So there really was a connection between Juliet and Templemore. He’d begun to wonder if the baron had been lying about it.
The footman came back inside, then jumped when he spotted Montfort. “Your Grace! I did not see you there.”
“It’s all right. I see that Lord Templemore and Lady Juliet just left together.”
“Yes, and to be honest, I am rather disturbed by it. I don’t generally pry into the affairs of her ladyship’s guests, you understand, but I do fear…” He trailed off with an expression of great agitation.
Montfort stepped forward. “Yes? I’ll try to help if I can.”
“It sounded as if his lordship might have been…well…taking the young lady off in his carriage against her will.”
“Really? Why do you think so?”
The footman related the entirety of what Montfort had only heard in snatches. When the man finished, it was all Montfort could do to stifle his laughter. Instead, he nodded somberly. “You were right to speak. Never fear—I’ll notify her ladyship of your concerns right away. I’ll say I was the one who overheard Templemore and Lady Juliet. No one need know that you were behind it.” Especially since he didn’t plan to tell her ladyship a word. She tended to meddle. Besides, he had better plans for this information.
“Thank you, your grace!”
“I’ll tell Lady Juliet’s family as well. They’ll know if Lord Templemore might present a threat. The Knightons are still here, are they not?”
“Yes. Shall I fetch them?”
“No, don’t trouble yourself. Go on about your duties.” He handed the servant a couple of sovereigns. “This is for your silence. You may leave the entire matter to me.”
After the footman gushed his thanks again and hurried off, Montfort stood there chuckling. So Templemore had been Juliet’s despoiler two years ago? How very intriguing. It explained so much—why the stodgy baron insisted upon courting her, and why she’d seemed reluctant to go off with him in his carriage.
He could use this to his advantage. Knighton couldn’t possibly know about Templemore’s part in the elopement or he wouldn’t be allowing the man even to consort with Juliet. And if Knighton did happen to learn of it, he was just the hotheaded sort to take drastic action—like calling Templemore out.
That could be quite useful. No matter the outcome, it would leave Juliet free. If Templemore killed Knighton, Juliet would never forgive the man. Besides, Templemore would be forced to flee the country or stand trial.
And if Knighton killed Templemore, then the only person who stood between Montfort and Juliet would be eliminated. How very tidy.
Well, that left only one thing to do, didn’t it? He must find Knighton and reveal that the man’s precious sister-in-law had just gone off in a carriage alone with the scoundrel who’d carried her off two years ago.
This was proving a very entertaining evening. By morning, he intended to be the only man left standing who could marry Juliet.
Juliet watched warily as Sebastian settled into the carriage seat across from her.
“So what’s it to be?” he demanded. “Gretna Green or Knighton House?”
“Knighton House, of course.”
Thrusting his head out the window, he called the command up to the driver, then came back into the carriage. It was black and gloomy inside, yet the moonlight shone enough so she could see his eyes assessing her.
“You do understand that you’ve just agreed to marry me, don’t you?” he asked.
“If you understand that you’ve just agreed to tell my family everything at last. You did say you’d do anything.”
“Yes, I did.”
Joy blossomed in her heart. “You really mean it?”
He scowled at her. “Don’t I look as if I mean it?”
“Actually, you look rather peeved.”
“Well, what do you expect? I nearly challenged a man to a duel over you. And I don’t even believe in duels. They’re pointless violence that proves nothing.”
“I see.” She was trying hard not to smile, but he was making it very difficult.
“Is that all you have to say? ‘I see’?”
“To be honest, I’m still trying to take it all in. I’ve never won with you before, and I certainly didn’t expect you to give in so quickly.”
He looked exasperated. “You didn’t expect—By thunder, Juliet, you’ve spent nearly a week driving me insane, prancing about in fetching gowns and flirting with idiots like Havering, and sticking your dainty foot—your foot, for God’s sake!—where it doesn’t belong, and now you’re surprised I capitulated?”
