Tainted by Temptation (7 page)

“Bigsby and a groomsman will be up later to move an armoire into your room.”

Velvet clasped her hands in front of her. “All right.”

“All right, then.” Lucian shifted the bottle of ink. His fingers were long and elegant. Never before had she gone breathless at the sight of a man’s hands.

“I’ve asked Mrs. Bigsby to locate the spirit lamp that used to be in the anteroom off the nursery. I don’t know why it isn’t there any longer.”

Was this his attempt to show that she wasn’t getting
special
treatment? Just that the governesses had been neglected in recent years.

He straightened the papers.

“I’ll have a list of supplies I need for the schoolroom to you by this afternoon.” Velvet said.

He nodded.

Iris made a moue of disappointment.

Velvet stepped forward, put her hand on Iris’s shoulder and guided her back to her chair. Iris would be difficult enough without allowing her to growing petulant. “We should get back to our lessons.”

Biting her lip, Velvet hoped he hadn’t taken the dismissal personally. But the schoolroom should be free of whatever was between Mr. Pendar and her.

“By all means. I have work to do.”

Velvet woke with a jerk in the dark of the night. Before she opened her eyes, she knew someone was in her room. Her heart jumped. Dread and anticipation warred within her.

The carpenter was supposed to come tomorrow, but she had only wedged a chair under the passage door. She’d been unwilling to lock her door against Iris. Even though the child seemed surprised that she wanted to oversee her bedtime rituals, Velvet didn’t think she was old enough to be isolated from all adults overnight.

Had Lucian come through his daughter’s room to hers?

“Miss Campbell?” the girl said in a shaky high-pitched voice.

Velvet’s breath came out in a relieved whoosh. “Yes, Iris.”

“I can’t sleep without Eve.”

Velvet pushed to sit up. Her iron bedstead squeaked in protest. It must be after midnight.

“You know what you must do to get Eve returned to you,” Velvet said firmly.

“I did. I picked out four dolls to give away. They’re on the desk. I need Eve.” Iris’s words ended on a distressed wail.

Velvet tried to push sleep from her eyes. “It’s very late. I’ll fetch Eve in the morning.”

“No! I need her now.” Iris’s demand was accompanied by a sob. The moonlight glistened on her tear-streaked cheeks. Her lower lip shook. “I did what you said. I did! I nee-ed Eve.”

Velvet pulled the child against her. “All right, all right. Hush now.”

They’d made good progress today. Iris was like a child starved for attention, and she had a quick mind. She memorized two poems, which she recited to her father’s pretended appreciation after dinner. But better than that, Velvet began reading aloud a novel in the afternoon with Iris curled against her on the sofa. If she could open the girl to the world of books, perhaps she could break her resistance to leaning to read and write.

She didn’t want to risk a setback, but the doll was in Lucian’s room.

Holding the girl’s narrow little body against hers, Velvet rubbed her back. Iris’s silent sobs nearly broke her heart.

Why had this child learned to stifle the sounds of her crying? It wasn’t normal, although Velvet remembered a time when she’d hid her own anguish and shame from her father in the same way.

She couldn’t get out of retrieving the doll. Searching her mind for who could go into Mr. Pendar’s room, she was at a loss. She didn’t even know where the Bigsbys or Mr. Evans slept. Almost hoping against hope that she could refuse because Iris hadn’t picked out dolls to give away, Velvet slid back the covers. “Let’s see what you’ve done.”

Iris tugged her into the schoolroom. With the moonlight streaming through the windows, four dolls lay out like human sacrifices on the desk. One had chipped off fingers and another had matted hair. But Velvet hadn’t put any limitations on the dolls to be chosen.

“Please, I need Eve,” said Iris.

Velvet wasn’t getting out of this. She had to retrieve the doll. She sighed. “All right, I’ll go get her.”

Iris pushed her. “Go!”

“I need to dress first,” said Velvet.

“No,” wailed Iris, fresh tears coursing down her cheeks.

Velvet knelt down and wiped tears from Iris’s face. “Come now, I can’t go running through the house in my nightgown.”

Iris sniffed, but the tears continued tracking down her cheeks.

“Now do you want to crawl back in bed while I fetch Eve?”

Iris shook her head in the negative. Like a lost soul, she followed Velvet back into her room.

Opening the freshly arrived wardrobe, Velvet pulled out the dress she’d worn earlier. Her corset lay on the top shelf, but Iris’s meltdown hardly welcomed the delay to fully dress. Instead, Velvet pulled the dress over her nightgown. With her weight loss, she didn’t need the corset to fit in the gown.

Her fingers shook as she closed the buttons. “Do you want to come with me?”

Iris shook her head.

