Oh, she remembered the want. The stark power of awakening need. The way he’d dragged her off to some corner the first chance he’d got and devoured her with sense-stealing kisses. Before that night, their explorations had been relatively chaste, no matter how scandalous she’d felt afterward. That night with hungry lips, with hot tongue, with wandering hands tugging at the fastenings of her bodice, he’d shown her the meaning of urgency, of desperation, of raw desire.
The next day, he’d paid a call on her father, and she spent the next few weeks in a dreamland of preparing a trousseau and being fitted for a wedding gown and anticipating the full exploration of that raw desire on her wedding night.
Most frightening of all, now, was the realization that he could sweep her back to that place so easily. With a mere sentence, he’d just done so. She made a desperate attempt at stoking the fire of her fury, but any heat originated from much closer to her feminine core, where a liquid pulsing had taken root.
“What are you thinking?” he asked, the words low and compelling.
She ought to tell him off, but she couldn’t summon the words. Her thoughts escaped against her will. “I’m remembering.”
“So am I.” He drew the pads of his fingers along her cheek to her neck, just as he’d done that night. Her skin recalled the exact texture of his caress, and deep inside, she clenched with anticipation. That night, he hadn’t stopped at her shoulder. No, he’d continued and taken a great deal more liberties, and she’d allowed every last one. Allowed, reveled in, craved more.
He still had the power to awaken even her tiniest nerve endings with a mere touch.
“We were good together.” He repeated the stroke, moving closer, crowding her with his body, but her own ached for the contact. “So, so good. Have you ever wondered just how good it might have been?”
“I … no,” she sighed, helpless to stop the flood of memories and desire that doused her ire.
“You’re lying.” Not an accusation. Not at all, when he leaned so close she could taste the words on his lips.
How he tempted her to bridge the gap. In fact, she was sure that was just what he wanted. She lifted her head oh-so-slightly, not quite giving in.
Another stroke, a mere flutter of his fingers along the side of her neck, the contact maddeningly delicate. So soft, she clamped her teeth on a protest. She ought to order him to remove his hand from her person, but her traitorous body demanded more. It demanded firm caresses. It demanded the electrifying sweep of his tongue against hers. It demanded scandalous touches in shocking places. It demanded completion.
“What would it take, Henrietta? What would it take for you to let me in? For I haven’t forgotten a single bit of what we were to each other.”
Her mind whirled. Part of her knew she ought to oppose him. More than that, she should push him away and never let him get this close again. But that was only one small fraction of her will. The rest lay enthralled under a blanket of languid sensuality. Her throat was parched, and only he could offer moisture to relieve her. And dear Lord, how she wanted relief.
He touched his lips to her cheek, swift and featherlight. Here and here and here—the edge of her cheekbone, the arch of her brow, the tip of her nose. If he kept up in this manner, she could deny he was actually kissing her and let him carry on. And she wanted him to carry on. With force. A familiar ache radiated through her midsection.
He covered her face with his kisses, all but her mouth, until her lips burned with the need to taste his. Instead, he moved downward along her jawline, her neck, the lobe of her ear. He moistened the spot just below where her pulse raced out of control. Her knees weakened, and she sagged against him, the wall at her back and her hands on his shoulders the only support.
It had been like this then, too, in that darkened corridor, the strains of a waltz filtering from a far-off ballroom. No music reached her ears now. Only the rapid thump of her heart and the rush of blood in her ears.
He took her by the shoulders and molded her body to his. His strength felt so familiar. So right. So necessary to her existence. His hands swept the length of her spine, down, up, down again, daring farther, dipping below her waist to her hips. He fitted her pelvis to his, and the length of his arousal burned against her belly.
Lord, she remembered that, too. Remembered the fascination, the curiosity, the desire to take that hardened flesh in her hand and stroke. She remembered it because the same urgency took her now. She lived at once in the past and in the present moment, because the two had blended into each other.
“Do you remember now?” His voice was rough with need against the crook of her neck. “Do you remember how it was between us?”
“Yes.” She couldn’t have stopped herself if she tried, if she wanted to. But she didn’t want to. She wanted to relive, to experience, to feel. She wanted him.
He pulled away, set his hands on her shoulders, and took her mouth. This kiss was nothing like those that had come before. It was raw and needful, nearly agonizing in its intensity. His lips tore at hers, but she followed, her hands in his hair, her body pressed to his.
His tongue thrust past her parted lips, and she welcomed the invasion. He belonged inside her. She wanted him to be part of her. If only she might hold him, take him into her, keep part of him there, he might never leave her again.
He had returned, after all, and with this reunion, it was as if he’d never left.
She moaned into his mouth, wild now, her blood racing, wanting to get closer. Closer.
His fingers teased at the buttons of her bodice. Yes. Let him touch, as he’d touched before. Her nipples ached in anticipation of his hands. His lips. His tongue.
Without warning, he pulled away. “We cannot stay here.”
No, they couldn’t. Not in this corridor. Not when a servant might happen by.
He took her hand, his thumb running across her knuckles, and pulled her down the passageway. She tripped after him, heart still pounding, mind still whirling with the import of what might happen between them.
