The Viscount and the Heiress

by Dominique Eastwick

  He lowered her back onto legs that she didn’t think could sustain her, leaving her thankful to feel her bum land on the soft mattress. She feared if she opened her eyes, she would see through his façade as she hadn’t been able to so many years before.

  “I have dreamt of you for ten years.”

  His words brought her up short. Surprised, she gazed at him. He had been so cold when they first met in town after she rejected his proposal. She’d believed their time together had meant nothing. In the decade since they’d parted, he had not once searched her out. He had left with a curt bow, and she had received nothing more than a raised eyebrow and cocked head from him since. Until tonight. “Don’t lie.”

  “No lies. Remember, we promised the truth.”

  Could she trust him? Could she allow herself, even tonight, to let her walls down? Could it be any worse than what her life had been like these past years if she did? She doubted it. “You’re right. We did.”

  “Tell me, how long has it been since your last lover?”

  “Excuse me. I don’t think that is any of your business.”

  “I do not mean to pry. I simply ask because I do not want to hurt you, I need to know how gentle to be.”

  What could she tell him? There had been no one since him. She didn’t think he would believe it, but she also didn’t wish to give him any hint to how much his betrayal had destroyed her as both a woman and lover. “It has been a few years.”

  “Then we will take this slow. After all, we have all night.”

  “One last night.”

  “Perhaps one last chance,” he whispered against the inside of her wrist as he removed the first glove then repeated the action with the second. Her throat seized at the touch, making every swallow difficult. He took his time, releasing each mother-of-pearl button with painstaking patience.

  A part of her wanted to know what he meant by one last chance, but the rest of her didn’t care because if he spoke, his lips would be distracted from her skin. She intended to enjoy every last moment of the evening. She toed off her left shoe and moved to the second when he dropped to his knees before her. “Nay, you are my present tonight to unwrap, and I plan to unwrap every delicate inch.”

  Warm, strong hands wrapped around her ankle. Ever so gently, he worked the satin slipper from her heel and over her toes. Bringing her foot to his lips, he laid a kiss on the arch before placing it on his thigh and allowing his hands up her leg under her skirts. His eyes locked with hers, daring her to look away and, at the same time, urging her to stay with him. Her breath caught as his fingers brushed past her knee and up her inner thigh. Any moment, he would reach the apex of her thighs and discover the evidence of her arousal. All brought on by the touch of his lips on her wrist. She could let him think it was the expectation brought on by his touch on her legs. But she could not deceive herself. And she knew better. One touch, and she had been ready to yank her skirts up and demand he take her.

  Yet, as she was certain he would reach the seat of her passion, he paused, gripping her inner thigh while the other hand continued to move up her hip and over to the half-moon fullness of her ass. “You have filled out exquisitely. Years ago, you were still stick thin. Now, you have glorious curves like a woman should.”

  She would have thought the extra pounds would be unappealing. Instead, his eyes glazed over. The heat within gave her strength to bring her wantonness to the forefront. She let her knee fall to the side so she was open to him under the layers of silk. This was Jon, her Jon, and she wouldn’t shy away from him now when she never had before.

  “Turn around.” His voice took on a husky tone almost like his mouth had gone dry. She obeyed without hesitation. The lacing of her bodice tugged tight before releasing. Cool air blew across her shoulders as he eased the puffed sleeves, one by one, down her arms, leaving her bodice to lie on her hips. The process repeated with her corset until it lay over the arm of the high-back chair in the corner. The chemise he left in place, working the dress and petticoats over her hips in one fell swoop. She now stood before him in a silk chemise that did nothing to hide her pert nipples and silk stockings held up with two pink ribbons. But, in between, she was decadently bare.

  With him still kneeling behind her, she looked over her right shoulder to see him sit back on his heels. He eyed her as a curator did a fine marble statue unveiled for the first time in centuries. She tried to turn to him, but he stopped her. “I am not done taking you all in.”

  “I am sure you have seen a great many bums through your life as the ton’s rakehell.”

  “Not one.” He cupped both cheeks. “Not a single one as perfect as your ass. That you have it covered under layers of muslin and silk is a true sin.”

  She did turn this time. “Would you have me go naked?”

  “No. This is for me alone.” His finger brushed through the patch of hair at her apex. “But I can imagine the scandal you would cause in a pair of riding pants, straddling a horse.”

  “I would much rather straddle you.” With one foot on either side of his legs, she lowered herself onto his lap, helped by his strong hands. “But we seem”—she kissed his chin— “to have”—then his jaw and worked up to his earlobe—“a problem.”

  “Pray tell?”

  She leaned back while grinding into the bulge of his erection through the soft fabric of his britches. “You have entirely too many clothes on for my liking.”

  He eased her onto the carpet and made quick work of his clothing. She found it amazing that he managed to remove his clothing as fast as he did without ripping or losing a button in the process. She let her knees drop wide. “Now.”

  “Your wish is ever my command.” With one long thrust, he impaled her with his cock.

