by Christine Merrill/Marguerite Kaye/Annie Burrows/Barbara Monajem/Linda Skye
She pulled off her left boot, then repeated the performance with the other.
Then she forced herself to walk across to where he was standing, devouring her with his eyes. It was not easy to approach him, for now that she’d removed her boots he seemed much bigger and far more dangerous. So she reached for every ounce of courage she possessed, before saying, “You know, of course that you will have to unlace me.”
She shot him her most coquettish smile, then turned her back to him.
He could hardly believe it. She intended to go through with it! And from the looks she was darting him, it did not bother her one whit.
She had the soul of a whore. He’d told himself so, often, over the years. But it was only now, seeing her willingness to strip for him, that it really sank in.
And this was the woman he’d allowed to destroy him. Because of her, he’d entirely destroyed his good name, whilst deliberately obliterating every last vestige of the boy who’d been soft enough to get crushed by the cruelty of her rejection.
She stood there, head bent, offering him free access to the ties of her gown. And, for a moment, all he could see was his fingers closing round that treacherous neck, squeezing and squeezing until she dropped to her knees on the floor at his feet.
He sucked in a sharp breath, willing the red mists of rage to subside, then reached for her ties and yanked them open.
Her heart sank as he methodically loosened her gown. For a moment she’d begun to hope he was going to call it quits, he’d hesitated about unlacing her for so long. If there had been anything left of the man she’d once loved beneath the bitterness that seemed second nature to him now, he wouldn’t be going through with it.
But any last hope that he had shown signs of regretting pushing her this far withered as he undid not only her gown, but her stays.
The swift precise way his fingers worked at her laces was a devastating contrast to the reverent, gentle way he used to touch her.
But then he didn’t love her any more.
If he ever really had.
She stepped briskly away from him as soon as he’d finished his task, turned, and gave him another dazzling smile.
He took a step towards her, his face a mask of lustful intent.
She took an involuntary step backwards, holding up one hand to stay him, clutching her dress tightly in the other.
“Why do you not sit down,” she said breathlessly, indicating a rather dilapidated wing chair positioned by the fire. “And watch me disrobe. Would you not enjoy that?”
She almost flinched at the contemptuous smile he shot her.
“Yes, why not? You always did like to show off.”
He frowned, recalling her love of fine clothes and masculine attention. He’d always made excuses for her, telling himself she had no idea what she was doing. How could he have been so blind?
“Go ahead,” he said, strolling to the armchair, flinging himself into it, and stretching out his legs. “But do not think I will let you get away with anything less than complete disrobing.” Not now.
“Of course not.”
She smiled again. A stretching of the lips across her teeth that hurt the muscles in her cheeks. But she wasn’t going to let him see one jot of the pain he was giving her.
Standing completely still, She let go of her gown, allowing the weight of the velvet to carry it down her body and crumple on the floor. She stepped out of it, then turned her back to him before picking it up. She didn’t need to look over her shoulder to know that he would be watching her bottom as she bent over, the curves clearly delineated through the remaining layers of clothing. But she looked anyway, just quickly.
Fierce resentment seared through her at the lordly way he was looking at her, as though she were his slave, and her only function in life was to amuse him.
She grasped the gown that she would never be able to wear again, since it would always remind her of how determined he was to humble her, shook it out, and draped it over the footboard with her coat. Then she hitched up her petticoat, sat on the edge of the mattress, and raised her left foot, pointing the toes in his direction.
“My stockings are not exactly the stuff to make a man’s heart beat faster either, are they?” She raised one leg, then the other, as though lamenting over the thickness of the brown cotton coverings, whilst really giving him tantalising glimpses of her knees. “But they are so lovely and warm,” she said huskily, bending forward to run her hands all the way down her left leg.
His eyes followed her hands as they caressed her lower leg. Then flicked to the top of her gaping bodice, where the full mounds of her breasts threatened to spill out. Then back to her hands as she slowly slid them up until they reached her garter.
It was a deliberately provocative performance that should have filled him with disgust. Instead, he was powerless to tear his eyes from her hands as they stroked the stocking down her leg. He was as aroused as if he was doing it himself. He could almost feel the satin smoothness of that milk-white skin.
His breath hitched as she reached up to untie her second garter. She stretched out lazily to drop both stockings on top of her other clothes, rolling her body slightly to emphasize the curve of her hip.
When she turned to face him again, his face was flushed. And even from that distance, she could see that he was aroused. Though he probably had been from the moment they set foot in this room. It was just that the way he was sitting, his legs stretched out straight before him, made it blatantly obvious.
“What next?”
He shifted uncomfortably, hating the teasing note in her voice. Hating seeing what she really was. Hating the discovery that he’d made a wreck of his life for… her. But most of all, hating the effect she still had on him.
“My petticoat, perhaps?”
She tilted her head to one side as she coyly ran her fingers along the drawstring.
“Yes,” he grated, his voice hoarse with desire.
