by Sara Bennett
To begin with there were the hooks at the back. After struggling with them inelegantly for several moments she gave up. “You will have to help me,” she said. “Surely it won’t count as touching if you only touch the hooks and the cloth and not my skin?”
He bowed his head in acquiescence.
Marissa went around the table and stood with her back to him, and waited as she felt the tug of the hooks being released. The dress began to loosen about her, and she put up her hand to prevent it slipping down over her bosom to her waist. When he’d done she turned to face him.
It was difficult to read his expression. He was keeping himself very much under control. Suddenly she knew she wanted to see his will crumble. She wanted to see him vulnerable. That was what winning meant to her. Having Valentine in the palm of her hand.
She allowed the cloth to slide through her hands, slowly, uncovering the lacy top of her chemise where it cupped her breasts. The evening dress caught at her waist, and she bent to release the ties, aware that doing so meant he could see the full swell of her bosom. The dress slithered to her feet, and calmly she stepped out of it, returning to her chair in her petticoats and undergarments and her stockinged feet.
Marissa won the next throw and was finally able to watch him stand and unbutton his trousers. He pushed them down over his trim hips and muscular thighs. Much to her disappointment, he was wearing a tight-fitting undergarment, but as it really was very tight she soon reconciled herself.
Valentine won after that, and Marissa removed her petticoats after a great deal of argument as to whether they constituted one item of clothing or three. In the end he won, and she removed all three. As she sat down opposite him, she was flushed from the argument and very conscious of her half-naked state. Although in fact she wasn’t really naked; her bloomers covered her down to the knee and from there her stockings covered her to her toes. Her chemise and stays were another barrier to his gaze, despite her shoulders and arms being naked, and her breasts pushed up to make the décolletage of her evening dress more daring.
He took his time admiring her. “You are beautiful,” he said, his voice low and husky.
“So are you,” she teased, her gaze admiring his torso. “Can’t I touch you, just a little, Valentine?”
But he shook his head and handed her the dice.
Marissa won next and ordered him to remove his stockings. She was tempted to go straight for the undergarment but decided it would be too peculiar to see him naked with his stockings still on.
Valentine won twice after that, and Marissa removed her own stockings, peeling them slowly over her calves and dropping them to the floor, then her stays, which were a struggle that left her breathless and hot, although much less restricted. Only the chemise retained her modesty.
“Do you still think you are going to win?” he demanded, eyes glittering, the dice ready in his hand. “This game requires more skill than you think, minx.”
“It is a simple game of chance,” she retorted, watching his hand as he allowed the dice fall and rattle across the tabletop.
A one and a two.
With a little smile, Marissa picked up the dice and held them a moment tightly in her palm, before letting them fall. She could hardly believe her eyes. A one and a one! Her gaze lifted to his, and saw the bright flare of triumph.
Again he took his time while she shifted about uncomfortably.
“The chemise,” he said.
She reached to the small buttons and paused.
“Do you want to default?” he said.
“And allow you to win? Never!”
Slowly she began to unbutton the front of the garment, aware that with every inch her breasts were revealed to his gaze. She slipped one of the shoulder straps down, and then the other, allowing the chemise to slide to her waist, then wriggling it over her hips and thighs, reaching down to tug it away and drop it on the growing pile of clothing beside the table. When she straightened, her arms were crossed over her breasts, hiding her nakedness, while only the bloomers covered her lower body.
“No hiding,” he reprimanded her huskily. “That’s against the rules.”
“How do I know you’re not making up the rules as we go along?” she retorted breathlessly.
“Unfold your arms, Marissa.”
His gaze was compelling, his voice commanding, but neither would have made Marissa capitulate if she didn’t want to. Because the truth was, she wanted him to see her naked. She felt beautiful beneath his gaze. She wanted his eyes on her.
Marissa unfolded her arms. He drew in a sharp breath, taking in the sight. It was as if she could feel him touching her, brushing against her skin, causing her to give a little shiver. Her breasts felt full and heavy, her nipples aching and dark with excitement.
He groaned aloud. “Beautiful…”
Her stomach went hollow. She drank him in, sitting there in the candlelight, so masculine, so handsome. She almost stood and flung herself into his arms, but then she remembered that if she touched him then he would win, so she stopped herself. Because it was important to her that she win this tug of war, almost as if to win was an omen of things to come.
“Your turn,” she said, her voice sounding unlike her own. “Roll the dice, Valentine.”
He hesitated, as if this moment was important to him, too, and then he picked up the dice and lifted his closed hand to his lips as though to give himself luck. This time he didn’t draw out the process, but threw quickly.
A five and a three.
Marissa gathered them up and into her palm. She rolled them across the table, aware of his warm naked skin so near to hers, the quick rise and fall of his chest.
A five and a five.
She had won.
He groaned and stood up, fumbling at the buttons on his undergarment. Her gaze took in the bulge between his thighs, as he rolled the cloth over his hips and down his thighs. His cock was jutting out from his body, and as she looked it quivered as if it had a life of its own. She wanted to touch him, feel him, discover all there was to know about him. He shoved the garment down to his feet and kicked it aside, and a moment later she was reaching out to close her fingers around him.
