Cherished

by Elizabeth Thornton

  “The worst?” His brows rose drolly. “Now what might you mean by that?”

  She rounded on him. “Stop playing games with me, Leon. You know you wanted me to think that Mrs. Courtney was your mistress!”

  He smiled in that old baiting way that never failed to rile her. Leaning forward with his elbows on both knees, he murmured, “Where is the wife who promised that she would not make difficulties for me? Where is the wife who promised that she would be forgiving of my follies, who would turn a blind eye to my infidelities? Tell me Emily, why should you care who my mistress is?”

  She did not know why she should care. Wide-eyed, she stared at him. Without knowing what she was saying, she whispered, “Leon…who is she?”

  His eyes were as serious as hers when he answered, “I don’t know if I dare answer that question.”

  “But why?”

  “You can ask that after what happened with Belle Courtney? My dear, I would be afraid you would scratch the lady’s eyes out.”

  His words slipped into her heart like a sliver of broken glass. Her eyes glazed over. She did not know what was the matter with her. She only knew that she longed to retreat to the little turret room at the Abbey where she could lick her wounds in private.

  In the same lazy drawl, Leon demanded, “Is it still in your mind, Emily, to become a dutiful wife?”

  A dutiful wife. The picture that flashed into her brain was nauseating. Had she really spouted that piffle? Had she really supposed that she could be content with a home and children while her husband dangled after other women? She remembered how she had felt when she thought that Belle Courtney was Leon’s mistress. “I would rather die first!” she exclaimed, more frank than she meant to be. Picking up her hairbrush, she viciously attacked her blond tresses.

  “You may forget I ever suggested such a thing,” she said. “I have more pride than I knew I had.” She forced herself to be calm, and succeeded for all of three or four seconds. “I refuse to share my husband with another woman,” she told her furious reflection.

  “Jealous, Emily?”

  His patent amusement was the last straw. She spun to face him. She did not know that she was going to throw her hairbrush. Leon dodged it and it went flying harmlessly over the bed.

  She was far more shocked than he. She never lost her temper, never threw things at people, never so much as said an unkind word. In the space of a few hours, she had made a spectacle of herself at the City Tavern, and now she had resorted to violence. Leon, and only Leon, had this effect on her. With nervous fingers, she combed long strands of hair back from her face.

  Leon’s eyes were reckless and wild and brimming with triumph. His lashes swept down and when he raised them, the look was gone. He sank to his heels before her and cradled her hands.

  “Emily,” he said softly, “one of these days you are going to have to take me at my word. I don’t tell lies. I have no mistress. I already told you that. When you wouldn’t believe me, I was annoyed. I did not see why I should keep on repeating myself. How could I know that you would pounce on poor Belle and give her the mauling of her life?” He couldn’t suppress the chuckle which followed. Emily tried to pull out of his hands, but his grasp only tightened.

  “It was the necklace,” she said weakly. “It was the necklace.”

  “The emeralds?”

  “I thought you had bought them with my money.”

  He inhaled and exhaled slowly. “No. But I already told you this. I should like to know what I have done to give you such an opinion of me, why you never believe anything I say.”

  When she did not respond, his hand tightened around her wrists, and she said quickly, “I do believe you. That is…I don’t know you. I only know that boy who was cruel to me when I was a child.”

  His smile was whimsical. “Was I truly cruel to you, Emily?”

  “You know you were.”

  At the passionate avowal, his smile gradually faded. “I don’t want to be cruel to you,” he said. “In fact, I never did want to be cruel to you. But I dared not be kind to you when you were a child. Things are different now. Let me show you how kind I can be.”

  His voice was low and fluid. It seemed to seep into her blood like a dose of laudanum. As he continued in the same vein, her eyelids grew heavy, her breathing slowed. He was seducing her with words.

  This time, she could have stopped him. She knew she could have stopped him. And just as surely she knew that she didn’t want to. Her body recognized him, was thrilling to him, was starved for the completion of his body moving upon hers.

