The sound of someone entering the little vestibule of her suite filtered into her room and Claudia sighed wearily, trying to summon her strength for Brenda or Tinley—whoever had come to see after her. She listened to the muted footfall, felt it tread upon her heart. The bright flare of the match startled her, and she abruptly looked up, blinking.
“Claudia.”
Oh, God. Julian.
Ashamed, she turned away and unsteadily brushed the back of her hand across her cheek, unable to look at him. “Tinley said you were here.” He walked into the room, and Claudia glanced at him from the corner of her eye. His was an intimidating figure; he stared at her, his expression inscrutable. It was like a knife to her heart, shredding the last bit of her hope, and she was suddenly desperate to at least have her dignity.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, choking back dry tears. “Papa … he brought me back. H-he believes my place is here until you say otherwise. I’m really very sorry, Julian—I tried my best to dissuade him—”
“You must be freezing,” he said softly.
Freezing. Not the response she had expected. She shook her head and slowly rose to her feet. “I’m not cold,” she said dispassionately. “I can’t really feel myself anymore.”
“I am very sorry to hear that.”
So was she. Looking at him now, at the sharp angles of his jaw, the thick hair that was still too long, black eyes boring into her, she was struck by just how sorry she was that she could not feel him any longer. There was a time she could feel his eyes on her from across a crowded room or his breath on the back of her neck when he wasn’t even nearby. And now … now she couldn’t feel a bloody thing. She was numb, deadened, her soul extinguished. God, how she regretted it all!
“Everything—this is all my fault, and I’m so very sorry,” she suddenly blurted, and covered her face with her hands, mortified that he should see her like this, like a beggar. “I was so stupid about so many things! From the beginning, even, and you are quite right, you know, for I’ve known you near forever … but I … I just loved you so desperately that I wasn’t thinking clearly all that time, and when the ladies would remark on your hands and your lips, and your beauty, I hated you for wanting them and not me—”
“Ah, Claudia,” he murmured, and took a cautious step toward her.
She was aware that she was on the verge of blathering hysterically, but she couldn’t stop herself, compelled by an unseen force to let the words tumble from her heart and into the open. She plunged on. “And then … then you were always with Phillip, always cavorting about, and it was no secret what the Rogues did, especially Phillip, and the night of Harrison Green’s there was Lady Prather, you know. So when I came here, and you and Arthur went out, I assumed it was all the same again, and I should never have listened to Tinley, but women are supposed to accept it, and I wasn’t supposed to mind terribly—but oh, God, I did!” she cried, covering her eyes with her hands again.
“Claudia—”
“I loved you so much that I couldn’t bear for you to touch me, because when you touched me, I felt as if I was the only woman in the world to you, but I wasn’t! There was always another whom you touched in the very same way—”
“I never touched another woman, Claudia—don’t say more!” he begged her, taking another step toward her.
But she stumbled backward, out of his reach, unable to stop now until every last dark secret was out. “And I lied to you! Not just about Sophie, not only that, but about Phillip, too,” she sobbed, lifting her head to look at him. “I lied to myself. I never loved Phillip, not like I have loved you, not like I love you now, and I am quite thankful I did not marry him, because I know what my life would have been, and it wouldn’t have been this,” she said, gesturing wildly about her. “It wouldn’t have been you, and I would have been so sorry, so very sorry all my life! Yet I lied because I was hurt. I thought … I thought you didn’t like me very much, that you thought something was infinitely wrong with me, and that you wished you had never known me, and perhaps you do, and I surely would understand if you were to go to my father right away and demand that he take me back—”
“I will never let you go again,” he said hoarsely, moving forward until he was within arm’s reach of her.
His nearness made her panic, as if she was standing too close to the edge—if he touched her, she would fall. She jerked her arm up, holding it straight in front of her. “This is … so humiliating,” she muttered miserably. “To be sent back to someone who doesn’t want you—”
“I want you—”
“Forced to grovel at your feet like some beggar—”
“It is I who am at your feet.” He carefully reached for her, his fingers fluttering to her hand and closing around it.
