A Kiss to Remember (29 page)

Although his words didn’t betray even a trace of self-pity, the image tugged at Laura’s heart. “If your uncle was still alive, I never would have found the courage to leave my room.” She shuddered. “The dogs weren’t nearly as scary as his portrait.”

“It’s actually quite a flattering likeness. I’ve always said he should have paid the artist extra for leaving off the horns and tail and painting him with a walking stick instead of his usual pitchfork.”

“I gather the two of you weren’t close.”

“Oh, we were as close as two human beings locked in mortal combat can be.”

“But he’s gone. And you’re still here. That would make you the victor.”

Sterling swirled the brandy around the glass, his eyes distant. “Sometimes I’m not so sure about that.” His gaze sharpened, focusing only on her. “You still haven’t answered my question. How is it that your wanderings led you here? To my bedchamber.”

What was she to tell him? That she was homesick? Lonely? Furious at him for abandoning her on their wedding night?

He cocked his head to the side. “Come now, dear. I can almost see that clever little brain of yours weaving some charming fiction. Why not take a stab at the truth? I’m sure it will become less painful with practice.”

She drew herself up, glaring at him. “Very well. I grew tired of waiting for you to come to my bed so I decided to seek out yours.”

Fortunately, Sterling had just taken a sip of the liquor so Laura had the satisfaction of watching him choke. He set the glass down on the carpet beside the chair, swiping at his watering eyes. “Do go on. I find your candor quite refreshing.”

“Well, it
is
traditional for the bridegroom to pay his bride a visit on their wedding night. Of course, I realize that I’m not being completely fair. Given the unconventional circumstances of our … um, courtship, I suppose I have no right to expect a conventional marriage.”

“Oh, I think you’ll find it very conventional indeed. Especially when compared to those in the social circles in which we’ll be traveling.”

She frowned at him. “How so?”

He shrugged. “The very nature of marriage itself implies that it’s most successful when based on need.”

Laura brightened. Now they were getting somewhere. She couldn’t think of anything she
needed
more in that moment than his arms around her.

He folded those arms over the back of the chair. “The titled gentleman whose wastrel father has squandered the family fortune weds a wealthy merchant’s daughter to fatten his coffers. A young lady with a passion for cards seeks out a gentleman of means so she might continue to indulge her habits. A second or third son woos a young woman of gentle birth who just happens to come equipped with a generous dowry.”

Laura’s smile faded. “But what about affection? Devotion? Desire?” She bit back the one word she was aching to say.

Sterling shook his head, his expression gentle, almost pitying. “Most of the ladies and gentlemen of my
acquaintance prefer to seek those pleasures outside the bounds of matrimony.”

Laura sat in silence for a moment before rising and moving to stand before the hearth. She gazed into the hypnotic flames, weighing her words with great care. “So you married me simply because you had need of an heir and I was in a position to provide one for you. And now that you’ve done your duty, it only remains to be seen if I’ve done mine.”

“I suppose that’s a fair way of putting it.”

Even before she started to turn around, Laura was tugging at the sash of her wrapper. As she faced him, the garment slipped from her shoulders, drifting down to pool on the heated marble of the hearth.

Sterling went rigid, the flames leaping in his eyes. Laura could almost see herself reflected there. Could almost see the firelight melting the silk of her nightdress into a shimmering veil that only served to accentuate her long, slender legs, the rosy pout of her nipples, the elusive shadow at the juncture of her thighs.

She glided toward him. She’d had little experience at playing the temptress, but she wasn’t playing now. She was dead serious. “Since you’ve yet to determine if your efforts have met with success, my lord, there are some, even in your own social circle, who might accuse you of being less than diligent.”

As she approached, Sterling came to his feet, his wariness the only barrier left between them. “What do you think you’re doing, Laura?”

“My duty,” she whispered, twining one hand around his throat and coaxing his lips down to hers.

