0373298811 (R)

by Ann Lethbridge

  Her posture relaxed, somewhat. A crease formed between her brows, as if she did not quite understand what he was trying to tell her. He wanted to kiss away that little frown, but knew she would not be pleased at such a gesture of affection. Not yet.

  ‘It is not the sort of thing a respectable woman should be about,’ she said. ‘But with the information I had, I could see no alternative course of action.’

  She would have come to him and asked him to handle it, if he’d had her trust. He ignored the pang of disappointment. It would require a great deal of effort to earn this woman’s trust. It would be like fighting the French on the Iberian Peninsula, moving forward inch by inch, until a last final rush carried the day.

  Or defeat stared him in the face. What was it they had used to say before battle? The risk was worth the prize. And he had won an inch of ground—she had asked for his escort.

  ‘If respectable women would help their troubled sisters more often, as you did today, then perhaps—’ Hell, he had not meant to think of his mother. Of her downward spiral. Had someone like Caro come along things might have been different. He might have been different.

  ‘Perhaps?’ she asked, breaking into his unwanted memories.

  ‘Perhaps the world would be a better place for all.’

  For a moment he thought she would question him further, but she did not. She would not pry, because she did not feel she had the right. In one way he was glad of it; in another, the past seemed to weigh him down more than usual. He almost opened his mouth to speak of it. To share the guilt of it. Almost.

  She breathed deep. An inward sigh.

  ‘You are upset,’ he divined.

  Surprise filled her eyes. She stretched her neck as if it was stiff. ‘A little.’

  More than a little. He got up and went around behind her. He put his hand on her shoulder, felt the tension. He rubbed a slow circle with his thumb. Then another and felt some of the tension leave her. But not all. ‘You are also angry.’

  She sighed. ‘I am angry that a young woman was taken advantage of for the sake of a few red ribbons. I am angry that another woman would actually condone the ruination of so young a girl.’

  He dug deeper with his fingers and she groaned. Her shoulders drooped; her head fell forward. ‘How do you know how to do that?’

  ‘My mother taught me.’ His fingers moved over her nape, caressing, massaging the knot of muscle at the base of her neck.

  When had he ever mentioned his mother to anyone?

  ‘That is blissful.’ She made a soft sound of pleasure that went straight to his groin.

  Not nearly blissful enough.

  ‘And you are angry at yourself,’ he suggested gently.

  She shot a glance over her shoulder like a warning volley, then slumped back against the cushions. ‘I was so terrified about going into that place I could scarcely speak for the way my heart rose in my throat. Then, once I was there, it was as if I was watching things happen from a long way off. Watching myself speak so calmly, so determinedly and wondering who that woman could possibly be.’ She smiled. ‘Now I feel as if I have not an ounce of strength left.’

  ‘The same thing happens to soldiers facing a battle,’ he said. ‘The initial fear and excitement of what is to come. Then the attack. Fear is gone, pain is gone, and everything comes down to one slow minute after another of fighting for your life.’

  He ceased his massaging, but left his hand on her shoulder, knowing the warmth would also help. ‘Better?’

  ‘Much better.’ In a gesture of gratitude, she covered his hand with one of hers. A gentle giving touch. The delicacy of her small white hand against the brown of his blunt-fingered paw a stark contrast. Unable to resist, he kissed her fingers, then the vulnerable place where feather-light tendrils of hair skimmed her nape.

  She exhaled a breath. ‘We must not. Someone might come in.’

  His groin tightened at the unspoken promise. He strode to the door and turned the key.

  ‘Blade,’ she said, her voice attempting scandalised but sounding breathy with longing, her eyelids heavy with sensual need. ‘It is the middle of the day.’

  ‘All the better to see you, my lady.’

  ‘You would play the wolf?’

  The hound panted its agreement. He gave her a look that told her given the chance he would gobble her up and she smiled. A beautiful welcoming smile.

