by Lucy Monroe
With two sharp tugs, she undid the simple knot of his cravat. The hand on her hip was no longer restraining her, but moved in a circular caress that made her want to press her bottom against his thighs. When she followed through on her desire and felt his growing hardness against her hip, he growled. Taking advantage of his preoccupation with her moving bottom, she opened his shirt with greedy fingers.
At the first touch of her fingertips against his skin, he shuddered and the knowledge that she could affect him so profoundly, filled her with bittersweet satisfaction. She brushed her hands over his hair roughened chest, lightly skimming the small hard buds of his male nipples.
“Bloody hell. That feels good. Too good. Little one, you’ve got to stop.”
She kissed the underside of his chin and flicked her tongue out to taste the skin there. “I don’t want to, Lucas.”
His hands tightened on her and then suddenly, they were under her cloak, undoing the tapes on her gown. One hand caressed the aching swell of her breast and she shivered. The other one tunneled under the skirt of her gown, moving with swift assurance up her leg. Unlike in the garden, this time she made no attempt to stop him. She wanted to know what it felt like to have Lucas touch her most intimate place. If that made her a hopeless wanton, she did not care.
“You’re so soft, sweeting. So perfect.” He spoke against her neck as he used tiny kisses to trail a path down the column of her throat.
Somehow her cloak had come undone and with her opened gown, her bosom was completely exposed to the exploration of his lips. Moving the hand that had held her breast around her back to support her, he closed the distance to her nipple with his mouth. She waited in almost painful anticipation for that jolt of feeling she remembered from the first time he had taken such liberties. When it came, she barely stifled a scream.
Sensations traveled down her body and pooled deep in her belly. She rocked against his lap, trying to find relief for the pressure building and her legs relaxed, falling open in a wanton v. Lucas took immediate advantage of her position and slid his hand to rest against the hair-covered mound between her legs. The sensation was so unexpected that this time a small shriek of shock managed to escape her lips.
“I could not have said it better myself.” Hot air from Lucas’s mouth fanned her breast when he spoke.
She slid her hands onto his sturdy shoulders and gripped with all her might. “Lucas, I do not know what is happening. I feel so strange.” She moved against his hand. “I want... I want...” She did not know what she craved, but she knew he alone could give it to her.
He slid one finger between the sensitive folds of her intimate flesh and brushed against the swollen nub. Her body arched and she would have come off his lap if his hand did not hold her down. She whimpered, her feelings spiraling out of control. She would go mad from this torment.
“Lucas, do something!”
His laughter sounded strained. “I am, little one. Trust me.”
Her head swung from side to side as she mindlessly sought she knew not what. “Now, Lucas. Now. I cannot stand it.”
If he heard her demand, he gave no indication. His mouth continued to suckle her breast, ravaging her with delicious torment and his finger moved in small, maddening circles over the nub of sensitized flesh between her legs. Then, without warning, her entire body convulsed and she felt as if every nerve screamed with the same incredible pleasure. The pleasure went on and on until she was mad with it and begging him to stop. Then her body went completely limp against Lucas and she tasted the salt of her tears on his bare chest.
“I love you, Lucas. I love you with all my heart.”
***
Lucas waited in the dark outside Lady Upworth’s house, the hour not quite dawn, his closed carriage stopped out of sight around the corner. Something about the way Irisa had said good-bye to him after their passionate interlude in his carriage alerted him to the fact that all was not well with her. She had told him she loved him with sweet abandon, but the joy of sated physical desire in her voice had been muted.
She should have been pleased that her experiment had been such a success. He had proven beyond the smallest doubt that his passion for her was based solely on her person. So, why had her eyes been filled with both despair and a determination that she tried to hide when he said goodnight?
His instincts warned him she planned to run.
A hired carriage rolled to a stop near Lady Upworth’s townhouse. When no one alighted from the vehicle, Lucas’s suspicions rose. The driver’s repeated glances up and down the street cinched it.
Lucas approached him. “Are you waiting for a young lady?”
“Whot’s it to you if I is, guv?”
Lucas pinched a sovereign between his thumb and forefinger, holding it aloft. “This.”
The driver reached out his hand to snatch the coin, but Lucas pulled it back, just out of reach. “Answer my questions first.”
“Make it quick like, guv. The gentry mort’ll show soon.”
“Who are you waiting for?”
“Don’t know. The one whot ‘ired me said she needed things secret like. Probably runnin’ away to a lover, you ask me.”
Since that had not been one of Lucas’s questions, he ignored the man’s suppositions. The only lover Irisa wanted was Lucas. He was sure of it. No, her decision to run had everything to do with blackmail.
“Where are you supposed to take her?”
“Don’t know that either. ‘ired me for a week at a bloody good wage, so don’t care much either.”
Lucas asked what Irisa had promised in way of pay. When the coachman told him, Lucas offered a substantial increase over the amount for the coachman to disappear. The man took the money and did as suggested, moving his carriage at a fast clip down the street, having said something about the gentry being easy on a man’s gin rations for once. The sound of the horses’ hooves on the pavement had barely faded when Lucas spied two cloak-covered figures coming around the side of Lady Upworth’s townhouse. Although a hood covered her head, he had no doubt the smaller one was Irisa. The other must be Pansy, her maid.
