“How can you claim you love me after what you did?” She was sobbing now.
The sight of her weeping pierced him, like the blade of a dagger sinking directly into his heart. He wanted to explain everything, but the words would not find his tongue. Even if they did, he doubted she would believe him. Her love for her traitorous sister was apparent. He was the man who had dallied with her, the man she had believed responsible for getting a babe on Amelia and then abandoning her.
There was only one manner in which he could fathom dashing away all the bitterness and betrayal keeping them apart. He drew her body flush against his, the fullness of her breasts crushed into his chest, the lush curves of her hips and belly melting into him. And then, his mouth took hers.
The kiss was meant to be soothing, but from the instant his lips touched hers, need and yearning crashed over him. He could not control himself. It had been two endless years since he had last felt her responding so sweetly.
This kiss was more than the physical. His tongue slid inside the velvet heat of her mouth. She tasted more delicious than the finest confection, like sin and Sarah and punch, and he wanted to kiss her forever. To take her in his arms and carry her all the way to his chamber. He wanted to wed her, to bed her, to love her.
But he would settle now for the paradise of her in his arms, the mewl of surrender tearing from her. Her arms swept around his neck, holding him to her rather than pushing him away. Her tongue touched his. Hunger fired through his blood. Desire made his cock twitch to life in his breeches.
It had been so long. So damned long.
Their reunion was bittersweet. Bitter because he knew she remained torn by what she believed of him. Sweet because there was nothing better than Sarah in his arms, kissing him back with the same voracious hunger he felt for her, even if she did not dare trust or believe in him.
Even if there was a ballroom filled with people only a room away. Even if he could never have more from her than this. But if this was all he could have, he would damn well take advantage. He kissed her harder, deeper. And then he withdrew, dragging his mouth down the smooth, delicate column of her neck. He found the rapid flutter of her pulse, the sensitive dip behind her ear.
Her breathy sigh of appreciation told him she was every bit as responsive there as he had recalled. He could not resist flicking his tongue over her flesh, tasting her. Her scent was even headier here. His hand slid up the delineation of her spine, coasting over the back of her neck. Her skin was silken and hot, burning into him, tantalizing him.
His fingers dipped into the heavy mass of her wig. He wanted it gone. He longed for the golden locks he remembered. Pins scattered to the floor. The wig fell upon the carpet. He didn’t care. Soon, he had her hair unbound, tumbling down her back. He nipped her earlobe, kissed his way back to her mouth, and took it again. He was ravenous for her, and the years and deceptions could not compare to his need. He was insatiable.
How was it that mere hours before, she had been gone from his life, forever out of reach, and now, she was here, where she belonged? Her hands were in his hair, too, sifting through the strands, raking his scalp, then moving over his shoulders, tracing over his chest, as if she could not get enough of him. As if she healed their severed bonds with her touch alone.
But then, suddenly, she tore her mouth from his and stepped away. She held a hand to her kiss-swollen lips, gazing at him with a shocked stare. Everything in him cried out at the loss of her in his arms, but he forced himself to remain where he was. He would not push her. There was so much between them that remained unsaid, so many explanations, apologies, the unraveling of all Amelia’s lies…and he could not bear the notion of sending Sarah running from him again.
“Forgive me,” he said, his voice thick with suppressed desire. “I did not intend to take things so far.”
Her hand went to her hair then, assessing the damage he had wrought. “My hair is ruined.”
And if anyone saw her in her present state, looking like a woman who had just been ravished, she would be ruined as well. Devil take it, what was the matter with him, treating her so carelessly? He had lost her once, but if he had a chance at winning her back, it would not be because she was forced into wedlock with him. He would not bring scandal or shame upon her.
“I will escort you to the rear entrance,” he said, his mind quickly forming a solution. “I will see to it that your carriage awaits you there. No one will see you, Sarah.”
Her eyes, darkened with passion, flashed with a new burst of anger. “It is a pity you could not protect Amelia in the same fashion when you compromised her. I suppose a rakehell like you must make a habit of this sort of thing. Has time and experience taught you how to better deal with the consequences of your actions?”
