Duchess Quartet - A Wild Pursuit Part 24

Her smile disappeared, and there was something uncertain in her eyes. Almost diffident. He walked over. "You needn't look like a little girl denied a sweet. You can have any man you please."

"At the moment, I would like you." Trust Bea to go straight to the point.

Her hair had the sheen of a feverish rose. Stephen had never felt anything like the l.u.s.t he had at the moment. And yet every civilized bone he had in his body fought it. She was a young, unmarried woman. He didn't succ.u.mb to such wiles. In fact, he realized with an almost visible start, he'd never been seduced. He had only seduced. It was a great deal more uncomfortable the other way around.

She turned from him and picked up the small leather book on the table. "Shall I start with the poem which gave everyone so much excitement?" she asked. There was a satin thread in her voice that made Stephen's entire body stiffen.

O would to G.o.d (so I might have my fee) My lips were Honey, and thy mouth a Bee.

He couldn't stop himself. He drifted over to the settee. His will was strong enough that he didn't sit down, but he found himself leaning over the tall back, standing just at her shoulder. She looked up at him, a sparkling glance, and he found to his torment that this position merely gave him an excellent view of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. They were a perfect white that had nothing to do with powder, not that snowy perfection.

Then shouldst thou sucke my sweete and my faire flower That now is ripe, and full of honey-berries...

Stephen could just make out the outline of Bea's nipples, puckered under the frail silk of her bodice. He gave in, reached a hand over her shoulder, and wantonly, deliberately, took one of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s in his hand. There was a gasp, and she stopped reading.

But she didn't jump away or protest. That was disappointing too. What a fool I am, he thought. Why not just enjoy what is being offered?

Her breast was perfect. Somehow he'd thought it would be larger, fleshier. But it was flawlessly tender, an unsteady weight in his fingers.

" 'Full of honey-berries,' " he prompted. His voice was rough and unsteady. He supposed dimly that her other lovers had been more debonair, probably, less- He couldn't pretend this was normal behavior for him. Or normal desire, for that matter.

" 'Then would I leade thee to my pleasant Bower,' " she said, and the quaver had moved from his to her voice. " 'Filled full of grapes, of mulberries and cherries. Then shouldst thou be my Wasp, or else my Bee, I would be thy hive, and thou my honey bee.' "

He brought his other arm around her neck and took both b.r.e.a.s.t.s in his hands. She moaned, a throaty little sound, and dropped the book, arching her head back into the curve of his neck. He let his mouth play along her cheek. She smelled like lemons, clean and sweet, an English smell. Her ear was small and neatly placed against her head. In fact, her ear was like the rest of her: small, perfectly shaped, rounded, beautiful. He nipped it in anguish. Why did she have to be so-so beautiful and so available?

Her arms were tangling in his hair, pulling his head closer to her mouth. The small gasps that fell from her lips didn't seem practiced. They sounded wrenched from her throat. G.o.d knows the hoa.r.s.e sounds he kept swallowing were wrenched from his own chest.

Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s seemed to swell in his hands, and he hadn't even allowed himself to move his hands. "Bea." His voice was hoa.r.s.e and embarra.s.singly gruff. It sounded like an old man's voice.

This time he managed to speak clearly. "Bea, we cannot do this."

Her eyes closed, and her arms fell from his hair. He lifted his hands from her b.r.e.a.s.t.s-what if someone walked into the library? He waited a second, but she didn't open her eyes.

"Bea?" he asked. He was standing straight now, as straight as possible given the strain in his pantaloons.

"You may leave," she said. She didn't open her eyes.

"What?"

"I'm going to sit here and pretend that you aren't a stick-in-the-mud Puritan," she said. "I'm going to pretend that you actually had the courtesy to go through with the invitation that you ordered me to issue, if I remember correctly. Or is it a lack of guts that's the issue?"

"That's incredibly vulgar," he said slowly.

She opened her eyes. "Mr. Fairfax-Lacy, listen to me carefully."

She seemed to be waiting for a response, so he nodded curtly.

"I can be far more vulgar than this. I am a vulgar woman, Mr. Fairfax-Lacy." Her eyes were flashing, for all her voice was even. She was in a rage, and Stephen didn't know why that would make him feel better, but it did.

