by Gaelen Foley
Chapter 9
About an hour later, Alice was seated before the mirror in her bedchamber, rested, refreshed, dressed in the more formal of the two remaining gowns that she had brought to Revell Court. Her carriage gown was, of course, ruined. For morning dress, she had the simple, powder-blue muslin, but since it was evening, she had donned the slightly lower-cut dinner dress of dark green velvet. It was one of her favorite gowns because the velvet was soft and cozy and the skirts draped perfectly in the back. The gown had a square-cut neckline edged with ivory lace, a black satin bow that tied beneath the high waist, and long, tight sleeves with small lace ruffles at the wrists. Matching green-and-black velvet slippers warmed her feet, which swung idly over the chilly floor as she slowly brushed her hair with a dreamy, faraway gaze.
In her mind’s eye, she still savored her last glimpse of Lucien undressing for his turn at bathing in the Grotto pool. He had lifted his shirt off over his head, baring the sweeping curves of his rippling back muscles, lean waist, and broad shoulders. The thought of him made her knees weak.
A knock sounded at the door to her bedchamber, stirring her from her daydreams. When she got up and went to answer it, a liveried servant bowed to her.
“Good evening, miss. His Lordship invites you to join him in the library before going in to dinner. He bade me give this to you.” With both hands, he held out a small satin pillow upon which rested a key.
She furrowed her brow and picked up the key. “What does it open?”
The footman’s face colored. “Er, your chamber, madam.”
“Oh,” she replied, blushing crimson. Her heart instantly began to pound. What did this mean? Was it another mind game like their last encounter in the library? “Did he say anything?” she asked.
“No, miss. Shall I show you to the library?”
She gave him a wry look. “I know the way by now.”
When she walked into the library a few minutes later, all she could see of Lucien was his boots, crossed at the heels, and his hand hanging idly over the arm of the chair, a goblet of red wine dangling from his fingers. Horned shadows danced across the dim library, flung out by the high, spiky outline of his diabolically carved armchair as he sat before the fire. She went warily around it and looked at him.
Lounging in the big leather chair, he sat with his cheek resting on his fist, his elbow propped on the chair arm. He met her gaze but did not move or speak as she approached. The fire lit the yearning in his eyes. His lips looked tender and soft, slightly sulky, as though he were badly in need of a kiss.
“Hullo,” she murmured, clasping her hands loosely behind her back as she sauntered over and stood before him.
He just looked at her.
They stared at each other for a moment.
“How is your shoulder?” he grumbled.
“Much better. Lucien?”
“Yes, Alice?” he answered wearily.
“Why did you give me the key?”
“Shall I take it back?” he demanded, then dropped his gaze with a wince of self-directed irritation and rubbed his forehead. “Because I don’t want you to be afraid. Of me.” From beneath the visor of his hand, he slid her a pleading look.
“I’m not afraid,” she said.
He lifted his head. “I know that you know about the tunnel. Now you’ve got the key. If you want to escape, I shan’t stop you.”
She considered this in silence for a moment. “Did I displease you?”
From the fire, his gaze swung back to her with a frank look of sensual torment. “What can you possibly mean?”
“My awkwardness, falling today like a clumsy thing. I feel like such a fool—”
“It is I who am the fool, Alice. Please, do not trouble yourself. It was all my fault,” he muttered, uncrossing his heels, sitting up straighter.
“How is that?”
“I should’ve made us wait out the storm at Whitby’s cottage. I should’ve been holding onto you. I should never have made you stay here,” he said, his voice dropping to a whisper. “But I could not help myself.”
Alice took a step toward him. “I know. You are tired of being alone. You told me.”
“You don’t know,” he said in a low, almost hostile voice. He shook his head. “I don’t even know what I’m doing with you. You’re not like anyone else who’s in my life—” He stopped abruptly. “Did you ever drink too much wine, Alice?” He held up the glass in his hand and waggled it idly, making the ruby contents swirl.
