Bridal Favors

by Connie Brockway

  His lips followed his fingers as he pushed the ugly wool away. His fingers brushed across her nipple and felt it clench beneath her chemise into a tight, ready pearl. His mouth passed across the thin cotton, a moist heated kiss of breath.

  A thin cry seeped from her throat. Her back arched further, offering her breast. He laid his tongue against the thin cotton and she jerked, her breath hitched in a sound of amazement. He stopped and let his tongue rest against the hard nub, shivered with this terrible exercise in restraint.

  “Justin!”

  She furrowed her fingers though his hair, pulling him down, wanting his mouth on her. There! Where it was most wicked of all! She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak. Words caught in her throat, turned into gasps and pants.

  Speak? She couldn’t even bear her own weight. He simply moved her body, at turns limp and agitated, restless and lax, opening her to pleasure after pleasure. Then, abruptly, the warm, wet kisses were gone.

  She opened her eyes as he opened the tiny seed buttons on her chemise, his tanned hand extravagantly masculine against its whiteness. His gaze was intent on the body he worked so hard to reveal. . . .

  Her body. Her small, scrawny, underformed body.

  A thread of panic infiltrated her haze of sexual bliss. She found his wrist and clasped it, stopping him from undressing her. He met her gaze, his intent expression first questioning, then accepting. He nodded.

  She’d been right to panic. He’d come to his senses. A man like him would expect more. More experience. More polish. More woman. Something inside of her, something that had felt like wings expanding, cringed, curling back into a tight little chrysalis.

  “Yes, you’re right. Of course,” he muttered, twitching her blouse back into place. “You must think me a bounder of the worst sort. Forgive me.”

  He lifted her to her feet, stepping back and turning away from her. He was breathing heavily. “Can you forgive me? Can you ever feel safe with me again? No. Of course not. What an asinine question.”

  He paced back and forth over the uneven cobbled floor, his shadow stalking the dingy, mold-covered far wall.

  “If I promise never again to touch you . . . ?” he said. “I would leave, I swear I would, but—I wish I could explain—”

  “I understand,” she said. She sounded so reasonable, so calm, when inside she was shattering.

  He stopped, looked at her. “You do?”

  “Of course. You told me you’d reformed.”

  His face furrowed into a look of frenzied bewilderment. “What has that to do with this?”

  She tried to button her dress, but her fingers were numb. At least her voice was under her command. “Well. I expect—I mean, you did get carried away.”

  “God.” His smile was acrimonious. “I guess you could say that. But that’s no excuse.”

  “Not an excuse, no. But an explanation. I mean, I expect it’s rather being like an opium addict, isn’t it?”

  He stood rock still.

  “Being a womanizer, I mean,” she elucidated.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Your reformation. And you have reformed. I quite believe you. In fact, I suspect that you’ve been reformed for a long time. I mean, all the evidence up until now proves it. Until these past few minutes, that is.”

  She was becoming increasingly aware that while her tone might be under her control, the words themselves were not. But she couldn’t seem to stop. “I mean, you don’t lose a propensity like that through lack of use, do you?” she went on idiotically. “It must be like riding a bicycle. Get a woman into your arms and all the old magic returns and it is magic. I quite see now why you were successful. I do,” she said sincerely. He swam in her vision and she blinked rapidly.

  “Are you out of your mind?” he asked.

  “No. I don’t think so,” she replied honestly. “I was just trying to reassure you that I know I don’t have anything to fear from you and that this . . . episode is an isolated incident, and you won’t—” God, she was going to cry! She bit her lip hard, blinking like a blind bat in a beam of light. “—won’t ever happen—” Where were her damn glasses? They must have slipped off during their . . . She felt naked without them. Ah! There. On the floor. She picked them up and put them on. Immediately she felt better. Safer. “Won’t ever happen again!”

  Why was he scowling like that?

  “And just how do you know this?” he ground out. Her own nature, combative and proud, rose from the ashes of humiliation and answered his belligerent pose.

  “Well,” she said stiffly, “I expect that sex is like a drug.” She ignored his growl. “And as with a drug addict, any chance to enjoy the old vice would be hard to resist. Especially after a long abstinence.”

