• • •
He was taunting her.
Even as he was about to kiss her, to seal this devilish deal, he tortured her. She laughed into the small space between them, denied the sickening pleasure his words gave her, the way they made her grow heavy and damp where her body parted. Maybe he would do that. Maybe that would be the result of a liaison with him. Was a momentary pleasure worth the risk? Was marriage worth the risk?
He caught her shoulder in his hand, to pull her closer to him, she imagined. She slipped her hand between them, caught him by his shirt, stopping him an instant before his lips closed over hers.
“A child does not necessitate marriage, John,” she managed to say. She closed the space, tasted the plump undercurve of his lip, the sweetness of his mouth. Then, her lips still touching his, she continued her own taunting whisper. “You know that as well as I. And I don’t fear scandal.”
He gripped her harder, forced her lips to part, to take his kiss then as if he would erase every word she had said.
She opened up to that, gave in to his desire that so fueled her own. Whatever happened now, the words had all been said.
She wanted him and he wanted her. That was paramount.
And she was nearly naked against him, the fine fabric of his clothing rubbing against her skin wherever the robe gaped. The touch excited her but it wasn’t the one she wanted.
She pushed his coat off his shoulders, trapping him for an instant until he cooperated and his arms pulled free, the sleeves of his white shirt billowing slightly with their new freedom.
“Sutbridge,” she whispered, stymied by the maze of his clothes that the haze of desire made non-navigable.
“I like when you call me John better.”
“John,” she said easily, liking it better too.
Her hands flew over his clothes, seeking entry points, brushing against the hardness of his erection, and settling finally for unfastening the falls of his trousers. Some other wanton woman spread her thighs and pulled his hips down into that valley.
“Slow,” he cautioned, catching himself on his outstretched arms, looming over her. The locks of dark hair at his brow fell forward between them and made him look far less controlled than she knew he was.
“No, not slow,” she demanded, thrusting her own hips up to meet his, luxuriating in the friction of his steely, naked length against her. How could he fight against that delicious frisson of awareness that shuddered through her body as they connected, heat to heat, hardness to wet, welcoming softness? She met his eyes with her own smoldering, intent gaze. “I’m no virgin, John. And I’ve waited for this for ten years.”
She pushed up, rubbed against him, glorying in the clenched agony of his expression as he tried to hold himself back. But why should he?
“Give in, John,” she urged, feeling wicked and powerful, like a siren even. “Today is on my terms.”
She watched his expression change, observed with rising desire the shudder that racked his body, and understood that he was submitting to her. He shifted his body over her.
The first thrust parted her, shocked her as neatly as if she had been a virgin, every sensation so sharp and so sweetly intense. Like love.
No wonder people were such fools.
• • •
In the aftermath of passion, Sutbridge knew he had lost her. For one brief moment, she had been his. Completely. In the next instant, her eyes had shuttered, the cynicism was back, and he knew the journey to her heart was as long and arduous as before their bodies had joined.
Perhaps longer, for the mystery of their union had been unraveled.
She lay beneath him, utterly silent, head turned to one side. Her body still fluttered around him although he thought she hadn’t found that ultimate pleasure she had craved. He should have gone slow, ignored her demands. Now he was terrified that if he slipped from her body, it would be for the last time. These few minutes of passion would be all that they ever shared.
He shifted his hips, too aware that he was clothed far more than was appropriate for such intimacy. And the narrow, short divan was no place for a man of his size.
She still lay there, her breath uneven, her heart pounding against his chest. He moved again, with more force this time though he was only half-aroused within her. Her lashes flickered against her cheek but she didn’t move, and he took that small motion, the lack of protest, as a sign.
He bent his head down again, kissed her silken neck, the touch of his lips a prayer to God that he could please her, woo her. With the flicker of his tongue across her skin he spoke his love. With every inch he traversed, he felt more confident in that declaration. His words she could ignore, but his touch––the slight arch of her back––was answer enough.
Her hips rose to meet his, her hands caressed his thighs through the thick cloth of his trousers. He was hard now, eager for her, but he kept himself in check.
This time would be slow.
• • •
As the tepid water sluiced down her face, streamed through her fingers and then clattered back into the wide porcelain bowl, Caroline was aware of every breath Sutbridge made.
John.
She’d slept with him after all, their joining more intimate, more powerful than any she’d had with her husband. Now he waited with a smug, satisfied smile, as if he expected that in forcing her to do things his way, in eliciting her cries of ultimate pleasure, he had convinced her to marry him.
The very idea rankled.
She dried her face with a sheet, crumpled it and then placed it on the commode by the basin. Finally, with a deep, bracing breath, she turned.
He’d shed more of his clothes, lounged only in his well-tailored but now wrinkled trousers. Her gaze caught on his naked chest, and then flitted back up to his face.
“Come here,” he said softly, as if his mastery over her body would entice her to do anything he wished.
“I have an engagement this evening,” she said with a carefully careless smile. “You’re welcome to stay.” She waved her hand about the room. “Of course, there’s no telling what time I’ll return.” His expression darkened, and he swung his legs over the side of the divan. He was rising and his quick movement made her pulse race and her speech quicken. “Perhaps it’s best you go home and I’ll send for you.”
