The Art of Ruining a Rake (28 page)

When he reached the final landing, he gave the stairway door a good slam behind him. “Which one is your room?”

“As if I’d tell you!”

He traversed the short corridor with carpet-eating strides.

“Trestin! Get this oaf off me!” Lucy shouted as the stairway door reopened behind them.

“Don’t you dare,” Roman called over his shoulder. “I need to talk to her.”

“Montborne!” Steepleton bellowed. “Money is at stake.”

Money.
The thought made Roman sick. He was going to end the wager here and now, whether they liked it or not.

A red-haired maid popped out from inside a room. Roman recognized Miss Carson as a servant from Celeste’s household, which would likely make that room Lucy’s bedchamber. He made a beeline for the open door.

The girl skittered inside the room ahead of him. He slammed the door closed behind them.

“You won’t get away with this!” Lucy cried as he set her on her feet. “Even Trestin won’t approve.”

Roman blocked the door so she couldn’t yank it open. He turned his head turned aside to speak over his shoulder. “The game is over,” he said through the wooden panel. “I’ll hear no more of it.”

“That’s not how these things work.” Steepleton’s complaint was muffled. “You can’t steal her and declare there’s no wager. Be a sport. You’re cheating.”

Lucy’s lips pressed together in a tight, white line. “Roman,” she said quietly, “stop interfering.”

“I can’t,” he murmured. Maybe he’d hadn’t gone about it gracefully, but he finally had her to himself. “I can’t stand by and let you choose someone else.”

“If word gets out that you nullified the wager,” Steepleton called through the door, “you’ll be the most hated man in London.”

Roman didn’t take his eyes off Lucy. “Then don’t tell anyone.”

Behind her, Lucy’s maid hiccupped with smothered laughter. Roman glanced at Carson, belatedly realizing she was still in the room. Confound it.

Moments passed. Sounds on the other side of the doorway were occasionally punctuated by murmurs of frustration.

“Trestin, do something!” Steepleton grumbled. But if Ashlin replied, it wasn’t audible.

“Tell them it’s done,” Roman said quietly to Lucy. “Please.”

Her annoyance abated. She licked her lips. “You were unpardonably rude to your friends.”

He smiled wryly. “I tried.”

She searched his face so long, he was afraid to hope. Then, finally, she relented. “If it’s the only way to be rid of you,” she said with a roll of her eyes, and hope began building in him again. “The contest is forfeit,” she announced in a loud voice. “I refuse to choose a winner.”

Muffled arguing commenced outside.

Lucy elbowed Roman out of the way and jerked the door open. “Good day, gentlemen. I bid you good day.”

“You’re certain?” Barton-Wright’s concern should have been touching, but it wasn’t. Roman wanted to punch him.

“For goodness’ sakes, it was only a silly diversion,” Lucy snapped.

“We’ll see you tomorrow, then,” Tewsey said after an awkward moment had passed. He graced her with a gentlemanly bow and stepped aside.

Steepleton cuffed Barton-Wright’s stiff shoulder. “Come. We can do nothing more here, much as I’d like to wring Montborne’s neckcloth.”

The two cast Roman looks of mutual abhorrence. Then all three men headed toward the stair, leaving Ashlin behind.

“I don’t approve of inappropriate behavior,” Ashlin said to Roman, indicating Roman’s presence in Lucy’s bedchamber, “but you can’t go on pretending you have nothing to discuss, either. Carson, come out. My sister will ring for you later.”

Roman couldn’t see Lucy’s face, but he could hear her horror. “You can’t leave me alone with him!”

A dark brow rose on Ashlin’s otherwise placid face. “You always do the opposite of what I ask. Why is that?”

“I don’t,” she started to say, but he interrupted.

“If I ordered you out of your room right now, would you come?”

“No!”

He shook his head. “Then why would I?”

Carson edged around Roman and darted into the hall. She bobbed a curtsey to Ashlin, then escaped down the stair.

“I’m not locking you in a room with him,” Ashlin said to his sister. “You may come out and discuss things civilly, or you may stay here. Either way, he wants to talk to you. It’s about time you listened.”

“But Trestin—”

He walked away.

Lucy spun to face Roman. “You high-handed boor!”

Roman advanced. Every time she said she didn’t want him near, that she feared being alone with him, Roman felt surer. She
did
want him near. She
did
want to be alone with him.

She skittered backward until her shoulders came into contact with the papered wall of the opposite hallway. Her lips were puckered in surprise, or…

He didn’t breathe. He was too afraid. He couldn’t risk scaring away his hope that he was right: she wanted him to kiss her. Instead he loomed over her, in perfect position to caress those rosebud lips with his own, and stayed himself.

It might have been the most intelligent thing he’d ever done.

Her brown eyes watched him. A mix of excitement and fear swirled in their depths. He inhaled, receiving a lungful of lavender for his effort, and with the exhalation, he released the tension that had wound him so tightly these last few days.

“Lucy.” His murmur contained all his fear, all his hope.

Her eyes blinked. “Yes?”

“Were you going to choose Dare?”

She drew a sharp breath. But she didn’t say no.

Tentatively, she raised a hand to Roman’s chest. Her elegant fingers touched the lapel of his coat. “Not because I wanted to,” she said, staring at his cravat. “He asked me to.”

Roman should have been indignant. His duplicitous brother had lied. Instead, his heart soared. Hope was
not
lost.

She didn’t meet his gaze. Her hand slid under the lapel of his coat and rounded the top of his shoulder. Her fingernails bit into the cloth, little pressure points that sent his blood firing. “Why did you come?” she asked him.

It was half four in the afternoon. The perfect time, he’d thought, to have real answers without the distraction of candlelight. But even at half four, with sunlight cascading through the bedchamber window and her brother just steps beneath them, he wanted this woman. He wanted
her.

