by Ruth Owen
“Good and honorable.” Quinn spit out the words as if they left a foul taste in his mouth. “Well, my gel, if’n he’s so good and honorable, then tell me how it comes that the sharps in the village pub are layin’ odds that Clara Hobbs’s bastard babe is gonna be born with Lord Trevelyan’s dark hair?”
The soft knickers of the nearby horses seemed a million miles away to Sabrina. Quinn had left the stables over a quarter of an hour before, but she remained behind. She stood with her back leaning against the old saddle, stared into the candle flame…and wondered how she was going to keep her heart from breaking in two.
She remembered the time that Amy had confided to her that she believed Clara’s lover was a man of the gentry class. And she recalled the day she’d found the earl writing instructions that provided for the young woman’s care and comfort. She’d thought he was simply being kind. But what if it wasn’t generosity she’d witnessed? What if it was guilt—guilt over using an innocent girl for his pleasure, then tossing her out as soon as she became an inconvenience? Rina had seen it happen before—but Edward wasn’t like that. He couldn’t be like that.
Clara’s babe…Trevelyan’s dark hair…Trevelyan’s bastard.
“Stop it!” Rina pressed her fists against her throbbing temples. It was hearsay, nothing more. Clara’s unfaithful lover could be the greengrocer for all Rina knew. But even if she found out that the earl was the father of Clara’s child, it wouldn’t make a jot of difference. In less than a week, she would be out of Edward’s life forever. I will never see him again. ‘Tis not as if we ever had a future together.
She heard the faint creak of the stable door opening behind her, the same door that Quinn had left by a few minutes before. Apparently her partner had returned to give her more instructions for the robbery, or more reasons why she should hate Edward and his family. She wasn’t up for either. Sighing wearily, she turned around to face him. “Quinn, I love you dearly, but I’m just not up to—”
A man strode out of the shadows, his boots striking the stone floor like hammer blows, his furious gaze piercing her like a sword driven straight through her heart.
“Who is Quinn?” the Earl of Trevelyan demanded.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Edward had been walking on the cliffs, as he’d done nearly every night since the day he’d been dragged back from the rock outcropping. Charles had forbidden him from leaving his room until he was entirely well, but Edward needed the sea like he needed air. So he slipped out every night and walked the cliff’s edge, where the thundering waves and cold salt wind poured more healing through his veins than a chemist’s shop of curative tonics. He was on his way back when he noticed the light in the stables. Making a mental note to ask the stable master about it in the morning he started to pass by, but froze as he heard a familiar voice cry out.
He shoved open the door, ready to defend the woman he loved to the death. But she didn’t need defending. She stood calm as a glassy sea, wearing little more than her night-shift, with her unbound hair tumbling wild over her shoulders…with another man’s name on her lips.
“Who is Quinn?”
“No—no one,” she stuttered. “My lord, you should be in bed.”
“To hell with bed. Who is Quinn?”
She dropped her gaze and toyed with the material of her cloak. “No one. There is no one here. You…must have misheard me.”
Like hell. She was lying —he could see it in the slump of her shoulders, the way her gaze slid away from his whenever their eyes met. And every nuance of her duplicity felt like a strip of skin being flayed from his body. The same pain he felt two years ago began to twist inside him. He spoke, his words low and lethal. “I trusted you.”
“And I you.” She lifted her chin and met his gaze with defiance. “I do not have to explain my actions to you. After all, you have secrets, too.”
Aye, he had secrets. Secrets of broken hearts and misery and a pain that went on and on without hope or reason. It had taken him years to climb out of the darkness and let himself believe in someone enough to trust again, to love again. And to be betrayed again. The sickening darkness washed over him and he turned away, afraid of what he might do. “At least Isabel had the decency to leave Ravenshold when she took a lover.”
Prudence’s defiance shattered. She ran around in front of him, blocking his way out of the stable. ” ‘Tis not like that, not at all. You must believe me.”
He had believed her. All the time he’d been stuck in his bedchamber he’d trusted her to be faithful. In her eyes he’d seen the man he wanted to be, the man he knew he could be with her love. But that love had been a lie, like her goodness, her decency, and everything else about her. While he’d been trussed up like a Sunday chicken, she’d been secretly giving herself to a lover. The bitterness of her betrayal rose in his throat, nearly choking him. She’d played him like a pennywhistle, and he’d fallen for every honeyed lie she’d told him. Christ, he’d even asked her to marry him!
He’d trusted her. And as he looked down into her glorious eyes, and stroked his gaze over the ripe lips and the sweet body that he’d fought to keep his hands off of, he realized he still wanted to trust her. He wanted desperately to cling to his belief in her—just as he’d clung to his belief in Isabel, until the truth of her betrayal destroyed him bit by bit until nothing was left of him but a hollow, bleeding husk—
“No!” he roared. He stripped off her cloak and gripped her shoulders, forcing himself to look at her thin night-shift, her bare feet, her cascade of sunset hair that begged for a lover’s caress. That begged for his caress. God help him, he still ached for her sweet innocence with every fiber of his being, even though the evidence of his eyes proved that she was neither sweet nor innocent. She’d given herself to another man, this Quinn—and perhaps to others. Perhaps she’d talked about him as she’d lain in their arms, laughing at the foolish, lovelorn earl who’d been so completely and thoroughly deceived.
