Slightly dizzy, she let him guide her to the bedroom and set her back onto the pillows. Brutus chose to hop off the bed rather than defend his territory.
“Please don’t leave.”
Hart lifted a brow. “Are you certain?”
“Yes,” she said, her voice edged with desire. She couldn’t give him the answer he wanted, but she could show him how she felt. Soon Hart’s hands and mouth were busy, skating over each new curve, and her body gloried at his touch.
She lay back as he gently pushed her legs apart, felt the solid warmth of his hands stroke each thigh.
“Are you sure—?”
“Hush.” She kissed away any protestations he could muster. His fingers sought her sheathed heat. Lazy desire rippled through her limbs, dancing slowly beneath her skin as he slipped within in tender, tortuous increments. He thumbed her clitoris unhurriedly, almost carelessly as their tongues touched and tangled. Eden trembled at each welcome invasion, wondering how she had borne the few hours from his last touch. This was so right. They were so right, for Christmas Day.
Reluctantly she broke the kiss and stilled his hand. Hart’s disappointment was clear as daylight. “Are you uncomfortable?”
“No. But what if you get sick, too?”
Hart grinned. “We’ll both be trapped in bed together. Won’t that be a shame?”
He turned her gently, to delight in the curve of her back and buttocks, spelling words upon her with a fingertip for her to guess. Soon he was hard and hot against her back, grazing her throat with his teeth, raining kisses upon her shoulder, cupping her full breast, brushing her belly lightly. She impatiently pushed his hand into her lengthening curls, heard his sharp intake of breath, then a chuckle. If he hadn’t believed how much she wanted him, the slickness of her passage made it plain.
His arm draped over her belly, one finger, then two entering her, his thumb circling the swollen center of her pleasure. She gave herself up to the sensation, rocking and sighing against him. Soon his skillful fingers were not enough. She reached behind her to grasp his velvety cock, so hot, so hard for her. She swirled the thick drop of moisture at his tip with a finger and it was his turn to sigh.
“Please.” She angled her arse to allow him entry, and he glided in from behind even as his fingers plied her folds, continuing his languorous assault. He was all gentle iron, each stroke almost painfully slow as she tilted back to meet him. He touched her as though she were a fragile porcelain doll, a treasure, a cherished prize too delicate for the world beyond the bedroom door.
When the waves of pleasure came, she held fast to Hart’s hand so she wouldn’t spin away in the torrent alone. He followed soon after, his lips pressing against her ear, her whispered name a prayer. She shivered despite the heat and damp, not trusting herself to say a word.
Chapter 16
LONDON, JANUARY 1819
Brutus the cat was in the doghouse. Poor Philpott had tripped over him on the kitchen stairs, resulting in a fractured leg and an enormous lump on his balding head. The butler was holding court from a bed in the basement, Mrs. Philpott even more irritated than usual since her every action was now subject to her husband’s advice and opprobrium. Hart had arranged for one of his young ex-soldiers to serve as a footman for the household until Philpott’s leg mended or his wife killed him, whichever came first.
It was one thing to slip away from Mattie to teach the girls, but now that Hart had installed Jeremy, she had a new difficulty. Hart insisted that if she went abroad, she be accompanied by the maid and the footman. There had been a rash of attacks in Mayfair not far from the house. Of course, Hart would really prefer if Eden never set foot outside her pretty blue door. The threat of discovery worried him, although Eden assured him she wasn’t apt to visit any fashionable place his aunt might. Though she didn’t specify them to him, her needs were far simpler: She had to get to Mrs. Brown’s.
There was nothing for it but to take a horrified Mattie into her confidence and Mattie to take the footman to the heights of flirtation. While Eden spent her hour at Mrs. Brown’s, Mattie and Jeremy wandered arm in arm in the streets of Mayfair.
It was the merest chance that Hart learned about this arrangement. Coming home one afternoon from an appointment, he noticed the pair of servants on the street and hailed them. Mattie lost all color to her blushing cheeks and Jeremy seemed embarrassed, as well he should be. Hart was not paying him to moon over maids. After listening to Mattie’s halting explanation of how the pair spent their time after escorting Eden to her school, he was curious. When his mistress was unusually subdued at dinner after he questioned her activities, he became uneasy. And when he surreptitiously followed the trio the next day, a part of him died.
Eden was in her best negligee, as though that had the power to improve her temper. Hart had not come home for dinner, not even sending her word of his whereabouts.
She was angry at his absence, now that she’d finally decided to confess her sins. She wanted to get it over with. It was time she told him of her bargain with Mrs. Brown. He’d asked her very pointed questions yesterday, and she hated lying to him. The last years of her life had consisted of one enormous lie after another, some designed to protect, some designed to pretend. No doubt he wouldn’t like her teaching the children and order her to stop. If she could persuade him otherwise, she would make sure he wasn’t sorry. She was prepared to argue the case, but knew better than to fight a fighter.
