He let go of her nipple suddenly, and she felt cool air blow against her damp skin. She shivered, both nipples now at a peak.
“So sweet,” he whispered, and she felt his breath against her belly.
The bed depressed between her spread feet, and she realized he must be down there, sitting or lying, so close to where she was embarrassingly wet. There was a moment of silence, and she imagined him simply looking at her, exposed and waiting.
She grew wetter.
“I wonder”—his fingertip landed lightly just behind her right knee—“are you sweet everywhere?”
She caught her breath as his touch wandered up her thigh, delicately, seemingly in no hurry.
“Shall I taste?” he asked idly.
She bit her lip, trying to catch her breath, though she made no exertion.
“Temperance?” he asked, his voice deep. “Shall I?”
Dear Lord, if the cloth wasn’t over her eyes already, she would’ve hidden her face. He wanted her to ask for it.
“Perhaps here,” he whispered as he grazed her inner lips with one finger. “Or maybe here?” He circled her clitoris.
“Please,” she choked.
“I’m sorry?” he asked politely, his finger still lightly—too lightly—touching. “Did you say something?”
“Please taste me,” she gasped.
“Certainly. Whatever you wish.”
And she felt his tongue, wet and sure and, thank God, so firm. He licked her in strong strokes. He missed no part of her, thoroughly laving her quivering, sensitive flesh. When he at last got to her clitoris and bore down on it with the flat of his tongue, she went a little mad. She twisted in her bonds, panting and muttering who knew what, feeling the warmth building inside of her until it turned liquid and ran all through her veins. She arched, pressing her pelvis into his face shamelessly, seeking more, and he gave it, thrusting two fingers into her as his tongue rapidly flicked over her peak.
She’d had enough—she was done—but he would not retire. He brought that tiny bit of flesh into his mouth and sucked and sucked until she wailed her surrender, her body concussing with the explosions of her pleasure.
She was weak and warm and still tied open for his desire.
“I think,” he said, his voice husky and low as it blew across her wetness, “I think you may be ready for me now.”
He lifted from her and then she felt the brush of his breeches on her inner thighs, the weight of his body, and the probe of his penis. It was smooth and hard at her entrance. He swirled it against her moisture and then with one quick thrust seated himself within her. She felt the depression of the mattress on either side of her shoulders, as if he held his upper body up off her with his arms. Then his mouth was against her left nipple as he set a leisurely pace. He thrust and withdrew firmly, but without any haste, as if he had all the time in the world. As if she were his private plaything that he might amuse himself with for as long as he wished.
He tongued her nipple, then moved to the other, his penis moving in and out of her without pause. It was maddening. She tried to thrust up, but the bonds prevented her.
“Please,” she whimpered.
“What is it?” he whispered like some devil in her ear.
“Please.”
“Tell me.” He kissed her ear.
“Harder.”
There was a split second’s pause and then a low, muttered curse. He hitched himself up her and slammed himself into her as if he’d lost all control. Fast and hard, as she’d asked, and it was pure bliss. White light burst behind her eyelids, hot and blinding, and she would have cried out had he not covered her mouth with his. He kissed her deeply as he continued to pound into her, taking his pleasure on her helpless body.
And when he jerked and broke their kiss, rubbing his face into her neck, she knew he’d found his bliss as well. He thrust once more, and again, and then his entire weight slumped against her.
For a moment they lay like that, and then the neckcloth was removed from her face. She blinked up into his sapphire eyes.
“Now will you tell me what the matter is?” he asked.
MAKING LOVE TO Temperance like this had been like a dream come true. But there had been something missing. Something small, nagging at the back of his brain, and the moment Lazarus took the neckcloth off her face, he knew what it was: Temperance’s eyes. He’d wanted to see the golden stars in her eyes as they made love. And he’d wanted for her to see his eyes.
To see him.
Those extraordinary gilded eyes shifted away from his gaze now. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He should’ve felt anger at her obvious prevarication, but instead tenderness flooded him. He pushed the hair back from her face. “Cut line, Temperance. Tell me.”
She pulled at the bonds on her wrists. “Untie me.”
He nuzzled her cheek. “Not until you tell me.”
She closed her eyes and whispered, “Mary Hope, the baby I brought home that first night we met, is dying.”
Relief was a liquid lightness in his chest. She’d told him; she’d let him in a little. “I’m sorry.”
“She’s so small, so weak. I should’ve known she would not make it. But then she rallied for a bit and I hoped…”
He was silent, absorbing her pain.
She sobbed and shook her head. “She’s dying there at the home. I couldn’t bear to watch her struggle to breathe, so I left Nell to nurse her.”
“It’s all right.” He lifted his head to look at her. “You bear so much already.”
“No.” She grimaced, as if in physical pain. “I don’t bear enough. Winter collapsed this morning. The home is killing him, I fear. I should never have left there today. I should never have come here.”
“No, you probably shouldn’t have left, but everyone needs a rest sometime. Don’t worry yourself so.”
She merely shook her head.
He kissed her forehead, thinking. An uneasy emotion he couldn’t quite identify was growing in his chest. “That home is like a prison for you.”
