by Wicked Wager
Not that he wanted to. He thirsted for her touch, her smile, her laughter like a badly wounded soldier in the wake of a battle craves water. She’d brought into his life a dimension of joy and peace he’d never known, and he desperately wanted to hang on to it.
He would be good for her, he tried to convince himself, amuse her, challenge her reforming abilities, and bring her limitless pleasure.
Add the power of a declaration of love to the gratitude she’d already voiced about his rescue, and he might be able to talk her into marrying him, binding her sweet courage and passion to him forever. But he didn’t really want her to marry him out of gratitude, did he?
With a sigh, he had to admit he was still enough of a rogue that he’d take her on any terms he could get.
But with the danger past, she no longer needed a rogue. He couldn’t seem to force from his head Colonel Vernier’s disparaging final words: if he truly cared for Jenna, he would walk away and leave her to a better man.
He had to admit that in reputation, character, wealth—everything except love for her—the colonel was superior.
He thought, too, of Miss Sweet, who’d begged him to redeem the sins of the father by becoming the man she’d hoped he might be.
Could he do that without a heart? For if he walked away from Jenna, he’d leave that in her keeping.
The ache settled deep within him at the certainty of what he must choose. If he were ever to break away from his father’s pattern of selfishness, ’twas time to begin. Christmas was almost upon them. Tomorrow he’d seek out his hostess, express his gratitude, and leave.
The season of miracles, he’d once called it. But though he knew he was making progress in putting his wastrel’s life behind him, even the holy season wasn’t miraculous enough to turn Tony Nelthorpe overnight into the caliber of man Jenna Fairchild deserved.
Knowing his only partly reformed character would never withstand the temptation to stay if he had to say goodbye to Jenna in person, he decided to borrow her tactics and leave her a note. Which he would compose—tomorrow.
Stifling the clamor of his protesting heart, he turned his thoughts to where he would go. London? But the thought of encountering his father didn’t appeal.
Hunsdon, perhaps. ’Twas also time he began learning to manage the estates his old comrade’s father, Banker Harris, had salvaged for him. And perhaps eventually, if the adage that virtue was its own reward had any truth, he’d find a measure of solace for his lonely soul.
EARLY THE FOLLOWING MORNING Jenna answered a rap at her chamber door to find Lady Charlotte on the threshold. Wondering what news would have brought her friend to her room before breakfast, she ushered her in.
“Jenna, Nelthorpe just came to bid me goodbye,” Lady Charlotte said, taking the chair Jenna offered. “He insists that he must depart this morning as soon as he completes packing. Something about pressing business awaiting him at Hunsdon. Did he mention this to you?”
An unpleasant tightness squeezed Jenna’s chest. “No. He didn’t say a word about leaving.”
Lady Charlotte watched Jenna’s face. “If you mean to do anything about it, I advise you to make haste. I’ve had the staff delay finding him a trunk, but that will not slow him for long.” She swept Jenna into an impulsive hug. “You have more courage than I, dear friend. Use it.”
After Lady Charlotte went out, on legs gone suddenly weak Jenna stumbled back to her chair. What did she mean to do about Anthony Nelthorpe?
Perhaps it was good that he was leaving. She had grown quite attached to seeing him every day. She wasn’t sure she had the strength of mind, in the wake of her recent ordeal, to demand that he go.
Once he left, she could rebuild the serenity that had shattered while she’d watched in horror as he took a bullet meant for her. She could return to the business of purchasing property for the soldiers, anticipate the return of the eminently more suitable Colonel Vernier.
Except, as perfection sometimes does, Vernier inspired her to admiration but not to affection. She enjoyed his company, but did not pine for it. She found him attractive, but experienced no unquenchable desire to touch, taste and explore him.
Unladylike reactions, those latter. But honest ones.
