Thank God he’d given her reason to object.
“Are you mad?” she sputtered, snatching away her hand and thrusting back her chair.
“I thought perhaps you are tired and need rest.” Outraged innocence was belied by the laughter in his slumberous eyes. “What else did you think I meant? Unless invited to share the bed, I shall sleep in here.”
She wanted to invite him. “I only went along with this farce because our object in coming to this place is to prevent a scandal, not to cause one.” She retreated to the cold hearth. “What we should do now is call on every inn in town and find out if Caro and Robert are here.”
He followed her and she deflected his advance with the flat of her hand.
“Be calm, my angel. I took care of it when I arrived in the town. And distributed a little bribery at each place. We’ll be informed if they appear. Most likely it will be tomorrow and we can hire a vehicle to follow them north and attend the wedding.”
“Stop the wedding, you mean.”
“No,” he said firmly. “The marriage must take place. There is no alternative. They’ve been traveling together for several days. Caro is ruined.”
“Perhaps not.”
“You know that’s an absurd statement. Besides, I’ve been thinking. Did you never wonder how he knew about your blackberrying expedition, which had been agreed upon only the night before? Is it possible the little minx had been creeping out of the house at night to meet him?”
Eleanor groaned, remembering a couple of nights when lying awake unable to sleep, thinking about Max—another notch to add to his tally—she’d fancied she had heard someone creeping down the passage. “It’s possible.” Entirely possible. She’d been blind.
He swept his hair back from his forehead. “I’m sorry this happened and I wish I hadn’t encouraged their flirtation. What were we supposed to do? Lock them in their rooms at night?”
She could no longer summon fury at Max. Her indignation had been an excuse to run from him. Just as she’d run from him before. How much longer could she resist him?
Desperately, she rallied again. “And you want her to be tied for life to her debaucher?”
“Now you are being overdramatic. I don’t excuse Robert’s behavior, but he didn’t ravish the girl. We keep calling them children, but they are both old enough to know better. Despite his faults, Robert is a gentleman and intends to marry her.” He came closer and met her eye. “That’s what gentlemen do,” he said sternly.
She looked away. “How very condescending of him! It’s unfair that a single so-called slip of virtue should affect her whole life. Why does it have to be thus for women? I reject the idea.”
“I am very well aware of that fact. Perhaps it’s not fair, but just because you have a head full of bees on the subject doesn’t mean there’s no such thing as a happy marriage.” She shook her head, unable to find an argument. “Robert and Caro have as good a chance as any couple. Better, in fact. Robert wants to marry her. He’s in love with her, as she is with him. And if they don’t marry, what will she do? Her mother won’t take her back.”
A fair question and a good argument. “I will look after her,” she cried in a final burst of defiance. “She shall come and live with me. We’ll take a house in London. Caro will love that.”
“My darling! You’re deluding yourself. You think you want to save your cousin from marriage,” he said relentlessly, “but it’s yourself you think to save. If you love Caro, and I know you do, you don’t want to condemn her to a narrow life in a pokey London house, shunned by those of her own class and thrown back on the company of her elderly cousin.”
He was right, damn him! She never cried, but tears started to pour down her face. “I would not take a pokey house. And I’m not elderly.”
His arms surrounded her and she was pulled against the sanctuary of his chest. “You’re in the prime of life, my darling. And you need to stop taking care of other people’s children and have some of your own.”
She sobbed into his neckcloth and let herself surrender to the comfort of his murmured endearments. He stroked her back and told her he loved her and years of denial melted away. As her tears subsided to snuffles, the superb fact of being in Max’s arms with a large bed a room a way seeped into her mind. And apparently his too. He swept her up, with no more effort than if she were a doll, and made for the bedroom door.
“Er…” Her protest was for form only, not even expressed in a single English word. She’d had enough of saying no.
“Quiet,” he said, “or I’ll tie you up.” And deposited her on the bed. And landed on top of her.
There was no finesse in his loving assault. She reveled in his weight, in the way his powerful body covered and enclosed her, and the punishing possession of his kiss. She was taken back to the first time she’d been with Max. Ever since she’d been convincing herself she made a massive mistake in giving herself to him. But leaving had been the mistake. Rejecting and missing so many years of his kisses on her lips and neck, of his hands, slightly callused, delving under her garments and finding her aching breasts that swelled and throbbed under his stroking, of his hot mouth sucking on her nipples and sending streaks of bliss down a line that connected to the passage between her thighs.
Were all men as wonderful as this? Did they all give kisses that tasted like the mead of the gods, caresses that made her skin feel like shimmering satin? Of course not! Only Max. That’s why she’d spent her youth avoiding them and failed to understand that in him, she’d found something profoundly special.
She pushed on his shoulders and at once he raised his head from her breast, wary consternation on his rough, handsome face. He was breathing heavily. “It’s all right,” she said. “I wanted to see you, that’s all. Last time it was dark.”
His smile went straight to her heart. “Good. I was afraid I would have to tie you up after all?”
“Would you really do that?”
He swiveled his hips as they lay between her legs so she felt his hard member against her sex through their layers of clothing. “Not unless you wanted it. I will never do anything you don’t want, Eleanor.”