"Look at this, Mr. Puritan-Lacy!" she said, grabbing her bodice and pulling it down. Two perfectly shaped b.r.e.a.s.t.s, satin smooth, white velvet, fell free of her bodice. "I-am-a-vulgar-woman," she said, emphasizing every word. "I am the sort of woman who allows herself to be handled in the library by-" He was at her side. "No, you are not." His voice was dry, authoritative and utterly commanding. In one split second he hauled her bodice so high over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s that it almost touched her collarbone. She narrowed her eyes. "How dare you say what I am or am not?" "I know you," he said calmly, although his hands were shaking. "You are no vulgar woman, Bea." "Well-," she said, obviously about to rush into a hundred examples, but he stopped her with a kiss.

They drank each other as if manna had fallen between them, as if kisses were the bread of life. "You're worse," he said against her lips, a moment later. He felt them curve beneath his mouth, and he wanted her so fiercely that his entire body throbbed. "It must be tiring being so much worse than vulgar day and night."

She could not answer because his lips were crushing hers. And somehow his hands were back at her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. He brushed her nipple through the silk of her bodice, and she gasped. "These must be your honey-berries," he said in her ear. "That's so vulgar," she said, a hint of laughter in her voice. He yanked down her bodice, the mere inch that kept her nipple from the evening air, and flicked his tongue over it. She stiffened and clutched his shoulders so hard that he would likely have bruises. He did it again. And again.

"Stephen," she whispered. Her voice didn't sound so practiced now. It was ragged and hoa.r.s.e. Finally his mouth closed over her breast. She arched against him, shaking all over. He felt a stab of pure arrogance. She may have slept with other men, but he couldn't believe that she reacted to them like this.

Of course, that's exactly what every other man thought. "I want to be courted," he said fiercely. "What's the difference?" she said. She sounded genuinely perplexed. "I am not wooing you at this moment," Stephen said. "I am seducing you." He ran a hand up her leg, past the sleek silk stocking and the slight b.u.mp of her garter. "You need to learn the difference, Bea." His voice was rough with l.u.s.t. His fingers trembled as they danced over the skin of her inner thighs, closer, closer- She reached forward, pulling his hair toward her. "Kiss me!" she said, and her voice had an unsteadiness that sent his blood in a dizzying swirl. So he kissed her, took her mouth with an untamed exuberance, at the very moment his fingers slipped into her warmth, pressed up and in with a strength that made her arch helplessly against him. She was ripe and plump, and it took every bit of strength he had to let his fingers drift where his body longed to be. To drive her mad, make her shudder under his hand even as he drank her cries with his mouth.

"This is seduction," he said to her, and his voice was raw with it.

He could feel the coil in her, feel the tension growing. She was so beautiful, trembling in his arms, coming closer and closer...

"Would you do this for me?" he said fiercely.

Her eyes opened. They were magnificent, drenched, beautiful... "Of course!" she choked. She reached out for him. "Please..."

"It's seduction."

"It's glorious."

He made his fingers still, just stay there, in the melting warmth. Then just as she was about to stir, he moved again. She gasped, and her body jerked against his. He stopped. And then pressed hard again.

"Stephen, don't!" she cried.

"Don't? Don't?" He let his fingers take a rhythm then. And allowed himself, finally, to return to her lips, beautiful dark and swollen, not with false colors but with kisses.

She was writhing against him now, panting little bursts of air, a scream building in her-he could feel it, could feel an answering shout in his own chest, a desperate longing- She shuddered all over and clutched his shoulders so hard that he could feel her fingernails bite into his flesh, even through his coat.

And then she was pliant in his arms, a sweet, curved womanly body. He whispered into her hair. "That was a seduction, Bea."

There was silence in the library, and then she said, "I think I guessed that. At some point." The thread of laughter in her voice would always be part of living with Bea.

She didn't pull away from him, though. She stayed, nestled into his arm like a dove. He had to leave the room or he'd lose his resolve. Stephen had the sense he was fighting the greatest battle of his life: his own Enclosure Act. He had to enclose her, keep her, marry her.

And he had to make her understand that.

"I want more from you," he said into her ear.

She opened her eyes rather drowsily and smiled at him. His blood licked like fire at the look in them.

"I'm amenable," she said sleekly.

"You don't know what I want," he pointed out.

She blinked. "Couldn't you teach me?"

