“Rose, will you marry me?”
Yes.
I grazed my lips across the rough stubble over his throat. I reveled in the way his breath caught. Grinning, I decided to tease him for a moment more. “I don’t know…”
I flicked my tongue over his skin, like he had with me. He stifled his groan, but I felt it in the shift of his muscles beneath me.
“Isn’t there supposed to be a part where you beg me to make you the happiest of men?” I sat back.
His gaze was unreadable. “You’ll make any man you accept very happy.” He sounded almost sad about it.
I caught his hand as he raised his palm to cup my face, and nipped at the meaty part of his thumb. “Even you?” I asked.
“Especially me.”
“Yes, I’ll marry you.” That was all I needed to hear. I lowered myself over his chest and sought out his mouth. A scant second before we melded our lips, I paused to whisper, “Now, was that so hard?”
I claimed him in a deep, passionate kiss, rocking my body against his the way he had taught me. He kissed me back, every bit as fierce, as if he feared I might disappear at any moment.
His muscles bunched beneath me as he struggled to sit up. I shifted back, making room for him. He held me to him as he swung his legs over the side of the bed, planting his feet on the floor.
Perched on his lap, I had to crane my neck down to meet his mouth. My breasts were nearer to his face than my head was. He broke the kiss, trailing his mouth over my neck and collarbone. He kissed a line across the bare skin revealed by my bodice.
I gasped. My breasts grew heavy. I wished tonight’s selection had been a little more daring, giving him more skin to nibble on.
His hands splayed over my back, holding me tight to him. I threaded my fingers in his hair, pressing his face into my skin. His rough, prickly chin rasped my smoother skin. I gasped and moaned at the sensation.
My nipples throbbed, begging for attention. What would his cheek feel like brushing over those? But no, that was too wicked, too sinful…wasn’t it? He had all but confessed his love for me. Scant days ago, he’d sworn he didn’t believe in love, but I had shown him the truth. And in so doing, I’d fallen irrevocably in love. So much stood between us, I hadn’t wanted to believe it. But…I couldn’t banish him from my mind. He made me feel better, more alive than I’d ever felt before.
My bodice loosened from his expert fingers plucking at the buttons of my dress and my stays beneath. He pulled the fabric back, down to pool around my waist along with my chemise. He bared my breasts to the open air.
I shivered in delight. This was wicked, far more wicked than I’d ever dared to be with any man. The thrill consumed me, settling deep in my belly, making me throb for him.
He stared at my bare breasts, rapt. With one hand, he reverently traced the curve. I squirmed against his hard length beneath my spread legs. He pressed a light, tantalizing kiss to one peak.
“So beautiful…”
He took the nipple into his mouth, sucking and flicking with an urgency that drove me mad. I couldn’t think, only grip his head as he ran his tongue around my areola. He nipped at the peak then blew on it. The cold air made me gasp. I squirmed in his hold as he switched to give the other breast the same attention. His big hand cupped and kneaded my breast. It fit against his palm perfectly.
He shifted his other hand down, beneath my skirt. With one last, long pull to my nipple, he drew away and lifted my dress over my head. It pooled to the floor with a flutter.
I stiffened against him, but he didn’t give me the time for embarrassment or modesty to shift in. Instead, he turned our twined bodies until he pressed me into the mattress. He laved my neck with his lips and tongue as he set a rhythm against my pelvis.
This was different, more intimate than when I wore my dress. I hadn’t worn drawers this evening, maybe in anticipation. The stiff fabric of his breeches rasped against my sensitive core, drawing shiver after shiver from my body. I lifted my hips to his, encouraging him to continue. The ache between my legs would not be assuaged.
Warren skimmed his hand over my belly to the crux of curls between my legs. He shifted to bring his hand between us as he probed my core with his hot finger. I tried to close my legs, but that only trapped him there. He rubbed his finger over the bud at the crown of my sex. The shivers wracking my body intensified. All my thoughts narrowed on that one, small part of my body.
