Never Romance a Rake

by Liz Carlyle

  There was a sudden knot in his throat. His chest ached and his eyes stung—the coal smoke, no doubt. Dear Lord, he was becoming that most annoying of creatures, a sentimental drunk. He had been mad—mad—to give in to his desire for this woman. And now his only hope was to keep a carefully cultivated distance, lest her already difficult life was to have the added poignancy of grief and loss piled onto it.

  He left the little house at a brisk clip, his walking stick clicking lightly against the pavement as he went. He did not expect any warm, welcoming light to spill through his windows in Berkeley Square. He did not expect pansies, though for all he knew, there were some. Why did he not know this? Why did he not remember?

  But the feeling of happiness which the house behind him had exuded had nothing to do with geography. It had nothing to do with class or wealth or soft embraces. It had to do with the people who lived and breathed and loved there. In his heart, he knew that. And he knew that it was not meant for him.

  Chapter Nine

  A Stubborn Silence

  Lord Rothewell had forgotten all about the watch by the time he reached his front door. He had also forgotten that he’d surrendered his bedchamber to his wife. Rather than disturb a servant, he let himself in with his key, tossed his greatcoat over the newel post, and headed up the staircase.

  For almost a year now, he had been treading up the steps of this house in the gloomy hours near dawn, some nights more sober than others. And like a horse headed to the stable, each time he turned right, then left, and entered the second door on his left. Tonight was no exception. Despite the fact that he was drinking, Rothewell prided himself on his catlike grace. Bumbling, tripping, and staggering were for lesser men.

  Once inside, he found no lamp lit for his arrival, and no sound of Jim-Jim’s clickity-click paws, either—he’d forgotten about taking the little imp back to Tweedale. Shrugging it off, Rothewell shucked his coat and tossed it over his usual chair. But there was no chair. The coat sailed to the carpet with a soft whuff. Undeterred from his folly, Rothewell stripped naked and pitched his clothes on top of it.

  Suddenly there was the rustling of bed linen. “Qui est là?” someone whispered.

  Bloody hell. Camille.

  “It’s just me,” he answered, feeling his way along the foot of the bed. “My apologies.”

  There was a moment of silence, then, “Apologies?” Her voice was cool in the pitch-black room. “For what do you apologize, Rothewell? Barging into my chambre uninvited? Or staying out all day and night?”

  His hand on the bedpost, he stiffened. “You are my wife now, Camille,” he replied. “I do not believe I am required to ask permission to enter your bedchamber—or to go out.”

  Camille heard the gruffness in his voice, and the almost imperceptible slurring of his words. What gall the man possessed—especially after a night of carousing. It took her a moment to sit up and light the candle by her bed. He must have heard her rattling around.

  “You might not wish to do that,” he said warningly.

  “Non?” she said as the wick caught. “Pourquoi?”

  “Because I’m naked.”

  Camille turned around slowly, willing herself to appear nonchalant. “Indeed you are,” she murmured, letting her gaze trail down him as she rose from the bed. “Quel dommage, Rothewell. You have taken off your clothes for nothing.”

  He stood there for a moment, his expression as daunting as his naked body. “I see,” he finally replied. “And you think I came in to…to do what, precisely?”

  Camille lifted one shoulder and pretended not to notice his sculpted arms. The dark dusting of hair on his chest. And then there was—good Lord! She jerked her gaze up. “I daresay you came in to do whatever a man normally does when he is naked in a woman’s bedchamber,” she returned, coming to her feet. “But if you think I will succumb to that—”

  “Now wait,” he ordered, holding up his hand. “Wait just a damned minute.”

  “Non,” she said sharply, pacing away from him. “You wait. Do not ever come to my bed after you have been out drinking and whoring all day and half the night.”

  He followed her, glowering. “Look, Camille, I haven’t—”

  “Do not dare lie to me,” she interjected, spinning around to face him. “I can smell her on you.”

  “No, you can’t,” he said firmly.

  “And you’re drunk,” she returned, unwilling to concede even an inch of moral high ground.

  “Somewhat, aye,” he admitted.

  “There is no somewhat to it,” she snapped. “Either one is or one isn’t—and you reek of it.”

