Further Than Passion (5 page)

But then, his having a female guest in his private quarters was likely a regular event. His employees wouldn't blink over such a discovery, and she needed to remember that fact. He was an experienced, sophisticated libertine, while she was on the second day of her first trip to London.

"You have the most fabulous hair."

"And
you
are an unmitigated flatterer."

He riffled through the lengthy tresses, lifting and parting the strands, and her heart fluttered. She'd never

35

had a man compliment her before, had never strolled with a beau in the moonlight, or been walked home from church.

With no dowry and no prospects, she was insignificant, invisible, a nonentity, who was not a servant and was barely a member of the family. No gentleman worth having would want her. His accolade pricked at her vanity, and she craved it to be true. It had been so long since another person had actually noticed her, and she was pitifully desperate for approval
.

"Whenever you visit me," he proclaimed, "you're to have it down and brushed out."

The oaf was insufferable! Was he deaf? "I'm not coming again. Haven't you listened to a single word I've said?"

"No."

He clasped her wrist and reclined on the sofa, and he pulled her down so that she was sprawled on top of him. Squealing with affront, she tried to wiggle away, but he had her pinned to him. Escape was impossible.

They were molded together. Feet, thighs, loins, tummies, they were forged fast. Her breasts were squashed to his chest, and her nipples leapt to attention. When she shifted the slightest inch, they ached and throbbed.

She was embarrassed, and she increased her struggles, eager to create space between them, which he prevented by planting his hand on her rear.

He ground her crotch into his, and her torso recognized that this was what she'd been needing. Instinctively, her hips flexed, and he laughed! The swine!

"What a little hellcat you are."

"Release me."

"No."

36

He burrowed her even nearer, and
he
flexed into her, the action like nothing she'd ever felt before, like nothing she could have imagined.

"Why are you pressing into me like that?"

He ignored her question and asked his own. "How did you manage to sneak in here last night?"

"I've no idea to what you allude." She would deny it into infinity.

"Why have you taken my ring?"

"I haven't!'
?

He studied her, then cautioned, "You shouldn't lie to me, Kate. I can tell when you are." He was caressing her bottom, so it was difficult to concentrate, to maintain any distance. "So what will you do with it? Will you keep it as a memento? Or will you return it when I'm not on the premises to catch you? That way, we can pretend it was never missing."

She frowned at how he'd deduced her plan, and he smirked. "I see. You've decided to put it back when I'm not looking. Well then, why don't you advise me of when, so I can absent myself? It will make everything so much easier."

"I don't have your ring," she contended.

He rolled them, altering their positions so that she was underneath him. Instantly, she was trappe
d
—
a
nd furious that she was. She'd intended to dominate the meeting, to briefly speak her piece, then be about her business, with her reputation and chastity intact.

How was she to proceed now? She was supposed to be convincing him of her high morals, but her body was rapidly conveying her to a spot where she didn't wish to be.

37

"Let me up."

"No."

She sighed. "Talking to you is like talking to the wallpaper."

"I'd heed you ... if you ever said anything worthwhile."

H
e
was fussing with her gown, trying to undo the buttons. "Are you about to ravish me?"

"Yes, but you'll like it."

"Stop it. At once."

"Sorry, but I can't oblige you."

"Lord Stamford!" The top button popped free. "Lord Stamford! Marcus!"

He grinned, never having doubted that he could wheedle her into calling him by his given name. And so quickly, too. "Yes, Kate. What is it?"

"I'm not about to simply relax, while you remove my clothes and ... and ..."

She wanted to inform him of all the things she would
not
do, but she had no terminology for discussing carnal subjects, and she wasn't about to start spewing such words as
naked
and
undressed.
In dealing with him she was so far out of her league that she never should hav
e
risked the encounter, despite how forcibly he'd commanded her presence.

She knew better. She really, really did.

"... and?" he prompted.

"Never mind, you bounder. Just release me."

"Were you enjoying yourself, watching me trifle with Pamela?"

As she vividly recollected every erotic detail of the ribald scene, she blushed such a deep shade of red that

38

she was amazed she didn't burst into flames. "You make the most outrageous allegations, and I haven't the foggies
t
—"

He kissed her. The deed was sudden, unanticipated, and she tensed, geared to push him away, to grapple and skirmish until he desisted, but before she could react, it dawned on her that the endeavor was so sweet, and so dear, that she couldn't fathom bringing it to a swift end.

His lips were soft, warm, and gently pressed to hers, and her eyes drifted shut. Having never been kissed before, she was overwhelmed by how precious it was. How could she be twenty-five and not have experienced this bliss?

Surprising her completely, he slipped his tongue inside her mouth, and he stroked it against her own, the gesture causing butterflies to cascade through her stomach. He tasted like the brandy he'd been drinking, and the tang was so splendid, and so naughty, that she moaned with delight.

