Passion

by Gayle Eden

  He had noticed his brother’s cane at the bottom of the stairs. “It seems you’re putting up with all of us tonight,” he told Harriet.

  “I’ve nothing against having men around. Well, most men. That cousin of yours, the roguish one with the eye patch…” She smiled wryly, “I particularly enjoy his attentions. He gave me a pat on the bum for bringing him a glass of brandy.”

  “Don’t tell me, you pat him back?”

  “Actually I squeezed, but he enjoyed it all the same.”

  Jules grunted and eyed her bare feet on another chair. “What in God’s name is that?” He motioned to her feet.

  “Henna. Do you like it?”

  Eying the swirls and designs whilst he laughed and removed his neck cloth and collar, he decided, “It is…interesting.”

  She grinned and turned a page, giving Jules time to scan what she wore, a slinky chocolate brown thing, too thin and low cut, to be a gown. He spied a bottle of brandy by her chair.

  He removed his jacket and put it on a nearby stack of books, then picking her feet up, he sat himself down in the chair facing her. Not really surprised when she plopped those toes between his legs.

  He helped himself to her brandy, drinking from the bottle.

  Watching her silently awhile, Jules murmured, “What are you reading?”

  “Erotica.” She glanced over the book.

  He laughed short. “Are you never serious, Harriet? I thought you bluestockings took pride in that.”

  “Harry. Look around you, Stoneleigh, I have read every single book in this place. In fact, my head is so seriously stuffed with so many interesting things, I’m going to solve all the problems of the world in my leisure time.”

  “God help the world.”

  Still caught by the “erotica” comment, he took another long drink and observed the firelight play on her wavy short hair and across the sheen on her upper chest.

  “How is it?”

  “This?” She tapped the book with her fingers. “Ah, it’s Greek. So far, only the males are having any fun—but that’s the Greeks for you.” She asked, “Shall I loan it to you?”

  “No—thank you.”

  She tskd. “Not even erotica, Stoneleigh?” followed a dramatic sigh. “You are a paragon.”

  Jules could hear the low voices from above. The soft light, the undemanding company, and the brandy he was consuming should soothe him. He felt the heat from the fire almost too much though.

  He sat back, legs wide and relaxed, his aquiline face half in shadow from a nearby stack of tombs. His green eyes were half shielded by sooty lashes, nostrils flared at the hint of feminine musk—that he knew was Harriet.

  Wetting her lips, she rolled her head on the curved chair back, the squat seat wide and of faded red brocade, the feet made of curved arches. It looked old, comfortable, something most people would toss out. It was hard to believe Lady Harriet Brunswick’s fortune likely equaled his own. Her bohemian lifestyle both irritated and fascinated him. Not pleasant either way, that he should care.

  Having sipped more brandy, Jules was aware of her toes flexing between his knees. He watched her turn a page, and then let her hand rest near her breast. When she rubbed it absently, he went hard, inner thighs feeling the tightening of his balls, and the swell of his cock against the soft black trousers, he wore.

  Lowering the book a moment, she leaned up, her eyes meeting his. Harry took the bottle and drank, then handed it back to him. The loose fold of the gown slid with a whisper of silk when she sat back. It swaged down and open enough to show her rosy nipple.

  Jules met her gaze and held it, her one hand on the book, propped slightly against her hip, the other with the fingertip rubbing her areola.

  Taking a longer drink, breaking the stare, Jules barely got it swallowed. The fire light was amber and dark from the reflection of flames sparkling over the shelves, her lustrous gown, and in her eyes. He tried to stay aware of the muffled voices above, but in truth, he was fascinated with Harry’s expression, her leisurely erotic actions.

  She read, or pretended to read another page, and her white teeth raked her lower lip whilst doing so. When her hand cupped her breast, her thumb brushing the hard nipple, it was more than the brandy making his head light.

  After a time, lowering the book, Harry let it rest on her stomach a moment and being slumped in position, her finger circled her nipple.

