“You’re a goddess. Any man who does not treasure you appropriately is not worthy of you. If you take one lesson from our time together, take that.”
The finality in his words deflated the tension she’d been carrying.
He was not asking her for more than this. He was simply saying his farewells.
Always perfectly mannered, her Lord Bore.
“So it’s really over,” she said, exhaling. “The bill passed.”
“Went through without a change. Six votes to spare.” He laughed quietly, such a sound of private relief that she smiled for him, through her sadness.
“I’m saved,” he said, pressing another kiss to her knuckle over the ink spots. “You saved me. You’re a genius, you know.”
She closed her eyes and leaned back against him.
“Yes, of course I know,” she murmured. “I go around telling everyone who will listen, so you’d think it would not be such a surprise when I am proven correct.”
He wrapped his arms around her. “Hush.”
His lips came down on her neck.
For just one second, as he traced a molten path down to her shoulder, she imagined a different sort of future.
In this version, she found the courage to tell him she’d been wrong.
To say that perhaps, if he asked her one more time to stay, she would give him a final chance to take what she found so difficult to offer anyone: her heart.
But as he dragged his lips along her skin, she couldn’t find the courage.
Maybe because she didn’t really wish to give her heart away.
Or maybe because her memory was long, and she simply didn’t trust him not to shatter it.
She leaned against him, inviting more of his kisses.
For this much, she knew, was true: she trusted him innately with her body.
“My God, what is that scent you wear?” he murmured, inhaling her shamelessly, in case he never got another chance to breathe it in. “I’ve always wondered.”
“I don’t wear a scent.”
He groaned. “You lie, you wicked girl.”
She shook her head and he realized it must be true, because every time he breathed her in, he was met with some fresh, new intoxication.
“Then I am incomparably addicted to the smell of your skin,” he murmured.
Saying as much exposed him, but at the moment he could not bring himself to care. Soon he was going to lose her, and soon the world would know he was not the kind of man who had ever much adhered to decency, and the combination made him physically unable to let go of her quite yet.
He pulled her against him and sighed at the feeling of her nestled up against his body. He was hard, and didn’t want to overwhelm her, but he also didn’t ever want to move away.
“Do you mind that? The feel of me?” he asked, pressing his erection to the cleft of her buttocks.
She closed her eyes in the mirror. “I love the way it feels.”
“So do I,” he murmured. He turned her around to face him.
“Oh yes,” she whispered. She widened her thighs and pressed his buttocks closer so that she could feel his erection through her skirts. He clenched her against his length and groaned.
“Oh my,” she gasped.
“Constance,” he murmured, unable to resist his attraction to her. Wanting, somehow, to leave her with some proof of it. “I know I said I wouldn’t. But before we say farewell I want to touch you. I can’t stop thinking about it.”
“Neither can I,” she said, kissing him along his jaw. “Please don’t stop just yet. It feels so lovely.”
He scooped her more firmly against him and kissed her where her breasts rose from her bodice. “I would never compromise your virtue. But if you’d like I can make you feel lovelier still.”
She looked up into his eyes and shivered. “Yes,” she said breathily. “Lock the door. There’s a key in the credenza.”
He did, and when he turned back, she rushed toward him.
“Kiss me,” she said.
For once, he didn’t argue. He drew her back with him and pulled her down onto a sofa across from the mirror. He could not stop himself from noticing that she was shaking.
Trembling for him, and he’d barely even touched her yet. Christ, but she was precious.
He kissed her eyes, her nose, her neck. He knelt down on the floor in front of her feet and kissed the pulse points at her wrists.
“May I lift this up?” he asked, playing with the hem of her gown.
“Yes.”
He brought it up over her knees and kissed the laces of her stockings. Carefully, he swept up her petticoats and parted her legs, kissing the insides of her thighs.
“I want you to watch me in the mirror.”
He nibbled at her thighs, edging closer and closer to her quim until he could feel her heat, smell her desire. He teased her with his lips and breath until it seemed she was one, long, arching sigh. She was so wet and swollen and lush and she hissed so ardently at his touch that he wanted to weep.
He ran a thumb over the cleft between her legs. “May I kiss you here?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
His fingers made connection with her most tender flesh.
“My God,” he murmured, at the slickness there.
“It happens whenever I think of you,” she said.
“Then I hope you will think of me often.”
“I can’t stop,” she gasped, as his tongue made connection with her body.
He didn’t answer, because he had lost all sense of language.
All she could do was feel.
Julian held her by the waist as his mouth rewrote what it meant to feel alive. She glanced in the mirror at the image: her skirts flung up around her, his face pressed between her thighs, her head bent back in ecstasy. The erotic sight of it overmastered her. She leaned forward, gripped his hair, and died into his neck.
He held her while she came apart and tried to avoid summoning her family with her gasps.
When she finally stopped shaking, her pleasure was replaced by a sense of shyness at what he had just done. But he only looked up at her with the kindest eyes imaginable, smiled, and then placed a long, lingering kiss on her knee.
