Arend didn’t intend to sit on his arse doing nothing for a few days. “Maybe. But we still have to find her when we reach Deal. I say we leave tonight. Drink up, gentlemen.” When his comment was met with wide eyes and stunned silence, he glared at them. “What? We can’t wait and let her slip away again.” And then he realized they weren’t all staring at him. They were staring over his head.
“We don’t all have to go at once,” Isobel said from behind him. “We don’t even know for certain she is in Kent.”
Isobel? Arend—all of them—scrambled to their feet like naughty boys discovered indulging in some nameless sin by a goddess. And, standing straight and self-possessed in the doorway, she looked like a goddess—albeit one with retribution on her mind.
“Isobel is right.” Marisa swept past her and into the room to press a kiss to Maitland’s cheek. “I think Arend should take some men to Deal tonight, as he suggested. The rest of us will follow tomorrow.”
As Marisa spoke, Sebastian and Hadley brought two more chairs to the fire and arranged them for the ladies. When the women were both settled comfortably, the men retook their own seats.
“Perhaps,” Maitland said, “we should make three groups. Arend’s group tonight. Tomorrow I’ll escort the ladies’ carriage, along with two Bow Street Runners. The rest of you can go on horseback. That will be quicker.”
Isobel and Marisa shared a look. It was the kind of look that told Arend’s gut he was in for trouble.
“We,” Isobel said, “are both more than capable of riding to Deal.”
Yes, trouble. But if the other men were going to sit in stunned silence like blockheads, he was not. He refused to trot tamely beside two ladies while they rode sidesaddle from London to Deal.
“No,” he said. “Even riding, you will slow us down.”
“Really?” Marisa looked down her nose at him. “We will be dressed in breeches and disguised as men, riding astride.”
“We are both capable of riding and keeping up with the men if we have the appropriate clothing,” Isobel said.
Arend was still struggling with his reaction to a vision of Isobel dressed in breeches and shirt. No red-blooded male could possibly mistake Isobel for—
“It would be safer for them,” Sebastian said slowly, “to be in disguise.”
The hell it would be. “I don’t—”
Marisa clapped her hands. “That’s settled, then.” And before Arend could say anything more, the door opened and Brunton came in. “Oh, Brunton. Tea, how lovely.”
Arend didn’t want tea. He wanted to punch something. Preferably Sebastian. Was the man mad?
Philip rose. So did Maitland. They both looked at him.
But if he left now, he wouldn’t get the chance to speak to Isobel before he left. “I’ll meet you outside in a moment, Philip.”
Philip hesitated, but Maitland clapped him on the shoulder. “We’ll use the time to select the Runners you should take with you.”
Arend waited until Maitland and Philip had left the room and then approached Isobel, who sat sipping her tea, apparently without a care in the world.
“May I have a word, Lady Isobel?”
“Of course.” She gestured to the chair Maitland had just vacated. “Please. Sit.”
He gritted his teeth. “In private, please.” When she raised an eyebrow, he added, “His Grace has kindly offered me the use of his study.” Or he would have, if he’d known Arend’s intentions.
“How could I refuse such a polite invitation?” She put her teacup down with exaggerated care, dabbed her lips with her napkin, and then rose to sweep past him and out of the room.
He followed her to the study, and when they had entered the room, he closed the door and turned the key in the lock.
“Would you like to sit?” he said.
Face completely calm, Isobel studied him. “I don’t intend to be here very long. I’d like to finish my tea before it gets cold. Then I have to pack.” Her tone was neither rude nor defensive. She was merely stating facts.
If she could be calm, then he could certainly manage the same. “I owe you an apology for my behavior last night and this morning.”
“Apology accepted,” she said. “Is that all?”
No. It bloody wasn’t all. Why was she not railing at him? He deserved her to tear a strip off him. She was so cool, so controlled. Why wasn’t she berating him for the way he’d treated her? It was as if she no longer cared.
