The Dangers Of Deceiving A Viscount (18 page)

Alice dissolved into wrenching sobs and sank down, turning her face in to the wall.

“Stop that!” Summerfield roared.

“Stop that!” Phoebe cried, shoving him.

Startled, he looked at Phoebe.

“Whatever your quarrel, I will not allow you to bully her!”

Alice’s sobbing only intensified, but Summerfield turned his large, rage-filled body around to Phoebe. “You will not allow me?” he roared.

She wisely put the dress form between herself and Summerfield. “I will not be subjected to such awful behavior from either one of you! You are not barbarians!”

He was so stunned, he could not speak. Phoebe ignored him; she squatted next to Alice and put a comforting hand on her back. “What is it?” she asked as Alice sobbed. “What is wrong?”

“I will tell you what is wrong,” Summerfield bit out. “Alice has defied me again. She and that bloody smithy are exchanging secret messages!”

Alice’s wailing only increased. Phoebe could see now that what she held so tightly against her breast was a crumpled piece of vellum. “Oh, Lady Alice,” she sighed sympathetically.

Alice lifted her head. Her skin was splotchy red from crying, her cheeks wet. “I won’t give it to him!” she insisted. “He may beat me, and still I won’t give it to him! It is mine!”

“Of course you won’t give it to him,” Phoebe said soothingly.

“Madame Dupree!” Summerfield bellowed. “This is hardly your concern! Kindly step aside so that I may address my sister!”

With another ear-piercing shriek, Alice suddenly clambered to her feet. In her haste to escape her brother, she shoved the dress form and toppled it over onto Phoebe, who was still crouched on the floor. Phoebe flung her arm up to save her head, heard the sound of several of her things clattering to the floor as Alice brushed by the worktable.

“Alice!” Summerfield bellowed.

“Ouch!” Phoebe cried out as the dress form hit her.

Summerfield quickly righted the dress form, grabbed Phoebe’s arms, and hauled her to her feet. “Are you all right?” he asked, his eyes darting over her for any sign of harm.

“I’m fine,” she said, pushing his hands from her. He moved as if he intended to go after Alice, but Phoebe caught his arm. “My lord! Have you no heart? You cannot take her letter!”

Summerfield stopped midstride and stared heatedly at her. “You are astoundingly bold, madam! Have a care how you speak to me—I will dismiss you for your foolishness!”

“My foolishness?” Phoebe shot back, fury filling her. “You burst in here like a rampaging bull and declare I am foolish?”

He blinked in disbelief. “Madame Dupree, have you any idea whom you are addressing?”

“Oh, I am well aware of whom I am addressing, but I rather think you have forgotten that you are also Alice’s brother!”

He opened his mouth to speak and quickly shut it again. He turned around and glared down at her. He was standing so close that she could almost feel the anger emanating from his body as he punched his fists to his waist. “I cannot imagine what possesses you to wag your tongue so carelessly! Have you no care for your position here? Your livelihood? Do you realize that I have the power to make certain you can’t hire out as much as a stitch in this county again?”

“Have you never been in love, Summerfield?”

The question clearly stunned him; he reared back. “What?”

“Haven’t you ever been in love?” she asked again, incredulous, but he looked as if words had deserted him. “You haven’t,” she said, fascinated that this man, this beautiful man, had never been in love.

“What possible bearing could that have on anything to do with your behavior?”

“It has nothing to do with my behavior, but clearly it has everything to do with yours.” With that said, she moved out of the corner, brushing carelessly against him. She walked around to the front of the dress form to examine Jane’s gown for any damage. So help them, if she had to redo as much as a stitch—

“And pray tell, what do you believe you have divined, madam? For I assure you, such maidenly notions have no place in a man’s thinking,” he said gruffly.

“Oh my, now it is painfully obvious that you have never felt love.” She gave him a look of sympathy. “That is really very distressing.”

“Love,” he repeated stubbornly.

“Love,” Phoebe insisted. “That exquisite feeling of pressure on your entire being when the one person you hold so dear walks into the room,” she said, turning toward him. “The fever that courses through your body with just a touch. The sensation of gulping for air and being quite unable to breathe,” she said, pressing her hands to her heart. “When that person smiles, you feel as if you are breathing underwater. You can’t possibly get enough of her smile and you feel that desperate, instinctive mad rush to breathe. Love!” she said, throwing her arms wide.

