Unmasked by the Marquess

by Cat Sebastian

  “Do not toy with me, dear Robin.” His voice was wonderfully sinister. “Or I will take you into one of those alcoves and do awful things to you.”

  He dropped her hand and she chanced a sidelong glance at him. He didn’t look like a man propositioning a lover, not even in jest. No, he had a frankly wondering expression, as if he had just now come to the not-so-welcome conclusion that he would indeed take her into the alcove despite all his best judgment.

  “There are a good many alcoves here,” she observed conversationally.

  He sniffed. “This room appears to have been designed for couples to slip away discreetly. It probably was, come to think. I can imagine the lady of the house and my dear papa deep in consultation with the architect.”

  She would ignore that comment. “That passageway over there, for example,” she said, gesturing with her chin to a narrow vestibule, “leads to the music room.”

  The sound he made came from deep in his chest, more a growl than anything else. “And what would you have me do in the music room, you wanton?”

  “I haven’t quite settled my mind on a course of action, sorry to say.” She slid one of her feet over so her boot touched his. “I’m afraid I’m sadly indecisive. It’s as if you brought me to your library and asked me to choose only one book. I’d be paralyzed by the variety. I’d want to read them all, you see, but there isn’t time for that.”

  She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye and saw his own eyes widen. “Then I will make the decisions.” His voice as cool and remote as it ever was, despite the fact that she could plainly see the throbbing pulse in his neck. “That reminds me,” he added, with a degree of composure that only the Marquess of Pembroke could hope to attain, “if you’re so overwrought by the library at my London house, you’d be brought to fits of insensibility by the library at Broughton Abbey.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.” There was no possibility she’d ever see his family’s principal seat for herself. Whatever her faults, she wasn’t delusional.

  At that, he turned to face her, but she kept her eyes on the front of the room, where the cat-carrying astronomer was talking about his observations of one planet having passed in front of the other earlier that year.

  “Do you follow this?” Alistair whispered after a moment.

  “Yes,” she said. “I went to Cambridge. I took a double first. Ask anyone.” She saw his eyebrow lift as he realized she had echoed his own words. “Perhaps you found Oxford less rigorous?” she asked innocently.

  “Oh, the devil take you.” But his eyes were dancing.

  “Mrs. Allenby is coming this way.” She leaned close enough to breathe in the scent of his soap. “Either you be civil to her—you are a guest in her house, Alistair—or I’ll step away so I’m not tainted by association with your rudeness.”

  “Tainted by—Oh, that’s terribly rich coming from you, scapegrace.”

  But when Mrs. Allenby drifted over, he bowed very properly and asked after her health.

  The lady looked from Alistair to Charity and back again. “Thank you for coming, Pembroke. Very kind of you.”

  Alistair opened his mouth to answer, but Charity cut him off. “You can’t thank him for anything. He’ll only start telling you that he doesn’t mean to be kind, and before he’s done you’ll quite believe him.”

  “You have a sad lack of gravity,” Alistair said after Mrs. Allenby had moved on.

  “It’s a failing,” she said merrily. “But I get along.”

  He nudged her with his shoulder. “Robin, I came here tonight to tell you that I can’t see my way to finishing what we started in the garden.”

  Just as she expected. She refused to let her heart sink.

  “But,” he continued, “I thought about what you told me that night you arrived dripping wet.”

  “I’m surprised you remember anything that happened that night, as soused as you were.”

  “I remember.” His hand brushed idly against the small of her back. “You said that you put your worries to the side and enjoy yourself while you can. I want to do that. With you.”

  She needed to speak up before she became lulled by the feel of his hand on her. “I don’t want to be something you have to force yourself not to be ashamed of.”

  “Robin.” His voice was a murmur, a rumble, a thing she felt in her belly. “I don’t feel ashamed when I’m with you.”

  He was as good as telling her that he’d regret it only after the fact. But his eyes were dark and intent, his body warm and solid next to her.

