Candice Hern (21 page)

Flora was the first to call it a night, claiming she was asleep on her feet. The others agreed, and everyone rose to leave.

“I’ll take Pru home,” Nicholas said.

“That is very kind of you,” Prudence said, “but Papa would have my head if he saw me coming home at this hour with a gentleman, alone.”

She had a disappointed look in her eye, as though she would like to defy her father this once.

“I’ll take Pru,” Flora said. “Come along, girl, before I collapse with fatigue.”

Nicholas turned to Madge. “Then I shall do myself the honor of escorting you home. Assuming you have no irate father waiting at the door.”

Madge gave a shriek of laughter. “First off, I ain’t seen my pa fer years. And if I did, he ain’t likely ter grouse ’bout a fine gentl’mun drivin’ me home at any hour. More like ter try an’ nap a bob orff yer.”

Prudence followed Flora, but turned toward Nicholas briefly and looked as if she were about to say something, but shook her head and walked out of the room. Nicholas and Madge followed.

Edwina had noted a distinctly dreamy glint in Prudence’s eye. She had a terrible feeling that the girl was going to have her heart broken. Perhaps she should have a word with Nicholas. Not to encourage anything between them, but just to warn him to deal cautiously with her. He would not deliberately hurt Prudence, but Edwina could not imagine he would ever return her affection. They had known each other too long, and Nicholas had never shown the least interest.

“What has put a frown on your face?” Anthony asked.

“I was just thinking about broken hearts.”

He arched a brow. “Yours?”

“No.”

“Egad, not mine, I hope. Are you going to break my heart, Edwina?”

“I don’t think so. I hope not.”

He came to sit beside her on the settee. “Good. But you do tend to set it racing, you know. Tonight
especially. It’s rather astounding that I have not fallen into an apoplexy.”

“Is it racing now?”

“It is.”

“So is mine.”

He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. Instant desire flared white hot in her veins and she let it take her. She was prepared for her response this time, as she had not been earlier when it had almost overwhelmed her. She kept her guard high as ripples of sensation spiraled through her, but an unfulfilled longing grew deep inside her.

When they finally broke apart, they were both breathless and wrapped around each other like clematis vines.

“I should go,” he said.

“Not yet.”

He raised his brows in question.

“I am still owed a boon,” she said.

He smiled. “Indeed you are. What shall it be, Edwina?”

She untangled herself from him, rose, and held out her hand. He placed his hand in hers, and she led him upstairs.

He held her naked in his arms at last.

Clothes were puddled at their feet and flung willy-nilly about the room; hairpins littered the floor. He had wanted to prolong the undressing, to
savor the slow, erotic removal of each garment. But an urgent hunger overwhelmed them both and they had pulled off each other’s clothes in wild abandon.

But now that they were naked, the fury had eased while they gazed and admired and explored. Edwina was every bit as perfect as he’d imagined. Beautifully made, softly curved, smooth, white, and flawless, but for the tiny scar on her chin and a mole on her left shoulder.

He wanted to touch her everywhere. While he gently kissed her, his hands roved up and down her spine, over the gentle curve of her hip, down to her firm bottom, up her ribs, and over her breasts. She moaned softly and he deepened the kiss, plundering her mouth with tongue and teeth.

And she ravished him in return, taking his tongue, pulling, sucking, biting. Her hands explored the muscles of his shoulders and back and buttocks, pressing him closer, putting every possible inch of her body in contact with his, as though she could not get close enough.

A wild euphoria almost overcame him. The knowledge that she wanted him as much as he wanted her was more intoxicating than good whiskey.

When he could stand the assault no longer, and was so drunk with desire he could barely stand at all, he lifted her in his arms and laid her on the bed. He sat beside her but took a moment simply to
gaze upon her. The room was shuttered and dark—in their ardor they had not taken time to light a candle—and he wanted to see her.

He rose, went to a window, and pulled back the shutters. The pale light of dawn flowed into the room and over the bed, limning Edwina in a soft glow. He sat down beside her again and drank in the sight of her. Pale skin, luminescent now in the dawn’s light. Black hair fanned out to one side like a raven’s wing. Dark red mouth with lips slightly parted. Equally dark nipples, peaked and pebbled. A black triangle of hair at the apex of her thighs.

