Midnight Scandals (39 page)

He set his hand on her wrist. She stiffened, but as he did nothing, only held her wrist loosely, she slowly relaxed again.

He opened the hook-and-eye closure on her cuff and slid his fingers beneath the black silk of her mourning gown. Her skin was wondrously soft. His breaths came back in gulps.

All of a sudden her fingers were in his hair, her mouth fastened to his, parting his lips and seeking his tongue. He heard a small moan from himself. Yes, this was what he had hoped would happen, when he came to the Lake District: a sweet friendship made even sweeter by the pleasures of the flesh.

He tilted his head to kiss her more closely, more completely. Little whimpers escaped her throat. She spread her hands against his back, running her fingers over his shoulder blades and the channel of his spine. His body pulsed with arousal.

She already had his jacket off his shoulders before he began to reciprocate the disrobing. He did not hurry, but relished the feel of each fastener popping apart, the sensation of his knuckles sliding against the soft, almost airy nainsook of her corset cover while he divided the stiff silk of her dress. She did not stand idle, but continued to strip him of his clothes, and applied her lips to every new square inch of skin she exposed.

Those dropped kisses were slightly moist, and scorched him wherever they landed. He kissed her on the mouth as he roughly pushed her dress to the floor. Now there was no more patience. He yanked her corset cover over her head and all but tore her corset in half.

“I knew I employed a sponge tonight for a reason,” she panted.

“My God. Do you mean to tell me this is all premeditated?” The thought of her inserting the sponge while anticipating his lovemaking made him almost painfully hard.

“Precisely. So you had better make my efforts worthwhile.”

He pushed her to the edge of his bed; she pulled him into it. He kissed her—her throat, her collarbone, her shoulders—while she pushed his trousers, first with her fingers, then with her foot, off his person. Her hand dug into his bottom. He took her nipple into his mouth. The feel of her, all glorious skin and impatient desire; the taste of her, milky and wholesome; the sound of her, a sonata of unabashed moans.

“Yes, more,” she cried, as he licked her nipple with the underside of his tongue. “Yes, more,” she cried, as his hand arrived at the seam between her thighs. “Yes, more,” she cried again, as his fingers parted her damp folds and penetrated deep inside.

He thought he would never heard sounds lovelier than an infinite loop of those two syllables. But then he licked her where his fingers had been, long, slow strokes, and this time, she made only beautifully incoherent noises, too far gone for words.

Her first climax came quickly, an undulating shudder that started at the center of her body and propagated everywhere else. Her second climax came even quicker, with barely a pause for her to catch her breath. After that her climaxes blurred into a continuum, her nipples hard, her body writhing, the entire room ricocheting with the throaty moans of her pleasure.

When he entered her at last, she quivered, peaking anew. Then she pushed him onto his back and climbed atop him, her long legs spread wide, her hair tumbling free, her flesh gripping his in a way that made him throw his head back in amazement. And when she tossed her hair over her shoulders, and teased him by playing with her breasts, the sight of her slender fingers upon those rosy nipples drove him completely over the edge, his release fevered and endless.

O
H, HOW SHE’D MISSED IT
, the euphoria of lovemaking, the bone-melting relaxation following the quakes and tremors.

“My God, Isabelle,” he murmured against her cheek. “Now I can see why you wrote that limerick. But I don’t believe Captain Englewood ever groaned when you wanted to be pleasured again. In his place I’d have been ecstatic.”

She giggled. “No, he never quite groaned. Though he was rather shocked in the beginning—he’d been led to believe that genteelly raised young ladies only participated passively in such animal acts.”

“I love being ravished by you.”

“Then you’ve made the right friend, Ralston.”

“I have made an amazing friend, Isabelle.”

Such a sense of ease permeated her, not just from his compliment, but from his presence and the combined optimism their togetherness generated. She kissed him on his jaw. He turned his head, kissed her on the corner of her mouth, and brought a strand of her disheveled hair to his lips.

“You have some white hair.”

“Had my first one when I was sixteen. I’m going to turn grey early in life, like my mother did.”

“You will be the most gorgeous silver-haired lady in all of Britain.”

That she would be silver-haired by the time she was forty had never bothered her. But now, for the very first time, the thought excited her. She slid her fingers along his arm, meaning to interlace her fingers with his.

“I want to brush your white hair someday,” he continued.

She stilled. Her hair wouldn’t be completely white for almost another decade and a half. Either he was suggesting a very long affair or…

“Don’t let your sister stop you—if that’s what you are worried about.”

He’d misinterpreted her silence. As much as she wanted him to be accepted—indeed, embraced—by Louise and the rest of her family, it was no longer her family’s opposition that had her fretting. She knew now what she was up against; she was prepared to dig in and hold her own ground. Not to mention she was both of age and financially independent: She wanted their approval but she did not need it.

“My family can huff and puff, but they will come around eventually.”

“Then what are you worried about?”

She exhaled, not quite ready to face that eventuality. “You.”

“Me?” He sounded surprised, even amused.

It hadn’t mattered at all when she’d propositioned him at Doyle’s Grange. Even when they became long-distance friends it hadn’t been a pressing concern. But now that he’d come for her, now that they were lovers—lovers who hoped to remain lovers for a long time—the problem could no longer be skirted.

She pushed herself up on her hands and gazed into eyes that were the color of a mossy pond. “Everyone would think, as my sister does, that I am using you as a substitute for Fitz, a replica I happened to find when I couldn’t have the original. You would hate it.”

