In Love With a Wicked Man (23 page)

“A fighter,” said Mrs. Wentworth, “and a man who can be trusted in all things.”

“I’m a rector, Mrs. Wentworth,” said the young man a little stiffly. “I should hope I’m to be trusted in all things. As to fighting, where Nancy is concerned, I’ll do what I must.”

“Excellent, excellent!” said Mrs. Wentworth, giving his arm a parting pat. “Well, Richard, perhaps we should speak further on this subject one of these days?”

But Edward had already turned to make his way back up the steps. He had no wish to intrude—or to fall into the lady’s clutches again—so he set off in search of an alternate route to Kate’s wing of the house.

Still, unless he missed his guess, Aurélie Wentworth was up to something on more than one front. Had she given up on pushing Sir Francis upon Nancy? The gentleman’s attention had clearly turned to Lady Julia, and to his friendship with Lord Reginald Hoke, for he spent most of his time in their company of late.

Edward thought of Kate, and considered warning her. But of what? What had he heard? On its surface, nothing but a faintly philosophical conversation between two people of reasonable intellect.

And yet there was nothing remotely philosophical about Mrs. Wentworth. There was a purpose, he would venture, in every breath the woman drew.

Still, Aurélie Wentworth was not his problem. Her elder daughter, however, was. In truth, Kate had become enough of a problem to keep him up at night with doubt and something vaguely akin to despair twisting at his gut.

He pushed Kate’s mad, effervescent mother from his mind, and hastened down the servants’ stairs.

T
HE CREAKING OF
the door came to Kate as if in a dream.

She was locked in a long, barrel-vaulted room lined with elegant wainscoting, its fine furniture draped in holland cloth and cobwebs. There was a pervasive sense of abandonment in the air, and low beams of late afternoon light cut down its length, dancing with dust motes.

Where was she? A familiar place, and yet a place she’d never seen. It meant something, she was quite sure of it. She was struggling to surface from the haze so that she might puzzle out that meaning in her conscious mind. And then the hinges creaked again, and the door swung shut.

In the dream, Kate turned. But there were no doors that she could see, and she was still alone. Alone in a beautiful but barren place.

“
Kate.
”

“
Hmmm?
”

Kate came awake to a heavy warmth that tucked snug against her, its weight sagging into the mattress.

“
Kate?
”

She felt a large, warm hand cup her face, and the vestiges of the dream vanished.

“Kate, I’m sorry. De Macey plays slow as treacle, devil take him. I couldn’t think of a good excuse to simply quit. Should I have?”

“Edward—?” She stirred, tried to roll toward him but he was on top of the covers, still dressed. “Did I go to sleep?”

He was kissing her throat now. “Yes, and put me properly in my place,” he said on a laugh.

Kate set a hand to his chest. “I thought you’d forgotten me.”

“Never,” he murmured. He lifted himself away as if to study her face, and threaded a hand through her hair at her temple. “You’re not that kind of woman, Kate. Not the kind a man forgets.”

Kate reached up to twine her hands around his neck. In the firelight, with that golden curtain of hair falling forward to shadow his face, he looked harsh and handsome. He lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her slowly and intimately. She felt desire surge, then go twisting through her again, leaving her with a faint fear she might be incapable of refusing him.

After a time, he lifted his head away. “Your invitation—in the rose garden—it still stands?”

“After that kiss?” She gazed at him in the gloom. “What do you think?”

“Thank God,” he said. “I’m no gentleman, Kate. I won’t say no.”

“Then say yes.” Already Kate could feel his erection pressed against her hip, hard and insistent. “I’m saying yes, Edward. I want you to make love to me again.”

He slipped a finger under her chin, his gaze holding hers. “I can never deserve you, my dear,” he said. “And I should say, too, that—” He stopped, and looked away.

“What?” she whispered.

“That I’m sorry, Kate. Sorry things didn’t turn out differently. That I didn’t turn out to be something different. Can you understand?”

She shook her head.

“I regret that there can never be more than this fleeting
affaire de coeur
for us,” he continued, dropping his hand. “But that’s all it can be. We know that now, yes?”

She forced herself to nod. “Just make me feel that way again,” she whispered. “The way you made me feel in your bed that night. I have tried, Edward, and I cannot stop thinking of it.”

