She lowered her gaze toward the floor and was startled to see his feet were bare. Long and well shaped with neatly trimmed nails, a few fine black hairs sprinkled across the tops and on his big toes, his were the first adult male feet she had ever viewed. Not even her brother and father walked around barefoot, always clad in stockings or slippers or shoes. Seeing Adrian’s feet, so masculine, so naked, sparked a fluttery sense of awareness inside her, together with a peculiar sensation of intimacy.
She swallowed hard and linked her hands before her. Then crossed her arms over her breasts a moment later, remembering the scanty state of her attire. She shifted uncomfortably and prayed he wouldn’t notice the gown’s indecent thinness.
“Jeannette,” he said, holding out a hand. “Come here.”
His tone was soft, gentle, the sort a man might use to coax a timid wild creature. Did he know she was frightened? Was her innate shyness about to give away her secrets? She doubted the real Jeannette would be this hesitant. Then again, she didn’t know how her sister would behave alone with a man for the first time.
Would tonight have been Jeannette’s first time? Violet shied away from the dishonourable thought but she couldn’t help it. Especially in light of her twin’s request earlier today, asking that she intercept notes from a certain individual named Kaye. If Kaye was indeed a man—and Violet would bet a year’s allowance he was—she knew this was not the first secret flirtation in which Jeannette had engaged.
Putting her suspicions aside, she stepped close, laid her small cool hand into his large warm one.
He raised her palm to his lips, pressed a kiss into it, then upon the inside of her wrist as he had once before that day. “You are trembling,” he said.
“Yes,” she admitted, hearing the catch in her voice as she said the word. Her eyes focused on the vee of skin exposed above the collar of his robe, and the few dark hairs that peeked out where the lapels met. Was there more of that same hair hidden lower beneath the robe? What else did he have hidden under there? She flushed at the thought. Oh, my.
“There is no need to be so nervous. Everything will be fine.” He paused and caressed her hand, dropping a leisurely kiss upon her knuckles that did nothing to lessen her trembling. Having him this close made her weak, shivery. He smelled so delicious, of bayberry and something else, something darkly male and uniquely him. Her toes curled inside her slippers.
“I wondered if there might be something you would like to tell me,” he continued.
She frowned, puzzled. “No. I…I don’t know what you could mean.”
“Come now, you must have an idea. Isn’t that the real reason for all this innocent shyness of yours? These unexpected attacks of bridal nerves you’ve suffered throughout the day?”
Panic squeezed sharply in her chest at his words. Oh, Lord, so he did know. But how? And for how long? And if he did, why wait? Why the charade, pretending to accept her as his wife? Why this intimate interlude between them now?
Had he decided to take his revenge upon her tonight? To punish her in some physical manner? Had he—oh, heavens, what a thought—decided to taunt her, then take her in place of her twin? Discard her come morning, to be sent home in ruin and disgrace?
Such a dishonourable plan as that did not seem in Adrian’s nature, no matter how angry he might be. If he knew for certain who she was, wouldn’t he simply confront her in a forthright manner instead of playing games, like a great cat toying with a shy mouse? Perhaps he was not positive in his suspicions and merely waited for her to offer up an admission of her guilt voluntarily.
He cupped her cheek in one hand, settled his lips over hers in gentle possession and persuasion. She whimpered, reached up to steady herself by clasping her hand around his wrist, solid and strong beneath her touch.
When he broke away, he pulled back only enough to speak, his breath fanning sweet warmth against her face, his eyes locked with her own. “You might as well be honest,” he warned, low and silky. “I am willing to forgive whatever indiscretions there may have been in the past so long as you reveal them to me now.”
“I-indiscretions?” She felt her eyes widen.
“Do not try to convince me you are untouched. I’ve heard talk, disturbing talk, and I will have the truth from you tonight, madam. One way or the other, I will know the truth. Whether it comes from your pretty lips, or I have to wait and find out when I take you to that bed. I would, however, prefer to hear it from you.”