Hell, he had made a muck of things. “I do not make a habit of this, I assure you. And I will explain what happened before, if you will allow it. May I have permission to call on you?”
“I do not think it wise,” she denied.
“Please.” He did not hesitate. “For you, I will beg. Upon my knees if you so wish it.”
“Markham,” she protested.
“Sarah.” He sank to his knees before her, entreating her with his gaze. There was no room for pride when he had a glimmer of hope she may forgive him, that they may have a second chance after all. “Let me call upon you tomorrow.”
“No.” Her refusal was quick, succinct. Cutting.
“One chance is all I ask, Sarah,” he pressed, not willing to give up. “One meeting with me.”
“Tomorrow is too soon,” she said, looking torn. “The day after, perhaps. Now rise, if you please.”
Relief washed over him, along with gratitude. He stood. “Thank you, my lady. You will not regret it. I promise you.”
Her expression hardened. “Promises are easily broken, my lord. It is a lesson I have learned far too well. Pray do not make any you cannot keep.”
Her scorn nettled, but he understood. He bowed. “Your servant, my lady. Now allow me to see you to your carriage.”
There was so much more he wanted to say, but in the end, he simply escorted her through the servants’ stair in silence and watched in agony as she disappeared into the darkness of the night.
Chapter Five
“Would either of you care to explain the meaning of this?” demanded Mr. Kirkwood, the following afternoon, storming into the brightly lit salon where Sarah and Lady Frederica were taking tea.
He still wore his hat and coat, as if he had come straight to them after returning home from his club. He held a newspaper gripped between his gloved fingers, which he deposited upon the table as if it were aflame.
“Do calm down, if you please, my love,” Lady Frederica said serenely to her husband. “Lady Sarah and I were just about to take tea. Would you care for some? Or perhaps some seed cakes and biscuits?”
With a sinking sensation, Sarah’s gaze flitted over the paper her host—the famed owner of one of London’s best-known gaming hells and a business associate of her father’s—had all but flung to the table. She recognized the gossip rag Town Tatler. The caricature on the front page made it abundantly clear what had been the source of Mr. Kirkwood’s displeasure.
A scene of masked revelers thronged in a cemetery. Near a headstone reading Here Lies Lady A.B., a tall, raffish looking gentleman had swept an unmasked lady from her feet. It was undeniably Lord Markham and herself, cavorting atop Amelia’s grave. Her stomach clenched.
She felt ill.
“I do not want tea, my lady,” Mr. Kirkwood warned his wife.
And though his tone possessed an edge, it was apparent precisely which of them was the source of his ire. His hard stare was pinned to Sarah.
It would seem her folly last night was catching up to her sooner than she had supposed it might. “Forgive me, Mr. Kirkwood. I attended the Earl of Markham’s ball, and I am afraid I…lost my mask.”
No need to reveal that Markham had removed her mask. That his touch had been
so achingly reverent she had nearly sobbed. That his kisses and protestations of love had made her question everything she had spent the last two years believing.
“You went to Markham’s ball,” Mr. Kirkwood repeated, his eyebrow arching as he sent a look between Sarah and Lady Frederica. “Alone?”
“Duncan, do not be angry,” Lady Frederica began. “I made certain she had our most trusted driver.”
“Yes,” Sarah added. “It was my idea, Mr. Kirkwood. Lady Frederica did not wish for me to attend. I convinced her by telling her I would hire a hack and go myself.”
“What the devil were either of you thinking?” Mr. Kirkwood demanded. “Your father will have my hide for this. I promised him I would keep you out of trouble, that Lady Frederica would be a calming influence upon you.”
“Calming? Me?” Lady Frederica laughed. “I am sure no one has ever supposed me to be a calming influence, darling.”
With her raven hair and her undeniable beauty, she was the perfect complement to Mr. Kirkwood’s golden good looks. The two of them were an ideal couple, hopelessly in love. The very last thing Sarah wished was to be the cause of any discord between them. She admired them both very much, and their hospitality had been just what she required, precisely when she needed it.
