by Deborah Hale
It alarmed her to be in the grip of such intense, volatile feelings. But when she tried to summon her old icy self-possession, it failed her. Since his return, Ford had tested her composure far too often, provoking fiery rage, searing shame or fevered yearning. The heat of those emotions had thawed her heart, leaving it tender and all too vulnerable. Much as that unsettled her, she could not deny the tremulous joy of feeling truly alive again after seven cold, dormant years.
Hoping a cup of punch might help settle her nerves, she headed for the refreshment table, casting a glance around the ballroom to see how her guests were enjoying themselves. Her mother was sitting with the vicar’s mother and another older lady. She watched the dancers with a wistful smile, perhaps remembering the balls of her youth. Nearby, Susannah and Lady Daphne were engaged in vivacious conversation with Julian Northmore. On the dance floor, Sidney Crawford was partnered with Lady Artemis, neither of whom looked to be enjoying it much. Sidney scarcely took his eyes off Belinda, who was dancing with the marquis.
Though Sidney was a dear, kind fellow, Laura’s patience with him was rapidly wearing thin. Ford would never moon about like that if there were something he wanted. He would act swiftly and decisively, sweeping aside any obstacles in his way. A bit too forcefully, perhaps, but surely that was better than hanging back, doing nothing, while the desired object slipped through his fingers.
When the dance concluded and Sidney drifted toward her, Laura decided the time had come to give him a nudge. “Mr Crawford, I hope you are enjoying the evening.”
He started at the sight of her, casting a furtive glance over his shoulder. “Very much, Lady Kingsfold. Everything looks…beautiful.”
Her sister most of all, no doubt.
Laura seized two cups of punch from the table and thrust them into his hands. “I was just about to fetch my sister a drink, but I see Mama requires my attention. Could I prevail upon you to deliver this to Miss Belinda?”
Before he could refuse, she pretended to take his agreement for granted. “I knew I could depend upon you. And I would consider it a great favor if you would ask her to dance.”
Laura did not stay to parry his excuses, but hurried off to check on her mother. The next time she glanced toward the dance floor, she spotted Sidney and Belinda dancing a lively quadrille. Her satisfaction soured a little when she spied Ford partnered with the lovely Lady Artemis. She told herself not to be so foolish. Ford was merely continuing his duties as a good host.
“What a shame,” remarked Mrs Crawford, who suddenly appeared by her side, “for such an accomplished lady of fine family to be on the shelf. When I heard Lord Kingsfold had returned from India, I immediately thought of him for Lady Artemis.”
Laura could not believe the incivility of the woman to say such a thing to Ford’s fiancée. “Is matchmaking a pet pursuit of yours, Mrs Crawford?”
“You could say so.” The woman gave a brittle laugh. “I take a warm interest in seeing eligible ladies and gentleman of my acquaintance paired to their best advantage. I pity Lady Artemis and Lady Daphne with all my heart. Never brought out properly, either of them. I suppose it would not occur to their brother or uncles, even if they had the means. If only they had the right sort of sister-in-law to take them in hand.”
Laura wondered what proud Lady Artemis Dearing would think if she knew Mrs Crawford had the effrontery to pity her?
“You might consider, ma’am,” she replied with icy politeness, “the greatest advantage a person can gain from marriage is someone to love and be loved by in return.”
“Why, Lady Kingsfold—” Mrs Crawford sounded highly amused as she tapped Laura’s arm with her fan “—you are the last woman I would have expected to entertain such sentimental notions about matrimony!”
A slimy wave of humiliation broke over Laura. Was that what all their guests thought of her, behind their polite smiles and lively banter? Did they see her as a calculating creature who had snared one well-fixed husband, more than twice her age, then wasted no time securing his heir? Much as she hated to admit it or tried to excuse it, she could not deny that her actions contradicted her beliefs about love and marriage.
She wished Ford would come and sweep her back on to the dance floor, banishing her shame and regrets with his potent, rousing presence.