“This, from the man who forced me to dine and sleep with him by claiming we were married.”
“But I knew you wanted that. At least the dining part.”
“It was a very fine dinner.”
“And the sleeping will be fine, too. Eventually. I want to see you too. Every inch of you.”
Last time, they’d pushed aside their garments in a haphazard fashion, exposing a breast here, a leg there, and the part of each of them that mattered for coupling. This time the undressing was no less frantic but a good deal more thorough. She’d never bared herself to a man’s gaze before, but a moment’s consideration quieted her fears that he might find her nakedness less than enticing. She’d wasted the firmer flesh of her youth on celibacy and her stomach wasn’t as flat or her breasts as pert as they’d been at eighteen. But Max had chased her the length of England and said he wanted her. So she was what he would get, with all the imperfections of her thirty-year-old body. The look in his eyes when she tossed aside her shift reassured her. Smoldering with desire, they scanned her from chin to toe, his mouth parting in an avid grimace.
She returned the examination as he knelt before her, drinking in the muscled thighs, rough with dark hair; lingering at his male member that strained darkly fascinating toward the pit of his navel; noting the carved ridges of his torso that her hands had once sought beneath his shirt as they lay on the Sussex grass; his chest, dark with hair and bearing a small scar that hinted at a tale she would hear in their future; his shoulders, every bit as powerful as they promised beneath his comfortably loose coats; the Adam’s apple in the strong column of his neck. Upwards to his face, as transfixed with happiness as her own must be.
“I love you, Max.”
“I’ve waited so long to hear those words.” The rasp of his voice attested to his astonishment and his joy.
&
nbsp; “Come to me,” she said and opened her arms wide.
Naked touching was even better than clothed. Nothing could equal flesh against flesh, his hands over every inch of her skin, her own exploring the contours of her beloved, as though he were a foreign country to be discovered and possessed. She grew heated and wanting beneath his caresses, gasping in counterpoint to his groans of desire. Blunt fingers found the wet folds of her swollen sex and stroked the little peak, her core of pleasure, until she cried out with delicious frustration.
“Max,” she said, a little testily. She raised her hips in an urgent demand that was met with a thrust and received with a grateful shudder. He filled her, body and soul. She reveled in every inch of contact and strained for more, her knees tightening around his hips, her legs curling around the rough abrasion of his legs. She’d been insane to run from this bliss, this physical manifestation of their mutual possession. Her head pressed back into the pillow so that she could see his beloved face, greedy and wild, with no trace of his usual calm amusement. With a surge of pure delight, she knew only she could make him thus. She had the delicious power to drive him to madness, just as he could her. She clenched about his male member, slick and hard as it moved inside her, working muscles she barely knew she had to match the rhythm of his entry.
“My love, my own.” Sweet words enhanced her gratification, guiding her in a long climb to heights of pleasure she could scarcely bear yet never wanted to end. “Sweetheart,” he groaned. “My darling Eleanor.” Every endearment sent her higher till she was gasping for breath, tilting her hips beneath him to seek paradise, squeezing her eyes shut as she focused on the place of their joining. A shift in his position and the root of his member found the sensitive nub and she tumbled, shrieking with an agony of joy as her inner passage shook and waves of ecstasy traveled though her limbs. He shouted in triumph at her completion and she opened her eyes, blurred with happy tears to watch his features, savage and beautiful, as he accelerated to his own noisy bliss.
A passing thought had her wonder if there was anyone in the next room and if they could hear, and if so what they thought. She couldn’t bring herself to care when he turned onto his back and pulled her into his arms to lie in damp repletion, their breathing fading into the silence of their own particular world.
Eleanor’s head lay on his chest, her dark hair a gossamer halo in the flickering candlelight. Max closed his eyes, idly enjoying the firm pliancy of her arm under his tickling fingers.
“Max?”
“Don’t move.”
She raised her head. “I want to see you. You’re smiling.”
“That’s because I’m happy. I hope you are, too.”
“Open your eyes and look. I want to talk.”
He groaned and cracked open his lids. She looked happy, but he wasn’t taking things for granted yet, even after that stupefying bedding. “Please don’t say you won’t marry me. I won’t tolerate it. You’ve had your way with me and now you must pay.”
She laughed, then her brow creased. “Supposing we don’t make each happy. How can we be certain?”
Clearly he wasn’t yet allowed to sink into comatose betrothed bliss. He rolled them over to lie face to face on their sides. “We can’t be. But I’m a levelheaded and sensible man. I know I love you and I intend to do everything in my very considerable power to keep us in a state of bliss for the rest of our lives. If you let me have a nap for half an hour or so, I could start again tonight.” With a distinct glint in her eye she reached under the covers and fluttered her fingers over his lower stomach. “Nothing yet. I’m not as young as I was. But truly, my darling, I don’t know what else to say to convince you to marry me.”
“I do want to marry you.”
“That’s more like it.” Something told him this wasn’t the moment to suggest they get some sleep. “What worries you?” Soothingly he stroked her delightfully rumpled head.
