No. Not possible. Not remotely possible.
He opened the door himself. She tried to breathe. He’d removed his coat, waistcoat, and cravat and his shirt was open at the neck, revealing a delicious triangle of collarbone and breathtaking pecs. His hair was tousled, as though he’d scraped his hand through it a few times. He frowned. His smoky eyes looked thunderous.
“I—” A tennis ball was apparently stuck in her throat. “I—” she tried again, but he wasn’t moving. Or speaking. Oh, my God, Angela, this time you’ve gone far too far. “I—”
He pulled her into the room and dragged her into his arms.
There was very little of her that remained untouched by his strong and talented hands as they stood there making out at the closed door. First he stroked her arms with slow, sensual caresses and threaded their fingers together intimately. Then he pinned them above her head against the door and brought his body against hers as he took her mouth in an absolutely carnal kiss. One hand holding her wrists above her, with the other he explored her body with great thoroughness.
He began with her face, the curve of her jaw and her lips. She took his finger into her mouth and sucked and he moaned and kissed her deep. Then he touched her throat, her neck, following with his mouth, making her writhe, and then the swell of her breasts above her bodice. His tongue stole beneath the fabric and played with a tight nipple and she nearly exploded.
His hand cupping her breast was all she needed to begin begging him to release her wrists so she could touch him too. He silenced her with his mouth, caressing her tongue while his hand caressed her nipple through the fabric until she spread her thighs in silent, desperate invitation.
Finally he gave her what she wanted, his arousal against hers. With their bodies in complete contact through layers of clothing, they rocked against the door like horny teenagers, her hands trapped above her, his palm tight on her butt forcing her to ride him.
She came so fast she choked on her moan. “Oh-h, yes.”
Releasing her wrists he pulled down her tiny puff sleeves and freed her breasts from the gown and corset demi-cups. The cool air touched them as his hand dipped between her legs, massaging her through her skirts, so good, perfect, his body, his touch. He bent and stroked his tongue across an aching nipple and her orgasm convulsed again.
“Oh.” She couldn’t breathe. It was almost too much. “Stop. Oh, please.”
“You needn’t fear for your virtue.” His voice was deeply husky, and breathless like hers. “I will not dishonor you. I only want to touch you. I need to touch you, Angel.”
“I—ohh!” He caressed and inside she was wild. Not possible. She’d never had three orgasms in a row, and fully clothed at that. But she was so primed for him. She wanted her skirts up and him inside her. “I want you to dishonor me. I mean, I want to be with you. All the way.” She ran her hand down his waist and grasped his erection. “Whatever happens tomorrow, now I want you.” She stroked him through the fabric of his trousers.
He groaned. “Angela, I—”
“It’s not the same in my century. A lot of women aren’t virgins when they get married. They don’t have to be. And I may never get married anyway, so it doesn’t matter. Please believe me.” Her voice dropped to barely a whisper. “Don’t make me beg. And please don’t make me wait.”
He swept her up into his arms and carried her to his bed.
There were way too many clothes between them. But he was clearly as impatient as she. Together they pushed up her skirts, unbuttoned his trousers and dragged off his shirt. Then they were skin to skin like they’d been in the water, but this time he was on top of her, between her thighs, his chest and shoulders all smooth, taut muscle, and she was dizzy.
“Angela, my God, you feel good.” He pressed hungry kisses to her throat, his hand running over her hip beneath her gown. “I want to do this right for you.” His voice was rough, a lock of dark golden hair falling over his brow. “Allow me to do this slowly. Allow me to undress you and love you as you deserve to be loved.”
She deserved to be loved? This couldn’t be real.
The need to have him was just too powerful. “I don’t think I can wait that long.” The rhythm of his hips against hers was making her insane. If she didn’t fight it, she’d come like this again, too quickly. “I want you inside me. Now.”
His smile turned raffish. “That suits me as well.” He bent to her lips and kissed her like he was drinking from her, making her feel him and want him everywhere inside her. His hand moved between them and she felt the head of his penis stroke her entrance.
