Alex's Angel (25 page)

“You sound convinced,” Peter said at length.

“I am,” Alex said firmly.

Peter chuckled softly and rolled his tongue in his cheek, studying them both for long moments. “Well, you’ve always been an idealist. I suppose there’s no curing you now.” He stood. “I know when I am not wanted.” He caught Emily’s eye and winked. “I’ll be getting back in there now. Alex, James is livid. I’d hate to be you on the morrow.”

“I don’t know what James expects from me. I cannot work a miracle.”

“None of us has your special knowledge of the situation in Algeria. You take a sympathetic interest that supersedes our monetary interests in it. The argument needs that kind of passion.” Peter regarded his cousin with a fond look in his eyes.

But Alex’s expression grew drawn, his skin tone almost grey—or was that her imagination?

Her heart began to beat very fast.

No—she didn’t want to know. She really didn’t.

But after Peter left, she couldn’t keep herself from asking. “Do you really have special knowledge of Algeria? A special sympathy?”

A slight smile curved his sensual lips. She didn’t believe that smile for a moment.

“Alex?”

He bent and dropped a kiss on her forehead. “You’d best find your bed, sweetheart. It’s late and tonight has been a strain. I know you must be tired. And I have to go back to the dining room. There will be supper, the wine, the fruit, nuts. All the toasting. Maybe if we get them drunk enough, they’ll listen harder.”

He said all this as if it was a perfectly logical reason not to answer her. His tone and his expression didn’t invite further enquiry, and he quickly moved away from her and walked to the door.

She watched him leave the study and realised that although they’d shared so many physical intimacies, she knew nothing of him.

But what did it matter? If he wanted to keep his secrets, that was surely his right. He had a right to his own liberty in that area as she did. On a small sigh, she left the study and went to her chamber. She stripped off, donned her nightgown and climbed into bed.

She felt small and ridiculous in its large, downy plushness and isolated within the heavy bed curtains. She couldn’t stop herself from wondering what Alex had experienced in Algeria. Had he…

No, it was simply too terrible to imagine.

She sat up, hugging herself. Nightmarish images supplied by her imagination continued to flash across her awareness. Sympathy pressed heavy on her chest like grief, as if she’d just learnt of some great loss. As if his previous pain were a part of her own emotional history. She wanted to embrace him and shelter him against all the horror he had known. No matter what it had been.

Shelter him?

As if he were some innocent boy?

Good heavens, what was wrong with her? This man had proven himself no better than Mr Sawyer. Alex sought the use of her art to further his own political cause just the same as Mr Sawyer had wanted to suppress it for the very same reasons.

But Alex was also her friend. Her lover. The man who showed her such incredible pleasures and shared his body so freely, even allowing her to witness his most intimate acts of self-solace.

Distrust, lust and sympathy wound themselves around her heart, squeezing it until she couldn’t take a comfortable breath. Suddenly she wanted nothing more than a deep drink of the rich claret she knew the sideboard was well-stocked with. However, it did not soothe her. The more she drank, the more her thoughts drifted to lust.

And her body followed.

* * * *

Alex sat in his bedchamber wide awake, refusing to allow himself to drink to ease his conscience. In the study, he had managed to keep his battle with temptation at a draw. But then she had probed too deeply, effortlessly inserting herself under his skin.

Her gentle compassion had been too much to take. He’d been overcome by an urge to spill his whole history to her. To share the horrors he’d known. To burden her innocent mind with tales of things she couldn’t possibly imagine.

And that was something he just couldn’t allow. He could never tell another soul.

However, the pull of her emotional appeal had been so strong, he’d found himself at a loss to fight it. So he had seized upon the only thing that could save him. He’d turned her attention to lust.

She had responded beautifully. Perfectly. Too perfectly. She might be the only woman who could hold his attention. The thought rocked him to his foundations. He probably loved her.

All right, he was far too self-cognisant to lie to himself. He did love her. Really loved her.

What the devil did that prove? It didn’t make him worthy of her. It didn’t mean he wouldn’t hurt her. Peter had loved his wife. Deeply. He’d still kept himself immersed neck-deep in petticoats and had concentrated so hard on his legal and political career that he’d managed to be absent during all her pregnancies and her illnesses and had missed being home at her sudden death.

Nicolo had done the same to several wives.

Alex had never been faithful to a woman for longer than a few months at a time. He’d never been able to stay put at home for more than that, either. He’d spent more of his time on the road or at sea in the past nine years than not. He was old, far older than his years. And he was weary—God was he weary. He was too old and weary to change.

He had no business dragging some fresh young girl into his world. Yes, perhaps she did have the kind of fire to hold his attention long term. Maybe even his whole life. But her life and happiness weren’t something to experiment with. He’d have to be damned sure he’d be able to be what she wanted. He’d have to love her completely, for she was a woman who couldn’t be satisfied with less. How could he give all of himself when his core was damaged? Just because he loved her with all that was left of his heart, didn’t mean it would be enough to sustain a woman of her deep passions.

A knock on his door startled him out of his thoughts.

He arose then went and opened the door.

Emily’s eyes glittered white in the shadows of her face. Just the sight of her chased all his darkness away. A euphoria seized him, so sudden and intense that he knew—as if he hadn’t known before—that this was more, far more than mere infatuation.

No matter that his heart was hollowed out, out of proper working order, what was left belonged to her.

