by Danice Allen
In quick succession, his expression went from irritably curious, to surprised, to appalled, to angry, to apoplectic. In the end, he crumpled the paper in his fist, stood so quickly he toppled his chair backwards, and headed toward the door at a furious stride, saying in a ragged underbreath, “Bloody Hell! May the saints help me keep my sanity … and my temper!”
“Should we follow, Priss?” asked Nan, staring after Julian with a horrified expression. “I’m sure he’s gone to scold Sam about something … and it must be something quite dreadful!”
“He’s not a violent man,” said Priss, wringing her hands, “so I don’t think we need fear that he’ll beat her. I think we should just stay out of it, Nan.”
“Well, if you think so, Priss,” Nan agreed quaveringly, then turned to Hedley. “Better tell the cook to keep the soup on the fire till we hear from the marquess.”
“Yes, Miss,” said Hedley, with a long-suffering sigh.
Sam had just stepped into her gown, and Clara had pulled it up as far as her waist, when the door suddenly swung open and Julian entered the room. Clara gasped, let go of the dress so that it fell to the floor, then stumbled backward onto the bed with her hand at her throat.
Sam couldn’t blame Clara for her reaction. Julian looked like an avenging angel sent by a wrathful God! She wouldn’t have been surprised if the room had been filled with the sound of thunder, with bolts of lightning shooting above Julian’s golden head. She’d never seen his chiseled features so sternly fixed, his mouth so grim and implacable, his eyes so bright with anger.
And he looked massive as he stood there … so tall, his arms crossed forbiddingly over his broad chest, his legs spread and braced like a soldier prepared to do battle. Sam quivered with fear.
“Leave us, Clara,” he said, his voice deathly calm.
Clara got up and scurried across the room, sending a stricken look Sam’s way as she slipped out the door. Just as she’d imagined many times, Sam was alone with Julian in her bedchamber wearing next to nothing. But instead of looking ardent and tender, as he had in her fantasy, he looked as though he would like nothing better than to wring her neck!
Clara had left the door ajar, but Julian reached back and, without taking his eyes off Sam, closed it. Then he approached, one slow step at a time, till they were separated by mere inches. Sam’s heart thudded in her ears. He’d looked towering, intimidating, and stunningly masculine as he stood by the door. This close, he overwhelmed her with his presence. For a moment, she thought she was going to faint!
“This time, Sam, you’ve gone too far.”
There was still that unnerving calmness to his voice. Sam swallowed hard. “I’m … I’m sorry, Julian,” she whispered.
Julian’s brows drew together. He cocked his head to the side. “What are you sorry for, brat? Do you know, or do you just say ‘I’m sorry’ without meaning it?”
“I … I assume you’re angry with me for being late to dinner,” she explained weakly. The candlelight flickered in his hair and made bright prisms in his icy blue eyes.
Julian’s lips made a cynical curl. “You thought I burst into your bedchamber just now without knocking to chastise you for being late to dinner? Don’t you think my reaction a trifle excessive for the crime?”
“I’ve never been late to dinner before, Julian. I didn’t know what to expect you to do. And after yesterday … Well, you do seem angry with me most of the time lately.” She bit her lip and shrugged.
Julian’s gaze fixed on Sam’s lower lip, tucked as it was between her small white teeth. And, as she’d shrugged, her bare shoulders had looked so shapely, so round and pale and perfect … His gaze wandered lower. Her small breasts were clearly outlined by the thin muslin of her chemise, the nipples erect.
His concentration wavered, and he forced himself to look away, then determinedly kept his gaze from wandering below Sam’s neck. He focused on his anger, which he felt was more than justified.
“Of late you have given me plenty of reason to be angry, my girl. But do you really think I would get so furious about something as trivial as your being late to dinner?” Julian demanded, his voice raising. “Am I such an ogre?”
Sam’s brows drew together in a puzzled frown. “But what else have I done?”