“I’m not one to overindulge.”
“No, you wouldn’t be,” he said wryly. “Allow me to explain, then, that the more you drink, the more thirsty you become. Not all the wine in the world can assuage the thirst for water. Water. Wine makes you merry, but a man needs water to keep him alive. Pure, clean, sweet water.” He sighed, silent for a moment. He stared almost bitterly into the fire. “I am parched, Alice, scorched like a wasteland, burning like a damned soul in hell. I thirst.”
“I know,” she whispered. Lowering herself slowly to her knees by his chair, she took his hand and gazed up at him in youthful sincerity.
He watched her every move with firmly checked hunger. “It’s all right, if you want to run. I wouldn’t blame you.”
“I’m not afraid.”
“You should be,” he said, his cynicism growing sharper as it began to fail him. “Life with me is fraught with danger. Get out while you can—”
“Shh, Lucien. Let me say something to you.” She laid her fingertips over his lips until she saw in his eyes that he had put his irritation aside and was ready to listen. “I still owe you an apology from yesterday, when your heart was on your sleeve and I . . . kicked it.”
His left eyebrow lifted.
She lowered her hand slowly from his lips. “I’ve been trying to find the right words all day to tell you how awful I feel about what I said yesterday—that I wasn’t surprised that you are alone. The truth is I can’t think for the life of me why some woman hasn’t snatched you up yet, and to be strictly honest, Lucien—” She tucked her chin, dropping her gaze. She could feel her cheeks heating with embarrassment. “The truth is, I’m alone, too.” She could feel him staring at her. Gathering her courage, she looked up at him uncertainly. “Do you hate me? I didn’t even mean it—”
He suddenly leaned forward in his chair and cut off her words with a kiss, tipping her chin upward gently with his fingertips.
As their lips met, a little breathless sigh escaped her. Her eyes fluttered closed. Sliding his hand around her nape, he coaxed her lips apart. Her heart raced. She needed little urging, accepting his kiss eagerly, capturing his clean-shaved face between her fingertips. He tasted of port. She savored it, taking his tongue even more deeply into her mouth in sensuous welcome. Her hands trembled as she stroked the strong line of his jaw and ran her fingers through his silken black hair. With a low moan of desire, he slid his arms around her, shaping the natural contours of her waist below the draped velvet of her gown’s high-waisted style, running his hands downward over her hips. She fought to keep a rein on the passion he ignited in her blood.
“I can’t take this. I don’t want any more games,” he whispered urgently, ending the kiss a moment later. She saw genuine fear mingled with fierce passion in the crystalline depths of his eyes. “I have to know what you plan to do. Are you going to stay of your own accord, or are you going to escape through that blasted tunnel? Because if you don’t want to be with me, I don’t want to keep you here against your will—not after today—and if you’re not interested, I don’t want to let myself get attached to you.” He suddenly stopped, looking shocked by his own fervent words.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Stay, of course,” he said in exasperation, his cheeks flushing. “Stay the full week that we agreed upon, not because you have to, but because you want to—and because you want to know as much as I do if there really is something between us or if this is just some . . . beautiful illusion.”
She gazed at him tenderly, taken aback. It had been easy enough to believe he was attracted to her when his intentions had been purely lecherous, but now, she realized in awe, astonishingly, his interest in her had turned serious. She barely dared believe it.
He looked away from her wonder-struck stare with a large sigh of self-disgust. “God, I must sound to you like a raving fool. You might as well flee. Shall I call you a carriage?”
“No!” she said quickly. Still kneeling on the floor between his legs, she slid her arms around his neck and pressed a comforting kiss to his cheek. He closed his eyes with an air of misery and leaned his head slightly into her kiss, his broad shoulders slumped. Alice grazed her lips along his cheek back to his ear. “Lucien?”
“Yes, Alice?”
Her heart was pounding, but she willed herself to muster the courage to reach out to him—unpredictable, dangerous as he was. “I think it’s real.”
