The Earl's Countess 0f Convenience (Penniless Brides 0f Convenience Book 1)

by Marguerite Kaye

  She was watching his actions intently in the mirror. A flush stole over her breasts, up her throat as she viewed the wanton image. He stroked her slowly, making her eyes widen, making her shudder against him, making himself harder. His hand, flat on her belly, could feel her tensing, ready, but his other hand worked slowly, teasing her, making her smile in pure delight at herself, in utter self-absorption, lost in the pleasure he was giving her, in the pleasure she was taking from what she was witnessing, and it was he who couldn’t take any more, sending her tumbling over the edge, shuddering against him, and then turning around to him, wrapping her arms around him, seeking blindly for kisses.

  * * *

  Kisses. She craved his kisses. Every part of her was lit up, on fire, desperate for Alexander’s kisses, for his touch, for more. She needed more. She had to have more. She wanted to make love to him. Properly and completely. It was inevitable, Eloise thought, as she scrabbled at his shirt, tugging it over his head. These last few weeks, the strain and stress of not touching him, of pretending that they didn’t want to touch, and then the separation, the days spent at Elmswood Manor which had seemed far too long, it was inevitable that it end like this. The fates had conspired to put her here, in her bedroom in these scandalous and provocative silks and laces, and to bring Alexander to her. It had to happen. They could not fight an irresistible force.

  Their mouths met, and she thought she would swoon with their kisses. She caught glimpses of herself in the mirror and saw a wild, unrecognisable creature and saw the same abandon, the same need reflected in Alexander. With a trembling hand she stroked him, unashamedly, blatantly, beyond caring whether she was doing it right or wrong, her instincts leading her, his reaction reassuring her, emboldening her. She kissed his chest. She licked his nipples. She turned him around, and she kissed his shoulders. She put her arms around him, watching their reflections in the mirror, his chest heaving, her hands, stroking, caressing his bare skin.

  He groaned, turning her back to face him, wrapping his arms around her. ‘I want you so much.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said feverishly, not caring what it was she was agreeing to, only wanting it, needing it. ‘I want you too. So much.’

  He groaned again, kissing her deeply, and a second wave of pleasure began to gather inside her. Should this be happening? And what about Alexander? She wanted him to feel what she felt. ‘What should I do?’ she asked. ‘Show me.’

  ‘Eloise...’

  ‘Please,’ she said urgently, terrified that he would suddenly come to his senses, forcing her back to hers. ‘Please.’

  His eyes were dark with passion, his pupils dilated. When he kissed her again, it was slowly, his tongue stroking along her lower lip, and he took her hand, placing it over his groin. She could feel his arousal through his pantaloons. Thick. Hard. It excited her, touching him, carefully stroking up the length of him, the sharp intake of his breath, the way his eyes fluttered closed, all the reassurance she needed. But she wanted to see him. To feel skin, not knitted pantaloons. ‘Take these off,’ she said, astounded to hear the confidence in her voice.

  He kicked off his boots. She watched, fascinated, as he stripped himself, unashamedly studying the athletic and astonishingly aroused body revealed in the flesh and reflected in the mirror. When she hesitated, he took her hand again, showing her how to touch him, to stroke him. His skin was surprisingly silky there. She had not expected that. When she touched him, his chest heaved. She was fascinated by his response, by her response to touching him, feeling a jolt of excitement, a fierce longing to be closer to him, entwined with him. She released him, pressing herself against his arousal, and he wrapped his arms around her again, saying her name, his breath hoarse, and their mouths clung to each other, a deeper kiss, a new kind of kiss.

  He picked her up, laying her down on the bed, covering her body with his. She could feel his arousal between her legs, against the skin of her inner thighs, and her body arched towards him of its own accord.

  And then where there had been hot, hard flesh, there was only cool, empty air. Alexander wrenched his mouth from hers and stood up, backing away from her, his expression something akin to horror. He swore viciously, words she had not heard before. ‘This is madness, utter madness!’

