Passion and Pride (A Historical Romance)

by Amelia Nolan

  “She loves you, though,” Dardanelle remarked, as though he were discussing the weather.

  “Don’t you mean ‘loved’? Past tense?”

  “There is a saying in the village I grew up in. ‘If the iron still burns, the metal is still hot.’”

  Evan looked at him blankly.

  Dardanelle sighed, like a teacher disappointed with a slow student. “If a woman loses a man but is still in love with him, her anger still remains.”

  Evan frowned and thought back to their entire exchange that evening.

  In the larger group, Marian had affected a cool, mocking tone of voice.

  But when she first saw him, she had looked shaken to the core.

  And when they were alone, she was full of fury.

  Passionate.

  That insight was like a lightning bolt striking him, and convinced him of a truth beyond all doubt:

  She still loved him.

  Both Pemberly and Dardanelle were right.

  “Where does she live?” Evan asked the publisher.

  “Um… why?”

  “Where does she live?” Evan pressed.

  “La Rue Neuve des Petits Champs, near the Rue Vivienne.”

  Evan put his arm outside the carriage and banged on the side. “Driver! La Rue Neuve des Petits Champs near the – what was it?”

  “Rue Vivienne,” Dardanelle said worriedly.

  “ – Rue Vivienne!” Evan finished shouting.

  “Oui, Citizen,” the driver called out. Within a minute, he had directed the horses down a side street.

  “This is a very bad idea,” Dardanelle fretted.

  “We have a saying in England, Dardanelle: ‘strike while the iron is hot.’”

  Dardanelle frowned.

  “Oh,” Evan said, realizing Dardanelle might think he was going to hit someone. “Perhaps it does not translate well into French. It means to seize an opportunity while events still proceed in your favor.”

  “And you think events this evening were in your favor?” Dardanelle asked, his voice full of amused disbelief.

  “Not the events so much as the fact that the iron is still hot. And I have fanned the fire, my friend.”

  “I think you may have thrown lamp oil on it.”

  Evan laughed. “If I wait to see her until tomorrow or the next day, her emotions will have cooled.”

  “Perhaps that is a good thing.”

  “Not if she walls off her heart.”

  Dardanelle sighed unhappily. “She will have me hanged for an accomplice…”

  “Nonsense.”

  “Perhaps you should rethink your strategy.”

  “Why?”

  Dardanelle tried to be as delicate as possible. “What if she returns to her apartment… with someone accompanying her?”

  Evan had not considered that, and the possibility filled him with pain. He thought for a minute.

  “If she does, then I was wrong, and I will depart without speaking to her.”

  Dardanelle looked relieved. “I shall leave the key for you. It will be under the third stone on the right side of the path.”

  “But I’m not wrong,” Evan insisted. “You can keep your key, I won’t need it.”

  Dardanelle smiled wanly. “Third stone… right side of the path. Just in case.”

  61

  Marian leaned her head on her hand and watched the streets of Paris go by in the dark as the carriage rattled home after the salon.

  He is back!

  She could not tell whether the thought terrified, infuriated, saddened, or exhilarated her. In truth, it was a combination of all four.

  She could not believe it. Almost two years with no word at all, and he suddenly shows up out of nowhere.

  Her mind was thrown into chaos. All the old wounds reopened, all the old pains resurfaced. Yesterday she would have said her heart had mended long ago; now it felt on the verge of breaking once more.

  Why would he do this to me?

  She knew why – but Pemberly’s concern was overly paranoid.

  True, acquaintances had told her horrible stories about the fall of the Bastille – how heads had been paraded around on pikes, how people had been murdered in the streets. Then there was the attack of the mob on Versailles, which had forced the French King and Queen to live at the Tuileries Palace… but all that had happened in ’89, before she arrived in France.

  Now there was an incredible energy that rippled through the city, a feeling that anything could happen. Some of it was wonderful, like the people taking back power from the aristocrats; some of it was bad, like the food riots in the streets just months ago.

  But more than anything, Paris felt alive. The talk, the people, the art, the writing… it was like an electric current coursing through the streets.

  Pemberly was not here to feel the sensation. He was like a doting grandmother, shuttered up in stodgy London, watching from a distance and wringing his hands.

  And now Grandmother Pemberly had sent an unwelcome visitor.

  Although, if she were to be honest, Blake was not entirely unwelcome.

  When she had grabbed Blake’s arm and led him away from Villars, her entire body had tingled with pleasure. Her heart remembered what Blake had meant to her. Other parts of her had remembered what he had been able to do to her. What he had made her feel.

  In all her time in Paris – despite the number of lovers she had had – no one had been able to touch her so deeply. To inspire such passion in her, such pleasure.

  Not one had made her fall in love with them.

  She had, on more than one occasion, wondered if Evan Blake had ruined her for all other men. Not in the sense of virtue or purity: she was L’Anglaise, after all, not some blushing schoolgirl straight from the convent.

  No, it was that no man she had met had been able to measure up to Blake. Not in the emotions they shared, that feeling of deep connection between souls. Not in handsomeness. Not in prowess in bed.

