To Charm a Naughty Countess (15 page)

“Is that so?” Her eyebrows lifted. “Well, I shan’t stop you from such a noble purpose. Please, savor me some more.”

Always used to giving the orders, he found that in this moment, he was quite happy to obey instead.

His mouth played with the curve of her breast, the intriguing darkness and tightness of her nipple. If he used his lips on her, she gasped, and a slight scrape of teeth changed the gasp to a moan. It was remarkable, how he could enslave her with ministrations to such a small part of her body. He nestled his body against hers, raised himself on one elbow, and unleashed himself upon her breasts, playing and licking and nipping and stroking until her eyes closed, her feet twitched.

She was trembling now, and he thought he would never get tired of touching her breasts. But her knees loosened and parted, and he recalled, there was much territory yet unexplored.

He raised himself up to a seated position and let his hands roam over her body, rubbing her to moaning life, caressing her face, the spring of her ribs, the pool of her navel… the mystery of her most private of parts.

She was slippery against his fingers. The wetness shook his control. He wanted to stroke it, sleek against his hand. He fingered the slick folds, explored the stiff apex, slid a finger through her fine hairs and down over the welcome of her passage. He was gentle and slow, wondering at her loveliness, her furled sexuality. In this, as in so much else, she was subtle where he was gauche. His desire jutted out before him, obvious and brash. Hers was hidden; it required searching, waking.

But waking it he was. As he stroked her thighs, let his fingers dance through her wetness, she began to clench her muscles and breathe more deeply, more quickly. She was even more slippery now; his fingers glistened. Caroline watched, eyes avid under half-closed lids, as he brought a fingertip to his mouth and touched it with his tongue. She was tart yet musky, like nothing else in the world.

“Enough,” she said in an unsteady voice. “Enough, now. I shall have my turn.”

“Um,” said Michael, as she pressed him flat onto his back. She knelt next to him, then raised her arms to coil her hair into a long, gentle twist. Her rounded breasts bobbed, and one of his hands reached reflexively for a touch.

“Yes,” she said again, cradling his hand, sliding it over her hardened nipple, the soft curve of her breast. Then she slung her twisted hair over one shoulder, and it fell in a flaxen rope to tickle his abdomen, his cock. Her hands glided over him in languorous strokes.

He tried to say “um” again, as she trailed her fingers over his body, but all he could do was gasp. And then she stroked him and bent her mouth to him, and he couldn’t even gasp anymore. As she stroked him hard and long again with her fingers and tongue, he forgot everything he knew, everything he prided himself on. There was no logic or learning or Lancashire now—only Caroline and her clever fingers and her mouth.

Her mouth was shockingly wet and so hot that he almost lost his grip and plummeted. His hips jerked, his hands fisted on the sheet. His sac tightened, and his eyes flew open.
No
no
no
no
not
yet.

He clenched every muscle in his body, holding back his release with an effort of will, then clambered away from her, his body swifter than his dazzled thoughts.

Caroline uncurled and stretched out on the bed. “Too much, was it?”

“What did you do to me?”

“It’s only a little fornication.” Caroline laughed. “I can see that you liked it.”

Only
a
little
fornication
, she said. Taking away the import of the moment. He wondered if that was a good thing.

Michael suddenly felt the cold on his bare skin, and he trembled, his staff sinking a fraction. “I almost… it would not be seemly to…”

She raised her eyebrows, touched her tongue to her lips, and he could have groaned at the sight. Why did he always have to think so damn much? Why couldn’t he have let her draw him to release?

Because he didn’t want to use her in that way. He wanted his first orgasm with a woman, his first intercourse, to be a true joining, not a service.

Though God, what a service it was.

She shrugged. “I liked it. But if you think it wouldn’t be seemly, then we’ll do something else.” She moistened her lips again, and looked at him with an imp’s eyes, a siren’s smile. “Maybe we can try it again sometime.”

Michael shivered.

Caroline slid a hand back and forth over the bed sheets. “Come back to bed. Come back to me.”

He could not resist such a plea. He could not imagine anyone who could. As if transfixed, he climbed back onto the bed and covered her waiting body with his own.

He’d never been in this position before—literally. But his body had hidden, instinctual knowledge. It knew how to support him, how to fit him into the cradle of her thighs. His cock lay hot and hard against her, the tip wet and slippery from his fluids and hers.

