by Candace Camp
“I’m not forcing you to do anything. But I refuse to sacrifice all hope of happiness.”
“Happiness?” He loomed over her, so close she could feel the heat of his body. “You think you will enjoy forcing a man who despises you into your bed? You want to be taken without pleasure? Without love? That is nothing but rutting.”
“Women have been doing that for centuries,” she shot back. “I am sure I can endure it.”
“Endure it?” he growled. “Really?” He grabbed her arms and jerked her flush against his body. His mouth came down on hers, hard and hungry. He turned, walking her back until they came up hard against the wall, his mouth locked to hers. Finally he raised his head, his eyes bright, his breath coming in hard, fast pants. “This? This is what you are ready to endure?”
Abigail stared up into his hot, furious gaze. Her entire body thrummed. She smiled at him, a slow, triumphant, beckoning smile. “Let’s find out.”
His eyes widened, and, with a low groan, his mouth returned to hers.
chapter 8
It would be a lie to say that Abby had not wondered what her wedding night would have been like if Graeme had not stormed out ten years ago. She had more than once imagined how his lips would have felt upon hers, how his arms would have enveloped her. But never in any of her daydreams had she imagined this.
He pressed his body into hers, imprinting her with the hard lines of muscle and bone. His mouth consumed hers, hot and drugging. Abigail kissed him back, imitating the movement of his lips and tongue. He clenched his hands in her hair, making a soft noise deep in his throat that threatened to melt her very flesh.
It had never occurred to her that her whole body could ache and yearn like this, that a deep insistent throbbing would spring to life between her legs, that she would find herself trembling and scarcely able to breathe . . . and yet wanting more and more. She heard a soft whimper and realized in some amazement that it had come from her.
Graeme rubbed his body over hers, and the ache inside her grew, pleasure and hunger flowing together. His hands slid down her, touching her in shocking places that made her shiver with delight. He cupped one of her breasts, dragging his thumb across the cloth and awakening the nipple beneath. With wonder, she felt her flesh harden beneath his touch, his thumb circling and circling until she thought she would have cried out if his mouth had not been clamped on hers.
His lips went to her cheeks, her ears, her throat. She heard the harsh rasp of his breath, and, like the searing heat of his skin, this evidence of his desire multiplied her own. She had to fight back a moan. She wanted him; she wanted . . . something. Wanted it so badly that she dug her fingers into the cloth of his jacket as if she could pull it out of him.
His fingers fumbled at the buttons of her dress, opening it, and he slid his hand beneath the cloth. The feel of his fingertips on her skin shocked her, thrilled her, and the yearning between her legs blossomed. He roamed over the soft flesh of her breast and delved beneath the lace edging of her chemise. He nipped gently at her neck, circling with his tongue, as his fingers found the hard bud of her nipple. And now she did moan, the sound soft and helpless, and she felt his body shudder against hers in response.
Abby breathed his name, her hand caressing his hair. He raised his head and his eyes locked with hers. His heat surrounded her; his scent filled her nostrils; his hard, rapid breaths brushed her skin. She saw only him, felt only him. And nothing had ever been so right.
“Oh, God.” He let his head drop, and she felt his muscles tighten. He levered himself away from the wall, away from her. He sent her a single fevered look, a volatile mix of anger and desire that should have made her shrink from him but only made her want to pull him back to her.
Graeme swung away, slamming his hand flat against the wall. He strode out of the room, thudding the door closed behind him. Abigail remained where she was, leaning against the wall, her heart racing, breath rushing in and out. Slowly she slid down to sit on the floor, unsure whether to laugh or cry—and knowing what she wanted most was to run after him.
Graeme stretched his legs out in front of him, a glass of whiskey dangling from his fingertips, and contemplated the coals glowing on the grate. That woman, he thought with great bitterness, had driven him insane. After he charged out of her hotel suite, he’d walked so long and aimlessly through the streets that he had wound up hopelessly lost. He had been fortunate to find a hansom cab to take him home—and even more fortunate, probably, that some footpad hadn’t seen him, deep in his fog, and decided he was perfect prey.
