Undoing of a Lady

by Nicola Cornick

  “Tom always was unstable,” Lizzie said. She was shaking, too. Nat could feel it as she lay in the curve of his arms.

  “But this…” Nat soothed her, stroking his hands up over her gently. “He needs to be locked up.”

  “He has not done anything illegal,” Lizzie said. “Not yet.”

  Nat shifted. “You said that this was just one of Tom’s orgies,” he said. “Those were the words you used. Has he then done this before?”

  “Not like this,” Lizzie said. She fidgeted, playing with the buttons on his jacket. “We all know Tom’s proclivities,” she said. “We all know he ruined Lydia twice over and she was hardly the first. Oh, he would bring women back here sometimes. So would Monty. I saw things…heard things. But not like this. It was never as blatant as this before.”

  “You never said.” Nat was appalled. He had known Montague and Tom Fortune for years because his family lands had run with theirs, but he had never realized the scandalous truth of what went on at Fortune Hall. He felt obscurely ashamed now that he had not known about it or prevented it from touching Lizzie’s life.

  “It must have been shocking for you,” he said.

  Lizzie shrugged again. Her face was averted from his. “I was not naive, Nat. Not in that sense. When Mama ran away I knew exactly what she had done to earn her disgrace. People made sure that I knew all about her trysts in the stables. They told me so that I could be ashamed of her. And Papa…” Her mouth drooped, a beautiful curve. “Well, he was the most loving papa to me, but I understood about his mistresses. I heard things and saw things at Scarlet Park, you know.”

  Nat stared at her wordlessly. His own introduction to the world of physical pleasure had been the straightforward one that, he imagined, was the experience of many youths of his class and generation. A willing courtesan or two, then various eager widows of whom Lady Ainsworth, the mistress Lizzie had mentioned that night in the folly, had been the most prominent. It was a world away from Lizzie’s vicarious, furtive and confusing experience of sex. Her true innocence had been stolen years before their night in the folly.

  “I am so sorry it was like that for you,” he said.

  She shrugged again. “I loved living at Scarlet Park,” she said. “It was warm and opulent and as I said, Papa doted on me. Until I was older I did not realize that not all men keep their mistresses accommodated openly in their homes. It seemed quite natural to me. Although sometimes I think Papa forgot I was there so I did see more than I ought…” She sighed. “And whilst Monty was alive I could bear living here. At least he had some sense of common decency—until recently. Tom has none.”

  “No,” Nat said. The whooping outside the door grew louder, accompanied by the sound of the riding crop raining down on some eager person’s bare rump. “I have to get you out of here,” he added, “but I doubt we can go now or we shall probably both be overpowered and ravished indiscriminately, even with your pistol to protect us. We will have to wait until they drink and fornicate themselves into a stupor and then we shall be able to slip away.”

  Lizzie looked at him. “You want me to leave with you?”

  Nat held her gaze. “You cannot stay here, Lizzie,” he said. “Not now. It is impossible for you to live at Fortune Hall whilst Tom is here behaving like this.”

  Lizzie’s shoulders slumped. “I suppose so,” she said. “Damn him.” She looked up, an angry spark in her eyes. “I will go and stay with Alice and Miles until Tom drinks himself to death.”

  “A charming solution,” Nat said, “but sadly, one that might take some time.” He shook his head. “Alice and Miles are too much in love to wish for a permanent houseguest. You would be better off married to me.”

  Lizzie was silent for a moment, but when she looked at him there was a spark of amusement in her green eyes that reminded him of the way things had once been between them before it all became so intolerably complicated.

  “How neatly you have maneuvered me,” she said lightly, “until I can see I have no choice.” She sat up, out of his arms. “I don’t have a choice, do I, Nat?”

  “No,” Nat said. “Not anymore. You owe me fifty thousand pounds,” he added, “and I know you always pay your debts.”