  He watched it. She lowered her hand, and skimmed it down her hip. Then, the material of her skirt was rising as she eased it up, making it fall in a drape from her shapely legs.

  His fingers tightened on the bottle, his other hand gripped the curved edge of the arm, his green eyes traveling up those legs, beautiful and silken skinned.

  Jules’s breath seized in his lungs reflexively when she lifted her arched feet, and skimmed the sole of them over his thighs. He saw lustrous curls over her sex, and the dampness on them, before he watched her touch herself there, those artistic feminine fingers reaching to part them.

  Jules released that breath and blindly set the bottle down. His body coiled. His nose filled with her perfume mingled with sexual heat, brandy, and book dust. Unaware of doing so, he touched her feet, his palms on her ankles moving them apart, wider, so he could fully view what she was doing.

  Harriet moved them and let them touch the floor then set her book aside, her eyes glittering when they met his. Her hands looked elegant. She repositioned and spread her legs on either side of the chair, slightly leaned back, then opened the lips and rubbed her clit until it was glistening and swollen. Her sex was flushed and lovely. Her finger slid down. He watched her sink it inside and glide it out several times.

  His eyes flickered to her face, finding her teeth holding her lip. Umm. She was enjoying herself.

  Jules leaned forward, breathing in her musk, laving his own lips without realizing it. Her inner thighs framed the shape of her sex perfectly, the curls clipped and short, spread now, leaving the lovely inner pedals exposed. When she had parted them, ah, he saw the silk and shimmering essence that her finger glided in.

  For some time, the delicate tip of her middle finger circled high on her clit, firming it and arousing it. When she paused, Jules glanced at her. It only took the licking of her lips, the lowering of her lashes, before he reached out, lightly skimming his fingertips up her thigh, then finally giving her the full length of his masculine finger. Heart pounding in his ribs, blood hot, head floating in brandy and sexual pleasure, Jules thrust it in and out leisurely, while she rubbed her clit. He gave her two fingers when the juices were flowing like honey.

  Massaging the walls of her inner sex with them, warm and sleek, he could feel the ripples start, feel the clamping she did with her muscles. Her legs quivered, her body stiffened moments before her climax, along with soft and quick pants came. He kept his fingers gliding in and out through the ripples taking her.

  Withdrawing when she slumped and sighed, Jules sat back, his thumb rubbing those fingers he had had inside her.

  She straightened, heavy eyed, pushing pushed her gown back down. Leaning to retrieve the bottle and take a sip, she smiled sleepily at him and arched her brow.

  Stoneleigh arched his own and saw the challenge in hers.

  He slowly sucked her scent from his fingers and then teased a bit by lightly using those fingers and rubbing the length of his sex with his palm over the crotch of his trousers, his graceful frame slumped, and legs relaxed. At length, he grinned and arose, then leaned over to kiss her on the tip of the nose.

  Chuckling at her snort, albeit huskily, he put his jacket on and quietly went around the table, taking his time once above stairs to use her bathing closet.

  Jules had never made a woman climax, never paid one to, or watched one do it. Sex, since his university days, was something to be taken care of when it became annoying and distracted him from the rest of his life.

  He’d never felt that erotic, not since that night he lost his virginity. Harry knew that—and how she kne
w that, Jules did not care to ask. He shook his head at his glassy eyed reflection in the mirror before pouring water, washing his face. He then held a cool towel to his nape.

  Harry wanted something from him, and it was not what everyone else in his world wanted. Unfortunately, he had told her the truth, he was not afforded that luxury.

  Calmer, he went to check on Raith.

  Chapter 9

  Raith had taken a long time to feel the extent of injuries, thanks to the amount of medication forced on him. The doctor wanted him as immobile as possible, and what he refused to drink, he suspected was put in his coffee or food, by Lady Harriet….or rather Harry.

  Despite his wish to be left alone, and his efforts to be as grim and remote as possible, he received daily visits from his father and brother, the cousin, Ry, and several times, Jules.