She now knew Tony Nelthorpe was far from as venal as she’d once thought him, though admittedly a man who could sneak into ladies bedchambers, deceive country people with Banbury lies, and threaten a peer’s wife was not the sort of upright man Garrett would choose for her. But as many imperfections as she’d recently uncovered in her own character, who was she to cast stones?
Perhaps her greatest flaw was in believing she could master this weakness for Nelthorpe’s company and his caresses. If she were to stop denying the truth and allow herself to consider the possibility of a legitimate relationship between them, that weakness would become not a flaw but a bond. Based on what happened between them whenever he was near, a powerful one.
Besides, this was not Garrett’s choice, was it?
Follow your heart, my darling, she seemed to hear Garrett say.
A deep sense of peace settled over her, dissolving the guilt that had pressed heavy at her chest each previous time she’d considered a future beyond Garrett. Thank you, my love, she whispered back.
What did her heart desire?
’Twas still too soon after Garrett’s death to know for sure. Should she eventually choose Nelthorpe, she might not occupy a high position or conduct herself always with propriety, but she’d never be bored. He was likely to challenge, amuse and keep her deliciously satisfied for a lifetime.
And though he was a far better man than she’d once thought, he had the potential to become even better—with a little work by a determined woman.
TONY SAT AT THE DESK in his bedchamber, crumpling his latest effort at penning Jenna a farewell note. Faith, if he didn’t finish one soon, he might as well wait until tomorrow to leave.
Squelching the insidious temptation to do just that, as he dipped the quill again, a knock sounded at the door.
Probably someone with a trunk—at last. Bidding the servant enter, he looked up—to see Jenna Fairchild on the threshold.
Heart suddenly pounding, he set the pen down so quickly, he nearly upset the inkwell.
“Jenna!” he cried. Suddenly recalling the proprieties, he added, “What are you doing here?”
She walked in and shut the door. “You were going to leave without saying goodbye.”
If I had to face you, I’d never leave. He couldn’t tell her that, of course, so instead he stuttered, “I, ah, was just writing you a note.”
She shook her head reprovingly. “How very rude and unappreciative. Sometimes I almost despair of making something of you. But I did promise.”
He tamped down a wild flash of hope. “I thought we’d agreed that bargain was over.”
“One can’t renege on a promise.”
He looked away from her, willing himself to remain resolute. “It would be wiser. Seeing me would…complicate matters. Besides, I can’t, as you well know, promise not to tempt you into something you may later regret.”
“Isn’t it my choice whether to risk that?”
You don’t know what you risk! Desperately he put up a hand to keep her from coming closer. “Please, don’t make this any harder. I can only scrounge so much courage.”
Ignoring his appeal, she approached the desk. “What, you—one of the heroes of Waterloo?”
She was at the edge of the desk now, oh, so close, his fingers itched to touch her face, her hair, run a fingertip along those lips. Her honeysuckle fragrance filled his head, making coherent thought almost impossible.
He curled his fists around the chair arms to keep from reaching for her. “I’m not a hero, as you well know. Not like Garrett—or Vernier.”
“Did you not do your duty, just as they did? Stand by your men and bring them through? There’s as much nobility in that as in winning medals or mention in the dispatches.”
Him, noble
. He stifled the urge to laugh. Did she not know how close he was to chucking nobility and dragging her into his arms?
Then the thought flashed into his head. Tell her the whole. Admit to her what you’ve never dared admit to any living soul. You’ll have no need then to be noble, for she’ll look at you with contempt.
Though she would never know it, ’twould be the most heroic thing he ever did—sacrificing what little esteem he’d earned in her eyes and pushing her toward someone better in such a way that she would never look back.
I can do it, Miss Sweet.
“A hero, am I? Shall I tell you how this ‘hero,’ after that first ghastly battle at Badajoz, cast up his accounts before every engagement? That only the dread of being humiliated before my men kept me in the saddle, moving forward? That at Waterloo, faced with the mass of D’Erlon’s corps, I would have wheeled my horse and fled, but my knees were too weak. ’Twas my mount, better trained than I, who answered the charge.”
