Restoration Series - A Scoundrel's Kiss Part 26

"There is no need to apologize," he muttered, moving away from her. "It is merely that this time, Lady Arabella, you have surprised me."

The boat brushed up against a set of wide stone steps going up from the river. "Here we are, then, sir,"

the boatman declared.

Arabella gasped. "We never sent word to your father or Lady Lippet that I was leaving!"

"They may not have missed you yet," Neville replied placatingly. "I will tell them where you are when I return to Whitehall."

She nodded her head in agreement.Neville helped her onto the steps, then held her hand to lead her. He would rather have put his arm around her slender waist, but he was not sure he would have been able to prevent himself from kissing her if he had done that.

It was but a short distance from the Thames to the earl's townhouse, and neither spoke as they hurried through the dark, quiet streets.

When they reached the house, the door swung open to reveal Jarvis. When he spied Neville on the threshold, he stared with obvious surprise. "My lord!"

Neville stepped inside, followed by Arabella, and he closed the door. "I have brought Lady Arabella home. She was most anxious to leave Whitehall. Unfortunately, we could not find my father or Lady Lippet, so they may not yet be aware that she is safely home." He hesitated for a moment. "Go to the Banqueting House, Jarvis, find them and tell them she is here."

Arabella opened her mouth to protest. It would be wrong of Neville to stay. And yet she did not speak.

"What, my lord, now?" Jarvis asked.

"At once," Neville replied firmly.

"Who'll let them in if they've come away already?"

"I will man the door," Neville answered. "The earl is probably playing piquet in one of the rooms. Give him Lady Arabella's apologies and say she will explain in the morning. If you see Lady Lippet, tell her the same thing."

Although he made no attempt to hide his reluctance to leave or his surprise at Neville's presence, Jarvis obeyed.

"Won't you come into the withdrawing room?" Arabella asked when Jarvis had gone.

"Since it will be a little while yet before my father can arrive, I see no harm in it," Neville replied.

Only a little while, and then he would likely be parted from her forever.

A few moments more. That was all he wanted.

Once in the withdrawing room, Arabella lit a candle. The pool of golden light spread out around her and illuminated the room, which looked very different.

It took but a moment for him to realize why.

It was clean. From the hearth to the corners of the ceiling, everything had been dusted and polished and scrubbed until it was as if he was in another house.

"Someone has been busy," he remarked, trying to lessen the tension that seemed to suffuse the room like the candlelight. "I detect a Puritan's influence."

Ignoring his comment, she clasped her hands and regarded him steadily, agony in her eyes. "Neville, did you ever love me?"

She had not intended to ask that. She had not planned to say anything at all of feelings. Of emotions. Of love.Yet she knew, as she stood there, that this might be the last time she would be with him, and she had to know if he had ever cared for her the way she had for him. The way she still did.

She waited for what seemed an eternity, trying to see his downcast face.

When he still did not answer, she told herself she had her answer and began to leave.

If he let her go now without a word, he would rue it for the rest of his life. "Arabella!" he whispered in a strangled voice as he raised his head to regard her with burning anguish. "I love you. I have loved you since that day in the garden. You have always had a special place in my heart, walled up and kept secret, but always, always there."

"Truly?" she asked, hope and joy dawning in her lovely eyes as she went slowly toward him.

It was as if he had been long absent from home and suddenly, in one great and glorious instant, had been transported there again, to find it eternal and permanent in a constantly changing world. "Truly."

"Why didn't you tell me before?"

He spread his hands in a gesture of hopelessness. "Because I do not deserve your love."

She halted before him. "Why not?"

"Because perhaps I am disgraceful blackguard, a sinful wretch, a wastrel-"

She shook her head. "A disgraceful blackguard or sinful wretch would not have left me that night when he could have so easily made love with me. A wastrel would not save his father's fortune in secret." She placed her hands on his shoulders and looked up into his doubtful, questioning face. "I see a man who is good and honorable. Who is worthy in every way of a woman's love. I see the man I love and will always love." She smiled gloriously. "No matter how much he tries to dissuade me."

"Arabella," he whispered doubtfully, as if he still could not quite believe her.

"I love you, Neville. I promise I will never stop loving you."

For so long he had told himself that love was a lie or a jest of G.o.d, if it existed at all.

But that was wrong. He loved Arabella, and she loved him. Now it no longer mattered what anyone else in the world thought of him, not even his father.

Complete at last, he drew her into his arms and kissed her.

Yearning for his touch, Arabella reveled in his burning, blatant desire, which set her own heart beating wildly.

Her hands moved up his strong back as she pressed against him, while his came to cradle her face.

"Oh, Arabella," he murmured as his lips dragged along her cheek toward her ear. "I want you so much."

"I want you, too," she whispered, arching, letting her head go back as he continued to trail his mouth lower and lower yet.

Then slowly, without a word of suggestion, their bodies commanding, they slowly knelt upon the floor.

Arabella did not consider where she was or the morality of what she was doing. She did not wonderwhat the earl or anyone else might think.

All she knew and cared about was this man whose kiss inflamed her and who returned her love. They would marry and be happy for the rest of their lives.

So she did not protest as his hands fumbled with the laces of her bodice, loosening them. When his hand slipped inside her gown, she welcomed his caress. Then he broke the kiss and she sighed as he gently eased her bodice down to expose her b.r.e.a.s.t.s to his lips and tongue.

