The Passionate Prude

by Elizabeth Thornton

  “I promise, I won’t touch you unless you touch me first,” he repeated. And, he promised himself fervently, he would make damn sure that she did touch him, and not in anger either.

  She forced her hands to unclench and said tonelessly, “You have no right to keep me here! Please let me pass.”

  “I have every right,” he said curtly, “and you know it. But we won’t go into that at present, if you please.” He looked her over for a full minute and said very softly, “I’ve never seen you so beside yourself. You’re angry, Dee, and I want to know why.”

  “I’m angry because you dragged me here against my will,” she cried out.

  “That’s not the reason,” he said, and moved closer.

  “Stay away from me!” She took a quick step backward and came up against a tall escritoire. He was only a pace away now.

  “You’re angry because you saw me with Maria, and you did not like what you saw. Dee, you’re jealous! Admit it!”

  She managed a shaky laugh. “Jealous!” she exclaimed, and injected as much scorn as she could command into the word. “I was embarrassed! Who wouldn’t be? I tried to be discreet and remove myself before you became aware of my presence. What was I to think when I heard you thundering at my back? I know you for what you are! Naturally, I was frightened!”

  His confidence seemed to be slightly shaken, and Deirdre pressed her advantage. “Let me pass, Rathbourne, please?”

  “And it means nothing to you if I go to her now and finish what I began? You don’t mind if I hold another woman in my arms and touch her intimately and join my body to hers?”

  “Stop it! I won’t listen to more of this!” His face was only inches from her now. “You stink of her scent! Carnations!” she spat at him, and turned her head away.

  “Then drench me in yours. It’s what I want.”

  “I have an antipathy to perfume. I never wear it!”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  The silence stretched taut. His eyes locked with hers and held them. The soft quickening sounds of their mingled breathing beat a disturbing tempo on Deirdre’s senses.

  “Do you want me to go to her?” he asked in a whisper, and his breath warm and sensual, fanned Deirdre’s lips.

  “A threat, Rathbourne?” she queried.

  He groaned. “No! An ultimatum, damn you! I won’t go on with this unnatural celibacy whilst you flirt and do God knows what with every buck who comes sniffing around your skirts. How do you think I felt tonight when you flaunted yourself like a lightskirt with every lecherous roué whose jaded palate revived at the thought of savoring you in his bed?” His hands came up and he braced them on either side of her head. The heat of his body seemed to penetrate every pore of Deirdre’s skin. “You knew how much I wanted you,” he went on raggedly. “You knew! Yet you deliberately tormented me. You belong to me, Deirdre. I’ll kill any man who says otherwise. Now touch me, damn you, touch me.”

  He strained against his arms, keeping the press of his weight only inches from her body, making rational thought an impossibility for Deirdre.

  “Deirdre!” he groaned. “I need you. I love you.”

  Instinctively, she put out her hand and covered his lips with her fingers. “Don’t, oh don’t,” she whispered.

  Her touch jolted him. She felt him go rigid. He inhaled deeply and relaxed the press of his arms till his body slowly covered hers. His hands tangled in her hair, forcing her head back, and his mouth, with gentle savagery, cut off her soft whimper of protest when she realized the enormity of what she had done.

  Chapter Nineteen

  His passion had the ferocity of a full-blown tropical hurricane. Nothing could stand in its way. Deirdre did not try. He kissed her again and again, deeply, compellingly, his mouth and tongue urging her to open herself fully to him. His hands caught her hips, and he ground himself into her, the hard press of his arousal blatantly communicating his ultimate purpose. She answered instinctively, melting into him, and she raised her arms, giving him freer access. At the age-old gesture of invitation, he pulled back.

  His eyes were fever bright, the pupils by turn dilating and contracting, as if he were laboring under the effects of some powerful narcotic which had been pumped into his blood.

  “You’d better make up your mind to what this means,” he told her. “I won’t be turned away again, not ever.”

  She gave a soft cry and pulled his head down, offering him her lips. He took them hungrily, then pulled back. She was spun round and propelled firmly to the door of his bedchamber, his fingers deftly working on the buttons of her gown, stripping it from her in one quick movement and discarding it on the floor where she stepped out of it. He pressed her down on the bed and stood over her, tearing off his clothes in a frenzy of impatience.

