Lord Ravenscar's Inconvenient Betrothal

by Lara Temple

  She froze—there it was again, closer. Scratching and snuffling. She wanted to draw back, close the door, lock it. Several doors down she saw a line of faint golden light under Alan’s door. He was awake. Was he ill again? She had thought he was better, but hadn’t Mr Curtis been well enough to go to church and then he had dropped dead? Perhaps Alan was even now lying on the floor of his room, dying... She hurried forward and her hand was already raised to knock on his door when she saw it. Just a flicker out of the corner of her eye and she turned, raising her candle.

  ‘Oh, God.’

  She dropped the candlestick and it hit the carpet with a thump. The world went black and her imagination wild. She closed her eyes against what she had seen and groped desperately in the dark for the knob. The door opened abruptly and she propelled herself inside and slammed against something hard.

  ‘Lily. Good God, what is it?’ Alan’s arms went around her.

  Alan. Oh, thank God, Alan. She turned to him, practically burrowing into his side, her hands fisting on the warm fabric of his shirt.

  ‘There’s something there in the corridor. I saw it. It’s not human. Alan, no...’ She tightened her hold on his shirt as he started towards the door, but he merely tucked her against his other side and stepped into the doorway and stopped. He started shaking against her and instinctively her arms went around him in case he was about to collapse. His arms tightened around her as well, drawing her back into the room and closing the door, his mouth brushing her hair.

  ‘I warned you about those novels, didn’t I?’

  He was laughing! She tilted her head back, between horror and outrage.

  ‘I’m serious, there is something out there. I am not delusional, Alan!’

  ‘It’s not out there any more; it’s in here now. Hello, Grim, old boy. No one told me you were still alive. How on earth did you get into Hollywell? Looking for the tabby? This place is a menagerie.’

  His voice was so uncharacteristically gentle, especially after the acrimony earlier that evening, that she instinctively relaxed, but a huffing breath against her leg made her tighten her hold on Alan. She looked down into liquid eyes, filmy with age, of a tall black-as-pitch dog leaning its rain-dampened head lovingly against Alan’s thigh as Alan’s free hand stroked him.

  ‘Where did he come from?’ she whispered, reaching out to touch the dog’s ear.

  ‘I don’t know. Haven’t you ever seen him around before?’

  ‘No. How did he enter?’

  ‘Probably the same way the tabby did. You need to have the windows and doors checked. Or perhaps he’s a ghost,’ Alan suggested. ‘He likes that, don’t stop.’

  She pulled the ear gently between her fingers, sinking into the rhythm to calm her shaking.

  ‘You know him? What did you call him?’

  ‘Grim. He used to be my dog. I found him when he was a pup with his leg caught in a rabbit trap a year or so before I left Ravenscar, but I couldn’t keep him at the Hall because my grandfather hated animals, so Jasper and Mary kept him for me. Albert didn’t mention him when I saw him last month, so I presumed he had died years ago. Where have you been, boy?’

  ‘Could he possibly have come looking for you?’

  ‘It’s possible. He always had a keen sense of smell; he knew when I was returning from school and would meet me halfway from the coach in Keynsham. Make your apologies to the lady, Grim. You scared this fearless Amazon as white as her nightdress.’

  ‘He did not!’ She began pulling away, but his arms tightened on her and only then did she realise he had been stroking her back as well as the dog. It had been so natural and right she hadn’t noticed except now to miss it.

  ‘Whiter,’ he murmured. ‘That muslin is a delicious shade of rich cream. Now we just need some peaches and strawberries to dip in it... That’s better. You were looking a little ghostlike yourself for a moment. Did he wake you?’

  She looked back down into the adoring eyes of the aged dog, escaping from the less adoring but far more unsettling eyes of his erstwhile master. But she made no effort to move away from the heat of his body.

  ‘I couldn’t sleep and then I heard something...’

