An Affair Without End (39 page)

He bent then and took her mouth with his, drinking in
her pleasure, her need. Vivian flung her arms around his neck, straining up against him, and he lifted her, his hands digging into her buttocks. Wrapping her legs around him, she pressed herself against him, longing to feel him inside her, filling her, losing himself in her.

Oliver moved forward blindly, unwilling to release her or move his mouth from hers, and they came up hard against a wall. Bracing her against it, he unbuttoned his breeches and shifted, and Vivian could feel him, hard and prodding, against the most intimate part of her. She moved, taking him into her, and he thrust deep inside. A thin exhalation of satisfaction escaped her, and she arched back against the wall, moving with him in a deep, primal rhythm as he drove into her again and again. She could feel the storm building in her all over again. Everything about the moment was almost unbearably arousing—the low guttural noise he made as he buried his face in her neck, the heated scent of him, the touch of his lips upon her sensitive skin, the spice of recklessness, even the feel of his jacket beneath her hands, reminding her that they were both still clothed.

He plunged deep inside her, shuddering in a paroxysm of pleasure, and Vivian let out a choked cry as she, too, hurtled into that deep abyss.

They remained that way for a long moment, too stunned and depleted to move or speak. Oliver kissed her neck gently and breathed out her name. Finally he moved, letting her slide back down to put her feet on the floor, but still he stood curved around her for another long moment. Then he turned away, adjusting his clothing as he gave her time to set herself to rights. Vivian felt far too languid to move, but she made herself shake out her skirts and rebutton her bodice.

Oliver turned back to her. His face was still loose and warm with pleasure, but gravity was returning to his eyes. He shook his head. “God, just looking at you—” He looked
away, setting his jaw. “You must be mad to take such risks. Someone could have walked in on us at any moment.”

“I am not the only one who took the risk. I have never done such a thing before, so if I am mad, it is clearly you who has made me that way.” Vivian gave him her provocative little smile and started to walk away.

He followed her, grabbing her arm and pulling her back around. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her to him and holding her tightly.

Vivian let out a little laugh, startled. “Oliver! Surely you cannot want me again already.”

“I want you all the time.” His voice was thick. “Dear God, I am the one who is mad. I cannot keep from thinking about you. Remembering your smile, your laugh, the way you cast that sideways glance at me that leaves me feeling I am either a fool or a king.”

Vivian chuckled again, warmed by his words, and she wrapped her arms around him, nestling into his chest. “Perhaps you are both.”

“How like you to say that.” Oliver smiled, rubbing his cheek against her hair. “Any other woman would have assured me that I am never a fool. And what does it make me that I would far prefer your words?”

“Ah . . . that is the thing that makes you
not
a fool.”

“I worry about your reputation,” he went on soberly. “I know you are cavalier about it, but I cannot help but be concerned. I know I should stop. I tell myself so time and again. Someone is bound to suspect if we keep on. And yet . . . I cannot make myself end it.”

“There is no need to end it.” Vivian leaned back and smiled up at him. “It will happen as it happens. Oliver, for once, why don’t you let go and enjoy the moment? Forget about planning or controlling or making things fit. Just be . . . happy.”

He leaned down and kissed the top of her head, then rested his cheek against her hair again. “All right. If you ask it, I shall try.”

He had lost his mind, Oliver thought as he walked home half an hour later. A strong desire was inside him to smile at nothing and to nod cheerfully at people he didn’t know. He could not stop the aura of goodwill and supreme satisfaction that floated within him like a cloud. Indeed, he could not even bring himself to wish it were not there. After all, nothing was wrong in feeling good, or unusual about a man’s being content and satisfied after a bout of vigorous sexual union.

The problem was that it was all part of the madness that had afflicted him for the past month. The madness that was Vivian Carlyle. He realized that he was smiling just at the thought of her, desire stirring again in his loins. What the devil was he doing? What was he going to do?

He knew the correct course of action. The honorable thing. He should end the affair. End it immediately before any real harm was done. No one knew about it; there were no whispers or rumors. They could part now, and no one would be the wiser; Vivian’s reputation would not suffer.

It was up to him to stop it, he knew. Vivian would never be that rational, that cool-minded. A woman of fire and impulse, she did as she pleased and let the world be damned. She would not take the steps necessary to protect herself. So he had to be the one to think instead of feel, to do what should be done instead of what he wanted to do. That was usually the case, and Oliver was long accustomed to it. It had been he who had shipped Royce off to their Scottish lodge to get him away from his disastrous love for Lord Humphrey Carlyle’s wife. It had been he who had fished Fitz out of all sorts of tangles at Oxford and when he was first on the town. When Oliver’s American cousins had shown up in London,
he had not hesitated to take them in and establish them as English ladies.

Oliver did not mind being the responsible one. He had accepted that role long ago when his grandfather had made it clear that their family’s future rested in his hands, not his feckless father’s. The old earl had prepared him for it, taught him and helped him, and Oliver had been perfectly willing to be the head of the family. If pressed, he would admit that he enjoyed the role. He liked to plan; he liked to solve problems; he liked to set things right. Until Vivian.

For the first time in his life, he knew what he should do, but he could not bring himself to do it. He could not bring himself to give her up, not even for her own good. Just the thought of not seeing her again made his chest tighten and his throat close up, so that he felt as if he could not breathe.