“Madam, you allowed an innocent lady staying beneath our roof to flit about London unchaperoned,” Mr. Kirkwood snapped. “Do you dare find humor in this? The article suggests there is far more than her mere attendance at the ball which need concern us.”
Oh dear.
Sarah’s eyes closed for a moment as she reeled with the knowledge she must have been seen alone in Markham’s presence, her hair unbound, and her lips thoroughly kissed.
“Lady Sarah?” Lady Frederica prompted quietly, censure gathering in her tone.
When she had made her return to the Kirkwood residence last night, she had been so shaken from her interaction with Markham that she had gone straight to her chamber. Over a late breakfast, she had relayed much—though decidedly not all—of the troubling dialogue she had shared with the earl upon confronting him.
She opened her eyes reluctantly, finding both her host and hostess watching her, awaiting her response. And she owed them her honesty, she knew.
She sighed. “I am afraid I may have been seen alone in the presence of Lord Markham. We were in his study. Twice.”
And the second time had proved far more illuminating than the first. Heat rushed to her face as remembrance washed over her. He had kissed her so sweetly, with a barely leashed hunger that answered the way she felt for him. She had not realized, until his lips had met hers, just how much she had missed him. Just how badly she had longed for him.
Just how much she loved him still, even after everything that had happened, much to her everlasting shame.
“Oh, my dear,” Lady Frederica said then, sounding anguished. “What have you done?”
She had ruined herself, in all likelihood. Once more, the Earl of Markham had charmed her. Once more, he had made her long to believe in him.
“You have sealed your fate,” Mr. Kirkwood said grimly. “I will send word to your father immediately. I expect he will demand satisfaction from Markham.”
“Please forgive me,” she begged. “It was never my intention to bring shame upon either of you. I only wished to confront Lord Markham about what he had done to my sister, nothing more.”
“Did he force you or conduct himself in anything less than a gentlemanly fashion?” Mr. Kirkwood demanded, his tone lethal. “You must tell me, Lady Sarah. I have no knowledge that he is a brute, but by God…”
“No,” she hastened to assure him. “Lord Markham did not force me to do anything I did not wish to do. I went with him willingly.”
Her ability to resist him had vanished. Not even the anger she had held onto had been enough to withstand the part of her which had never stopped loving him.
“At least I will not have to kill him,” Mr. Kirkwood grumbled.
Sarah shuddered, for Duncan Kirkwood was not a man she would want as her enemy, despite the fact that he was as tender and loving a husband she had ever seen to Lady Frederica. He still possessed an undeniable air of ruthlessness.
“You wish to continue with the publication of the book, however, Lady Sarah?” Lady Frederica pressed, her countenance growing concerned.
Guilt assailed her. In the mad whirl following her return from the ball yesterday, she had not even spared her book of poems another thought. She had spent the bulk of the night pacing her floor, awash in a flood of memories and a resurgence of the old feelings she had once felt for Markham.
“I…do not know,” she admitted. “If Lord Markham is innocent, I have paid him a grave disservice in the book. I would not want him to be punished for the sins of another.”
“Innocent?” Mr. Kirkwood’s tone betrayed his confusion. “Just what the devil are the two of you talking about?”
“Lady Sarah is the lady who wrote the volume of poetry your press is printing,” Lady Frederica explained before Sarah could. “You recall the one I speak of? It is a flawless collection of poems.”
Mr. Kirkwood’s brows furrowed as he stared at his wife. “Ladys Amelia’s Revenge, that is the one? The incendiary piece that would cause a tremendous stir in society upon its release?”
Sarah sighed heavily. “Perhaps we need to begin at the beginning.”
“I want to marry her.”
There they were, the words Philip had been holding within him. Foolish, stupid words. Nonsensical. Irrational.
Undeniable.