That would have been all he needed, to be bashed over the head and acquire a large knot to go along with the cuts and bruises from his round of fisticuffs with the American—not to mention the large purplish oval on his ribs from the cosh wielded by his wife. It was no coincidence that she was also an American; there was something decidedly bellicose about those people.
Worse, they seemed to have an extraordinary ability to turn him into someone who was just as mad as they were. Never in his life had he acted as he had the other night with Abigail. If anyone had told him he could be eaten up with hunger that way for a woman whom he disliked with equal intensity, he would have scoffed at the idea.
He was a reasonable man. An even-tempered, polite sort ruled by logic and duty and practicality. He was not unemotional. He felt everything from love to pity to despair and hatred, but not to such excess . . . and not all at the same time! Yet there he had been, pawing her like some lecher, kissing her as if he would consume her—and, Lord, but he had wanted to do exactly that. He wanted to be inside her, over her, around her, driving into her with all the desperation in his soul. Her, of all people—a woman whom he held in contempt. A woman whom he never wanted to see again.
Yet he could not get her out of his mind.
It had been two days since he’d left Abigail, and he had done nothing but think about her. He should apologize; he’d behaved like a lout. Graeme had never handled a woman roughly in his life—though, God knew, it hadn’t seemed to bother her any. Perhaps she was used to men who shoved her against a wall and kissed her wildly, who thrust their hands down the front of her dress. Graeme sighed. He wasn’t sure which he felt more when he thought about his actions, guilt or arousal. The truth was, much as he knew he should apologize to her, he was frankly uneasy at the thought of calling on her. He wasn’t sure what he might do if he was alone with her again.
She was damnably seductive, though he wasn’t sure what she did to lure him. It might have been her laugh, or, no, it was more the teasing way she spoke to him, as if goading him into something outrageous. Perhaps it was that mouth that quirked up at the corners, not quite a smile, but clearly an invitation.
Abigail was no innocent, he was sure of that. A woman who went about making bold proposals as she had, who reacted as she did to his kiss, was a woman of experience. For all her proclamations of unwillingness to get a baby off some other man, she obviously must have had a lover. Lovers. He wondered if the man normally in her bed was Prescott.
His jaw clenched. He should have hit the fellow harder.
“Montclair?” The dowager countess’s voice cut through his gloomy thoughts. “Honestly, child, what are you doing in the dark?” She turned on the wall sconces.
“Sorry, Grandmother.” Graeme squinted in the sudden light.
“You have been acting most peculiarly.” She swept over to stare down at him. “You haven’t been outside this house for days.”
Suppressing a sigh, Graeme rose to his feet with ingrained courtesy. “I apologize if I have worried you.”
“Your grandfather was a moody man. I do hope you aren’t turning out to be like him.”
“A momentary aberration, I assure you. I shall doubtless be sunny again soon.”
“No need for impertinence.” She frowned. “Obviously you don’t wish to talk about whatever is troubling you, at least not to me.”
“Grandmother . . .”
“I know. I know. There
are things a gentleman cannot speak of with ladies. Indeed, I am sure I would not wish to hear it. Why don’t you visit your cousin?”
“James?”
“Yes, of course James. The rest of that lot is useless, just like their mother. But James at least is levelheaded.”
“There’s nothing to talk about, really.” He could well imagine how James would react if Graeme started pouring out this welter of emotions to him.
Lady Eugenia sniffed. “It’s up to you, of course, if you choose to act like a bear with a sore paw, snapping at everyone.”
“I haven’t—”
“Or mope about like Hamlet on the castle wall.”
“Grandmother . . .”
“However, I do expect you to escort me to the theater tomorrow night.”
With an effort, Graeme refrained from grinding his teeth. “Of course. I shall be happy to.”