She couldn’t stifle her laugh. “You put your foot where it didn’t belong first, you know.”
“Yes, and gave you ideas,” he grumbled. “Which you used to torture me. And try to embarrass me before an entire card room full of people.”
“Is that what I was trying to do?” she asked in mock innocence.
Taking her by surprise, he reached across the carriage and hauled her onto his lap. “You know it was. But you’ll pay for it, you naughty girl.”
“Now, Sebastian…mmfph—”
Whatever she’d planned to say was blotted out by his mouth taking hers. Oh, what a delicious kiss! It was so fierce and sweet that it jumbled up every thought in her head. How she’d missed this. How she’d missed him.
When he drew back, it was clear the feeling was mutual. “You were saying?”
“I don’t have the foggiest.”
With a grin, he closed the curtains, then kissed her once more. She flung her arms about his neck and kissed him back, wishing this moment would never end. But when his hand tugged her bodice down so he could caress her bare breast, she hesitated and drew back. In the darkness, she could hardly see his gleaming eyes scant inches from hers.
“When do you plan to tell Griff and Rosalind?” she asked, still a little unsure of him. “About the kidnapping, I mean.”
“Whenever you want.” He thumbed her nipple with an expertise that made her mouth go dry. “I’ll do it now, if you prefer. I can turn the carriage around and we can be back at Lady Brumley’s in moments. Or we can wait for your sister and brother-in-law at Knighton House. It’s your choice.” He fondled her breast shamelessly, thrillingly.
She arched against his hand. “I’d prefer to wait.”
“Would you?” His knowing smile as he rolled her nipple between deft fingers made her blush. “How far is it to Knighton House, do you think?”
What he was doing felt so delightful she could hardly answer. “I-I don’t know…a few miles, I should imagine.”
“Perfect. That ought to give me enough time.” He began unfastening her gown.
“For what?” she choked out, though she already had a suspicion. It was impossible to ignore the part of him thickening beneath her bottom.
“For reminding you that you belong to me and no other.” Then he seized her mouth again, kissing her with a fervor that branded her as his.
If he hadn’t been kissing her so ardently, she might not have suffered his clever hands stripping her with alarming efficiency. But by the time he’d torn his lips from her mouth, leaving her intoxicated with need, he had her gown shoved off her. Her chemise hung open above her corset, and her drawers had vanished, along with her petticoats. She now sat on his lap wearing only her corset and scandalously untied chemise, and his tongue was tracing a path down the slope of her breast.
“What if your coachman hears us?” Juliet whispered, both amazed and thrilled by the prospect of having him make love to her in his carriage.
“I’ll shoot him,” Sebastian growled before his mouth closed over her breast.
“Ohhhh,” she sighed as his tongue and teeth played havoc with her tender flesh. “You do that so well, Sebastian.”
She could almost feel him smiling against her nipple. “Do I?”
“Yes.”
He tongued the valley between her breasts. “I’ve been wanting to do this all night, every time you lea
ned forward over that blasted chess table. I wanted to reach over and pop them out of your gown and bury my face between them.”
She giggled. “Lady Brumley would not have approved.”
He lifted his head to grin at her. “I hate to tell you, sweeting, but she wouldn’t have approved of anything we were doing. Which reminds me…” Taking her by surprise, he lifted her off his lap and set her on the seat across from him. “I still haven’t finished what I started earlier.”
Deprived of his warmth, she shivered. “Oh? What’s that?”
“Making you burn.”
The seductive rumble of his disembodied voice in the darkness brought her to instant alert. She sat there, her inability to see making her all the more acutely aware of her own half nakedness—the plush softness of the seat beneath her thinly clad bottom, the wintry air drifting over her bared breasts, her nipples hardening to tiny points.
And the thrumming ache between her legs, too, shameful though it was. The dark amplified the sound of his clothes rustling as he tore loose his cravat, then peeled off his coat and waistcoat and tossed them aside.