“Thank you for the lesson, Julian,” she said, because she could not think of what else to say. Other than Please ask me one more time.
He stood up and stroked her hair.
“I need to tell you something,” he whispered in her ear.
Say I love you. Tell me to stay.
“That’s what you deserve from a lover,” he said tenderly. “Wherever you go, whatever life you find, don’t ever accept any man who fails to see that you are every inch a goddess.”
She sighed. Any other man, he meant.
“I know you will find a man who treasures you and deserves you,” he went on. “And I, Lady Constance, will be extremely jealous of him.”
She had her answer.
She’d been so hoping for a clue that the risk of revealing how she felt might be worthwhile.
Instead, he’d kindly given her a clue it wouldn’t.
She wrapped her arms around him so he would not be able to see her face. “Enough of that, you alley tomcat. You’re as bad as they say in the papers. Come, fix my dress. The family is waiting.”
After he helped her repair her attire and they walked outside onto the terrace, their families cheered. Julian looked proud and slightly overwrought and bashful to be seen so full of feeling.
At least there was this: her sacrifice was worth it, to give him such relief.
She wanted to remember him like this forever.
He raised his glass in the air. “Forgive me for being sentimental, but may I burden you with a toast?”
“Toast!” her family cried. “Toast!”
“One month ago my life was a shambles. I was certain that I would never have the respect of any of you again. But one woman believed in me. When I had given up on myself, she came, scraped me up, and explained, step by st
ep, how we were going to fix the mess. At the time, I doubted her plan would work. But she was very persistent, and I was very desperate, and lo and behold, Lady Constance Stonewell was, as usual, exactly right.”
She felt tears welling up. Why was he saying this? There was no reason to toast her now. They had already won. There was no point in pretending.
Nevertheless, her family cheered.
“To Lady Constance, to whom I owe my life,” he said. “Not just a woman. A goddess.”
He met her eye as he said it, making her blush straight down to her breasts, which still ached from her unmet desire for him to take them in his mouth. To her thighs, which were still slick from her want for him. To her heart, which was breaking.
“To Lady Constance!” her family shouted.
She raised her glass and cleared her throat. “You know I can never stand to let Lord Bore have the last word,” she said, to mordant chuckles. “So I shall have to have it for him. Julian, you never deserved the things the papers said about you. You never deserved to be saddled with a troublemaking specimen like myself. But I must say, the situation flattered you. Because before this month, I don’t think any of us quite knew how remarkable you are. I don’t think we—I—saw you for the strong, passionate, forceful, good, and clever man you are. You, Lord Bore, are unforgettable.”
Emotion shone in his eyes. She raised her glass to him.
“To the least boring man I’ve ever met. I am so excited to see what the next several decades of your life have in store.”
“Bravo!” everyone shouted.
But she could barely hear them. Because she only had eyes for him, and the way he was looking at her.
As though none of it was pretend.
As though this night was the start of the rest of their lives.
Chapter 16
One could always trust an event devised by Constance Stonewell to be spectacular, but the sight inside the doors of Westmead House the following evening was so stunning that, for once, Apthorp could not even muster the cynicism to roll his eyes at the expense.
Huge, luxuriant blooms lined the walls from floor to ceiling in shades of white and cream. The scent of lilies wafted through the air like candlelight you could inhale. Sheer linen drapes dyed in pale shades of violet gave the room a dreamy atmosphere, and gold ropes dangled from the ceiling, inciting speculation as to what mysteries might be in store.
Constance was giving London something to remember her by.
It broke him.
Westmead waved and walked over.
“Go upstairs and wait for Constance in the drawing room. I will introduce the entertainment, and you will wait behind the curtains while the acrobats perform. After the finale I’ll raise the curtains, present you both to the room, and you will march down that staircase for the opening dance. Constance has arranged for an orchestra. And the release of ten thousand white rose petals. Naturally.”
He whistled. “How dramatic, Your Grace.”
Westmead rolled his eyes. “I know. But it’s what she wants. I may be becoming sentimental at the idea of you whisking her away.”
Apthorp could not answer him, because anything he might say would be the worst kind of lie. He clapped the duke on the back and marched up the stairs to console himself with Westmead’s excellent brandy while he waited.
It was an hour before Constance arrived, and by then he was ever so slightly tipsy. But not too tipsy to notice she was gorgeous.
Her hair was pinned up with pale pink lilies the exact shade of her lips. All that pink set off her bright blue eyes, which shone next to the long strands of sapphires dangling from her ears and coiled around her neck.
“It should be illegal to look like that,” he said.
She grinned at him. “You look rather illegal yourself, my lord.”
He took her hand. “So tonight’s our final act.”
She smiled. “Let’s make it a memorable one. The acrobats are nearly ready. Shall we take our place behind the curtains? We’ll have to stand there for a while, but I don’t want to distract them while they’re walking on wires.”
