Guilty Series (111 page)

“Oh!” she gasped and squeezed her thighs tight together. “Oh, Ian, that's wicked!”

He breathed soft laughter against her, making her shiver. His fingers curved around her inner thighs, inexorably pulling them apart. Then he kissed her again, more deeply this time, his tongue sliding over her. The feeling was so carnal that
she gave a startled cry and stirred in his grasp, trying to shy away.

He wouldn't let her. His hands tightened on her inner thighs, his wrists pressing her hips, keeping her open and imprisoned against the dressing table. “Let me,” he whispered. “Let me do this.”

“I can't!” she moaned, and then she did, clinging to the table behind her as his tongue moved up and down. With each gentle lash of his tongue, indescribable pleasure rose within her and she cried out, her body jerking helplessly against his mouth. The pleasure came in waves, each one carrying her to an even higher peak, until she felt faint and every breath was a pant, until her body was tightening in shuddering, exquisite explosions.

Then suddenly all the strength seemed to drain from her, and she collapsed back against the dressing table with a sigh of pure bliss.

He turned his face and kissed her thigh, then he rose and lifted her into his arms. He carried her to the bed and laid her in the center. He watched her as he unfastened the Cossack trousers and slid them off his hips.

He didn't look like any statue she'd ever seen. His sex was fully, flagrantly stiff, and she stared at him, appreciating for the first time just how this part of things was managed. No wonder it had hurt. She swallowed hard and tried to remember what Grace had told her. “Ian?”

The mattress dipped with his weight as he
moved to lie beside her on the bed. Leaning over her, his weight on one arm, he reached out his free hand to touch her face. “Don't be afraid,” he said fiercely.

Lucia looked up at him. “I'm not,” she said, and bit her lip.

He smiled a little, his fingertips grazed her cheek. “You are such a liar.” He leaned down, and his mouth touched her ear. “If you don't like it, just tell me and I'll stop.” He drew a deep breath. “I promise I'll stop.”

She could feel his sex hard against her thigh. She lifted her hands to his shoulders and felt a tremor run through him, the effort of holding back. She slid her arms up around his neck, accepting whatever happened. “I love you,” she murmured, and kissed him.

He moved on top of her, his knee pushing between hers. “Open for me.”

Realizing what he meant, she parted her legs and he positioned his hips between her thighs. She closed her eyes, waiting, but he didn't enter her. Instead, his weight on his forearms, he pressed the tip of his stiffened penis against her, pushing into her soft folds, but not coming inside her.

He stroked her with himself, again and again, until his breathing was harsh and fast, and she was shivering all over.

“Want me?” he asked, pushing himself into her just a little bit, then pulling back out.

She was panting now, her arms tightening convulsively around his neck. She tried to speak, but she couldn't seem to get the words out.

“Was that a yes?” he asked, and pushed into her a little deeper. “Or a no?”

“Oh!” she gasped. “You tease!”

“Damn straight.” He pulled back again, caressing her with the tip of his penis. He was breathing hard, and his eyes had that hot gleam like molten silver. “Want me, Lucia? Yes or no.”

She nodded, frantic, her hips arching up against his hardness in a way that she was helpless to stop. She forced the words out the only way she could.
“Si, si, oh, si!”

With a hoarse cry, he entered her, but it didn't hurt this time. It felt so good, she moaned in delighted surprise. He was thick and full inside her, and hot. Scorching hot.

She pressed her hands to his buttocks, urging him to continue, and the change in him was instant, the sudden urgency intense. “Lucia,” he groaned, quickening the pace to plunge deep into her, then deeper still. “Oh, God. Oh, God.”

She moved with his rhythm, and that queer tension escalated within her, building with each of his thrusts, and once again, the waves of pleasure came, taking her higher and higher. Again, she reached that intense peak and fell apart in that shattering bliss.

Her inner muscles tightened around him in clenching pulsations, and a shudder rocked him.
He groaned, thrust against her one more time, and was still. “Lucia,” he said against her neck. “My wife.”

Tenderness like she'd never felt before washed over her. Tenderness and an incredible, overpowering joy. She stroked his hair. After a moment, he stirred above her. “I must be getting heavy.”