At her soft, hesitant words, he trembled in her arms, lifted his lashes slowly, and pinned her in a tortured stare. She whispered his name as he lifted her onto his lap then kissed her in fiery intensity. If there had been any doubt in her mind as to his sincerity, the blazing need in his kiss routed it.
“God, girl, you don’t know what you do to me,” he breathed after a few minutes, checking his passion with a slight wince of self-restraint. He captured her face between his hands, softly stroking her cheeks with his thumbs. “I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to scare you.”
“I’m not scared. I want to know you.”
“Yes,” he whispered, nodding slowly, enthralling her with his stare. Holding her in his arms, he eased her down to recline across his lap, her knees draped over the chair arm. He kissed her again and again, caressing her thigh through the velvet of her gown.
“How is your poor, precious knee?” he murmured at length, bending his head to kiss it gently.
Entranced by his playful sensuality, she could not find her voice to answer. He smiled knowingly and ran his hand down her shin. His hand ducked beneath the hem of her gown, lightly stroked her ankle. She blushed a bit but did not protest. She felt so close to him in this moment. She knew he felt the same. Gratitude shone in the depths of his eyes, as though she had given him a great gift in her willingness to stay at Revell Court. Little did he suspect she would not have left for the world. Not now. He slipped his finger into her velvet shoe, toying with the arch of her stockinged foot. She giggled and squirmed on his lap as he tickled her foot.
“Do you know that every inch of you is pretty, Alice Montague?” he whispered, leaning down to kiss her neck while his hand continued exploring her.
She kissed his hair as he nuzzled his way lower, his warm, breathy kisses heating her cleavage, making her light-headed. “I could say the same for you.”
“But you haven’t seen every inch of me,” he murmured suggestively.
“Yet.”
He looked up from kissing her chest, his eyebrow lifted.
She gave him an impertinent little grin. “Perhaps I shall sketch your portrait. You could model for me, au naturel.”
“What . . . shocking impropriety,” he murmured in silken wickedness.
“Don’t tell me you are shy. I already know better.”
“I make no such claim. The question is, are you shy, my sweet? For it so happens I’ve got a bit of impropriety on my mind, as well.”
“You? Never.”
“Oh, yes,” he whispered, running the back of his fingers over her breast in gentle provocation.
A blush flooded her cheeks as her nipple hardened under his light touch through her velvet gown. Instantly, every inch of her skin became heated, sensitized. “What, ah, manner of impropriety, my lord?”
Perhaps if she had rebuked him, he would not have grown bolder, but she was enjoying it too much to stop him. He rested his fingertip directly on her nipple, teasing it with slow, circular caresses. “Giving you pleasure. Do you trust me?” he whispered, gazing into her eyes as he slipped his hand beneath her skirts, skimming it slowly up her shin.
“In what . . . sense?” she forced out, quivering as his warm hand rounded her knee and smoothly ascended to stroke her thigh.
“In the sense that you would let me touch you without fear that I might lose control of myself. I won’t, you know. I want you to let go of fear entirely in my arms.”
She gulped, her heartbeat escalating still faster. “I suppose, if you gave me your assurance—”
“I give you my word.”
“Then I think that I could,” she agreed faintly.
Her eyes shot open wide as he rested his hand between her thighs. A jolt of electrifying pleasure shot through her. Lucien’s eyes glittered with silvery fire, but Alice did not know if she ought to be ashamed. By touching her there, he surely felt the evidence of her arousal. She drew in a breath sharply, quivering the length of her body as he skimmed his fingertips ever-so-lightly over her sex, up and down, awakening every inch of her virginal womanhood until she moaned softly with need and sank back limply against his shoulder, her chest heaving.
The heat, the delicious pressure of his touch, made her weak. Her arms were draped around his neck. She held onto him, breathless and aching. She let out a wordless exclamation of surprise and sensual relief as he dipped his finger into her teeming wetness.
“How does that feel?” he asked in a husky tone, watching her.
