Grace (25 page)

So he had decided to give her what she wanted. He would release her from the wager.

As he felt his anger begin to mount again, he tore his gaze from the girl on the bed to look around the softly feminine room she occupied, not knowing exactly for what he searched. A clue, perhaps, to the woman he knew as Grace, something, anything, that might help him gain insight into the girl he had read so inaccurately. He had felt instinctively drawn to her from the start, sensing a strong streak of conviction in her, a streak he had mistaken for loyalty and honor, but which had instead proven to be callous selfishness, stubborn will, and cowardly artifice. Trevor despised one thing above all else: cowardice.

He found the fact that she hid in her room to avoid the conditions of their bargain an act of sublime cravenness, one of which he had not thought her capable. Worse, she had used her aunt and her sister as go-betweens, thus eliminating any chance for Trevor to discuss the situation with her, effectively removing any possibility for him to try to change her mind. That, he found, he could not tolerate. He expected loyalty, honesty, and integrity from his friends. He would require those same traits in his wife.

Seating himself next to the bed in an ecru velvet–upholstered chair, Trevor watched Grace sleep for nearly an hour. Somewhere within the house a clock struck the hour of four. The distant sound reminded him that, sometime soon, the servants would wake and begin moving around, going about the business of making the lives of their employers easier and more comfortable than their own. He sat up straighter and leaned over Grace, gently smoothing back a lock of hair that had fallen across her cheek. God, she was beautiful. He almost could not bear the knowledge that he would never again have a chance to watch her sleep like this, not in his bed or in any other. Abruptly, before he could change his mind, he pulled his hand away and sat back in the chair.

“Grace.”

His ominous, quiet voice broke the stillness. He spoke her name only once, but somehow the sound pierced her consciousness. She dragged herself up from the depths of sleep, certain she had dreamed of hearing Trevor call to her. When her bleary eyes finally focused on the motionless figure sitting in the darkness next to her bed, she gave a start of surprise and sat bolt upright, protectively pulling the covers up to her chin.

Trevor smiled at her, a chilling, forbidding smile that did not quite reach his eyes, eyes that glittered a cold emerald in the subdued light. “You seem worried I might ravish you as you lie in your bed,” he said. His voice dripped with disdain.

Grace looked a little frantically at the door that led to the hall and then to the one that led to the connecting dressing room between her bedchamber and Faith’s, more worried that someone would discover Trevor in her chamber than for her safety. “What are you doing here?” she hissed at him.

“I came to see how you were feeling, my dear.” His voice sounded strangely flat, lacking the customary warmth and resonance she loved.

“I-I’m feeling somewhat weak, my lord,” she stammered in confusion. A look of cold revulsion crossed his face.“But the doctor says I
am
improving,” she hastened to add, vaguely wondering how her illness could possibly anger him.

A muscle leaped in his jaw. “Yes, I can see that.”

“Could you please tell me why you’re here, my lord?” Her voice was small and bewildered. Again, Trevor marveled at her acting skills.

He stood. “I am now willing to release you from our bargain, Grace,” he stated in the brisk tone of someone conducting a business transaction—as if he were not standing in her bedchamber in the middle of the night.

Already Grace’s confusion had begun to diminish. She felt a growing sense of irritation at the way Trevor had rudely
startled her from a comfortable sleep to subject her to this bizarre conversation in the small hours of the morning. Both the earl’s tone and his brusque manner were uncalledfor. “Why?” she asked in a much stronger tone, her alert eyes narrowing on his shuttered face.

Trevor looked back at her with raised eyebrows. “Why, Grace, I can almost
see
your former good health returning, even as we speak,” he said. His voice took on a taunting edge. The silence held for a long moment as she looked back at him steadily. “In answer to your question, as you will recall, you did not wish to be a part of our little experiment from the outset. I simply begin to think that you were right.” He took a step closer to the bed and watched as Grace lifted her stubborn little chin, refusing to allow his towering presence to intimidate her. “There’s only one thing about which I’m still uncertain.”

Grace’s eyes sparked at him out of the darkness. “And what, my lord, might that be?”

