She went still. “Lord Sinclair, you must release me.”
“Sin,” he said in that deep, wicked baritone of his.
It was gruff and yet smooth as velvet, all at once.
She felt it like a caress. Her tongue flitted over her suddenly dry lower lip, and his gaze followed the movement.
“What about sin?” she asked, breathless, even though she knew what he was asking of her.
She had merely blindly seized upon an excuse to delay the inevitable. Or to invent a distraction. A means by which she could escape.
You do not want to escape, taunted a wicked voice inside her.
Oh, how she hated the voice. Because it was right.
“That is my name,” he said. “I would hear it on your lips. There is no need for formality now that we are husband and wife. Indeed, I dare say there was never a need for formality between us.”
There was every need. Formality made it easier for her to cling to her defenses. The Earl of Sinclair was the man she had believed guilty for so long, the man she had loathed, the man against whom she had plotted her revenge. But Sin? Well, Sin was a different man entirely. The word itself was tempting. Wrong. Wicked.
She forced herself to recall that his former mistress, the beautiful duchess, had called him Sin.
“No,” she countered, “that is not your name. No one is named Sin.”
“It has been mine for as long as I can recall. Say it, princess.”
“Justin,” she said. For she knew his Christian name now. She had watched him sign it in his slanted, distinctive scrawl.
He tensed beneath her. “No one calls me that.”
“Justin or Lord Sinclair,” she said stubbornly, somehow feeling as if the distinction mattered, even if she did not know why. “Which would you prefer?”
“Sin,” he repeated.
“Sin,” she spat. “There, are you satisfied? Now let me go.”
“Not until you kiss me.”
The carriage rocked to a halt.
“We have arrived at our destination,” she argued, pushing at his chest again. “This is unseemly. Let me go.”
“Too afraid?” he asked calmly, lifting a hand from her waist to stroke her cheek.
Curse him. She could not bear to allow him to believe he scared her, or that she did not possess enough control to kiss him and feel nothing. Even if both were, in part, true.
“Never,” she vowed.
He ran the backs of his fingers over her skin. Although he wore gloves, there was something about the caress that stole her breath. Gave her pause. There was a surprising tenderness in that touch. In his expression. She did not know what to do with it.
But he had left her with little choice. With a deep inhalation, she lowered her head and sealed her lips to his.
Her defiance.
Her mouth.
Fuck, the weight of her in his lap.
Those dark, flashing eyes, that cloud of mahogany hair.
Everything about her was driving him to the brink. Sin had never wanted a woman more than he wanted Lady Calliope Manning. Strike that—Calliope, Countess of Sinclair.
His wife.
How surreal it seemed. Today was a day of victory. The culmination of the battle he had waged with her. He had won. But she was not about to surrender. He knew that much. Strangely, he found the notion of her fighting him erotic as hell.
Mayhap that was why lust was crashing over him like waves on a storm-tossed sea. That, and her lips. They moved over his, soft and hard at once. He could almost taste her rebellion. He remained still, allowing her to kiss him, waiting for her to retreat.
But she did not.
Instead, she kissed him harder. Deeper. She was the one in control. The hands on his chest slid around his neck. She knew how to kiss, his new wife. And well. The thought had occurred to him before, at Helston Hall, but it returned to him now, along with a sharp stab of something akin to jealousy. Someone had taught her.
And that someone had not been Sin.
Perhaps she was not even a virgin.
The possibility had occurred to him before. There were all the rumors about her and the artist in Paris, to say nothing of her former betrothed. He would worry about that later, when he came to her chamber.
For now, he simply allowed her to kiss him, careful to keep his lips still. Careful not to respond. The fight to win her as his bride was over, but a greater war was about to begin. And Sin had every intention of winning this one as well.
Her tongue traced the seam of his lips, seeking entrance.
With a kittenish sound of frustration, she broke the kiss, staring down at him. “You are not kissing me back.”
“Make me,” he challenged her.
Her eyes widened. “What manner of game is this, my lord?”
“Sin,” he reminded her. “No game. If you want me to kiss you back, you will have to do better than the tepid effort you have put forth thus far.”
How he loved taunting her. In truth, there was nothing tepid about her perfect mouth on his. Nothing tepid about her. She set him on fire.
The driver gave a discreet knock on the door.
“Not yet,” Sin called, keeping his gaze locked upon Calliope’s.
For a moment, she remained as she was, frozen in his lap, and he thought she would retreat. Suddenly, she caught his face in her gloved hands and slanted her lips over his. This kiss was as skilled as the others that had come before, but it was aggressive. Almost forceful. She bit his lower lip.
His cock twitched.
This time, she did not draw blood as she had done at Helston Hall when she bit him. Rather, she exercised sensual precision. He opened, and her tongue swept inside his mouth. His restraint fled, as did his ability to resist her.
Sin kissed her back with all the burgeoning need inside him, the need that had begun as a spark in this very carriage and had grown into a raging inferno. Her tongue glided against his. He sucked on it, drawing it deeper into his mouth.
