Sweet Savage Eden (13 page)

She managed to discreetly cast her elbow into him but knew little satisfaction, for he barely seemed to note the intended torment. He caught her elbow to lead her from
the room. “Please don’t fret. I shan’t attend the ball, either. I find such charades far more savage than the practices of the North American Indians.”

“A pity!” Jassy snapped in return. “You’ve come to plan an event in which you’ll not participate?”

“It is the responsibility of the Dukes of Somerfield and Carlyle. I merely represent my father.”

“I’m sure that Lenore shall be heartily disappointed. What, then, have you no interest in marriage? Why, Lenore is there, milord, quite for the taking.”

“Ah, but there is Robert to consider.”

“Do you really consider any man or woman in your quest for what you desire, my Lord Cameron?”

“But I don’t know quite what I desire,” he said. “Marriage is a most serious step. A wife must not only be winsome to the eye but a capable lass.”

“Capable? Why, Lord Cameron, you need but a showpiece, or so it seems. Someone to grace your illustrious mansion, to give you illustrious children, and serve wine and comfits—illustriously, of course. Why, Lenore should charmingly fit such a bill of needs.”

“You underestimate what I seek in a mate, Miss Dupré,” he told her, and bowed, releasing her arm.

He moved to Lenore’s side then, whispering something in her ear. Lenore laughed delightedly, turned to him, and set her elegant hand upon the frilled lace that spilled over his doublet at his chest. He seemed very tall and dark then, as striking as a prince, and Lenore, with her blond beauty, looked well with him. She sighed softly and trembled, and Jassy thought that her sister wasn’t at all immune to the oft-aloof charm of Lord Cameron.

Robert was engaged in conversation with Elizabeth, and Elizabeth was laughing happily. The duke was bowed over his duchess as the puppet master prepared his show. Jassy suddenly felt very much alone—very much the bastard child, the poor, unwanted relation from the wrong side of the sheets. Her temple thundered with a sudden pain, and she hated Henry with all the venom she could muster. He could not stop her! She would go to the ball, and she would marry well. She
would not know poverty again, but she would leave this hall where she was so unwelcome and become mistress of her own destiny.

None of them noticed her, and no matter how brave her imaginings, she was, at the moment, unnoticed, unneeded. She turned around and fled, leaving the solar, running on Elizabeth’s soft satin slippers out through the dining room and the back of the house toward the stables beyond. Her way was well lit, for there was a full moon, and stars dotted the sky, and the house was well supplied with lanterns for the evening, as were the stables. There she raced along the length of stall until she found Mary, the poor little mare with the faulty bloodline, and slid beside her. She patted the animal’s velvet nose and crooned to her softly.

“I care not that your pedigree is weak, my dear, for your heart is very valiant, and you are faithful and good and true. Wherever I go, I promise that I will see to you! They will not cast you out for not being a good worker, or a beautiful horse for the hunt, or a great breeding mare. I swear, I shall bring you with me wherever I shall go.” She hesitated. “And I shall pay that bastard for you first, so that you will truly be mine.”

She started then and fell silent, for she heard some sound at the door to the stables. She thought that it was late for the young grooms to be about, for they all lived in the cottages that surrounded the estate, and none of them lived in the stable. Not even old Arthur, in charge of the horses and grooms, slept here, for his pallet lay in the little room next to the tack house.

“Jassy?”

It was Robert’s voice. She smiled with a rush of pleasure and came around the mare’s rump. He had left the puppet show to come to her. “Robert, I am here.”

“Jassy!” Wearing a charming, crooked smile, he came her way. “I was worried when I realized that you were gone.”

“I felt like an intruder.”

“An intruder?” he murmured. He was before her by then. He took both her hands in his own and laced her
fingers with his. The light seemed to waver, the room to spin. “You could never be an intruder, Jassy.”

“I do not think that my brother would agree with you,” she said. She might have added that her sister Lenore would not agree with him, either, but just then, as they stood there alone in the lamplight, she didn’t want to breathe Lenore’s name.

“Your brother has seen this night that you have an uncanny beauty, and that your grace came inborn, and that there is a fire inside of you that fascinates and beckons.”

“Has he seen this?” she whispered. Perhaps there was fire in her eyes, and she did feel beautiful, for he allowed her to feel so. Excitement crackled around her, and her dreams seemed to find full measure once again.