“Trent. I’m—”
“My angel.” He held her gaze as he fit himself inside her.
“Oh, my God,” she whispered, overwhelmed. “This feels incredible.”
“Agreed,” he said with tight restraint. “No pain?”
She clasped her thighs around his hips. “No pain.”
“It’s about to feel even more incredible, Miss Cowdrey.”
He made good on his word. With each slow, sensuous thrust he went deeper into her, deeper and hotter and wetter until they were locked together and she was dying of pleasure. If only she’d known ... If only she’d really understood what this was like ...
She still would’ve saved herself for Trenton Ascot.
She gripped his arms, the delicious spiral of anticipation mounting inside her slowly now, languorously, as if her body wasn’t in a hurry this time. “Can you make it last?” she whispered.
“As it happens—” He thrust harder, grabbing her hips and pulling her to him. “—not this time,” he growled, thrusting again. “I’ve been wanting this since the moment you took your mouth off of me in that lake. You’re mine now, Angel. Mine.”
It went fast then, hard and sweaty and spectacularly urgent. She gripped the bedpost behind her and held herself steady. He was touching something deep inside her, so deep, with each thrust it was unbearably good. If this was the G-spot everyone raved about, she finally understood. She couldn’t get enough. She never wanted him to stop. “Oh, God! Oh.”
He lifted her hips from the bed. “So tight.” His muscles went rock hard. “Angela. Angela.”
She felt him come inside her. She’d never imagined a woman could feel it, and it was amazing.
Finally he went still, and she gulped in breaths and ran her hands down his arms that were slick with sweat. He dipped his brow to rest on her shoulder.
“I am appalled that I just took your virginity half-clothed and sideways on top of this bed,” he mumbled roughly against her neck. “Without even removing my shoes.”
“They didn’t get in the way.” Her fingers played in the damp hair at the nape of his neck and she slid her other hand around to his back. He was all muscle and masculine beauty and quiet humor and natural goodness and decency and honor and she never wanted to let him go.
“They won’t have the opportunity the next time.” He kissed her neck, then her shoulder, then lingered on the swell of her breast, his mouth a warm pleasure upon her. “No matter how insane your soft skin and sultry eyes and seductive smile drive me.”
Sultry eyes? Seductive smile? Her? “Next time?”
“As soon as I catch my breath I will send these skirts and whatnot of yours to perdition.” He nuzzled her neck. “Then I vow I will make it last.”
“I am dreaming.” The words slipped out of her mouth. “This can’t be real. I really must be dreaming.”
He lifted his head and his cupped his palm gently around her cheek. “Yet I am finally wide awake,” he said quietly. “So either your dream is of my reality, or my reality is only within your dream.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of. The latter. I’m afraid I’ll wake up tomorrow morning alone in my apartment in Ann Arbor.”
“Tomorrow morning,” he said and placed a tenderly sexy kiss on her lips, “you will awaken in this bed in my arms. And then we will see about what must be done to ensure that you awaken every morning in that manner.”
She wanted to cry and laugh and die all at once. So the only real option was to kiss him.
Then the foreplay of “next time” began, the tantalizing removal of one piece of clothing at a time and the exploration of his every muscle and sinew with her hands and mouth. When he decided it was his turn to reciprocate, he didn’t give her a choice. Laughing, she reminded him that he’d said he’d make it last this time. Soon, however, she couldn’t laugh because she was too busy moaning and begging him again not to make her wait.
He made good on his word. Again. Much better than good.
o0o
Angela didn’t wake up the following morning in her apartment. As tiny threads of dawn seeped through the cracks between the curtains, she drew out of Trent’s embrace and crept around the room finding her clothes. On the bed, sprawled in the tangled sheets so she could appreciate every contour of his breathtaking chest and shoulders and arms in the pearly gray light, Viscount Everett breathed deeply and evenly. He didn’t even flicker an eyelash.
