Arabella laughed and soothed her servant and friend. “Dearest Lona, I but tease you because I love you,” she said.
“Well now,” said Lona, “that puts a different complexion on things, don’t it?” She helped her mistress from the tub, and having dried and perfumed her, wrapped her snugly in a warmed towel. Fetching the silk camisia, she noted, “You ought to wear something warmer than this tonight, my lady. ‘Tis bitter out, and that’s certain.”
“‘Twill spoil the line of my gown,” Arabella said casually, but Lona raised her eyebrows questioningly, causing her lady to continue warningly, “I will hear no more about it, Lona.”
Lona nodded, not in the least offended. She had learned what she needed to know in just those few words. Fetching the ivory velvet bodice and the two skirts, she helped Arabella to dress. Next Lona sat Arabella down, carefully arranging her skirts that they might not wrinkle, and braided Arabella’s thick, pale gold hair, carefully weaving in the strands of delicate pearls and silk ribbons as she did so. “There,” she said when she had finally finished, “‘tis as good a job as any, my lady, if I do say so. You look beautiful.”
Arabella was wearing dainty slippers upon her feet, but because of the snowy ground, Lona fitted her mistress with heavy clogs for outdoors over the little velvet sollerets. Helping her lady into the coach, Lona wrapped a heavy fur rug about her knees and placed flannel-wrapped hot bricks about her feet. Though the journey to the duc’s Hotel de Lambour was a short one, the January night was bitterly cold, and few if any Parisians were out and about.
“Put the horses in the duc’s stables and then find shelter for yourselves in his kitchens,” Arabella instructed the six men who had accompanied her when they had reached their destination. “I will call for you when I am ready to return home.”
Allowing the duc’s servants to remove the bricks from about her feet and help her from the carriage, Arabella hurried into the mansion.
“Ma Belle! Welcome,” Adrian Morlaix said, coming forward to greet her. He kissed her hand lingeringly as a servant took her cape.
She lifted her eyebrows questioningly. “Have I mistaken your invitation, my lord? Have I come on perhaps the wrong night?” The house was quite silent, and his garb—a fur-trimmed velvet brocade gown in his favorite scarlet—quite casual. “Did you not invite me to a Twelfth Night fete, monseigneur?”
“I did,” he said, “and I hope you will forgive me my little deception, ma Belle, but you are to be my only guest,” he told her.
“Monseigneur!” Arabella pretended shocked surprise. “You are very wicked! I fear that you will ruin my reputation. Please send for my coach. I really should not stay under the circumstances.”
“Will you not stay just a little while, ma Belle? I would give you your gift. Would you not like it? A few minutes cannot damage your spotless reputation, chérie,” he said softly, and Arabella allowed herself to be cajoled even as he led her up the hotel’s flight of marble stairs to a small salon where a bright fire burned merrily.
“I love presents!” Arabella told him, adding wistfully, “It has been so long since I have received one.”
“I would fill a room full of presents for you,” he said extravagantly, “if you would but let me!”
The blush that rose to Arabella’s cheeks was an honest one, for there was sincerity in the duc’s compliment. “I have a small gift for you,” she told him, and handed him a little package wrapped in a piece of cloth of gold and tied with a red silk ribbon. “You must open it at once!”
With a smile the duc undid the ribbon and unwrapped the parcel. Inside he found a fine pair of Florentine leather gloves, dyed a clear, bright scarlet color and embroidered with black jets and gold beads. “Ma Belle!” He was genuinely touched, for he knew the gloves to be of the best quality, and her income meager at best. “These are beautiful, and I thank you!”
“I won at cards before Christmas,” she told him airily in answer to his unspoken question.
He laughed. “For a woman of such unimpeachable virtue, you are becoming quite adept at survival,” he teased. Then he handed her a delicately carved pearwood box. “For you, ma Belle.”
What did the beautiful little box contain? Arabella wondered. Would the gift be an indication of the esteem in which he held her? With strangely clumsy fingers she lifted the carved gold latch that held the box fastened, and raising the lid, gazed, stunned, at the exquisite square-cut ruby with its dainty filigreed gold chain nestling in the white velvet. “Ohhhhhh,” she half gasped, half whispered, unable to move, unable to say anything else.
