An Affair Without End (26 page)

“Ah. Excellent.” Oliver nodded.

“I’ll leave you gentlemen to your port,” Vivian said, standing up.

Both men made an attempt to rise. Rufus made it barely a few inches out of his chair before sitting back down with a plop. Oliver, apparently more in control of himself, stood all the way up and made a sweeping bow. The gesture was somewhat spoiled when he wobbled at the bottom of the bow and had to grasp the chairback to stay balanced.

“I assume we shall stay the night here now,” Vivian remarked.

“Nonsense. I am fine.” Oliver tugged his waistcoat straight as he spoke and adopted a serious air.

“And after you finish the bottle of port with Sir Rufus?”

Oliver turned a contemplative gaze to his glass on the table. “Perhaps it would be better to remain.”

A faint smile touched Vivian’s lips as she walked out of the room. She started to go upstairs, but it occurred to her that it would be a while before she grew sleepy. Instead she turned her steps down the hall, looking for a library. What she found was less a library than a study with a wall of bookshelves, and she had some difficulty finding a book that wasn’t deadly dull. As she searched, she heard the sound of Sir Rufus’s voice raised in song, and she could not help but giggle. What a night this was turning out to be for Oliver! She could not remember ever seeing him even a trifle inebriated, but tonight he looked well on his way to becoming foxed. She wondered how Oliver would regard this night’s venture tomorrow.

Finally settling on a clergyman’s diary that looked, if not exactly exciting, at least dry and witty enough to entertain her, Vivian left the library and started toward the stairs. She noticed that the voices in the dining room had died out. She paused, then slipped quietly down the corridor to peek in.

Sir Rufus lay with his head on the table, snoring away. Oliver sat regarding him, his jacket off and one leg hooked negligently over the arm of his chair, one hand curved around his glass.

Vivian walked over to him. “Oliver?”

Oliver turned and smiled at her without a touch of his usual reticence. “Ah. ‘She walks in beauty . . . ’”

Vivian’s eyebrows lifted. “You are quoting Lord Byron? I change my mind—you are not just bosky, you are drunk as a wheelbarrow.”

“Don’t be vulgar. I am merely”—he made a sweeping gesture—“relaxed.”

“I see.” She came to stand beside him, her eyes dancing in amusement. “Are you so relaxed that you need help getting up to bed?”

“Never.” He swung his leg to the floor and stood up, then hastily grabbed the table. “The thing is . . . would you happen to know where that bed might be?”

“Come, I’ll show you,” she told him, holding out her hand.

He started toward her, weaving a little, and she quickly looped her arm around his waist. Oliver’s arm settled on her shoulders, and they started out of the room.

“Sorry you didn’t get your brooch,” he said, bending his head closer to hers. “Poor Viv.”

She chuckled. “You’ll think ‘poor Oliver’ tomorrow, the way your head will feel.”

“Nonsense. I never drink to excess.”

“Of course not.” She hid a smile. “I am sorry that you wound up having to spend the night here.”

He gave an airy wave. “My pleasure.”

They started up the stairs, Oliver taking a firm grip of the banister and hauling himself up.

“I must say, you are most agreeable when you’ve been drinking,” Vivian told him.

“Am I? I must appear a veritri—veritab—well, an ogre the rest of the time.”

“No, not an ogre. Just not the sort of man who ever kicks over the traces.”

“I kick over the traces,” he protested. “I kick them over all the time. Indeed, I
love
to kick over those blasted traces.”

Vivian laughed. “I apologize. No doubt I am mistaken.”

He gave an emphatic nod. They had reached the top of the stairs, and he stopped, blinking owlishly in either direction.

“This way.” Vivian guided him into a left turn and led him down the hall to the chamber just past hers. “I believe this is it.”

She guided him through the door and across the room to the bench at the foot of his bed. His arm grew heavier across her shoulders and he leaned against her, but Vivian had had some experience with helping her father up to bed more than once or twice, and she swiveled neatly when she reached the bench, depositing him on it.

He blinked up at her. “Lovely Vivian.” He grinned. “Vivacious Vivian.”

“Yes, very clever. I think we’d best get you out of those boots. It wouldn’t do to muddy the sheets.”

“No, indeed.” Oliver leaned back against the footboard of the bed, draping his arms across it, and stuck out his booted foot.

Vivian bent, grasping the boot firmly, and wiggled it, then pulled with a firm twist, and the boot came off. She set it aside and started on the other one.

“You make a devilishly handsome valet.”

Vivian set the other boot aside and straightened. “You, sir, are far too drunk to believe a word you say.”

“I am the soul of honesty,” he protested. “You know that. Your hair is—it’s like the sun.”

“My hair is
red,
” she told him drily.

“The setting sun,” he amended, and she couldn’t help but laugh.

“Well, the port hasn’t slowed you down too much. Here.” She reached out and began to unbutton his waistcoat.

Oliver made no move to help, simply watched her, his eyes growing darker and more slumberous with each movement of her fingers. When she finished, she tugged on the waistcoat, and he rose, letting her slide the garment back and off his shoulders. Tossing it onto the foot of his
bed, Vivian reached up to start on the folds of his neckcloth.

He watched her with that steady gaze, heat growing in his eyes. Vivian’s fingers trembled on the starched muslin. The ends of the neckcloth slid out of their intricate arrangement with a soft whisper of sound, the material gliding over her fingertips. She pulled it off and laid it atop the waistcoat. Her fingers went to the top tie of his shirt, and he covered her hand with his.

“I think I can do it from here.” His voice was low, with just the breath of a hitch in it.

“All right.” Vivian started to pull her hand away, but his fingers tightened on it, keeping her palm pressed to his chest.