  He saw her fingers pause in their fidgety pleating of the bedspread. She looked at him, head on one side. There was a different glint in her eyes now. She was surprised and a little taken aback. She had not been expecting this. Lizzie was accustomed to seeing the gentler side of him. Normally he kept the iron fist for his work and she saw the velvet glove. Not anymore.

  “How so?” she said.

  “I called off my marriage to Flora because of what happened between us,” Nat said. “I lost her fortune. So now I am claiming yours in its place.”

  She chewed her lip. “I see. And what is in this arrangement for me?”

  “You escape your brother,” Nat said, “and thwart his plans to steal your money.”

  “So that you can steal it in his place?” She was cool, noncommittal.

  “It’s the best offer you’ll get,” Nat said. “I’m tired of being nice about this, Lizzie.”

  She gave him another sideways look from those slanted green eyes. He could see that his determination had intrigued her rather than repelled her. It excited her and appealed to the wilder side of her nature. Suddenly, violently, he wanted to kiss her. Tom’s orgy, whilst repellent in some respects, had, inevitably, aroused him and he did not resist the impulse. He took her by the shoulders, feeling the slippery slide of the swansdown wrap beneath his fingers and beneath that the slenderness of her. He laid his mouth against hers. She felt cool and sweet and her skin smelled of roses. Nat took a gentle handful of her hair and buried his face in it, inhaling the scent. It was soft, slipping in sleek threads through his fingers, catching against his lips like silken bonds. He raised his head and kissed her again and this time her lips parted against his and the hunger roared through him and he kissed her deeply, searchingly, desire leaping to further desire, and she reached for him and drew him down onto the bed beside her, her hands moving over him, encouraging him out of his clothes even as she kissed him with a feverish need.

  “I want you,” she whispered and the robe slipped from her and Nat pressed his lips to the hollow at her throat and to the freckles that dusted her shoulders. He pushed down her nightgown and saw that she had freckles scattered across the swell of her breasts as well and for some reason that excited him beyond measure as he lowered his head to lick and kiss them and she writhed beneath the caress of his mouth and tongue.

  He had shed his jacket and now she was tugging at his shirt so that she could slide her hands beneath it and touch his naked skin. She was wild, insatiable, nipping and kissing him, running her fingers over him in blatant curiosity, her nightgown long gone, her alabaster-white skin stung pink with passion and the effect of his kisses. He was enormously aroused, even more so as Lizzie’s hand closed about his erection, as curious and questing as she had been in her exploration of the rest of his body.

  “Not now. Not this time…” He knew if she touched him he would explode and he did not want that. Not this time. Later there would be time for her to learn and discover and for him to study every inch of her.

  When they were married he would keep her in his bed until they were both sated.

  The thought almost sent him straight over the edge.

  He eased back a little and ran his hands down the length of her naked body, over the curve of her breasts and the gentle swell of her stomach and the glorious arch of her hips. She felt soft beneath his hands, delicate and yet with a core of strength that he knew would never break. He cupped her small breasts, holding them up so that his lips and tongue could plunder and ravish them, and he heard her moan. His hands slid to her waist, then down again in greedy demand over her hips and thighs and he pushed her legs apart, readying her.

  And then he felt her pause and go very still.

  The hesitation in her, the fear he suddenly sensed, cut thr
ough his arousal like a knife. He drew back. She lay spread beneath him, tumbled and abandoned, her body utterly open to him in the pale flare of the candlelight. Her limbs were pale golden in the light except for where the touch of his mouth had nipped her skin to pink. The soft hair at the juncture of her thighs was even more defiantly red than the cloud of auburn that swathed her shoulders. She lay completely, strikingly still, not even pressing her thighs together to hide the petals of her sex that were so blatantly, temptingly exposed to him. Nat swallowed hard and forced his gaze to her face. The dizzy, unfocused, sensual look had fled from her eyes leaving something that looked like apprehension and alarm.

  Understanding swept through him and with it a deep tenderness. The last time—her first time—had been fierce and mindless and intense. They had both been lost in the experience at the time but now, perhaps, Lizzie was afraid remembering the mutual violence and greed of their encounter. She had no comparisons to make, no experience on which to draw. He had to make it good for her and show her that making love was not always like that.

