by Eloisa James
They had set fire to the buttery—mercifully, it had been unoccupied at the time.
They had let all the ewes run free, to test whether they had successfully trained an old hound to herd like a sheep dog. Answer: no.
He had her giggling before she finished her first glass of wine, and hiccupping with laughter by the second. By the time he poured her a small glass of elderflower liqueur, she had found her backbone again.
No, she would not marry Parth simply because he’d kissed her. For goodness’ sake! The very idea of confessing her mother’s crimes made her feel ill.
She put down her fork, finally, and smiled across the table, once more herself. His kisses had temporarily unhinged her but she felt in control again. No longer a shaky, exhausted woman, likely to succumb to the first gentleman who wrapped an arm around her and made her feel safe.
He made her feel other things as well, but she pushed that thought away.
“Ready to return to your room?” His eyes were perfectly friendly.
“Yes. This was a wonderful meal, Parth. I’m so grateful that you brought me here.” She placed her napkin on the table.
“Are you certain that you want nothing more to eat?”
“Quite certain, thank you.”
He held up a piece of fruit.
“You are going to nag your wife dreadfully,” she observed, a smile fluttering around her lips as she rose. “No, there is nothing I want, thank you.”
“I want you.”
He said it calmly. He stood, of course; Parth’s manners were fit for Versailles. Now he skirted the table and stopped. “I want you, Lavinia. And in case there is any doubt in your mind, I want to marry you. You, not Elisa.”
Lavinia opened her mouth but nothing came out. She just stared at him, her heart squeezing into a little ball. “Why?” she managed.
Parth reached out and took her hands. After a pause, he said, “You’re very beautiful, Lavinia. Surely you don’t want me to repeat other men’s compliments. I am incapable of writing you a poem.”
His voice was as calm as ever, but his hands held hers with a kind of forcefulness that carried emotion.
“I don’t know,” she faltered. She wanted him; she wanted to marry him with every iota of her being. But there was the problem of her mother’s thefts. But even more . . . some stubborn part of her didn’t want to marry a man who thought she was shallow as a puddle. Or a man who would even say such a thing.
Whether or not she was.
But it was Parth. Parth was asking her.
He saw that realization in her face, because his hands tightened and then he pulled her into his arms and kissed her. When she didn’t open her lips immediately, settling herself into the feeling of being surrounded by him, he nipped her lip, and then licked the spot, and when she gasped, his tongue slipped into her mouth.
Lavinia leaned into the kiss, and made a decision without even realizing. It wasn’t to do with marriage, but with trust.
She trusted him, and whether he knew it or not, he had her heart. She’d stupidly fallen in love with him years ago, and although she’d tried to persuade herself out of that foolishness, it hadn’t gone away.
His hands tightened, pulling her closer. The kiss that followed was like fire, making her shake all over. When it ended—because they both had to breathe—his eyes were glittering at her in the candlelight. He was so solid that she couldn’t help sliding her hands down his arms. Solid—and beautiful.
Everything to her.
The realization was terrifying, so terrifying that she heard herself swallow.
“You think too much,” Parth said, his voice rumbling.
“I have been under the impression that you believed I didn’t think at all.” She said it before she could stop herself.
He reached out and cupped her cheek. “I apologize for ever saying that. I was irritated—no, infuriated—that I couldn’t get you out of my mind.”
That made sense. She believed him, for Parth was not a man who would welcome distraction. She curved one hand around his neck, deciding it was one of her favorite parts of his body. It was strong and muscled. Kissable. Lickable.
“You are compromised,” he stated.
“I don’t know,” she protested. “I’ve kissed other—”
His mouth cut off that sentence. She had never kissed any man the way she kissed Parth. And his hands: His hands owned her. They moved around her body with total assurance, touching her back so gently that she shivered and pressed closer. Curving around one hip and then tightening, which made her mouth open wider, her head falling back with a choked sound. Even through layers of silk she felt the heat of his hand as it slid over her bottom.
“I know you’ve kissed other men,” he growled in her ear.
Lavinia shuddered against him, realizing that she should qualify those kisses. They hadn’t been this, whatever this was. Yet Parth didn’t need her to give an explanation. The truth hung in the air between them as he kissed her again and then, in the middle of heady, silent conversation, he lifted her, took a step, and put her down again.
Not on her feet.
Lavinia’s eyes rounded. He had laid her across a divan opposite the fireplace. She hadn’t even noticed it.
“Lavinia, may I compromise you?”
The light pooled behind him, and somehow the sight of him standing over her was so erotic that Lavinia could hardly breathe. “Yes,” she said faintly.
He knelt, his eyes holding hers. “There is no going back. Men kissed you believing you’d marry them, the poor fools.”
Lavinia didn’t want to talk about other men. Even mentioning them made her feel unseemly, like a wanton.
He leaned closer. “Not like that. There’s nothing loose about you, Lavinia. You were testing them, weren’t you?”
She nodded. And then froze, because she’d never seen that expression on his face. Eyes smiling, crinkled with laughter. “You’re laughing,” she said wonderingly.