He stood before her, loomed over her with the unfair advantage of his height. She had to stop herself from breathing deep of his delicious scent, from reaching out to touch his hot skin.
“You’ll send for me?”
“Surely you didn’t pursue me for only one afternoon’s encounter?” she mocked, purposely ignoring the dangerous quiet of his words. She reached out, tapped his chest lightly. “My terms, John, or nothing at all.”
Time stretched out into a wall of tension in the inch between them. Stalemate.
Then he stepped back, did the work of gathering his clothes from their varied locales about the room. He had backed down, and yet she felt as if she had lost. She watched him, frozen where he had left her, the hard lip of the washbasin pressed into her back.
He shrugged angrily into his shirt. The silence grew laughable. Someone must say something. But a thousand sentences stilled on Caroline’s tongue.
Finally, he was dressed, rumpled but devastating. He stopped in front of her. She couldn’t help but admire the lines of his body, ones that she now knew intimately, now that she understood their power.
“Less than nothing,” he rasped, and her gaze snapped to the tense angles of his face. “Before this we had friendship at the very least. But I don’t want friendship and I don’t want your body. I want every part of you.” He paused, and she swallowed hard under the intensity of his eyes. “I want your love.”
A sharp, sweet pain sliced through her, as if he’d thrust into her body once more, and yet she was empty there, between her legs. As she watched him walk away, the emptiness spread until she was simply a gasping cavity.
So easy to be tricked, to convince
oneself that these flights of fancy added up to some ephemeral love. No, there was lust and there was loss. Those emotions were visceral and real.
So Sutbridge was gone. She’d find another lover. Now that she knew what she desired, such a quest should be easy. After all, Julia had had nearly a dozen lovers.
Lovers. Even the word perpetuated the lie.
• • •
Caroline attended more routs, balls and fetes, musicales and soirees in the next week than she had attended in the previous weeks altogether. She pushed herself from one entertainment to the next as if the constant company of acquaintances could ease the loss of her two dearest friends.
Worse yet, her desires had become near insatiable. Her solitary bed had become a torment where she struggled to please herself with only the fantasy of memory as an aid.
Of course, she had no lack of male admirers, each of whom had heard the gossip and wished to fill the position Sutbridge had so briefly held. Caroline considered it, considered Lord Travistock and Mr. Ardeley, simply because an affair might prove to Sutbridge once and for all how ridiculous he was.
If Caroline had worried that society might shun her for having an affair, she needn’t have. Women she had hardly known sought her out, commiserating over men, husbands and lovers, and giggling over the attributes of various men of the ton. It was as if she had been let into a secret club.
But she longed for Julia. And she longed for Sutbridge, the way it had been before she had ruined everything in asking for an affair.
One evening, in the crushing heat of yet another ball, in yet another stale and stifling town house, someone took Caroline’s arm. The familiar waft of jasmine made her heart clench in longing and then she turned. Her heart released, expanded into hope.
“Julia, it’s good to see you.”
“No pleasantries, darling, I’m still furious with you,” Julia returned, guiding her toward the balcony. “But I wanted to tell you before it became public news––”
“Tell me what?” Caroline asked cautiously.
“Out of regard for our long friendship,” Julia continued as if Caroline hadn’t spoken. “Sutbridge is taking a wife.”
“Who?” Her voice was calm, no trace of jealousy, but inside Caroline seethed with that undignified emotion and knew it. “Though it’s hardly any concern of mine,” she added a moment too late.
“Artemesia Landry.”
Landry. There had been an Ophelia Landry, married a few years past. This girl must be her sister or cousin at least. Younger. Seventeen maybe. Not even one London season behind her. Foolish too. A marriage of convenience, of course, though perhaps the child thought herself in love with John, as Caroline had once.
Perhaps this was a ruse, and Sutbridge merely intended to inspire jealousy, to make Caroline beg him to marry her instead. After all, he’d pledged his love.
And then he’d left.
“Caro?”
“Sorry,” she murmured, suddenly aware she’d been silent and still for an unnecessary length of time.
Yet inside, her mind raced––around and around in an ever-tightening circle of understanding.
He’d pledged his love. And, as she’d always thought, it meant nothing.
“You’re shaking, darling,” Julia said, her voice sounding overly sweet. “Are you ill?”
Ill, no. But Caroline was shaking. Fury filled her, too much to contain. How unfair was life? How much a lie?
She looked around the room blindly, distinct bodies and shapes melded into a wash of brilliant and disorienting color. Still Julia pressed to her, cloying, pushing. The room was far too hot and Caroline needed fresh air, needed to be alone.
“Perhaps you’d best go home.” Caroline nodded, though home wasn’t where she wanted to go. She started forward. Julia, arm linked with hers, accompanied her that step. “Ah! There’s my brother. I’ll have him call your carriage.”
Yes, there he was. The traitor, the liar! And Julia was waving him down. He looked surprised, wary. And well he should be. Caroline turned her head, took a breath and then looked down to find her fists clenched.
But Julia had her arm, and she was pulling her toward him, toward the last man Caroline ever wanted to see. He was far worse than her husband had been. At least that horrible man had never pretended to care.
