The Stepsister's Triumph (14 page)

He shook his head. “I don't know how it is for other men. I just know this. I will not pretend to read your mind. I will not pretend that what you say to me is not true. If you tell me to stop, Madelene, I am going to believe you, and I am going to stop. But until then”—he smiled that smile of sweetness and burning desire—“I am going to do my best to give you all that you want and teach you how very, very much I desire you.”

He kissed her again, tenderly, and his arms wrapped around her, drawing her up tight against him, with his rock-hard arm curled around her shoulders and his hand pressed against her hip. He cradled her this way across his lap, kissing her deeply, letting his free hand toy with her breasts, teasing her nipples into hard peaks, stroking her side and her belly and down, until his fingers brushed her damp curls.

She gasped against his mouth and felt him smile. His fingers pressed between her thighs and into her damp, sensitive slit.

Nothing had ever felt so good as his finger parting her. But then, that blunt, questing fingertip slid upward and touched the tight knot of flesh right at the apex of her slit.

Pleasure, pure and blinding, lanced through her, and Madelene cried out. Benedict clamped his mouth over hers. His tongue thrust deep inside her even as his finger pressed against her clitoris. He rocked her, rubbed her, pressed her. Her hips arched against his hand, seeking more pressure, seeking more of him. She was moaning. She was babbling and begging. He was laughing, urging her onward, clasping her tight against him. She could feel the hot press of his erection against her thigh. He dipped his head down and kissed her breasts and lapped at her nipples and she moaned again. And when he took her entirely into his mouth and curled his tongue around her ruched nipple, her body could no longer contain the feeling. Every part of her contracted tight into a single sensation of pleasure.

“Yes!” he cried and she cried and she shuddered and her heart soared free on the waves of ecstasy he raised in her. He was shuddering against her, wracked with his own ecstasy. “God! Madelene! Yes!”

*   *   *

“Now you really should go,” Benedict breathed into her ear.

He was lying on his side, holding her against him. The narrow camp bed could barely hold them both, so they had to remain pressed close together. Madelene suspected Benedict didn't mind any more than she did. The contours of his body were hard and strange against her back and buttocks, but there was nothing uncomfortable about them, or about his arms wrapped tightly around her.

“But we didn't . . . you didn't . . . finish,” she murmured.

His mouth brushed the edge of her ear. “There will be time for that later.”

“There will?” she murmured.

“Oh yes, my dear. I promise you.”

And he was kissing her and turning her toward him, and it seemed there was time for a little more right now.

It was a Wednesday morning when the invitations returned from the engravers. Cousin Henry happened to be visiting No. 48 when they arrived, and he exclaimed with approval over the gilt edging and the raised lettering along with the rest of them.

“I have a notion,” Henry said as he laid the card he'd been examining reverently back down into the box. “Would you consider delaying posting these until the fifth?”

“Why should we?” Helene asked.

“Because then they will arrive on the sixth, and after they've read them, the matrons will want at least one night to consider their answers.”

“Three nights is average,” Helene said. “I've looked into the question.”

Henry bowed at this. “It just so happens, however, that the seventh is our company's premiere of
Much Ado About Nothing
. I came here fully intending to offer you ladies use of my private box for the evening. It will create, if I do say so myself, a most excellent impression in the minds of those matrons who might be wavering.”

“Oh, Cousin Henry!” Madelene cried. “That would be marvelous.”

“It would be most generous indeed,” Miss Sewell murmured.

“It is a gift freely given,” Cousin Henry said to her. “A favor to my cousin and her friends, nothing more.”

“Well then that is how it shall be accepted.”

Helene was bent over her notebooks, flipping through pages to see how Henry's invitation tallied with her own plans, and Adele was counting and admiring their cards, so Madelene was the only one who saw the long, deep look that passed between her cousin and her chaperone.

Of course Madelene wondered about this, but she took care not mention it to the others. There were, it seemed, so many more important things to consider and so very much to do. Madelene's days had developed a blissful routine in which her precious hour with Benedict had come to dominate every other facet of her life.

She went to his studio every day. Of course they wasted no more time on the business of sketching. There was too much to say to each other, and far too much to do. After their first intimate encounter, he replaced his narrow camp bed with a more substantial, and broader, piece of furniture. Sometimes she and Benedict came together in a kind of dizzy madness—a blazing intensity of frenzied sensation, as if they were both striving to see who could drive the other further into their ecstasies. At other times, it was tender, a slow, simmering exploration of each other's bodies and all the shades of need and desire.

