"Damnation. Red wine is such a devil to get out. And I did so adore this waistcoat you made me."
The sight of his bare chest was more than enough to fill her with desire, and ire.
"How are you, my love?" he asked, concern evident in every line of his expression and body posture.
Her eyes narrowed. "How do you think I am? Georgina Jerome has been telling me all about your past escapades and future plans."
Randall tried to remain calm, for this was no more than he had expected. "I don’t care what she says. I never coupled with her! She’s tupping someone else. Howell I shouldn’t wonder."
Isolde glared at him. "She described some of your little fantasies. The games you like to play. She described your body! The scar on your thigh!"
He shrugged. "Any number of woman could have told her that too. It’s an obvious scar. Did she mention any of my other birthmarks? The one here on my upper arm, the mole on my right buttock? I doubt it.
"Isolde, love, she is trying to drive a wedge between us, don’t you see! That’s why she’s here. I swear, I never had anything more to do with her than one or two conversations! She may be telling the truth about the harmless little games and my leg, but she was never in my bed. I’m innocent."
He paused to take a trembling breath. "Why are you so determined to believe a jealous, hateful stranger over me? Have I not been a loving husband to you? Have I not been by your side almost every night since we were married? Never once separated except when I went to London on business, usually with Philip or Thomas? Why then do you persist in thinking that anything has happened between me and Georgina, or any other woman, when it’s you that I love?" he cried.
She had no sensible answer to that one, except for her lack of faith in her own worth. She had nothing except herself to recommend her, and the word of an accomplished liar and rake that she would be enough to make him happy.
She wanted to believe him. She had been wrong before, after all. But Georgina’s self-satisfied smirk haunted her.
Randall was reaching for her now, and she backed away. He could make her believe anything when he touched her….
"Isolde, you have to listen to reason."
She clapped her hands over her ears and fled. She took the back servants’ stairs and tore down to the terrace at the back of the house, eager to escape the guests thronging her home.
Georgina saw her chance when she watched Isolde scurrying down the hall as if the hounds of hell were after her. She hid in the shadowy alcove outside their bedroom door. As Randall came out of the room, changed into fresh evening clothes at last, she snatched at him and yanked him in behind the curtain.
For a moment he thought Isolde was trying to patch things up, but one kiss was enough to alert him to his mistake.
"You’re not my wife," he said, struggling to get away from the seeking wet mouth.
"I’ll bet you’ll wish I was by the time I finish showing you a few tricks," Georgina whispered. She planted a kiss on his lips and clung to him with almost superhuman strength. He battled with her for several moments, and as he did so, he heard a gasp.
Isolde’s mother and sister-in-law Fanny were gawping at him through the gap in the curtain. Isolde came up behind them to see what they were staring at, and was now standing there with her mouth open.
"Isolde, darling, I didn’t know…"
Isolde now ran past them all to their room.
Randall rounded on his assailant, who was still trying to kiss him. "I want you out of my house right now, Georgina. Now! I’ve never wanted you."
"A leopard doesn’t change its spots. You’re only saying that because you’ve been caught."
Randall stepped back, all patience at an end. His tone was one of cold fury as he spoke his true mind without the least attempt at civility toward the woman trying to wreck his marriage.
"I’ve never desired you, Georgina. I pity the poor man who ever does. You’re just about the cheapest bit of muslin I’ve ever come across. Go try your tricks with some other poor desperate fool. You have no hold over me, and your little sideline in blackmailing unsuspecting husbands is not going to be so lucrative if I name a few names, now is it?"
"Blackmail?" she tittered. "Don’t be silly!"
"You think yourself so clever. The only people who don’t know are those men’s poor wives! If a man isn’t brave enough to face the consequences, he ought not to swive you in the first place. Futtering a tart like you wouldn’t be worth the energy it took to pull my todger out of my trousers, and I don’t fancy a dose of the clap for my troubles."
She turned puce, and grew even more irate as several of the witnesses who had come up to discover what all the commotion was about now guffawed or gasped and looked daggers at her.
Isolde’s mother and sister-in-law were goggle-eyed, but Lady Linley’s mouth quirked at the corners. Blake, Arabella, Eswara and Martin all stared coldly at the scantily clad girl. This really was the last straw.
Georgina could not believe what had happened to her. How on earth had he turned the tables on her so utterly? And in the midst of the best of Somerset Society. This hadn’t been part of her plan with Howell at all.
"No, you wanted me! I’m so lovely, everyone wants me!" she wailed.
He shook his head. "Who would want a common stale like you when they could have something good, decent and pure like Isolde? There’s nothing you have that could possibly tempt me, except a way to destroy Howell for everything he has done to my family, and even worse, to Isolde. The woman I love more than life itself.
