The Taste of Innocence

by Stephanie Laurens

  His lips on hers, holding her wits captive, with one kneee he nudged her thighs apart, and slid first one, then two long fingers into her sheath. She felt the heat from the fire playing over her skin as his hand worked between her thighs, feeding the conflagration within.

  Her body was no longer hers but his to command, her senses wholly caught, trapped in the moment. In the escalating desire, in the tension that rose through the fire and gripped her.

  Then he buried his fingers inside her and she shattered. She gasped through the kiss, but he pressed her on; instead of falling weightless through the familiar void, she found herself riding a crest of incendiary passion. It swept her high, then he withdrew his fingers, gripped her waist, and lifted her up against him.

  She broke from the kiss; from under heavy lids, breasts heaving, her hands gripping his shoulders, she looked down at his face, tipped up to hers.

  His expression was graven, a mask of urgent desire. “Wrap your legs around me.”

  She could barely make out the gravelly command; it took an instant to register that his palms had slid beneath her bottom, supporting her weight, then to make her muscles obey her enough to obey him.

  Immediately her thighs clamped about him, he lowered her hips, and she realized—felt the broad head of his erection nudge against her entrance, then he pressed in, and drew her down.

  As he thrust upward.

  Head falling back, she gasped as he impaled her, as the sensation of him riding hard and high into her body engulfed her senses, and dragged them down.

  Into a whirlpool of seething desire, of passion so hot it scorched, of a need so fiery it melted her bones. He lifted her, and brought her down again, thrusting upward as he did, and every nerve she possessed shook, shuddered.

  With a need he understood; legs braced, he held her in his arms before the fireplace, the heat from the flames dancing over her flushed skin as he gripped her bottom and held her to him, held her body against him and filled her again and again.

  She wrapped her arms about his neck and clung, senses stretched almost beyond bearing, sensual delight buffeting her mind, then she lowered her head, he lifted his, and their lips met.

  And hunger raged.

  Not hers, not his, but theirs. A force stronger than either of them, able to compel both of them. Powerful enough to fling them both into a state of mindless, dizzying, clawing need—into intimacy unrelenting, to where there was no him or her but only their single, desperate quest.

  Until they touched the glory. Until it rose in a burning wave and battered them, shattered them, caught them and cindered them.

  Destroyed them.

  Unmade them.

  Then refused them and completed them.

  When the storm retreated and they returned to the world, they found themselves slumped, limbs tangled, on the rug before the dying fire.

  Sarah drew breath, with one hand traced his face, close, lit by the glowing embers as he gazed down at her, and marveled anew at what she saw there. Passion, desire, and need had faded, leaving behind, stark and unmistakable, the one emotion that drove those lesser emotions, that gave them such intense life.

  Mistily, she smiled up at him; there was no need for words.

  He searched her eyes, then bent his head and kissed her gently, the simplest of benedictions.

  Then he drew back, lifted her in his arms, rose and carried her to their bed.

  Warm, sated to his toes, Charlie lay beside Sarah, listening to her steady breathing, and to the wind gusting restlessly beyond the windows.

  The two sounds echoed his thoughts of her and him; she’d accepted what had flared, grown, and burgeoned between them without a qualm, while he…couldn’t.

  The glow of aftermath that had claimed him, that still held him despite his restless thoughts, had never been this intense, this deeply satisfying. He couldn’t pretend otherwise, couldn’t deny the fierce triumph he’d felt when she’d finally shattered in his arms, when his last vestige of control had vaporized and he’d plundered her willingly surrendered body to gain his own release—any more than he could deny the deeply rooted plea sure of sharing those indefinable, ephemeral moments afterward with her.

  She was different, and always would be, and no matter how he might wish otherwise, he wasn’t going to walk away from all she represented. All she gave him.

  In some fundamental way—a primitive, primal, possessive way he’d never imagined would apply to him—she was his rightful mate. His. Claimed, willingly surrendered, she who would be the mother of his heirs.

  Where this aggressive, possessive, even more arrogant than usual part of him had sprung from he didn’t know. All he knew was that it was integral, an inescapable part of him, that she called it forth, that only she could sate it—and that was that. All unhelpful, potentially obsessive powers aside, that was the situation he now faced.

  When he was here, alone with her in this room, there was nothing he could do—could even imagine doing—to avoid or hide that truth, the truth of what he felt for her, how he felt about her. When he was here, alone with her, the need to possess her was simply too powerful, the ache to plea sure her an unexpected spur. Taking her was no longer a simple focus, if it ever had been; the impulse to give, not just to sensually delight her but to teach her, and even more strongly to protect her, to care for her in each and every way, was irresistible. Compelling.

  He saw it as a duty.

  But…his duty, when all was said and done, did not lie solely with her. Indeed, their marriage had come about because he’d bowed to a greater duty. And that greater duty still remained, commanding his loyalty, his observance and devotion. His care.

  He was the defender and protector of his title, his land, his people, his the duty to watch over all, to ensure both the safety and the future of the earldom. That was an ineradicable part of who he was, his birthright, and through that his inalienable duty, one he couldn’t, and didn’t wish to, walk away from, or even to jeopardize, not even for her.

