Mischief by Moonlight (14 page)

But she swirled her tongue against his with a quiver of eager experimentation, and rockets of desire shot through him, pushing aside his good intentions. They could kiss more…what harm would it be?

They kissed and kissed, their breathing growing loud in the small space, though not loud enough to rise above the thump of the carriage wheels rolling over a rough road. They would be near the outskirts of London.

Colin reached out and jerked the curtain across the little window, shutting out the moonlight. It was instantly black in the carriage, though an insistent sliver of light still found its way past the edge of the curtain, as though intent on accompanying them. John Coachman would keep driving until Colin said stop, which he wanted to be never.

She worked at the collar of his shirt. “I need to feel more of your skin,” she whispered.

Need…she was killing him.

“Could you…take off your shirt please?”

He made a choking sound. “My shirt?”

“I've never seen a man's bare chest.”

“You won't see it now. It's too dark.” He lifted a shaking hand to shape the curve of her waist, and she leaned into his hand. He explored upward until he met the soft give of her breast. His blood thundered, the lust roiling in him yelling
This! This! This!
while his better nature shouted
Stop!

“I have to feel you,” she insisted, working at his shirt until it was spread wide and her hands were on the bare skin of his chest.

Her desire and her touch unleashed him, and he began undoing the buttons on the back of her frock, barely registering when his clumsy fingers sent a button flying loose to hit his boot. The small, useful muscles of her bare back fascinated him, and he stroked them over and over, unable to get enough of her.

Oh yes, he wanted what they were doing. And
she
wanted it. In the back of his mind the specter of marriage loomed like permission, and he pushed her chemise wide over her shoulders and freed her breasts. His trembling hands moved deliriously over the silky skin. He rubbed the tips with his thumbs, wonder and lust filling him equally, and she arched into his hands.

With a sigh that came from the depths of his being, he buried his face against her breasts as she clutched him to her. A whimper of pleasure escaped her.

She
wanted
him
. Something in him sang out even as the animal force of what they were doing pushed him to nudge her legs apart and lift her skirts and pull her to straddle his legs.

Her small hand moved to the fall of his trousers and began to trace the shape of his erection with gentle curiosity, and he fought not to explode from the yearned-for pleasure of her touch, the most exquisite torture of his life.

Josie was vaguely aware of the carriage rolling on, its motion adding to the urgency and propulsion of what they were doing, and the darkness made it something outside of everyday life, and grief, and everything she couldn't bear to think about. What they were doing was taking her out of herself, now when she so desperately needed it to.

But there was so much more to what she and Colin were doing. He was here, right here with her in this moment, and it felt like they were both discovering something new, something almost healing. Though she knew he was a man of thirty who'd been about in the world and must have experienced such things before, she didn't want to think about him being with other women. His kisses and his touch felt special, and only for her, and that was all she cared about.

How like a prayer answered it was to be in his arms, to know he needed her as she needed him. And pleasure, too, of a kind she'd never truly known, the warm, urgent uprising of desire.

He took her nipple in his mouth and teased her with his tongue and dragged his teeth lightly over the swollen skin. She clutched the sturdy width of his back, holding on to him hard as a thrilling heat raced through her. While he turned his attention to her other breast, she ran her hands over him, making herself slow down so she could trace the flatness of the muscles that lined his ribs. He made a sound like all the air had been sucked out of him as she skimmed lower, across the jutting bones of his hips.

He worked his hands up under the fabric pile of her skirts, which had mounded up between them. His fingers stroked slowly up her calves as though he didn't want to miss an inch of her skin, making her feel worshipped. When he reached her inner thighs, he stopped to linger. Did he know that she desperately wanted him to touch where she was aching for him?

“You are so soft,” he said in a hushed voice.

He seemed amazed by her, as though her womanly curves and hollows were a revelation.

His fingers moved slowly along her flesh in that maddening, worshipping way, and—
there
. Slowly now, he stroked her. Everything in her shivered, attuned completely to the almost unbearably rich pleasure of his touch, and to the oneness she felt with him in that moment. Any boundaries that had ever been between them seemed to have fallen away.

“Does this please you?” he asked in a husky voice as his fingers circled and rubbed, making her limp with desire.

“Yes,” she whispered, glad now it was dark because this was so intimate, and she was so open to him and vulnerable. And yet, she'd never felt more protected.

