Those two personalities warred inside Elena for several long seconds. But after all, she had been Miss Magdelena Matthews for far longer than she had been Mrs Elena Leighton…‘If you wish to tell me, then I will, of course, listen.’
He quirked a teasing brow. ‘And not comment?’
A smile curved her lips. ‘Oh I could not promise that, I am afraid.’
‘I did not think so!’ Adam eyed her ruefully. ‘Nor do I think you a woman who is afraid of anything.’
In that he would be wrong, Elena acknowledged sadly. For she had been frightened in the past, and still was. Very frightened. Her cousin’s forced attentions upon her had sickened her. His coercion, and then threats, when she had refused him, had terrified her. And hardly a moment had passed since that time when she was not afraid of Neville, still. Of someone discovering who she really was, then finding herself returned to Neville to pay for the crimes of which she was innocent, but which he had accused her of publicly as a cover to his own crimes against her.
She gave a shiver of revulsion. ‘Everyone is afraid of something, my lord.’
He eyed her searchingly. ‘Elena, what is it…?’
Elena gave herself a mental shake; Adam was a man of deep sensitivity as well as sharp intelligence—it would not do to alert his suspicions. She attempted a reassuring smile. ‘I, for example, do not care for spiders.’
‘Spiders…?’ Adam echoed doubtfully.
She met his gaze unblinkingly. ‘Yes, my lord, spiders.’
He gave her a wicked look. ‘Does that mean that you might call upon my services one night so that I might rescue you from such a creature?’
Elena felt hot inside at the very thought of Adam entering her bedchamber, for whatever reason. ‘I am not that afraid of them, my lord,’ she assured huskily.
‘Pity,’ he drawled.
She swallowed before speaking. ‘If we could resume our earlier conversation…?’
‘Of course.’ He straightened. ‘You will try not to judge me too harshly?’ He looked down at her searchingly.
Elena met that gaze openly. ‘I do not believe I could ever think too badly of you, my lord,’ she finally murmured. Truthfully. The man Adam kept hidden behind that mask of coldness and reserve was a gentleman Elena knew she was coming to like, and most of all to trust—to be attracted to!—far too much for comfort.
Adam’s fingers tightened about hers momentarily before he released her to step away, his expression having turned grim once more. ‘I was only young myself when I was first introduced to Fanny Worthington, who was the débutante of the Season that year. She was—’ He drew in a deep breath. ‘Her golden-haired, blue-eyed beauty was such that I thought her an angel fallen to earth to dazzle and bewitch unsuspecting humans.’
Amanda’s colouring and prettiness were already showing the promise of such dazzling beauty herself when she was older, and so easily allowing Elena to imagine the exquisite beauty of her mother.
She also felt a slight jolt of something—jealousy, perhaps?—at hearing how besotted Adam had been with the beauty of his wife. A beauty so unlike her own dark hair, and eyes that were neither blue nor green…
His mouth had become a firm, flat line. ‘I was both dazzled and bewitched to such a degree that I did not notice the mercenary intent towards my fortune in the depths of those blue eyes, or realise that the marked preference Fanny showed towards my company was for that reason alone rather than a return of the love I believed I felt for her.’
‘I think you underestimate your own…attractions, my lord,’ Elena protested.
‘Not where Fanny was concerned,’ he insisted harshly. ‘Although it is kind of you to say so,’ he added.
Elena dare not look at Adam now, for fear that he might see the expression in her own eyes was far from innocent. ‘I was not meaning to be kind, only truthful.’
‘As you invariably are.’ Adam smiled.
Elena felt a clenching in her chest, very aware that she had not been truthful with him at all about what was most important about her, namely her true identity and the circumstances that led her to come here. An oversight that she doubted Adam, with his obvious loathing for deceit of any kind, would willingly forgive.
‘You are grown very quiet, Elena…?’
She kept her lashes lowered. ‘I am merely waiting for you to continue.’
He sighed heavily. ‘It is such an unpleasant tale.’
‘Then do not tell it, if it makes you so uncomfortable.’
‘I am more concerned that I may be making you feel uncomfortable?’
Elena’s own emotions were in such confusion she did not know how she felt about these ridiculous feelings of jealousy, while at the same time she had a desire—a yearning—to know about Adam’s marriage to the beautiful Fanny. ‘I am not discomforted, only sorry that your marriage was such an unhappy one.’
‘I was young. And very foolish. To a degree I allowed myself to be seduced into Fanny’s bed—I think perhaps this is not a fit conversation for one such as you, after all!’ he muttered as he heard her gasp.
‘“One such as me”…?’
Adam saw the way her little chin had risen defensively, as if Elena imagined he somehow meant to insult her. ‘I now realise that it is both a sordid and unpleasant tale, and not for the ears of a lady.’ And he knew, innately, that Elena was far more of a lady than Fanny had ever been, for all that she had been the daughter of a baron.
Also, strangely, despite the fact that she was a widow, Adam found he was uncomfortable talking to Elena of the physical intimacies he and Fanny had obviously shared before their marriage—and for a very short time after it!
