Awaiting the Moon (31 page)

She relaxed against him; the darkness, his heat, and the knowledge of what he wanted to do filled her with agonizing desire. “I’m afraid that someone will find out,” she whispered, sheltered in the curve of his arms. She traced his form, his hard stomach quivering under her fingers, up to the ridge of his collarbone, down his shoulder and upper arm to the cording of thick muscles across his forearm and the dense mat of hair she knew to be black against his pale skin. “I have caught looks, glances… I know I am different…”

“Yes,” he said, pulling her nightrail up over her head and tossing it aside. He covered her with his body and kissed her breasts, wetting her nipples with his tongue. “You are different, but no one will ever dare say anything to you.”

“But what if they know?” she cried, shuddering as the delirium of sensual delight invaded her body.

“Then they know,” he growled. “I care not.”

She surrendered then, giving in to the feelings as he teased her nipples into peaks and stroked between her spread legs.

Afterwards, she cradled his shaggy head to her breast, feeling the roughness of his chest hair against her stomach, relishing the differences between them, the enticing sense that this man in her bed was a powerful force of nature, and he cared for her, truly cared for her, in ways no one else ever had.

“Nikolas?” she said into the darkness.

“Hmm?” he murmured.

“Have you never… never had a woman here?”

“Do you mean here at the castle?”

“Yes.”

“I have not.”

“Why?”

He was silent for a long moment. “It is difficult to explain. It is important to me that I give to my family all of my time and devotion; it consumes me, I suppose.”

“But is there to be nothing for you? No… love, no caring?”

He was silent again, but then said, “I had given up on such things.”

“Then why… why this?”

“I do not know. I am going against everything I had promised myself, everything I have forsworn in the last years.”

“Is it only because I am the first unrelated female to reside here?”

“Oh, Elizabeth, no. Do not think so.” He gazed up into her eyes in the dimness and touched her cheek. “I have never met any woman such as you. You have a… gallantry that pleases me, a courage I admire. You are a woman such as I never expected to meet in my lifetime.”

She had no answer then, for she feared her voice trembling at the unexpected sweetness of his reply. And yet, the tenderness of their relation did not change all that she had earlier said, all that she feared. She still knew she would have to make him stop. They could not go on this way without both of them suffering ultimately. If the madness would not subside, then she must be the strong one this time.

The next night she stayed dressed. She couldn’t think when he touched her, and she gave in all too easily. If she kept her dress on, perhaps she could make him understand that it was becoming too difficult. She knew her own feelings and was terribly afraid that his tenderness had defeated every good intention she had had of keeping her heart intact. People were beginning to wonder if she was all right, and even Countess Adele had asked her just that day if she was quite well. It could not go on. If she had had any hope that their deepening tenderness would end in marriage it might have been worth the risk, but he had made plain his intention never to wed. So when he tapped and entered her room that night she was still up and waiting. He smiled as he crossed the room to where she stood near the fire.

“Hmm… shall we play a new game tonight?” he asked, a devilish glint in his dark eyes.

His dark tousled locks, broad shoulders, and square features made him dangerously handsome, even attired in a nightshirt and robe.

“We have to talk,” she said, her voice quavering. “I’m serious, Nikolas, we cannot continue this way.”

“Are you ashamed of how you feel?” he asked, caressing her cheek and pushing back her veil of hair.

“No. I’m not ashamed.”

“Then why should we stop? We are hurting no one.”

That wasn’t true, she thought, watching his face, tracing the square jaw and noting the bristly beard and drooping dark curls. She was beginning to ache for him, to long for his touch and want more than just the petting game they indulged in. It was dangerous to
her
. She had thought the pain of John’s abandonment was ferocious; she now felt much more for Nikolas, and every day brought deeper emotions. How would it end? She would not let herself be destroyed.

He tried to take her in his arms, but she pushed him away. “No, we have to talk…”

But the rest was lost in a kiss. All of her good intentions died with that sweet beckoning feeling that budded whenever he touched her. How could she resist when every fiber of her being longed for him?