His hands were in her hair, cupping the base of her skull. He was no longer keeping her imprisoned in his lap. Instead, he was angling her so he could devour her back with every bit as much ferocity. He poured all his fury and his pent-up desire into this meeting of mouths.
A groan tore from him when she writhed on his lap. Her bottom, separated from him by her underpinnings and gown, was still a delicious temptation against his raging cockstand. She kissed him harder, knocking his hat off his head and sinking her gloved fingers into his hair.
He wanted nothing more than to lift her skirts and ram his cock deep inside her.
But he could not do that.
With great reluctance, he broke the kiss, gratified at Calliope’s ragged breaths and the dazed expression on her lovely face. Her lips were swollen from kissing him, her cheeks flushed, her pupils huge in her gold-flecked eyes.
“I suppose that shall do,” he drawled. “For now.”
His gibe stole the sensual stupor from her countenance. “You are an arrogant oaf.”
Yes, he was. And he was going to enjoy having her beneath him later.
“You had better get off me, darling,” he said. “Unless you want me to consummate our union right here in this carriage for the first time? I do hate to keep the servants waiting, however.”
The scarlet flush on her cheeks deepened, and it blossomed down her creamy throat. He would have liked to open her bodice and see if it reached her pretty breasts. But that, too, would have to wait until this evening.
“Scoundrel,” she hissed, sliding from his lap and attempting to straighten her skirts into some semblance of order.
He wanted to haul her back into his lap and kiss her senseless. Her discomfiture was bloody adorable.
The thought left him bemused. Since when did he find anything to do with the woman who had done her damnedest to ruin him adorable? Since when had he been this desperate to sink his cock inside a woman?
Never, taunted a voice within.
A voice
he stifled as he leaned forward and rapped on the carriage door. “We are ready to disembark.”
Feeling grim, he slammed his hat back atop his head. He would have to steel himself against this rampaging desire he felt for her. He must not lose sight of the reason for their marriage—her ruthless act of vengeance against him for sins he had never committed. He could not trust her. Did not dare want her too much.
She was a means to an end.
He would have her dowry and her body. That was all he required.
The door to the carriage opened to reveal that the ominous-looking clouds which had been hanging overhead since dawn had decided to open up and vent their fury at last. There was a raging downpour flooding the streets. Somehow, he had been too caught up in Calliope to even take note.
“Your new home awaits you, Lady Sinclair,” he told her mockingly.
It was fitting, he thought, to be greeted by a deluge.
“I can hardly wait,” she said, her voice as grim as her countenance.
Chapter Twelve
Of all the vices I have enjoyed, the sins of the flesh are my favorite, dear reader.
~from Confessions of a Sinful Earl
Callie found herself in the countess’s apartments, soaking in warm water up to her chin. She had grown accustomed to the bathrooms at Westmorland House—the height of modern convenience. Warm water at the tap whenever she wished. A chamber specifically designed for the bath, with a water closet. Her new home had no such amenities. The footman and the coachman had hauled the tub into the center of her room and filled it to the brim with buckets of water heated in the kitchens below.
At least her lady’s maid, Whitmore, had brought her oils, soaps, and perfumes. And after the exhausting day she had experienced, she was pleased to finally have some time alone. Upon their arrival in the midst of the storm, she had been introduced to the small number of domestics in Lord Sinclair’s employ. She had been permitted some time with her lady’s maid in her new quarters to settle herself.
And then, Callie had been given a tour of the townhome by the kindly housekeeper, Mrs. Lufton. An abridged tour, she thought with a frown as she rested her arms on the lip of the tub and closed her eyes. There was a chamber she had not been shown. When Callie had questioned the reason, Mrs. Lufton had politely informed her that his lordship did not wish for the tour to include that chamber.
With his lordship nowhere to be found, Callie had been forced to accept the odd explanation. Inwardly, she had vowed to find out what was hiding on the other side of the chamber door as soon as possible. Or at the very least to confront her new husband about it.
Following her introduction to the skeletal staff he had retained, Lord Sinclair had disappeared. She had been irked at his abandonment of her. She still could not entirely say why. It ought to have suited her to be free of his unwanted presence.
But by the time he had joined her at dinner, she had been quite cross with him. He had treated her with cool politeness as the servants waited upon them. Dinner had hardly been an impressive affair. His cook was not nearly as talented as Rochelieu, the chef her brother employed at Westmorland House.
Sinclair had accused Callie of being spoiled once. She had not believed herself spoiled in the least. But a few hours into her new life as the Countess of Sinclair, she was beginning to realize just how right the earl had been. His townhome, like the crumbling ancestral pile to which he had spirited her, was in desperate need of repair.
It seemed to have been robbed of everything of value. The missing pictures—evidenced by the squares and rectangles where the wall coverings were new and brilliant rather than faded—were not limited to the main hall. Here in the countess’s chamber, the walls were utterly bereft of ornamentation. There was no silver in sight. The carpets were threadbare. There were not enough servants for a house of this size.
Callie sighed. Her work as the mistress of this dilapidated townhome seemed insurmountable. She would need to hire a chef and countless other domestics, replace the carpets and wall coverings…the entire, once-proud edifice was in desperate need of a thorough cleaning, from below stairs to the attics.
