“Yes, well-before and after.”
“How frightfully absurd.”
Her eyes widened a little as if she’d only just considered it. “Perhaps,” she agreed after a moment, drawing her chin up and away from his thumb. “But the point, sir, is that we had an arrangement.”
That made his blood boil. “An arrangement? Do you think that’s all this is? Do you think I enjoy being used?”
She faltered with that, blinking quickly as her gaze shot to the closed double doors once more. “I’m not using you—”
“Why would you risk everything to be with me, Vivian?” he cut in, his voice thick and strained. “You were so angry when I appeared today at the church, in your very ordered world, embarrassed to acknowledge me in front of friends. And it was you who came to me. You’re here now.” He leaned toward her, nearly nose to nose, clutching the back of her neck to keep her steady. “Tell me why you’re here.”
For a slice of a second he saw hesitation in her eyes, a quick calculation of whether to offer him the truth, explain her underlying worries, or continue with this game of deceit. It was all he could do not to grab her by the upper arms and shake her—or make love to her to distraction.
As if reading his mind, she suddenly relaxed and exhaled softly, lowering her lashes. “I’m so sorry.”
Such softly spoken words gave him pause.
Then she whispered, “Please, Will…” and tilted her head, gently kissing his palm that still rested beside her cheek, over and over with lips of rose-petal softness.
Eventually, he supposed, he would sit back and wonder about this day, about the first time he took her, about the reasons for their initial meeting that led to a decision to be with her, to give her so much of himself when she offered so little. But for now, he realized, he could no longer refrain from a consequence of action they both desired, regardless of the reasons behind it.
For now, she had won. Just as she knew she would because he was a man.
With a surge of primal lust—a lust fused with a heightened sense of fury at the futility of it all—he grabbed her jaw firmly and lowered his lips to hers, wrapping his free hand around her to pull her against him in a crushing embrace.
She gasped from the initial contact, then moaned as he immediately deepened his kiss, as his tongue invaded and searched for hers.
Raising her arms quickly, she clutched his shoulders firmly and pulled him even closer, her breasts flattened against him, teasing him.
For a fleeting moment, Will realized she’d changed into a gown without hoops, a decidedly convenient asset for them. And then she began to caress his neck, brushing the hair at his nape with her fingertips, following his lead as she seemed to melt into him, her tongue flicking across the inside of his top lip as she kissed him back with a passionate fervor he hadn’t felt from a woman in years. Suddenly all reason within him vanished.
He groaned, tightening his grip on her waist, pushing his fingers up into her hair. In an instant her breathing grew as rapid as his; his heart pounded against his chest, as she very nearly began to claw at his shirt.
She needed him. Wanted him. Will could only hope that she’d dreamed of him as he had of her.
With a sigh, she pulled her mouth away and began to kiss his jaw and cheek in quick pecks, pushing into him with the weight of her body. His lips skimmed her neck; his hands began to caress her back in strokes timed to the rhythm of his breathing. He didn’t worry about anyone intruding; his staff had strict orders not to interrupt when he was alone with her—a fact about which she seemed concerned as she glanced for a third time to the door.
“Vivian … don’t worry,” he muttered as his tongue found her earlobe and flicked it.
She moaned a sigh, and at last he felt her yield to him, her warm breath on his neck, her fingers laced through his hair as she held firmly to his head, her hot lips to his warm skin.
God, he wanted her, had wanted her for so much longer than she knew. And yet to hold back now… He had never in his life been so tempted to give in to an unquenchable desire.
With gentle urging, Will pushed her down onto the black leather sofa. Her gown fell around her as she followed his lead, leaning her head on the thickly padded armrest and pulling at his shirt, urging him silently to join her. He hesitated in climbing on her, for her skirts were bulky and her bodice tight. He knew that without testing it.
Instead, he knelt beside her, his knees resting on the thick oriental rug as he pushed the tea table away to give himself more room. He searched for her lips again, cutting her off with a full and searching kiss should she try to speak.