  She didn’t understand at first. It was like waking from a dream. What the hell was she doing? The one thing she knew would be fatal to their marriage, and she hadn’t even paused to reflect on that, not even momentarily. Why?

  The answer came to her not so much in a blinding flash as in a slow, deathly trickle. No. It couldn’t be, mustn’t be. Except there was no other rational explanation. Although there was nothing remotely rational about it.

  Alexander had already pulled on his pantaloons and boots. ‘Eloise, this is my fault. I shouldn’t have come in here. I wanted to surprise you, but I should have knocked. If I’d knocked, then I wouldn’t have seen—none of this would have happened.’

  Slowly, she shook her head. ‘No, that’s not true.’

  ‘Yes. I saw you. I’ve never seen you looking so—I lost my head and I couldn’t resist, but I should have.’

  ‘No,’ she said again, more vehemently. ‘It’s not your fault.’ She needed, desperately, to be on her own. ‘I think you should go.’ She walked over to the door, holding it open. His waistcoat and coat were on the floor. She picked them up.

  He took them from her. ‘We will need to talk about this.’

  She didn’t answer, simply continuing to hold the door open, until he left. Then she closed it and locked it. She stripped off her underwear. She found his shirt on the floor and pulled it over her. She crawled into bed and pulled the pillow over her head.

  * * *

  All her instincts were to run. Pacing her bedroom floor as the humid July day gave way to a heavy, oppressive night, Eloise would have given almost anything to be back in Elmswood Manor, sitting with Kate and her sisters, their coven, as Estelle liked to call it, reinstated. Cocooned, safe, never having met Alexander. Never having falling madly, quite insanely in love with Alexander.

  How could she have been so stupid! How could she have missed the warning signs? Why hadn’t she taken preventative steps, instead of positively hurling herself headlong towards an unsolvable predicament? At what point along the line had it become too late? When had she stopped pretending? If they hadn’t been pretending in the first place, would she still have fallen for him?

  She paced the floor between her bedroom and her dressing room. She gazed out of the windows as the lights of London once again seemed determined never to let her see the stars. She threw herself on to her bed and covered her face with a pillow. And then she started the whole process again.

  She tried to persuade herself that she was mistaken. She was in lust, not love. She’d been playing another role, dressed in that salacious underwear. That of a seductress. Perhaps it was herself that she had seduced, convincing herself that she was in love since the alternative was that she been carried away by base passion, and therefore like her mother, after all. This was an attractive proposition, but sadly, she couldn’t make it stick. She wanted to make love to Alexander. Only Alexander. Always Alexander. She couldn’t imagine ever wanting to make love to anyone else.

  But how could she be sure it was love? If only she had someone to talk to, but her only confidante was perfectly happy in a truly loveless marriage. Exactly the type of marriage Eloise had thought she was entering into. Kate had warned her. Kate had told her she’d have to find a way to live without Alexander’s kisses. And almost the first thing Eloise had done on her return to Fearnoch House was kiss Alexander. Make love to Alexander. Dear heavens, even now, she wished that they had truly made love. Just this once. Kate would be appalled.

  Perhaps it wasn’t love, but simply gratitude she was feeling? Ridiculous. Infatuation, then? Was it the newness of his kisses, the rapturous delight that her body felt when Alexander touched her?
But it wasn’t just his kisses or his touch, was it? From the moment she met him there had been something about him. She liked him. She admired him. She was intrigued by him. She was a different person when she was with him. It wasn’t that she couldn’t live without him, but life was so much better, happier, with him.

  That sounded horribly like love. With a sickening feeling, Eloise realised that she sounded horribly like her father. The prospect brought her up short. She was not so needy. She was not obsessed. She could not imagine herself cravenly abasing herself as her father had, begging for attention, tolerating cruelty, ignoring everyone else in her need to hog Alexander’s attention. No, that was laughable.

