A Matter of Sin (9 page)

Chapter Nine

“Allow yourself to be opened, like a flower toward the sun.”
—The Ladies Book of Pleasures

Teatime had always been one of Isabel’s favorite parts of the day. She liked sitting down with a group of friends or fellow partygoers and engaging in small talk. She had managed to make a great number of good friends over tea, including her two best ones, and heard the most interesting facts about strangers.

Today, however, the gathering was nothing short of torture, for Lady Lyndham had suggested the ladies take their refreshment in the parlor off the ballroom.

The very parlor where Isabel had shared her tryst with Seth.

The room seemed different in daylight. Sunshine streamed through the big windows Isabel, in her passion, hadn’t even noticed the night before. Heat filled her cheeks and she couldn’t help but let her gaze move to the settee across from her.

That
was where she and Seth had indulged in sinful pleasures. Where he had touched her so intimately and made her ache and moan with release.

Today one of the ladies and her charge sat on the cushions, completely oblivious to the shocking acts that had been performed there so recently.

She dragged in a ragged breath and turned her face. This had to stop. She had been reliving those imprudent moments since she left this chamber last night. She had even woken in her bed with her own hand between her legs, aware she was
dreaming
of Seth’s touch.

Grace leaned closer. “Are you all right, my dear? You are very pale.”

Isabel shook off her thoughts, grateful for the interruption that brought her back to reality. She glanced at her friend. She hadn’t told Grace what had happened. She wasn’t certain she ever would, for she was certain her friend would have strong opinions on the matter.

She forced a smile. “Oh, I’m fine, thank you. But I think I shall go browse some of those delectable cakes on the sideboard.”

Without waiting for her friend’s response, Isabel got up and moved across the room. She stared at the pretty little cakes with unseeing eyes, praying some kind of propriety and focus would return to her.

“Good afternoon, Lady Avenbury.”

Isabel turned to see who had approached her, and her heart sank. Standing just a step away was Lady Lyndham, a plate in her hand and a wide, generous smile on her face.

“Lady Lyndham,” she forced past dry lips. “What wonderful food you have provided for us today.”

The other woman smiled. “We have the best cook in the country, I would dare anyone to deny it. And I asked her to prepare all my favorite tea items since I only rarely share my refreshment in a group like this.”

Isabel sighed. This, at least, was a benign topic. “Do you? Is there a reason?”

The other lady nodded. “I more often take my tea in my private chamber, as a way to allow my family to have a moment with me. But with Seth out with the men on their ride this afternoon and my daughters not in attendance—one is out of the country with her husband and the other has retired to spend her third confinement in the countryside—I thought I would break tradition.”

“That is a lovely tradition to have, my lady,” Isabel said.

The other woman smiled. “I suppose once Seth marries, it will be one I no longer indulge in.”

There was a sudden sadness to Lady Lyndham’s face that Isabel tended to understand.

“You mean because he will be settled and no longer require your counsel?” she asked.

Lady Lyndham nodded.

“I think I understand your feeling, my lady,” Isabel said. “Marjorie and Serena weren’t my children, but I raised them for many years. Although I wish for their happiness, the idea of both of them being grown and on their own does sometimes bring a sting of sadness.”

The other woman looked at her in surprise. “You know, my dear, you are still so young, it is odd for me to think that you might understand my feelings, but you have summed them up perfectly. But we mustn’t be melancholy, after all there will be nieces and nephews soon for you and more grandchildren for me once I see Seth married.”

Isabel swallowed, once again picturing Seth as a happily married man with children playing at his feet.

Some other woman’s children.

“And perhaps one day
you
will marry again,” Lady Lyndham continued as she laid a gentle hand on Isabel’s.

Isabel looked at the other woman. As kind as she was being, there was no question that she saw Isabel as more of a peer than a potential mate for her son. This conversation, though not by any design by her hostess, was a painful reminder of how far removed Isabel was now from the frivolity of courtship and the thrill of not knowing what the future would bring.

She smiled as she withdrew her hand from the other woman’s. “Oh, I doubt I shall marry again.”

“Don’t say that,” Lady Lyndham said with a frown. “You lost your husband, but I know from personal experience that time, unfortunately, marches on. I would hope someone so young as you are will not truly close the door to the idea of companionship.”