She didn’t. She whimpered softly when he slowly lowered his palm along her leg, over her skirt, moving deliberately toward her ankle. Her breathing grew uneven, her hands on his back, clutching him tightly, pulling him into her. Will could feel her breasts rising and falling with each fast breath, her hips starting to rotate independent of thought as the passion within her grew. He shoved his engorged member into the side of the sofa to temper his lust, afraid he’d come from simply hearing and feeling how much she wanted him at this moment. It was all he could do to stall his reaction.
Through a faint whisper she murmured his name, barely heard, and it made him groan as his palm began to glide along her leg, moving higher beneath her skirts as he caressed her over fine silk stockings.
His mouth devoured hers through staggered breathing, through the steady rocking of her hips, through the urgent pounding of his heart in his chest. He teased her lips, plunged his tongue inside the hot, dewy depths that beckoned him. Her hands clung tightly to his back, his shirt bunched in her palms as she kneaded his taut muscles. She strained her barely concealed breasts into his chest, and at last, with the upward drifting of his hand, he finally found the center of her desire, hidden oh so tantalizingly beneath a thin layer of satin.
She inhaled a sharp, quick breath when he touched her intimately, her head jerking back in response.
“Please…” she begged through a gasp, her words scarcely heard.
He moaned against her mouth, his lips skimming her jaw and the deep crevice of her neck as he began to lower them.
“Ah… Vivian…” he breathed, “let me give you what you need…”
She whimpered again, moving her palms up to cling to his head, her fingers threading through his hair. He didn’t think she heard him, or comprehended what he’d said, so lost was she in his wondrous assault on her delicious body.
With concentrated gentleness, he began to brush his fingertips up and down along the ridge of silk that thinly covered her feminine softness. In seconds, she’d found his rhythm, moving her hips steadily back and forth against his caress.
He lowered his lips to her perfectly molded collarbone, inhaling the scent of lavender on her skin, tracing the lace at the top of her breasts, seeking the delicate, rosy tips still covered in fine fabric. Due to unfortunate timing, he couldn’t actually feel her— her hard, aroused nipples, her sleek entrance, how wet he’d made her and how her naked form reacted to him. But it would have to be enough for now. He wanted to get her there.
He ran his chin across the swell of her lovely hidden breasts, sought one raised tip, nipped it with his teeth through the shear fabric of her clothing, and coupled with the quickening of his fingers between her thighs, she immediately neared the crest of orgasm.
Will raised his head and looked at her face, concentrating on every beautiful contour, listening to every sweet, feminine whimper, focusing on the heat he generated with each thrust of her hips against his hand. She still clung to his head but she was in another world, enjoying it as he gave it, her eyes squeezed shut, her breathing shallow and fast, her brow creased with intensity as the marvelous tightness coiled within her.
And then her lashes fluttered open.
She was nearly there.
Reaching down with his left hand, Will touched himself over his pants. Suddenly, and without stroking, he’d reached the point of no return.
>
God, just the feel of her, the look and sound of her, had made him come…
In that magnificent instant, she gazed into his eyes and whispered, “Yes—oh, yes…”
He let himself go.
Groaning deep within, Will captured her mouth as she cried out, as her fingers dug into his scalp and her entire body shook and trembled and found its ecstasy. He shoved his own hips into his palm, pressed to the side of the sofa, one hand at her hot center, the other feeling himself pulsate with his own explosion of pleasure.
Never had an orgasm hit him so hard and at such a sweet moment.
Never had it been like this.
“Vivian…” he breathed, fitting his face gently at her neck, lips to hot skin, slowing the moments he made with her and for her.
What you’ve done to me…
“Take—” She swallowed a harsh gasp. “Take me, Will. Please.”
It took seconds before he realized she didn’t know it was too late for that.
Jesus.