  “‘Any chance’? Even you?” he asked coldly.

  She blanched, but went doggedly on, driven to prove her point. “Well. Yes. Even me.”

  He stalked forward. She withstood the temptation to scuttle back. He looked as if he wanted to hit something. This last half-hour had been a series of revelations. First she’d seen him grow angry, not only once, but twice, and now she saw him look violent.

  She held her ground. He stopped a yard from her. His hands clenched and unclenched at his side. “That is a pile of bullshit!”

  She gasped.

  He grabbed her arms, lifting her off her feet and pulling her close. “I was carried away because I want you. You. Evelyn Cummings Whyte. I want to make love to you. I want to feel you beneath me, every svelte, delicate inch of you. I want you naked beneath my hand, my mouth, my flesh. I want to taste you, have you, own you!”

  He shouldn’t be saying these things to her! The blood boiled to the surface of her skin, burning her with embarrassment, but more, with a fever of longing.

  She believed him. Her amazement turned into a sudden, dazzling sense of her own power. He wanted her. Enough to “get carried away.”

  For the first time in her life, Evie felt completely, ravishingly female. And for the first time in her life, she did not weigh her response, she simply gave in to it. Purposefully, she lifted her hands and spread them against his chest. His heartbeat thundered through her palms as her fingers rode his heaving chest. She’d done that.

  She looked up into his face, delighted with herself. She studied him from beneath the spiky fringe of her lashes. “Do you?”

  “Do I what?”

  “Want me?”

  His hands dropped from her side; he stepped back. His face grew still. “Are you taunting me, Evie?” he asked in a careful voice.

  “No,” she replied at once. “I’m trying to tempt you. I want you to kiss me. And those other things.”

  “The hell you do!” The words burst from him. He didn’t make a move, he just stood there, his stance wide, his hands at his sides like a boxer waiting for the first blow.

  Her gaze slid down his face, to his torso, to his trousers. His fly tented out. With a start, she realized by what. He was . . . enlarged. His gaze followed hers.

  “Yes,” he finally replied to her question. “I want you. But that’s rather obvious.”

  “Very obvious.” She knew she should be horribly self-conscious, that she should be fainting with mortification, and she was: deep inside, she was abashed and self-conscious and uncomfortable. And if he showed the least amusement, she would sink right through the floor.

  But he didn’t. He looked as shaken as she felt. Even his sarcasm had been delivered in an unsteady voice. The idea fascinated her.

  She slid one foot forward. “Then,” she said hesitantly, her eyes never leaving his face, “can we do those things again?”

  “No.”

  “Please?”

  “God.” He struggled.

  “Is that still a no?”

  He lost.

  He snatched her up, crushing her in his embrace, his mouth descending upon hers in uncontrolled hunger, his tongue plunging inside her mouth, feasting on the taste of her. He growled deep in his th
roat, sexual imperative compelling him to ignore the demands made by a fast-vanishing conscience.

  Precocious learner that she was, this time she was not content to simply accept his passion. This time, foolish girl, she must participate. It would be her undoing. Or his. She returned his ardent kisses, her head lifted, her mouth open, her tongue meeting his and making its own sweet exploration.

  “Evelyn,” he panted, breaking away. “Evie. You don’t know. You don’t understand—”

  “Yes. No. I don’t know.” She sounded dazed and single-minded. “Want me. Show me. Please.”

  “Yes. Oh. Yes.”

  She yanked at his shirtfront, undoing some buttons, sending others skittering across the cobbles. Her hand slid beneath his open shirt. He froze at her touch, his kiss ending, his lips still clinging lightly to hers, his harsh breath sluicing over her mouth as he closed his eyes and soaked up the heady, eviscerating sensation.

  “Justin!” she whispered against his lips.

  His forehead fell against hers, his body unwillingly relaxed. She undid him, unraveled him. With the brush of her fingers across his heart, she swept away a lifetime of careful autonomy. She scared the hell out of him.

  Because for her, he couldn’t say what he wouldn’t do.

