by Lisa Kleypas
Maintaining a nonchalant facade, St. Vincent half sat on the desk. Lillian frowned pensively, wanting very much to make him understand that she had not intentionally deceived him. “My lord, please forgive me. I didn’t intend—”
“Sweet, there’s no need for an apology.” St. Vincent studied her with a lazy thoroughness that seemed to un-earth her private thoughts. “You did nothing wrong. I know well enough how easy it is to seduce an innocent.” After a skillful pause, he added blandly, “Apparently Westcliff does too.”
“See here—” Marcus began, bristling.
“This is what happens when I try to be a gentleman,” St. Vincent interrupted. He reached out to touch a long lock of Lillian’s hair as it streamed over her shoulder. “Had I resorted to my usual tactics, I’d have seduced you ten times over by now, and you would be mine. But it seems I placed too much confidence in Westcliff’s much-vaunted sense of honor.”
“It was no more his fault than mine,” Lillian said, determined to be honest. She saw from his expression, however, that he did not believe her.
Rather than dispute the point, St. Vincent released the lock of hair and spoke with his head inclined toward hers. “Love, what if I were to tell you that I still want you, regardless of what may have occurred between you and Westcliff?”
She could not hide her astonishment at the question.
Behind her, it seemed that Marcus could hold his silence no longer, his voice crackling with annoyance. “What you desire is irrelevant, St. Vincent. The fact of the matter is that she’s mine now.”
“By virtue of an essentially meaningless act?” St. Vincent countered coolly.
“My lord,” Lillian said to St. Vincent, “it… it was not meaningless to me. And it is possible that there might be consequences. I could not marry one man while carrying another’s child.”
“My love, it is done all the time. I would accept the child as mine.”
“I can’t listen to much more of this,” came Marcus’s warning growl.
Ignoring him, Lillian stared at St. Vincent in open apology. “I couldn’t. I’m sorry. The die has been cast, my lord, and I can do nothing to reverse it. But…” She reached out impulsively and gave him her hand. “But in spite of what has happened, I hope that I will be counted among your friends.”
With a curious smile, St. Vincent gripped her hand warmly before releasing it. “There is only one circumstance in which I can imagine refusing you anything, sweet …and this is not it. Of course I will stand your friend.” Looking over her head, he met Westcliff’s gaze with a dark smile that promised the matter was not yet finished. “I don’t believe that I will stay for the remainder of the house party,” he said blandly. “Though I should not like for my precipitate departure to cause any gossip, I’m not certain that I will adequately be able to conceal my, er…disappointment, and therefore it is probably best that I leave. No doubt we’ll have much to discuss when next we meet.”
Marcus watched with narrowed eyes as the other man departed, closing the door behind him.
In the smoldering silence that followed, Marcus brooded over St. Vincent’s comments. “Only one circumstance in which he would refuse you…what does that mean?”
Lillian rounded on him with a furious scowl. “I don’t know and I don’t care! You have behaved abominably, and St. Vincent is ten times the gentleman you are!”
“You wouldn’t say that if you knew anything about him.”
“I know that he has treated me with respect, whereas you regard me as some kind of pawn to be pushed this way and that—” She thumped both of her fists hard on his chest as he took her in his arms.
“You wouldn’t be happy with him,” Marcus said, disregarding her struggles as easily as if she were a writhing cat he had caught by the scruff of the neck. The coat he had placed around her shoulders fell to the floor.
“What makes you think I would be any better off with you?”
He clamped his hands around her wrists, and twisted her arms behind her back, giving a grunt of surprise as she stomped hard on his instep. “Because you need me,” he said, drawing in his breath as she squirmed against him. “Just as I need you.” He crushed his mouth on hers. “I’ve needed you for years.” Another kiss, this one deep and drugging, his tongue searching her intimately.
She might have continued to grapple with him had he not done something that surprised her. He released her wrists and wrapped his arms around her, holding her close in a warm, tender embrace. Caught off-guard, she went still, her heart thumping madly.
