“Oh,” she breathed her surprise when his tongue touched her.
“Oh,” she repeated as his warm tongue caressed her again. He showed no sign of pulling back. The intimate pressure of his lips and hot tongue against her most tender place made her eyes roll back into her head. She felt outside of her body as if she was nothing more than a feeling, a building force of excitement.
“I’m going to put myself here,” he said and stroked her with his tongue again. And then his caressing fingers touched her there—in that most private of places—a place she’d yearned for him to touch.
“And I’ll enter you.” She felt one finger push against her tender folds and then another, easing into her. She felt tight, like she was being stretched to accept him. But he was gentle. Her legs fell open as she relaxed. She gave a short gasp of pleasure when his fingers became bolder, pushing into her, filling her. Pumping her.
“Make love to you.”
Her hips rocked with the rhythm he set. Her eyes fluttered closed and she relaxed completely into his arms. His touch was warm as it filled her. She pressed against him, guiding him deeper as her urgency grew.
“Mark you as mine.”
And then reality intensified. She dug her fingers into his strong arms as her body tensed, being pulled apart. She was dying, there had to be no other explanation.
She had long ceased to breathe.
She cried out when a beautiful release came. Sparks of energy exploded throughout her body. Surely she had died.
He continued rocking her, cooing softly. He tenderly kissed her eyelids, her forehead, her nose, her chin and her lips. He held her tightly against his chest absorbing lingering tremors coursing through her.
“Thank you,” he breathed on a ragged breath and shifted above her. She felt the wide tip of his member press against her still trembling flesh.
He rubbed himself against her wetness until he slid easily against her. Slowly he pushed into her.
Inch by inch, she took more and more of him. He filled her and pushed deeper. Sweat beaded on his forehead and he looked very serious about what he was doing.
She stilled, her gaze latched onto his steely eyes. They were a steady comfort.
“Iona, this will hurt but for a moment.” He took her hands into his and thrust hard. The pain surprised her. She cried out.
He gently kissed away her tears, apologizing with every breath. He didn’t understand that her tears weren’t from the pain, or even regret. They were born from a deep relief that swept through her. With her innocence gone, she was free. No man would want to marry her.
“Hold still,” he said, “Just get used to me. I promise it will feel better in a moment.”
He began a slow rocking movement. His hands covered her body, caressing, teasing. He suckled one of her nipples.
“Oh,” she breathed.
With greater urgency, he pushed her legs wider and tilted her hips so he could go deeper.
Her own sense of urgency followed. Her hands were everywhere, tugging at him. Her body moved with instincts she did not know she owned. She nipped his shoulder, his fingertips. Moaned into his mouth.
As he was pumping her, she gazed into his eyes and saw her future. One with him at the center of it.
And that was her undoing. Her body responded to a desire she’d fought from the moment Nathan had caught her eavesdropping in on the tearoom gossips.
“No…”
Her logical thoughts and plans didn’t matter. Her heart took control and surged from the emotions that poured through her as her world came apart for a second time that night, sweeping her away.
No other, her heart sang. I am in love.
With a groan he pulled out, spilling his seed on the sheets.
* * * * *
He loved her.
In the quiet hours before dawn, Nathan gradually woke from the heavy sleep of the sated, the contented. The notion of giving up his heart to Iona didn’t bother him anymore. After last night, his heart would always belong to her.
He loved her.
It no longer mattered how much she might protest in the light of day, he wouldn’t let her deny the passion that swirled between them like a miniature inferno, or the tenderness he’d read in her stunning cornflower blue eyes when she’d offered him her maidenhead.
She loved him too.
No other, she’d said. Those two beautiful words rang in his heart. No other. She was his. Forever.
He inhaled deeply. He could still smell the fragrant honeysuckle scent of her clinging to him. She’d done this for him. She’d given him the peace he’d been craving.
“I should walk you home, sweet,” he whispered into the darkness.
Darkness answered him.
The poor dear, he’d exhausted her. Though he wanted to let her sleep, he knew he couldn’t let her greet the sunrise from his bed. Not yet. Not until after they were married.
He reached out, hoping to gently rouse her with a caress on her cheek. His fingers touched not her silky hair or her smooth skin but a cold pillow.
“Iona?”
Suddenly wide-awake, he sat up. His frantic gaze searched the chamber.
It was empty.
“Iona?” He launched out of the bed and rushed into the parlor. “Iona?”
The room was dark and silent.
Naked and confused, he stood stock-still in the middle of the parlor. And battled an urge to peek under the sofa or peep into the large blanket chest that was pushed up against one wall.
There had to be a logical explanation. Faeries hadn’t broken into his bedchamber to spirit her away. His door had been locked. And no one knew he’d taken her here. So kidnapping was out of the question.
So where the hell was she?
Be calm, he told himself. Rational.
Gritting his teeth hard enough to make his jaw ache, he returned to his bedchamber and slung on his dressing gown. While tying a knot on the robe’s sash, he went to rouse Freddie.
He knocked softly on his servant’s door. When there was no answer, he pounded.
Nothing.
He tossed open the door. The small servant’s chamber was deserted.