  This time, he sneered. “New standards, Camille?” he asked. “I was drunk when I agreed to marry you. You made no objection then. Had I known that eternal sobriety and a shrew in my bed were part of the bargain, perhaps I would have declined the honor.”

  Camille’s spine went rigid. She was scarcely aware she’d raised her palm to slap him. In a flash, his hand came up, catching hers.

  Rothewell looked at her in stupefaction. Then he grabbed her wrist and jerked, hitching her up against him. “By God, don’t you ever.” His voice was an awful rasp in the gloom. “Don’t you ever—ever—try to hit me again, Camille.”

  They were so close, she could smell the anger and the heat of his skin. She should have been terrified. But all she felt was hurt and outrage. “I am not afraid of you, Rothewell.” Her voice was low and angry. “You are nothing but a rake and a bully and I am not afraid of you.”

  He stared down at her, his eyes narrow, his nostrils wide with anger. “God damn it, Camille,” he roared. “I am not your father. I am nothing like Valigny.”

  “Are you not? Tonight, you seem very like him to me.”

  Rothewell stared down into his wife’s eyes. She was angry, yes. He had left her alone in a house where she knew no one so that he might slink off to brood on his own troubles. Gareth was right. It had been a callous thing to do. And what was the difference, really, between him and Valigny? Damned little, he supposed. The truth shamed him.

  As her gaze held his, his mind searching for the right words to say, the fight inside her seemed to collapse. She looked lonely, and suddenly very alone.

  “Come, Camille, don’t,” he whispered, embracing her gently. “I’m sorry. Let’s not allow the servants to hear us quarreling.”

  “Et alors?” Her face twisted as if she might cry. “Let them hear. I do not care.”

  He drew her nearer, and set his mouth to her ear. “Yes, my dear, you do,” he gently countered. “Rail at me till hell freezes over—but quietly, all right? I don’t wish you to be the subject of gossip.”

  She pulled back a few inches. “Do not do that,” she whispered. “Do not be kind to me. I…I don’t know who you are when you do that.”

  He stared down at her, at the wide, limpid brown eyes and sweetly heart-shaped face, and he knew suddenly why he had come home. Dear God. Rothewell swallowed hard. “So you’d rather I be the cheating rakehell you were expecting? Is that it?”

  She shook her head and cut her gaze away. “I do not know,” she whispered, almost to herself. “It might be easier if you were.”

  “At least it’s something I’m good at,” he muttered. Then, with one finger, he turned her face back to his. “Look Camille, you’ve married a cad. I don’t deny it. But I’m sorry if I hurt you.”

  “Vraiment?” she retorted. “Now I am to be grateful for your honesty?”

  Her gaze was heating again—with temper, not lust—but he was drowning in it. Yearning for something he could not explain. Slowly, purposefully, he bent his head and kissed her, half-expecting the little hellcat to try to backhand him again. He kissed her like he meant it, opening his mouth over hers, and stroking his tongue along the seam of her lush lips.

  Camille hesitated at first, pushing halfheartedly at his shoulders with the heels of her hands. But her mouth, her lithe, trembling body—ah, they did not hesitate. She opened so sweetly beneath him, a
llowing him to delve into her mouth, her tongue entwining sinuously with his. In response, something inside his chest lifted as if suddenly unburdened.

  And yet, even as he deepened the kiss and thrilled to her soft moan of surrender, he could sense her conflicted emotions. Her hands were still on his shoulders, but no longer shoving him away. When at last she twisted her mouth from his, it was sudden. Her breathing was rough, her eyes a little teary.

  Rothewell speared his fingers into her hair at the nape of her neck, and banded the other arm even tighter about her slender waist. She wanted him—wanted him, perhaps, as desperately as he wanted her—but she was none too happy about it.

  Cradling her head as she turned her face away, he stroked his lips over her ear, along her jaw, and all the way down the long, perfect length of her throat. “Camille,” he murmured. “Please, Camille, you are my wife.”

  She muttered something in French; cursing herself, he thought.

