How to Wed an Earl (23 page)

“Because my teeth didn’t leave a dent on his words,” she quipped, resisting the urge to hit him with her fan. Really, did he have to be so condescending?

Lucas apparently didn’t find her remark so amusing, and he was quiet throughout the performance and on the way home. She let him wallow in his bad mood until later that evening, when she heard him prowling his bedchamber. She waited until he dismissed his valet, then she let herself in through the connecting door between their suites without knocking.

“We need to talk,” she said firmly, watching him pour a hefty measure of brandy into a glass.

Lucas turned to her, glass in hand. Even in his black silk dressing gown, he looked very male, powerful and intimidating. “I am not in the mood to talk, nymph.”

She gathered her courage and walked deeper into the big chamber, which was kept from being chilly by the enormous fireplace that blazed with flames.

“I know you do not approve of Blakewood,” she began, “but I must warn you nothing will be achieved by bullying your sister.”

The blaze in Lucas’s eyes put the flames in the hearth to shame. “You think I’m a bully?”

“What would you call yourself then, after that display in the theatre?”

His jaw clenched. “I would call myself a man who is doing his duty by his sister. Now, enough of this nonsense and get into bed.”

“Heavens above!” She almost stomped her foot in frustration. “I cannot believe a man who can casually quote Wordsworth would be concerned only with duty.”

“You’d better believe it because I am not going to change. Not for you or anyone.”

This wasn’t getting her anywhere. She had to find another way to reach him. “What about your sister? Is it not your duty to make sure she’s happy?”

Lucas tossed back healthy measure of brandy. “She will be happy if she stays away from Blakewood.”

“You are the most stubborn man I have ever known,” Penelope muttered. “Would it be so bad if Blakewood courted her? That man is not out for revenge. You, of all people, should understand that.”

He slammed his glass on the small table beside him. “I do not know what you mean.”

She threw her hands up in the air. “Blakewood must surely hate his father as much as you do your own.”

His jaw tightened. “Bloody hell! I don’t hate my father.”

“Do you not? He left you to deal with the duties he was too weak to face, the one person who should have taken care of you.” She walked to him and caressed his rigid cheek, her voice softened. “I know how you feel. I, too, had a father who never faced up to his responsibilities. I kept wondering why he was never home, why I wasn’t good enough for him to want to watch me grow up.”

“Penelope — ”

“I wasn’t born a boy, but I was useful in my own way. I could be traded for an opportunity to merge with the Ravenstone fortune.”

“Sweetheart, stop.”

“When he did come home, he never asked about me. He didn’t want to see how I was doing with my studies. He just went straight to my nurse and cheated on my mother. I wasn’t anything but useful to him until the day he died.”

Lucas pulled her to him. “Oh, sweetheart … ”

The tears she’d been holding inside her for so long started to fall in big, fat drops. “I loved him so much, but I was never enough for him. I wasn’t enough to make him want to behave decently. I wasn’t enough … ”

• • •

Lucas roved his hands over her back in a helpless gesture of comfort. “Hush, sweetheart. No more.”

He kissed her fragrant hair, hating himself. In all the time he’d known her, he’d never seen her cry. Not when her stepfather’s creditors had insulted her or when her uncle had rejected her or even when she’d been shot. She was crying in earnest now, and his heart ached for the heartbroken little girl she had been.

It was the first time she’d confided in him. Furthermore, it occurred to him as he held her that he felt closer to Penelope in that moment than he ever had with anyone in his life. It made him want to tell her things he’d never told anyone.

“Sometimes, Penelope, it is not us who are lacking. It is the people around us.”

She lifted her head and raised wet, hazel eyes to his. “What do you mean?”

“I was the one who found my father right after he shot himself in our hunting lodge.”

Her pink lips parted, but she remained silent.

“Up until that moment, I thought he was everything I wanted to be — loving, dependable and caring toward his tenants.”

He shook his head. “But he took the easy way out and left a boy of sixteen to deal with the mess he left behind. He didn’t even think to leave a note to tell me where to begin.”