Laura had roused him to such a pitch of desire, Ford could not bear it much longer. As he bid farewell to departing guests, he fought the urge to heave the last few out the door and slam it behind them. He wanted them gone so he could retreat to his bedchamber and douse himself with cold water!
He must have been mad to agree to a three-week delay in their marriage. How could he have persuaded himself he would savour the anticipation of claiming Laura, the way he might anticipate and savour the taste of sweet pudding at the end of a satisfying meal? Instead, he’d been like a starving beggar, tormented with a succulent dish waved under his nose. Once or twice he’d been driven to snatch a bite, but never enough to satisfy him. Only enough to fuel his hunger.
Early on, her barely concealed hostility had not blunted his yearning. But since their trip to London and their ride in the rain, he’d sensed Laura gradually warming to him, and felt an answering spark of desire. Tonight, her ripe, fragrant beauty and subtle flirtation had ambushed him. Whenever they danced, the space between them had seemed charged with passionate possibilities. When her skirts rustled against his leg, it gave the impression of a deliberate, intimate caress. When he grasped her delicate hands to perform a turn, it had taken every scrap of self-control to keep from pulling her into his arms for a scorching kiss that would have scandalised their guests.
Past experience warned Ford to be wary of such reckless passions that threatened his self-control. Hadn’t the whole point of wedding Laura been to purge her from his system? Instead, she had made him a captive of his desire, tormented by yearning that intensified every hour. If he wasn’t careful, she might sink her claws into his heart so deeply that he would only be able to wrest it away in bloody pieces.
For the first time in many years, Ford turned a deaf ear to the urgings of caution.
He chafed under the tyranny of self-restraint, though it was of his own making and for his own good. He had never felt so fiercely alive as these past weeks, with his passions stirred dangerously close to the surface. The torment of his yearning for Laura eclipsed the vague pleasure he’d found in the effortless conquest of other women. Perhaps his fascination with her was like an illness of the body that must rise to a blistering fever before it broke.
At last the guests were all gone and good riddance to them.
Thoughts of Laura writhed and whirled in Ford’s thoughts, like as enticing Eastern dance, as he mounted the stairs two at a time and strode down the wide corridor toward his quarters. But as he passed her door, the scent of orange blossoms ambushed him with its luscious invitation.
He must have one last glimpse of Laura. One word from her. One breath of her. One touch. One taste. And if one would not suffice…
He eased the door open and slipped into Laura’s bedchamber.
A single candle flickered from her dressing table. Her bewitching pink ball gown hung over the back of a chair in wanton neglect. Laura stood by her bed wearing nothing but a chemise. The lacy edge of its low-cut bodice nestled over her breasts, while a breath-taking span of her willowy legs showed beneath the garment’s knee-length hem. Through the fine-woven linen, flickering candlelight silhouetted her ripe body.
A blaze of tropical heat swept through Ford. Passion stormed the ramparts of his self-control and pounded it to rubble.
His sudden entrance made Laura recoil with a soft gasp. “Ford, you startled me! What are you doing here? Is something wrong? Is Mama…?”
The question and her alarm dampened Ford’s ardour a little. “Your mother is perfectly well. She seemed to enjoy the ball—stayed later than I thought she might. Nothing is wrong.”
Except that he could not bear to wait one more day to make Lau
ra his.
His reassurance seemed to ease most of the tension in her body, but some lingered. “Then…what are you doing here?”
He took a step toward her, then another. “This is my house, remember. I have a right to go where I please, when I please. Just now it would please me very much to kiss you goodnight.”
“Are you certain that is a good idea?” Laura retreated a step, the back of her legs pressed against the bed.
“One of the best I ever had.” A smile of anticipation rippled across Ford’s lips. How obliging of her to move nearer the bed.
“But…propriety…”
He gave a husky chuckle. “To hell with propriety. We have been living under the same roof for weeks.”
He pulled her into his arms. “We are going to be married the day after tomorrow.”
