“I’m not as soft as I look. Not anymore.”
“No?” He swallowed. “That’s all right. I’d rather you didn’t break easily.”
She wanted to ask him to reveal more of what he felt. Instead, she allowed a moment to pass. “Your body is harder,” she whispered. “I might have bruises all over me in the morning. And I noticed a few lines around your eyes. Not many, but … they are becoming.”
“If you find them so,” he teased, “then I won’t fret the next time I look into a mirror.”
His hand smoothed the muscles between her shoulder blades, caressed her ribs then her hips before skimming across her belly. She seemed responsive, but he sensed she was holding part of herself back. He suffered no such restrictions.
She’d made him so hard that every drop of blood in his body had apparently rushed to his cock. He buried his face in the curve of her neck. He let his hand wander lower, lower, into heat, into the creamy hollow between her thighs. He spread her folds and pushed two fingers into the slick passage. Was she still only his?
She moved her hips as if to guide his fingers deeper, as if every instinct he possessed would not have found the way without her help. She was so silky wet that he could sink inside her and drown.
“Hurry up, Sebastien.” Her hips lifted from the bed.
“Why?” He pressed the palm of his other hand hard against her mound. She inhaled sharply, her eyelids fluttering. He leaned down and kissed her mouth, capturing the little moan that escaped her. “I’m not in a hurry.”
“Well, I am.”
He laughed. “I’m not the kind of man who loses his girl at midnight, either.”
“Did you bring a slipper?”
“The same one you wore before.”
Every night for the past year, as his soul had come back to life, he had thought of her. He’d been prepared for tears and anger, for the bedroom door bolted in his face. He had searched his mind for ways to appease her, for excuses as to why he had not behaved like a husband. Trust Eleanor to take his intentions by the throat and shake them into such an uproar that he couldn’t tell seduction from surrender.
He surrendered.
But so would she.
“I don’t want to wait,” she whispered, pulling one hand free to walk her fingertips up the length of his shaft. He flexed his back, his blood pulsing in need. How he had missed her, missed not only sex but the intimate moments of laughter they had shared afterward in the dark. He craved that closeness again. He’d never been this comfortable with anyone else.
“Not yet.” He kissed her ripe mouth. “Soon.” He sank another finger inside her, stretched her until she whimpered. “I might have to make room first,” he teased. He bent his head to her plump breasts. “What do you think?”
“There’s only one way to find out.”
“You’re wrong.” He drew one pointed nipple into his mouth, suckled hard and heard her groan softly above his head. “There are several ways, in truth. I doubt we’ll explore them all in one night, but we could try.”
“You mustn’t say such things, Sebastien.”
“Fine. As long as I’m allowed to do them.”
She panted lightly. She scratched his shoulder again and strained and swore that she would never forgive him. And when he felt her arch, her back taut, he released her hand and held her through the climax that shook her. Her uninhibited release drove the limits of his control to a mindless edge.
His desire for her intensified. He fought to subdue his most elemental instincts. If he unleashed them all at once, he feared he might lose his sanity, frighten her by revealing his darkest needs.
“Give me another chance,” he said, his body anchoring hers. She looked so beautiful, so completely wild, that when she straddled him a few moments later, he resolved to give her the pounding of her life. But then she lifted her bottom and sank down upon his swelling erection with such unmerciful slowness that a groan broke in his throat. She was taking every inch of him into her body, sheathing him in fire. Sensation overwhelmed him.
“I think the slipper still fits,” she whispered in a husky voice.
“Do you think you can keep it on for the entire ball?” he asked, inviting her to try.
She shivered as he thrust upward, giving her a little more incentive. “I suppose it depends on whether you’re dancing a minuet or a country reel.”
“It doesn’t matter to me. As long as we’re together at the end.” He stared up at her for several moments, drinking in every detail of her seductive beauty. Her soft mouth curved in the familiar smile that twisted his heart. And while his own body hungered for completion, he wouldn’t protest if she hoped to use her sensuality to teach him a lesson. He welcomed her aggression, a punishment he well-deserved. Let her prove he could not ignore her again without a price.
She raised herself again and slowly eased down on his shaft, whispering, “You’re the one who’s different. I don’t know who you are.”
He grasped her hips. “Your husband,” he said, and surged with all his strength inside her.
Chapter Eight
She lay against his outflung arm, sated, her mind fully awake. Sebastien slept beside her, his breathing slow and steady. A pleasant sound when one had gotten used to lonely peace. Still, she also had grown comfortable sleeping alone, having tea and toast in bed, reading until dawn when she liked. A husband took up an unseemly amount of space. Suddenly everything in the room appeared to shrink.
“I will not love you again, Sebastien,” she whispered, studying his lean backside. Had his scars completely disappeared? Her initials? She sat up, straining her eyes for a better look.
His deep voice startled her. “I won’t give you a moment’s peace until you do.”
She flushed guiltily, pretending she hadn’t been studying his muscular torso and buttocks. “You’re deceiving yourself if you think it’s going to be that easy.”