“Oh, Marissa,” he whispered, the words barely coherent. He covered her hand with his and she felt him shaking.
“Can I touch you?” she said, but she was already doing so, unable to stop herself any longer. “I want to touch you, Valentine.”
“I’ll spend in your hand,” he groaned.
“Can I do that to you?” she said, eyes bright as she looked up at him. “I want you to lose control, Valentine.”
She saw the sudden flare of passion in his face. He caught her upper arms and dragged her against his chest, and his mouth came down hard on hers. He was kissing her as if he wanted to swallow her up, his tongue in her mouth, his lips covering hers. Her breasts were jammed against his chest, and the abrasion of his hair and her nipples made her squirm, gasping. Clasping her buttocks in his palms, he drew her hard against him, and she felt his cock settle in the niche between her thighs.
Marissa squeaked. Pleasure threatened to overflow, trembling on the brink, and she moved against him, the friction edging her toward the desired peak.
In their efforts to get closer he lifted her higher and she shifted the angle of her hips, and suddenly he slid inside the slick, tight sheath of her body. Surprise stopped them. Panting, Valentine looked down into her eyes, his own startled. She licked her lips and pushed against him, feeling him enter her another inch, filling her in a way that was new and exciting.
“Marissa, I can’t,” he groaned. “I won’t take your virginity.”
“I want you to,” she said quietly. Reaching down, she clasped her hand about the root of him. “And you want to. Please, Valentine. If it is what we both want…”
He bent his head and took her nipple into his mouth, drawing on it while Marissa’s head fell back and she gasped. Her body arched toward him, only her fingers clutching his shoulde
rs and his hands on her buttocks keeping her on her feet.
Such sweet pleasure. Couldn’t he see how perfect they were together? That it was meant to be? Marissa’s thoughts were barely lucid as his hand slid between her thighs, and his fingers dove into her slick core. She cried out as the climax took her, shuddering in his arms, beyond all thought now.
When at last she came to herself, he was sitting on the chair with her gathered into his arms, holding her close, his chin resting on top of her head.
“Valentine?” she managed.
“Hush.”
“No, I want you to—”
“I want to teach you about pleasure.”
“But I want you to be my lover!”
“I am your lover.”
“No, you’re not. Not completely. Not properly.”
She stood up on shaking legs, angry and tearful, and began to gather up her clothing, pulling it on as best she could. And all the while she spoke in a trembling, angry voice she hardly recognized.
“I don’t want you to protect me. I don’t need your protection when it comes to my virginity. It is mine to give and I give it to you. Don’t you see that? I’m not some silly young thing who doesn’t understand what she’s doing, I’ve never been that sort of woman. I make my own decisions, Valentine, and I want you to respect them.”
She reached the door and turned the key. Her hair was in her eyes but there was no time to tidy it. She thrust it back over her shoulder and stared back at him, where he remained in the chair, watching her, expressionless.
“I don’t understand,” she said, her lips trembling, and then she was outside, the door was closed, and she was hurrying through the silent house to her bedchamber, tears already pouring down her cheeks.
Chapter 17
Valentine stood alone in the darkness. The night air was meant to cool his blood—or so he’d hoped when he stepped out here into the inner courtyard—but so far there’d been little relief. Above him the sky was ablaze with stars and the scent of the night-perfumed plants in the walled garden threatened to make him swoon.
Or was that the memory of Marissa wanton in his arms?
His body began to throb again and he gritted his teeth. This was madness. He was suffering. And yet he could not seem to stop himself. Despite his doubts about his own capacity as a lover and a man—Vanessa’s legacy—he felt remade when he was with Marissa. The way she gazed at him, the way she made him feel, was like a healing draught.
And now he’d arranged matters so that he could keep her by his side, at least for the foreseeable future.
But he wasn’t healed completely—the scars were still there.
An owl called from the gatehouse. He turned to follow it, a black shape against the sky, as it flew through the arched gateway and over the stone bridge that spanned the moat and disappeared into the park. Valentine wondered if Baron Von Hautt was out there, spying, and then dismissed the thought. What was the point now they both had the list? One thing Valentine knew with cold, hard certainty; he would never let Von Hautt beat him to the Crusader’s Rose.
And what about Marissa? his inner voice mocked. Will you protect her just as fervently?
He knew in his heart that he would.
She was good and beautiful and honorable, everything he could ask for in a woman, but she was also set against the life he led, with his obsession with roses and his library full of dusty botanical tomes. Her childhood had driven her to look for another life. And then there was George. Valentine felt a twinge of guilt, but he suppressed it. George had had his chance and he’d preferred a boxing match to wooing Marissa.
Is that what I’m doing? Wooing her?
Out in the park the owl called again—perhaps it had a mate—and then there was silence. Suddenly the whole world felt empty and he was very much alone. Was this how he would feel without Marissa? Or would he be able to lose himself once more in his search for his rose, burying his emotions and pretending he didn’t care? Would his feelings for her turn out to be an illusion, an infatuation, and like a summer cold would pass as swiftly as they had come.