“I will be your abigail,” Nikolas said huskily, helping her from her dress until she stood just in her chemisette and stays before the fire. “Be still, Liebchen.”

“I will,” she whispered, abandoning hope of ever resisting him.

Standing in front of her, his big hands trembling on the laces of her stays, his knuckles brushing her already erect nipples through the soft fabric, she shuddered at every touch. She stared at his face, the high planes of his sharp cheekbones casting his jaw into shadow, the set of his full, sensuous lips firm. She had promised to be still, but it was terrifying and she quivered. She was close, so close, and she knew now what she was feeling, and why it frightened her so.

She knew the difference now between infatuation and true love.

He paused and looked into her eyes, a questioning gaze; he was sensing something.

“No, Nikolas, please, don’t stop,” she murmured. The forgetfulness of delirium would be welcome, this time, when sanity was too hard to bear.

She needed to say no more to urge him on. He bent over and pulled at a knot with his strong teeth and then jerked the lacing open. Cool air flowed over her breasts as he pushed back the fabric, but he covered them with his large warm hands. He brushed the nipples with his thumbs and kissed her.

Helpless with desire, if he had asked her that moment, with his hands over her breasts and his lips suckling hers, she would have surrendered to anything. He put one arm around her then, and pulled her close, and his other hand touched her leg, pushing up the short skirt of her chemisette. He caressed her bottom and cradled her against him. His arousal pressed against her belly and he lifted her, cupping her bottom with both hands as he held her firmly to him.

He filled her mouth with his tongue, thrusting in an imitation of the love act, and she parted her legs so he was supporting her wholly with his hands on her bottom and back.

A light tap at the door startled her and she reared away from him, stumbling back down onto her knees.

“Elizabeth, what is wrong?” he asked.

He hadn’t even heard! The knocking was repeated, and Frau Liebner’s voice, sounding muffled by the door, called out Elizabeth’s name. “Are you there? I heard a voice. Are you all right, my dear?”

Elizabeth got to her feet and put one finger over her lips in a shushing gesture to Nikolas, whose glazed expression did not portend well for him understanding the need for silence. She opened the door and poked her head around it. “Frau Liebner, I was… was sleeping.”

“But I just heard a voice.” The woman’s face below her white lace cap was set in worried lines.

“I… that was just me. I was just saying to wait for a moment.”

“May I come in?” the woman said, pushing against the door.

“No!” She had almost shouted that, and she repeated, more softly, “No, I’m not dressed.”

“You will be in your night attire, certainly, and that is enough for me.”

Elizabeth felt rather than heard Nikolas’s presence behind her and gasped when his hands cupped her bottom, pushing up the fabric of her chemisette and caressing her naked bottom.

“Are you certain you are well, my dear?”

Frau Liebner held up a lamp and Elizabeth cringed, thinking how disheveled she must look, her cheeks red from Nikolas’s whiskers, her lips plump from kissing and her hair tousled.

“I’m perfectly well. I… I’m sorry I’m yawning,” she quickly said, faking a big yawn, “but I’m so very tired. Can we, can we t-talk in the m-morning?” Her stutter was caused by the count’s hands kneading her bottom. He was pressed against her now behind the door and Elizabeth could feel his erection butted up against her bottom. One of his hands snaked around and caressed her belly, then moved down, his thick fingers tickling the damp curls between her legs.

“I have something of great import to discuss with you. It cannot wait, Elizabeth.”

“I couldn’t attend properly, Frau Liebner, I am s-so t-tired.”

One rough finger caressed and parted her, stroking her with insistent rhythm. Elizabeth trembled and sighed, putting her cheek against the cool door. She was caught, unable to protest, and Nikolas had to know that. She longed to relax and enjoy his capable hands. She longed to close the door and tell him he was evil and then surrender to his skilled petting. She longed to tell Frau Liebner she had other things to think of. Or at least that one big distraction, pressed against her.

