His eyes took in the shameless sight of her perched atop the pianoforte—hair mussed, rumpled skirts ruched up to display her legs below the knee, her mouth doubtless pink and swollen, her bosom rising and falling to the rhythm of her rapid breathing—then he grinned wolfishly before lifting her carefully back to her feet. ‘Have dinner with us.’
‘Out of the question!’ But it was so lovely he had asked. ‘It wouldn’t be right.’
‘It feels right to me and I doubt any of the others would care.’
‘I would feel awkward...’ Oh, for goodness sake, tell the man the truth! ‘I don’t want to have to explain myself to anyone just yet, or have anyone speculating about us. I never anticipated being tempted by a man again. All of this is so new and unexpected, exciting but a little unnerving. I would prefer to keep it between us rather than have the others poke their noses in and offer advice. They are curious enough already and I want to do this at my own pace. Besides, we have a house full—I still need to manage it for the next few weeks. That will be easier if we keep this separate.’
He sighed, but nodded. ‘I understand.’ He tucked the tendril back behind her ear. ‘Can I visit you again later? Well away from the risk of prying eyes and gossip?’
The prospect thrilled her. ‘Yes.’
‘Will you stay a while now and keep me company?’
She glanced at the mantel clock. ‘Dinner is in less than thirty minutes.’
‘I dare say the world won’t end if I’m still wearing this coat for it. Indulge me for a few more minutes. I want to talk to you.’
‘What about?’
‘You.’ His finger trailed along her sleeve aimlessly. ‘All the things I don’t yet know about you, but desperately want to.’
‘Such as?’
‘What was it like being married to Penhurst, for instance?’
The question, so out of the blue, soured her pleasant mood. ‘I don’t want to talk about him. Besides, the world knows what he was.’
‘I want to know more of you than the world sees, just as I want you to know more of me. Some things you already do. I’ve never spoken about my past with another living soul, but I trusted you with it. Trust me with yours, Penny. Allow me in here.’ His index finger touched her forehead. ‘I only know the bare bones rather than what happened behind closed doors. I know he was violent and malicious. Very controlling. I know you didn’t mourn him. I also know you found the physical side of your marriage a chore...’ Good heavens! She hadn’t expected him to say that! Instantly, her face flushed with mortification. ‘But I do not really know any more about those things and I suspect nobody does. I so want to understand what it was like for you, Penny. I think it is important...for both of us.’
His intuitive amber eyes were fixed on her intently and she found herself looking away in case he saw the truth. Or worse, expected her to discuss intimacies with him when she could barely bring herself to talk about them with Clarissa. Like a coward, she had allowed her friend to do all the talking when she had a hundred questions she had desperately wanted to ask. ‘Heavens, I have no idea where I should begin with such a maudlin tale of woe.’ Discomfort had her scrambling for a ready means of escape and avoidance. ‘Besides, there is less than half an hour till dinner, so we hardly have the time today.’
‘Why don’t we start at the beginning, then?’ He was being selectively deaf, drat him. ‘Did you ever love him?’ She made the mistake of flicking her gaze to his, briefly intending to brush it off and sidestep the question, but saw his concern and his pity. Saw the fact he truly cared loud and clear in his eyes. Realised she could trust him with at least part of the truth.
Honesty bubbled out before she could stop it. ‘I thought I did—briefly. Ours was a brisk and speedy courtship. A bit of a sham really, in the end, because I believed he meant all the hogwash he wrote in his daily letters. I was ridiculously flattered that an eligible viscount wanted me—a shopkeeper’s daughter—enough to pursue me with such ardour. That he would write to me almost immediately after we had collided at a ball or event, send me giant bouquets and hunt me down wherever I happened to be... Well, I am ashamed to say I saw all those inconsequential trimmings as evidence of his love and convinced myself my anticipation of all that was love, too. And my mother found it all romantic. She was desperately ill at the time and we all knew she didn’t have that long left, and somehow that only served to spur me on. When he proposed weeks later, I happily said yes because I knew my mother would adore planning my wedding. My whole existence became that—the gown, the trousseau, the floral arrangements, the perfect menu for the wedding breakfast.’
