Their gazes locked and the thick haze of passion clouding his eyes robbed her of breath. “Do not,” he ordered. He touched his fingertip to the smattering of freckles between her breasts. “I wondered whether you’d still have these marks here.”
“Alas, even without swimming n-naked in the lake under the summer sun, I’m still hopelessly freckled.” All hopes of levity were lost by the faint tremor to that breathless admission.
“You are so beautiful,” he whispered, touching his lips to the smattering of specks. Heat pooled at her center, filling her with a restless yearning.
She wasn’t. But when he looked upon her with his molten hot gaze, she could believe those words spoken in his husky baritone.
He drew his mouth away and she mourned the loss of that tender caress. But then a soft cry escaped her as he closed his lips around the tip of her right breast and suckled that flesh. Toying with it. Teasing it, until she existed as nothing more than a bundle of throbbing nerve endings. Daphne moaned, arching her hips, desperate for his touch on that sensitive area he’d stirred to life.
Reaching between them, he tugged her skirts up. I should not do this… And yet, she was a woman, in control of her life. There would be no marriage or suitors, but there would be this. If he stopped, she’d be left with a dark, hollow emptiness, an unfulfilled ache. He palmed her mound and she gasped. “Daniel,” she pleaded, needing more.
With strong fingers, he began to stroke her, toying with her nub, and she grew wet between her thighs. He claimed her mouth again for a searing meeting and he thrust his tongue inside to the rhythm he set with his fingers. His touch drawing her higher and higher, up an impossible climb. Her undulations grew frantic, taking on a pace driven by a frantic yearning for more. “Come for me, love,” he pleaded against her mouth, quickening his strokes. She hovered on a precipice, hanging suspended.
He closed his lips around a nipple, drawing the bud deep into his mouth, while his fingers continue to work her and she shattered. A low tortured moan of agonized bliss spilled from her lips as she lifted her hips in a frenzied undulation, into his touch, coming on wave after wave, until she collapsed.
Eyes closed, Daphne lay there, her body humming and sated. Daniel came down beside her and draped an arm around her waist. His breath stirred the strands of curls at her ear that had come loose from her exertions. He placed a kiss there with such tenderness that tears pricked at her lashes.
“I am so s—”
“Daniel Winterbourne, if you apologize to me,” she said breathlessly, “I’m going to bloody your nose.”
A grin danced at the corners of his lips.
“I have never felt anything like that.” How very inadequate those words were to capture the explosive bliss that had left her body weak, still. “Thank you,” she whispered. For the first time in her life, she’d known passion that had touched her soul. And how right it was that Daniel had been the man to awaken her body to the power of lovemaking.
Wordless, he touched his lips to her temple and drew her back against him. “I love you,” she said quietly. Against her ear, she detected the frantic rhythm of his heart. “I did not tell you that because I expect anything, Daniel,” she said on a rush, when he remained frozen in silence. “I told you…” Why did I tell him? “Because I needed you to know how I feel,” she finished lamely.
And she knew the precise moment she’d severed the connection with him.
He edged away from her. “You don’t know me, Daphne. I’m not a good man.”
She shifted in his arms, blocking his retreat. “I’d wager I know you better than you know your own self.”
“I am a rake,” he said, panic in his eyes. “You’ve confused what we’ve done here as love.”
“I may have little use of my leg, but I know my mind,” she shot back. Poor Daniel, how long he’d gone without any love or good in his life. She gentled her tone. “This is not about what’s happened here. This is about a man who doesn’t see me as nothing more than a cripple. A man who didn’t laugh at my dreams of finding employment and encouraged me to make those dreams real,” she finished as he swung his long legs over the edge of the dais, settling his feet on the floor.
“Do you love the man who forgot you existed for thirteen years?” His words sucked the air from her lungs and she battled back the onslaught of hurt.
