Pale Moon Rider (38 page)

Renée had nowhere to look but into his eyes. Even they could not hold her too long as his thumbs continued to tease, and she arched back, bracing herself on outstretched arms while he brought her to the gentlest of peaks. When it passed, he started again, using long, deft strokes of his fingers this time to supplement the pressure building inside and out. As she drifted with the pleasure, the haphazard twist of her hair uncoiled and dragged across the tops of his thighs.

“Oh! M’sieur … !”

Tyrone groaned and pulled his hands away. He caught her wrists, then her upper arms, bringing her forward until her face was an inch from his and there was nothing to see but the sparks blazing from his eyes.

“Not ten minutes ago you were all but screaming my name. If you do not want me to turn you out of the bed this instant, you will stop calling me ’m’sieur’ or ’capitaine.’ You will call me Tyrone. It is a fine Irish name and I rather like the sound of it said with a French accent.”

She expelled a gust of air, her body still molten and rife with sensation. “So you
are
Irish? Finn guessed as much.”

“My mother was. I was named after the county where she was born.”

“And your father?” She wriggled her hips, seeking friction and pressure where she needed it most.

He scowled. “You are trying to distract me.”

She considered the charge and the threat that preceded it for as long as it took to contemplate the fine dark lashes, the strong straight nose, the full sensuous lips that were more intoxicating than the purest French cognac.

“And if I am?”

“It will not work.”

She refrained from calling him a liar, for he was thick and full and straining with impatience inside her, and he would no more toss her out of his bed at that moment than she would let him leave this place without taking some indelible memory of her with him.

She leaned forward, swamping him with her hair as she kissed him. “Tyrone,” she murmured, kissing his chin, the underside of his throat. He gave a little grunt of satisfaction and she licked a path down to the hollow at the base of his neck, punctuating each caress with muffled whispers. “Tyrone, Tyrone, Tyrone.”

Her body shifted lower and released its warm hold on his flesh, but before he could protest, she closed her lips around the dark velvet of his nipples, using her teeth and tongue to elicit a startled hiss of breath from his throat.

“The same time I was calling out your name, ’Tyrone,’ you were calling me innocent. Do you remember that?”

“You thought you were dying.”

“I
am
French, you know.”

“Yes?” His voice was wary. “And?”

“And”—she slid lower on his body and paused to admire the solid bands of muscle that sculpted his waist and belly—“the French call it
la petite morte
, the little death.”

“An authority on the subject, are you?”

“I am not as innocent as you might think. I read books. I listened to court gossip. The
French Court
, you know, was very … mmm … liberal. The women spoke of many things, of men and pleasure, and ways of insuring a lover did not grow bored. Of course, I have always been curious to know if they truly worked.” She curled her lip between her teeth as she continued to stroke her hands down his belly and over the tops of his thighs. “Jean-Louis was very sweet and attentive, but I think he would have been too easily shocked.”

She sat back on her heels a moment, and while Tyrone was wondering what she was leading up to, she let her hands trail along his outer thighs and inner thighs, just as he had done, then curled her fingers around the various shapes of his flesh, lingering if she saw a response, smiling if she heard a soft oath or saw him tense himself against a particularly creative pattern of strokes.

“Tyrone?”

“Yes?” The word came out through the grate of his teeth and she smiled as she bent over him again.

“You will tell me,
s’il vous plaît
, if you are feeling bored?”

Tyrone sucked in a lungful of air and looked everywhere, at everything but the slow, deliberate movements of her mouth and hands. He gripped the wooden slats that formed the sides of the bed and curled his toes so hard they started to cramp. Beads of moisture broke out across his brow and his entire body flushed as if in the grips of another fever. If she wanted to know if he could be shocked she had succeeded, but not for the reasons she supposed. He was stunned because this, definitely, was never supposed to have happened. He was never supposed to have been the one reduced to whimpering volleys of sensations, never the one to writhe and arch and plead for a release that was promised, then withdrawn, promised and withheld.

Far past any limit he had achieved in his most robust moments, he growled and reached down, twining his fingers into her hair, dragging her back by gleaming fistfuls until it was his mouth she was suckling with such splendid enthusiasm and her body that was stroking his flesh with such explosive vigor. They strained into the oblivion of ecstasy together and this time, when the fever of their passion was spent, it was Tyrone who lay immobile and completely bereft of the strength it would have taken to open his eyes. He lay spread-eagled like a starfish, his feet and arms hanging over the edge of the bed, his head lolled to one side obscured by locks of damp black hair.

Renée fetched blankets and covered him, then tucked his limbs into the warmth without rousing so much as a sigh of thanks. She smoothed the hair back off his face and kissed his temple and his cheek, and after insuring the candle was fresh enough to last out the night, she drew on her night rail and robe and lit a taper to take her down the stairs.

She hesitated one last time at the door, but there was nothing else to be said or done. She had made her farewells and he had made his and this was the end of it. He would be gone by morning and she would never see him again.

“Au rev
oir, mon Capitaine
d’Etoile”
she whispered. “And thank you for making me feel warm again, even if it was just for a little while.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

I
t was
six o’clock
the following evening when the knock came on her bedroom door. Renée had been dressed for over an hour; her hair was curled and pinned, woven with thin strips of ribbon. She had chosen to wear a plain white round gown, made of watered silk, with a fitted upper bodice, a loosely flowing skirt and train. The neck was cut low, the sleeves were long with delicately puffed caps at the shoulders. Jenny had taken extra care with her hair, piling the curls at the crown and leaving just the right number of golden spirals trailing down her neck to emphasize the whiteness of her skin, the smoothness of her shoulders.

