Darker Than Love (32 page)

Kitty marched behind them, snapping out directions,
guiding them through passageways. At length they came to a corridor with walls tiled in majolica, a large oak door at its far end.

‘Where are you taking us, Kitty?’ enquired Clarissa in a small timid voice.

‘Somewhere you’ll be safe for a bit,’ she replied. ‘Somewhere you can wash that muck off your body and talk.’

At the door she fiddled with keys while Clarissa and Gabriel stood by, impassive and accepting.

‘Marldon was hoping to bring his guests down here,’ said the maid, inserting the correct key. ‘But I don’t think he’ll be in a fit state to suggest it.’

She opened the door, and a great waft of steam billowed into the passageway. She nudged them both forward.

‘You might get a bit warm with your togs on,’ said Kitty, giving a parting grin.

The door closed on them; the lock clicked and Kitty’s footsteps clattered down the corridor, fading to silence.

They were in an antechamber, surrounded by marble, enveloped in mist. It was hot. Clarissa felt her face dampening and a droplet of moisture trickled a cool path down her back. She opened her mouth to speak, but Gabriel turned abruptly and stalked towards an archway hung with green silken drapes. His movements were quick and angry.

Clarissa rushed forward, catching him around the waist, and uttered his name in a cracked, pleading cry. He stood rigid and she pressed her cheek to his warm, solid chest, whispering apologies. Then, suddenly shocked, she stepped back and glared at him.

‘You smell of another woman,’ she said accusingly.

‘I?’ exclaimed Gabriel, his eyes wide with astonishment. ‘You dare to reproach me?’

Clarissa shook her head vehemently, at once realising the folly of her words. She began to protest but Gabriel ignored her and, with a vicious swipe, drew back the
green curtains. He stood gazing, gave a short, bitter laugh, then jogged down a small flight of steps. Clarissa, motionless in the archway, stared after him.

Few things surprised her about Asham now, but she had known nothing of this extravagance. A large room of pale marble walls and columns stretched below her. Candle flames, diffused in the mist, glowed high and low like blurred amber stars. Along the sides ran ledges of marble, carved at intervals into deep basins. At the centre was a pool, a rectangle of pale-green stillness, watched over by Grecian statues.

Gabriel jerked his shirt over his head, casting it to the ground as he strode swiftly into the room. He paused to tug off his remaining clothes then ran gently towards the pool, diving with tense, elegant strength. His lithe sinewy body seemed to hang in the air, quivering, before he arrowed into the clean, calm surface. He moved in the water’s depths, his outline fractured and shimmering beneath spreading ripples.

Clarissa gnawed at her bottom lip, not knowing how to placate him or make amends. Perhaps it was futile even to try. She could not explain why she lusted after a man she loathed; she could not explain the pleasures and agonies she’d found in her shame.

Kitty had been wrong to bring them here. She should have secured Gabriel’s release and left Clarissa where she belonged, with Marldon.

She watched Gabriel emerge from underwater. He shook his head vigorously, sprinkling a shower of diamonds, then pushed his shiny, wet hair from his face. Without acknowledging her, he began to swim, his arms flicking in a powerful crawl, a white froth splashing in his wake.

Clarissa slipped off her shoes and padded down into the room. The marble was cool and a little slippery underfoot. Small pewter bowls lay here and there, and deep single shelves, containing bottles and towels, were cut high in the walls. Clarissa crossed to one of the
broad ledges and sat there beside a sturdy marble basin, hands folded over her lap, prim and tense.

Still Gabriel swam.

She sighed and turned on the basin tap, dabbling her fingers in the warm running water. She set the plug in its hole and cupped her hands beneath the flow. She splashed her face and rubbed at her rouged lips and cheeks. She filled a pewter bowl and tipped it at her neck, the water streaming down her body like a liquid silk caress. She squeezed and pulled at her nipples, trying to rid them of their stubborn red pigment, and still Gabriel swam.

Clarissa blinked hard, fighting back tears. She had lost him, and now she had to endure the torment of waiting until Kitty freed them. Doubtless the maid expected them to mend their differences with a few kisses and a simple act of sex. But Clarissa knew their differences were too great. Her body found its heights in her depths, and Gabriel could not give her that.

She clawed at her hair, tugging out combs and snatching at ribbons. If nothing else, she could cleanse herself of this whorish garb. Her ebony locks came out of the coiffure in untidy, pin-tangled clumps. The bangles clanked at her wrists and she twisted them off and pulled at her earrings. Golden loops scattered at her feet, glinting in the wetness which glossed the marble floor. Then the splashing stopped.

