Reckless Viscount

by Amy Sandas

  He had already set up another guest room for her. Something grander. He had stumbled upon some feminine-styled furniture and bed coverings in a shade of green only slightly darker than Abbigael’s eyes during his search for his personal items. They had likely belonged to his mother and so had escaped his father’s notice when he had needed funds for his London lifestyle. His father would have stayed far away from anything that had once belonged to Leif’s mother.

  “The work that must be done to make this place even barely livable will no doubt take me a lifetime,” he explained as she continued to peruse the room in silence.

  Abbigael turned to him and smiled with encouragement. “With my help, perhaps only half a lifetime.”

  Leif did not respond. The optimism and hope in her expression made him feel like a cad, reminding him that she had expectations he could never fulfill.

  He recalled Lady Carlisle’s words again, a phrase that had been echoing through his head for days.

  “It doesn’t change who you are.”

  She had been right. Nothing could change the man he had become. The man that history, his father and cursed bloodlines had made him. He was the Viscount Neville, a position that had been doomed for generations to being carried out in wasted lifetimes. Leif had always believed the family legend about a curse was an excuse created by one of his ancestors as a means of deflecting from his own monstrous shortcomings. But he had recently started to re-think that. Leif may have gotten the fortune he needed, but he had already solidified his path of destruction. He would always be what he had been since that night long ago when he crawled from his lover’s bed and accepted the gold she had offered in gratitude.

  Abbigael remained still in the center of the room. She met his gaze with wavering pride that held strong in spite of the uncertainty he saw in her eyes. She looked awkward and out of place as if she were starting to sense that things were not so rose-colored as she would like.

  Leif told himself it was a good thing. She had to start seeing him for what he really was. She had to learn to accept a different future than what she had hoped for herself.

  He could be her lover, a role he knew well how to play. It was a sad delusion to think he could be anything more.

  His delusion and hers.

  “Come here, Irish,” he commanded in a low voice.

  He saw her lips part and her eyes dilate in anticipation. Yet she hesitated. Something she had not done since their marriage.

  An internal struggle was taking place within him. His newfound conscience warred with his desire. But in that brief and sudden moment when she paused, Leif knew he could not bear for her to turn away from him. Not yet.

  Leif held out his hand to her and smiled, an easy, sexy grin designed to soothe skittish nerves and stir sensual currents.

  She finally slid her small hand into his and stepped up to him. He knew by the way she lowered her gaze that she felt a need to guard against him. The wrenching twist in his gut started to mellow to a hollow ache. He was already losing her trust.

  “Tell me what you want, sweetheart.”

  She licked her lips and lifted her chin so her eyes met his. The impact of the emotion present and visible in her crystalline gaze hit him like a thunderclap.

  “Make love to me.” Her reply was half-plea, half-command.

  Leif swallowed hard and lifted his hand to trail his fingertips down the side of her throat until he reached the fastenings of her traveling jacket. She stood still and compliant as he released all of the moorings then eased the jacket from her shoulders and tossed it aside. He turned her around and began working on the delicate buttons of her dress that ran down the length of her back. His fingers felt stiff and uncooperative as he worked at the familiar task. His proficiency at undressing the female figure dropped away with each inch of her body that he uncovered.

  He wanted to savor the moment, already knowing it may never again be quite like this.

  When she stood clad in only her underclothes and boots, he trailed his fingers down the length of her spine, watching as chills lifted the fine hairs on her pale skin. He could do this at least, give her body pleasure even if he could not give her the joy she deserved.

  Her body softened and relaxed beneath his touch. He hooked the strap of her chemise and dragged it down over her shoulder. Slowly, intentionally. Though he couldn’t see it, he imagined the lace-edged top grazing past her nipples and fluttering over her belly as her chemise fell to the floor and his body tightened painfully with a heady rush of sexual need.

  Sliding his hands to the curve of her hips, he urged her to turn and face him, her body pale and beautiful in the muted light of the rainy afternoon. His throat felt tight with emotions too uncomfortable to acknowledge and he said nothing at all as he began unlacing her boots and removing them one at a time before rolling her stockings down and easing them from her feet.

  Finally, she stood naked before him. Her gaze was soft and slightly unfocused as she looked at him from beneath a thick fringe of lowered lashes. She waited for him, her anticipation as palpable as his own thundering desire.

  For a few long moments, he didn’t touch her. He knelt at her feet, feeling strangely humble even as his body hummed with the rushing need to claim her for now and always. It was not easy to rein in the primitive urges that flowed hot through his blood as he gazed at her perfect feminine form. No other woman had ever prompted in him such a forceful need to take physical possession.

  Yet Irish did it without even trying. She simply existed and he became entangled in an uncommon yearning.

  Grasping her hips in his hands, he leaned forward to press a kiss to the soft plane of her belly, breathing in the wonderful fresh scent of her before pulling back and rising to his feet.

  He would have led her to the bed then, but she stopped him with a gentle hand pressed to his chest.

  Without looking up to meet his gaze, she began to undo the buttons of his shirt. He stood still and tried to be passive, wanting her to have the freedom to do as she wished.