  Deirdre was not intimidated, only surprised and a little dazed by the intensity of his ardor. She watched the soft rise and fall of his bare chest, the rough tempo of his breathing the only sound in the silent room. When he told her to undress, she sensed the tenuous control behind the thickened words. His urgency was almost tangible. She could taste it, smell it, feel it, see it.

  Her fingers were too slow for his desperate haste. He threw himself down beside her and ripped the garment from her back, his hands covering her shoulders and breasts with deliberate possessiveness. He dragged the hem of her chemise around her waist, and Deirdre gasped when her fine linen drawers were violently wrenched from her.

  “Gareth,” Deirdre protested, and made a slight movement to escape the torment of his fingers. She tried to raise herself on her elbows, but he spread one hand against her breasts, pushing her down. He took her mouth again, kissing her deeply, coaxing her into submission. Her thighs gradually relaxed against the pressure of his hand, yielding him the freedom he desired.

  He knew that he was going too fast but he was helpless to stop himself. He parted her legs and positioned himself above her. Her hands flexed against his chest as if to restrain him, but they both knew that she might as well try to turn back a tidal wave. He drove home, exulting in the feel of her warm, enveloping flesh, and he threw back his head and groaned his pleasure, instantly recognizing the triumph of the primitive male in him laying claim to his mate. He went perfectly still and looked down at Deirdre. He had taken her with all the instincts of an animal! He drew a long, shuddering breath. “Did I frighten you?” he asked softly.

  “Yes,” she pouted.

  “Liar!” He kissed her with slow languor, savoring the novelty of her body open and receptive to him. “Don’t move,” he warned as she shifted her weight beneath him. He eased himself slightly to allow her to draw breath. Her muscles tightened around him and on an urgent breath he warned again, “Don’t move.”

  “I thought you were in a hurry.”

  “Mmm,” he ran his teeth over one taut nipple, indifferent to Deirdre’s quick intake of breath, deliberately intensifying her distress by slowly drawing the hardened bud into his mouth. “I was in a hurry to join my body to yours, not to hasten the end of our pleasure,” he murmured. “How long has it been?” His lips, hot and open, moved to pleasure her other breast and Deirdre gave a soft cry. “Three months? It seems like an eternity. You might have guessed how it would be once I finally got my hands on you.”

  He raised himself on his arms and his eyes dropped to their joined hips. He levered himself higher, easing himself more deeply inside her. This was his territory that he and only he would ever chart. He told her so, and thrust deeper as if to convince her of that fact.

  She was like velvet beneath him, and he luxuriated in the feel of her soft, tender flesh. He set a slow pace, patiently bringing her to fever pitch with each sensual movement of his hips. His lazy eyes surveyed her through a haze of passion as she moved beneath him. The flush of desire was on her skin; her eyes were dark and dazed with the need he was building in her loins; her lips were soft and open to him, and her strawberry-tipped breasts rose and fell at each labored breath. When her head began
to thrash on the pillow, he withdrew completely.

  Deirdre’s eyes flew open and she lifted her arms to draw him back. He read the confusion in her drowsy expression.

  “I would be drenched with your scent, love,” he whispered beguilingly, and he drew himself out of reach. Softly, with feather-light kisses, he began a slow descent of her body, his lips and tongue searching out each pulse point, tasting, savoring the dew on her heated skin. The coaxing pressure of his fingers spread her inner thighs. He moved lower, but Deirdre’s soft whimper of distress brought him back to take her lips in a reassuring caress.

  “Deirdre, love, don’t be frightened. I won’t do anything you don’t want me to do.” He lavished kisses on her eyes and throat and took her lips again, seducing her senses with ravishing tenderness. “Let me, love, oh yes, let me…yes.”

  She abandoned herself to the deep need she sensed in him, surrendering to every sensual caress, every murmured expression of his love and longing. He heard her soft cries of pleasure as permission for the intimacy he urgently craved.

