A Season of Ruin (20 page)

A panicked moan tore from her throat. “I don't . . . I don't know what to do.”

He growled softly, and she felt the vibration of it against her breast. “Oh, love, you don't have to do a thing. Just let me touch you. Let me give you pleasure.”

He held her, murmuring to her all the while in that low, hypnotic voice, describing how he would touch her. She tensed for his hands, his mouth, so desperate for him she forgot the towering hedges and the darkness and the terror
and knew only Robyn, his voice both soothing and erotic, his body warm against hers.

Oh, it was so wicked, his hot tongue licking her nipple, rough and soft at once, and so wet against her flesh, his mouth sucking at her while his thumb continued to circle her other nipple lightly. She clasped his head, her fingers sinking into his hair to hold him tight against her.

Pleasure
. Oh, God, he gave her pleasure, pleasure such as she'd never felt before, his mouth and tongue relentless, wet and insistent against her, darting over her swollen flesh then suckling her until she thought she'd scream with the pleasure.

Her core throbbed, as if her body were poised on the edge of something. Her center drew tighter and tighter as if straining toward some culmination. She didn't know what, but she drew closer to it with his every touch, the crushed stones hard against her feet, the heart of the maze just around the next turn, mere steps away . . .

Her fingers clutched at Robyn's hair and she whimpered in need.

He looked up at her then, his face flushed with a dark triumph. Without warning, he dropped to his knees before her. He laid his head against her belly for a moment, his breath sawing in and out of his chest. One strong arm wrapped around her thighs as he sank lower. His other hand reached under her skirts and closed around her ankle.

“What do you need, Lily?” His hand inched up her skirts. “Can you tell me?”

“I—I don't know.” She panted as his warm hand moved up her calf and rested at the back of her knee.

“You
do
know. Tell me what you want. Ask me to touch you.” His voice was low and thick with suppressed need.

Her hands fell to his shoulders and she gripped them hard to keep from sinking to the floor beside him. “I want you to touch me—”

She stopped on a choked cry as Robyn's hands drifted
up the backs of her legs to the curve of her buttocks, then moved to the insides of her thighs to press gently. “Open for me, love.”

He meant for her to open her legs. Oh, God, could she do it? Could she trust him?

He brushed his thumbs against her, the faintest touch, barely teasing the curls between her thighs.

“
Oh
.” Her breath caught and her thighs parted.

Robyn nuzzled his cheek against her belly as he found the slit in her drawers. He probed there, separated her cleft with gentle fingers.

Lily dug her fingers hard into his shoulders as pleasure flooded through her.

“
Yes
. You want me right here. So wet for me, Lily.” He stroked a finger between her parted folds, just once, then stopped and looked up at her, waiting for something.

Lily pushed against the hand between her legs. Oh, she was shameless, but she'd do anything, say anything, to feel him move against her again. “Robyn,
please 
. . .”

His finger stroked again, once, twice, his eyes never leaving her face. “You want me to touch you here, don't you? Tell me.”

“
Yes
, right there . . .”

Lily cried out as his finger drifted lightly over the tiny nub of flesh between her legs, then circled for the briefest of moments before he stopped again. She arched her back, and her hips began to move, seeking that delicious friction. “I want you . . .
harder
. Faster.”

A harsh groan tore from his throat. His head fell forward and he opened his mouth against her belly. She felt his bite through the thin silk of her gown just as his fingers began to move again.

Lily's breath came in short, panting gasps as he circled her,
oh, so slowly still
—maddeningly slowly, but relentless now, harder, his clever fingers never leaving her wet, aching flesh and his mouth still working against her belly. He licked
and nipped and sucked at her as if he tasted something far more delicious in his mouth than a damp fold of her gown.

Her gasps turned to whimpers and then pleas as his fingers began to circle more quickly. “Oh, please, oh
please 
. . .”

His groan was muffled by a mouthful of silk. “Come for me, Lily.
Now
.”

The tight knot he'd drawn inside her body began to unravel. Lily's knees shook as wave after exquisite wave of pleasure swept her into a whirling vortex. Her body shuddered and convulsed in his arms, and he held her throughout the storm of sensation, one arm tight around her thighs. His fingers never ceased circling, but after a moment they grew gentler, slower.

Dear God.