  But what if it was the next step? Would she have believed this morning that she would have acted as she had, here in this very room, this afternoon? That she’d have placed her future in doubt, and her sisters’ too, by breaking the terms of their agreement so completely? And worse, tempting Alexander to break them? What if the outcome of her seduction had been a pregnancy? Alexander was an honourable man. And he was one who knew what it was like to be rejected as a child too. A child that he didn’t want but would never reject would turn his world upside down.

  So why, then, had Alexander been so carried away? Why, if the most important thing in the world to him was his precious work, had he even crossed the threshold of her bedroom? Why had he kissed her? Why had he allowed her to touch him—wanted her to touch him, encouraged her to touch him? She knew nothing of such things, but it seemed to her that Alexander had been every bit as enthralled by their lovemaking as she. And every bit as horrified, when he came to his senses. Was it horror, or was he—afraid?

  What would he be frightened of? Losing his position at the Admiralty? Sir Marcus had been very clear, Alexander was married to his work, but why must that be such an exclusive bond? It didn’t make sense. His work was dangerous, so dangerous she still couldn’t bring herself to think about it, but why did it preclude him making love to his wife? She didn’t understand, and she needed to understand. She loved him, and she could not afford to hope that he would ever love her back, if he never could.

  The dawn light began to filter through the curtains, and Eloise huddled under the bedcovers. If there was a barrier to Alexander’s loving her that could not be breached, she had to understand the nature of it, or she would destroy herself, as her father had, by building her life around him in the hope that one day, he’d return her love.

  Having established that, it would be better for both of them for him to resume his active service, leaving her to her own devices. He was thirty years old. He’d survived unscathed until now. She was exaggerating the risk. And an extended absence would make her heart grow considerably less fond, she vowed.

  Chapter Eleven

  Eloise decided to take breakfast in her room, emerging only when Alexander had departed for the Admiralty. She would have to face him at some point, but she needed a breathing space to regain some semblance of composure. It was all very well for her to decide, in the solitude of her own bedchamber, that she must confront him, but how to do so without revealing the depth of her feelings for him, she had no idea.

  Her plans were scuppered when she discovered, venturing from her room at shortly after eleven, her husband sitting in the library. He was writing in the catalogue when she entered, working through a fresh stack of books. Her poor, deluded heart leapt at the sight of him. ‘Oh.’ She stopped short in the doorway. ‘I didn’t expect to find you here. I thought you’d be in Whitehall.’

  ‘I have been, and shall return later. Will you come in? I have something to tell you.’

  She made her way across the room to perch on the edge of the sofa. Alexander finished the entry he was making in the catalogue and sat opposite her. His expression was set. Something to tell her, he’d said, not to discuss with her, she noted with foreboding.

  ‘I’ve decided to take up a new post abroad with immediate effect.’

  ‘No! There’s no need to take such drastic action.’

  ‘There is every need. It is the only sensible solution,’ Alexander said implacably. ‘What happened yesterday is proof that we cannot trust ourselves to be alone in the same house together. Sir Marcus was not at the Admiralty this morning, but I’ve left him a note informing him that I am now available. I expect a summons at any moment.’

  Eloise felt sick. Her husband, the man sitting opposite her whom she loved more than anyone in the world, was a spy. And spying was dangerous. She didn’t want him to get hurt. ‘I don’t want you to go yet. There is no need to act so rashly.’ She must not panic. She had to be rational. Logical. ‘There is the matter of the estates to sort out. And our planned visit to your mother.’

  ‘Robertson can see to the estates. As to my mother—she has not even replied to my letter. I must assume she has no wish to see me.’

  ‘But you need to see her, Alexander. You can’t go abroad without seeing her. If something happened to you, and your conscience was not clear...’

  ‘What do you imagine might happen to me? You are worried that a ledger might fall on my head, perhaps?’

