The English Heiress

by Roberta Gellis

  “Leonie! I swear—”

  “What do you swear? Liar! Lecher! You swore you would bring me to England, but you cannot wait so long to plow a new field.”

  Roger swallowed, opened his mouth, closed it after all that came out was a protesting squawk. For a week he had been on a treadmill of despair. His mind had been fixed into its round of worry, unable to accept Leonie’s fate and equally unable to discover a way to avoid it. Even as he rushed up the stairs to tell Leonie he had found a way to save her, he had known there would be problems. What if they could not find a woman to take Leonie’s place? Was it fair to endanger some innocent person? A dozen other objections had ranged through his mind while he described the idea to Leonie. He had even expected she would object. Frightened as she was, her gallant spirit would resist leaving him when danger threatened.

  Thus, he had not been really thrown off course by her initial refusal, only a little surprised at how angry she looked. He had been marshaling arguments to convince her it was best for both of them and to reassure her about their separation when her remark about a “fresh piece of flesh” had burst on him like a bombshell. The concept was so far from any thought of his own—so foreign to his insecure view of himself as a lover—that he had, for a moment, thought Leonie was angry because he had criticized her cooking and wanted someone else as a housekeeper.

  It was that ridiculous idea that had wrenched his unbelieving, “What did you say?” from him. However, when the word “lecher” made perfectly clear Leonie’s meaning, he still did not believe his ears. It was simply inconceivable to Roger that any woman could be jealous—which, although Roger did not think of it, was not surprising, because he only chose experienced partners with easygoing temperaments who knew exactly what the score was and had no emotional involvement with him. He had had quite enough emotionalism from Solange.

  Leonie was delighted with the effect her attack had produced. One thing was sure, all preoccupation was gone from Roger’s expression now. He was totally aware of her, totally concentrated on her—a thing she had not seen for a week. No wonder he had been bored. He had thought her a fool as well as an innocent. Well, it would do him no harm to learn otherwise.

  “Did you think I wouldn’t realize?” she hissed. “It didn’t take you long to find another, did it? No sooner did you walk out alone for pleasure than your eyes began to roam—”

  “No! How could you think such a thing? Leonie—”

  “What am I supposed to think? You have made it clear enough. You could barely bring yourself to look at me this past week.”

  That, of course, was true, and Roger gaped again, unable to deny the fact and also unable to defend himself. He had been so afraid that Leonie would see his fear and be terrified herself that he had, indeed, avoided looking at her and speaking to her.

  “There is no other woman,” Roger asserted passionately.

  “No?” Leonie drawled, eyes blazing and venom dripping from the word. “Are you telling me that you prefer boys? One or the other it must be, for you are so drained out that you could not even pretend an interest in coupling with me this past week.”

  “Leonie!” Roger gasped.

  He was dizzy with conflicting emotions, but paramount among them was an uncertain and incredulous joy. She was jealous! Would a woman be jealous where she did not love? She was angry because he had not made love to her. But then surely, it was because she took pleasure in it.

  “Leonie!” she mimicked his shocked gasp bitterly. “Stupid Leonie, who would not even guess that her simple charms had lost their savor. Innocent Leonie, who could be wrapped like a package and left on Fouché’s shelf until it was convenient to call for her and drop her off at another convenient spot in England. You want more spice in your meat? I will give you spice!”

  Before Roger could reply, she had whirled away from him and discarded her dowdy, unflattering dress. Under it, the linen was very fine. Since it was not safe to display wealth outwardly, Leonie had spent a good part of the money Roger had given her on provocative undergarments. She had always known it would be necessary to restimulate his interest sooner or later, and particularly this past week had been prepared. She swung back slowly, blushing furiously, which made her eyes glow like molten gold. One hand fingered the ribbon tie of her chemise.

  “Do you like it quick or slow, Roger?”

