He should return to his room and put the stout door between him and temptation. Instead, he remained where he was, his body throbbing in a different, far more pleasurable way.
He might have stayed there until he gathered the will to get to his feet and leave the room as he must. Only, Bronwen swayed forward. Her lips met his.
Tor was too shocked to move. Never in his life had a woman dared to initiate such an intimacy. He was the Archeduke. It was he who chose whom he kissed and when.
The intoxicating scent washed over him, making his skin prickle and his belly to tighten even more.
Then her tongue slid against his lips. The soft heat of it acted as a goad, triggering him into unthinking reaction. He pulled her against him, bringing her over his chest so he could kiss her deeply. He held her face, reveling in the smooth delicate silk of her skin under his fingers. She had a small face, which surprised him because she seemed much larger in his mind.
Then he realized what he was doing and to whom. His mind stirred. The protest, the alarm, was faint. Reluctant. It was enough for sanity to restore itself, though.
Tor didn’t push her away. He couldn’t bring himself to do that. He lifted his mouth from hers.
Bronwen breathed heavily, her lips swollen and red. Her eyes, the gray pure and rich, were warm with…
Tor shook his head. “We cannot.”
“Why not?”
Tor’s breath expelled heavily as he cast about for a simple answer. “I am…me. You are my brother’s family.”
Bronwen lifted herself off him. She had been lying against his chest, which told him how much the moment of insanity had stolen his good sense. With her weight gone, cool air rushed in to replace her heat. He shivered in reaction, which was yet another measure of the tight heat in his body.
She settled on the floor, her hands in her lap. Her gaze was unflinching. There was no shame in her. No upset at his rejection. “You are Tor Besogende. What of that man prevents anything?”
Tor sat up and pushed his hand through his hair. “Besogende is just a name, something for other people to grasp, that allows me to stay here without complications. It isn’t me.” He stopped himself from finishing the thought aloud.
It wasn’t Tor Besogende who had kissed her.
“Besides,” he added, his voice rough, “you are a lady of good family. Such a lady—”
“You are about to lecture me on morals?” she asked, her voice rising. “After everything you have read and heard me say this past week?”
Tor hesitated.
Bronwen got to her feet. “Have you not learned that I care nothing for the artificial concepts of morals and etiquette? Only the truth interests me. The truth I can see for myself in your eyes. I can see it in the way your chest rises.”
Tor pressed his hand against his betraying chest. “You do not understand. Nothing could come of…of following our impulses. No matter how truthful they are.”
Her gaze met his. Her chin came up. “I expected nothing but a pleasant experience.”
Tor clenched his hands together. “You should have,” he said flatly. “You are worthy of far higher expectations than you allow yourself.”
Her expression softened. “Thank you.” She got to her feet and brushed out the folds of her dress.
Tor automatically rose to his feet, the habit ingrained. The movement did not jar his head or start it throbbing. Even the mild ache was leaving.
Bronwen’s gaze met his once more. There was no coyness there. “I do know who I am and my expectations. You are the confused one. That is why you came here, is it not? In search of perspective?”
“I would not sully you merely to achieve it.”
Bronwen laughed and moved toward the door.
Tor spun to watch her leave. “Why do you laugh?”
Bronwen opened the door and stepped through, then turned to put her hand on the outside handle. She drew the door halfway closed and looked at him. “You do not earn the privilege of my favor without it.”
She shut the door.
Startled, Tor sank back onto the sofa. He was still sitting there when dinner was announced, forcing him to hurry to his room and change.
His evening clothes smelled dry, the starch caustic, making him think of state dinners, braid and tiaras, sashes and medals. He heard the slap of ceremonial swords against legs. Danish spoken softly, the French of diplomats spoken badly. Decorative women who did not speak until spoken to.
It was a relief to step out into the wide corridor and move downstairs to where the warm fire crackled and children with piping voices sat at the table with the adults, where everyone spoke freely, including Bronwen.
Chapter Eight
Bronwen eased open the door of her room and winced at the squeak of the hinges. She had not consciously noticed the small sound the door made, until now.
Moonlight bathed the hall runner, making the patterns of white glow among the reds and blacks. Bronwen stepped onto the carpet, which muffled her footsteps, grateful that Lilly followed the European custom of laying rugs even in little used areas such as corridors and hallways. It was an exorbitant practice, although it kept Bronwen’s bare feet off the cold floor.
Her heart pattering, Bronwen eased along the corridor toward the door at the far end, listening to the silence in the big house.
Did she intend to go through with this? The question rose in her mind, as if spoken by another. She fancied she could hear another woman’s voice asking it. It was not her mother’s voice, for Bronwen suspected her mother would only warn her to reduce the risk in her decision in any way she could. The voice she thought she could hear was Elisa’s. Or perhaps, Natasha’s. Except both women had taken equally bold risks when they were younger.
As she moved down the dim corridor, Bronwen re-examined her reasoning one last time.
Tor had not said he didn’t want her. He had said he could not—would not—indulge himself when there was no future in it.
Only, Bronwen had caught him watching her throughout dinner. His contributions to the conversation had been sparse and absent-minded. His gaze had been heated.