  “Lizzie.” He gathered her to him, feeling the slick heat and the smoothness of her body, trying to ignore the arousing effect of her nipples pressing against his chest and the hot, sweet nakedness of her in his arms. He stroked her hair. “Don’t be afraid,” he whispered. “I didn’t think last time, but now I will be gentle, I swear it. I won’t hurt you.”

  He felt her shiver a little but he kept up the rhythmic, soothing stroke of her hair and after a few moments he felt her body shift a little and relax against his; a change came over her, the tension seemed to flow out of her leaving her feeling warm and soft and acquiescent. He drew back to look at her face and saw that her eyes were closed now. Her head rested against his shoulder and her hair spilled over his chest. Her lips were parted and her breath was coming a little more quickly now. Nat kissed her gently and felt her response with a kick through the blood that rearoused him in one second flat. He laid her back against the pillows and feathered kisses over her face and neck, working his way down her body with a light, teasing touch that soon had her squirming restlessly on the covers and reaching for him again. He evaded her. He wanted her to be so dazed with desire this time that she was aware of nothing but their mutual need. He swirled his tongue in her belly button and pressed a stealthy kiss in the sweet curve of her hip and another against her inner thigh. Her legs fell apart again irresistibly to the slide of his fingers and the glide of his lips. He could smell her scent and it almost drove him wild with longing but he held himself back, using his tongue on her very core, stroking, caressing, thrusting, blowing softly on her damp flesh, teasing her with tantalizing promise as he led her to the very edge of pleasure and then drew back. He watched her reactions, saw her entire body start to glow and burn up with sensual heat as he drove her closer and closer, then he sucked on her, gentle, harder, alternating the sensations as she hung helplessly at his mercy, as her hips twitched and she desperately searched for the surcease he kept just beyond her grasp. Her hands came down to pull his hair and force his tongue deep inside her and her hips arched and she gave a scream of pure, keening pleasure and fell sharp and fast into her climax.

  After that there was no restraining her. She grabbed his shoulders, scored his back with her fingernails and dug her fingers into his buttocks as she pulled him inside her. He could feel the pulse of her climax still shaking her body and it almost destroyed his resolve but still he fought for control. He obliged her with a couple of inches and no more, and she swore at him in so unmaidenly a fashion that he would have laughed had he not been so desperate himself. He moved into her with infinite slowness and unhurried strokes until her silken walls gripped him even tighter and he knew that she was going to climax again and then he, too, was lost in a maelstrom of sensation as the pleasure crashed through him and everything was swept away.

  LIZZIE LAY AWAKE IN Nat’s arms, her eyes open wide, her gaze following the shift and dance of the shadows on the wall. The house was silent. Tom’s cronies must finally have drunk themselves into oblivion.

  Nat was asleep. Lizzie turned slightly in order to look at him and felt him shift and draw her closer against his body. The sight of him defenseless in sleep made her heart feel hollow with love and tenderness. He held her gently and the solid warmth of his body against hers should have comforted her but oddly it only made her feel more alone. The tears pricked her eyes.

  Once could have been considered a mistake, Lizzie thought. Twice was not so easy to explain away. She must at least be honest with herself and admit that she had made love with Nat because she had wanted him. In her grief over Sir Montague’s death and all the memories it had unlocked for her, she had turned to Nat utterly as a means to block out the pain of the present and the uncertainty of the future. But then, in the moment when he had been about to take her, she had not been able to deceive herself any longer. She had remembered that Nat did not love her and she had drawn back, suddenly acutely aware that if she gave herself to him again, with all the love that was in her, it would only make her feel more cheated and hollow that he did not love her in return.

  Nat had misunderstood, of course. He had assumed that she was nervous because the only previous time that they had made love it had been wild and elemental and violent in its feral intensity. He had thought that she was fearful of being hurt. It was an understandable mistake to make—it was gentle and generous of him—and she had not corrected him, for what could she say?