She went limp in his arms. He lowered her to the floor and smoothed her skirts down over her legs. Lily laid her head on his chest and felt his heartbeat, strong under her ear, and an image drifted into her mind. Not a dream, and not a memory, but a moment that had never happened. A young child in a puzzle maze, lost but unafraid, the sun flashing on her fair hair, smiling as she wanders from one turn to the next, until at last the heart of the maze unfolds before her.

Robyn gazed down at her, his hand brushing the hair away from her forehead. He was whispering to her, she realized then, but she didn't try and make sense of his words. She let his voice flow over her, warm and low, and stared into dark eyes still hot with desire.

He hadn't . . . there was more, wasn't there? He hadn't taken his own pleasure.

Lily shifted closer to him and felt his heated length jerk against her. Oh, there was more. So much more.

She reached for him, laid her hand on his thigh. The muscle twitched under her touch and a groan tore from his chest.

Desperate to give him the same pleasure he'd given her,
she brought his ear close to her lips with a touch against his cheek and whispered, “Show me how to touch you.”

Robyn hesitated, then shook his head. He caught the hand resting on his thigh and brought it to his lips. “No.”

Disappointment pierced her. Didn't he want her to touch him? “But I want to . . .”

His breath snagged in his chest and he seemed to struggle with himself for a moment, but then he shook his head again. “No, Lily.”

“But why?”

Robyn shifted away from her. Only a sliver of space opened between their bodies, but to Lily it felt like a chasm.

“Atherton will propose to you tomorrow,” Robyn murmured. “I won't have you answer him with the memory of my body moving inside yours. For your sake, I also won't take what belongs to him. Tonight is about you, Lily. It's just for you.”

Just for her.
Lily felt a sob rise in her throat, but before it could break free, Robyn rose to his feet and held his hand down to her. She stared at him for a moment, then accepted his hand and rose up beside him.

He pressed his lips against her forehead. “Go to bed, before I change my mind.”

He turned from her, walked to the window at the other end of the room, and spread his arms wide against the sill, his dark head bowed. He didn't move as Lily backed toward the door, then slipped into the hallway. The patter of her slippers echoed dully against the carpeted floor as she fled to her bedchamber.

Breakfast the next morning was a quiet affair. Lily was rather late to the table, for she'd spent half the morning pacing from her bed to her dressing table, wondering how she could possibly face Robyn after the way he'd . . . and she'd . . . and they'd . . .

Every time she recalled the way she'd trembled in his arms and pleaded with him to touch her, her entire body exploded in heat and set her face aflame with embarrassment and longing. Then back across her room she'd go, hoping to cool her cheeks and put a halt to her lurid imagination.

For imagine she did—her mind worked feverishly to conjure an answer for every question left unanswered after Robyn had sent her back to her room the night before.

She needn't have worried about meeting him at the breakfast table. He didn't appear at all that morning. Lily was ready to jump from her skin every time she heard a noise in the hallway outside the breakfast room until at last
Ellie informed her, far too casually, that Robyn had left the house earlier that morning.

Ellie had fallen into a rather morose silence after that announcement, though Lily noticed her friend's sharp eyes on her more than once.

Charlotte wasn't in a much better state than Eleanor. She seemed to be more agitated even than Lily. “Oh, Lily, I meant to ask you if Lord Atherton . . .” she began, but lapsed into silence without finishing her sentence.

Lily was in no mood to endure one of Charlotte's interrogations, but she tried to arrange her face into an encouraging attitude. “Yes?”

Charlotte tried again, but whatever it was she wanted to say appeared to be lodged in her throat. “I wanted to say that I don't think you should . . .”

Lily tried to hide her impatience when Charlotte trailed off again. “If you think what it is, Charlotte, I'll be in my bedchamber writing letters.”

She laid her napkin down on her untouched plate and made her way to her bedchamber. She did have letters to write, to each of her sisters, so she settled onto a settee and picked up Iris's latest missive, which had arrived nearly a week ago.

Iris wasn't a patient correspondent, and Lily imagined her sister was nearly wild for a response by this point, but she'd avoided this task for days for the simple reason that she had no idea what to say.

Iris's letter was filled with questions about the London entertainments, eager inquiries about ladies' fashions, and repeated demands that Lily describe, in breathless detail, each of her encounters with her London beaux. Her sister seemed to be under the impression there were scores of them. She'd have been shocked to find there were only two.

Two beaux, but only one who mattered, and that one not really a beau at all.

What was Lily to say to her sister?

