The Surrender of Miss Fairbourne (30 page)

Lips parted and her eyes glistening, she looked down at his hand and what he was doing to her. Her acknowledgment of her arousal caused his own to soar.

She licked her lips, as if she were going to speak. He pressed his mouth to her neck, below her ear, so her scent surrounded him. “What is it?” he asked. “Do you not like this?”

“Yes. It is…unearthly. But…can you do again what you did last time?”

Her impatience surprised him. He stood, bringing her with him in his arm. “Not here. Come with me.”

He took her by the hand, and led her out to the hall, then sped her up the stairs. Doors closed softly as they approached while the servants made themselves scarce.

The damned stairs seemed to go on forever. He looked back, and the sight of her so captivated him that he impulsively swung her against the wall and kissed and bit her mouth and neck while he pressed her there.

“Surely not here,” she gasped. His hands sought her breasts and thighs. He barely heard her as he pressed to feel her, know her.

He wanted her helpless and so pleasured she wept. He wanted her now. He wanted—He grabbed her hand and dragged her the rest of the way up to the level that held his chambers. Blood flaming and mind darkening, he brought her into the bedchamber and pulled her into a kiss of triumphant possession.

When he released her she fell back on the bed. He looked down on her breathless surprise while he shed his coats.

*     *     *

E
mma’s senses could barely settle after Southwaite absorbed her into his whirlwind. Views and sounds and emotions fractured into pieces and became a jumble within the sensual turbulence.

Kisses first sweet, then commanding…trickles of pleasure submerged by a coursing river of need…stairs and a wall and a hard body and devastating hands…a chamber with books and chairs, then another with a bed draped in whites and blues…a kiss, a frightening kiss, that did not request surrender but claimed it, as if she had no choice.

She floated alone, slowly, through air heavy with sensual scents. Her skirt billowed from a breeze. Her outstretched arms were empty now. She drifted down until her back hit a mattress and a blue coverlet stretched beneath a sapphire tent.

Her senses righted a little. Enough. She peered through the gathering dusk that still lit the chamber. Southwaite stood near her feet, tall, lean, and strong. His frock coat slid away. Then his waistcoat and cravat. Each movement seemed a taunt, a dare, and a warning. He seemed to strip away his gentility with the garments. Deep in her, a primal thrill said there would be no etiquette at all left in him soon.

Suddenly he stood there naked, his body like marble in the gray light. Then the statue moved, until he knelt on one knee beside her, his body and face braced on taut arms that flanked her. For one lucid moment she admired him, his face and hard shoulders and the intensity that desire gave his dark eyes. Then he came down to her and filled her arms and overwhelmed her, and plain thinking was lost to her again.

He caressed her as if she had ceded everything to him—her body, her privacy, her everything. He created unbearable pleasure that became torturous, so much so that she resented the garments that made a barrier to the body she embraced. When he kissed her breast, the fabric between them became an agony.

He shifted his weight so he could turn her. She hugged the mattress while he unfastened her dress. Each small release sent a tremor down her center, as sure and focused as an arrow. After that her clothes disappeared with astonishing speed, spirited away while she hung on to him and obeyed his words and touches that helped him release her from their bindings.

Free then. Shockingly so. Pleasure and madness did not dim the astonishment of their bodies touching. The closeness awed her again as it had the last time.

He caressed her breasts and they swelled and rose. His tongue flicked at one tip and it tightened even more. Each contact, each breath, sent the most delicious charge through her.

“I promised more, didn’t I?” he said. “Like last time, you asked.”

She was too aroused to be shy or embarrassed. She nodded, and anticipation alone increased her sensitivity.

He moved away from her. “Come here, then.” He reached for her and rearranged them both until he sat with his back against the bed’s headboard and she faced him, her knees flanking his hips and her bottom pressing his thighs. She felt him beneath her, felt the base of his phallus snug in her cleft, teasing that spot he had used to unhinge her at dawn the last time.