  “Let’s go,” she said.

  Chapter Ten

  It didn’t matter how tempting that music room sofa looked. Alistair wasn’t going to defile Robin in the house his father had built for a mistress. He was respectable. He had standards.

  No, he was going to defile Robin in his own goddamned bed, as if that made it right.

  This plan of laying aside his principles long enough to enjoy himself, to enjoy Robin, seemed dubious at best. But he hadn’t been lying when he said he didn’t worry around her. He worried a hell of a lot about how this thing between them could result in anything but a disaster, but he did his worrying when she wasn’t around. When he was in the same room as her, all he could think about was freckles and laughter and how much he wanted to get his hands all over her, have her hands all over him.

  “Let’s go.” The whisper of her voice set his nerves on end.

  “Out,” he said from between gritted teeth, and made for the front door. He would have grabbed her by the arm and hauled her out if he didn’t think it would cause a stir, and besides, she was following along quickly enough.

  His carriage was waiting. Robin hopped in as soon as he opened the door, flashing him a smile over her shoulder. Christ, she would be happy at such a moment. Well, for that matter, so was he, but not a smiling sort of happy.

  No, he was a doubt-ridden and vaguely nauseated kind of happy, which he hadn’t realized until now was a possibility. His emotions usually landed on one side of the fence or the other: one side was relief, the other anxiety. What he’d give for a fraction of the rapture Robin felt listening to a lunatic poet or embarking on a misguided affair.

  After he slammed the door behind him and rapped on the roof to signal to the coachman, he looked over to see her pulling off her gloves. His cock jumped, the predictable bastard. “Did nobody ever tell you not to use your teeth?”

  “Of course they have,” she said blithely. “Louisa tells me every day. I have all manner of terrible habits, you know.”

  He seized one of her hands in his and started to pull off the glove properly. “First of all, you do not know where those gloves have been—”

  “Of course I do. They’ve been on my hands. My hands don’t go capering about town without me. That’s what wrists are for.”

  He had freed one of her hands and now held it firmly in his own, running his own gloved thumb over the wrist in question. “This is sophistry. I expect more from a Cambridge scholar.” Even in the dark of the carriage, he thought he could see her eyes darken at his touch, at the caress of leather over the soft skin on the underside of her wrist. “Secondly,” he continued, “you’ll ruin your gloves if you keep biting them.”

  She opened her mouth as if to present him with a counterargument, but then shut it again. “I need my hand back,” she said after a moment.

  He let go immediately. Ah, yes, all right then. She was going to be the reasonable one. He ought to be relieved that at least one person in the carriage had some sense. Very well.

  But then he felt her hand cup his jaw. “That’s why I needed them off, you see. I wanted to feel this.”

  “Feel what?” His wits were slow tonight. He needed everything spelled out for him.

  Her fingers stroked along his cheek. “The scratchiness.”

  Oh. “You probably need me to take off your other glove so you can properly appreciate both sides of my face.” Her fingers were warm and soft and he wanted all te
n of them to himself.

  She shook her head slowly, then swiftly pulled the other glove off with her teeth. Hell. “Not enough time.” That hand, once free, landed in his hair.

  “Like hell there isn’t. You’re coming home with me, aren’t you?” Wasn’t she?

  “Do you want me to?”

  He hauled her onto his lap. Christ, but she was light. “Figure it out, scholar.” He pulled her against him, letting her feel how hard he was, just from a bit of glove removal and stubble stroking.

  “Do you want me to?” she asked again.

  “Yes, for God’s sake, come home with me.” The carriage was slowing down. “Please.”

  “And what will we do when we get there?”

  “I’ll draw you a picture once we get inside.”

  She shook her head. “I need to hear you say it.”

  Ah. “Come to bed with me, Robin.” And in case she needed him to be more direct, he added, “Let me touch you. As much or as little as you like.”

  “And do I get to touch you in return?” Her lips skimmed over his own.