  ‘Lily, you can’t charge after ghosts in the middle of the night. It’s dangerous. You are too brave for your own good.’

  ‘I’m not, I was absolutely terrified. My mind just froze.’

  He pulled her against him and she pressed her cheek into the warmth of his shoulder. In a moment she would go.

  ‘Fear is natural and healthy, Lily. It means you have something to lose. If you weren’t scared, I’d be worried about you. Whenever any of my soldiers really turned their back on fear, I knew they were in trouble. Sometimes we have to put it aside, but never put it away. You should be a little more forgiving towards yourself.’

  His voice flowed over her hair, warm and soothing and his hand was caressing again. Smooth and gentle, his fingers shaping and reshaping the curve of her waist and hip. Each motion sent a shiver of heat through her abdomen, gathering between her thighs and tingling over her chest.

  She drew back, remembering his cold anger from before.

  ‘That is rather in conflict with your comments earlier this evening. I thought I was being too forgiving towards myself.’

  He considered her, but the coldness she had expected didn’t return.

  ‘Perhaps both. In any case, next time you hear a bump in the night, set the bells pealing, but stay in your room. Haven’t any of those novels taught you anything?’

  His voice was sinking, hoarse now, a warning in itself. She tried to pull herself back behind her usual defences.

  ‘Just that fiction is more exciting than fact.’

  ‘That won’t do. That is practically an invitation to prove you wrong.’

  The wicked amusement was back, a clear invitation to match his light-hearted flirt, but it had the opposite effect on her. The absence of his cold anger was such a relief she felt ten times a fool at how willing she was to lose herself at the first sign of warmth from him.

  ‘I am sorry I bothered you. You should be resting. You may think you are recovered, but you aren’t yet.’

  ‘Ah, the scold is back. I was wondering how long before you tried to reassert your authority. I am much better, thanks to your nursing skills. I just need a bath and a shave and I shall be human again.’

  She knew what he was doing. These were Wellington’s tactics—lure the enemy forward with a view of an innocuous landscape, and when they crested the hill, they would find the British lying in wait and be stormed. She had read about it, she had seen Alan use the precise same tactic on her before and still she was walked straight up that hill. Willingly. She tried to stop short of the crest and retain some dignity.

  ‘You still should be resting. It is fools like you who do the most damage to themselves. Remember that Mr Curtis thought he was well enough to go deliver a sermon.’

  ‘Albert was sixty and had a weak heart. But if you want me in bed, you have only to ask. Or better yet, you could help me. I’m becoming quite fond of leaning on you.’

  ‘Lord Ravenscar...’

  ‘Grim, remind the lady that she has already called me by my given name, on very intimate occasions, and that we are to all intents and purposes betrothed. It is a little late for formality.’

  She wanted so desperately to give in, to match the light-hearted acceptance of their fates.

  Right now, right here, the choice was clear. She wanted Alan.

  He wanted her, too. Even if it was a different kind of need, she could feel it in the heat radiating from his body, in the coaxing pressure of his fingers against her. Mostly she could see it in the depth of his gaze—an avid, dark possessiveness under the enticing smile. He might not want to be forced into matrimony any more than she, but she wasn’t the only one in thrall to this desire.

 
Would it be so terrible? She wasn’t her mother. She wouldn’t sit on an island and wait for months at a stretch. She would demand much more.

  His hand was stroking her back again, lingering on the edges of her hip before moving back up. Each time trailing a little lower until she was anticipating where he would pause and retreat, tingling with both pleasure and rising expectation which each foray. Then it stopped and she could feel her pulse thumping beneath his fingers.

  ‘If I were halfway a gentleman, I would point out that you shouldn’t be alone with me in a bedroom. Grim is not an adequate chaperon.’

  Even this reminder of the impropriety of being here with him, standing against him as if they were lovers, was a subtle invitation. But it was still a reminder—she could not blame him for still hoping the disaster could yet be averted. He might not believe he had a choice but to offer marriage, but she could still release him from this predicament. Marriage with Philip Marston would extricate them both from their mistakes. Not elegantly, but conclusively.