“Though it feels much better the way you do it.” His fingers curled around her hand, lifting it, and he pressed his lips into her palm.

His breath was hot upon her skin, igniting a spark low in her abdomen. He raised his mouth from her palm only to lay another tender kiss in another spot . . . and then another, moving onto the delicate skin of her inner wrist. She knew the vein there must throb with the accelerated beat of her heart, and she wondered if he could feel it. Did he know how his kiss stirred her? How hot tendrils twisted deep inside her, turning her breathless and shaken?

“Have a care, Oliver,” she murmured. “I do not want your regrets.”

He looked up at her, and a stark hunger was in his face, a blunt expression of need with no courtesy to cover it. She felt suddenly as if she had never really known him before.

“How could I regret wanting you?” he asked. “Kissing you?”

He leaned forward, his hand releasing hers as he grasped her waist. He pulled her into his body, and a soft moaning sigh escaped Vivian’s lips as his mouth met hers.

He kissed her tenderly, leisurely, his lips rocking against hers and opening her mouth to the sweet exploration of his tongue. Vivian leaned against him, her fingers curling into the front of his shirt as if hanging on to the one solid thing in a suddenly unstable world. She felt crazily as if she might begin to tremble all over, so exquisite and slow was his mouth on hers, pulling from her deep, delicious sensations.

As he kissed her, Oliver’s hands began to move over her body, gliding over her hips and buttocks and back up to her sides, sliding in between their bodies and upward to cup her breasts. Vivian’s body seemed to blossom under his touch, warming and opening, and a low, aching throb started deep in her belly. She pressed herself up into him, her fingers sliding up his neck and sinking into his hair. He wrapped his arms around her, pressing her even more tightly against his hard body.

She could taste the heavy sweetness of the port he had drunk, smell its heady scent, but it was his mouth, his touch, that intoxicated her. Her skin was supremely alive to every sensation. Every movement of his lips, each stroke of his tongue or brush of his fingers—firm, then gentle, then teasingly light—sent pleasure rippling out through her body.
Her body ached to feel his fingers without the frustration of cloth between them, to have the heat of his hands upon her naked flesh. Instinctively, she moved against him, wordlessly seeking what she longed for.

He let out a groan as he broke the kiss, and he buried his face in her hair. “Vivian, Vivian . . . are you sure? Do you truly want this?”

“I do,” she whispered. “You know I do.”

“You are so beautiful.” He kissed her ear, taking the lobe between his lips and toying with it, gently scraping his teeth across the sensitive flesh, then soothing it with his tongue.

Vivian made a sound, a wispy susurration of breath as desire flamed into hot, urgent life all through her. “Show me,” she murmured. “Show me how beautiful I am to you.”

A long shudder ran down him, and his arms tightened convulsively around her. His mouth came back to cover hers, and he kissed her deeply, thoroughly. She answered with all the passion inside her, and they clung together as if they sought to meld into one. It seemed to Vivian that she could feel the thud of his heart right through their clothes and flesh—or was that simply the pounding of her own heart, so loud and hard that it must surely burst out of her?

Oliver wrapped his arms around her tightly, picking her up and turning, tumbling back onto the bed. She sank into the feather mattress, his weight pressing her deeper into the softness. He rolled onto his side, continuing to kiss her as his hand roamed down over her front, caressing her breasts through the cloth of her dress. His lips trailed down her throat, and his fingers went to the double row of buttons fastening her bodice. Quickly he unfastened them and laid open the bodice, revealing the thin, beribboned chemise beneath.

He raised up on one elbow and smiled down at her a little wolfishly. His lips were full and reddened from their
kisses, his eyes heavy-lidded with desire. Vivian’s heart seemed to roll in her chest at the sight of him. She reached up to smooth her forefinger across his lower lip, and he nipped at her playfully. His forefinger slipped beneath her chemise and glided across her breasts, stretching the top of the garment. He watched the movement of his finger, his face growing heavier and slacker with desire. Taking the dainty bow that fastened her chemise, he pulled it apart. The chemise loosened and sagged, and he slid his hand beneath it, pushing it down below her breasts.

Vivian’s breath stuttered in her throat as he curved his hand around her breast, taking its weight in the cup of his hand and stroking his thumb across the nipple. Her nipples tightened in response, and everything deep inside her turned hot and liquid. He continued to caress and explore her breasts, and Vivian moved restlessly against the bed. She was aware of an ache growing between her legs, of moisture pooling there.

His hand left her breasts, and she wanted to protest the loss of his touch on the sensitive skin, but he bent and kissed the soft top of her breast, and she felt herself sliding down into an even more potent pleasure. His mouth roved over the lush orbs, teasing her with lips and tongue and teeth while his hand slid down her body, exploring and caressing. He reached down to grasp Vivian’s skirts and petticoats and pull them up to her waist. She jerked a little in surprise at the touch of his fingers on her leg, separated from her skin only by her thin lawn pantaloons.

But then his mouth fastened upon her nipple, his tongue stroking it into a hard point, and Vivian forgot all modesty as he aroused her with his mouth and hands. His hand slid down the outside of her thigh and then ever so slowly back up the inside, then repeated the movement on the other leg. He halted each time just before his fingers reached the
juncture of her legs, and Vivian was left breathlessly waiting, wanting, aching to feel his touch there. His fingers brushed over the flat plain of her abdomen, circling ever lower, closer. Finally, his hand slipped between her legs, pressing gently against her. Teasingly his fingers stroked along the cloth, creating even more of the spiraling blend of yearning and pleasure. Her breath came in pants, and unconsciously she moved her hips up against his hand.