Jess Michaels (18 page)

Undercliffe seemed surprised, but he got to his feet nonetheless. “You can make it up to me by loving her. And you have to go all the way. She can’t just be your lover, your mistress. Because my honorable tendencies only go so far. If I feel you aren’t doing the right thing when it comes to her, I will step in. And I will find a way to have her myself.”

Nathan swallowed. The idea of that made him want to put a hole in this man’s head with his fist. But he understood why Undercliffe said it. He even respected it in some way.

“If you come near my
future wife
,” he responded, putting just the right emphasis on his words. “I will make you sorry.”

“Then we understand each other,” Undercliffe said with a sad smile.

Nathan nodded. “Good day. I have a great deal to do before I depart for Bath.”

C
assandra stared out the open breakfast room window down onto the small garden behind the townhome she had let in Bath. It was nothing compared to her one at home, but she had enjoyed the hours she had spent tending it since her arrival. She drew in a deep breath of fresh air and let it out in a long sigh.

Bath was beautiful, its naturally warm springwaters were everything that had been said about them. And Cassandra had been the toast of the small Society there since her arrival. Women who could not make it to London for her gowns had been begging her to design something for them, throwing amounts of money at her that made her head spin.

But she had turned them all down, opting instead to rest. Relax. But that strategy was swiftly backfiring. Without
work and her small but close circle of friends as a blessed distraction, Cassandra’s loneliness had begun to feel stifling and overpowering.

Even when she was out in the small, middle-class society of Bath, dancing and meeting new friends, she didn’t feel a part of the gaiety. Not when her heart was breaking.

Before she could become too maudlin, the door to the chamber opened and her new butler stepped inside. He gave her a brief, apologetic bow before he said, “I beg your pardon, Miss Willows, but you have a visitor.”

Her eyebrows arched in surprise. “So early?”

The servant nodded, his expression just as exhausted by the idea as her own.

It was only nine in the morning, and the one thing she had learned about the people in Bath, it was that they kept the same lazy hours as those in London. She sighed as she silently prayed her guest was not one of the pushy women bent on having a “Cassandra Willows Creation” made and made this very moment. Although she might begin to work here and there while she visited the small city, she wasn’t ready to create yet. She hadn’t felt creative since…

“Send the person in,” she said, cutting off her thoughts. “If they have come here at such an early hour, their mission must be of no-doubt great importance.”

As the butler left the room to fetch the intruder, Cassandra got up and went to the china hutch across from the door. She fetched a teacup and saucer for her guest. There was no reason not to be polite, even if she didn’t want to see anyone.

She began to turn as the butler reappeared. He opened his mouth to announce the visitor when the man stepped around him and into her view.

Cassandra almost dropped the cup when she saw that it was no unwanted stranger at all who had invaded upon her privacy, but Nathan. Nathan standing in front of her gaping servant. Nathan with dark circles beneath his bright eyes, with his hands shaking ever so slightly as he gripped his hat in white-knuckled fingers.

“Nathan,” she breathed, rather stupidly, but it was the only thing she could think to say.

“Hello, Cass,” he whispered in return.

The servant immediately recognized he was not wanted and backed away without further word.

“I realize you asked me not to bother you again,” he said as he reached behind him and closed the door. “But I needed to see you.” He hesitated. “I wanted so much to see you.”

She shut her eyes, still clinging to the cup that dangled from her fingertips. “I see.”

She motioned him further into the room. “Since you have come so far, why don’t you come in? I can see no harm in our talking if it is that important to you.”

No harm except for her aching heart, of course. No doubt it would take her weeks to recover from seeing him again. At this rate, she would never get over him.

Nathan moved forward just a step, almost as if he were afraid to come closer.

“Your—your home here is very lovely,” he stammered.

She couldn’t help but smile at his broken attempts at small talk. Apparently this situation wasn’t any easier for him than it was for her.