Isabel smiled at the other woman’s passion on the subject. She supposed Lady Lyndham
did
know a great deal about grief. She had lost a husband and a son in relatively close order. Now she put all her hopes in Seth.

“I am very sorry for the loss of your husband and your son, my lady,” Isabel said softly.

Lady Lyndham nodded, but there was a sudden sparkle of unshed tears in her eyes.

“Thank you. It was a tremendous heartbreak for us all, but Seth has carried on admirably. He has a great deal to bear on his shoulders, but I hope that a bride will help him with some of it.”

Isabel swallowed. “Indeed.”

“Now I should go say hello to a few of my guests. I see Lady Saunders and Mrs. Robertson have sat next to each other and everyone knows they will feud if they are not managed properly. Excuse me.”

Isabel laughed as Lady Lyndham smiled and moved toward the circle of women a few steps away, but when she was gone, Isabel’s smile fell.

The other woman’s words about the burden Seth had to bear had struck home for her in ways she hadn’t expected. This
thing
between them only complicated both of their duties. And she wouldn’t want to cause him pain or grief because of their strange attraction.

Last night when she had returned to the ball, she had fully intended not to ever speak to Seth of what they had done. But now she realized that wasn’t the proper way to handle this delicate matter. They would have to talk, they would have to face what they had done.

And they would have to agree never to let it happen again.

Seth had been back from his ride for only half an hour when a footman knocked on his office door.

“What is it, Rogers?” he asked without looking up as the young man stepped into the entryway.

“A note, my lord, from one of your guests,” he said as he approached Seth’s desk with his hand extended.

Seth sighed as he took the neatly folded sheet of paper. As the servant exited the room, he looked at it with dread. A note from a guest at these kinds of gatherings couldn’t be a good omen. They were almost always complaints or demands, although he had no idea why someone wouldn’t send such a thing to his mother or to the butler for one of them to smooth over.

Reluctantly, he unfolded the sheet and what he saw there made him flop back in his chair. This was no complaint. This was a note from Isabel, asking that he meet her in the orangery at his earliest convenience.

He was on his feet instantly. Since the previous night, when he had brought Isabel to completion in the parlor, he had been unable to purge the image of her from his mind. She had kept herself separate from him since, though, excusing herself from the ball, then staying in her chambers until after the gentlemen had left that morning.

He had to admit, he ached to see her, to hear what she had to say after their wicked encounter.

With a spring in his step, Seth made his way from his office and through the winding halls toward the orangery at the back of the estate house.

He opened the door and couldn’t help but stop. This was one of his favorite places. The room was a long corridor, almost like a hallway, but for the fact that the “walls” were instead thousands of tiny windows that allowed the sun to naturally warm the room no matter the season.

There were pillars supporting the arched ceiling, itself an intricate tapestry of metal and glass. The room should have felt exposed, but over the many years of careful tending, plants had grown up over along the walls, vines curled around the metal supports, making the room a private, steamy jungle rather than a cold display of flowers or fruit trees.

Seth sighed with pleasure and then looked around for the woman who had called him here. He found Isabel standing midway down the corridor, leaning over to examine one of the exotic flowering plants that grew there.

She fit in this place. Her yellow gown reminded him of a buttercup, her ruddy hair a fiery rose.

“Isabel?” he called out as he strode down the three steps into the main room.

She straightened and turned to him with a start that was not pretended. “I’m sorry, you startled me.”

He stopped a foot from her and looked at her in surprise. “Did you not wish to meet me here?” he asked as he withdrew her note and held it out to her. “This
was
your summons, wasn’t it?”

She glanced at the note with a pretty blush and a brief nod. “Yes,” she admitted breathlessly. “But I do hope you will destroy that upon the completion of our meeting. I wouldn’t want someone to find it.”

Seth frowned. Her skittishness didn’t bode well.

“I am happy you sent for me, at any rate,” he said as he put the letter back in his pocket. “Though I do wonder if you chose such a wild place for a reason.”

He moved closer and watched as that fetching pink blush she sometimes exhibited crept up her neck and tinged her cheeks. The same had happened last night when she reached the heights of her release.

“Was this a call for a tryst, my lady?” he asked softly, picturing the pleasure of laying her down across the tropical plants and baring her body in the warm air.