Julian smiled mirthlessly. “What else, indeed? What an actress you are!” He lifted his right hand and opened his clenched fist. The wadded note from Isabelle slowly expanded in the cup of his palm. “Would you like to read some correspondence I received just a few moments ago?”
Sam stared at the crumpled paper. “Not really,” she quavered.
“But I insist,” Julian said with a brittle and menacing politeness. “It is from a woman whose acquaintance you only recently made.” He held the wad of paper closer, compelling her to take it. She did take it, but with trembling fingers that revealed an awareness of her own guilt.
Julian watched as Sam pulled the note into a reasonably flat shape, then quickly read it. When next she looked at him, she seemed to be trying to control, to force away her fear. Her chin went up defiantly, and she returned his gaze with that pugnaciousness he knew only too well.
“I can explain,” she declared.
“There’s nothing to explain,” Julian retorted. “Isabelle already did that. She said you came to her house and requested instruction in the ways of a courtesan.”
“But not to be a courtesan! Only to—”
“Yes, I know,” Julian said harshly. “To ensnare a man … one of your three favorite suitors, I assume. It’s all there in the note.”
“Then you understand why—”
“I understand nothing!” he said fiercely, making her jump. “You can’t talk yourself out of this, Sam. There’s no excuse for what you did. In one day you might have undone everything I’ve tried to do for you over the past several months! What if someone saw you entering or leaving Isabelle’s house?”
“I was careful—”
He grabbed her wrist and pulled her close, holding her small fist in his much larger one and pressing it against his chest. He looked her square in the eye and spoke in measured, biting accents. “What if you weren’t careful enough? It only takes one pair of eyes to see and one tongue to tattle. For all we know, your visit to my mistress could very well be the juiciest bit of gossip being devoured at dinner tables all over London at this hour.”
Her chest heaved and her cheeks were flushed. “Julian, I never meant to—”
“You apparently have no regard for your own reputation,” he continued relentlessly. “But did you for one minute consider how ridiculous you might make me appear as your guardian? People will see I have precious little control over my ward! And what of your aunts? Did you think of them? Young girls do not hobnob with their guardian’s mistress! Not for any reason!”
“I had to see her, Julian,” Sam said beseechingly. “No one else would tell me anything! Before the opera, you said it wasn’t the right time to answer my questions about intimacies between men and women. But I know you. You would never find the right time to talk of such things!”
“Not with you, that’s for certain,” he agreed emphatically. “You already know too much from reading those damned books. More than is wise … But even that wasn’t enough for you. You had to visit Isabelle and … and…” Julian had finally run out of words. He shook his head and released her hand.
But Sam surprised him by grabbing his hand in both of hers and lifting it to her mouth. She grazed his knuckles with a kiss and said earnestly, “You worry so much about my social standing, my success in the ton. But there’s more to life than that!”
“You feel my tutoring of you has been a waste of your time then?” he said stiffly.
“No! Of course not!” she said fervently. “You’ve been wonderful! I owe you so much … You taught me how to be a lady, Julian.” She turned his hand over and pressed the palm against her cheek. Her skin felt like silk. “But who will teach me how to be a woman?” she finished softly, h
er eyes full of sweet supplication.
Entranced by her artless allure, and startled by the damnable way his body responded to her despite his mind’s reservations, Julian said nothing.
She moved closer and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Who will hold me … like this?” She pressed her body against him.
Julian found himself mindlessly circling the slim expanse of her waist with his hands. She seemed to fit perfectly against him.
She stood on tiptoes and drew his head down to hers till their lips were nearly touching. “Who will … kiss me, Julian?”
Julian’s body had turned completely traitorous. His pulse was racing, his blood thrummed through his veins, and an ache had settled in his loins. And the only possible answer to her question seemed to be…
To kiss her. The touch of his lips against hers was at first tentative and tender, but her eagerness, the way she pressed closer and sighed soft and low in her throat, inflamed his passion.