"So if you’re in league with him, give him fair warning that if he ever tries to harm my wife in any way, I’ll rip his cullions off and feed them to the pigs. Leave my house now, Miss Jerome, and never come back.
"And don’t you dare try to feed anyone a pack of lies again about having been made love to by me. It never happened, as you well know. You can tell the women who helped you with the information about my body and our five minutes or so together that if they try to damage my marriage, I will ruin them.
"And ruin you. If you want to keep stringing along poor trusting fools for money, I suggest you stay the hell out of my way. For I shall have no compunction in shredding your reputation the way you've tried to do with mine."
Georgina, shaken to the core by all he had revealed and said, slumped against the wall and made her way down the stairs and out the front door. No one, not even her own family, tried to prevent her leaving.
Then Randall excused himself to his shocked friends and family, and with stunning blow, kicked down his own bedroom door.
Chapter Fifteen
Isolde was too stunned by what she had seen to even think clearly. Randall and Georgina Jerome had been together. He had been kissing her! How could he? After he had just sworn!
She paced up and down in agony, wringing her hands, until the door flew inwards with a crash. Randall burst through the portal panting. "Please, Isolde I know what it looked like, but it wasn’t, I swear!"
"Tell me why I should listen to one word that comes out of your mouth!" she demanded lividly.
He spread his hands wide in supplication. "Because it’s the truth. She’s been collecting information from my past lovers. Using it to hurt us, to erode your faith in me. She’s really in league with Howell to destroy us both. She came here tonight to damage our trust. What she didn’t know, she made up. Please, darling, don’t let a trollop like Georgina drive a wedge between us now. Not when we need each other more than ever."
He ran his fingers through his jet-black hair in frustration. She noted as he raised it that his hand trembled as if palsied. Isolde blinked, astonished that her husband looked anything less than completely in control.
"Please, I’m begging you, Isolde! It was a mistake! Georgina tricked me, grabbed me and kissed me in the shadows of the alcove. Please, my love, don’t let her dent your trust in me. I give you my word. I wasn’t tempted by her. I was tempted by thinking it was you . And only for a second. As
soon as she touched me, kissed me, I knew it wasn’t you. I swear by all I hold scared, I didn’t scheme to deceive you, or hurt you."
"One question."
"What? Anything!" he promised frantically.
"Do you want to tie me up?"
"What?"
"I said, do you want to tie me up? And make love to me when I am bound, do things to humiliate me?"
"No! Bondage? That’s never been my game. I’ve never trusted any woman enough to let me do that, and I wouldn’t want them to feel coerced in any way. I certainly don’t want to tie you down, love. I want you all over my body, in whatever way you like. And I would trust you to tie me, but I might just go mad longing to touch you. Just the feel of your skin against my hands is so exquisite, words fail me."
To illustrate, he took one of her hands and began to stroke in both of his own. He sighed and closed his eyes, trying to still his ragged breathing.
"More than one woman in the bed? Three?"
He glared furiously, his voice as raspy as a file. "Don’t be absurd! That’s Howell’s game, not mine. He and his friends. I’ve raked as an outlet for my bodily needs, but I’m not lost to all decency. You're more than enough woman for me in my lifetime, as you well know. I only wish I’d met you years ago, before I ruined myself and was brought so low as to fool about with paid companions in the first place!"
Isolde released the chair she had been clutching, and came around to sit upon it, still winded by what she had seen. "All right. I believe you."
He nearly collapsed with relief. "Thank you. You have no idea."
"I believe you. I came back in from the terrace because I realized she had lied. She only mentioned one scar, the one on your thigh. The virgin game Howell knew about from the gossip at the club. There were no other important details to convince me, just some salacious information which could have been taken from her own personal experience. You’ve never tied them up. Never spent the night with anyone, made love to them in broad daylight. You weren’t in Paris in January with a bevy of mistresses, you were looking after your mother. She was lying. You aren’t cruel or hurtful."
"No, never. A Rake, but not that. And certainly never dozens of mistresses all at the same time."
"I know that now. I’m sorry for ever believing—"
He kissed her hand. "Thank you. I know how hard this must be for you, this wondering all the time. Believe me, I never want to go back to that empty life. I would never betray you so cruelly as to give away that which belongs only to you."
She shook her head. "I have no reason to wonder. All those other women were just, well, a bodily function. What we share is real. Solid. Enduring. It’s all about sharing, not taking and running off. I can see that now. I’ve touched parts of you that no one has ever seen, even knew existed. In the field that day, you gave me that gift, and so much more. The least I can do is believe you against that lying strumpet. And anyone else who tries to split us asunder."
"Oh, thank God!" he sighed in relief.
She was about to issue him a warning about ever catching him with any woman in such a manner again, when he turned his back to her to go over to his dresser. He pulled open the top drawer and removed a large square velvet box from it. Moving over to her, he knelt at her feet and placed it in her lap, hardly daring to touch her.
