He scraped his hand over his jaw. “I wanted to marry a woman who desired nothing more than my title.” Odd, how that was the last thing she’d ever wanted or desired. Even in that, she could have never been a match for him. “Such a woman would not care that I am a monster, and Jack—”
She threw her hands up on a quiet cry. “Enough with Jack. You are not a monster.” And Jack had proven even less of a friend to Graham than he had to her.
“He has been there since I returned.” I should have been there. It should have been me at your side. “He knows what I battle and has helped me.”
“Helped you?” she scoffed. “He’s had you a recluse these years, Graham. He’s kept you shut away and encouraged you to marry a woman you do not love. That is no friend,” she said bluntly. Tell him of that kiss long ago... tell him about that act of disloyalty... Except taking in his grief-ravaged face, she could not hurt him with long-ago actions of a young, reckless man. Or is it that you fear he’ll again take the word of another over yours... Filled with a restlessness, she looked around. “You have limited your interactions with people,” she began again, returning her eyes to his. “Has that made the nightmares go away?”
Graham gave a brusque shake of his head.
“Because they won’t,” she said gently. “This is who you are now, and you cannot spend your life hiding or trying to shape yourself into someone else.”
He turned shaking palms up, imploringly. “I don’t want to be this person,” he beseeched. His chest heaved with the force of his emotion, and her heart wrenched at the agony spilling from his eyes.
Rowena took a step over. “And I don’t want to be this person,” she said softly, drifting over to him. She stopped when only a handful of steps separated them. “I don’t want to be a whore’s illegitimate daughter, and yet that is what I am.”
His face spasmed, and then he raked a gaze over her. A harsh, ugly, empty laugh ripped from his lips. “Do not profess to have peace with who you are when you continue to hide yourself away from everyone, including your family.” He continued over her sharp, indignant gasp.
“How dare you?” Her family had sent her away. They’d taken coin to see her gone. He’d have her swallow the only thing she’d had these years, her pride, to search out the people who’d never cared to look for her. “You know nothing of—”
“I dare it because it is the truth,” he said with a savage bluntness that made her flinch. “You still do not see your worth, madam, so do not profess to lecture me on my own.”
“I am not having this discussion with you,” she said tightly. “I have to see Ainsley is prepared for tomorrow’s recital.”
Graham positioned himself between her and the doorway, blocking her escape, and she frantically glanced around. Then with an infinite tenderness that threatened to shatter her, he took her shoulders in his hands. “I cannot do it,” he whispered. She stiffened, trying to process. Trying to understand. “I cannot marry her. Not after you. Not after remembering what it is to feel and love.”
Rowena closed her eyes and allowed those words to wash over her. She stood motionless as with his lips he trailed a searching path lower, over her cheek. The corner of her mouth. Then he kissed her. She paused, and then with a moan she parted her lips, allowing him entry. A bolt of desire ran through her. Angling her head, she reacquainted herself with the taste and feel of him. The hint of lemon and mint that clung to his breath, a sweet, intoxicating blend.
“Graham,” she pleaded, as he shifted his attentions trailing his mouth down the curve of her cheek. A moan spilled past her lips as he nipped and teased the flesh where her earlobe met her neck.
I am lost.
With a moan, she met his lips. Tangling her fingers in his thick hair, she returned his kiss, parting her mouth, allowing him entry. Their tongues touched in a violent meeting of heat. Groaning, he caught her by the hips and guided her against the wall. “You are all I ever wanted,” he rasped.
A wild heat burned slowly through her, warming every corner of her being, and she arched wildly in a desperate bid to get closer. Graham cupped her breast through the fabric of her nightshift in his large palm, and her head fell back on a tortured groan. He captured the nipple between his thumb and forefinger, and it sprung to life in his touch.
“Graham,” she keened. It had been so long. So very long.