What might happen … And had he lost his head in this manner with his deceased wife? Is that how he’d ended up married to the woman?
She stopped and snatched her hand from his. “Where are you taking me?”
He pulled up short and turned, eyes smoldering. “To my room.”
As if it were a common, everyday occurrence that he dragged besotted ladies to his chambers. And she’d nearly fallen. “What are your intentions?”
“I thought I’d made them perfectly clear.” The enticing rasp of his voice speared through her heart and deep into her belly. He leaned close once again, as if he planned on befuddling her with more kisses.
She firmed her knees and placed a hand in the center of his chest. Pushed. She’d worked out enough of men’s intentions when she was eighteen. A few heated encounters with Alexander and her mind had filled in the rest. Only, then his intentions had been honorable enough that he was willing to wait for their wedding night.
But she was older now, and acting as a paid companion. She was on the shelf, and she knew what men expected of her. Rather than setting a ring on her finger, they seemed to think they could install her in a fashionable dwelling and pay for her upkeep for a few months until they tired of her. Or they’d tried. She’d slapped the last man to propose such an arrangement.
He asked you to marry him. She shoved that thought aside, but it hovered about her head like an irritating fly.
“You’re trying to seduce me. I do not intend to let you succeed.” No matter how much she wanted it—but she’d rather die than admit that.
“I … I am not trying to seduce you.” He stepped back and raked his hand through his hair. “That is, it wasn’t my intention in leading you out into the corridor for … that … it just happened.”
His discomfiture ought to have set her at ease. He never lost his composure. Never. Not the Alexander she knew. Not the man who had proposed to her. He was always self-assured in his confidence that
he was doing the right thing. He knew what was right, and he did it, even if that meant stopping before she was ruined and proposing marriage like a proper gentleman.
“You cannot deny the pull between us,” he went on, his voice falling to a low rumble, as if that seductive tone might somehow sway her once again.
“No, I cannot deny it. But I can also choose not to act upon it.”
“And what if I gave you another choice?” He steeped the question in pure temptation.
“What other choice is there?”
“The one I’ve already offered you.” Offer. The word shot through her like a bolt of lightning. “As poorly as I may have phrased the question, I was in earnest when I asked you to become my wife.”
She sagged against the wall. His statement held as much force as his kisses to knock the breath from her. To weaken her knees, and indeed, all her other joints. Her spine first and foremost. And why should she grant him that power?
She let her gaze trail to the swath of black fabric on his upper arm. “And what of your first wife? The one for whom you carry so much respect?”
He tore at the knot and cast the band to the floor. “To hell with that.”
His growl made her knees buckle once more.
“Do you not wish to observe a proper mourning period?” Blast it all, why could she not make her tone carry more authority than a newborn mouse?
“She deserves one, yes, but not if it means you refuse me. Damn it, do you not see?” He stepped closer. Crowding her, his chest pressed to her breasts, hips aligned, his palms planted on either side of her head. “My feelings for her and my feelings for you are nothing alike. Nothing. I could not have credited it, but when I saw you again, I realized nothing had changed. Matters still lie unsettled between us. I mean to put the situation to rights, even if it takes the rest of my life.”
She swallowed. Damn him for sounding so completely convincing. Not just his words, but his proximity. His lips hovering over hers. His breath wafting across her cheeks. His essence. Him.
Temptation itself, for he’d resurrected feelings in her, emotions she’d thought long buried along with baser urges. Longing. Lust. And now he offered a means of exploration—as long as she was willing to set aside the way he’d hurt her. To open herself to the possibility once more. To give him that power.
“You … you only mean to save face.” Somehow she found the strength to reply, but the words emerged on a husky note, and her body craved his. “You’ve found yourself with the means to honor an old promise beyond any hope, and so you’ll do it, and the consequences be damned.”
“It isn’t about promises. It’s about righting a past wrong.” He plucked at her collar, limp from too many launderings. “It’s about restoring you to your proper place in society. You were never meant to be a paid companion.”
No more than she was meant to be a governess, but she’d also rejected society’s expectations. “Who claimed I was meant to be a wife?”
“You did. When you accepted my first proposal.”
“I am no longer that girl.”
“Yes, I know, and all because of me.” He stepped back and scrubbed a hand over his eyes. “This is what I want to make up to you. I’m asking you to give me the chance to make it right.”
“We do not need to take matters to such an extent.” The simple fact of their wedding wouldn’t set the past aright. Not unless he accompanied it with an acknowledgment that he’d broken her heart. Not unless he might prove to her that he wouldn’t do so a second time.
“But that’s just it, we do. That was my promise to you. One you accepted. And I’m here to keep it.”
She suppressed a sigh. She could argue with him until the next morning and still he might not see her side. “You reneged on that promise when you married another.”
“I know.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “But circumstances have changed, and I find myself in a position to right the wrong I did you. You do not have to give me an answer now. I only ask you to consider. Can you do that much?”
Pressing her lips together, she nodded. If she agreed, he would at least give her some time to formulate a solid refusal.
