Twice the Temptation (26 page)

“My point simply is that I don’t take issue—nor daresay am I permitted to—with the fact that there have been other women in your past, therefore the fact that I won’t come to your bed a virgin should not be a matter of consequence.” 

“Oh I understand your point very well—” 

Catherine’s gaze jerked to the front entrance when the double doors swung opened and more light spilled forth. The butler’s tall, slender frame stood silhouetted against the entryway, his appearance effectively halting Lucas’s speech. The driver then opened the door. 

“Now isn’t the time, Lucas.” With that, she allowed herself to be assisted from the carriage. 

Lucas followed and came to stand before her. 

“I would like to discuss this. Invite me in,” he insisted, although mindful of the impropriety of the request. They could not leave things like this—so unfinished. 

Catherine shot a furtive glance over at the butler before saying in a fierce whisper, “Lucas, it is late and Reeves is waiting. I told him he was not to wait up for me.” 

She sang this tune now, but he was sure had there been no inference to her virginity, she wouldn’t have complained about the late hour. She’d have let him hurry her up the stairs, into her bedroom and onto her bed until she was flat on her back beneath him. 

“It’s not quite ten in the evening. Early even by country hours.” 

“Please, Lucas, we shall discuss this tomorrow.” 

Lucas could only grit his teeth in frustration. But what was he to do? Force her into the house in full view of her brother’s servants. And it was clear by the jut of her chin that she wasn’t going to allow herself to be coaxed. Damn, she wasn’t even going to let him through the front door. 

“Very well, we will speak in the morning. But at least allow me to see you to the door,” he said not at all pleased that she’d managed to put him off. Not at all pleased at how the night would end. And definitely not pleased that he’d be kept awake all night wondering precisely when and to whom she’d given her virginity. 

A
fter Esther departed her room, Catherine drew on the nightdress she’d laid out for her and imagined Lucas taking it off. He’d do it slowly, kissing and caressing every bit of bare flesh he unveiled. And he’d be thorough about it, spending more time on her breasts as he worried her nipples into stiff, rosy buds. His fingers would find her slick between her thighs and she’d gasp her pleasure when he tested her readiness.

That
was how she’d hoped to end the evening. A quick dash up the stairs to her bedroom. A locked door and a bed was all they would need. Instead he’d said those words that had stopped her cold. 

I don’t want your first time to be in a carriage.
 

Catherine doused the candle at her bedside, climbed into her bed, pulled the covers up to her chin and stared sightlessly at the canopy above. 

It hadn’t been in a carriage though. She’d relinquished her virginity to Jonathon Samuel on a perfectly fine bed. It had taken less than an hour and she’d walked away with a soreness between her legs and an ache in her heart, knowing it had been the second biggest mistake of her life. 

Her only excuse is that she been too numb with grief and sadness to think clearly. When Charlotte had fled, her life had collapsed down around her. It had lost its meaning and it had been her own fault. Very little had mattered but finding her twin and bringing her home. Mr. Samuel had promised he could do that. He’d taken more than the money her brother had paid him to accomplish the task. 

But he hadn’t taken anything she hadn’t given him freely. At the time, she’d failed to see its worth. Then, she lived hour-to-hour, day to excruciating day crying herself to sleep every night. Relief had only found her two weeks after Charlotte’s flight, when they’d received a letter from her. She’d written that she was safe and unhurt, but had refused to reveal her location, therefore the search continued. She needed her sister back home with them. More than that, Alex
desperately
needed her. 

Mr. Samuel was a well-respected private investigator and following the weeks of making his acquaintance, she began to meet with him without James’s knowledge. Catherine could tell his concern for her sister was genuine. He’d wanted to find her almost as much as her family had. She would soon discover why. 

Their meetings had evolved from discussions of locating her sister to soothing words of comfort that helped calm her fears and ease the unbearable weight from her chest. Allowing him to take her to his bed had—she saw much later—stemmed from loneliness and gratitude. But at the time, he’d been the only source of hope in her life. Her one link to the twin she’d driven away. 

Would Lucas understand that? She’d always considered him an enlightened man. His views on many of the current women’s issues, like their right to vote and obtain a divorce, matched her own. He staunchly agreed that women were equal to men in all the ways that mattered. 

Did that then not make the notion that a woman must be pure for her husband outdated? Men surely did not remain pure for their wives. But his whole manner had changed when she’d told him. She hadn’t needed to see his face, she’d first heard it in his voice. 

Now she wondered if
this
would mean the end of them. Perhaps a virginal bride was his prerequisite. Well, she would discover that in the morning. 

On that irrefutable fact, Catherine fell into a fitful sleep. 

C
HAPTER
S
EVENTEEN
 

L
ucas could come to only one conclusion; during the year he’d gone without physical intimacy, Catherine had given herself to someone else. While he’d been working all hours of the day, pushing his body to its limits, she’d been allowing another man to kiss and touch her—she’d allowed this man the ultimate act of intimacy. While he’d denied himself, the thought of satisfying his needs with someone else consuming him with guilt, she’d denied herself nothing.