‘You and your mother had fun.’ There was no judgement in his expression, only understanding. He took her hand in his and placed a soft kiss on the back of it which she felt everywhere.
‘We did and those happy memories of that time with her are precious to me.’
‘When did you realise he wasn’t the man you had been duped into believing he was.’
‘My wedding night.’ Penny was not prepared to confess all the indignity of that night to Tristan. Some things were too private and some wounds too deep. She gently tugged her hand out of his in case she said too much. ‘He was drunk and told me straight out he had only married me for my dowry. He felt he had married beneath him and I saw the truth of his feelings. He didn’t love me. Didn’t even like me. I was a means to an end. He needed my money and, seeing that he was stuck with me, he needed an heir. Unsurprisingly, things deteriorated quite rapidly from there.’
‘Why didn’t you leave him in those early days before Freddie?’
‘Pride in part, I am ashamed to admit. Both Clarissa and my father had cautioned me against marrying him and I had ignored them.’ Unconsciously, feeling exposed, she hugged herself, then quickly dropped her arms once she realised. ‘But mostly I didn’t want my mother to feel guilty for encouraging the match. She had been duped, too, you see, and I couldn’t allow her to die knowing I was unhappy. So I lied. Then, by the time she passed it was too late. I was carrying Freddie. My father fell ill, following my mother to heaven soon after and I had nowhere to go. Penhurst had made it obvious he was happy for me to leave once his son was born—but despite the mysterious change in his fortunes, he made it perfectly clear he would neither support me nor allow me to take Freddie if I left. He had been quite specific, actually—if I left him, I relinquished my baby entirely.’ She felt her shoulders rise defiantly. ‘So I stayed. What other choice did I have? I had no family to run to.’
‘I sympathise. We only children have no siblings to support us in our hours of need. And the law is an ass sometimes. Especially when it applies itself to women.’ His hand again reached for hers and she found herself gripping it gratefully. ‘I suppose he also kept your father’s fortune?’
How like Tristan to ask such a pertinent legal question. ‘Papa’s illness came on so unexpectedly and suddenly that, although he had stated his intention to bequeath everything to his grandchild to keep it from Penhurst, he never got around to changing his will. But at least he lived to see his grandson born.’ Tears suddenly filled her eyes, threatening to spill at the tragedy of it all. ‘Penhurst couldn’t take that from me.’ Although he had tried. The punishment for her disobedience had been worth it. Without thinking, she touched the bridge of her nose and watched Tristan’s eyes widen in understanding.
‘Oh, Penny...’ She found herself wrapped in his strong arms, enveloped in a hug which she hadn’t known she desperately needed and one she returned gladly, clinging to him as she fought the pointless urge to cry. He held her for the longest time, not saying a single word, yet that simple, heartfelt act of affection soothed her far better than any words or physician ever could.
Chapter Nineteen
Penny kissed her sleeping son’s forehead, then gently tucked him in. He’d had quite the week. They all had. It had whizzed past in a whirlwind of fevered acti
vity, with Tristan ensconced in the music room from dawn till dinner methodically preparing each of the witnesses for their grilling in the dock. It wasn’t only their testimony he was reinforcing, but the barrage of questions that the defence might ask them which might trip them up or catch them unawares. Penny sustained the proceedings with plenty of tea and coffee and made sure that everyone, including Tristan, ate properly.
