“Thomas—no.” She made a last half-hearted attempt to push him from her. It seemed to drain her of her strength. Still imprisoned within the circle of his arms, she looked up at him, saw the fiery glow in his blue eyes, felt the possessive stance of him.
“Why not?” he demanded hoarsely. “Are you not my woman? Are we not betrothed? Who is to stand in our way?”
Standing naked in the tub, pressed against his hard masculine body with the rain beating down outside and shutting out the world, she found it a very potent argument. And the girl from the Eastern Shore, who had believed herself so sophisticated, so well acquainted with the ways of men, found his words breaking through the chinks of her resistance, overwhelming her with their warm flow.
“Oh, Thomas. ...” She spoke his name on a great inward sigh, and the patter of the rain melted into the beating of her own heart as Thomas toweled her dry. Slowly, luxuriously—and with especial impudent attention to those quivering parts that responded most readily to his masculine assault.
Her eyelids drifted closed, the damp lashes resting upon her cheeks. She could feel him lifting her, she knew he was carrying her to the big bed, that bed that had looked so inviting. . . . She felt her naked back sink into the softness of the feather mattress.
She knew she should have waited. Every feminine instinct had warned her that with a man like Thomas, one should wait until the wedding bells had pealed and the band of gold was safely around one’s finger. But the lure of the rainy afternoon, the built-up tensions that she had fought so oft of late, the startlement at finding him invading her privacy, the very real love she felt for him—all had combined to veil her eyes to what might happen.
Her future was now—here in his arms. She would take the consequences. They would be worth it.
She heard, rather than saw, for her eyes were closed, the careless ripping off of his clothing. Curiosity made her dark lashes lift a bit and she saw a blurred vision of a handsome naked male with strong clean loins and a sunny cloud of hair, turned amber by the firelight.
And then he was lowering himself into the big bed above her, blocking out the light, blocking out the world. His naked body was grazing lightly over her own and she felt a quick involuntary response ripple through her senses. A sweet wild madness swept over her. His heartbeat had become her heartbeat, his lips her lips. All of her body yearned for him, strained toward him.
Exultantly he felt her swift surrender. She heard a soft pleased sound in his throat, unintelligible, satisfied. She melted toward him and let his clever fingers work their will with her.
Lord Thomas was an experienced lover—and he had waited long to snare this elusive beauty. He meant to make the most of it. Long did he dally, toying with a breast here, nipping a shoulder there, planting a sudden unexpected kiss on a tingling nipple that trembled to hardness beneath this sweet assault
She was his now—and he knew it.
When the moment of penetration came she was ready—and even though she bit back a scream as a sudden sharp pain tore through her loins, even as she sagged, half fainting in his arms, the moment did not last.
Lord Thomas, who had hesitated lest the pain be more than she could well bear, felt the surge of passion sweep back to her, and cradled her the more confidently in his arms.
“The worst is over,” he whispered. “From now on, ’tis down current all the way.”
And down current it was. Caught up by his fanciful allusion, she felt herself picked up and swirled along some mighty river. The pulsing current of her own desires swept her along. There were dips and eddies when life seemed suspended, unreal, moments out of time when the world seemed far away and eternity near and real and wonderful. The touch of his strong thighs was fire, the touch of his fingers flint to kindling, the soft encouragement of his voice a goad unneeded as she rode with him through the wild rapids, on an ever ascending scale of passion. And went over the roaring falls at last as passion peaked, to drift down softly, endlessly, in a bridal veil of foam to a warm sweet-flowing river that received them gently on its breast.
“I never imagined that it could be—like this,” she whispered, with her face pressed against his chest.
“Oh, yes,” he murmured, resting. His hands moved over her body skillfully, feeling every naked part of her, making her heart flutter again and again, arousing those strange new feelings that would not be denied.
Until at last he entered her again and they made love again and shared all the delights and intimacies that lovers know.
It was a long lovely afternoon and it left her spent and feeling somehow wise and changed.
And she was changed, for after all she was no longer a girl—she had become a woman.
His woman. And soon to be his bride.
She reveled in the thought of that, lying there lulled by the sound of the rain, listening to Lord Thomas’s steady breathing. For after the exertions of the afternoon, he had drifted off to sleep and now lay relaxed beside her, his battle won.
Abruptly the world came back to her. She must return to the school and at once—she had a reputation to protect! Had her mother not said wryly that reputation was a woman’s dearest possession and most easily lost? There were some who would have snickered that her mother had not practiced what she preached, but Carolina was not one of them. She had listened and she had taken the words to heart.
The play would be long since ended. She must get back to the school!
Hiding behind the door, she stuck her head out and saw the chambermaid at the end of the hall. She beckoned and the girl came toward her and at Carolina’s whispered, “Are my clothes dry yet?” she nodded and hurried away to get them.
Very quietly, Carolina began slipping into her clothes. When she had smoothed her chemise down around her hips she paused for a moment before stepping into her petticoat to look tenderly at Lord Thomas’s form lying spent upon the bed.