  In a few swift strides, he returned to stand behind her again. Began the gentle massage of her neck and shoulders all over again, though this time she was already soft and pliant beneath his fingers. With a sigh she gave herself up to the pleasure.

  A surrender that caused him to harden to iron in his breeches.

  For all her outward primness, she was a creature of sensuality. Of great passion. She lowered her head, leaned forward, to give him better access to the muscles across her shoulders. To rouse her to new heights of pleasure, to show her what pleasure a man should give his woman, when her husband had not, was an imperative he could not afford to give in to. He wanted her for himself. Wanted to sink into her heat. Lose himself to the wonders of her lovely warmth and never give her up when a dalliance was all this could ever be. Because in the end, she would give him up and he didn’t need the pain of any more losses.

  He leaned down and brushed his lips across her shoulder. She shivered.

  He kissed the side of her neck, nibbling with his lips, teasing the shell of her ear with his tongue, nipping at her earlobe with his teeth while his hand continued to ease the tension across her shoulders. He rubbed circles with his thumb and massaged with his fingers. With two hands he had been so much more adept, but she did not seem to care.

  His lips explored her jawline. She turned her head so their lips met.

  Without breaking from the lovely feeling of her mouth on his, he came around to the front of the sofa and leaned over her, the better to access the bounty she offered. She pulled him down, her mouth opening to welcome his tongue.

  Leaning his left forearm on the sofa for balance, he skimmed his hand down her arm and then across her breast. Felt the peak of the hard nipple, felt her arch into his hand, filling it with the plump flesh hidden beneath her chemise and stays.

  ‘You undo me,’ he murmured softly, cradling her face in his one good hand, the skin soft and silky beneath it.

  She sighed, looking deep into his eyes. ‘I promised myself this would not happen again.’

  The words wounded even as he recognised the sense of defeat she suffered. He had no desire to cause her pain. He, too, had promised.

  It cost him, but he uttered the words he knew he must say. ‘Shall I go?’

  The second of hesitation felt like a lifetime. She shook her head. ‘I want you to stay.’

  He took her in his arms and kissed her, slowly, lingeringly. Feeling her melt against him was the sweetest thing he had ever known. The most precious gift he had ever been given. Until these past two days she’d been true to her husband’s memory, and for all that man’s lack of skill, she must have loved him to have remained alone. Thus this gift was precious beyond words.

  His heart seemed too large for his chest. Words he should not speak hovered on his tongue. Love. Marriage. Foolish things that only a man of honour should offer a woman. A man of honour would not be doing this. Instead he’d be courting her properly. Offering her a future.

  So he kissed her. Hot. Deeply. Pressed her back against the sofa, shifting her bodily, so she lay along its length. He raised his head to look down into her eyes, seeking permission.

  The half-smile on her lips was pure invitation.

  ‘Caro,’ he murmured.

  ‘Hush,’ she whispered, pressing a fingertip to his lips. He nipped at it and she laughed low in her throat. ‘I need you.’

  As he needed her. He would never h
ave enough of her. Even drunk as he was on her scent, her touch, the thought sobered. What was he doing? He should leave before this thing between them got out of hand yet again. Then he felt her hand burrow between them and her fingers curl around him and gently squeeze.

  The pleasure was almost too much.

  Awkwardly balancing himself on his forearm, he reached down, captured her small hand in his and brought it up over her head and pinned it there. ‘Not so fast,’ he growled.

  ‘We certainly don’t want that to go to waste.’ Her eyes glinted with mischief. She looked like the girl he remembered all those years ago, bright, happy, then on the cusp of womanhood, now a woman full grown. Except shadows remained in those dancing eyes that had never been there when she was a girl.

  The sadness of loss.

  He rocked his groin against her soft thigh and the pleasure of it rippled across his skin. Not quite so intense. Manageable, at least, and he nuzzled his lips against the rise of her soft full breasts. ‘Give me your other hand,’ he rasped.