If he were an artist, he would paint her just so, in all her naked splendor.

He ran a finger gently from her throat, over the valley between her breasts, down her belly, and finally into the dark hair beneath. She shivered under his touch. He reversed direction and brought the flat of his hand over her stomach and up to the soft undersides of her breasts.

“I am honored to touch you,” he said. “You are so fine, so beautiful.”

She pulled him down beside her and kissed him. Hot and sweet, her tongue laid siege to his mouth, insistent and demanding, almost painful in its soul-stealing intensity. She was passion unleashed. No modesty. No taboos. Her hands and mouth explored every inch of his body with frank interest
and wild demand. She took his mouth again in a potent kiss, and rubbed against him in a sensual, erotic undulation that was an exquisite torment.

He followed her lead for long, lush moments, then urged her to slow the kiss, and finally broke away. She was panting and her eyes were wide with frantic need.

He stroked her cheek and said, “Relax, my love. There is no challenge between us here. No competition. Let us not fight for control. Let us simply enjoy each other. Let go, Edwina.” His fingers trailed to her neck. “Let go.”

She gave a shuddery sigh and he felt her relax slightly. He bent to kiss her mouth, but kept it soft and slow and gentle. After a long, sweet moment, she seemed to will her body into pliancy.

He kissed her mouth and her cheek and her jaw and her throat, all while his hand gently fondled her breast, circling, cupping, teasing the taut nipple. She undulated beneath him, but with less urgency than before, then arched her back, thrusting her breast against his hand.

His lips trailed lower, over her collar bone and to the upper curve of her breast, then lower still until finally, inevitably, he took the dark nipple into his mouth and circled it with his tongue.

She gave a small cry and placed her hand against his head, pressing him to her, her head thrown back against the pillow. It was a moment of exquisite
surrender, as explicit as the shudder that ran through her body.

He paid equal homage to her other breast, then dipped his mouth to its underside. He shifted his body over hers and buried his face between her breasts, pressing them against his cheeks. He eased down her torso, his knees forcing hers apart. He trailed kisses around her stomach, circling her navel and finally dipping his tongue into its tiny well. Her muscles tensed as his mouth moved lower, lower, until his tongue parted the soft, wet folds of her sex.

She cried out and her pelvis bucked beneath his mouth. His tongue tweaked the tiny bud of pleasure, and she almost instantly climaxed.

Edwina thought her heart would burst. She did not regret her surrender. Indeed, she blessed him for it. She had never thought to experience such physical release again. She had buried her sexuality with Gervaise, deliberately, almost as a memorial to the love they’d shared.

But Anthony had brought it to life again. He had taught her she was still vibrant, still alive. She could feel again. She could love again.

All barriers between them crumbled. Lips, tongues, hands went wherever they wanted, each giving and taking equally. First one led the way, then handed off to the other, with no struggle for command.

He pulled her on top of him and she kissed his neck and shoulder and chest. She suckled his nipple as he had done hers, and savored his gasp of pleasure. He ran his hands over her hips and buttocks, down to her thighs, and gently urged her knees up so that she straddled him. She eased her body down slightly until she felt his erection against her swollen, tender sex.

He shifted his hips and nudged against her and she sat up, hands flat upon his chest. She pressed her knees into his sides, eased down, and took him inside. She gave a soft groan and sat unmoving for a moment, savoring the sheer pleasure of being filled by him.

And then she rode him. Taking it slow at first, sliding down upon him and rising slowly. He allowed her full control. He lifted his hands to her breasts, caressing them as she moved over him. His eyes never left hers, but held her locked in a gaze gone dark with pleasure.

He shifted beneath her, half rising to meet her with his own thrusts. The tempo built and built until the sounds of their joining created a raucous, steady beat. Tension coiled inside her, building with each thrust, sending shafts of heat darting through her body, causing her skin, even her scalp, to tingle with anticipation.

When she thought she could bear no more, the knot of tension peaked and shattered into a thousand bits of sensation and wonder.

“Ah, my God. Anthony!” She threw her head back and cried out as the release shook her to the core of her soul.

He watched the climax flow through her, entranced by her uninhibited response. All that she felt played itself out on her face. Now twisted into a grimace, she opened her mouth wide in a silent scream, as though she were in pain. But as the spasms subsided, the muscles in her face relaxed, and a perfect joy suffused her beautiful features.