He leaned down to look her directly in the eye, placing a hand on each side of her hips, effectively pinning her beneath the covers. “This,” he replied harshly. He took her lips in a crushing kiss that stole her breath and forced her back into the pillows. Her hands lifted to push weakly at his shoulders until he braced one knee on the bed for support and buried a hand in the tumbled mass of red-gold curls to cradle the back of her head. He raised his head a fraction of an inch to look deeply into her stormy blue eyes.

“I’ll scream,” she threatened against his lips, her chest heaving with the effort to drag air into her constricted lungs.

“Go ahead, my dear,” he taunted. “Scream the house down. You’ll get me out of here, if that’s what you want. But you have to remember that the servants, as well as your aunt and your sister, will come running to see what could be wrong. Servants gossip. Your reputation will be in tatters.”

“I could care less about my reputation,” she flung at back at him. She managed, somehow, to square her slim shoulders in the meager space he had allotted her between the pillows and his body.

Trevor almost smiled at her bravado. “Ah, but you
do
care about the reputations of your precious sisters. A scandal of this magnitude would ruin their chances for making a good marriage, now, wouldn’t it? Poor little Mercy would never get her duke. And only think of what this could do to your aunt. Why, she’d never be accepted in polite drawing rooms again.”

“You’re the vilest person alive,” she hissed at him between her teeth.

“Well, then, I’m in good company,” he countered.

Suddenly Grace could no longer fight him. Her hands fell to her sides in an uncharacteristic show of defeat. She wearily turned her head away from him, closing her eyes against the overwhelming weakness that threatened to overtake her. “Could you just go away now, please?” Her voice, small and hurt, barely reached his ears.

“No, my dear, I’m afraid I cannot. Not without saying good-bye.” Trevor cupped her chin in his hand and brought her mouth to his again, gently this time, slowly stretching himself out full-length on the bed beside her. His lips moved insistently over hers, evoking, demanding her complete response. When she felt his tongue trace the full contours of her lower lip, she groaned in spite of herself, and gave in to the feelings already consuming her. She turned her body toward his in mindless surrender.

Automatically, Trevor deepened the kiss, filling her mouth with his tongue, pulling her more closely against him. His hand slipped down from her face to cover one small breast. Grace gasped as jolts of pure pleasure shot through her at his touch. Her nipple rose proudly against his palm
as Trevor’s lips moved along her jawbone to kiss the sensitive spot just behind her ear.

“Trevor,” she moaned, a whispered plea.

He stopped long enough to whisper back, “If you want me to, I’ll stay.” When she did not reply, he began retracing the path his lips had taken before, his thumb gently teasing her nipple through the thin muslin of her nightdress.

Somewhere, far in the back of Grace’s mind, warning bells had begun to ring, but they faded with each second she remained in his arms, with each melting kiss she returned with one of her own. He lifted his hand from her breast. Her eyes flew open at the sudden loss of warmth; then she gasped in shock as she felt him unbuttoning the front of her gown. At the small sound, Trevor stopped. He raised his eyes to hers, his voice unintentionally harsh. “Do you want me to stop?”

His hands had stilled in their action, but Grace could feel the trembling tension that coursed through them as they rested against the bodice of her nightdress. The knowledge that he was as affected as she by their nearness filled her with awe and a sweet sense of discovery at the great power all women shared. She closed her eyes. Even as her mind screamed at her to tell him to stop, that this was wrong, her body and her heart compelled her to allow him to continue what felt so right. In the end, her heart emerged the victor.

When she stirred beneath him, Trevor knew she would answer his question. Suddenly the answer meant so much to him that he found himself holding his breath. He watched as she slowly opened her eyes and looked into his. What he saw made his heart momentarily constrict, then begin wildly hammering.

Grace was looking up at him with such aching warmth, such tender, melting promise, that he felt rocked to the
very core of his being. With a tortured groan he tore his eyes from her luminous blue ones, and quickly unbut-toned the rest of her gown. Impatiently he pushed it aside.

Her body was sheer perfection, glowing a dusky peach in the pale moonlight. Her nipples rose proudly, blushing pink on small breasts shaped to perfectly fit his cupped hand, begging without shame for his kiss. He bent to take one into his mouth. When he did, she arched against him with a gasp of pleasure.