  She complied, lifting it languidly above her head so he could enclose her wrist beside the other one. ‘No moving.’ He let her go and worked her skirts up her thighs until he had her bared to his view.

  She was lovely. The chestnut curls invited his touch and he petted and stroked. He slid a finger along her pink feminine flesh and closed his eyes in pleasure at the heat and the wet he found waiting for him.

  He lowered his head.

  Chapter Nine

  Caro gazed down the length of her torso to where her skirts were rucked at her waist in a sensual haze. All she could see were the crisp waves of Blade’s light-brown hair, where he knelt between her open thighs, and a glimpse of the pale skin of one of those thighs pressed against the cushion of the sofa.

  He shifted downward and her heart skipped a beat. Surely he wasn’t going to—? She lifted one hand to— What? Push him away?

  ‘Hush,’ he murmured and pressed hot open-mouthed kisses against the little hollow of her naked hip. It felt wonderful. Delicious. Tormenting. She let her hand drop beside the other above her head and felt...worshipped as his mouth trailed kisses across her stomach.

  And lower.

  And lower still.

  His tongue licked a path along her and she swallowed a cry of pleasure. Yet she could not stop herself from raising her hips to give him better access. He licked again and she melted, her body feeling loose and disjointed, yet unbearably tense. It was heavenly. And extraordinary. And not at all respectable, she was sure.

  She looked down again and he was looking at her, his gaze hot and wild, with a smile on his lips so devastatingly boyish she wanted to kiss him. Badly. He raised an eyebrow in question. Did she like this? She nodded, letting her head fall back, resigning herself with great joy to the next round of delicious torture.

  She was not disappointed.

  His lips and tongue and fingers did things to her she could never have imagined any man doing, and she moaned and writhed and sighed until she was dizzy with a passion so vast it hurt to contain it.

  ‘Blade,’ she said, finally giving in to his demand and begging for what she knew she needed.

  ‘Caro,’ he said softly, and he used his fingers and tongue on that little point hidden deep in her folds to send her over the edge into mindless bliss. Before the shudders and ripples of pleasure had subsided, he came over her, supporting himself each side of her shoulders on the cushions.

  ‘Hold on,’ he grated as he unerringly entered her body and thrust himself into her to the hilt.

  She’d been wrong to think he had brought her to the peak of pleasure, for now it built again to a height that left her panting and answering his thrusts with undulations of her hips as he drove deeper and harder. She cradled his face in her hands and saw the strain in his expression, the utter concentration as he brought them so close to the brink she couldn’t think. Seared by heat and driven by need, she forced herself up on her elbows and kissed him. He thrust his tongue into her mouth and she suckled.

  He drew back, panting, his lips drawn back in the agony of denial. ‘I can’t— Now, Caro,’ he demanded. ‘My darling. Now. Come with me.’

  Her insides tightened at the harshness of his voice and the utter pleasure on his face, and her vision darkened as with one last drive of his hips he pushed her over the edge into heart-stopping bliss. He withdrew from her body, and with one last pump of his hips, he groaned and went still, collapsing against her, careful not to crush her beneath him, his arm around her shoulders as he stroked her cheek, her jaw, her throat, the rise of her breast.

  She drifted into warm darkness.

  * * *

  When she came awake he was lying on his side.

  ‘I fell asleep,’ she said, wondering.

  ‘You did.’ He smiled at her, his eyes warm.

  ‘I should—I mean we should—get up.’

  He twined a strand of her hair that had come loose around one finger. ‘Caro, sweetheart, will you—?’ He hesitated. ‘I think—’

  She froze. Panic rocketed through her mind at what he might be trying to say. She shook her head. ‘There is nothing to be said.’

  His lips smiled, but his eyes filled with an emotion she could not read. ‘As you say, but still—’ he lightly brushed her lips with his ‘—I do thank you.’

  He got up, straightened his clothes and left.

  Full of regret, for herself, for him, she rose and locked the door behind him.