  He went down on his knees and draped her arms around his neck. Her head drooped on his shoulder. “Look at me,” he commanded. Slowly, her head lifted. She tried to focus on him. “Violet eyes,” he said, smiling, and let out a long breath. “Are you saying yes to me, Emily?”

  She didn’t want to talk. She wanted to kiss him. Before she could bring her lips to his, he repeated his question, this time more forcefully.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “Then you had better make up your mind to what this means, Emily. There will be no going back. You will become a true wife to me. We shall share the same bed. When I wish to make love to you, I shall, and nothing will stop me.” He let out a shaky laugh. “You had better say yes, darling, for I don’t think I can stop myself now.”

  There was a moment of indecision. His heart almost stopped beating when her brow pleated in a frown. And then she smiled and said, “Yes,” and his whole body began to tremble.

  She wasn’t thinking things through in her usual calm manner. Either instinct or intuition had taken over. If she surrendered herself to this man, he would never hurt her, not in any way that counted. The thought was so strange, so novel, she pulled back to get a better look at him.

  It struck her that she had never attempted to grasp the character of Leon Devereux. Her dislike was based on nothing more or less than his dislike of her. She looked at him now and was aware of a change that had worked on her gradually. She saw intelligence, and strength of character. But there was something more, something private and hidden, that he did not wish her to know about.

  Before her mind could fasten on that surprising thought, he released the tie of her robe and pushed it down over her shoulders. She went as taut as a bowstring.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he soothed.

  Afraid? Fear was the furthest thing from her mind, and she told him so.

  His eyes held hers as he unfastened each tiny pearl button from throat to waist on the bodice of her nightgown. He drew back the edges of her gown, exposing her breasts.

  Suddenly, she turned shy. This wasn’t what she wanted. She was sitting at her dressing table. Leon was on his knees in front of her. She glanced with longing at the turned-down bed, but Leon didn’t take the hint. Her breasts seemed to fascinate him. They fascinated her, too. Something strange was happening. She could feel them swelling, throbbing, becoming engorged. Blue veins stood out, marbling the delicate white of her skin. Her nipples were like bruised berries. She felt ugly.

  “Lovely. God, Emily, you are so lovely.”

  With the tips of his fingers, he traced the veins from her throat to the hardened peak of one breast. Her nipple contracted, as did the secret core of her femininity. She felt the moisture begin to pool between her thighs as her body readied itself to accept him.

  He knew it. She didn’t know how he knew it, but she knew that he did. His lips fastened on hers. In the space of a single heartbeat, his kisses became frenzied, frantic, demanding. His fingers worked furiously to free her of her gown. He started on his own clothes, but didn’t get very far.

  “I’ve outpaced you,” he groaned, and pulled her down to straddle his hips, there, on the floor, bracing his back against the side of a chair.

  Without explanation, she knew exactly what he meant. He was out of control. She could not believe that she had this effect on him. Leon always kept himself on such a tight leash. She was far more interested in t
his strange power she seemed to have over him than she was in the completion she had longed for only moments before.

  His breathing was loud and harsh. “So, you like what you do to me?”

  Her eyes were glittering with feminine triumph. “Yes.”

  “You…you she-devil!” He laughed recklessly, and releasing himself from his trousers, he thrust powerfully, filling her body with his sex.

  He climaxed almost immediately. The spectacle excited her. His lips were pulled back, his nostrils flared. His features might have been carved from flint. The violence of his possession was explosive, the force in those strong masculine hands locking her body to his could have been frightening. But Emily wasn’t afraid. His masculinity, his virility, enthralled her.

  Afterward, he rewarded her with tender words of apology and sweetly lingering caresses. Finally, he rested, catching his breath.

  Some minutes were to pass before he roused himself and urged her to the bed. She watched as he shed the rest of his garments. When he slipped in beside her, he caught her to the warmth of his naked length.

  “What brought that on?” she murmured, turning into him. “Was it something I did? What made you lose control?”

