The breath left his lungs in a great whoosh.
‘You never needed to attempt to seduce me,’ she said, ‘or back me into a corner where marrying you seemed like the only way out. All you ever had to do was ask.’
‘I didn’t dare,’ he said. ‘I didn’t think you would believe I was in earnest.’
‘I might not have done,’ she conceded. ‘Not at first. You might have had to ask me several times before I believed you meant it, because you always seemed to find me amusing. I might have thought you were teasing me. Besides, how could I really believe that a man as experienced as you, a veritable connoisseur of female beauty,’ she said, making him wince, ‘would really want to marry a woman whose only claim to attractiveness was curly hair?’
‘Oh, the things I said …’
She smiled at him fondly. ‘You called me Hen.’
‘So did that oaf.’
‘He’d called me that since I was a little girl, because he maintained a hen was just what I looked like, with my beak of a nose.’
‘I adore your nose,’ he said. ‘It is a nose of distinction. I hope all our children will have it. I will be delighted if it gets passed down through our line for generations to come.’
‘Really?’
‘Really,’ he said, dropping a kiss on it.
She shivered with delight. ‘And I adore everything about you. Before you start saying I cannot possibly,’ she said when he frowned and drew breath to do just that, ‘because you are such a rogue, then let me tell you, my lord, that I do love you. With all my heart.’ She placed her palm on his cheek in a gentle caress.
‘You have been very lonely, I think, for a very long time. From what I have learned, nobody has ever really loved you as they should have done and it has made you feel unworthy of love. But I do love you,’ she said firmly. ‘And we are going to love each other in a healthy fashion. We will communicate outside the bedroom as well as in it. And I don’t care if you do despise all other women, so long as you never despise me.’
‘You mean it,’ he said, studying her face intently.
She nodded.
‘What have I done to deserve this?’ He snatched the hand she’d lain against his cheek and pressed a fervent kiss into the palm of it.
‘You have loved me,’ she said, running the fingers of her other hand through his already disordered curls, ‘in a way no other man ever has. You are what I need.’
‘And God, how I need you,’ he growled, pulling her into his arms and kissing her. It was a passionate kiss, which spoke both of his need, and his relief. It was so powerful that it drove them both to the sofa, on to which they tumbled, eager hands tearing at buttons and pulling aside fabric.
‘I warned you that I’m utterly selfish,’ he growled in self-condemnatory tones, as he freed her breasts from her bodice. ‘But no power on earth could make me deny myself the pleasure of your body,’ he said, fondling them, ‘while we wait for your aunt, or my godmother, to organise the society wedding you deserve.’
She subsided back into the cushions, watching, with intense feminine satisfaction, the rapt expression on his face as he cupped and stroked her breasts.
‘I have been on fire for you for what feels like for ever,’ he groaned. ‘It will do you no good to say going without will be good for my immortal soul, or some such nonsense,’ he warned her.
‘I wouldn’t dream of talking such fustian,’ she replied. ‘Because then,’ she added with a wicked smile, ‘I would have to go without as well.’
He made a low growl of approval and lowered his head to her breasts. She flung back her head and luxuriated in the sensations he aroused, crooning over and over again, ‘I love you, I love you.’
It was so liberating to be able to say it, at last. Especially while he was showing her how very much he loved her, too, with each kiss and urgent caress.
‘I can’t resist you any longer,’ he gasped, pulling himself up to look at her.
‘I don’t want you to try,’ she said. ‘In fact …’ She struggled to sit up and pushed him away.
‘What are you doing? I thought you said …’
His look of dismay faded as she began to peel off her gloves.
‘I don’t think,’ he said in a thickened voice, ‘I have ever seen a more erotic sight.’ For he understood the implication of her needing to bare her hands. There were to be no barriers between them.
He raised his own hands to untie his neckcloth.
‘No!’
‘No?’ He paused, uncertain now that he’d made the correct assumption about the gloves.
She shook her head. ‘I want to do it,’ she said, pushing him back down amongst the cushions at the other end of the sofa.
She was more efficient at dealing with his clothing than he’d expected her to be. In no time at all she’d stripped off his waistcoat and shirt. But then her touch could not be described as efficient at all. It was reverent, almost, the way she stroked and explored his torso.
And when she hitched up her skirts so that she could straddle him and kissed her way down his neck, then flicked her tongue over his nipples, it was more arousing than the most expert ministrations of those women who’d never put their heart into it. That was the difference, he decided as he ran his hands up the outside of her thighs. Her shy yet eager touches were prompted by love, not lust. His hands reached their destination and squeezed her soft flesh, whilst delving both his thumbs inward. She squirmed on his lap.
And, hell, but the sofa was not the place where he ought to take her, not the first time.
He sat up, and took hold of both her hands.
‘No. Stop. We should … a bed, at least,’ he panted raggedly.
‘You really expect me to walk through your house, to find a bedroom, with all your servants to see, in this state?’ Her hair had half come down. Her bodice was gaping and her dress was rucked up round her waist.
‘Though I suppose they might not be all that shocked,’ she finished doubtfully.
‘I have never brought a woman here,’ he assured her, having caught her meaning at once. ‘I have always conducted my affaires elsewhere. I have never wanted to encourage a woman to think she might have some hold on me, by inviting her into my home,’ he declared with vehemence.
‘And yet you brought me straight here,’ she marvelled.
‘Yes. Because I want you in my house, in my life, in my arms, for ever.’
She leaned forwards and kissed him again, flinging her arms round his neck.
‘You have started to make love to me twice already on a sofa. I think it is exactly the place you ought to take it to its natural conclusion.’
‘If you’re sure.’
‘More sure,’ she gasped, flinging back her head as he ran his hands under her skirt for the second time, ‘than I have ever been about anything.’
‘In that case,’ he growled, flipping her on to her back and coming down hard on top of her, ‘who am I to argue?’
‘Ooh …’ She sighed as he sucked one breast into his mouth, whilst employing his fingers to devastating purpose. ‘Oh, that is positively scandalous.’
‘Not yet,’ he murmured into her ear. ‘But we have all night to create a real scandal.’
‘All night?’ Her eyes widened in surprise.
‘Easily,’ he vowed, with a wicked grin. ‘In fact, I doubt very much if I will be able to let you out of my sight for some considerable time to come.’
She said nothing, but from the curve of her lips and the way she ran her fingers through his hair, Lord Deben knew she had no complaints.
And nor had he. For once, he had found perfection.
And her name was Henrietta.
All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.
All Rights Reserved includ
ing the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II BV/S.à.r.l. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the prior consent of the publisher in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
® and TM are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.
First published in Great Britain 2013
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited.
Harlequin (UK) Limited, Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road,
Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR
© Annie Burrows 2013
eISBN: 978-1-472-00359-1
Table of Contents
Praise
Excerpt
About the Author
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Copyright
Never Trust a Rake Page 24