  Even though he had breached her maidenhead a decade before, ten years of celibacy meant she was tight, and he stretched her until she believed she would tear. She raked her nails down his spine in an effort to work through the pain.

  “Oh, good lord.” She wasn’t sure if he had said it or she had, but he was fighting to breathe as much as she. Once the shock of his invasion wore off, she tilted her hips. At seventeen, she had been too young to grasp the intricacies of intimacy. Now, though not much more educated, she understood her body better. She knew what she liked, having discovered she didn’t need a man to satisfy her sexual desire.

  “You. Are. So. Fucking tight,” he said before taking her lips and retreating from her body to plunge back in. The friction as he ground into her made her lift her hips for more. Every time he retreated, she whimpered in protest. He built the rhythm. Paid close attention to what stoked the desire in her. Finally, he picked up the pace and whispered ever so softly into her ear, “Let go.”

  She did, and her world fell apart. As if she were made of glass, her whole being fractured and splintered into oblivion. She couldn’t catch her breath; at the same time, she couldn’t stop huffing and demanding he never stop. Her legs wrapped around his bare ass and squeezed as she shook so hard she feared she would rock the house to its very foundation.

  She didn’t know how long they lay there on the floor in each other’s arms, but she dreaded when reality would return. Even with the hard surface under her back, she welcomed his closeness and did not wish it to end.

  Jonathon rolled off her onto his back so their shoulders and heads still remained in contact. Focused on the ornate painted ceiling, he intertwined his fingers with hers and brought hers to his lips. “I haven’t been so out of control since I…well, as it happens, since the last time we met in your father’s stable in the hayloft.”

  The smell of hay still brought on steamy images of her half-naked bent over the bales of hay with her pale skin in contrast to the dark wool of his coat he had laid down to protect her from scratches. After a hellacious meeting with his father, he had wanted nothing more than to get away and forget his lordly obligations. He didn’t give a damn what his father said. He would only marry the woman he love
d. Angry at the world, he took his frustrations out on her, but she had met him stroke for stroke. She’d understood him when no one else had, or so he’d believed at the time.

  “I think I still blush every time I go into the stable.”

  “Do you?” He couldn’t prevent the grin arching on his face as he turned to look at her. “Does it match the one you have now?”

  She covered her face as if to hide the fetching pink tones now coloring her skin. Rolling onto his side, he placed a hand over her soft stomach. The last time he had seen her blush like this, he had declared his love to her. She’d returned the words, and he’d made the biggest mistake of his life by not asking for her hand right there in the slightly chilly loft. He decided to find his mother’s ring and make his proposal to her by the lake under the stars. His mother had often bemoaned the lack of romance in her marriage, and he’d sworn to her on her deathbed to love his future wife.

  “You are suddenly very quiet.”

  “Hmmm?” He shook his head to rid the demons lurking in the depths of his memories. “Sorry.”

  She cupped his cheek the way she used to when she knew he fought bad memories; he closed his eyes, remembering. It had been this touch when his mother died, the mere brush of soft fingers against his unshaven face that made his heart melt and replaced the image of the gangly tomboy from the property adjacent his with the lovely young woman she’d become. “What are you thinking about?”

  “My mother. It’s been a long time since I let myself think of her.”

  “She may be dead, but she is always a part of you. In your heart.”

  He pulled himself up to a seated position and stared out the bedroom door and into the sitting room. “Heart? I am not sure I have one. If you remember, I didn’t grow up like you in the warmth of familial love and adoration.”

  As she touched his back to ease his pain, he steadied himself from shrugging her off. “You have a great heart. Look at how you care for your brothers, all nine of them.”

  “I don’t see them half as much as I wish.”

  “I know the youngest two are still at Eton, and the others….”

  “Live with my father, and I haven’t been in the same room with that man in five years. And only then because William was sick and my father convinced he was dying.”

  “So, he summoned you.”

  “You must be joking. My father would do everything in his power to keep me from every possibility of catching my death. Gabriel sent for me, and I had to fight through the old man to get to my brother.”

  “I ran into Gabriel a few months ago.” She giggled. “I thought he was you until he turned around. Even then, I had to get within a few feet of him before I was sure.”

  “You actually moved toward him, thinking it was me? That is not your modus operandi of the last years.” He glanced over his shoulder at her.

  Getting to her feet, she crossed the Persian rug to where he had left her clothing and reached for her petticoat. His cock jumped. The one bout of lovemaking had done nothing to sate his lust. Their eyes met, and she fumbled with the ties of her petticoat. “What were we talking about?”

  Knowing she wasn’t unaffected by him assuaged his ego. “You having a clandestine meeting with my heir.”

  “As it happened, he was in the door of a shop, and it was raining. I had a choice to stand in the downpour until I was soaked to the skin or beg my way through.”

  “Now, that sounds more believable.” He took the pants she handed him. Standing, he pulled them up but didn’t bother to reach for any other piece of clothing. She, however, did pull on one of the robes hanging near the changing screen. “So, what did Gabriel say?”

  “Nothing. He raised an eyebrow, nodded, and stepped to the side.”