He lifted his head to groan, “You’re wet.”
“Of course I am,” I panted. “You keep licking me.” Not that I was complaining. He knew exactly what to do to bring even more mind-numbing pleasure to my body. It was addictive. It was intoxicating. I wanted more. I wanted him to show me everything.
His chuckle rasped against my collarbone as he kissed my skin. “No,” he murmured, “I mean you’re ready for me.”
“Ready for you to do what?”
He drew his thumb away from the apex of my thighs. I moaned in protest, spreading my legs wider to welcome him back. He slipped one long finger into my channel, hooking it to caress my inner walls. My breath arrested in my chest. I stared, fascinated, at the play of light over the bed’s canopy.
“That,” Warren said, his voice very nearly a growl. He shifted down, giving himself better room to slide his finger into my flesh as he lowered his head to my breast again.
The combined sensations were too much. Shudder after shudder wracked my body, drawing closer together. As Warren inserted a second finger alongside the first and ground the heel of his palm against that sensitive bud, the shudders met in an apex.
I cried out as wave after wave of passion exploded over me. My older sisters had spoken of the pleasure they’d found in the marriage bed. But nothing had ever come close to describing this.
I grabbed handfuls of the bedsheet as Warren continued the vigorous pace, wringing even more pleasure from me. I whimpered as I came down to Earth. Enough was enough.
He crawled up my body, claiming my mouth in a kiss as he adjusted the fall of his breeches. Was he about to make love to me?
I stilled him with a hand over his. “Not yet. We’re close to Gretna Green. Let’s go. Tonight.”
His erection twitched beneath our joined hands. He shifted to lean on his other hand, planted next to my shoulder. He shut his eyes. “There’s no need.” His voice was strained. “We’re engaged. We’ll be married soon.”
Not soon enough. That announcement in the newspaper flashed in front of my face, a truth I hadn’t wanted to acknowledge. My voice turned shrill. “We have to go tonight. If we take a fast carriage, we can reach Gretna Green and return before the party ends.”
He laced his fingers through mine and moved our hands to the bed between us as he shifted to lie beside me. “Rose, what’s wrong?”
“My father.” I stared at the canopy above us. My throat worked as I struggled to find words. “He’s threatened to accept the offer of one of my suitors. If he’s done so already…”
“He has.”
I bolted upright. Our laced fingers tethered me to him. He remained stretched over the coverlet. How could he be so calm?
“I’m your fiancé.”
I struggled to steady my breathing. He was right; I might invite scandal, but Papa couldn’t force me to marry against my will. My frantic heartbeat slowed.
Until Warren spoke again. “I signed the papers with your father before the party.”
“No. Lady Dunlop would never invite—”
“She knew. I asked for her help.” I pulled my hand free of his. The shadows etched over his face too deeply for me to discern his expression.
The warm bloom along my body chilled to a soul-deep cold.
He’d tricked me. Even though he loved…
Did he? He hadn’t spoken the words. I’d grasped for any excuse, any echo of my feelings toward him. He’d told me himself that love was an idea conjured by men to trick women into compliance. Was that what he’d been trying to do? Tears stung my eyes. I
blinked them away. No. Don’t let him see. He had too much power over me already.
I leaped off the bed. “We shouldn’t have done this. It was a mistake.”
He reached out to catch my hand, but I darted away.
“I don’t think a single moment spent with you is a mistake.”
I donned my clothes in a daze.
“I don’t understand why you’re angry.”
I rounded on him. My dress gaped a bit in the front. I didn’t bother to lace the ties all the way. My hair tumbled down my back, covering the lapse. Let him keep my pins. I hoped they stabbed him while he slept.
“Oh, you don’t? Well, let me enlighten you.”
He swung his legs over the side of the bed. I stepped closer to the door, out of reach.
“You used me.” My voice trembled. I wrapped my arms around my torso. I couldn’t look at him for fear of giving into the threatening tears. “You could have told me at any point, but you didn’t. You used my beliefs against me.”
