Kate, surprised, sat up slowly. “Yes. I suppose you’re right.” Then she shook her head. “Only I haven’t any proof of it, of course.”
Burke, seated on the edge of the bed beside her, said with a shrug, “I heard him admit it.”
“Did you?” Kate turned her stunned gaze toward him. “Did you really?”
“Of course I did. I’ll tell the magistrate so, in my statement in the morning. Won’t that make for some interesting reading in the London papers? By week’s end, your father’s name should be every bit as untarnished as the Queen’s.”
Kate shook her head, hardly daring to breathe in the face of such a reversal of fortune—not, of course, that she was any less penniless than she’d been before. No, she was still poor as a churchmouse. But having her father’s reputation—his good name—restored meant more to her than, any fortune in African diamonds.
“Not, of course,” Burke went on, “that it will make any difference to you.”
Kate threw him a startled glance. “What? What won’t make any difference?”
Burke shrugged his broad shoulders again. “Well, what people say, of course.”
“Are you mad?” Kate asked. “Of course it makes a difference. It makes all the difference in the world!”
“But I thought you didn’t want anything to do with my set.” Burke’s tone was even, his face still expressionless. “At least, that’s what you said this morning, is it not? I believe your exact words were that you couldn’t go back. That you’d prefer to raise our child on your own, in disgrace, than amongst the people who believed your father guilty before he ever stood trial, and then allowed his killer to go free.”
Kate felt her face heat up, and realized, with a start, that she was blushing. It seemed incredible to her that she could still blush after all she’d been through with this man, but apparently, there were still a few things which could make her feel shy.
It was, she supposed, no more than she deserved.
“Burke,” Kate said uneasily. “I know that’s what I said this morning. But I realized—even before Daniel came around—that it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that—”
But he interrupted again.
“It must be gratifying,” he said, “to have proved so many people wrong. It’s something that at one time in my life, I should have liked to have done.”
She blinked up at him, what she’d been intending to say forgotten. “You?”
“Certainly.” He looked down at his hands, resting on his thighs. “You can’t have been so busy refuting what they were saying about your father that you never heard what they say about me, Kate.”
Kate immediately dropped her gaze. “I’ve heard some things,” she said, keeping her gaze on the counterpane. “But I don’t believe in gossip. Which is why I want you to know that—”
“But it can be quite useful, you know,” he said. “Gossip, I mean. In my case, especially.”
She risked a glance at his face. He was looking down at her with an expression of mingled bitterness and compassion. She looked away again, confused.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said quickly. “Burke, I—”
“Of course you do. I’m sure your friend Freddy told you all about me. The heartless Marquis of Wingate, who threw his wife’s lover from a window, then did everything within his power to keep the woman from seeing her infant daughter again. Isn’t that how it goes?”
Kate said faintly, “Well, I suppose I did hear something along those lines ....”
“Of course you did. I wanted you to, you see. Because sometimes, Kate, rumors are ... well, kinder than the truth.”
He must have noticed her bewildered expression, since he continued, with a sigh, “I never kept Isabel’s mother from seeing her, Kate. I did throw her lover out the window. That much I’ll admit. But as for the rest .... If Elisabeth had ever expressed the slightest interest in seeing her daughter, I would have arranged it for her, even if it meant my bringing Isabel all the way to Italy. But she didn’t. Elisabeth didn’t care about Isabel at all. During the court proceedings—the divorce—the only thing she worried about was money. How much was I going to settle on her. That was all. Not a word, not a breath, about Isabel.
“That’s why, after a while, I welcomed the rumors. I wanted Isabel to hear them, believe them,” Burke went on. “That’s why I never disputed them. The rumors were better than the truth. I’d rather people whispered that I was an ogre, keeping a mother from her child, than have them saying the truth, which was that Isabel’s own mother didn’t love her enough to make even the slightest attempt to see her.”
“Oh,” Kate said. Her throat felt as if it had closed up again. But this time, it wasn’t because someone had been trying to choke the life from her. “I ... I see.”