  If he eventually responded more to anyone, it was Blaise. A more mature, rugged—and blind, Blaise. He had not gone into great detail about the long drawn-out plan and execution, though his brother always brought the paper and news sheets with him.

  What he had told him, Blaise responded with, “Brilliant strategy, Raith, but the most risky.”

  “It doesn’t bring her back,” Raith heard himself say that day.

  To which Blaise retorted, “No. But take it from myself, and Ry here, it takes a lot bigger balls to live with loss, than to die.”

  He had told Raith about learning to ride, to fence, and even shoot blind. “I wanted to give up. That is the truth. I came close to it. But I’m not a coward, and neither are you.”

  Raith had not responded. Nor had he when his father came and talked into the night. He understood, in some sense, what they were doing, and he knew it was genuine, but he also felt they were trying to understand the extremes he felt and had gone to, and Raith could not explain that to anyone.

  When Jules came to see him last, after a long evening with Ry and Blaise—one where Ry had talked of the war to the point Raith gathered that neither man had spoken of it in such detail before…and, he discerned the cousin was trying to liken it to the battle of making life out of nothing again.

  At this visit, Raith found himself studying Jules, who seemed to be the golden one of them all—blessed by looks, fortune, a life he did not desire himself, but many envied.

  In that way, Jules had always been the eldest, the heir, the most aloof and seemingly perfect one. He talked with all the proper words and accents, knew all the right things to say.

  Raith had not forgotten that Jules came back for him that night and saved him—and he pondered why Jules did it? His brother did not strike him as someone who welcomed anything chaotic in his life. Nor a man to crease his cravat or mar the shine on his boots. In some moment of seeing beneath the veneer, he also saw a question in Jules eyes. Maybe, because they were blood, he discerned that Jules was marveling at the darkness in him. They all had that same childhood, each separate, each in their own world. Moreover, he could read Jules’s iron control, which was as much a result of that, as his own bitterness was. Raith did not think his brother wanted to admit that. No, he did not think Jules opened those locked doors, any more than he had. It was a visit with many silences, silent studying of each other, older now, more mature, but never having spent time in each other’s company growing up. The taken in bastard son, and the one-day Duke and rightful hair.

  Despite the grace and beauty in Jules, the iron and hardness in himself, they shared much of the same bone structure and coloring. Yet, it was the events of their younger years—mayhap the adult ones, unspoken as they were, that had them really looking at each other for the first time.

  Also, before he submitted to the Duke’s insistence he move into his Grace’s house—his father putting it about that his son, Lord Montovon, had a coach accident, Raith had another, private visit, with Jules.

  He could sit in a chair now, though his left leg had to stay extended until the bone healed. His ribs and back hurt. Raith was doing that, sitting by the window, breathing the usual hearth smoke tinged air when Jules arrived still wearing his riding clothing. Raith’s gaze followed him to where he sat on the edge of the bed.

  “Was she your mistress?”

  “Who?” Raith regarded him.

  Jules stared. “Who else. The Duke of Coulborn’s daughter.”

  “Why is it your business?”

  “It isn’t. I’m trying to understand.”

  “Don’t—try,” Raith uttered abrupt and looked back out the window.

  “All right. It does not matter if she was or was not. But she was seen with Stratton, yet you rescued her.”

  “I told you. She lived with me, many years.”

  “Yes, and one assumes you plotted together…”

  “Stratton killed her mother, slowly, by the worst means. He hunted her like an animal. He made her terrified.”

  “I’m sorry. That explains…”

  He herd Jules sigh and then say, “Raith, whatever happened, whatever the past, we are brothers. All of us. If you cannot see the hand and help, we have offered to you—there is not much else we can do that will make any difference. I do not know what you plan to do, but you are in no shape to see to yourself as yet. Do not make this harder on the Duke. He has explained how his choices colored all of our lives. And, though it doesn’t change the past, you have it in your power to forgive him.”

  “Is this your (we have all suffered because of you,) speech?” Raith sneered.