She was a woman who’d given everything of herself, and she had given it to him. It was one of the sweetest moments of his life. A pure, bright moment of dazzling clarity.

He loved her.

He held her fast while the tension drained from her body, and clasped her to him when she slumped to his chest. Then he rolled her onto her back, and pressed himself deep inside her. She looked up at him and smiled. He moved within her, and she was roused again, pushing up to meet each powerful thrust.

He found her mouth and kissed her, and they moved together in perfect, age-old harmony. When she wrapped her legs around his waist, he groaned and drove deep.

And the fire within him exploded. He called out her name and buried his face in her black hair as the primitive ecstasy of release gripped him.

They lay still a moment, breathless, panting,
damp. He lifted his head to look at her. She had never looked more beautiful. Lips parted in a smile of pure wonder. Splendid dark eyes, sleepy-lidded and glassy with slaked desire. He kissed her.

Anthony disengaged himself from her warm body, rolled to his side, and took her with him. She curled up against him like a kitten, her head nestled on his shoulder.

“Anthony?”

“Yes, my love?”

“Thank you.”

And she fell asleep in his arms.

E
dwina woke to a feeling of such languor, such pure and joyful satisfaction, that she thought for an instant it had been a dream. But her body ached in ways and in places that told her it had been quite real.

When she reached out, though, she found the bed empty. She rose up on her elbows and saw him. He had not abandoned her, but was sitting at her writing desk. Perhaps he was penning a note to leave behind after he made a discreet exit.

But he was not writing. He was holding the Minerva.

The small gilt bronze head fit in the palm of his hand. He cupped her cautiously, as if she were a tiny bird, and stroked the length of her nose with a
gentle fingertip. For one irrational moment, Edwina wondered if that was all he’d ever wanted from her. That damned Roman head.

But no. There had been much more between them than merely the Minerva or the wager. She would swear it had been more for him than simple, uncomplicated pleasure-taking. She would not have given herself so completely otherwise.

Edwina had not wanted this. She would have preferred the uncomplicated pleasure, had hoped she had reached a new level of maturity in allowing herself to take it. She ought to have known better. She could never be casual in her passions.

But she did not want to be in love again. Love was a wild, disordered state of mind and she hated chaos above all things. As she watched Anthony studying the Minerva, however, she thought he might be worth a little disorder in her life. He was shirtless, though he had donned his breeches, and the morning sun sculpted the smooth planes of his chest in bright white-gold relief. His hair, tousled and hanging over his forehead, glinted yellow gold in the sunlight. He was beautiful.

And her heart swelled with affection for him. For he had brought her back to life.

Perhaps the Minerva had acted as her talisman, her good-luck charm, once again. For it had brought Anthony to her. Back to her, after almost twenty years. There was a lovely symmetry to it.

“She is beautiful, is she not?” she said.

He turned to look at her, and the fury in his eyes struck her like a slap across the face. Dear God, what had happened? She sat up straight, clutching the sheet to her breasts.

“She is beautiful and cold and dead,” he said, and put the little head back on its stand. “When were you going to tell me about
this
, Edwina?”

He held up a copy of the misbound
Cabinet
and her heart sank like a stone. She had forgotten it was there. She had brought it with her when she had come upstairs to change out of her evening dress before going out to retrieve the deliveries. She had wanted to see exactly what it said, in case some copies slipped through into readers’ hands. And she had left it there, forgotten, in plain sight.

He had not been admiring the Minerva. He had been reading Nicholas’s pamphlet.

She wanted to die. She wanted the earth to open up and swallow her whole. She wanted to shrivel up like a dead leaf and float away on the wind. Anything but this.

“Do you know,” he said, his voice tight with anger, “that one of the men your brother so scathingly attacks here is my uncle? And that my father is his closest advisor?”

She swallowed hard. “Yes.”

His eyes grew wide and his nostrils flared. “You
knew
? Bloody hell. You knew he was my uncle and went ahead with this diatribe anyway?” He opened and closed his fist convulsively. “Damn. Damn.
Damn! And it almost ended up distributed to over three thousand people with my name on it.
My
name, Edwina. Not yours. Not your brother’s. My name. For my father to see. For all the world to see. Bloody hell!”