Mesmerized, enthralled, at that moment, she would have done whatever he demanded, and it occurred to her that this was why females were chaperoned and counseled as to the wages of sin. Others comprehended the dangers of such reckless passion, and as she was a novice and entirely bowled over, the warnings by which she'd abided all her life held no significance whatsoever.

She craved more of this ... this unbridled spiral, this rampant pandemonium, and whatever wild feat she need commit to have him continue she would gladly attempt.

She was so inundated that she wasn't aware of all that was transpiring, and it gradually registered that her

39

bodice had been slackened
,
that he was tugging it down. In a few seconds, her bosom would be exposed, and she couldn't predict what might happen after that.

Alarm bells clanged inside her head.

Somehow, she'd jumped into a raging inferno that was beyond her control. She hadn't meant to land herself in such a jam! Was this her mother's tendencies leaping to the fore?

She'd striven so valiantly to be virtuous, to be upstanding and good, yet a handsome man had barely glanced in her direction and she was prepared to cast off her integrity and principles. Had she no pride? No dignity?

She wrenched away.

"Marcus, please."

He halted and frowned at her,
so
swept up, himself, that he didn't appear to recognize her, and her heart sank. He probably seduced every chambermaid who walked by his door. What woman was safe in such a den of iniquity? No doubt, she was but one in a long line who'd been kissed to high heaven on the comfortable sofa.

"What is it?" he inquired.

"I can't proceed." She felt humiliated, ashamed for not being the strumpet of base character he'd hoped she was.

"Why are you upset? We're only kissing. There's no harm in it."

"Yes, but you're expecting much more than a
kiss,
and I couldn't possibly." He slid to the side, granting her the chance to escape, and she squirmed away and sat with her back to him. "You believe I'm someone I'm not."

4
0

"You're hot-blooded, Kate, and you can't deny this aspect of yourself. Not to me."

"You have this crazed notion that I'm decadent, that I'm the sort who can blindly carry on as is your wont here in the city, but I'm a country girl. I have no capacity for debauchery, and I apologize if I've led you to presume otherwise."

Behind her, he rose and nestled himself to her, nuzzling at her nape. She hadn't known the spot was so sensitive, and she shivered, goose bumps billowing down her arms.

"Don't be sad," he whispered.

"I'm
not;
I
just wish..."

"Wish what?" he prodded when she couldn't finish.

"I wish I
was
loose. I wish I could be the person you assume me to be. How pathetic is that?"

He chuckled. "You are so lusty, Kate. So ready for me and what I can give you."

"No, you're wrong."

She shifted, eager to persuade him that he'd misjudged her, but he was so close, his beautiful blue eyes inches away. He could tempt the Blessed Virgin, so how was Kate to resist him when she was a mere mortal?

Where he was concerned, she was so weak, so lacking in fortitude, and he could tear down any walls she might erect to keep him
at
bay. The realization terrified her.

"We'll be lovers, Kate, for the duration of your visit. It will be wonderful between us. I promise."

"We're not going to be any such a thing. I'm leaving and I shan't return. Don't ask me to; don't pressure me; don't order me. I won't relent."

41

As if sh
e
hadn't spoken, he announced
,
"We'll dally every evening. At midnight."

How typical that he'd disregard her! He was like a spoiled child.

"No, Marcus."

She stood and retrieved her cloak, draped it over her shoulders, and adjusted the hood. He observed, not moving to assist or intervene.

It was time to depart, but she couldn't force herself out. She stared at him, a thousand comments on the tip of her tongue.

What if she was never alone with him again? What would she yearn to have told him?

Nothing seemed appropriate, so she whirled around and rushed away, but before she could exit, he called to her.

"Tomorrow night, Kate. I'll be waiting."

"You will
wait
in vain," she insisted.

"I don't think so. You'll be here."

His confidence, his assurance that she'd yield, infuriated her. With a groan of frustration, she yanked open the door and sneaked into the hall.

4

"What is your opinion, Mother?"

"About what?"

Christopher Lewis sat in his mother's suite, watching her eat and eat and eat from an assortment of candies. He couldn't ever remember seeing her without food at the ready, and heaven help the servant who let Regina's plate fall empty. She obsessed over victuals as a banker might over his gold.

She was always wolfing down one tidbit or another. Because of this, she was extremely obese, and considering the tiny chair on which she was perched, he was surprised it could hold her.

Her hair was a dull gray, her features bloated and puffy. Supposedly, she'd once been pretty, but with how she currently appeared, it was difficult to discern if the stories were true.

"About the new seeds I wish to purchase for our tenants."

"A colossal waste of funds."

43

"But it's the latest scienti
f
ic advance."

"Nonsense and folderol."