She nearly sagged with relief. He thought she wasn’t a virgin—or rather, he thought Jeannette was not. Adrian still did not realize who she actually was. For now her true identity was safe.
But the sensation of relief was short-lived as his hand lowered, easing gently around her neck, his thumb teasing across her collarbone. “Tell me,” he repeated. His tone brooked no defiance.
“H-honestly, your Grace, there is nothing to tell. There have been no indiscretions, whatever you may have heard.” None that she, Violet, had committed anyway.
He didn’t believe her. She could read it in his eyes.
“There has been no one,” she stated, trying to don a mantle of affronted pride and hurt the way Jeannette would have done. “I don’t know who could have spread such vicious lies about me. I don’t know how you could believe such blatant falsehoods.”
He raised a brow. “So, you persist in this act, do you? Insist in the purity of your maidenly innocence?”
She stood her ground, swallowed her trepidation. “Yes.”
“Don’t think you can fool me with tricks,” he said with a fierce scowl. “They won’t succeed and I’ll know what you’ve done. Now, one last chance. I promise I won’t be angry so long as you are truthful.”
She stiffened her shoulders, though she felt more like slinking away. “I have been truthful. I swear to you, your Grace, there is no one. No man has ever touched me. Only you.”
His eyes hardened. “Very well. We shall have to resort to the direct approach, I see. Let us begin.”
Adrian reached out, and without further niceties freed the buttons on her robe, slipping them loose, one after another after another. She kept her head high as she stood acquiescent beneath his touch, forcing herself not to quiver. He stripped her robe aside, flung it carelessly to the floor. She stared just beyond his shoulder as he raked his eyes over her body and the nearly transparent gown, shamed by what she knew he must be seeing.
Adrian sucked in a harsh breath at the ripe beauty he’d uncovered, desire striking him a blow that settled hard between his thighs. Dear Lord, she looked like fair temptation herself. A sensual spirit brought to life. White lace hugged her breasts like an exotic second skin. Round pink nipples peeked out from beneath to tease and attract. The diaphanous skirt below, a misty veil that flowed over belly and hip, across long curvaceous legs, over the enticing, half-hidden vee of golden curls that lay between.
Seeing her so splendidly and effectively displayed only fueled his ire. Increased his need to rip through the false act she insisted on portraying. Innocent? Hah, she was no more innocent than he.
He hadn’t planned to confront her. What was done was done. Women were human, he had counseled himself, subject to the same carnal cravings as men. They could make mistakes. Fall prey to temptations of the flesh, inside or outside the sanctity of marriage.
Yet as he had sat downstairs, sipping his brandy, left to his own idle reflections, he kept remembering her reticence throughout the day. Her quiet reserve over dinner. The shy, half-anxious glances she had thrown him. Her subdued conversation. The obvious case of bridal jitters that sprang to life when he had reminded her he would be joining her for the night. That was when his irritation developed, growing, together with his dark suspicions.
What if there was an underlying reason for her shy behaviour? An ulterior motive for her uncharacteristic timidity? A reason she felt she must prove her innocence? True, it could simply be guilt; a well-bred woman was supposed to come to her marriage bed a virgin. She might be emba
rrassed. Then again, mayhap it was something more, something infamous.
Was she pregnant?
The idea made him half sick. He certainly didn’t want some other man’s bastard whelp for his heir. He could always refuse to touch her, of course. Wait a few months to make certain she was not with child. But if he did that there would be talk. Word would leak out of their estrangement no matter how he might try to conceal it. Then, of course, there was basic math. Anyone could figure out the meaning of a healthy, robust baby born after only six or seven months of marriage.
And in the end, no matter what, she would still be his wife. If he discovered she had proved him false, he would have to divorce her. Drag the whole sordid affair out before the courts, his peers, the world.
No, he would find out the truth for himself tonight. The full truth. Then he would take whatever steps were necessary.
Features grim, he watched her. Wished she weren’t quite so beautiful, quite so desirable. “Never been touched. That is what you said, is it not?”