He looked down at her, but there was something dispassionate about his gaze. It was almost as if he weren’t quite seeing her.
“So there you have it,” he said. “My whole bitter little history. Well, what’s suitable for your ears, anyway. It’s interesting, isn’t it? The difference between us two, I mean. You abhor London society for its rumor-mongering hypocrisy, while I quite selfishly embraced it for my own purposes.”
Suddenly, he stood up. The mattress, relieved of his weight, lurched before settling again.
“Well, not that any of this makes a difference now,” he said. “You’ve made your decision. Still, it’s a pity we couldn’t come to any sort of understanding; you and I. For I think that together, we might have managed to pitch the whole self-deluded lot of them on their ears. But, as you said, it’s better this way. And now I think we’ve had enough high emotion for one night. I had better let you sleep.”
And he actually began striding toward the door.
Kate threw off the bedclothes that covered her, and scrambled from the bed.
“Wait,” she called.
He had nearly reached the door. He turned, and looked back at her, his expression inscrutable. “Kate,” he said. “You’ve had a shock. You need rest. Get back in bed.”
Kate stayed where she was, twisting her fingers together anxiously. “No,” she said. “I’ve got to talk to you.” She nodded toward the bed. “Won’t you sit down, just for a minute more?”
He looked as if he wanted to say something—probably another protestation—but gave up. He retraced his steps, moving past her to lower himself onto the bed she’d just vacated.
“So,” he said. Seated on the bed, his face was only slightly lower than hers while she was standing. “What is it?”
Kate found it exceptionally difficult to meet his gaze. In the first place, it was a bit disturbing, standing this close to him. While they weren’t touching anywhere at all, she nevertheless felt enveloped by him. Her senses were being assaulted on all sides. There was the heat she felt coming off his thighs, and from the vee his robe formed, over his naked chest. And there was the clean scent of him. And certainly, there was the way he looked, so tantalizingly masculine, so strong ... and yet, at the same time, so vulnerable.
“I,” Kate said, unable to meet his gaze. There was something so knowing, so expectant, in his eyes that she couldn’t look at them, and instead tried to keep her own trained on the floor. Only she kept being distracted by the place where his dressing gown came open again, just beyond the knot in its sash. She could see nothing there but the dark shadow that existed beneath the satin, but she felt the heat—oh, yes, she felt the warmth emanating from there—on her thighs, right through the flimsy material of her negligee.
“I ... I want to apologize,” she managed to stammer out, at last.
“Didn’t you do that already?”
She looked him in the eye, and for once didn’t regret doing so. The knowingness was still there, true. But there was something else there, too. Something indefinable. Once, long ago, Kate’s father had given her a ring for her birthday, a ring with an emerald in it that had been very much the same color as Burke’s eyes. In the center of the
emerald, she’d noticed, after hours of examination, was a flaw. A tiny crack. That’s what she thought she saw in Burke’s eyes just then. A tiny crack, through which, she was certain, if she just looked hard enough, she’d be able to see his soul.
“Not about Daniel,” Kate said. She lifted a hand, and placed it on one of his broad shoulders. “I mean, I am more sorry than I can ever say about Daniel, about what he did to Isabel. But I’m also sorry about ... about what I said this morning.” Lord, had it only been that morning she’d sat there and said all of those horrid things to him?
“Well, I’m sorry about it, too,” Burke said reasonably. “But being sorry doesn’t change things, does it?”
“I suppose not,” Kate murmured.
Crushed. He had crushed her, as easily as if she’d been an ant.
Still, she went on.
“But I might have been a bit ... hasty,” she said.
“Hasty,” he repeated, his green eyes fixed very steadily upon her.
“Yes. About my refusing to ...”
One of his ink-dark eyebrows slanted upward. “To what?”
He was going to be difficult about it. He knew perfectly well what she was talking about, but he seemed to want to torture her a little before admitting it.