He nuzzled his cheek against her hair. “In fact, if I had not agreed to your demand for banns, we would have been married over a fortnight by now.”
“And all you want is a kiss?” The breathless quality of her voice would have been sufficient to provoke him all by itself. But in the shadowy intimacy of her bedchamber, with the outline of her tantalising curves visible beneath her chemise and passion fairly crackling between them, it all proved impossible to resist.
“To begin with.” He lowered his lips to hers and kissed her hungrily.
Oh, the taste of her kiss—so tangy-sweet and intoxicating! Of course he knew that was only the rack punch she’d been drinking at the ball—a mixture of lemon, sugar, brandy and Batavia arrack. But the soft, luscious warmth of her mouth had fermented it into an even more potent brew. One he could imbibe again and again without ever slaking his thirst. Instead, like a fine aperitif, it stimulated his appetite for other tantalising delicacies.
As he continued to kiss her, nibbling the ripe fullness of her lower lip then plunging between her parted lips to caress her tongue with his, one hand strayed down her back to cup a soft, rounded lobe of her bottom
Laura twitched at his touch, thrusting her breasts against his chest. He could hardly wait to feast his eyes, his hands and his lips upon them. In the same instant, she gave a muted gasp, a sultry gush of breath that whetted Ford’s desire sharper still. He slid his knee between hers, nudging her thighs apart. Then he tugged up the hem of her chemise, the better to fondle her tempting body.
His passionate attentions seemed to stir an answering desire in Laura. Where she had been gently complaisant before, she began to engage him with fevered eagerness—grappling with him, wriggling against him, tearing at his clothes, tugging at his hair. If he could not rally a little control, she would push him over the edge before he had the opportunity to satisfy her.
That would never do.
She could not let Ford do this to her! That conviction spurred Laura even as her traitorous body responded to him. Two nights from now, she would be his wife and she would have to submit to his attentions. But for the moment, her body was still her own—not his to possess on a whim.
While watching Ford advance upon her, his mesmerising green eyes aglitter with feral lust, Laura had frozen, caught in a web of haunting memories. She’d permitted him to kiss her with only a token protest, in part out of harshly conditioned habit. Another part of her hoped if she let him have his way in that, he might be content to go no further. A final part that she could scarcely bear to acknowledge wanted his kiss.
And afterward? When his lips grew more demanding, when his hands began to rove and plunder, as if to say she would soon be his property to do with whatever he wished, whenever he wished, did she want that too?
She could not deny some perverse part of her took wanton pleasure in the strange, hot sensations he provoked. But she must not allow such wayward passion to ride roughshod over her self-respect. Nor could she let him treat her as Cyrus had!
She began to struggle against Ford and against her own unruly desires. Her heart pounded a swift, violent tattoo and her breath hissed furiously in a desperate struggle for air. She clutched at Ford’s clothes, at his flesh. At times she scarcely knew whether she was trying to fight him off, or hurl herself upon him. Her writhing forced one of his thighs high between hers, igniting a blaze of torrid yearning. Before she could prevent it, her hips gave a convulsive thrust, striking sparks of savage pleasure through her whole body.
Their fiery tussle churned up the rug beneath their feet. Laura stumbled over it, lost her balance and tumbled back on to the bed. An instant later, Ford landed on top of her. The impact forced the breath out of her, stunning her for a moment.
As she lay beneath him, Ford’s hands continued to range over her body, making it devilishly difficult to think. Still she managed to recall that she’d had no choice but to submit to Cyrus in order to protect her family. With Ford, she had another means of recourse—one she’d hoped he would never compel her to use. But he had left her no alternative.
Once she caught her breath, Laura mustered her strength, planted her hands on Ford’s chest and pushed him away with all her might.
“Let me go!” she gasped. “If you take me now, against my will, I swear I will destroy you! I have the means and I will use it if you force me to.”
“Take you? Force you?” Ford flew back, as if propelled by her desperate words as much as her actual push. “I have never taken a woman against her will and I am not about to start. I thought you wanted this as much as I do.”