She looked startled by his question, then she nodded. “No, never.”
“Then you are bound to be shocked, my dear, but do not worry. I promise I will not hurt you…” slowly, deliberately, he slipped the white ribbon from her hair, let her tresses swing free over her shoulders “…any more than I must.”
Her eyes widened at his implication. Silently, she cursed her twin for leaving her in such straits. Leaving her to accept the consequences for actions she herself had not taken. She wanted Adrian. But not in anger, not in falsehood and disillusionment. Then she didn’t have time to think anymore as his mouth came down upon her own, smothering any protest or resistance.
Like being plunged headfirst into a deep whirlpool from which there was no escape, he crushed her lips to his. Passionate, impatient, without concern for her supposed maidenly sensibilities. She quivered and gave herself over to the storm. Letting him take as he wished. Letting him fit her close against his firm body, his arms locked behind her back like a pair of iron bars.
“Open your mouth,” he demanded, pulling away enough to speak.
Senses swimming, she blindly obeyed, having no idea why he had asked such a thing of her. She gasped when his tongue thrust fervently between her lips. Hot and wet, he played with her own tongue in a way that left a warm, red haze rushing through her veins. She gasped again, then shuddered with pleasure when his hand moved low, curved over her left breast. He kneaded her flesh. Massaged it. Stroking his thumb across her nipple through the lace bodice. Back and forth, back and forth, until the sensitized nub stiffened to a rigid, aching peak.
“Kiss me back,” he said. “Stop pretending you don’t know how.”
But Violet was beyond the point of pretending to be anything or anyone other than who she really was, and could only answer him with the truth. “I am not pretending,” she whispered.
His eyes flashed, in irritation or hunger she could not tell. He slid a hand up into her hair, held her head steady for his delectation. Slower, with increased deliberation, he angled his head, tipped her jaw to one side. Softly at first, his lips grazed hers, plucking and nibbling. Playing with her, on her, in her mouth. Easing her into a dance he believed she knew but which she was only beginning to learn.
He kissed her in myriad ways. Hard then soft. Slow then fast. Sweet then sharp. Waiting between each touch for her to match his move, imitate his technique. Thinking became impossible as she acted purely on instinct. As she learned to simply enjoy and be enjoyed. And for a small span of time she forgot everything. Aware of nothing but the two of them, as he drew her into a drugged mating of lips and teeth and tongues that seemed to stretch into forever. Each of them taking from the other in long, pleasurable draughts of hot, wet wanting.
He pulled away suddenly and shocked her anew by bending to take the breast he had so thoroughly handled into his mouth. She could barely breathe as he licked and suckled her flesh through the thin barrier of lace that still lay between her skin and his lips. A patch of damp spread across the material.
She had never imagined such an act. Never dreamed such delicious, stunning pleasure might exist. A dark need she didn’t understand began to crawl through her veins. An insistent ache forming between her legs that urged her on, demanding more. More what? she wondered in a daze.
Her eyes fell shut as she squeezed her fingers into the fabric of his robe. Sensation pounded through her in forbidden waves, roaring up, crashing over. She shuddered and strained for breath. Her lungs pumping as a thin, high sound she didn’t recognize as her own issued from her throat. Then he bit her, a small pinch of teeth on her sensitized nipple.
“Oh,” she cried out, body stiffening in astonishment. She took an abrupt step backward.
He looked up into her flushed face, into aqua eyes dilated with shock and dawning carnal awakening.
If he didn’t know better he would think she was genuinely astonished by his last act. As if no man had ever touched her in such a manner. Had he made an error in his judgment of her? Was she actually innocent, or just a damned fine actress?
She was passionate, that was for certain. Yet somehow untried. Her kisses untutored in their hesitancy and eagerness to please. He could sense the raw need that lay coiled within her, waiting to be freed.
Already she made him throb like an inexperienced youth ripe to couple with his first woman. It wouldn’t do for him to lose control of the game now. No, it wouldn’t do at all if he gave himself over to mindless animal instinct and forgot where his true purpose lay. After all, that was what she would want if she was playing him false. For him to begin to need beyond all other considerations, to forget her lies.