There was another option. He could marry Vivian.

But that was unthinkable. Every time the idea popped into his head, he had shaken it off immediately. He could not marry Vivian. Aside from the very real, quite lowering probability that Vivian would not even accept his proposal, the unalterable fact was that he and Vivian would make the most dreadful match. They were fire and ice, night and day. He was rational, responsible—yes, he would admit it, he was
staid
—whereas she . . . she was all glittering beauty, impulsive and emotional, like quicksilver. His calm, his propensity to plan, his tendency to consider all the things that might go wrong with a course of action would drive her to a fury. They always had. How much more so if she had to live with him night and day?

It was all very well right now, when the things she did made him laugh even while he shook his head over her foolhardiness, when her impulsive actions were as arousing and deeply satisfying as what she had done today. But eventually, he knew, that would change. If he were tied to
her, it would not be so easy to overlook her eccentricities. She would come to be infuriating rather than entrancing. Once this intense hunger she inspired in him died down, Vivian would begin to grate on his nerves. Attraction only lasted for so long; after that, a married couple needed mutual interests and agreeable personalities to get along.

Look at the way his own father and stepmother had fought. He could not count the number of their jealous accusations and bouts of temper. Of course, those had been followed by equally emotional reconciliations. They were a tempestuous couple. And they had been in love.

Oliver was anything but tempestuous. Nor was he in love with Vivian. He could not be. What he felt around her was excitement. Exhilaration. Lust. That was not enough for marriage. He was not fool enough to try to convince himself that it was. He would not salvage the situation by marrying Vivian. Which left him no choice but to leave her.

Oliver stopped. He had been so lost in thought that he hadn’t realized how quickly and how far he had walked. He was standing only a few feet from his house. He looked up at the great gray stone edifice of Stewkesbury House. He thought about going inside and working on his accounts. He would have dinner with Camellia and Fitz and Eve, then go to the library and spend the evening reading. Or he could go to his club. Perhaps among all the invitations on the hall table, a party would interest him. All things that had nothing to do with Vivian.

He knew he would do none of them. He would go see Vivian. In all probability, he would get caught up in one of her mad schemes. No doubt he would regret it. But, however foolish it might be, he could not give her up. Not yet.

Vivian was sitting in the drawing room when the butler announced Lord Stewkesbury. She put aside the hoop of embroidery she had halfheartedly been working on and stood to greet him.

“Stewkesbury.” He looked, she thought, especially handsome in his dark driving coat, decorated at the shoulders with several capes.

“Lady Vivian.” He took her hand and bowed formally, his eyes gleaming at her in a way that told Vivian he was remembering what they had done this afternoon.

“Come. Sit down, and tell me what brings you here tonight.” Vivian gestured politely toward the sofa.

“Must I have an excuse to pay a call on you?” he countered, sitting down.

“No, indeed. It is just that I find you usually have a reason for whatever you do.” She paused, and when he said nothing, she went on, “What are your plans for the evening?”

He shrugged. “I’m not sure. Perhaps I’ll go to my club.” With elaborate casualness, he added, “What party are you attending this evening?”

“I had not planned to go to any.” Vivian’s eyes were steady on his.

“No?” His eyes narrowed. “What exactly are you planning to do?”

Vivian chuckled. “Why, go to that tavern your Runner told you about, just as you intend to do.”

He grimaced. “Devil take it! I knew you would.”

“Of course. That’s precisely why you came here.”

He scowled at her. “Don’t be nonsensical.”

“Then you are not going to the Dancing Bear?”

“Yes, I’m going,” he admitted gruffly. “But you are not.” As she began to smile, he added quickly, “And I didn’t come here to take you to it, whatever you might think. I came to make sure you don’t go.”

“Oliver, I’m not sure—are you lying only to me or to yourself as well?”

He frowned even more fiercely for a moment, then relaxed, letting out a soft groan. “I’m not sure. I may be lying to myself more than anyone.” He leaned back, rubbing his hands across his face. “You shouldn’t go. I shouldn’t let you.”

“What nonsense.” She thought it was better, perhaps, not to remind him that he had no control over her. So she turned the conversation to another path. “I have my costume ready.”

“You are
not
going as a bird of paradise.” He shot upright again.

“Of course not. That was a jest. I am going as a boy.”

“You will never pass as one.”

“Wait right here. I will show you.”

Shortly Vivian came back into the room, wearing the rough shoes, collarless shirt, and breeches of a working-class boy. Oliver stood up, his eyes going to the swell of her breasts beneath the large shirt, then to the nicely shaped calves exposed by the breeches.

“However large your shirt may be, there is no disguising that you are a woman,” he told her severely.

“That is why I am wearing a jacket.” Vivian held up the long jacket she carried and put it on, buttoning it up so that it covered the curving shape of her body. Then she pulled a soft cap out of the pocket of the jacket and settled it on her head, pulling it down so that it covered every bit of her hair. “There. You see?”

She faced him, plunging her hands in the pockets of the jacket and standing with her legs a little apart, adopting a look of defiance.

“If you look like a boy, then I have a problem because all I can think is that I would like to kiss you.”

Vivian laughed. “Go ahead. I won’t be shocked.”