He turned onto his shoulder, his tone neutral. “I never expected it to be easy. Nothing else in my life is.”
“I hope that isn’t a ploy for my sympathy.”
“Not at all. Merely a statement of fact which should be interpreted to mean that I don’t intend to give up.”
“We have probably lived apart long enough to warrant a legal desertion,” she said, combing her fingers through her tangled hair.
“I visited you when I could.”
“You came and went so at whim that your own dog no longer recognizes you.”
He pursed his lips as if contemplating her viewpoint. He did not fool her for a moment. She’d caught that wolfish gleam in his eye again. Her husband was heat and danger. Love and all the risks it entailed. She would never allow herself to care as much or cry over him again. It wasn’t possible to fall in love with the same man twice, was it?
He said, “As long as that dog recognizes no other man as master I shall not have cause to object.”
She settled back down beside him, absently pulling a sheet over his bare behind. “The dog rejecting you is the least of my worries.”
“Perhaps, but I feel rather like a father whose own child does not recognize him on his return.”
Silence dropped between them.
She stared into the dark. He does not remember that we lost a child, she thought. How else could he have made such a careless remark? She swallowed, suddenly feeling cold. She’d hoped he might. Neither of them had realized that she’d become pregnant on their wedding night hours before. He had been eager to set sail for France after their disgraceful ceremony. She hadn’t known where to send him a letter informing him of the news.
She had miscarried in the middle of the night before anyone except her lady’s maid knew. Certainly it wasn’t Sebastien’s fault, but she blamed him for not being there to grieve with her all the same.
On his return, four months after the day they’d married, she waited for him to ask why she looked as if she’d been crying for an entire week. Or why all her corsets had been piled on the bed for
the seamstress to alter.
He didn’t appear to notice. And when she finally broke down and told him, he looked so bereft, so guilty, that she wished she’d kept it to herself.
His visits home became less frequent over the next three years. Eleanor’s intuition told her that even if his physical wounds had healed, he hid a deeper pain inside. By their first Christmas together she perceived that her husband seemed more intent on reproving his worth to his commander than on caring that she needed him, too.
She stopped looking forward to his leaves. His desire for her had grown so cool that even on summer evenings she wore her warmest woolen shawls to keep from shivering. More than once in the night she would touch his body, and he would turn away, pretending to be asleep. The next morning he might be gone; she had to wonder whether he had taken another lover because he no longer found her desirable. When they had first fallen in love, he touched her every chance he could. Then, after three years, he didn’t come home at all. And still she loved him.
But at some indefinable point in the past year she had stopped imagining him in her future at all. Even his voice grew fainter in her memory, like an echo, until one day she woke and she could hardly hear it at all.
She’d felt panic. What did it mean?
She decided she had fallen out of love with the Sebastien she had married. It was like mourning a death, not only his, but that of the woman who had been waiting for him to come back.
She never wanted to feel that pain again.
A warm hand at her shoulder brought her back to the present. A shock sizzled down her back. A handsome stranger was lying in her bed.
“Do you mind trading sides with me?” he asked politely. “I prefer to sleep closest to the door.”
“What?”
“If it doesn’t inconvenience you.”
Inconvenience her? His arrival disarranged every aspect of her life. “But … as you like.” And as she slid over his body, she saw another smile cross his face. “Is that better?”
He stretched out with animal grace, glancing across the room at the furnishings, as if studying his next move on a chessboard. “Yes.”
“Why do you have to watch the door?” she ventured after a pause.
He hesitated for such a long time that she thought he wasn’t going to answer at all. “I’ve made a few enemies.”
Her skin prickled. “Surely none that would follow you here to Mayfair.”
He turned his head to regard her. The dark honesty in his eyes made her a little afraid. “Probably not. But some habits are difficult to break. I don’t always sleep well at night.”
“I sleep like the dead myself.”
He laughed gently. “Then you have a clear conscience.”
Didn’t he?
“Go to sleep,” he said, his voice compelling. “You’re in no danger, I promise.”
Was he?
Her eyes felt heavy. Drowsiness weighed down her thoughts. She could not stop from curling against him when he reached for her. His hard body offered warmth and comfort. His hands stroked away her resistance. “We could have done better tonight,” she whispered with a little sigh.
“Then let’s try again.”
She laughed at him. “The letter, man of a single mind. We took twice as long as we should have. I should not waste time getting the next one on the list.”
“The St. George Street address?” he asked thought fully.
“Yes. And I’ve got a plan of the house.”
“I could find the rest of them alone.”
She opened her eyes, his self-assurance raising her suspicions. If he hadn’t weakened her with his wonderful lovemaking, she would never have lowered her guard. “This is between me and the duchess. A female affair, if you wish.”
“The duke does not think so,” he murmured.
“I do not work for the duke,” she said in annoyance. “I have made a promise, and I will keep it.”
His voice dripped sheer male condescension. “Sweetheart, it is an amusing game you have played. I’m impressed at your ingenuity and dedication. But these matters are best handled by a man.”
