When his voice came out of the darkness, she braced herself for some reproof about her timidity. Instead, he said, ‘I must admit, in all the rush to finish up the details necessary for the wedding, I’ve not thought much beyond today. We could take a bridal trip, if you like. I’m ashamed to admit, I have no idea where you might wish to go. Do the wonders of ancient Rome appeal to you? The mountains of Switzerland?’
Seizing on that safe topic, she said, ‘Have you visited them?’
‘Rome, yes, and some other parts of Europe during my travels to and from Vienna.’
‘What did you find most interesting about Rome?’
Fortunately, he’d found the city fascinating and was quite willing to describe it. Caro needed only to insert an enquiry here and there to prompt him to elaborate on his observations.
After a few minutes during which nothing more was required of her than to listen, Max said, ‘But enough of my travels. Would you like to visit the city?’
‘Perhaps some day. For now, I wish to return to Denby Lodge as soon as possible. As you may recall, the winter sale takes place—’
Before she could finish her remarks, the carriage braked and slowed to a halt. Max hopped out and waited by the steps for her to alight. A mix of dread and anticipation accelerating her heartbeat, she put a cold hand on his arm and followed him into the hotel.
Chapter Sixteen
Acutely conscious of the powerful, virile man beside her, Caro responded with mechanical civility to the manager’s greeting. Her nerves tightened as if turned upon a vice with each step up the stairway as a servant led the way and ushered them into an elegantly appointed sitting room. In her super-sensitised ears, the soft snick of the door as he exited echoed as if he’d slammed it.
Numbly Caro noted the trunk Dulcie had packed for her sitting inside the adjoining dressing room. Opposite that, beyond a partially opened door, was a bedchamber dominated by an enormous, four-poster bed.
Images danced through her mind...Max’s warm, strong hands stroking her skin as he removed her gown...his hard lean body, naked in the candlelight.
A wash of heat coursed through her. Jerking her gaze away from the bed, she tried to shut the thoughts out of her mind.
She turned to find Max, with an amused smile that said it must not have been his first request, asking if she’d like a glass of wine.
Seizing upon anything that might calm her nerves, Caro accepted gratefully. Beneath the anxiety, eddies of excitement were building. Her body whispered its hope that tonight Max would ignore their bargain and claim his marital rights. Lead her into the bedchamber, press her against the softness of the mattress, caress and kiss her as he removed her gown and bared his own body to her touch and admiration.
Her hands tingled at the thought of running the pads of her fingers over his arms, his legs, the flat nipples of his chest.
In another part of her brain, a near-panicked awareness shouted she must avoid that outcome at all costs...or she was lost.
Hoping he would make that decision soon and remove her from this agony of speculation, she walked to the sofa and perched on the edge, her back to the bedchamber door.
He brought her the wine and took a seat beside her.
‘Before we arrived, you were saying you wished to go home?’
‘Y-yes,’ she said distractedly. Heavens, how was she to think when he sat so close beside her she could feel the heat emanating from his body, his soft exhales of breath?
‘As you may remember,’ she forced herself to begin again, ‘the winter sale will take place in less than a month. There’s much work that must be done.’
‘I can well imagine.’
She looked down, unwilling to meet his gaze as she continued, ‘It’s not...necessary that you come to Denby, too. You’ve lived all your life in a hectic political household, took part as diplomats from every nation met to decide the future of Europe, then fought against Napoleon at Waterloo in the greatest army ever assembled. I wouldn’t expect you to be content rattling about a horse farm in Kent.’
Even as she uttered the words, she felt a completely illogical pang of regret. She’d come to hope they might pursue the friendship begun these last few days, she suddenly realised. In the moments when his imposing physical presence was not setting her nerve endings afire and turning her mind to mush, she’d enjoyed his companionship. Life without his intoxicating presence would seem somehow...tamer, less vital and exciting.
‘Would you miss me if I don’t accompany you?’ he murmured. Before she could decide how to reply, he distracted her by placing one warm, strong hand on the back of her neck.
