“I was hoping…that is, I planned…Damn it, I hadn’t thought that far.” His gaze shifted back to her. “But I did assume that when you knew the circumstances, you would see I had a right to the title.”
The sad thing was, she did see he had a right to it. She’d merely hoped he might be noble enough not to exercise his right. But clearly she didn’t know him at all. Griff had no noble instincts. Daniel was wrong in that respect—Griff wasn’t ignoring his heart; he simply had no heart.
“Here now, man,” her father protested from his bed. “You aren’t saying you meant to use that certificate before I died. And shame my daughters?”
A terrible sadness came over her. “Yes, Papa, I’m afraid that’s precisely what Mr. Knighton planned to do. Still plans to do, I suspect.”
“Why not?” Griff said defensively. “It’s mine by right, damn it!”
Rosalind sighed. All this time, Papa had thought his brilliant plan would save him from Griff’s wrath and gain her and her sisters a future. Instead, he’d opened the door to the griffin, and now that the griffin had come he wouldn’t depart without his treasure.
Well, there was one treasure he wouldn’t get. “Yes, that title is yours by right. But I am not.”
A look of panic came over Griff’s face. “Why does the certificate make any difference? It changes nothing! We’ll live here after we’re married, and your family will live here, too. Yes, there might be a short period of scandal, but people will forget. None of you ever sought their good opinion before. I don’t see why it matters now.”
She thought of Juliet’s desperate urge not to become a spinster and Helena’s defensiveness about her limp. “No, why should it?” she said sarcastically. “My sisters are already odd ducks, after all. They can’t find husbands even with their rank, so who cares if they lose it? Who cares if they’re gossiped about behind their backs? My sisters are beneath your concern, aren’t they? They’re the daughters of a man who treated you badly, so you see no reason to protect their reputations.”
A dark flush spread up his neck to his face.
“Of course, society will gossip about me, too, but not to my face if we marry. No one would dare laugh publicly at the wife of the new Earl of Swanlea, with all his wealth and influence. But they’ll scorn me privately. I’ll be the sister clever enough to marry the real earl to protect my family from ruin.” She choked back more tears. “I’ll be the whoring sister.”
“Don’t ever call yourself that again!” Griff exploded. “And since when do you care what they think of you, goddamn it? Didn’t you just say that you don’t?”
“The point is that you don’t care what happens to me or my family as long as it serves your purpose. You’ll do anything for Knighton Trading—whether consorting with smugglers or defaming innocents—so what place could a mere woman like me have in your life? Well, I can’t marry a man who cares so little for me.”
She turned on her heel and walked out, afraid to stay any longer. She’d fall apart in her room, away from him.
When she heard him call her name, she increased her pace. She wouldn’t let him work on her with his tempting words, for right now she’d be all too susceptible to them.
If she could hate him, it would be easy. If she could consider him the villain of the piece, she could set her world to rights again and thrust him clear out of it.
But she couldn’t hate him, knowing how dreadfully he’d been treated. Griff had Papa to thank for his character, so she could hardly reprove him for it. While he and Papa had been talking, she’d stood there in horror, realizing the appalling ramifications, imagining Griff’s life as a bastard. His sudden and unwarranted poverty had driven him to awful lengths. With shame, she remembered her ridiculous moral posturing in the deer park. He’d done what he could after a wretched betrayal, and she’d chastised him for it.
Tears streamed down her cheeks. He’d spent his life regaining something that had always belonged to him, all because her foolish, cruel father had in one petty act rent Griff’s and his mother’s life in two.
She dashed the tears from her eyes. She understood, truly she did, yet she couldn’t be part of it. Papa might have ripped out Griff’s heart, but that didn’t mean she had to marry the empty shell.
Hearing footsteps behind her, she glanced back, then panicked when she saw Griff striding after her. If he caught her alone, she would never stand firm. He had that curst ability to make her lose all her good intentions…
He was running after her, and she swung about in alarm, wondering how to escape him. She’d never make it to her bedchamber. She was nearly to Papa’s study, but didn’t have her keys to lock herself in.