“Vivian,” he whispered after a moment, unsure what to say and not ready to back away, to look into her eyes and expose himself completely. Not yet. In soft murmur, he added, “I don’t want our first time… to be like this.”
After an agonizingly long pause, he thought he felt her nod, her chin brushing his temple negligibly. She trembled beneath him until her breathing began to even, though she never said another word.
Time stilled for them, for now, for several lingering minutes as an afternoon rain began to fall atop the roof, stirring the vegetation in the conservatory beyond. William felt his pulse slowing to a normal, steady pace as he listened without thought to the pattering of rain and the steady beating of her heart beneath his cheek.
Everything would be more complicated now. She would demand the manuscript and he wouldn’t provide it, had no intention of providing it, for in truth they hadn’t consummated anything. A nasty play of words would likely now ensue. Unless, he considered with an unusual flush of warmth, she’d want him again, with greater intimacy. For now, he awaited her response.
At last she squirmed a little beneath his chest, drew her hands to his shoulders and pushed him away with soft force. Reluctantly, he raised his head and sat up a little, gazing down to her rosy, satisfied face.
She kept her eyes closed, her long, dark lashes creating a striking contrast of shape and color as they formed half-crescents across her clear, pinkened cheeks.
God, she really was a beauty of a woman—vibrant of personality, warm, colorful, intelligent. And a physical appearance that stirred his blood and heated his desire every time she cast him even a trace of a smile.
He reached up and lightly ran his index finger over her brow. The muscles of her forehead twitched once, though she still didn’t acknowledge him. Then she turned to her side, placed her palms on the sofa’s armrest, and pushed herself to a sitting position.
Will raised himself up and sat beside her, hands clasped together, feet planted on the floor, and, although he was loathe to define its cause, feeling rather nervous. For a moment she did nothing, just stared at the tea table in front of her. Then, with the elegance of a high-born lady, she stood and arranged her skirts, taking a moment to fix her hair and pat loosened strands back into place. She never even glanced at him.
Awkwardly, he raised himself to stand beside her. “Vivian—”
She cut him off immediately by placing her hand on his chest, shaking her head minutely. And then with a subtle lift of her chin, shoulders erect, she stiffly walked out of his library.
Chapter 11
Clement Hastings lowered his body into his usual chair of choice across from Will’s secretary and reached into his coat pocket for his small book of notes. He’d come with news, sending an abrupt correspondence early this morning requesting a few minutes of the duke’s time so that he could relay some important, recently acquired information. A bit on edge, Will had been able to think of little else aside from his first intimate encounter with Vivian yesterday afternoon, so this diversion came as a bit of a relief. If it weren’t for the fact that the entire relationship between them centered around that damn manuscript and whomever was behind its desired possession, he’d concentrate solely on her and pleasing her to distraction. As it was, he found it increasingly difficult to think of anything else.
“Thank you, Hastings,” he said, motioning with a nod as he leaned back in his rocker. “What have you this morning?”
“Well,” Hastings began as he crossed one chubby leg covered in purple and yellow plaid over the other, “my men and I have discovered some rather peculiar things about Montague’s past.”
Will slowly leaned forward in his chair. “Go on,” he urged when Hastings paused for several seconds to flip a page or two in his notes.
“His real name is Gilbert Herman. He’s the great-grandson of a Bohemian Jew who immigrated to England during the outbreak of the Seven Years War in seventeen fifty-six. His great-grandfather and great-grandmother, who was pregnant with Gilbert’s grandfather at the time, came here looking for work and eventually started a small merchant business on the east side of London, near the river we believe. In any case, the great-grandfather’s name was… er… Isaac, yes, Isaac Herman.”
Will watched Hastings stretch out a bit in an attempt to get comfortable in the chair. Herman… he’d never heard the name before.