“Maybe I just need encouragement.”
His idea of encouragement took her breath and made her shiver, turning toward him, arms tight around his neck. Her breath broke into a sob, an incoherent command, a plea.
Parth’s face was as tranquil as ever, but his eyes . . . his eyes were fierce.
“May I compromise you, Lavinia?” he asked again.
“Whatever happened to Punctilious Parth?” she whispered, tracing his bottom lip with a finger. She was so aroused that she was shaking. “Or to Proper Parth?”
“Appalling, if I go forward with this.” There was no ruefulness in his voice. Only desire.
Deep, deep desire, which growled through him and came from his chest. She trusted it.
“Yes,” she heard herself say. “Yes, I will.”
Because he was really asking her to marry him, and compromising was just the cover for that question. But she had to ask, so she blurted out, “What about Elisa?”
He ran his lips over her jaw. She squirmed, the liquid heat between her legs surprisingly unnerving. “Parth!”
“I promised her I’d bring her to Lindow for the wedding.”
“Did you promise to court her?” She pulled away.
He grinned again, and Lavinia knew that she would do anything—anything—to keep that smile on his face. “I did not. I told her that I wouldn’t marry her. She laughed.”
“Oh,” Lavinia breathed. She raised a hand and ran her fingers down his face, beside his eye, down his cheekbone and strong jaw.
“I planned to announce our betrothal at the masquerade ball,” Parth said.
Her fingers froze. “You—you’ve planned it?”
He looked faintly surprised. “You might as well assume that I plan everything. The duke announced his betrothal to Ophelia at a masquerade ball, the first that we older children were allowed to attend.”
“How romantic.” She curled her fingers around his neck, promising a kiss there, afterward, to the join of his shoulder. Desire felt agonizingly sha
rp, like a wound that hadn’t healed. She wanted him, not a conversation. But she didn’t know how to move from conversation to . . .
To that next, forbidden thing.
Kisses didn’t offer much guide for what came after.
“Even as a boy, I grasped the romance of it,” Parth said, his voice even, but she recognized the desire buried there. She wasn’t the only one quivering. “I decided I would do the same one day.”
She pushed a thought away, but he caught her chin and pressed a kiss on her lips.
“Tell me.”
“Is that why you asked Elisa to come to the wedding with you?”
“Yes,” he said calmly.
Lavinia’s mouth twitched and the breath caught in her chest. That hurt.
“I had made up my mind to woo and wed Elisa,” Parth continued. “I always assume that I shall be successful. It’s an excellent way to approach business. And life.”
He looked amused, which Lavinia found thoroughly irritating. She could not bring herself to say anything. At some point she had replaced Elisa in the masquerade ball scenario. She disliked the chill that crept through her, like a bitter wind.
“Do you know the one situation in which I could not envision success?” he asked.
“I cannot imagine it.” A small, shabby part of her wanted to make certain that Elisa had been vanquished from Parth’s mind.
Gone, abolished, replaced by Lavinia.
“You,” he said, lowering his face so that his breath shivered over her lips. “You. You were the one person who would never want me, would never be won over by me, would see through me.”
That was disconcerting.
“You want me because I didn’t want you? I was the one who proposed to you, if you remember.”
He had a stubborn look in his eyes, the expression of a male determined not to say embarrassing things. Happiness spread through Lavinia’s body. He wasn’t ready to say whatever he meant.
She tugged until he started kissing her. Every once in a while they would surface from the kiss and she would tug at him again until finally he shifted and his weight came down on top of her.
“Oh, my God,” Lavinia whispered.
“Too heavy?”
“Don’t move.” She wound her arms around his neck, closed her eyes, and just felt. A large, muscled man on top of her. Crushing her dress. She didn’t mind. She’d never been happier.
His hips nudged forward, and her eyes flew open. She was staring at his smile, memorizing it, when he rolled on his side again. Lavinia opened her mouth to complain except that his hand was running up her leg. Under her skirts.
A strangled squeak escaped her throat.
Parth leaned over and brushed her lips with his. “I’m inclined to compromise you so thoroughly that you can think only of me for the rest of your life. No more kisses with other men, ever. No more testing that involves a man.”
“Yes,” she said faintly, not really listening. Then: “No?”
“No men.”
“None except Parth.” His hand wrapped around the soft curve of her upper thigh and her breath caught, waiting.
“Breathe,” he said.
She shook her head.
He smiled again, and because he slid his fingers there at the same moment, she almost missed it.
Chapter Twenty
Parth had fully intended to behave like a gentleman.
The problem was Lavinia. He had always behaved with impeccable restraint. It was something he worked out early; he had felt at home in the middle of the uproarious Wilde family. He was a Wilde.
But to the rest of the world, he wasn’t. He was merely a ward of the duke, an orphan whose mother was from India and whose father had no inheritance. His behavior never gave the world the chance to question his worthiness, or his right to be called a gentleman and, implicitly, a Wilde.
Lavinia was the only person who bashed through his rules. No: who caused him to break his own rules. He stroked her between the legs with the most delicate caress he could manage, scarcely touching her, but she was plump and soft, and her head fell backward with a moan.