As the clock on the mantel chimed the hour, Eden could not help but yawn. Perhaps she would nap before he came to her and joined her in bed.
Hours later, she woke to the slam of a door. She waited, but the house was silent. Worried, she slipped into her dressing gown, lit a candle and went down the carpeted hall.
There was movement behind one of the guest room doors, a stifled oath, a thud. Eden tapped on the door and was rewarded by a full-on curse.
Hart pulled the door open. He was stripped of his shirt and one boot, a perfectly blank expression on his face.
“Hart! I am glad you’re home. I was worried. Why are you undressing in here?”
“I plan to sleep here.”
“Wh-what?”
“Is your hearing deficient, madam? I shouldn’t like to raise my voice and awaken the servants.”
Eden took a step backward, her candle flickering. She could almost feel his fury. “I don’t understand. What have I done?”
“Let us just say that you have been yourself, Eden. Tomorrow you and Mattie will return to Hartford Hall. Calvert has hired the coach and made arrangements for your financial needs. I am most weary. Good night.” He shut the door in her face.
She turned the handle. To her surprise, it opened. “Why are you here if you’re getting rid of me?”
“To make sure you go.”
She could strike back. “Of course I’ll go. I’ve wanted nothing else but to be free of this ridiculous arrangement.”
“You have your wish. Unlike you, I’ll abide by our contract. Support you until November. After that, you can go anywhere. Back to Mrs. Brown’s if you choose, and I expect you will. You can’t seem to stay away from the place, can you?”
“Have you—have you been spying on me, Hart?” Eden asked.
“Spying. You make it sound so sordid. Like fucking.”
“I was going to tell you. Explain. Tonight. But you never came home.”
“I thought you cared for me, Eden. I thought that part of your life was over.”
Eden felt nauseous. “You think that I—”
“Oh,” he said, his eyes bleak, “you’ll deny it. You’ll get weepy, and squeeze your hands until they bleed. Say you went there for tea, I expect. Another lie.”
“I never lied!”
“Every time you move your lips, Eden.” He tossed an extra pillow to the floor.
“You stupid man! I have been at my charity school!”
His mouth curled in disgust. “In a whorehouse? Come now.”
“Go ask Mrs. Brown!
”
“Ah. Iris. The woman who picked my pocket and made me like it. A pillar of rectitude. Yes. Well.” He cleared his throat. “Go to bed, Eden.”
“I have been teaching the little girls who live and work there,” Eden said slowly, as if the speed of her voice could penetrate the curtain of his disdain. “Iris takes them in off the street. What has befallen these girls is not of their own making. They are children. One of them even had a child herself. So many little girls—they have no choice. They are forced, become infected. They are left in ignorance. Uneducated. Unloved.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I am deadly serious. How can you be so sanguine when men like you use these poor girls and then toss them back into the alleys to starve and die?”
“Men like me? Enough!” Hart roared, forgetting his vow of quiet. His cheek muscle twitched in anger. “Do not cast me in that category. Even if what you say is true, you cannot think to save the world.”
“But I can save a small part of it. I have just been teaching, Hart. French. History. Mathematics. I was going to tell you. I was going to stop if you didn’t like it.”
“Like it?” Hart laughed without mirth. “Have you not seen enough degradation, Eden? Must you root around it like a pig sniffing out truffles? I gave you a chance. A new life. I wanted to marry you, for God’s sake.”
Eden felt the icy fist clutch her heart. She’d known from the first that Stuart Hartford was beyond her reach. Untouchable. He’d been slumming himself when he took up her cause. No matter what he said or what he gave her or what his perfect cock did to her body, they had begun badly and would end badly. She really could not have expected anything different.
“As I’ve said over and over, my lord, I will never marry. You’ve had a lucky escape. Count your blessings.”
He pulled her toward him. “You were giving lessons? That’s all?”
Now she could lie, and finish it once and forever. But he looked so hopeful, the fool. As if the truth would matter in the end. “That’s all.”
“Then you’ll stop.”
She shook her head. “No, I won’t. But I will leave tomorrow.”
“If I was wrong—too harsh—”
“Too holy? You can’t help it, can you, Hart? We are done.”
He held her fast. “Damn it, Eden! Don’t make me out to be the one who’s in the wrong. You lied to me!”
“I told you I never lied.”
“Withheld the truth, then. What was I to think? You can’t deny you were sneaking around, enlisting my servants in your scheme.”
“Don’t punish Jeremy. He only did my bidding.”
He looked down on her, his face a rigid mask. “No, I’ll not punish him. I’ll punish you. Punish us both.”
She tried to pull away. “Wh-what do you mean?”
“Oh, don’t worry. I won’t hurt you. Not really. But I’ll give you something to remember me by. You really, truly want to leave?”
Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. She nodded.