He locked eyes with Caroline, and she nodded. And with a quick thrust, he sheathed himself.

Simple as that, he wasn’t a virgin anymore.

That was the last coherent thought he had, because the tight wetness of her, clenching him, was… it was unimaginable.
Oh, God
. There was nothing for the moment but blasphemy or a cry to heaven. The feel of her around him and under him was fire, oil, water. Impossible and combustible. Sleek and liquid and hot and deep. This unmade him, this joining. It would rip him apart.

He could not leave her; he could not keep still. He lowered his full length upon her, bracing himself on his elbows, and he pressed his hips into her deeper, more fully.

They both moaned at once.

He knew what to do next; even if his body had not known it instinctively, he’d picked up enough bawdy talk to know about the thrusting that brought on the crisis. But he
did
know. It felt right, to draw back, to let the work-hardened muscles of his arms and thighs bear his weight, allow him to pull back, then glide home, welcomed and eased by her wetness. Then again, again, until the world was only his body and hers.

He could never have imagined the tightness, the glide, the perfect slick friction. He could never have understood the fit of body in body, the rightness of it all. Never, without her. He could never have come to this.

Never, never, never. Never, without her
, his body pounded. It was like the rhythm of his headache, but it echoed with a joy that resounded through his skin and muscle, bone and blood. It washed away tension and hurt, filling him with a roiling pleasure that bore him higher, tighter, faster, onward, more frantically, until he flung himself from the edge of the cliff with a cry.

He landed in a heap, so stunned by the force of his sudden ecstasy that he was unable even to breathe. What an extraordinary feeling: to be exhausted yet tingling with life.

Sense returned in slow flickers. His heart pounding with the force of sweet exertion. The hush of Caroline’s swift breathing in his ear; the softness of her breasts beneath the wall of his chest. Still joined, still one, he felt as if his heartbeat were hers, as if every breath she took gave him the air of life.

He breathed in deeply at the curve of her neck. Delicate and floral; earthy as passion. “You are perfect.” He could hardly speak the words; he didn’t want to stop inhaling her scent. “Is it always like that?”

She laughed, trailing her fingertips over his back. “If one is fortunate.”

“I consider myself very fortunate.” He raised himself onto his forearms, cradling her. Resting his forehead upon hers, he pressed light kisses over her face—the bridge of her nose, the curve of her brow, the angle of her cheek. So many lovely shapes, yet they could not compare to her heart and mind. To the wonder of the passion that had unfurled between them.

He had never expected such a thing: to let himself be mastered by desire yet to remain master of himself. “Very, very fortunate,” he repeated. Another kiss, this one lingering on her lips.

Her nails bit lightly into his skin, firing his nerves again. More deeply, he sank into the kiss, brushing her hot tongue with his—until with gentle hands, she caught his shoulders and pressed him upward, away. As the kiss broke, he realized he had been crushing her with his weight. Withdrawing from her heat, he freed himself from their tangle of limbs.

She raised herself up on one elbow and looked down at him. “Do you really think so? That you’re fortunate to be here with me?”

Still trying to master his breath, Michael nodded. “Yes, of course I do. I don’t underestimate the gift you’ve given me.”

Her lovely face crumpled for a fraction of a second. “Nor I you.” In a bright voice, she added, “How do you like sex, then? Rather amusing, is it not?”

“Unh.” Michael had no word for the feeling, so he settled for a meaningless syllable.

Caroline laughed again. “I couldn’t say it better myself. The best lovers always reduce one to a state of complete incoherence.”

“Well, you’re the best lover I’ve ever had,” Michael said truthfully.

Caroline smiled and walked her fingers across the width of his chest. “Mmm.”

A noncommittal murmur or a sound of pleasure? Either way, she did not return the compliment. But this was to be expected. He had not wielded a hammer or an awl perfectly the first time he’d used them. It did not make sense that the tools of his body would be any different.

Still, though. “Let me try again. I can do better.”

“So soon?”

“At once.” He raised himself on his own elbow and pressed her back to the bed. Now that the urgency of his own arousal and climax were past, he felt clearheaded, replete, and calm, as though his world had finally marched into order.