“It wasn’t a meaningless act for me either,” Marcus said, his raspy whisper tickling her ear. “Yesterday I finally realized that all the things I thought were wrong about you were actually the things I enjoyed most. I don’t give a damn what you do, so long as it pleases you. Run barefoot on the front lawn. Eat pudding with your fingers. Tell me to go to hell as often as you like. I want you just as you are. After all, you’re the only woman aside from my sisters who has ever dared to tell me to my face that I’m an arrogant ass. How could I resist you?” His mouth moved to the soft cushion of her cheek. “My dearest Lillian,” he whispered, easing her head back to kiss her eyelids. “If I had the gift of poetry, I would shower you with sonnets. But words have always been difficult for me when my feelings are strongest. And there is one word in particular that I can’t bring myself to say to you…‘goodbye.’ I couldn’t bear the sight of you walking away from me. If you won’t marry me for the sake of your own honor, then do it for the sake of everyone who would have to tolerate me otherwise. Marry me because I need someone who will help me to laugh at myself. Because someone has to teach me how to whistle. Marry me, Lillian…because I have the most irresistible fascination for your ears.”
“My ears?” Bewildered, Lillian felt him duck his head to nip at the pink tip of her earlobe.
“Mmmm. The most perfect ears I’ve ever seen.” As he traced the inner crevice of her ear with his tongue, his hand slid from her waist to her breast, savoring the shape of her figure unregulated by corset stays. She was keenly aware of her own nakedness beneath the gown as he touched her breast, his fingers curving over the soft, small shape until the nipple gathered tightly into his palm. “These too,” he murmured. “Perfect…” Absorbed in caressing her, he unfastened the tiny buttons of her robe.
Lillian felt her pulse begin to thunder, her breath mingling in rapid puffs with his. She remembered the hard planes of his body brushing lightly over hers as they had made love, the consummate fit between them, the sliding flex of muscle and sinew beneath her hands. Her skin tingled with the memory of his touch, and the clever explorations of his mouth and fingers that had reduced her to shivering need. No wonder he was so cool and cerebral during the day—he saved all his sensuality for bedtime.
Stirred by his closeness, she caught at his wrists. There was still much they had to discuss …issues too important for either of them to ignore. “Marcus,” she said breathlessly, “don’t. Not just now. It only muddles things further, and—”
“For me it makes everything clear.”
His hands slid to either side of her face, cradling her cheeks with yearning gentleness. His eyes were so much darker than her own, with only the faintest glimmer of deepest amber to betray that they were not black but brown. “Kiss me,” he whispered, and his mouth found hers, catching at her top lip and then the lower, in nuzzling half-open caresses that sent rich quivers of response all the way down to her toes. The floor seemed to move beneath her feet, and she grasped his shoulders for balance. He covered her mouth more firmly with his, the moist pressure disorienting her with a fresh shock of pleasure.
Continuing to kiss her, he helped her to wrap her arms around his neck, and caressed her shoulders and back, and when it became apparent that her legs were quivering, he eased her to the carpeted floor. His mouth wandered to her breast, catching the tip as he licked at it through the fragile white cambric. Colors dazzled her eyes, deep red and blue and gold, and she rea
lized dazedly that they were lying in a patch of sunlight that had been enriched by the row of rectangular stained-glass windows. It dappled her skin in lavish hues as if she were caught beneath an unraveling rainbow.
Marcus took hold of the front of her nightgown, tugging impatiently at the two sides until buttons popped and went scattering across the carpet. His face looked different to her; softer, younger, his skin tinted with the flush of desire. No one had ever stared at her this way, with a fiery absorption that blocked out every other awareness. Bending over her exposed breast, he licked the pearly-white skin until he found the bud of deep pink, and closed his mouth over it.
