Slightly Dangerous

by Mary Balogh

  Wulfric did not say anything. A few lamps had been lit outdoors for the convenience of guests who wished to take the air beyond the stuffy confines of the ballroom. One of them was slanting its light across her and gleaming off her hair. And then she looked up at him, an arrested look on her face—and her eyes laughed.

  “Oh, goodness,” she said, “it was Hector who invited you. Did you too think this was to be a gathering of intellectuals? You did, did you not? I have wondered why you came, when Melanie said you never go anywhere beyond London and your own estates. How horrified you must have been when you discovered your mistake. You poor . . . duke.”

  “I assume, Mrs. Derrick,” he said, the fingers of one hand finding the handle of his quizzing glass and curling about it, “there was no question in what you have just said that was not rhetorical?”

  He was unaccustomed to being laughed at. He could not remember ever being pitied.

  “But you do have some of the social graces—you waltz well,” she said, clasping her hands in her lap and tipping her head slightly to one side as she continued to look at him. “Exceedingly well, in fact.”

  “It is possible,” he said, “to be both bookish, as you call it, and accomplished in the social arts, Mrs. Derrick. I did not hide from my dancing lessons. Learning to dance correctly, even well, is an essential part of the education of a gentleman.”

  He was not even particularly bookish. Although he considered himself well read, he did not have the time to keep his head buried in books. There were more practical concerns with which to fill his days. He had not even liked reading as a boy.

  “I always loved the waltz more than any other dance,” she said with a wistful sigh, “though I rarely performed it when I lived in London. And now poor Hector has stamped out all my hopes of dancing it tonight.”

  “The set is not ended,” he pointed out to her. “We will continue dancing if you are able.”

  “My foot is almost as good as new again,” she said with a final wiggle of her toes inside the pink silk slipper. “I must be thankful that Hector weighs only one ton instead of two.”

  “Then let us waltz.” He held out a hand for hers.

  She set her own in it and got to her feet. “You must be sorry you asked me,” she said. “Disaster seems to follow me around even when I am in no way to blame.”

  “I am not sorry,” he told her—and made the mistake of not moving off immediately in the direction of the ballroom with her. The lamp was swaying slightly in the breeze, wafting light and shade over her.

  Suddenly it seemed as though the air between them and all about them fairly sizzled.

  “Let us waltz out here,” he suggested.

  “Out here?” Her eyebrows arched upward in surprise, but then she laughed softly. “Under the lamps and beneath the stars? How wonderfully rom— How delightful! Yes, do let’s.”

  How romantic, she had been about to say. He grimaced inwardly. He was never romantic. He did not believe in romance.

  But this had not been a practical suggestion, he thought as he set a hand behind her waist, took her hand in his, and led her off into the steps of the waltz again. Grass did not make for the smoothest dancing surface, and this particular lawn was not even perfectly flat. And it was not quite proper behavior to dance alone with her like this. Although they were not far from the house, and the ballroom doors were open and lamps had been lit as a deliberate invitation to guests to step outside, he ought not to have her alone, away from the sight of her mother and the rest of her family.

  But the absurdity of the thought struck him almost immediately. She was, of course, a widow and surely far closer in age to thirty than to twenty. There was nothing even remotely improper in what they were doing.

  And yet he was fully aware that being alone with her thus, waltzing with her thus, was more than slightly dangerous.

  They danced and twirled in silence while the music from the ballroom curled about them—and it struck him after a few minutes that grass was the perfect surface to have underfoot and starlight the perfect ceiling to have overhead. The night smells of grass and trees were more enticing than all the combined perfumes in the ballroom.

  And he held the perfect partner in his arms. She did not dance the steps stiffly and correctly. She followed his lead, she relaxed in his arms, and she felt the magic with him.

  He drew her a little closer, the better to guide her over the uneven surface of the lawn. Then he tucked her hand palm-in against his heart and held it there with his own palm. And then somehow her face was lost in the folds of his neckcloth and her hair was tickling his chin. Her body, all soft and warm and feminine, rested against his, and her thighs touched his own and moved in perfect harmony with them.

  The waltz, he thought, was a downright erotic dance.

  He felt the distinct stirring of sexual arousal.

  It had been so long . . .

  The music had not stopped. But somehow their waltz had. They both stood very still for timeless moments, and then she tipped back her head and looked at him.

  Moonlight rather than lamplight lit her face this time. She was, he thought, quite ethereally lovely. He framed her face with both hands, sliding his fingers into the softness of her hair. With his thumbs he traced the lines of her eyebrows, her cheekbones, her chin. He ran one thumb lightly across her lips, drew down the lower one, and moistened the pad by running it across the soft flesh within. She touched the tip of his thumb with her tongue, luring it into her mouth before sucking it deep. She was hot, soft, wet.

  He withdrew his thumb and replaced it with his mouth.

  But only briefly.

  He drew back his head a few inches and gazed into her moonlit eyes.

  “I want you,” he said.

  Even as he spoke he was aware that she could break the spell with one word. And part of him willed her to do just that.

  “Yes,” she said on a whisper of sound.

