CHAPTER THREE
Two hours later, Catherine followed the footman who’d accompanied her on her call into Gretchen Manor, her sister’s residence and hers temporarily until James and his family returned from London.
The entrance hall was empty and she was struck by the silence. It was frightfully quiet when her five-year-old nephew, Nicholas, was not about. He was boisterous, energetic, and everything excited him. He was a boy.
Charlotte appeared just as Catherine handed the last of her outer garments off to the footman.
“Thank goodness you are back.” Her sister rushed toward her in a flutter of mauve merino and silk. Three months past the birth of her second child Rose, Charlotte literally glowed. Her skin bloomed an iridescent pink, her ringlets shone like newly spun gold, and her figure had been fully restored to its natural slimness.
She and Charlotte might be identical in appearance, but her sister possessed an air of well-loved contentedness that made Catherine both happy and envious all at once. She wanted that: the adoring husband who put her above all else. And she wanted children. A whole houseful of them. But as life would have it, she was unlikely to have either.
“You will not believe who has just arrived.”
“The Queen?” she teased. “Don’t tell me that word of my irrefutable charm has reached her ears and now I alone can claim the triumph of wresting her out of years of inconsolable mourning?”
Charlotte chortled, a gaily infectious sound. “I’d venture to say even better than poor dear Victoria.”
Catherine’s eyes widened and she clapped her hand over her open mouth in mock affront and shock. Drawing her hand away, she asked in hushed tones, “Who on earth could possibly be better than our Queen?”
“I hope you’ll find me a favorable substitute.”
Had Catherine held a glass in her hand, it would lay shattered on the marble floor much like her composure. The man who’d dominated her thoughts the last twelve months stepped into view. For a moment, she was certain she was hallucinating, conjuring him up from a series of dreams and fantasies.
A gasp escaped her lips, her shock now as real as the man approaching from the direction of the drawing room. And if possible, he looked even better than she’d imagined him—than she remembered him. From his cravat down to his buffed lace-up boots, today he resembled more an English aristocrat than an American businessman. Even the distinctly American way he had of collapsing vowels into consonants seemed to have taken on a crisper, more polished English tone. He seemed to have shrugged off the American in him with his overcoat.
“Lucas.” His name tumbled from her lips, uttered in a rush of breathless disbelief, rippling the currents of the air with a longing that left her vulnerable and exposed. She caught herself when she realized just how she sounded. Bewildered. Bewitched.
Her pride scampered to the scene, belated but not so much so that all was lost. She straightened her spine, cleared her throat, and spoke louder as if that would negate her initial reaction. “Mr. Beaumont, what an unexpected surprise.”
Her sister averted her face, a smile fringing the corners of her mouth. Lucas smiled, elevating his looks from exceptional to sublime. He moved with a precision of purpose, his gait that of a man comfortable in his skin in a world not even she felt entirely comfortable.
He wore a coat the same color of the brown flecks in his hazel eyes and his waistcoat and trousers indicated how mulberry stripes and tan could happily co-exist. Catherine took him in, all long lean muscles and uncompromising masculinity, and wished she didn’t find him so appealing.
“Catherine. You look more beautiful than ever.”
A shiver raced through her at his words and the informality of his greeting. He halted in front of her, standing much too close for proper breathing. She then made the mistake of inhaling, only to permeate her collective senses with everything that was him. Her mind was muddled. She couldn’t recall what she had said last, but stalwart, forged on in an attempt to somehow deaden his effect.
“Pray, what brings you to England again so soon?”
“So soon? Katie, Lucas has been gone for some time,” Charlotte chided. “Over a year if memory serves me right.”
Her sister’s memory served her ill as it had been exactly eleven months and two weeks. But really, who was keeping track? Not she who had counted the days like a miser counted his coin.
“Has it been so long?” Catherine asked with a slight lift of her eyebrow, continuing to hold Lucas’s stare.
