“I’m done. While I’m not sure about Flint as a stand-in suitor, I am confident she is secure under his care for the moment.”
Wolf nodded and took her hand to escort her onto the dance floor. As the waltz began, he gathered her into his arms and the first sweeping twirl of the dance. “Flint may have been the better choice of my friends, actually. I’m abashed to say I simply did not realize the strategic value of having him escort Ros.”
Curiosity wouldn’t allow her to let the topic go. “I assume you are referring to his violent reputation?”
“In part. Because of his reputation, he rarely—no, he never—attends Society’s entertainments. Which, of course, means seeing him here tonight, and in the company of your sister, all but marks them as engaged.”
The crowd around the edges of the ballroom streaked by as Wolf continued to lead her through the waltz.
“Well, that is…concerning.”
His blue gaze trapped her as surely as the strong band of his arms did. “I thought that was what you sought? To have her claimed in such a public fashion that Wallthorpe could not pursue her in lieu of you.”
She swallowed past the lump in her throat. “I did, but I thought…” She broke off. “It doesn’t matter what I thought. You’re correct in that his presence has been more than effective. Wallthorpe turned tail and ran, and Ros appears well and truly claimed.”
“As do you, if you would only smile at me a little,” Wolf chided.
Then he pulled her closer to his chest—indecently close, if she were still considered an innocent. At the far end of the dance floor, the terrace doors stood open, allowing the evening air to cool down the overheated attendees.
With a finesse she had not expected from him, he maneuvered them to the outer edges of the dancers and out the doors as they passed. Once the shadows swallowed them, he brought their dance to a halt, but did not release her from his hold. Her heart raced from the dance as much as the anticipation of his kiss.
“I’ve needed to taste your sweet kiss again since earlier this evening.”
Then he leaned in and captured her lips before she could say a word.
And truly it did not matter, because she would have happily said yes, anyway. As her breasts pressed tight against him, her body melted. His tongue sought hers out, and twined together in a sensual dance that had her crying out for his intimate touch once more.
Time slipped past as he tasted, touched, and nibbled at her mouth. He was showing—rather than telling her—how much he wanted her, and she was helpless to do anything but reply in kind. Because despite her better judgment, she wanted this man more than her next breath.
As they slowly parted, the cool air finally penetrated her lusty haze and caused her to shiver.
He curled his arm around her shoulders. “You’re cold. We should go back inside.”
“May we go? It seems as if we’ve achieved our goal this evening.”
Julia wanted to steal away to The Market and spend the rest of the night in Wolf’s arms.
He looked down at her, and she was confident he could see the desire in her eyes. Even in the shadows, it would be hard to miss.
“Let us go find the others, and see if they are ready to depart.” He hesitated. “You’ll come to me at The Market later?”
She reached down and stroked his hard shaft. “Oh, yes. I have need of you again, after the orgasm you gave me earlier. It was too short, and too fast.”
He smiled as he took her in from his hooded eyes. “Agreed.”
Chapter 14
April, 1862
The late morning sun shone down, making the day feel unusually warm, even for spring. But it suited his purposes as Wolf knocked on Julia’s front door. Then Johnson opened the entry and allowed him to pass. A few moments later, Julia sailed into the front parlor, looking splendid in a golden-brown driving dress. The coppery color of the garment set off her hair, and made her green eyes sparkle.
“Hello,” she said. “My, you do look handsome today.”
He let the compliment settle in his chest. After the Weatherly ball, a week earlier, he’d made love to her all night long. He still feared that she might begin to pull away from him if she detected the truth still crowding his thoughts. He couldn’t let her know how he felt yet, and if he didn’t play his cards correctly, he could lose everything.
And he had come to realize that she was, in fact, everything.
“As do you. That is a smashing dress.”
He smiled as she playfully preened a bit.
Placing her small, jaunty bowler hat on her head and pinning it in place, she looked up from under her lashes. “So, where are we off to?”