  Looking at him, so cold, so determined to maintain his cover story for her benefit, her heart felt as if it was being squeezed. There was no limit to what she could imagine happening to him. A knife in the back in a dark alley. A fatal blow to the head in the night-time shadows of the docks. A shot to the heart. A fall from a cliff. He could be caught and tortured. He could spend the rest of his life in chains in the dungeon of a foreign power. He had survived thus far, but that didn’t lessen the odds of him coming to harm, as she’d tried to reason with herself—it increased them. He’d led a charmed life, but his luck would run out one day. ‘I don’t want you to go,’ Eloise said, her voice cracking.

  ‘We had a bargain. I expect you to honour it with some dignity, at the very least ensure our planned parting is amicable.’

  ‘Amicable! You think we can be amicable after what happened yesterday?’

  ‘There is no need for histrionics,’ Alexander said, flinching. ‘What happened yesterday, we both know, was a mistake which we cannot risk repeating.’

  His tone, the way he was looking through and not at her, further tautened her already jangling nerves. Eloise folded her arms and glared. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Why not? You don’t need me to tell you...’

  ‘Actually, Alexander, I do need you to tell me. Why is it that you are frightened to make love to your own wife?’

  He paled. ‘You mean the wife who once vowed that she found the more intimate aspect of marriage unappealing.’

  His barb had been intended to hurt her, and he had succeeded, but in doing so he had betrayed himself. He cared. ‘You haven’t answered my question.’

  ‘I am not accountable to you, Eloise. Our marriage is one of convenience, not confidences.’

  ‘You know that’s not true!’

  He shrugged.

  ‘I demand to know what you are afraid of,’ Eloise said, finding his pretence of indifference infuriating.

  ‘You are clearly overwrought. If that is my doing, if it is a consequence of my—my inappropriate behaviour yesterday...’

  ‘Of course it bloody well is! For goodness’ sake, Alexander, we very nearly made love. And when you realised just how nearly, you panicked. You looked absolutely terrified.’

  ‘Because it is contrary to our agreement,’ he retorted. ‘Because my work requires me—’

  ‘I know exactly what your work really involves.’ She could have bitten her tongue out, but it was too late. ‘You needn’t worry, your secret is safe with me. Sir Marcus need never know that I’ve guessed.’

  ‘Whatever it is you imagine you’ve guessed...’

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, it’s obvious that you’ve never counted a weevil in your life. You’re a government spy, Alexander,’ Eloise said baldly. ‘Deny it if you mus
t, but I’d really rather you didn’t lie to me.’

  ‘What makes you imagine such an outlandish thing?’

  ‘My painfully observant nature. Your obvious seniority and Sir Marcus’s high regard for you. His not-so-subtle attempt to warn me off. The fact that people in your line of work are not permitted to marry. Your being a crack shot, not the normal attribute of an administrator. Your letting slip that you would be returning to active duty. The mysterious tragedy that has led to you being celibate for two years.’

  He looked quite stunned. ‘I think you might make a better spy than me.’

  ‘What happened to you two years ago?’

  ‘What difference does it make?’

  His determination not to answer her questions was too much for her already severely tested self-control.

  ‘It matters because I love you! For heaven’s sake, isn’t it obvious? I have committed the cardinal sin of falling in love with my husband, and if he is utterly determined not to love me back, I want to know why.’

  He stared at her, his face blank with shock. Eloise stared back, breathing heavily, feeling both relieved and elated. The words were spoken. She couldn’t take them back. ‘I didn’t plan to fall in love with you,’ she said, ‘it simply happened. I only realised last night. I couldn’t understand why, when the last thing either of us wanted was to risk a child, I had been so—so compelled to make love to you.’

  ‘You are—it is natural to—to want what you cannot have. That’s what you said.’

  ‘I was wrong. I was looking for excuses. I love you, Alexander.’ The words made her smile. ‘I love you so much. It is the simple, wonderful and yet terrible truth. If you really are unable to ever return my feelings, I deserve to know why.’