Starlight (6 page)

“It is hardly as if you are in need of such a thing,
belle
!” Despite his light words, Tristan felt sick to his stomach, the ecstasy of the way Esther had pleasured his cock already fading away when confronted afresh by the reality that she would soon be gone from him.

He was decided. If his time with her was nearly at an end, then he was going to savour every last second of it. Tristan rose to his feet and fastened his breeches before bending over and effortlessly lifting Esther into his arms. When she twisted in his arms to hide her bare breasts against him, he swooped in to steal an impassioned kiss from her parted lips. “I am taking you to bed now, Esther – my bed.”

“I could not have it any other way, my comte.”

With a shuddering moan, Esther closed her eyes and breathed in deeply to allow the Comte’s woody, intensely masculine scent to dance around her and envelop her completely in its heady embrace as they hastened through the manor and back up towards the sleeping quarters.

When they reached the privacy of his bedchamber, Tristan set her back on her feet and locked the door behind them before falling to his knees in front of her and slowly removing all of her clothing.

Esther’s lower lip was trembling wildly as the Comte gently ran his hands over the inside of her thighs before standing back up and capturing her in his strong arms. “You gave me such pleasure in the gardens - allow me to return the favour now,
belle
.”

Her breath quickened as she hesitantly nodded. He paused only to remove his own clothing before lifting her into his arms again and laying her down reverentially upon the bed. “Spread your legs for me, Esther,” Tristan demanded hoarsely. “I would not have you hide any of your beauty from me – this week, you are mine completely.”

She arched deeply as he placed his hands on her knees and parted them before pressing down firmly against her hips to hold her in place against the bed. Caught up in a haze of lust and emotion that he could not comprehend, Tristan kissed his way up the inside of her left thigh before bypassing the heat of her entrance and blazing a line of fire along the top of the blonde curls that nestled between her legs instead.

Esther whimpered in a mute plea for what she sensed he was about to do, the insistent yearning deep within her begging for release. His eyes darkened. “I think you want me to make you come, Esther, is that not so?”

She nodded breathlessly.

“Then tonight,
chérie
, I want you to scream out my name when you come. Remember how I told you when we first met how I wanted to make you scream? Scream for me tonight, Esther – cry out your pleasure for me.”

The Comte’s tongue flicked across her clitoris and tore an astounded shriek from her lips. He chuckled softly, the vibrations of the sound only increasing her pleasure as he sucked gently before tugging it between his teeth and then pushing his tongue in between the hot, wet folds of her entrance to greedily lap up the musky juices of her arousal.

Esther rocked against his mouth as his tongue stroked her inside and out, effortlessly lifting her towards the climax her body had wanted since she had taken his cock so intimately into her mouth and pleasured it so successfully. The salty taste of his seed still lingered at the back of her mouth, filling her with a glorious and debauched lust that controlled her completely.

The joy of her vivid reaction to him had not faded over the days they spent together. If anything, it only thrilled Tristan more each time he experienced it. When she tensed against him with another desperate cry, he picked up the pace of his movements against her clitoris and reached up with one hand to roughly tweak one nipple between his thumb and forefinger in the manner he had come to learn she so enjoyed.

The little tease proved to be all Esther needed to send her flying towards her climax. Even had it not been for the Comte’s command she would have been unable to restrain her screams of pleasure, the Comte’s name the only discernible word amidst the jumbled sobs and cries of ecstasy as the explosive climax rocked and inflamed her aching body.

Tristan hastened up the bed to gather her into his arms as numerous tremors shot through her and tears began to roll down her burning face. Esther gladly accepted the possessive embrace and sobbed out her release into his shoulder, still desperately crying out his name like an intimate caress even as he carefully lowered her head onto the pillow and wrapped his body around hers.

When she finally found enough breath and energy to speak coherently again, she stared up at him in awe. “Tristan...Tristan, thank you.”

