By the end of the evening a majority of the guests at the Pendleton ball had drawn the conclusion that whatever it was that had made Victoria Lewis rebuff Lord Rockford on their wedding day had been resolved.
* * *
Victoria had retired to her room as the last of the carriages drove away from the house. Having removed her finery and excused one of the maids who had waited up to assist her, she unpinned her hair. She had started brushing it out when there was a soft tapping on her door. Believing it to be Amelia, she called out for her to enter.
The door was pushed open. She did not move or speak, but gazed at the figure leaning in the door frame as if it was a ghost. Then quite suddenly she recollected herself. She recognised Laurence’s powerful frame in the candlelight staring at her. Her heart began to beat in deep, fierce thuds of joy. When he had told her he would see her later, she had believed he meant he would meet up with her before she retired, not that he would seek her out in her bedchamber. There was a moment’s silence as she watched him close the door and stride forwards. The room jumped to life about him as his presence filled it, infusing it with his own energy and vigour.
Removing his jacket and loosening his neckcloth, he sat on the sofa, the image of relaxed elegance with arms spread out across the back of it, his foot propped casually atop the opposite knee. He was watching her—relaxed, indulgent. She’d been brushing her hair when he entered and he watched her go to the dressing table and place the brush on its surface. Her movements were graceful and uncertain, like a frightened doe.
Candlelight gleamed on her rich, dark-brown hair as it spilled forward over her shoulders. It glowed warmly on her soft skin. Her long, sooty lashes cast fan-shaped shadows on her smooth cheeks. As he looked at her now, he marvelled anew at the strange aura of innocence about her, then he suppressed a puzzled smile at the realisation that, for some reason, she was assiduously avoiding his eyes. Her behaviour on their wedding day had opposed, defied and challenged him, yet for all her courage she was amazingly shy, now that the hostilities between them were subdued. Based on that sweet, pleading look she’d given him earlier, she was apparently hoping he’d be as stupidly susceptible to her appeal as he’d been before.
‘Well,’ he said in the lazy, sensual drawl that always made her heart melt, ‘this is cosy.’
Cosy! The word swirled around in Victoria’s brain. By his definition, she knew perfectly well that cosy meant—more conducive to intimacy. She knew it, just as clearly as she knew that the situation between them had altered irreversibly from the moment she told him she would like to see him. He knew it, too. She could see the evidence—there was a new softness in his eyes when he looked at her and it was utterly shattering to her self-control. She shook her head at her foolish, futile attempt to deceive herself. There was nothing left of her self-control, no more arguments that mattered, nowhere she could go to hide from the truth. The truth was that she wanted him. And he wanted her. They both knew it.
But something was holding her back. He was casual, too casual, and her whirling thoughts registered that he was treating their meeting with a cool nonchalance that seemed inappropriate.
‘We—we have to talk, Laurence. We cannot keep skirting round the issue. I have to explain—there are things I have to tell you.’
‘I haven’t come here for conversation, Victoria,’ he said, getting to his feet and moving towards her. ‘When you told me you would like to see me, I had the distinct impression you were offering me more than talk. Was I mistaken?’
‘No—only, I—I didn’t realise you intended coming to my bedchamber. I—I have never had a man in my room before.’
‘I already know,’ he said, taking her face between his hands, shoving his fingers through the sides of her hair and turning it up to his. ‘But you are not a stranger to kissing, Victoria, which is making me wonder if you’re ever going to kiss me the way you once did—before you invite me into your bed.’
Victoria burned at his implication, knowing she had neither the desire nor the inclination to send him away. ‘Of course I will—only—I was hoping you would kiss me first.’
Laurence captured her eyes. He knew her and understood her, and he was more confused than ever by what he was doing to her. When they had planned their marriage and he had offered her respectability and a future, she had withheld her virginity. He had not objected to that for he would have it no other way. Tonight, however, she was willing to surrender her virtue unconditionally. Laurence’s conscience chose that moment to reassert itself for the first time in years by reminding him that if he had any scruples, any decency whatsoever, he’d keep his hands off her.