Here was Caroline, a banquet for the senses, all pale skin and long limbs and rounded curves, so lovely that he could scarcely believe he was permitted to touch her. In the low wink of the coal fire, her face looked flushed. She was beautiful as a goddess, yet touchably warm. As he trailed his hands over her form, she covered his fingers with her own and smiled. “I am fortunate too, Michael.”

This was his chance: now, while all seemed right with their world. In everything he had done in London, he saw Caroline’s hand. Why, then, should he seek the hand of another?

She always knew the right thing to say and do. She could be everything he needed. She could save Wyverne, remake it, just as she was remaking him.

“Caro. Will you marry me?”

Another proposal. Damnation.

Caroline squeezed her eyes shut—a vain attempt to shut out the world.

Oh, she could close her eyes to the familiar heavy folds of green fabric that hung over the head of her bed. And most of all, the face above her.

But she couldn’t stop her ears. And now Michael offered what he no doubt thought was a convincing argument for her agreement. “Caro, please accept. You are everything you have been pushing me toward in a wife. Wealthy and respectably bred, but not of noble birth. And you’re unencumbered in every way. It makes sense. Don’t you see?”

No. She did not see that or anything else: she kept her eyes shut. But in her head, she screamed,
Why?

She did not want an explanation of his reasons for proposing. She wanted to know why he had broken the spell.

She opened her eyes, saw him staring down at her. He looked patient but sure, as though waiting for his ship to come in so he could see to the unloading of its cargo. He did not look as if he’d just had a transcendent sexual experience.

Caroline sat up. “You support your proposal with many arguments.”

“You agree, then.”

“No. I can’t. Everything you say—Michael, it doesn’t have anything to do with
me.
”

“Nonsense. It has everything to do with you. I just described all the reasons I wish for you to be my duchess.”

“Those reasons could apply to many women. Why me in particular?”

His brows yanked together, as though her question made no sense to him. “Well, I feel comfortable with you. And I like you the most. Obviously.”

She ignored this reference to their spent passion. “My fortune has nothing to do with your proposal, then?”

He paused before answering. Wise of him. “It is far from my only motivation. But you know quite well I could not offer marriage to someone without money.”

Unwise of him.

And unwise of her too. “I do know that quite well,” she murmured.

It had been nothing but a fantasy to think that he wanted her for her own sake. In reality, nothing had changed since the ball at Applewood House a week ago, or eleven years ago. So important were his goals that he could not abandon them for an instant. Not even in the bedchamber.

And so his proposal had turned their intimacy into a transaction.

“So, you propose because I suit your requirements, then. Oh—and I am ‘comfortable’ too? How convenient.”

“‘Convenient’ isn’t the right word, exactly.”

Caroline felt all the cold of her nudity now. She clutched for the rumpled bed sheet and tugged it free, pulling it over and around her body like a Grecian robe. She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and stood up unsteadily, still boneless from their lovemaking.

Never mind that. It was over. Done. She held the sheet to her breastbone, shielding her body from his scrutiny.

Even now, she was aware of the effect in the back of her mind—how the sheet would outline her body with tantalizing elegance. But Michael was not tantalized. He seemed to take this as a cue to wrap himself in bedcovers too, and he wadded the heavy, green damask coverlet into a fabric washtub around his waist.

Efficient yet graceless. If that didn’t typify him, nothing did.

“How inconvenient, then, that I must refuse again.”

His brows were still a dark vee. “I do not see why.”

“I wanted you tonight,” she admitted. “I’ve wanted you for a long time. But I can’t be the wife you need.”

“Of course you can.” He looked puzzled, as though she’d misunderstood a simple command.
Pass
the
salt. Be my wife
. “I just told you that you could. Besides this, you ought to marry me now that we’ve—well.”

“What, you think you’ve ruined me?” She dug her fingernails into her sheet as passionately as she’d clutched for his body a few minutes before.

“‘Ruined’ isn’t the right word, exactly.” Those damnable eyes of his. They were so sharp but missed so much.

“Perhaps eventually I shall hit upon the right word for something. Until then, I thank you for your concern for my reputation. Or honor. Or whatever the right word might be. But as you’re not the first man who has come to my bed since my widowhood, the responsibility for my ruination is not yours.”