  Between short, openmouthed kisses, he said, “That was brought on by a number of things: anticipation, enforced celibacy, and last but not least, the sweet womanly scent of you that told me you were ready to mate with me.”

  Mortified, she looked away. She was ashamed of that scent. It wasn’t pretty like the scents in the crystal bottles on her dressing table. She squeezed her thighs together.

  With one long finger, he brought her chin up, his eyes searching hers. “Idiot,” he murmured lovingly. “In some ways, you are still an innocent. Don’t you know that the scent of you, aroused, wanting me, drives me wild for you?”

  He smiled at her look of astonishment, and nipped her bare shoulder. “You forget. I was born French. To a Frenchman there is no sweeter fragrance on earth than the scent of the woman he loves.”

  It was the first time, the very first time that the word “love” had been used between them. Leon’s intent look gradually faded when Emily showed no evidence that she had understood his oblique reference.

  He pressed a kiss behind her earlobe. “Gardenia,” he said. “Now that is pretty.” His lips moved lower, to the pulse at her throat. “More of the same,” he murmured. “It’s very pleasant.” Before she knew what he was doing, he had pressed a kiss to the underside of one breast. “Now this is more like it. This is the essence of my woman, my mate. Emily, open your legs for me.”

  She did not know how it was done, but in very short order all the power had slipped away from her. It was his eyes that glittered with triumph and she was the one who was losing control. It was her breathing that was labored, her moans that disturbed the silence. When he finally came into her she climaxed almost immediately, and as convulsion after convulsion wreaked her whole body, she was aware that he was holding off, his eyes never leaving her face, absorbing every feature as the sweet, mindless rapture swept through her.

  When she sighed and went lax beneath him, he laughed softly in that reckless way of his, then he loosed the bonds of his formidable control, giving himself up to his own pleasure, driving into her, pounding her until he was spent and gasping for air.

  “Don’t sulk, my darling. It doesn’t become you.” He bit into her earlobe, dragging on it gently, forcing her to turn her head on the pillow. “That’s better.” He tightened his hold at her back so that she could not evade him.

  Stung, she protested, “I never sulk.”

  “No? What about the time I caught you kissing Lord Jeremy in the old millhouse? You would not speak to me for a week afterward.”

  Her indignation knew no bounds. “I did not kiss Jeremy! He kissed me! We were only children, for heaven’s sake. And if I did refuse to speak to you for a week, that was because you let Jeremy get off scot-free while you dumped me in the millpond. My gown was ruined. Worse than that—either you or Sara carried tales! Aunt Zoë would not let me out of her sight for weeks afterward.”

  “You were fourteen years old,” he pointed out. “You should have known better.”

  She raised on one elbow to get a better look at him. “Oh? And I suppose at fourteen years, you were as wise as Solomon?”

  “At fourteen years, I was kissing every pretty girl who was foolish enough to permit it.” He had done a lot more than kiss them, but he wasn’t going to let Emily know it.

  “Aunt Zoë said you did a lot more than kiss them,” she retorted. “I heard her tell Uncle Rolfe.”

  He was startled into laughter. “Zoë knows nothing about it. A boy does not confide in his sisters. And you should not have been eavesdropping on grown-up conversations.”

  He was wondering if it was too soon to take her again, if she would think him no better than an animal if he pressed his attentions upon her. She was reflecting on what Adam Dillon had told her, that no one knew what Leon had suffered as a boy during the Revolution. Something else came back to her. On the night of the Prince Regent’s fête, William Addison had warned her that Leon was dangerous, that he had a checkered past.

  Dragging herself to a sitting position, she hugged her knees and stared into space. Leon propped his back against the pillows, his eyes curious as he waited for her to unburden herself. With one hand, he idly caressed her bare arm. When the silence became prolonged, he cupped her shoulder and turned her to face him.

  “What is it, Emily? What are you thinking?”