Though she jumped at first contact, she soon found the gentle massage of his fingers on the tightly corded muscles wonderfully soothing. Oh, how she wanted to lean in and give herself up to the pleasure of his touch!
Soon, she might have to give up everything...perhaps even her very life. The tension retightening, she leaned away from his hand.
‘I will miss you,’ she answered honestly. ‘But I gave you my pledge not to interfere in your life and I meant it.’
‘I see. I could escort you home, at least. Unless...you don’t want me to meet your neighbours?’
That question was so absurd she had to laugh. ‘Nonsense—I shall be proud to introduce you in the neighbourhood!’ Envisioning the probable reaction, she added with a grin, ‘I’m sure many in the county will be astonished to discover that mannish scapegrace Caro Denby, who could scarcely make it to church with her skirts unmuddied and her gloves clean, managed to land an earl’s son. I’m afraid there are several matrons whose opinions of my running the stud matched Lord Woodbury’s.’
‘In my guise as the elevated son of an earl, would you like me to snub them?’
‘I think you’d find them difficult to snub! Even the prospect of having to be pleasant to me wouldn’t be distasteful enough to discourage those with marriageable daughters from seizing the opportunity to have their girls flirt with you, so they may claim acquaintance with your family when they go to London.’
To her dismay, at the prospect of having the lovely, blue-eyed Misses Deversham or the curvaceous brunette Miss Cecelia Woodard make eyes at Max, she felt a sharp pang of what could only be jealousy.
The ambitious mothers of local maidens were not the only ladies who would be happy to claim Max’s acquaintance in London. Now that he once again had the promise of high position, all sorts of women would be throwing out lures, hoping to entice a handsome earl’s son with a conveniently absent wife.
Was letting him go a mistake?
She shook her head. This was ridiculous. Max was not hers to hold. Even if he cared for her, under the terms of the bargain they’d made, she had promised him the freedom to pursue any women he wanted.
She looked up from that disagreeable fact to find him watching her, a slight smile on his face. ‘If I can’t discourage them from flirting with a snub,’ he murmured, that heated, caressing tone in his voice again, ‘then I shall just have to play the besotted bridegroom.’
Her mouth dried and panic jockeyed with attraction in the pit of her stomach. She stared at him, unable to tear her eyes from the intensity of his gaze, feeling the looming presence of the wide bed in the room behind them as if it were branded upon her shoulders.
The moment of surrender or resistance was imminent, the knowledge of its nearness pulsing a warning in her blood.
Her body craved surrender with every rapid heartbeat. Her mind, grimly conscious of the danger of the Curse, screamed at her to resist.
Sure she would go mad, pulled between two such diametrically opposing demands, a sudden, frantic desire to put off the decision filled her. She opened her lips, but her brain had gone blank and she could think of nothing else to delay the moment any further.
Would he take her now? In the next few minutes, she would finally find out.
Chapter Seventeen
Torn between wanting him to bed her and dreading that he would, when Max
took Caro’s hand again, she jumped.
Instead of tightening his grip and leading her into the bedchamber, Max released her. ‘Caro, Caro,’ he murmured. ‘I’m sure you know all about encounters between a stallion and a mare, which don’t appear very pleasant.’
She felt her face heat, but better to address the matter head-on, as it were. ‘Not for the mare, at any rate.’
‘I’m not so sure she doesn’t enjoy it, but I’ll bow to your superior knowledge of the equine species. I don’t suppose you have any experience about mating of the human kind?’
‘None,’ she admitted. ‘I thought gentlemen didn’t want brides who had such experience.’
‘That may be true, but it does create a drawback. You have nothing but my assurance that coupling between a man and a woman is nothing like what you’ve observed. It can be gentle, tender, cherishing.’
She nodded, every image his words conjured up stringing her already taut nerves tighter. Oh, how she wanted to experience it! If only she dared let him touch her, boldly and unafraid of the consequences. Still torn in opposing directions, she wished desperately he would make the decision for her and get on with it.