"I want to be courted, Bea." He watched her carefully. "Not seduced, wooed."

"Do I have to consult a dictionary?"

"I hope not. May I escort you to your chamber?"

She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his life, with her hair tumbling over her shoulders and a faint rosy color high in her cheeks. It took every bit of self-control he had in his body to leave her at her bedchamber door. But he was playing for keeps.

Chapter 29.

Spousal Relations.

Candles were being snuffed in bedchambers all over the house. Rooms were sinking into darkness, into the pleasant intimacy that welcomes a lover's step, a silent kiss, a whispered invitation. But Rees Holland, Earl G.o.dwin, was hardly in a loverlike mood. He stared at the door to his bedchamber, grimly awaiting- His wife.

And wasn't that an irony? That he should feel such a revulsion of feeling, such a disinclination to even speak to the woman, that he felt like dashing out of the house and saddling a horse on the moment? But there it was. She was a viper, Helene was. She could say the merest thing to him, and it would sting to the bottom of his soul for days.

And yet-he told himself again-he only wanted the best for her. Fairfax-Lacy wasn't a man to stand by her during a divorce. 'Twould ruin his career, for one thing. She was infatuated with the man, he could tell that. But it wouldn't last. Fairfax-Lacy was naught more than a smooth-talking politician, a silver-tongued devil, as his grandmother would have said. He didn't look at her with much desire, either. Rees had caught Fairfax-Lacy looking at Beatrix Lennox with real interest in his eyes.

That was the crux of it. He himself had been a d.a.m.ned failure as a husband to Helene. Not that she'd been any good as a wife. But presumably she was bedding Fairfax-Lacy, so perhaps it was only with him that she felt so-revolted. It was amazing to find that it still stung, years later. Even now, when he saw her, he had the impulse to put on a cravat, to cover any stray chest hair that might show. Because it disgusted her. She had said that again and again. Hairy beast, that he was.

Rees grimaced. What the h.e.l.l was he even worrying about her for? She was a sharp-tongued little devil. Except he couldn't let her make the same mistake again. She needed to find a husband who'd be true to her this time. And Fairfax-Lacy wasn't the one. Not with the liquorish way he glanced at Lady Beatrix when no one was looking. He never looked at Helene that way. Oh, he was wooing her: teasing her with extravagant compliments about her moonlit hair and other such blather. But he didn't look at her with that smoky longing that a man looks at a woman he wants to bed. Can't bear not to bed, in fact.

And yet she was obviously planning to ask for a divorce. Presumably Mr. M.P. thought he could get an Act of Parliament allowing her to remarry. But if Helene married Fairfax-Lacy, she'd find herself with yet another unfaithful husband. He, Rees, had allowed her to go her own way and find a consort of her own. He'd given her her own life back. But Mr. Proper Fairfax-Lacy would never do that. No, he would dally with strumpets on the side, embarra.s.s-ing Helene in public and private, but he'd never give her freedom to do the same.

There was a scratching on the door, and it silently swung open. Rees marveled for a moment: the doors in Lady Rawlings's house seemed to have been greased, they moved so quietly.

Helene looked rather like a silvery ghost. She was m.u.f.fled up in a thick dressing gown, looking as drearily proper as any matron in all England. Rees had to admit that he was rather glad she had found a consort. The burden of being the only adulterous one in their marriage was exausting for his conscience.

"Forgive me for my informal attire," she told him. Her voice was cool, with just the faintest edge that told him that she expected him to be rude. Vulgar, even. She always thought he was vulgar.

So he bowed and settled her in a chair with all the manners he could summon to mind.

"I've come to ask for a divorce," she said abruptly, "but I'm sure you've guessed that."

"Has Mr. Fairfax-Lacy agreed to exposure as your consort?" Perhaps the skepticism in his tone was audible. "He will allow me to sue him for adultery?"

But she was shaking her head, perfectly calmly. "Oh, no, that might infringe upon his career. Stephen has a very important role in the government, in the life of the nation. We'll simply have to hire some man to stand in his place."

Rees didn't have to think hard to know that a writer of comic operas wasn't considered important to the life of the nation. "Shouldn't Fairfax-Lacy be in session at this very moment, if he's so vital?" he asked.

"Stephen is quite, quite exhausted by the ordeals of a recent parliamentary debate," Helene said, waving her hand in the air.