To say nothing of the expectations the Earl of Sinclair would have.
She was expected to share his bed.
The night loomed before her, uncertain, distressing.
Tempting.
Her bath water had grown cool. Reluctantly, Callie rose and stepped from the tub. She could not hide within it forever. Reaching for a towel, she thought again of those kisses in the carriage. Callie did not know what had happened to her. His challenge had sent her over the edge, and she had forgotten herself. For those few, wild moments, she had been driven only by desire, by the undeniable attraction she felt for him.
Following dinner, the earl had informed her he had called for a bath in her chamber.
I will give you some time to prepare yourself for the evening, he had said.
The warning in his voice settled between her thighs now as a new pulse of yearning. She was turning into a wanton, and she could scarcely understand why or how. She still considered the Earl of Sinclair her enemy. Her body, however, did not.
Callie wrapped herself in the dressing gown her lady’s maid had waiting for her. Simon would have been ashamed of her, if he could see her now. If he could see what she had become.
As she thought of the man who would forever own her heart, tears pricked at her eyes. She swore to herself that she would not allow them to fall. But she was weak, and one slid from her lashes, rolling down her cheek. For the first time since becoming the Countess of Sinclair that morning, she allowed herself to mourn what she had lost.
Her wedding day would have been two years prior. She would have been married before everyone she loved. Alfred would have been there. She would have had a society wedding, filled with laughter and happiness. Perhaps she would have even been a mother by now, had the future she had planned for herself not been so viciously stolen away with Simon’s death. Instead, he had gone to Italy to ease his constitution, and he had returned in a coffin.
“Contemplating the rest of your life as my wife, princess?”
The grim drawl at her back took her by complete surprise. Callie spun around, a startled shriek escaping her.
“What are you doing in here?” she demanded, shocked at the sight of him standing before her, clad in nothing more than a dark-blue dressing gown that was belted loosely at his waist.
A mesmerizing sliver of his chest was visible. Strong, muscled, and covered in a smattering of dark hair. She did her best to ignore the pulse of yearning he brought to life within her once more. The arresting sight of his masculine beauty meant nothing to her, she told herself. He was so unfairly handsome, but other men were handsome, too. Simon had been, with his tousled, golden curls and his deep-blue eyes.
The man who should have been her husband and the man she had married could not be more different. The contrast had never been so vivid. The Earl of Sinclair’s dark beauty made her heart pound and her breath hitch in her chest.
“I knocked.” His searing gaze traveled over her. “You did not answer. I was worried.”
She had heard no knock on the door adjoining their chambers. But it was possible that she had been too lost in her tumultuous emotions and musings to hear.
Still, his heated stare reminded her she was naked beneath her dressing gown. She folded her arms protectively over her breasts. Belatedly, the last of his words dawned upon her.
“You were worried,” she repeated, disbelief lacing her voice.
“Yes.” He sauntered nearer, not stopping until he stood before her.
She did not want his admission of concern to mean anything. It was not as if he cared about her. He had married her for her dowry and to gain revenge against her for Confessions of a Sinful Earl.
Callie raised a brow, clinging to all the calm she possessed. “Did you fear I had attempted to flee through the window again?”
“The notion did cross my mind, I
confess.” He startled her even more then by reaching out and catching one of her forgotten teardrops upon his thumb. “Why are you weeping, Lady Sinclair?”
“Do not call me that,” she bit out. The name felt wrong. As if it belonged to someone else. She did not want it.
He brought the pad of his thumb to his mouth and sucked. “It is your name now. You must reconcile yourself to the choices you made, princess. You, alone, are the reason you are my wife.”
Somehow, the sight of his sinful mouth sucking up her sorrow made her core tingle. There was something so very sensual about the Earl of Sinclair. His every move, every stare, word, and touch seemed alive with carnal intent.
“I am hardly alone in the reason,” she reminded him pointedly. “If you had not held me captive and blackmailed me into marrying you, I would not be here now.”
He inclined his head, watching her with that fathomless midnight gaze. “If you had not told the world I am a murderer and decimated my ability to secure a bride before I lost everything, I would not have had to marry you. No matter how you try to deflect, the paths all lead back to you, darling.”
The way he called her darling was so cutting. Part of her knew she ought to fear him. He was a dangerous man. At least, she had spent the last year believing he was. Certainly, his actions thus far—abducting her, threatening her, forcing her into this unwanted union—suggested she had not been wrong.
And yet, he had never been cruel. He had never done her violence. Even when she had attacked him with the porcelain that night in the countryside, he had retaliated by kissing her. What a contradiction he was.
She did not like it. Nor did she like the way she responded to him. Especially when she remained so uncertain as to whether or not she could trust him.
“You are as guilty as I am,” she insisted for the sake of her pride, and because she refused to shoulder all the blame for this marriage of inconvenience in which they now found themselves hopelessly mired. “I have yet to complete my preparations for this evening, my lord. Will you not leave so I may call for my lady’s maid and finish in peace?”
Lady Ruthless (Notorious Ladies of London Book 1) Page 13