Tyrone Hart had told her she was as beautiful as moonlight, and last night, she had believed it with all her heart. The look in his eyes, the tremors in his body and hands had made her proud of her beauty for the first time in longer than she could remember. She had wanted him to lust after her, wanted him to touch her, kiss her, hold her. She had wanted to be the moonlight for him, and for a little while, she was.

Tonight there was no one she wanted to impress. The man she was dressing for was brutish and crude, and the company she was preparing for was ugly and hostile and cruel. She wanted no hungry eyes watching her, following her every move. She wanted no one’s hands to touch her, no one’s body to press next to her, no one’s heated breath to scald her cheek. She did not want to have to smile and dance and talk about foolish, inconsequential things when her heart was breaking and her body was aching in places she never thought would preoccupy nearly every one of her senses. Her breasts were tender, her thighs seemed to chafe at every step, and no matter how many times she washed, how long she soaked in the bath, his scent was on her skin. His heat was inside her body, making her slippery with despair.

What had her mother said? That one day a complete stranger would look at her from across the room; they would dance one dance and her heart would be lost forever?

Tyrone Hart may not have danced with her, but she was lost all the same.

He was gone. Finn had reported the tower room was empty and dark when he had gone up just after dawn. The bedding was neatly folded, ready for the next captive, and there were already colonies of spiders busy at work attaching the table and chairs to the walls.

“Miss?”

Renée’s eyes flicked to Jenny’s reflection in the mirror.

“Shall I answer the door, miss?”

“Yes. Yes, answer it.” She had not even heard the knock, and she busied herself now, quickly picking up a comb and fussing with an obstinate curl. She heard Edgar Vincent’s voice scrape along her spine and her heart sank another few inches into her belly.

Not surprisingly, it was the first time he had visited her room and the look on his face suggested he was not overly impressed with the sparse accommodations. Renée was seated in front of the small vanity and did not get up when he entered. To do so would have accorded him a measure of respect and here, in the privacy of her bedroom, she did not have to accord the fishmonger anything at all. Instead, she nodded at Jenny to go and fetch Antoine while she put the finishing touches of rouge on her cheeks.

“Ready and waiting, I see,” Vincent observed. “Promptness is a quality I admire in a woman.”

Renée refrained from remarking that the same did not hold true with regard to his own habits. He was an hour later than the time originally designated.

Like a great ugly bull, he strode into the center of the room and gazed openly at the bed. Renée, following his progress in the mirror, would not have been overly shocked to see him lean his hands on the mattress and test the firmness. But he came up behind her instead, stopping close enough for her to feel his body heat against her back.

He just stood there, staring at her, watching her fingers manipulate a curl, seeming to be intrigued by the way the candlelight played over her skin.

“You are one hell of a beautiful woman,” he murmured, giving into the temptation to take up another of the slippery gold spirals and run it through his fingers. “Even if you weren’t nobility, I would marry you just to keep another man from having you. And while I might not be a count or a duke or an earl and I may not have the right pedigree or color of blood in my veins, you will not be disappointed, my dear. You will be dressed like a queen and draped head to toe in the most exquisite jewels money can buy. Jewels like these”—he popped the clasp on the velvet case he was carrying—“that barely do you justice anyway.”

Renée had not seen the Dragon’s Blood rubies since her hasty departure from
London
and despite everything that had happened between then and now, her breath still caught at the sight of them. They were darkly magnificent, as compelling and mesmerizing as the first time she had seen them worn by the Duchesse de Blois.

“Exquisite, are they not? They’re just the thing to remove the … virginal temperament of your gown. May I?”

She set the comb on the vanity table and folded her hands in her lap. Vincent took the necklace out of the case and draped it around her neck, bending down as he did so. It brought the heat of his breath brushing against her cheek and with it the smell of strong spirits and stale smoke. Judging by the amount of redness in his eyes, he had been drinking heavily for most of the afternoon, and while he appeared to be steady enough on his feet, his hands, when the clasp was fastened, remained on her throat, cradling either side as he inspected her reflection in the mirror.

The necklace was heavy and felt like a wide, cold yolk around her neck. Against the whiteness of her skin, the rubies looked like fresh blood, dark and glittering, spilling in a deep vee to the edge of her bodice. They were far too gaudy to wear on an evening when there was not even to be any dancing, but she had not offered any objection when Vincent suggested it. Perhaps, because they were all under the same roof now, he would not be so diligent about taking them back at the end of the night.

Vincent’s fingers were digging so tightly into her shoulders, the gold filigree was cutting into her skin. His gaze was fixed on the large tear-shaped ruby that sat between the press of her breasts, and she could almost see the spittle filling his mouth.

“Beautiful,” he murmured. “I never thought I would ever have the chance to own something as beautiful as you.”

Renée moved slightly, hoping to ease the pressure from his hands. He took a breath and turned his attention to the bracelet, waiting until it was fastened around her wrist before he sought another opportunity for intimacy. He kept her slender fingers hostage in his larger, hairy fist, raising her hand to his lips, planting a long, wet kiss on her wrist. His breath was starting to rasp in his throat and his tongue was beginning to lick her like a salt lick when she pulled her hand away and—not knowing what else to do to keep from wiping it frantically on her skirt— reached for the earrings.

Her fingers were shaking so badly she had difficulty threading the loops through her lobes, but she managed to only stab herself twice before the pendants were hanging, red and white fire, against her neck. Before he found another reason to touch her, she stood up and waited expectantly for him to move out of her way.