Bronwen excused herself immediately after the meal. She escaped, not to the library where he would find her, but to the sanctuary of her room where she could think in peace.
Only there, Tor’s absence drove home a relevant fact she had overlooked.
She wanted to indulge herself.
It was the first time Bronwen had experienced a physical reaction to the nearness of another. Sexual arousal, the books had called it. Until now it had remained a scientific term in her mind, one that explained why people sometimes behaved in ways that seemed quite mad.
Now she was personally acquainted with the power of the condition. It gnawed at her, making her restless and aware of her extremities. Her breasts ached. So did the juncture of her thighs and somewhere in the depths of her belly. Thinking of Tor and the way his gaze had lingered on her over supper made the sensations intensify.
She knew what she needed to do to address the ache, only a woman of good character did not take such pleasure for herself. If Reverend Jamieson of the Northallerton priory was to be believed, a good woman never felt such wicked impulses at all.
While the house grew quiet and still beyond her door, Bronwen wrestled with the immorality of what she was considering. To go to him would be wrong by every measure used to judge a lady.
Only Bronwen had put her back to societal expectations, so shouldn’t such measures also be discarded? They were not empirical measurements. They were judgements. Reason said a normal woman would naturally experience such impulses.
Therefore, she was perfectly normal.
To appease such impulses, though…that was another matter altogether.
Only, she had been willing to do that this afternoon, when she had kissed him. For a moment, it had made perfect sense to her to follow the kiss through to the logical conclusion.
Tor had made her doubt. He had caused this confu
sion in her. He had made it seem like a good thing to refuse her. He had implied she was worthy of greater ambitions.
As Bronwen drew closer to his bedroom door, her heart stuttered and raced. She trembled. Was she being selfish?
She put her hand on the handle, took a breath and turned it. It was not locked.
The door opened without a squeak. There was normal lamplight within. The opening door revealed that Tor was still awake, despite the hour. He stood at the window, staring through the lace curtains, his arms crossed and his feet spread, scowling.
He looked around as the door opened and his eyes narrowed even more when he saw her. He had cast aside his jacket and waistcoat, collar and cuffs. He had put aside everything but his shirt and pants and boots.
Now he had seen her, her decision was cast. Bronwen made herself step inside and shut the door. Her trembling intensified as she pulled her wrapper about her tightly. “You have clouded the truth for me,” she said, keeping her voice low. “I thought I knew what it was, that truth is a good thing. Isn’t it a good thing? Is truth not the only measure worth using?”
Tor crossed the thick carpet to where she stood just inside the closed door. His blue eyes in the light of the single lamp looked black. “I hoped you would come. No, I wished it. I did not think even you would dare…”
He kissed her, stealing her breath. His hands caught her face once more. His fingertips stroked her cheeks and throat as his lips crushed hers. His tongue slid inside her mouth and played with hers.
All her careful reasoning evaporated. This was a truth more universal than any scientific principals or logic itself. Bronwen let go of any thought and enjoyed the sensations. His kiss was deep and thorough and made her whole body vibrate.
When he at last released her mouth, she gasped. “No, please don’t stop!”
He shook his head. “I should stop. I should turn you around and push you out of the room and lock the door. If I were stronger, I would.”
“I want you,” she whispered. “You want me. Why must it be so complicated?”
“I don’t know,” he growled and kissed her again. “I only know I can’t stop thinking about you.” His lips brushed her cheekbone before returning to her mouth and pressing against it once more.
The heat of his touch was electrifying. Bronwen didn’t realize she had reached for him, until she felt the warmth of his shoulders under her hand, shielded only by fine cotton.
His lips trailed down her throat, to the opening of her wrapper. They slid over her skin, making her shudder violently in reaction. The tips of her breasts ached, only a few inches from where his mouth played.
Don’t stop, please don’t stop, she whispered in her mind.
“I wanted to throw aside the supper table tonight,” he murmured, his arm sliding around her back, to hold her steady. “I wanted to rid myself of everything that lay between me and you. It was almost…savage.”
Bronwen shivered again. “Stop talking,” she said. “Talking confuses things.”
“Yes,” he agreed and swept her up off her feet and into his arms. He carried her over to the bed and placed her on it, then settled next to her.
Fear should be paralyzing her, yet it was absent. Instead, she wanted to hasten to the end, to experience it all. It wasn’t intellectual curiosity. Her body’s demands drove her onward. The power of the wanting was overwhelming. She wanted to tear her clothes away to hurry the matter. At the same time, she wanted to make the sensations linger.
Bronwen put her hand on his chest, against the soft pillow of flesh beneath the shirt and let her thumb stroke over the bare flesh showing between the open front. With a breath for courage, she pushed the shirt aside, revealing more.
The first fastened button prevented farther revelation.
Tor reached for the button.
“No, I’ll do it.”
He dropped his hand. “Other people have done such service for me, my whole life.”
“I’m not doing it for you,” Bronwen whispered, as she slid the button through the hole and released it. She drew a breath as the soft plane of his stomach appeared and eagerly unfastened the remaining buttons. She pulled the shirt aside, studying him.