“Thank you.” His smile was brilliant. It transformed his face and made him look younger, enough to cause her heart to stutter. He grasped her shoulders briefly before striding off down the corridor. His boots thumped confidence on the parquet.
Henrietta blew out a breath. So certain he was of victory. She’d never been on a battlefield. She’d only ever heard accounts of battle from her brother’s best friend, who had been in the cavalry. Now she had the distinct impression she knew what the struggle was like. What she didn’t know was whether she’d dodged a bullet or taken it straight to the heart.
Chapter Thirteen
An idiot, that was what he was. A bloody fortunate idiot, since he’d stopped himself and convinced her to consider his proposal. He’d nearly allowed his cock to lead him to damnation.
And with Henrietta just now, it was hardly the first time. He’d done it with her eight years ago, and he’d done it with Marianne.
Alexander leaned his shoulders against the door to his bedchamber and tamped down the last insistent vestiges of desire. Just what was it about Miss Henrietta Upperton that she might lead him astray not once but twice?
He called to mind the eighteen-year-old acquaintance of his sister, a pale girl whose white ball gown had made her skin look even more washed out. Even-featured with light brown hair, not blond as fashion dictated. Slight curves. But none of that mattered. The snap in her blue eyes eclipsed everything else. He’d known it even before he’d engaged her in conversation, and once he had, her spark of intelligence intrigued. Little by little, he coaxed her to reveal a fascinating spirit that might best most members of society in a battle of irreverence.
She was too well bred to allow that side of her show. Or perhaps her mother had badgered the tendency out of her. But on occasion, she let herself slip. The first time it had happened in his presence occurred at that same ball where he’d made her acquaintance. As he escorted her off the crowded dance floor, she pulled up short, her eyes rounded in surprise.
“He just pinched … Oh, never mind,” she added hastily, waving a rose-patterned fan in front of her flushed face.
“Who?”
But who had done what was impossible to tell for certain in the crush, although Lord Chuddleigh seemed to be making a hasty enough retreat. Lord Chuddleigh whose wandering hands were notorious and who took yearly advantage of a new crop of girls making their come-outs. Alexander gritted his teeth.
Henrietta glanced over her shoulder. “I suppose that’s the most the lecherous old bug—er, beggar can hope for.”
He stood in shock for a moment, not quite believing what had almost emerged from her mouth, while her cheeks flushed a far deeper pink than the roses on her fan. She lowered her gaze and murmured something, no doubt expecting him to extricate himself from the situation and never again ask her to dance. Instead, he threw back his head and laughed long and hard.
He called on her the following day. Afterward, he sought out her company at function after function, hoping to cajole her into forgetting herself once more.
From there, the physical attraction had followed as a natural consequence. He overlooked her paleness, for her mind added a color to her personal palette, subtle nuances of tone for the discerning eye to perceive.
And he had discerned enough to be fascinated. Tempted. Seduced.
Damn it, but she still captivated. All the more so now that she no longer had to guard her tongue. At her age, her hopes of making a match had faded, and he harbored no doubts his aunt had hired her as a companion because of her wit. Not that his aunt would ever let on, but the old lady would natter about enough outrageous things until Henrietta could no longer contain herself.
If she refused him in the end, he’d be tempted to feign injury and stay on.
A knock at his door pulled him from his thoughts. “Co
me in.”
A footman entered. “Your pardon, but this message was delivered for you.”
With a nod, Alexander took the note, but he waited until he was alone once more to unfold it. Slowly, he deciphered his captain’s scrawl. The Marianne had docked in Falmouth for repairs. From there, she’d make for London, where her cargo would be unloaded, and the profits of that shipment would line the pockets of the East India Company. Some sailors from Sanford’s Hope had filtered into the port town, battered and bedraggled, but little chance remained that any others would turn up. No more of the other ship was recovered. Confirmed then, and without insurance, Alexander’s personal stake in this venture was lost. He sent up a silent prayer for the families of the lost crewmen.
At the final sentence, his eyes narrowed. A few of the Marianne’s crew had disappeared.
Not that there was anything strange about that. Seamen moved easily from ship to ship, looking for jobs as they could get them. Why wait until one’s pay had been frittered away on grog and doxies, when one might have an opportunity on another voyage? Any crewmen who had signed on in India would face the same treatment Satya had. More than likely, they’d find a ship bound for home as soon as possible.
They shouldn’t concern him. Shouldn’t, but a memory flitted through Alexander’s mind. Tilly mumbling behind his counter, rattled, threatened. Unsettling, that, but no one beyond those he trusted knew his wife’s jewel box was even in the manor. And that legacy mattered more than the rest of his cargo. He’d find a way to recoup the other losses. Somehow.
He’d hoped to line his pockets with sufficient funds to return to England for good. He’d had more than his fill of the Orient with its corruption, and his daughters needed a proper English upbringing. He’d made his wife no deathbed promises—her passing had been all too unexpected and suspect—but he knew what she would have wanted for her girls. She’d have seen them educated, taught proper deportment, raised to make brilliant matches and take their rightful place in society one day.
What a Lady Craves Page 12
