The English Heiress (32 page)

Leonie was so furious when she had thought this out that she would have tried to claw out his eyes if she had not realized that he probably did not know she felt differently than he did. She knew that in an attempt to keep Roger from becoming complacent she had never said she loved him, never initiated lovemaking—aside from that first time. She had done her best to arouse doubt in his mind to keep him interested. Apparently all she had succeeded in doing was to convince him she was indifferent.

The expression of amazement on Roger’s face, the way he stammered, “But Leonie—” was proof to her that her deduction was correct. He did not know she cared for him. He assumed she was as bored with their relationship as he was. Perhaps there was still hope. If only she made the right moves, if only she could get a chance to display her skills as a temptress, perhaps she could win him back.

It would not do simply to cry out that she loved him. Even if he believed her, knowledge of her love would not spark his interest. He would be too good to drive her out if he knew, but rather than feeling love in return it was far more likely that he would feel trapped. Love does not grow out of being smothered in the musty miasma of unwanted devotion. Nor would it do to begin to act like a whore. That might waken a temporary interest, but it would end in disaster. Roger would be sickened by the notion that she had pretended innocence all these months. He would turn away all the more swiftly when the faint, corrupt fascination of her devices lost power. Yet she had to make him know she cared.

“You will be safe,” Roger urged, following his first surprised protest, thinking that she feared separation from his protection.

“And you will have a chance to indulge yourself with a fresh piece of flesh, no doubt,” Leonie snarled.

The words were no part of any plan on Leonie’s part. They were wrenched out of her by jealousy, which overcame the knowledge that Roger was trying to give the comfort he believed she wanted. The effect, however, was a revelation. Roger’s mouth dropped open and his blue eyes fairly bulged from his head. In an instant, Leonie saw a way. A woman’s jealousy was flattering to a man. No doubt repeated scenes would be unwelcome, but one would make clear enough her desire for him. He would almost certainly respond, and that would give her both a chance and an excuse to display the abilities she had hidden.

“What did you say?” he gasped.

“You heard me well enough,” Leonie shrieked. “Lecher! I am not enough for you. Perhaps I am too delicate. You need a stronger, coarser flavor to stimulate your appetite.”

“Leonie! I swear—”

“What do you swear? Liar! Lecher! You swore you would bring me to England, but you cannot wait so long to plow a new field.”

Roger swallowed, opened his mouth, closed it after all that came out was a protesting squawk. For a week he had been on a treadmill of despair. His mind had been fixed into its round of worry, unable to accept Leonie’s fate and equally unable to discover a way to avoid it. Even as he rushed up the stairs to tell Leonie he had found a way to save her, he had known there would be problems. What if they could not find a woman to take Leonie’s place? Was it fair to endanger some innocent person? A dozen other objections had ranged through his mind while he described the idea to Leonie. He had even expected she would object. Frightened as she was, her gallant spirit would resist leaving him when danger threatened.

Thus, he had not been really thrown off course by her initial refusal, only a little surprised at how angry she looked. He had been marshaling arguments to convince her it was best for both of them and to reassure her about their separation when her remark about a “fresh piece of flesh” had burst on him like a bombshell. The concept was so far from any thought of his own—so foreign to his insecure view of himself as a lover—that he had, for a moment, thought Leonie was angry because he had criticized her cooking and wanted someone else as a housekeeper.

It was that ridiculous idea that had wrenched his unbelieving, “What did you say?” from him. However, when the word “lecher” made perfectly clear Leonie’s meaning, he still did not believe his ears. It was simply inconceivable to Roger that any woman could be jealous—which, although Roger did not think of it, was not surprising, because he only chose experienced partners with easygoing temperaments who knew exactly what the score was and had no emotional involvement with him. He had had quite enough emotionalism from Solange.

Leonie was delighted with the effect her attack had produced. One thing was sure, all preoccupation was gone from Roger’s expression now. He was totally aware of her, totally concentrated on her—a thing she had not seen for a week. No wonder he had been bored. He had thought her a fool as well as an innocent. Well, it would do him no harm to learn otherwise.