He sighed. She was so set in her ways, and she viewed any suggestion as suspect. He had so many plans for the estate, modifications he yearned to implement, if only he could wrest control from her. Her fingers were so tightly clamped around the purse strings that he probably wouldn't have the power to wrench them free after she was in the grave.

He was dying to assert himself as the earl, and he couldn't fathom from where he'd acquired his drive to improve Doncaster, but he guessed it was inherited from his father, who'd died when Christopher was a toddler. Without a doubt, he hadn't obtained it from Regina! A more cold-blooded, vindictive person he never hoped to
meet

At the next question, she'd scoff, as she did at everything, but he raised the topic anyway. "How about the chalkboards for the vicar's wife?"

Regina nearly choked on a bonbon. "Absolutely not."

"But it's such a grand idea. We could start a school so easily."

"What on God's green earth would possess you to presume that we must educate every waif who traipses past our door?"

"Our workers should know how to read and write. And to factor." He grinned, recognizing that she was more annoyed by the second. She loathed his novel concepts. "They'll be able to accurately count our money when they're making it for us."

"Never." Flushing beet red, she went back to gorging and scrutinizing her business papers.

44

Then and there, he decided he'd
buy the blasted chalkboards himself. Though she was a horrific miser, Regina gave him an allowance, of which he'd never spent a farthing. He had a bundle stashed away, and he was determined to establish a school, so he would forge ahead. It would be simple to hide the project from Regina. She never bothered with the routine lives of the people, so she wouldn't be cognizant of what was happening.

Melanie was over by the mirror, primping her curls, and she chirped up. "It's hilarious that you would waste your time and energy on such twaddle."

"You're correct, Melanie," he facetiously agreed. "I could exhaust myself at vital pursuits, like trying on clothes."

"Precisely," she concurred, too thick to realize that he'd been poking fun at her.

He sighed, again.

How had he wound up with Regina as his mother and Melanie as his sister? What twist of destiny had tethered them as a family? The country folks spread tales of changelings, and he often wondered if an elf hadn't snatched him at birth and deposited him in the wrong house.

If it hadn't been for Kate's calming presence over the years, he couldn't predict what might have become of him. Sh
e
—
a
nd the male employees who'd befriended hi
m
—
h
ad guided him to discover the man he was meant to
be.

Now that he was eighteen, that fellow was emerging mor
e
and more. He was anxious to extract his rightful place from his mother, but he wasn't sure how to accomplish it.

45

He stood, needing fresh air, needing to be away from their sti
f
ling, insufferable company.

"Where are you going?" his mother asked.

"I'm riding with Stamford."

"You'll return for supper?"

"Yes, Mother."

"No carousing with him. There's no
telling what sorts of trouble he might propose."

Christopher rolled his eyes. She still viewed him as such a child. If she ever learned of his sneaking out at night, of his reveling with the village boys, or his flirting with the tavern girls, she'd have an apoplexy.

"I'll fight his attempts to corrupt me."

She glanced up and scowled. "Don't be smart. I'm not in the mood for any sass."

"Yes, ma'am," he cajoled, not in the least repentant.

"Use the occasion wisely. Put in a few advantageous comments about your sister."

Melanie added, "You should inform him of how frequently it's mentioned that I'm beautiful."

Beautiful like a marble statue,
he mused. On the outside, she was fetching, but on the inside, she was vain, petty, and malicious.

"I'll wax on till he's smitten," Chris lied.

Despite what the two females assumed, he had no intention of furthering their cause of bringing Stamford and Melanie together. Chris wouldn't deliver such a fate to his worst enemy. Native savages could tie him to a pole and threaten to cut out his tongue and he wouldn't utter a flattering word about Melanie. She had no redeeming characteristics, and he wouldn't join her and his mother in fooling Stamford
.

46

He exited before they could issue any other frivolous orders he'd decline to follow.

******************

Shifting her corpulent frame, Regina watched Christopher depart; then she perused the post that had been forwarded from home. Melanie was prowling about, and Regina considered hiding the top page, as she would once Kate arrived, but Melanie didn't read well enough to understand what was written, so there was no need for furtiveness.

Regina couldn't remember when she'd first decided to steal from Selena Bella's trust fund
,
but it was so easy to do. Others were too gullible, especially a person like Kate, who saw the good in everyone and never noticed the bad. It would never occur to her to double-
check the bills the Bella girl sent.
                               

Kate had never met her half sister, a circumstance Regina had striven strenuously to ensure, so she wasn't aware of how modestly Regina's thievery had forced Bella to live. Plus, Kate had never managed her own household, so she had no notion of what items cost, or how much was required for expenses. Regina altered Bella's invoices before passing them to Kate, so she was duped with the fakes, just as she'd been tricked into believing she'd had no legacy from her parents. It was simple to deceive Kate.