With a smile of satisfaction Adrian Morlaix lifted the jewel from the box and fastened it about Arabella’s neck. The ruby lay glowing just above the shadowed valley between her breasts, shimmering against her fair skin.
Arabella turned her head just slightly and looked up at the duc. “Oh, monseigneur,” she murmured, “‘tis the most beautiful thing I have ever possessed in my whole life!” Their eyes met suddenly, and she saw the desperate passion in his, but barely masked. “Ohhh,” she said again, even as his mouth came down on hers for the very first time, setting her own pulses to racing furiously. It had been so long since she had tasted a man’s lips on hers, and how could she have forgotten the lesson that Jamie Stewart had unwittingly taught her; that passion without love could exist between a man and a woman. Oh, Holy Mother, Arabella prayed silently, let me be strong in my resolve!
“Oh, Belle! Ma Belle! Ma petite et precieuse Belle! I must have you! Do not say nay to me ever again, ma Belle! I worship at the shrine of your beauty! I adore you!” the duc declared passionately, an arm now firmly about her waist, one hand plunging into her bodice to cup a plump breast. “Ahh, ma Belle! I am wild with love for you!” The hand fondled her breast expertly, its fingers pinching teasingly on her nipple.
“Oh, monseigneur,” she cried softly, but she did not struggle or attempt to remove the marauding hand. “We must not! What of your spouse?” Did she sound too coy? Pray God she did not sound coy! Arabella could barely suppress the soft moan that escaped from between her lips. His touch felt marvelous!
“Anne-Claude is in Normandy, ma Belle. I do not love her. I love you! ‘Twas but a marriage of convenience. Give me your lips again, chérie,” he pleaded, and Arabella found she was unable to refuse him, no matter her firm intentions.
His kisses were intoxicatingly sweet. Deep, hungry kisses that seemed to warm her to the soles of her feet. She was quite aware that he was carefully undoing her bodice even as he kissed her, and finally she felt it incumbent upon herself to once again protest, lest on reflection he grow suspicious of her sudden acquiescence. Tearing her head away from him, she caught his big hands in her little ones, pleading softly. “This is wrong, monseigneur. Surely it is wrong!”
“Tell me that you do not feel passion for me as I feel it for you!” he demanded of her fiercely, his blue eyes blazing with his determination to have his will.
“I…I…I do not know!” she cried, knowing that even as she spoke, she did know, and he knew too. She did indeed feel passion.
“You lie,” he told her, and the bright blue eyes shone with his triumph. Ripping the neck of her camisia away, he cupped her now naked breasts in his two hands, murmuring as he bent to cover the creamy flesh with hot kisses, “You are mine, ma petite Belle! Mine alone!”
Arabella’s heart hammered wildly at his masterful tone. She would have never expected it of the elegant and civilized Duc de Lambour.
Releasing her breasts, he held her against him while the fingers of one hand skillfully undid the tapes holding her skirts up. They fell away from her, puddling to the floor with just the barest noise. The duc tore the remainder of her silk undergarment away and carelessly threw it from him. Her only adornment now was the ruby she wore about her neck. As he slowly undid her braid, she thought her legs would give way, but they did not. Spreading her hair over her shoulders, he stepped back a moment and smiled. Then picking her up, he walked across the r
oom and laid her upon a large, dark fur rug spread before the warm fire. His impassioned gaze as he looked down upon her sent a flush of sudden pink embarrassment to her face.
“Mon Dieu!” he said feelingly, “you are perfection, ma Belle! In my wildest dreams I could not have imagined such exquisite perfection!” He turned away from her momentarily as he disrobed himself.
There was some humor in the situation, Arabella considered as she watched him, faintly amused to see that Adrian Morlaix’s knees were just a trifle knobby, though his other parts were certainly well-made and upstanding. It was fortunate that she had decided to yield herself to the duc, because he had obviously decided he would have her, whatever the cost. She had not really considered how desperately he desired her, for she had never thought of herself as the kind of woman who drove men to passion; but then there had been Jamie Stewart. What was it about her that made men such damned fools?