With a violent shake of her head, Claudia said, “I can’t bear this—I’ve ruined your life, I know it—”
“You have enriched it beyond measure—”
“I committed a crime when I took Sophie, with no thought to the consequence, and therefore, my crime is your crime—”
Julian suddenly jerked her toward him, grabbing her arms. “Claudia, listen to me,” he said roughly, stooping down so that they were at eye level. “I love you! I have loved you hopelessly for far too long. There is not a single hour of the day that goes by that I do not think of you, not a moment I don’t look for you or strain to hear your voice! All I want—” He stooped lower, forcing her to look at him. “All I want on this earth is for you to love me in return, if even just a little.”
Her heart caught, suspended somewhere between heaven and earth. “Oh, no,” she moaned, and her legs buckled under the weight of those words. She went down on her knees, Julian with her, still holding her in a fierce grip. “I love you,” he said again, his fingers curling deeper into her arms.
Inconceivable. After what she had done? “Don’t say that,” she begged him, squeezing her eyes shut against the poignant look in his eye. “Don’t say it to me because I will fall to pieces—”
“No you won’t,” he said, shaking her once. “You will love me in return. You will love me as you tried to love me when I wouldn’t let you. You will show me how to live, Claudia; you will show me how to give myself to everyone around me, never fearing the propriety or the consequences. You will show me how to care so deeply for others less fortunate than myself. You will show me how to love you, because God knows I haven’t done it very well—”
“No!” she cried. “I’m afraid, Julian! You can’t know how very much it hurts—”
“The hell I don’t,” he muttered angrily. “Don’t give up on me, Claudia! It feels as if I have waited my whole life for you! I need you—can’t you see just how desperately I do? I can’t live without you. I can’t breathe without you! I ache when you are away, I ache when you are near, I am consumed with longing for you! Lord God, I am sorry; from the depths of my pathetic soul, I am sorry that I didn’t understand it all sooner. But I do now, and I swear to you, I swear I will do better, I will do whatever it takes … just love me.”
The fragile shell of what was left of her heart shattered, and with a strangled cry, Claudia surged into his arms, groping for him, needing to anchor herself to him and the comforting warmth of his body.
With a moan, Julian pressed his mouth hard to hers, delving deeply, seeking refuge. With his hands, he cradled her jaw, holding her as if she was fragile … and God, she was fragile, on the verge of shattering with remorse, relief, and a euphoria that was sweeping her along on a tide, melding her against him.
He dragged his mouth across her cheek to her hair, his breath heavy in her ear as he pulled the pins from her hair. “Love me, Claudia.”
The hint of desperation in his voice made her heart flail wildly. He didn’t have to ask—she loved him, fiercely, deeply and still it was not enough. It could not be enough, she thought, and buried her face in his collar, breathing his scent, intoxicated by it as his hands pushed her cloak from her shoulders. She felt him shift, felt hi
s arm behind her, and she instinctively threw her arms around his neck. He suddenly lifted her in his arms, carried her as he kissed her eyes, her forehead, her mouth, and laid her on the bed, coming over her, surrounding her in darkness and warmth. “Never leave me,” he whispered, and descended hungrily to her mouth. Claudia eagerly sought the warmth of his body, clawing at the confining neckcloth, the waistcoat, and finally thrusting her hands deep inside his shirt to feel his hard chest and nipples.
Shuddering with her touch, his lips trailed down her neck to the top of her breasts, avidly tasting her until he could free her breast and bring it fully into his mouth. Instinctively, she arched into him, shamelessly indulging in the sweet sensation seeping through her skin to the fire burning in the pit of her stomach. With his mouth and hands he loved her, reverently caressed her and tasted her. Claudia returned his caress with one that grew more frantic, more insistent as a growing sense of elation and freedom overwhelmed her. With the one extraordinary exception of their wedding night, she had never allowed herself to feel him, to submerge herself entirely in the pleasure he gave her.