She clutched at his shoulders and gasped. She had not known... She could never have guessed...

Wanting to pleasure him in some similar way, she opened her eyes, for a moment caught by the dark desire in his eyes as an animal can be startled by sudden sunlight.

And then she smiled, for this was right and good. Being here with him, feeling as she did, knowing that he loved her, too, could be no sin.

With trembling fingers, she pushed aside his jacket and opened his fine white shirt. His eyes closed as she ran her hands over the hard muscles of his chest. Learning from him, she leaned forward to gently tug his nipple into her mouth, letting her tongue swirl around the hardened nub of flesh.

Breathing rapidly, he groaned softly and clutched her upper arms as if he would collapse if he let go.

"Don't stop," he sighed as she trailed her lips across his chest to capture the other nipple. "Oh, sweet heaven, don't stop."

"Only for this," she whispered. And she lifted her face to kiss him deeply.

As they kissed, he sloughed off his jacket. Turning away for a moment, he quickly bundled it up and laid it beside him. Then, taking her by the shoulders, he laid her down so that his jacket became her pillow.

She boldly pulled him down beside her for another pa.s.sionate kiss. Desire burned hot and eager in her, inflamed even more as he began to stroke and caress her, his hands moving over her as if she were made of some soft and valuable material, velvet or satin or silk.

At his gentle prodding, she parted her legs, and he rolled so that his body was over her, his legs between hers. His hands continued their exciting, maddening exploration of her body while his mouth again took possession of hers.

Another instinct came into play, one of rhythm called forth by the hot blood throbbing through her veins.

She began to move her hips to this primitive beat, not knowing or caring why or wanting to stop it.

Slowly, his lips again parted from hers to slide along her chin and the tender flesh of her neck, past her collarbone to her naked b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

She panted softly, awash with the sensation of his tongue flicking across her pebbled nipples while his hand made leisurely progress along her leg, pushing her skirt upward.

He stopped where the throbbing was most intense, resting his hand for a moment before pressing gently, that slight and subtle motion making her cry out softly.

His hand left her body and her eyes flew open, for she felt suddenly abandoned.

She would not be alone or lonely ever again.

Emboldened by her desire, she ran her hands over his body. He caught his lip with his teeth and his eyesshut tight as she felt lower until she found what she sought.

Now it was his turn to be stroked and caressed. She watched his face, saw the growing tension there, matching the building need within her.

"I am yours, Neville," she whispered. "I will be yours forever."

His eyes opened, his pa.s.sionate gaze intense as, with a low growl, he tore at her drawers, ripping the thin fabric from her body.

She didn't care, for with equally eager fingers she struggled to undo his breeches.

In another moment, he was free. Placing both hands beside her and raising himself, never taking his dark piercing gaze from her face, he slowly pushed inside her.

There was one moment of doubt. One instant of knowledge that they were not married. That this union would be condemned in the eyes of G.o.d and man.

One moment, and then it was gone, because she was his and he was hers, and they must join completely.

Her rhythm became his as their hips moved in perfect unison. Their breathing, too, was synchronized as with each pa.s.sing moment, the desire and need and tension built in glorious agony.

And then, as he uttered a strangled cry, the tension within her shattered as a stone shatters the calm surface of a still pool, sending wave after wave to the farthest edge.

"Good G.o.d!" Lord Ba.r.r.s.ettshire cried.

Chapter 18.

Arabella jerked her head around to stare at the enraged man standing in the doorway, hands clutching the sides of the frame.

Lady Lippet was behind the red-faced n.o.bleman, staring open-mouthed like a fish in Billingsgate market.

At once, Neville withdrew. Fumbling with the ties of his breeches, he rose swiftly.

The realization of what she had just done a.s.sailing her, Arabella quickly pulled her bodice back into place with one hand and shoved her raised skirt down with the other.

"I... I believe I shall go home," Lady Lippet mumbled: through the handkerchief she pressed to her mouth, as if she needed to block the stench of sin.

"By all means, please go," Neville agreed with iron in his words. "Jarvis, my father and I will have no more need of you, so you may show Lady Lippet out."Jarvis waited for Lady Lippet to exit, then followed her, closing the door behind him.

"You!" the earl roared, glaring at his son. "You... you despoiler of women! How could you?"

Arabella waited with bated breath for Neville to explain that there was no need for such wrath, to tell the earl that although what they had done was wrong and a sin, there was no cause for such animosity, because they would be married.

Neville slowly turned to look at her.

Say it, she urged silently. Say you love me. Say we will be married.

The silence seemed to stretch forever.

Neville raised one quizzical eyebrow and looked at his father while he calmly finished tying his breeches.

"How could I?" he repeated with a sardonic little smile. "It was quite easy, really."

Arabella felt as if Neville had knocked her to the ground.

"She is ruined!" the earl roared. "Utterly ruined! Though you are my son, I should kill you for what you've done!"

Arabella got slowly to her feet, shame and dismay warring within her.

Quite easy. Making love with her was quite easy, and she had quite easily let him.

She had made love to a man to whom she was not married or even formally betrothed. She had told him how she felt and he had said he loved her, yet now he stood there as if what they had done was nothing to him at all.

"I am to blame for her ruin, am I?" Neville inquired.

"Who else?" the earl demanded. "I see no other man in this room."