The moment she was no longer pinned beneath him, Laura scrambled on to the bed. She grabbed a pillow and held it in front of her to batter Ford with if he tried to approach her again. “I did not ask you to barge into my bedroom at this hour of the night. Demanding a kiss. Throwing yourself at me. Did you expect me to be flattered by such attentions? Well, you could not be worse mistaken!”
Ford flinched as if she had just slapped him very hard. “Are you saying all that flirting at the ball was just for show? You find me repulsive and only agreed to marry me for the sake of your family?”
Repulsive? If anything, she found him far too attractive. Dangerously so. What if she should fall into the trap of mistaking that intense attraction for something more? Something it could never be.
That fear and her roused passion spurred her to lash out. “What choice did you give me? Storming back into Hawkesbourne after seven years abroad. Taking advantage of my family’s situation to coerce me into marriage, just like—”
Just like your cousin, she meant to say. But Ford interrupted before she could finish. “How is it you propose to destroy me? Been planning it all along, have you?”
His questions were like a garrotte, slipping around her throat and pulling tight. She barely recalled making that desperate threat and ached to take it back. Her family had every bit as much to fear from the exposure of that scandalous secret as Ford did. Perhaps more.
“I didn’t mean it.” Laura prayed he would believe her. “I thought you were going to force me and I said the only thing I could think of to stop you.”
Ford’s lip curled in a contemptuous sneer, but Laura thought she glimpsed a shadow of anguish in his green eyes. “You expect me to believe that? I am not a complete fool, you know. I have learned a thing or two in the past seven years.”
What did he mean by that? Did he guess the secret she had paid so dearly to keep? “I never thought you were a fool.”
“But you were ready to make a fool of me, weren’t you?” Ford lashed out. “By running off to marry Crawford. You meant to leave me standing at the altar this time—the laughingstock of all my neighbours.”
Marry Sidney Crawford? The accusation left Laura speechless. What on earth was Ford talking about? Had he gone mad…or had she? Everything that had happened since he walked through her door felt like a nightmare.
“I am offended that you should assume something so trivial would be capable of destroying me.” Those words seemed to unleash something terrible from deep inside Ford. His eye flashed with bolts of wrath, but his features contorted as if in agony. “I did not all
ow it to destroy me seven years ago, when I actually cared about you. When your marriage to my cousin broke my heart, robbed me of my expectations and set my creditors after me like a pack of wolves baying for blood. When I was forced to slink away from England like a criminal and begin a new life in a strange land where I had not a single friend or a penny to my name!”
The thunder of his fury struck Laura with such force, she would not have been surprised if it left bruises. It stormed into her heart, seizing her cherished perceptions of the past and smashing them into jagged shards. It was every bit as brutal a violation as if Ford had forced himself upon her a few moments ago.
Was it only moments? It seemed so distant already. And the early hours of this evening, when they had danced and laughed and flirted, felt lost beyond recall.
Something between a gasp and a sob burst from her lips. “I never knew.”
Never knew, her conscience protested, or did not want to know for fear it would overburden her with guilt and make it impossible to do what she must?
“Are you saying it did not occur to you that marrying Cyrus would mean the death of my expectations? Perhaps I ought to thank you for failing to bear him a son, who would have robbed me of the title and an estate that have been in my family for centuries!”
Laura sought to shield herself with the justification she had clung to seven years ago. “That might have happened with any other lady Cyrus married. Would you have nursed such a grudge against her? Did your cousin not have a right to marry and beget children if he chose, just because they would stand in the way of your inheritance?”
For an instant, she feared Ford might seize the first thing that came to hand and hurl it at her. Instead, he made a visible effort to master the fiery rage that had possessed him. He jammed his eyes shut, perhaps to block out the infuriating sight of her, or perhaps to hide the true, raw emotions he feared they might betray. His whole body went rigid, hands clenched at his sides. He drew several shuddering breaths, so deep they seemed to suck all the air from the room.