He pulled her closer and closer, holding their laced fingers down by his side. She stared into his light, dancing eyes, and her heart fluttered at the things she saw within them.

Then he kissed her.

His mouth was soft and persuasive. It formed over hers, and she parted her lips instinctively to his. He released her fingers, wrapped his arms around the small of her back, and pressed her hard against him. His lips moved then, wetly and sloppily over hers, and she didn’t really care. She threaded her fingers into his hair and felt their hearts pounding together. He groaned against her, their lips broke, and he whispered with agony, “How I have wanted you.”

“I am here!” she whispered with little thought, for her imaginings had not gone far beyond this point. But her words were a fuel to him, and his lips pressed against her throat and lowered to the rise of her breasts. Then he arched her tightly against him, feverishly kissing her. Her mind whirled, and she felt his hands upon her, here and there, and then his lips again, and his fingers, plucking at the ties to her stomacher.

No, he must not. Yet she could not find the words or the will to stop him. He loved her, she was certain. Yet
she knew, too, that she could let him go no farther. Not unless he married her.

“Robert …” she whispered.

Her breasts were spilling from the gown, and she could neither stop nor dislodge him. He caught her lips in a kiss again. It was a sweet kiss, soft, tender. She closed her eyes and held tight to him. Then they were both interrupted by the loud sound of someone clearing his throat.

Robert abruptly straightened. He still held Jassy about the waist. He stared toward the first stall. Jassy, her eyes glazed with fascination, was slower to realize the interruption. Then she, too, stared down the length of the stables to the first stall.

Jamie was there, casually leaning against the hayrack, arms crossed over his chest, one booted foot atop a bale of hay. “Excuse me, but the Lady Lenore has been seeking you, Robert, to question you about your costume.”

“Damn!” Robert muttered. “Love, forgive me.” He set Jassy straight, leaving her to deal with the disarray of her gown. He thanked Jamie and strode on out of the stables.

Jamie remained. He didn’t move. He watched her with dark and condemning eyes.

Trying to ignore him, Jassy lowered her eyes. She tried to adjust the gown’s stomacher and retie the ribbons, but her fingers were trembling horribly.

He strode toward her, and when she looked up, there was such a dark fire to his gaze that she had to bite her lip to keep from crying out. He brushed her hands aside.

“Stop it!” she protested.

“Would you be found here as you are?” he demanded roughly. With practiced fingers he retied the ribbons. He brushed her bare flesh with his touch again and again, and she wanted to scream. He was in no way gentle. He was nearly brutal. Standing before her, he seemed ablaze with tension, so vibrant and hot that heat emanated from him and washed upon her in great waves.

“How much were you paid for that endearing scene,
Mistress Dupré? Had I realized that you were still in the market for a lover, I’d have put in a higher bid.”

She shrieked in fury and tore away from him, then came for him again, lashing out for his face, his chest, whatever she could strike. She caught him, as she had longed to do, with one good cut across the jaw, but he was swift with his reprisal, capturing her wrists, twisting them harshly behind her back. She was tightly pressed to him, still alive with fury, and she tried to kick him. He easily slipped his foot behind hers, and she fell to ground, dragging him down upon her. She heard the grate of his teeth, and when she stared into his eyes, they seemed black, and the tension that gripped his features in a steel-hard rage was merciless. And still she twisted and fought against him, heedless that her hair was falling, that her beautiful gown was being torn and dirtied. “You insufferable oaf, I have had it with you—I hate you and I loathe you and I despise you—and I will never let you touch me, not for any price! I cannot bear your touch—”

“No? You are a liar, Jassy, for you are no hothouse flower but the wildest of roses, made for a tempest. You fool! You would hate Robert in a matter of months were you to have him, for indeed, you would twist him to your will. But you cannot have him. You won’t see that, will you? But I will prove to you that you were not meant for him.”

“No!”