The duc now knelt and lay beside her on his side, letting his fingers wander provocatively over her flesh, placing little kisses upon her face and again smiling warmly at her. “I will not hurt you, ma Belle,” he said sincerely. “These past months I have come to treasure your chasteness, even though it meant I must be denied your loveliness. I cannot, however, deny myself any longer. I love you, and I would have you love me.”
“Oh, Adrian,” she murmured, using his name for the first time, “whatever we may feel for one another, surely this is wrong of us.” Careful, Arabella thought, amazed that she could think at all, she could not continue to protest when she was, in fact, yielding herself to him. Still, just a trifle more demurral before she allowed him the final victory. She sighed deeply.
“Ma Belle,” he said quietly, “life is so very short that to waste one precious moment of it is surely a crime against God. We have wasted so many moments these past months, but no more! I am mad for you! I suspect were your adorable little conscience not so strict with you, that you would admit to some feeling for me. Hein?”
“Ohh, monseigneur,” Arabella whispered, hiding her face in her hands.
“Admit it, ma Belle! You love me too!” he said, pulling her hands aside.
“What if I should disappoint you?” she fretted, neatly sidestepping his question, although he did not notice it, so intent was he on his pursuit of her. “I have known but a husband’s loving. I am no courtesan, skilled in the arts of Eros, Adrian. You have pursued me for months. What if the reality we find in each other’s arms is not as wonderful as the anticipation? I will have compromised myself for naught!”
“You are charming, ma Belle,” he answered, smiling down on her indulgently. “Your lips are like the first strawberries of summer, my love. When I kissed you I could feel you thrill with my very touch. Your breasts are like sweet, ripe peaches, royal fruits worthy of a king. I shall never be able to get enough of them. I shall touch and taste and explore every inch of you, ma Belle, and there is no way under heaven in which you shall disappoint me, I swear it!”
“But what if you should disappoint me?” she asked him gravely. He should not futter her as he flittered other women, Arabella thought to herself. To retain his interest, she must be clever. To simply surrender herself to him would be most foolish. Let him not be totally satisfied with their relationship until he was certain in his own mind that he was the best lover she, or any other woman, could possibly have. Until she obtained the information she needed from him, this entanglement could not end. It would not be easy, she suddenly realized, but she would succeed, and in the wake of her success would come the return of Greyfaire Keep and a journey home to reclaim her child.
“Disappoint you?” His tone was startled. Such an impossible thing had obviously never occurred to him.
“My husband was a fine lover,” Arabella said candidly. “He gave me much pleasure. I have heard it said, however, that not all men are equal when it comes to love. Have I been misinformed? Is this not so?” she finished ingenuously.
“Aye,” he said slowly, “I have heard it said that such a thing ‘tis so, but no woman I have ever loved, ma Belle, has had cause for complaint. I swear it!”
Arabella smiled seductively up at him now. The firelight cast a molten glow over her body, making it warm with color, deepening the gold of her hair, reflecting itself in the ruby that nestled just above her plump breasts and in the pale green shade of her eyes. “If that is so, Adrian, then you must kiss me again, for I found the taste of your kisses as sweet as the finest wine, and even now, monseigneur, I thirst!”
The Duc de Lambour felt his heart leap in his chest at her words. She was the most fascinating woman he had ever met. A mixture of innocence and sensuality that he found wildly exciting. He kissed her again, and to his delight felt her lips part beneath his, her tongue tentatively seeking his own. He groaned with his pleasure and shifted his body so that he lay half over her.
Arabella allowed herself to be swept up in the passion of the moment. With an answering moan of pleasure, she put her arms about his neck, pressing her breasts into his chest, feeling the wiry hair of that chest tickling her flesh. The hard length of his manhood pressed insistently against the side of her thigh as Arabella’s fingers softly rubbed the sensitive flesh on the nape of his neck, causing the hairs there to rise.