They both carried portmanteaus and a small trunk between them. Irisa’s reticule dangled from her wrist over the portmanteau’s side. She looked up and down the street, then turned to say something in a low voice to her maid.
Although he could not hear what Irisa had said, her maid’s reply came distinctly through the night-chilled air. “I ‘ope ‘e didn’t come, milady, and that’s the truth. What you think you’re about running off like this, I don’t know.”
Irisa said something else, her words again indistinct, but the agitation in her voice was apparent.
Lucas decided he might as well make his presence known. Stepping away from the shadow of the building, he said, “If I were a distrustful man, I might think Langley’s accusations yesterday afternoon had some merit.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
In the days since their return from Ashton Manor, Irisa had gotten almost no sleep, instead spending her nights restless with worry.
Added to her overtired condition was an emotional turmoil of storm like proportion and she was not sure the voice she had heard was real, or a conjuring of her desperate imagination.
She had experienced the most overwhelming event of her life in Lucas’s arms not an hour hence and her determination to leave had wavered. However, she could not make sense of her own thoughts anymore and had been following her plan in an almost trance like state.
“Have you nothing to say, Irisa?”
He was not a realistic creation of her overtired mind. He was here. All her well-meant convictions crumbled in the face of the terrible grief tormenting her at the prospect of losing Lucas and it all became too much.
Dropping her valise with a plop, she did the same to her end of the trunk, resulting in a thud as it hit the ground and an exclamation from Pansy. Then, she picked up her skirts and flew across the ground separating her and Lucas. Throwing herself against his
chest, she wrapped her arms around his waist and held on with all her strength.
“Oh, Lucas. I’m so glad you are here. I know it is horribly selfish and I’m not at all noble to feel such relief. You deserve so much more than my besmirched reputation and the scandal sure to result from our marriage, but the very idea of another woman touching you has tormented me since leaving your carriage earlier. I cannot bear it”. Tears clogged her throat and she squeezed her eyes shut, pressing her face into his solid chest.
“I should leave for the sake of my family”, she admitted, “but you won’t let me and I’m glad”. That knowledge wracked her with guilt. “I’m every bit as dishonorable and weak-willed as Papa believes.”
With that shameful admission, she burst into tears.
Lucas’s arms came around her and his hold was as tight as her own. “Hush, love.”
She could not obey him. Tears made her feel pathetic, but she could not stem their flow. Not this time.
“Pansy, see that your mistress’s things are returned to her room, but leave the trunk. I will take it with me now. You will begin moving your mistress’s things to my townhouse today anyway.”
“Yes, milord.”
“I’m taking your mistress with me.” He was forced to pry her arms from around his waist because she couldn’t seem to let go of her own volition. Then lifted her into his strong embrace and spoke to Pansy over his sholder. “You are to tell the rest of the household she is still abed. I will return her via Mrs. Drake and no one need be the wiser.”
“Yes, milord.”
“Where are you taking me, Lucas?” She didn’t really care, so long as she remained with him.
“You and I need to talk. I’m taking you someplace safe and private to do so.”
“That’s nice.” She was so weary, she did not think to argue or ask for more particulars.
Lucas placed her on the carriage seat before turning around to retrieve the trunk. She heard him give instructions to his coachman through an exhausted haze. When he stepped up into the carriage, he took the seat next to her and then pulled her close. His warmth enveloped her, making her feel safe and she slipped into a light doze.
***
A few hours later, Lucas studied Irisa’s sleeping form. Blonde curls framed her heart shaped face. She looked so bloody sweet. So innocent. Not like the siren who had come apart in his arms. Not like the stubborn little baggage who snuck away from her companions to read by herself on his tower roof and ended up locked outside during a storm. Not like the enraged fiancée who had accused him of wanting her only when he was angry. And not at all like the impulsive, reckless female who had tried to run away rather than marry him.
Dark lashes fluttered and her eyes opened. He waited silently for her to wake fully and become aware of his presence.
According to Clarice, Irisa had slept the entire time he had been gone, having returned to his own townhouse for some much needed rest. He did not want to conduct the coming interview in an exhausted state and he had not trusted himself to sleep under the same roof with her. He wanted her too much.
Irisa turned her head on the pillow and the golden brown depths of her eyes focused on his figure sitting next to the bed. “I suppose you want an explanation.”
He stood up. “Not yet.”
Turning, he retrieved the breakfast tray Clarice had brought in earlier. He motioned for Irisa to sit up in the bed and she did so, keeping the quilt tucked under her arms so it covered her bosom. He raised his brows at that bit of modesty. Such an innocent little siren.
He put the tray across her knees. “Eat first.”
“Thank you.” She picked up a piece of toast and took a bite, following it with a sip of chocolate. He didn’t let her stop until she’d finished all the food on the tray. When she had, he took it and placed it outside the door.
Turning around, he found her watching him. “Where are we?”
“Clarice’s. She has no live-in servants so your arrival was unobserved. Her daily woman believes you are a friend arrived from the country last evening after she had gone home.