He pressed a kiss to her temple and rolled away from her. He sat up, reaching for the tangle of linens at their feet. He pulled the bedclothes over them both, stretched out his arm, and extinguished the lamp. Then he slid back down and took her in his arms. It was like a homecoming, and she curled up in the circle of his embrace, utterly content. Within moments, his breathing deepened into sleep.

“Good night, Ian,” she whispered and smiled into the dark. “My husband.”

 

Lucia was awakened from a deep and heavy sleep by the clatter of dishes. She opened her eyes and found a maid beside her with a tea tray on the bedside table. Turning her head, she saw that the place beside her was empty. Ian was already gone. She stared at his place, the rumpled pillow and sheets, and she felt a stab of disappointment. She wished he had stayed with her. Pushing hair out of her face, Lucia sat up.

“Good morning, ma'am,” the maid greeted her in a friendly voice. “I'm Dulcie Sands, kitchen maid. “I've brought your tea. Would you like sugar and milk?”

“No, just plain, thank you. Where is my husband this morning?”

“Oh, the master always rises early when he's here, ma'am. He's up and about hours ago.”

“Hours ago? What time is it?”

“Half past ten.”

“So late?” No wonder Ian had left her.

“Yes, ma'am. You was sleeping like a baby when I brought early tea. I scraped the coal scuttle and started the fire, and you didn't even stir. The master said you must have been tired after all that walking the two of you did yesterday, so before he went riding, he said to let you sleep until the very last before we sent up your breakfast.”

Lucia smiled at that. She suspected the reason she had been so tired had less to do with their tour of the estate and a great deal to with the far more delicious activities of last night. She also knew the routine of the estate from her conversation with the upper servants the day before, and though she had little experience with the running of country estates, she knew rising early was necessary to the daily routine. “From now on, I wish to rise when my husband does. If I am not awake when you bring early tea, please wake me up.”

“Of course, if you wish.” The maid handed her a steaming cup of tea and gestured to the tray. “Would you like your breakfast in bed?” When Lucia gave an affirmative nod, the maid set the tray on her lap. “Will there be anything else, ma'am?”

“Send for Nan, would you, please, so I can dress?”

“Very good, ma'am.” The maid curtsied and departed.

An hour later, Lucia went downstairs. Inquiring of Atherton, she was told Ian was in his study, working, but when she went there, she found working wasn't exactly an accurate description of his activities. He was standing by one of the windows, in profile to her, head bent over the document in his hands. He did not notice her when she came to a halt in the doorway.

The room itself was in disarray, a complete contrast to its neat and tidy appearance the day before when she had toured the house. There were crates all around the room, half-filled with sheaves of documents, books and other such items. The doors of a huge mahogany cabinet against one wall were open, showing the cabinet had been emptied of its contents. The maps that had been hanging on the walls had been taken down and replaced with paintings from other parts of the house.

Lucia looked around, and she realized what this meant. He was packing up his old life.

She started to enter the room but stopped again, watching as his shoulders slumped, and he bent his head. The document fluttered to the floor.

She felt his pain. It shimmered to her across the room, and broke her heart. She backed silently out of the room, tiptoed down the corridor, then turned and tapped her feet decidedly on the
wooden floor as if she was just arriving. By the time she entered the room, he was standing by his desk, filling a crate with books.

“Good morning.” She looked around. “Redoing the study?”

“Yes.”

She had to do something. She had to help him, but she did not know how. She did not know what to do. She walked over to him, put her hand on his arm.

“Ian, are you all right?” Such an inadequate question.

“I am perfectly well.” He touched her cheek and smiled at her, but it was a diplomat's smile. It did not reach his eyes.

She put her arms around his waist and rested her cheek on his shoulder. “You'll find a new occupation,” she said, willing it to be true. “You just need time.”

He stirred, and when she pulled back, he turned away. “Time is something I seem to have plenty of, my dear.” He started toward the French doors at the other end of the room. “I believe I shall go for a walk.”

Lucia pressed her lips together, heartsick, as she watched him step out onto the terrace. He walked away without a backward glance.