Too ashamed to look at her, sure she’d already turned to leave, the sound of her voice startled him. “But once you charged, you did valiant work. I found you on the field, remember. I saw the enemy dead all around you.”
Bleeding inside at the memories, he made himself continue. “I couldn’t even lift my saber until a lancer lashed out at my horse. Balthasar didn’t deserve to die, so I fended him off. I praised heaven when recall sounded, but—but the regiment didn’t heed it! I would have gone back, but then—oh God, then they were all over Kit, pulling him off his horse, and I couldn’t just watch and do nothing. And then those two lancers and a cuirassier went after Kendrick and—”
Shaking uncontrollably now, he made himself stop. “Lord, Lord, I shouldn’t be telling you this!”
Her voice fierce, she seized his arm. “Who else could you tell? I’ve walked the fields after a battle. I know what war means. I asked Papa once how he could bring himself to fight. He told me those who didn’t fear war’s horror were either madmen or fools. Fear keeps you alive, he said.”
Tony laughed without mirth. “It did that, if barely. But I did nothing compared to Vernier. Standing at the gates of Hougoumont, fighting back wave after wave of attackers!”
“You don’t think he was afraid?”
“No!”
“How do you know? Men never talk of such things. Papa only spoke of it to me because I was so distraught.”
She had the right of it there, he realized. Before a battle, there was talk of tactics, encouragement, bravado. But no one spoke of fear.
Only madmen and fools aren’t afraid, her father had said. A man who had survived far more battles than Tony.
He wasn’t sure how long they both remained immobile while he gathered his composure. As his breathing steadied, wonder and gratitude infused him that, after he’d confessed his most shameful secret, she’d stood by and gripped his hand instead of turning from him in revulsion.
“A man needn’t be perfect to be honorable. He need only keep trying to improve. But then again,” Jenna said, releasing his fingers, “if you think yourself so inferior, you might be right. I certainly could detail a number of serious flaws.”
Tony would have resigned himself to an onslaught of criticism, except that she accompanied her words by sliding the hand that had been holding his up his waistcoat. He gasped a breath, his chest, and other things, swelling.
“S-such as,” he replied shakily.
“Creeping into bedchambers in the dead of night.”
“That could get one shot.”
“Climbing up innocent wisteria vines.”
“Very hard on the knees.”
“Seducing a willing widow and then thrusting her into the arms of a rival, as if she were no more to him than a casual tryst in the shrubbery.”
“’Twas an attempt to be noble!” he protested.
“Craven,” she pronounced. “Craven and exceedingly foolish.”
“Foolish,” he agreed, resistance weakening as she sat herself on the desk in front of him.
“Such serious flaws,” she murmured, leaning toward him, “will require much work and attention to amend. I shall have to be very diligent.”
He tried to ignore her lips drifting closer, the warm breath that brushed his skin. Through the increasing sensual haze flickered the image of Miss Sweet. “I did promise to try harder.”
“Indeed, you said you would go to great lengths. Ah,” she whispered, glancing down, “I see that you have.”
Allowing her to proceed any further was madness. But all thought of asking her to stop evaporated when she reached down to trace one finger along the uncomfortably constraining fabric of his trouser flap.
Groaning, he closed his eyes, clutching the chair arms ever more tightly lest he succumb to the now-raging desire to drag her to the bed.
To his consternation, at his groan, she ceased stroking him and drew back. “But I forget, you are still recovering. Did I cause your shoulder pain?”
“No! Though I swear, if you do not immediately resume your ministrations, I’m certain to suffer a relapse.”
She laughed deep in her throat. “What would you have me do, then?”
Love me forever. Not wishing to scare her off, he bit back those words and said instead, “Pray continue your instruction in whatever way pleases you.”
Bliss returned as she moved her hand back to cover him. “Oh, I plan to have you please me mightily. But you’re a hard man, Tony Nelthorpe. It shall take much time and effort to soften you.”
