luxuriating with her. Time had slowed, reality had no meaning. There was only her and the drab shed, and the divine impressions that swept over him.
When they finally separated, he was shaky, perplexed, and agitated—just as he'd known he'd be. His pulse was racing, his body ablaze, and his cockstand so painful that he wasn't sure how he'd walk inconspicuously to the house.
Gradually, he distanced himself, readjusting to being two distinct people when, for a transitory moment, they'd been a single entity unto themselves.
She breathed a soft sigh of regret, then her eyes opened, and she regarded him with artless candor and, if he wasn't mistaken, an extremely misplaced amount of tenderness.
He was a villain. A bounder. An undisciplined rogue with no morals or scruples, the fact that he'd now twice used her badly being the unequivocal proof.
"Oh, my ..." Her confusion and wonderment were man-
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ifest. She held her fingertips to her lips, as though containing the blistering commotion.
"That, Lady Sarah," he stridently professed, "is precisely why I won't kiss you. Don't ask ever again."
Though he was desperate to continue, to keep on until he hadn't the power or inclination to halt, he went to the door, freed the hook, and peeked out. No one was about.
He peered over his shoulder. She was bathed in shadows, a lovely, sheltered, exquisite gem inexplicably dropped into his sordid world, and he wanted her with an unrelenting, reckless abandon.
"Good day, milady." He bowed stiffly. "Don't wait for me in the gardens or anywhere else. I shan't stop by."
With that, he departed, leaving her to her own devices, r
eturning to the manor and the privacy of his rooms where he could contemplate the long, depressing hours till evening and the depraved night yet to come.
Chapter Eight
Sarah paced furiously from one end of her room to the other. She couldn't quit thinking about Michael Stevens, about their rendezvous in the yard, or their furtive trip to the gardener's shed. The kiss they'd shared had been the most thrilling, intriguing event in what she deemed to be her extremely eventless life.
He'd done nothing but lightly touch his mouth to hers, so how was it possible that such a simple gesture could be so riveting? All these hours later, long after he'd departed in a huff, and she'd returned to the house alone and more frustrated than ever, her body was completely disconcerted by the sensations the tender interlude had invoked.
She'd become uncomfortably conscious of her condition as a woman, a spinster, a virgin who was quite sure she didn't want to be one much longer. Yearning for his company, she was now eager to while away her time in wanton pursuits that she'd have previously considered patently ridiculous.
From the moment she'd first laid eyes upon him, she'd been drawn into his sordid realm, until she couldn't imagine an occurrence more lovely than the opportunity to revel in his sweet version of erotic excess.
How and why did he fascinate her so? What was it about him that overwhelmed her common sense, that had her mooning about the mansion, hoping to catch a glimpse of him? It was as though she'd reverted in age to a love-struck adolescent who was teeming with youthful, unrequited reveries which, given the state of their acquaintance, was absurd.
Three days prior, she'd met him in a shocking fashion,
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but since then, she hadn't learned any detail of consequence about him. He was purportedly a cad and a bounder, a man of horrendous reputation. But what else?
He had a mother and brother about whom he cared deeply, he was marvelous at kissing, and he would commit any foul escapade with a woman. That was the extent of her knowledge.