Enough with the preliminaries, he decided. He would know the truth, one way or the other.
He swept her into his arms and carried her to the bed. He removed his robe, tossed it across a nearby armchair, exposing his aroused, naked body to the warmth of the room. When he turned back, her eyes were wide as saucers. Her expression one akin to horror.
He was so big, Violet thought. So male. So completely different from her. She had never seen a naked man before. She had had no idea what to expect. He was…stunning, magnificent, his long limbs hard and sinewy with muscle, sleek arms, powerful thighs, narrow hips. As she had suspected, there was more of the same dark hair she had glimpsed earlier dusted over his body. It lay in flat, black curls across his firm chest, narrowed into a slender line that nearly disappeared as it ran over his taut stomach. Then the hair grew heavier again, circling down low around his…male parts.
She didn’t know what else to call that portion of his anatomy. Seeing him unabashedly draped in nothing more than candlelight, her heart skipped a single, hard beat. She tried, yet somehow couldn’t look away. Her mind scrambled frantically as a startling idea appeared in her head. Surely he didn’t intend to…to put that inside her? For one thing, it would never fit; he would surely split her right in two with the attempt. For another…well, she didn’t have time to think of another reason, she just knew she needed to get away.
She gulped visibly and scooted on her haunches toward the opposite side of the bed.
He reached out, snagged an ankle to stop her, then came down beside her. His long length, his great power overwhelming in its intensity. “Going somewhere?” he asked.
She shook her head, fatalistically accepting the fact that there was nowhere for her to go. Knowing she was well and truly trapped. Desperately she reminded herself who he was—Adrian, the man she loved, the man who was her husband. She gazed up into his eyes and told herself it would be all right. Whatever he planned to do to her, she would be fine. Wouldn’t she?
He took her chin between his fingers. “Have you had a change of heart? Would you like to admit the truth now before we proceed?”
Violet shivered, wishing suddenly she could tell him what he wanted to hear. It would be so much easier. But she refused to lie. Not about this. Her integrity, her innocence, her honour. He had said he would know whet
her or not she was untouched. Soon, then, she supposed, he would realize she spoke the truth. If only she didn’t fear what he must do first to find out.
She shook her head, silent, her eyes speaking the truth that she could not say.
His face hardened. He reached for the hem of her nightgown, pushed his hand underneath, stroking his fingers up along the skin of her thigh. Instinctively, she tightened her legs against his advance. He paused. “Open up.”
When she didn’t immediately comply, he gave the order again, this time in far more graphic terms. “Spread your thighs.”
She trembled anew, then squeezed her eyes shut and forced herself to do as he bid.
“Don’t be afraid, my dear,” he said, dropping a kiss upon her lips. “You know it won’t hurt. And I’ll take care to see you find your pleasure.”
Then Adrian thrust a pair of fingers inside her where she was hot and wet and tight. Far tighter than he had expected. But that didn’t necessarily mean anything. She was a small woman. Perhaps her previous experience had been with small men.
Before she could voice any objection, he began to work inside her. Stroking, rubbing, moving his fingers in a nimble rhythm he soon planned to repeat with another portion of his body. He looked up, watched her wide, open eyes begin to glaze over. Her fingers curling at her sides, clutching tight at the coverlet beneath her.
He’d have her panting before he was done, he promised himself. He’d have her writhing with desire.
Her breasts heaved. He watched them, her nipples puckered, pink as flower petals beneath their fine lace covering. He tugged at the material. Then he tore it, ripping it away to get at her bare flesh. He clamped his mouth around one nipple, drew deeply upon it as he pushed his fingers deeper still.
Violet’s hips arched up off the mattress. Straining, grasping for something she did not understand but wanted irregardless. It was as though he had taken possession of her body. Literally reached inside and assumed control. Her fear vanished, falling away like leaves scattered from a windswept tree.
The Husband Trap Page 5