“I’m not good enough for her,” he said aloud. “No matter what she thinks now, I’ll never be good enough for her. How can we be happy?”
It was what he’d learned from Vanessa and now the words were like a well-worn path in his head. It did not occur to him to question them.
With a sigh he lifted his face to the stars, then turned to go inside, and ran straight into a figure standing a mere yard away from him.
“What the hell…” Valentine began, struggling with the loose-limbed body clinging to him. The overpowering smell of ale engulfed him and he swore again, pushing George hard. His brother fell into the privet hedge, struggling to escape its scratchy clutches.
“No—no n-need to be like that,” he slurred.
“What are you doing here?” Valentine said furiously. “And in that state?”
George had got himself back on his feet and was peering at his brother in the starlight. “Who w-were you talkin’ to?” he demanded. “Thesh no one here.”
“I was talking to myself, if it’s any of your business.” Valentine strode off through the walled garden, but George followed him, stumbling every now and then and muttering curses.
“I—I was in Ma-agna Mi’combe,” he said at last, catching Valentine’s sleeve and attaching himself to it, trying to stay upright.
After trying to shake himself free, Valentine gave up and let his brother use him as a crutch as they made their unsteady way to the door and into the lamplit manor. Somehow he pulled George up the stairs after him, into the long gallery.
Moonlight washed through the windows, illuminating the family portraits gazing down upon them, generations of de Fevres and Kents and everything in between. Usually Valentine was inured to the faces, not even seeing them, but now he remembered Marissa’s words about how lucky he was and how the past mattered, and he viewed them in a new light.
He could give Marissa that stability, that sense of belonging. He could make her Lady Kent and carry on the family line for another generation. And just as all these people had lived and loved and wept within the walls of Abbey Thorne Manor, then so would they. Well, live and love, hopefully, with less of the weeping.
“You’re at it again.” George was digging a finger into his chest, pressing it painfully through his clothing. “Talkin’ to yourself.”
Valentine frowned—he hadn’t been aware of speaking his thoughts aloud.
“Firsh sign, you know,” George announced wisely.
“Of what?” Valentine muttered, as he moved toward the library.
“Insan-insan…madness.”
George had followed him and he shoved his brother none too gently down into one of the leather chairs. George sprang up again like a jack-in-a-box.
Valentine poured himself a drink, uncomfortable with the events that had taken place in here only a short while ago—Marissa’s face, lifted to his, the tears in her eyes as she fought against what she perceived as his rejection of her most precious gift.
“I have something to tell you,” George said importantly.
“And what is that?”
“I saw Von Hautt.” His pronunciation of the name left much to be desired. “In Mi’combe. I came to tell you. Important.”
“You saw Von Hautt in Magna Midcombe?”
“I juss said so, didn’ I?” George waved his arms furiously, and lost his balance, stumbling backward and falling into the chair. He went on as if nothing had happened. “Rode home as quick—quick…as fass as I could.”
“With a stop off at the tavern, George.” Valentine frowned. “We need to sober you up so that you can tell me about Von Hautt.”
The process took time. Morris was woken and dragged from his warm bed to make some of his special coffee—a brew he’d perfected when Valentine was young and prone to experimenting with the family wine cellar.
“This takes me back,” Valentine said, holding George�
�s nose while Morris poured the coffee into his unwilling mouth. “Remember the days before the inestimable Mrs. Beaumaris came to cook for us permanently?”
Morris shuddered, his jowls trembling. “I never claimed to be a cook, my lord.”
“You did your best, Morris. And you were rather better than some of those who declared they were food experts.”
Morris looked pleased with his praise.
“Morrish has been with us for…for years…” George spluttered. “Time he retired to a nice lil’ place and put hish feet up.”
“I suppose that day is coming, sir,” Morris admitted, “and sooner than I like to think.”
“Oh.” Valentine looked surprised. “I do hope not yet, Morris.”
“So do I, my lord. Now come on, Mr. George, drink up,” Morris said heartily, pouring more coffee into the protesting George. Valentine turned back to the task at hand.
Eventually, between the two of them, they sobered George sufficiently so that he was able to tell Valentine what Von Hautt had said to him in Magna Midcombe.
“But that makes no sense,” Valentine said crossly.
“Made no sense to me, but that was what he said.”
“I know nothing of his family, and as for his mother…how could we turn our backs on a woman we don’t even know?”
“The man is clearly loopy.” George shrugged, then gave a jaw-breaking yawn.
Valentine stared into space, considering the puzzle his brother had presented to him. The trouble was that Von Hautt, while clearly mentally unstable, believed that what he said to George was the truth. The truth as he saw it. And if Von Hautt thought Valentine or his father had caused some ill to befall his mother, then it just might explain his obsession to be the first to find the Crusader’s Rose.
“Revenge? Is that what this is all about?” Valentine said. “Von Hautt wants to hurt me because he thinks I hurt his mother?”
“There was something else.” George looked uncomfortable.
Valentine sighed. “What else?”