Then she spotted the ancient sword, back in its spot on the wall. Grabbing it down, she brandished it in front of her just as Griff reached her.
“Keep back, do you hear? I’m done with you! I won’t marry you, so leave me alone!”
The candlelight heightened his determined expression. “You’re daft indeed if you think I’ll let you walk away from me now. I won’t let this change things between us, Rosalind.”
He advanced on her undaunted, and she backed up a pace, nearing the open doorway of the study behind her. The reason for his nickname might have been a fabrication, but it suited him well. He had a griffin’s predatory instincts and obsession with rightful ownership. Like a griffin, he was fixed upon keeping his treasure.
The sword wavered in her hand. “I’ll…I’ll use this!” she cried, as much to convince herself as him. “I’ll unman you with it, I swear I will!”
He paused, raising one jet eyebrow. “As I recall, you threatened to do that only if I took a mistress. And I haven’t.”
Utter despair possessed her heart. How could he be so blind? “Oh, but you have. You took a mistress long before you met me, one you’ll never relinquish.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Knighton Trading—as demanding a mistress as any woman could ever be to you. She’s one mistress I can’t compete with.”
Like the lion half of the griffin, he stalked her. “What do you want from me? That I abandon Knighton Trading’s best interests? Is that what you want?”
She backed up into the study, for there was nowhere else to go. How could she use a sword on him? “I want nothing from you.” Nothing she had any right to ask of him, anyway. She wanted him to give up the part of his plans that meant shaming her family. She wanted him to care that much for her. She wanted him to love her. “There’s nothing you could give me that would entice me to marry you now. You’ve killed my feelings for you.”
Fear flickered over his face, then was gone. “I don’t believe you.” He snatched a candle from the sconce and continued to advance, backing her all the way into the dark room. “I refuse to believe that the woman who shared every intimacy with me this afternoon could suddenly turn off her feelings merely because I’m pursuing what’s rightfully mine.” He closed the door behind him, then set the candle in the sconce near the door. “You still care—I know you do.”
The longing in his voice pricked her raw. How dared he appeal to her feelings after trampling all over them earlier? “You know nothing about me and what I feel, you bloody ass,” she whispered achingly.
He looked stricken. “Can’t call me a bastard now that you know I’m not one?”
“Oh, but you are! Inside, you’re still every bit a bastard! Is that what turned you into one? Being called one all the time?”
He shook his head wearily. “Your father is what turned me into one, my sweet. But he’s happy to remove the stain, so I don’t understand why you object.”
“I don’t object to his offering to remove it. Only to your accepting his offer when you know what it will do to my family—”
“Your family doesn’t matter, don’t you see?” he cried. “All that matters is us!”
“Not to me!”
“Damnation, Rosalind, I…” He glanced away, looking hollow-eyed and bleak in the shad
owed room. “I understand why you are angry. I should not have deceived you about my purpose.” His gaze shot back to her. “But I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want this to happen! I didn’t want you to make the mistake of thinking that this matter between me and your father affects what you and I feel for each other!”
He stepped forward as if to touch her, and she leveled the sword at his chest.
“D-Don’t come a-any nearer,” she stammered.
“Or what? You’ll stab me?” His jaw tautened. “You may be outrageous, but you’re not given to murdering your lovers. And we both know you’d never unman me.”
“Don’t tempt me!” she cried hoarsely, and pressed the tip of the sword to his breeches.
With an expression of grim purpose, he closed his hand around the blade, gripping it so tightly that if she moved it even a fraction, it would slice open his hand. She froze, her gaze fixed on that terrible union of flesh and steel.
“Let go of the sword, darling,” he urged. “You know you don’t want to hurt me.”
Curse him for being right! “What if I do? What if I want to hurt you as much as you hurt me?”