Philip raked a hand through his hair. Though it had been damn near torture, he had kept his distance from Lady Sarah Bolingbroke, yet in the span of one waltz and one evening, he was just as lost in her as he had been the night he had kissed her at the Bellingham ball. Every bit as desperate to see her again, to touch her, to hold her in his arms. To kiss her senseless. He was left with no choice but to admit the grim truth to himself: he would have her in a second if she would accept his suit.
“Have you worms for brains?” the Duke of Montrose asked him, disrupting Philip’s thoughts.
“Yes,” he said solemnly, “I expect I do.”
Monty was a trusted friend of Philip’s, thoroughly dissolute, ever ready to fall into his cups, yet fiercely loyal. Not to mention droll. But Philip was not in the mood for levity just now. Indeed, he was not even certain he was in the mood for company at all, though he had been the one who requested his friend join him at his townhome, rather than meeting at Gentleman Jackson’s or the Duke’s Bastard, as they were more often wont to do.
“You cannot possibly wish to ensnare yourself in the parson’s mousetrap after all.” Monty shuddered. “You were fortunate enough to avoid it once with the chit’s older sister. Why the hell would you willingly submit yourself to such a prison again? You escaped, Markham. You escaped.”
Philip winced. “Lady Amelia died, Monty. I should hardly think it a cause for celebration.”
Monty’s eyebrows rose, and he lowered his snifter of brandy to Philip’s desk as he sat up straighter in his chair. “The Bolingworth chit was a conniving jade, and you know it. She did her damnedest to entrap you into marrying her, and she would have succeeded had not the devil called in his due.”
“Bolingbroke,” he corrected, but not because of his former betrothed. Rather, because of Lady Sarah. “Not Bolingworth. And though she did indeed do her best to entrap me—successfully, I might add—you are being disrespectful to the dead.”
“Hang me.” Monty had the audacity to grin. “Do you think she will take offense?”
Monty’s sacrilege knew no bounds. It was part of his odd charm. Shaking his head, Philip poured himself another snifter of spirits. This would be a night of over-indulgence, just like many others they had shared together in the last few months. However, unlike previous evenings, tonight he was not seeking to drown the past, but to make sense of the present.
If such a Sisyphean task wer
e even possible. He rather had a feeling it was not.
“You are a cold-hearted scoundrel,” he accused his friend with little heat before he took a fortifying gulp of brandy. It was true he had no love for Lady Amelia. Her treachery had cut him to his very marrow and had cost him the only happiness he had ever known.
“A proud scoundrel and a cold-hearted roué of the first order,” Monty agreed, draining the remainder of his own glass before refilling it. “If I were kind, I would be deadly boring. I’d traipse about Almack’s drinking ratafia and dancing the quadrille with a gaggle of insipid misses, worrying over propriety and other tripe that makes me want to retch. To hell with insipid misses, I say. That is just the sort of thing that landed you in this wretched mess to begin with. Honor and duty can go to the devil. I would far rather be between the thighs of a lusty wench any day. Or perhaps between the thighs of one lusty wench while another is behind me—”
“I believe I have heard more than enough, Monty,” Philip interrupted. Even his own dissipation had its limits, after all. He had no wish to envision Monty in the hedonistic delights he was rumored to enjoy at the most fashionable brothel in London.
Also, by all accounts, the most depraved.
“Whispering seductive nothings into my ear was what I intended to say.” Monty gave him a shrug of feigned innocence. “If you supposed I was about to utter otherwise, you must blame your own wicked mind.”
The suggestion he was more depraved than the Duke of Montrose was laughable. No one was as wicked as Monty, not even the devil himself. He had more than earned his moniker in the gossip rags, the Duke of Debauchery, over the years.
“I still love her,” he said suddenly, the admission torn from him. “I never stopped, damn it all.”
“I hope for your sake she is nothing like her cold witch of a sister,” Monty quipped, before draining his brandy snifter once more. “If the expression upon her face while the two of you danced last night was any indication, the lady does not hold you in high esteem.”
The Midnight Hour: All-Hallows’ Brides Page 20