  Gabriel was Jonathon’s current heir, the second eldest of the ten boys, born a scant ten months after Jonathon. The two had been confused for twins for much of their lives. Even their voices sounded the same. In his first year at Eton, where Jon’s wise-mouthed comments had found him friends and accolades, Gabriel’s had landed him a fist to the nose. Now, the slight crookedness differentiated the two brothers. But there had been an emotional distance between them for a while, since about the time Jon had left his father’s home.

  “You are moving back into your memories again.”

  “How could you tell?” He crossed to the window and looked out on the dark, silent garden.

  “Your mask falls. You are no longer carefree. You’ve become serious and quiet, as if you bear the world on your shoulders.”

  “Being here, with you, brings back memories I had long ago suppressed.” He sensed her behind him and wished he could go back when joy infused him. He hadn’t felt those two emotions in years. With his friends, he put on the façade of the jokester. She had always seen through him, had been the only one, other than his mother, to perceive him for him.

  “Are they all unhappy memories? Surely, there have been happy ones as well.”

  “The bad have always far outweighed the good.” The curtain fell back as the sudden need for a drink overcame him. In the other room, he prepared her a second ratafia and, for himself, two fingers of whisky before doubling that. He turned around to see her watching him from the doorway. “Come and sit. Tell me about your life since we last parted.”

  “Thank you,” she said as she reached for her drink before taking a seat across the dark wood tea table from him. “There isn’t much to say that the scandal sheets haven’t told.”

  “This might surprise you, but I don’t subscribe to any.” Even if he had the money, he doubted he would. Too many young people made mistakes that the ton fed on like dogs. “So, other than the asshole we discussed, I know very little about what you have been doing.”

  “You want to know about the other men in my life?” she asked in disbelief.

  “No,” he said a little too quickly and with way too much force. “What are your interests, charities? What the heck do you do to keep occupied all day? I cannot see you spending your days on watercolors.”

  “As you know, I have no skills when it comes to painting.”

  “Or embroidery.”

  “You had to remember that, didn’t you?”

  “There is very little about you I don’t remember.” He knew she loved her tea lukewarm, and she would sneak sugar chunks from the kitchen for her horse. Her favorite color was lemon yellow. She hated the thought of doing anything typically female.

  “I donate my time to some women’s groups who are working for rights for my gender.”

  “Good. Women need more rights. They shouldn’t be the property of men who can treat them any way they feel fit.”

  She opened her mouth in surprise before taking a sip. “I had forgotten your stance on this subject. Your mother…. I’m sorry I shouldn’t have brought her up.”

  “Why? It’s been eleven years since her death.” He never spoke of his mother any more than he did about his father. Though for different reasons. His father he held directly responsible for the death of his countess. Lady Augusta had been pregnant nearly every year from the time of his conception until she died when he was nineteen. Ten sons and one daughter who was born stillborn. After the birth of son number ten, Peter, his mother’s body seemed to give out. “My father couldn’t be bothered to even come to her side when the midwife said she was dying.”

  He stared at the amber liquid in his glass. He went in his father’s stead that night, images of blood almost black, so thick it clotted on the white bed sheet. The smell of rusted iron assaulted him. The discarded blood-soaked padding on the floor, and, worse, his mother pale and so very frail, lying in the middle of the birthing bed. “My father bred her like a brood mare.”

  “Jon!”

  “Sorry if that offends you. If you will excuse me.” He marched into the other room as lightning lit up the sky. He threw on his shirt, forgoing his boots and overcoat. He needed some air, needed to be alone. The sudden
storm outside mirrored the storm within him. Emotions held long in check swirled out of control, and he couldn’t sort the family ones from the ones he felt for Isabel.

  “Where are you going?” Concern laced her question.

  “Outside. Garden. Need some air.” He knew his words were choppy, but he had to get out of there immediately.

  “Now? A storm is coming in.”

  “It’s fine. Should something befall me, there are nine others ready to take my place.”

  “Don’t joke about this,” she nearly shrieked.

  “Why should you care?”

  “I do care. I always have.”

  He stopped with his hand on the doorknob. “So you still feel this connection, whatever it is between us.”

  “Of course, I do.”

  He turned to find her closer than he’d expected. Looking down into her eyes, he let the words fall. Words he had kept locked up for so long. “If I were to call on you, would you allow me to?”

  “What?”

  “Would you allow me to court you?”

  She swallowed hard, pursed her lips, and shook her head. In a voice he could barely make out, she said, “No.”

  “Why?” He closed the short distance between them. “You dance with any man who signs your dance card, you allow countless to call. Yet, me, the one you have been most intimate with, you turn down. Why?”

  “I can’t, not with you.”

  “Can’t what?” he demanded, anger coursing through him.

  “Can’t let you marry me for money. Anyone but you.”

  “Money? When have I ever insinuated I needed your money?”

  “Everyone in the ton, probably in our county, knows your family needs an influx of funds. You have to marry for money. We all know that.”

  One last plea. “Is there anything I could say to make you think otherwise?”