Because of her, he was a man who did not know where he was going, who did not know what to do with his time. She had hoped somehow to fill the void her actions had caused, but she was beginning to realize she never could. She loved him,
and that was enough for her, but she was afraid it would never be enough for him. To save herself, she had robbed him of his purpose in life, and she did not know how she could ever make up for that.

Turning away, she glanced at the floor and picked up the document he had been reading earlier. Lucia stood there for a long time, her tears falling onto a commendation from the Prime Minister to Sir Ian Moore for his excellent work in negotiating the Treaty of Bolgheri.

D
uring the two weeks that followed, Lucia did everything she could think of to make her husband happy. She distracted his mind whenever she could, she filled the holes in his day with her company. She tried to get him to talk about his feelings, but Ian was not the sort of man who talked about things like that. She made love with him, she made him smile, she sometimes made him laugh. But no matter what she did or tried to do, her guilt and his melancholy hung over their life like a gray cloud that grew larger, darker and heavier with each passing day.

At breakfast, she watched him read letters from his colleagues in the diplomatic corps, and she
knew how much he missed his former life. She listened during the infrequent times he talked of diplomatic affairs, and she could hear the longing in his voice. He tried to pretend it didn't matter that he was no longer a part of those affairs, but she knew it did matter, and that knowledge tore her heart in half. He received newspapers from all over Europe by post, and he read them every day. Though by the time the ones from the Continent reached Devonshire, most of them were weeks old, Ian pored over them in minute detail, and watching him do so was almost unbearable.

When she had taken away his livelihood, she had not understood just how deep a wound her action would inflict, but she understood it now. She knew she had to make things right, but she did not know how. They had been married just over two weeks when she thought perhaps the opportunity she'd been waiting for had come.

“Your father's visit is nearly over,” Ian told her at breakfast as he perused a letter from Lord Stanton. “He is going back to Bolgheri in a week.”

Lucia stilled, knife and fork poised over her plate. “He leaves in a week?”

“Nine days from now, Stanton tells me.”

With sudden clarity, Lucia knew just what she had to do. Right after breakfast, she wrote a letter to her father, went into Honiton on the pretext of shopping, and sent her letter by express. As the rider galloped away down Honiton's High Street to carry her letter to London, Lucia watched him
go and did what she always did when she wanted something impossible. She crossed her fingers and said a prayer. “Let Cesare see me,” she whispered, “and let him, for once in his life, behave like a father and not like a prince.”

 

Three days later, the first part of Lucia's prayer was answered. Ian, however, threatened to ruin her plans before they could ever come to fruition.

“You're not seeing him,” he said, setting down his knife and fork and glaring at her across the table at breakfast.

“He commands me to come,” she answered, ducking her head so Ian wouldn't see her face. She pretended to read the letter in her hand. “Count Trevani says Cesare wants to see me one last time before he leaves.”

“The only one who has any right to command you anywhere is your husband, and I say you're not going. Why should you, after the abominable way he has treated you?”

“I think I should see him,” she said, choosing her words with care. “After all, I shall probably never see him again.” She tapped the letter against her mouth, pretending to consider it, then she nodded. “Yes, I think I should go. I want to go.”

“You do?” He stared at her askance. “Why, in heaven's name?”

She smiled, tried to be flippant. “It will enable me to thumb my nose at him one last time. That temptation is irresistible.”

Her husband did not seem impressed by that argument, and she became serious. “Ian, I want to go,” she said earnestly. “Truly. I want to see him.”

“I cannot think why.”

She gave him the most truthful answer she could. “I have a new life, and I want to put the old one behind me.” She leaned forward and put her hand over his. “If I don't do this, I will always feel bad about it.”

“It's that important to you?”

She looked at her husband, the man she still found a fascinating, intoxicating mystery, the man whose happiness she wanted more than anything, the man she loved. “Yes, Ian,” she said quietly. “It's that important.”

 

Ian arranged with Dylan for them to stay at the house in Portman Square. Four days after receiving Cesare's summons, they arrived in London, and the day following that, Ian escorted her to her audience with her father.

The prince and his entourage occupied an enormous suite of rooms located opposite Whitehall, where most royal guests of the British Crown were housed for state visits. Ian insisted upon accompanying her to the audience, and when they arrived, they were shown into a gold-and-white antechamber, where they were instructed to wait until her father's minister, Count Trevani, came to fetch her.