  In the past they had undressed either separately or in the dark. Roger thought he was sparing Leonie’s modesty. Leonie was always afraid of seeming whorish. Now she had the most wonderful excuse. She knew that a woman driven by jealousy was capable of anything, even murder. Nothing she did would be really surprising to Roger nor make him suspicious of her past life. It was quite apparent to Leonie that he was not presently capable of thinking at all, but she was convinced that even later, when the shock and sexual excitement had passed, he would assume that jealousy had pushed her outside her normal behavior pattern.

  Leonie was not at all surprised when Roger did not answer her question. He swallowed and ran his tongue over his lips in an effort to ease a suddenly dry mouth. Leonie pulled the bow loose and shrugged her shoulders so that the lace straps slid down. She did not wear a corset. Her breasts were high and firm and needed no support, her waist narrow enough to do without lacing. The soft silk of the chemise dropped from her breasts, catching provocatively on her erect nipples for a moment before it left her completely bare.

  A strangled sound, mixed passion and protest, caught in Roger’s throat. He should stop Leonie, he knew that. When her fury abated, she would be appalled at what she had done. However, it was quite impossible for him to speak or move. What she was doing was holding him like a mesmeric trance. It was a most peculiar sensation, as if he were divided into two men. In one, the mind operated, telling him that Leonie would be embarrassed, that he should stop her, that he had seen women strip provocatively before—many times—and had been mildly stimulated, mostly amused. The other man was a creature of pure sensation, trapped in the molten lava of desire, linked in some way to the woman so that each movement she made, each new sliver of skin exposed, produced a hot throbbing in him.

  By the time Leonie was naked, Roger was finding the restrictions of his own clothes physically painful. He had once put his hand to his breeches buttons, but Leonie had said, “No,” and he had let his hand drop. Now she approached him, put one hand behind his head to pull it down so that she could kiss him and began to undo his buttons with the other hand. The first man, the man of mind, drowned in the hot lava of desire and was seared away. Roger grabbed at Leonie, became aware of his coarse work shirt, and broke their embrace to tear it off. Before he could grasp her again, she had slid down along his body, pulling his breeches and underpants off together. Playfully, she tickled the inner sides of his thighs with her tongue.

  “Oh God,” Roger moaned. “Oh God, oh God.”

  He grabbed for her head, eager for any caress that would both ease and increase the roaring pain-pleasure that filled him, but she twisted away. An agony of fear that she had been playing with him, enticing him so that she could refuse him at the height of his need, made him bend and seize her brutally. She struggled, increasing Roger’s fear of rejection, and he stopped her lips so that she could neither scream nor deny him. Muffled sounds came from Leonie’s throat as she tried to tell him that she wanted to take off his shoes, that he was not really undressed, but he did not want to know what she was trying to say. He pushed her backwards, keeping his lips fastened to hers, intending to back her onto the bed.

  To Roger’s horror he found his feet bound, so that he tipped forward instead of taking a step. Fortunately, the room was very small. A hand flung out caught the edge of the wardrobe, pushed them both upright. Blind with fury, thinking Leonie had somehow tied his legs together, he lifted her and threw her on the bed, reaching down simultaneously to rid himself of the entanglement. It was no feat to push off his shoes and breeches, and the knowledge of what had hampered him was so
foolish that he cooled a trifle. The added fact that Leonie had not moved might have restored Roger’s self-control, but then she giggled.

  Fearful of shocking or frightening his partner, whom he knew had been sexually abused, Roger had been restrained in his lovemaking in the past. He had been careful to stimulate her and to be sure that her passion was satisfied, but he had also been careful to confine his kisses to those erogenous zones that were “decent”—her lips and ears, throat and shoulders. His caresses too, had been circumspect. He had stroked her body and breasts, but carefully, avoiding those intrusions he thought she might consider “dirty”.

  Leonie had been equally careful, striving to maintain the appearance of innocence. She had clutched Roger to her and returned his kisses, but she had kept her own hands and mouth from those forms of stimulation that an inexperienced girl might be ignorant of or shy of using. She had even moderated her own response to Roger’s lovemaking. Soft sighs and whimpers and little moans of delight had been drawn from her, but had sent her teeth against the loud, tremulous cries that had sometimes welled up in her, not even realizing that the effort of self-control was damping the full flood of pleasure, so that her release as well as her voice was muted.