Their breath mingled for a tantalizing heartbeat before Sterling let out a hoarse groan. Then there were no
barriers between them at all. There was only his tongue plundering the sweetness of her mouth, his arms wrapped tightly around her, his body molding itself to her every curve and hollow as if he’d spent most of his lifetime memorizing them. As Laura felt him rubbing up against the softness of her belly, she knew why he’d taken such care to keep her at arm’s length. Why he’d insisted she be put in a suite at the other end of the world. His heart might never forgive her for deceiving him, but his body was only too eager to offer her pardon.

And anything else she was willing to accept.

Although she was the one who should have been doing penance, it was Sterling who dropped to his knees at her feet. Laura’s head fell back as the searing heat of his mouth molded the silk of the nightdress to her nipple. He licked at the sensitive bud, then blew gently against the clinging silk. As he shifted his exquisite attentions to her other breast, pleasure pulsed like liquid velvet along her nerve endings, making her knees go weak. But he was there to catch her. There to cup the softness of her rump in his strong hands. He lowered his mouth yet again, this time pressing it to the dusky triangle beneath the silk in a kiss that was both shocking and irresistible. His tongue tasted her through the damp fabric and she cried out his name in a voice she hardly recognized as her own.

Laura clung to his shoulders as he lifted her and carried her over to the bed. She expected him to follow her down, but instead he reached beneath the nightdress and dragged her hips to the very edge of the bed. He slowly pushed up the silk, leaving her utterly exposed to him, utterly vulnerable. But instead of being embarrassed or frightened, Laura was exhilarated. He was her
husband, and there was nothing forbidden or sinful about the things he wanted to do to her. Or the things she wanted him to do.

He didn’t look like a devil but a pagan god standing between her legs in the firelight, his glittering eyes heavy lidded with desire. She was only too willing to offer herself as a sacrifice on his altar of pleasure. But as he dropped back to his knees and pressed that beautiful mouth of his to the gossamer curls between her thighs, now unveiled, she realized with a shiver of raw delight that she was the altar and it was her pleasure he sought. And he knew just where to find it.

Laura arched off the bed as scorching tongues of flame licked her higher and higher. He might be a devil, but his skillful mouth was giving her a taste of heaven itself. She writhed and whimpered and tugged at his hair until a particularly diabolical flick of his tongue sent her soaring into paradise. Instead of trying to muffle her wail, he made it go on and on by thrusting two of his long, aristocratic fingers deep inside of her.

As he rose to his feet, Laura could only gaze up at him in wonder, limp and sated, yet still panting with desire. She surprised them both by being the first to reach for the buttons that had yet to be undone on his trousers. His tensile weight sprang free from its honey gold nest of curls, astonishing her anew.

“I know it was dark in my room last night, but you can’t mean? …” She shook her head, blinking up at him in disbelief. “Surely I couldn’t have … I didn’t…”

“You most certainly did. Quite ably, I might add.” He sucked in a jerky breath through gritted teeth as her fingers danced along his length. “But if you don’t believe
me, I suppose there’s only one way to prove it to you.”

Prove it he did, cupping her bottom in his hands and lifting her so that they could both watch every fulsome inch of him disappear inside of her. Laura gasped as he filled her to the brim, the lingering tenderness from last night making her exquisitely sensitive to his every motion. She could already feel her heart beginning to shudder in time with the primitive pulse that beat where their bodies were joined. Modesty demanded that she close her eyes, but she could not look away from his beautiful face, now taut with hunger and gilded by a sheen of sweat.

His powerful body was trembling with need, yet he held it in check, gazing deep into her eyes. “Who am I?”

“My husband,” she whispered helplessly, reaching up to stroke his chest.

He slid all the way out of her, then all the way back in, so deep she knew he would always be a part of her.

“Who am I, Laura? Who are you giving yourself to? Who’s taking you?” A fierce urgency was reflected in his face, as if everything he was and everything he would ever be hinged on her answer.

“Sterling,” she sobbed, calling him by his Christian name for the first time in their acquaintance. She turned her face to the side, tears spilling from her eyes. “Oh, Sterling …”

Her fingernails scored the satin counterpane as he began to stroke hard and deep, wild and tender, urging her toward a place where only he could take her. By the time she reached it, they were both half-mad with pleasure. As a pulsing tide of rapture swept over her, obliterating
everything in its path, Sterling stiffened and threw back his head with a roar, spilling his nectar deep into the chalice of her womb.