There was an innocence to Elena which he found he had no wish to besmirch with the sordid details of the reason for his marriage to Fanny, or the hell that marriage had become just a short month after their wedding day.
He smiled tightly. ‘I am sure I have already told you enough that you realise my marriage to Fanny was not a love match.’ He grimaced. ‘By the time she died I believe we heartily despised one another.’
‘Surely not…?’ Elena looked dismayed. ‘You shared Amanda, if nothing else.’
Adam shrugged. ‘Fanny saw my love for my baby daughter as nothing more than a weakness which she could, and did, exploit in her constant attempts to emotionally blackmail me into doing exactly as she wished.’
‘Is that the reason—?’ She broke off with a self-conscious moue.
‘“Is that the reason”…?’ He quirked dark brows.
‘I wondered if that was the reason you were now…occasionally aloof towards Amanda?’ A heated blush warmed her cheeks. ‘Because in the past your love for her was exploited and used against you?’
He gave her a shocked look. ‘I had not thought of it as being so, but perhaps you are partly right…But only partly, I am afraid.’ He frowned. ‘The rest of my fatherly bungling really is due to a complete lack of experience in dealing with six-year-old children.’
‘But which you are now attempting to rectify.’
‘But which I am now attempting to rectify,’ Adam agreed.
‘What happened on the occasions when your wife’s attempts to emotionally blackmail you failed?’ Elena prompted curiously.
He smiled thinly. ‘Ah, then she would have fits of temper which occasionally resulted in my sporting physical evidence of her displeasure!’
‘She was violent towards you?’ Elena gasped.
He grimaced. ‘Her attacks were usually of a verbal variety, but I do recall suffering three scratches down my cheek from her fingernails on one occasion, and a bite on my bottom lip on another,’ he recounted grimly. ‘I very quickly grew to dislike such excessive displays of emotional temperament, and even all these years later, I still shy away from them.’
‘Ah.’ Elena breathed. ‘Which is no doubt the reason you were so displeased when Amanda appeared to have a temper tantrum of a similar nature last week.’
‘Yes…’
Except Elena, standing but inches away from him, was not at a safe distance.
She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. ‘I am…honoured that you have chosen to share this information with me, but—but perhaps it is time I now retired for the night.’ It was a question as much as a statement.
One that caused Adam’s eyes to darken with an emotion she could not fathom. ‘Is that what you want?’
‘It is very late.’
He smiled slightly. ‘That is not what I asked, Elena.’
The tension between them was palpable. ‘I—Surely that would be for the best?’
‘Again, that is not what I asked. Is it what you really want to do?’ He pressed as he reached out to grasp both her gloved hands in his.
Elena’s fingers trembled within the firmness of that grasp.
Because it was not what she wanted at all. What she wanted was to remain here with Adam awhile longer, drinking the brandy in her glass as the two of them sat quietly together and talked some more, of pleasanter things than his unhappy marriage to Fanny, and then—then she would like it very much if Adam were to take her in his arms and kiss her again!
The memory of the last kiss they had shared, a kiss of warmth and pleasure, had helped to wipe away some of the nightmare of the memory of Neville’s brutality. To a degree that Elena had thought of that kiss often this past few days: while she was teaching Amanda, eating her meals, strolling about the garden, or alone in her bed at night, but most of all when she was alone in her bed at night. Instead of the revulsion and nausea she might have expected, Elena had instead felt warm and satisfied just at the delicious memory of Adam’s gentleness and passion.
She had only to think of that kiss to once again feel Adam’s lips against her own, to remember how wonderful, how utterly safe, it had felt to be held in his arms, to feel the hardness of his body pressed against hers, that sensuous mouth moving softly, assuredly, over her own, wiping out those other horrific memories and instead igniting a passion, a desire, within Elena that she had never realised existed.
A passion and desire she had longed to feel again.
Adam’s breath caught in his throat, as he now saw the emotions he’d been waiting for burning in Elena’s beautiful blue-green eyes as she gazed at him silently.
Emotions—and a woman—Adam knew he did not have the strength to resist as all doubts and caution fled his brain, along with those fears for the tight control he had held over his life for so long, the blood swiftly travelling from his brain and going southwards. ‘Elena…!’ He released her hands only long enough to take her into his arms, the intentness of his gaze locked with hers, his lips parting as he slowly lowered his head to claim the delicious softness of hers.
Chapter Ten
She tasted of honey and brandy, her lips warm and compliant as they moved shyly beneath his, and her skin smelt of the strawberries and cream which had been their dessert at dinner earlier. A heady combination that Adam could not, did not, want to resist and one that all too quickly took him to a height of desire he had not felt in a very long time.
Too long, Adam realised with a groan as he very quickly became completely engorged inside his breeches, thickening and lengthening to an almost painful degree as he continued to kiss and taste, to tenderly nibble on the fullness of Elena’s bottom lip. His tongue ventured into the moist and heated cavern of her mouth, seeking out each sensitive and secret place as he heard her breath catch in her throat and felt her gloved fingers reach up to cling to the broad width of his shoulders.
His arms tightened about her and his lips continued to devour and claim hers as he pressed his burgeoning thighs against Elena’s much softer ones, as he sought, craved, to find some relief for the fierce ache of his pulsing erection.