He took a deep breath, barely containing his rage. “You will leave Ravenshold. You will be provided for as is your right, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let another shameless trollop make a cuckold of me.”
A deep blush spread across her throat and cheeks. “I haven’t. I’ve done nothing wrong. You must believe me. I am not like Isabel. I have not betrayed you.”
Damn, she was good. Her beautiful eyes were all innocence, her blush a study in naivete. Under other circumstances he might have appreciated her skill at deception.
His mouth pulled into a slow, dangerous smile. “You say you are innocent. Very well, then. Tell me you have not been with a lover.”
Her blush deepened, but she answered boldly. “I have not been with a lover.”
His smile hardened. “Tell me you are untouched.”
Her gaze slanted down with just the right touch of maidenly modesty. “I am…untouched.”
His hold on her shoulders tightened to a punishing grip. “Now tell me that you love me.”
She lifted her head, her lovely eyes shining with tears as she whispered, “I love you.”
Innocent. Beautiful. False as dust. The madness of his past raged up inside him, blocking out everything but his pain, his anger, his hollowness. He pulled her against him, ignoring her struggling protests. “You love me, little maiden? Then prove it.”
Edward had kissed her before, but there had always been a gentleness in him, the restraint of a gentleman. This kiss was savage and carnal, cutting through her senses like a scythe through hay. She staggered under the assault. She gasped at the violence. Then she groaned and locked her arms around his neck, knowing this was what she’d hungered for since the moment she’d met him.
His tongue and teeth ravaged her mouth, thrusting into her with an almost brutal force. His hands stroked her shoulders and back through the thin material of her shift, running his palms against the sides of her breasts. Deep, coiling heat pulsed in her core, then spilled out through her arms and legs. He laved hot kisses along the col
umn of her throat, rubbing his rough cheek against the softness of her skin. She bent back to give him greater access, wanting both the pleasure and the pain. Wanting him.
She knew he was seducing her body only, without tenderness and without love. He was using her the way he thought she’d used him. And she could no more fight it than she could stop the waves crashing in from the sea.
Still locked in his embrace she helped him shrug off his coat and his shirt, frantic to explore his body. She ran her hands over the hard planes of his shoulders, the powerful expanse of his back, the coiled power of his muscular forearms. He smelled of the sea and tasted of the wind. She felt his mouth curve into a smile against her throat.
“God, you’re a witch,” he growled. “Your hands alone could drive a saint straight to hell. No wonder your lover Quinn risked trespassing to have you.”
“He isn’t my—“Her sentence died in a shocked gasp as he covered her breast. Slowly, ruthlessly, he began to knead her through her shift, rubbing his thumb across her taut nipple. A sweet, desperate pressure began to throb inside her. She arched eagerly against his hand, knowing she was behaving like the wanton he believed her to be. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except the beautiful, aching magic that he was creating inside her. That they were creating together.
Words she couldn’t deny welled up inside her. “I love you,” she cried softly.
He froze. He stared down at her, his expression as pitiless as the granite cliffs. “I don’t want your love.”
She winced as if he’d struck her. Her love was the only gift she had to give him, the only truth in her whole charade. And he didn’t want it. “Then what do you want?”
He didn’t answer, but his gaze held a hunger that drove the air from her lungs. The Edward she knew had become a dark stranger—merciless, cold, without an ounce of conscience. Rina realized she was looking into the face of the madman he’d become after Isabel’s desertion. Instinctively she stepped back, and found her way blocked. She glanced over her shoulder, and saw that he’d backed her into the old saddle.
Squaring her shoulders, she gathered her wits about her. “Edward, I think we should consider what we are doing. We need to sit down and discuss this like—”
Her words disintegrated as he circled her waist and lifted her, plopping her unceremoniously astride the saddle. She gasped at the shock of the hard leather against her naked womanly center, then struggled to pull her shift down over her exposed calves and ankles. “This is not what I had in mind when I said we should sit down.”
The earl’s hard mouth ticked up a notch. “You asked me what I wanted.”
Embarrassment turned into indignation. “You wanted to see me in a ridiculous pose?”
“Not quite. This is how I wanted to see you.” He gripped the neckline of her shift. With a single stroke he ripped the thin material open to her waist.
Edward had thought that his ample experience with consorts and courtesans over the past years had jaded him to any surprises. He’d been wrong. Under her demure night-shift, Prudence Withrope had the most stunningly beautiful body he’d ever laid eyes on. Her sweet figure narrowed to a waist that he could circle with both hands, then flared to hips that seemed impossibly voluptuous in such a slim frame. Her pale breasts were high and full, and peaked with nipples so erotically dark that they made his mouth water. He watched them rise and fall as she breathed, and felt his own body swell and harden with each soft, shallow breath.