It was fascinating watching him work. Even the little snippets she intruded on were eye opening. He had a knack for asking exactly the right thing at precisely the right time, his clever mind switching from one line of questioning to a completely different one in the blink of an eye as he deftly played the defence lawyers who would cross-examine them. The inscrutable lawyer’s mask—for she understood it was exactly that now that she knew the real man beneath—served to befuddle and deflect as well as hide the powerful emotions he held so well in check. Even the experienced King’s Elite agents Gray, Flint, Seb and Lord Fennimore, who frequently testified in trials as par for the course in their profession, left their sessions looking a little drained and battle weary after Tristan had put them through the mangle. Yet they all appreciated his efforts, leaving each ordeal better prepared for the real one to come than they would have been without his thorough tutorage.
But even in the thick of it, when Penny entered the room with tea, the mask he wore melted briefly as he smiled at her. Those amber eyes would heat, the message in them for her only, yet entirely clear.
This morning, the two traitors’ wives had been brought to Chafford Grange for a few hours as he had readied them for the trial, too. Over all, there was a renewed atmosphere of confidence in the house with even the eternal pessimist Lord Fennimore conceding they were ready. Two years of dogged investigations, months of meticulous planning and a palpable air of anticipation as they all waited for that final sprint to the end. On the morrow, the Attorney General himself would arrive to hear the progress and the trial of the century was due to start two days after that on the Monday.
Tristan and the others were due to return to town on Sunday afternoon and then Penny’s short but rewarding stint as his housekeeper would end. Or so she supposed. Neither of them had discussed the final days and while she pondered them, like him she had avoided bringing it up because she didn’t want to spoil the time they had left together.
Because the past week had also been one of the most enjoyable and enlightening weeks of her life, too, especially when the nights drew in and Tristan came to visit. Those visits followed a reassuring pattern she looked forward to all day. He would come, often while Freddie was still awake so he could play with him and help put him to bed. Then they would kiss. Each time, since the first, things would go a little bit further than the last, but he halted things long before she was ready. Then they would sit and talk for at least an hour over a nightcap about everything and nothing. Their day, their good memories and their bad. Tristan opened up more about his parents’ relationship and his difficult, impotent role within it and Penny found herself telling him about the nightmare which had been her marriage. Then they would kiss some more, she would feel his blatant desire against her body and revel in it, wishing each time he would take things further, then lying awake for a good hour after he had left her, castigating herself for her own cowardice at allowing him to leave her without asking him to stay.
Yesterday evening, for the very first time, he had loosened the laces of her dress and kissed her bared breasts. Torturing the sensitive tips of them with his tongue and his teeth until she had positively writhed beneath him on the sofa. Then the wretch bade her a goodnight. She had been left in such a state of frustrated arousal it had taken hours to drift off to sleep, only to suffer from the single most erotic dream she had ever had, awakening well before dawn broke feeling as needy and physically unfulfilled as she had been the night before when he had torn his mouth away and gazed down at her shamelessly bared upper body with undisguised carnal longing.
He had liked what he had seen, or at least she thought he might have. Had wanted to ask, but couldn’t find the right words or the courage to do so. Yet she wanted to know desperately, almost as desperately as she wanted his mouth on her nipples again. The shameless things had craved his attention all day, alongside other parts of her anatomy which she had never been so thoroughly aware of.
She wanted things to go further. The wanting was sending her mad. Was that what Tristan intended? Or was he unaware of just how needy he made her body? Or—and this made her frown in irritation—was he being a gentleman on purpose because he thought that was what she wanted? Although, in fairness, she had never told him explicitly she always wanted more. Instead, she meekly accepted his termination and wished him goodnight right back. Did he need her permission to take scandalous liberties?
Drat the man for being so wonderful, because clearly he did. What had happened to her recently rediscovered backbone? For months she had promised herself to be a new, braver version of herself and, despite her ardent curiosity and permanently needy nipples, she wasn’t being particularly brave with him at all.