A relief he could not, should not, press upon the woman who had borne so much of his temper these past few weeks, only to then be ignored, before becoming a willing listener this evening to his torments, both past and present!
A woman Adam employed as governess to his daughter.
And a woman who could not afford, quite literally, to deny the liberties he was taking, for fear that he might dismiss her.
He knew that his disastrous marriage to Fanny had made him cold and occasionally cruel, but was he now guilty of also becoming a man one who took advantage of unprotected females? That thought did what nothing else could and threw a bucket of ice-cold water on his libido.
Elena stumbled as Adam suddenly wrenched his mouth from hers before holding her at arm’s length, those grey eyes blazing darkly in the fierceness of his face. She blinked in an effort to clear her muddled brain, having been totally swept away by the rage of passion created by the taste and feel of Adam’s mouth possessing hers. ‘I do not understand. Did I do something wrong?’
His expression was harsh as he released her to step back. ‘It is I who am the one in the wrong,’ he rasped harshly. ‘I should not have—I apologise for—’ He gave a self-disgusted shake of his head. ‘You have my permission to slap my face, without fear of reprisals.’
Elena noted the tension in his shoulders and spine, the nerve pulsing in his tightly clenched jaw and the fierce glitter of those dark-grey eyes, his hands once against clasped tightly behind his back. She also recognised that he had just invited her to inflict physical retribution upon him in the same way that his wife had once taken such pleasure in doing.
‘I could not possibly do that. But perhaps you regret what just happened?’ she queried gently.
He gave a humourless smile. ‘How could I possibly do that when I obviously enjoyed it so much?’
Some of the tension eased from Elena’s own shoulders. ‘As did I,’ she admitted, knowing it was true. She trusted Adam not to hurt her. Physically, at least…
He drew in a deep, controlling breath. ‘It is not right for me to take unfair advantage of you or force my attentions upon you.’
She gave a frown of confusion. ‘Did I give the impression that I felt forced or taken advantage of?’
‘No…But you must feel as if you have been—’
‘Adam.’
‘—and as such I—’ He broke off his explanation to stare at her. ‘That is the first time that you have voluntarily called me by my given name.’
‘Yes.’
‘Why now?’
The softness of her gaze met his levelly. ‘Possibly because I enjoyed being kissed by you, as much as you enjoyed kissing me, and that I now think of you as Adam.’
The strong column of his throat moved as he swallowed before speaking. ‘Did you enjoy it enough to repeat the experience?’
Elena knew that she should refuse him. That if she didn’t, it would irrevocably change their relationship. Except…after the things Adam had just told her about his marriage, and after being held in his arms and kissed by him again, she accepted that it was already irrevocably changed.
She might only have that one nightmare experience with Neville with which to compare Adam, but even so she recognised that his kisses were nothing like her cousin’s, that Adam had kissed her as a starving man newly arrived at a feast, or a man dying of thirst in a desert, a man who longed to eat and drink until that hunger was sated.
Elena knew she should be frightened of such an intensity of passion, that she should resist—should not want or crave the compelling and irresistible attractions of her employer. Yet she found she did, that she needed to erase those memories of Neville’s attack upon her once and for all with Adam’s gentleness.
It had also been months since she had felt anyone wanted so much as her company, let alone desired her with the intensity of passion Adam had just displayed so readily; Neville did not, could not, count. Indeed, Elena wanted another memory, a much pleasanter one, to put in its place!
‘I believe I might, yes,’ she whispered, then stepped forwards until she was once again pressed up against the lean and muscled length of his body, her gaze clear and steady as she raised her face invitingly to his.
It was an invitation that Adam did not, could not, refuse. He swept Elena up in his arms and once again claimed those full and pouting lips with his own, the kiss questioning and yet fiercely demanding at the same time as he moulded her slender curves to his much harder ones.
But, as Adam had already knew only too well, it was not enough, not with this particular woman. He wanted more, so much more of Elena than the taste of her lips or the feel of the soft skin of her throat as his own lips sought out each and every sensitive dip and hollow with teeth and tongue, as the insistent pulse of his desire told him only too clearly!
As it must also be telling her!
Elena was not an innocent young miss, but a widow, a woman, not a girl, who would recognise the depths of Adam’s desire for her when his arousal pressed so insistently against her.
Adam’s teeth closed on the lobe of her ear as he murmured. ‘I have been dreaming, imagining, wondering…’
‘Yes?’ she breathed softly, her neck arched as she leant into him.
‘While I was away I thought endlessly of your breasts…’
Her breath caught sharply. ‘You did?’
He nodded. ‘And I have wondered…are they tipped with rose or peach?’
The breasts Adam spoke of so candidly suddenly felt hot and swollen inside the bodice of Elena’s gown, the tips now swelling, tingling, becoming painfully sensitive against the material of her chemise.
It was at once shocking and yet strangely exciting to imagine Adam thinking so intently about her breasts and the colour of her nipples. Should she be so bold as to respond to that? ‘They are rose,’ Elena answered him huskily. ‘A deep rose.’
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