  And most importantly of all, not in the way she loved him.

  The carriage dropped her off in front of her building. She paid the driver and proceeded to the shadowy courtyard.

  She was almost to the front door when she heard a voice in the darkness:

  “Marian!”

  Her heart stopped within her chest.

  Blake.

  She whirled around with a tiny cry. He was there by the wall, inside the gate, barely visible in the shadows.

  How dare he! she immediately thought. After all he’s done, after the shock he gave me at the salon – how dare he come here!

  “What are you doing here?” she hissed.

  He walked towards her slowly. His expression looked chastened… but also determined.

  “I thought about what you said when we parted tonight, and you were right,” he said. “I came to apologize.”

  “Apology excepted. Now leave.”

  “I cannot do that. Not without you.”

  Now that he was here in front of her, all the terror, sadness, and exhilaration had departed, and only the anger remained.

  “You lost any hold you had on me two years ago, sir. So – goodnight and goodbye.”

  As she turned to go, he grabbed her wrist.

  His bare skin on hers thrilled her – but the action infuriated her. She wrenched her arm away and turned on him, livid. “How dare you!”

  “Two years ago, I was wrong to do what I did. When I lost you, I lost the only thing in my life that was worthwhile. You were the only person who loved me, and I threw that love away.”

  Her heart was thudding harder inside her with every passing second. She wanted to scream, Yes you did! and weep at the same time. She felt unsteady on her feet.

  But she could not give in. She could not let him see how badly he had wounded her so long ago.

  “How nice that you have seen the error of your ways,” she said coldly. “Too bad that it comes so late.”

  “It may be too late for us, but I cannot stand idly by
and watch you endanger your life. Despite all the other terrible mistakes I have made, if there is one thing I must do, it is make sure you are safe.”

  “Why do you care, sir? I am just another servant girl. There must be another dozen or more to whom you can turn your attentions.”

  “You are not a servant girl. You are the woman I love.”

  Her entire body quivered. Her legs felt as though they would give way beneath her.

  “Your wife will not be happy to hear that,” she said as angrily as she could.

  It was a test. She did not think he could be married and still traipse after another woman so far from home, but she had to know.

  “I have no wife.”

  Her heat skipped a beat. “Fiancée, then.”

  “There is no one but you, Marian.”

  Her body shook. She could feel tears stinging her eyes.

  He took a step closer and gently took both her hands. “I love you.”

  She wanted to cry out, to fall into his arms –

  But her pride and her anger would not let her.

  “Well I hate you,” she said, her voice both furious and on the verge of tears. “I would have done anything for you – anything! – and you ripped out my heart and ground it under your heel. You were the only man I loved – that I have ever loved – and you treated me despicably. You shattered my heart, you nearly broke me in two, and if you think that you can come back into my life now and make me do anything but throw you out in the street, you are sadly mistaken, because I hate you. I hate you! I hate – ”

  He took her into his arms and kissed her.

  The shock of it swept all thought from her mind. There was only the heat and gentle pressure of his lips on hers. The taste of him she had yearned for without knowing it and thought she had forgotten so long ago. The strength and firmness of his body pressing against her own.

  For a brief second, she forgot herself, and yielded completely and totally to him.

  Then she remembered who she was, and what this man had done to her.

  She pushed him violently away, and when he broke his lips apart from hers, she slapped him as hard as she could.

  His hand flew to his cheek.

  She expected to see the Blake of old – and she did for a brief instant, as a fiery anger rose up in his eyes.

  But immediately it died away, leaving only tremendous pain.

  Not from the slap. But from what he knew it meant.

  He stood there for almost ten seconds in silence.

  Finally he spoke.

  “I’m sorry that I hurt you,” he whispered. “Please… someday… forgive me.”

  Then he turned to go.

  All the fury had gone out of her when she slapped him.

  And when she heard the pain in his voice, and saw the suffering in his eyes, it was a mirror of her own.

  Her heart broke once more – for him, for her, for all they had lost.

  And now she was going to lose it all again.

  “Wait!” she cried out, and put her hand on his arm. “Don’t go – ”

  He turned towards her again.

  Their eyes locked.

  At the exact same moment, he reached towards her as she rushed into his arms. They kissed again – violently, passionately, with a scorching heat and flame that filled her body from head to toe.

  His arms encircled her, and she cradled his face in her hands as her lips parted and she took him inside her again, her heart soaring higher than she had ever felt in her entire life.

  62

  They stumbled into her apartment. Her servant had most probably gone to bed. Even if she had not, she had experience enough to know not to come out when she heard a visitor late at night.

  Marian pulled Evan into her bedroom and shut the door. The tiniest bit of moonlight came in, letting her see enough to find a candle by the bed. As she lit a match, Evan stood behind her, kissing her up and down the right side of her neck, letting his lips caress her ear like velvet, tracing his fingers ever so softly across the tops of her breasts. Her body felt like it would explode with heat and longing.

  “Wait,” she half-giggled, half-sighed as she lit the candle.