“There is no need for you to stay,” she told Ian
as she sat down on a padded velvet bench. “Cesare won't allow you to be present during the audience, so you would be sitting out here for heaven knows how long. Why don't you go to your club? Or better yet, go see your colleagues at Whitehall. You will be able to hear all the latest news from them.”

“Perhaps I will go across and see Stanton. He's probably in his offices at this time of day.”

“Excellent idea. Leave me the carriage, and that way, you can visit with your friend as long as you like. I shall see you at Portman Square later.”

Ian didn't need any further persuasion. Lucia watched him walk out the doors, and a bittersweet tenderness pierced her heart. How he loved to be involved in international affairs. Soon he would regain his place in the world, and he would be happy. That was enough for her. It had to be enough.

The doors into Cesare's private suite were flung back and Count Trevani came in, leaving Lucia no time to feel sorry for herself.

“His Serene Highness will see you now.” The count offered his arm to her.

“Grazie, Conte.”
She walked with him through the double doors into an enormous room of glittering gold and white, with a carpet of deep crimson. At the far end of the chamber, a tall, dark figure sat on an ornate receiving chair.

Trevani paused by the door, and Lucia walked toward her father alone. With each step, she prayed for the right words to accomplish her purpose.

Cesare was dressed in the full regalia of his rank, complete with a sash of purple draped across his chest and the Bolgheri crown of rubies on his head.

She studied him as she came closer. In appearance, they were so alike that no one who saw them together had ever doubted her paternity. Yet, there was no familial feeling in her heart when she looked at the man who bore such a striking resemblance to her. There was no respect in her heart for his royal rank. There was no admiration for his dark, still-handsome countenance. In fact, she felt nothing but a mild combination of pity and contempt. The pity was new. The contempt was not.

She couldn't afford to show either of those emotions. Lucia knew she had to be her most deferential, her most charming, her most persuasive. Whatever it took. Whatever would work.

She halted in front of him and gave her deepest curtsy. “Your Highness.”

“Lady Moore.”

He held out his hand, she kissed his ruby ring.

“Why do you wish to see me, madam?” he asked, speaking as if she were a stranger.

Humility, Lucia. Deference and humility.

“At this moment, Your Highness, I ask that you think of me not as a banished subject in exile and disgrace,” she said softly, “though that is what I am. At this moment, I ask that you think of me only as your daughter. Your flesh and blood.”

Cesare's mouth pressed into a thin, unforgiving line.

Lucia took a deep breath and said something she had never thought to say in her entire life. “Papa,” she said, and she sank to her knees in front of him. “I have come to ask you for a favor.”

 

“So, how is the world stage?”

Lord Stanton looked up from the stacks of work on his desk. “Ian,” he greeted with a smile, and stood up. “I heard your wife had an audience with her father, and I thought you might come my way.” He beckoned Ian to enter his office. “Come on in, man. Don't hover in the doorway like a stranger. Sit down.”

Ian took the offered chair. He glanced at the documents spread across the desk as the other man resumed his seat, and the sight gave him a pang of wistful nostalgia. He shoved it aside. This wasn't his life any longer. He had to accept that. “Busy as usual, I see?”

“Of course. Let me tell you what's been happening in Anatolia. I know you'll be interested.”

Ian listened, not at all surprised to learn Sir Gervase was still mucking things up in that region. The situation was still deteriorating, the Turks and Greeks were actually massing troops, and each side was demanding British assistance. Stanton was at his wits' end. “It's now a serious crisis,” the earl told him. “As a diplomat, Sir Gervase is hopeless, and if it were up to me, he never would have been sent there, but he's married to
the Prime Minister's second cousin, and you know how these things go.”

He did know, and even though it was probably wrong to get any enjoyment from Sir Gervase's incompetence and the disastrous results, there was a part of him that did enjoy it. Enjoyed it quite a bit, in fact.

“It's amazing, really,” Stanton said, “how sometimes things just fall perfectly into place.”