  He dropped his hand to the turn of her derrière, cupping one sweet swell of it in his palm. It filled his hand perfectly, just as he’d known it would. He didn’t care that she’d just tried to slap him, or that she’d insulted him. It was a sign, he feared, of how far he had fallen. “God, how you tempt me, Camille,” he rasped. “I have burned for you from the first moment I laid eyes on you.”

  Was he mistaken, or was she trembling ever so slightly? “Oh, mon Dieu!” she whispered, lowering her lashes in an inky sweep. “You madden me. I—I cannot think straight.”

  Rothewell took it as surrender and kissed her again, a little too roughly. Nonetheless, Camille rose onto her toes to kiss him back with newfound urgency. He surged into her mouth triumphantly, slanting his mouth over hers again and again as he lost his head to the taste of her.

  Camille’s hands roamed down his shoulders, stroking his bare biceps, then sliding round his waist, down the small of his back. Lower and lower until she caressed the muscles of his buttocks. Until he groaned, and a faint shiver ran down him, too.

  Rothewell had begun this game in total control, but that control was fast slipping away. He had forgotten this morning’s vow to keep his distance. Camille was like fire and ice in his arms. Their bodies were entwined now; heart to heart, her belly pressed to the hard, eager weight of his erection. He wanted her. He wanted her. His blood throbbed to the sound of it. He was going to pick her up and carry her to the bed. He was not going to let her say no. He would convince her. Would woo her if he had to.

  Suddenly, she pushed him away—and she meant it. “Très bien,” she said, her breath gasping. “Just…just do it, then.”

  “Do it?”

  “Just…have me, Rothewell. That’s what you want, n’est-ce pas?” She left him and went to the bed. “I am weak. And I—I want a child. So just…do it.”

  But it was as if his feet were nailed to the floor. “Camille, what is wrong?”

  She sat down on the bed slowly, her small feet peeking from beneath the lace hem of her nightgown. “Nothing. I just want you to…” Her words trickled away, and she shook her head.

  He stood there feeling foolish. And naked. “Just say it,” he demanded.

  Her heavy black hair swung over one shoulder as she leaned forward, almost as if in pain, wrapping her arms almost protectively round her stomach. “I just…I just cannot be like this with you,” she whispered. “I cannot afford to lose my—”

  “Lose what?” he demanded. “Camille, what are you afraid of?”

  At that, she looked up at him with anguish in her eyes. “Myself,” she whispered.

  Confused, he went to the bed, his cock still erect, damn it all. He set one knee to the mattress and tipped up her chin. Good Lord. He had not pursued a woman in almost two decades. Not since his mad, impassioned affaire with Annemarie.

  Desperately, he looked down into Camille’s eyes, searching for the right thing to say. The thing that would impassion her again, and get him what he wanted—her. All of her. But he was no good at it. He was too rough and too blunt to know how to court a woman.

  “Bloody hell, Camille, just kiss me again,” he said. “Everything was fine two minutes ago.”

  She shook her head and drew a deep breath. “I just want to do it without…without all the emotion,” she said. “I thought this was to be just a transaction, Rothewell. My grandfather’s money. Your seed.”

  His cock twitched impatiently. “My dear, I am not a stud service.”

  “Oui, oui. You are.” Her voice was gentle as she pushed past him and rose. “Rothewell, don’t you see? That’s all you can be to me.”

  “By God, I never agreed to that!” he answered tightly—though in truth, it would have been better for them both. “And don’t you dare try to convince either of us that I did. I made it plain what I wanted that night at Valigny’s.”

  At that, her mouth twisted bitterly. “Oui, let us see if I can recall it,” she said. “Ah, yes! You wished me to ‘eat my prideful words, and do your every bidding.’ That is right, n’est ce-pas? Is that what you mean?”

  “What if it is?” he growled. “Are you willing? After all, Camille, you married me.”

  “Coûte que coûte,” she whispered, cutting her gaze away from his jutting erection.

  Whatever the cost. Her words served only to further frustrate him. “You are just angry,” he snapped. “Angry I stayed out so late. Admit it.”

  “I would not lower myself,” she said quietly. “I don’t give a damn where you go or what you do—or with whom you do it.”