  Certainly not for him, in order to pursue his own plea sure.

  Two duties, both commanding. Not precisely contradictory—for any other man observing both would pose no difficulty—but for him there existed one serious, potential, even likely problem. Yet he was going to have to accommodate both—the power that flared between Sarah and him, and his obligation to remain in control of all decisions, and not let love control him. Not let love become an obsession with the capacity to rule him.

  Eyes narrowing, he stared across the room into the deepening shadows, and considered the past day, and the night that had followed.

  When all was said and done, he never made professional decisions in bed.

  He turned his new plan over in his mind, studied it, wondered.

  It might be difficult, but it wasn’t impossible.

  It was what he would have to do.

  Sarah began the second day of her marriage more settled, more confident, than the day before. While Charlie maintained his aloofness over the breakfast table, and later the luncheon table, after the revelations of the night she no longer harbored any doubt over the nature of their marriage.

  His family were still present, very much in evidence throughout the day; it seemed plain that their presence gave him pause. It seemed equally clear that he would take some time to ease into the way of things, to become accustomed to her and to learn how to react to her. Although he had the examples of his sisters’ marriages, and even more that of Alathea and Gabriel, let alone Serena and his father before that, he was, after all, indisputably male; he had doubtless not thought to pay any real attention to how those gentlemen interacted with their wives.

  But he was sharply intelligent; he would learn soon enough. And time was one thing they had an abundance of—the rest of their lives, in fact.

  So she went about her day with a smile wreathing her face, with no worries clouding her mind, but with anticipation buoying it.

  After lunch, Charlie, Alec, and Jeremy went rid
ing. Leaving Serena and her daughters catching up in the parlor that Serena had, years ago, made her own domain, Sarah went to unpack her things in the room she’d chosen as her sitting room.

  Every countess, it seemed, was expected to have a private sitting room. That morning, Serena had shown her around the reception rooms of the huge house, many of which weren’t in regular use.

  “This house is so large,” Serena had said, “there’s no reason for you to feel constrained to use the room I chose when I first came here.”

  When they’d reached the morning room on the ground floor at the end of the west wing, the room below the earl’s bedchamber, Serena had explained, “This was traditionally the countess’s sitting room. It was Charlie’s father’s first wife’s sitting room. Even though she’d passed on years before I married Charlie’s father, I didn’t feel I could use this room. Alathea was still young, and I didn’t want her to feel I was supplanting her mother, or worse, trying to eradicate her memory.”

  Sarah had wandered into the room, noting the long windows, and the pair of French doors opening onto the terrace overlooking the south lawn. The light was wonderful. It was a good-sized room, as were all the rooms in this wing, and was decorated as befitted a countess’s sitting room in damasks and brocades, all golds, browns, and greens on an ivory base. She’d swung back to Serena. “Do you think Alathea would have any difficulty over my using this room?”

  Serena beamed. “Oh, no—quite the opposite. I think she’d feel it only right that you should claim this room as yours.”

  And so it had been decided. Sarah had informed Figgs, the redoubtable house keeper, of her decision. Figgs had instantly ordered a bevy of maids in to mop and dust. “It’ll be ready an hour after lunch, my lady. I’ll have Crisp get the footmen to bring your boxes in, then you can settle.”

  So this afternoon, with the sun streaming in through the long windows, she was settling, quiet and alone and more content than she felt she had any right to be.

  As well as comfortable chaises and armchairs, the room was well supplied with bookcases, small tables, and an escritoire with a matching chair set against one wall. With the smell of beeswax hanging in the air, she’d left the double doors to the corridor open, and propped the French doors wide.

  Finally finishing unpacking the three boxes of her books and setting the tomes neatly on the shelves, she stood, one last slim volume in her hand. Studying it, she turned; in the beam of sunlight slanting in through the doors she examined the silver plates that served as front and back covers. A heavy spiral of steel formed the spine. Smiling fondly, with one fingertip she traced the engravings covering the silver plates, then stroked the large oval cabochon amethyst set into the front cover.

  A shadow blocked off the sunlight.

  She looked up, her heart leaping; for one instant, she thought it was Charlie framed in the doorway, silhouetted by the winter sun, but then she saw the differences. The paler hair, the heavier chest, the different features.

  Her initial, instinctive smile of delight had faded; she replaced it with one of suitable welcome. “Mr. Sinclair. How delightful of you to call.”

  With the sun behind him, his face in shadow, she couldn’t be sure, but he seemed to have frozen—perhaps as surprised to come across her as she was to see him.

  Her words, however, recalled him. He visibly relaxed, and smiled his easy smile. “Lady Meredith.”

  He stepped into the room and she offered him her hand. He bowed over it, then released her. “I was looking for his lordship.” He held up a sheaf of what looked like news sheets. “I told him I’d drop these by. Investment news about the railways.”

  “Ah—I see.” Sarah had no idea Charlie was interested in railways, but he was involved with investing. “He rode out some time ago. He should return soon.”

  “Actually,” Sinclair replied with a brief smile, “that’s why I came this way—the stable boy said he’d returned, and I saw the windows…I understood this was the library wing.”

