by Lucy Monroe
“Lucas. You mustn’t do that. I can’t... It isn’t...” And then she did. And it was. And she cried, sobbing out her pleasure as wet tears tracked down her temples into her hair.
He continued his tormenting kiss until she convulsed again and finally went as limp as rag doll. She fell asleep with the sound of his love whispered against her temple and the vague realization that something wasn’t quite done.
***
Lucas softly caressed Irisa’s milk white skin, waiting for her to awake. Light filtered into his bedchamber through a crack in the window draperies, proclaiming the morning far gone. Surprisingly, as excited as his body had been, he had not found it difficult to follow Irisa into sleep. Having her back in his arms had been satisfaction enough for his mind to find the solace of sleep, but now he throbbed with the desire to be inside of her and to tell her of his love.
This time, he would make her understand he loved the woman she was, not the woman she believed she needed to be to keep his affection.
Her eyes fluttered open and her lips tilted in a sweet smile of greeting. “Good morning, Lucas.”
He kissed the sleep softened mouth beneath him and pressed his hardness against her thigh. “Good morning, sweeting.”
Her eyes opened wide. “You didn’t... Last night...” Her face turned pink and she quit talking.
“Oh, but I did. How can you deny it when you shouted your release so clearly?” he teased her.
She closed her eyes and then opened them again, her cheeks now the color of raspberries.
Lunging up and over him, she found the ticklish spot above his collarbone. “You, sir, are a rogue.”
He laughed and squirmed under the tortuous caress of his wife’s wicked little fingers. “If you are intent on touching me, I can think of an area that is longing for your attention,” he gasped out between chuckles.
She stopped tickling him and sprawled across his chest, her head resting on her hands. “This area?” she asked with wide-eyed innocence as she thrust her pelvis against his manhood.
The feel of her soft curls caressing his sex pushed all humor from his body and replaced it with rampaging desire.
“Yes.” He reached down and slipped his fingers past her buttocks to test her readiness. He had to remind himself that his wife would not wake prepared for love as he had. Only...she was wet. Very wet. And soft. And swollen. “What did you dream about last night?”
She grinned shyly. “You.”
“Would you care to take a riding lesson this morning?” he asked as he gently, but inexorably separated her thighs until her legs rested to either side of him and his penis pressed against the opening of her sex.
For a moment she looked confused. “Riding lesson?” But his wife was very intelligent and as he rocked against her, understanding lit her face. “Oh, I think I would like that above all things.”
And she did. So did he. She made up for in enthusiasm what she lacked in experience and brought them both to a very noisy completion. Afterward she collapsed against him.
She lay there drawing patterns with her fingertips through the hair on his chest. “Lady Preston tried to tell me you had been her lover.”
He felt his body tense under her. “She lied.”
“I know.” She kissed his male nipple. “You told us you had never even had an intimate conversation with her, remember?”
He did remember, but that didn’t mean Irisa had to trust him. “You believed me.”
“Of course I did.” She drew the pattern of a heart around the nipple she had kissed. “I love you, Lucas. That means I trust you completely.”
His heart expanded at her softly spoken declaration. He wanted to give her an equally valuable gift. He wanted to say just the right thing. His beautiful, faithful, wife deserved it. “I knew you hadn’t run away.”
She snuggled against him. “You trusted me.”
“I love you, Irisa. That means I trust you completely,” he said, repeating her words back to her. “And I do mean I love you, not some perfect paragon.”
“Are you saying I don’t have to be perfect to keep your love?”
“You are perfect,” he vowed.
She shook her head and her honey blonde curls tangled with his chest hair. “I’m not. I’ve discovered that I have strong opinions and I plan to share them with you when necessary. I won’t let you go through with this crack-brained notion of challenging anyone who mentions my illegitimacy. I do silly things like driving through Hyde Park with the woman I thought was your mistress, or try to run away rather than fight a blackmailer. Are you sure you love me?”
“Yes.” He pulled her head down so their lips met in a fierce, possessive kiss. “I love you.”
She sighed, the sound full of deep contentment. “I’m not a perfect paragon you know.”
He laughed. “I’d figured that out, believe it or not. Please remember, I wanted to marry you after discovering you had dressed as a stable boy to spy on me and had gone driving with Clarise, showing yourself to be a hoyden hiding in a paragon’s perfect wardrobe. But, Irisa?”
She cocked her brow at him. “Yes?”
“You are perfect for me and that is all that matters.”
Tears washed into her eyes. “I thought you only loved the proper part of me.”
“It hasn’t been much in evidence of late and my love for you grows minute by minute.”
“Oh, Lucas, I do love you so very much.”
“And I love you. I will never stop.”
“Even if the hoyden shows herself more frequently.”
“She will undoubtedly give me gray hairs, but I will never stop loving you...all of you.”
And then he showed her just how deep the love in him ran, their bodies in one accord as only two people who love beyond limits can know.
EPILOGUE
Irisa convinced Lucas to take her to the Continent to visit the newly wed Clarice. However, they could not go until Jared had returned from his ocean voyage.