“But we stopped it.” Edwina crawled to the end of the bed, keeping the covers over her bare breasts. She wanted to explain. She had to make him understand. “Why do you think I was so anxious to retrieve all the copies last night?”

He turned to look at her, and his eyes were cold and hard as polished steel. “But even if it had not been accidentally bound in with the
Cabinet
, the pamphlet would still have been financed by me, would it not?”

Her stomach seized up. “What?”

“Yes, my dear, I have discovered your little secret.” He gave a sneering smile. “Not only have I been reading your brother’s vitriol. You were unwise enough to leave one of the account books here on your desk.”

“Oh, God.”

“Indeed. You have been stealing money for years, first from your uncle, then from me, to finance radical publications and pamphlets.” He narrowed his eyes and leaned toward her menacingly. “Well? Do you deny it?”

She lifted her chin. “No.”

“You could have asked, you know. I would have
refused, of course, but then you knew that. You knew I would not want my name associated with politics I don’t happen to support. So you didn’t ask. You just skimmed a bit off the profits and kept them for your own use.”

She swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood, taking the sheet with her. She would stand proud, but she would not stand naked.

“I admit we’ve been using some of the revenue for other activities. But it was never much, never enough to make even a small dent in Uncle Victor’s profits, or yours. The money was not stolen. It was redirected. And not for anything personal or frivolous. The money was always used to support a worthy cause.”

“Like Catholic emancipation?”

“In this case, yes.”

“No matter who you hurt in the process?”

She took a step closer. “There was never any intent to hurt anyone. It was an opinion piece, that is all.”

“In which my uncle was named and attacked for
his
opinion.”

She straightened her shoulders. “Are you suggesting we should keep our views private, never daring to disagree with the government?”

“I am suggesting you did wrong to
steal
money from someone else to support your damned causes—”

“For God’s sake, Anthony, we used a tiny bit of the profits from a frivolous ladies’ magazine to do some good.”

“—and you did very wrong to steal from
me
in order to attack a member of my family.”

Edwina gripped the sheet and tried to curb her temper. “I have apologized for that. And I have worked hard to make sure no harm was done, that your name was not associated with an attack on your uncle’s public views. Should I not at least be given credit for trying to make things right?”

He gave her a look of such withering scorn she felt as if he’d physically struck her. She stared at him, at the end of another dream. She ought to have followed her initial instincts and stayed away from him. She ought to have known they were fated to cross swords, not hearts.

He rose and pulled his shirt over his head. “You know what, Edwina? I thought I was in love with you. Can you imagine? And I thought you cared for me, too. I was ready to risk everything for you.” He tucked his shirt into his breeches and looked about for the rest of his clothes. “Me, the gambler who never bets it all was about to stake everything—
everything
!—on you. What a fool I was. It was a sucker’s bet and I fell for it. You don’t care about me. You don’t care about individual people, only those great faceless masses you think to help with your bloody reforms.” He sat back down and began to pull on his stockings. “It’s all causes with
you. Causes that make you feel important, that make you think you’re smarter than everyone else because
you
understand what people need. But you don’t know what the poor want or need. You are a privileged woman playing at politics, condescending to think you know what is good for the unwashed masses.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is. You
think
you know what is best for your displaced farmers and factory workers and street women. You support them with words, and a little money that isn’t yours, but I don’t see you spending time in the streets getting to understand their lives.” He bent to buckle his shoes. “Hell, I’m willing to bet—yes, I believe I’d wager a monkey—that even in France you never left the salons to march in the streets with the people. You have no real experience or understanding of the lives you intend to change. You’re nothing but a sham republican.”

“No! You’re wrong, Anthony.”

“You believe your way of thinking is the only right way, and you don’t care who you hurt in your noble quest to achieve some grand democratic scheme.”

“No.”

“It should not surprise me, of course. You were like that as a child. Always had to be right. Always had to win. You never cared even then how much you hurt someone with your arrogance.”

She continued to stand tall, wrapped in her sheet, but inside, her heart ached that he should think such
things of her. She was not a sham. She was not.