In a second he was kissing her, his mouth nearly brutal. He flattened her against the wall, one hand pinning hers above her head. The other was untying the ribbons at her waist and shoulders until her robe was open and nightgown fell. She tried to shift away but only felt the burning friction of his body against hers as he pressed against her, the golden hairs of his chest taunting her skin.
This would be the last time Hart would ever touch her.
Gone was the Hart who had been gentle and considerate. In his place was a rough warrior, a man who took what he wanted because he could. Eden sagged against him as he palmed a breast, her nipple trapped between his fingers. She stiffened as he left her mouth and nipped his way down her throat, fastening his lips around one beaded peak. She felt the pull to her womb and groaned as he suckled, wishing she could touch him as he was touching her. But she was fixed in place, open to his war on her senses, a war she had long dreamed of. A war she wanted to lose. She brought herself closer to his to feel his rigid manhood. This, at least, had always been remarkably simple between them.
He might think he was forcing her, but he was not his uncle. He was not detached or distant, but as affected by their entanglement as she was. More so perhaps, because he had always wanted what she could not give.
It was not because she didn’t love him. She did. Who could not? She’d looked in vain for the chink in his armor, but found nothing but bright polished mail, forged by will, securely linked and impervious to tarnish. By contrast she was mended lace, too fragile to withstand the sunlight. He might be driven by his odd mixture of lust and family honor now, but in time he would need a different woman to stand with him.
She shivered as he tore down the lilac silk from her hips. In seconds he had freed his cock and pushed her legs apart. She had brought him to this frenzied state, her wickedness finally corrupting him. As much as she wanted it, she pulled back. “Hart. Not like this.”
“Just like this.”
She willed herself to yield to the storm in his eyes. Somehow she had brought him to desperation and her delight. She wanted to thread her fingers through his hair or cup his cheek or stroke his chest, but her hands were still imprisoned above her head. She lifted a leg and wrapped it around him, making it easier for him to fist his cock and impale himself within.
Their eyes met. Eden couldn’t bear it and dropped her lids. He released her hands, the better to lift her hips and she covered his mouth with hungry kisses. The scrape of the wall against her back was nothing to the sensation on her lips and her center and her heart. She’d never been so aware of his strength or every iron-hard inch of him as he crushed her to his body. She held fast, both legs now locked around him as he thrust into her, over and over until the tense spring inside her stretched into waves of wicked pleasure. Her hands were free now to scratch and soothe, to stroke the golden bristles on his cheeks, to squeeze his broad shoulders as she lost herself. With a cry, he pumped his seed deep, then, still connected, carried her to the bed, where he pitched them both down on the mattress.
They were slick with sweat and still half-dressed, their bodies seizing. When at last the spasms were over and their heartbeats almost regular, he pulled out of her and worked off his boot and breeches. She lay in her tangle of damp silk, trying to think of anything she might say to end this folly on a grace note. Her mind was blank, her body betraying her even now with its yearning for one more encounter with the naked bronzed god in the guest bed.
He bent over her, sweeping a strand from her forehead, combing through the knots in her waves with his long fingers. “I want you to be transparent as glass from now on. No more secrets. No more lies.”
He thought they had resolved the difficulty between them, with one good fuck. Oh, not good. Exquisite, even up against a wall like a Covent Garden prostitute in an alley. She shook her head away from his attentions and sat up, bunching her robe closed in a trembling hand.
“You will always doubt me, Hart. I suppose I deserve it. I’ve earned it.”
“No, I—”
“You would not have even told me why you were banishing me to Hartford Hall if I hadn’t barged in here. And when I told you the truth, you didn’t believe me. There’s no trust between us.”
“I’ve given you no reason to distrust me!”
“Oh,” she said sadly, “but you have. At the first opportunity, you thought the worst. Deep down I will always be your uncle’s whore. That’s what my collar said, you know, inscribed inside the silver. Whore. He thought it a great joke.”
“Oh, God, Eden. Don’t.”
“I’m not afraid of the truth. And contrary to what you believe, I’ve given up lying.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
He looked sorry, too, looked almost as miserable as she felt. But she had to salvage her pride and leave before the tears fell and her resolve wavered. It wouldn’t take much. “I’m sorry, too. Good-bye, Hart.”
He reached for her, but she was t
oo quick. “Please don’t go, Eden.”
“I must, for both our sakes. I’ll never measure up, Hart. Not that I still think of myself as worthless. I don’t. You’ve helped a bit there.” She allowed herself a small smile. “I can’t undo what I did, and I won’t be that girl ever again. But I am not the right woman for you. For anyone right now.”
“If—”
She shook her head. “No more. I’ll go to Hartford Hall until November. Then we’ll see where the future lies.”
“You won’t go back to Mrs. Brown’s.”
“Very probably not.” Not after what she and Hart had shared. There was no obliterating it under the heaving body of some perfume-scented lordling. “Thank you for everything, Hart. For the chance you gave me. I am grateful.”
Tempting Eden Page 26