She raised herself onto one elbow, but didn’t seem to be contemplating flight. Still, he was ready to catch her if she bolted. “I’ve been thinking of things I don’t want to do. I’m not a bluestocking and I don’t want to study obscure subjects. I have no wish to travel to other countries where they have bad roads, dirty inns, and revolutions. I don’t want to devote my life to good works.”
“That’s all right, my love. You don’t have to do any of those things.”
“I don’t want to live alone, like my father. I like company and friends and being busy about everyday things. I am interested in the affairs of people I love and I like to help them.” She grimaced. “I told you I had a managing disposition.”
“I like that about you. What do you want to do?” He hoped she’d say she wanted manage him.
“I’d like to have a home of my own. I like”—she blushed prettily—“doing what we just did. And I like children. I don’t know why I never thought of it before, but do you realize what it means?”
His chest swelled. “It sounds to me like you want to be a wife.”
“Isn’t it odd?”
“The only odd thing is that you never knew it before. But I’m glad of that because you’d have been snapped up years ago by some lucky fellow. I do hope this long overdue road-to-Damascus conversion means you’re going to be my wife and have my children.”
“I’m frightened, Max. I could lose them. I could lose you.”
He saw the lonely child, mourning her mother, beneath the strong features of the mature woman who worshipped common sense. “Our children will grow up and leave us, as they should. But I’ll still be there.”
“You might die.” He had to strain to catch the choked words.
“I probably will, eventually. But I’m a tough fellow so don’t count on outliving me, even if you can give me five years.” This drew something between a snort and a chuckle. “Of course I won’t be happy about it, but if it’ll make you feel better to die first, I suppose I can make the sacrifice.”
“Oh, Max!” There were tears in her eyes. “I love you very much.”
“As long as that is so, I know we’ll be happy. I know because I waited thirty years to meet a woman who could touch my heart. I took one look at you in the Petworth assembly room and knew I had found her. I’m a very steadfast man and I will always love you. Not only that, but I will take the greatest care of you. I’ll treat you even better than I treat my horses.”
Her capable fists pummeled his chest. “You are outrageous! Next you’ll be threatening to ride me.”
“I already have. And you can ride me too.” He watched her construe his meaning and her mouth widened to a wicked grin that sent a message to his cock. “I think the waiting time is down to five minutes. You are about to learn, my darling, about some more of the advantages of marriage.” He pulled her down into his arms and she snuggled into his side, her head in the crook of his neck.
“Max.”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry. That I never read your letters. We could have been married for years. I’m so glad we met again.”
“Don’t dwell on it anymore. Let’s think about what’s to come. It’s very lucky you’re such a managing woman. I have dozens of relations who need your assistance.”
“I’m no longer so confident in my ability to improve the affairs of others.”
“Nonsense. We’ll be able to combine visits to our families with my calls on horse buyers. Though, if you don’t mind, we won’t stay with the Ashdowns when we’re in Sussex.”
“Poor Sylvia.” She kissed his collarbone. “What about the children? Our children?”
“We’ll take them with us.”
“You’re quite mad.” He felt a wet drop on his shoulder.
“What’s this? Tears? I shall have to do something about them.”
“I’m not crying.” She sniffed. “I’m happy.”
Eleanor woke feeling better than she ever had in her life, despite aching muscles and a certain soreness down below. The bustle outside told her the inn was enjoying a busy morn
ing. Enough light seeped through the curtains to reveal her sleeping husband. Not legally hers, yet, but in a little while they’d drive to the border and make it official. And find Caro.
Good lord, Caro! She’d completely forgotten.
“Wake up, Max.” Even shaking his bare shoulder gave her a frisson of pleasure. Pity there wasn’t time to do anything else this morning except dress and eat.
Without opening his eyes he pulled her to him for a kiss. Any interesting development was forestalled by a knock at the door. She ducked beneath the sheet. Thank God the servants thought they were already married.
“We’ll just go in and surprise them,” she heard.
Caro! Caro?
“Wait!” She slid to the floor and rummaged through her valise for the nightdress she’d never got around to wearing. “Put this on.” She tossed Max his shirt.
He made no effort to leave the bed, but put on the garment in obedience to her furious glare. “The managing begins,” he murmured.
She was scarcely decent when the door opened to admit Caro and Robert Townsend, looking radiant with youth and beauty and entirely unashamed of themselves.
“Eleanor!” Caro said.
“Max!” said Robert.
Eleanor wondered how, as the supposed responsible adults, they were going to explain themselves. But Caro was no more interested in the affairs of her elders than she ever had been.
“Guess what! We were married last night. Isn’t it a beautiful day?” She sat on the edge of the bed and started a rambling account of their journey, punctuated with excited exclamations about the wonders of Robert, who regarded her with amusement. Not knowing him well, Eleanor couldn’t say if his affection equaled that of his bride. But Max was right. In her own current state of happiness she couldn’t find it in herself to regard their future with misgivings.
“How did you find us?” she asked, when Caro had finished her rapturous account of their Scottish wedding.
“We drove from Gretna this morning and stopped to hire a post chaise when we learned Mr. and Mrs. Quinton were staying in the inn. When did you get married? Did you go to Gretna, too?”
The Second Seduction of a Lady Page 8