“When I spoke to you this morning, it wasn’t that I didn’t trust you, it’s—”
“It’s perfectly all right, Arend.” She shrugged her slim shoulders. “I’m getting too close. You just reminded me that I need to have patience.” Now her mouth curved. “You didn’t bring me in here to try to talk me out of going to Deal, so your forbearance now makes up for your rudeness this morning.”
All the tension and angst rushed out of his lungs, and her radiant smile made him want to pull her into his arms and kiss her senseless.
But he reined in his need to hold her. “On the ride to Deal, stay close to Maitland and do what he tells you.”
“Why, Arend.” She moved closer, tender delight sparkling in her eyes. “Worried about me?”
“Worried” was a mild word for what he felt. “Of course I am.”
The radiance in her smile increased. “That is so nice to know. You be safe too. I don’t want to lose a new…friend.”
Her hesitation over the word “friend” needed to be addressed. He wanted to be more than friends.
His body had tightened the moment he’d seen her standing in the doorway. Even now he wanted to pull her into his arms. Kiss her. Touch her. Her fragrance clouded his mind, and his mouth watered as he remembered the taste of her.
He closed the distance between them until her pert breasts brushed his chest. When a slight shudder ran through her at the contact, he felt as though he’d won a thousand pounds.
“I’m more than simply a friend,” he murmured. “And you know it. You can’t hide the heat and flare of desire in your eyes.” Gently he ran his thumb over her bottom lip. “The flames are fierce in those deep blue depths. They leap every time I touch you.”
She swallowed as he leaned closer. Gasped as his lips grazed her unblemished cheek. When her hands rose to press against his chest, all he wanted was to feel her hands on his naked skin.
“Whatever else we may have with each other,” she said slowly, as if trying to convince herself, “friendship has to be there too. Lust fades, desire weakens, but friendship rides the waves of time.”
And with that strange statement, she pressed her lips to his in a sweet kiss.
The flames inside him leaped at the feel of her. He deepened the kiss, wrapping his arms round her and pulling her into his body so he could cradle her against his aching heart.
Just remembering the feel of Isobel’s soft, untutored body writhing beneath his, her ripe breasts straining for his touch, her cries as she arched into him in the throes of ecstasy, heightened his arousal and desire.
He wanted another night with her. Wanted to spend all his nights with her. That knowledge, that desperate need, terrified him. What if she learned of his past and then no longer wanted him? To be married to the one woman who owned his heart and yet despised him would be hell. He’d rather face Victoria’s loaded pistol than see the light of adoration dim in Isobel’s eyes. He needed to tell her everything before they married.
Soon they would both be staying under the same roof, and already his body celebrated at the prospect. But he would have to keep his mind focused. He had to keep Isobel safe and capture Victoria before anyone else got hurt. Then he’d tell Isobel everything and lay his heart, his hope, and his pride in her small hands.
—
Isobel relaxed into the familiar hardness of Arend’s embrace, her heart pounding and her pulse racing.
How was it possible that one smile, one touch, one kiss could leave her a molten puddle of yearning? Last night had only stimula
ted her appetite. Being held in his arms was heavenly. She clung tighter, knowing he was leaving tonight and heading to Deal without her.
She wanted to move slowly, to be more than just another woman he desired in his bed. But when he kissed her like this, all her good intentions dissolved like mist in the sun.
She was making progress. He hadn’t insisted that she stay behind when he went to Deal. And he wasn’t treating her as he had treated his other women—a night of pleasure, after which he would move on.
He can’t move on. You’re his fiancée, a little voice whispered in her head.
Yes, she thought, joy surging up through her. I am. I’m his, and he’s mine.
When he broke the kiss she rested her head on his chest. “Please,” she said. “Be careful riding in the dark. Don’t do anything heroic until the rest of the men arrive.”
A shiver rippled through her body as fear gripped her. He would not listen. If he had a chance to confront Victoria alone, so as to spare his friends, he would take it.