  The giggle Leonie uttered was a sound of sheer delight. Roger’s violence, his forgetting he had not finished undressing, were proof of his urgent need. There was no contempt in her, but Roger was too aware of awkwardness, of embarrassment, and heard contempt in the sound. Suddenly, all his restraints were broken.

  “Laugh at me, will you?” he muttered. “I will make you howl like a bitch in heat!”

  Moments before, he had been nearly crazy to satisfy his own need. That urgency retreated. Years before, Roger had learned to hold his passion leashed, in his attempt to break through Solange’s frigidity. Now he used that power again coupled with every technique he had learned or invented to conquer indifference. He sucked and licked, kissed and bit—and made good his threat. Leonie wailed with passion, fighting to draw him into her, convulsing in climax, only to have him withdraw and begin all over again, and again, until she began to weep with exhaustion. The tears peaked Roger’s temporary insanity. He knew he had lost Leonie for good. Solange had hated him for less. Considering Leonie’s background, he knew she would never look at him again. One last time he impaled her, driving like the madman he was until his body exploded. Then, shuddering with revulsion at what he had done, he rolled away. He would have left the bed, but she caught at him and held him.

  “Oh my,” Leonie sighed, running the hand with which she had grasped him up his arm while she wiped away her tears with her other hand, “I must remember to make you angry and laugh at you again—but not too often.”

  Roger had frozen into stillness at the sound of her voice. It was only a thread of a whisper, and he had expected to hear the hiss of hate in it, so the words did not make sense. But there was no hate, and the light touch of her fingers on his arm held him motionless. They lay in silence for a few minutes while Leonie gathered strength to turn on her side and Roger mustered the courage to turn his head and look at her. She was smiling! Her hair was dark and wet with sweat, her lashes still shining with tears, but she was smiling.

  “You never gave me a chance,” she said, pouting playfully.

  “What?”

  “I was going to show you that you didn’t need to look elsewhere for more lively entertainment, but you seem to have found out for yourself.”

  “What are you talking about?” Roger lifted himself on one elbow and winced at the marks he had made on Leonie’s white skin. She had been smiling at him wistfully, but now her lips tightened.

  “I am talking about your taste for trulls, and I wish you would do me the favor of according me a modicum of intelligence. When a man who has given every sign of contentment—good humor, eager hands and lips, loving looks—suddenly turns sour and turns his back in bed too, he has seen another woman he likes better.”

  “You are mad,” Roger breathed. “There is no other woman. I am not that kind.”

  “No? I suppose you learned what you just showed me from a group of holy celibates! And no doubt you want to get me out to the house so that you can better practice religious austerities.”

  Roger bit his lip in chagrin at giving way to his temper and again exposing Leonie to fear, but she did not look frightened. From the yellow glare in her eyes, he realized that she did not believe him. He did not know whether to laugh or cry. Not only was Leonie jealous, but it was quite clear she did not object to the “religious austerities”, only to his practicing them with someone else. And now that he had a woman who wanted him, he had to lose her.

  “Leonie, there isn’t anyone else. There never will be. I love you. I swear it.” He spoke in English. It was impossible for Roger to speak of love in French. It was nearly impossible for him to speak the words at all, associated as they were with years of misery.

  The shift in language brought conviction to Leonie. Somehow she was sure Roger would not lie in English. The light of rage in her eyes softened. “Then we will speak no more of my going away,” she said, also in English. “And since you say you love me, I will also be discreet and ask no questions about where you learned to do such delightful things. After all, it is not really my affair what you did before we came together.”

  Roger was looking at her most oddly, with such intensity that it seemed as if he never expected to see her again. It occurred to her that if Roger had told the truth and his withdrawal was not because he was tired of her, something else must be seriously wrong. Nonetheless, at this moment it could not be important. A more compelling concern was absorbing her. It would not be possible if Roger really did love her to make a jealous scene every time they made love. Nor did she wish to return to her passive, innocent role. Also, it was true that, however sincere Roger was at this moment, variety was a spice that kept love strong. She touched his face.