She loosened the drawstring, stood up, and shimmied the petticoat off. His eyes fastened on her bosom, still covered, but only just, by her loosened stays and her chemise.
Her nipples tautened in anticipation of the moment they would be bared to the heat of that gaze.
Her heart did a funny little somersault. Her stomach pulled taut.
In dismay, she realized that his excitement was affecting her in a completely unexpected way. It did not repel her, as her husband’s lust had repelled her. No—far worse—her body was remembering the times she’d gone to this man willingly, eagerly, and only their joint belief that it would be wrong outside marriage had prevented them from becoming lovers.
She could have wept. Back then, what had been between them had seemed so pure and lovely, even when their bodies had burned and throbbed as hers was beginning to do now. Time and time again he had drawn back, declaring he would not sully her.
And now, now he was intent on doing just that. He was urging her on with his hot eyes, and his heavy breathing, and the ruthless line of his hard mouth.
“W—would you like me to take down my hair for you?” She curled one blonde ringlet round her finger, remembering how he used to beg her for permission to plunge his own fingers through the luxuriant mass. She’d scolded him for dislodging even a single pin, or disarranging one artfully crafted curl back then, fearing that if she went back to the ballroom even slightly dishevelled, people would know what they’d been up to.
“No, dammit,” he growled harshly. “Just get rid of the clothes. Every last stitch.”
She shrugged as though it made no difference to her. When really his attitude brought an end to her hope that this might have turned into something more… meaningful between them.
She’d been foolish to wish for the impossible. There was no hope of rekindling what he’d once felt for her. She’d destroyed it.
She took hold of the edge of her stays and tossed them aside.
Her chemise was virtually transparent, for she only wore The very finest, sheerest materi
al next to her skin these days. He could see everything as though through a veil. The duskiness of her nipples, the swell of her breasts and her belly. The dark triangle at the apex of her thighs.
As his gaze swept over her, she felt it like a caress. Her breasts ached for it to become a real touch. She imagined what his body would feel like, hard and muscular against the softness of her own. And she grew damp with desire.
But beyond that, came the tiny hope that if he felt anything for her, anything at all, he would surely tell her to stop now. She knew he felt entitled to some revenge, but would not this be enough?
“What are you waiting for,” he growled. “Pretending to be shy now?”
She didn’t know why she should feel such crushing disappointment. She’d never met a man who had not let her down, in one way or another. And men were never satisfied until they had what they thought was complete victory.
So be it.
With a hard smile she untied her chemise, lifted it over her head, and tossed it to the floor.
“There,” she said with malice. “Like what you see? Oh, but wait, you said you wanted to see every single inch of me.” Quivering with rage, she slowly turned round, then round again, so that he could not say she had not shown him everything. He got to his feet. With hands that were shaking, he tore away his cravat, then unbuttoned his waistcoat.
“On the bed,” he commanded her, tossing the waistcoat onto the chair on which he’d been sitting.
She lay down on her side, no longer bothering to conceal her contempt as she watched him stride to the bed.
And it was with total disdain that she said, “What do you think you are doing?”
“What does it look like? I’m going to take what you’ve been offering.”
“I have not been offering you anything more than we agreed,” she said brazenly, before he’d managed to do more than get one knee on the bed. “The exact terms of our wager were that I should be naked in this room with you. If you attempt to lay so much as one finger on me I shall scream. And the man I brought with me, who is pledged to protect me, will come in here and pound you to a pulp.”
She hadn’t really thought she’d need Arbuthnot to protect her from Lord Sinclair—but then, it was downright dangerous to attempt to call a halt when a man was so rampant with lust and hatred. Her heart beat double time as he hovered over her, breathing hard, his face twisted with fury.
“You scheming, cheating jade,” he spat. “You deliberately undressed in the most provocative manner, deliberately roused me to a state where I might not have been able to hold back. And all for what? So you could have your man beat me?” He reared back as though she disgusted him.
“N—no.” She frowned in confusion. Why would he think she wanted to do anything so vile?
“Don’t lie to me! You haven’t changed a bit, have you? You deliberately rouse lust in a man just so you can humiliate him when you spurn him.”
“That’s not true!” It had never been true. “You were the one who wanted to dish out humiliation tonight. You made me strip for you like, like a whore,” she cried bitterly.
“Is that not exactly what you are? A very highly paid one,” he sneered. “But there’s no denying you sold your body to a man for money.”
“I did no such thing!” Suddenly, it was too much to be lying there, with him towering over her while she was so exposed. She grabbed a corner of the coverlet and pulled it up to her neck as she sat up.
“Why else did you marry Fallowfield if not for his money?”
“Because I had no choice!”
“I offered you a choice,” he roared. “We could have been together. But instead of running away with me, you went willingly to the ball your father threw to announce your betrothal, and smiled at all your guests while you walked round on Fallowfield’s arm, simpering up at him as though he was your every dream come true.”
“You… you went to that betrothal ball?”
“Yes. I had to see for myself that you were willing. I couldn’t believe it when I read the announcement of your betrothal to another man, when you’d professed undying love to me.”