She led him to an alcove that had been fashioned from yards of draped linen behind the balustrade at the top of the grand staircase. Soft violet curtains drifted from the ceiling, strung with lilies and strands of gold wire. It looked like a cage for an angel’s songbird.
God, his wits were soppy. He’d overdone it on the brandy.
Outside Westmead rang a bell to catch the audience’s attention, welcoming the guests. The orchestra struck up, and the gasps of the crowd signaled that the acrobats had taken their positions.
“How long is their act?” he asked Constance.
“A quarter hour,” she said, taking a sip of champagne.
“What shall we do to pass the time?”
She smiled, a bit sadly. “A pity you never liked playing dice.”
“Oh, Constance,” he murmured. He pulled her to his chest and simply held her.
“It’s been fun, hasn’t it?” She smiled sadly. “We made a good pair after all.”
He hated the finality in her words.
He wanted to tell her that they need not part ways. To get down on his knees and beg her for one last chance.
But then he thought of Evesham, and he knew he could not ask her that.
Which made this no less painful. He held her tighter, letting her scent envelop him.
“Perhaps we could pass the time with one last lesson,” she murmured.
“What kind of lesson?”
“Perhaps you could teach me to kiss someone so that he will remember you forever.”
“Do you think I could ever, ever forget you?” he asked as he threaded his hands around her lower back and brought her toward him. He did not wait for a reply before he placed his mouth on hers.
The need to kiss her with delicacy—after all, in a few short minutes they must march down the stairs as though none of this had happened—made him feel every breath, every shudder, every gasp with perfect clarity.
“You make me overeager as a boy,” he said roughly into her hair. “My God. I’m shaking. You know that, don’t you? How badly I want you?”
She said nothing, only tightened her fingers around his shoulders and buried her face in his neck. No doubt it was the brandy, but suddenly he wanted to tell her everything. For when would he have another chance?
“I always have, you know,” he said raggedly. “Ever since the first time I saw you, I thought you were the most captivating creature on earth.”
He dragged his hands up over her bodice, fierce. “I wanted to touch you. I wanted to know every single thing about you.”
I still do.
She made a small, tortured sound and he put his mouth to the hot, fragrant skin above her breasts.
“Prove it,” she whispered, taking his hands in hers.
“Sweet girl,” he murmured. “It’s too late.”
She gave him a look he had not seen in a week. A defiant, taunting look.
“No, it isn’t, Julian. We have at least fifteen minutes.”
“Darling girl.” He laughed into her neck to keep from crying.
She drew him back. “Let me touch you,” she said. “Just once. So I can dream of it.”
Before he could think, her hands fumbled at his breeches, and then they were on his flesh. Outside the curtains, he heard the orchestra play the end of the first movement. The performance must be well under way.
Constance took his erection in her hand and ran her fingers over the tip. His entire body shuddered.
“You’re softer than I imagined,” she said. “And larger. One wonders how you manage to walk.” She ran her hand up the shaft and gently squeezed.
“You mustn’t,” he groaned. “I won’t be able to recover.”
“What if I don’t want you to recover?” He could hear the arousal in her voice. “What if I want you to fall apart?”
God, it was tempting.
“Let me please
you. Show me how. One more lesson.”
Her fingers gripped around him, untrained but instinctive.
“A little death before our closing act,” she whispered. “One final secret.”
He wanted it so badly, but it was every kind of wrong. “There isn’t enough time.”
She gripped him harder. “Are you certain? I find that with a bit of practice it doesn’t take me long at all. Especially since you gave me that very clever gift.”
He groaned in pure, desperate lust and closed his eyes and felt her fingers tracing over the crown of his cock, where she found a bit of wetness and smeared it with her thumb. He shuddered so violently she glanced up and grinned.
“Are you experiencing a death?” she asked, playing with the oozing head of him.
“You mustn’t,” he gasped. “I’ll spend and make a mess of you. I’ve wanted you too long.”
“I want to make you come, Julian. So I can think about it later. When I’m distressed.”
What he wanted to suggest was the essence of pure dastardliness. He whispered it anyway. “Perhaps if you knelt down and used your mouth.”
He deserved a slap for that, but instead she gave him a very wicked smile.
The one she saved for when she was at her most provocative. God, he’d missed that smile.
She sank to her knees and looked up at him beneath her lashes, smiling. Her lips traced tentatively against the head of his cock, her tongue alighting at the very tip.
“You taste like salt,” she whispered.
Christ.
“Tell me what to do,” she murmured. “Hurry.” She took him in her lips.
Outside, the crowd gasped in time with the swishing of the ropes. The dancers were building up to the climax of their performance.
“Yes, like that, take me in. Suck … Gently, just your tongue, no teeth.”
The world grew dark and contained to their joined flesh. He let his fingertips fall into her hair.
“That’s it. A bit deeper. Christ, Constance.”
He thrust as gently as he could stand to as she laved the underside of his erection with her tongue, his need swelling in his bollocks, the shouting of the crowd just beyond them making the whole thing so wrong and so essential.
The Earl I Ruined Page 21
