Swept Away (28 page)

“No! Please don't ask me this. I can't—” The caress of his fingers was distracting her so that Julia could hardly think. She was aware of an almost overpowering impulse to open her lips and take his thumb between them.

He must have seen something of the thought in her eyes, for his skin suddenly flushed with heat, and his eyes darkened. “I want you, Julia,” he said baldly. “Are we to spend the rest of our lives without pleasure?”

“You swore you would not—”

“I said I would not demand my rights as your husband,” he countered. “I did not promise that I wouldn't ask.”

He bent and brushed his lips across hers. The touch was light and velvety and made Julia tremble. She remembered the taste of his mouth on hers, the pressure, the texture, and she ached to feel them again.

“Well, Julia?” he breathed. “What is it to be?” His fingers trailed down onto her throat, then still lower, until they reached the neckline of her dress. “I have discovered that pride makes a lonely bedfellow.”

He bent and kissed the side of her neck softly. Julia could not hold back a soft moan. She could feel her nipples hardening, yearning for his touch.

“But you hate me,” she murmured.

“I want you.”

“Oh…” She brought her hands up to her temples. “I'm so confused.”

“Let me help you clear your mind,” he offered, and his lips fastened on hers.

H
e kissed her gently, almost teasingly, at first. His tongue slid along the crack between her lips, parting them and slipping inside. He explored her mouth tenderly, caressing, advancing, retreating. Julia sagged against him, lost in the pleasure of his kiss. One of his arms went around her back, holding her up. The other hand slid up between them, cupping her breast through her dress. Her breasts were full and aching, her nipples pointing.

His fingers fumbled at the buttons of her dress, ripping one or two off in his haste. The line of buttons seemed interminable, and when finally he reached the end of them, he let out a growl and yanked down the bodice of her dress. Julia gasped at the ferociousness of the movement, but her body flooded with heat, too. He jerked the ribbon tied in a neat bow at the top of her chemise, and the garment sagged open. He picked her up, his arms going under her buttocks and lifting her high, and nuzzled her breasts, shoving the top of the chemise down and exposing her breasts to his predatory mouth.

He fastened on one plump orb, suckling and teasing the nipple with his tongue until it hardened into a tight bud. Julia could not hold back the noises of pleasure that rose in her throat, and they spurred Deverel's passion. He carried her to the table and laid her down upon its polished length, shoving their dishes aside.

“Deverel!” Julia cried out softly, a trifle shocked. “On the table?”

He bent over her, his dark eyes glittering fiercely. “I intend to feast on you,” he told her, and bent once again to his task.

He took her nipple in his mouth, stroking, licking, sucking, until Julia was writhing with pleasure, unable to hold back her moans. Deverel was wild with desire, barely holding on to a single thread of control. He shoved up her skirts and caressed her legs, his hand coming to rest at last upon the hot, damp center of her desire. Julia gasped and jerked when he touched her there, both startled and thoroughly aroused.

He rubbed his fingers against her through the material of her undergarments, and she flooded with moisture at his touch. The pent-up desire of the past few weeks was now surging through him, wild and almost out of control. He pulled down her stockings and pantalets, and his fingers touched her wet, bare flesh. A shudder shook him. For a moment he stood still, fighting for control. Then he began to explore her, his fingers sliding over the slick folds of flesh. Julia whimpered under his ministrations, her hips moving instinctively.

Deverel groaned. He unbuttoned his trousers, tearing at them, and his swollen member sprang forth, engorged and throbbing. He put his hands beneath Julia's hips, pulling her to the edge of the table and lifting her. Slowly, as gently as he was capable of in his raw desire, he began to ease himself inside her. Julia stiffened at the strange sensation, but he caressed her, murmuring reassuringly, and she relaxed. He met with the resistance of her virginity and pushed carefully on until, with a surge, he was inside her. She was gloriously tight, encasing his stiff manhood completely. He moved slowly in and out, luxuriating in the pleasure he had hungered for for so long. Julia clutched at him, saying his name with urgency, and suddenly she shuddered, clamping around him, the pleasure rippling in waves through her. He cried out hoarsely then, unable to hold back any longer, and toppled headlong into the dark vortex of passion.