Velvet bit her lip. Even if Iris knew where the Bigsbys slept, finding their rooms in the dark house might be impossible, but . . . “Do you know where Mr. Evans sleeps?”

“No!” wailed Iris.

“All right. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Velvet tried not to think further than the next step as she descended the stairs. Maybe Mr. Pendar wouldn’t wake. Maybe the moon or a lit fire would provide enough illumination for her to find Iris’s doll. Maybe she wouldn’t have to go into his room.

Velvet’s heart tripped and it seemed her breathing alone was bound to wake the entire household. Each creak of a floorboard nearly had her jumping out of her skin. The hair on the back of her neck had to be standing on end.

Whatever had possessed her to hide the dolls in Lucian’s room? It had to have been one of those moments of sheer lunacy masquerading as genius.

At his door, she held her breath, listening. Perhaps she hoped to hear a reassuring snore. Silence echoed loudly.

She tapped on the door.

Her knees threatened to give out on her.

“Mr. Pendar,” she whispered, her mouth close to the door.

He would misunderstand her reason for knocking on his door in the middle of the night. She could back away fast if he opened the door.

Only silence greeted her.

She tapped again and managed to squeak out, “Mr. Pendar.”

In an agony of indecision, she waited for the door to open. It didn’t.

Perhaps he was a heavy sleeper. Perhaps she could sneak inside and retrieve Eve. Perhaps she would come out of this unscathed. Taking a deep breath, she reached for knob and ever so slowly turned it.

The door jerked open and pulled her with it.

“If you’re going to come to my bedroom, I’d think you could at least call me Lucian.”

L
ucian wasn’t about to question Velvet arriving in his room. His sleep had been fitful, and her image intruded on his rest. He needed her, and then she was at his door, like an answer to prayers he wouldn’t have dared to pray.

He tugged her to the side and clicked his door shut. He caught her face in his hands.

“I’m here to—”

He cut her words off with a kiss. Her lips were as soft as he expected, her mouth warm and sweet. Her muffled response amused him.

Her cool hand landed against his bare chest. His skin jumped and a rush of sensation scorched straight to his groin. Could she feel the way his heart pounded? Deepening the kiss, he pushed closer.

Heat surged in him, lengthening and raising his manhood with each heartbeat. Her skin was velvety soft, and he splayed his fingers along her neck. He wanted to touch every inch of her, her breasts, her derriere, and explore her hidden cleft. Desire plowed through him.

Yet, other than her hand now fisted in his dressing gown lapel, her response had been nonexistent.

“Kiss me back,” he growled against her mouth.

They thumped against the wall and he invaded her mouth. Her tentative response, the tip of her tongue touching his, brought a new surge of want coursing through him.

The realization that he was rushing her intruded on his driving need to have her. She didn’t know that he wouldn’t be selfish. He’d give as good as he got. The years of abstinence just had built his need to a tidal wave of lustful ache.

He gentled his kiss, pulling back to suck on her lower lip. Trailing kisses to her neck, he slid his hand down the curve of her throat, over her shoulder and down her spine. Cupping her bottom, he pulled her hips against his. How well her body fit with his.

“I—” she began.

“Don’t worry, I’ll pleasure you,” he coaxed.

“Oh!”

She sounded so surprised by the idea that he smiled against her neck. Was the idea so novel to her?

“I . . . I . . . I—”

He found her mouth again, ending her stuttering.

A shudder rippled through her.

He pushed harder against her and swallowed her gasp of surprise. He wanted her here, against the wall. Now.

His mind raced ahead. His open dressing gown was no barrier, but Velvet wore a dress, and she wasn’t indicating she was ready. Her response was uncertain, hesitant, as if she was trying to soothe him.

Why was she wearing a dress?

He slid his hand to her side, up over her ribs. A dress, but no corset. His doubts slid away.

He cupped her breast. Her willowy form was not generous, but to have her softness in his hand was a treat. Brushing his thumb across her nipple, he swallowed her whimper as the beading tip betrayed her body’s response.

Passion clouded his mind and made him only aware of her. Her softness, her scent, swirled and cast a spell on him. He couldn’t remember wanting a woman as much as he wanted her. Her mouth matched him movement for movement. He needed to thrust inside her and bury his manhood to the hilt.

Her every whimper echoed in his head. He tried to ease up and allow her passion to rise, but it was no good. His breath roared like a steam engine, his skin tingled, and his blood thrummed through him and engorged him. He needed her now.

Bunching her skirts, he pulled the material up while pushing his knee between her legs.

She pushed against his chest. With a groan of impatience he ended the kiss.

“Iris,” she gasped.