Given the vein of his thoughts, his mood was dark when he called at Rutherford Manor the following day. His sisters had only begun to stir when he’d departed the house. The ride over didn’t take long but felt like an eternity. 

He was led into the entryway with little fanfare. The place wasn’t bustling with activity as he’d last found it the year before. He waited in the entryway as the footman went off with his name and not his card. A minute later, he returned and escorted Lucas to the drawing room. Nothing in the room held his interest until Catherine appeared minutes later. 

She was clad in a fitted, high-collared dress and whatever the color—something between pink and orange—it suited her. Today, she wore her hair more down than up, the curls falling past her shoulders. She was breathtaking and the sight of her reined in the thoughts that had been running through his head since the night before. 

“Good morning, Lucas.” 

“Catherine,” he replied. 

Not a flicker of unease showed in her expression. She appeared more composed than he felt, putting her at an advantage. He resented that. 

He nodded toward the sofa, the gesture inviting her to sit as if this were his residence and not hers. 

Without uttering a word, she obliged him. 

As she passed, he caught a whiff of her perfume and could only think of burying his face in her neck and inhaling the scent of her. She would smell that good all over. But he resisted for they had important matters to discuss. 

When she was seated, he lowered himself into the armchair to her right, sure to sit within touching distance. Observing her now, Lucas saw she wasn’t as composed as he’d first thought. She couldn’t hold his gaze and her hands fidgeted in her lap. 

“Did you sleep well?” he asked, determined he would conduct himself like a gentleman and not a jealous lover. This was not going to be adversarial. What’s done was done. He just wanted—no needed to know some of the specifics of her affair with this man. Masochist that he was. 

She huffed. “Suffice it to say, I did get
some
sleep.” 

As always, tirelessly honest his Catherine. His. 

“Who was he?” he asked now that pleasantries were out of the way. It was time to get to the heart of the matter. 

Her chest fell and rose as she drew a deep breath. “A man my brother hired to search for my sister.” 

It took a moment for Lucas to digest this bit of information. That had been six years ago. “Does this gentleman have a name?” 

“Does his name really matter? Have I asked you who the first woman with whom you had sexual relations?” 

“Her name is Jessica Posner. I was sixteen years, she was nineteen, and it occurred in the carriage house on my father’s property in Connecticut. Now, will you be so kind as to answer my question.” 

“What is it you truly want to know, Lucas?” she asked softly, her lashes veiling her eyes. 

“I want to know when.” He didn’t care to know the more lurid details. Quite honestly, he wouldn’t be able to stand it. 

Her gaze first dropped to her hands on her lap before lifting to meet his directly. “Nearly six years ago.” 

Lucas finally felt he could breathe, which he did in surplus. It hadn’t happened in the past year. Not after
they
had become more intimately acquainted. Although there’d been no understanding between them—hell, she’d probably thought she’d never see him again—for an entire year he could think of no other woman but her. 

“What happened to him? Why did he not offer marriage?” Clearly the man must have been insane. Notwithstanding her substantial dowry and her connections to a noble family, the woman was exquisite. Certainly, whoever this idiot had been, he could not have done better. 

Affront had her narrowing her eyes at him. “Who said he did not offer?” she asked archly. 

After silently castigating the man, Lucas didn’t know how he felt about
that.
“Did he?” 

“Yes he did. I refused him.” 

“You gave this man your virginity yet you refused his proposal of marriage?” he asked, his voice rising. For most young women, the act alone would preclude the other. Unless— “What was wrong with him?” 

“Nothing. There was nothing wrong with him save the fact that I was not in love with him, which is the reason I regret that he was my first. I should have waited but it happened at a time in my life when—” she looked everywhere but at him “—when I needed someone. He was there.” 

Caught between relief and jealousy, Lucas didn’t know which of the two was preferable in this instance. 

She shifted her gaze back to his, before looking away again. “I also discovered—too late as things would have it—that he’d been quite infatuated with Charlotte. But of course, she was to marry Alex then and she’d only danced with him once at a public ball. I don’t believe she has any recollection of their introduction or dance to this day.” 

And there he had it, what she believed was history about to repeat itself. Now he understood her fears more than he ever had. 

Lucas came to the edge of the chair, placed his hand beneath her chin, and lifted her gaze to his. “You understand that I am not this man, do you not? You and your sister are not and have never been interchangeable in my affections. She is my dear friend. That I could never deny. However,
you
I want as my friend
and
lover. My most ardent wish is that you will be my wife, the mother to my children and the woman I shall love for the rest of my life.” 

Her lashes fluttered, her lids lowering until they veiled her eyes from his. “He said he loved me.” 

The man probably had at that. He’d have been a fool had he not. The man’s feelings for Charlotte had not been love of any sort; lust, an attraction, an infatuation at most. And from Catherine he’d received a gift that she could never give another. And he couldn’t deny that the knowledge gnawed away at him. It was sheer hypocrisy and he knew it but he couldn’t help his feelings. If it weren’t so sad, it would be amusing as he was a man who hadn’t expected virginity of his wife.