Lillian panted and arched, pushing her body upward, straining with the need to enfold him completely. She reached for his head, her fingers slipping into the thick black hair. Understanding the unspoken plea, he nibbled the tip of her breast, using his teeth and tongue with tormenting gentleness. One of his hands rucked up the front of her gown and slid to her stomach, the tip of his ring finger delicately circling her navel. A fever of desire consumed her as she writhed in the pool of colored light-spill from the window. His fingers slid lower, to the verge of tight, silky curls, and she knew that as soon as he touched the little peak half hidden in the folds of her sex, she would reach a summit of blinding pleasure.
All of a sudden, he drew his hand away, and Lillian whimpered in protest. Cursing, Marcus tucked her body beneath his and pulled her face into his shoulder just as the door opened.
In a moment of frozen silence breached only by her ragged breaths, Lillian peered out from the concealing shelter of Marcus’s body. She saw with a start of fright that someone was standing there. It was Simon Hunt. A ledger book and a few folders secured with black ribbon were clasped in his hands. Blank-faced, Hunt lowered his gaze to the couple on the floor. To his credit, he managed to retain his composure, though it must have been difficult. The Earl of Westcliff, known to his acquaintances as an eternal proponent of moderation and self-restraint, was the last man Hunt would have expected to be rolling on the study floor with a woman clad in her nightgown.
“Pardon, my lord,” Hunt said in a carefully controlled voice. “I did not anticipate that you would be…meeting… with someone at this hour.”
Marcus skewered him with a savage stare. “You might try knocking next time.”
“You’re right, of course.” Hunt opened his mouth to add something, appeared to think better of it, and cleared his throat roughly. “I’ll leave you here to finish your, er… conversation.” As he withdrew from the room, however, it seemed that he couldn’t keep from ducking his head back in and asking Marcus cryptically, “Once a week, did you say?”
“Close the door behind you,” Marcus said icily, and Hunt obeyed with a smothered sound that sounded suspiciously like laughter.
Lillian kept her face against Marcus’s shoulder. As mortified as she had been on the day that he had seen her playing rounders in her knickers, this was ten times worse. She would never be able to face Simon Hunt again, she thought, and groaned.
“It’s all right,” Marcus murmured. “He’ll keep his mouth shut.”
“I don’t care whom he tells,” Lillian managed to say. “I’m not going to marry you. Not if you compromised me a hundred times.”
“Lillian,” he said, a sudden tremor of laughter in his voice, “it would be my greatest pleasure to compromise you a hundred times. But first I would like to know what I’ve done this morning that is so unforgivable.”
“To begin with, you talked to my father.”
His brows lifted a fraction of an inch. “That offended you?”
“How could it not? You’ve behaved in the most highhanded manner possible by going behind my back and trying to arrange things with my father, without one word to me—”
“Wait,” Marcus said sardonically, rolling to his side and sitting up in an easy movement. He reached out with a broad hand to pull Lillian up to face him. “I was not being high-handed in meeting with your father. I was adhering to tradition. A prospective bridegroom usually approaches a woman’s father before he makes a formal proposal.” A gently caustic note entered his voice as he added, “Even in America. Unless I’ve been misinformed?”
The clock on the mantel dispensed a slow half-minute before Lillian managed a grudging reply. “Yes, that’s how it’s usually done. But I assumed that you and he had already made a betrothal agreement, regardless of whether or not it was what I wanted—”
“Your assumption was incorrect. We did not discuss any details of a betrothal, nor was anything mentioned about a dowry or a wedding date. All I did was ask your father for permission to court you.”
Lillian stared at him with surprised chagrin, until another question occurred to her. “What about your discussion with Lord St. Vincent just now?”