He looked very young lying there, with a carefree innocence about his face, so given to wicked laughter. She would always remember him like this, she told herself, on this, her true wedding night. For whatever words were spoken over them later, whatever public vows exchanged, this was the moment she had plighted her troth and chosen her mate. The rain coming down in sheets outside the inn window was her bridal veil, this white chemise her wedding gown, this commodious room whose fire had long since died down and that was now growing cold, her bridal chamber.
She turned and looked once more about her. She wanted to remember every detail of this room, to memorize all the furniture, so that she could remember every bit of it years from today when her children were hanging onto her skirts in some drawing room she had yet to view and Lord Thomas, their father, was impatiently urging his horse homeward from overseeing his proud estates.
She knew a wonderful burst of pure inward joy as she imagined their life together. A world without cobwebs and a lover to whom she had given herself without regret.
She was very young. . . .
As if at a signal, there was a discreet knock on the door and the chambermaid, with a knowing grin, held out her stockings.
“Forgot your stockings, I did,” she muttered, and tried to peer inside.
Cheeks flaming, Carolina snatched the stockings, choked a “Thank you,” and closed the door in the curious girl’s face. Everything was too new, too tender for public view. Even the hot emotions of the last several hours were too fresh and raw to be spoken of.
Those muttered words, that quick closing of the door brought Lord Thomas awake.
“Have I slept long?” He passed a hand over his eyes and then stared at her. “But you’re dressed!” He sounded almost accusing for he had thought to have one last romp with her before he returned her to that brood of females at the school.
“No, not long. And of course I’m dressed.” She, was tugging on her stockings as she spoke, blushing as he admired her legs. “I must get back—do you want me to become a scandal?”
He sighed, lying there looking at her i
n the last glow of the fire. She was the most fabulously constructed female it had ever been his good fortune to meet. Her skin was satin, and her slender body seemed to have no bones. She was wonderful.
“Come here,” he said in a rich, yearning voice.
“No.” She gave him a wary look. She was putting on her cloak. “I must hurry else I will be late for supper and have to account for my absence.”
He sighed again. Wonderful she was, desirable she was, but she had certain irritating qualities. Among them was this unfortunate passion for doing the correct thing.
But there was always tomorrow.
Lord Thomas gained his feet in a single bound, stretched—-noting in amusement that she hastily averted her eyes from his supremely masculine figure— and silently began to dress. Halfway done, he began to circle the room toward her but she backed away from him.
“No,” she said. And again more firmly, “No, Thomas. You must take me back to the school.”
With a sigh of regret, he capitulated.
That Saturday she let Lord Thomas take her to his town house, for was she not his already? And the servants would hardly dare to whisper against someone who was soon to be mistress of the house!
The house was smaller than she had expected and although the original furniture had been handsome, the draperies rich, both were now very worn and shabby. Obviously it had not been redecorated for at least a generation.
“You see?” he said ruefully. “I told you it needed renovation.”
She drifted from room to room, murmuring phrases like, “Green would be best here, I think,” and “That orange is awful,” and “A few touches of red would do wonders for the library,” and “I wonder how the arm of that chair got that deep gouge?”
Lord Thomas could have told her. It was on this spot that his one-time French mistress, Paulette, had tried to stab him—and stabbed the chair arm as he dodged. Lord Thomas was awfully grateful to that chair. But he doubted Carolina would approve of the story. So he followed her, smiling and silent—and stopped her in the last bedroom.
“I think I feel the need of a nap,” he said huskily.
She laughed and—more sure of herself than she had ever been—let him close the door and lead her to yet another big bed, this one a handsome fourposter with a threadbare monogrammed silk coverlet.
And another afternoon flew by in an ecstasy of touching and laughing and yearning and feeling emotions surge into her very soul.
“Doesn’t your mother ever come to London?” she wondered, as they were dressing, her body still aglow with the wonder of it all.
“No, she isn’t well and prefers to stay in Northampton.”
Carolina digested that. “Do we journey to Northampton then?” she asked at last. “So that I can meet her?”
Lord Thomas looked up from pulling on his boots, which he had worn against the inclement weather which had persisted until today. “No, I’ll be going home for the Christmas season,” he said lightly. “ ’Tis best I see her alone, Carolina, for her heart is very weak. Any surprising news might send her into an attack. I must break it to her very very gently.” His voice had grown pleasantly vague.
“But after Christmas?” she insisted.
“After Twelfth Night I’ll be returning to London, and then we’ll see.” He grinned, and nipped at her ear.
Carolina eluded him. She was frowning. “Will I see you tomorrow?” she demanded.
His sandy brows shot up. “Of course! Do I not always follow you to church and skulk along behind you, watching your hips sway as you walk?”
She laughed in spite of herself. “Yes, you always do, Thomas,” she admitted.
“And so I will tomorrow,” he declared.