Isabel shivered as if she was picturing the same thing, but then her jaw set. “N-no,” she stammered. “Seth, what happened last night—”

He moved closer. “Was quite pleasurable,” he whispered as an end to the sentence she had begun.

She looked at him evenly. There was desire in her eyes, dilating the pupils, making the brown dark and rich. But there was also worry. Fear.

“Would you deny it?” he asked.

Isabel swallowed. “No. What happened was most…satisfying, I admit. But despite that, what we did was…
wrong
. We both know that to be true based on our conversation just a few hours before it happened.”

Seth was quiet, mostly because he had no retort to her statement.

She turned slightly, putting her in profile as shook her head. “This situation is entirely out of hand. Perhaps I should leave.”

Seth leaned in. “It
was
you who called me here, my lady.”

She looked at him evenly. “I don’t mean to leave the orangery, Seth. I mean to leave the estate. Immediately.”

Chapter Ten

“Desire, like a fire, can very quickly explode.”
—The Ladies Book of Pleasures

“Leave the estate?” Seth stared at Isabel in disbelief, the shock of the idea working through him in one highly unpleasant burst. “You would go?”

“After last night, I think I
must
,” she said with a shake of her head.

He stared. “But—”

She interrupted him. “We did something so entirely inappropriate in a place where we easily could have been caught. It would have destroyed us both.”

“Isabel,” he whispered.

Her expression softened. “You know I’m not wrong. I could generate an excuse, perhaps something about Marjorie. As long as I didn’t imply it was serious, there would be no scene created and Serena wouldn’t even be forced to depart. I’m sure Grace would be willing to serve as her chaperone for the remainder of the party.”

She seemed to be talking to herself now, but Seth bolted forward.
“No!”

With a jump at his sharp tone, Isabel looked at him. “Seth, it isn’t only what we did, it is that—that I’m not certain I can stop myself from allowing it again if we were put in a similar situation. My self-control is sadly frayed and I fear it will not hold much longer.”

Seth blinked at her blunt and unexpected admission. It sunk into his bones, his soul.

“Going may be the only way to regain control over…
this
,” she whispered as she motioned between them.

“Us.” He stared at her.

She nodded, but then blushed even deeper than before. “I-I’m sorry for the trouble I’ve caused.”

She said nothing else, but turned away and started for the door that led back to the main house. Seth stared at her. He could allow her to be reasonable and prudent and depart as she felt she must.

And yet he didn’t feel reasonable or prudent. He felt wild and raw and alive like he hadn’t since his brother’s death. And he didn’t want to lose that—or her. Not yet.

He was after her after in a heartbeat. As she reached for the door, he pressed a palm against it, holding it shut and keeping her where she stood at the top of the short staircase.

He leaned over her, feeling the warmth her body generated ease all the way to his bones. He wanted to take that warmth. To revel in it. To make it burn even hotter.

“Don’t go, Isabel,” he whispered.

She was trembling now, her face turned from his as if she was afraid to look at him.

“Seth,” she whispered, her tone broken and filled with need and pleading.

“Isabel,” he whispered back.

She finally turned her face just enough to look at him from the corner of her eye. “Why don’t you let me go? It’s best for us both.”

He leaned in closer, almost so his lips touched her cheek. “This isn’t
best
for either of us. It’s what we think is right, and that is entirely different. But there are needs that take precedence over what is ‘right’, Isabel. And I need
you
. Now.”

She gasped as she turned toward him and he took the opportunity of her parted lips to press his mouth to hers. He delved inside and tasted her. There had been hesitation when he did this the night before. But now there was none.

Isabel turned into his body, her slender arms coming around his neck as she arched into him, her body flattening against his in ways that drove him mad. He groaned at the bursts of pleasure and need that exploded within him.

He had wanted women before, pursued them until they were in his bed. But he’d never felt a desire as keen as this. He didn’t just want to make love to Isabel, he wanted to bring her intense pleasure. He wanted to make her forget anyone else who had ever touched her, and he wanted to ruin her for any other man who would come after him.

He wanted to possess her. And she was correct that he was wrong to feel this way when they could have no future, but at the moment, he didn’t care. He maneuvered gently and put her back to the door from which she had attempted her escape. His kiss deepened and her arms wound tighter around his neck as she lifted up against him with a quickening rhythm.