“Dare said you despise me,” he replied, his eyes searching hers. “I needed to hear it from your lips. You don’t like me. You wish me to Hades. Go on. Say it.”

Her nails dug deeper into his coat.

It was all the invitation he needed to move another few centimeters toward her. The hem of her skirt brushed against his Hessians. Slowly, she rose to her tiptoes. She clung to his lapels. Then, with one sure tug, she pulled him toward her. “I can’t be alone with you,” she said breathlessly. “Every time I am… I want
this
to happen.”

He touched his lips to hers. Gently, without the urgency that had infected him before. No need to rush. He wanted to do this again and again—with her.

But she wasn’t calm. She didn’t want
tepid.
She slid her hands into his hair and yanked his curls, thrusting her slender body against his. Her tongue traced his bottom lip, inviting him closer. He tried resisting—at first. But when she suckled on the sensitive flesh of his lip, the dam inside him broke.

She wanted
him
.

He curved his arms around her. Lifted her off her feet. She made a sweet, appreciative noise as he carried her into the bedchamber and shut the door, but her lips never left his. Peering with one open eye, he noted the path to the bed. His arms were full of willing woman and his breeches rubbed against his aching erection and really, he didn’t need to
think
about much else.

Her narrow bed didn’t begin to accommodate the two of them. He had no choice but to cover her with his body. She wiggled beneath him, arranging herself to fit beneath his hips. Each writhe sent a jolt of pleasure through him.

After far too many days, she was his again. It felt better than he’d ever imagined. Much like the first time they’d lain together, the unfamiliarity of his surroundings and the uncertainty of what was to come aroused him. But this was more than a simple tryst. It was Lucy, and finally, she was sharing herself with him.

Her nails scratched at his shoulders as she tugged at his coat ineffectively. Abandoning the notion of peeling the garment from him, she slid her hands down his back as far as she could reach. Good Lord. If he weren’t wearing so many articles of clothing, her hands would be inside the back of his breeches.

He growled and rolled halfway off her. She felt wonderful beneath him, but he needed to feel more of
her.

The stiff binding of her corset reminded him of all of the offensive garments he must remove before he could have her naked again. And he wanted her naked. That interlude in her office had been the most unsatisfying of his life.

His hand inched toward her breast. Not because he was afraid of scaring her, but so he could savor the hitch of her breath and the tightening of her body in anticipation of his touch. Painstakingly, he walked his fingers up her ribs, one by one, then blessedly, he touched her breast with his fingertip. Two.

A groan tore from him, the moment made perfect as she moaned, too. He pulled away to look at her, to torture himself with the slow progression of his hand across her breast. She watched his fingers pause on the crested peak with heavy-lidded eyes.

He almost forgot to breathe, let alone explore her. Until she mouthed, “Touch me.”

He’d do anything she asked of him. He walked his fingers across the lace edge of her bodice, finally reaching the skin bared to his eyes. He brushed the pads of his fingers over the impossible softness of her flesh, then dipped his head and licked the peak of her breast.

“Ohhh…”

“Mmmm.” He licked again, letting the roughness of his tongue stroke her sensitive skin. “So sweet, my Lucy-love.”

Her hand worked between their bodies until she gripped the opening of his coat. “Roman,
please
.”

Obediently, he licked her left breast again, then pressed a kiss upon her right. It wasn’t enough. His longing for her was so great, he needed her inside his body, inside his very soul. Next time when he took her, she’d become a part of him.

He wanted that so badly, he could die from it. But now was not the time.

He pressed another kiss to the top of her breast, where the fabric of her bodice was moistened by his tongue. She tugged his coat with one hand and clutched the back of his head with the other as he began to raise himself off her. “What are you…?” she panted as his circling finger found its way into her bodice. “Don’t stop…”

But…

He had to. He hadn’t planned on stopping, but then, he hadn’t planned
this
. If he took her today, he’d be no better than when he’d ruined her after the damned masque ball, or trysted with her at Vauxhall.

That wasn’t to say he wanted to stop. Just one whispered
please
from her could undo him. But it wasn’t the right time. He needed their next union to be different. He needed her to know
he
was different.

He shook his head. The red mark he’d left on her breast was all he would leave her with—for now. When he could have her for his own, forever, he’d mark her in so many other ways.

He rose fully to stand beside the bed. His shoulders heaved. His blood raced as his body fought what his mind wanted to do. He couldn’t even look at her. She was tousled and kissed and so dratted beautiful, his head hurt.

But he couldn’t stay. If he stayed, there would be no forever. Another tryst, perhaps, but not the eternal promise he needed. Giving in to his lust would leave her with no reason to need more from him than…this.

Ambient air cooled him where her body had pressed so hotly against his. Slowly, his control returned. He ached only with ninety-nine percent of his being. The other percent was lost to good sense.

Her breasts heaved as she struggled to understand why he’d stopped.

He tried reading her face, searching, as always, for proof she felt more than this hunger. But her bewildered expression betrayed nothing but confusion. No disappointment. No fear.

She seemed not to care whether he stayed or went, no more than anyone else had ever cared about him.

She rose onto one elbow, her brows dipping as she seemed to realize he wasn’t returning to bed. “What are you doing?” When he didn’t respond, she reached one hand toward him. She appeared more exasperated than concerned. “Pray, do not have an attack of conscience
now.
”

“Have dinner with me.”

He said it firmly, with all his unrequited emotion put into it.
Love me.

Her hand dropped to the coverlet. She eyed him with skepticism. “Why?”

He wished she
knew
. How much he adored her. How little he enjoyed this casual coupling. He took her hand, kneeling so he could see her at eye level. “You don’t love me,” he said, kissing her bare fingers. “I know that. I can be the man for you, Lucy, I—”