  The realization brought his head snapping up. He jerked her to her feet. He couldn’t stay with her. Couldn’t look at her, all sweetly tousled. Couldn’t even begin to explain. He wouldn’t make it past the first sentence before he had her in his arms again. And he didn’t know what would stop him if he began kissing her again.

  “Tell me to stop,” he asked her.

  “I don’t want you to stop.”

  He made a strangled sound, raising his eyes to heaven. “Yes. You do.”

  She shook her head at once, certain, honest to a fault. Manipulative, prickly, funny, touching, smart, and most of all, abysmally ignorant, because she’d made it clear she wouldn’t stop him. Which left all matters of self-control up to him.

  “Bloody hell!” He pushed her away and bolted for the stairs, taking them two at a time. At the top, he grabbed the handle and pushed. Nothing happened.

  He shoved. The door stayed stubbornly shut. Frustration, both sexual and otherwise, combined within him. He rammed his shoulder against the door. It held.

  “Bloody, bloody hell!” he shouted.

  “Justin?”

  He looked over his shoulder and found her halfway up the stairs, holding the lantern. Its light shimmered on her face, playing with the satin texture of her skin, burnishing the gleaming coils of her hair and the ripe swell of her lips. He banged his forehead against the door.

  “Justin? Are you all right?”

  “Yes!” No! “Stay there. We’re locked in.”

  “Perhaps I could—”

  “No!”

  “I say, this is all wrong.” There was something odd about her voice. . . . She was giggling! “I mean, as the unsullied maiden, aren’t I supposed to be the one pounding on the door?”

  “Go away!” He was at the end of his rope. He’d no more reserves, nothing left with which to resist her. If he looked into her merry, wicked eyes, he’d be lost. He could barely keep away from her as it was. He stood no chance against her in her current winsome, wicked mood. With a strangled oath, he pounded against the heavy oak door. “Let us out! Let us the hell—!”

  The door suddenly swung out, the bright light blinding him. He squinted. Figures stood in a cluster outside the cellar door: a pair of women in driving bonnets, a stranger wearing a pair of goggles, several workmen straining to peer over his shoulder, and Beverly looking even more stoic than usual. Only Merry seemed pertly interested.

  He heard Evelyn coming up the stairs behind him. All his protective instincts came surging to the fore, protective instincts he didn’t even know he owned. He stepped between Evelyn and the gaping crowd.

  “Who the bloody hell are you?” he demanded, ramming his shirttails into his trousers.

  The closest woman’s thin, aristocratic nostrils quivered. “Mrs. Edith Vandervoort.”

  “Who?” he repeated irritably. He was dusty, overwrought, underused, and in an altogether vile temper.

  “I’m the bride.”

  Chapter 16

  MERRY SAW BEVERLY furtively slip something into his coat pocket. Something, she assumed, being the key to the wine cellar.

  Just like a man, she thought, about as subtle as a sledgehammer. But she had to admit it seemed to have gotten results. Mr. Powell had come out of that cellar missing half a dozen buttons, and Evelyn looked frankly blowsy. Her collar was buttoned, her eyes were bright as stars, and pink colored her cheeks.

  Merry gave Beverly a conspiratorial thumbs-up, to which he responded by shutting his eyes and shuddering.

  “Mrs. Vandervoort, we didn’t expect you!” Evelyn said.

  “Your hair is coming down,” was the only reply Mrs. Vandervoort made as she handed her gloves to the silent, veiled woman beside her.

  With a little start, Evelyn grabbed a swatch of loosened hair and jabbed pins into it. “The door jammed and we were locked in,” she explained.

  “I see,” Mrs. Vandervoort replied with a lingering look at Justin Powell. His answer to her questioning gaze was to glare, an attitude so unlike that of the easygoing scapegrace Merry had come to know that she found herself studying him more closely.

  His shoulders were set forward like a street fighter’s, half shielding Evelyn. He looked very ill-tempered. Really, he looked quite delectable.

  “Mrs. Vandervoort,” Evelyn stammered out, “may I present Justin Powell, the owner of North Cross Abbey?”

  Mrs. Vandervoort inclined her head. “How do you do?”