“Well, that’s a lie, and we both know it,” she said with a flash of a smile that surprised them both. She reached out and patted his arm awkwardly. “But I shall hold you to it. Good night, dear, and don’t stay up too long, brooding.”
“I won’t.” He sank down into his chair. He would jolly well brood if he wanted to.
Lord, now he was beginning to sound like a seven-year-old.
Graeme surged back up to his feet and began to pace. His grandmother was right—as she so often and irritatingly proved to be. He should get out of the house, clear his head. Why not talk to James? He would doubtless snicker at Graeme’s dilemma, but after thirty-three years, Graeme was accustomed to that. James was the least emotional person Graeme knew; if anyone could cut through the tangle inside Graeme, it would be he. Besides, Graeme was thoroughly sick of his own company. He might as well inflict it on James.
James was home, and though his dog lifted his great head from the rug and glowered at the interruption of his sleep, James was unruffled by the late visit. “Cousin! Come in. Out brawling with Americans again?”
Graeme grimaced. “None other than my wife. She hit me with a cosh the other night.” He flopped down in one of the chairs before the fireplace.
James’s eyebrows vaulted up. “Probably best not to ask why.”
“She thought I was someone else.”
“Now you really have roused my curiosity. Who, pray tell, did she think you were?”
“I don’t know. A footpad, I suppose; she was wandering about in an abysmal area. Or perhaps someone she went to meet. I followed her.”
“Cousin . . . whatever is going on? Your life has become something of a melodrama lately.”
“It’s a thorough mess. Abigail is up to something, and she won’t tell me what. Well, she did tell me, but I don’t see how that would explain why she’s hiding messages and sneaking out to meet people in dark streets.”
“I think this tale calls for a drink. Brandy?”
“I started out with whiskey tonight; best stick to that.”
James went to the sideboard and poured two drinks. Handing one to Graeme, he settled down in his chair. The mastiff hauled himself to his feet and leaned against James’s knee. Absently James scratched Dem’s head as he sipped his drink. “There. I am armed. Tell away.”
“She wants a baby.” It gave Graeme some satisfaction to see his usually unflappable cousin gape at him.
“I beg your pardon?”
“She’s decided she wants to have a child.”
“And she’s chosen you as the, um . . . provider of this service?”
“Well, I am her husband—and if you say, ‘Not so anyone can tell,’ I swear I will thrash you.”
James raised a hand pacifically. “Go on.”
Graeme shrugged. “That’s it, I suppose.”
James looked at him for a long moment. “So, to sum up, the woman offered to sleep with you, correct?” The corner of his mouth twitched. “How dastardly of her.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“It seems rather simple to me.”
“She threatened to divorce me if I refused—apparently in America they all run about divorcing one another. She’s holding the scandal over me like a club. It’s coercion. She’s just like her father—controlling, deceitful. I know she has something else in mind. She’s plotting some devious plan.”
“Such as?”
“I don’t know! The other night, after Prescott told me Abigail knew nothing about what her father did, I began to believe him. Believe her. I thought I’d been unfair to her before. But then she got this message slipped beneath her door . . .” He described Abigail’s peculiar actions and his own investigation. “So the next night I followed her. That’s when she hit me—with this little cosh that she apparently carries about with her. She says a woman at some almshouse or other gave it to her for protection when she goes traipsing around the slums of New York. That’s another thing—she’s been giving the money I send her to this almshouse. It seems she doesn’t want anything from me.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” James murmured, taking a sip of his drink.
Graeme sent him a dark look. “Except for that.”
“Who was it Lady Montclair went to meet?”
“I don’t know. She refused to tell me. She was bloody secretive about it, and when I demanded to know what the devil she was up to and what she wanted from me, that’s when she said, ‘A baby.’ Why would that cause her to be creeping around dark streets and meeting people she won’t name? I know she must have something more in mind. Some scandal she’ll create to ruin the family.”
“How? What scandal?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t a devious mind—maybe you could figure it out.”