But the feeble protest of his conscience wasn’t enough to deter him. He wanted her and he was going to have her. Victoria had deprived him of his dignity and any future they might have had together as man and wife. Neither his conscience nor anything else was going to deprive him from having her.
Laurence lowered his head and his lips captured hers, moving to her throat, her chin, the corner of her mouth, her cheek, her brow. With strong and surprisingly gentle hands he stroked her hair and lifted it with his hands to savour its weight and silky texture, and all the while she was trembling inside, a weak, hollow feeling in the backs of her knees, the pit of her stomach, warmth glowing and spreading throughout her body as he tilted her head back and finally covered her lips with his once again, kissing her tenderly, holding her tight.
Sliding her hands up his chest and around his neck, holding him close, Victoria kissed him back with a strange combination of naïve expertise and instinctive sensuality. Laurence felt the burgeoning pleasure and astonished joy that was almost beyond bearing. Dragging his lips from hers, he brushed a kiss along her jaw and cheek and temple, then he sought her mouth again, rubbing his lips over their soft contours. Tracing a line between her lips with his tongue, he urged them to part, insisting, and when they did he drove into her mouth like a starving man helplessly trying to satisfy his hunger. The woman in his arms was a willing student, melting against him, crushing her mouth to his, welcoming his kisses, the deep amber pools of her eyes pulling him inexorably into their depths.
What seemed to be an eternity later, tearing his lips from hers, he stood back and quickly removed his shirt, and before Victoria could blink, his hand had slid down her arm and into her palm and her own arms went up around his neck and their mouths met once more. While they kissed, somehow he managed to loosen the strands of her robe and slip it off her shoulders. Her nightdress quickly followed suit. There was almost no time to speak or murmur a faint protest—she wanted him as badly as he seemed to want her.
She buried her hand in the fine, silky black hair that covered his chest, narrowing to a single line just below the belt of his trousers. He made a sound deep in his throat, a guttural moan, and then he slung his free arm around her back and held her tighter still, swinging her in his arms as his lips continued to caress and then crushed, his need aroused, tenderness turning to torment he must assuage. She wound her arms around his neck and hid her face in the curve of his shoulder as he carried her to the bed and set her down on the covers. They were so soft, smelling so sweet and welcoming, and she sank into their softness and looked up at the man who stood beside the bed. Hooking his thumbs under the waistband of his trousers, he tugged and they slid down and his manhood sprang free, ready to rend and ravish. Victoria was limp, she had no will, no strength, and seemed to have melted.
And then he was there, hovering over her, hard and brutal. He kissed her throat and murmured soft words. She held on to his shoulders as her senses reeled, as so many dreams suddenly materialised into a shattering reality. It was real, he was real, he was here, his strong arms holding her to him, his lips tenderly, urgently devouring her own, his warmth, his smell, his lean, sinewy body real, hers, no dream to disappear.
She seemed to soar into a void of violent pleasure. The delirium mo
unted moment by moment until nothing existed but this man, this magic. His mouth was warm, like his hands moving up the skin of her stomach to hold her breasts—this wasn’t the gentle caress he had given her before. This was hungry, explosive, urgent. Pleasure, she thought wildly, as she savoured the moment, erotic pleasure was what this would bring.
They met each other as equals, perfectly matched...and in it, she found a surprising freedom. He took as much from her as he gave and she was only too willing to take. Soon he became a part of her and she experienced pain and she thought she was going to die, but then she felt something new, something incredible as he moved and beauty came, shimmering, shattering beauty, and they moved together, every sinuous stroke of his body lighting fires in her blood. She curled her hands passionately around his shoulders, then raked her fingers down his back. His low groan of pleasure at her touch emboldened her. She kissed him more urgently, caressing his muscled chest, savouring his strength and power as he pinioned her beneath him, her body arching to meet his. She was like a kitten clawing, purring as the beauty became unbearable and she was lost, soaring into oblivion that loomed just ahead, waiting with shuddering intensity.