 

Slowly Deverel emerged from the red haze of lust. He felt Julia's soft body beneath his, heard her quiet breathing, felt the warmth of her skin. An utter peace filled him, the surcease of hunger and something more, a fulfillment that he had never quite experienced before. Then it sank in on him what he had done. He stiffened in horror, replaying the scene in his mind.

In his mad desire for Julia, he had taken her like an animal, throwing her down right here on the table and having his way with her. She was a virginal, inexperienced girl, and he had treated her like a doxy. He had not moved slowly and gently, had not introduced her to the act of sex gradually and with loving care. No, he had taken her fast and hard, driven by his lust.

Julia had not protested or fought him, but he could hardly count that as willing participation. The fact was, he knew, that he had been so on fire for her that he had broken his promise. From the moment he kissed her, he had been ruled by his loins. It should have come as no surprise; it had been that way with Julia from the first.

Shame swept through Deverel. He was not sure how he could face her. Julia must hate him now. She must think him a callous, rutting cad. After his assurances that he would not demand his marital rights, he had done so in the most basic, peremptory way. He had been swept away by his hunger—and he knew that Julia would not trust him again.

He rose from her, unable to bring himself to look her in the eye. “I am sorry,” he said stiffly, fumbling at his clothes. “Eternally sorry. I pray you will accept my apologies. This was a mistake—I never meant for it to happen. It will not happen again, I promise you.”

Julia stared up at him, not quite able to take in his words. A few minutes earlier Deverel had filled her with a joy so intense she had scarcely been able to breathe. She had never felt anything like it, and she had known in that instant what she had been trying to deny for days: she loved him. No matter what had happened between them before, despite all her protestations to the contrary, she had fallen in love with Deverel. She had lain there in bliss—until he stood up and spoke, his voice clipped, hard and full of regret.

Unlike her, there had been no joy for Deverel in their lovemaking, she realized. Apparently he had made love to her almost against his will, driven by a passion that had overwhelmed his good reason. He had not really wanted to make love to her, to be her husband in every sense. It was just that his lust had taken over.

“I will tell the servants to make up another bedroom for you,” he continued, still half-turned from her.

Julia sat up, choking back tears, unable to speak. She was embarrassed now at her nakedness, and she swiftly began to adjust her clothing, not looking toward Deverel. How could something that had been so wonderful for her only have made Deverel angry and guilty? Did he despise her that much?

He turned and left the room.

Deverel was true to his word. The servants made up one of the other bedchambers for Julia and moved her clothes into it. Deverel left the house and stayed away most of the day, not coming home until late in the evening.

Julia spent a lonely, miserable day, drifting from one room to another, trying to read, then to sew, and finally returning to her letters from Selby and going over all the differences between the handwriting in them and in the suicide note. She ate dinner alone at the massive table, uncomfortably aware of what the servants must be thinking—a bride left alone only a few days after the wedding, her things ordered out of the master bedroom and into a separate chamber. It was obvious to everyone, she was sure, how little her husband favored her.

The next morning Julia had breakfast brought to her on a tray, not feeling capable of facing Deverel at the breakfast table again. It would, she thought, put a cap on her misery. However, one of the servants brought a note to her with the tray. It was from Deverel, and it asked her if she wished to go to the offices of the trust's agent this morning. Julia gulped down her breakfast and hurried to get ready, giving herself a stern lecture on what they had come to London to accomplish. Taking Selby's old letters and the suicide note in hand, she went downstairs to join Deverel.

He greeted her with a formal politeness, but Julia was painfully aware of the way he avoided looking at her or touching her. He was as courteous and as cold as if they were strangers. They went out to the carriage and rode to the agent's office, neither of them speaking, as far apart on their facing seats as if they had been in different counties.

When the carriage came to a stop, Deverel got out, reaching up to help Julia down. Julia placed her hand in his, and even through her gloves, she felt a tingle of awareness. She glanced at him and saw for just a fraction of a second a glimmer of the same awareness in his eyes.

As soon as they stepped into Henry Carter's outer office, the agent came bustling out of his inner office, beaming. “Ah, Lord Stonehaven! What a pleasant surprise! We had not expected to see you.” He cast a curious glance at Julia.