The duc freed himself reluctantly from her lips and began to press warm kisses upon her closed eyelids and at that sensitive junction of her jaw just beneath her ear. “Ma Belle,” he murmured throatily, “you intoxicate me!” His lips moved down the side of her neck to her shoulder, which he bit sharply, causing her to cry out. Instantly his tongue snaked out to soothe the pain away, and having done so, moved on to lick at her nipples. His lips parted to take each nipple in its turn within the warmth of his mouth, where he suckled hard upon it.
“Oh! Oh!” she whimpered. She had forgotten how good a man’s mouth felt upon a woman’s breasts, and she squirmed with pleasure beneath his touch. Her hand stroked his dark head, encouraging him in his efforts. “Oh, yes!” she said. “Oh, yes!”
He cradled her within the curve of an arm and fondled her, saying, “So, ma Belle, the sweet fruits of your breasts are sensitive to the pleasures of my touch. Perhaps I may please you after all.”
“Perhaps,” she agreed, and then gasped as his fingers found a most sentient and susceptible portion of her anatomy. “A-dri-annn,” she cried, amazed at how quickly he had actually begun to arouse her. It had been a very long time, she realized, since she had felt this particular sensation.
Reluctant she might have been, Adrian Morlaix considered, but she was nonetheless a hot little piece of female flesh. Already her love juices were flowing, bedewing his fingers even as they thrust themselves into her sweet flesh. He had to taste her! He could not remember having ever been so quickly aroused by a woman. He could feel the very lust to possess her boiling in his veins with such intensity he almost feared for his life, his heart was beating so violently. Twisting his body about, he positioned himself between her outstretched legs and found her with an extremely facile tongue, teasing the little jewel of her sex until it was standing stiff.
Had she been struck with lightning, Arabella would have reacted no differently. Her body arced wildly but briefly as his fingers dug into her soft flesh to hold her to his will. “Oh!” she sobbed sharply. “Oh! Oh! Oh!” as the first small waves of pleasure began to sweep over her.
Satisfied, he laughed and raised his head from her. “Do I please you yet, ma Belle?” he teased.
Arabella panted uncontrollably for a moment, and then she gasped, “You come near, monseigneur, but not quite yet!”
“Vixen!” he said, laughing again, and then pulling himself up, pushed himself slowly into her love grotto. “I shall make you cry with a greater passion than you have ever known, ma Belle,” he promised her fiercely.
Having regained a small measure of control over her emotions despite his invasion of her person, Arabella taunted him, “We shall see, monseigneur.”
He began to pump he
r, moving smoothly and rhythmically, as if to some unheard and primitive cadence, but Arabella knew enough about men to know that a man as madly aroused as was Adrian Morlaix was usually lacking in self-restraint. If she could but bring him to his own crisis, even if it meant sacrificing hers, he would be intrigued beyond all and eager to retain her company, if for no other reason than he desired a victory over her. His vows of love, she thought, were but a charming ruse to gain his way. She did not believe the Duc de Lambour loved anyone but himself.
She thrust herself up to meet him, but her very thoughts had cooled her own ardor enough, and he was finally unable to hold back his own passion. With a great cry he took his release, falling at last exhausted upon her and almost crushing her with his weight. Tenderly Arabella caressed him, even as she murmured sweetly, “Has it been so long then, monseigneur, since you have had a woman? Ah well, perhaps next time.”
With a groan he rolled away from her, and looking up at her with sorrow in his blue eyes, he said, “You have defeated me, ma Belle, and I, to my shame, have disappointed you. Give me but a few minutes to regain my strength and we shall try again. It has never happened before, and I vow it shall not happen again.”
“My lord,” she told him, “if I did not achieve perfection, I did at least enjoy myself very much. There is no shame in that, is there? You are a most tender and vigorous lover. I can only hope that I did not disappoint you.”
“Never! You are perfection, ma Belle! Pure perfection! I shall never let you go from me! You must be mine for always and ever!” he told her passionately.
Arabella arose from the fur rug, and walking to a nearby table containing a carafe of wine and some goblets, poured the duc the sweet, refreshing beverage. She was a little amazed, and perhaps just a bit frightened, by her ability to detach herself from her feelings. It made her uncomfortable to realize she could be so calculatingly cold. Still in all, it must be done for Greyfaire’s sake.
The Spitfire Page 45
