“Surely they wouldn’t—”
“Shh,” he said gently, pressing her to his side.
She hid her face in his shoulder, his silk waistcoat slippery beneath her cheek. She couldn’t bear to see Lord Neville or to remember his hands on her. Although the grim reality was that she’d relive those suffocating moments in the coach for a long time to come. Beneath her ear, Christopher’s heart pounded and his body vibrated with wariness.
He relaxed when Sedgemoor and Hillbrook emerged from the trees carrying lanterns.
“About time you turned up.” Christopher sounded relieved as he lowered his pistol. She gathered her torn bodice although the coat preserved most of her modesty.
“We let you play Sir Galahad,” Hillbrook drawled. “You’ve had so few opportunities.”
“Very droll, old man.” Christopher kept his arm around Genevieve. She should object, but fear had cut too deep tonight for her to stray from his side. “Better aim your barbs at Fairbrother.”
“You needed to step in?” Hillbrook sounded like he already knew the answer.
“He tried to force Miss Barrett’s consent to marriage.”
“The sodding scum.”
“Good evening, Miss Barrett,” Sedgemoor said calmly from beside Hillbrook. “I hope you’re unharmed.”
“Yes, thank you, Your Grace.” Shame burned her cheeks. At being found with Christopher. At her fatal naïveté in going with Lord Neville. At the way that both these men would surely speculate on what had occurred in that carriage.
“I’m appalled that this happened.” The duke struck her as a man who concealed his emotions, but now she couldn’t doubt his outrage. “Where’s Fairbrother?”
Christopher pointed back through the bushes. “He and his bully boy are armed. Be careful.”
“Miss Barrett, your father and aunt remain at Leighton Court while we await news. It’s so late they’re probably better staying in the rooms I arranged.” The duke spoke as if finding his friend clutching a lady was nothing out of the ordinary. Perhaps it wasn’t. Even that thought didn’t scare her enough to disentangle herself. “Would you like to join them?”
“Thank you. But my maid is at the vicarage.”
“Your men are still on watch, aren’t they?” Christopher asked.
“What men?” Genevieve asked sharply. Tonight had produced too many revelations, turning her perceptions topsy-turvy.
As usual when he’d done something commendable, Christopher looked sheepish. “After the last break-in, I asked Cam to set a guard on the vicarage.”
An hour ago, she’d been convinced that Christopher was responsible for terrorizing her aunt and father. She should be surprised to discover that he’d been guardian, not enemy. But since he’d saved her, she’d admitted that out of every man in the world, she trusted this one. “Thank you.”
“Confounded little good it did.” Christopher said wearily, then turned to his friends as Lord Hillbrook passed him a lantern. “Please remember that a lady’s name is at stake.”
The duke sighed. “Good God, man, we’re not complete dullards. I can handle Fairbrother without damaging Miss Barrett’s reputation.”
Once Hillbrook and Sedgemoor left, Christopher extended his hand. The lantern created a golden circle of intimacy around them. “Let’s go.”
Without hesitation, she took his hand. Odd that earlier tonight she’d wanted to brain him with the soup tureen.
He stepped ahead, white shirt glowing like a beacon. She followed, sinking into a daze where all she knew was his touch and the vivid reality of his nearness. Every moment in this dark forest, the bond between them strengthened without a word spoken. It was like that day on the river, but deeper.
They reached a familiar part of the woods. “Stop,” she said breathlessly, feeling like she emerged from a trance.
He raised the lantern to see her. “Do you need to rest?”
“No.” Although the hike in evening slippers hadn’t been easy. The wet grass was slippery, and damp soaked through her soles, chilling her feet. Her body ached, every step a reminder of Lord Neville’s violence. “Can we go to the pond?”
Her request, seemingly out of the blue, made him frown. “The pond?”
“It’s through those trees.” Once they left this forest, she’d lose her nerve. Or weigh consequences.
Right now, she didn’t want to consider consequences.