“No,
ma chére
, it is I who should be thanking you.” He brushed her damp hair back from her face as she twisted against him, concealing a small yawn with the back of her hand as she writhed invitingly against his cock.

Tristan smiled but shook his head. “Not tonight. You are exhausted, Esther, and you have already given me exquisite delight this evening. Go to sleep, if you like. We can always linger in bed a little while longer than we ordinarily would come the morning.”

Esther was too tired to protest. Before he had even finished tenderly tucking the sheets around her bare body she had fallen asleep, the rhythmic rise and fall of her breasts entrancing him as he stared at her with eyes that were full of emotion.

It seemed to him that hours passed in such a way, but in truth it could only have been a few minutes during which the most unwelcome of revelations finally worked its way into his agitated mind.

Her blonde curls had fanned out on the pillow as she slept, an angelic cloud to frame the flushed cheeks that were still inflamed with the glow of their impassioned and tender lovemaking. He had enjoyed her pleasure more even than his own. With every other woman, delivering their pleasure to them was simply a prelude to his own, a way of massaging his overlarge ego and winning his own climax; but not with her.

Finally, Tristan saw the truth.

Dieu.
The belated realisation took his breath away as he sank to his knees on the bed and ran his hands through his hair in abandoned agitation. He loved her – and she hated him.

Once his six days were up, she would never want to see him again. That much she had made abundantly clear.

His low, agonised cry stirred her from her slumber. He battled furiously to regain control of himself, calling on all his years of practicing the charades of the French court; and by the time that Esther’s heavy eyelids fluttered open, a forced smile was upon his face to greet her with. “
Ma chére
, you are adorable when you sleep.”

“Then why did you awaken me already, Tristan?”

Her drowsy yet indignant demand amused Tristan deeply, momentarily pushing aside the tumultuous emotions still churning inside him. He laughed softly as he pulled the sheets away from her heated body and stretched out against her. “My apologies, Esther, but you see, you are even lovelier when you are awake. Might I make it up to you, though? I find that waiting until the morning to take you again may not be possible after all.”

Esther could not reproach the Comte, not when her body was already curling into his and his cock was already stroking against her slick entrance in a mute and feverish demand. All of her earlier agitation was forgotten, for she could think of nothing but how good it felt to be in his arms.

Fierce, painful love raged through his veins and there was nothing he could do to suppress it, nothing he could do to quench it now that he had realised how inescapably he loved her. Tristan knew that he was a fool, for every moment he spent with her could only now make it worse when she inevitably left him, but he could not get enough of her.

He stared down into Esther’s wide, unguarded eyes and made her his in the only way that he could. He buried his cock inside her and grimly revelled in her low moan of ecstasy. He loved her, but she would undoubtedly break the heart that he never knew he had until now.

“You seem very happy this week, Esther; happier than I have ever seen you.” Eleanor Beaulieu’s slender eyebrows knitted together as she leaned across the table that was heavily laden with the two women’s afternoon tea. “I saw you laughing and joking with the Comte de Rouvroy over breakfast this morning – he had eyes for no-one but you.”

The implication of the two sentences spoken together was not lost upon Esther. Though she had confided nothing in Eleanor of what had passed between her and the Comte, it seemed her friend had her suspicions nonetheless. She stiffened as she set down her cup with a shaking hand, her mind spinning as she struggled to keep her grip on her composure. The mere thought of the Comte was enough to bring a tide of colour blazing across her cheekbones as she remembered the whispered promises of lust he had made whilst openly attending to her over breakfast. “He – the Comte is to be Catherine’s godfather, after all, so I thought it only right that I should get to know him.”

“Yes, I recall your surprise that morning after you both arrived when you realised Anton had chosen him to be godfather.”

The reminder of how fervent her reasons to keep the Comte at arm’s length had been was a stinging and timely one. Whenever she was in his presence – and, more pertinently, in his arms – Esther found it impossible to recall why it was that she so soon had to give him up. Lost in her reverie, she did not realise that her friend was still speaking until she touched her arm.