Closer it came, and he filled her fully and she clasped him and caressed him, expressing her feelings with her heart and all her soul and her body. Their loving drew them closer still, making them one. And then he pulled back and almost left her and she cried out as he filled her yet again, their bodies moulded together, straining to become closer still.
The glory grew and he was hers and she was his and neither of them would be alone again as they moved to the music of love. She knew she couldn’t possibly endure it, not one moment more. He shuddered and as the pale rays of moonlight streamed into the room, she felt the life jetting out of him and she was torn into a million shimmering shreds and cast into the abyss of ecstasy.
Chapter Ten
With sleep hanging over her like a thick haze, after letting her mind float aimlessly, Victoria opened her eyes and looked about the unfamiliar flock wallpapered room. As the grey dawn light filtered through the cracks in the curtains, she was surprised to see the candles were still lit. Her waking thoughts were fragmented and confused. Finding her body completely naked beneath the covers, Victoria suddenly felt her mind begin to clear.
‘Laurence?’ she whispered, as details of the night came back to her in all their intense and exotic clarity. She sensed rather than saw that the bed next to her was empty. Dragging herself up on to the mound of feather pillows she shoved her heavy hair from her face.
Seated in a chair, Laurence was fully dressed, as if he had just come from the ball and nothing had happened in between. He was studying her with a different interest to the interest he had shown in her when he had taken her to bed. And then he smiled—that sleepy, sensual smile of his which had the power to melt her heart. But there was a distance between them, not just a physical distance. A feeling of unease crept into her. Flushing softly and covering her nakedness with the sheet, she met his look with a little frown, her body taut, every muscle stretched against the invisible pull between them.
‘Good morning,’ he said, his eyes running over the voluptuous lines of her figure below the sheet.
‘Good morning,’ she answered somewhat shyly. ‘You’re up early—although I suppose it’s sensible that you leave before anyone is about. I should hate you to be seen leaving my room.’
‘Quite,’ he replied.
‘We—still haven’t talked, Laurence. I think we should.’
‘So do I, but first I want to make you an offer.’
Victoria’s heart throbbed with hope and happiness. ‘What kind of offer?’
‘When you’ve had time to consider it, I’m sure you will agree it will be sensible for us both. Do you want to continue what we’ve started, Victoria?’
‘Are you giving me a choice?’ As soon as she said it, she saw the imperceptible tightening of his jaw and had the strange feeling that she hadn’t given him the sort of answer he wanted.
He looked at her with that straight, disconcerting gaze of his, a glint in his eyes. ‘Yes,’ he said, after a long pause. ‘You can either walk away or stay with me?’
The rush of familiar excitement caused her to become tongue-tied, affected strongly as she was by the force of his presence and the memory of the past night. Emotions swept over her and two spots of high colour touched her cheeks as she remembered the intense passion they had shared.
A tentative smile curved her lips. ‘You are willing to marry me after all I have—’
‘No. Surely you cannot be that naïve or that foolish? Marriage is no longer on the agenda.’ A muscle twitched in his cheek. He eyed her blandly. ‘There has been enough deceit and misunderstanding between us. I am speaking plainly, Victoria, because I should hate to think you have misled yourself. I am asking you to be my mistress. It’s obvious that despite what has happened between us, we share one common interest. We are compatible in bed.’
Flinching from the sting of his tone and the shock of his words, Victoria controlled a tremor of anxiety as he rose from the chair and his tall, powerful frame moved to the fireplace, where he turned and stood, one hand resting on the mantelpiece, watching her with a clinical calm. He was also treating her as if there had been nothing between them, as if they had never shared the intense passion between a man and a woman. It was incredible to her that those firm lips had kissed her, that those hands had caressed and fondled her and given her such delight. It was this incredulity rather than resentment which held her silent for the moment.