Guilt slashed across his features. “I didn’t intend to hurt you, I swear it. And if I for one moment believed that you truly no longer cared for me, that you actually wish to hurt me, I’d leave tonight and never return. But I don’t believe it, and neither do you.”
“Because it doesn’t suit your plans,” she whispered.
“Because it’s not true.” He released the blade, but only to move his hand up to cover hers where it clasped the hilt. “Please, my darling…Do not send me away.”
Such blatant need laced his voice that she didn’t resist when he angled the sword away from between them, nor when he removed it from her numb fingers. But when he gathered her in his arms, tears began streaming down her cheeks.
“Oh, God, don’t cry, my sweet,” he murmured, wiping away her tears. “It tortures me when you cry.”
“Then release me from this curst engagement,” she pleaded.
“I can’t.” His lips brushed her hair, her brow, her temple. “I need you too much.”
“To warm your bed, you mean—”
“No, for more than that,” he whispered, dropping sweet kisses along her hairline. “And you need me. You know you do.”
She did need him—that was the trouble. Because she needed him more desperately than he needed her. He might be missing a heart, but he certainly had all his other “parts,” and he seemed to think two out of three were perfectly acceptable. She did not.
And yet…Do not send me away, his words echoed in her head as he covered her face with kisses, his tempting kisses that never failed to dissolve her into molten heat. With him, her body had a will of its own. When he kissed her ear, then tugged at the soft flesh of her earlobe with his teeth, she shivered in desire, and yes, need.
Oh, why must he always affect her in this way? He’d wrapped his greedy griffin’s wings about her, and she didn’t know how to fight free. How could she resist when the man she loved held her fast against the body she desired?
“I want you as my wife, darling.” He dragged his fingers through her damp hair, dislodging pins until it fell down about her shoulders. “I want you to be my companion by day and my bedmate by night. I want you to bear my children—”
She drew back to stare at him wide-eyed. Children?
“You didn’t even think of that, did you? Well, I did.” Laying his hand on her stomach, he rotated it in a slow circle. “Our child might even now be growing in your belly—it only takes once. Can you tell me you don’t want any child of mine?”
The candle above them lit his face with an unholy glow. He slipped his hand inside her wrapped gown to cup her breast, and since she wore no chemise, it was her naked flesh he held in his hand. “Can you tell me that the thought of suckling our son or daughter at this breast doesn’t please you as it does me?” The raw ache in his voice echoed in her heart. “You can’t, can you?”
She wanted to protest, to say he was wrong, but she couldn’t even lie about it. She hated herself for it, but she couldn’t.
When the silence stretched out meaningfully, his eyes flashed wild and fierce. “I thought not.”
“Oh, but Griff—”
He muffled her protest with a hot, needy kiss. With slow, deep strokes, he explored her mouth, his tongue mating with hers so deliciously that he elicited a groan from her. His hand inside her gown tenderly caressed her breast, and she leaned into him, twining her arms about his neck.
Curse him for knowing so well how to tempt her. Her body was already softening, readying itself for him. As he fondled her breasts, they came alive, the nipples tightening into little knots beneath his ardent touches. It was only when he started fumbling for the ties of her gown that she found the strength to tear her mouth away.
“It will be all right, Rosalind, I swear,” he whispered. His breath wafted over her cheek, scented with wine and spiked with his heat. “Only give me a chance to prove it to you. Let me remind you how good it is between us, how right.”
She stared up into his face, and felt despair seize her. She needed no reminding of how good their lovemaking was. Every moment of the sweet desire and bliss was fixed in her memory.
But lovemaking was no longer enough. No matter how drunk he made her with passion, she would always have the sober morning and the realization that he could never love her, that his only true love was his business. She couldn’t marry him in the face of that cold truth.
As if sensing her thoughts, he cupped her face in his hands with a look of hungry desperation. “Stay with me now,” he whispered. “Let me make love to you, my sweet Rosalind. I need you. I want you.”