He was about to break another rule. All his rules, for her.
“May I make love to you, Lavinia?” he whispered. He couldn’t stop himself from sliding an arm under her neck and pulling her closer, his other hand swirling, making her legs fall open and her breath stutter.
Her eyes opened. “Parth!”
His fingers stopped.
“You already are.”
He licked her bottom lip. “There’s making love and then there’s making love.”
She grabbed his wrist and pressed firmly. Her head toppled against his shoulder and she said something he couldn’t hear. He was not an idiot. When he bore down again, adding a twist of his wrist, a note of desperation broke from her throat and she shuddered.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Parth said, kissing her hard. Moving to her jaw, nipping her neck, and all the time his fingers making her tremble. Her whole body was taut and her hand still gripped his wrist, holding him in place.
In case he tried to leave her, presumably.
As if he ever would.
One finger went deep, owning her, and she made a desperate sound, rubbing her head against his shoulder. A curse came from his chest and he added another finger, listening to her sobbing breath, treasuring the way her back arched toward him, her hands clutching him, her face buried in his coat.
He coaxed her into kissing him again, showing her a rhythm that matched above and below, tongue matching his fingers, buried inside her. She gasped, cried, said unintelligible things—and then shook hard, waves going through her body. He treasured every one.
He kissed her ear and thought about what might come next.
No gentleman—
The sentence evaporated from his mind, because Lavinia opened her eyes and fixed him with a gaze that saw to the bottom of his soul.
“You can’t . . .” Her voice was ragged, hoarse. “We’re not done, are we?”
“We ought to stop,” he said, reluctant, pushing the words out.
Lavinia’s face crumpled. “It’s not enough.” The words were like a sob, and she arched up again, her mouth on his, her tongue caressing, demanding entrance.
Not enough.
His lady wanted—more.
Parth tore himself away and stood up. Lavinia lay on the divan, skirts billowing around her waist, the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. He hadn’t even touched her breasts.
She looked up with no shame. None. There was delight in her eyes, and desire, and hunger. For him, for Parth.
He kicked off his boots, stockings, wrenched down his breeches. Her eyes widened.
“I’m not small,” he said, glancing down.
“No, you’re not,” she said.
A movement in her legs caught his eyes. She wasn’t squeezing them together, refusing him, as she’d have every right to do. Instead, her sweet thighs fell open.
Parth came down on his elbows over her, kissing her ruthlessly. Even in the white heat of the kiss, he was ticking over facts in the back of his mind. She had said yes. She had said yes several times. She was marrying him. He would announce it at the masquerade. Hell, maybe he would marry her that night. Forget a betrothal.
Wedding dresses floated through his mind and he dismissed the thought. Lavinia rubbed herself against his cock and he groaned, an agony of lust washing over him. He’d never felt like this.
He’d bedded women—but he’d never made love before.
He’d never held any woman like Lavinia, kissed a woman like her. She was soft and fragrant, and so fucking alive that he wanted to bite her all over. Caress her so hard that he left marks, his marks.
His cock slid through sleek warmth and he almost—
Stopped himself.
Virgin. Pain. No. The idea of causing pain to Lavinia, any pain to Lavinia, was anathema.
“Wait,” he commanded, the word rasping in his throat. He backe
d up, pushed her skirts even higher, and dipped his tongue into sweet honey. He had the vague sense that ladies didn’t like this sort of intimate attention, but Lavinia fell backward, and there was a moment of silence before she shrieked. “Yes!”
Good thing he’d banned the servants from the tower, he thought dimly. He brought his hand into play and soon she was shaking and pleading for more.
Laughter was trapped in his throat because he was licking her too hard to laugh, his fingers moving in concert. She bucked against him, crying out desperately. When her inner muscles began to tighten on him, he pulled free.
“No!” she ordered.
But he straightened, pulling up her hips, sliding through sleek warmth, then pushing inside. For a moment he froze, Never hurt Lavinia clashing with Take Lavinia.
She opened her eyes, pleasure-drenched. Demanding.
“Parth! That’s not enough,” she said, reaching for him, her voice high but fierce. “Not—”
The word was lost in a gasp because he thrust forward, past her virginity, past sanity, past everything but pleasure.
A desperate groan broke from his lips and he was deep, as deep as possible. His eyes narrowed, searching her face. She was glistening with sweat, pink-cheeked, and when he didn’t move, her eyes opened again.
“Bloody hell,” she whispered.
“Pain?” he managed.
“No . . . Yes . . . Just keep going.”
He kept it slow and gentle, stroke after stroke, his patience immense. For once, he had control of himself around her. Lavinia was his, all his, and he was responsible for giving her pleasure, more pleasure. The thought kept his balls tight. He pushed his need to the side. He eased her bodice down and palmed one breast, his palm caressing the taut bud, watching as her breath shuddered.
She pulled him down, closer to her. He could feel her body softening. Still, he managed to keep his slow, deep glide.
Until she opened her eyes and he caught just a hint of disappointment. His hips jolted to a stop.