Now, in broad daylight, she was sadly aware that the man who had made love to her with such violent tenderness and need, who had made her cry out and feel as if she were the only woman he’d ever made love to, had also made love to countless women, and she was finding it far more difficult to cling to the illusion that it meant more to her than it did to him.
When she didn’t reply he went on, ‘My offer will not make you a lady, but it will give you more of a luxurious life than you can possibly expect on your own. You will find that I can be generous. You will have your own house here in London, with servants, your own carriage and gowns that will make you the envy of every woman in town. You will also have as much freedom as you require, providing you share my bed when I am in London and give to no other man what I am paying for.’
The red stains on Victoria’s cheeks faded. Laurence caught her eye and the silence between them was again charged with tension. Fire sprang into her eyes. She clenched her hands tightly. Her thoughts now were in disarray, desire and reasoning conflicting. ‘Why, you—you arrogant, overbearing—’ she choked back the tears that were cutting off her voice ‘—you want me to be your mistress?’ Behind her words lay the shadow of a struggle. Her objective had one minute looked close within her reach and the next as remote as ever.
Having seen the hurt cloud her eyes when he had made the proposition, Laurence sensed her disappointment, but that was for her to deal with. ‘Think about it,’ he said, turning from her to the door. ‘I’ll contact you in a couple of days.’
Victoria glanced at the floor, her eyes alighting on her robe which had been so easily discarded. ‘Wait. Will you pass me my robe?’ she asked with a forced calm.
Striding back from the door, he did as she bade and, shrugging her arms into the sleeves, she slipped out of bed and wrapped it tightly about her slender form, careful not to expose the tender flesh that had given him such pleasure—although why she should guard against her sensibilities now after all the shocking things he had done to her earlier was beyond her. Feeling less vulnerable now, she could stand and face him. Walking to within an arm’s reach of him, she controlled a small shiver of irritation and hurt pride as she struggled to calm her mounting rage.
Drawing a deep breath, she steeled herself against him. She wanted him, as simply and fiercely as she had e
ver wanted anything in her whole life, but not at the price of her self-respect.
Meeting his gaze head on, managing to keep her fury and humiliation out of her voice, she said, ‘I can give you your answer now.’ She tossed back her head, her hair falling heavily down her spine. ‘So, I am to understand that I am no longer a woman worthy enough—no longer a woman to whom you will offer marriage. Well, for your information, when I allowed you into my bed I did not know what to expect from you.’ Her lips twisted with sarcasm. ‘I am sure you will understand when I tell you that when I became completely carried away by your amorous attentions, marriage did not enter my head. And now you have decided we are compatible sexually, I see that you have no use for me at all except my body. I am not supposed to think or feel, I am just supposed to amuse you when you are bored and let you into my bed when you are in the mood. What you want from me is some tainted liaison in exchange for my virtue.’
‘Which you have already lost,’ he reminded her in biting tones.
The belief that he might love her after all evaporated. In a blinding flash of sick humiliation, Victoria understood that he had done this to degrade her—his monstrous pride had demanded this unspeakable revenge for her crime on their wedding day. Bile rose in her throat as she realised she had submitted to him without a struggle. He hadn’t deceived her, she realised with shame and self-loathing, she had deceived herself. He hadn’t stolen her virtue, she had given it of her own free will.
‘Of course. How foolish of me to forget,’ she bit back, blinded with wrath and humiliation, her hands clenched into fists at her sides. ‘I’ve just realised what a monster and a heartless blackguard you really are, Lord Rockford. I am not accepting your offer,’ she clarified. The freezing look on his face as he watched her saunter away from him was nothing compared to her own fury. ‘When I failed to turn up at the church on our wedding day—for which I have apologised—I was unaware that the same thing had happened to you once before—’
The Master of Stonegrave Hall Page 21