Rees thought sourly about exhausted men and their proclivities to entertain themselves with other people's wives. "Ah, exhausted. I see."

"You wouldn't understand, Rees. Stephen has a critical role in the House. He just finished orchestrating a tremendous battle against an Enclosure Act. That's when a rich man fences in land that was originally openly used for grazing by villagers. Stephen had to go against his own party!"

"I know what an Enclosure Act is," Rees said irritably. "And I fully understand that he is a worthy man."

"So it would be better for all concerned if we simply created evidence of my adultery."

"I don't see any reason for us to go to the tremendous expense of effecting a divorce," Rees said. Despite all his caution, he was starting to get angry. It was something about that martyr role that she played so well: as if he had ruined her life. Whereas it was more the opposite-she had ruined his life!

Her jaw set. "I don't wish to be married to you any longer, Rees."

"We can't all have what we want. And now you seem to have the best of all worlds, if you'll excuse a little plain speaking. You have the proper politician for a bit of kiss and tumble on the side, as well as the t.i.tle of countess and the very generous allowance I make you."

"I don't give a fig for the allowance," she said. Her eyes were glacial.

"No, I don't suppose you do." He was losing his temper again. d.a.m.n it, but she had a way of getting under his skin.

"Because if you did, you might actually buy some clothing designed to appeal to a man. How the h.e.l.l does Fairfax-Lacy fight his way through that thing you're wearing?" He eyed her thick woolen dressing gown.

She raised her chin and squared her shoulders. She could have been wearing the mantle of a queen. "The allowance, the t.i.tle-they're nothing. It's a baby that I want," she said. And to Rees's horror, her voice wobbled. Helene and he never, ever showed vulnerability to each other. It was beyond possibility that he should comfort her.

"A baby. I believe you told me that before," he said, giving her time to gather herself together.

Helene took a deep breath and leaned forward. She had to convince Rees: she simply had to. Never mind the fact that she had no intention of marrying Stephen. It took ages to obtain a divorce, and she could find someone else to marry during the process. "Have you seen Esme's baby?" she asked.

"Of course not. Why on earth would I venture into the nursery to peer at a newborn?"

"William is the dearest little boy that you ever saw," Helene said, trying vainly to convey the stab of longing that overtook her at the very sight of the baby. "His eyes are a lovely clear blue. And he looks at Esme so sweetly. I think he already knows who she is."

Rees couldn't stand children. They mewled, spit and vomited on a regular basis. They also created any manner of revolting odors without the slightest consideration for others in the room. Moreover, there was something about the slavish adoration in her voice that set his teeth on edge.

"A baby is unlikely, in your situation," he said bluntly. "You would do better to avoid the nursery, if a mere visit sends you into this kind of transport of emotion."

Helene had been smiling a little, but the smile withered immediately. "Why not?" she demanded. "And what precisely do you mean by my situation?" Rees was grateful to hear that her voice was not trembling now; she sounded more likely to garrotte him on the spot.

"You would do better to simply accept the truth," he said. "I have done so, I a.s.sure you. I have no hope of having an heir." Never mind the fact that he'd never wanted one. "I think it is far better that we simply accept our situation."

"And that is?"

"We're married to each other and, obviously, our marriage isn't tenable. But no putative second husband has presented himself. Fairfax-Lacy won't even stand by you during the divorce. Therefore, he's extremely unlikely to marry you afterwards."

"He would!" Her voice was shrill now, but Rees far appreciated shrill over teary.

"I doubt it. And frankly, my dear, he's eyeing that wanton little friend of Lady Withers's. So even if he did obtain an Act of Parliament allowing him to marry you-and I suppose, given his position, he has more chance of success than most men-he'd be as unfaithful to you as I am." Rees rather liked the way he had summed up their situation. "If you find a braver consort, I'd be happy to reconsider the idea of divorce," he added.

"b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l!" She exploded out of her chair like one of those Chinese firecrackers he'd seen in London. "How b.l.o.o.d.y generous of you! You are the most stubborn, disgusting man in all England!"

"I think I am being perfectly reasonable," Rees said, staying right where he was. Surely husbands didn't have to follow that nonsense about standing up every time a lady did.

"Reasonable!"

"You would be happier if you simply accepted the situation," he said.