She looked up to see Gabriel, his hands on the edge of the pool, the anger gone from his face. He heaved himself from the water, his bronzed arms flexing, and walked towards her. The thin mist made him nebulous; he moved as in a slow dream. Droplets fell from his long, dark hair and trickled down his graceful body, sliding over his abdomen like beads of quicksilver. They glinted in the curls at his groin where his penis nestled quietly.

‘Ah, God,’ he said as he reached her.

Then, without another word, he began gently to
remove pins from her disordered, straggling tresses. Clarissa trembled, and her heart swelled with guilt. How could he be like this when she had betrayed him so completely?

She did not know what to do. Would sorry be enough? Would an embrace be misconstrued, taken as lust instead of feeling? She sat, meek and still.

When her hair was freed, Gabriel dipped the pewter dish into the overflowing basin and scooped up water. He poured it over her jet-black waves, scooping and pouring until her locks were saturated, and her diaphanous skirt was sticking wetly to her thighs.

‘I need to wash before we leave,’ she mumbled, her hand wafting awkwardly at her breasts. ‘This rouge. I need to wash.’

Gabriel reached for soap and began rolling it to a lather. Clarissa flinched back. She could not let him touch her, not there. It was an invitation to more, and she feared his tenderness.

‘I don’t want sex with you,’ she said flatly. ‘It wouldn’t work.’

Gabriel was still for a long moment, the only sound that of water trickling into the basin and spilling over its brim. Then, softly: ‘What do you want from me, Clarissa? I’ll do anything to please you, to have you back. Just tell me.’

She stifled a sob. His forgiveness and humility were devastatingly painful to her.

‘Why?’ she pleaded. ‘I do not deserve this.’

Gabriel gave a half-smile, attempting playfulness. ‘I know,’ he replied.

Then he knelt at her feet and reached up to wind a spiral in her soaked, squeaky hair. He traced a finger over her brow, as if to smooth away the frown, and gazed at her. In the deep-orange half-light his honeyed skin glowed. Shadows played over the angelic perfection of his features and darkened the sweet hollow of his
throat. His eyes were sleepy velvet, full of brooding sadness and desire.

‘But I’ve tried to hate you and I can’t,’ he said quietly. ‘I can only love.’

Clarissa stared into her lap. ‘Even after all you’ve seen me do?’ she said, her voice breathy with disbelief. ‘Even when you know of the … the deplorable things which give me pleasure?’

‘It’s only your body,’ he whispered. ‘And your body isn’t you. I’d love you if you were a disembodied soul, Clarissa.’ He pushed her hair back over her shoulders and lightly stroked along her jaw. ‘But I am quite fond of the packaging,’ he smiled, tilting her chin then skimming a touch over her lips.

She returned the smile, just, and took his fingertip in a tiny, nibbling kiss.

‘Let me wash you,’ he breathed.

Clarissa stiffened. She wanted his intimacy yet the prospect of being unfulfilled terrified her. It would be confirmation of her unassailable taste for debauchery, for Marldon, and she did not think she could bear such a truth.

‘Take the risk,’ he said, reading her reluctance. ‘Or you’ll never know.’

With tensed shoulders Clarissa swivelled to one side, allowing him to unlace her corselet. He eased it from her then unfastened the cord of her skirt. But she did not stand and he did not ask her to. She was not ready for him to see her shaved mons and her rouged sex.

Gabriel was lingering and cautious, soaping her fingers, her arms, her neck. His slippery, massaging touch lulled her into near-relaxation and her skin glowed with a languid sensitivity.

He washed her feet, rubbing suds between her toes and over the arches of her insteps. He trickled water over her, rinsing away the lather. Foam swilled on to the floor and swirled rainbow bubbles about her discarded
pins and bangles. For a long time he avoided her breasts, until it began to feel unnatural.

But then he touched her there, and she murmured encouragement. He kneaded her full yielding mounds, his soapiness gliding fluidly over lily-white skin. Firm yet gentle, he stroked his thumbs over her soft nipples, pressing lather into the rouged peaks. They tingled lightly in answer and, when he streamed crystal water over the contours of her bosom, her tips were crinkled cones, as naturally pink as rosebuds.

‘Sacrilege to hide such a perfect colour,’ he said, sweeping his fingertips over her flesh and scuffing her tightened crests.