Now it was Marcus’s turn to look chagrined. “That was high-handed,” he admitted. “I should probably say that I’m sorry for it. However, I’m not. I couldn’t risk the possibility that St. Vincent might convince you to marry him instead of me. So I felt it necessary to warn him away from you.” He paused before continuing, and Lillian noticed an unusual hesitancy in his manner. “A few years ago,” he said, not quite looking at her, “St. Vincent took an interest in a woman with whom I was… involved. I wasn’t in love with her, but in time it was possible that she and I might have—” He stopped and shook his head. “I don’t know what would have come of the relationship. I never had the opportunity to find out. When St. Vincent began to pursue her, she left me for him.” A humorless smile edged his lips. “Predictably, St. Vincent tired of her within a few weeks.”
Lillian stared compassionately at the severe line of his profile. There was no trace of anger or self-pity in the scant recitation, but she sensed that he had been hurt by the experience. For a man who valued loyalty as Marcus did, a friend’s betrayal and a lover’s perfidy must have been hard to bear. “And yet you remained friends with him?” she asked, her voice softening.
He replied in a careful monotone. It was obvious that he found it difficult to speak of personal matters. “Every friendship has its scars. And I believe that if St. Vincent had understood the strength of my feelings for the woman, he would not have pursued her. In this case, however, I could not allow the past to repeat itself. You’re too…important…tome.”
Jealousy had darted through Lillian at the thought of Marcus having feelings for another woman…and then her heart stopped with a jolt as she wondered what level of significance she should place on the word “important.” Marcus had the Englishman’s innate dislike of wearing his emotions on his sleeve. But she realized that he was trying very hard to open his closely guarded heart to her, and that perhaps a little encouragement on her part might yield some surprising results.
“Since St. Vincent obviously has the advantage in looks and charm,” Marcus continued evenly, “I reasoned that I could only weigh the balance with sheer determination. Which is why I met with him this morning to tell him—”
“No, he doesn’t,” Lillian protested, unable to help herself.
Marcus looked at her then, his gaze quizzical. “Pardon?”
“He doesn’t have the advantage over you,” Lillian informed him, her face reddening as she discovered that it was hardly any easier for her to reveal what was in her heart than it was for him. “You are very charming when it suits you. And as for your looks…” Her blush deepened until she felt heat pouring off her. “I find you very attractive,” she blurted out. “I …I always have. I would never have slept with you last night unless I wanted you, no matter how much brandy I had drunk.”
A sudden smile touched his mouth. Reaching out to her gaping bodice, he pulled it together gently, and stroked the backs of his knuckles against the rosy surface of her throat. “Then I may assume that your objections to marrying me are predicated more on the idea of being forced, rather than deriving from any personal prejudice?”
Absorbed in the pleasure of his caress, Lillian gave
him a bemused glance. “Hmm?”
A soft laugh escaped him. “What I’m asking is, would you consider becoming my wife if I promised that you wouldn’t be forced into it?”
She nodded cautiously. “I …I might consider it. But if you’re going to behave like some medieval lord and try to browbeat me into doing what you want—”
“No, I won’t try to browbeat you,” Marcus said gravely, though she saw a flicker of amusement in his eyes. “It’s obvious that such tactics wouldn’t work. I’ve met my match, it seems.”
Mollified by the statement, Lillian felt herself relax a little. She didn’t even protest when he reached out to pull her into his lap, her long legs dangling over his. A warm hand slid beneath her gown to her hip in a clasp that was more comforting than sensual, and he stared at her shrewdly. “Marriage is a partnership,” he said. “And since I’ve never entered a business partnership without first negotiating terms, we’ll do the same in this situation. Just you and I, in private. No doubt there will be a few points of contention—but you will find that I am well versed in the art of compromise.”
“My father will insist on having the final say about the dowry.”
“I wasn’t speaking of financial matters. What I want from you is something your father can’t negotiate.”
“You intend for us to discuss things like …our expectations of each other? And where we are to live?”
“Precisely.”
“And if I said that I did not want to reside in the country…that I prefer London to Hampshire …you would agree to live at Marsden Terrace?”
He regarded her speculatively as he replied. “I would make some concessions to that effect. Though I would have to return here frequently to manage the estate. I gather you’re not fond of Stony Cross Park?”