“It has been eleven months, two weeks and five days,” he stated with a confidence of fact that one would be smart not to question.
Catherine’s jaw sagged and a small whoosh of air swept from between her lips. What possible reason had he to remember right down to the day? She was afraid to ask. Wishful thinking and hope were her enemies. Both had let her down before.
“Your sister tells me you are her guest until your brother and his family returns from London.”
“Yes. Parliament doesn’t recess for Easter until the eighth of April,” she replied politely, as if her heart hadn’t started a frantic beating within the too tight confines of her chest walls.
“And neither of us could stand the thought of Katie puttering about Rutherford Manor all alone. Though to be completely honest, it saves us both countless trips back and forth. Had I been successful this past year, she’d be calling Gretchen Manor her home.” Charlotte smiled warmly at her.
As much as she loved her twin or perhaps because she loved her so very much, she could never accept such an offer. She wasn’t so selfish as to infringe on her sister’s time alone with Alex when a year ago she’d returned after a five-year absence.
“Charlotte, if you don’t mind, I wish to speak with your sister alone.” Without waiting for her sister’s response, he took Catherine’s arm and steered her toward the library at the opposite end of the main corridor. His hand on her elbow was by all appearances appropriately circumspect but in truth, it felt rather possessive…intimate. The silk of her sleeve merely served as a conduit of his body heat as it burned her everywhere his bare flesh touched hers. She resented him for treating her so familiarly, as if their time apart didn’t warrant some apprehension on his part, and certainly some acrimony on hers.
Upon entrance to the library, Lucas closed the door. She moved out of his reach and turned to eye him directly, chin elevated. “You are behaving quite presumptuously.” She prayed the chill in her voice would mask her roiling emotions.
Lucas’s smile appeared like the languid stretch of a cat on a lazy Sunday afternoon. “I rather thought you liked my presumptuousness.” He made the word a potent caress. “At least it appeared that way on several occasions when I was last in England.”
Catherine did not accept embarrassment with the politesse of a lady—flushed cheeks and a timid smile most men found enchanting. Instead, her walls snapped up as she erected her defenses. “It is very rude of you to bring up the incident.”
His brows rose, his lips twitched and his hazel eyes held the promise of something terribly wicked. “The incident? I thought it was a kiss. And I recall there being more than one of such—” he cleared his throat “—incidents, as you say.”
Scorching degrees of heat burned her cheeks. “It was a mistake and I wish you wouldn’t speak of it again.”
“I did not mean to discomfit.” His voice was all feigned contriteness.
“Mr. Beaumont, you flatter yourself. You haven’t the power to discomfit me in the least.” She spoke with a bravado she did not feel nor was likely to be able to follow through on should she be put to the test. Lucas could discomfit her like no other man.
His gaze became hooded and when next he spoke, his voice seemed to have dropped an entire octave. “Am I to take that as a challenge, Miss Rutherford?”
It took her a moment to understand his meaning. The same time it took for his eyes to smolder, coming close to igniting her own desires. Unease had her swallowing hard and drawing
in a shaky breath. “Nothing in my response issued any sort of challenge. I was merely stating the truth.”
“Why then do you not want me to speak of the incidents?” he asked in a quiet rumble brimming with everything sexual and illicit.
“Why?” Catherine averted her gaze for the instant it took her to gather her composure and regain some of that legendary Rutherford pride. “Because it is unseemly, that is why. I fear you are forgetting, Mr. Beaumont, that I am a respectable young lady.” Though perhaps not as young as she used to be nor as respectable as most imagined. And if technically she was not a lady by birth then certainly by comportment—at least on the most part.
Mocking her were the embarrassing details of their encounters playing vividly in her mind. The kisses they had shared had been incendiary. And with it, the memories brought more heat…everywhere.