“A wonder,” he murmured in a thick voice, his lips against her neck.

“Mmm?” Her voice had gone blurry.

“You. A wonder,” he murmured.

Her heart seemed to tip forward then, as if straining to meet his, and she knew that what she'd shared with Nicholas had been only the barest beginning, and nothing like what she felt for Colin. Every moment in his arms only pulled her deeper.

He tugged at the ties of his breeches and the thick weight of him fell toward her. It was shocking, this strange, hidden part of him, but also fascinating. She leaned back a little and lightly touched the smooth hardness with her fingertips. He bucked, and combined with the jerky motion of the carriage, nearly pitched them off the seat.

His hand came over hers and helped her squeeze him harder than she would have guessed he'd want, but he groaned in a way that could only be pleasure. She heard the sound of teeth grinding, then he swept her hand away and pulled her closer.

“We'll get married,” he murmured urgently against her ear.

Marriage…she didn't want to think about anything practical now. Hazy with passion, needing to be as close to him as she could, she wanted only what they were doing. The trust and the bond that had always been between them seemed to deepen every moment as their passion burned brighter, consoling her and making her feel more cherished than she'd ever felt in her life.

He tilted his hips, and a shudder wracked his body as they slid together.

“Oh God,” he groaned. He drove into her, past the momentary resistance of her maidenhood, past propriety and restraint. With a sudden plunge, he sheathed himself fully inside her.

“I'm sorry,” he gasped. “Too rough.”

“I don't care,” she whispered, struggling to adjust to the feel of him inside her.

She had only moments to absorb the stretching and welcome the increasingly pleasurable sensation of their joining when, with a shudder that seemed dragged out of him, he abruptly found his release.

Josie lay across Colin's chest, her face pressed into the seat upholstery behind him. He was very still, as if gathering himself. Or maybe he'd even fallen asleep.

Now that the force of what they were doing had collapsed and their breathing was quieting, she was aware of the jumbling of the coach wheels turning, of the thump of the horses' hooves. It was entirely dark in the carriage; she supposed it must be getting on for ten o'clock. Edwina and Maria would be wondering where they were.

She hadn't felt the release toward which their joining had been drawing her and which had clearly had such an effect on him. But what they'd shared had been something important and deep. He'd touched her heart, and she knew she'd never be the same.

She knew now that she loved him.

Of course she did—she'd only been hiding it from herself all this time. What else could she have done, being engaged to another man, an equally worthy man?

But what she felt for Colin ran much, much deeper than what she and Nicholas had shared. She and Colin were connected at the deepest possible place. They understood each other. Wordlessly, they knew each other.
This
was what she had been reaching for. This was the reason behind her unsettled feelings.

These last months, some part of her had known that the man she'd thought of as her friend first and a man second was really her key to the mysteries of the heart.

They shouldn't have done what they'd just done—it was the wrong time and ignored the gravity and respect that grieving Nick called for, like shouting out a birthday greeting in a quiet church. It had been an impulsive thing to do, but it had still somehow been the right thing to do. This was love, finally; how could it be wrong?

He shifted beneath her cheek and she slid onto the seat with her heart melting in her chest as softly and gratefully as a pat of butter on a piece of warm toast. The ache over Nick was still there, as sad as the loss of any friend would have been, but it was bearable now because she was not alone. And because now she truly knew love.

She began to put her gown to rights, grateful for their shared silence. She could hear Colin doing up his breeches.

“I'm sorry,” he said quietly. “I would have wished things had not gone as they just did.”

A stiffness in his tone arrested her hands as they probed an unfastened buttonhole on the back of her gown, feeling for a button that seemed to be missing. “What do you mean?”

Yes, she was a little ashamed that she'd so easily stepped away from her grief and into his arms. But she didn't care about that right now—what she cared about was that profound connection she'd just shared with him.

Was he disappointed with what they'd done? It had ended so abruptly. Why would he not reply?

“Colin?” she said, letting all the softness she was feeling into her voice. Surely this man who knew her so well would sense what she needed to hear.

***

Colin was struggling to gather his wits. He knew he was in danger of pulling her into his arms so they might ride in his carriage endlessly through the night, with no destination. Just the two of them, outside of time and space.