Dearest Iris,

The entertainments are sufficient to entertain, the ladies' fashions are sufficient to cover the ladies (with a few notable and shocking exceptions), and just last night the rogue I've fallen madly in love with, the wickedest gentleman in London, used his talented mouth and fingers to bring me to screaming, shaking pleasure.

She set Iris's letter aside. No. It wouldn't do, would it?

There was a knock on the door. Charlotte, most likely, ready to begin her interrogation. Lily braced herself for the inevitable and went to admit her friend.

But it wasn't Charlotte. Instead, Delia stood on the threshold.

She ran a shrewd eye over Lily's face. “Well, for a young lady who's had her every wish granted, you look remarkably sober.”

“Delia! My goodness. What are you doing here so early? You shouldn't have come. You'll tire yourself and worry Alec.”

Delia entered the room and peeled her gloves off, one finger at a time. “I'm not the only one who rose early this morning. Lord Atherton is in Alec's study at this very moment, asking for your hand. I suppose you already know that, however.”

Lily closed the door behind Delia. “Will Alec refuse him?”

She tried and failed to hide her hopeful tone.

Perhaps Alec would refuse, and then . . .

Delia took a seat on the sofa, laid her gloves carefully in her lap, and folded her hands on top of them. “Of course not. Why would he? He asked me if you'd settled on Atherton and I told him I believed you had, for you did say so, Lily. Have you changed your mind?”

Lily thought she detected a hopeful note in Delia's voice, as well.

She rose and began to pace her room again, then paused in front of the mirror to study her reflection. One of her curls had escaped its pins. She tugged at the errant lock to wrestle it back into submission, but her hands faltered in mid-motion before she could subdue it. She stared at her reflection for a moment, then loosed her grip on the curl and let it spring back into place outside its pin.

She turned back to Delia. “I do wonder why you keep asking me that question, Delia.”

Delia shifted onto her side on the settee. “I don't like him.”

Lily gave a forlorn little laugh. “I think pregnancy has made you far too blunt.”

Delia shrugged. “Perhaps it has. I'm too exhausted to meander about the point. In any case, it hardly matters what I think. Only your opinion matters, but as I said before, you look quite somber for a young lady who's finally caught her desired gentleman's eye, so I thought perhaps you'd changed your mind.”

“I can't change my mind, even if I wished it. I've encouraged his attentions. He has every right to expect me to accept his proposals. It wouldn't be proper to refuse him now.”

“Proper?” Delia's gave an incredulous laugh. “You'd marry a man because it's not
proper
to refuse him? My goodness, Lily, you'll pay a pretty price for that propriety. A marriage devoid of any kind of tender feeling will be a cold one, indeed.”

“He's not devoid of tender feeling entirely, Delia,” Lily began, though even to her own ears her protest sounded halfhearted.

“My dear, I refer to
your
feelings for
him
.”

Lily supposed she could deny it, but there didn't seem to be much point. Delia already saw the truth, just as she always did.

“I know you said you wish for a quiet, peaceful life,”
Delia went on, “but be careful you don't find yourself with far more quiet and peace than you ever wanted.”

Lily took a seat on the chair across from the settee. “Lady Chase—that is, our grandmother wants the match.”

Delia shrugged. “Yes, I expect she does. She and Lady Atherton have been friends for ages.”

“Her patronage means a great deal to Iris, Violet, and Hyacinth.”

“It means a great deal to you, as well, as I'm sure you noticed at Lady Chase's fete the other night. That was the first time Lord Atherton ever danced with you, wasn't it?”

“Yes,” Lily admitted, “but that's not the point. To refuse Lord Atherton at this stage might anger Lady Chase, and if she becomes angry . . .”

“I beg your pardon, but it is very much worth noting that Lord Atherton hadn't a kind word for you before Lady Chase acknowledged you. As for our sisters, well, it would be unfortunate if our grandmother withdrew her patronage, but you can hardly plan your future based on every whim of Lady Chase's, can you? Our mother certainly didn't.”

Lily's throat closed at the mention of their mother, but Delia didn't flinch. She continued to regard Lily with steady, serious blue eyes.

Lily's voice came out in a whisper. “It will cause another scandal . . .”

To her surprise, Delia smiled. “Oh, my yes. Well, what would the
ton
do for entertainment if the Somerset family ceased to cause scandals? Think how dull London would be then.”

Lily smiled back at her sister despite herself. “They'd all have to retire to the country.”

“Yes, well, I do hope someone will warn the country first.”

“Indeed.”