Her eyes flew open. “What?”
He reached to work at the ties at her wrists. “I’ve wondered for some time why you insist on working there. Do you like it? Do you enjoy the work?”
“The children—”
“The work is no doubt very admirable,” he said. “But do you enjoy it?”
She didn’t reply and he looked down at her. She was staring at him wide-eyed. He’d succeeded in shocking her into silence, it seemed.
“Do you like it?” he asked again gently.
“Liking has nothing to do with it.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“No. No, of course not. The home is a charity. One doesn’t have to enjoy charity.”
He half smiled. “Then there is no shame in admitting you don’t like it.”
“I’ve never thought about it one way or the other. I like the children, naturally, and I do sometimes feel satisfied when we place one in a good position. I must enjoy it, mustn’t I? I’d be a monster if I didn’t.” She appealed to him, as if she couldn’t answer the question herself.
He shrugged. “It’s neither good nor bad—how you feel about the home and working there—it just is.”
“Well, then, of course I—”
“No,” he said sternly. “Tell me without lies or evasions.”
“I don’t lie!”
He smiled at her affectionately. “Oh, my little martyr, you lie every day, to yourself, I fear, most of all.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she whispered.
“Don’t you?” He gave up on the bindings for the moment; she seemed comfortable enough anyway. “You refuse to admit love for Mary Whitsun or even tiny Mary Hope—I’ve seen you refuse to touch the baby. You hold yourself back, deny yourself pleasure—unless pressed. You make yourself work at a hopeless job that is killing you, and all for some ridiculous sense of unworthiness. You are the most saintly woman I know, and yet you
think yourself a sinner.”
Abruptly, white lines appeared around her mouth.
“Don’t you…” She gasped for breath. “Don’t you dare tell me I’m saintly. That I don’t know what sin is.”
She was truly angry; he could see that. She yanked wildly at her bonds.
“Explain,” he demanded.
“Let me go!”
“No.”
“You don’t know me!” she screamed. Her mouth was wide, and tears had started at her eyes. “I’m not good; I’m not a saint. I need to work at the home.”
He pressed his nose to hers. “Why?”
“Because it’s a good and true thing to do. It doesn’t matter a whit how I feel about it.”
“You’re doing penance, aren’t you?” he whispered.
She shook her head, red-faced, the tears running into her tangled hair. “I don’t deserve—”
He leaned close, capturing her face between his palms. “Tell me.”
She gasped, closing her eyes. “When my husband died… when Benjamin died…”
He waited patiently as she sobbed. He’d known that something was here. Had she not loved her husband? Perhaps even wished him dead? He was prepared for such mundane confessions, but not the one that came from her mouth.
“I was with another man.”
He blinked, so startled that he let her go. “Truly?”
She nodded jerkily. “He was… Well, it doesn’t matter who he was, but I let myself be seduced by him. I was at his rooms, with him carnally, at the exact moment Benjamin was run down by a brewer’s cart. I came home, trying to decide how I would keep my sin from him, and he was dead.” Her eyes suddenly flew open. “He was dead.”
He looked at her a moment, as a horrible realization began to form at the back of his mind. Abruptly he stood and went to his desk to find a penknife.
“How long had you known your lover?” he asked as he cut through the binds at her ankles.
“What?” She knit her brow in confusion. “Not long. It was the first time I’d been with him. What does it matter?”
He laughed shortly, but the sound was not amused. “It matters only in the irony, I suppose. The first time you sinned, you were punished overhard, I think.”
He cut her wrists free.
She stared at him. “Don’t you understand? This isn’t a simple wrong. It isn’t eating too many sweets or desiring another woman’s bonnet. I slept with a man not my husband. I committed adultery.”
He sighed, suddenly weary. “And you expect vilification from me for such a human failing.”
“It wasn’t a failing.” She sat up and wrapped herself in his coverlet. She was beautiful—he could see that in a dispassionate way—the most beautiful woman he’d ever known. “I betrayed my husband.”
“And yourself,” he said quietly.
She blinked. “Yes, and myself.”
“Sexual congress was your downfall,” he said. “Sexual congress with a man not your husband was the worst thing you’d ever done in your life.”
“Yes,” she whispered.
He closed his eyes for a moment, wishing irrationally that he hadn’t pressed her. “You’ll never forgive yourself, will you?”
“I…” She seemed taken aback by his unemotional articulation of her dilemma.
“Sexual congress is the most unpardonable sin to you,” he said. “And when you decided you needed to punish yourself, you used your worst sin.”
He opened his eyes and looked at her, so beautiful, so strong. Everything, he suddenly realized, that he would wish for in a woman, had he ever thought to wish, and he finally identified the emotion in his heart. Hurt. She’d hurt him as thoroughly as if she’d shoved an arrow through his chest.
“You’ve used me to punish yourself, haven’t you?”
He watched dawning realization spread over her face, a confirmation more positive than anything she could ever say, and that arrow twisted deep in his chest. Yet still he had to ask the last question.
“Am I anything to you but a punishment?”