Well. She deserved a little torture, she supposed. “Burke.” Kate moved her hand, lightly running her fingertips along the silky material of his dressing gown’s lapels. “I want to go back to London with you and Isabel tomorrow.”
Up went the other eyebrow. “Do you? This is an interesting turn of events. Though I suppose it’s only natural for you to want to enjoy the apologies of all those people who were once so abominably rude to you.”
“That’s not why. You can’t think I actually care what they say.”
“Don’t you? That’s not the impression you gave me earlier. You seemed to care a good deal what they said .... Still, I suppose if you wish to return to London, we could arrange it. But if resuming your duties as Isabel’s chaperone is part of your scheme, I’m afraid you’ll have to rethink it.”
She cocked her head. What game was he playing? “Why?”
“Well, she’s obviously never going to be invited anywhere again, not after the scandalous way she ran off with Mr. Craven. She’s quite thoroughly ruined her reputation. So she’ll hardly have need of a chaperone, I think.”
“No,” Kate agreed, her gaze downcast. “But she’s going to need a mother.”
“Is she?” Burke’s tone was dry. “And have you a suitable candidate for the job in mind?”
Kate raised her gaze. “Burke,” she said firmly, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner about my ... our baby. I’m sorry I said I wouldn’t marry you. And I’m sorry I acted like such a ... hypocrite.”
One corner of his mouth—just one—turned upward. “I rather liked the hypocrite part,” he admitted.
Then, as if he couldn’t help himself, he reached out and wrapped strong fingers around her wrist. Like a fisherman reeling in a line, he pulled her inexorably toward him, until she was standing between his legs, over which were draped the folds of his dressing gown. He looked up at her, his fingers looser now around her wrist, but still possessively encircling it.
She dropped her gaze. She couldn’t help it. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to look into his soul. It was more that her hand, which she’d been running along his body, had reached the knot in his dressing gown’s sash, and was now hovering just over the material covering another part of him in which Kate felt a deep and sincere interest.
“Me, too,” Kate said, though she hadn’t the slightest idea what she was admitting to. She was busy wondering what Burke would think if she gave that knot in the sash to his dressing gown a tug. He would probably think her more of a hypocrite than ever.
She must have struck something sensitive with her fingers—although her touch had been very light, indeed—since Burke suddenly stiffened, the hand around her wrist tightening its hold on her convulsively. But when she lifted her gaze to meet his, she noticed that the undefinable something she’d seen—dropped like a veil across his eyes—was still there.
“Kate,” he began.
But she didn’t let him finish. Instead, she took hold of one of the ends of his dressing gown’s sash, and gave it a tug. The material bunched together, and then slowly parted, revealing the fact that underneath the robe, the marquis was as naked as he’d been that day she’d seen him stepping out of his bath. What was more, that part of him in which she’d felt such an all-consuming interest had reacted to her earlier, feather-light touch, and had grown to a proportion that surprised even Kate, who’d seen it in a good many states.
“Kate,” Burke said, in a very different voice.
But she wasn’t listening. Like someone in a trance, she reached out and wrapped the fingers of her free hand around the thick shaft before her.
For once, it was Burke who sucked in his breath. A second later, he’d released her wrist, and had placed both hands on her hips, drawing her toward him with an unintelligible exclamation. Kate flattened one hand against his bare chest, but she kept the other where it was, even when his mouth captured hers, his tongue thrusting through the token barrier of her lips.
And then they were falling backward across the bed, in a tangle of satin and lace, Kate’s long blond hair falling to form a tent around both their faces. Burke tried to roll over on top of her, but the hand she’d placed against his chest stopped him, though Kate applied only the slightest of pressure to it.
“Not yet,” she whispered, when he reared back to look at her questioningly.
But the questioning look vanished the instant she replaced the hand she’d held against his sternum with her lips. She kissed his chest, giggling as the thick forest of hair there tickled her nose. Then she lowered her head to rain kisses on each of the ridges formed by his iron-hard stomach muscles. And then she dipped her head even lower.
That was when Burke felt obligated to stop her.