“Isabel,” he groaned against her throat as his mouth sucked at the sensitive flesh there.

Her knees buckled, but Seth caught her, holding her up with one arm even when her body would give out. She clung to him, murmuring empty, meaningless words of pleasure and desire. But none of those words was
no
.

Not when his fingers glided down the apex of her body and then smoothed over the full globe of her breast. Her nipple hardened beneath his thumb as she squirmed against him with a ragged moan. The sound threatened to make him come undone before he went any further.

Finally his fingers left her breast and slid lower. Trapped against the door as she was, they had little space between them, but Seth found a path, lifted her dress, and just as he covered her mouth with his, his hand glided through the opening in her drawers and found the slick slit of her sex.

“Please!” Isabel gasped as her entire body shook with the intimate touch.

“As you wish,” he whispered and then he shoved her gown all the way up, exposing her right in the open daylight in the orangery.

He waited for her to deny him, but she didn’t. Her silence was her approval and he took it greedily, soaking his fingers in her wet heat. Isabel sucked in a breath as he smoothed his rough fingers against her entrance. He was ready to repeat what he had done last night, aching to take her to the edge when she shocked him.

She slid her fingertips down his chest, lower, lower until she finally brushed the hard evidence of his arousal. When her hand closed around him, he jolted, electric pleasure shooting through every nerve in his body as he thrust his hips out of pure instinct.

“Careful,” Seth gasped. “Too much of that and I’ll lose control.”

“Then we’ll finally be on equal ground,” Isabel murmured, lifting her eyes to him.

They stared at each other for a long, charged moment. The gentleman in Seth urged him to stop this insanity, but he silenced that fading voice. He wanted this. He wanted her. He wanted more.

Without breaking the gaze between them, he withdrew from her body. His fingers tangled with hers and then he unbuttoned the fly of his trousers. Her breath caught as the heat of his erection popped from the opening they had created together.

With a groan, she took him in hand and stroked him from base to tip. He cursed beneath his breath. He couldn’t stop this now. He caught her hips and lifted her. She wrapped her arms around him with a surprised yelp that turned to a cry of pleasure when he maneuvered her for access. His cock stroked along the heat of her sex and he made a sound in a voice he hardly even recognized as his own. With a thrust of his hips, he entered her.

She locked her legs around him, pulling him inside even deeper. A moment passed between them, Seth’s eyes still holding hers firm, and then he slowly rotated his hips.

Immediately, he felt the explosion of release from her hot and ready body. She turned her face into his shoulder as the orgasm rushed through her. But unlike the night before, Seth didn’t stop because she had reached completion. If anything, her muted cries and clenching sex drove him.

He slammed into her now, his thrusts erratic and wild as he took and took. Her release extended as he claimed her, the powerful pleasure building ever higher, drawing ever longer until she was weak against him. She was so hot and tight around him, and he would have sacrificed anything to never have this feeling, this moment, end.

But finally Seth let out a harsh groan and set her down gently before he withdrew and spent away from her, his breath short, his body shaking.

He had done this, he had taken her despite their positions, despite their duties to other goals and people. And now everything had changed.

For a moment, they both stood as they were, Seth half turned, her leaning against the door, hoping she wouldn’t have to test the strength of her legs too quickly because she was shaking like a leaf.

After what seemed like an eternity, he straightened up and withdrew a handkerchief from his pocket. He extended it to her and she blushed as she took it and quickly tidied herself. She dropped her skirt over her wrinkled underthings. He took the cloth back and used it to wipe away the evidence of his own release before he looked at her.

“Isabel,” he said softly.

The sound of her name coming from his lips brought Isabel from her dazed fog of utter contentment. With a gasp, she looked around and truly saw, once again, what she had so imprudently done.

They were in a public room, their only protection from intrusion the combined weight of their bodies against the door behind her. And she had given herself to a man who was hardly more than a stranger.

“Oh no,” she whispered. “Seth, I
cannot
have an affair.
We
cannot have an affair.”

He looked at her for a long moment, and then he stepped up to her again. His body heat was now merged with the musky smell of their encounter and Isabel fought a strange and powerful urge to spread herself wide and beg for his touch again.