Chapter Seventeen
Meg looked at the most powerful man in the kingdom. “Your Majesty, may I ask why you wish to know what love is?”
The king frowned. “I know what it is to face death in battle. I know about ruling a vast kingdom, about meting out justice and showing mercy, but despite all this, I do not know what love is. Can you tell me?”
Meg thought about his question as she ate. How was she to explain love to a king? At last she looked up and saw the king feeding a date to the little blue bird.
“Open the cage door,” she said….
—from King Lockedheart
“Punishment?” Temperance stared at Caire.
He was dressed while she was entirely nude. He’d not even removed his coat to make love to her. She felt at a terrible disadvantage. She’d just told him of her greatest shame—a thing she’d told no other person, not even Silence—and he’d accused her of… what?
She shook her head, confused. “I don’t think of you as punishment.”
“Don’t you?” He was quieter than she’d ever seen him, withdrawn from her somehow. “Then explain your sudden request for me to bind you.”
She pulled the coverlet up to shield her bare shoulders from his gaze. “I… I simply thought it was something you liked. Something I was curious about. I don’t know why I asked tonight.”
“I do.” He’d turned his back to her, his hands clasped behind him. “It was degrading for you, wasn’t it?”
“No!” she exclaimed without even having to think.
But he wasn’t listening.
“You wanted—needed—sex, but it’s a sin for you, isn’t it? The very worst of sins. The only way you could approach the act was by making it something foul.”
“No!” She struggled from the covers, unmindful now of her nudity. How could he possibly imagine—
“Something degrading.” He turned and looked at her, and she froze, half-risen from the covers. “Because otherwise, well, it would be nothing but pleasure, wouldn’t it? And that you couldn’t allow yourself.”
She sat back slowly, not even defending herself anymore. Was this true? Had she really used him in such a despicable way?
“It shouldn’t matter to me,” he said dispassionately. “What you feel. After all, I never considered the emotions of my partners before. Quite frankly, their feelings were of no account to me in our transactions. But oddly, what you feel does somehow matter to me.”
He paused, looking down at his hands for a moment and then back up at her, his face exposed now, sad and hurt and resigned.
The sight made something twist in her chest—made her want to say something—but still she could not bring herself to speak.
“You matter to me,” he said. “And although I am a disgusting creature in many ways, although I have needs not of the ordinary, perhaps even evil needs, I believe that I do not deserve to be used in this way. I may be a man without conscience, but you, my dear martyr, are better than this act.”
He turned and left the room, closing the door quietly behind him.
For a moment, Temperance simply stared at the door. She wanted to run after him, to apologize, to explain somehow, to say the words she couldn’t before, but she was nude. She looked down at the coverlet fallen to her lap.
Hurriedly she rose and began dressing, but her chemise tangled over her head and she couldn’t find her second stocking. By the time she’d poked enough pins into her hair to hold it off her neck, it was half an hour later and he’d still not returned.
Temperance opened the door and crept into the corridor. The house was eerily quiet, and she realized she had no idea where he might have gone. Perhaps his study? Did he have a private sitting room or library? She began walking down the hall, peering into rooms. Eventually she realized that a library would surely be on another floor, and she wandered down the stairs.
There was light in the main hallway, and as she entered, sh
e saw that Small was standing by the butler.
“Have you seen Lord Caire?” she asked, knowing her face was reddening. What must the servants think of her—a lone woman, her hair falling from its pins, in an unmarried gentleman’s house?
But her embarrassment fled at Small’s reply. “My lord has gone out, ma’am.”
“Oh.” Temperance stared blankly. Had he loathed her company so much that he’d vacated his own house?
“Lord Caire left instructions that the carriage be brought around for your use, ma’am.” Small’s face was the expressionless mask of the good servant, but his eyes were sympathetic.
Temperance had a sudden urge to weep. Was that it, then? Was all that had been between her and Caire over now?
She bit her inner cheek. She would not break down—not now, at least. “Thank you. That was most… kind of Lord Caire.”
Small bowed as if she were a true lady instead of the daughter of a brewer, recently discarded by an aristocratic lover. She swept out into the late afternoon daylight and down Caire’s front steps with as much dignity as she could muster. Inside the big carriage, though, after the door had been slammed shut and she was all alone with no curious eyes to stare, her spine collapsed. She huddled in a corner of the seat, rocking against the soft leather as the carriage drove through the London streets.
All her life she’d thought of herself as an essentially good person. Her downfall with the man who’d seduced her had been shocking. She’d known that she’d been led astray because of a flaw within herself, and she’d thought that flaw had been her overwhelming sexual urges. But what if that had merely been a symptom of a far greater sin?
What if her true flaw was pride?
She watched with sightless eyes as London rumbled by and thought about her marriage, so long ago now. Benjamin had been Father’s protégé, a quiet man, grave beyond his years. He’d studied at one time for the church, but when he’d met Father, Benjamin had been an impoverished schoolmaster. Father had offered him work at the home and a room in their house. Temperance had been sixteen then—so very young! Benjamin had been mature and pleasant of face, and Father had approved of him. It had seemed the natural thing to do to marry him.
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