Distracted by those chaotic thoughts, when he touched a thumb to her cheek and stroked it, again she flinched.
He shook his head and chuckled. ‘That’s what I thought. Relax, sweeting. I promise I will never hurt you. You believe that, don’t you, Caro?’
To her dismay, a tear pooled at the corner of her eye, then ran down to wet his thumb. She was acting as dithering and missish as the sheltered ton maidens she despised, she thought, disgusted with herself, the battle between his powerful attraction and her need to resist it making her uncharacteristically indecisive.
Before now, she’d always made up her mind quickly and acted upon it. But until now, she’d never imagined there could be something that appealed to her so powerfully that she was tempted to risk the Curse.
He’d just given her a perfect opportunity to tell him about it, she realised. Why not reveal the true reason for her fear and reluctance?
She was about to confess it...until she remembered Lady Denby’s advice. Even the stepmother devoted to her well-
being discounted the seriousness of the Curse. Max, who had no experience at all with childbirth, would probably dismiss her concern as laughable.
Or, even worse, pity her cowardice.
Lady Denby was doubtless right about the other, too. Max might not have yet expressed a desire for a son, but, eventually, he would want one. They both knew the promise she’d extracted from him not to consummate their marriage was unenforceable. The best she could hope for would be to delay that consummation long enough to achieve for the stud what her father had dreamed, before Max’s desire for a son led to its probable result.
‘Caro!’ he called softly, telling her that she’d been silent too long, debating how best to answer his question. ‘You can’t truly believe I would hurt you!’
‘No, no, of course not.’
‘Good,’ he said, relief in his tone. ‘Then believe this, too. I respect you and care for you. Yes, I also desire you, as a lovely woman who is much more attractive than she knows. But regardless of my rights as your husband, I will never force intimacy upon you. Never take from you anything you are not willing to give, that you do not hunger for as fiercely as I do.’
Oh, if only she did not hunger for it so fiercely, she thought, suppressing a sigh. ‘I understand. And thank you.’
‘A kiss to seal the bargain, then?’
Caro eyed Max uncertainly. Was a kiss simply a kiss, or a prelude to more? But he’d just said he wouldn’t force her. And surely she was sensible enough to resist letting a simple kiss turn into something else.
Besides, she had burned to kiss him since that interrupted moment in the solicitor’s office. Why not stop worrying about what might happen next and simply enjoy claiming what she’d been denied?
Giddy anticipation thrumming through her, she gave in to the force that, since their first meeting in the conservatory at Barton Abbey, had impelled her towards him. ‘A kiss,’ she agreed.
She angled her chin up and closed her eyes, waiting, a breathless excitement feathering through her veins. Through closed lids, she could sense his face descending toward hers, feel the warmth of his breath on her cheek. Anticipation coiled tighter and tighter within her, impatience mounting to at last feel the brush of his mouth against hers.
But after a moment, when he had moved no further, she opened her eyes and looked up at him, puzzled.
He was gazing at her intently, the energy emanating from the molten blue of his eyes like the crackle in the air before a lightning strike. ‘I promised never to take from you, Caro,’ he murmured. ‘To give you only what you desire. So...show me what you want.’
Somewhat dismayed, she stared back at him. She’d never kissed a man in her life besides Harry and that hardly counted. They’d both been twelve when he surprised her by bussing her on the lips. She’d punched him afterwards.
Max had probably kissed dozens of women. Maybe hundreds.
Struggling with that daunting observation, her cheeks heating with embarrassment and thwarted desire, she said, ‘I don’t know...what to do.’
She feared he’d laugh at that humiliating confession, but instead he smiled. ‘Don’t think, just feel. Do what you want.’
What did she want? To touch him. The thick, wavy dark hair that always brushed his forehead. The smooth skin of his forehead and cheeks, the chin that in the late evening showed a dark shadow of stubble.