When she and Daniel had been children, they’d come across a wild cat that had caught his paw in a hunter’s snare. The creature had snapped and hissed, lashing out in his pain. How very much he was like that wounded creature. She slowly eased over to where he sat on the edge of the dais. “You let your father in here,” she touched her fingertips to his forehead. “And it has scarred you here, Daniel.” She lowered her palm to his chest, where his heart pounded wildly. “You have to trust that you deserve love and are capable of giving it.” Until he did, he would never be free of his past.
His throat worked and there was a softening of his tense features. And then as quickly as it had come, the cool mask was back in place. Daniel disentangled her hand from his person. “Because there can never be more with me,” he said succinctly. “I am incapable of giving you more.”
And with that cold reminder, he stalked out of the room, leaving her alone—once more.
Chapter 15
She loved him.
Daphne’s whispered words set off a firestorm of panic and terror that clutched at his mind, threatening his sanity.
People did not love him. Which was good. Which was how he wanted life. He’d been responsible for the suffering of all those who’d loved him: his mother, his brother. Now, Daphne had flipped his world upside down with talk of that very sentiment he’d avoided the whole of his life. His heart knocked painfully against his ribcage.
Still, with her hurt expression as he’d swiftly retreated last evening still fresh, he proved the ultimate selfish bastard—for he’d not undo that moment in her arms, last night, even if he could.
Never again would he look upon the dais in his ballroom without seeing in his mind the image of her spread upon it, arching into his hand and crying out her release. It did, however, make it far more bearable suffering through the tedium that was hosting his first—he shuddered—polite event.
From the front of the finally dwindling receiving line, Daniel stared over the heads of dance partners performing the steps of a godforsaken quadrille to that slight rise to where the orchestra played. Given all the whispers and wagers flying about Town, if he were an honorable gentleman, he’d at least feel some compunction at having taken her in his arms. But he was no gentleman, nor had he ever proclaimed to be, wished to be, or ever miraculously transformed into.
At his side, his sister shifted on her feet. “I certainly see why you are a rake,” she groused under her breath, effectively dousing all wicked musings of Daphne Smith. “I’d far prefer attending wicked clubs and placing scandalous wagers to this infernal line.”
Daniel frowned. “What do you know of wicked clubs and scandalous wagers?”
His sister flashed him a grin that was not at all innocent and entirely too mischievous and—he flared his eyes—by God, it was his smile, which given his own life, hinted at wickedness. “I asked—?” The next guests, Lord and Lady Buckingham, came forward and the question went unfinished as necessary introductions were made. “I asked what you know of wicked clubs and scandalous wagers,” he repeated, as soon as the older couple left and they were alone.
Alice let out a beleaguered sigh. “Really, Daniel. You needn’t sound disapproving like some worried papa.” A worried papa? “Or protective brother.”
He tugged at his suddenly too-tight cravat. Damn it all. “I am most certainly not a concerned papa.”
“I said worried papa,” his sister retorted. “Then, very well, you needn’t be a protective brother.”
A protective brother? He, who’d not allowed himself to think of Alice but for the handful of times he saw her through the years, was…was… He cursed, earning horrified stares fr
om the couple who’d not made their full descent. They could go to hell with their shock. “You are my responsibility,” he said out the side of his mouth.
Alice gave a roll of her eyes. “I’m a woman of seventeen years. Not a girl of seven. The time for elderly brother responsibilities came and went at least five birthdays ago.”
Regret sliced through him like a dulled knife. And this time, when the next guest arrived, he gave thanks for the interruption that saved him from formulating a reply he didn’t have and answering for the crimes of his absence.
After Alistair’s drowning in the family lake, his father had foisted another child on his wife to “give him another child he could at least be proud of” as he’d snapped at Daniel the day he’d informed him of the impending birth. Then there had come his mother’s death shortly after Alice had entered the world and the reminder, once more, from his devastated papa that Daniel was responsible for the death of all those he’d loved. That was one of the last times he’d spoken to his father. Instead, they’d both spiraled into a rapid descent of ruin—his father, in his misery, all but drinking himself to death and wagering away his life and Daniel…following in those same footsteps on the path of destruction.