“I can do that,” he said, gazing down at her, “and not even feel guilty for it.”

“Why should you feel guilt?” she said. “I want this, Edward. It is not a mistake. It just is . . . us. It is our secret.”

“A better man would, Kate.”

“Nonsense.” She lifted her head from the pillow, and kissed him again, her right hand shaping the hard length of his hipbone through his trousers. “And I have no expectations of you.”

“But Kate, you should,” he said. “Or rather, you should be with a man who warrants your expectations.”

“Ah, and you’ve brought me a long list of these worthy fellows, have you?” she said dryly.

“I have not,” he admitted, smiling at her in the gloom. “I don’t know anyone who deserves you.”

“Liar.” She chuckled, pushing at him. “Sit up. I can’t move.”

He did so, and she realized he was already in his shirtsleeves. “I locked both the door to the parlor and the door to the corridor,” he said, his hands going to the knot of his cravat.

“Good.” Kate had scrambled from beneath the covers. Seated behind him, she took in the vision of his brocade waistcoat that stretched over impossibly wide shoulders, then winnowed down to his lean rib cage.

Leaning into him, she put her arms around his waist and set her cheek against his back as he expertly jerked free the knot and unwrapped the long strip of cambric. “There,” he said, tossing it onto the bed.

“Here, let me.” Kate shifted and let her hands start with the bottom button of his waistcoat.

He leaned back, and let his head rest against her left breast. “Well, this is companionable,” he said as she worked her way up.

Kate smiled, then pulled his waistcoat off. “Perhaps I shall train to be a valet,” she said, folding it neatly, “if this baroness business does not work out.”

He chuckled, then began to slip down his braces, easing them from each shoulder in turn. That done, Edward drew his shirt off over his head, shucking it inside out and tossing it in the direction of his cravat.

If his shoulders had looked impossibly wide before, they looked magnificent now. His was a warrior’s body, thought Kate. Sleek, and beautifully made, with muscles that ran around his arms and extended down either side of his spine in thick, overlapping layers.

She set one hand to the white, puckered scar low on the turn of his rib cage. “Did this hurt?” she murmured.

He twisted around to look at it, as if he’d forgotten he had it. “Yes, like the devil,” he said. “Took the business end of a bayonet in Ceylon. Ugly, isn’t it?”

“I like it,” said Kate honestly. “No one should be too perfect.”

He laughed, and shifted around to face her. “Your mother made a similar remark about my forehead,” he said, tucking a wayward strand of hair behind Kate’s ear. “That my new scar would lend me character.”

“Oh, Aurélie!” Kate rolled her eyes. “Pay her no mind. She babbles.”

“Does she?” said Edward musingly. “I wonder.”

Then he stood and turned to face her, his braces hanging around his hips, his lean, smooth chest warm in the firelight. Kate rose to her knees, and set her hands on his shoulders.

“You are magnificent to look upon, Edward,” she said. “I’m sure you’ve been told. I don’t even know the words.”

“You don’t need words, Kate.” He reached up and pushed his fingers through her hair at the temples, and drew them slowly through it. “It’s in your eyes. Your affection for me—your admiration—it’s in your eyes.”

“May I kiss you?”

He crooked one brow. “You needn’t ask.”

Kate set her lips to the turn of his shoulder and drew them across his collarbone; down along the beautifully shaped muscle that led to his breast. Fleetingly, she set her cheek to it, and felt his heart beating, slow and strong. His chest was smooth, with the merest dusting of hair that grew thicker and darker as it descended down the flat of his belly, only to vanish suggestively beneath the buttoned bearer.

She thought of Edward’s mouth on her breast. On impulse, she flicked out her tongue, lightly brushing his nipple. He made a sound deep in his throat and his hands speared into her hair again, holding her to him.

“
Mmm
,” he said.

“Is that a good sound?” she asked teasingly.

“Keep on, minx, and you’ll find out how good a little too soon,” he murmured, one hand easing down her spine.

She kept on, leaning fully into him to stroke, and eventually to suckle, until Edward’s hands began to make slow, sensuous circles at the small of her back.

He gave a little growl. “Oh, enough of that, love,” he murmured, setting her a little away.