With both Jared and Lord Langley out of the country, Lucas had to oversee the Langley estates as well as his own. Irisa waited until they reached France to tell him the happy news of his impending fatherhood.
He wanted to strangle her for letting him take her out of country, but ended up making love to her instead. As promised, she nagged him about his threat to challenge those among the ton with wayward tongues regarding her past, but he remained adamant. However, as he had tried to assure her, his reputation with a pistol served its purpose and the ton found other things about which to gossip than his wife’s murky past.
The most interesting bit of scandal among the Beau monde surrounded the Lord Beast, or so the ton had nicknamed Viscount Ravenswood, who had been seen of late quite often in the company of the Angel, an altogether beautiful young widow.
Scandalmongers speculated incessantly about the relationship, but all agreed on one thing. It would be inconceivable for such a gentle, quiet, and lovely creature to accept courtship from the giant man.
Irisa had her own thoughts on the matter. She believed it was time that her dear brother found a love as great as she shared with Lucas, a love which filled her life with joy and had succeeded in finally dispelling all the ghosts of her past.
TAKE ME
Langley Family Trilogy - Book Three
by
Lucy Monroe
PROLOGUE
Raven Hall, England
Spring 1825
"Is my Mama goin’ to be with the angels?"
At the sound of Hannah’s voice, Jared’s hands stilled in the act of pruning the seven foot rosebush that towered over his own six foot frame. He turned to face the child and gave her the only honest answer he could. "I don’t know."
Hannah’s small hands clutched her pinafore, the temperamental English sun glaring off the white fabric. "I don’t want her to go to the angels. I want her to stay here."
Wide brown eyes filled with tears and Jared bent down to scoop her small form into his arms
. He brushed the straight, black strands of hair, very like his own, away from her face and tried to comfort her without words. Hannah resembled him in other superficial ways as well. They shared the same deep brown eyes and their identical glares had been known to send more than one housemaid running. In fact, they looked so much alike that he knew the villagers and workers on his estates were convinced that he was Hannah’s father.
He wasn’t.
That honor belonged to the black-hearted monster who had raped and impregnated Mary while she lived in his household as a paid companion to his mother.
"My lord, Mary’s asking for you."
Not bothering to answer the servant, Jared turned on his heel and headed back into the house, his hold on Hannah firm. His footman stepped back quickly as Jared passed him. When he reached his young housekeeper’s rooms, he stepped through the sitting room and knocked twice on the solid wood of the bedchamber door.
It swung open to reveal a maid’s anxious face. "Come in, milord. Mary’s been asking for you." She didn’t look at his face, but spoke in the direction of his cravat. Twisting her hands together, she added, "Maybe you’ll let me take the little mite to the kitchen for a cookie and some tea, milord?"
Looking past the housemaid to the woman lying on the bed, Jared concurred. Mary’s skin had the look of dry parchment while dark bruises marred the skin below her eyes. The scent of illness hung in the air of the normally cheerful room. Although the sun shone brightly outside, the drapes had been pulled so the room was cast in shadows.
He handed Hannah to the maid. The sturdy little girl was almost as big as the woman who carried her and despite his dampened spirits due to Mary’s illness, Jared found himself smiling at the picture. His maid, who looked about to say something, shut her mouth with a pop and fled down the hall with Hannah.
Jared sighed. Although he had grown accustomed to the servants’ reactions long ago, sometimes it still irritated him. Like now. Pushing aside the frustration and hoping the maid had not meant to say anything important, he approached the bed. "You were asking for me."
"Yes." The one word seemed to sap Mary’s strength and she didn’t speak again for almost a full minute. When she did, her dry lips barely moved. "I need your help."
"Tell me and I’ll do it for you." Mary was more than his housekeeper; she was his friend.
She had been daughter to the vicar in the village near Langley Hall. They had met for the first time not long after he got the hideous scar that marred his face. Even as a child, she had been bright and caring. She had never once shrunk from him in fear, not even that first time.
He'd repaid her friendship by doing all that he could to see her bright ambition realized, including paying for a lady's education for her. He'd long since learned to regret that choice, for she would never have been taken on as companion to the Dowager Duchess of Clairborne without it. He could never forget that in one respect, her rape and subsequent pregnancy could be laid directly at his door.
Jared had provided the means by which Mary had entered the sphere of the blackguard Duke of Clairborne. She'd never blamed him, but he could not help blaming himself.
A parody of her former smile crossed her face now and she labored to speak. "Take Hannah to the Angel."
The request so shocked him that at first Jared didn’t respond. Damn it. Was Mary hallucinating?
She couldn’t really want him to take her innocent little girl to that monster’s widow. "No."
Mary moved her head restlessly on the pillow. "You don’t understand..." She broke off speaking with a spasm of dry coughing. After taking several shallow breaths, she continued. "She’s not like him."
The words came out whispered and barely audible, but Jared understood them and they made him angry. "She was married to him when he raped you. She did nothing to protect you. She’s no better than he was."