  After removing his shirt, she paused to place her small hands to the bared surface of his chest. Her warm breath flowed across skin like a caress as she eased up onto her toes and leaned forward to press her lips to his shoulder.

  Leif forced himself to draw in a long, steady breath, hoping to ease the rising sexual need that was starting to make his muscles ache. But the breath lodged securely in his throat when he felt her fingers drift over his abdomen. And when those questing fingertips brushed across the tip of his erection just inside the edge of his breeches, he ground his teeth against the fresh flood of heat that made his cock throb painfully in response.

  Before he suspected her intention, she lowered herself before him to remove his shoes and stockings as he had done hers. Unwilling to examine the jumble of emotions filling his chest in response to the wifely action, Leif urged her to her feet. Grasping her face in his hands, he drew her mouth to his with tender insistence.

  The kiss was slow, deliberate and very wet. His tongue twirled with hers, his lips soothed and suckled. And she answered with an impassioned response as she wrapped her arms around his waist and melted against him, flattening her breasts to his chest, pressing her stomach to his, accepting the throb of his erection against her belly.

  Everything about her felt so incredibly right in his arms.

  But it wasn’t enough.

  Propping his arm under her buttocks, he lifted her against him and carried her to the bed. Following her down to the mattress, he pushed his leg between hers and lowered his mouth to cover the sweet crest of her nipple.

  She stretched and arched beneath him. Her hands grasped his head and held him to her and the sound of her pleasure as she moaned from the back of her throat lit a path of fire through his blood. He slid his arm beneath her lower back to hold her secure as he positioned himself between her thighs and had to bite back a groan of his own as she thrust her hips up to meet him. Holding himself steady in spite of the fierce beating
of his heart and the trembling tension in his muscles, he pushed slowly forward, easing into her ready heat.

  She felt too good.

  Leif straitened his arms to leverage his body away from her. He held himself still within her and closed his eyes against the magnificent image of her eyes glazed with passion, her lips parted and pink, her arms reaching for him, her body straining. Starting with just a gentle rocking of his hips, he slid in and out of her slick passage, clenching his teeth in his effort to contain the pleasure threatening to overtake him.

  She lifted her hands to grasp his buttocks and bent her knees, pressing her feet into the mattress. She rocked her hips against him, urging him on, matching the increasing fury and depth of his thrusts with a counter motion.

  He was tempted to look into her eyes as he felt the approach of his release, but he knew that to do so would tumble him over the edge and he would become lost in her. Even as the pressure built in his body, he was aware of a desperate need to create distance.

  He felt her intense and steady gaze as she arched her back and looked up at him. He knew she wanted to breach the wall he’d constructed, but he wouldn’t let her. Instead, he braced himself on his elbow and reached between their bodies, his fingers sliding through the slick heat at the spot where they were joined until his fingertip found the sensitive bud of her pleasure. He circled and pinched, tormenting the sensitive flesh until she twisted and groaned in wanton disregard.

  She came with a ragged cry as she stiffened beneath him and he couldn’t hold on any longer. Throwing his head back, he clenched his teeth as he gave one long, plunging stroke into her body and released his seed in a pulsing rush against her womb.

  Leif forced his awareness to stay above the pulling desire to sink into the depth of pleasure that would claim him. In spite of the physical release, his chest felt tight and struggled for a full breath. With shaking limbs, he pulled away from her sweat-slicked body. The chill of the room quickly cooled his skin as he rose from the bed.

  “Leif?”

  He ignored the soft inquiry. He needed to get away. He needed air.

  He was very careful not to look at her as he dressed with haste. Some small corner of his awareness reached out to Abbigael and imagined how his actions must appear. But he couldn’t stop the panic slowly mounting in his chest.

  Once, long ago, he had told Anna he had no heart. The comment had been made half in jest, but he knew now it was the truth. No man with an ounce of warmth or compassion would do what he was doing to his wife. But he couldn’t stop. He had to leave before the emotions that were choking him forced him to do something foolish and ultimately far crueler.

  “You are leaving?” Her voice was heavy with accusation and uncertainty.

  Without lifting his head from the task of putting on his shoes, he replied, “I have a lot of work to do.”

  “How can I help?” she asked.

  He paused then and looked at her. She sat in the center of his bed. The bedcovers were pulled up around her naked body. Her eyes were bright and glistening, pushing him even further into the belief that he was doing the right thing. He only ever wanted to see that look in her eyes once.

  “You can’t,” he answered perhaps a little too harshly as he started for the door. “You should rest after your journey. I will stop in the kitchen to see if Mrs. Helmstead can bring up some food for you. Just don’t expect much from the limited fare we have available.”

  He slipped from the room, adding over his shoulder as he closed the door behind him, “I will see you at dinner.”

  Once in the hallway, Leif took off in long strides, desperate to get outside, to feel the fresh air on his face and see the stretch of fields that used to call to him when he was a boy who craved the freedom and anonymity of open spaces.

  He would be Abbigael’s lover. He would give her children. Because that is what he’d agreed to do.