“Did you think I wouldn’t realize?” she hissed. “It didn’t take you long to find another, did it? No sooner did you walk out alone for pleasure than your eyes began to roam—”

“No! How could you think such a thing? Leonie—”

“What am I supposed to think? You have made it clear enough. You could barely bring yourself to look at me this past week.”

That, of course, was true, and Roger gaped again, unable to deny the fact and also unable to defend himself. He had been so afraid that Leonie would see his fear and be terrified herself that he had, indeed, avoided looking at her and speaking to her.

“There is no other woman,” Roger asserted passionately.

“No?” Leonie drawled, eyes blazing and venom dripping from the word. “Are you telling me that you prefer boys? One or the other it must be, for you are so drained out that you could not even pretend an interest in coupling with me this past week.”

“Leonie!” Roger gasped.

He was dizzy with conflicting emotions, but paramount among them was an uncertain and incredulous joy. She was jealous! Would a woman be jealous where she did not love? She was angry because he had not made love to her. But then surely, it was because she took pleasure in it.

“Leonie!” she mimicked his shocked gasp bitterly. “Stupid Leonie, who would not even guess that her simple charms had lost their savor. Innocent Leonie, who could be wrapped like a package and left on Fouché’s shelf until it was convenient to call for her and drop her off at another convenient spot in England. You want more spice in your meat? I will give you spice!”

Before Roger could reply, she had whirled away from him and discarded her dowdy, unflattering dress. Under it, the linen was very fine. Since it was not safe to display wealth outwardly, Leonie had spent a good part of the money Roger had given her on provocative undergarments. She had always known it would be necessary to restimulate his interest sooner or later, and particularly this past week had been prepared. She swung back slowly, blushing furiously, which made her eyes glow like molten gold. One hand fingered the ribbon tie of her chemise.

“Do you like it quick or slow, Roger?”

In the past they had undressed either separately or in the dark. Roger thought he was sparing Leonie’s modesty. Leonie was always afraid of seeming whorish. Now she had the most wonderful excuse. She knew that a woman driven by jealousy was capable of anything, even murder. Nothing she did would be really surprising to Roger nor make him suspicious of her past life. It was quite apparent to Leonie that he was not presently capable of thinking at all, but she was convinced that even later, when the shock and sexual excitement had passed, he would assume that jealousy had pushed her outside her normal behavior pattern.

Leonie was not at all surprised when Roger did not answer her question. He swallowed and ran his tongue over his lips in an effort to ease a suddenly dry mouth. Leonie pulled the bow loose and shrugged her shoulders so that the lace straps slid down. She did not wear a corset. Her breasts were high and firm and needed no support, her waist narrow enough to do without lacing. The soft silk of the chemise dropped from her breasts, catching provocatively on her erect nipples for a moment before it left her completely bare.

A strangled sound, mixed passion and protest, caught in Roger’s throat. He should stop Leonie, he knew that. When her fury abated, she would be appalled at what she had done. However, it was quite impossible for him to speak or move. What she was doing was holding him like a mesmeric trance. It was a most peculiar sensation, as if he were divided into two men. In one, the mind operated, telling him that Leonie would be embarrassed, that he should stop her, that he had seen women strip provocatively before—many times—and had been mildly stimulated, mostly amused. The other man was a creature of pure sensation, trapped in the molten lava of desire, linked in some way to the woman so that each movement she made, each new sliver of skin exposed, produced a hot throbbing in him.

By the time Leonie was naked, Roger was finding the restrictions of his own clothes physically painful. He had once put his hand to his breeches buttons, but Leonie had said, “No,” and he had let his hand drop. Now she approached him, put one hand behind his head to pull it down so that she could kiss him and began to undo his buttons with the other hand. The first man, the man of mind, drowned in the hot lava of desire and was seared away. Roger grabbed at Leonie, became aware of his coarse work shirt, and broke their embrace to tear it off. Before he could grasp her again, she had slid down along his body, pulling his breeches and underpants off together. Playfully, she tickled the inner sides of his thighs with her tongue.

