He couldn’t seem to stop his other hand as it moved over Paulette, touching, caressing, and feeling every inch of her body through the silk of her lavender summer gown. He cupped her breasts, his fingers sliding below the edge of her gown, seeking the warm flesh of her naked body against his skin. She arched into his hand, her kisses growing more demanding. Over and over, they kissed each other. Time seemed to stand still, suspended, and the rest of the world fell away.
Declan forgot they were in his parlor. Forgot that his daughter was upstairs sleeping. Forgot that they were in a house full of servants. He forgot about his past, about Ireland. All that mattered was Paulette. All he could focus on was the incredibly lovely and sweet girl in his arms.
He continued to kiss her and caress her, his longing for her only increasing the more he kissed her. His hand roamed the curves of her body as he pressed himself against her wanting more. Her breathing became more frantic as she embraced him.
A small moan of pleasure escaped her and Declan shuddered with an unfulfilled need of his own.
He hadn’t been with a woman since Margaret and it had been far too long.
Now he wanted Paulette more than he wanted anything in his life. It was madness. Where had she even come from? He barely knew her. He hadn’t come to London to become involved with an innocent like Paulette Hamilton. A girl like her expected marriage and he was through with marriage. He wasn’t any good at it.
Warring between the urgent need within him and the consequences that slaking his need would warrant, Declan growled low in his throat and tried to pull away.
Paulette clung to him, unwilling to let him go, making his decision even more of a struggle of wills. It would be so easy to give in to her. . . . But if he didn’t stop now, they would go too far. And then there would be no turning back. As much as he wanted her, wanted to feel her naked body beneath him, Declan could not do it.
“Paulette.” Her name was a ragged whisper. He kissed her cheek.
“Declan, please, stop,” she whimpered, on the verge of tears. “Please. I can’t take any more. We must stop. I can’t . . . I can’t even breathe.”
That did it. With great reluctance, he released her. “I’m sorry, lass, I’m sorry,” he murmured. He eased himself off of her, taking deep breaths to regain control of his body. Of his raging emotions.
Declan helped her to sit up. God but she looked tempting, her dress half undone, her eyes heavy with desire, and her long golden-blond hair spilling around her shoulders. If not for the sheer panic on her face, he would have lowered her back down on the sofa and finished what he’d started.
“Forgive me, Paulette.”
“I just need a minute”—her hands fluttered to her heated cheeks—“to catch my breath.”
Declan did, too. What the hell was he thinking? He should never have been alone with her in the house, should not have kissed her, should not have touched her—
“I promise that next time I won’t be such a little fool about it,” she said, closing her eyes and breathing in.
“Excuse me?” He stared at her. Next time?
She opened her blue eyes and looked at him. “The next time we do this, I promise I won’t ask you to stop.”
Declan felt all the air being sucked out of his lungs. “Good God, Paulette, what are you saying?”
“I didn’t really want to stop just now, but I couldn’t breathe. I thought I was going to faint from the sheer pleasure of it all. I’ve never felt so light-headed and dizzy before. But I think next time I’ll know more what to expect and won’t be so—”
“Stop it,” he interrupted her, stunned by her words and still fighting the temptation to kiss her mouth again. “There can’t be a next time, Paulette. There shouldn’t have been this time. It was wrong of me to kiss you in the first place. I’m glad we stopped when we did. If it went any further, we would have to—” He cut off his own words.
“Oh, I see,” she whispered, nodding her head slowly. The shadows of a smile played on her mouth. “You think you’d have to marry me, if we . . . if we did anything. But you don’t understand, Declan. I’m happy running the bookshop and I don’t want a husband. I don’t wish to get married! So you see, next time we—”
“Please stop, Paulette, you’re killing me.” There was only so much a man could take. And having this beautiful woman willingly state that she wanted to have him was almost Declan’s undoing. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
She began putting the front of her dress to rights. “Yes, I do.”
He stood up, holding his hand out to help her from the sofa. “No. You don’t. But I’ll tell you this, Paulette Hamilton. You are the most beautiful and most desirable woman I have ever had the pleasure to know.”
She frowned and did not rise from the sofa. “You sound as if you’re saying good-bye to me.”
“If I were a smart man, I would be.” He flashed her a half-hearted grin. “But I’m not. I just think it’s probably best if I took you home right now.”
Her face shadowed with disappointment. “Oh.”
“Fix your hair first.” Although he liked the way she looked now with her hair long and loose, he certainly could not return her home that way.
And if he didn’t bring her home right this minute, he would carry her upstairs to his bed and make love to her for hours. And that would be disastrous. For both of them.
Instead he ordered his carriage brought around.
Chapter 11
Letters
Paulette couldn’t sleep at all that night. Her every thought was of Declan Reeves and the Sunday afternoon they spent together in the park and later at his house. Especially later at his house. He had been almost angry with her while he took her home in his carriage and she didn’t know why he should be that way. She thought she had behaved most reasonably about the matter, considering how overwhelmed she was by it all.
The feelings she had for him were like nothing she had ever experienced before. She wanted to be with him. Wanted to know everything about him. She had so many questions for him she didn’t even know where to begin.