She could only moan softly in response. A smile curved his mouth; her answer pleased him. Then he applied some of her body’s wetness like a precious oil to the tiny, throbbing point veiled within the damp curls of her womanhood. He leaned down and claimed her mouth in a deep, drugging kiss. He caressed her with tantalizing slowness until she writhed on his lap, parting her legs. He swirled the tip of his tongue around hers, panting faintly into her mouth.
“Do you want more?” he asked in a gravelly whisper.
She could only whimper in response. She shuddered and wrapped her arms more tightly around his neck, holding on for dear life as he pressed two fingers slowly into the core of her. God, yes. This was what she had needed. It was a thousand times better than in her dream, and yet she realized in amazement that his intoxicating touch was only a prelude to the full bliss of a man and woman’s joining.
The languorous stroking of his tongue matched his hand’s rhythm. She felt his hardness next to her hip, and it excited her unbearably. But he held true to his word, keeping a tight rein on his own desire. She gave herself over completely to experiencing the gift of pleasure with which he indulged her, kissing him fervently all the while. Her heart pounded like it would explode. Her head was light; her body felt weightless. Her spirit seemed to hover on the threshold of some uncharted heaven. The moment that he rested his thumb gently on her nub, his fingers still moving deeply inside her, ecstasy claimed her, engulfing her like a brilliant white light. She cried out and clung to Lucien while he whispered raggedly to her in another language, love words she could not understand.
Passion swept through her like a fire out of control, leaving her breathless, panting, spent.
“My . . . heavens,” she forced out a few minutes later. She laid her head back on the arm of the chair and looked frankly at him, her bosom heaving. “That was remarkable.”
He gave her a shadowy smile. “A pleasure to be of service, madam.”
She came up onto her elbows. “Why hasn’t any woman leg-shackled you yet?”
“They try. I run.” He drew little stars on her midriff with his fingertip. “Maybe I’ve merely been waiting for you.”
She studied him, mystified. “What a silver-tongued charmer you are.”
“Thank you.”
She smiled and blew a lock of her tousled hair out of her face. “It wasn’t a compliment.”
“Ah. Well, with you, I mean every word.”
She shook her head. “Strange, I had no trouble believing you wanted me when I thought you were merely toying with me, but now that you’re in earnest, I find
myself a trifle overwhelmed.”
“Actually, Alice, I’ve been in earnest from the start.”
Her eyes widened. “Really?”
He nodded, toying with the black satin ribbon at her waist.
“I see. So you playacted the role of a rake who was only pretending to be in earnest, knowing you would come across as though you had the lowest of motives, when in fact, you were sincere?”
“Precisely.”
She gave a short, wry laugh and shook her head at him. “Convoluted sir! You are a maze.”
He shot her a sulky glance. “I thought you were going to say I was amazing.”
“That, too,” she admitted with a rueful smile, capturing his square chin between her fingertips. “Only, promise me you won’t play any more games with my mind,” she said softly. “We are friends now, aren’t we? We must try to be open with each other.”
He nodded, his gaze sobering.
“I have many questions—”
“I implore you not to ask them.”
“What?”
“Just . . . don’t ask. Not about the Grotto or the armed guards or . . . anything.”
“But why?” she exclaimed, surprised that he had guessed exactly the subjects that worried her.
“Because I don’t want to have to tell you any lies,” he said.
She stared at him. He veiled his gaze coolly.
“Trust me,” he whispered.
“Just . . . trust you? That’s all you have to say?”
Again, close-mouthed, he nodded.
“I’m not sure that I can do that.”
“Then run away, Alice,” he snapped, his expression darkening in an instant. “It’s your choice. I’ve told you how I feel.” He rolled her off his lap onto the chair, rose, and stalked toward the door.
“Lucien!”
He pivoted, turning in silhouette. The firelight flickered over his tall, proud frame. “The fact is sometimes people have commitments in this world that are larger than a little girl from Hampshire can understand.”