  “We will not talk about where you learned, but you will teach me—yes? It is not fair that you should know so much what will give me pleasure and I should know so little what to do for you.”

  “Sweet—” Roger began,

  “Not so sweet,” Leonie chuckled. “I wish to know for your sake, yes, but also for mine. You have too great an advantage this way.”

  Roger swallowed hard and took a deep breath. “I wish I could. I swear I would gladly give my whole life, religiously, to teaching you. But tomorrow you must go. It is too dangerous for you to stay here.”

  He was deadly serious. It was not a desire for freedom but really fear for her. “Has someone recognized me?” Leonie asked, switching back to French.

  “No, it is not that—” Roger stopped abruptly.

  He could have kicked himself for missing such an opportunity. He would not have needed to explain everything, and Leonie would have had no reason to be afraid either for herself or for him. It was such pain, such joy, so mixed together with physical exhaustion that he could not sort reason from emotion or seize an idea when it was presented to him. Leonie, however, was not subject to the same confusion of mind and picked up his answer before he could cover it.

  “Then why should it be more dangerous for me to stay here than for you?” she asked briskly.

  “It is not that, my love.” Roger’s voice trembled a little on the last words. How often had they been spat back at him with insults and mockery.

  “What is it?” Leonie murmured, reaching for him.

  “Nothing, nothing now, only—it is hard for me to say ‘I love’. It seems to me that as soon as I dare say it, I lose what I love.”

  “You will not lose me,” Leonie assured him; then teasingly, “Not even when you wish you could.”

  “But I must. I told you. Tomorrow you must go.”

  “But I do not wish to go, and I will not.”

  Wearily, Roger tried to think of a rational explanation for a situation that would be dangerous for her but not for him. He supposed there mus
t be many things that could produce such a result, but he could not think, only feel the wrenching loss, foretaste the misery of the empty bed. And the whole thing was made worse by the fact that Leonie cared for him. If he were accused with Toulon and guillotined, she would grieve. That was almost sweet enough to mask its bitterness, but more bitterness lay behind. If he died, Leonie would be without protection. Fouché would do what he could—perhaps.

  “I am so tired, Leonie,” Roger sighed. “Let us leave it for the morning.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  By the morning Roger had regained his wits, but it was too late; Leonie had regained her strength. The preceding night, exhausted as she was, Roger might have played on her fears, on her memories, and convinced her to go into hiding. In the clear light of morning, well rested, and with buoyant spirits riding the crest of Roger’s confession of love, no specious excuses could satisfy her. Roger had begun while they were dressing. He had started to withdraw to do that in his usual way, but Leonie had called him back. He tried first to convince her that he had not clearly understood her question the previous night, that someone had recognized her as an aristocrat. Leonie listened to him with her hands on her hips in unconscious imitation of the wife of the fishmonger next door when she was in an aggressive mood.

  “Blather!” she exclaimed succinctly.

  Roger barely restrained himself from taking her over his knee and spanking her. Here he was, preparing to tear out his heart to save her from harm, to protect her from fear and grief and guilt, and she dismissed what he was saying as “blather”.

  “Very well,” he snapped, “I did not wish you to feel guilty, but I must tell you plainly that one of the commissioners has conceived a desire for you. You must go away before he demands that you yield to him.”

  Leonie considered that. Roger’s irritation lent it some verisimilitude, and she did not discount the power of these common, trumped-up officials. Such a fact would accord well too, with Roger’s behavior. She could understand that he might be both angry and jealous. Perhaps he thought she had encouraged the man, whoever it was. Two small doubts tickled her mind, however. She had not been much in the shop since they had moved, and she could not remember any man who had paid the slightest attention to her. Certainly no one had tried to engage her in conversation, and even these common clods would not try to obtain a woman by asking her husband for her. Also, she could not see the point in bringing another woman into the house to replace her. That last stuck in her craw.