  “Please.” His voice sounded hoarse, ragged. “Please.”

  Alistair had no recollection of what nonsense he told Hopkins. Something about how Mr. Selby was borrowing a book and the servants needn’t wait up. And Robin, the little deceiver, was as cool as could be, asking after Hopkins’s gouty leg.

  At the top of the stairs, Alistair possessed himself of her elbow and marched her past the library to his own bedchamber. The room was dim, lit only by a low-burning fire. That wasn’t enough, not by half. He wanted to see every inch of her. He lit a taper in the hearth, then used it to light the candles that were over the chimneypiece, near the bed—

  He noticed movement out of the corner of his eye. Robin was untying her cravat.

  “In a hurry?”

  “Yes, frankly.” She unwound the cravat, exposing her pale throat.

  He set the taper down and sat on the edge of bed, not daring to go any closer. Besides, he wanted to watch how she disrobed. That way he’d know what to have her doing in his fantasies.

  “Good.” His mouth went dry.

  She didn’t step any closer, but turned so she was fully facing him. Her coat dropped silently to the carpeted floor. The only sound in the room was the crackling fire, Robin’s fingers flicking open waistcoat buttons, and Alistair’s own shallow breaths.

  Alistair felt his control begin to slip when he watched her shrug nimbly out of her waistcoat. Her shirt was the usual thin linen, perhaps a trifle overlaundered, and through it he could see the outline of her silhouette. She was slim, the straight line of her braces scarcely interrupted by the slight curve of her breasts. He hadn’t allowed himself to wonder what she did about her breasts to keep them hidden in her disguise, because he feared that once he let his imagination travel down that path he’d never be able to talk to her in public without becoming visibly aroused. But somewhere in the back of his mind he had supposed she wore something to bind or constrict herself.

  But it was plain that she did not. He could see her nipples through the filmy fabric of her shirt. All this time, she had been walking around with her breasts simply there, framed by braces and scarcely covered by a waistcoat and coat? Riding in the park, lounging at the club, her breasts had been loose under a few scant layers of fabric? He dug his fingers into the edge of the mattress.

  “Come here,” he rasped.

  She stepped between his legs, no trace of coyness about her, and thank God for that. Gingerly, she took off his spectacles, which he had forgotten he was wearing, and reached over to place them on the bedside table.

  “Robin.” He slid the braces off her shoulders and settled his hands at the nip of her waist. He felt the slide of her hands against his jaw. There was no accounting for tastes, and if she wanted to paw his stubble he wasn’t going to dissuade her. Then her hands threaded through his hair and he closed his eyes, feeling her fingers caress the back of his neck, his shoulders, his arms. Her lips were on his, another mere dusting of a kiss.

  But then she pulled away, leaving him searching pathetically for her mouth with his own. “I meant what I said.” Her voice was firm, and with one hand she tipped his head back so he had to look her in the face. Her chin jutted out, like a boxer ready to take a punch. “If you have any regrets about this, or your better angels give you hell for enjoying yourself for once in your life, then I don’t want to hear about it. You keep that to yourself.”

  He smiled, more at the fierceness of her tone than at her words. “All right.” At the moment, he didn’t care about anything but her, and that lightness was rare and fragile, precious and all too temporary. “I promise.”

  He needed to see her. He untucked her shirt and bent to plant a kiss on the smooth, warm skin he had just exposed. Sliding the hem of her shirt higher, he kissed his way up from her ribcage until he reached the underside of her breasts. She let out a breathy sigh, and took the shirt out of his hands, tugging it over her head.

  Thank God he had lit the candles.

  “You can’t stare at me like that.” She brushed one of her wayward strands of hair behind her ear.

  “Like hell I can’t.” He’d stare all he pleased, and then he’d run his hands along her skin. Then his mouth. He’d take his time, get every drop of pleasure out of this night. “You’re beautiful.”

  “You’re missing your spectacles.”