What had gone between them the last few weeks was seemingly forgotten, leaving nothing to inhibit their animal instincts. It was as if they were wild—her body felt feverish, the burning in the pit of her stomach now flaming, scorched every place he touched her, bewitched by unimaginable desire, obsessed with the need to feel all of him, to know love in its noblest and basest form.
Eagerly, anxiously, she pressed against him, her hands and mouth trailing across his hot flesh. With a guttural groan, Julian pressed his knee hard against the apex of her thighs. Claudia’s hand drifted down his chest, along the wool of his trousers, stroking the hardness between his thighs.
When she cupped him, Julian tensed, arched his neck. “You will kill me yet,” he rasped, and lowered his head, kissing her as she stroked him and felt him lengthen against her palm. Her fingers brushed against the buttons; she freed one, then another, and another, until his member sprang free, filling her hand with the heat of satin skin sliding over a marble core.
Suddenly, he jerked away from her, rearing back to discard his coat, and shirt. As he clawed at the pearl buttons on his shirt, he gazed down at her with dark intensity. “I can’t wait. I have wanted you like this, just like this for so long that I can no longer remember a time I did not.” Shoving out of his shirt, he caught her arm and yanked her up as one hand slipped behind her back, carelessly unfastening her gown so that he could pull it from her body.
When she wore nothing but a chemise and undergarments, Julian lowered her down, then lifted one ankle, flipping her shoe out into the dark room. His hand drifted up her calf, then to her ankle again, and slowly, carefully, he reached for the top of her stocking.
“If you had known how badly I wanted you like this,” he murmured as he slowly rolled the stocking down, pausing to kiss the bare skin of her thigh, “you might very well have summoned the authorities.” He tossed her stocking aside and kissed her toes, her ankle, her knee.
“If I had known you wanted me like this,” she responded raggedly, “I would have summoned the authorities to bring you to me.”
Julian chuckled against the soft inside of her knee, then bent her leg at the knee, pushing it aside so that he could skim his hand along her inner thigh and leave a path of white-hot sparks tingling in her skin. “From the moment I saw you in the Wilmington ballroom, I wanted to give you pleasure,” he said, and leaned down, his breath brushing the springy curls between her legs.
The groan was hers, she realized. Julian smiled lazily, shifting downward so that he might kiss the level plane of her belly as he shoved her chemise aside. Claudia moaned; her body was a raging inferno, her mind numb to all but his hands, his lips, his voice. This was nothing like she had ever experienced; all her burdens, all the darkness that had surrounded her for the last few weeks was gone, vanquished by his kiss and his touch, his whisper of love. She caught his head in her hands as he dipped between her legs, his breath and tongue skirting over the inferno blazing within her, then probing the core of her heat.
“Julian!” she choked, but he seemed not to hear her, too intent on laving her with excruciating deliberateness. The inferno was suddenly blazing out of control, raging through her limbs and her mind. He was relentless, the silkiness of his touch a stark contrast to the intensity of it. Claudia pulled anxiously at his hair as her hips began to move against him, meeting each rush of his tongue until suddenly everything went white. She was flying and sinking all at once, a cry of pleasure on her lips.
Groaning, Julian lifted his head and positioned himself between her legs. He stared down at her, his black eyes almost indistinguishable from the dark of the room as he lightly pressed the tip of his manhood against her sheath, pulsing with need, sending dangerous shocks of pleasure through her. The muscles in his arms bulged with the exertion of holding himself just above her; his lips skimmed the tip of her nose, her mouth. “I love you,” he whispered, and with the slightest move of his hips, slipped inside her.