Iona kidnapped?
Freddie wouldn’t…couldn’t…
But if not Freddie, then who? Who could have taken Iona from his bed?
He’d kill him. Nathan rushed back into the parlor and went straight to his desk. Searching for his pistol, he pulled open drawers and tossed their contents on the floor.
His hand touched the cold, hard steel of the barrel of one of his dueling pistols when the front door swung open. Freddie, whistling a tuneless melody, strolled inside as if returning from a bawdy night at his favorite pub just a few doors down.
Nathan pointed the pistol at the man’s chest.
“Where the hell have you been?” he demanded of his soon-to-be erstwhile valet. Thoughts of murder glittered brightly through his mind. “What have you done with her?”
His valet’s back stiffened. “The lady roused me from my slumber and asked me to escort her home,” he explained as he closed and latched the door behind him. He then crossed the room and took the pistol from his employer’s hand. With a deep sigh, he laid the weapon on the desk between them. “I only did as she bid.”
“Why wouldn’t she have asked me?”
“I asked her that very question. She told me she was afraid.”
Afraid? Of him? Nathan’s heart tripped on that thought.
“Surely you’re jesting.”
Freddie curled his upper lip and shrugged. “That is what she told me.” His voice grew more frosty and clipped. “I did not argue with her.”
“And you saw her home?”
Freddie shrugged again. “She is a lady. It’s a matter of course that I’d do as she wished.”
“And you watched her go into her house?” He had to know she was safe. Once that was settled, he’d go back to trying to figure out what she must have been thinking.
“She cre
pt through a back window at the Royal Crescent without a hitch.” He gave a low whistle. “She’s a nimble little catch, ain’t she?”
Nathan shot his valet a sharp glare.
“And she’s a right proper lady too,” Freddie quickly added.
“Regardless of what you may or not think of her, you mustn’t tell anyone about her. You understand that, don’t you? Not even those toadies you like to take a pint or two with on the weekends.”
“I never speak of your liaisons.” He sounded hurt by the accusation that he would. “It’s not my tongue but your own carelessness that gets you into trouble, my lord.”
“That will all change,” Nathan vowed. “Everything will change.” He would marry Iona. After last night, she must know there was no other choice. By begging him to take her to his bed, she’d agreed to the marriage, hadn’t she?
“I assume so,” Freddie’s voice rose with incredulity. “A duke’s unmarried daughter. I’d almost rather you’d taken a boy to your bed than that chit dressed as one. You certainly shocked me to my toes last night when you were making mooneyes at her while calling her Sir Percival, you did. It was so out of character for you. But then again, you’re under an inhuman amount of stress thanks to your family, I thought maybe you—”
An uncomfortable silence spanned between them. Freddie knew too many of his secrets. Had witnessed too many of his humiliations.
Nathan spiked a hand through his hair. “Why would she leave me?” He thought they had formed an unspoken understanding. Dammit, he should have gotten her to speak the words he had imagined were floating in her head out loud.
“She left you a note.” Freddie’s gaze traveled over to Nathan’s large tiger maple desk. A fresh piece of foolscap was sitting out on the blotter, waiting for him.
Nathan snatched it up.
My dearest and most intimate friend,
Thank you for the lesson in passion, the letter started. He had to force himself to not crumple it in the rush of anger surging through him. He felt a burning need to dash over to the Newbury household and shake her until she saw reason. Either that, or kiss her senseless. But he did neither. If he wanted to untangle this disaster he’d created for himself, he needed to keep a level head.
After last night, I am convinced you will rush off and do something utterly stupid. I pray you exercise a modicum of self-control, Nathan.
“I’m the picture of self-control,” he argued back. “Do you really know me so little?”
If you have but an ounce of care for my happiness, do not go to my father to speak nonsense of marriage. I will deny you if I must. Please, do not force me to do something so cruel.
Tonight will always shimmer in my memory. Even when I am old and withered, I will look back at that beautiful moment we shared and smile.
“Of course you will. I’ll be by your side making damned sure you do.”
If you never wish to see me again, I’ll abide by your wishes. However it is my deepest hope to continue our friendship.
Fondly yours.
There was no signature. Not even the ornate I she’d put on her earlier notes.
Fondly yours, she’d written.
But she wasn’t really his. The letter had made that much painfully clear.
He’d never felt such a rage toward a woman. He crushed the foolscap in the palm of his hand and tossed it into the fire grate.
It was probably a good thing she’d fled his bed. His apartment. In all his years, he’d never treated a woman with such callousness, not even the lightskirts he’d taken to his bed while a student at Oxford.
Did she think he lacked a heart? And what the bloody hell about his honor? She’d coldly ripped both away from him with the tip of his own pen.
Heaven help her, despite the demands she’d made in her note, he vowed he’d do whatever was necessary to take back both his honor and his heart.
Chapter Twelve
“What game are you playing, Wynter?”
Nathan didn’t bother to glance up from yesterday’s edition of the London Times—the last available copy to be had at Mill’s tiny shop in Kingsmead Square. The sweet smell of leather in the private lending library reminded him of his father’s study at Callaway Abbey. Of home. He wondered if after last night he had any chance of ever seeing his family home again. “You are mistaken. I don’t play games, Talbot.”