She waited for some remark about their meeting there. But he merely shrugged and turned down the overgrown path. When they reached the water, the lantern light spilled across the still, dark surface. Painful yearning rose in her like a spring tide. Yearning to wipe away tonight’s cruel events. Yearning to replace ugly memories with something beautiful.
His coat slid to the cool grass. She straightened her spine and took one uncertain step forward. “Kiss me, Christopher.”
Kiss me, Christopher.
Genevieve’s words hung in the air as if etched in letters of fire. Slowly he turned toward her, the lantern dangling forgotten from his hand.
She faced him, shoulders straight and luxuriant hair drifting around her. She looked so beautiful, she made him want to weep. And of course he couldn’t touch her. Hell, he still didn’t know what Fairbrother had done. At the very least, the swine had frightened and brutalized her. The last thing she needed was another rapacious male mauling her.
Standing before Richard in her torn dress, she was breathtaking. Irresistible. Still, he had to resist. He ground his teeth on a silent prayer for control to a God who by all rights should ignore such a miserable sinner. Frustration roughened his voice. “Let’s make for the vicarage. It’s cold out here.”
She flinched as if he’d struck her, but didn’t budge. “No, it’s not.”
“I’m cold.”
Her lips curled into a seductive smile that set his heart capering. “I doubt that.”
Good Lord, what was she doing? Desperation frayed his question. “How can you want a man near you? After—”
“He didn’t rape me.”
Richard dragged in his first full breath since she’d left Leighton Court. “Thank God. I thought… When I found you… He was…”
He stopped. No woman except Genevieve reduced him to incoherence.
Her gentle expression pierced his heart. “So will you kiss me?”
He faltered back. “After tonight, you should hate every man alive.”
“What happened tonight made me feel… sullied.” Her voice emerged low and fervent. “When you touch me, I never feel like that. When you touch me, I feel… beautiful.”
Astonishment and guilt struck him speechless. After all his deceit, he didn’t deserve her longing. Or her agonized honesty. He fought against taking her into his arms. So difficult to do what was right when she offered everything he wanted.
He couldn’t give in to her. Once she returned to her senses, she’d hate him forever. Hell, he’d hate himself. “Genevieve, let me take you home.”
Her jaw set in a stubborn line. “Kiss me first.”
His fist clenched so hard over the lantern handle that metal bit painfully into his palm. “You can’t want this.”
Her eyes settled on him with an unreadable expression. “You have no idea what I want.”
Well, that was true enough. He’d imagined that she’d jump a hundred feet if he approached within a whisper. After what she’d been through, she deserved his indulgence. The problem was that he wasn’t sure he could stop at kissing. Even now.
Wanting Genevieve was selfish and destructive, unworthy of her and increasingly unworthy of him. This whole bloody scheme to retrieve the jewel had been ill-conceived from the first.
Cam was right. Cam, blast him, was always right.
The abduction had jolted Richard into admitting that he wasn’t much better than Fairbrother. He too sought to bend Genevieve to his purposes without care for end results.
“We have to go.” Feeling like he scraped out his kidneys with a spoon, he t
urned away from the pond and its passionate memories.
“I’m not going until you kiss me.”
“I could carry you home.” Against his better judgment, he chanced a glance back.
A faint smile hovered around her lips. “You could, but you won’t.”
Hell, no, she was right. He couldn’t play the barbarian after what she’d undergone tonight.
He bit back a groan. To think he’d once wanted her to beg for his kisses. This was torment worthy of the Spanish Inquisition. One thing he did know—if he didn’t kiss her, she’d stand there studying him with that assessing expression until Kingdom Come.
Gathering every ounce of will, Richard placed the lantern on the ground. The forest was silent as it had been silent when he’d first kissed her. Again there was that curious tension, as though the world held its breath to see what happened next.
Well, much as he hated to disappoint the dryads and demigods inhabiting these woodlands, what happened next was that he and Genevieve would share a quick kiss then he’d consign her to Dorcas’s care. He’d then leave the vicarage so nobody said he and the vicar’s daughter had slept unchaperoned under the same roof. Somewhere a demigod with an ironic sense of humor snickered at Richard Harmsworth’s sudden concern for proprieties.