He looked as stunned as if she had clouted him. His lips parted, then closed again.

Damnable lips. Damnable eyes. Damnable chin and nose. He was too handsome to be so callous. It was impossible to keep up an icy guard when the sight of his face, so austere and yet so vulnerable, always melted her.

She hadn’t cried since the death of her elderly husband, a kind man who had doted on her and bequeathed her the cachet and money to remake her life. She could cry now, though, for the death of another fancy as improbable as the clergyman’s daughter marrying an earl. She might admire Michael for his honor, his dedication to duty, but he could offer her no more than this—not with his clockwork heart.

To help him save his dukedom, he needed a woman much like himself, a business partner who signed her name to a marriage license as she would any other contract, and who would be content never to be loved. Caroline could not be that person. Her heart was not clockwork, but human enough for two; twice tried and deeply bruised. She could only be ashamed that she had given herself away so cheaply, when she’d meant never again to give away anything at all.

Carefully, she measured her words. “I’m sorry, Michael. But I cannot marry you. You mean no more to me now than you did the first time we met, eleven years ago.”

This was true, though he couldn’t know what she admitted. The first time she’d seen him, she had tumbled for him with all the fascination of the young faced with the unfamiliar. Not even she knew how much of a soaring leap her feelings would require to exceed her early passion.

Just as he was fascinated by a damned Carcel lamp, so had she always been enthralled by him. She wanted to take him apart and master him, to ensure that she still understood the world.

Yet when Michael had taken apart a lamp, he had broken it. And in grasping for Michael’s core, she had broken something too. She was not sure whether it was something in him or in her, or whether she had shattered something built between them.

Michael watched her with surprising dignity for a man sitting on a bed, wrapped in a wagon wheel of damask. “It meant nothing, then? Our trust?”

“I value your trust. But at the root, Michael, we do not want the same things.” She attempted a smile. “Business before pleasure, isn’t that your way? Yet it is not mine. I’m sorry, Michael, for both our sakes. I cannot marry you.”

Michael’s mouth opened as if to reply.

But no words came out; he only swallowed, his throat flexing visibly with the effort. Air fled his lungs in a rush, then did not return. His bare chest sunk, emptied, and he folded onto the bed.

Caroline blinked. “Michael?”

Was this a trick? He was not the type for tricks, but she had never seen anyone behave in such a manner before.

“Michael, are you all right?”

Now curled on his side, his lower half still smothered in covers, Michael’s chest snapped back to heaving life. He swallowed again, gasping, as though every hitching breath was a torment.

“Michael? Can you speak?” What could she do for this distress? She reached out a hand as if her touch could pluck away whatever was smothering him—but there was nothing there.

He swatted her hand away, arms shuddering. His breath came quick and shallow now, his eyes unfocused, darting around. An unhealthy dew of perspiration broke out on his forehead, in the hollow of his throat.

Caroline’s own limbs took on the creeping numbness of fear. “What is the matter? Are you having an apoplexy? Let me call for a doctor.”

He shook his head mutely. His whole body was shuddering now.

Caroline reached out again to touch him, pulled her hands back. He was flying apart, suddenly, and for no reason she could imagine.

“Is this the falling sickness?” She reached for a bolster. She had heard of this, though never seen it. She thought she was to keep him calm, make sure he didn’t tumble off the bed and injure himself. How to calm him, though, she could not imagine. She feared even to touch him, lest she distress him further.

His face was ruddy and damp. “No,” he managed through heaving breaths. “Water.”

Caroline darted to the ewer and basin kept in her bedchamber. How much water did he need? She hefted the ewer and carried it back to the bed, thrust it at him, but his shaking hands only scrabbled at the porcelain surface. She tipped it toward his mouth, but he gagged and turned his head away. Water splashed on him, dampening his clammy face and the mattress beneath him.

“I’m fine,” he said in a strangled voice. His face was the sickly yellow of half-churned milk.

To hear him speak was a relief, though he looked very ill. “Nonsense.” Caroline tried to sound brisk and authoritative, as physicians always seemed to. She found such certainty comforting. “You need—”

She had no idea, no idea what he needed. She laid a hand on his chest and felt his heart thundering.