“And what would you have done if I’d looked as miserable as I felt? Dragged me out of the ballroom? Carried me off to Gretna Green?”
“Yes, dammit!”
“And then what? Do you think we would have lived happily ever after, like characters out of a storybook? Fallowfield had the power to ruin my whole family. Hadn’t you heard about my father’s gambling debts? When Fallowfield promised to deal with it all if he would hand me over to him, Papa didn’t hesitate. He’d already sent the announcement to the Gazette by the time he informed me of the deal the pair of them had made. And yes, I suppose I could have wept and wailed all through that ghastly ball, or run off with you to save myself. But… poor Phoebe… what had she done to deserve a life of penury? And why should my brothers have had to forfeit their education?”
She shook her head reproachfully. “Do you think I could ever have known a moment’s happiness, if I’d abandoned them all? We were doomed from the moment the earl set his sights on me.”
He strode to the far side of the room, running his fingers through his hair.
“I cannot believe you have never thought of it from anyone else’s point of view but your own,” she said with contempt. “You have to be the most self-centred male on this planet. You won’t even ease your brother’s concerns by putting in an appearance at his wedding.”
“Get out,” he growled.
“What?”
“You heard,” he said, rounding on her furiously. “Put your clothes back on and get out of here, before I… ” He turned away again, stalked over to the window and put his hands on the sill. His shoulders hunched as he stared out over the darkened water.
Lady Caroline seized the opportunity, and her clothes, with both hands. Within minutes she was downstairs, and outside, and clambering into the carriage that Arbuthnot had miraculously managed to procure for her at the exact moment she needed it.
She hadn’t been able to do up her stays or her gown properly. Underneath her neatly buttoned coat she was half undone.
Which was exactly how she felt. Over the next few days she would present a neatly buttoned-up exterior to the world. But inside, she would be a mess. She had not only failed to persuade Lord Sinclair to attend the wedding but also forfeited any remaining shred of respect he might have felt for her, all in one evening.
She’d thought she would find some consolation in outwitting him over the wording of that vile wager. Instead, she was bitterly regretting not having reached up and pulled him to her on that bed. Oh, how she’d longed to feel his lips upon hers once more.
Only it wouldn’t have been like before. His kiss would have been brutally punishing.
But at least she would have held him in her arms, one last time. And to judge by the way her body had melted for him, as though it recognized its one true mate, she might have finally experienced the rapture that women spoke of finding with their lovers.
Instead of which, she was returning to an empty, lonely house, and a future where she would have to deal with not only her own sense of failure but her sister’s disappointment, too.
It had all been for nothing.
CHAPTER THREE
“I’M SURE YOU did your best,” said Phoebe when Lady Caroline confessed that, although she’d located Lord Sinclair, he’d been deaf to her entreaties.
But something about the tone of her voice implied she’d never believed Caroline’s best was going to be good enough. And when Sebastian arrived at Hatton Hall, he looked at her as though he hadn’t expected much of her either.
Oh, everyone was polite on the surface, but their lack of faith in her, and her own resentment at all she’d gone through on their behalf, were simmering under the surface, just awaiting the right opportunity to come to a boil.
By the morning of Christmas Eve it was all Caroline could do to sit still while her maid put the finishing touches
to her hair.
Phoebe was, after all, getting her wish to be married on Christmas Day in the little parish church they’d attended since childhood. Their father was throwing an immense party, at Caroline’s expense, though nobody but the two of them knew it, so that the whole community could make it a Christmas to remember. And the house was crammed with friends and family come to wish the bridal couple well.
But was that enough for Phoebe? No. She kept shooting Lady Caroline little looks of reproach, then sighing, and hurrying to Sebastian’s side, and gazing up at him with the air of a tragedy queen, until it made her want to scream.
Didn’t Phoebe appreciate the fact that she was free to marry for no other reason than that she had fallen in love with a man who loved her too?
Which was a good thing. Of course it was. It meant that her own sacrifice, in giving up the man she’d loved, to marry Lord Fallowfield, had not been in vain.
Oh, yes—and then there was Crispin. Crispin who was not here in person, but who was very much present in everyone’s thoughts.
Especially in hers. She could not stop thinking about the bitterness in his voice as he’d accused her of leading him on. The leap of excitement she’d felt when he’d torn off his cravat and stalked to the bed. The passion in his eyes the moment before she’d stopped him kissing her.
And the fierce quarrel they’d subsequently had.
And her flight home, half naked under her coat. And the sleepless night that had followed. And all the sleepless nights since, when she’d dozed off, only to jerk awake to the feel of his fingers at her back, the echo of her garments whispering to the floor. And the way she’d lain naked, letting him look at her. Shamelessly glorying in the way he’d looked at her.
And the burn of humiliation as the dream faded, leaving her alone and humiliated in the bed she’d chosen over one she could have shared with Crispin.
And then for Phoebe to say, in that injured little voice, that she was sure she’d done her best.