“Of course not. Rose—”
I turned away. “I will never love you and I will never marry you. The engagement is off.”
Warren started to stand, but I dashed from the room into the hall, without even pausing to check if the way was clear. I was lucky it stood empty. I dashed down the hall, but bypassed my own room. I stopped in front of Francine’s.
Voices muffled from within. Francine’s, but I also recognized Mary’s cadence. Mary, who for the first time was willing to work with me to find me a husband instead of tearing down my choices. I couldn’t let her know how I’d been duped. If she knew, she’d call out Warren in front of everyone and demand justice. No, I couldn’t confess what had just happened to her.
But I needed to talk to somebody. I danced down the hall to my sister’s door. I rapped on it sharply, hearing no sounds from within, but she didn’t answer it. I opened the door, peeking my head inside, but she wasn’t there.
Emily parted from the servant’s stair on her way up to bed. She frowned as she saw me in such disarray.
“Where’s Daisy?” I asked. My voice warbled. I was dangerously close to tears. I blinked rapidly, trying to banish them. I wouldn’t cry.
“I’m not sure, miss,” Emily said. She approached me slowly, as she might a skittish horse. She slid her arm along my waist and guided me down the hall to my room. “She might still be downstairs with the rest of the guests and that boy playing her court.”
Daisy had a suitor? I’d thought Lady Dunlop’s nephew had been sniffing at her coattails all this time because of the machinations of his aunt, not because he was serious about courting her.
Emily opened the door to my room and ushered me inside. “What’s wrong, miss? You look distraught.”
Tears leaked from my eyes unbidden. I wiped the moisture from my cheeks, but it only gathered more. Emily opened her arms, welcoming me to rest my head on her shoulder. I wept into her collar.
“There, there.” She patted my shoulder. “It’ll be all right, you’ll see.”
I sniffed. “You don’t even know what’s wrong.”
“I don’t have to.” She slipped from underneath me and turned to my back, tsking under her breath as she saw the mess that was my laces. She patiently undid the few I’d tightened and guided the dress to crumple to the ground. She found and dressed me in my nightgown just as swiftly.
She led me to the bed by the hand, the candle burning low beside it. She must have only left for a moment, or she would have taken it with her. Wrestling with the sheets with one hand, she guided me beneath them with another.
“I know it will turn out all right,” she said, gently sweeping a curl from my face. “You have a way of gaining the upper hand.”
I shook my head. Not this time. “I thought he loved me. I’m such a fool.” I buried my face in the pillow.
Emily’s hand paused over my hair. “You thought who loved you?”
“Warren. Lord Hartfell. It doesn’t matter.”
The bed dipped as she sat beside me, perched on the very edge. She rubbed circles over my back. When she spoke, her voice was a hush. “Are you sure he doesn’t love you?”
I turned to face her. “He’s been lying to me this entire time. He is—or was—my fiancé.”
“I thought so.”
Emily’s voice was so quiet, I almost missed the words. I tried to push myself upright, but my watery arms didn’t want to hold me.
“You knew?”
She flinched. “Not for certain. Before we left London, I heard your father speak his name in conversation with your mother. Then when he approached you here…I thought he might have wanted to get to know you before the wedding.”
I fell limp against the bed. Weariness soaked into my bones. “He knows me now.” Too well.
Emily stroked my hair. I shut my eyes against the tears that nearly overwhelmed me.
“I’m sorry. I should have told you, even if I didn’t know for certain.” She swallowed audibly. “Are you angry with me?”
I reached up to catch her hand, giving it a squeeze. “Never.” When I opened my eyes, she wore an expression of pain. “You’re my dearest and most constant friend.”
She held my hand, for a long time not saying a word. Finally, she ventured, “Do you love him?”
I released her and turned away. “I don’t,” I said fiercely. And I meant every word. Whatever madness had caused me to lose myself in him certainly wasn’t love. Not anymore.