His hands slipped up her slim back and he pulled her firmly into his arms.
He deepened the kiss, parting her lips with his tongue and exploring the sleek borders of her mouth.
Every nerve in his body was on fire. After just one kiss, he wanted her. He wanted to make love to her.
Then it hit him. This was Sam’s first kiss!
Julian was appalled. What am I doing? he asked himself. I’ve been her tutor, her mentor. But it’s not for me to teach Sam about love. That will be for her husband to do!
He tore himself away from the sweet intoxication of her mouth, caught hold of her shoulders, and firmly put an arm’s length of distance between them.
An apology hovered on his lips, but when he looked into her face, he hesitated, entranced by her appearance. Her cheeks were blooming with color. Her eyelids drooped languidly, but her eyes were unnaturally bright.
She smiled tremulously and Julian was filled with guilt. He had taken advantage of her vulnerability! He might even have frightened her. And he most certainly must have confused her. After all, she’d gone to Isabelle to learn about pleasing a man, and in the midst of scolding her for such improper conduct, he had given her her first hands-on lesson in love! What had possessed him? Where was his legendary control?
And who was the culprit who started this mischief? he wondered, wishing he had his hands around the fellow’s neck at that very moment. What man was making her so eager to learn about love, to make her risk her reputation just to be well informed in seduction?
“Who is he, Sam?” he asked her, giving her a little shake. “Who is this man you think you must play the seductress to win?”
Sam stared at him. He didn’t know, she thought incredulously. He truly didn’t know that he was the man she wanted to seduce, the man she wanted to ensnare in a silken web of love and passion. She’d kissed him back with all her heart and soul, and still he didn’t know!
When she didn’t answer, he grasped her chin with one hand, his long fingers curving over her cheek. He looked into her eyes. His own expression was tender and troubled. She stared at his lips as he urged her, “Tell me, Sam.” But all she wanted was for him to kiss her again. She trembled with longing.
“Did that damned American tell you that the only way to prove your affection was to allow him certain liberties?” he asked gruffly. “Or has that lout, Jean-Luc, been filling your head with nonsense about what young ladies do in France? It couldn’t be Ninian…”
Sam’s heart ached with frustration. “Do I have to tell you who the man is, Julian?” she whispered plaintively, still held captive and close by his large, warm hand. “Don’t you know?”
At that moment, Julian wasn’t sure what he knew or didn’t know. His feelings were a tumble, and his mind was chaos. He still wanted her, and it irked him to feel so little control over his desires. He was her guardian, not her lover. He was supposed to protect her from improper advances, not make them!
Julian continued to stare into Sam’s eyes, overwhelmed by confusion. Charlotte had said that his young ward was in love with him, and Julian had at first believed her … at least to the point of conceding that Sam might have developed a schoolgirl infatuation for her tutor and friend. He’d even found it amusing, supposing her flirtatiousness and sudden eagerness to be married a naive ploy to gain his attention.
But lately he hadn’t been so sure of that evaluation of Sam’s behavior. She’d been spending a lot of time with Nathan and asking a lot of questions about America. Julian had begun to think she was leaning toward accepting Nathan’s eventual proposal of marriage, and he was dreading the day when she’d sail off to America, thousands of ocean miles away. The very thought rankled him to the bone.
“Don’t you know, Julian?” Sam prompted in a small voice. “Don’t you know whom I care about?”
Julian gazed a little longer into those soft blue eyes, then gently pushed her away and took two steps back. He crossed his arms again and said, “It’s Nathan, isn’t it?”
Sam looked stunned. And when she didn’t answer, he assumed he’d surmised correctly. “Well, you can expect a long engagement,” he growled. “I won’t let you shackle yourself to a man who intends to take you halfway across the world until you really know him. I will need to know him better, as well … not to mention your sister, Amanda, who will have a natural wish to meet her sister’s fiancé before he whisks her away to the far corners of the earth. And since Amanda won’t be back in England for several months yet, there will certainly be no undue haste in this matter. Do you understand, Sam?”