But she could not arouse suspicion. As Nikolas’s thick finger gently parted the folds of her skin, the very roughness of his hand enthralling, she begged her friend, “Please, Frau Liebner, I’ll come to your room first thing in the morning I p-promise, I promise…”

His finger, stroking more quickly, delved deeper and then came up to tickle the nub, the center of feeling, and she felt a physical shuddering quiver through her as if she were in a carriage over rough road. An abrupt euphoria seized her, swallowing her whole, and she closed her eyes, sagging against the door, as wave after wave of glory surrounded her in brilliance.

“Elizabeth?”

Dizzy still and her cheeks flushed with exquisite heat, she opened her eyes to see the lovely old wrinkled face of her friend. “Yes?”

There was knowledge in the wise old blue eyes. “I will see you in the morning, my dear, but if it is not first thing, I will not be surprised,” she said and then walked away, lamp held high.

But her voice came floating back down the hallway towards Elizabeth. “And Nikolas, you should go to bed, too, you rogue. Let the poor girl sleep, if she is so
very
tired.”

He shoved the door closed with his foot and carried her to bed, this time staying with her until she was asleep.

HE COULD not get enough of Elizabeth. He hungered for her day and night and had taken to staying in her bed until she was asleep, just holding her close, deriving what satisfaction he would allow himself from that delicious warmth. Often she tried to reciprocate his love play, and he knew that he could have made love to her long ago, but he knew also that it could never be.

And yet that, perhaps, was why his hunger grew until just the scent of her in the hall, just the sound of her voice at a distance, made his body tremble with desire. His aunt knew and had told him in veiled words that if he hurt Elizabeth, she would do something; she was not sure what, she said, but it would not be pleasant. He assured her, in tactful language, that he had not taken the ultimate step; they had not made love and would not, for he knew his duty to his family and his future.

No one would deprive him of what little he could have with her, though. Doomed to be parted ultimately by fate and the separate paths of their lives, he felt a desperate need to drink his fill of her, to touch every sweet inch of skin, to memorize for all time her scent, her gaze, her soft expression, the tremulous sound of his name on her lips as he brought her to fulfillment.

But inevitably she was caught in the hallway at his door one night, and by his uncle Bartol of all people. Though he had never told her that Bartol was the one who had exposed her past indiscretion to him, he knew that finding her outside his door in the middle of the night must have caused the old man to make some assumptions. A sick conviction in his stomach grew; Bartol Liebner, though not cruel by nature, had a fastidious moral side and would confess his discovery to someone. If it was only to Maximillian, the Frenchman would keep the secret, but what if he went to Adele? How would he explain himself to his sister? It was not that he feared her disapprobation; he feared no one, for he was master and all in the castle knew that one fact.

But… he was going against every stated intention he had ever spoken of in his many talks with his one remaining sensible sibling. Adele had given up as much as he had, and it was not fair to her that he should have such a sweet entanglement when no opportunity for love would ever lighten her burden. So it was his own hypocrisy he was running from, the revelation of his own fall from grace that he feared. And yet night after night he surrendered, finding in Elizabeth’s arms relief even from his lack of respect for his own actions.

After the discovery by Bartol, she was terribly embarrassed and did not want to venture to his room again, so, though he had not intended to, he decided to tell her one of the secrets of Wolfram Castle.

“Come here,” he said, after she told him of her fears of discovery. She had crept to his room one last time, she said, to tell him they must not continue. He took her hand and led her to a corner of his room, where the wood paneling had an odd join.

“Why?” she asked, pulling back.

He depressed a panel and pushed, and it slid sideways, opening to a corridor hidden along the outside wall.

She gasped and stuck her head in the passage. “Nikolas!” she cried and then sneezed. “Oh!

What… where does this lead?”

“I’ll show you,” he said, chuckling at her consternation. He picked up a candle and led her into the passage, down a long narrow corridor, up some stone stairs and down again, through a twisted turn, and along a straight portion. She was shivering and sneezed again, for the passage was drafty and frigid, as well as dark and dusty, but finally he came to a portion of the interior wall where he stopped. “Here; push that wooden panel.”

She did as she was told and it slid sideways just as the other had. She gasped. “What… what room is this?” she whispered, not daring to poke her head through.