She might never see him again.
“Arend,” she whispered. “Make love to me, here, now, before you leave me.”
He stilled under her. Even his chest ceased its rise and fall. When he finally moved, it was to stroke her hair.
“Ma cherie,” he said softly, “I promise not to let Victoria kill me.”
She shuddered again. “You can’t know that. She’s outsmarted us at every turn. I want a chance to know you.”
“You’ll have that chance, I promise.”
“Don’t.” She tugged out of his embrace. “Don’t make promises you have no idea if you can keep. We have a pact to be truthful with each other.”
“That we do.”
And she needed to be truthful with him now. “I’m afraid for you. Victoria wants to see you dead more than she wants to discredit you first.”
Arend’s lips curved, and he looked like the dangerous man he was, an enemy to be wary of, to fear. “She isn’t going to get her wish, I assure you.”
“Even so.” She had to make him understand. “I know you’re fearless. But your fearlessness is because you don’t value your own life, and it makes you vulnerable to mistakes. But I value your life, Arend. I value it very much. I care about you. I want you alive. Promise that you will wait for the rest of us. I don’t want you to risk being killed before we arrive.”
“I promise.” Reaching up, he brushed a dark tendril back from her forehead. “Perhaps I’ve found something that I do care about. A reason to live to a ripe old age.”
Warmth wrapped around her, and she managed to muster up a dazzling smile. “Then love me now, before we part.”
He hesitated.
“Do you no longer desire me?”
His eyes widened. “You have no idea how much I want you. But I also want you free to make a choice at the end of this hunt. The more often we make love, the greater the chance that you may get with child, and then”—his mouth went tight—“I can’t let any child of mine be born out of wedlock. I would insist on marriage.”
She wanted to say that she didn’t care. That she would marry him whatever the outcome. But she knew it wasn’t true. She still had doubts. Was this love? Or was what she felt for this mysterious, haunted man merely infatuation?
She needed to know his secrets. If it was impossible for him to get over whatever haunted him, he would eventually change, their relationship would change. He might withdraw from her, from the world, and she’d be left alone, but still tied to him. Marriage was for life.
Sense won. “Then I suggest we do something that does not involve the possibility of my getting with child.” And, running her hands down his chest to the placket of his breeches, she slowly knelt before him.
He did not stop her, but every muscle under her fingertips went rigid as she ran her palm over his lengthening erection.
He was huge, and the thought of loving him with her mouth sent excitement spiraling through her.
Fists clasped by his side, he stood as still as a statue as she freed his erection and ran her fingers lovingly over its velvety hardness. His body was so hard, his skin so soft. When a drop of liquid formed at the slit, she leaned forward and lapped at it. His groan vibrated through his body and filled the room.
Growing bolder at the sound, she wrapped her fingers around him and slid the soft skin up and down its full length. His indrawn breath came hard and sharp.
Watching him through her eyelashes, she saw his aristocratic features stiffen as she took him in. She loved his sharp indrawn breath. She suckled gently at first, using her tongue to swirl round the head of his cock as he pushed further into her mouth.
She sucked harder and was rewarded by a low growl deep in his throat.
“This is heaven.”
The hunger in his voice made her limbs weak, and she placed one hand on his solid thigh to steady herself.
The sounds originating from deep in his chest confirmed that what she was doing made him feel good. His hands remained at his sides, fingers curling and uncurling as though he wanted to tangle them in her hair but knew that would give away what they were doing—not that the others probably didn’t suspect.
She took him so deep that he hit the back of her throat. Her eyes watered, but the tremble in his limbs, his guttural groans, and that incredible, intoxicating knowledge that it was she alone who held him on this edge kept her steady.
“I’m going to come, Isobel. Let me—”
She shook her head and sucked him harder. She would taste him as he had tasted her.
He might have tried to move away. But it was too late. The end came hard and fast.