Sterling lay on his side with his head propped on one hand, watching his wife sleep and wondering how it was possible for a woman to look so innocent and yet so wanton at the same time. She sprawled on her stomach on top of the rumpled sheets, her cheek pressed to the pillow, her hands curled into loose fists on each side of her head. He had covered her with the counterpane to shield her from the chill, but the sleek satin had ridden down, baring the graceful curve of her back and the soft swell of one creamy buttock.

He could hardly blame her for succumbing to exhaustion. She’d had little enough sleep in the past two nights. He’d seen to that.

He shook his head, still marveling that she had been bold enough to seek him out. She might be a cunning little liar out of bed, but she was utterly devoid of artifice in it. And unlike so many of the more experienced women of his acquaintance, she made no secret of the fact that her passion was only for him.

Whoever the hell he was.

Sterling rolled off the bed and dragged on his trousers. He poured a generous splash of brandy into a glass, but not even its heat could completely sear the taste of her from his mouth.

From the first moment he had set foot in this house over twenty-one years ago, Sterling Harlow had known exactly who he was and exactly what was expected of him. Until Laura Fairleigh had come along with a passel
of lies and half-truths, shattering every illusion he’d ever held about himself. Now he felt even more of a stranger in his own skin than he had at Arden Manor as a man with no memory.

When he had first learned of Laura’s treachery, he had believed he could simply go back to being the man he had been before she had melted the icy wall of detachment around his heart. But that man would have never been fool enough to let her back into his arms. Or his bed.

Nor would he have forced her to stay by his side simply because he couldn’t bear to let her go. Perhaps Diana had been right. Perhaps it wasn’t expediency that had prompted his proposal but some twisted desire for revenge. But that didn’t explain the aching tenderness in his touch as he leaned over the bed to brush a stray lock of hair from Laura’s cheek.

Sterling wanted nothing more than to slide his hand beneath the counterpane and stroke her to purring delight once again. Instead, he gathered her into his arms, counterpane and all, and started for the door.

“Mmmm,” she murmured, looping her arms trustingly around his neck without even bothering to open her eyes. “Where are you taking me?”

“To bed,” he whispered, burying his lips in the lavender-scented softness of her hair.

Since Laura could apparently find no argument with that, she simply snuggled deeper into his arms, resting her cheek against his chest.

Laura awoke just as she had the previous morning— alone in her own bed without so much as a stitch of clothing.

She sat up, clutching the sheet to her breasts and wondering if she was losing her mind. Scrambling to her knees, she poked her head through the bed hangings. Although a few sunbeams had braved the forbidding grandeur of the mullioned windows, the duchess’s suite wasn’t much cozier than it had been during the rainstorm.

She sank back on her heels, doubting her own senses. Had her nocturnal encounter with her husband been one long, delectable dream? She closed her eyes and was immediately beset by an image of herself and Sterling kneeling in a nest of midnight blue satin in front of a gilded cheval glass. He had wrapped his arms around her from behind, urging her to watch the mirror, to see how very beautiful she was. He had gently cupped her breast while his other hand drifted down the creamy plane of her belly. Laura had watched his long, elegant fingers dip into her, mesmerized by the contrast between his questing strength and her yielding softness.

She wasn’t beautiful. They were beautiful together.

Then, when he had tenderly kissed her throat and entered her from behind …

Laura gasped, her eyes flying open. Her imagination had always been fruitful, but not
that
fruitful.

She peeped beneath the sheet. Aside from the pronounced absence of her nightdress, there were other, far more subtle, signs of Sterling’s possession—the delicious languor in her muscles, the rosy tenderness of her nipples, a faint whisker burn on the inside of her thigh.

Laura sighed as other images drifted through her mind, each more provocative than the last. After last night, no one could accuse the duke of Devonbrooke of
not being diligent in his duties. If she wasn’t already carrying his heir, it certainly wasn’t for lack of effort on his part. Or hers, she thought, feeling her cheeks heat as she recalled her own boldness.