He wanted her. He ached for her. His hungry gaze swept over her, gorging on the sheer, breathtaking glory of her naked skin. He wouldn’t be her first, but by God he’d be the one she remembered. He stepped into the V of her legs, intending to take her hard, quick, and any other way his body demanded. Without ceremony he started to shuck his breeches.
Her faint gasp drew his gaze upward.
Her hair fell in a wild tumble across her face, adding to the erotic picture she presented. But behind the curtain of hair he caught a glimpse of her green eyes, and what he saw in them riveted him. Desire. Need. And fear. Her glorious hair and goddess figure belonged to a woman, but her uncertain expression belonged to the innocent he’d fallen in love with. The woman who didn’t exist.
It was a trick. It had to be. He’d heard the evidence of her deceit on her lips. She didn’t need gentleness, and he was in no mood to give it. His body screamed for a hard, hot coupling—hell, she owed him that much for the dance she’d led him on. She didn’t deserve the gentle wooing he would have given the Prudence he’d cared about. She didn’t deserve—
“Ah, hell,” he muttered as he took her mouth in a tender, thorough caress.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Rina had resigned herself to the fact that Edward no longer loved her. She’d accepted that he would use her, then cast her aside when he was finished. Since he’d rejected her love, her body was the only thing she had to give him, and she was prepared for it.
What she wasn’t prepared for was being drawn down into a slow, smoldering, achingly gentle kiss.
His mouth devoured her with lavish hunger, melting her uncertainty like wax in a furnace. His tongue filled her mouth, stroking and exploring her softness with a boldness and intimacy that left her weak. She placed her hands on his shoulders, partly for balance, but mostly for the feel of his naked flesh. His skin was unexpectedly smooth, like velvet stretched over steel. She reveled in his strength, the barely contained power that radiated from him. She could feel the tightness in his muscles, the bowstring tautness of a powerful man holding himself in check. She didn’t understand the change in him, but asking would have meant ending his intoxicating kiss, and she could no more do that than she could stop loving him.
His kiss went on and on, changing and deepening with every heartbeat. A slow, deep thrum started in her, like a distant drum growing louder and more insistent. She wanted his kiss to go on forever, and gave a small mew of disappointment when he broke it off. Her disappointment disintegrated, along with conscious thought, as he lowered his head and brushed his lips against her nipple.
Lightning shuddered through her, radiating to every nerve in her body. She’d thought nothing could be more shockingly intimate than the feel of his hand on her breasts. She’d been wrong. He ran his tongue over her, suckling her with the same thorough skill he’d used to seduce her mouth. She buried her hands in his hair, guiding his glorious, wicked mouth from one breast to the other. She was being shameless, but she couldn’t help it. Her body seemed to have a will of its own. Her aching center began to throb with an almost unbearable tightness. Whimpering, she writhed against the hard leather.
His low, feral chuckle was as erotic as his kiss. “This pleases you?”
She bit her lip, stifling a moan that would have told him just how much it pleased her. She had some pride left—not much, but some. She cleared her throat, and tried to sound worldly and nonchalant as she commented, “I thought that a gentleman was only supposed to kiss a lady on her lips.”
He shot her a look rife with disbelief and humor. “Then your education is sorely lacking. Your Quinn could use a few lessons.”
“I told you before, he’s not—” Her protest ended in a strangled gasp as he pressed his hand into the V of her legs.
Her thin shift was no barrier to his demanding fingers. He stroked her with ruthless gentleness, pressing the soft material against the swollen and aching folds of her sex. Time seemed to stretch and contract with each exquisite stroke. Her breath came out in tight, short gasps. Her head fell back and she groaned, seduced by the erotic caress. She felt as if she were two people: the staid, sensible Rina who kept her feelings locked tightly inside her, and a new woman, shameless and wild, who gloried in every stroke of the earl’s wicked fingers.
“Look at me.”
Like a sleepwalker in a dream she obeyed his command. His gaze smoldered with fire, the same fire that burned in her. A faint sheen of sweat gleamed on his body. She could smell his heat, and the rich, masculine scent of
him. She saw tautness in his jaw, could feel the strain in every muscle in his powerful frame. She knew that he was fighting for control.
“Move back,” he ordered roughly.
Still wrapped in the sweet lethargy of passion she slid back against the edge of the saddle until she was pressed against the iron railing behind it. Edward climbed up on the saddle and straddled her across his legs. Her night-shift pooled around her hips and thighs, but underneath she was spread open and totally exposed, and only inches away from his half-undone breeches, and the bulging evidence of his own desire.
Rina’s knowledge of lovemaking was limited at best, but she was fairly certain it involved the woman on her back, with the man properly on top. She’d never imagined anything as shocking as this, where his hands cupped her naked backside, and his bare chest brushed the straining peaks of her sensitive breasts. She’d never imagined the most private and secret part of her being so open to a man, so completely vulnerable to whatever he chose to do. She swallowed. “Edward, should we…lie down?”