Still, it was only with the utmost reluctance that Richard stepped toward Genevieve. He scooped his coat from the ground and draped it across her shoulders in a futile attempt to create another barrier between them.
She linked her hands at her waist and studied him with a trace of uncertainty invisible from farther away. The vulnerability disarmed him as he tilted her face until starlight illuminated her loveliness. Need darkened her eyes before her lashes fluttered down.
He pressed his lips between arched brows. He tasted her skin, cool, satiny, sweet. The need to linger was sharper than a sword to his guts, but he stepped away, releasing her.
Her inhalation swelled her bosom against the tattered bodice. He tried not to notice. He really tried. This close, her shaky breathing was audible.
She opened eyes flashing with indignation. “What was that?”
“Good God, I must be losing my touch,” he said huskily. The need to grab her and kiss her properly beat in his blood like thunder. “I’d call that a kiss.”
She made a moue of disgust. “I wouldn’t.”
“Genevieve—”
“You won’t hurt me.”
“I’m trying like hell not to.”
“I won’t break.”
After seeing her with Fairbrother, he wasn’t so certain. Sighing, he caught her by the shoulders. She quivered under his hands and his touch became a caress.
He read no fear in her face, only yearning. Heroically he struggled not to glance at the sagging cream bodice. She didn’t make it easy for him to become a better man.
His lips brushed across hers. He heard her tiny intake of breath, a soft gasp of excitement. Her lips parted as he withdrew. Her taste filled his head like wine. He itched to slake his thirst, but couldn’t grant himself the freedom.
“I kissed you.” His voice was choked. “Let’s go.”
Her hands curled in his shirt. “Please make me forget what happened tonight.”
Oh, God, God, God. She sounded so hurt, so wretched. So bereft.
He stared blindly above her and hoped darkness hid the bulge in his trousers. “No.”
“Oh.”
He struggled to ignore the sad little syllable. He released her and waited for her to unhook her grip on his shirt. But she didn’t. Instead she searched his features as if seeking proof that he was a liar.
The problem was that he was a liar. A liar had no right to lay his filthy liar’s hands on Genevieve Barrett’s pure body. Which didn’t mean he wasn’t frantic to touch her. He wanted her so much, he was likely to explode into a million pieces.
He strove to sound like the man he’d pretended to be, the careless rake Sir Richard Harmsworth, who never lacked an appropriate response. He’d always been so easy with his amours because he’d never cared. Not caring made his nonchalant manner a doddle. With Genevieve he cared to his bones, and he had no idea how to make this right.
Still, he must try. “A man needs his rest after he’s battled villains like Fairbrother.”
She flinched at his tone as much as at what he said, he knew. Still she didn’t unhand him. She swallowed as if speaking proved difficult. He wished to hell she wouldn’t speak. He wished to hell he was in Cathay. Or the East Indies. Anywhere but here with paradise inches away, yet completely beyond reach.
“Then sleep with me.”
What the hell? His heart slammed to a stop. He caught her hands and managed to liberate his shirt. He should release her, but some things exceeded his powers. “Genevieve, this is wrong.”
“You didn’t think it was wrong in Oxford.”
When she raised eyes glittering with tears, he felt like she punched him in the gut. Much as he loathed acknowledging it, he recognized how his rebuff had wounded her. He wasn’t a fool. He knew what that offer had cost her. And she’d sought neither assurances for the future nor promises of love.
The irony was that for the first time, he could honestly tell a woman he loved her. Yet the vow stuck in his throat. Not just because he quailed from saying it, but because he couldn’t declare his affections after so many lies.
“I’ve seen the light since Oxford,” he said wryly. If he could, he’d laugh at himself. Sending Genevieve home as innocent as the day she was born was more excruciating than having a tooth drawn. She should be grateful. Hell, she should be lauding his chivalry to the skies.
