Tempting Miss Allender (Regency Rakes 3) (25 page)

“I spoke with your siblings this morning because I wanted to ensure they would be happy with me as your husband.”

“You were so sure I would simply fall in with your wishes?”

Why was she so unsettled by this? Yes, she felt as if she were losing her grip on the control she’d maintained throughout the later years of her life, but she knew Mathew’s intentions were good. Yet to put her trust so completely in another person was daunting. This man could break her heart all over again, and she did not want to ever feel that kind of pain again. What were his feelings for her?

A girl dashed across the muddy street below. Patience watched one of the Belmont maids run to meet her. Perhaps she was purchasing new laces for her boots.

Was he marrying her simply because he’d compromised her?

“Look at me, Patience. Tell me why you are angry.”

Leaving her place by the window, Patience returned to stand before him. “I have run our household for a long time, Mathew, and cared for my siblings, and to now have someone make decisions for me without discussing them is not something that sits well.”

“And you think if you marry me, I will suddenly wrestle away all your control and leave you with only your stitching and watercolors?”

He was far too handsome, she thought as he gave her a gentle smile. That smile alone made her heart beat a little faster, and it would be even harder to resist were she married to him. She didn’t like weakness; it could break a person, and he had always been her weakness.

“I do not stitch, nor do I paint. What I do is walk about my brother’s estate in my breeches, tending animals. I read the
Times
, and invest in shares, and I-I…”

He was laughing at her.

“I’m glad my concern amuses you.” Patience turned and headed for the door. She would not be his amusement.

“I was not laughing at you, I was smiling because I love watching you. Everything you do has a purpose. You never dawdle or stutter.” He placed a hand on the door to stop her from opening it. “You are a woman who always knows which direction she should take.”

“You want me to dawdle?” Patience refused to look at him; instead, she looked at the large hand braced before her. His fingers were splayed as he stopped her from leaving, and she shivered, remembering how they had felt on her body. Just a brush of one finger against her cheek and she would be tingling all over.

“I would not change you, Patience. I want you to stay just the way you are. All those things you have listed have made you the woman I care about today.”

“I am not sure I want to marry, Mathew.”

“I love you.”

“You do?” Her heart was doing a ridiculous dance inside her chest as she let him turn her to face him.

“Madly, deeply. I have never loved anyone the way I do you. I am consumed by you,” Mathew said.

“Oh, Mathew, I love you too, so very much.”

His smile made his eyes lighten and flashed all his teeth. “I have to say it pleases me to hear you say that, sweetheart.”

“How could you believe otherwise?” Patience sighed as he placed his lips just above her bodice, arching into those lips as they kissed her skin.

“Because if you weren’t pushing me away with words, it was with your actions.”

His warm breath against her skin made her shiver.

“We will marry soon, love. I don’t want to live without you for any longer than I have to.”

“I have not agreed, Mathew.” Patience sighed again as he kissed her neck, then moved up toward her lips.

“Marry me, wench.” He took her mouth then, in a slow, sensual assault, until she wanted him to lift her skirts and ease the ache that was growing inside her. “Marry me and let me ravish you every night, and again in the morning,” he whispered into her ear.

“I won’t let you control me.” Her voice grew weak as one of his hands pulled up her skirts.

“I’ll let you control me, then.”

The hand touched her thigh, one big palm caressing her skin until she was sure that if he was not holding her, she would end up in a puddle at his feet.

“I love your breasts.”

With one tug he freed them, then his lips began to caress every inch of her skin. His teeth scraped over the top of one sensitive nipple.

“Oh.” Patience could barely speak. “Th-that is wonderful.”

His hand moved inward and touched the already damp folds between her legs, delving deeper, creating delicious tension inside her as his mouth tormented her breasts.

“Mathew, I—”

“Yes, Patience?”

The pressure inside her was building.

“I, ah…” Patience felt a wonderful wash of pleasure and suddenly she was shuddering as his fingers touched the hard bead between her legs, then pushed deep inside her wet heat.

“Dear God!”

“Yes, Patience,” he murmured.

She could feel him releasing his breeches, then suddenly he was there, pushing the hot, thick length of him deep inside her and she could think no more, only feel.

“Wrap your legs around me.”

She did as he asked and slipped her hands around his neck, then held on as he thrust into her again and again. It was swift and fierce and crashed over her in a wave of heat so hot she feared she would never recover. She clung to him, pressing her face into his neck as she struggled to collect enough air to breathe. His heart hammered against hers as he held her tight.

“Patience, Christ forgive me. I should not have done that, taken you…dear Lord, against a door.”

She heard the disgust in his voice.

“You make me lose control.”

He was not happy at that thought, but Patience rather liked the idea that she could make him do that.

She hung in his arms, her hands limp around his neck, her body pressed against his while he held her. She felt his strength, and although she had never been a woman to want a man to care for her, she enjoyed the feeling of him supporting her.

“Are you so distressed you cannot speak?”

“I am not distressed, and were I any more relaxed or satiated I would dissolve into a puddle at your feet, so do not feel you harmed me in any way.” Turning her head, she saw his jaw unclench. “It was, in fact, quite the most wonderful experience, and considering how I felt when we first made love, that is some feat.”

He snorted, then he juggled her for a few seconds while rearranging his breeches. Finally he made for his chair, still carrying her, and fell into it.

“I had just reminded myself that I would not make love with you again until we were wed, and yet here I am doing exactly that, and against a door.”