“That is a surprise.” His smile stretched wider at her moue of disappointment. “Trust me, you’ll enjoy it.”
Giving in with good grace, she smiled back. “Very well. Take me away. I am yours for the afternoon.”
In short order, they were seated in his blue-and-yellow spider phaeton and moving through London’s streets. Ever observant, she immediately spied the blankets piled on the rear bench seat behind them.
“Blankets, Wolf?”
Her tone belied her amusement, even as she tried to appear stern.
“Sit still and stop trying to ruin the surprise,” he ordered.
She laughed outright. “But trying to discover the secret is half the fun!”
He sighed. “You are a troublesome baggage. Always were.”
“Which is why you love me.”
The words flew out into the companionable moment, utterly crushing their comradery. She looked as surprised as a debutante caught kissing her beau.
Needing to dispel the awkwardness, he winked. “It may or may not be one of the reasons I tolerate you.”
His heart ceased beating as he waited for her to react to his taunt.
“Tolerate me? You always were a brute.”
She let her mock outrage carry her past the moment.
Then his heart returned to its regular state of beating, and their conversation carried on as they discussed their childhoods. But what he really wanted to know was more about the woman she’d become.
By the time they reached the outer edges of London, where the city gave way to countryside, and the Thames carved through green grass instead of cobblestone streets, they had fallen into a comfortable silence once again. When he reached the spot where the river curved and a thatch of trees created a hideaway nestled between the banks of the river, Wolf was more than ready to eat…possibly more than just the picnic lunch he’d brought.
They spread out the blanket along the bank of the river. The sun-soaked day was warm enough that he stripped off his coat and left it in the phaeton. With the basket settled between them, Jules immediately set about unpacking their feast. She pulled out cured meats and bread, a bottle of wine, and even an assortment of delectable fruits, all the while chatting about some of the foods she’d tasted while living abroad. By the time they’d eaten their fill, he had shared some of his own—far more limited—food experiences.
Satiated, he leaned back on his elbows and let the warmth soak in to his clothes. “It sounds as though you enjoyed the last ten years outside of England.”
She stretched out on her back, letting her hair fall loose around her shoulders, to spread out over the blanket. “I did. As much as I detested Wallthorpe, I equally relished the freedom and independence that came after he died. I loved seeing India, and then Arabia. It was fascinating to see how women were treated in other cultures. In some ways, I had far more freedom in those lands, and in others, far less.”
“And now? Are you happy to be home?”
A sick feeling burbled in his stomach as he waited for her response. If she wasn’t happy in England, then she would leave again, eventually.
She turned her face toward him and smiled. “Strangely—despite young Wallthorpe and my parents—I find I am quite happy.” She hesitated then, glancing at him with a vulnerability that only reinforced his des
ire for her. “I wasn’t sure, at first. I thought perhaps I had made a mistake in returning, but as old friendships have been renewed and new ones discovered, I am finding myself quite satisfied to be here.”
Contentment like he’d never known filtered in through all the self-doubt and self-recrimination he’d heaped on himself over the years. Between his father’s anger and animosity, and his own, he hadn’t been truly happy—let alone content—in over a decade.
Not since he had left for school. That was the year everything had changed for him.
“I wonder if I had intervened with Wallthorpe, if things would have turned out differently for us. Maybe we’d be happily married now, and raising two children.”
She raised up on one elbow and angled herself so she could see him better. “Do not think such things. Had we tried to run, Wallthorpe would have made his son’s pursuit of me look like child’s play. If I learned nothing else in the short time I was married, it was that my husband was a relentless and mean monster. I can tell you now that there is nothing he wouldn’t have done to secure me, like some prized broodmare. I was simply a trophy to mount on his wall, along with all the others he’d collected over the years.”