She wasn’t sure if these feelings meant that she was in love with Declan Reeves, but she was certainly fascinated with him. With his deep-throated, lyrical accent that made her insides melt. With his dark green eyes that caused her heart to skip a beat when he looked at her. With his tragic, haunted past that she wanted to heal. With his kisses that left her weak and shaking and yearning for more.
Ah, his kisses.
But Declan did kiss her one last time before she stepped from the carriage and that thrilled her. He had cupped her face in his hands and kissed her so deeply she thought she would faint right there in the carriage. Then he whispered, “I’ll see you soon.”
With her heart fluttering wildly, somehow she had managed to slip in the house unnoticed, with only Granger, the Devon House butler, raising an eyebrow at her disheveled appearance. By the time she appeared for supper an hour later, she had recovered enough to act as if she had not just spent the most wonderful day of her life with a handsome Irishman who had kissed her senseless. Luckily Colette and Lucien barely asked about her day in the park and Yvette was too consumed with deciding which new gown to wear to a ball the following week to notice her.
Now Paulette only hoped that Jeffrey Eddington wouldn’t mention to Lucien or Colette that he had seen her with Declan Reeves in the park. Her plan was to speak to him and beg for his silence on the matter before he had a chance to tell her sister and brother-in-law. She prayed she could convince him, because she wasn’t sure where Jeffrey would stand on the matter. He could be rather vexing that way.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want her sisters to know about Declan. In fact it was quite the opposite. She wanted to bring Declan home to meet them, but something held her back. They would be suspicious and wary of him. She only had to think of Colette’s horrified face when she found out that Declan had kissed her in the bookshop.
Colette believed
the rumors about him. She thought Declan had done something to harm his wife, while Paulette knew with every fiber of her being that those rumors couldn’t possibly be true.
A man could not kiss her so sweetly and stop to protect her, if he were a murderer. A man could not carry his sleeping daughter home from the park after confiding his wish for her not to be afraid of speaking, if he had killed her mother. To Paulette’s way of thinking, it was simply impossible.
But until Declan’s name was cleared or her sisters could have a chance to know him as she did, Paulette did not feel as though she should tell them what was happening. Paulette was having a romance, but not in the traditional way that everyone else did, and her family would never understand that. Colette would be too worried for her safety, thinking Paulette could be hurt next. Lisette would be scandalized and anxious that Paulette’s association with a man suspected of murder could somehow hurt Quinton’s burgeoning political career. Yvette would be aghast at the thought of Paulette being with someone presumed to have killed his wife. Her mother would most likely faint in a dramatic fashion and take to her bed for at least a week if not longer. And Lucien! Her over-protective brother-in-law would never let her out of the house when he found out about Paulette’s involvement with Declan Reeves.
No one in her family would understand how she felt about him.
Except Juliette.
Her sister Juliette wouldn’t judge her or think her daft for wanting to be with a man like Declan. She would understand completely and encourage her to follow her heart. Paulette now wished Juliette weren’t so far away. She and Juliette had had their differences over the years, and Paulette spent her childhood antagonizing Juliette about her lack of interest in books and the shop, but they truly loved each other. They had just been reaching a calm point in their relationship, when Juliette ran off to New York and ended up married to the American, Harrison Fleming. Busy with her new family, Juliette came to visit London infrequently and Paulette missed her now more than ever.
Instinctively Paulette knew that Juliette was the only one who would support her current situation. She thought about writing to her, explaining all that was happening with her and Declan Reeves. There was one thought that stopped her from doing just that. She was afraid that Juliette would then tell Colette everything and that was a risk that Paulette was unwilling to take at the moment.
Instead she spent a very restless night, with images of Declan Reeves in her mind, and barely slept at all.
Bright and early Monday morning, Paulette was back in the bookshop as usual, preparing for another busy day. Colette and Lizzie would not be in until later that afternoon, so she was alone in the store. Before the shop officially opened for the day, Paulette indulged herself in a fit of nostalgia and went upstairs to the living quarters where she had spent her childhood.
The rooms had been refurbished over the years when little Tom Alcott and his mother, Anna, had lived there, but the rooms were empty now. However, Paulette could still see everything the way it used to be. The long dining table where she and her sisters had supper with their parents every night. The faded velvet divan where her mother reclined and declared she had headaches. The place above the mantel where the family portrait used to hang. She opened the door to the tiny bedroom she had shared with Yvette and Lisette. There had been heavy pink floral wallpaper, decorated with birds and fruit, that had lined the walls in their room. Now it was painted a soft cream and was used as a small office.
Paulette sighed heavily, wondering at all the years, all the time that had passed by and how her life had changed after her father died when she was fourteen. She missed her father. What would her life be like if her parents still lived above the bookshop? What would her father think about her and Declan Reeves? Although he was a calm and reasonable man, she doubted Thomas Hamilton would be overjoyed at his daughter becoming involved with a man suspected of murder.
Nor would her mother, if truth were told. Alive and well and living in Brighton, Genevieve Hamilton would most certainly show great displeasure at Paulette kissing a widower who was believed to have been the cause of his wife’s death.
No, her parents would not approve of Declan Reeves, but they were not there to give their opinion.