Summerfield blinked.

Phoebe lowered her arms. “There, you see? You’ve never felt it, for surely if you had, you would have some compassion for your sister.”

He stared at her as if he were trying to work out the need for compassion in his head.

It suddenly dawned on Phoebe. “Oh dear Lord, you don’t understand, do you?” she asked with shocking delight. “Alice is in love with Mr. Hughes.”

His lovely hazel eyes widened with horror.

“And Mr. Hughes is in love with Alice! Clearly, he has written her a love letter that is intensely private and tender. It is not for your eyes, and really, why should you see it? You know he wrote it, you know she received it and defied your wishes. You need not take what little dignity and privacy she has left by reading that very personal letter.”

“Have you encouraged her in any way?” he asked sharply. “Have you urged her toward Mr. Hughes?”

“Of course not,” Phoebe said, folding her arms. “You will recall that she struck me when I encouraged her in exactly the opposite way.”

His gaze, full of suspicion, raked over her. “Well, now that you have reprimanded me for my decided lack of sentiment and advised me as to how to address the situation, allow me to educate you, Madame Dupree. Alice should be married, and marriage is about more important matters than love.”

That pronouncement unexpectedly infuriated Phoebe, surprising her with the strength of it. She glared right back at him. “Oh, please do enlighten me, sir! What important matters is marriage about?”

“Compatibility of circumstances and the suitability of partners. A secure future, security for one’s children’s futures.”

“Oh yes, of course,” Phoebe said, twirling away from him. “The fortunes must be compatible, and the lineage suitable for proper heirs. And if love develops among the two people who are now shackled for life, how lovely! You do not need to explain the laws of society to me—my own mother taught me in the cradle that I was to expect no more than what you describe,” she snapped, and straightened the dress form with so much force that it toppled backward.

He looked at her curiously as she righted it, and Phoebe realized, belatedly, what she’d said. “That is, were my family ever to possess a fortune.”

“I do not know your particular circumstances, but you must at least allow that Alice’s position is far different from yours. Marriages among our class take on more importance precisely because of the matching of fortunes and political alliances. It is not, nor has it ever been, about love. And those who fancy it is about love are destined for great disappointment.”

It was so callous, so calculating that astoundingly, Phoebe teared up. “How very lamentable, then, for your class,” she said, and quickly turned away before he could see the tears that had come to her eyes. “How tragic that you actually seem to believe it.”

“And how earnestly you seem to believe love is something to die for,” he said disgustedly. “What’s this?” He stepped forward, bending his head to look at her face. She turned away from him again, but Summerfield caught her by the shoulder and turned her around.

“Why these tears?” he asked disconcertedly. “What I said does not affect you in the least. I should think you are free to marry or die for love, whatever you wish.”

Phoebe swiped at the single tear that fell from her face. “None of us is ever really free, are we?” she asked angrily.

He considered that a moment. “No,” he said, and caught a tear that spilled onto her cheek with the pad of his thumb. “I suppose none of us is ever really free, for if we were, there would be no cause to long for those we cannot have.”

She wasn’t certain if he was referring to himself or to her. “Longing for the ones we cannot have is futile,” Phoebe said morosely. “That is why some grasp the chance for happiness where they can.”

“Do you?” he asked, his eyes glistening, her desire reflected back at her.

Her tongue felt thick in her head, her throat closed.

“Have you ever?” he asked her again.

Phoebe shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“Perhaps the question is too personal. Perhaps one’s grasp for happiness seems larger in a faded memory. Perhaps your late husband is only a faded memory—”

“That is not fair!”

“Then tell me of your happiness,” he said, catching her by the waist. “Regale me, entice me, persuade me to let Alice have hers.”

“Why?” she demanded. “Because you have so little heart you cannot imagine it?”

“Oh,” he said, as his eyes slipped to her lips, “I can very well imagine it.” He lowered his head and kissed her. His breath was warm, his mouth soft. He nipped lightly at her bottom lip, then touched the tip of his tongue to hers as his arms encircled her.