  Jules returned, “No. I was not going to say that. But since you put it that way, he suffered in his own way, to keep you.”

  “Perhaps he shouldn’t have.”

  “Perhaps. However, it does not change anything. What I am asking you, is to try to see through your own bitterness. We have done it. Do not blame him for what the Duchess did. I can’t speak on your pain or the loss of your wife, but you need to untangle it—from your feelings toward our father.”

  Raith growled. “I don’t need to do anything, Jules. I am not you! I don’t give a bloody damn.”

  All reasoning was gone in a blink, replaced by a stare that Raith could feel the ice in, coldly Jules said, “You will do it. Even if 'tis simply pretense.”

  Raith’s head turned, looking up as Jules came to stand near him.

  His brother’s eyes were hard as glass when he uttered, “He’s keeping it from us, but father is dying, Raith. You bloody will do whatever he wishes. You are the one, the one he breaks his heart over. You’ll give him whatever he needs…”

  Stoneleigh’s hand curled into a fist, his face rigid. “You’ve slain your demon, avenged your wife. You are the one with the power now. Do something honorable with it.”

  “You think there’s no honor in vengeance?” Raith nostrils flared, his blood running not cold but rather like hot coals.

  Jules shot back icily, “I understand it. That does not mean I do not also see the twisted rage, and how it consumed you. I am not a fool. I know you wanted to die that night. Well our father is dying. He wants two things, his sons as brothers, and you…your forgiveness. Make him believe it. Then I don’t give a bloody damn what you do.”

  Raith watched Jules spin on his heel and leave. He stared at the closed door, a bitter smile twisting his lips. Jules—was more like him than not. Ice or fire. It was the same consuming passion.

  Later that night however, it took Ry and two footmen to assist Raith into his father’s coach. When he arrived at the mansion, there was no fuss made, and he was glad for it. The servants showed him to a suite of rooms. The footmen saw him settled in.

  Raith bathed himself as best he could and only let them assist in pouring the water over his head, holding it over a pan. Afterwards, dressed in trousers and a robe, he submitted to the doctor’s examination.

  He refused the laudanum again, and paid for it later that night.

  The surroundings were much more elaborate, though thankfully masculine and not overly done. Raith awoke gasping for breath. He hobbled to the window. The pain in
his thigh throbbed, the splinter of it was constant in various parts of his body. It and felt like shards going through muscle and bone.

  He braced his hands on the window and had a sudden mental flash of Gabriella’s face, her eyes, looking up at him from that lower hall when he had rasped her name. As always, the words would not form. Lowering himself to the ledge, he closed his eyes, leaning his head against the sill. It still throbbed too. He would never forget the sight that met him at Stratton’s—the picture of a horribly battered and bleeding Gabriella, half lying across the bed, her dagger still in her hand. Stratton, restrained, screaming foul and filthy curses whilst blood ran from a dozen wounds. There was no doubt he knew who she was, because he raged at both Gabriella and her mother.

  After Raith had gotten her out and to Jules, he had gone in and finished Stratton…taking as much time as promised to let him know who destroyed him and why, killing him, just as he had promised. Stratton, to the very end, died with foul curses and crude, cruel, insults towards Raith’s wife on his lips. He had eventually known whom he had killed, but she was nothing, as Raith was nothing to him.

  Stratton had destroyed more life than that, nameless, uncounted, unnoticed, he bragged, and never having been caught or confronted gave him a God-like sense of himself, as perverse as it was. He perfected torture, delved into untold darkness—but Raith knew, eventually, was subject to his own impulses.

  It was only his death, his silence, that silenced the rage in Raith. It was that very emptiness, void of that passion for revenge, fulfilled, having both the satisfaction and the horror of what he’d done warring in some black pit in what was left of his own soul, that made him turn to that window with the burning drapes…aware of how high up from the ground he was—and run toward it, closing his eyes just before he saw Suzette in those flames, smiling softly, holding out her arms to him, at peace…beckoning him to share it.

  Yet—here he was, alive.

  And Gabriella...