She hesitated. She needed and wanted him, too, but she could not marry him. And the longer she stayed with him, the harder it would be to refuse.
Her throat tightened as she realized what she must do. Later tonight, she would have to escape Swan Park, before he could wear her down with all his temptations. She would take her meager savings and go to London.
But before she left him forever, she would have one more time with him, one more hour of wondrous bliss. One more chance to show him what love really was, so that he would remember once she’d left him.
“Yes,” she whispered.
Then she gave herself into his embrace.
Chapter 20
O, we all acknowledge our faults, now; ’tis the mode of the day: but the acknowledgment passes for current payment; and therefore we never amend them.
Fanny Burney, English novelist, diarist, and sometime playwright, Camilla
Griff could not believe it—he’d won her at last. Even though this time had come harder, he’d won her for good.
Yet even as they both worked feverishly at the fastenings of their clothing, untying and unbuttoning and loosening, a nagging fear hovered at the back of his brain. Was she truly his if only passion kept her?
Why not? Passion was a powerful force indeed, as his body already attested, crying out its need to take her, to be inside her, to bury all his apprehension in the welcoming warmth of her loins. What did it matter how he got her? In time she would forgive him the rest of it. He would keep her in bed until she did.
He ignored his screaming conscience, unwilling even to think of losing her. He wouldn’t lose her, damn it, not over this. He would make everything up to her in time, and tonight he’d start by making every inch of her burn. Thankfully, this afternoon had tapped enough of his need to allow a less frenzied lovemaking. He intended to use every minute in heightening and satisfying her desire. She wouldn’t regret her decision. He’d make sure of it.
He shrugged off his coat and waistcoat, then his shirt, but as he was reaching for his trouser buttons, he froze at the sight of her pushing her gown off her shoulders. With a smile as seductive as Eve’s, she let it slide down her luscious body to fall on the floor in a heap of periwinkle silk.
His heart stopp
ed. Beneath it lay blond lace garters and white hose and naught else—no chemise, no petticoats, no drawers. Rosalind in all her dazzling glory, kissed by candlelight, scented with rosewater, and all his, every gorgeous inch. It nearly brought him to his knees. By God, how would he keep from ravishing her instantly?
As he stood mute, with his cock doing a mindless dance at the sight of her, her skin pinkened and she nodded to where his fingers had halted at his trouser buttons. “Well?”
“Not yet.” If he peeled them off now, he’d surely fall on her like a starving madman, which was not what he’d planned. “Come with me, darling.”
Warily, she let him guide her over to the settee.
“Sit down,” he urged, and she did as he bade.
“What are you—” She broke off when he knelt on the floor and parted her legs. “Oh.”
With an almost painful hunger gripping his loins, he widened her thighs and spread the fleecy folds in their juncture to gaze on the dewy female flesh he wished to kiss. Then he glanced up into her face. “You liked it when I did this before, didn’t you? On the swing?”
Her cheeks were rosy, her eyelids lowered modestly, but she nodded.
Leaning forward, he murmured, “This time will be even better, I promise.” Then he covered her soft petals with his mouth.
By God, he loved to taste her heated honeypot. Her woman’s scent drove him insane. He entered her with his tongue, ignoring the demands of his erection to focus on building her own demand. He wanted her begging for him, turning to him and only him for satisfaction. He sensed that he held her only by the thinnest tether, and that wasn’t enough for him.
Still, he didn’t know how long he’d last. He could devour her whole right now, and it wouldn’t satisfy his hunger. Nothing could ever satisfy his hunger for Rosalind except more of Rosalind.
More, he thought, using his fingers and lips and tongue to excite her. More, more, his need chanted. Soon his brazen temptress was clasping his head, pressing him against her, swiveling her hips forward to allow him better access. He caressed her velvet skin and drove into her with his tongue until he felt the tension rising in her, felt her shake beneath his mouth. When at last she cried out and surged against him, he thought he’d explode in his trousers.
A Dangerous Love Page 27