“Ooh, cousin!” James grinned. “A direct hit.”
“Sorry. I’m lashing out at everyone, it seems. Grandmother told me tonight I was acting like a bear.”
“Who wouldn’t if they had to live with the dowager countess?”
Graeme smiled faintly, then sighed. “Maybe Abigail just intends to have my child, then use him to punish me. Go back to New York and take him with her. Turn him against me. I don’t know.”
“Why?”
“That’s obvious—for revenge. I told you how harsh I was to her ten years ago. I didn’t think about it at the time; I was so furious, I wouldn’t have cared, frankly. But it wasn’t just that. It exposed her to ridicule, not just here but in her own society, as well. You recall the gossip—when she left, it made the split very public. She was humiliated.”
James shrugged. “She wouldn’t have been if she hadn’t taken off like a rabbit.”
“I doubt she looks at it like that.” Graeme sipped his drink, falling into silence.
“Graeme, I realize that you don’t want to dance to this woman’s tune . . .”
“I will not be coerced,” Graeme said fiercely, leaning forward. “I had to marry her, but I bloody well don’t have to sleep with her. She’s manipulative and . . . it’s damned cold and calculating, isn’t it? She has no interest in me; she just wants a baby.”
“Women always want babies, Graeme. It’s God’s little favor to men.”
Graeme made a disgusted noise. “Can’t you see? It isn’t just sex.”
“No? What is it?”
“It’s not as if she’s any woman, someone I can see a few times and leave with a diamond necklace. She’s my wife. To sleep with her, to have a child with her—that’s an intimacy I don’t want to share with Abigail. It’s a betrayal. . . .”
“Of Laura Hinsdale? Good Lord, Graeme . . .”
“I know you think I’m a romantic ass, but—”
“You are a romantic ass. Miss Hinsdale is a pretty girl, but she could not be that remarkable. One woman is much like another, I find.”
“You don’t understand. You’ve never been in love.”
“No, thank God.” James sighed, causing the mastiff to raise his head and look worriedly at him. James gave Dem a reassuring pat. “I will accept that you still pine for the fetching Miss Hinsdale even though you
haven’t touched her in ten years—have you?”
“I didn’t touch her then. I wouldn’t have compromised her. And I certainly haven’t done so since.”
“Of course not. But, for pity’s sake, be sensible. You must have an heir unless you want to leave everything to your second cousin once removed or whatever Randall is.”
“I’m willing to do that.”
“Very well, then. How would you like to be presented with an heir fathered by another man? Would you be happy with that, too? What if she decides it would be easier to have an affair than to get a divorce? Are you going to accept her lover’s child? Watch him grow up year after year, the proverbial cuckoo in your nest. Or would you refuse to acknowledge him? That would be a certain way to produce the scandal you say you want to avoid.”
“I don’t want any of that! Of course I don’t.”
“All you have to do is bed the woman. It shouldn’t be too onerous a task. From what I’ve heard, she’s eminently beddable.”
A white-hot fire licked through Graeme’s chest, and he was aware of a strong desire to yank his cousin out of his chair and pummel him. He was turning into a maniac. An absolute lunatic. He shoved his hands in his pockets and regarded James stonily.
“And if you’re lucky,” James went on, ignoring the expression on Graeme’s face, “she will get pregnant, die in childbirth, and you will have an heir, a fortune, and no inconvenient wife.”
“Good Gad, James!” Graeme stared, shocked out of his ill humor. “I never know whether you actually believe the things you say or just wish to enhance your reputation for coldness.” When James only quirked an eyebrow at him, he went on. “For pity’s sake, I don’t wish harm on the woman; I just want her to go away.”
“I have to say, this bothers you a good deal more than would seem warranted. Is it really so burdensome? Surely you are capable of going to bed with a woman without loving her. Is your Abigail so repellent to you?”
“She’s not ‘my’ Abigail. And she’s not repellent. Far from it,” he added beneath his breath.