This abrupt segue into the philosophical caught him by surprise, but before he could answer, Stanton went on, “For instance, it's perfect that you've come down to London just now because I wanted to talk with you. I was going to pay a call later if you didn't come by here this afternoon.”

“Indeed?” Ian leaned back in his chair. “What's on your mind?”

“Peel's going to be the new Prime Minister.”

“That seems a certainty. So?”

“He'll be forming a government, choosing new people.” He met Ian's gaze across the desk. “Given the mess Sir Gervase has made of things, Peel will need someone truly skilled to get the Turks and the Greeks calmed down enough for talks. Care to recommend anyone for the job?”

Jubilation rose within him, but he stamped it down at once, telling himself not to jump to conclusions. “Does it matter who I would recommend?”

Stanton grinned. “Not really. Peel's already decided he wants you. He knows all about the brou
haha with Prince Cesare and you and your wife. He doesn't care. Cesare's leaving next week, and you've married the girl, so the scandal's bound to die down and be forgotten. When Peel is confirmed as Prime Minister, he's going to offer to give you back your ambassadorship and send you to Constantinople to patch things up. He's sure the king will agree to the appointment.”

They wanted him back. Never in his professional career had Ian ever felt a sweeter moment of triumph than he did right now. He closed his eyes for a moment, savoring it, allowing the satisfaction of it to sink in.

Just then, a commotion was heard out in the corridor.

“Where is Sir Ian?” bellowed a deep, male, unmistakably Italian voice. “Is he with Lord Stanton? Are they in here?”

“Your Highness, if you will—”

“Out of my path.” The door opened and Prince Cesare came striding into the room, followed by Stanton's clerk, a very embarrassed-looking Count Trevani, and a pair of Cesare's guards.

Ian and Stanton both rose at once and bowed.

“Your Highness,” Ian greeted his father-in-law with cool civility and nothing more. He glanced past Cesare, Count Trevani, and the guards, but he did not see Lucia. “Have you finished your visit with my wife?”

“Visit?” Cesare spat the word at him. “Is that what you call it?”

By now, Ian figured he ought have some un
derstanding of the Italians, but he didn't. They still had the power to confound him. “I beg your pardon?”

Cesare's face flushed with rage. “Never in her life has Lucia asked me for anything. Always when I see her, she puts her chin up, so, and looks ready to spit in my face. But not when she comes on your behalf. No! For you, she asks for favors. For you, she goes down on her knees. A daughter of my blood on her knees?” His voice rose to a shout. “It is unpardonable that you send her to beg for you!”

“What?” Ian did not need to feign his astonishment. Lucia on her knees to her father? It wasn't possible. “Your Highness, I have no idea what you are talking about. You summoned—”

“Hah!” Cesare raked his gaze over Ian with venom. “She wrote the letter asking to see me, but I am not fooled.” He pointed an accusing finger at Ian. “You sent her to me. Get him back his profession, she says. Please, Papa, talk to his government, she says. I want him to be happy, she says! Happy?” Prince Cesare slapped the back of one hand against the palm of the other three times in rapid succession. “I ask her what right has he to be happy after what he did, and she says what happened was all her fault! What have you made her, Englishman, that she comes so to me and takes the blame for your dishonor? Did you make her say these things? She says no, but I think, yes!”

Ian stared at the prince, and as he understood just what had happened and what Lucia had done, he realized William was right. There were times when everything in life fell perfectly into place. The aimless lethargy that had been haunting him for weeks vanished, and in its place was something else. A feeling of coming home. He knew who he was and what he wanted and where he belonged. He stepped around Cesare and walked to the door.

“I am not finished!” Cesare roared, turning. “Where are you going?”

Ian paused and looked at Stanton. “Well, I'm bloody well not going to Anatolia.” With that, he walked out the door, leaving William to the unenviable job of international diplomacy. He had far more important work to do.

 

Lucia went into the library at Portman Square and sat in her favorite place on the desk, remembering the times she and Ian had sat here talking in the wee small hours. She wondered how long it would be before they sent him to Constantinople, or some other place. He'd come home sometimes, she reminded herself, but that wasn't much consolation. The only thing that comforted her was knowing Ian would soon have his life back the way he wanted it.