He could touch her freely while he kissed her now. He could tease and titillate both of her breasts and he showed no mercy. She loved it. She closed her eyes and let the exquisite pleasure build and fill her until she knew nothing else.

He knew just what to do to make it even better, even more maddening. She rocked for relief. As she did her stomach kept brushing the top of his arousal where it rose between them. He took her hand, finally, and moved it there, so that she might give him pleasure too.

She was groaning soon. Crying and impatient and splitting apart. The edge of desperation began to preoccupy her. He lifted her hips so he could use his mouth, but that only made it worse. She clung to his shoulders, her head back
and her mind begging for more, for something, for everything.

He touched her where she pulsed and a shock of pleasure streaked to every inch of her. Another subtle touch, then another. Her essence reached toward a frightening place.

He moved her hands to the headboard. “Stay here like this. I am going to kiss you here.”

She nodded, too dazed to care or even hear, a silent begging for more being her only thought now. She did not care when he moved down or when he spread her legs and lowered her hips. She did not comprehend what he was doing until a most devilish thrill replaced that made by his hand.

She thought she would faint from it. For all its intensity, it also shocked her sane for a moment. She looked down and realized what was happening.

Her confused moment of rationality could not survive what came next. He did something that made her cry out. Another sensation, too intimate to believe, forced a groan from her. Then the insistent and building cravings spread until that was all there was, all she was. She clung to the bed while pleasure pushed her to desire’s ragged peak.

She crashed through the barrier to completion. She seemed to hover, suspended for a long, incredible spell of pure sensation. Then the need itself snapped, creating a scream of pleasure that owned her, body and soul.

She found herself straddled atop him when her own voice and thoughts could speak again. He entered her, stretching her and filling her and claiming her anew. She had neither will nor strength nor even a secure sense of her own body still. The remnants of her self-possession offered no protection at all from the pervasive intimacy of being encompassed by his tense arms and body while he thrust hard and deep.

S
he should insist that he call for his carriage and have her brought home.

It took forever for that very sensible idea to come to
Emma. Far too long for him to take her resolve seriously should she make the demand.

She sat on the disheveled bed in the glow of fifty candles. Southwaite had lit them himself when he finally rose from the bed. They flickered like fifty exclamation points that required no sentences to communicate their meaning. They burned atop tapers long enough to last all night.

Sounds from a flanking chamber spoke of the meal being set out. She gazed down at the silk robe she wore, provided by the earl. Her state of undress required that they dine in privacy in his dressing room. She had not objected to that plan, or to its implications regarding the hours that would follow.

She had been more herself after the ballroom. For all the magic and astonishment, she had left then, hadn’t she? She could not find the resolve to do so now, perhaps because dawn had not yet come to burn away the sensual dream of the night.

Hopping off the bed, she plucked her dress off the floor, folded it, and set it on a chair. She did not want to appear a waif when she left here. She would have to be vigilant about the time too. She had things she must do, important things, and she dare not allow her heart to delay them.

She sought her reticule. She had not let go of it when he dragged her up here, but it was nowhere in view now. She dropped to her knees to look beneath chairs and furniture. She cursed herself for being careless. Allowing herself to dally for pleasure was one thing, but completely losing sight of her duty could not be excused, not even for love.

She froze on the floor, with her hand under the bed where it had been feeling for the silk and lace of her reticule. Her thoughts had called this love without her choosing the word. She had no right to think of this passion in those terms. Southwaite had been kind, and had even made the obligatory proposal, but she had no reason to permit her heart such sentiments.

She kneeled, sitting on her feet, and looked into her heart. For the first time in her life it was not an easy thing to do. An
odd emotion tried to block her reflection. Her inner voice warned that illusions and lies had their place in the doings between men and women, and honesty would bring only pain.

Contemplating Southwaite’s thinking and feelings indeed provoked a fearful anguish. She set the attempt aside. She could never really know what he was about. It would be ridiculous to attribute motives or emotions to him. She could and would expect nothing there, nor blame him for less affection than she might wish.