Contrary like a woman, she lost her temper.
“I can’t believe you’re saying no. You’ve spent days trying to seduce me. Here I am, ready and willing.” Her voice cracked into silence. Revealing a luscious expanse of bosom, she spread her arms.
His cock, already hard and aching, swelled against his trousers. By all that was holy, at this rate he’d lose himself like an impulsive boy. Then what would she make of his denials? Luckily she was too furious to note his physical discomfort.
“Time to go, Genevieve,” he said gently, burning to gather her into his arms and comfort her. But too afraid of the devil inside to chance even that much contact. Those two chaste kisses had whittled his control to a sliver.
Abruptly she turned away and he felt another phantom blow to the belly when he realized that she wept. What an excruciating night she’d had. Fairbrother’s assault. Now this rejection.
How he wished he could explain. But his lies divided them like a dank, foul canal. Too deep and wide to cross. He stood on one bank; she stood on the other. He could never cross the stinking mire to tell her how much he loved her.
Without looking, she extended a shaking hand toward him.
Damn it, he couldn’t touch her. It was too risky.
But no man with a heart could ignore the plea in that trembling hand.
Knowing that he tested his principles but unable to do otherwise, he seized her hand. Her fingers clenched hard around his.
“I can’t resist you,” he muttered, hoping she wouldn’t hear.
She straightened and faced him, bewilderment clear in the flickering light. “I don’t understand.”
For one moment more, he held back. If he’d marched her to the vicarage when she first offered, he’d have kept his hands to himself. But what could a man do when he wanted a woman as badly as he wanted this one and she promised to make all his dreams come true?
“Hell, Genevieve,” he groaned in defeat and swept her into his arms.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Lightning blasted in Christopher’s eyes as his barriers against her finally tumbled. Genevieve braced for ravishment.
Instead of flinging her into a world of unfettered hunger, his touch remained gentle. Delicious warmth surrounded her as he drew her into his body. Warmth that dissipated the chill lingering since Lord Neville’s assault. His mouth touched he
rs. With a wordless protest, she moved closer. Still he teased. Soft kisses. Quick kisses. She wanted him to remake her with his passion, yet he seemed determined to tantalize her to death.
“Christopher!” she muttered in the space between one glancing kiss and the next.
“Yes?” What a hopeless case she was. The mere sound of his voice turned her into a molten puddle of longing.
“Kiss me properly.”
“I don’t intend to be proper at all, my love.”
“So you say.” She struggled to ignore the endearment as her hands tangled in his shirt. “Stop tormenting me.”
Kisses on nose, forehead, jaw. He kissed her neck, setting a thousand nerves jangling. Her toes curled in her damp slippers and she pressed against him, silently begging him to stop treating her as if she was likely to break. Still he held her as delicately as he’d cradle a baby bird in his palm. His lips returned to hers and his tongue dipped between her lips for a fleeting taste.
This hint of controlled power crashed through her like cymbals. On a sigh, she sank into him. His teasing had brought her to a pitch of surrender that left her blind to everything but him.
When Lord Neville had touched her, she’d felt revulsion and fear. When Christopher touched her, she just wanted more. The hot weight settling in her belly was familiar now, yet new. She felt disconnected from the everyday world. Lost in Christopher’s arms.
Her body couldn’t contain these responses. She must shatter into a million stars. On an incoherent plea, she rose against his hips, pushing into his hardness. She built the pressure in a vain attempt to relieve the ache between her legs, but every slide of her body only increased her need.
Somewhere she must have pulled away his neck cloth. Or he had. Her lips traced smooth skin, redolent of male, lemon verbena and Christopher, the scent that she’d recognize from all the scents in the world.
He nibbled his way up her neck. His unrelenting, intense gentleness left her quaking, dizzy, overcome. His mouth traced the side of her face. The touch was soft as the brush of a feather, but pain splintered delight. She whimpered and jerked away.
A Rake's Midnight Kiss (Sons of Sin) Page 20
