To Beguile a Beast (29 page)

That made her eye her son suspiciously. Jamie was five years old, but apparently a five-year-old boy’s bladder wasn’t very large because—

A single knock came at the carriage door. Helen frowned. Surely Alistair wouldn’t knock at his own carriage? Then the door swung open, and she entirely lost her thought.

“Papa,” she whispered, her heart in her throat.

She hadn’t seen him for fourteen years, but she’d never forget his face. There were a few more lines about his eyes and forehead, his bobbed gray doctor’s wig looked new, and his mouth was more pinched than she remembered it, but it was her papa.

He stared at her but didn’t smile. “May I come in?”

“Of course.”

He climbed in the carriage and sat across from them. His coat, waistcoat, and breeches were black, making him very somber. He didn’t seem to know what to do now that he was in the carriage.

Helen put her arms around her children. She cleared her throat so that she might speak clearly. “These are my children. Abigail, who is nine, and Jamie, who is five. Children, this is my father. Your grandpapa.”

Abigail said, “How do you do, sir?”

Jamie merely stared at his grandfather.

“Jamie.” Papa cleared his throat. “Ah. Well.”

Papa’s Christian name was James. Helen waited to see if he’d say anything more, but he seemed a little stunned.

“How are my sisters and brother?” she asked, her tone formal.

“All married, Timothy just last year to Anne Harris. You remember her, don’t you? Lived two houses down, had a terrible fever when she was but two years old.”

“Oh, yes. Little Annie Harris.” Helen smiled, but it was bittersweet. Annie Harris had been only five— Jamie’s age—when she’d left home to live with Lister. She’d missed an entire lifetime out of her family’s daily life.

Her father nodded, on firmer ground now that he had something familiar to discuss. “Rachel is married to a young doctor, a former student of mine, and expecting her second child. Ruth married a sailor and lives in Dover now. She writes often and comes to visit every year. She has but one child, a girl. Your sister, Margaret, has four children, two boys, two girls. She had a babe stillborn two years ago, another boy.”

She felt tears closing her throat. “I am sorry to hear it.”

Her father nodded. “Your mother fears that Margaret still grieves.”

Helen took a fortifying breath. “And how is my mother?”

“Well enough.” Papa looked at his hands. “She does not know I’ve come to see you today.”

“Ah.” What more could she say to that? Helen glanced out the window. A dog was napping in the sun on the inn doorstep.

“I should not have let her send you away,” Papa said.

Helen turned to stare at him. She’d never guessed that he hadn’t been completely in agreement with Mother.

“Your sisters were not yet married, and your mother worried for their futures,” he said, and the lines on his face seemed to deepen as she watched. “Also, the Duke of Lister is a powerful man, and he made it plain that he expected you to go to him. In the end, it was simply easier to let you go and wash our hands of you. It was easier, but it wasn’t right. I’ve regretted my decision for many years now. I hope you can forgive me someday.”

“Oh, Papa.” Helen went to the other side of the carriage to hug her father.

His arms were strong when they wrapped around her. “I’m sorry, Helen.”

She pulled back and saw that there were tears in his eyes.

“You can’t come home, I’m afraid. Your mother will not budge on that point. But I believe she’ll look the other way if you write me. And I hope that I can see you again someday?”

“Of course.”

He nodded and stood, briefly touching Abigail’s cheek and the top of Jamie’s head. “I need to go now, but I’ll write you in care of Sir Alistair Munroe.”

She nodded, her throat swelling.

He hesitated, and then said gruffly, “He seems like a good man. Munroe, that is.”

She smiled, although her lips trembled. “He is.”

Papa nodded and then he was gone.

Helen closed her eyes, her hand at her trembling mouth, on the very edge of breaking down in tears.

The carriage door opened again and rocked as someone climbed in.

When Helen opened her eyes, Alistair was scowling at her. “What did he say? Did he insult you?”

“No, oh, no, Alistair.” And she got up for the second time and crossed the carriage to kiss him on the cheek. She drew back and looked into his startled eye. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

Then, too, he was aware that she no longer had an external reason to stay with him at Castle Greaves. She had no need of employment, at least for the foreseeable future. Not with the cache of jewels she’d shown him one night in an inn. Lister, the bastard, had provided enough pearls and gold to last her a lifetime if she were frugal. And with Lister’s guns spiked, she need no longer hide from him, either.

Which begged the question, When would she leave him?

Alistair shook the depressing thought away, halting at Helen’s door. He gave the door a faint scratch. In a moment, it opened and she stood there in her chemise.

He stared at her mutely and held out his hand, his palm uppermost.

She glanced behind her and then took his hand, stepping into the hallway and shutting the door. He clutched her hand, probably too tightly, and led her quickly back to his rooms. He was already monstrously erect and aching with the need to claim her. He seemed to have lost whatever vestiges of civilization he’d ever had.

He’d barely closed his own door behind them when he swung her into his arms and brought his mouth to hers. Tasting her. Consuming her.
Helen.
She was soft on the surface, but underneath he could feel the strength of her muscles and bones, the strength of her core.