In the end, he’d reckoned himself to be just like his father.
“You needn’t frown, Daniel,” his sister said gently. “I did not mean to give you hurt feelings.”
Hurt feelings, now? He searched around for a servant. Would drinking a glass of champagne at the front of one’s receiving line disqualify him from the terms set forth by his uncle? …You drink too much, Daniel… You use it as a greater crutch than the cane I use for walking…
“And I should thank you,” his sister continued, patting his arm. “You gave me an appreciation for finding adventure and thumbing my nose at Society’s conventions.”
Christ. “You are certainly not thumbing your nose at Society,” he hissed.
“Smile, Daniel, people are staring.”
He continued over her interruption. “You are going to find an honorable, respectable,” dull and proper, “husband.”
She lifted a hand and the card dangling from her wrist danced on the string. “By your admission, such a gentleman does not exist.”
“Then you won’t marry,” he muttered. Not when the bloody alternative was to see her married to a man like Tennyson or Webb or worse, a man like Daniel himself. Feeling her stare on him, he whipped his head sideways. Alice eyed him as though she’d discovered a new genus of human. “What?” he snapped.
“You wanted to launch me like a ship, so you could then carry on your reckless ways.”
Was there a question there? Then, as the orchestra concluded their set and couples left the dance floor, politely clapping, a horrifying realization trickled in. Good God. She’d listened at the keyhole during his discussion with Daphne. His mind raced. Bloody hell. What else had she heard? “Yes, well, no launching. I’m certain there are some decent chaps,” he said belatedly to her questioning look. Daniel eyed the dance floor. There was, Lord… Or Lord… Christ, yes, there was no one.
“And wealthy. He must be wealthy you said.”
Because funds would make her life easier and, yet, her happiness mattered most. “I would have you wed a man who makes you smile,” he said at last.
“Do you know what I believe, Daniel?” his sister asked softly. “I think Miss Smith has been a good influence on you and reminds you of who you once were.” A sad smile hovered on her lips, reaching all the way to her eyes, and hit him like a gut-punch. “I just wish I had known you then.”
His throat constricted and he made a clearing noise, coughing into his hand. He’d spent his lifetime proving his father’s accusations right and never was his success truer than when presented with Alice’s regretful words. Now, she spoke of him being a better person because of Daphne. Involuntarily, he sought her out. She sat primly on the edge of her seat, shoulders erect, head forward, unmoving. A glorious crimson Athena in an ice blue gown. With her regal demeanor she was the perfect companion. She shouldn’t be seated there. She didn’t belong hiding in the corner, just as she hadn’t belonged on the sidelines of a ballroom all those years ago.
Alice jammed an elbow into his side and he grunted, looking to the next pair of guests who came forward. The Marquess and Marchioness of Guilford warmly greeted her and then the marquess leveled Daniel with a black glare.
“Montfort,” the marquess said tightly. Yes, given his attempted seduction of the other man’s wife, that dark look was certainly called for.
Daniel dropped a bow. “A pleasure.” He shifted his attention to the dark-haired marchioness. “Lady Guilford.” He stared after her a long moment, this woman he’d once attempted to bed. A woman who’d established an institution for young ladies with disabilities, a place Daphne dreamed of working. Introductions. She would desire an introduction to the distinguished marchioness. And yet, God help him for being a bastard who didn’t want to arrange it for fear of what it would entail. Daphne cheerfully off to seek employment elsewhere—
Alice jammed her elbow in his side and he grunted again. His neck heated at the hard glint in the marquess’ eyes. Yes, given his reputation, the man was certainly deserving of his suspicious opinion of Daniel’s staring.
The couple started down the stairs.
“Did you tup his wife?” Alice whispered.
Daniel scrubbed a hand over his face and looked anywhere but at his sister and her far too clever eyes. By God, this was to be his penance. A sister who knew entirely too much and craved wickedness. “Have a care in what you say,” he demanded in hushed tones, for her ears alone. “Your reputation—”
Alice snorted. “Come. Surely you see the hilarity in counseling me on proper behavior? Well, did you? Bed that gentleman’s wife?”