A chair leg scuffed against the hardwood floor. “Sir Percival Crumps?” Talbot said next to Nathan’s ear. “Lady Iona? I’d say you are ensconced in a bloody dangerous game considering how the Duke of Newbury is as protective as a bad-tempered lion around his favorite daughter.”
Nathan lowered the newspaper in order to try and read Talbot’s intent.
Trouble went hand in hand with such damning secrets and trouble he already had in excess.
Not only had Iona left him like a thief in the night with only that terse note to chill his heart, Miss Darly had sent a letter of her own to his apartment that morning. In it, she’d detailed her expensive demands. If they weren’t met, she vowed she would take up with Edward again and let the cards fall where they may, as it were. Unfortunately Nathan was still paying the creditors for the exorbitant sum she’d received from him almost two years earlier. He simply didn’t have the funds to buy her off for a second time, not while maintaining his current lifestyle.
And then there was Mrs. Jane Sharpes, his former mistress. Before leaving his apartment that morning, he was still berating himself for taking Iona to his bed and trying to convince himself that she would forgive him if he went to her father to plead his case, when a footman arrived at his door and announced Jane’s unexpected arrival in Bath. She urgently had to see him, the footman had told Freddie, who in turn informed Nathan with a sneer set on his unhappy lips.
As soon as Nathan had tugged on his pantaloons and tied his cravat, he’d rushed off to the address the footman had provided. His heart had been caught in his throat all the way over. He could think of only one thing urgent enough to lure Jane to the dull and unfashionable town of Bath in the middle of summer. A pregnancy.
His child.
A child that without marriage would be born a bastard.
He’d withdrawn from Iona, denying himself the pleasure of filling her with his seed because he hoped to spare her the danger of suffering that very damning and potentially ruinous complication.
He hadn’t been so careful with Jane.
Fortunately his worries about Jane’s condition had been unfounded. Even so, what he discovered at the tidy residence Jane had rented was even more shocking. Jane was willing to give him everything—in exchange for one little sacrifice.
Iona.
His body tightened at the thought of her.
That adorable minx was going to be his downfall unless she would agree to become his partner in more than secrets and shadows.
“Do you think I enjoy the inane frivolities of Bath?” Talbot’s voice reached into Nathan’s head and dragged him from his straying thoughts.
“I beg your pardon,” Nathan said.
“Do you think I enjoy Bath?” Talbot repeated with a bit of agitation.
“How should I bloody well know?”
“Well, did you know Lady Iona danced a waltz with me at every ball this past season? That she went riding with me through Hyde Park every Tuesday?”
“So you followed her to Bath looking to make her a wife?”
Talbot nodded.
Nathan’s spirits sank. Winning Iona’s devotion was beginning to appear as impossible as enticing a flitting butterfly to settle on only one flower.
And Jane was back in his life with her tempting offer to give him everything he could ever desire, save for one thing…
“Lady Iona gives so much of herself but never exclusively to one person for long,” Nathan grumbled. “Two years ago, I followed her from Bath to London. Some days I feel like I have been following after her ever since.”
“Ah,” Talbot said. He tapped the edge of the p
aper. “And what are you after? Is it a wife you are seeking or a challenging conquest to win?”
Nathan turned his head away, refusing to answer such an insulting question.
“I should have known. You are in love with her.”
“What?” Nathan protested. He tossed down the newspaper. “She and I share a friendship, I will admit to that. But love?”
“You aren’t running fast with her reputation, are you?”
“Of course not…at least…” A heat burned in Nathan’s chest as he clearly remembered how he’d taken her innocence last night and claimed her. He should be celebrating his success not brooding over her stubborn note. “I am trying to preserve her good name despite her recent antics.”
Talbot shook his head. “Then it is love.”
Nathan’s heart sank a little deeper into his boots. “I don’t think I know what that word means anymore. I am interested in winning her hand for the same reasons you are.”
“I doubt that,” Talbot said, rising from the table. “I am penniless and she is not.”
“Oh, I didn’t realize—”
Admitting to such a thing ate up a large chunk of a man’s pride. Nathan would have been in a similar position if his father had cut off his allowance after he’d admitted responsibility for Miss Posey Hartfield’s pregnancy. For some unfathomable reason, a modest sum still arrived every quarter in his London bank account from his father’s man-of-affairs. That, added to his own investments, had kept him living a relatively comfortable lifestyle.
“Not many know. I have my pride and a long list of creditors who are willing to bet that my family’s fortune will one day turn. Marriage into a well-endowed family such as the Newburys would go a long way to restoring what my father has lost.” Talbot gave a deep sigh. “There is always the younger sister.”
Nathan was unable to believe what he was hearing. “I do not understand,” he said. “You’re not going to blackmail me for what you know?”
“Alas, no. Instead I rather think I should tip my hat to you. There isn’t a lovelier or more sedately proper lady in all of England. Your powers of seduction must be even more potent than I suspected. I, for one, was beginning to think it would take a miracle to thaw that frosty heart of hers.”
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