Wolf grunted in response. He had his doubts, but then, he had not been the man he was today back then. If he had, he would have just whisked Jules away and married her. It was a regret he had learned to shoulder, though the burden seemed to have grown heavier since their renewed intimacy. “Was your time with him so awful?”
She sighed. “It was far from pleasant. I was a shell of myself with him.”
He closed his eyes tight and asked the question he’d needed to know the answer to for a long time. He had his suspicions, based on things she’d said, but he needed confirmation. “Did he hurt you physically?”
Jules shifted, sitting up and angling herself slightly away from him. “Does it matter? I have moved past my unwanted marriage. Can you not?”
He sat up and scooted to sit just behind her. “Yes, it matters. If you suffered, it matters…because you matter.”
He pressed a kiss to the skin exposed where her neck and shoulder joined. She shivered despite the warm spring day, but he didn’t know if it was a reaction to his touch, or to the subject at hand.
Her voice dropped then, her tone low and haunted. “I was a smart woman, possibly too smart. He only beat me twice in the year we were married.” She stopped, drew a breath, and seemed to pull herself together. “The first time was on our wedding night, for some perceived infraction. He determined I was behaving lewdly when I groaned, because he had hurt me as he took my virginity. I sometimes wonder if I had explained that he hurt me, instead of letting him believe I was enjoying his attentions, whether he might not have hit me. But then I remind myself if it hadn’t been then, it would have come soon after. It was merely an excuse to do as he wished. He beat me so badly, I remained in bed with poultices on my back for days.”
Wolf growled, his hands clenched into useless fists.
“After that, I studied him. I learned his moods, and what his triggers were. Mostly I avoided confrontations with him. When I couldn’t, I simply gave in and apologized to keep the peace. He slapped me a few times, and pinched me often enough, if he thought I was being too chatty or not responsive enough, but mostly I managed to keep his temper at bay. And it worked for almost a year.” She drew a shuddering breath that rattled both her and him. “But then he grew restless, antsy even. I wasn’t sure what the issue was, but I could tell he was agitated and spoiling for a fight. I knew there would be no avoiding the argument, and no placating him. That was the day he died.”
She licked her lips as though she were parched, but pressed on before he could offer her a sip of wine. “He decided the house we were living in was unkempt, and that I had failed in my duties as the mistress of his domain. I apologized, and promised him I would try harder. Do better. But none of it mattered. He came at me, slapped me across the face, and shoved me onto the couch in the study.” She trembled, her gaze glassy, and her focus somewhere else. “He hovered over me, raising his riding crop high above him. Then, instead of lashing at my back with the weapon, he simply seized up and keeled over.”
Shaken to his very core by what she’d told him, Wolf wrapped his arms around her and pressed her into his chest. “I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you.”
A mirthless laugh escaped her, sharp and a little bitter. “I wasn’t yours to protect. That was the job of my parents, but they failed in that one task. They failed me. And what makes me so angry now is that they refuse to acknowledge that fact.” She turned into his arms and faced him, tucking her head against his chest as she practically sat in his lap. “When I first told them what had happened on our wedding night, they refused to accept the truth. So I peeled my dress down in their dining room and showed them the healing marks from the beating. And do you know what they said to me?”
“No.” It was all he could manage in that moment, since he was so overwhelmed with helpless anger and despair at how badly he’d screwed up.
“My father looked appalled, but my mother—heartless in a way I had never imagined—suggested I must have done something to deserve the beating, because no normal man would do that to his wife, were she not deserving of it. My father refused to gainsay her, and merely shut down after that. Not unsurprisingly, he preferred to avoid an argument with her rather than protect me.”
A full body quake shook her then, and he heard the first sniffle. As he wrapped her tighter in his arms, her tears dampened his shirt and shredded his soul. If the brute was not already dead, Wolf would have gladly killed him.
For a while they sat there as she cried, until he couldn’t take anymore. “Jules, I’m so sorry. So very sorry I didn’t do more.”