  She regarded him with dreamy, lovely eyes, her eyelids slightly drooped over them.

  “Come to the lake with me,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  The waltz tune played merrily on. The sounds of voices and laughter escaping the ballroom did not abate. The lamps continued to sway in the breeze. The moon was almost at the full. It beamed down its light from a clear sky, along with that from a million stars as he took Christine Derrick’s hand in his and led her toward the line of trees and the grassy bank of the lake beyond.

  9

  CHRISTINE DELIBERATELY KEPT THOUGHT AT BAY. THE night held magic, and this was the final night of the two weeks before life resumed its normal—and admittedly rather dull—course tomorrow. She disapproved of the Duke of Bewcastle and all he stood for. He had insulted her with his arrogant assumption that money and jewels and a carriage of her own must be more enticing to her than genteel poverty and the life that was familiar to her. He was everything she did not want in a man.

  But that was reason speaking, and she deliberately did not listen to its dreary voice.

  There was this undeniable attraction between them, which was obviously mutual. Surely, she thought, it must be as unwilling with him as it was with her. But it was there nonetheless—this something—and tonight was all they had left in which to explore it before they went their separate ways tomorrow.

  She was under no illusion, of course, about what that exploration would involve. They were not walking to the lake to gaze at the moonlight, or even to share a few chaste kisses.

  I want you.

  Yes.

  He held her hand in his. She could almost have wept at the intimacy of it. His grip was strong and hard. He did not lace his fingers with hers. There was no suggestion of tenderness or romance in his touch. But she would not have welcomed either. There was no tenderness between them and definitely no romance. Only this intimacy and the promise of more when they reached the lake.

  She did not know why she had agreed to such a thing—she really had no idea. It was not a part of her nat
ure to be in any way promiscuous or loose in her morals. She had shared no more than a few kisses with Oscar before their marriage, and during it, despite his accusations toward the end, she had never even dreamed of being unfaithful. She had lived chastely during the two years of her widowhood without feeling any temptation to stray, even though there were several gentlemen in the neighborhood who would have been only too pleased either to dally with her or to court her honorably.

  Yet here she was walking among the trees on her way to the lake with the Duke of Bewcastle halfway through Melanie’s ball because he had said he wanted her and she had agreed with one word that she wanted him too.

  It defied understanding.

  She did not even try to understand. She kept thought at bay.

  He did not make conversation. Neither did she. Indeed, it did not even occur to her to do so. They walked in silence, the music and the sound of voices from the ballroom gradually receding behind them, only the hooting of a night owl and the faint rustling of leaves overhead and the scampering of unseen night creatures through the undergrowth breaking the absolute stillness. It was a warm night after a hot day. The moon was bright. Even among the trees there was enough light to see by.

  Down by the lake it was almost as bright as day with the branches gone from overhead and the moonlight shining in a bright band across the water.

  It would have been a brilliant night for romance. But this was not a romantic tryst. Still holding her hand in his, the Duke of Bewcastle struck off to the right until they reached a grassy part of the bank that would be totally hidden from the path to the house in the extremely unlikely event that anyone else should have the idea of walking out here. Then he stopped.

  He did not immediately release her hand. He stepped in front of her, and his mouth found hers.

  There was nothing to inhibit them now. They were no longer within sight and sound of the ballroom. And there was no pretense between them. He had told her he wanted her, she had agreed, and here they were.

  Their hands parted company. Her arms went up about his neck. His came about her waist. Their mouths opened. His tongue came into her mouth and clashed with her own tongue. Such a powerful, raw sexual longing stabbed downward through her breasts and her abdomen and womb and down along her inner thighs that she needed the support of his arms about her and his body pressed to her own to stop from falling. One of his hands spread over her buttocks, pressing her hard to him, and left her in no doubt that his need matched her own.

  His arms left her then, though his mouth did not for a few moments. He was shrugging out of his very costly black evening coat. He lifted his head and turned to spread the coat over the grass.

  “Come,” he said. “Lie down.”

  The shock of hearing him speak made her realize that they were the first words he had uttered since he had invited her to come to the lake. And the refined accents and faint hauteur of his voice made her realize anew just who it was with whom she was doing these things. But the realization only heightened her desire.

  She lay down, her head and shoulders on his coat, and he came down with her, sliding his hands under her skirt and up along the outsides of her legs to raise the skirt and withdraw undergarments. He undid the buttons at the flap of his breeches. Then one arm came beneath her head and the other beneath her chin to hold it steady while he plundered her mouth with his tongue again.

  There was no gentleness, no tenderness. She reveled in the unabashed carnality of what was happening. She expected that within moments he would enter her and that it would all be over very soon after that. She consciously enjoyed every moment. She had been so very starved. Not just for two years, but forever, it seemed.

  She had always been starved.

  Always.

  His mouth left hers and trailed a hot path down over her chin to her throat and her bosom. He hooked his thumb inside the low bodice of her gown and brought it beneath her breast on one side. His mouth suckled her, his tongue circling over her nipple. At the same time his hand roamed over her inner thighs and then came between them to invade her private places and to explore and caress her there until, her head thrown back, her fingers tangled in his hair, she thought it might well be possible to go mad with the pain that pleasure brought with it.