“Your damned politics are all that matter to you,” he said. “How could I have believed you could lower yourself to love just one man? You’re too busy loving the masses. Burke’s swinish multitudes. You don’t have time to care for me or anyone else.”

No, he was wrong. She did care. She watched him shrug into his waistcoat and knew in that moment that she cared a great deal. Good God. It came to her in an instant of a startling clarity. She loved him. Despite his hateful words, which were surely thrown out in anger, she loved him.

The knowledge almost knocked her off her feet.

“No, Anthony, that’s not true.” Her voice rose more than she’d intended, and she lowered it deliberately. “I
do
care.”

He glared at her for a moment with cold contempt, then worked his arms into the tight-fitting evening coat. “People don’t publicly attack the loved ones of those they care about. Yes, you didn’t allow the tract to be distributed in the
Cabinet
, but you would have allowed it to be distributed separately. Paid for with my money.
My
money used to hurt
my
family.”

“I tried to stop it. I told Nicholas—”

“I knew something smoky was going on with you people, but I thought I could trust you.” He picked up the rest of his clothes and tossed them over his shoulder. “I ought to have known better.
You are not a woman who can love a man. And don’t tell me about your French lover. I don’t believe you could have loved him either, but only his Great Cause, which you wanted for yourself. You loved the idea of him and what he represented. But I doubt you are capable of loving a single individual for himself alone.”

“No!” How could he say such a thing?

He walked to the door with no regard for his
déshabillé
—an open shirt and loose waistcoat, a creased neckcloth hanging over his shoulder.

“Well, I leave you to your causes, my dear. And to your own devices. You shall not finance your seditious activities with my money again.”

He turned at the bedchamber door. “I do thank you for a night of pleasure. There was that, at least.”

And he left.

Edwina did not move for several minutes. A single tear fell down her cheek and onto the arm that held the sheets across her breasts. She could not have said for certain whether it was a tear of anger or disappointment or heartache.

She was angry, to be sure. Because he’d discovered her deceit. Because he was too stubborn to listen to an explanation. Because of the hateful accusations he’d made. And she was disappointed in his reaction, his intransigence, his descent into insult. And she was most definitely sore of heart. For she had discovered she loved him at almost the
same moment it became clear they could never be together. Never.

She had feared an involvement because she had not wanted emotional chaos. Her fears were confirmed. Nothing could be more chaotic than the emotions roiling in her breast at the moment.

Not again. Not again!

She turned, stiffly walked to the bed, and sat down on its edge. A wave of weariness swept over her, and she lay back, turned on her side, and curled her knees up to her chest.

And as quickly jerked back up. His smell still clung to the pillows. She flung off the sheet, walked to her clothes press, and retrieved a dressing gown. She wrapped it about her, sank onto the chaise, and stretched out on its length. The light of morning spilled into the room. She rolled onto her side away from the window. A wool throw sat at the end of the chaise, and she pulled it over her feet and legs.

Edwina lay there for some time and simply allowed all the emotions churning within her to come to the surface. She wanted them out. Gone. Over with. Not held inside to erupt at any moment. She did not even fight the tears that inevitably came.

Her world wanted to spin out of control again, but she would not allow it. Not again. She would indulge in one brief bout of emotional release, then pick herself up and get on with life.

But what sort of life would that be? Would she continue at the
Cabinet
in her foolish attempt to
enlighten readers with rational prose, when all they really wanted was a good fashion report? It all sounded so frivolous now. So naïve.

She could not let go of Anthony’s accusation that she was a sham republican. Was she?

It was true that she had not marched in the streets of Paris. She had been swept up in the grand talk that had gone on in the salon of Madame Roland and others. Great thinkers, strategists, men and women of ideas had talked and talked and talked, but had done…what? Very little, as it happened. The doers had been the likes of Marat and Robespierre, and no matter how heinous their deeds, the talkers had not been strong enough to combat them.

In retrospect, none of them had trusted the masses to truly understand their purpose, even though it would have been to their advantage. They had not walked among the people. It had not been thought necessary, when right was on their side.

Anthony had said she merely condescended to think she knew what those less privileged needed. As she lay there, miserable on her chaise, it shamed her to consider that he might be right. She was still a talker and not a doer.

At least that was something she could change. She ought to be grateful to him for shining that light on her arrogance.