He jerked at the mention of his name and pulled back. With his chest moving in a rapid rise and fall, he stared back with horror wreathing his features. She resisted the urge to cry out when he took a lurching step backward. “Forgive me,” he rasped. “I should not... you are in my employ,” he whispered raggedly. “It is not my intention to—”
Rowena captured his face between her palms. Desire blazed in his eyes. “I have spent years believing I was a whore.” He groaned, and she silenced his protestations with her fingers. “My mother may have been one, but I am not. Neither am I a child or an innocent. I am a woman of eight and twenty years, and in this moment, I’d take what we both want.” She gripped his hair and dragged his face up for another kiss.
He briefly resisted, but she tugged free his lawn shirt, caressing his skin as she exposed it.
“I am lost,” he groaned, his desperate entreaty an echo of her very thoughts, and so very right for it.
“We always were when we were together,” she breathed against his lips.
They dueled with their mouths; a molten heat sang through her veins, as she pressed herself close to him. Together they worked to push his shirt up and Graham tossed the garment aside. The whorls of dark curls matting his chest, damp with sweat, tickled her peaked nipples, scorched her skin. A breathy laugh bubbled past her lips, and he swallowed that sound with his lips, fiercely stroking his tongue in and out of her mouth.
He tugged her wrapper off, and then expertly sliding the décolletage of her nightshift down, he exposed her to the night air. Her nipples puckered from the chill. “So beautiful,” he whispered, worshipping one of those now-naked crests. Rowena’s breath caught on a gasp. “You were always so sensitive here,” he whispered, lavishing his attention on the beauty mark at her neck. “But never more sensitive than you were here.” He reached between them and cupped her breast. “How perfectly you always fit in my hand,” he murmured, continuing to caress that flesh. “As though we were made for one another.” Then he dipped his head and captured one of the swollen tips inside his mouth.
Her moan echoed around the library and went on eternally as he suckled and tasted her. Never breaking contact, Graham brought her down slowly under him.
“W-We were,” she whispered, as he shifted his focus to her other breast and lavished his attention on the previously neglected flesh. “M-Made for one another.”
They had been... and they’d been separated not by life or by fate, but—Rowena thrust aside all resentment. She’d not allow it in this moment. An ache settled in her core, and she arched in search of his touch. He guided her skirts up, and the cool air slapped at her skin. Then he found her center, and there was only heat.
Biting her lip to keep from crying out, she splayed her legs, opening herself to him. Graham threaded his fingers through her curls, and then slipped a finger inside her wet channel. Desperate mewling whimpers escaped her as he continued his wicked ministrations. She panted, moving her hips in time to his strokes.
“I want you, Rowena,” he rasped against her lips. “Only you.”
Her heart quickened at his words, and not allowing herself to wonder or question what he was saying, she claimed his mouth.
A shuddery hiss exploded from her lungs as he parted her damp folds, and found the nub that was the source of all her pleasure. She bit her lip. She felt herself hot and dripping, and there was only pleasure and no shame as he stroked her. He paused, and she made a sound of protest and arched violently against his hand.
Graham slid an obliging finger inside, and her moan went on forever while he caressed her. “Tell me to stop,” he pleaded, pressing a k
iss against the place where her heart rapidly beat.
“Why would I tell you that when I want this so desperately?” she countered, her voice husky with desire, and with a groan, he released himself from his breeches. His shaft sprang free, and she reached out, stroking his member. “I have missed this.”
He hissed, as his swollen flesh jerked proud and hungry against his belly. His brow beaded with sweat, Graham positioned himself at her entrance.
She splayed her legs wide, needing him. Just then, her origins, his title, their past, their heartbreak... nothing mattered—except knowing him in this way again.
“Rowena,” he moaned, and then thrust hard and deep inside her.
She gasped and began to move, lifting her hips up in slow, searching movements. Matching his. Slower. Slowly building. And then they found a frantic rhythm as he pounded deep inside her. Gripping the generous flesh of her hips, he continued to thrust. Her sheath, wet with her desire, slicked the way.
“Come for me,” he pleaded, increasing his strokes, as she panted and moaned beneath him.