“Thank you,” she said. “It is not my home, but I do like it.” She tilted her head. “Is that why you came here? To inspect my new abode?”

“You know it isn’t,” he whispered. “Cass, I can understand why you wanted to keep the pain of your attack private, especially from me. I gave you no reason to trust me with such a secret.”

He flinched, and the true and real guilt in his stare made her heart ache.

“Part of why I didn’t tell you was because I knew you would torment yourself, just as you are doing now,” she said softly, coming toward him. She deposited the cup on the table and moved to him, taking his hands in hers and squeezing gently. “What happened that night was not your fault. I may have blamed you for your reaction afterward, but I never blamed you for the actions of that man.”

He was staring at their interlocked fingers, his breathing slightly labored. When he lifted that shocking blue gaze to hers, she could not look away. Being so close to him again when she had never thought she would, feeling the warmth of his breath on her skin and the intensity of his stare on her face…those things were like sensual witchcraft, weaving a spell around her.

“What about the actions of my father?” he whispered. “Did you ever blame me for those?”

She sucked in her breath sharply. She had prayed this day would never come. Even in her darkest moments, she hadn’t wanted Nathan to know what his father had done. How he had caused all the pain that had broken her life into shards. How he had thought that paying her money would be a salve for a gaping wound.

“How did you find out?” she asked, extracting her hands from his and pacing away.

Nathan moved into the room a few more steps and sighed with the weight of the world in the sound. “Part of the reason I believed you had abandoned me on that night all those years ago was because my father gave me a letter supposedly written by you. One that detailed your plans to throw me over for another man.”

Cassandra gasped as she faced him.

A letter? She had never known about that part of the treachery his father had set in motion that night. His father had made it clear that only a word from him had turned Nathan against her. But if Nathan had seen some kind of
proof
that she had abandoned him, especially after a humiliating night of waiting for her, it made more sense that he might have believed the worst.

Nathan continued, “Once you told me what truly happened to you, I realized that letter must have been a forgery. I had hoped that my father wasn’t involved, but once I confronted him…well…”

He hesitated and his expression darkened with a potent mixture of anger, sadness, and disappointment.

“The truth came out,” she finished for him softly.

He nodded.

She smiled sadly. “It has a way of doing that.”

He looked at her, holding her captive with just his stare. “I wish you had told me about his part in all this. That my own father sent the man who attacked you to keep you away from me, and that he paid you off once he realized what the bastard had done to you.”

She nodded. “Perhaps I should have.”

“Why didn’t you?” he asked. “Did you not think I deserved to know?”

“Oh, Nathan,” she sighed. “It wasn’t about keeping something from you out of spite. I just…I couldn’t stand the thought of you hating your father. Of you seeing him in such an ugly light.”

He stared at her, his face filled with shock. “I am in awe of you, Cassandra. He is the last person in the world who deserves your concern.”

She thought about that for a long moment. How could she explain the peace which had only come to her after years of anger?

“Your father and I never got along, but I believed him when he said that he never meant for me to be raped or harmed in any physical way that night. He was wrong.” Her voice elevated even when she didn’t intend it to. “
Very wrong
and I shall never forget what he did to me. But I have forgiven him. And not because he paid me, but because I realized that if I held on to the hatred of the man who hurt me, or the hatred
of your father…it would only scar
me
. I realized that in order to move on, I had to put those angry, hurt feelings away and find a way to be happy again. It was part of why I became a mistress when I came to London.”

He tilted his head. “After what happened to you—”

She lifted a hand to interrupt him. “I couldn’t let one man’s violence destroy my view of myself, of sex, or of men in general. I wouldn’t let myself be permanently maimed by him. I’m not saying it was easy, but over time and with very good and gentle men as my guide, I was able to move on.”

He nodded slowly.

With a sigh, she said, “Once I began to heal, I didn’t want to hurt anyone else as I had been hurt. And I knew that if I told you what he had done, it would devastate the relationship you have with him. And I wouldn’t have done that to you. I know you love your father and I never would have been party to destroying your image of him. It isn’t as if my doing so would have changed the past.”

