Daring Masquerade

by Mary Balogh

  “Has he been molesting you, Katherine?” he asked with a smile.

  “Only with insults,” she said. “Nothing to worry about. I have as ready a tongue as anyone. He will not get the better of me with words, never fear. I really do dislike him intensely.”

  “Do you?” he said. “Poor man. I pity him. And do you dislike me intensely too, Katherine? I seem to remember that you were quite out of charity with me the last time we met.”

  “Well, I really should dislike you,” she said candidly. “But you are so like a child that needs to be protected. You seem to have no sense of danger at all.”

  “And you wish to protect me from harm?” he asked.

  “Stupid, is it not?” she said. “I should be cheering the hangman on.”

  “Will you let me kiss you, Katherine?”

  “Yes,” she said without hesitation. “I think I need to be held close to you. I am feeling decidedly agitated. I do wish I had never met you, you know.”

  “No, you don’t,” he said, putting one arm around her shoulders and drawing her against him, “any more than I wish I had never met you. Despite the fact that you have a habit of coming into my life at the most awkward moments. There is a very strong attraction between you and me, Katherine Mannering.”

  She was not given a chance to reply. His mouth came down on hers, open, light, teasing, and she reached for him with both arms, turning toward him so that her breasts came against his chest.

  He raised his head. She was aware in the dim, flickering light of the lamp, of very blue eyes looking at her through the slits of his mask. “Is your mouth sore?” he asked.

  She shook her head and tightened her hold of his shoulder to bring his mouth back to hers. His kiss had not lost its magic. It was as wonderful this time as it had been the last. She relaxed against him and gave herself up to sensation as his tongue explored her lips, the flesh behind, and the cavity of her mouth. He took her hands when they would have moved into his hair and placed them against his chest. She accepted the invitation, unbuttoning the shirt beneath his open jacket and spreading her hands over the warm, lightly hairy surface of his chest. His hands had released the untidy knot of hair from the nape of her neck and were now unbuttoning the back of her dress.

  His mouth moved away from hers to kiss her eyes, her temples, her ears, her throat, her breasts, which were at least free of her dress and shift. Kate moaned and pushed against him. He was sucking on one nipple and she threw back her head and gave herself up to raw sensation. And then his face was above her again, his eyes gazing deeply into hers, and one strong arm supported her as he lowered her down onto the cloak. Kate reached up for him.

  Somehow his coat and his shirt were gone and she reveled in the feel of her naked breasts against his chest and finally in the heavy weight of him pressing her against the sand, his hands in her hair, his mouth deeply embracing hers again.

  “Katherine,” he was saying then against her ear. “Katherine, my beautiful love. I want you. God, how I want you.”

  She knew what he meant. She felt betrayed again. She was going to push him away again and demand to be taken home. In just a little while. Her brain was sluggish. Just too much excitement for one night. In just a little while. For the moment she did not wish to put an end to her own pleasure. Her hands roamed his broad shoulders and she tipped back her head again, lips parted, inviting his kiss.

  “Yes,” she said against his mouth. “Yes, Nicholas. I want more. Give me more. Please give me more.”

  She had never been naked with Giles. Yet even in five years of marriage she had never failed to feel exposed and humiliated when her nightgown was pushed up to her hips so that he might take his pleasure of her. She lifted her hips for Nicholas to slide her clothes off her. She watched his eyes as they roamed over her naked body. She watched as he unclothed himself and turned to her again. And she reached up her arms for him, never once thinking of asking him to put out the lamp. And she spread her legs across her cloak as he came down on top of her.

  If he would only kiss her more before he did “that” to her. If he would only massage her breasts like this a little longer, his thumbs rubbing against her nipples until she felt a raw ache all the way from her throat to her spread legs. If only he would then let his hands slide down her sides, as he was doing now, tracing the outline of her waist, her hips, her legs. And if only he would raise himself like this so that he could take her nipples in his mouth again and trail a line of kisses all the way down to her navel and even beyond. And let his hands trail up her exposed thighs until they buried themselves “there,” his fingers teasing and probing until she cried out and lifted her arms to him and raised her knees so that she could set her feet on the cloak on either side of his kneeling body. And if only he would brace his hands on either side of her head and lower his weight so tantalizingly slowly along her full, length once more.

  If only.

  If only he would do those things to her—and he had done them all, and more—then she would be only too willing out of the gratitude of a body humming with desire to give him “that.” If that was what he needed as a man, then he should have it. She would endure the unpleasantness. She would give herself as a free gift because she loved him.

  Yes, she loved Nicholas Seyton.

  So she lifted herself of her own free will when his hands moved beneath her, and pivoted her hips so that he would have easy entrance. And she gave herself in love and gratitude to Nicholas in return for the pleasures he had given her.

  Kate gasped. Her body was deeply occupied, and immediately all the throbbings and achings that had set her body humming since his first touch were focused. It was there. Oh, it was there that she needed him. It was there she would find the answer, the final soothing for all the unfulfilled longings his embraces had aroused in her.