One day, Benedict undressed for her, slowly peeling away each layer of his clothing, from coat and cravat to shirt and breeches, until he stood in front of her, as beautiful and unabashed as a Greek hero. One day, she did the same for him and let him sketch her as she lay on the studio's divan, draped in gold silk, until he could stand it no more and laid the book aside to ravish her with his mouth and his strong, eager hands.

But there was one thing they did not do, one boundary they did not cross.

“I want to feel you inside me, Benedict,” she told him as he held her close beside him on the bed, still breathless from their recent and wonderfully mutual climax. “I'm ready for this.”

“I'm not,” he said, running his hand lovingly down her arm. “I can't.”

“There are ways to prevent . . .”

“They fail, Madelene,” he said firmly. “I will not leave you pregnant.”

Because then you'd have to marry me.
She hadn't meant to draw back. He was being considerate. He was being careful. He cherished her and did not want her to risk disgrace.

He seemed to understand her contradictory thoughts. Now that they had been together so often and with such intensity and openness, he could read her smallest glance. “Madelene, I know what you and your friends are doing,” he said. “Being as I am . . . I cannot help you with it, but neither do I wish to interfere with it. When the season ends, when you have fulfilled your promise to your friends and you come back, you will find me here, waiting for you.”

“I love you,” she whispered, because it was the only answer she could make. But there was something in her words that left her uneasy. Why should there be anything wrong with what he said, though? Of course she would come back. Where else did she want to be but here with Benedict?

He cupped her cheek in his hand. “When we are free to be together, we'll close the door on the whole world and we will love and we will live for each other. I will teach you how much a man may cherish a woman.”

She smiled to see him smile, and to feel the thrill his touch sent through her—warm and slow and all the more welcome because now it was so familiar. “Of course, my love.”

Then it was back home for a nap and a quick lunch and a change of clothes. Mama and Lewis followed society's custom of sleeping well past noon, so, with a little luck, Madelene could be gone before anyone else in the house was even awake. Of course, her destination was always No. 48. From there, it was off to the round of calls or other social appearances Helene had scheduled. Then home yet again, this time to a supper at which her brother might or might not put in an appearance. But even meals with her family were not so painful as they had once had been. Madelene found she could employ Cousin Henry's lessons at the table as well as on the dance floor. She could hear the complaints, the passive criticism, and small slights and let them drift over her while she concentrated on how she moved, and sat, and held herself. She enjoyed her food, measured her sips of wine carefully, folded her napkin just so, murmured her words of apology and encouragement as required. It was all appearance, all surface calm and control, just as if she was an actress playing a part on the stage. It didn't matter who was looking, whether it was Mama or Father or a perfect stranger on the street. They saw what she chose to show. They saw demure and mousy Madelene, whom they tolerated because she was their source of income. They did not need to see the Madelene who was loved and befriended. They did not need to see the Madelene who visited Cousin Henry for light luncheons at a coffeehouse and listened to his stories about rehearsals and all the endless, wonderful, awful facets of life in the theater.

After dinner, it was time to dress in one of Adele's creations and get into a carriage with Helene and Adele and Miss Sewell, to drive to a public assembly, or the Ancient Music, or the Opera. There she could laugh and she could smile and flutter her fan. She could dance and she could enjoy. She could even talk, and once in a while she could make the men who talked with her laugh. She did not have to be afraid. Whenever she felt her old anxiety, she would simply focus on herself, on her breathing and her movement. Little bit by little bit, concentration turned to habit, and ease and grace began to feel as natural as the old fears. Little bit by little bit, the old fears broke apart and were scattered on the winds of her new life.

It was perfection. It was like nothing she'd ever dreamed of, and for once, it was all her own.

“It's unsupportable! Infamous!” Lewis Valmeyer swung around to face his mother, who sat on her pink sofa, utterly unperturbed.

“Lewis, you will please calm yourself,” she said.

“I shan't!” he cried, taking another gulp from the tumbler of whiskey he held in his shaking hand. “What the devil are you thinking to let her keep running about like this? I had no less than four different fellows at the club chaffing me about Madelene and how they'd seen her at this party or that.”

“I know exactly where she's been,” Lady Reginald replied calmly. “Madelene has always gone about into society.”

“But it's not the
same
this time. She's dancing! She's . . . she's flirting! And what about this artist chappy, eh?” He twisted his face into a vicious sneer. “What are we going to do if she gets married?” His hand shook as he raised the glass to his mouth again. “All the money! It'd go to that damned artist, or some other damned fortune hunter . . .”