“Desperately so,” he added breathlessly as he slid deeper. “And I always will.” He paused, withdrew slowly, only to begin the maddening slide into her all over again. Lost in the pleasure he was giving her, Claudia moved beneath him, angling her hips so that he might reach the very center of her being. His hand covered hers, sprawled somewhere above her head, squeezing it tightly as his stroke began to lengthen and quicken. Deep into her he slid, drawn in like the tide, then ebbing out of her, only to swell and rush her again. The experience was staggering; Claudia could feel the roar inside her, as if the surf was actually pounding and pounding against her until she was suddenly plunging headlong into a pool of rapturous oblivion, bathing in wave after wave of pleasure all over again.
She rocked beneath him, flowing upward to meet his body’s bearing into her. Her hands roamed his body, feeling the corded muscle of his neck, his back, and then the heavy sacs that swelled in her hand. Julian’s breath came as a hiss between clenched teeth; his strokes were suddenly urgent, burrowing deeper into her until it seemed to her they were one body, one being, impossible to discern where one heart ended and the other began. Claudia could feel her body tighten around him as she experienced another shattering release into the dark, and as she lifted her hips to meet his powerful thrust, he tossed his head back and cried out, convulsing violently into her womb, giving over his life’s blood.
With a final shudder, he lowered himself to his elbows, panting heavily, and touched his forehead to hers. Neither of them spoke. Claudia tenderly brushed damp hair from his temple, ran her fingers down the dewy skin covering the muscles of his arm, silently praying that this extraordinary moment would never end, that what had happened here would never ever leave her.
They remained that way, silently observing one another like two lovers, until the cold air began to chill them. Wordlessly, Julian left her to light a fire. He came back to the bed, pulled back the linens, and ordered her beneath them with a strong warning that she was to remain just there until he came back. Shoving into his trousers, he disappeared, returning a short time later in a long velvet dressing gown, carrying a tray of bread and cheese and wine. They feasted in her bed, whispering their love to one another, laughing softly about nothing and everything. And then Julian made love to her again, slowly and deliberately, prolonging the ecstasy until she thought she would go quite mad.
When he at last slept, he held her tightly in his arms as if he feared she would leave him while he slumbered. Burrowing into his side, Claudia closed her eyes, dreamily reliving each exceptional moment. Nothing had come between them tonight—it was as if they held the world at bay for a moment in time, and it had been the most wonderful moment of her life.
But as she drifted asleep, she felt the distant tug of reality on her conscience, the faint warning that it was an illusion, that it could never remain so sweet.
Twenty-Six
AS HIS MIND slowly began to cast off the veil of s
leep, Julian reached for her, but found the bed empty. Forcing his eyes open, he pushed himself up to his elbows with a groggy harumph and looked around. Claudia was crouched in front of the hearth wrapped in his dressing gown, her hair wild and flowing down her back, poking at the dying embers of the fire he had left flaming a few hours ago.
“Come back to bed, my love. I will warm you,” he said, yawning.
She flashed a smile at him over her shoulder. “The sun is up,” she informed him, and continued poking at the embers.
Damn.
Still smiling, she stood up and carefully wiped her hands on the outer folds of his dressing gown. Julian beckoned her to him. “Come here,” he said gruffly. She obeyed him, moving gracefully across a floor strewn with clothing and wine bottles and a tray of stale bread and hard cheese to sit on the edge of the bed. Julian came up on his elbow to nuzzle her neck.
Claudia giggled, squirming away from him. “That tickles,” she pleaded.
Reluctantly, Julian lay back against the pillows, letting his hand slip inside the voluminous sleeve of his dressing gown and drift up the inside of her arm over skin that felt like silk. She seemed awfully pensive, he thought, especially after the night of extraordinary love-making they had shared. He himself was feeling rather randy at the moment. “What is it, Claudia?”
“Nothing!” she declared, a little too adamantly. She blushed immediately and looked down at her lap. “All right,” she said slowly. “I will not pretend. Last night was … it was the most beautiful, wonderful thing that has ever happened to me.”
His groin responded to that with a faint reverberation. “That, my darling, is an understatement,” he said, and absently fingered the end of a long strand of her hair.
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