“I’m
fine.
” He pushed her hand away, heaving himself up onto an elbow. He pulled in a breath through his mouth, slow and deep. Then he pushed himself up to a sitting position and held his long body perfectly still, eyes closed. “I’m fine.”

Caroline watched him, balanced on the balls of her feet, ready to dart off for anything she might need. The crisis, whatever it had been, seemed to be ebbing. But it had begun so suddenly, she could not be certain yet that it was over.

So still, he held himself. This coiled tension looked dangerous; it sent fear chasing down her spine. “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” she murmured stupidly. “It’s all right. You’re all right.”

“So I said. I regret my—loss of control.” He sounded raspy, and his eyes were still closed. “Will you give me a moment alone?”

Caroline studied him. His breathing sounded more normal; his face had lost its ashy tint. But he had not recovered his usual mien, the unconcern that came either from confidence or complete lack of awareness. No, his eyes were not closed gently but squinted tight. He did not want to look at her.

Half-moon indentations still marked his shoulders where her nails had gripped him, tugged him closer. His body had been used and loved as never before.

Yet now he wanted her gone. Was he ashamed of himself? Or of her?

Since they were both already alone, Caroline could do him the courtesy of leaving the room.

“Certainly,” she said blandly. The long habit of politeness forbade her from lashing out at one already injured, though he was hurting her too.

She turned her back on him and dropped her bed sheet, then crossed over to her mahogany wardrobe and yanked it open. She found a red silk banyan within—a man’s dressing gown. She had bought it for herself, preferring its luxurious weight to the filmy garments meant for women. There was something decadent and erotic, she had once thought, in wearing a man’s garment that covered her so well, knowing she could shed it in an instant and be all woman.

Right now, she wanted to wrap herself in its warmth. And as she crossed to her door and let herself out into the corridor, she hoped Michael would open his eyes, see her leave, and wonder whose garment she wore. One last mystery, one last wound.

She already knew he would never come to her again.

She was more than a canal to be dredged, more than one of his projects to tinker with. Yet he had treated her no differently. If she could not help him fulfill his next purpose—finding a wife—then he bade her leave him. He would abandon her as just another unsuccessful venture, ruined by the ungodly winter of 1816.

Her toes curled into the corridor’s carpet. Savonnerie, Axminster, whatever it was—she had asked her cousin and companion, Frances Whittier, to choose it in accordance with the latest and most expensive fashion the year before. But Frances had married and left her behind, when Caroline had always thought to lead.

And now she was alone in the corridor outside her bedchamber, while a dream that had taunted her for more than a decade was destroyed by disappointing reality.

He used her, then sent her away. Michael was just like everyone else.

***

Except he wasn’t, was he?

After fifteen minutes, Michael had emerged from her bedchamber, fully clothed but for his coat, which was slung over one arm. He looked pale, but his jaw was set.

“You are all right?”

“Quite well. Thank you, Lady Stratton.”

Caroline winced at the distance but managed a cool reply. “I am glad of it, Your Grace. Do you—wish for tea?”

She felt as fluttery as a bride, and as nervous. Courtesy was her only refuge when confronted with this wall of stern, cold duke.

“No, I require nothing. Thank you. Will you ring for my carriage?”

The heavy silk of her robe weighed heavily on sensitive breasts. What if she opened her robe? Would the warm light come back into his eyes as he gazed on her? He had called her perfect. He had called himself fortunate. “What happened to you, Michael?”

He looked down his nose at her, the perfect angle she had taught him so recently. “A regrettable episode.”

“Has it happened before?”

He looked away, and his taut posture sagged. “Once. Only once.” His eyes caught hers for just a flicker; in the lamplit dim, his gaze was all shadow. “I must trouble you for the carriage. Please.”

Her fingers reached for him; she clenched them into a fist, stuffing it into the deep pocket of her banyan. “Yes, if you wish, Mi—Your Grace.”

She didn’t dare ask any more questions. She didn’t want to know the answers.

When the carriage rolled up before the door, she shook his hand good night. His fingers were cold; did he never wear gloves?

It was not up to her to ask or to care about such things.

She watched him stride down the steps; he did not look back. Dratted duke. He had given her his virginity, yet he took more than he gave. He took her ease, her sense of purpose, her desire for him; he caged them tightly and would permit her none. None, unless she would be his duchess.