Uncertain, tentative, she reached up and ran her hand through his hair, to find it thick, luxurious, silky-coarse. Its soft slide against her fingers was arousing, making her want more. Emboldened, she traced the faint lines of his forehead, brushed a fingertip across his eyebrows, drew her nails lightly across the stubble of his chin. Traced her thumb across the surface of his lips, the skin firm, but softer than she expected.
He’d watched her expectantly as she explored his face, but as she traced her finger across his lips, his eyes drifted shut. ‘Yes,’ he murmured against her finger. ‘Yes.’
Suddenly, she wanted to know if the stubble that clicked against her nails would sound the same, brushed against her teeth. Urging his head down, she leaned up and opened her lips, raking her teeth across his chin, catching the taste of him on her tongue.
Heat and pleasure jolted through her. She added tongue to teeth, her finger twining in his hair as she licked and nibbled the short, wiry stubble that carried the taste and scent of male and shaving soap.
A sharp imperative began thrumming in her blood. Though she’d not yet had her fill of his chin and the strong underside of his jaw begged to be explored, she simply had to taste his mouth.
Rather than joining her lips to his, at first she licked them, tracing them from corner to crest to corner. A deep groan sounded, echoing in her chest—his or hers, she wasn’t certain.
Fevered impatience building tighter within her, she licked his lips again, then pressed hers against their wet surface. But that didn’t seem to be close enough, deep enough. Her tongue teased at the corners of his mouth and, before she could realise what she wanted, he opened for her.
She slid her tongue inside to discover a new world of wonder. Another wave of shocked, fevered excitement swept through her as her tongue collided with his.
And then his hands came up to cradle her face, gentle but urgent, and he was kissing her back. The rasp of his hot, wet tongue as he stroked it back and forth, back and forth against hers sent a heated excitement pulsing to the very core of her.
Her whole body seemed to be throbbing, melting. Her breasts felt heavy, turgid, the nipples tingling, while warmth and wetness pooled between her thighs.
He teased her with his tongue, tracing the edge of hers, then withdrawing, while, frantic, she pursued his. When he suddenly clamped his lips around her tongue, sucking it deep into his mouth, the pleasure crested until she tho
ught she might faint.
Her breath came in short, fevered pants and she couldn’t seem to draw in enough air. A sharp need built in her, driving her towards something she didn’t recognize, but wanted desperately. Her nails biting into his back, she clung to him, kissing him urgently, suckling his tongue and lips, trying to get closer, deeper, as if she might penetrate to the very core of him.
And then he broke the kiss, pushing her away before tucking her under his chin and holding her close. Against her ear, she could feel the hammering of his heart, the rapid rise and fall of his chest as he drew in breaths as ragged as hers.
‘Well,’ he said unsteadily a few moments later, ‘that was certainly worth the bargain.’
Her mind was still so fuzzy, she could barely understand his words, much less produce a reply. While she fumbled, trying to recover, he pushed away and slid to the far side of the sofa.
Was that his hardness she saw, straining against his trouser front? A sudden desire filled her to touch him.
Before she could act upon the urge, he said, ‘With all you’ve had to do these last few weeks, you must be exhausted. If we’re to leave for Denby Lodge early tomorrow, you must rest. Take the bed; I’ll be quite comfortable on the couch here in the sitting room.’
Bringing her hands to his lips, he kissed each fingertip, stirring the fire still not banked within her. ‘Rest well, dear wife. I shall see you in the morning.’
So...he didn’t mean to claim her. An incoherent protest formed in her still-foggy brain. Suppressing it, her aroused nerves sparking and sizzling with frustrated need, she nodded blankly, struggled to her feet and stumbled into the bedchamber.
Only to return to the sitting room a moment later. ‘I’m sorry, but since it was our wedding night, I...I told Dulcie I wouldn’t be needing her. I can’t unfasten the bodice of this gown without assistance. If you wouldn’t mind...?’
‘Of course.’
The Rake to Ruin Her Page 16