“Oh God,” Roger moaned. “Oh God, oh God.”

He grabbed for her head, eager for any caress that would both ease and increase the roaring pain-pleasure that filled him, but she twisted away. An agony of fear that she had been playing with him, enticing him so that she could refuse him at the height of his need, made him bend and seize her brutally. She struggled, increasing Roger’s fear of rejection, and he stopped her lips so that she could neither scream nor deny him. Muffled sounds came from Leonie’s throat as she tried to tell him that she wanted to take off his shoes, that he was not really undressed, but he did not want to know what she was trying to say. He pushed her backwards, keeping his lips fastened to hers, intending to back her onto the bed.

To Roger’s horror he found his feet bound, so that he tipped forward instead of taking a step. Fortunately, the room was very small. A hand flung out caught the edge of the wardrobe, pushed them both upright. Blind with fury, thinking Leonie had somehow tied his legs together, he lifted her and threw her on the bed, reaching down simultaneously to rid himself of the entanglement. It was no feat to push off his shoes and breeches, and the knowledge of what had hampered him was so foolish that he cooled a trifle. The added fact that Leonie had not moved might have restored Roger’s self-control, but then she giggled.

Fearful of shocking or frightening his partner, whom he knew had been sexually abused, Roger had been restrained in his lovemaking in the past. He had been careful to stimulate her and to be sure that her passion was satisfied, but he had also been careful to confine his kisses to those erogenous zones that were “decent”—her lips and ears, throat and shoulders. His caresses too, had been circumspect. He had stroked her body and breasts, but carefully, avoiding those intrusions he thought she might consider “dirty”.

Leonie had been equally careful, striving to maintain the appearance of innocence. She had clutched Roger to her and returned his kisses, but she had kept her own hands and mouth from those forms of stimulation that an inexperienced girl might be ignorant of or shy of using. She had even moderated her own response to Roger’s lovemaking. Soft sighs and whimpers and little moans of delight had been drawn from her, but had sent her teeth against the loud, tremulous cries that had sometimes welled up in her, not even realizing that the effort of self-control was damping the full flood of pleasure, so that her release as well as her voice was muted.

The giggle Leonie uttered was a sound of sheer delight. Roger’s violence, his forgetting he had not finished undressing, were proof of his urgent need. There was no contempt in her, but Roger was too aware of awkwardness, of embarrassment, and heard contempt in the sound. Suddenly, all his restraints were broken.

“Laugh at me, will you?” he muttered. “I will make you howl like a bitch in heat!”

Moments before, he had been nearly crazy to satisfy his own need. That urgency retreated. Years before, Roger had learned to hold his passion leashed, in his attempt to break through Solange’s frigidity. Now he used that power again coupled with every technique he had learned or invented to conquer indifference. He sucked and licked, kissed and bit—and made good his threat. Leonie wailed with passion, fighting to draw him into her, convulsing in climax, only to have him withdraw and begin all over again, and again, until she began to weep with exhaustion. The tears peaked Roger’s temporary insanity. He knew he had lost Leonie for good. Solange had hated him for less. Considering Leonie’s background, he knew she would never look at him again. One last time he impaled her, driving like the madman he was until his body exploded. Then, shuddering with revulsion at what he had done, he rolled away. He would have left the bed, but she caught at him and held him.

“Oh my,” Leonie sighed, running the hand with which she had grasped him up his arm while she wiped away her tears with her other hand, “I must remember to make you angry and laugh at you again—but not too often.”

Roger had frozen into stillness at the sound of her voice. It was only a thread of a whisper, and he had expected to hear the hiss of hate in it, so the words did not make sense. But there was no hate, and the light touch of her fingers on his arm held him motionless. They lay in silence for a few minutes while Leonie gathered strength to turn on her side and Roger mustered the courage to turn his head and look at her. She was smiling! Her hair was dark and wet with sweat, her lashes still shining with tears, but she was smiling.