  * * *

  An hour later, after making some pretence at working on her correspondence while she settled her nerves and let cold fresh air from the window clear the air in her parlour, she rang for Beth to take the tray.

  The woman had tried the door earlier but, finding it locked, had gone away. Caro had recognised her step, though for one painful moment had wondered if it was Blade returning.

  He would not return now.

  She did not know what he had been going to say, but she did know she’d hurt him by refusing to listen. Perhaps that was an end to it. That would be a good thing surely, even if the thought of him turning his back on her made her stomach churn and her heart feel heavy. He presented far too much temptation for her wanton desires. Too much allure, for he was what she had always dreamed of as a girl. A handsome noble knight who would leave his life of service to his king and serve only his lady.

  Foolish nonsense, of course, brought on by reading too much romance, her father would have said. As he had always predicted, it had led her astray. And yet wasn’t life a little more pleasant with a dash of romance? Her mother’s life would have been, she was sure. Where were her family now? she wondered. Still in that little village not far from Worthing? Was her sister married? With children? There was no way to know, not without bringing the wrath of her father down on their heads.

  She once more checked her hair in the mirror as well as ensured her gown showed no signs of disarray and seated herself at her writing table.

  Barely in time, too.

  ‘You are finished with the tray?’ Beth asked.

  Caro smiled her assent.

  She glanced at the clock, a little surprised Thomas hadn’t made his afternoon foray to find her.

  ‘Where is Tommy?’

  ‘Went for a walk, mum,’ Beth said, giving her a little curtsy. ‘To the duck pond with the new girl.’ Beth glanced at the clock and frowned. ‘I told them not to be more than an hour.’

  ‘When did they leave?’

  ‘Not long after I took her up to the nursery. Two hours ago that be.’

  It seemed their new addition to the house had no idea of the passage of time. ‘I expect Tommy has found some playmates and she may be having trouble convincing him to leave. I’ll go and find them.’

  ‘Reet you are, ma’am.’ Her eyes he
ld worry. ‘I did tell the lad I’d skelp him good, did he not behave. He promised me.’

  ‘Then his punishment will be all the more severe for breaking his word,’ she said, heading for the corridor to the back door, where she kept her warm woollen cloak and an old black bonnet for her forays in the streets. One did not go to the poorer parts of town dressed in Sunday finery.

  ‘Should I let Mr Read know you are going out?’ Beth asked. ‘Made it very clear you was not to go unescorted by him or Ned.’

  ‘I’m only going as far as the green,’ she said. ‘And Linette and Tommy will escort me back.’

  Beth looked dubious, but said nothing more.

  * * *

  Blade morosely watched Ned grooming Apollo. He’d ridden out after he’d left Caro, needing to clear his head. To think about what he was doing with a woman, another woman, who wanted him merely for a little dalliance. Why had he thought her different? Or that he could persuade her that perhaps he was worth more? He wasn’t. He’d ruined himself for any chance of a career. His erstwhile commanding officer would see to that. He had no stable income. Not even a name worth the mention. Not to mention those other declarations women wanted. Love and devotion. All that claptrap that faded over time. He’d seen it time and time again or why would married women seek to dally with the likes of him? Even his mother’s love had died a death when it no longer suited her to have him around. He was not such a hypocrite to speak words he did not believe.

  Why had he even let her tempt him? He was the one supposed to be the seducer, yet he found himself thoroughly seduced. By a woman who didn’t want him.

  His excuse to leave the house had been his need to track down Butterworth. Or rather, to ensure that his suspicions were unfounded and that the unpleasant fellow had left the neighbourhood permanently.

  And so he had. There had been no sign of him at any of the other three inns in town, leaving Blade exactly where he’d started. Wondering who might have meant Caro harm up on the moors.

  He rose as the person at the centre of his thoughts entered the barn in haste. Her pallor and anxious expression caused his gut to tighten. ‘Is something wrong?’