“No. We came on the spur of the moment. Allow me to introduce my wife to you, Mr. Carter. My dear, this is Henry Carter, who has looked after the interests of Thomas's trust all these years. Mr. Carter, Lady Stonehaven.”

“Lady Stonehaven! What an honor! What a privilege!” He went on at some length, exclaiming over Deverel's marriage and assuring them that he was delighted to have them in his office. It was some time before Deverel could draw him away from the subject to the one that interested them.

Finally, breaking into one of the agent's lengthy compliments, he said, “Mr. Carter, we came to look at the letters from Sir Selby Armiger.”

The agent's face hardened. “The embezzlement letters, my lord?”

“Exactly.”

“But, my lord, I—need we bring up that painful episode again?”

Deverel raised one lazy eyebrow. “Are you saying that you don't wish to show me the letters?”

“No, my lord. Of course not,” the man began to babble. “I mean, after all, you have a perfect right to see them, needless to say.” He turned and snapped his fingers at one of the young men who was seated at the two desks in the outer room. “You, there. Teasely. Get out the St. Leger trust letters, the…embezzlement ones.” He swallowed, as if the very words choked him.

The young man whom he had addressed rose and went to one of the cabinets against the wall.

“Mr. Teasely can handle all your questions about the trust, get you whatever you need,” Carter told them, his smile stiff. “And, of course, if you have any further questions, I shall be in my office.”

He bowed to them and retired to his office. Julia glanced up at Deverel, and he bent to whisper, “Mr. Carter takes the embezzlement very personally. He is afraid that we will decide he mismanaged the trust, that he shouldn't have sent the money, despite the instructions in the letters.”

“Would you like to look at these at a table?” Teasely approached them, several sheets of paper in his hand. He was tall and spare, with a permanently hunched-over stance from sitting reading papers for long periods at a time.

“That would be very nice, thank you.”

Teasely escorted them into another room, smaller than the outer room and containing a single long table with some rather uncomfortable-looking chairs. Teasely laid the letters down on the table.

“Is there anything else I can get you?” he asked politely.

“Not at the moment. By the way, are you the one who dealt with these letters?”

The man stiffened. “I opened the letters and read them, of course. As it was a request for money, naturally I showed them to Mr. Carter for his approval.”

“Of course.” Deverel smiled at him. “I am sure that you did nothing wrong. I was merely curious as to the actual handling of the money—how it was sent to this ‘Jack Fletcher,' for example.”

Teasely's brow cleared. “Oh. I see. There was an address in the first letter.” He pointed to the page on the top. “We sent it there.”

“Did you personally carry it there?”

“No. I sent it by a messenger. That is our custom.”

“I see. And who received it? Are there any written records?”

He looked blank. “I, uh, I can check, my lord.”

“Thank you. I would appreciate it.”

As soon as he bowed out of the room, closing the door after him, Julia turned to Deverel eagerly. “How clever of you! If we can find the person who actually took possession of the money—”

Deverel frowned. “I should have checked this before. I don't know why I didn't think of it. We had ample proof, but it is a loose end I should have tied up.”

“We will now.” Julia sat down at the table and began to read the letters.

She could not read them without her heart sinking. The writing was so much like Selby's, and that name, Jack Fletcher…By the time she finished reading them, she felt quite dispirited. However, she refused to let herself get discouraged, and she took out the letters she had brought and placed them side by side with the agent's letters. She and Deverel studied them carefully.

He was leaning over her shoulder, so close that he almost touched her, and Julia was unbearably aware of him. She could not keep from thinking of their lovemaking the morning before, of the warmth and smell and taste of him, and it made her tremble. She forced herself to concentrate on the pages before her.

“Look. There is that loop on the
y.
” She pointed to the first request for money. “It's here, in every one, just like the suicide note. And there is the same regularity in spacing and capitals.” She turned her head to find Deverel's face only inches from hers.

Deverel straightened and stepped back, clearing his throat. “That's hardly odd. They were written by the same person.”

“But not the same person who wrote these letters.” Julia held up the two old letters Selby had sent to her. “They all differ in the same way from Selby's hand.”