He shook his head firmly. “Not as much as I would hate it if you were to let such a trivial reason stand in the way of much happiness.”

She did not plan to let her fear stand in the way of anything—she had no wish to ever again allow fear to be the guiding force in her life. But it did not mean she could not have legitimate concerns. “What would happen when you and Fitz run into each other?”

He smoothed her hair. “I dare say I would find it a laugh. Then I would thank him for choosing otherwise, so that you and I could meet as we did.”

He sounded so confident, so certain, it seemed almost churlish not to believe him. “Are you really sure about that?”

He pulled her toward him, his gaze upon her, and whispered against her lips. “More sure than I am of anything else in my life.”

W
HEN
R
ALSTON ARRIVED AT THE
Lakehead the next morning, he was shown into the sitting room of Isabelle’s suite. The room was furnished in the lightest of colors: An ivory chaise, chairs upholstered in buttery hues, and creamy wallpaper—the use of such pristine shades made possible by the hotel’s distance from the sooty air of the cities. Isabelle, seated in a straight-back chair, was the somber focus in the midst of so much delicate brightness.

The wait for his arrival had not been easy: Her hands were clutched together, her jaw tight. But before he could direct a reassuring smile at her, a sharp gasp erupted from a different part of the room. He turned to see a dark-haired woman of about thirty coming out of her chair, agape.

“Louise, may I present Mr. Fitzwilliam? Mr. Fitzwilliam, my sister, Mrs. Montrose.”

They shook hands, Mrs. Montrose’s hand limp and unresponsive in his. To his inquiry concerning the agreeableness of her stay in the Lake District, her answer was a few mumbled, indistinct syllables.

“I understand you reside in Aberdeen,” he said, making small talk. “I passed through years ago, when I was still at university.”

“Yes, I suppose,” she murmured, her shock-widened eyes never leaving his.

A sense of unease crept over him. He had expected a strong reaction, but not an extreme one. “And Mrs. Englewood tells me Mr. Montrose is a barrister.”

Isabelle had also informed him that her sister had to wait a number of years to marry, as Mr. Montrose had come from a family in trade, rather than country gentry, like theirs.

“Yes, I suppose,” was again Mrs. Montrose’s response.

Nonplussed, he turned to Isabelle. He might be the one needing
her
reassurance now. “And how do you do, Mrs. Englewood?”

“Very well, thank you.” Despite her obvious nerves, she smiled a little. “One might even say I am in an enviable state of being.”

He couldn’t help smiling back. “And Miss Englewood and young Master Alexander?”

“They are on the water, rowing with Miss Burlingame. Alexander will be in heaven; Hyacinth will wish herself in a submarine boat instead, crawling along the bottom of the lake.”

A hotel attendant brought in a tray of tea. Isabelle offered him a seat and busied herself pouring tea for everyone. The moment he had a cup in hand, Mrs. Montrose said, “I trust we’ve beat about the bushes quite enough?”

She had, it seemed, recovered from her shock. Isabelle’s lips flattened. Ralston set down his tea and rose to stand next to her chair—Mrs. Montrose was no doubt acting out of concern, but she was still distressing her sister.

“This is madness, Isabelle.” Mrs. Montrose’s displeasure was palpable. “Until Mr. Fitzwilliam walked in, I had thought you meant he shared a general resemblance to Fitz: hair color, eye color, build, and so on. But this is worse. This is so much worse than anything I could have imagined. Does this poor man have any idea? Have you not shown him any photographs?”

“I don’t carry a photograph of Fitz with me everywhere I go,” said Isabelle defensively. “Not anymore, in any case.”

“Mrs. Montrose, please do not speak of me as if I am no longer present,” said Ralston. “And please do not attribute any exploitation to Mrs. Englewood’s part. I was given to understand, the moment we met, that I am Lord Fitzhugh’s spitting image. Our friendship developed not because of it, but in spite of it.”

Mrs. Montrose glanced Isabelle’s way, and back at him. “I was also given to understand, sir, though not as soon as I should have been, that you resembled Lord Fitzhugh. But being told is not the same thing as witnessing with my own eyes. I can only imagine, by your nonchalance, that you have yet to meet Lord Fitzhugh?”

“Indeed I have not.”

“I have, sir, many times. And I cannot look upon you without thinking of him in the most visceral manner possible.”

Her vehemence took him by surprise. Isabelle chair scraped against the floor as she shot out of it. He set his hand on her elbow a moment before turning back to Mrs. Montrose. “I understand you have twins, Mrs. Montrose. I have cousins who are twins. I do not mistake my cousins and I am sure you do not mistake your own children.”

“Oh, drat it. Why do the two of you insist on using twins for an analogy? How many times do I have to explain that it is not the same?” Mrs. Montrose stalked to the window. “I can have quadruplets who look exactly like each other and they can all be my children. But Isabelle can only love one man. You are so sure, Mr. Fitzwilliam, that—”

Something below caught her attention. “My goodness gracious,” she whispered.

“What is it?” asked Isabelle immediately.

“It’s Fitz—and his wife. They look like they are about to leave.”

“What?” Isabelle rushed to the window. “Are you—”

She fell silent. Slowly, carefully, she turned her head and glanced at Ralston. It must be Lord Fitzhugh then. Ralston hesitated, but the next moment he was standing before the window, acutely aware of the two women’s attention on him.