For him to sleep like that, his conscience had to be clear about what they’d done. That made him either an actual rogue, or ... no. She couldn’t let herself read anything into what he’d said the first time they’d done it, or afterward about waking up in his arms every morning. Men of his status had mistresses. He’d be typical of his class in expecting her to become his.
But after the second time, when they were lying side-by-side and he was stroking her hair and they’d talked of her studies and his art, they’d talked like friends, like they’d known each other for much longer than a week. Just like in the library. Like they understood each other.
She knew men of his world talked to their mistresses like that—intimately, meaningfully. Their private correspondences proved it. But she would never know if Trenton Ascot did. She would never get the chance to find out what he wanted of her.
She dressed, then went to the writing table and pried the cap off the inkbottle with a quiet pop. She made a mess of writing, splashing blobs of ink all over the paper, but when she was finished she carried the note to the bed and set it on the mattress beside him.
She drank in her final sight of him, aching to touch him, to run her fingertips over his chiseled jaw one last time and kiss his gorgeous mouth. Mostly, she wanted to tell him she thought she was falling in love with him, that she’d never felt like this before—appreciated and desired and alive and just so right with him.
On silent feet, she went to the door and opened it carefully, then turned and took a long last look at him before slipping out into the dark corridor.
It took her a harrowing ten minutes to get back to her room in Lady Sophronia’s suite without bumping into any servants. The old eccentric was sitting in a cushiony chair dressed in her nightgown and bathrobe with a scarlet nightcap laced in fluttery purple ribbons perched atop her bad dye job.
Her eyes snapped open wide.
Angela smiled. “Good morning, my lady. Do you by any chance have a carriage?”
o0o
The drive to Southampton port wasn’t long, the road wasn’t as bumpy as she’d expected, and the coachman was downright chipper. In the end, she’d decided to bribe the Earl of Ware’s coachman with the ruby broach Lady Sophronia gave her for the purpose. He’d agreed pretty readily after she explained her errand was for the good of Lord Everett, Lady Charlotte, and Master Henry, and that they’d be back within the day. But he’d refused the broach and only asked for the price of a pint at the posting inn in Southampton.
Still, she was as nervous as all get out by the time they pulled up before the dilapidated boarding house where Arnaud Chappelle had hired a room for the past two years while he wrote his memoir.
She could see the words on the first folio of that memoir like she had the document in front of her now: not only the address of his residence while he lived under an assumed name and secretly wrote a treatise about the despicable deeds of his past, but also his abject apology for those deeds, calling on the mercy of God and the souls of the innocent people he’d harmed.
It was an apology that only she had ever read, and it was the key now to saving Trent’s family.
It was one thing knowing all about a man from the past, but quite another to be knocking on his door. By the time it finally opened, she was a nervous wreck.
The man who stood before her was anorexically thin, dressed soberly and neat as a pin in a black coat and black breeches, and had a French look about the mouth.
“Good day, ma’am,” he said in slightly inflected English and bowed. “If you have come concerning the grocer’s bill, I deeply regret that I am as yet unable to pay. I shall endeavor to do so at your husband’s earliest convenience, however, or else he may call the authorities if he so desires.” He spoke wearily, and his eyes were giant pools of defeat.
“I’m not the grocer’s wife, Monsieur Chappelle.”
The pools of defeat widened. Then he dropped his chin to his chest and shook his head. “I am discovered. Le jour du Jugement dernier has at long last arrived. But I knew it would someday arrive, non?” He shrugged. “The law, it will always pursue those who flout it.” A sad smile creased the drooping skin of a face that must’ve once been round. He wasn’t above fifty, but he looked much older. In two short years he’d gone from fat prosperity to emaciated dejection.
“I’m not the law,” she said. “But I know about what you’ve done and I need your help. May I come in?”
“If it is wicked deeds you wish me to perform, madam, I must tell you now that I am well out of that business.”