“They named the child she carried David, which was also the name of Gilbert’s father,” Hastings continued gravely. “David Herman the second, Gilbert’s father, was apparently an extremely bright and very interesting character. He took over his grandfather’s merchant business—after his father tired of running it—when he was twenty-two, quickly building it into a solid shipping company—”
“What’s the name of the company?” Will asked, cutting in, quite certain he wouldn’t know anyway, though it seemed a decent place to start.
Hastings frowned and shrugged negligibly. “We really don’t know, your grace. He sold the company only three years after he acquired it. He made his money fast and got out quickly as far as we can tell. He married a woman by the name of Mary Elizabeth Creswald when he was twenty-seven, a rather plain creature from Northampton whose father owned a small bank. With the money he had and a father-in-law with banking influence, he became, after several years, a rather affluent banker himself in London.”
“When was Gilbert born?”
“Er… let’s see… oh, yes, in eighteen twenty-two, two years after his father married Miss Creswald.” Hastings drew his brows together, looking hard at his notes. “He was an only child, as his mother apparently had a very difficult birth and was told never to have more children. She died of a lung ailment only two years after that Gilbert was raised by his father to succeed him in the business, but at some time in his youth he was told he had no sense of numbers and would never make it in banking. At that point, I’m guessing, he decided on acting as a profession. The rest you basically know.”
Will leaned back in his chair, eyes narrowed in puzzlement as he tapped his thumb on his desktop.
Hastings relaxed as well, closed his notebook, and waited for questions or instructions as was usual. What the devil did the son of a Jewish banker have in common with Vivian? And how could he have possibly learned about his prized manuscript?
“Is either David Herman senior or Herman junior still alive?” he asked, although already speculating on the answer.
The investigator shook his head. “No, your grace, the senior Herman died of natural causes some years ago; Herman junior died in a fire in his home.”
“I see…” Will drew in a long, deep breath. “Did he die before his son left for the Continent?”
“Yes, your grace, the banker died nine years ago. He did, however, leave Gilbert a nice little package of wealth when he went, although most everything is gone now. The actor himself doesn’t have any money to speak of unless he’s keeping it tightly hidden. We haven’t found a trace of any substantial wea
lth in his name, or his father’s.”
“So,” Will speculated out loud as he slowly stood and began to pace the oriental rug, “two Jewish immigrants come to this country, set up a business, have a son and grandson who, in turn, sells the business at a young age. The grandson marries a plain, ordinary woman whose father happens to own a bank. With the banker’s influence, and his money, he goes into business for himself, making a nice little income. His wife dies and their only child, who is half Jewish, becomes a Shakespearean actor who suddenly turns up in Cornwall, has one rather unusual conversation with a local widowed florist, who, in turn, attempts to extort a priceless manuscript from me.”
“That about sums up what we know so far, your grace.”
Will stopped pacing in front of his enormous mantelpiece, gazing thoughtfully at two fine Chinese vases that, if sold, would render him more cash than the manuscript ever could in a free market. To the average subject, the sonnet was useless.
“Why Vivian?” he heard himself asking. “How does she play into all of this?”
“I’ve no idea,” Hastings answered honestly. He cleared his throat. “But I think it’s plausible that a Shakespearean actor, regardless of where he came from, would desire to possess a manuscript signed by the master himself.”
Will nodded, shoving both hands in his pockets and turning to face the investigator. “Indeed. But why use Mrs. Rael-Lamont?” And why would she put her work, name, and future at risk by coming to me?
Slowly, taking extraordinary care with his words, Hastings tapped his fingers together in front of him as he replied, “I would suspect, your grace, that he’s got some hold over her. And yet we’re not even certain what his intentions are. The change of his name from Herman to Montague might have no malevolent meaning at all. It could be because of his work on the stage, or more likely because Herman is a Jewish name.”
Will very well understood the role anti-Semitism might play in one’s career, within the city or outside of it, and still, Gilbert Herman’s name change seemed most convenient. Everything in him told him there was much more involved. There were simply too many questions.
Duke of Sin Page 11