  She felt the soft brush of his hair at her thighs. Her senses heightened and focused on the sweet, drugging torment of his honeyed tongue.

  Her fervent moans shattered his tenuous control. He reared over her, taking her with one sure thrust. He drove deeper, controlling her writhing movements with the press of his hips, delaying their pleasure until he thought he would die of love for her.

  At her cry of mingled outrage and rapture, unexpectedly, he laughed. He captured her lips, soothing her bruised pride, inhaling her moist breath with lungs burning with the erotic incense of her exhalations. As the waves of ecstasy slowly receded, he locked her in his embrace. The sheen of suppressed tears was in his eyes as he nuzzled her with infinite tenderness, his hands pressing her almost convulsively into the shelter of his body.

  For a long time afterward, they said little, as if each was reluctant to let the outside world intrude on their perfect communion. By slow degrees, coherent thought finally returned to Deirdre. Her thoughts became restive, and she wondered at the vague feelings of disquietude that had begun to tease her mind. He had explained nothing of his reasons for coming from Mrs. Dewinters’s quarters at four o’clock in the morning. Had he taken his mistress first, as the main course, then taken her later, as dessert? His appetite was insatiable. Of that there was no question. The picture was not flattering.

  He had said that he loved her. Was that merely another cheap ploy, part of his bag of tricks to break down a reluctant female’s resistance? He had told her often enough that she was an innocent. It was the truth. She was no match for him in this game of love. Did he tell all his women that he loved them?

  She pushed herself to a sitting position, exposing the full swell of one satiny mound with its strawberry ripe nipple. Rathbourne groaned and fastened his lips to it, pressing her back into the depths of the soft feather mattress. Deirdre tried to resist, but his compelling hands and mouth gave her no quarter.

  Much later, she flung herself out of bed before he had a chance to stay her movements. He raised himself on one elbow, and one eyebrow quirked as she stalked about the room in naked splendor, examining first one ruined garment then another. As he heard her wails of protest, his face creased in an unrepentant grin.

  When she caught sight of his expression, she stood very much on her dignity. “How am I to explain these torn garments to my aunt’s abigail?” she demanded, shaking the torn drawers at him. She dropped to the floor and let out a cry of anguish. “Look what you’ve done to the strings of my stays,” she accused, holding the article in question under his nose.

  To be truthful, the garments meant nothing to her, and one way or another, she was sure that she would hit upon some plausible explanation to satisfy Solange without rousing her suspicions. But she was close to tears, bedeviled by doubts and confusion. The destruction of her underthings was only an excuse to vent her feelings on the real object of her frustration.

  She threw the drawers and stays at him and said dolefully, “You’re the great lover, the master of clandestine intrigue. You fix them!”

  Rathbourne gave up trying to keep a straight face, and a great gust of laughter convulsed him. “If you could only see yourself now!” he said, looking over her naked torso with a long appreciative stare.

  Deirdre shimmied into her crushed silk gauze and said with awesome dignity, “Now that you’ve had your way with me, I am the one who is left to suffer the consequences.”

  “Now that I what?” he expostulated, and immediately dissolved into another fit of laughter. When he had dried his streaming eyes on the bed sheet, he ventured, “I thought it was you who had your wicked way with me.” Deirdre did not rise to the bait, and he went on in a more conciliatory fashion. “Don’t fret, love, I’ll buy you dozens of replacements for the things I ruined, and not so serviceable either,” he concluded as he examined more closely the threadbare drawers and stays which flaunted not one piece of fancy lace or ribbon.

  Deirdre, who had been looking under the bed for her best silk shawl, brought her head up and glared at him. “In the meantime, what am I to tell Solange when she comes to collect my drawers and stays for the laundry? I can’t possibly say that I’ve lost them! To lose a shawl is one thing, but drawers?”

  “How the hell should I know?” He raised himself further to get a better view of the ripe twin globes which were falling half out of her brief bodice. “Tell her to mind her own bloody business. If my valet were to pry into every shirt or pair of drawers I’d lost, I’d soon send him packing.”