“Esther!”

Her head snapped up with a rush of guilt. “S-sorry, Eleanor – what did you say?”

“I asked you again, sweetheart, why it was that you took so strongly against him. You never did tell me.”

“I – I cannot explain in full,” Esther said haltingly. “Suffice it to say, though, that I was led to believe that his character was not that of someone I wanted to associate with, nor that I thought worthy of becoming Catherine’s godfather.”

 “But you trust Anton’s judgement, surely?”

Her heart was pounding uncomfortably out of time. She knew that she had to tread carefully if she was to reveal none of either her infatuation with the Comte or the details of her cousin’s disgrace that she had been sworn to keep secret. “I trust Anton, of course, but the Comte is a boyhood friend of his. I thought that it might be the case that he was unable to see the Comte objectively – as you yourself said to me, his salacious reputation is known through both Paris and London.”

“Ah, it is no sin for two unattached people to enjoy themselves, Esther, providing that care is taken! Tristan has no children, he has been careful to ensure that it is so, and to the best of my knowledge he has never caused any woman any manner of pain nor misled them in any way. He is a good man with a good heart, Esther.”

“Yes.” Esther moistened her dry lips and stared at the sleeping baby in her friend’s arms as she furiously blinked back the tears that were threatening to fall. “I confess that I have found him to be good company. The Comte is not what I expected he would be, and I see now, I think, why Anton holds him in such high esteem.”

A relieved smile broke out across Eleanor’s face as she absently rocked her tiny daughter to quell the little whimpers she had been beginning to make. “Yes, he does – as do I, for that matter. I am glad to see that you seem to have put your misgivings aside and come to know Tristan a little better, Esther. He is not the man he is portrayed to be.”

“So I am coming to fear, Eleanor; he is far more dangerous.”

Eleanor’s eyes widened. “I beg your pardon?”

Esther had not realised she had spoken her thoughts out loud. Before she could attempt to stammer an excuse for what must seem to Eleanor to be an inexplicable reaction, though, the butler hastened towards them and bowed deeply. “My lady? The vicar is here to go over the arrangements for Lady Catherine’s baptism.”

“Is that the time already?” Though a small frown still creased her pretty face, Eleanor leapt up and held her daughter out towards Esther. “Look after her for me whilst I am with the vicar, Esther.”

She shook her head frantically and pushed her chair backwards. “Oh, I should not, Eleanor –“

“Nonsense,” the other woman said briskly. Her eyes were full of sympathy, but she placed her daughter in Esther’s arms nonetheless before departing the parlour with the butler at her side to leave her alone with the infant.

It had been two long years since Esther had held an infant in her arms – she had managed to evade being alone with Catherine in the week she had been at Fleetwood Hall. Now, though, she was trapped.

Already feeling feverish and nauseous as she battled to suppress the memories that she could not bear to confront, she began to pace back and forth with Catherine cradled against her breasts, murmuring soothingly for fear the baby would wake up and only make it more difficult for her.

To Esther’s dizzying relief, the door swung open again and she instantly turned towards it, hoping for some manner of rescue; but it was the Comte stood there. To her astonishment, though, his dark eyes softened the moment that his gaze settled upon Catherine before he lifted his head to look Esther directly in the eye.

“Ah, my Esther, how very beautiful you look with a babe in your arms!”

Tristan’s hoarse words were entirely sincere. He could not hold himself back from crossing the room as if in a dream to stand behind her and envelop her body in his possessive embrace, gently kissing the exposed nape of her neck as she tenderly rocked the sleeping child.

Esther closed her eyes and relaxed into his hold. Merely being wrapped in his arms was enough to soothe her, as much as she wished it were not so. She shivered violently as he kissed her again before murmuring words of rapid French that she could not understand into her ear, the soft tickle of his warm breath against the side of her throat inflaming a tide of emotion that could no longer be restrained.