The cadence of her breathing resonated sensual tension. It crackled on the air like an impending thunderstorm. Her dark curls lay upon her shoulders in a wild profusion that glowed with reddish glints from the flickering light of tapers in the corridor. Her lips were parted and the scent of claret rose from them, mingling with a scent that was like wildflowers and rain and earth, the scent he’d know anywhere now, her arousal. He wasn’t a boy to go all trembling with desire. No, he was far too jaded for that. But his mouth did go dry.

“Alex?”

Her soft whisper
flirted
over him like a caress. She caressed his arm, her fingers flirting over the cloth of his banyan. Sparks of sensation followed her touch, making his heart race.

She shouldn’t be here. The risks to her were too great. And the least of those were that his aunt or someone else might spy her here.

He should refuse her entry. He should send her right back to her bed.

But his hands found their way to the angle of her waist, moving over flesh-warmed flannel. She went poppet-limp and her eyes turned to liquid pools of longing. Her slight curves fascinated him, invited him to linger, to slide over her delicately flared hips and down to her surprisingly round arse.

He breathed out harshly—the frustration of defeated weighing heavily upon him—and pulled her into the chamber.

Damn. He hadn’t intended to touch her.

She sighed and leaned into him.

A warm armful, scented with sex and sin.

This was no good. God, they needed to talk. They desperately needed to talk.

Easing her away, he let her go and took care to close the door quietly. “Emily, what are you doing here?”

She glanced up. In the dim firelight, her eyes were large and dark in her pale face. She bit her lip and shifted from foot to foot, then her thick lashes swept down. “I couldn’t sleep.”

Her voice sounded a little hoarse and slow, as if she had been sleeping and had only just awoken.

“Neither could I, sweetheart.”

“I missed you.”

Never before had he truly known the meaning of the word gratified. Not until this moment, hearing those three words. He couldn’t help smiling. “I missed you, too… Come here.” He took her arm and gently led her to the wingchair by the fire.

She followed, her feet making soft sounds on the thick red and blue Turkish carpet. Damn, he should not be encouraging this. But he sat and pulled her onto his lap. Settling in, she was all softness and curves and his cock stirred.

He hadn’t intended that either. He’d only wanted to be near her. To touch her.

He shifted her weight until she wasn’t resting against that unruly part of himself. She moved about, resettling her bottom over his growing erection. Her face came close to his and her warm breath blew over him, rich and fruity.

Her eyes caught his, the lids half cast over her eyes, and she laughed, slow and sensual.

“You’ve been having claret?”

She nodded. “I had a couple of glasses, thinking it would make me sleep.” She ran a finger down the piping on his banyan. “But it only made me ache for you more.” Her little red tongue stole out and licked her full, luscious lips.

A stab of desire shafted into his cock. He almost groaned. She was here in his bedchamber. Barely clad. Intoxicated. Lusty. Willing. But he wasn’t going to take her into his bed.

He wasn’t.

He took a deep breath, then plunged into it. “But Emily, it’s no good between us. I am not what you need.”

All right, badly worded, but said. He waited for her to take offence, to be hurt and to jump to her feet and go bolting from his chamber in tears.

She nodded slowly.

No woman ever took this sort of news well. Not even when they were ready to end things themselves.

“Emily, did you hear what I said?”

“Yes, I heard you plainly. No doubt you are correct.”

Though he ought to have been relieved, her reply stung. “I
am
?”

She laughed softly. “Yes, we both know you are.” She caressed his face. “But we don’t have to part tonight, right?”

Good God, she
was
foxed.

Of their own accord, his hands tightened on her. “No, we don’t have to part tonight.”

Her drunken logic spoke to his worst nature. And he did owe it to her to show her that proper sex, a cock inside her, didn’t have to hurt at all.

“We can have a—an
affaire.”

“An
affaire
?” He swallowed tightly. “Emily…”

He groped for what to say. That word on her innocent, inexperienced lips—

Yes, that’s what the French call it, isn’t it? We could have one, couldn’t we? A brief one.”

His heart panged at the notion. That wasn’t at all what he wanted. No, no, they couldn’t have an
affaire
—or anything more. For her sake they shouldn’t. Damn it, this wasn’t going the way he’d expected. But she wanted an
affaire
…and then what? She would simply be done with him?

What should he say now?

“You know, Alex, I missed you desperately…after I left your rooms that day, I did.”

“I felt the same.” The words rushed to his lips and were out before he could edit them. And what an understatement. He’d been nearly insane with worry about her. Obsessed with her.

Her finger dropped from his chest to her lap and she sighed. “I couldn’t sleep then. I could barely eat. I couldn’t concentrate on my art…” Her hands caressed the sides of her waist and moved up her arms. “I just thought of you…” Her hands skimmed the undersides of her small, perfect breasts. “And I ached…” She sighed again. “For only you.”

Her nipples were hard peaks, prominent even through the heavy flannel nightdress, their sensual appeal clashing with the girlishly high and lace-trimmed bodice. How sweet they would taste on his tongue… He tore his gaze away and focused on her eyes, gone smoky with passion.
 
The scent of her heat was almost overpowering now.

His hollowed heart filled with tenderness. How could he not tell her the truth of his emotions? “I felt the same. This is infatuation.”

All right, a half truth. This was much more.

“Infatuation.“ She spoke the word with reverence, making it sound such a lovely, lofty thing. “Is it always like this? Always so intense, so overwhelming?”

“It can be,” he said, not willing to admit anything more.

Her hands skimmed under her breasts again, as if she longed to touch them but was resisting. She was intoxicated and aroused and unable to discuss any of this reasonably. He was getting to that point himself. Oh, hell—what was one more time going to hurt?

He could hate himself in the morning.