  When he came between her thighs, spreading them wide on the grass and sliding his hands beneath her, she was quite sure she was too sensitive and swollen for the ultimate act to bring anything else but pain. And indeed when she felt him at her entrance, hard and firm, she almost begged him to stop.

  “Please,” she said instead, her voice low and throaty and almost unrecognizable even to her own ears. “Please.”

  He came inside. But she was wet and slick, and though he was hard and long, the only pain she felt was that of sexual pleasure ready to burst out of her at any moment.

  A pain and a pleasure she had never felt before.

  Or even dreamed of.

  It burst from her almost as soon as he began to move in her, his thrusts long and deep and firm. She shuddered into something that felt very like ecstasy and lay open and relaxed beneath him for what might have been several minutes listening to the wet rhythm of their coupling, feeling the hard, utterly pleasing pounding of his body into hers. But after those few minutes her enjoyment became less passive again, and then it built to an ache and an urgency and a second bursting of sexual release just moments before his own came as he stilled in her suddenly and strained deeper before she felt the hot gush of his release at her core.

  His weight relaxed down on her for a few moments before he rolled off her, sat up, and then got to his feet. He stood with his back to her, setting his clothes back to rights, and then walked to the bank of the lake a few yards distant and stood looking out, a tall, handsome figure of a man in evening knee breeches and embroidered waistcoat with white shirt and copious amounts of lace at his wrists and throat.

  The Duke of Bewcastle, in fact.

  Christine sat up and made herself as respectable as she was able without aid of brush or looking glass. She raised her knees, her feet flat on the grass, and wrapped her arms about her legs. Those legs were trembling slightly, she realized. Her breasts felt tender. Inside she was sore. Physically she felt absolutely wonderful.

  And enlightened.

  She had loved Oscar—for several years anyway, and surely she had never quite stopped loving him. She had never found the marriage bed distasteful. It was, after all, what happened between husbands and wives. If she had ever felt a niggling disappointment, considering the fact that she had been head over ears in love when she married, then she had consoled herself with the very sensible thought that reality never did quite match up to dreams.

  But now she knew. Reality could match and even surpass dreams. It had just done so.

  At the same time she was very aware that there had been no tenderness in what had just happened, no pretense of romance or love, no commitment to any future. It had been purely carnal.

  She had enjoyed it anyway.

  Were not only men supposed to be capable of enjoying that on a purely physical level? Was it not supposed to be a primarily emotional experience for women? She felt no emotion for the duke. Not even any negative emotions at this particular moment. Certainly she was not imagining that she was now in love with him. She was not.

  How dreadfully shocking!

  But she was, of course, feeling upset. She knew she would not escape so lightly once this was all over and she was alone with reality and her own thoughts again.

  He turned to look at her. At least, she presumed he was looking at her. The moonlight was behind him and so his face was in shadow. He said nothing for a few moments.

  “Mrs. Derrick,” he said then, his voice as cold and haughty as ever, it seemed to her—or perhaps it was just his normal voice, “I believe you will agree with me that now you must reconsider—”

  “No!” she said, cutting him off firmly midsentence. No, she could not bear to hear him say it. “No,
I do not agree, and I will not reconsider. What just happened here was not the beginning of anything but rather the end. For some reason that perhaps neither of us fully understands, there has been this something between us. Now we have given in to it and satisfied it. Now we can say good-bye and go our separate ways tomorrow and forget each other.”

  Even as she spoke she realized what utter drivel she was mouthing.

  “Ah,” he said faintly. “Will we?”

  “I will not be your mistress,” she said. “I did this for myself, for my own pleasure. It was pleasant, I have satisfied my curiosity, and that is that. The end.”

  She gripped her legs harder. He had turned his face slightly to the left so that she could see it in profile—proud, aristocratic, austerely handsome. Even now, minutes after it had happened, it was almost impossible to realize that she had lain with this man, that all the physical aftereffects of a thorough bedding that she was experiencing had been provided by him—by the Duke of Bewcastle. She could suddenly see him in memory as he had looked in the hall on that very first afternoon when she had gazed over the banister at him and sensed the danger he posed.

  She had not been wrong, had she?

  “And has it occurred to you,” he asked her, “that I might have impregnated you?”

  She was glad she was sitting. Her knees turned suddenly weaker at the plain speaking. This man certainly did not speak in euphemisms.

  “I was barren through seven years of marriage,” she said, as bluntly as he. “I think I will have contrived to remain barren through one more night.”

  There was a rather lengthy silence, which she would have broken if she could have thought of something to say. But although her thoughts were now working, they were not anything she could share with him. Actually she was already beginning to realize how she had deceived herself a few minutes ago. Her feelings were very much engaged in this night’s doings even if they had nothing to do with romance or love. The next few days and even weeks were going to be wretched, she knew. It was not an easy thing for a woman to give her virtue and her body in a casual encounter and then shrug carelessly and assure herself that it had been purely for pleasure with no serious aftereffects.