Sam still did not reply.
“And furthermore,” he went on, compelled to fill the silence with words of admonition, “if you ever leave this house again without a chaperon, I will chain you to the bedpost. I’ve never heard of anything so harebrained and improper as paying a visit to a courtesan.”
By her accusing look and the angry arch of an eyebrow, Julian could tell what Sam was thinking … that he paid visits to courtesans and didn’t consider it harebrained and improper. But since that was an entirely different matter altogether—after all, he was a man—he didn’t bother to argue the point but continued to bluster away like a fusty old schoolmaster.
“Your reputation may be ruined, and for what? Some perfectly useless so-called advice? Damnation, Sam, what do you need to know all that rot for? After all, your aim is to be a wife!”
But all the response he got was Sam’s stony silence and a look of hurt defiance.
“Put some clothes on and be downstairs for dinner in fifteen minutes,” he finally muttered, exhausted. “Do you understand, Sam?”
Up came Sam’s chin and a brave, sweet, sad smile broke over her face as she said, “Better than you can ever imagine, Julian.”
It was an enigmatic remark, and Julian had no idea what to make of it, but it unnerved him. To counter this strange and uncomfortable confusion—the confusion he’d felt ever since he’d tasted the sweetness of Sam’s lips—he assumed his most upright posture and left the room with as much dignity as he could muster. But as he shut the door of Sam’s bedchamber behind him, his nerves quivered and his body pulsed with pent-up energy.
Hell, he mused to himself, maybe he’d served his mistress her walking papers just a tad too soon…
Chapter Nine
When Julian returned to the dining room, he found Priss and Nan waiting anxiously. He sent all the servants out of the room, then quickly, succinctly informed the aunts what Sam had done. But instead of the news horrifying them, they hid giggles and smiles behind their hands.
Julian raised a brow. “I can’t conceive why you ladies find this episode so amusing,” he said dampeningly. “Indeed, it is dangerous for Sam to be so well versed in seduction. She needs to be admonished not to use the advice she gleaned from this woman, or else she shall find herself ruined and unable to secure a respectable husband.”
Nan composed herself, but was still smiling when she answered, “You are quite right, Julian. We do not want Sam to make a mistake tha
t will ruin her life, but it is hard not to appreciate the girl’s resourcefulness and originality. Imagine … visiting a courtesan to learn about physical love! No ordinary girl would ever dream of doing such a thing.”
Julian’s mouth reluctantly curved in a rueful smile. “I never said she wasn’t an original. But why didn’t she come to you ladies for information? Isn’t that the usual way young ladies learn of the birds and bees … from their female relatives?”
“Posh! What could she learn from us, Julian?” cried Priss. “She was certainly smart enough to realize that she’d learn a great deal more from a courtesan than from two old spinsters. And you must admit that while she must be made to understand that none of what she learned can be … er … employed before she is married, she will undoubtedly have a happier union by enthusiastically utilizing what she has learned once she is legally wed. We could not, in good conscience, order her to entirely forget everything she heard today!”
“No indeed!” Nan concurred emphatically.
“Considering that neither of you are married, or ever have been,” Julian commented wonderingly, “I am surprised that you have such strong opinions on the subject.”
“We’ve been around long enough to know that a marriage with passion has a far better chance of being happy,” Nan replied with a decided nod. “Although she is young and inexperienced, Sam seems to know that, too. And, as well, I don’t think she has any intention of becoming a wanton. She knows firsthand how illegitimacy can ruin a child’s life. She won’t … er … dabble in the waters of passion, I daresay, except with the man she intends to spend the rest of her life with.”
“However, to ease your mind, Julian, we will make sure she understands that sexual intimacy belongs within the bounds of matrimony,” added Priss. “Are you satisfied?”