"No. Different. Please. Promise." Each word was spoken with such effort that he could not ignore the plea.
"You expect her to want to raise Hannah? Do you believe she’ll feel some obligation to her dead husband’s illegitimate daughter?" He reached for Mary’s hand and gently held it. "Don’t worry about Hannah. I’ll take care of her. I’ll raise her." He meant it.
He cared for the little girl just as he'd cared for the mother. Perhaps even more so. Mary was his friend, but Hannah had always felt like his daughter. The bond was unnaturally strong, but it was one he had never questioned. Mary had been very sick after Hannah's birth and he had cared for the infant, growing attached to her in a way he would never allow himself to an adult.
Even if he thought the monster’s widow was the angel the Beau Monde claimed, he would not give up Hannah.
Mary’s eyes closed and her breathing grew shallow, but when he moved away to call a servant to fetch the doctor, her grip on his hand tightened. He waited without speaking for several minutes. Finally, her eyelashes fluttered and her eyes opened again. Their usually clear blue depths were hazy with pain and the fever that had not left her in two weeks, regardless of the doctor’s efforts or Jared’s rose hip tea.
"Promise me. Take her to the Angel."
He could not withstand the desperation in Mary’s eyes. "I’ll tell her grace about her."
He wouldn’t, couldn’t, promise anything else.
Mary’s head moved in a semblance of a nod. "Good." Her eyes closed again and she slipped into sleep.
She awoke only once more to say goodbye to her daughter.
The curate would not allow her burial in the church’s cemetery because she had been an unwed mother.
Jared would not tolerate her final resting place to be amidst cutthroats and thieves, so he had her buried in a small grotto at one end of his rose garden.
Hannah wanted to plant a bright red rosebush at the head of the grave. Jared promised to take a cutting from his prized Apothecary’s Rose. Medicines made from its hips had not been able to save Mary’s life, but it was fitting that the beautiful blood red flowers would mark her memory.
CHAPTER ONE
Ashton Manor, Summer - 1825
Lord Beast.
Viscount Ravenswood.
A very dangerous man.
Calantha watched the huge man cross the small ballroom toward her with both anticipation and dread. His black and white evening clothes clung alarmingly well to his well-muscled, oversized body and he carried himself with an easy grace that belied his size. Watching him move demanded all of her attention. The play of muscles under his tight-fitting breeches fascinated her as did the way others hastened to move aside as he approached.
This inexplicable reaction to him had so startled her on the first night of Lady Ashton’s house party that Calantha had fled with the flimsy excuse of a headache as soon as the ladies left the gentlemen to their port after dinner. She had not returned since. Until tonight.
She had promised Lady Ashton that she would attend tonight’s ball and Calantha always kept her promises.
Besides, she liked the friendly Lady Ashton. So, she had come. And now she watched the man the ton referred to as Lord Beast with the same absorption she reserved for her studies, her painting and her gardening. Yet, none of those things made her tremble with pleasure-laced-dread at the thought of being in the same room with them. Nor did they make her pulse race.
In truth, nothing made her pulse race. For such a reaction was an emotional one, and she had long ago learned that life was safer if lived without emotional excesses and turmoil. Her heart was a frozen ball of ice in a soul that shivered from the cold winds that howled across it...if she had a soul at all.
"Oh, no. He’s coming this way. He has not forgotten our dance. Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?" A young debutante standing directly in front of Calantha spoke.
Ah, so he was coming over to dance with the deb. A mixture of relief and disappointment flowed over Calantha. Of course he would not be desirous of making her acquaintance. She was beautiful, but boring. She had overheard herself referred to as such a
nd thought it appropriate. A woman who hid her true self could not be interesting, but she could be safe.
Everyone knew that Lord Beast spoke only to people that interested him. It was rumored that he gave his own father, the Earl of Langley, the cut direct. And now he intended to dance with the simpering chit in front of Calantha.
She would not have to talk to him. She would not be required to refuse his offer of a dance, or even worse as she very much feared she might...accept.
"Calm yourself, Beatrice. ‘Tis only one dance. Lord Beast isn’t going to eat you on the ballroom floor," replied another young lady, sounding not in the least sympathetic to her friend’s plight.
"That’s easy for you to say. You don’t have to dance with him. I’m at sixes and sevens at the thought of him touching me," complained the silly Beatrice, "I mean that awful scar. And he’s so big."
Calantha understood her own fear of Ravenswood, but why would the debutante fear him?
Could she not see that under the bluster and glaring demeanor, was a man who knew gentleness? Calantha had taught herself to watch others closely in order to assess their true natures after making the colossal mistake of marrying a Duke who had been well named after the devil.
It was not difficult. Not really. She was quiet. She remained in the background...another protective behavior she had learned during the years of her marriage. From her vantage point on the peripheral of any gathering, she gathered and analyzed information on the people around her.
The first night she had seen Ravenswood, she had been unable to focus on anyone else and her intent regard had revealed some unexpected facts.