  Deirdre rounded on him, her mouth forming a perfect 0. My Lord Rathbourne became conscious that he had stepped blindly into a treacherous quagmire. “All I meant, love,” he said hastily, trying to retrieve his position, “is that such things have never mattered to me before. The ladies I have bedded in the past never had the need for chaperones and abigails and such like.”

  Deirdre gnashed her teeth and Rathbourne figuratively kicked himself.

  “Where did you learn to make love like that?” she demanded, her hands splayed ominously across her hips. The question had hovered at the back of her mind since he had first initiated her into the mysteries of love.

  “Like what?” he asked mildly, desperately playing for time.

  “Like a depraved maniac who hasn’t a shred of decency left in him.”

  “I had an expensive education,” he shot back, his ego bruised at the aspersions on what had seemed to him the most natural and perfect expression of his love and reverence for her.

  “In the brothels of London, I don’t doubt,” she jeered.

  “Paris, to be exact,” he retaliated with equal vigor.

  “Oh yes, the Grand Tour—finishing school for the young, rich drones who make up the spear side of our depraved society.”

  “Come, Deirdre. One’s education is never finished, as you well know. You should thank me for making you the beneficiary of my years of diligent study—and practice!” he added venomously for good measure.

  She looked completely taken aback and, for one unguarded moment, totally vulnerable. He swept the bedclothes aside, meaning to gather her into his arms and put an end to their absurd quarrel. She stopped him with a deep, insulting curtsy which she held for several moments.

  “My Lord Rathbourne,” she intoned with crushing civility, “pray accept my thanks for a memorable evening. Your generous hospitality is something quite beyond the ordinary, the likes of which I am sure I shall never meet with again, no, nor ever hope to.”

  He bowed stiffly, feeling rather ridiculous in his nakedness, but he would not allow her the last word. “Don’t mention it. Miss Fenton. I should be the last to raise false hopes, but I take leave to tell you that you may expect to be the recipient of my generous hospitality—with regular frequency!” His voice rose with menacing effect on the last words.

  She picked up the torn drawers and stays, arranged them neatly on her arm, and sailed majestically out of the room,
the picture of wounded innocence.

  “Resign yourself to that fact!” he called after her, but Deirdre did not dignify his parting shot with a reply.

  She wakened with the first hangover she had ever experienced in her life. Her head ached, her stomach churned, and every muscle in her body was in torment. The slight tenderness between her legs, she discounted. The blame for that discomfort, she was perfectly sure, could not be laid to the many glasses of champagne which she had so freely consumed both during and after the reception at the Château de Soignes.

  Lady Fenton, quite recovered from her own distressing malady, was beside herself with worry. Deirdre looked awful, and as she told her abigail, it could not be put down to a woman’s monthly trial, for the girl had never suffered overmuch during that particular affliction. It was deemed expedient to send for a doctor.

  Chancing to meet Lord Rathbourne in the corridor, her ladyship unburdened herself in his sympathetic ear, quite forgetting that she was out of charity with the reprehensible gentleman. She was relieved when he took command and within the hour, a physician, a personal friend of the Earl, came to examine the patient.

  Dr. Shane McCallum was no fool. As a member of the army’s medical corps, he had on many occasions witnessed the ailment which had laid Deirdre by the heels. In fact, he told her ladyship breezily, with a sly wink at Deirdre, he had occasionally fallen victim to it himself, but only occasionally. Deirdre was merely suffering the effects of an overindulgence in a cuisine that was unfamiliar to her. He prescribed a small glass of brandy to settle the stomach. Deirdre sipped it slowly, and within minutes her stomach heaved and she was retching into the chamber pot which the doctor held for her. Moments later, she owned that she felt much better and wished to get up. Dr. McCallum, after telling her to eat and drink sparingly for the rest of the day, withdrew to pay a call on Lord Rathbourne, who, he told a stricken Deirdre, was waiting most anxiously for news of the patient.

  She knew that she was in Lord Rathbourne’s black books the moment she left the draper’s shop where she had gone to buy supplies to repair her stays and drawers. She caught sight of the empty curricle with O’Toole standing at the heads of his lordship’s horses. The Earl joined her as she crossed the square of Grand’ Place, and she felt his proprietary hand on her elbow.