  But before he went to her again, he needed to develop the detachment necessary to be capable of holding her in his arms without feeling the wrenching weight that pulsed in the space where his heart should be.

  Chapter Thirty

  Abbigael awoke from a dream that had been pleasure and pain mixed together. Leif’s rakish image, the scent of tobacco mingling harmoniously with cedar and the rich timbre of his voice when he spoke of intimate things still echoed in her conscious thoughts. She rolled from her side onto her back. Her hands settled over the hollow emptiness pressing outward from her chest.

  Waking with the hazy memory of dreams spent in the cherishing circle of his arms left her with bittersweet emotions of loss and fulfillment.

  The fulfillment was false, a creation of her sleeping subconscious.

  And the loss was very real.

  She tried to ignore the heavy crushing feeling centered in her chest. She hadn’t been in her husband’s arms or his bed since the afternoon she arrived.

  Over the last couple of weeks, they had grown more distant than she ever imagined could be possible while living under the same roof. Their encounters were random and brief—chance meetings here and there as they each went about their days.

  Leif was absorbed in some task of dire importance and couldn’t stop for more than a few minutes to converse with his wife.

  He had proven to be absolutely tireless since his arrival at the estate. She was constantly amazed by how motivated he had become in his pursuit to improve Dunwood Park. It bordered on the obsessive and she worried about him even as she understood his need to restore the property. Already the changes he had been able to implement made significant difference to the place and Abbigael could barely wait to see the finished project.

  Leif’s main focus at this stage in the renovation was on structural issues and modernizations. She understood that he intended to have the most up-to-date plumbing system installed, with modern water closets and the most efficient means of water usage she had ever heard of. Though this information was not confirmed since she had gathered it through the talk of the laborers who roamed nearly every inch of the grand structure, from the near ruins of what was left of the medieval structure to the most recent additions.

  She had asked a few times in those first days if she could see the drawings and blueprints he carried with him nearly everywhere he went, but he brushed off her request each time, saying that he would show them to her when he was not so busy. When she asked if there was anything she could do to help, her offer was met with a reaction of mild impatience and what she could only read as subtle suspicion.

  After a while, she stopped trying to engage herself in his projects and found one of her own. The attics she had been shown during her tour of the house were in desperate need of organization. And who knew, maybe she would find some forgotten treasure amongst the cobwebs and dank shadows.

  Though the work of sorting through the three individual attics was not necessarily strenuous work, Abbigael found that the task tired her out more and more each day. She hoped her body would get more accustomed to the physical activity, but so far that hadn’t been the case and every night she fell into bed exhausted from the day’s work.

  One night several days ago, she had run into Leif in the second floor hall as she was heading to her separate bedroom. She would have preferred to stay in his room with him, but he had another room made up for her the very day of her arrival. The master suites, located in the largest of the gothic towers, were still uninhabitable, and she and Leif continued to stay in two of the smaller guest rooms in the main part of the house.

  Seeing her in the hall, Leif had stopped. After closing his bedroom door securely behind him, he waited for her to approach.

  He was dressed in what had become his usual attire since coming to the country. Simple woolen trousers, a plain cambric shirt worn thin at the elbows and frayed at the collar with the sleeves rolled up to mid-forearm. He had foregone a coat, likely for ease of movement as she had learned that he often worked right alongside the laborers, swinging a hammer, measuring, marking and c
learing debris as needed. His skin held a slightly bronzed tone, attesting to the fact that at least some of his work had been outside. His hair had grown a bit longer than he had worn it in London and it looked as though some sawdust had settled in the tousled locks.

  Abbigael fisted her hands against the urge to run her fingers through his hair to brush the dust free. He would not welcome the gesture. Everything about him these days projected a do-not-touch message and not knowing how to break through that attitude left Abbigael at a complete loss.

  But she was not going to let another opportunity pass without at least trying to reach past the barrier he had erected. Somewhere in him was the charming rogue who used to tease her, who had drawn her out of her shell and released the sensual and passionate side to her nature with finesse and infinite attention.

  “Good evening,” he said as she approached. There was a measure of surprise in the lifted arch of his eyebrows. “I wouldn’t have thought you would still be up.”

  She couldn’t admit she had gotten into the habit of waiting up for him. Typically, her exhaustion chased her to bed before he made an appearance.

  “I have gotten used to late hours,” she replied, “though I was about to retire.”

  “Of course. Don’t let me keep you.” He bowed his head and turned as if to sidle past her.

  She laid her hand on his bare forearm to stop him. The heat of his skin traversed through her fingertips into her blood, warming her instantly.

  “I would welcome your company if you wished to join me.”

  He stopped, and when his gaze met hers she saw the familiar twin flames of desire and need reflected in the deep swirling colors of his eyes in a brief and flashing moment.

  Her heart leapt into a fast-paced tattoo and her stomach danced with anticipation.

  Finally.

  But then, as if blown in by an ever-encroaching storm, a cloud fell over his gaze, the flames went out and he was gone again.

  Abbigael felt the chilling effect down to the marrow of her bones.