He cupped her soft cheeks in his large hands, his thumbs rubbing away the tears. “If I seem like a bully, it is only because I want Olivia to be able to depend on me to do my duty. I do not want to let her down as our father did.”

“Your sister loves you very much, Lucas.”

He emitted a laughing groan. “I don’t think she loves me very much at the moment.”

“Nonsense,” she said. “How could you ever doubt Olivia’s devotion? Any woman who spends any amount of time with you knows how easy it is to love you. I, myself, had forgotten over the years. Yet all you had to do was show up in that country inn, and I fell in love with you all over again.”

It seemed to Lucas that the night suddenly became more vibrant, more vivid. The burgundy silk coverlet on his enormous bed looked more inviting, the fire in the hearth blazed just a little higher, and the stars outside shone a little brighter.

Penelope loved him.

Her declaration affected him so fiercely, he couldn’t breathe for an instant.

“You love me?”

She gave him a teary smile. “Of course. Why do you think I married you?”

“Your stepfather found my coat in your bedchamber — ”

“Please.” She waved a dismissing hand. “If I told Papa I didn’t want to marry you, he wouldn’t have pushed the issue.”

He stared at her in wonderment. “You love me.”

“Why do you look so surprised? Goodness, what do you think was the reason I let you kiss me that first day at the inn, or touch me during our picnic, or — ”

He never let her finish. His mouth claimed hers in a kiss of tender possession, drinking in her sweetness while his large hands memorized her luscious form, molding her soft, delectable body to his hard length.

Judging from his kiss, Lucas liked hearing she loved him. Relieved, Penelope kissed him back, reveling in the groan that tore from his chest as she slid her tongue between his lips to taste the contours of his mouth. There was something different about Lucas’s lovemaking tonight. She felt it in the almost reverent way he touched her.

She lifted her head to give him better access to her neck, sighing her pleasure when she felt him nibbling on her collarbone and then soothing her sensitive skin with his tongue.

“Say it again,” he whispered against her ear.

“I love you,” she moaned.

Lucas revealed her body slowly, lifting her nightgown and kissing every inch of skin he uncovered before moving on to remove the next piece of clothing. By the time he’d fully unveiled her and his gaze raked her form, she was a mass of quivering limbs, desperate to feel the exquisite sensations she knew only he could give her.

She slowly untied his dressing gown, revealing the muscles of his chest. Her hands whispered against his flat stomach, making his hard flesh leap in reaction. She loved this man. And as she let his silk dressing gown fall to the floor, she tumbled him down to the enormous bed to prove it.

She climbed on top of him, kissing his hard cheeks and the column of his throat, and she smiled when she felt his hands clench in response.

Lucas rolled her onto her back and hovered above her. His eyes shone like onyx when he growled out a command. “Say it again.”

“I love you.”

His hand went to her breast, making her gasp. “Again.”

“I love you.”

His mouth fastened on her breast, and she buried her fingers in the soft hair at his nape as streaks of pleasure pooled inside her. His hand went to the mound of curls between her legs. “Again.”

“Lucas … ”

He opened her folds, drawing a thumb down her middle, and she cried out at the intense sensation as his fingers played at her opening. He was driving her crazy.

“Say it again, nymph.”

“I love you!”

His finger delved deep inside her wet heat, and she arched her hips to meet him, her arms going around his shoulders as he caressed her relentlessly with his wonderful fingers. His other hand gripped her waist, leaving her no place to hide as his knowledgeable male hand found all her secrets.

“Christ, nymph, you feel wonderful here.”

And then his mouth was on her as well. Her head thrashed on the pillow and her breath started coming in short gasps. She was all his for the taking, and she ground herself against his mouth, opening her legs wider, moistening his fingers even more while she let him feel all of her.

Moments later, she was coming apart in his arms, lifting her legs in blissful surrender as waves of ecstasy crashed down on her and a cry tore from her throat.

His caresses lightened as she surfaced back to the world, but it was a long time before she could open her eyes. When she did, she saw him hovering above her, his face a hard mask while his eyes glinted with triumph.