  “Yes, you do, my dear,” he replied. “That’s precisely why you’re so damned cross with me. And frankly, now that I think on it, I’d rather a nagging bitch for a wife than a frigid one.”

  She flicked a derisive glance up at him and half turned, as if to walk away. “Just keep your end of the bargain, Rothewell,” she said. “I want a child.”

  He set his hands on her shoulders and jerked her back to face him. “You want a child?” he rasped. “By God, I’ll give you a child, Camille. I’ll lock you in this bedchamber and ride you till kingdom come. You’ll have to beg me to stop.”

  “Will you indeed?” she said sweetly. “How charming. But if you dare—”

  He cut off her words with his mouth. He wasn’t even sure when he made the decision to do it. He knew only that he couldn’t bear the accusation in her eyes. Couldn’t bear knowing that he wasn’t really good enough. That she was settling because of who her father was. That he would never make her happy—and a thousand other regrets. Fleetingly, she twisted beneath him, pushed at him, and then, just as before, she surrendered. More than surrendered.

  Rothewell crawled onto the bed—crawled over her—taking her back with the force and strength of his body, his mouth never leaving hers. She exhaled on a shudder, allowing his hands to roam her body at will. He thrust and thrust into her mouth, a sensual promise of what he meant to do.

  In response, her eyes softened and closed, her velvety black lashes fanning across her olive skin. His hand caressed her breast, weighing it, lightly thumbing her nipple through the fine lawn of her gown. The sweet nub hardened to his touch, and she gasped into his mouth.

  He lifted his lips from hers. “Camille,” he whispered. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  She lay on the bed, passive and silent, her arms outstretched like an avenging angel. And she was. God had sent her, he feared, to teach him an awful lesson. The torture of wanting what he could never fully have. How to survive on dry crust when he yearned to feast.

  The muscles of her throat moved up and down, but she did not speak. And he realized that, foolishly, he wanted her to want him. To feel at least a little tenderness in her heart for him.

  How vain and hopeless that was. The crust was all she meant him to have, and by God, he would take it.

  He reached down and pushed up the hem of her nightgown. Shoved it up and dragged it off, ripping a stitch in the process. He straddled her, kneeling, as his hungry gaze took her in. Good God in heaven. The woman
was perfect. Small, high breasts. Long legs, beautifully turned. And between them—ah, that might as well have been the Holy Grail, for he could not have desired any vessel more.

  He dragged her farther up the mattress, then pushed her legs wide with his knee. He let his palms slide up the silken flesh of her inner thighs, and higher still, brushing his thumbs along the plump folds of feminine flesh which guarded her center. Gently, he parted her. She gasped at the intrusion.

  “My God, Camille,” he whispered. Rothewell burned with impatience to take her. To claim her once more with his body. She was his wife, and he ached for her.

  Somehow, he checked his impatience. He shifted his weight and rolled to his side. He let his hand skim down the flat of her belly, until his fingers threaded through her soft thatch of curls. He lay half atop her now, his face buried against her neck as his fingers returned to stroke her. Deeper. Again and again. Already her breath was roughening. Moisture began to slick his fingers. But he wanted her hungry. Aching. It was inexplicably erotic to touch her that way, to open her, to stroke her until her own juices flooded his fingers whilst she lay open and languid. Waiting. Waiting to be taken.

  He lifted his head, and brushed his lips along her collarbone, then lower. When he captured her breast in his mouth, she cried out in French, a weak, thready sound. The sound of a woman who had given up her body to his pleasure—and, he hoped, to hers.

  Rothewell suckled her greedily, drawing the whole of her nipple into his mouth, teasing the hard nub with the very tip of his tongue, then biting ever so gently. She arched up, crying out. And then to his shock, she began to tremble in earnest. Her hands raked into the bedcovers, her nails digging deep. It was a moment suspended in time. Crystalline. Perfect. He watched, awestruck, as the pleasure took her, her hips arching to his touch.

  When she lay still on the bed, her breath hitching and her eyes still closed, he kissed her deeply, then mounted her. With one hand, he guided himself gently into the warmth. The heat of her surrounded him. He drew back, waited for her to relax, then deepened the thrust.