Every time I’d fallen in love, I’d learned something about the gentleman in question to lose those tender feelings toward them. And not one had hurt me the way Warren had. I would never love him again.
I’d lost too much to him already to give him my battered heart.
Chapter Nineteen
I woke, with sore, puffy eyes, to Emily’s cheerful humming. She hadn’t opened the curtains yet, but rifled through my chest of clothes by the flickering light of a candle. I shifted, turning onto my side. I couldn’t fall back asleep.
With a sigh, I poked my legs out from under the covers and stretched my arms.
Emily’s humming ceased. She raised her head. “Miss Rose, it’s much too early for you to rise. It’s scarcely half six in the morning.”
“I can’t sleep,” I answered. I patted the skin around my eyes. It was tender. I’d cried myself to sleep last night. And for what?
Certainly not for Hartfell’s sake.
I straightened my shoulders. I couldn’t let him discover he’d hurt me. “We’ll need powder this morning, Emily. For my eyes.”
“Yes, Miss. Maybe you’d care to dress first, or take a bath?”
A bath sounded lovely. The guest room Lady Dunlop had allotted me was too small to call for a tub, but a room was set at the bottom of the guest stairs for just such a purpose.
“Yes, please, Emily.”
“I’ll see that it’s readied for you.”
She scampered out of the room, shutting the door behind her. Rising from the bed, I found my wrapper and snapped it around my shoulders. I clutched it tight but didn’t wait for her to return. I slipped into the hall.
No lamps lit this section of the hallway. I moved by feel, counting the doors until I came to Francine’s. I lingered there, but I didn’t want to share my pain with her. My frustrations, yes, but she never seemed to know what to do when I cried. I continued down two more doors until stopping in front of Daisy’s.
I knocked softly. “Daisy? Are you awake?” I kept my voice soft, but hoped it would carry through the wood nonetheless. I pressed my ear to the door, listening for any hint of stirring. Not even Daisy’s snores rent the air. She must be sleeping fitfully. I shouldn’t wake her. I continued past until I found the narrow stairs leading below.
A light glimmered from below. I followed it as I slowly felt my way along the stairs. When I reached the first floor, I came face-to-face with Emily.
“Miss Rose,” she gasped. “I would have fetched you upstairs. Your bath is cooling, just a to
uch. The kitchen already had water set to heat.”
She steered me inside but warned me not to go into the tub yet until it was cooled. Then she slipped away.
Twin candles in nooks on the walls on either side of the room provided the only light. It was a cramped room, with wooden flooring that was cool against my bare feet. I should probably have found house slippers before descending. I shifted from foot to foot in one corner of the room.
Steam rose from the bath, soon obscuring the air. I tiptoed forward to dip my finger into it. It scalded me. Emily hadn’t exaggerated when she’d said the water would be hot.
I scoured my gaze across the bland, undecorated room. I meandered to the embroidered towels, brushing my fingers over the flowers etched along one side. I smelled the soap. Lavender and rosehip. Soothing scents. They didn’t help to lift my mood. The heavy feeling across my chest, making it difficult to breathe, warned of a fit of doldrums to come.
When I could find nothing else to occupy me, I turned my attention to the bathing tub once more. It was copper, gleaming in the light of the candles. The metal wasn’t polished enough to discern more than the vague outline of my reflection.
If I stayed in one spot for much longer, I’d go mad. I needed distraction from my wayward thoughts of Warren. In such a semi-public room, when any servant or guest might walk in, I should bathe in my shift, but I yearned to find something to scour the memory of Warren from my body and my mind. If immersing myself in scalding water was what it took, that was what I’d do. Determined, I shucked off my dressing gown, followed by my nightdress, and let both articles fall to the floor. The steam from the bath curling in the air kept me warm.
To one side of the tub, a small footstool provided means to climb over the lip. Perhaps the shorter women would have to use it, but not me. I lifted my leg and eased my foot into the water.
How to Play the Game of Love (Ladies of Passion) Page 20