A cold wash eased his urgency. His head snapped toward the door to be sure it was still shut and Iris wasn’t peeking through a crack. But the door was latched.

“What about Iris?” he growled.

Her face pinched, Velvet struggled to push down her skirts. His world tilted.

“Velvet?” Uncertainty cut through the haze of passion.

“I came to get Eve. Iris can’t sleep without her.” Velvet’s chin dipped and she averted her head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to . . .” Her hand wavered and her voice shook.

Her chest rose and fell, brushing against his at the peak of inhalation.

“I wanted to wait until morning, but Iris is nearly hysterical, and I told her she could have Eve back when— Oh God.” Her mouth twisted and she covered it with her shaking hand. “I have to get back to her. With Eve.”

He pivoted, strode across the room and grabbed the doll. It was as if Lilith managed to intrude. Although to be fair, Lilith had nothing to do with the doll. Lilith had everything to do with Iris.

Holding out Eve, he returned to Velvet. She averted her head and held up her hand like a blinder.

He pushed the doll into her chest and stepped back to belt his dressing gown closed.

Velvet seemed fragile. In the pale orange glow of the coals, her face was blanched of all color. Her knees buckled. He caught her elbow, providing support. Her trembles ran up his arm. Had he been too rough? Was she feeling ill?

He cursed under his breath. She had responded, he’d felt her growing ardor. She’d returned his kisses, damn it.

Velvet curled the doll to her chest.

She didn’t make a move toward the door.

He wanted to pull her into his arms and cradle her, but he doubted he could stifle his passion long enough to just comfort her. That he even wanted to was shocking.

Clicking the door open, he guided her toward the opening. He couldn’t resist leaning in and pressing his lips to her neck. “Come back.”

She took a quick step away. “Is that . . .” She swiveled to face him, her eyes wide. She swallowed hard and whispered, “Is that an order?”

Had she remembered she should be afraid of him? “I hired you to be Iris’s governess, not my mistress.”

Her lips tightened. “Will you dismiss me?”

Folding his arms across his chest, he leaned against the doorjamb. “Not for a refusal to lay with me.”

She looked right and then left, then down, as if she could find no good place to look. Scowling, he watched her discomfort. Had she thought she had no choice?

“Velvet.”

Her gaze snapped to his.

“Was I wrong to think you wanted me too?” he asked.

She took a tiny step back, but color crept up her neck and stained her face. She took another step back. “I can’t . . . I don’t . . .” She rolled her eyes as if impatient with her inability to answer. Continuing backward in tiny increments, her face twisted. She bumped into the far wall. Her mouth rounded and her eyes widened. “It would be wrong.”

The doll was pulled tight to her chest, and if he weren’t thrumming with tension, he’d have been amused. Velvet played the innocent much better than his wife ever had, but then maybe she’d had more practice.

For a long moment they stared at each other. The dark didn’t hide her heaving breaths.

“You better go, before I decide your hesitation is only your unwillingness to say what you want out loud.”

Her jaw dropped. “I don’t . . .”

He arched an eyebrow.

“Oh!”

He pushed away from the doorjamb.

Velvet scurried away. He suspected she’d had too long to think. She wouldn’t be coming back, and all the male urges he’d suppressed for years were rising like a massive volcano.

He paced his room. The throbbing urge wouldn’t go away. Every inch of control he possessed was destroyed by the feel of her lips, her tongue, her taste. Even the way she looked him in the eye without her focus straying to his scars got under his skin. He couldn’t rid his mind of the feel of her breast against his palm. He needed release. He needed a woman under him.

He needed Velvet.

Velvet ran up the stairs as if the hounds of hell nipped at her heels. There was no
if
about it, she chided herself firmly. She’d wanted Lucian’s kisses. Oh God, she had wanted to feel like a woman. And he’d made her feel things she’d never felt before. Even now her body thrummed with an energy she didn’t understand. She’d wanted . . . more.

And he knew.

She tried to calm down before entering her room, but after a couple of shaky breaths, she worried she’d taken too long already.

Iris wasn’t in the bedroom.

If she found her asleep in her bed, she might be tempted to throttle the child.

The dolls were still on the desk in the schoolroom. Velvet opened the door to Iris’s bedroom.

Her nightgown tucked under her toes, Iris sat on the floor in front of the fireplace. Her eyes were big and glassy as she stared at the grate.

Velvet’s exasperation left her in a whoosh. She was the one at fault here, not a child who had little human comfort in her world.

“I thought you’d forgotten about me.” Iris sniffed.

“Of course I didn’t forget about you.” Velvet’s voice sounded thin and reedy instead of reassuring. But the words were almost a lie. When Lucian said he’d pleasure her, she’d forgotten everything, even her mission to retrieve Eve. “It just took me longer than I expected.”