They met at the open doors, where the ballroom merged with the foyer beyond, where a light breeze actually lifted the tendrils of hair at Caroline’s neck. She wanted to throw herself at him, hit him with her fists, make him feel the pain she was feeling. But there were too many people around.
“Caro is ill, Sutbridge,” Julia was saying, and pushing Caroline toward him. “See her to her carriage, won’t you?”
Caroline dug in her heels, wanted to say no, but the words were caught deep in her chest, in the anger that colored everything. He took her other arm, even as Julia released her. His touch shouldn’t still make her feel that ridiculous longing for life to be different.
“You do look flushed.” He looked flushed. And he sounded worried, as if he cared.
She followed him into the foyer, where only a few people stood conversing. Shaking, she found herself leaning on him as they descended the stairs.
“You should hardly be spending your gallantry on me,” she said bitterly, pulling her arm away.
He stopped, a step below her, impeding her progress. Finally she was forced to look at him, to see him. He was ridiculously handsome, beguilingly familiar––that same devastating lock of hair falling over his brow––and the sight hurt.
“And why shouldn’t I?” he demanded. “You think I can erase my emotions in the course of a week?”
“Hah!” She pushed past him, hurried down the rest of the stairs before she remembered it had not been her idea to go home. She wasn’t sick. Only furious.
The entryway was empty but for the footman who stared at her, awaiting an order. She twirled where she was and found a wall of heat, of Sutbridge, before her.
“Such pretty words you said,” she hissed, glaring up at him. “But now even you know such devotion is a lie.”
Sutbridge loomed over her, the sudden darkening of his expression, the coal-hard cast of his brown eyes stopping the next burst of vitriol unspoken on her tongue. She bent back under his fierce attention, the edges of her vision a blur of shadows.
“Say what you like,” he said, each word lined with danger. “Live in your prison of fear, but don’t dare presume to know what I feel.”
Before she could respond, he was holding her, pulling her with him and the mere touch of his hand made her pulse flutter. She tripped after him, desperate to break away, to tell him hotly that she was not afraid. But he pushed her past him into a dark, empty dining room, caught her against the wall between his arms. She was breathless and aware that in some way the force of his actions thrilled her.
“But I’d rather you didn’t,” he whispered. “I’d rather you accept that I love you, consider that you feel some small regard for me.” He was so close and his head bent down, as if he wanted to kiss her. Worse, she wanted to kiss him. But he wasn’t hers and he never would be.
“Let me go!” she demanded, pushing at him. “You’re insane. You can’t get engaged one day and maul another woman the next.”
“I’m hardly—” He stopped, raised his head. She could see the shape of him now, her eyes adjusted to the darkness. In the long silence of his aborted speech, she started to close her eyes against the sight. “What are you talking about?”
Over the deafening tread of hundreds of guests upstairs, and the faint strains of the orchestra, Caroline could hear the pounding of her heart and the raggedness of Sutbridge’s breath.
“Artemesia Landry,” she said softly, the name an accusation. “Just one week ago, you said you loved me. Said I meant something to you. And now you’re marrying some seventeen-year-old idiot!” She pushed at his chest, angry with him, furious at herself for caring.
He laughed, but there was little h
umor in the sound.
“I’m not marrying her and I don’t know where you got that idea. But why should you care, Caro?” He pinned her with his questioning gaze. “You gave up the right to care about anything I do the day you refused me. Refused my honorable suit.”
He wasn’t marrying the Landry girl. Was this the truth? Had Julia’s words been a ruse, to inspire jealousy?
“But you’re jealous,” he said, as if he could read her thoughts. There was an edge to his voice, as if he thought he could peel her like an onion, expose the most vulnerable part of her. Her skin grew cold and her chest clenched tight. She’d given too much already.
“You planned this! You and your sister. Trying to manipulate me into desperation. Let me go!”
But he didn’t move. Instead he smiled, a harsh, demanding curve of the lips that never met his eyes.
“I had nothing to do with it, but if it worked, I’m pleased.” He lifted one hand, stroked the bare skin at her throat and she shuddered. “Are you desperate, Caro? Are you scared of losing me forever?” His hand claimed her neck and his thumb made lazy circles where her cheek met the lobe of her ear. The power of it made her whole body gasp, made her want to give her breath up to him. “Because that’s how I felt when I heard of your marriage. Then ten years later, my heart opened again with hope.”
The words were as drugging as the touch of his fingers, and they pulled at her chest, enticing her, lifting her… but she couldn’t believe.
“You had me in your hands, Caro,” he continued, but it was she he had in his. “I would do anything for you, anything for your love. But I need you as my wife.”
She held her breath, head resting against the cloth-lined wall. She could give in. She could just say yes. Be his forever. Know he was forever hers.
Or she could say no, and someday he would marry. Some seventeen-year-old fertile thing, who danced and blushed and thought she was in love.
He wasn’t asking for her love.
Caroline’s chest clenched. If he’d asked a decade earlier, she would have given him her hand, her love, anything she had to give.
Caroline and the Duke: A Regency Short Story Page 3