Paulette was no longer a child sharing a bedroom with her sisters. Mature and independent, she lived her own life and made her own decisions. Well, for the most part anyway. She would be twenty-one next month and most girls her age were already married and having families of their own.
So what did it matter if she had a secret suitor? Nothing in her life—from being raised above a bookshop to suddenly living in one of the grandest homes in London and being the sister-in-law of the Marquis of Stancliff to being a woman in charge of a bookshop—was traditional. If she wanted to be with Declan Reeves, what was to stop her?
Aside from herself.
Declan had been the one to stop them from going further yesterday. Paulette would have continued most eagerly if she had been able to breathe properly. Perhaps that had been a blessing in disguise. She had mixed emotions about their passionate kissing on the sofa and how quickly they had almost lost control of their senses and their situation.
The moment Declan’s lips met hers there was nothing she could do to stop it from happening, nor did she want to. The thrill of being kissed by him was unlike anything she had ever known. And she had wanted much more than kissing from him.
The clock on the mantel chimed nine, rousing her from her thoughts. Sighing, she returned downstairs to the shop. It was time to open the store.
She walked to the front door to flip the “Closed” sign to “Open.” It was then that she noticed a letter on the floor. Someone must have slipped it under the door while she had been upstairs. Picking up the envelope, she noted that her name alone was scrawled across the front. Curiosity and excitement brimming within her, she walked back to the counter and broke the seal, wondering if it were a note from Declan.
Unfolding the paper, she frowned. It was most definitely not from Declan Reeves. Not sure who sent the missive, she shuddered as she read the threatening words:
This is a note to warn you. Stay away from Lord Cashelmore. He killed his wife. Heed this warning, by all means, if you wish to stay alive.
Stunned by the words on the page, Paulette felt sick to her stomach. Who on earth would send her such a horrid message?
The bell over the front door jingled, startling her, and Paulette looked up, panic racing through her veins like ice water.
“Jeffrey! Thank goodness it’s you!” she exclaimed in relief. For an instant she had a wild thought that whoever had delivered that note had come to the shop. But it was only Jeffrey. Dear, sweet, wonderful Jeffrey Eddington. Tall and handsome, with dark hair and laughing blue eyes, he stepped toward her with his charming grin.
“And it’s good to see you too, Paulette, darling!” He gave her a calculating glance, his sunny smile disappearing. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”
Taking a deep breath, Paulette shook her head. “I’m fine. You simply startled me. What are you doing here?”
“I just stopped by Devon House to say good morning but no one was there. Granger told me that Lucien was out for the day, Yvette was at the dressmaker, and that you and Colette were at the shop. So of course I came here to see you both.”
“Actually Colette went to the dressmaker with Yvette first. She’ll be along later.” Carefully, she slipped the note under the accounts ledger. She would look at it again more closely later.
“You’re here alone?” he asked with a frown. “I never like it when you girls are alone in the shop. I don’t know how Lucien allows it.”
“Oh, Jeffrey, please,” she said in exasperation. Paulette had had this conversation with Lucien too many times to count and had finally worn him down. She felt no need to go into it yet again with Lord Eddington.
“Well then. I guess you’re left with me.” He flashed her a grin. “It’s just as well. I wanted to
talk to you about yesterday.”
“Oh?” she asked, trying to sound casual, but her stomach tightened in a knot at his words. Paulette had wanted to talk to Jeffrey about Declan Reeves, but now that the moment was at hand she felt inexplicably nervous.
Jeffrey eyed her with careful consideration. “What is the story with you and Cashelmore?”
“Story?”
“Yes, Paulette. The story. Can you explain to me why you were with him yesterday?”
“We’re friends?” Her voice actually squeaked.
He tilted his head. “Are you asking me or telling me?”
“Telling you.” She nodded her head vociferously. “Yes, I’m telling you. Lord Cashelmore and I are merely friends.”
His eyes narrowed in skepticism. “Do you know anything about this man?”
Paulette shook her head as her heart sank. She knew exactly what he was thinking. “It’s not true, Jeffrey.”
“So you do know about him then.” He released a heavy sigh. “I had hoped that you were unaware of his background, which would explain your association with him. But now I see that is not the case.” He paused. “I’m surprised that you haven’t more sense, Paulette.”
“Jeffrey, Lord Cashelmore didn’t have anything to do with his wife’s death.”
He gave her a meaningful look. “And just how do you know this?”
“Because I asked him and he told me.”
“As if he would go around admitting he committed murder to anyone who asked?” He raised a dark brow in question.
Paulette paused at his insinuation. Jeffrey made a good point. She supposed if anyone asked Declan Reeves outright if he killed his wife, he would have to say no. It only made sense. One didn’t go around telling everyone that he had murdered his wife. Still, deep down she just didn’t believe it, couldn’t believe it, of Declan. No man could kiss her so passionately and then have the resolve to stop, as he had at his house yesterday afternoon, or be so loving and gentle with his daughter and be the type responsible for another’s death. Declan had showed restraint. She didn’t think a murderer would be able act so responsibly with his passions.
To Tempt an Irish Rogue Page 10