Patience sat up in his lap and adjusted the bodice of her dress, aware of his eyes following her every movement.

“You are a beautiful woman.”

Her hands stopped as she looked at him and saw the remnants of passion still lingering in his green eyes. She had never been desired, and to be so now, at her age, was going to take some getting used to.

“When will we—”

He cut her words off by lifting her off his lap as a knock sounded on the door. Patience sat in his chair and watched him stride across the room. For one so tall, he was a graceful man.

“Hello, Lucy. Please come in. You can be the first to congratulate us. Your sister has just agreed to become my wife.”

Mathew’s small smile told Patience he had not missed the fact that she was now seated behind his desk, leaving him to sit on the other side.

“He is just the man I have always wished for you, Sister!” Lucy clapped her hands.

Patience lifted an inquiring eyebrow at her sister’s passionate speech. “And what have you always wished for me, Lucy?”

“To find a man equal to the task of managing you.”

Mathew snorted, then coughed, as she shot him a withering look.

“Am I so unmanageable, then?”

“Oh, dear, did I say unmanageable?” Lucy’s eyes twinkled as she winked at Mathew. “What I meant was someone of equal intellect.”

“I am as aware of my faults as anyone, Lucy. However, I will say that I am not in the least unmanageable, and would go so far as to say that it is unjust of you to suggest otherwise.”

“Indeed? And there I was, thinking ‘unmanageable’ a far too subtle term for you. Demanding, perhaps? Unruly and obstinate, to be more accurate,” Mathew drawled.

His expression was unrepentant; in fact, his smile, grew wider, and suddenly Lucy remembered a pressing matter she must take up with her brother and hurried from the room with what seemed to her sister to be indecent haste.

Patience looked into Mathew’s wicked eyes and knew he was being deliberately provoking. Up came her chin as she glared at him.

“Really, my lord? Then I wonder how it is that you should offer for me when I am so obviously a sorry prospect.”

Grinding her teeth, Patience watched as he tilted his head to one side, as if he were studying her for further defects.

“Indeed, it will not be easy. But I feel that I more than anyone else am equal to the task,” Mathew said. “And as you are getting on in years, I feel it is my duty, considering our family connections, to—”

He ducked as she threw the paperweight at him, and it sailed over his head and hit the wall beyond.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The Allender family moved back into their town house as soon as the rain stopped, which happened to be the day after Mathew had told society that he and Patience were to wed. He then left London, as one of his estates had been damaged during the storm and he was needed there urgently, leaving her to fend off the continual parade of well-wishers and not-so-well-wishers who appeared in her parlor every day.

The betrothal of the Marquis of Belmont to Miss Patience Allender was the talk of the town, and Patience could not wait until someone else did something to move society’s focus away from her. Her hope that her upcoming nuptials would be fleeting fodder for the ravenous were soon dashed, and on the fifth day the Allender town house was still beseeched with morning callers. It had been the same every day since the announcement had appeared in the paper, and while Lucy was enjoying the attention, the eldest Allender sibling most certainly was not.

She was also missing Mathew, and could do nothing to ease the ache inside her every time she thought of him. He had infiltrated her heart once more, but this time it was worse; this time she could think of nothing else. She wanted his body pressed against hers as he sank deep inside her, wanted his laughter, or his teasing. He was a part of her now, and his leaving had made her realize that she could not live without him as she once had. This time only death would part them.

“Are you wanting something, Miss Allender?”

Patience looked at young Charlie, who was now one of her staff and judging from all she’d heard from the Toots family was fitting in well. Even after only a short time, his cheeks had filled out and his eyes looked less haunted; whenever she saw him, it only reinforced the value of what she had done that night. She still had nightmares about the water and perhaps she would continue to do so for some time, but seeing this boy made her realize the good that had come from the bad.

“No, Charlie, I am just hiding, as my parlor is once again filled with a gaggle of woman all twittering and gossiping about my upcoming marriage.”

She was hiding on the servants’ stairs, sitting about halfway down, hidden from everyone, she’d thought. She hadn’t planned to stay here for long, just a brief respite before Lucy found her.

“Shall I tell you when they’ve gone?”

Her sigh was loud. “No, in fact I should even now be beside my sister, fielding comments and veiled insults.”

His head tilted slightly as he rested a foot on the stair above her. “If they’re insulting you, you shouldn’t go in there.”

If only it were that simple, she thought. “Thank you. I shall definitely give that some thought.”

They were silent for a while and she knew he was wrestling with something that he wanted to say.

“Are you happy here, Charlie? Do you like the Toots family?”

His eyes lit as she mentioned her staff and the corner of his mouth tipped upwards, which she guessed constituted a smile for him.

“Yes, it’s the best place I’ve ever been, and the Tootses are the best people…besides you, Miss Allender.”

She felt humbled at his words. One simple sentence spoken in his gruff little voice, yet it meant so much to her to hear he was happy. It also made her realize that her problems compared to what his had been were pathetic and that her behavior in trying to avoid her morning callers was childish, when so many were suffering every day just to feed themselves.

“Thank you for saving me.”

The words were a whisper, but she heard them, and while she wanted to close the distance between them and take him in her arms, Patience stayed where she was, looking down on his bent head.

“Oh, no, Charlie. I may have helped, but you saved yourself by being the strong young man you are.”

“Really?” He lifted his head and looked at her with his big brown eyes.