She wiped her tears and sat back a little. “There was nothing you could do. But you can imagine why a younger version of that man is not of any interest to me. I couldn’t survive a lifetime of marriage to someone who would be so callous. So harsh. There is no way I shall ever marry his son, and there is no way I shall allow him to trap Ros. I simply cannot.”
“I won’t fail you this time, Jules. Ros is safe for the moment, as are you. We will find a way to achieve a more permanent arrangement, I promise.”
He couldn’t control the gruffness of his voice as his words rumbled out, unfiltered by his surplus of emotion. And while he’d driven so far out to spend a lazy afternoon with her—possibly even coaxing her into making love outside—at the moment, all he wanted to do was hold her and keep her safe.
Forever.
Chapter 15
Julia stared at Wolf as he prowled around the blue room in The Market. She’d arrived early and had decided to get comfortable with the aid of one of the housemaids. Swathed in nothing but a silk robe, she currently found herself wishing she had stayed dressed.
“You want to do what?” she asked him again, because the first time she’d posed the question, it had come out as a breathy whisper.
Wolf’s smile barely met the criteria despite any resemblance to the gesture. The man was downright predatory. Tariq had once come to her in such a state. He had confronted an enemy and challenged the man to combat, only to have the coward throw himself on his own sword. Deprived of his target, and with no substitute to vent his spleen on, he had come to her seeking succor. Tariq had used her hard that night, availing himself of her body to release his tension.
It seemed plausible that Wolf was suffering similarly.
He made a tsking sound. “Do not pretend you did not hear me. I said that I wish to tie you up and fuck you.”
Part of her rejected the notion—the very idea—of making herself so vulnerable to a man again after her experience with Wallthorpe. She’d told Wolf of the beating, but not all of the humiliating details. She’d not revealed how her husband had tied her to the bed and whipped her. How the beating had gone on for hours, the old man only pausing to allow his arm to rest, so he could resume where he’d left off.
With a shake of her head, she pushed the old memories aside. It had been years since she’d dealt with the aftermath of her marriage. Years since she’d accepted her fate and moved on, and Wallthorpe held no further power over her. She refused to allow him control, even in death. So, with a brutal will to live, she pushed the fear back down, where she locked it away, and focused on the part of her that relished the idea of giving control to Wolf. He’d proven to be everything she could have desired in a lover: commanding, confident, evenhanded, and determined to ensure her pleasure along the way.
She had nothing to fear from him—except possibly losing her heart a second time. Could she trust him? Did she? She had once before, and the man had abandoned her. But things were different now. Weren’t they?
She swallowed, licked her lips, and grabbed on to her courage. “Yes.”
She didn’t know if she was answering her own question or his, but the result was the same. Merely saying the word unlocked a familiar warmth within her, which chased away all the darkness and fear thoughts of her dead husband had summoned. She wrapped herself in the certain knowledge that despite everything, she wanted to trust Wolf. It was a truth that ran deep within her core, and it calmed her inner monologue.
He paused a moment and absorbed her words. His eyes closed, and then a true smile stretched his sensuous lips. “Thank you.”
His simple acknowledgement caused her heart to squeeze, and smothered the last of any thoughts about her dead husband. Now there was only Wolf and her.
He crossed to her and pressed against her back, his heat easily penetrating the thin silk of her robe. She relished the warmth and the feeling of safety that always accompanied having him near. With a gentle touch, he stroked down her shoulder, and then wrapped his arm around her stomach. With his right hand, he tipped her head to the right and dragged his lips the length of her neck. Along the way, he stopped to kiss and nibble her sensitive flesh.
Need shifted beneath her skin, a slight ripple of sensual awareness. He caught the lobe of her ear between his teeth and tugged, causing her body to slowly come awake. Then he whispered, “I need you, Jules. I need you to take this ache away, to let me make you feel so good that you’ll scream my name as you come.”
His Scandalous Viscountess (Lustful Lords Series Book 3) Page 11