“You find the view…appealing?”
“Very much.”
His expression was impossible to read.
“You don’t like that?” Bronwen asked, dropping her hands.
“I do, even though admiration of the human form is the province of men.”
“And whores, I guess,” Bronwen added.
“I wouldn’t know about that,” Tor said, his mouth turning up. He picked up her hand and placed it so her fingers spread across his torso. “I do know the look in your eyes when you study me is pleasing. I would have you do more of that.”
“So would I,” Bronwen confessed. “You are the first man I have found pleasing to look at.”
His brow lifted. Then her secondary meaning registered. He drew back. “You are…you really are innocent?”
“Innocent? No. I know what we do here, Tor. Don’t look at me in that way.”
“In what way?”
“You look horrified. This is my choice. You did not coax me here against my will…unless…is it that you find my lack of experience an impediment?”
Tor sat up. “I have never taken a woman’s virtue. I don’t know if I can.” He lifted his head from his study of the bed cover. His gaze was direct. “It changes things.”
“I don’t see why,” Bronwen said. She sat up, too. The heat and yearning in her was fading. Fear replaced it. Would he reject her now? Just because of a technicality?
“Of course it does,” he shot back, his voice tight.
“Name one thing it changes that is not a silly society expectation,” Bronwen demanded.
He remained silent, his jaw working.
“Well, then,” she concluded.
“You would be different,” he muttered. “So would I, for making that change in you.”
“Would the change be negative?” she asked curiously. “I recall no such changes in my research.”
“Research!” He said it as if it was a curse.
Bronwen considered him, startled. “Yes, you are right,” she said, puzzling it out. “This is not the time or place for reason. I said talk spoils such moments, only a while ago. Very well. Let’s not talk. It does trip us up. Instead, I will…”
She rose to her knees on the bed and tugged on the bow of the belt holding her wrapper closed.
I will follow my instincts and what my body tells me, instead of listening to my thoughts, she added silently. She removed the wrapper and let it drop behind her.
Tor held still. Even his breath halted.
Moving with a tense stiffness, he got to his knees, facing her. The open shirt fell aside, showing the band of his trousers, hanging loose about his hips with no braces to hold them. The skin looked soft and sensitive. Bronwen couldn’t take her gaze away from the fine line of hair that arrowed into the trousers, darker than anywhere on his body. It was a siren song, begging for her to follow it.
Recalling a moment she had read in a salacious French novel, she reached up and slid the combs from her hair and shook it out. The tips brushed her rear. She shivered at the shadowy touch.
Tor let out his breath with a gusty sigh. “Dear God,” he whispered.
Bronwen put her hand on her bare belly. “Stop talking,” she reminded him. She wore nothing beneath the wrapper and now she trembled, not with fear, but with a growing excitement, as Tor’s gaze moved over her. She could almost feel the heat in his eyes stroke her. The tips of her breasts didn’t just ache, now. They hurt with the need to be touched.
She moved restlessly, her bare thighs shifting, making her even more aware of the heated flesh between them. Letting her instincts lead her, she picked up his hand and placed it against her breast and gasped at the contact of his hand against the tip.
With a groan he dropped his hand to her waist. He pulled her tow
ard him, mashing her body against his and kissed her with a ferocious intensity, searing her mouth.
His hands against her bare flesh were heavenly. Bronwen let her head fall back with a sigh as his fingers slid down the back of her hip to the rounded flesh of her behind and cupped it. His lips released her mouth and moved over her chin and down her throat.
He trembled against her. The heat of him inside his trousers rubbed against her belly in a way that made her moan.
She fumbled with the fastenings that were in her way, her fingers mashed between them. She swayed back to give herself room.
Tor took the opportunity to dip his head lower. His mouth closed over the point of her breast and his tongue lapped at the pert tip.
Bronwen gave a choked cry and grabbed his head. She didn’t know if she was trying to encourage him. She did know she didn’t want him to stop. The delicious tugging and stroking sent ripples of pleasure through her, making the flesh between her thighs pulse and tingle. Her breath came in soft little pants.
She barely kept her eyes open, even though she wanted to see everything.
When he moved his mouth to her other breast, she groaned again. The need to finish this was a frantic ravening, making her shake with it.
Tor lowered her to the bed and lay over her, his lips not leaving her breasts. His hands, now free, ran everywhere over the rest of her, wherever they could reach. He may have been exploring, only it was teasing to her. She wasn’t sure she could withstand much more of it. There was a tension in her belly, deep in the core, that was building and growing. It was a piano wire winding tighter and tighter inside her, that quivered and shimmered with the tension, the merest touch of air making it whisper and vibrate.
When she reached for his trousers once more, Tor paused and lifted himself high enough to shrug off the shirt, as she opened the fastenings and let his trousers drop. With an impatient sound, he stripped his boots and the trousers from him and tossed them away.
Now he was naked, too.
Bronwen stared at the rampant shaft jutting from his thighs. His cock, she made herself call it, just in her mind. The curt Anglo-Saxon word was appropriate and made her heart skip a beat.
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