“Mold me as you will, lady.”
Obligingly, as he closed his eyes, savoring each millimeter of motion, she shaped him again with her fingertips. “Such deficiencies, my lord,” she chided after a moment.
“Deficiencies?” he gasped, his eyes popping open.
“In courtesy,” she murmured, her expression grave. “A desk is a very uncomfortable surface upon which to…instruct. Shall we continue this session over there?” Gesturing to the bed, she slipped down from her perch and walked toward it.
Not sure this wasn’t all some fantastic dream, he limped after her.
He could scarcely believe she meant to lie with him in the guest chamber of her friend’s house, in full daylight when a servant with coffee or clean linen—or the requested trunk—might at any moment knock at his door.
Yet at the same time, her boldness inflamed him such that, mad as it was to indulge in this, he couldn’t have made himself call a halt if all the members of Parliament were about to arrive for a session here in this very room.
A step away from the bed, she paused with a frown. “One’s belongings, sir,” she said, indicating the folded garments he’d stacked there, “belong in one’s wardrobe, not strewn about one’s bed.”
With two strokes of his hand he sent the whole collection to the floor. “Indeed, you are correct. I shall remedy that deficiency—later,” he concluded, drawing her up for a kiss.
She responded avidly, her fingers biting into his shoulders, her tongue seeking his. Seeming fired with the same impatience that consumed him, without breaking their kiss, she urged him onto the bed, pushed him back against the pillows.
He was well and truly lost now. Ah, that this time, heaven would not end in her regret!
Knowing it was unlikely he’d be able to entice her to a second, more leisurely loving, he wanted to slow the pace, prolong and savor every moment. But even as her tongue caressed his, her fingers clawed open the buttons of his breeches.
They both shuddered at the touch of her hand to his naked skin. With a murmur of approval, she deftly eased his erection free and before he could move or think, took him in her mouth. Though he desperately wanted to touch and taste her in return, all thought dissolved at the first velvet stroke of her tongue.
Using lips and teeth and tongue, she moved up and down his length, taking him deep, sliding him almost free, nibbling at the exquisitely sensitive tip. Just when he thought he could stave off completion no longer, she released him and scrambled ont
o the bed.
“Love me,” she gasped, her breathing frantic and her eyes wild. “Love me, Tony.” Lifting her skirts, she straddled him, thrust downward to take him deep within her.
He shuddered, his whole body trembling as he hovered at the sharp edge of pleasure so intense it was nearly pain. Ah, how he longed to bare her breasts, feel the softness of her naked skin under his hands while she rocked into him! Yet there was a naughty, erotic excitement to this clandestine coupling in the bright morning light, both of them almost completely clothed.
After pulling her face close enough to kiss, he struggled through the layers of skirt and shift until his hands reached the smooth skin of her buttocks. Then, clutching her close and praying he would last long enough to pleasure her, he let her ride him as she would.
Her breaths accelerated with the thrust of her hips until, far too soon, her fingers clenched on his shoulders. Opening his mouth to swallow her cry, he let himself catapult with her into the abyss.
Timeless, weightless, they clung together, suspended in bliss as ancient as mankind, as fresh as the new morning. His one thought as slowly the sensations softened, faded, was a fervent hope that this time, she would wake without tears.
A few moments later, still within the circle of his arms, she pushed up on her elbow. Her gaze scanned the garments he’d been packing, now scattered about the floor. “Ah, Tony,” she whispered, her eyes imploring, “you won’t really leave me, will you?”
She was not going to banish him. She wanted him here.
At that realization, joy expanded his chest, clogged in his throat so that he had to struggle for speech.
“Never!” he said at last, drawing her back into his embrace.
For another few moments they lay quietly, Tony drinking in the wonder of her warm breath against his chin. “I suppose,” she said at last, pushing to a sitting position, “I can inform Lady Charlotte you’ll not be needing that trunk.”