They gazed at each other for a moment, then both of them broke into helpless giggles.

Delia kicked off her slippers and reclined on the settee. “Speaking of Lady Chase's fete, how does Robyn get on?”

Lily felt her face grow hot at mention of Robyn, then hotter still when Delia noticed and raised an enquiring eyebrow. “Robyn? I—what do you mean? He gets on just fine. I think. That is, how would I know how he gets on?”

Delia's eyebrow rose another notch at Lily's fumbling reply. “I thought he seemed a bit out of sorts the other night. I don't suppose you have any notion what's troubling him?”

“No,” Lily said too quickly.

Delia tapped her finger against her chin. “Hmmm. He seems . . . angry. No, no, that's not it. He seems melancholy.”

Melancholy.
The word caused Lily a pang, but a lie rose to her lips nonetheless. “He seems just the same as ever to me.”

Delia looked at her for a moment, but Lily continued to avoid her sister's eyes. Finally Delia sank back against the settee with a disappointed sigh. She stayed for another hour to help Lily finish a letter to Iris, but she didn't bring up either Lord Atherton or Robyn again.

Lily lingered in her bedchamber after Delia took her leave, her stomach a mass of writhing nerves. Lord Atherton would arrive soon. Indeed, he could even now be on his way to Mayfair, with every expectation of an acceptance of his proposal.

She should be doing something to prepare. Rehearsing a proper acknowledgment of the honor he did her, practicing her words of acceptance, perhaps, or at the very least perfecting her toilette? Did she really want to accept Lord Atherton with a defiant curl bouncing on top of her head, scorning its proper place under its pins?

She wandered over to sit before the looking glass and tried to smooth the rebellious curl back in place.

It's all right if you're afraid, love. I'll take care of you.

Lily stared at her reflection in the glass. The night of the Chatsworths' ball she'd sat in this very chair as Betsy
arranged her hair, cursing Robyn for the trick he'd played her at Almack's. Cursing his selfishness.

Yet that night it was Robyn who'd come after her when she fled from Lady Chase, and Robyn who'd taken her into the study and draped a blanket over her shoulders. Robyn had dried her tears and held her in his arms and kissed her so tenderly, and then sent her off to her room, untouched. Well, mostly untouched.

He
had
taken care of her, just as he said he would. Not just the night of the ball, but last night, too, when he'd sent her away from him a second time, even as his body had been shaking with his desire for her.

Tonight is about you, Lily—it's just for you.

A sob rose in her throat. Was he melancholy, as Delia said? She couldn't bear it if he was. Just the possibility caused her heart to spasm with pain.

She closed her eyes and thought of the pleasure he'd given her last night—such pleasure she'd trembled in his arms, begged him to touch her, then cried out for him in the final moments, when it became so intense her entire body shuddered with it.

Oh, love, you don't have to do a thing . . . just let me give you pleasure.

He'd gloried in her pleasure, and he'd taken nothing for himself.

Before Robyn, she'd never known such pleasure existed, but that wasn't even the most precious of the gifts he'd given her.

She'd denied her own voice for so long, she'd forgotten she could still speak. Since her parents' deaths she'd been locked inside herself, trapped in the darkest corner of the maze, certain that if she only stayed quiet, if she only behaved, nothing awful could ever touch her again.

She'd become so fearful, she'd nearly lost the ability to speak altogether; had forgotten the power of words.

Tell me what you want. Ask me to touch you.

With every stroke of his hand and every touch of his mouth against her skin, Robyn had made her ask for what she wanted, and oh, how wonderful it had been, to be in his arms, and to tell him how good he made her feel. To tell him how desperately she wanted his hands on her.

To speak the truth to him. To speak the truth to
herself
.

A soft knock sounded on the door. Lily opened her eyes. “Yes?”

Lady Catherine entered the room. “Lily? Lord Atherton is downstairs. He's asked for a private word with you.”

Lily took one last look in the glass, then rose from the bench.

“My dear Lily.” Lady Catherine took both of Lily's hands in hers.

Lily looked into her face, the face of the woman who'd become a second mother to her. Lady Catherine's eyes were shadowed with doubt, and her smooth skin was marred by worry lines.

“Before you go downstairs, dear, I want to say something to you.”

Lily nodded. She didn't trust herself to speak.

Lady Catherine's fingers tightened. “Nothing has yet been done that can't be undone. Do you understand?”

Lily squeezed the fingers that held hers and nodded again.