  There. Oh, yes, there. As he stroked slowly into her and into her, the ache increased almost beyond endurance and she gasped against him, lying still and tense, her eyes closing tightly when he moved to a faster and deeper pace.

  “There. Oh, yes, there. There.”

  One hand was twisted in her hair again and his mouth brushed hers. ”I am taking you there, my love,” he whispered. “You will come with me. I promise.”

  And then there was no more energy for words. He was driving into her with an urgency that she braced herself against, every muscle tightening, straining against him for release. And then, finally, it was coming. She could feel it coming. She was going to lose herself. She could not fight the driving demands of his body any longer. She was going to lose herself. She clung to his back with desperate hands and lifted her head away from the cloak to bury it against his shoulder.

  And then she cried out. And shuddered violently against him as he continued to move in her. And cried out again. And shook and shook within his embrace as if she had lost control of every muscle in her body. And then he too was still, buried deep and throbbing inside her, holding her and murmuring to her until her shaking became less convulsive. And then she lost touch with herself.

  Chapter 11

  Before noon of the following day Sir Harry Tate had decided that he must get rid of Nicholas Seyton. Not by death, though he did toy with the idea. But that would be too tricky. There would be all the necessity of having a convenient body at hand. He must send him away from Dorset to rusticate on his estate in Shropshire.

  He made the decision reluctantly. If he were to leave in a hurry, then he would not be able to participate in the distribution of the smuggled items the following night. And he rather liked to see the earl anxious that he might be kidnapped and throttled at any moment. But there were far more pressing reasons for sending Nicholas Seyton a safe distance away.

  He wanted the earl lulled into a false feeling of security. Perhaps he would give something away if he considered himself no longer in any danger. And if he did not-Sir Harry did not really expect him to do so-and if nothing came out of the gradual questioning of the older servants, then ther
e was another possibility. Merely the germ of an idea that would have to be weighed and pondered over. But still, it was a chance.

  His main reason for sending Seyton away, though, concerned Katherine Mannering. He had not expected her to come to the cottage again. And he had certainly not planned to become her lover. He had given in to temptation, of course. He seemed to have no strength of character as far as she was concerned. And he had to be honest with himself-after hours of agonized pondering, he could not be otherwise. If Nicholas Seyton stayed, he would continue to be her lover. He felt a hopeless attraction to her, and it appeared that she felt the same way about him. Although neither of them had said anything about another meeting, he knew that sooner or later they would seek each other out again. And each time they met and made love, it would be harder to break off the relationship.

  And break it off he must. He always laughed at Katherine’s fears for his safety. And indeed he had never been overly concerned about the dangers of his way of life until he met her. But he was aware of them now. He was a smuggler. He had been a highwayman and a kidnapper, who could possibly be identified by four persons apart from Katherine. And he was a man dispossessed of his inheritance by a powerful nobleman who might be desperate enough to destroy him if he possibly could. And Katherine had become involved in all three of those dangerous elements of his life. And would continue to be involved if he stayed. It was pointless to tell her to keep clear of his affairs. She might be an obedient servant, but in her personal life Katherine Mannering did whatever she pleased to do.

  He owed it to her to have Nicholas disappear from her life. He did not want her involved. If she were hurt in any way, he would never be able to forgive himself. But it was one of the most difficult decisions he had ever made in his life. After the night before, he wanted nothing more than to stay and develop an affair with her. It was an almost irresistible need. But resist it he must. After all, he would still see her daily, still be able to converse with her, watch her, tease her, protect her from that swine Uppington. But he would be locked away from her in the persona of Sir Harry Tate, his only enjoyment of her coming from besting her in a matching of insults.

  Under the circumstances, seeing her frequently was going to be almost worse than not seeing her at all. He wondered, in fact, who would suffer the more: he or she. He did not think it was conceited of him to believe that she would suffer. The night before had been as wonderful an experience for her as it had for him. She had said so. Not that words had been necessary. Her body had shouted its own joy.

  He had not expected their embrace to go that far. It had been a surprise to see her again in his own person and to be free to smile and talk to her without the encumbrance of the personality of Sir Harry Tate. He had wanted to hold her and kiss her for a few minutes before taking her back to the Abbey. But he should have known from earlier encounters that matters would not be that simple once he touched her. That kiss had quickly developed into a heavy embrace.

  Even so, he had not been completely beyond rational thought when he looked down at her and told her that he wanted her. He had expected the same reaction as before, had resigned himself to the fact that their embrace was at an end. He was preparing himself to cope with his own lack of fulfillment. But she had said yes. She had offered herself to him without any apparent fear or revulsion

  And he had held himself in check, concentrated entirely on holding back his need for her so that she would not be shocked and revolted when he entered her body. He did not know what her husband had done or not done to give her such a disgust of the sexual act, but he set himself to erase the memories, to teach her that the joining of man and woman was the very pinnacle of physical love, the end to which all the excitement of kissing and touching was leading.