He suckled at her breast with rough-tender strokes of his tongue, sinking his teeth gently into her soft flesh. She caught her breath as he lifted his mouth from one sensitive tip, then moved immediately to the other to give it equal attention.

Nearly insensible from the incredible feelings that rushed through her, Grace ran her hands fitfully up and down the corded muscles of Trevor’s back, wanting to pull him as close to her as possible and just hold him there. He raised his head to look at her with passion-drugged eyes, and she felt a sudden, deep regret for the way she had initially treated him. She thought of all the wasted moments she could have had, simply spending time with this wonderful, incredible man. She laid a hand softly against his cheek and whispered with aching tenderness, “Trevor, I am
so
sorry.”

Trevor jerked back as though slapped. He abruptly remembered why he had come, that the woman he held in his arms had proven herself nothing more than a conniving little liar. Deliberately he cupped a breast in each hand, rolling and teasing both nipples between his thumb and forefinger. He kissed the shadowed valley between. “Does that feel good, my lady?” he asked in a husky voice.

Urgently Grace nodded, reaching for him, needing to hold him close to her.

He eluded her touch. “There’s more,” he whispered. “Tell me you want it.”

Grace opened her eyes to find his staring into hers, their centers dark and inscrutable. Her emotion-fogged mind spun in confusion. “I-I don’t understand,” she stammered, wondering why he would not let her touch him. She reached for him again.

He pinched a nipple in his fingers. She arched her back, dropped her hands, and groaned. “Oh, Trevor,” she pleaded urgently.

“Tell me.”

“Yes . . . yes, I do,” she breathed, not knowing for what she asked. “I want it so very
much
.”

Immediately Trevor lowered his head, his tongue flicking sensuously at the undersides of her breasts. He ran a hand down her silken stomach to the nest of soft curls that hid her secrets. At the convulsive tightening of her legs, Trevor raised his head and took her lips with a savage intensity. “Don’t close me out, love,” he murmured into her mouth, his fingers still splayed on her soft mound. “Open for me, darling.”

Unable to resist him in her weakened and aroused state, Grace gave up and relaxed her legs. Trevor watched her face as he slid his hand between her thighs to cup her honeyed heat in the palm of his hand. His touch teased, light and aching, softly at first, his fingers gently seeking out her pleasure points. Grace reached for him again, but he caught both of her hands in one of his and held them above her head. His tongue thrust more insistently now, stroking and tasting hers as shock waves engulfed her body. She gasped against his mouth as he pressed the heel of his hand against the sensitive nubbin at the top of her slick folds and tenderly parted her with one probing finger.

“Trevor!” Grace gasped and arched against him, fearing
and reveling in the unbelievable sensations that had begun to thread through her. “More,” she begged without shame. Quickly he complied, urgently stroking her most sensitive places until she writhed beneath him. She took a deep, shuddering breath that announced her coming fulfillment. Swiftly he covered her lips with his, taking her keening cry of pleasure into his mouth as she convulsed around him.

Then he waited.

Slowly her world stopped spinning. Her breathing began to return to normal. As sanity dawned, she realized that Trevor simply rested atop her, his face carefully blank as he registered her reactions. She smiled tenderly and reached for him, her face aglow with her newfound knowledge.

Trevor’s handsome face hardened into a mask of cynical contempt. Abruptly he pushed himself off her and stood silently next to the bed, looking down at the girl whom, just the day before, he had feared he might lose forever. She lay on the bed without moving, openly vulnerable to his now cold gaze, momentarily stunned at his sudden change from a sweetly tender lover into this man she scarcely recognized.

“This,” he said in a bitter, mocking voice, “is exactly how I’ll remember you.”

Plunged abruptly into horrified shock, Grace felt waves of humiliation wash over her. Suddenly ashamed of her nudity before the hard gaze of the man she had just allowed to remove her clothing, she quickly scrambled to cover herself. She knelt, trembling, in the center of the bed, holding the edges of her gown together with numb fingers, watching in dazed disbelief as Trevor turned coldly away and walked over to the window.