Honesty with herself was all she could hope for. Once summoned, it did not take long for her to face the fullness of it. She had become accustomed to Southwaite’s attention and the excitement he could create with his mere presence. She had reveled in the new sensations he woke in her. But she could not claim her true emotions were very sophisticated. She was still here, wasn’t she? In his bedchamber now that night had fallen, agreeing without saying so to stay with him while she could?

It would be harder to leave this time. Terribly hard. The mere thought made her composure wobble.

“What are you doing there, Emma?”

Southwaite’s question jolted her out of her reverie. She looked over to where he stood at the door to his dressing room. His own robe, of brown brocaded silk, made him appear both dissolute and exotic.

“I cannot find my reticule.”

He came over and helped her up. “We will find it later. It has not gone far. It is among the sheets and garments somewhere. Come and eat something.”

The servants had set a table in the huge dressing room. Silver and fine porcelain bedecked exquisite linens. Two comfortable armchairs faced each other. The food had already been served, and no servant could be seen.

She marveled at how discreet it all was. Also at how expertly arranged. Even the food on her plate, some fowl and sauce and a compote of warm fruit, would not suffer too much should the earl get distracted before he dined.

Perhaps it came together so well because there had been
much practice. Lydia could be wrong about where her brother seduced his women. How would his sister even know whom he spirited up here and sent out again at dawn?

A spike of jealousy speared her at the thought. She tried to laugh the reaction off as ridiculous. It needled for a while longer all the same.

Southwaite poured some champagne. “Finally, at last, we must make that toast to your triumph today.”

She almost made a joke about whether the champagne had been smuggled in, but bit her tongue. The impulse only reminded her of the way she had disobeyed him on those lots. To gain the prize, she might be required to do so again.

“It is unfortunate Cassandra is not here,” she said. “I think she is celebrating too. She will see more than she expected from those jewels. Your friend Ambury was very aggressive on the sapphire and diamond earbobs.”

“I tried to stop him, but he would not hear me.”

“Perhaps he intends them for a special lady.”

“If so, she had better be ready to feed him for a spell. His father keeps him on a limited income, and he can ill afford such indulgences, even for special ladies.”

“I trust that he will pay up. I would not like to tell Cassandra that—”

“If he does not, I will.” He raised his glass. “To eyes both expert and beautiful, to a mind most extraordinary and exasperating, and to a body wholly captivating and deli—”

“Why, thank you!” she quickly interrupted.

He laughed. “Forgive me, but I thought you preferred plain speaking.”

Her face was already hot and now it burned even more. “I have decided there are some things better left unsaid.”

“That is an unexpected complication. How am I to know which things those are?”

She narrowed her eyes on him. “You know already, I think.”

He appeared ready to tease her more, but instead he ate his food. “I have been thinking about your eyes. Fondly, of course, but also about the expertise they have, as learned
from your father. You must have seen more art pass through Fairbourne’s over the years than I did on my grand tour. You would have learned much from that.”

“There was more than the consignments,” she said. “When we journeyed anywhere—Father would be asked to visit estates to give estimates, so we did at times—he would bring my brother and me to the private galleries along the way. Other travelers might request to tour the gardens of those manor houses, but he would speak to the housekeeper and beg that his children see the art. There are some amazing rarities tucked away in the collections of England.”

“Then your brother had the same education, and had the same expertise, I expect.”

Had.
He spoke of her brother in the past tense. Only she and Papa had not.

She wanted to correct him. She wanted to explain she was not some madwoman who refused to accept the truth of Robert’s fate. She fought the unexpectedly strong urge to blurt out that she had received proof now that vindicated her belief, and would soon have him back as well.

The desire to share this with him, the weighing of it all, immobilized her for a long count. If he found her reaction either visible or noteworthy, he did not say so. He ate his meal and did not seem to notice that she had stopped eating hers.