“I see. Miss de Brieuse does not mind me being here?”
“No.”
“Why did you bring me here, Lucas? I was too tired to question it this morning, but now my mind is functioning properly and it doesn’t make any sense.”
“We need to talk.”
She pleated the blanket between her fingers. “Surely I could have slept in my own bed and talked with you later.”
He caught her gaze and held it. “I wanted to be sure you were still here when we were both rested enough to have a coherent discussion.”
She looked away from him. “I deserve that, I suppose.”
“You tried to run away. I could not be sure you would not waken with a renewed determination to do so.”
She blushed and he knew his caution had not been misplaced.
“And yet you did not act disappointed when I caught you trying to sneak away.”
She grimaced. “No. I did not. I suppose that is because my relief was too great.”
“If you were so bloody relieved to be stopped, why were you trying to go in the first place?” It bothered him more than he wanted to admit that she could have been planning to run after giving herself so freely to him in his carriage.
She released the quilt and clasped her hands in front of her, letting her eyes once again focus on him. “I would rather be dressed for this discussion.”
“I’d rather you stayed right where you are, the way you are. It gives me an advantage and with an obstinate little thing like you, I need one.”
Her mouth tightened and he knew she didn’t like his pronouncement, but she did not jump out of the bed and start yelling at him. Unfortunately. Would this nightrail be as transparent as the one she wore at Ashton Manor?
“Tell me why you tried to run away.”
“I told you at Thea’s, but you would not listen.”
“Tell me again. I’ll listen more closely this time.”
She went back to pleating the quilt and bit her lip. Finally, she spoke. “I’m so tired of feeling guilty, Lucas. I don’t mean to hurt my family and I didn’t want to cause you grief.” She sighed. “It seems no matter how hard I try to be proper and biddable, I can never make up for my birth.”
“Why would you think you had to make up for your birth? It is hardly your fault your parents made the decisions they did.”
She shook her head. “You don’t understand. If Mama had not become pregnant with me, Papa and the first countess would surely have reconciled. Thea would have been raised here and had her proper place in society. Jared would have known his mother.”
“Those are events over which you had no control.” He could not believe she thought otherwise.
“That is true I suppose, but my birth caused them nonetheless.”
“You however, did not cause your own birth.”
“You are right, of course, but I am used to feeling it is all my fault.”
“Why?”
“Because my brother’s disfigurement is my fault. He shuns society because my actions have made him an oddity. Were it not for me, he would still be living at Langley Hall where he belongs, in the bosom of his family.”
He couldn’t believe her faulty reasoning and sat in stunned silence. It was obvious to the most casual observer that Viscount Ravenswood had little use for society and no desire to fit in amongst the Polite World, scar or no scar. He also had no love for his father and considering the man’s treatment toward the first countess, that was entirely understandable.
“Irisa, you take far too much on yourself,” he said finally.
“No, I do not. Because of my stubborn recklessness, Jared is a societal outcast.”
“I doubt your brother considers that much of a burden.”
Her eyes took on a faraway look, as if she was seeing someplace he could not. “When I was a small girl, I did not obey my nurse at all well. Sadly, Papa and Mama indulge
d me. One day in early spring, I wished to play outside, but Nurse told me I must take a nap instead. It had been raining for days and it was the first bit of sunshine we had seen. I can still remember looking out the nursery window and longing to play in the sun.”
“And?”
“I allowed Nurse to put me down for a nap. I was devious, and as soon as she left to attend to other chores, I snuck out to play. I wandered far into the fields of Papa’s estate and little did I know it, but my disappearance had been discovered. A search party was sent out. My brother found me, but so had a wolf. Jared saved me almost at the cost of his life.”
“That is how he became scarred?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sure he feels the scars are a small price to pay for your life. I would suffer much worse for the sake of my small niece.”
Irisa winced and her eyes turned black with haunted agony. “There was so much blood. Jared’s pain filled cries still echo in my mind sometimes. I ran, Lucas. I was terrified and I ran, leaving my brother to face the wolf alone.”
“How old were you?”
“Six,” she said in a dead voice.
“Too young to be anyone else’s protector and your brother did not die.”
“No. We were found by Papa and the servants came. Someone shot the beast, but I thought Jared had already been killed. He lay so still on the blood soaked ground.”
“You were allowed to see this?”
“Yes. Papa wanted me to be fully cognizant of what I had wrought with my willful disobedience.”
Even with what he knew of him, Lucas could not believe Langley’s cruelty. “The bastard.”
She didn’t hear him, her attention too focused on the past. “Papa shouted at me that I had killed my brother and then he took a stick to me, so I could share in my brother’s pain.”
“He beat you?”
She shrugged. “I don’t remember much until Mama came to my room later. I was in bed and it hurt horribly all over, but all I could think was that Jared was dead and it was my fault. I deserved the pain.” She started to cry, silent tears running down her face. She swiped at the wetness. “When Mama came to me, I was crying then too. She told me to stop, that I’d brought it all on myself and my brother. She told me Jared lived, but that I should not be surprised if he hated me.”