He leaned down and suddenly his mouth was on hers. Only this kiss was filled with subdued passion and satisfied pleasure. It was brief, for he stepped away, leaving her aching for more.

“My dear lady,” he said on a sensual chuckle. “I believe we may already
be
engaged in an affair. Making wild, passionate love against a door in a greenhouse qualifies by every definition I’ve ever heard.”

Isabel shivered, her recently slaked needs still crying for her to get more pleasure, to forget herself again. She found her mind to be stronger.

“How can you jest in this moment?” she asked as she pushed past him and walked down the steps into the main area of the orangery. When he wasn’t right against her, she was able to think clearly.

He followed her. “Isabel, you keep telling me we can’t, we shouldn’t do this but why?”

“You know why!” she said, turning on him with exasperation. “We have talked about it at length. You need a bride of a certain age and type. I must protect my sister—”

He tilted his head, and his expression said she was being silly even though she knew she wasn’t. “But an affair between us does not preclude those things.”

Isabel folded her arms. In the heated aftermath of such an unexpected and highly pleasurable encounter, he was only searching for permission…but she couldn’t deny that the idea that they could do this again was bewitching. Especially since her body still ached for his touch, only this time unrushed and unencumbered by clothing and tension.

“How?” she finally whispered with a heated blush.

He smiled, triumphant. “When you fantasized about taking a lover, did you think of marriage? Or even a long-term future with the man you would choose to slake your desires?”

Isabel shifted, unaccustomed to discussing her sexual needs with a man. But finally she shook her head.

“No,” she admitted quietly. “But nor did I picture being the other woman to someone my lover was courting or even to whom he was married.”

Seth moved forward swiftly. “I would never ask you to be. I would never lower you to such a status, nor betray whichever woman I ultimately chose to be my wife.”

Isabel hesitated. “In this scenario you propose, my lover is obviously you.”

“I would hope so.” His wicked smile flashed briefly. “Because I certainly want more. I am not even half satisfied yet.”

Isabel swallowed. Damn him for being so irresistible. For making her try to find ways to make this situation acceptable when she knew in her heart that it wasn’t, no matter how many excuses she made.

“Then what would you want from me?” she whispered.

He nodded. “I have not settled on any woman yet in my search for a bride. So how could giving ourselves pleasure, surrendering to this uncommon attraction we have, hurt my chances at finding one? Unless you would ask me not to search for a wife while carrying on an affair with you.”

She blinked. She wished she could demand he cut off his quest, but that wouldn’t be fair.

“I wouldn’t,” she said slowly. “I would only ask that once you found a woman you seriously intended to court, that we end our affair.”

He nodded. “Of course.”

She shook her head. How was she being taken in by this? She turned away.

“No, even if what you say is true and it wouldn’t harm your desire for a bride, my sister—”

“We would be discreet,” he interrupted as he caught her hands. She trembled as he lifted them to his chest, forcing her a few steps closer to him.

She swallowed as she whispered, “We were anything but discreet this afternoon.”

He frowned. “I realize that and I apologize for my lack of restraint. I was swept away, but if you agree to this affair with me, I promise I’ll find a way to control myself from now on. As difficult as that may be, I’ll adhere to the guidelines we put on our tryst.”

Isabel shut her eyes. Seth was making this too easy. He was saying all the right things and making her tangled mind believe they could somehow take pleasure without consequences.

He stroked his fingers over hers lightly. “Isabel, I want you, and I
know
you want me.”

She let out her breath on a sob as she nodded. “Yes. I won’t try to deny it when it is made so obvious by my reckless behavior.”

He brushed her cheek with the back of his hand, smoothing a few stray hairs away with such gentleness that she stared in him in wonder.

“I know a little about your past,” he whispered. “Enough to believe that you have spent a great deal of your life giving to others, tending to their needs even at the sacrifice of your own. Why don’t you, for a short time, allow me to give you something only for yourself?”

Isabel shivered. Seth had no idea how his words hit home in her lonely heart. Shaking, she met his eyes again.

“Seth, if we do this, no one must ever know.
No one
.”

He leaned down and his lips took hers again, only this time it was a gentle, reassuring touch. When he broke from her, he nodded.