  The problem was that she didn’t want to be reminded. If it was up to her to move away from him, she didn’t know if she could.

  ‘I was here with you this afternoon,’ she pointed out, playing for time. Grim yawned and padded over to the fire and sank down beside it with another luxuriant yawn, watching them.

  ‘I wasn’t myself this afternoon.’

  ‘You were surly, critical and annoyed at me. I think that was very much in character.’

  His fingers moved again, even more gently this time, the slide of fabric on the swell of her hip was so soft it made no sense for it to send such fire through her veins, gathering in places she hardly ever noticed but now couldn’t ignore.

  ‘I was surly, critical and annoyed because I wanted to do this, but could barely stand. I’m feeling much better now. See?’

  She did see. Apparently he recovered as swiftly as he fell ill. Even the greyish tinge that had alarmed her yesterday was gone; his skin looked...warm. Tasty. Not peaches and cream, but something earthy, heady, with depth of texture and taste. Chocolate and spices and cognac. A hedonistic feast.

  ‘I’m hungry,’ she blurted out, and the laughter died out of his eyes. The heat that had been simmering in them, singeing the surface of her skin, became an instant blaze and then like his avian namesake he swooped.

  She had expected the teasing to continue, he had appeared so collected, almost light-hearted, but he had misled her again. There was no teasing this time, no slow seduction. Instead he picked up right where they had left off at the inn, plunging her into the middle of a storm and taking the decision away from her.

  She didn’t care; this was what she wanted—his hands on her, one curving over her buttocks, pulling her against him, his other on her nape, his fingers splayed, hot and hard, against her tingling scalp. He kissed her as he had that first time in the inn, but this time without anger, just a hunger to match hers, a deep drawing on her soul. He suckled her lower lip into his mouth, tasting and feasting on it as his body moved against hers, holding her hard against his arousal, raising her thigh against his so he could fit himself better against her.

  She hadn’t even felt him untie her belt, but now both his hands were moving over her hips and thighs, not on her dressing gown but under it, just the near-transparent cotton of her nightgown shifting between his palms and her skin. She wanted it gone, she wanted his hands where they belonged, on her skin, touching her where it ached.

  She shuddered, finally reaching up to touch him as he was touching her, sliding her arms around him, her hand deep in his hair, raising herself to meet his kiss, her fingers pressing hard into his nape, holding him there as she tasted the lips she had so guiltily caressed when he was ill. This was what she had wanted to do...and this...

  ‘Lily!’ It was a growl, deep and shaken, and then drowned as he took back control, his hands raising her nightgown, his fingers finally finding her flesh. ‘Lily...’

  She clung to him as his hands mapped the soft skin of her thighs; each rise and fall was a wave crashing over her, pummelling her from inside, grinding her into a fine dust of sensations. Now her world wasn’t expanding any longer, it was imploding, reducing itself to nothing more than the object of his touch and the raging, devouring heat at her centre.

  ‘Alan.’ She wrapped her arms around his neck, raising herself to bring her mouth to his, her fingers anchoring in his hair. It was silkier even than it looked, liquid between her fingers, but the muscles of his neck were as hard as rock with tension.

  When the resistance broke, it was complete. He dragged her against him, his mouth closing on hers with a feral growl, his hand on her backside pressing her hard against his thighs. She had never felt a man’s arousal before, but she instinctively knew what it was, her body awakening further, pressing back, urgent with the need to rise against him, do something to answer the sensitive pulsing at her core.

  This is it, she thought. This was what she had been waiting for. This desire was even more potent than her terror had been. This was a doorway to a different kind of fear of destruction. Under the fire he was setting loose, something in her was shifting, opening to a new reality. With just his hands and touch and taste, with the movement of his long lean body against hers, he was showing how constrained she had been until that moment, how much more there was to the world, to him. To herself.