"I was going to give it to you tonight when we went to bed, but I want you to have it now. You must promise me you’ll never take it off. I had it made for you specially in London. I’d have been home sooner if they’d had it ready in time. There isn’t another of its kind in the world. I want you to wear it close to your heart and think of our family whenever you do. I promise I shall give you more fine jewelery one day. Ask and it shall be yours. But your wedding ring and this necklace, please give me your word that they will be with you always."
She opened the box and gasped. Inside was the most beautiful cameo en escalvage she had ever seen. Looking closely, she realised that each panel was actually a silhouette of each of the children, plus his mother and himself. His own portrait was in the central panel.
"This is our seven months’ anniversary, and I wanted to show you how much you’ve meant to us all. Like the chains on the necklace, you’ve bound us all together. You have a golden radiance which lights the darkness, and I never want anything to separate us. Not ever."
Isolde kissed him tenderly on the forehead, too awed by his incredibly romantic and loving gift to manage any words that would do her feelings or the necklace justice. He buried his head in her lap, almost sending the necklace tumbling to the floor forgotten.
"Thank you, Isolde, for believing me."
"Thank you for the lovely gift. I give you my word, I’ll never take it off. Please, darling, put it on for me?"
Randall obeyed with alacrity, removing it from its velvet bed. He lifted it, and opening the strong clasp, fastened it around her neck, then secured it with a small safety chain. It lay against her throat, still warm from his hands, and she shivered at the sensual contact.
It nestled around her throat, like a collar of ownership, a manacle... A silken caress. A promise of many more gifts of love to come. And none of them bought in a shop.
His hands lingered on her shoulder, and she turned and yanked his coat off his shoulders and began to unfasten his waistcoat with trembling fingers.
"You’re mine. No one else’s, do you hear me!" she whispered furiously.
"I am, all yours, I give you my word." He placed his hands on her heart and the necklace. "I swear by this gift and all we have ever shared, Isolde. I did not lust after Georgina, did not do anything of my own volition. I tried to get away from her as soon as I knew she had tried to dupe me. You have no cause to be jealous."
"I can understand it all now, though," Isolde admitted with a tremulous sigh.
"What?"
"Francis. All I saw was one kiss and I was fit to kill her. Let alone..."
He stiffened. "Oh darling—"
"Not to reproach you, just to tell you I’ve learnt a lot tonight about myself and you."
"Thank you. Thank you for believing me, darling. It means everything to me," he said, tears in his eyes as he ran his hands over her shoulders and breasts worshipfully.
"I’m glad. You mean everything to me now, Randall. I’m sorry for all my doubts. I don’t want to fight any more. I want to give you every joy it’s possible for me to give, or for you to feel."
He hurried to the battered in door, closed it, and shoved a small table up against it.
Then his waistcoat and shirt fell to the floor, and his erection burst forth as she unfastened his trousers. She raised Randall to his feet, and sat him in the chair, tugging the fabric down over his hips until they pooled around his ankles.
Isolde parted her gown, her rosy-tipped breasts thrusting forth from her chemise. The necklace whispered against the head of his penis as she trapped him between them.
He clutched the arms of the chair to steady his reeling world. There might be some disadvantages to her keeping the necklace on all the time, he reflected, for he loved nothing better than her smooth soft skin under his hands, against his body. On the other hand, he had never seen her look so voluptuous as she bared her bosom fully and rubbed against him like a purring cat.
Randall sought to raise her to her feet, but Isolde clung to his thighs and suckled him into her mouth with one earth-shattering caress.
She rubbed her cheek against his crisp dark hair with such reverence he felt he truly knew for the first time in his life what it was to love and be loved. The sexual ardor they shared was like nothing he had ever encountered before. But it was the meeting of minds, hearts, and the empathy of two kindred souls which raised him to the heights of heaven even with such a simple gesture.
"My love, it’s too good. I’m going to lose myself in your mouth in a moment," he gritted out.
"I don’t mind," she murmured against his swollen flesh.
"I do. I want you, no, need you to be with me wh
en I reach my zenith."
He raised her up with a hand under each arm. Isolde shrugged and sent her gown to the floor in a shimmer of silk. He stripped off her drawers and stockings in an instant as she stood before him, then rose from the chair to carry her to the bed. She had a different plan in mind, however, for she shoved aside the small table and hauled him out into the corridor.
Before he could even protest she rammed him into the alcove, twitching the curtains shut behind her.
She growled, "Now you’ll never be able to look at this alcove without thinking of me in here. Not Georgina, me!"
"It’s only ever been you, my love, from the first moment we touched."
The Rakehell Regency Romance Series Boxed Set 4 (The Rakehell Regency Romance Series Boxed Sets) Page 42