  He skimmed his hands down her arms and felt her shiver in response. She was all hard angles, sharp lines. Bones and sinew covered in silky skin. “I see you perfectly well.”

  She snorted in response and he smiled at how unladylike—indeed, ungentlemanlike—the sound was.

  She had no freckles below her chin. He cupped her breasts in his hands—truly, he had much more hand than she had breast, but that only meant he could possess all of her at once—and heard the hitch in her breath. He looked up at her face and saw that she had closed her eyes, but her jaw was set. Keeping his eyes on her face, he ran his thumbs over her taut nipples, and saw her eyes fly open.

  “You like that.” He did it again. And then again, until she moaned. Good. This knowledge was enough to work with. He leaned forward and drew one of her nipples into his mouth, sucking gently, then harder, then worrying the tip with his teeth and tongue. Her breathless sounds of pleasure and need went straight to his cock.

  “I’m not feeling patient.” Her voice was strained.

  “What are you feeling, then?” he murmured, before bringing his mouth to her other breast. He slid his hands down her sides, past the slight dip of her waist to her hips and lower. He squeezed her backside through her breeches, soft under his grip on her otherwise spare frame.

  She was quiet, and he thought she had lost her train of thought. Understandable, given the circumstances. He could feel her heart racing, feel her breaths quickening.

  “I’ve wanted you for a while.” Her voice was serious, so he pulled his mouth away. Her breasts were wet from his mouth, reddened from where his coarse stubble had chafed her.

  “I know,” he said. And he had. He had known almost from the beginning that there was an attraction between them, shared and dangerous. “I’ve wanted you too.” He pulled her closer against him, between his legs, letting his arousal press into her thigh.

  She let out a helpless little moan. “Don’t make me wait. Please. Let me . . . make me come soon, Alistair.”

  He felt a rumble in his chest. Was he growling? Christ. Did she think he would say no to such a request? He opened the fall of her breeches, tugged them down around her hips, and fell to his knees before her.

  Charity wasn’t sure she had ever imagined a sight more erotic than Alistair kneeling before her, still dressed in his perfect evening clothes, his lips against her most sensitive flesh. She wove her fingers through his sleek, dark hair. Even in the candlelight, flecks of silver were visible among the black, which somehow added to the pleasure she was taking from the sight. Another item to add to her list
of depravities.

  Feeling his tongue slide in between the folds of her flesh, she tried in vain to part her legs for him. But she was still in her damned boots and breeches, and there was only so much she could move. His stubble rasped against her inner thigh, and if he didn’t make her come soon, she was going to do it herself. Then, thank God and all his angels, he slid a finger inside her—only one finger, which shouldn’t have been enough but somehow was because it was his finger—and she felt her pleasure rise.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “That’s it.” He was stroking her with his tongue exactly where she needed it, filling her with his finger, and it was perfect. It was so simple, it was the easiest thing in the world, this rush of pleasure that was washing over her. “Yes,” she said again, and it dissolved into a moan of pleasure as her climax overtook her.

  He kept his mouth on her, his finger stroking inside her, until her last wave of pleasure subsided. Then he had one arm around her shoulders and the other behind her knees, and he was throwing her bodily onto the bed.

  “Robin,” he rasped, “do I need to be careful?” He had shucked his coat and was unfastening his breeches, but other than that he was fully dressed, hardly even rumpled.

  “Careful?” She was still dazed, and it took her a moment to understand. “Do you mean about babies? Yes, please.”

  “No, no, that goes without saying.” He tugged off one of her boots and then the other. “I meant . . .” He grabbed her breeches by the waistband and peeled them off, leaving her completely naked. “God.” He stared, but by now she understood that his stares weren’t critical. When he spoke, his voice was a rasp. “You’ve done this before, I think? Or do I need to take care?”

  She smiled and flopped back onto the pillows. “You don’t need to take care. Please don’t, in fact.”

  “Very well.” He pulled himself out of his opened breeches, and she propped herself up on her elbows to get a better look. She licked her lips.