And in that moment, Phoebe felt as if she were breathing underwater.

He had submerged her in a pool of desire. A million things darted through her brain as his tongue tangled with hers. She was sinking; she could feel herself being dragged below the surface. Fighting for air, she suddenly shoved as hard as she could against his chest. “I am not your property,” she said roughly. “Imagine your so-called happiness with someone else.” She shoved him again.

Summerfield took one step back. “I would…if I could possibly erase the image of you from my mind.” The lids of his autumn-colored eyes were heavy, his lips dark. His gaze swept over her, but it was not the look of lust she associated with so many men. No, that was a fever in his eyes—a fever she felt inside herself.

Phoebe would never be certain what possessed her. Perhaps it was Madame Dupree who seized the moment; perhaps it was just the years she had spent craving this very thing. Or perhaps it was simply her opportunity to grasp happiness. But somehow she understood that he was not drowning her, he was actually saving her from drowning. She suddenly grabbed the lapels of his coat to keep from fading away from him and yanked him to her, rising up on her tiptoes to kiss him.

He made a sound of surprise, but one arm went around her waist, drawing her into his warmth and anchoring her firmly against him. With the other, he caressed her neck and cheek as his lips artfully softened hers. A strong tide of pleasure began to flow through her—she could feel his arousal, could feel the beat of his heart where she was pressed against him. He slipped his tongue into her mouth, swirling it around hers.

Phoebe responded with all the pent-up desire she had been harboring for years. Whatever she did seemed to entice him; his grip of her waist suddenly tightened, his fingers splayed against the side of her head, and his tongue thrust against hers with an urgency that she felt with equal intensity. Somehow her hair came loose, tumbling down her shoulders in unruly curls, and Summerfield plunged his hand into them. “Now this, madam, will live in my imagination for many years,” he said lustily.

Phoebe shamelessly pressed herself against him, amazed by the shocking sensuality of his hardness against her belly. When his hand slid down her neck to cup her breast, his thumb brushing across the hard peak, something in her womb fluttered, and a rush of breath escaped her. She felt outside of herself, almost as if someone else were experiencing the tender pressure of his mouth and tongue and hand.

When she groaned with pleasure in his mouth, Summerfield suddenly twirled her around, pushing her up against the worktable with such force that more of her things clattered to the floor. Phoebe didn’t care; she cared for nothing but the way his hands cupped her face, for the thousands of little waves of pleasure rolling through her. He drew her lips between his teeth, tasting and shaping them, then probed deeply, while his hands trailed to her ears, her neck, and her shoulders.

“Is this the happiness you seek?” he whispered hoarsely. “Tell me now, and I will give it to you.” He moved down her body, his mouth on her bosom, his breath hot on her skin, and his hand freeing her breast. Phoebe ran her fingers through his hair, thrusting her breast forward as he took the peak into his mouth.

This was insanity! “Only a profligate would confuse happiness with desire—Oh!” The swell of pleasure his mouth on her breast gave her was startling, and she cried out.

“And only a fool would try and separate the two,” he responded hotly before he closed his mouth around her other breast.

Phoebe gasped and gripped his head tightly to her. “The pleasure of the flesh and eternal happiness are two distinctly different things.”

“Good God, woman, you would argue the semantics of this now?” he said breathlessly, and suddenly rose up and toppled her onto her back on top of the worktable. He moved over her; one hand spanned the whole of her rib cage, moving upward, pressing against her bare breast while he filled his mouth with the other one. “I have something much more pleasurable in mind than a debate.”

The prurient sensations unfurling within Phoebe numbed her mind to everything. Her hands tangled in his hair, fell to his shoulders and the corded muscles in his back. When he lightly bit the tip of her breast, a violent shudder rifled through her. “You are a profligate and a seducer.”

Summerfield lifted his head. His breathing was ragged, his eyes full of the fever. “Every bit. But I defy you to show me a man who could be anything but that when presented with such incomparable beauty. I want to touch you, all of you, every inch of you. I want to be inside you.” His lips skimmed the column of her neck as his hand cupped her breast, squeezing gently, fitting it to his palm. “And I daresay you want it, too.”