  ‘Show me, Alan...’

  * * *

  Every time she said his name Alan lost his footing. He had resisted every urge to go to her room, apologise for his accusations, because he had been afraid of precisely this happening. He should be thinking of every possible way to avert disaster, but instead he was clinging to a cliff face and desperate to let go, slip into her heat, into the passion that blazed beneath her surface, waiting to be set free. He wanted to be the one to set it free, to strip away her defences, her clothes, everything that kept her from him. To lay her bare to the soul and the skies.

  His.

  This conviction might be madness, it might pass and fade, but right now it filled the universe.

  His.

  ‘Lily.’

  He said her name against the kiss-swollen softness of her lips, the authors of the smile that taunted his days and his dreams. He tasted them, slowly, drawing them between his teeth, teasing them with his tongue as her fingers tightened in his hair, her breathing ragged against his, gathering into breathy, devastating moans.

  If she could melt like this from a kiss, what would she be like when he touched her? When he slid his fingers along the damp he knew was already gathering, preparing her for him. When he licked his way down her beautiful body, worshipped the breasts that still haunted him ever since they had pressed against him at the inn, high and firm.

  God, he wanted to see her, touch her, feast on her. He wanted to watch her explore his body, her own body, touch herself, teach him everything she loved so he could take her to heaven. If she let him, he would show her what she was capable of...set free; she would love like a goddess, like the elements, wild and untamed. She would consume him.

  ‘Lily...you’re killing me,’ he growled, but she just moaned his name again, moving against him restlessly, sending a cascading shudder through his body, pooling in his groin with an aching agony that was so powerful he froze, frightened at the foreign intensity of his need. How could she always take him so far so fast?

  He captured her face in his hands, staring down into her eyes. Her pupils were pinpricks encased in golden pools, molten and full of need. If he chose, he could take her now. They had to wed anyway. What difference did it make if he took her now or waited until the formal vows sealed their fates? At least that would put a categorical seal on this fiasco. He would press her down on the bed and seduce her until she begged him for release, and when he had given her a taste of pleasure, he would sink into her, lose himself in her...

  Risk leaving her with c
hild.

  He dragged his hands away from her. Never, never in his life had he risked that. He must still be ill to even have considered...

  ‘Enough. Lily. We must stop.’

  Her hands still reached out to him, her mouth shaped the last word, her eyelids sank and rose, very slowly.

  He gritted his teeth and took another step back.

  ‘Go to your room. We will talk tomorrow.’

  ‘Talk...’

  ‘Tomorrow. Right now you need to leave. Now.’

  He saw the vixen surface with a mix of regret and relief. Her eyes hardened from honey to agate, her mouth flattened with tension and rejection. Then even those emotions were swept away under the socialite’s façade, only the burn of colour on her cheeks proving this had been deadly serious. He wanted to soothe her, ease her out of it, but he was dangling from the finest thread and the charm that served him so well with other women was beyond him.

  He didn’t want to charm her, he wanted to possess her.

  He nearly weakened, his hands rising of their own accord, when her chin went up and she shrugged. Her lips parted, but whatever response she had been contemplating foundered and she merely shrugged again and left, not bothering to close the door.

  Grim whined and came to lean against him as he sat down on the bed. The fire was fading. He should either stoke it or get into bed. He had thought he was recovered, but he preferred to believe he was still unwell rather than credit Lily with this hot, shaky sensation. He should have walked out the door the moment he had woken from his fever, as weak as a kitten or not. He should have known... He had known she was nothing but trouble. From that first moment in the Hollywell library. What kind of woman wields a damn mace anyway? Any but the world’s greatest fool would have known.

  Grim rested his muzzle on Alan’s thigh, closing his eyes. Alan stroked his head instinctively. Had it really been over a dozen years since he had seen this dog? It was amazing he was still alive.