Touching Josie, making love to her, had exploded over him like an unexpected storm, though if he'd ever allowed himself to imagine a first time making love with her—and he hadn't—it wouldn't have ended with his release occurring abruptly, and before hers. He'd wanted her so badly, though, and for so long.

But now the bliss was fading, and he could no longer avoid the voice of his conscience. He scrubbed a hand roughly over his face.

“Colin?” she said softly. He could hear the yearning in her voice, and it tore at him. He'd let his emotions and his passions run away with him, when he should have held them in check. She'd been vulnerable, and he should have been strong.

He'd behaved so weakly.

He also, already, wanted another chance to make love to her, to make it far better for her than his falling-off-a-cliff climax had allowed. A million more chances, actually.

He could feel Josie's eyes on him in the darkness that had made what they'd just done more acceptable at the time. The silence was stretching out, and he knew she'd want a response. Remorse and shame washed over him more urgently each moment.

“We shouldn't have done what we just did,” he said.

“I know,” she said, her voice full of feeling that seemed to yearn toward him, and for a moment he entertained flinging open the carriage door and pitching himself out into the night to escape all this emotion.

“I know,” she said again. “I don't quite understand how it happened. But…I'm not exactly sorry that it did.”

She was going to frame this as something good, he saw, and he must not allow that.

He couldn't be at the mercy of desires. That wasn't who he was.

Maybe all this time when he'd been wanting Josie, he'd yearned for her precisely because he couldn't have her. She'd been safely engaged to Nick, and now she wasn't.

He'd thoroughly compromised her. She might even be with child already. How could he have so abandoned reason and honor?

He must atone. However much he didn't want to, he must retake the hard line he should have maintained where Josie was concerned.

“What we did was an insult to Nick's memory. We acted reprehensibly.”

She drew in a breath sharply. His words had been hard, but they were true, and every moment he saw more clearly how badly he'd transgressed what he owed his friend. He stirred up anger with himself over this so he wouldn't have to think about the part of him he needed to close off to Josie.

That too-soft part told him they'd done what they had because there was a very real connection between them, which went far deeper than what had existed between Josie and Nick. That soft part of him wanted him to acknowledge that the attraction he and Josie had been hiding had pulled them together because of something incredibly important.

But he couldn't listen, because what he needed now was to take the right actions that would put things between him and Josie back on an even keel, even if they were changed.

A heavy silence had taken over the carriage, and he opened the curtain to the moonlight and pulled out a small tinderbox to light the lantern on the wall, needing it to dispel the last traces of what they'd done.

“Reprehensibly,” Josie repeated in a flat voice. “Yes.” She paused, then said, “Would you ask the coachman to take us back to Maria's?”

He knocked on the roof and stuck his head out the window and gave the order.

His words had been blunt, but they had to be. Josie made him feel like someone else, a person he didn't recognize who careered around doing crazy things, and he had to be clear.

Of course, they would have to marry. He
wanted
to marry her. To be with her, to make love to her over and over. But he refused to be overwhelmed by her. He would always need to keep the deepest part of himself back.

She had withdrawn into the corner, her head turned away from him, chin up and eyes fixed on the upper corner of the carriage wall.

“Josie,” he began, “you know we will have to marry now after a respectable delay.”

“I know nothing of the kind.”

He blinked. This was nonsensical. “Of course we have to marry. I've compromised you—” He thought she flinched at his words, but they must speak plainly. “And beyond that, you might well be increasing.”

“I doubt it.”

“You can't know that. It can't be determined for weeks, surely.” He raked his hand through his hair, incredibly uncomfortable with this conversation. Did she have to be difficult? “Josie, you must see reason. The very fact that we've been in this carriage alone together for so long is damning.”

“No one will think anything of it,” she said in that new, flat voice he was starting to hate. “You're the irreproachable Earl of Ivorwood and I'm a grieving fiancée. And make no mistake, I do grieve for the loss of Nick. I couldn't be more sorry he is gone. And I agree with you that what we just did should never have happened. Starting from now, I'm going to pretend that it didn't. Barring a pregnancy, there need be no consequences from this for either of us.”

The starkness of her words surprised him, but he knew some of her sudden remove came out of hurt at how abruptly he'd spoken, how he'd focused on the mistake they'd made.

He softened his tone. “Josie, would you look at me so we can talk about this like reasonable adults? We have to get married.” He paused a moment. “And the sexual encounter…it can be so much better.”