But the next day, after a long wicked afternoon spent in his arms in the big bedroom of his town house, he told her that a friend of his was getting married down in Kent and he was to be a member of the wedding party.
“ Tis not something I can avoid,” he told her almost pleadingly. “Faith, I’d rather be here with you. But Roger will think me daft if I fail him at the last minute. Could you come along?”
She knew she could not go. The headmistress might countenance her spending her afternoons with Lord Thomas but would never allow her to go away with him to Kent.
“How long will you be gone?”
“A week,” he said casually and her face fell.
“Thomas.” She looked down very fixedly at her shoes. “If you are to be gone a week, that will bring us very close to the Christmas holidays. Will I see you before you go home?”
“Of course!” He sounded astonished. “Does the sun light my days? I’ll see you on my return—honor bright!”
But something unforeseen happened that week in Kent—which turned out after all to be only five days. Young Mistress Chesterton, who was a distant cousin of the bride’s and thus had been invited, chose to attend the ceremony on the off chance of seeing Lord Ormsby, who had vanished from her life as abruptly as he had entered it.
He was not there and when she realized he was not there, her face, so bravely made up, looked very haggard.
It was at that precise moment that she looked up and saw Lord Thomas Angevine, one foot on the hearth rail, drinking a stirrup cup, for he had just come in from riding. She drifted toward him and managed a moment alone with him.
“You’re looking very well. Mistress Chesterton,” he greeted her coolly, for he did not like the malevolent expression in her eyes.
“Let us have no discussion of how I look,” she said waspishly. “It is Carolina who has stars in her eyes these days, and a certain disheveled look to her hair that I well recognize!”
“So?” He stared down at her chestnut head coldly, determined to brazen it out.
“I will have you know, if you have been so foolish as to ruin the girl, that this is no little lightskirt from a music hall that you have deflowered. Her family may be a long way off but they have excellent connections in London. I would advise you to have a care, my lad, else they will bring you to heel—and to the altar as well!”
“The bridegroom is beckoning to me,” said Lord Thomas hastily. “We will have to resume this conversation later.”
He strode away and her resentful gaze followed him. She knew the truth now: Lord Ormsby was infatuated with a younger woman; she had heard it muttered behind a fan only moments ago. Which meant she was now without a protector. And in a city where women outnumbered men several times over, that was a gloomy prospect. She was no longer in the first flush of her youth, she had been reckless with the money and gifts Lord Ormsby had so freely showered upon her. All she really had, save for some remarkably handsome clothes, was the school.
And on the school she must depend to make her living—a situation that could change to disaster if a breath of scandal were to reach the ears of the wealthy merchants and their wives who sent their daughters to her to be given the finishing touches before making excellent arranged marriages.
Lord Thomas could topple her, if he had been fool enough to ruin the girl from the Colonies!
The thought made her heart beat rather too fast and caused her to consume enough wine to make her very tipsy. It didn’t help.
Lord Thomas meanwhile kept his distance. He knew when he was treading on thin ice.
And while he was avoiding Jenny Chesterton, he collided with another guest and instinctively caught her by the shoulders to set her straight.
She was small and dark and her figure was very very lush. Her ripe red mouth was pouting and her lids drooped heavily over extremely bright black eyes.
"You are Lord Thomas Angevine!” she cried merrily. “I know you from a description I have had of you from my cousins who are down from London. Come, they are anxious to see you!”
And Lord Thomas, glad to be borne away from Jenny Chesterton, was drawn into another group.
Shortly he was dancing with the small dark girl, whose name was Catherine Amberley, and who, it was easy to discern, was the belle o
f this part of Kent.
Shortly after that he was kissing her. Shortly after that he was asking her if she could not come up to London. He would be leaving for the holidays but there’d be several days before that. Her stay in London would be vastly entertaining—his wicked grin was promise of that!
Catherine Amberley, who was a dedicated flirt, twinkled at him from behind her fan. She might come, she said. If she could manage it. If her betrothed continued to have that miserable cold which had kept him from the wedding. If her aunt could receive her so that she would have a place to stay in London.
Lord Thomas knew when he was being baited. But her face and her figure were enchanting. He leant down and tweaked one of her curls.
“You’ll come to London,” he predicted in a low-timbred voice.
Catherine Amberley laughed and flirted her fan. For all that it was winter, fans were fashionable. She was of the opinion that she’d come to London too—and that she might even bed handsome Lord Thomas. After all, she was being married in three weeks’ time, she did not have to be so careful—and there was always the excuse of needing some things for her trousseau to send her coachward to London.
In Lord Thomas’s defense, he had not intended matters to turn out this way. He never did. It was just that out-of-sight was out-of-mind with Lord Thomas. His was a nature that could heat to boiling in a moment—and cool just as fast.
He had not forgotten the girl from the Eastern Shore, he had just temporarily pushed her to the back of his mind. For now there was a new skirt to chase— Catherine Amberley of the black hair and black eyes and beckoning wanton smile.
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