Then her body went stiff, and he immediately captured her mouth, as she screamed her bliss. With a groan of surrender, he fell over the edge with her, and then with a quiet shout, capturing his weight with his elbows, he collapsed atop her.
Their breathing came in a like, frantic pace. Jagged spurts that fell together. He dropped his brow to hers. “Oh, God, how I have missed you. There has never been another like you.”
They were at the same time the truest words. And the most wrong.
Sadness knifed at her heart. “But there were others after me.”
At the agonized accusation, he jerked. For just like that... reality, as it invariably did, intruded. Everything that had come between them.
He rolled off of her, onto his back. Draping his forearm over his head, he stared up at the bucolic mural on the library ceiling “No one ever mattered more to me than you did,” he said quietly. “You were all that kept me alive in the Peninsular. When the pain of my injuries drove me to plead for death, your face was there, pulling me back.” Graham reluctantly pushed himself upright. Reaching for his jacket, he withdrew a kerchief.
An easy silence between them, he tenderly cleaned her and then himself. Readjusting his garments, he fixed her bodice and lowered her skirts. With every second ticking on the long-case clock across the room, the world outside reared its head, and the implications of what they’d done slipped inconveniently in.
“I should leave.” His deep baritone rumbled in the quiet.
“Yes,” she murmured. In being here, alone, as they were in dishabille, no less, they risked both Ainsley and Rowena’s reputations. If she were a more honorable woman she’d insist he leave, and yet she ached for him to remain.
“I had no place making love to you here.” He grimaced. “Not without the benefit of—”
Heart hammering, she held her hand up, stifling an offer that was not really an offer. Nor would she have it from him, and certainly not this way. “I didn’t make love expecting anything, Graham,” she muttered, grabbing her wrinkled garments. Shrugging off his attempt to help, she dragged her nightdress overhead, and then reached for her wrapper. Hugging herself at the waist, she took several steps back, placing much needed distance between them. “And I certainly didn’t lay with you expecting an offer of marriage. I made love to you because I wanted to. You owe me nothing.” And at the pregnant pause that developed, she gathered her books and papers—and fled.
Chapter 21
Five hours.
By Graham’s calculations, that was the length of time he needed to endure a house full of venerated guests who’d come to gawk at and approve his ward.
The following evening, standing in the corner of the Gold Parlor, with his arms clasped at his back, he surveyed the guests assembled for dinner. Lady Serena’s father glowered at him while the lady herself looked as icily indifferent as always. Graham continued past the Montgomery’s. A nervous tension thrummed in his veins. Worry, not with the possibility of Ainsley’s failure, but how she would be received.
Mayhap they should have waited for the girl’s benefit. Members of the ton delighted in stumbles and went out of their way to push a person down on their face, so they might then gossip about it.
Ainsley sat on the edge of a gold satin sofa, her hands folded primly on her lap as she spoke to the Marquess and Marchioness of Waverly. Graham briefly focused his attention on that trio. Once friendly with the man when they’d been boys at Eton, he’d seen little of the marquess after that. However, when having to assemble guests for Ainsley’s introduction, he’d summoned familiar names. And powerful ones. Ainsley said something, and Lord Waverly widened his eyes.
Stiffening, Graham took a step forward, when the husband and wife laughed. Some of the tension went out of him as the marchioness patted Ainsley’s hands.
Rowena moved into position beside him. He stiffened, feeling very much like the uncertain boy he’d been years ago, when he’d first made love to her. Only, she proved as undaunted now as she always had revealing not a hint of regret or embarrassment for what they’d shared. “She is going to be all right, Graham,” she said reassuringly, her soft contralto barely reaching his ears. How harmonious their thoughts were. Had always been.
“I’m not worried about how they perceive me,” he said from the corner of his mouth.
“I didn’t think you were,” she said softly.
He glanced at her; even in drab skirts, serviceable boots, and a hideously tight coiffure, there was not a lady more magnificent.