“You will watch your language, Lewis.”

“I'm sorry, Mother, really I am.” He plopped down onto the sofa beside her, his legs spread wide, and his hand, and the tumbler, dangling between his knees.

“Madelene is not going to get married, Lewis.” Lady Reginald lifted the near-empty glass from her son's hands and placed it on the coffee table. In this mood, Lewis might just spill it and ruin the silk carpet.

“The devil she isn't,” he muttered. “The vultures are already gathering!”

“Lewis, what have I said about your language?”

“I'm sorry, Mother, truly. But . . .”

“Come here by me.”

He slid down the sofa to her side. Lady Reginald took his hand and patted it fondly. “Lewis, you know that I would never let that girl steal what is rightfully ours.”

“But that infamous trust . . .”

“Grants her sole control of her fortune next year. Which means we won't have to go pleading to the bankers and the lawyers for what we need anymore. She will be unmarried and in her father's house. He will control the money. That is to say,
we
will.”

“But if she marries . . .”

“She will not marry, Lewis,” Lady Reginald repeated firmly. “You must trust me.”

“I do, Mother, I do, but how can you know? If she's out in society, if she's . . . well, dancing and flirting and every man Jack of 'em knows she's rich, and half of 'em would try to nab her just to spite me . . .”

Lady Reginald just smiled and clicked her tongue at such follies. “Lewis, have I ever once failed to manage Madelene properly?”

“No, of course not. But this time is different.”

“It is not.”

“And what about that cousin of hers?” He stabbed his finger vaguely toward the door. “He's in town, isn't he? Theatre Royal or something?”

“Matters are well in hand. Now, give me a kiss and go get yourself some rest. I'll send up Randolph with a tonic.”

Dutifully, Lewis kissed his mother's brow and left her. Lady Reginald sighed and shook her head. Poor boy. It was not his fault. Thanks to that scheming woman who had been Reginald's first wife, Lewis had been terribly disappointed in his expectations. They all had. If Mathilde Cross had had anything of a wife's proper feeling, she would not have hidden her money from her husband, or denied it to his son. Lady Reginald sighed again. Really, she did not like the role into which she had been forced. Every day she wished she could have loved her stepdaughter and treated her just as she did her own children, but that woman left her no choice. As long as all the money flowed through Madelene, Madelene must remain with the family. On no account must she be permitted to marry.

Fortunately, the girl had always been timid and malleable. It had been quite easy, with only a little contrivance, to demonstrate that her various suitors were nothing but fortune hunters and wastrels. It was true that sometimes a woman of the demimonde had to be hired to help make the case, and once that friend of Lewis's had to be engaged for a night of drinking and gaming, but, well, what mother wouldn't do as much to ensure her children's future? Especially when her husband proved incapable.

It was a shame Lewis had no discretion. She would have explained to him that she not only knew about Madelene's infatuation with Lord Benedict but she considered it the greatest good fortune that could have struck this season. Lord Benedict was a weak and wounded man. Wounded men saw everything through the mask of old pain, and old pain was very easy to make new. It would be the simplest thing possible to make sure Benedict saw Madelene in the proper light.

And of course, Madelene was assisting with her own downfall by choosing this season, of all seasons, to try to venture outside the shelter of her family. Lady Reginald had been a little concerned at first when she saw that Madelene had somehow made friends with the Duke of Windford's family, not to mention Miss Sewell. That woman was, by all accounts, an extremely sly piece of work.

In her most private thoughts, Lady Reginald had become concerned she'd left things too late. Although Madelene attempted to conceal it, she had a new air about her. Her behavior held a disagreeable strain of independence that now and then edged over into a potential for forwardness. No doubt this was contracted from that bluestocking Lady Helene. And Lewis was right, Madelene did seem less inclined to hide in corners when she went out.

Well, it didn't matter. Madelene would soon learn her final lesson. The girl should have known that if she took up with questionable company, disaster would follow. Poor child. But children who did not learn must be corrected with a firm hand. A mother's duty required no less.

Tonight was Lady Fredrick's ball. Madelene had an invitation, as did Lady Reginald. Despite this, Lady Reginald had agreed to let her stepdaughter go with Miss Sewell and her friends. She had also arranged for a very frank message about Madelene to be communicated directly to Lord Benedict.

Now all that remained was to dress and be at the ball in time to watch the lesson she had planned begin to unfold.