  I am fearful because I know you do not love me as I love you and I am afraid that if I respond to you with everything in my heart you will see my love and see me in all my terrifying vulnerability…

  She could not bear to expose that to him. Far easier to expose her body physically than to strip her feelings naked and tell Nat the truth. So she had pretended that she was scared and she had allowed him to lull her with his kisses and caresses, she had closed her mind and simply allowed her body to feel, and it had been magical and deeply pleasurable and yet at the end, even as her body ached with satisfaction, she was left feeling empty and wanting to cry. She did not want to feel so sad, so distant from Nat, but even as she sought the warmth of his body she felt her soul move further from him.

  She would marry Nat now, of course. He had spelled the matter out to her in brutal detail. He needed her money and in return he would give her protection against Tom’s vicious, dangerous ways, the threat that Tom had demonstrated so clearly tonight. Oddly this bargain, with no emotion on either side, was more comfortable to her than any arguments about pregnancy or honor or reputation. It was a business arrangement now, pure and simple. Or—Lizzie looked down at their naked, entwined bodies—not so pure, perhaps. It was a business arrangement with insatiable lust as the sweetener, if only until they tired of one another.

  Just for a moment she panicked because she knew in her heart of hearts that this was not what she wanted from Nat. She thought about escaping, about running away from Nat and the agreement they had tacitly made. She eased a little way out of his grip, putting her thoughts into action before they were even properly formed. Running away was a habit with her, after all. But then Nat’s hand snaked out and clamped about her wrist and she saw in the moonlight that his eyes were wide and steady and fixed on her face.

  “Running from me again?” His tone was pleasant but brooked no argument. “You have made your bed, Lizzie, and now you must lie in it with me.”

  As he spoke he was drawing her beneath him, pinning her with his body above and against hers, and Lizzie felt her bewitched and traitorous senses start to spin even before his lips came down on hers with renewed need and painful desire. He was hard for her again and the knowledge filled her with a wicked sense of power. She did not need to think about the things Nat could not give her. She knew now how much he wanted her and how much it tormented him. That would have to be enough. She could feel the edge of desperation in his touch—it seemed that as such a restrained and controlled man he could not quite believe w
hat she could do to him. When he slid into her he groaned aloud and devoured her as though his very life was in her hands. Lizzie let the delicious sensations of mutual ravishment fill her and take her but as Nat came, racked by spasm after spasm, she held him and thought again, It is enough.

  It would have to be enough.

  Part Two

  Chapter Nine

  July—2 weeks later

  FLORA WAS OUT OF BREATH as she approached High Top Farm. She was nervous and she also felt hot and flustered, for the night was humid and the air itself seemed too thick to breathe. The last shreds of twilight were fading from the night sky and no moon or stars showed. Away on the horizon there was a flicker of lightning.

  Flora shivered. Only the direst necessity could have prompted her to come out alone at night, especially on a night like this when there was something strange and elemental in the air. She had been to High Top three times since the day of her canceled wedding a month ago. On the first occasion she had hidden from sight and had watched Lowell working in the fields. He had glanced in her direction on more than one occasion and she had had a lowering feeling that he knew she was there, but he had not broken off his work to come over and speak with her. On the second occasion they had had a short conversation and she had pretended that she was passing during a walk on the hills. She had known that Lowell had not believed her even though he had not challenged her and she had blushed extremely red.

  On the third occasion he had told her bluntly not to call again.

  Flora paused by the five-barred gate that led into the farmyard. Lights showed in the kitchen. She had seen the interior of the farmhouse on her last visit, when Lowell had drawn her aside from the curious eyes of his farmhands and had then proceeded to tell her in no uncertain terms that she was not welcome at High Top. The kitchen had been exactly as she would have imagined it; neat, clean, functional and lacking the feminine touch. She had longed to pick a posy of summer wildflowers to soften the bare acreage of the wooden table. She had felt strange when she had realized that she had never been in a kitchen before. At home it was the realm of the servants and her mother had never permitted her to visit there.