Suddenly she felt rather than saw him crouch on the floor in front of her. His hands slid her chemise up her thighs, then parted her legs.
Relief rushed through her. This, she knew. When his hands tugged on her hips, she slid forward on the seat immediately, preparing for him to insinuate his lower body between her legs. Instead, she was startled to feel his mouth brush a kiss to the inside of her thigh. Quite high up. Nearly to her…her secret place.
Feeling all at sea, she reached out in the darkness to find that his shoulders, still covered by his shirt, were now at the level of her knees. “What in heaven’s name are you doing, Sebastian?” she whispered as he pressed kisses higher and higher up the sensitive skin of her inner thigh.
“You’ll see. You’ll be invoking heaven’s name in earnest in a moment,” he rasped. “And God’s name, too, if I have anything to say about it.”
She shivered, but this time not from the cold. His whiskers rasped against her skin, sparking a little tendril of excitement to curl up along her thigh. It seemed to center itself right in her privates, making her squirm.
She sank her fingers into his lush, silky hair, meaning to urge his head away. And then his mouth kissed her right there. Right between the legs, where no man had ever kissed her, even him.
“My oh my…Sebastian, you wicked…awful…ohhhh…”
His tongue sank inside her, and she melted. She’d never guessed…never even thought…
“You taste wonderful.” He laved her tender parts with his tongue, darting it over a spot that throbbed and beat beneath his outrageous caresses. “I’ve been aching to taste you forever.”
Beneath his ravenous, clever mouth, Juliet lost all sense of where or who she was. A hundred footpads could have stormed the carriage, and she would have told them to wait until he’d finished whatever insanity he’d embarked upon.
It must be insanity for her to feel this fabulous, this…this delicious…this…oh, she couldn’t even think of adjectives anymore. Her head was going to explode. Or her body.
He scraped his teeth ever so lightly against her engorged flesh, making her wild. Frantically she swiveled her hips against him. “Yes, Sebastian…do that, yes…”
Chuckling, he renewed his efforts with great enthusiasm. His tongue lapped and his teeth teased and tormented her until she felt herself tumbling over the edge into madness. Then somehow she was clutching his head and screaming, “Oh God, yes!” into the secret, erotic night.
She hung suspended in her pleasure for one brief, enchanting moment…then came the sinking back into the world. To the cool confines of the carriage. To Sebastian grasping her hips, kissing her thighs more leisurely now.
He lifted his head. “I told you that you’d be invoking God’s name.”
Not even his infernal insolence could dampen the melting aftermath of her enjoyment. “If that’s what it’s like when you make me burn, then set fire to me whenever you like.”
“Oh, I intend to, sweeting. As often as I can for the rest of our lives.” More rustling of clothing ensued. Still on his knees, he straightened until she felt something rigid and long and warm brush her thigh. “But first, it’s your turn to finish what you began earlier.”
She pretended ignorance. “And what might that be?”
He leaned forward to run his tongue around her nipple. “You know very well, you teasing minx.”
Suddenly, the carriage shuddered to a halt, throwing him hard against her. He swore under his breath as she caught at his shoulders.
Then his coachman called out, “We’re here, m’lord.”
Juliet sprang up straight in her seat. “Sebastian, I can’t…we can’t…It’ll take us forever to dress, and the servants are bound to guess what we’re up to if we sit in here for so long!”
“I know, but what the devil do you want me to do about it?”
“Make him go back.”
“What?”
“To Lady Brumley’s! Make him go back!”
“All right.” He called up the command, and the coach set off again. “Now how will that solve anything?”
“It’ll give us time to dress. Besides, now that I think about it, it might be better to speak to Griff in a public place where he can’t kill you.”
“Very funny.”
“I’m not joking. If he’d come in and found us together at Knighton House, he might have assumed the worst. At least at Lady Brumley’s we can sneak out of the carriage and approach him as if we hadn’t just been alone together.” She pushed at his shoulders. “Now get up. We have to dress.”