He closed the distance between them with two long strides, his eyes glittering a sexual hunger when his regard arrested on her mouth. The burning intensity of that look sent her belly plummeting to parts of her person that made her thighs warble and clench. She swallowed, careful not to look away from him this time. If she conveyed any sign of weakness, she was done for. She may as well strip naked and spread her legs for him now.
An image flashed. The heat emanating from her face could bake bread and roast an entire pig through and through.
“Is it unseemly for a young woman to afford a man the liberties you did me? It was more than a kiss,” he said in a low velvety voice.
Catherine nearly choked on her next breath and began swatting at the charged air between them as if the memory of the incident his words evoked could be cleared so easily. Dear Lord, she’d yet to rid her thoughts of her spread naked for his plundering. “I don’t know how the women in America comport themselves, Mr. Beaumont, but I assure you—”
“Believe me when I say, Miss Rutherford—” he drawled, mimicking the strident formality of her address, for they’d gone beyond Miss and Catherine “—they comport themselves much the same way as the women here in England. Do you need a reminder?”
Yes please. Insanity.
Where is your pride? Logic and reason.
The two opposing voices warred in a battle to the death.
He was enjoying great amusement at her expense. It was obvious he saw her as an easy mark, ready to spread her thighs for all and sundry. There would be no spreading of anything. She had, after all, succumbed to him once—twice before. That she didn’t make it a habit of permitting men such liberties was a fact he probably wouldn’t believe if she told him. And what would it matter anyway? It wasn’t as if he cared for her. He’d been gone a year only to appear out of the blue with lust in his eyes, subjecting her to memories that threatened her resolve. It certainly didn’t appear he’d been pining for her. Not that she’d pined for him. She had not. Certainly, he’d been in her thoughts and starred in many of her dreams, but she wouldn’t precisely call that pining.
“A couple of kisses does not an attraction make.” She endeavored to keep her voice crisp, her jaw firmly set, her mouth tight and her gaze as cool as a north England autumn breeze.
He dipped his head from his intimidating six foot one inch height. Before she could squeak her outrage, his lips nipped her right earlobe. A tiny little love bite that immediately flooded her core with moisture and longing.
Traitor. Insanity crowed at winning this battle.
“What does it make then?” he murmured, his voice throaty and low. “At the very least, a powerful attraction wouldn’t you agree” His lips then sought the place behind her ear that literally buckled her knees and had her clutching the lapels of his coat in an effort to remain upright. He caught her easily, pulling her tight against him until they were plastered from knee to shoulder.
“You mustn’t.” She said even as her head fell back to allow him full access to the line of her neck.
The war raged on but logic and reason were at a decided disadvantage. Insanity was crafty and had many weapons at its disposal.
“God, Catherine, take pity on me. It has been an entire year since I’ve held a woman like this—held you.” She felt the warm moistness of his breath against her skin and another tidal wave of desire washed over her. Although she knew she should resist him, she hadn’t the will to push him away. It had been just as long for her.
Logic and reason lay sprawled and breathless on the ground while, within insanity’s sight lay certain victory.
“My intentions are honorable.” His lips moved from her neck to her mouth, meeting her lips in the barest feathering of a kiss. Never had succumbing to the demands of her body created such a lure to wipe clean certain memories of the past. It would be so easy…and incredibly stupid. And no one could ever accuse her of being that.
Insanity gaped in disbelief as logic and reason struggled to its knees and stood on shaky legs. Insanity charged. One good push would send its nemesis down again.
She lifted her hands to push him away, but he caught both in his grasp and pressed them to his chest. His mouth lifted the barest fraction of an inch, his breath like invisible ribbons keeping her tethered to him.
With his softly spoken words, logic and reason toppled and with its final breath, conceded defeat. “I love you and I’ve come back to make you my wife.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Catherine jerked out of his embrace with a startled, “Pardon?”