  “Fine, I hope,” Mr. Powell muttered and then, subtly but undeniably, his expression smoothed to bland affability. Now, that was interesting, thought Merry.

  “Mr. Powell,” Evelyn continued, thoroughly flustered, “my client, Mrs. Edith Vandervoort.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Justin said. “You’ll forgive how we look?” He smiled charmingly, yet Merry could not help but feel there was an underlying warning in his good-natured question.

  “After all,” he continued, “we were down in that miserable hole hunting up an acceptable quaff for your wedding toast. Found it, too. Where’s the wine, Evie? Ah, there it is.”

  Mutely, Evelyn thrust two dust-covered bottles at Mrs. Vandervoort. Justin nodded like a fond tutor whose student has produced the correct answer at orals.

  Mrs. Vandervoort glanced at the labels. “Very nice.”

  Justin adopted an expression of profound regret. “Can’t begin to express my sorrow that my grandsire was such a rotter to your grandmum. ’Spect a wedding will lay the old girl’s ghost, though, eh?”

  Though Merry had no idea what he was talking about, Mrs. Vandervoort obviously did. Her gaze shot toward Evelyn, who fidgeted guiltily.

  “How kind of you, Mr. Powell,” Mrs. Vandervoort said. “But regardless of my sentimental desire to be married here, I believe the past is best left in the past. I’m sure you agree.”

  She didn’t wait for his concurrence before continuing, “Would you be so kind as to have one of your men help with my secretary, Quail? He is outside. He was taken ill some days ago and has been unable to leave his sickbed. But he insisted on accompanying me, and now is unable to walk without assistance.”

  Evelyn looked around and spied Beverly trying to sneak out the back way. “Beverly! Go help Mrs. Vandervoort’s man into the house.”

  “I fly. Ma’am.” Bev crooked his finger, gesturing for the chauffeur—the fellow in goggles—to follow him, and retreated.

  “Now,” Mrs. Vandervoort continued, “as I originally informed you, I have brought my staff: Hector, my chauffeur; Quail, my secretary; and Grace Angelina Rose, my maid.” She motioned toward the big, silent woman.

  “I expect the guests to arrive within the next day or two, followed by my fiancé.” She paused. “Will that prove a probl
em, Lady Evelyn?” As she spoke she looked around the hall, taking in the newly plastered walls, the freshly waxed floorboards, and the sparkling silver on the sideboard. Her gaze neither approved nor condemned; it weighed and evaluated.

  When she turned it on Evelyn, Merry had the uncomfortable sensation that her small friend, too, had been weighed, evaluated, and judged . . . as a woman who’d just emerged from a man’s embrace. Her gaze moved to Justin, who looked every bit the part of the self-satisfied libertine.

  He’d crossed his arms, making no attempt to hide the fact that several shirt buttons were missing. His blue-green eyes were hooded, his smile disarming.

  “Do you foresee any problems?” Mrs. Vandervoort asked Evelyn again, this time looking pointedly at Justin. It didn’t take a scholar to figure out that the American lady was really asking whether Evelyn could control herself—and Justin Powell—until after Mrs. Vandervoort had left. A violent blush spread over Evelyn’s entire body.

  “No, no problem at all,” Merry interjected while Evelyn struggled to find her voice. “Lady Evelyn has exhausted herself in preparing for your wedding festivities. Why, look at the poor thing! She’s a mess!”

  Thankfully, the front door opened at this moment, sparing Merry the necessity of providing further explanations. Beverly and Mrs. Vandervoort’s chauffeur, Hector, entered supporting a slight, youngish-looking man.

  The poor creature was in terrible condition. Blond and of middling height, he slumped between the men, breathing hoarsely through his mouth. His skin was an unhealthy pasty color, glistening with sweat, and his shirt collar was wilted with perspiration.

  “Heavens!” Evelyn cried in alarm. “Merry, have Buck go to town and telegram for a doctor.”

  Merry started forward at once, but the man raised a hand, forestalling her. “Thank you, but . . .” He swallowed painfully. “Please don’t.”

  “Oh, my,” Mrs. Vandervoort murmured to Evelyn. “He is much worse than when I left him a short while ago. Perhaps you ought to send for someone.”