“The Masquer is a man.”
“I meant a man of experience.”
“It’s clear what you meant.”
“And”—laughter lurked in his deep voice—“you are most decidedly a woman.”
“At least you and I agree on that fact.”
He shook his head, quick to reassure her. “All I meant is that you and the duchess should observe your roles as nature has defined them.”
She bit the tip of her tongue. Nature had not finished defining either lady, in Eleanor’s modest opinion. “Have I failed you as a woman?” she asked in her most dulcet voice.
“Dearest.” His gaze drifted over her.
“Then?”
“I cannot disappoint the duke,” he concluded, the situation, at least in his mind, relegated to his superior talents.
Which warned her that she had to move quickly to locate the remaining letters. Her friendship with the Duchess of Wellington, their shared love of intrigue, had given Eleanor an enormous feeling of satisfaction. The two women had forged a bond based on their mutual loneliness. She was not surrendering her authority without a good fight. No matter how wickedly potent her husband proved to be. Nor how politically influential the Duke of Wellington became.
She’d made a pact with the duchess. She was an agent and she would be paid for her work.
His hand slid beneath the sheet and languidly caressed her breasts. Obviously she had also made a pact with the devil on her wedding day. “What do I have to do to win you back?” he asked silkily.
“Let me sleep on it.”
“Do you know what a country offers when it loses a war?” He kissed her forehead. “Recompensation.”
She was suddenly fully awake. “This is an affair of the heart. Not of state. Don’t muddle the issue.”
“From ancient times,” he went on, as if she hadn’t spoken, “the bond between man and wife has been understood as a sacred—an unbreakable—partnership.”
Ah. She knew where this was leading. She thought it high-minded of herself not to point out that they were actually man … and man.
“You’re referring to the days when peasants were enslaved?” she asked with a dismissive smile.
“I’m referring to Roman law.”
“Well, Rome wasn’t built in a day.” She smoothed an imaginary wrinkle from her pillow. “And neither is a good marriage. Enslave me at your own risk.”
The twitch of his sensual mouth suggested he was tempted to do just that.
“Perhaps we will come to a better understanding in the morning,” he said sagely.
“Will you be here in the morning?” she could not resist asking.
He paused. “Perhaps not,” he admitted. “I have business matters that have been ignored. But whether I am here when you awaken or not, I guarantee that I shall be back before you miss me. And don’t worry about delivering those letters to the duchess.”
“I’m not worried about the letters.” She looked at him from the corner of her eye. “You are another thing entirely.”
“Your husband is home. Being my wife is all you need concern yourself with.”
She wriggled away from his tempting warmth. “Good night, Rat.”
He chuckled. “Sweet dreams, Cat.”
Chapter Nine
Sebastien wished to be fair. He understood that he was demanding more of Eleanor as a wife than he as a spouse had given in return. Considering his past omissions, he thought it damned generous of her to take him back into her bed with such fervor. Still, having reclaimed his rights tonight, he had no intention of abdicating his tenuous hold again. Her masquerade as the duchess’s agent during their prolonged separation rendered his need to assert his place all the more expedient.
His wife a notorious figure, written up in newspapers across England? He would put an immediate stop to this mischief.
He s
tared down at her sleeping form. She had donned her nightrail and fallen into a heavy slumber. How easily one could miss the subtle wickedness that illuminated her face. Who would ever guess what an adventurous nature those classical features concealed?
He wondered what the ton’s breathless ladies would think if they could see their midnight intruder now.
He snorted in amusement. He didn’t know what to think himself. He had bedded the man of their dreams.
With a heavy sigh, he slipped out from the sheet she’d pulled over him and left the bed. He needed to do something, walk, drink a bottle of brandy, hit his head against a post to keep from taking her again.
After three years of absence from home and abstinence, his sexual appetite had turned him into a voracious beast. He couldn’t possibly explain his period of celibacy to her. Nor the missions he’d undertaken to regain his self-worth.
A gentleman would rather be thought unfaithful, disinterested, absorbed in duty, or even dead before he would admit that he had struggled to feel like a man again.
He stepped over the crumpled garments on the floor, realizing that his wife had become rather untidy in his absence, and that he needed a fresh change of clothing if he was to wander about the house.
He returned to the bed. The rise and descent of Eleanor’s breasts beneath her muslin nightrail absorbed his attention for several moments. Had he ever fully appreciated her?
“Eleanor,” he whispered, leaning over her. “I hate to disturb you, but I’ve left all my other clothes on the boat.”
“Why didn’t you bring them with you?” Her eyes opened, glinting in guarded awareness. “Or weren’t you intending to stay?”
“I assumed I still had some clothes here.” He paused. “Unless you gave them away.”
When he’d arrived in London this last time he had sailed into the Thames on an ugly but seaworthy shallop. He hadn’t kept the boat a secret from his wife, but he had made it clear she should stay away from the wharves. He maintained the boat as a retreat in case a dark mood descended, or one of his more unsavory associates from the past wanted to contact him.
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