He didn’t want to stop her. More than anything, he wanted to let her keep going, to allow her to do what he’d been secretly dreaming of her doing these many weeks. More than anything, he wanted to feel those sweet lips on him.
But not yet. Not when he was so swollen with need for her—having come so close to losing her—that he could hardly think.
But Kate wouldn’t be put off. She looked up the length of his body, her hair spilling like a puddle of silk across his thighs, and said, quite tartly, “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, I imagine.”
To which Burke could make no reply, because she’d already placed that mouth—that mouth which had both irritated and bewitched him for so many months—where he’d so longed to have it.
But not for long. Because he couldn’t stand it for very long.
A few seconds only, and he reached out, cupping her face in his hands, his fingers embedded deeply in her smooth straight hair. He brought her mouth up to his—that impossibly small, impossibly soft mouth—plundering it with his lips and tongue, while pushing her back, back against the bed. It had been a day—just a day—since he’d last had her, and yet it felt as if years had gone by. He had to bury himself within her, or burst right then.
Maybe that was why he did what he did next, which was to release her face and reach down to fling up the hem of her nightdress. Then, his mouth still on hers, he ran a hand along the length of each of her legs, beginning with the insides of her thighs and ending with the arches of her feet. Then, abruptly wrenching his mouth from hers, and placing it instead against one of her breasts, his hot breath and tongue branding her nipple through the thin material of her nightdress, he reached down to circle each of her ankles with one of his large brown hands. Then, before she knew what he was about, he was spreading her legs, bending them at the knee, opening her to him, as wide and as far as she could go. He lifted his face from her breast as he did this, and looked into her eyes.
And that was when Kate finally saw th
rough the crack in the emeralds of his eyes. And what she saw there—the naked longing; the possessive need; the desperate anguish; and most of all, the fierce protective love—made her wonder how she’d ever left this man, how she’d ever even entertained the idea of spending her life without him.
And then his mouth was on hers again, not so much kissing her as consuming her, devouring her, even as his hands left her ankles and went to cup her buttocks, raising them up, bringing her, softly damp, radiating a hypnotic, welcoming heat, against his straining erection ....
He dove into that heat with a groan, burying himself in that tight, wet sheath. As always, she gasped as he entered her, tensing as if afraid something inside of her was going to be ripped apart by his tremendous need. And then, when she realized it was all right, that she wasn’t broken, she opened to him almost shyly, embracing him with her warmth, but only allowing him to sink into her by degrees, the way one sank into a hot, steaming bath.
Only that wasn’t enough. That wasn’t enough for him. He needed to sink in all at once. He needed to pour himself into her, to lose himself in her. Raising his head, breaking their kiss, he tightened his grip on her hips. Then he watched her face as he lifted her toward him, and then drove himself—all of himself, all at once—into her.
She arched against him, her head falling back, exposing the long white column of her throat. Her breasts—their hard buds of nipples seeming to singe him, as if they were made of fire, and not flesh—were crushed against him. She was, he saw, senseless in her need for him. And that was how he wanted her. Because that was how she made him. Senseless. No other woman he had ever known had been capable of rendering him so perfectly senseless with lust. No other woman had ever opened up to him—both physically and emotionally—the way Kate had. No other woman had ever let herself become so mindless with passion as the one writhing beneath him just then.
That mindlessness—the fact that Kate was as caught up in her desire for him as he was in his desire for her—was what finally sent him over the edge. One minute he was plunging deeper and deeper into her—knowing this was not how he’d wanted it; he’d wanted it sweet and gentle, not rough and forceful, but with Kate, it seemed, he had no self-control, none at all—and the next, he was teetering on the edge of sanity. What pushed him over that edge was the sudden tightening of all of Kate’s muscles, including the ones gripping him between her legs. Suddenly, she was climaxing, her orgasm ripping through her the way lightning ripped through a summer sky. And then he too was lost in a thunderclap of a release, his entire body shuddering as he finally did pour himself into her, bathing her with liquid fire.
A little scandal Page 34