Clarissa made small noises of enjoyment. Her body thrilled to the forgotten pleasure of delay, of delay that was designed not to torment but to indulge her in blissful luxury and heartfelt attention. She felt heat gathering in her sex, and a precious humidity bedewed her cleft. It was so very different, and for once her insides did not have that knot of tension. She knew that, unlike Marldon, he would not depart on a whim and leave her wanting.

She cupped her hand to his neck and, a little shy, drew him to her breasts. He kissed her taut, pale globes, his mouth warm against the wetness of her skin, his stubble rasping lightly. He lapped at her erect nipples, the tip of his tongue circling moistly over the dusky tips. He plucked at them with grazing teeth and Clarissa gave a gasp of intense delight. He nibbled and bit, his hands suddenly urgent, roaming over her thighs, her waist, her bosom, squeezing hard.

The flare of roughness excited her. She knew he could be as forceful as he was tender, but she had only ever seen that force when he’d ravished her with Marldon. Then, anger had fuelled his passion, but the thought that love could be a spur quickened her blood. A flutter of lust stirred in her groin and her pleasure bud began to beat like a tiny warm heart.

She slid her hands over the smooth wet slab of his back, dropping down to kneel with him on the soapy floor. His phallus was hard and upright, standing proudly from its cluster of dark, crisp curls. Shivering inwardly, Clarissa trailed a finger along his inner thigh and hammocked the plush pouch of his balls. She rolled the tautness within, and a soft sound of hunger caught in Gabriel’s throat. Gently, she stroked the underside of his swollen prick. Beneath stretched silken skin his shaft pulsed, so solid and potent. Clarissa began to ache.

She gazed at him, offering her willingness with a steady look. A candle flame shone in the black depths of his pupils, a tiny diamond in each limpid brown eye. Then he clutched her to him, his mouth and fingers moving in her wet hair. She pressed her cheek to his strong, sleek chest, listening to the thud of his eagerness within. For a time they were as the statues around them, just holding, until Clarissa looked up, wanting him now, offering him her parted lips.

And they shared a hungering kiss, a kiss that erased cruel memories and revived a past of love and gleefully secret pleasures taken in Gabriel’s brass bed. They embraced, damp skin slipping and sticking, and Gabriel peeled down Clarissa’s flimsy, sodden skirt. She wriggled uncomfortably as he removed it. Quickly she knelt again, pushing her fists between her legs to conceal her shorn mound of Venus.

‘It’ll grow,’ she said, her cheeks colouring slightly.

He eased away her arms and gently widened her thighs, gazing down.

‘It’s beautiful,’ he murmured, his voice snagging with desire. ‘It shows your sex.’

His words sparked a sudden surge of arousal in her loins. A flickering warmth swirled low in her body and hung there as a fierce, rhythmic throb. It was not obscene; it was beautiful, beautiful. The word echoed in her mind and relief overwhelmed her.

She passed Gabriel the soap. ‘The rouge might not
taste very nice,’ she said with a coy smile. How heavenly it was to ask for something and know her needs would not be mocked.

Gabriel lathered his hands and cupped her blushing vulva. He rubbed the slipperiness into her crimson petals, his fingers gliding within her crevices and pulling gently on her labia, teasing out the redness. He stroked her hairless mons, his soapy caress sliding back and forth, from her pliant folds to the satin swell of her pubis. It was more intimate than any intended pleasuring, and somehow all the more rousing. Perhaps she did not need restraints and degradations to satisfy her. Perhaps love and purity could be enough.

She moaned blissfully at his sweet, slithering attentions, wanting more of him with every beat of her heart. He rimmed the entrance to her vagina, a fingertip circling round and round, tarrying on the mouth of her openness. He slicked soap over her clitoris, loading the smouldering pearl with creaminess, and he teased her there. The little bead moved beneath his touch, light, fluid, deliciously easy, driving her to a needful agony.

She lowered herself to the floor and lay supine on the wet marble, her legs stretched wide for him. Her hips heaved and she groaned, yearning to feel him within her. His fingers sunk into her aching emptiness, pushing forward and stroking back, slow, strong and exquisitely indolent. His thumb nudged at her flaring pleasure point and his other hand reached to fill the pewter bowl with water. Slowly he trickled the clear, warm liquid over her folds, fingers and wetness mingling, bathing the whole of her sex in rapturous sensation.