She watched him as he convulsed, as his hot seed flooded her throat. The look on his face broke her heart. In his release, all the dark shadows around him fell away and there was a radiant innocence to his beauty. He was free of fear. The only thing holding him in its grip was pleasure.
She barely had time to drink in this brighter, more joyous version of Arend before he scooped her up and placed her on the edge of Maitland’s desk before sweeping the papers on the desk to the floor and then flipping up her skirts.
When he had bared her secrets, he smoothed his palms along the insides of her legs. When his dark head disappeared between her thighs she rested on her elbows to watch him, unable to look away.
She tensed in anticipation and her body grew tight at the delicious heat his erotic caresses lit in her.
The muscles in her thighs clenched just as they had the first time he had parted her curls. This time she knew what was coming, and her breath clogged her throat in anticipation. As he slid his fingers over her pulsing warmth, she thanked God for giving her this man.
“I love the way you taste.” His voice was a sensual rasp that made the hairs on her arms stand to attention. “The way you respond under my mouth.”
He brushed a probing kiss over her feminine cleft, and excitement rushed over her at the brazen touch of his heated lips.
He licked the swollen bud of her sex, and she sighed. His tongue stroked over the silky crevice between her thighs, and a delicious shock flared through her. Her elbows trembled and would no longer support her. Shaking in astonished pleasure, she managed to lower herself so she lay flat on the hard desk.
Then she writhed, trying to shift her hips, seeking either escape or capture, she did not know which. Wave after wave of delight swept over her, and she gave herself up to the wantonness.
With a satisfied murmur, Arend spread her legs wider.
As delicious sensations jolted Isobel, she arched against his mouth, begging for more.
His lips closed over her taut, hardened nub and suckled, not gently, but with a power that reminded her of the formidable man he was.
When she moaned out loud, he nipped at her. “I love hearing your cries of ecstasy.” He sounded hoarse. “Cries only I will ever hear,”
Incapable of any rational reply, she let her eyelids drift closed and reached to thread her fingers thro
ugh his dark, silky curls, to draw him close.
She was in heaven. The fierce heat of his mouth inflamed her senses. Her hips rose involuntarily as his wicked, scalding tongue lapped and probed.
He did not savor her. He feasted, deliberately tormenting the quivering, throbbing bud of her sex, leaving her feverish and frantic.
“Now, Arend, now,” she cried as he held her hostage on the cusp of completion, not allowing her to fly, to soar.
He made a raw, satisfied sound deep in his throat and hooked his arms under her thighs. When he draped her legs over his shoulders to give him even better access and lowered his head, she wanted to scream his name, scream how much she loved him.
His hot, rasping tongue owned her, its every touch sent her nerves careening out of control. It stole breath from her chest, power from the hands that gripped his hair so tightly, desperately…
When his tongue thrust into her, fast, ravishing her ruthlessly, faster, faster, faster, the pleasure was so acute she finally screamed his name just as she clapped a hand to her mouth to muffle the sound.
Even if he would not make love to her with the part of his body she’d so recently worshipped, this was ecstasy.
Shudders possessed her body. Bliss possessed her mind. The tender savagery of his kisses held her enslaved. Her lungs were on fire.
She could not keep still, moving and slipping on the desk as her hips rose to meet his clever, fabulous tongue. Just when she was sure she could take no more, heat exploded through her in a consuming wildfire.
When she finally came back to herself it was to find herself gazing up into Arend’s beautiful face.
His tender look melted her once again.
He still supported her legs over his shoulders and he was placing tiny kisses on the inside of each thigh. Primal triumph curved his lips.
He looked so pleased with himself she couldn’t stifle her giggle. “I hope those papers you pushed to the floor are not important.”
He lowered her legs and helped her to slide off the desk and onto her feet. Noticing the evidence of her juices on his face, she lifted the hem of her dress and wiped him clean.
“That,” he said, “was so beautiful. You are so beautiful.”
A Night of Forever Page 22