Tristan could do nothing to silence the words of love that tumbled from his lips. To him, Esther had never looked more beautiful than she did in that moment with the baby against her breast, her wide eyes filled with emotion and a deep flush to her skin. The ferocity of his love for her terrified him, for it seemed to only intensify with each moment they spent together; and he was coming to a startling realisation that he would do anything to keep her past the two nights they had left.

He kissed her again. “
Vous êtes la lumière de ma vie, ma petite étoile; mon ange, mon amour
!”

Though Esther could not understand the Comte’s words, the fiery passion behind them was more than apparent – and it terrified her. She yearned to accept it and all that it promised, but how could she knowing what he had so coldly done to her cousin? She had gone through too much at the hands of her husband to ever put herself in such danger again.

Hot, bitter tears began to roll unrestrained down her face.

“You are crying, Esther.” Tristan reached up to cup her face in the palm of his trembling hand and wipe her tears away whilst resting his free hand against the soft curve of her stomach to hold her in place against him. “
Chérie
, tell me - why you are crying?”

She twisted away from him, defying every one of her instincts that were screaming out to her to stay in his arms. “I…I cannot, Comte. Please…”

He groaned softly as he refused to relinquish his hold on her. “Please what, my Esther?”

“Do not do this, Tristan. Do not make this something more than we agreed it would be.”

Tristan understood her words perfectly. He wanted to turn her to face him, to force her to at the very least reconsider her determination to flee from him once the christening was over; but for now, the baby in her arms was an immovable barrier between them.

Esther struggled against the Comte before her unwelcome emotions could lead her to make a foolish error even greater than that which she had already made in allowing him into her life - and her efforts disturbed Catherine.

The tiny girl stirred with a low whimper that threatened far more to come. Esther stiffened as yet more memories threatened to rise up inside her, but Tristan darted around to stand in front of her and hold out his arms in gratitude for the distraction. “May I,
chérie
?”

He smiled faintly down at his little goddaughter as Esther mutely handed her over and sunk onto the nearest chaise to rest her trembling legs. “Here, Catherine;
Oncle
Tristan has you,
ma belle
!” He gently kissed the baby’s forehead as she nestled into his supportive hold and yawned once more. “Good girl, Catherine, go to sleep again for your
tante
and I.”

Esther watched in frightened awe as the sight of the tall, muscular Comte displaying such tenderness to their goddaughter awoke a yearning inside her that she had thought never to feel again. She could bear to sit and watch him no longer, too afraid of what might happen should she remain.

“You – you will excuse me, Tristan,” she whispered in a voice that even to her seemed laden with misery. “If you would not object to taking care of little Catherine until Eleanor returns, I think I need to return to bed for a little while. I seem to have a little malaise creeping up on me.”

He started towards her as she broke for the door. “If you are going to your bedchamber,
ma belle
, perhaps you would like some company?” Tristan knew that he was begging in a way that he had done to no woman before, but he could not help himself. To his pained frustration, though, Esther haltingly shook her head.

“No – no thank you, Tristan, not this afternoon. I need some time alone and you should stay and look after the…the baby.” Her breath hitched.

“
Ma chére
!”

The desperate desire in his dark eyes mirrored her own feelings all too well, but the sight of the child in his arms kept her back from flying into them as she so yearned to do. “N-no, Tristan. We are not lovers, nor are we friends – I have no need of your company this afternoon,” she lied.

His face contorted. “But I may come to you tonight? Please, Esther!”

Esther wanted to say no – she knew she should say no, for the fire in his dark eyes promised and threatened so much. Unbidden, though, she nodded her head as she unconsciously touched the curve of her throat and closed her eyes. “Yes – of course, Tristan. We only have two more nights to spend together, after all.”

“
Oui
– two more nights,” Tristan echoed grimly, only the baby in his arms holding him back from hurtling after Esther as she left the room without so much as a backward glance. Two more nights remaining in which to either rid himself of his yearning for her or to make her his in every way.