“I love you,” she whispered.

A strange, unholy light came over his features. And he smiled.

Penelope rolled back on top of him, taking him by surprise. “I love you,” she said as she rained kisses down his chest. She licked his flat nipples and smiled when she heard him groan in response. Her hands traced the hard muscles of his stomach, and then went lower.

• • •

Lucas stopped breathing. His body throbbed as her hand hovered above the place he most wanted it to be. Hell, he didn’t know how he’d survive if Penelope didn’t touch him soon.

She did something even better. She slid down his body while her tight little hand gripped him. He felt her moist lips against his swollen shaft as she whispered, “Can you feel how much I love you yet, Lucas?”

He groaned. “Penelope … ”

His eyes shut in surrender when her mouth closed over him. Moments later, a choked gasp escaped him and his eyes snapped open as her sweet tongue licked him, her elegant fingers gripping him. She was every man’s dream, and she was all his. She loved him. The thought drove him mad with wanting until he could take no more.

He dragged her back up and gripped her waist, positioning her until she was poised against his fully aroused body. He saw her eyes light up with curiosity.

“We can make love this way?”

He gritted his teeth as her essence rained down on his swollen manhood. “Why don’t you take me inside you, and we’ll find out?”

He lowered her to him, showing her what he meant until she caught on and took over. She rode him, taking him higher and higher inside her until he was buried to the hilt.

He summoned the last vestiges of his control and held back, torturing himself as he gazed up at her beautiful face during this amazingly intimate moment. Each erotic little moan she made drove him nearer to the brink, and he kissed her breasts, desperately wanting to taste and savor her as she found her rhythm and rode him harder. He sucked hard on her nipple, making her scream.

“I love you!” she cried again and again as her tight sheath convulsed around him.

He surged into her, her vow of love ringing in his ears as he spilled himself inside her in a long, long release that left him awed, spent.

A long time later, Lucas gazed at the dying flames in the hearth while he held his sleeping wife in his arms. As he stroked her sleeping form, a strange feeling of peace, absent from his life since his father had died, washed over him.

He kissed her hair, inhaling the feminine, intoxicating fragrance that was Penelope. He recalled her sweet avowal of love and felt his body tighten. He could lose himself in her again.

He shook his head in amazement. He wondered if he would ever get his fill of this lovely woman. The soft contours of her body fitted his perfectly, and she slept in his arms as if she belonged nowhere else. He cuddled her closer.

She loved him.

The knowledge sent a shaft of light in the dark recesses of his soul, illuminating places he’d thought buried and gone long ago. And in the midst of his profound contentment, fear started to take root.

Would Penelope still love him if she found out the truth, the reason behind his reappearance in her life? Would she still let him touch her if she found out he was not the noble, honorable man she deemed him to be? That he’d married her to secure his inheritance?

He didn’t realize his grip on her had tightened until she stirred in his arms.

“Lucas?”

“Go back to sleep,” he whispered, nuzzling her neck.

Penelope turned in his arms until she was facing him. The firelight turned her skin to gold, and her hazel eyes were glowing, more green than brown in this light.

“You are so beautiful,” he said truthfully. “The most beautiful woman I have ever known.”

Her eyes widened. “No, I am not. But thank you.”

“You are,” he insisted.

She grinned. “Then the world must be full of blind men, for I vow not one of them would agree with you.”

Overwhelmed by the sweet wonder that was his wife, he replied, “It must be, or else they’d see the amazing way your eyes turn from green to brown, depending on your mood. How their depths hint at the mysteries of the forest.” He touched his lips to hers. “And how generous your lips are, lips that seem to be made for kissing.”

She blushed.

“And how you make a man think of strawberries when a blush tints your creamy skin.”

She laughed. “Strawberries?”

“Mmmm.” His hand roved down her body, sending a blissful sigh to her lips.

“Go on,” she said. “What about the other parts of me, my lord?”

He grinned, feeling lighthearted for the first time in years. Of all the women in the world, only Penelope would be brazen enough to fish for compliments so blatantly.