  “I was thinking about the stories Aunt Zoë used to tell about your family, when you were all children together. You were the youngest. I think you must have been spoiled.”

  “If you think that, then you are mistaken. I was the only son. One day, I knew I would be the head of my family as well as have control of my father’s financial empire. I was never allowed to forget it. My education and training began from the time I was in short coats. Sometimes, I used to envy my sisters their freedom.”

  “That’s not how Aunt Zoë tells it. She says that your mother attributed every gray hair in her head to anxiety over the scrapes you used to fall into. You were reckless and wild, Leon. That’s what Aunt Zoë says.”

  He laughed, and brushed his lips against her throat. “You know too much. Besides, what do girls know anyhow? They are easily shocked.” When he touched his tongue to the seam of her lips, she sighed and leaned into him.

  “You can’t deny that you were reckless. As I heard it, you ran away from school and thwarted Uncle Rolfe’s first attempt to bring you out of France. You were only—how old?—fourteen or fifteen at the time? Why did you do it, Leon? Where were you? How did you survive in that year before Uncle Rolfe found you again? I’ve often wondered.”

  The answer was clipped. “My parents were in prison facing execution. I had some fool notion of rescuing them. That is why I ran away from school. It was hopeless. I fell in with…friends. They took care of me.”

  “What friends?”

  “Why all the questions, Emily? You have never shown the slightest interest in anything I have ever done. Why now? What has brought this on?”

  She adjusted herself so that their eyes were on the same level. His look was so shuttered that the intimacy they had just shared might never have taken place. “You were never really my husband before now,” she said quietly. “It’s only natural that I should be curious about you. If you don’t wish me to know, I won’t press you.”

  His breathing was audible, his chest rising and falling. “That part of my life is a closed book. I don’t allow anyone to open it, not even you.”

  Far from annoying her, his words moved her. Though she could not conceive what Leon was hiding from her, she knew it must be something dreadful. Leon would not cavil at blazoning his youthful misdemeanors, not to her. He had always liked to shock her.

  Whatever it was he had done, he had suffered for it, was still suffering for it if she knew how to read her husband
. He was only a youth during the Terror in France. She thought that a boy of fifteen might be forgiven anything. She did not know where men got this quaint and utterly erroneous idea that women were too delicate to face unpleasantness.

  When she touched a hand to his bare chest, he inhaled sharply. “Aren’t you the least bit curious about me?” she asked playfully, trying to ease the tension.

  Slowly, he relaxed and forced a smile. “I’ve known you since you were a child. There’s not much I don’t know about you, Emily.”

  “You don’t know me that well!” she exclaimed, piqued. “You were scarcely ever in England these last years. Lots of things happened to me that you know nothing about.”

  “What for instance?” He was sure that she was going to mention her erstwhile suitor. Unthinkingly, he tightened his hand on her arm.

  “Well, for instance…Oh, I don’t know. Nothing of any significance, I suppose.” She did not look too pleased about the admission.

  His expression was very tender. “I was the most significant thing that ever happened to you, my sweet. When will you admit it?”

  She glowered at him. “You were the second biggest calamity that ever befell me, on a par with the world falling on my head.”

  “Oh?” His lips twitched. “What was the first?”

  Suddenly serious, she replied, “When my father died. He was murdered. Did you know?”

  Not a flicker of emotion showed on his lean face. “Rolfe told me something about it. But you were only an infant. Surely you don’t remember your father?”

  She settled herself more comfortably, her back pressed to his chest. His arms encircled her. Though she could not explain it to herself, she was happier and more at peace with herself than she had been in a long, long while.

  “I remember it as though it was yesterday. I was always closer to my father than to my mother. Mama’s health was delicate, you see. She had Sara to look after and my grandmother was very demanding. Mama did not seem to have much time for me, but Papa made up for it.” She smiled at some reminiscence. “He had promised to take me to look over a pony he had selected for my very first mount. I was so excited. I waited and waited for him to fetch me. He never did. I never saw him again.”