  “Why?” he whispered in her ear.

  “Because I want to see you,” she whispered back. “All of you.”

  She undressed him first, batting away his hands and not letting him touch her anymore. She slid his jacket off, feeling his broad shoulders beneath her hands. She undid his cravat and pulled his shirt over his head, breathing in his masculine scent and marveling at the deeply etched shadows around his muscles.

  She looked down at the front of his pants, where a sizable bulge strained against the material. She stroked it softly with the tips of her long fingernails. The shape grew even harder and longer as Evan groaned under his breath.

  “This will never do,” she whispered, and undid his pants button by button.

  She knelt on the floor before him and slowly pulled his pants down. She greedily watched the cloth slide over the firm muscles of his belly until finally his manhood began to appear, starting at the thickest part of the base where it emerged from his thatch of dark curls. His rod pointed straight down under his pants, which was obviously quite uncomfortable for him. It was so stiff and so hard that she had to take great care not to hurt him as she pulled down the cloth and uncovered that glorious shaft, inch by inch.

  Finally the cloth cleared the swollen head, and his entire manhood sprung up, bobbing once or twice, and then curved pink and swollen in an upward arc.

  Between her legs, she felt a hot, wet, almost unbearable desire.

  He groaned and flexed his pelvis, moving his manhood closer to her face.

  But she was not going to let him off that easily.

  She had waited a very, very long time for this… and she was going to enjoy it.

  He stepped out of the pants and stood before her completely naked, a gorgeous statute of flesh etched in shadow and candlelight. She knelt before him, completely clothed. Because of that – because of his complete vulnerability, and her lack of it – she felt like she owned him. Like she could do anything she damn well pleased with his body.

  She reached around him and cupped his ass in her hands. Those firm, full, powerful haunches that she had so loved to grasp as he drove himself deep inside her… her fingers softly caressing their surface, and she smiled as she felt his entire body tremble.

  She was so close to him that his shaft brushed her cheek. The heat beneath the satiny skin was scorching hot, and the touch of her skin made him tremble all the more. Softly, slowly, she turned her head and traced her lips along the side of his throbbing member.

  She did not take him into her mouth, though. It was a gentle brush of her lips against his skin, nothing more.

  He sounded like he was going to die.

  She smiled again. He was her slave, totally and completely.

  She took the tip of her tongue and ran it along the underside of his manhood, her touch soft as silk. His rod pulsed with every beat of his heart.

  He moved to touch her head, to force her mouth down on him –

  “No,” she said sharply as she jerked away. She stood up in front of him and stared reproachfully into his eyes, which were lost and helpless in their longing.

  She pushed against his muscular chest and forced him down on her bed, which was situated within an alcove in the wall. He lay on his back, the shadows dancing across his rippling muscles in the candlelight, and watched her with haunted eyes.

  With one hand she lightly traced his chest, his stomach, his thighs. Every so often she drifted her palm across his manhood, which had swollen to a length and girth that nearly took her breath away. Occasionally she would encircle it with her fingers, loving how huge he felt in her hand, and delicately stroke his shaft from end to end.

  With the other hand she undid the ribbons and laces that held together her dress and corset. It was incredibly slow going: what took minutes with her maid took t
hree times as long by herself. But she luxuriated in the power she held over him, and exulted in the feel of his body under her fingertips.

  Finally, after an eternity, she shrugged off the last bit of her clothing and stood beside the bed completely naked. Her nether lips were completely drenched, and her innermost places ached with need.

  He reached for her breasts, but she grabbed his wrists and shook her head ‘no.’ His face was puzzled, but within seconds he understood as she got up on the bed and straddled him.

  He fought against her the slightest bit, but still she denied him. Finally he settled back and watched.

  She lowered herself down against his long, thick shaft, which lay flat against his belly, and began to slide her soft, wet flesh against his iron-hard member. The sensation was pleasurable torture – she wanted him inside her so badly, she could have cried – but from his face, he was in even greater agony. He bucked against her, trying to angle himself inside her, but she raised up so that paradise was out of his reach.

  He would submit. She would make him. She would have him, body and soul.

  After a few futile attempts, he lay there, allowing his powerful arms to be restrained by her delicate hands, and let her have her way with him.

  She eased back down against his staff and slowly moved back and forth, sliding along the entire length of him, feeling her lips caress the massive shape between her legs. He moaned as she eased back and forth, back and forth, drenching him, preparing him.

  Finally she could stand it no more. She released one of his hands and reached down, took hold of his manhood, held it up at an angle, and eased herself slowly onto the tip. It felt enormous between her lips. She pressed down slightly more and gasped as she felt him fully enter her – but only the head. Even that alone gave her more pleasure than most of her lovers.

  She rocked back and forth, a tiny bit up, a tiny bit down, taking him further and further inside her with each successive movement. His face was strained with agonized waiting, but he let her do what she wanted; he had learned his lesson.

  For her part, the wave of desire that had been building inside her seemed to double and treble by the minute, rising higher and higher. Tiny single contractions fluttered through her muscles as she continued easing him inside her.