She made an outraged sound. “I'm sorry if it wasn't up to your standards!”

“That's not what I meant at all. I meant better for you.”

“Stop. I don't want to marry you, and I
don't
want to talk about this any more. If there are any consequences from tonight, we can talk about them when it becomes necessary. And now,” she said, letting her head drop back against the squabs, “I should like to rest. I suppose you will understand that I'm quite exhausted.”

And just like that, though the small space of the carriage meant they were close enough to watch each other breathe, she dismissed him.

***

The ride back to Maria's was the longest of Josie's life. As the wheels rolled onward, their regular rumble echoed the rhythm in her head:
He
didn't love her, he didn't love her
.

Thank God he'd revealed himself before she had.

She kept her head back and her eyes closed as though she were resting. She didn't much care if he thought she was asleep, or guessed she was only pretending so she didn't have to talk to him.

He was disgusted with what they'd done, evidently. She hated that stiffness which had come into his voice, a note she'd never heard from him before.

Of course she agreed with him that they shouldn't have done what they had. She'd felt so full and changed, though, afterward, and willing to forgive them, in consideration of love. But he didn't love her, so why would he forgive?

His offer of marriage made her angry. She supposed she should be grateful that, instead of still being paralyzed with fury at herself over having been a bad fiancée, she now realized she'd had doubts about marrying Nicholas because her friendship with Colin had turned into something so unexpected and important. She could forgive herself now, a little, for the mistakes she'd made while waiting endless months for a man she'd known for six weeks to return to her.

And yes, she could forgive herself for what had just happened with Colin. It had opened her eyes, and she couldn't be sorry for the fuller knowledge of herself and life and love that it had given her.

But she was angry with him for rejecting it. For withdrawing, as he so often did. Maybe he'd felt nothing beyond the pleasures of the moment, or maybe she just wasn't enough for him, or maybe he couldn't risk his precious solitude to find out if she might be. It didn't matter why he didn't love her, but she saw how it would be between them if she did marry this man who so clearly hated unruly emotions of the kind that ran through her. She could never marry him.

“Josie?” he said quietly and touched her arm. “We're close to Maria's now. Come, we must talk.”

She kept her eyes closed and didn't respond. After a few moments, he removed his hand. She could feel his eyes on her, and childishly, that made her even angrier.

That she might become pregnant had seemed insignificant to her when she'd been caught up in the need to join herself to him. This was without doubt the most foolishly, dangerously impulsive thing she'd ever done in her life.

Perhaps if she were pregnant, she'd go away, maybe even have the baby in India. Everything was different in India, Papa had always said. Life there was rougher and wilder, and no one would know her there—she could pretend to be a widow. She could teach the children of the nabobs, and she and a baby might have the adventure of a lifetime.

But such plans were for later. For now, she just wanted to get away from him.

He didn't say anything else until the familiar sounds of other carriages and the sophisticated chatter of people strolling the streets indicated they were in Mayfair.

As the carriage slowed on its approach to Maria's house, he said, “We'll talk about this when you're feeling more the thing.”

The carriage stopped, and they heard the sounds of the driver getting down. The door would open in a moment, and Colin leaned forward to get out and hand her down.

“Please don't,” she said without looking at him. “And—I don't wish to see you anymore.”

She felt him flinch at her words, and he reached forward as if to grab her before she got out, but the door was open and she stepped out and escaped, glad for the lights and glow of Maria's house before her. She rushed up the stairs and felt grateful for the front door closing decisively behind her.

Neither Maria nor Edwina said anything about her long absence, though she could see from the concern on their faces that they hoped she'd been helped by her outing. She managed a small smile, and when she asked if she might have a tray with a sandwich in her room, they lit up as though they'd just heard good news.

Tucked into her bed a short time later after eating a little of the sandwich and drinking some water, she lay very still, her arms at her sides as she stared up at the pretty white canopy over her. The tightness in her neck and shoulders that had been there for days had eased somewhat.

Now that her guard had relaxed, her throat swelled and she had to work a little to breathe. Fat tears pooled in her eyes and dripped down her temple, and she let them. Tears for poor Nicholas, and for her own sins, and for all the things in life that never quite worked out enough to let people be happy.

When they had dried, she slept deeply.