  So he had worshiped her body, slowly, lingeringly, the blood pounding at his temples, his own need of her a pain, glorying in the signs of her mounting passion, finally knowing with his body as well as his head that she was ready, that she would discover all the wonder and glory of the act that would unite them. And even when he was inside her, he had fought to keep his awareness of her needs, to give her time to feel the rhythm of his strokes, to feel the building and tightening of her passion, to make sure that he did not climax before she had time to reach the world beyond.

  And in the end he had found that it was not a fight at all. It was not he and she reaching for their own individual satisfaction. They were one. His body knew hers on the sand of the cave. He now understood what that biblical word meant. He could not have finished and left her wanting. It would have been a physical impossibility. He knew the moment of her release even before she cried out, and he spilled into her, holding in his arms the shuddering body of the woman who was the other part of himself.

  She was already asleep when he lifted himself away from her a few minutes later. She moaned and curled into his body without fully waking. And he had lain, cradling her damp body against his and staring out into the darkness beyond the cave, knowing that he had committed an unforgivable sin against her. A man wanted to be able to offer stability, safety, and protection to his woman. And a good name. He could offer none of those things to Katherine. Only the opposite, in fact. He had the power to lead her only into danger and disgrace. She did not have a very happy life as it was, but what she had was infinitely better than life as his mistress would be.

  Mistress! The word echoing in his mind was distasteful. Katherine deserved to be a wife, not a mistress. She deserved to be respected and respectable. For one moment he told himself that he could make her his wife and that together they could build respect in a limited social circle if he took her to Shropshire and settled quietly on his estate there for the rest of their lives. But even as the thought came, he knew that he could not do it. Was it that he put his ambition before his love of her? Perhaps. But he did not think so. Six months ago he could have offered her that life. But no longer. He knew that he could not be happy or settled anywhere until he had found out the truth of his birth, whatever that truth turned out to be.

  In the meanwhile Nicholas Seyton must go away. The unwelcome thought was already there in his mind before Katherine awoke. And he hated to think what his disappearance would do to her. He had just helped her discover her own sexuality. The fact that she slept now proved more than any words that she had been utterly pleased and satisfied. Would she think that to him she had merely been an available woman? Would she come to hate herself as well as him? Perhaps he should tell her that he must leave, explain to her the reason. But no, he could not do that. It was safer for her to hate and despise him. If she could see him as a heartless seducer, she would stay out of his affairs. And she would be safe.

  When he had turned his head to her again, she was smiling sleepily up at him. Her hand moved to his chest.

  “Nicholas!” she said, and sighed happily. “You are beautiful.”

  He swallowed and bent his head to kiss her lingeringly on the lips. “It was good for you, Katherine?” he said, more statement than question. “I told you it would be so; did I not?”

  “Yes,” she said. “You were right. I didn’t dream . . . Oh, Nicholas, I never dreamed it could be like that. Thank you.”

  He chuckled. “Thank you?” he said. “Do you think all that was done solely for your benefit, my dear? It was really quite good for me too.”

  “When am I going to see you without your mask?” she asked. Then she giggled. “It is really quite absurd that you have allowed me to view every inch of your body except your face from the mouth up. And really you are being very silly. I would recognize you in a flash if I were to see you without the mask. You do not believe you could fool me, do you?”

  He rested one finger along her nose. “I dread to think what time it must be, Katherine,” he said. “I must take you home.”

  “Oh, so soon?” she asked, burrowing her head beneath his chin.

  “Yes, so soon,” he said. “I imagine you are expected to get up in the morning, my dear. Come.
Get dressed and I shall take you.”

  He had become more and more convinced as he dressed that Nicholas must decide to leave. How could he stay away from her else? She stood watching him as he pulled on his coat, already dressed herself. And she came into his arms unbidden and raised her face for his kiss. It was very hard to put her from him a minute later, sweep the marks from the sand, and douse the lamp before taking her by the hand and leading her out into the night.

  He had had no sleep that night. By the time he had taken her to the Abbey, returned to the cottage to change into the clothes of Sir Harry Tate, and ridden back to the Abbey again, there was very little of the night left. He had lain awake, hands clasped behind his head, longing for Katherine, knowing that he would not be able to have her again. And his willpower as far as she was concerned being what it was, not having her meant going away from her. And yet remaining with her as her tormentor, Sir Harry Tate.

  By noon he had sent Nicholas Seyton away.

  The ladies were all gathered in the morning room, sewing. All except Lady Emma, that is. She kept to her room each day until luncheon. Most of the gentlemen had gone riding out to view the estate. The marquess was also still in bed. Sir Harry Tate and Mr. Charles Dalrymple had ridden into the village.

  Kate too was sitting quietly over her embroidery, taking no part in the plans for an afternoon picnic going on around her. She was wondering what those two gentlemen were doing in the village. If they had gone there, that was. Perhaps they had returned to the cottage to try again to find Nicholas there. She did not think Sir Harry would have been so easily satisfied by the denials of Evans. Or perhaps they were searching elsewhere, asking questions. Would they find him? And would they bring their news back to Lord Barton before confronting him? Did they know he was a wanted man?