He thrust his tongue into her mouth, demanding satisfaction, and she complied, sweetly sucking. Yielding to him, though he knew it was an illusion. He ran his hands over her shoulders, down her gently curving back to her hips. He filled his palms with her rounded buttocks and squeezed.

She broke the kiss, gasping, and looked at him with wide eyes. “Alistair—”

“Shh.”

He picked her up, her weight solid in his arms, and he was glad to play the conqueror. In his arms she was helpless to escape.

“But we need to talk,” she said, her face solemn.

He swallowed. “Not yet. Just let me…”

He lowered her gently to his big bed, and her golden hair spread over his dark coverlet, an offering any god would be pleased with. He was no god; he didn’t deserve her, but he’d take what he could for as long as he could.

He stripped off his banyan and crawled, naked, over her form. With those harebell-blue eyes, she watched him come up over her. Wide and impossibly innocent. Dark now and a little sad. She raised her hand and brushed it carefully, tenderly, over his scarred cheek. She didn’t speak anymore, but her eyes, her expression, the very gentleness of her touch sent ice into his veins.

He leaned down and kissed her so he wouldn’t have to look into those eyes anymore. He drew her chemise up over her legs, feeling them shift restlessly beneath him, feeling the brush of her bush against his belly. He lifted his head briefly to draw her chemise over her head and throw it aside, and then he lowered his nude body to her nude body and kissed her once more.

Men talked of an afterlife filled with heavenly bliss, but this was the only bliss he wanted, in this life or the next: to feel Helen’s bare skin beneath his own. To delight in the soft cushions of her thighs cradling his. To press his hard cock into the velvet of her belly. To smell her intimate, womanly scent mingled with the scent of lemons, and to feel the warmth of her skin. Oh, God, if ever there was a chance of paradise for him, he’d relinquish it, and gladly, to stay right here in Helen’s arms.

He traced the faint bumps of her ribs, the indent of her waist, the curve of her hip, until he came to the center of her. She was wet, her curls drenched already, and he gave thanks because he wasn’t sure he could stand a moment longer outside of her. He grasped his cock and guided himself to her warmth, to her softness.

To home.

She was tight, despite her wetness. He clenched his jaw and thrust into her in small shoves, parting her folds, burying himself deep. She held him and he closed his eyes to keep from spilling too soon. He felt her arms slide around him, and she pulled his face down to hers. She kissed him with a moist, open mouth and spread her legs, wrapping her calves over his hips. He moved then—it was that or die. Sliding, grinding, pushing his flesh into hers. Making love to her. She continued to kiss him without any haste, her mouth accepting his tongue as her body accepted his cock.

This was all he wanted. This was heaven.

But his body had to speed up, the imperative to plant his seed overtaking the luxury of a slow coupling. He raised himself on his arms to intensify his thrusts. He watched as her heavy eyelids drifted closed, her face flushing a deep pink. Her breath was coming short, but she’d not yet crested. He held his weight on one hand and with the other searched for that small bit of feminine flesh that would send her over the edge. He found it, hiding in her slippery folds, and he gently pressed, slowly circled. Her arms fell from his shoulders, and she flung them over her head, grasping the pillow with both fists. He watched her, diddling her pearl and humping her hard, and when he saw her toss back her head, he felt it, too. The churning explosive start of his orgasm.

He pulled out just in time, spilling on her thighs. His heart was pounding, his breath coming short. He rolled to the side so he wouldn’t crush her and just lay there a moment, his arm over his head, exhausted. He was drifting into sleep, in fact, when she moved, nestling against him and running her fingers over his chest.

“I love you,” she whispered.

His eye snapped open, and he stared sightlessly at the ceiling of his bedroom. He knew what he should say, of course, but the words wouldn’t come. He seemed struck mute. And now it was too late. Too late. Their time together was over. “Helen—”

She sat up next to him. “I love you with all my heart, Alistair, but I cannot stay with you like this.”

And she also knew, deep in her heart, that this love, however wonderful, wasn’t enough for her.

He’d gone still beside her, his great chest damp with the sweat from their lovemaking. He hadn’t said a word when she confessed her love, and that fact nearly made her break down. In the end, though, whether or not he admitted loving her was beside the point.

“Stay with me,” he rasped. His expression was stern, but in his eye was desperation.

It nearly broke her heart.

“I can’t live like this again,” she said. “I fled Lister because I realized that I was more than a man’s convenient plaything. I
have
to be more—for myself and for my children. And although I love you a thousand times more than I ever loved Lister, I will not repeat my mistake.”

His beautiful eye closed, and he turned his face away from her. His hands clenched into fists above his head. She waited, but he did no more, neither speaking nor moving. He might as well have turned to stone.

At last she rose from the bed and picked up her chemise from the floor. She put it on and went to the door. She glanced back one last time, but he still hadn’t moved. So she opened the door and slipped from the room, leaving him—and her heart—behind.