  “It is. The library’s a few doors down.”

  “Ah.” Sinclair glanced down at the silver-backed diary she still held; again he seemed to go strangely still. Then his pale lashes flickered. “That’s an unusual-looking book. Are there many like it about?”

  “This?” She raised it, displaying the front cover with its amethyst. “I imagine it’s one of a kind. It’s a keepsake. My late aunt, my mother’s oldest sister, had a large set of such diaries made up, each one with a different-colored stone. When she died, all her nieces were given one to remember her by.”

  She glanced at the book fondly, flicking through a few pages. “I have to admit I haven’t read it yet, but Aunt Edith was a great one for recipes and useful hints—as I’m now in charge of my own house hold, I daresay I might find something useful.”

  “I daresay.”

  She inwardly frowned at Sinclair’s tone, which was flat and oddly strained. But then footsteps sounded in the corridor. She and Sinclair turned as Charlie appeared in the doorway.

  “There you are, my lord.” She smiled, but Charlie’s gaze had fixed on her unexpected visitor. That gaze was strangely hard…challenging? She hurried to add, “Mr. Sinclair’s brought you some papers.”

  Sinclair smiled; he moved to join Charlie, assurance in every line of his large frame. He brandished his sheets. “Those investment reports I mentioned.”

  Charlie’s odd tension eased. “Ah—thank you.” He smiled. “Come into the library and you can guide me through them.” He looked past Sinclair to her. “If you’ll excuse us, my dear?”

  A rhetorical question. She plastered on a sweet smile and bobbed a curtsy in acknowledgment of Sinclair’s bow and Charlie’s brief nod. They left and she turned away. Crossing to the escritoire, she opened it, and slipped the diary into the rack within.

  Closing the lid, she stared at the escritoire, and inwardly humphed. Swinging around, she surveyed the room—the subtle elegance, the understated richness—now overlaid with an element of herself.

  It was a lovely room, and now it was hers.

  Damn Sinclair—that was not how she’d wanted Charlie’s first sight of her new sitting room to go.

  Still…she could enthuse to him to night, when they were alone. And perhaps she could think of some novel way in which to convey her appreciation.

  Imagining it, she smiled, and walked over to shut the French doors.

  Charlie’s family—Serena, Augusta, Jeremy, and his sisters and their husbands—departed the next day. Everyone gathered in the forecourt midmorning to see them off.

  With laughs and smiles, the ladies calling admonitions to one another and their husbands, and to the footmen and maids rushing back and forth with boxes and bags, the party piled into the three traveling carriages waiting, horses stamping.

  Standing on the front porch ready to wave them away, Sarah was sorry to see them go, but also grateful; Serena had been right. All newly married couples did, it seemed, require a few weeks alone to settle into married life.

  The last to quit the house was Serena. She wrapped Sarah in a warm, scented embrace and whispered, “Be patient, my dear, and all will be well.”

  Returning the embrace, then drawing back, Sarah met her mother-in-law’s wise eyes and smiled, happy and confident. “I will.” Regardless of whether Serena had been alluding to Charlie, the house hold, or both, Sarah was quite certain all would indeed be well.

  Serena turned to Charlie; she gave him her hand and allowed him to lead her down the steps to her carriage.

  She halted a yard away and looked up at him.

  Charlie faced her. And saw, as he’d expected, a slight frown in her eyes. She studied him for a moment, then raised a gloved hand to lay it alongside his cheek. “She’s everything you deserve—take care of her.” Her expression remained gentle but serious, then her lips quirked. “And take care of yourself, too.”

  He smiled easily back. “Take care of yourself” had been Serena’s parting words to him sin
ce he’d been in short coats.

  Patting his cheek lightly, she lowered her hand and turned to the open carriage door. He helped her up the steps, then stood back as the footman shut the door.

  With a salute to Serena and Augusta, and a nod to Jeremy, who’d elected to start the journey beside the coachman, Charlie returned to the porch to stand beside Sarah and wave the three carriages off. As the last rumbled away down the drive, he realized he was aware of her softness and warmth beside him. His necessary role high in his mind, he stepped back.

  She turned to him, happiness shining in her eyes. “I thought, seeing as you haven’t yet gone riding this morning, that perhaps we could ride together? I haven’t had Blacktail out in days.”

  Charlie looked at her, and literally felt a good half of him leap to accept her offer, to seize the chance to relax with her, and laugh and ride and celebrate simply being together and alone, but…

  He fought and succeeded in keeping his expression impassive. “I’m sorry—I have various business matters awaiting my attention.” He turned to the house, then remembered Serena’s words and looked back. “If you do go out, take a groom.”

  With a vague nod in Sarah’s direction, without meeting her eyes, he continued into the house and headed for the library.

  Sarah stood on the porch and watched him go, a frown replacing the happiness leaching from her eyes.

  13

  She told herself it wasn’t a rebuff, that he was indeed involved with all manner of business dealings. When instead of joining her for lunch in the family dining room he elected to have a plate of cold meats in the library, she reminded herself that such behavior was perfectly normal between husbands and wives in their circle.

  Husbands and wives did not live in each other’s pockets. Nevertheless, she’d expected…