“Oh no, you don’t,” he rasped. “We have plenty of time to dress. But you are not going to leave me aroused and unsatisfied twice in one evening.”
“Now, Sebastian—” she began, then groaned when he tugged her hips forward and buried himself to the hilt inside her. “Oh!” she gasped as he began to move. “Well, if you must…all right then…”
Better than all right. It was as fabulous as before, only this time he filled her so utterly she thought she’d collapse from the sheer joy of it.
“Deuce take it, sweeting, you’ve been driving me mad with wanting,” he choked out as he thrust hard, half lifting her off the seat with his force.
“Me, too,” she murmured on a sigh.
“Shall I stop so we can dress?” he half growled.
“Don’t you dare!” She clutched his shoulders and tilted her hips higher, needing all of him inside her.
“I couldn’t if I wanted to.” He filled his hands with her breasts, teasing and arousing them as he pounded into her.
Sebastian thought he’d died and gone to heaven at last. Except he doubted that this was allowed in heaven.
Finally, Juliet was his completely. Forever. Or else he was dreaming. But despite the darkness, he couldn’t mistake that it was Juliet he held in his arms. No other woman smelled like an entire meadow of lilacs. No other woman was as soft and giving and open. And no other woman had ever made him feel like a king the second she wrapped him in her forgiving arms.
He lost himself in her sweet heat, rocking into her, grinding against the rocking of the carriage until she started uttering little heartfelt mews of pleasure. They echoed to the very root of his John Thomas. He drove harder, deeper, so primed from all her earlier manipulations that he feared satisfaction was only moments away.
Wanting to slow himself so they could reach it together, he leaned into her to kiss whatever he could find in the darkness…her delicate throat…the cusp of her stubborn chin…her always blushing cheek. Her fingers dug into his shoulders as she anchored him to her. Then her sheath tightened around him, a satiny fist that squeezed him until with a roar, he reached his release.
As he strained against her, his seed pouring into her, she cried, “I love you, Sebastian!” and found her own satisfaction.
In that moment, when the unfamiliar words fell
on his aching heart like a soothing balm, he realized he’d do anything to hear her say them again. To hear her cry them from the rooftops for the rest of their lives.
He’d do anything to ensure it—anything. Because pride and duty be damned, he wanted Juliet’s love. Even if he wasn’t sure he could reciprocate with those words.
And if he couldn’t? If he didn’t, would she stay? He clasped her close, feeling the thundering of her heart against his chest and her slowing breaths in his ear. “Never leave me, sweeting,” he whispered. “I couldn’t bear it.”
She drew back to smooth the hair away from his brow. “What makes you think I’d ever leave you, my love?”
There was that word again, that wonderful word he would never tire of. He hadn’t realized until she said it that it was what he’d been waiting for all his life. “I’d swear you were on the verge of leaving me tonight after we played chess. You were going home, and tomorrow you were heading out of town. And you did say you’d had enough—”
“Yes, of all your petty games. That didn’t mean I was leaving the field forever, for goodness sake. I just couldn’t be around you as long as this was going on. But I’ve always intended to have you, Sebastian Blakely. Whatever it took.”
“You might have told me and spared me some worry,” he growled. Drawing back from her, he tugged his drawers and breeches up and fastened them. Then he lifted himself onto the seat opposite her.
“Why?” She straightened her chemise and began to button it up. “Then you’d have been so sure of me that you’d never have seen sense. I’m not that stupid.”
Reaching over, he lit the lamp so they could see to dress, then murmured, “Some might disagree. They might say…you’re stupid to fall in love with me.” He couldn’t help himself. He had to hear her say those words again. “I mean, I’ve kidnapped you and treated you very ill—”
“You certainly have.” When his head shot up, she added with a laugh, “But I forgive you. That’s the beauty of love. A woman in love is quick to forgive her beloved. You see, love does have its finer points after all.”
After the Abduction Page 31