As if she felt his gaze, she looked up and gave him an encouraging smile. We shouldn’t be stealing glances and side conversations. She should be on his arm, or wherever else she bloody wanted in the room, talking to whom she pleased, how she pleased. And as she looked out, he remained entranced. Unable to tear his gaze from her. The candle’s glow bathed her heart-shaped face in soft shadows. Illuminated the dark burgundy hues of her deep brown tresses.
From across the room, Jack, in conversation with the Viscount Dailey and his spinster daughter, Miss Cornworthy, glanced over at him. A frown marred the other man’s lips. The old viscount said something calling his attention back.
“Oh, yes,” Ainsley was saying loudly. “Hampstead’s a brilliant dance instructor, isn’t he, Mrs. Bryant?”
All discourse came to a screeching halt, as every set of eyes swiveled to them. Probing eyes. Curious ones. Ones that searched for secrets and scandal. A dull flush climbed up Graham’s neck, and he resisted the urge to yank at his too-tight cravat.
Rowena artfully drifted over to the trio. “His Grace was good enough to provide Miss Hickenbottom dance lessons,” she explained to the room at large. The guests erupted into a smattering of sighs from the ladies present. And just like that, the guests were diverted from the hint of impropriety Ainsley had alluded to. Graham, an employer, waltzing his ward’s companion about an empty ballroom, while laughter had trilled from her lips, that mirth contagious.
He stared on, riveted by the vision Rowena made. With her ease in speaking to the guests and her warm smiles for Ainsley, she radiated a beauty that robbed him of breath. Only hers was a beauty that moved beyond her delicate features and included her unwavering spirit, her strength, her courage. She should be my wife... She raised her head, and across the room, their gazes caught. A silent, charged awareness passed between them.
“This is going to be a bloody disaster.” Jack stepped between Graham and his unobstructed view of her.
Silently cursing the shattered connection, he flexed his jaw. “She is doing splendidly,” he argued in defense of the lady. And she was. With less than a fortnight under Rowena’s tutelage, Ainsley had, though not perfected all societal customs, demonstrated grace and enthusiasm. It was infectious. When Jack made to speak, Graham interrupted. “And they can go hang if they take exception to the lady.” His gaze landed on Lady Serena eying Rowena the way she might a rodent who’d scurried ov
er her toes. “All of them,” he added.
His friend tightened his mouth. “You should have delayed her entry into Society.”
Momentarily diverted, he looked to Jack. “Is that what this is about? You are upset that I made a decision other than the one you urged me to make.” At the stony glint in the other man’s eyes, he realized he’d hit the mark. In the past, Graham had taken the man’s professional stubbornness and meticulousness as signs of his acumen. Now, with him glowering on at Rowena and Ainsley, he saw a new glimpse of Jack. An ugly, unpleasant one, that forced Graham to reevaluate what he’d always believed about him. He motioned to a servant, and the liveried footman rushed off. “Relax, Jack,” he urged. “If I’m not worried about the lady, you shouldn’t be either.” He slapped him on the back.
The matter was laid to rest as his butler appeared and announced dinner. As the guests paired off with their respective partners, Rowena said something to her charge, and with a nod, Ainsley skipped over.
She briefly noted Jack, and after a small, insolent curtsy, gave him the cut direct. “Well, Hampstead? Mrs. Bryant said you are to accompany me for the meal. Or has Turner here commandeered your attention?” Again. The word hung, real, as if it had been spoken.
Ignoring the whispers from several ladies, Graham held his arm out. “Shall we, Miss Hickenbottom?”
The girl sank into a curtsy. A flawless, perfect dip, as though she’d been mastering them since she’d toddled out of her cradle and a sense of pride swelled... as well as something more... Regret that it couldn’t be Ainsley’s father here with her even now. As he and Ainsley led the way to the dining room, he ached to look back. Rowena should be at the front of this line. Not taking up the very last spot as a bloody servant.
Schooling the Duke (The Heart of a Scandal, #1) Page 26