He ignored her completely. He pressed his lips to hers, and they were neither soft, nor gentle, nor persuasive in the least. They were a brand, demanding, hot and searing. They forced her mouth apart beneath him, and his tongue savagely ravaged the fullness of her mouth, hot and hard. She could barely draw breath, she could not move, and she could not fight him. She could feel him only. The wild, rugged tempest that raged inside of him seemed to sweep inside of her. She did not want him, she hated his touch, she despised him … and still, it was as if he had drugged her. It was as if he filled her with fire and rage, and with a slow, beating tempo and hot, liquid
fury. He kissed her and kissed her, and the tempo beat throughout her, and she could fight him no longer. The tempo had entered her head. She dared not move, for she could feel his body through the layers of clothing between them. She could feel the savage power in him. She shuddered, for it swept from him to her, cascaded down the length of her. His hand was upon her, upon the ribbons at her bodice, and they were untied once more. She was freed from the stomacher of her gown, and his palm swept over her nipple while he curved his hand and cupped her breast where it mounded over the lace and bone of her corset. His thumb teased the nipple through the gauze. A thread of silver sensation shot through her from that touch. She squirmed and wiggled, and merely felt his body more fully, and still she could not escape the pressure of his kiss. His heat became a part of her. She could no longer fight. She was dazed by his power, and by his touch. She lay still. The savagery of his assault slackened instantly. His hand barely touched her breast. His lips barely fell against hers, and the tip of his tongue rimmed her mouth and her inner lip, and curiously, she lay there still, allowing it all to happen.

Then, abruptly, he lifted his head. Her lips were surely bruised and damp, and they lay parted, for she was desperate to breathe. Her hair was in disarray, loosed from its ribbons. Her breast was bare, except for the sheer lace of the corset that did not cover it at all.

He smiled down at her sardonically. “A position as my mistress remains open, Jasmine, and I do assure you, my financial assets far exceed Robert’s expectations.”

She stared at him, longing for the words to tell him how she hated him, longing to be freed from his touch. She shrieked out something and tried to strike him again. He caught her hands and twisted them behind her back. Laughing, he lowered his head, and his tongue touched her nipple through the lace, and then he lowered his head still farther, bringing the whole of it into his mouth. She swore again, yet she shuddered as the ribbon of sensation leapt from her breast to the innermost part
of her. Slowly he released her, gently easing the high peak of her breast and the lace of her corset from the graze of his teeth.

She raged against him, jerking and twisting and pelting him with her fists, but her only reward was the sound of his harsh laughter. Then he climbed from her at last and caught her hands and pulled her to her feet. She jerked from his touch, tears spilling from her eyes. She blinked them away. Her fingers still trembled when she tried to right her clothing, but when he roughly said, “Here, let me help!” she swore with ever greater menace and turned away from him.

“Leave me!” she demanded, turning her back upon him. “After all that you have done, can you not at least go!”

“Nay, I shall not go. I shall walk you back into the house when we are certain that you look none the worse for wear.”

“I will never walk anywhere with you! You are untrustworthy! I cannot bear you to—”

He swung her around, staring at her with a curious passion, and the tension was ever about him. “No, don’t say it again, for we both know that it is a lie. You are no Lady Lenore, and indeed, you are no lady I have ever known, for you are real, alive, and breathing, and with a heart that pounds fiercely and eyes that are full of a feminine promise.” He clutched her hands and drew them between them. “Look! Look here at the unladylike calluses upon these hands! Mistress, they are admirable hands to my eyes, for they have known work and toil. Jassy, your quest is for life, you little fool! It is for life and for passion, and you cannot be made to see it, though you feel it! How long will you lie to yourself? You can bear my touch, you can bear it very well. It is what you need, it is what you require, it is what you crave! I know you. I know your strengths, and I know your weaknesses, and I know the workings of your cunning little mind and your greedy little heart! You are playing a dangerous game, you are playing it all wrong, and you are ignoring the rules—”

“Just get away from me!” she insisted, wrenching her hands from his grasp. Ah, but they were a sore spot with her! They were a reminder that she had been a cook’s apprentice and a scullery maid. They were rough and reddened, and though Jane’s lotion had helped, they betrayed her at every turn, no matter how she dressed in silks and fur. She cast them behind her back, lifted her chin, squared her shoulders, and cared not how disheveled her gown was as she faced and challenged him. “You play your games, Lord Cameron, and I shall play mine. And if I don’t know the rules, all the better, for then I may just ignore them. Like you, I play to win, and so help me, milord, I
will
win! I will never be your mistress, and you are wrong! I crave nothing from you!”