Lucas enjoyed the sight of her slightly unbalanced. He loved the look of her wide-eyed with surprise. God, he wanted her with an intensity that had consumed him those interminable months they’d been apart. And he was resolved to make her his—in every conceivable way. He’d have no peace until she was legally bound to him and he could call her his wife. Where they took their honeymoon would not matter as he’d scarcely let her out of bed.
“There is nothing I want more than to marry you.”
Catherine inhaled a deep breath. Lucas followed the rise and fall of her breasts. In his mind’s eye, he saw himself unbuttoning the back of her gown and peeling the pale-blue silk from her torso. He’d deal quickly with the cumbersome undergarments until her breasts were bared to his gaze. He’d take a rosy nipple into his mouth and circle it with the tip of his tongue.
“But why?”
Her voice broke through the fog of his lust. With her hand splayed against her throat, she appeared completely taken aback by his announcement, as he knew she would.
“Why would I not want to marry you?” he asked softly. Surely she was not ignorant of her appeal? And he spoke not merely of her outward beauty. She had so much more than that to offer a gentleman.
“I have not seen you in a year. You must understand my confusion over your sudden appearance and declarations of love.” She had retreated until her back met the shelf of the mahogany bookcase against the wall.
Lucas would not have expected less from Catherine. She had every right to be slightly wary of his intentions. No matter how she’d tried to hide it, he’d hurt her. “My greatest regret is leaving you as I did. And my only excuse is that I was confronted with an enormous dilemma. In all fairness, I knew I could not ask you to leave the sister you’d only just found and your family to come with me to America. At the same time, I had responsibilities there—my siblings, my business—and I couldn’t simply absolve myself of my duties toward them. In addition, your brother-in-law quite despises me. I couldn’t see a way to resolving the matter to either our satisfaction.” If Charlotte had not told her that she’d explicitly asked him to leave to save her marriage, it wasn’t his place to inform Catherine of that fact.
“Those obstacles still exist. What is so different now?” she asked, her expression guarded.
“When I finally accepted the true depth of my feelings for you—that I loved you beyond reason—I was willing to do whatever it took to be with you. My feelings for you were not going to go away no matter the distance between us, no matter whatever time elapsed. You are indelibly etched in my heart. And if that mea
nt I had to move myself and my sisters to England, leave the running of my company to someone else, and face the wrath of your brother-in-law to have you in my life…as my wife, I would gladly do whatever it took.”
Catherine visibly shivered and her eyes took on a glassy sheen.
“In other words, I found I could not live without you.” The need for her had grown until it had affected everything he did. He’d rushed through the expansion of his company, an undertaking that would normally have taken double the nine months he’d condensed it to. He and his men had worked themselves ragged to get the new steel plant equipped and adequately manned so he could return to England—to her.
Catherine’s breath emerged shaky and shallow. She stared at him and swallowed. “I don’t know what to say.” An enchanting blush suffused her face, her pupils large, and her blue eyes as clear as a cloudless sky.
“At present, I don’t want you to say anything. I want you to come here.” He’d intended it as a request but it came out a husky command.
“For what?” she asked, her voice a tremulous whisper, for she knew what he wanted. She’d known it almost since their introduction. The attraction between them had been immediate and explosive.
Lucas chuckled softly. “Surely you can guess,” he murmured.
Her gaze fell to the evidence of his arousal before jerking up swiftly. “You want to marry me yet I received only one letter from you. Those actions hardly seem to fit the sentiment you’ve just professed.” Her voice broke ever so slightly.
“I received no letter from you,” he retorted, still piqued at that. He’d hoped she would write but after two months had passed without a letter from her, he’d accepted the fact that there wouldn’t be one.
Catherine’s eyes narrowed as she folded her arms across her chest. “Pray what precisely was I to respond to? You informed me that you’d arrived safely and wished me well. What you sent me was a courtesy letter and nothing more.”
“If you recall, we didn’t part on the best of terms. I had no idea what kind of reception my letter would receive.” For the first time in his life, he’d feared his feelings not being reciprocated.
Twice the Temptation Page 4