Nathan shook his head slowly. “You are so good, Cass. So much better than anyone I have ever known. If you hated him, hated me, railed at the world, worked to destroy my entire family…no one would blame you.
I
wouldn’t blame you. And yet what you did was gather up what he broke, what that bastard who hurt you broke, and made a new life.”

He hesitated and looked away. “Until I came back and forced you to return to unhappy times. I forced you as much as the man who raped you.”

Without thinking, without considering the consequences,
Cassandra marched across the room. She cupped Nathan’s cheeks with both hands and tilted his face so that he looked directly at her.

“Listen to me, Nathan, hear me. I may have struggled against what you were demanding, but if I had not wanted this…wanted you…I would have found a way around it. Never compare yourself to that…that
person
ever again. You
never
forced me to do anything I do not want with all my heart.”

He stared at her, his gaze so focused and heated that she flushed. Slowly his hands came up and he cupped her elbows. His body asked her permission with every slow, subtle move. And she was too weak not to grant it.

“You
do
want me with all your heart, sweet?” he asked, his mouth descending with aching slowness. “Or you did once?”

She should resist him. It wasn’t fair to either one of them to allow him to kiss her or touch her or make love to her. But standing there, his breath hot on her lips, his arms coming around her in a gentle embrace, she couldn’t find the strength to deny him.

And when he kissed her, she lost all control. She opened to him, gliding her tongue out to taste him, pulling him close to feel the warmth of his hard chest against hers, to tangle her legs with his. She had been without him for over four years and yet the last two weeks had felt like an eternity.

She needed one more good memory. One more unforgettable encounter to erase the pain of her confession the last
time they were together. Then it would be enough.
Then
she could let him go forever.

Except he pulled back, panting. Staring down at her, he gasped out, “I don’t want to force you, I don’t want to hurt—”

She didn’t let him finish, but lifted her fingers to cover his lips. “Don’t treat me like glass, Nathan. Touch me like you want to touch me. And know that if I didn’t want you, if I didn’t want anything, I would let you know.”

She grasped his hand and lifted it, covering her breast with a groan of pleasure. “Touch me. Fill me. Make me tremble.
That
is what I want.”

He bit out a curse before he dropped his mouth to hers again. She sighed as the hesitation she had sensed in him fled, replaced by an urgency that mirrored her own.

Although this hadn’t been his plan when he came here, Nathan couldn’t fight the intense need to be with Cassandra any more than he could fight the need to breathe or blink. And now that he had her permission to take, to claim, to be with her, he wasn’t about to back away. Not unless she said no.

And she didn’t say no. In fact, when he guided her back toward the table and pushed her up against the edge, she let out a low moan of pure pleasure that seemed to echo in the charged air around them. He buried his lips into her throat, sucking at the tender skin there, smiling as she jolted against him. Her breasts flattened against his chest and her hips pounded against his as the table rattled behind her.

He found the buttons along the front of her gown and loosened them, peeling open the silken fabric and pulling down the chemise beneath. Then he leaned back and looked at her.

Morning light was coming in from the windows that faced out over a well-tended garden. It cascaded over her pale body, making her glow, making her utterly luminous. Her heavy, full breasts were flushed with desire, the small, pink nipples already swollen and dark. When he touched them, he could see that she would go wild. She was so sensitive, she might even come.

She might not allow this again, they had not yet made any promises. So if he was going to make love to her now, he had to make it a seduction. A promise of a future. A way to beg her to let him stay with her, even though he didn’t deserve such a boon.

In short, he had to please her like she had never been pleased before.

That was a challenge he was more than willing to meet and he returned his lips to her throat, sucking hard on her skin until she cried out in ecstasy. He inched down, bracing his weight on the table as his glided his tongue over the peak of her collarbone, lower to the swell of her breasts.