His eyelids, she noticed, had grown heavy, and yet it was as if his gaze and his touch sent a newfound awareness coursing through her. He fumbled for the hem of her nightgown, and dragged one side up.

“I want this off,” he rasped.

Kate felt inexplicably shy, but loosened the tie at her throat and drew it off. Edward’s gaze heated at once. He returned her tender ministrations, his head bent so that his hair fired gold in the firelight as he captured her breast in his mouth. She made a soft sound and felt the need begin to go twisting sinuously through her.

Edward laved her breast, teasing the nipple with the tip of his tongue, then drawing it between his teeth to bite. Something that was pain—and yet nothing at all like it—shot through Kate. The wickedest, most tantalizing sensation that made the spot between her legs throb and pulse.

She must have cried out, for he released the pressure, then began to soothe and tease all over again. It was maddening. Deliciously so. As if he pushed her toward something wonderful. Kate felt her nails dig into those broad shoulders, and let her head fall back.

“Edward,” she whispered. “Oh, yes. I want to feel that again. That sweet sensation. Oh, I feel so greedy. As if I can think of nothing but myself and that delicious
feeling
.”

“What, and not of me?” On a choked laugh, he buried his head against her neck, his breath rough. “Ah, but never mind that. I can assure you, my dear, that when I look at you, I think about what I want enough for the both of us.”

“
Umm
,” she said, pulling him closer. “And just how do you mean to satisfy that urge?”

“You know, witch,” he rasped, but there was a new edge to his voice; something urgent, and yet despairing. “Oh, Kate, love. You are
exquisite
.”

And then Edward’s mouth took hers, hard and possessive, his tongue thrusting deep. It was as if he claimed her. As if he meant never to let her go. Kate was utterly subsumed in the melting, liquid heat of the kiss, parrying his strokes with her own as her hands moved urgently over him.

His hand moved between her thighs, urging her legs wider. Kate was still on her knees, giving him every access; access he used to full advantage, echoing every sweet thrust of his tongue until desire drenched her and she gasped for breath. Her hands went of their own will to his trousers, pushing impotently at the waist. On an impatient sound, he jerked the first button loose.

Kate finished the job, her fingers moving swiftly but awkwardly, jerking and pushing until Edward stepped back, shoving down his trousers and drawers in a crush of fine wool and white linen, his erection rising up a little dauntingly.

She ignored the little frisson of unease, and watched him push off the rest of his clothing. Then he pushed her backward on the bed and crawled over her, the thick muscles of his arms bunching as he did so. His eyes were no longer somnolent but almost wild, his hair falling forward in a golden mane as he lowered his weight onto her body and bore her down into the softness of the bed.

Kate drew up one knee, her hand curling into the sheets. Oh, she wanted this! Wanted it so desperately, she would shut out all risk to her heart. She wanted the physical strength of him; wanted him thrusting his body into hers, joining them in that perfect, primal rhythm of loving.

Edward was so overwhelmingly male; she reveled in it as her hands stroked and touched, entranced by the hard sleekness of his body. She could feel the unmistakable weight of his manhood pressed into her belly. Impulsively, her fingers delved lower, capturing the hot, velvet hardness. It pulsed insistently against her palm.

“
Please
,” she whispered. “Oh, Edward—this—please.”

“
Shush, love.
” He was still kissing her. Her face, her throat. His tongue stroked the seam of her lips, lightly teasing. And then he was trailing a ribbon of heat between her breasts, moving lower and lower. He found her navel, circled, darted in. The pulsing, twisting sensation drove deep again, making her gasp.

He moved lower, his mouth hot and insistent.

“Wha . . . what are you doing?” she whispered.

“I’m going to enslave you, Kate,” he murmured against her skin. “Or die trying.”

His hands were set to either side of Kate’s thighs as his tongue stroked down, all the way into the thatch of light curls at her joining, making her cry out, a thin, thready whimper.

“Edward?”

He looked up, his eyes almost feral in the firelight. “Let me take you this way, Kate,” he said. “Let me give you something, love, to remember me by.”

But Kate was already sure that this—and his memory—would be with her forever. When his tongue plunged into her heat, her whole body shuddered.

“
Umm
,” he murmured, his tongue and his fingers lightly probing. The touch was so sweet, she still trembled with it.