“I know,” she said. “I know that you go to confession every day repenting of those wicked deeds, even though it takes you an hour to ride to the hermitage. I know that you eat only day-old bread and watered prunes and once a week allow yourself boiled chicken. I know that you suffer every minute—awake and in your dreams—over the loss of your son to brigands at sea two years ago. And I know that inside this flat there’s a memoir written in your hand that describes every wicked deed you’ve ever done.” Her heart pounded. “But I don’t care about that.”
His face was ashen. “How do you know of my memoir? I have told no one of it. Are you an angel sent from heaven to exhort me to cleanse my soul in the fires of earthly judgment?”
Angela shook her head. “No, but I do know things. Monsieur Chappelle, I need your help. Sir Richard Howell is going to use lies about the business transactions he did with you to ruin the Earl of Ware and his family—his two sons and his daughter. His younger son, monsieur, is only fourteen.”
A bony hand went to his chest and clutched at his waistcoat. “The age of my Henri when God saw fit to take him from me in payment for my sins.”
She nodded. “This boy’s name is Henry too.” She let that sit for a moment. “Please, monsieur, may I come in?”
Tears stood in his eyes. During her research she’d never felt a jot of anything but disgust for this man who in his greed had destroyed the lives of countless families. But he was just a man, after all, able to feel pain and grief like everybody else. She wished that felt satisfying to her. It didn’t. That evil caused pain and suffering for everybody, even the evildoer, wasn’t any kind of consolation. Looking at his misery, she just felt empty. And abruptly, for Angela doing history was no longer about crossing every “t”, dotting every “i”, and solving mysteries, or even about getting a great job. It was about mending broken hearts. This man’s would never be mended. But she would at least give him a chance to mend the wounds he’d inflicted on others.
Head bowed low, Arnaud Chappelle gestured her into his flat.
Chapter Ten
With eyes bleary from lack of sleep, Trent read Angela’s note three times before he understood it. But only one detail of the splotched message truly mattered to him: she had gone.
Where? She did not specify.
Why? To save his family.
How? He’d bloody well discover as soon as he was dressed.
He did no
t await the assistance of his father’s valet. In his haste, he cut himself thrice while shaving, then donned mismatched boots.
Neither Lady Sophronia nor her companion, Miss Black, could be found anywhere in the house. They could not be interrogated.
Since Angela had no horse or carriage, she must have departed Kingstag on foot and could be easily overtaken by a man on horseback. Grabbing his hat and duster, he ran to the stables. There he learned from one of the hands about the curious departure of his father’s traveling chaise and Fields, the family coachman, several hours earlier, with only one passenger: the American lady.
Half-mounted, paralyzed and rendered mute, Trent finally understood her plea in the note. Promise me that if this trouble gets cleared up, you’ll tell your father the truth. I may not be around to hear your promise, but I swear I’ll know if you’ve made it.
Swinging into the saddle, silently he promised. He vowed. He prayed. Then he spurred his horse down the drive, certain on only two accounts, that she did not intend to return and that he must—would—convince her otherwise.
o0o
The Earl of Ware’s traveling chaise and team had not been seen that day at any inn or posting house along the London road within many miles of Kingstag Castle. As the sun touched the horizon, Trent turned his horse about and retraced his route.
She had gone, absconded with his family’s carriage and horses and servant, an unlikely scenario for a thief. But a thief she most certainly was not; Trent had known that for days already. So Fields must have taken her willingly.
He searched the surrounding roads, learning only as darkness fell that the carriage had taken the route to Southampton. Perhaps she intended to sail soon. But it had already become too dark to travel further. He returned to the duke’s house and gave the order in the stable that his horse should be prepared for departure at first light.
Charlotte met him in the great hall.
“Where have you been?” she exclaimed, and looked over his shoulder. “And where is Miss Cowdrey?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? Papa thought you had gone off to avoid having to marry Miss Howell. I’ve no idea why you should have meant to do something so stupid as marrying Jane Howell. She is the greatest ninny I’ve ever met. So I knew he couldn’t be telling the truth. Still, I didn’t tell him what I thought. But perhaps I was wrong.” She looked around him to the door again.
At the Duke's Wedding (A romance anthology) Page 39