Of course, when her father had committed suicide, Kate had been very young, so she didn't know that she'd been manipulated. Regina had pilfered Kate's dowry, and by now, it had been missing for an eternity, so there was no trail that might lead to her as the culprit. She patted the satchel where she kept her

47

records, smiling with how successful she'd been at duplicity.

Her nest egg was growing by leaps and bounds, and she almost wished she could brag about how shrewd she'd been, though she never would.

She couldn't rationalize her behavior to others. Usually, it was difficult to defend it to herself, but better than anybody, she grasped how rapidly fortunes could change. One minute, she'd been stewing in her home in Cornwall, her husband dying, their savings squandered on worthless medicines, and two mewling babies pulling at her skirts. The next, her husband was an earl. He'd perished straightaway, her son had inherited the title, and they'd moved into a mansion with two hundred rooms.

Christopher and Melanie didn't recall that embarrassing period when their father had been next in line to a great earldom, but they'd been snubbed by the local gentry because he worked to earn their living. They thought life was a celebration, filled with fashionable, wealthy people who frittered away at nothing, but Regina would never forget how it had been, and she would never return to that horrid condition of groveling before her neighbors.

She couldn't depend on Fate. If they could ascend so high, they could descend just as fast, and she declined to plummet to obscurity.

If disaster reigned, she would have Kate's and Selena Bella's assets to tide her over, and she felt no guilt about the situation. The two women didn't deserve the windfalls. They were both daughters of a whore. Let them suffer for the sins of the mother.

48

Regina gobbled the last petit four off the plate, irked she'd have to ring for another, that the staff hadn't supplied more without her requesting it.
 
S
he liked to have food close by, liked to nibble whenever the
ur
ge caught her fancy. There had been a time when she hadn’t had a French chef, when she'd often had to prepare
h
er own desserts, and she'd never recovered from that dreadful experience.

"Where is Kate?" Melanie whined, tapping her foot in a show of petulance that annoyed Regina.

She'd struggled to provide a stable upbringing for her children, but with how they were surrounded by opulence, it had been challenging. Melanie presumed the world revolved around her, despite how Regina counseled to the contrary. The girl was shrill, spoiled, conceited, and Regina despaired for her. When reality slapped Melanie in the face, when tragedy crashed down, she would be incapable of coping, would crumble at the first signs of adversity.

Thank God, she'd birthed Christopher. He possessed Regina's intellect, her savvy and cleverness, and although on occasion he was overly compassionate, under Regina's tutelage he would go far.

"She'll be along directly."

"You said the same fifteen minutes ago."

"Then, quit harping. I'm always right."

She glared at Melanie, wondering when she'd evince an interest in something beyond her own self-centered objectives. Wasn't Regina's stake in any marriage as vital as Melanie's? For years, Regina had endured the rebuffs of the
ton,
and she'd seethed, while ignoring the whispers as to how there were questions regarding Christopher being the lawful heir,

49

as to how they were interlopers into the circles of the Quality.

When Melanie wed Stamford, how Regina would revel in triumph!

"What are your plans for Lord Stamford?" she queried. "It's obvious you had no effect on him yesterday."

"Was that my fault?"

"As he mistook a servant to be you, whose
fault
would you imagine it to be?"

"Kate's. She was absolutely flaunting herself at him. You were there; you saw her. If she'd been more reticent, none of this would have happened. You'll speak to
her, won't you?"

Regina definitely intended to
talk
to Kate about her forwardness. It was a topic about which she frequently chided. Kate was afflicted with many of her mother's wors
t
trait
s
—
w
illfulness, pride, intractabilit
y
—
a
nd was more striking than a woman ought to be.

Alt
h
ough Kate didn't perceive it, men were drawn to her, which was the main reason Regina had her conceal her
h
air. An unsuspecting gentleman could be lured to ruin, and Regina wasn't about to allow Kate to wreak the havoc her mother had instigated. Not when she was residing under Regina's roof and her conduct could reflect badly on Mela
n
ie or Christopher.

"Yes, I will admonish her, bu
t in
the
 
interim, you must put your own house in order. Stamford is to visit this evening, so I ask you again: How will you impress him?"

"I won't." She stuck her snooty nose up in the air.
"
I hate him. He's a brute, and I shan't have him for a husband."

50

"You have no say in the matter. You'll wed whomever I select, and you'll wed him gladly."

"I will not. I'm marrying someone who loves me, and it won't be that cruel, vicious creature. He has a heart of stone."

"Be silent. I can't abide your romantic drivel."

Melanie appeared mutinously ready to expound, and luckily, they were saved from an argument by Kate's knock.

"You'll discipline her, won't you, Mother? For wrecking my debut?"

"You're worried about Kate when your own actions have been abominable. Go to your room, and don't emerge until you are prepared to specify the ways in which you will charm Lord Stamford."