Remembering the raspy burr of his voice made her flush all over. Never had any man considered her pleasure. They hadn’t considered her comfort, her will, or her religion.

She held out Eve. “Are you ready to go back to bed?”

“I shouldn’t need a doll to sleep, should I?” Iris wrapped Eve under her arm.

“It isn’t unusual for a child your age,” Velvet said evenly.

“I’m afraid if I don’t sleep with her, my mama won’t think I love her.” Iris untangled the nightgown from her toes and stood.

“Would you like me to stay with you until you fall asleep?”

Iris shrugged.

Velvet didn’t want to be alone. Not now. Not while Lucian’s fingers were still imprinted on her bottom, on her breast. Her skin was alive, as if he were still touching her. He’d awoken something dark and hungry in her, a part of herself she’d managed to ignore for all of her thirty-two years.

She guided Iris to her bed and helped the girl settle under the covers.

“Why are you all breathless?” asked Iris.

Velvet winced. “I hurried up the stairs.”

“Did you see my mama?”

Velvet frowned, uncertain how to answer. Iris knew her mother was dead. Was she confused by sleep?

“Mostly she stays on the cliffs.” Iris plopped her elbows over the covers.

“Sweetheart, your mama has passed away.”

“I know. It’s her ghost.” Iris yawned. “But sometimes she comes to me in my sleep and says she wants me to come with her.”

“What?” whispered Velvet. Alarm slithered down her spine. Not that she believed in ghosts, but what had Iris been taught?

“She wants me to fall off the cliff too, so I can go to heaven with her.” Iris flipped to her side, tucking her doll under her chin.

Velvet sat on Iris’s bed and stroked the girl’s curls. “No, she doesn’t want you to go to live in heaven with her. Not until after you’ve lived a long, long life. She would want you to grow up, get married, have children and be happy. That’s what all women want for their daughters.”

Iris hummed a protest.

Chilled, Velvet watched as the child began to drop off to sleep. The dark almost seemed to laugh. Shuddering, Velvet pushed back the irrational fears. There wasn’t a ghost.

Iris wrinkled her nose and closed her eyes. She slurred, “She wants . . . me . . . to die . . . now.”

Lucian tapped a pen against his blotter. Velvet was avoiding him. She’d eaten breakfast the last two mornings before he came in from his swim, and she used Iris as a buffer between them at dinner and in the drawing room after dinner. He pushed against his forehead. He almost believed he’d dreamed Velvet’s presence the night before last, except Eve was missing from his room.

If Velvet hid from him, how could he persuade her to come to his room again?

Restless, he pushed back from the desk and paced across the floor. Short of ordering her to submit, there was only one way he could guarantee her return to his bedroom, and it was ludicrous.

He wasn’t about to marry another whore. Especially not one pregnant with another man’s child. No, he’d convince her to come to him.

But to effect a seduction, he needed to get her to spend time with him.

Before he knew he’d formed the thought, he was climbing the stairs.

Long before he reached the schoolroom he heard Iris’s childish voice: “Four times five is twenty. Four times six is twenty-four. Four times seven is . . . is . . .”

“Twenty-eight,” said Miss Campbell in her dulcet voice. “Remember if you do not know the next answer, you can count four more on your fingers.”

The softness of her tone wrapped around him and called to him.

Iris continued on with a stumbling recitation of her multiplication tables. Velvet encouraged and praised Iris’s less than stellar efforts. He didn’t remember his own tutor being so tolerant.

He moved to the doorway of the schoolroom. The sunlight slanting in the windows caught the copper strands in Velvet’s hair. She leaned toward Iris, her graceful neck bent forward. That was a neck meant for kissing. His heart thudded.

“Papa!” Iris looked around her governess.

God, how had he nearly forgotten the child was in the room? He couldn’t very well seduce her governess in front of her. That he even wanted to shamed him.

Velvet swiveled around in her chair, her face tightened.

He took a step toward her as if he would comfort her, but a cold realization stopped him. He was the reason for her distress.

Iris skipped toward him. “I am learning timeses.”

“So I hear.” He put his hand on Iris’s golden curls but looked at Velvet.

Velvet lowered her chin and her gaze, breaking the connection between them.

“I understand Mrs. Bigsby has been unable to purchase all the items on your list.” His words cut through the growing tension.

“What we have is sufficient, thank you.” Velvet stood up and walked stiffly toward the large desk. Away from him.

The desk, the globe, and the chairs had all been moved toward the interior wall. The repaired door of her room was closed, and the keyhole for the new lock reminded him that she was resistant in spite of her responsiveness. He would have to use more finesse if he hoped to break her resolve.