Suddenly feeling very bold, Penny dashed into her bedchamber and stripped off her gown. Perhaps if she couldn’t find the words to tell him she was ripe for the picking, greeting him in her nightgown would? She rummaged into the bottom of her trunk for the filmy concoction her mother had bought her for her trousseau. The only thing she had left from it and one she had never worn. It had felt too daring for her wedding night, and after that dreadful debacle she had certainly never been inclined to put it on afterwards. She hadn’t wanted to give the man any ideas and had only kept it because it was the last thing her mother had bought her. But she wanted to give Tristan ideas and she wanted him to have them tonight before their time came abruptly to an end on Sunday.
One by one, she pulled the sensible pins from her hair, then ruthlessly ran a brush through her locks until they shimmered. Tonight, come hell or high water, she was going to whitewash the memory of Penhurst’s vile intrusions and replace them with something else.
Something she had no tangible concept of other than the secure knowledge it couldn’t possibly be a worse experience, not with the kind, noble, utterly beautiful man who made her nerve endings fizz just by looking at her!
Despite all her bravado, his knock on her door had her practically jumping out of her skin and dropping the brush like it was a slippery bar of soap. Penny had to suck in several calming breaths before she dared leave the sanctuary of her bedchamber and another two more before she composed herself enough to brazenly open the door as the new and daring woman she was thoroughly determined to be.
* * *
It had been a hell of a day. Relentless even. But for the first time since he had been appointed the Crown Prosecutor on this case, Hadleigh felt ready. Every i was dotted; every t crossed. His head was aching, his poor body was aching, even the tiny space between his eyebrows hurt like the devil because of all the blasted frowning he’d been doing as he pondered. Tonight, as much as he wanted to see Penny, he knew he was on his last legs and needed to collapse on his bed and simply sleep—he would definitely need to be on his game for the Attorney General in the morning. Something he planned to tell her from the outset, knowing she would understand, give her a quick, searing kiss to remind her he still adored her before excusing himself to rest.
Then she had opened the door and he forgot his own name, let alone all his lofty plans to impress his superior.
She was wearing just a nightgown.
One quite unlike the sensible sort he had seen her in before. This one had no high neck to disguise the creamy, perfect skin which graced her chest. Instead, he was greeted by the whole expanse of her décolleté above the deep V which ended mid-bosom, the delicate lace trim moulding itself to the upper swells of her breasts. The rest of the garment followed suit. He couldn’t see through the fine silk with his eyes, but thanks to the way it whispered and brushed against h
er curves, he could imagine it. The tips of her breasts pebbled in the chill from the hallway, drawing his eyes and reminding his brain exactly how they had tasted the night before. How sensitive they were. How she had moaned and writhed in pleasure as he had worshipped them with his mouth.
And her hair...
He had never seen it completely unbound before, that thick plait she usually wore for bed had not prepared him for the sight of the dark, tousled silky curtain which now hung all the way to her waist. She had arranged it over just one shoulder, one finger twirling the ends of it like Eve tempting Adam.
He tried to swallow, but his throat was too dry.
Tried to speak, but his mouth wouldn’t work.
Couldn’t blink. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move if his life depended on it. Instead, he stood rooted to the spot and stared. Every single drop of blood in his body suddenly rushing to pool in his groin. The damned woman was going to kill him.
‘You’re late. I was beginning to despair of you ever coming.’
‘Work.’ For a man considered a great orator by his peers, it was a miracle he could croak out that single syllable. But she had stepped to one side so he could enter and in doing so had stepped into the light of the flickering lamp behind her. It made several strands of her dark hair shimmer copper and gold. Turned her lovely blue eyes into deep lagoons he was helplessly drowning in. Turned a great deal of that seductive silk translucent.
As she moved to close the door, he saw her unbound breasts move and almost groaned aloud. How exactly was he supposed to maintain the rigidly slow and incremental seduction he had diligently planned when she came to the door looking like temptation incarnate? His eyes hungrily swept the length of her before he managed to choke out a sentence.
‘Perhaps I should go... Allow you to sleep seeing that you are ready for bed.’ Because neither of them would sleep if he stayed. ‘I am very late.’
The Determined Lord Hadleigh Page 21