Damn her for being correct. He was certainly the last person in the realm to be schooling anyone on matters of propriety. His feet twitched with the urge to flee and he again found Daphne with his gaze. She’d know how to handle this and what to say… There would be no help there. “No,” he bit out. “I did not bed the lady.” Certainly not for a lack of trying.
“But I expect you tried,” Alice said and then turned to greet the next pair through.
Oh, saints be praised. “St. Albans, Lady St. Albans,” Daniel said quickly, besieged with relief at the arrival of actual friends. Well, one friend and his wife, now eyeing him with rightfully wary eyes. Daniel’s neck went hot and, not for the first time since his world had been upended these past weeks, embarrassment gripped him. After all, the lady had crashed one of his orgies and found her husband in attendance.
“Lady Alice,” St. Albans greeted, sketching a bow. After he added his name to her nearly full dance card, he said, “May I present my wife, Lady St. Albans.”
“How do you do?” the lady murmured softly. It did not escape Daniel’s notice the manner in which she angled her body away from him. “Are you enjoying your first ball, my lady?”
Alice snorted. “Hardly. I’ve already mentioned to my brother that I’d welcome the diversions he himself so enjoys.”
Lady St. Albans flared her eyes and then buried her smile behind her hand.
St. Albans emitted a strangled laugh, his hilarity only deepening at Daniel’s glower.
“I’ve assured her that she is in no way to enjoy any such amusements,” Daniel mumbled.
“And I assured him that he’s become quite respectable since I’ve come to London.”
The marquess’ mirth faded to a grin. “Indeed?” he drawled. “Montfort, a respectable, doting brother?” There was a probing curiosity there and Daniel shifted. It wasn’t well done of a friend to strip a rake of his reputation at the front of a crowded ballroom.
Lady St. Albans shot her husband a faintly reproachful glance, but he only widened his smile.
“I suspect it is Miss Smith’s doing,” Alice piped in.
And amidst the din of the orchestra and buzz of whispers and discou
rse, a silence fell among their quartet. Bloody hell. St. Albans and his wife eyed him with renewed curiosity. “My sister suspects a good many things.” Daniel infused a deliberate nonchalance into that drawl, praying for any distraction that might spare him from that scrutiny. It was the first time in the whole of his life he’d given a jot at being so studied.
Several moments later, the happily wedded couple walked off and Daniel stared at their retreating frames. How wholly different a man St. Albans had become. Spending time in the country with his wife, the marquess no longer visited his wicked clubs or brothels. Immediately following their marriage, Daniel had pitied the poor bugger. As St. Albans dipped his lips close to his wife’s ear and said something that roused a robust laugh from the lady, a twinge of envy plucked at him.
“Never tell me you attempted to seduce your friend’s wife?” his sister said on a horrified whisper.
He sputtered. “Good God, no!” The denial was ripped from him. Not that he’d ever been with moral scruples, but a man still had to draw the proverbial line somewhere.
“Thank goodness,” Alice muttered. “I’m sure it is in bad form to—”
“It is.” He scowled. “As is speaking about your brother or any gentleman’s pursuits.”
Alice folded her arms at her chest and arched an eyebrow. “If one shouldn’t speak of those pursuits, then one shouldn’t take part in them, either.”
Clever girl.
“The Viscount Claremont.”
And a rotted day only went from bad to worse with his servant’s announcement.
Before his name was even finished being called, the viscount was already moving. “You look lovely, gel,” their uncle said gruffly to Alice. “The vision of your mother.”
The mother who’d only given birth to a babe to take the place of the child Daniel had failed to save that long ago day. His gut knotted. But then, if there had been no late in life childbirth, there would have been no Alice. A girl he’d spent seventeen years avoiding, only now finding, with her spirit and wit, was really…rather fun to be about. A smile tugged at his lips.
To Redeem a Rake (The Heart of a Duke Book 11) Page 19
