Invitation to Passion

by Bronwen Evans

  Then, at last, release claimed her, and her body shuddered from wave after wave of exquisite pleasure. Immediately, she felt Richard tense within her, thrust hard and deep one last time before his groan and shudder announced his own release.

  They both lay panting, clinging hard to each other, Richard still buried inside her and still at one with her. She wished she could capture this feeling forever. And not let the world interfere, intrude, or God forbid, destroy what they had.

  His arms tightened around her. “Dear lord, Maddy.” He rested his head on her bare shoulder and breathed deeply, before seemingly reluctantly rolling to her side and pulling her close.

  He said no more, just held her close.

  “Is something wrong?” she finally had the courage to ask.

  “Wrong?”

  “Well, you said Dear lord. I’m wondering if that is a bad thing. Is it strange making love to me given I’m your friend. I know you think of me as a sister...” She rushed on, “I don’t want it to be strange for you. That isn’t right. I don’t want to change what we have.”

  Richard shifted to gaze into her eyes. He’d had sex with many, many women, but his satisfaction had never been like this. It was as if their souls had sung the same tune. “What we share in bed is very special to me. I do not, nor cannot ever think of you as a sister again. I know you’ve limited experience, Maddy,” he took her tiny hand in his, “but when I’m with you, sharing intimacies with you, I love that, as with the rest of our relationship, you do not hide any piece of yourself from me.”

  “What does that mean exactly?”

  “You give yourself fully. You enjoy sharing your body with me. You are completely uninhibited.”

  She sat up and pulled the covers over herself denying him the beautiful vision of her nakedness. “Am I not supposed to behave that way? Am I doing something wrong?”

  It was difficult to keep a straight face. “Most definitely not, I love your little cries and moans, the way you rake your fingers down my back, and the way your thighs grip me when you come. It’s just that society usually informs young ladies that to show enthusiasm for bed sport is wanton.”

  Clutching the bedclothes tighter, Maddy said, “Are you calling me a wanton by any chance?” Her eyes ran over his naked form and he felt desire stir again. So soon and it was simply from a look. But oh, what a look! And yet, she had no idea what her eyes portrayed—want, need, and desire—for him.

  And while he loved the look, did he love her? He wished he knew if he had the capacity to truly, madly, deeply love. Surely if his twin had found the ability to love within him, Richard could too. But was Maddy the one? Not long ago he thought it was Sarah. He didn’t trust his feelings. The thought that he had a fickle heart was not comforting.

  He reached out, grabbed the sheet she clutched to her pert bosom, and pulled her back to him. “I like you wanton. I like seeing the fire of need in your eyes when you look at me.”

  “Do you?” was her husky reply and her fingers teased down his stomach. Her hand wrapped around the hardening length of him, “I believe you.”

  He groaned and pushed his hips so he slid through her tiny hands. She made him feel so big...

  Before he could instruct her further, there was a loud knock on Maddy’s door, followed by his brother’s booming voice.

  “Richard, terribly sorry old chap, but we have a delicate situation developing. I need to see you—now!”

  Richard looked at Maddy in disbelief. “I’ll kill him. Our first night home...” He threw back the covers and pulled on his robe as he stormed to the door about to tear his brother’s head off. He quickly slipped out into the corridor. He didn’t want anyone seeing Maddy in the aftermath of their frantic lovemaking.

  Maddy couldn’t hear any of the heated conversation through the thick oak door, but she knew it must be urgent for Anthony to turn up at their home this late during their honeymoon.

  The discussion didn’t last long. Richard slipped back into her room looking decidedly agitated. He ran a hand through his hair as Maddy sat up clutching the sheet to her breasts. “What has happened?”

  He came and sat on the edge of the bed and cupped her face in his large, warm hand. “I have to go out.”

  She looked at the clock on the mantle. “Now?”

  “It appears the matter cannot wait until morning.” He bent and placed a kiss on her lips and rose to leave.

  “Where are you going?” If Anthony were with him, it would be somewhere respectable; Anthony loved his wife.

  “I don’t want to trouble you. Go to sleep and we’ll talk in the morning.”

  She eyed him determinedly. “I’d like to know where my husband is going at one in the morning.” This was the first test of his promise. Would he lie?

  “God, damn it, Maddy, why can’t you let it be?” He was at his connecting door. She heard Clayton laying out his clothes. “Anthony has received an urgent missive from Sarah requesting our presence. It is apparently a matter of life and death. We have no choice but to go.”

  Maddy’s heart missed a beat. “From Sarah? For both of you to go? Life and death?” Maddy didn’t believe a word of it. Oh, the damsel in distress routine was exactly the right way to wind Richard around your finger. Her talk with her mother had opened her eyes to Richard’s personality. Sarah had already played that card with Richard before she had married Charles. Maddy didn’t trust Sarah any more than she’d trust a thin sheet of ice over a deep pond. “Can’t it wait until morning?”

  “I won’t know until we speak with her. If it’s any consolation, I don’t want to go. But as Anthony’s involved, I have to. I can’t leave him to clean up my mess.”

  She nodded slowly. “I understand.” She trusted Richard. It was that witch Sarah she didn’t trust. Still, if Anthony was with him...

  He said softly, “I promise you I am no longer interested in Sarah, in any way.”

  “Good. Then the sooner you go, the sooner you can come back to bed,” and she let the sheet drop. Maddy loved the way his eyes instantly feasted on her breasts. She felt her nipples harden under his urgent gaze, and she relished his groan.

  “Unfair.” He was at her bedside kissing her frantically before she could even smile. He finally broke the kiss and rose to leave. “Get some sleep. You’ll need your strength when I return.”

  “Promises, promises,” she called as he disappeared into his adjacent room. She rose, and still naked, walked to her tapestry bag and pulled out a book. She had a little meeting of her own—with Madam du Barry. “If Sarah is thinking of using womanly wiles on my husband, then I’m going to learn a few tricks of my own.”

  #

  Richard heard Anthony’s carriage horses stamping and snorting impatiently outside the house. Blast Sarah, he knew he couldn’t turn away from his obligation to his ex-lover, but he also couldn’t bear to see the worried distrust in Maddy’s eyes. He didn’t know how he could express his complete disinterest in any kind of amorous relationship with Sarah. Whatever their relationship had been, it had died the day he gave his hand in marriage to Madeline. He would never do anything to dishonor his vows or to hurt her. He’d tell her exactly what Sarah wanted when he returned. He’d promised never to lie, and he would keep his word.

  “What on earth is all this cloak and dagger charade Sarah’s using, and why the hell am I involved?” was Anthony’s angry greeting upon entering the unmarked carriage. “I’m not amused. Why has she dragged me into your personal affairs?”

  Richard threw his twin a look that would have slayed many a man, but which had no effect at all on his brother. “There is no affair now. Not since I married.”

  “So what happened at Hascombe won’t ever happen again?” Anthony raised an eyebrow. “Marriage has never stopped men before.”

  “Don’t judge me by your standards. Hascombe was a mistake and thankfully Maddy stopped me from doing something very foolish.”

  “If you weren’t my brother, I’d challenge you for that. I wou
ld never be unfaithful to Melissa.”

  Richard sat back and leaned his head against the squab. Everything was such a mess. “Don’t be stupid. I know that, but it didn’t stop you sleeping with other men’s wives before you married.”

  Anthony shifted uncomfortably on the opposite seat. “I was a different man then.”

  He let a smile play on his lips at the tone of Anthony’s obvious embarrassment. “Very true. Funny how a woman can change you.”

  “Have you learned that already? Good. Madeline could be the making of you—if you’d let her.”

  He opened his eyes and stared at his brother. “I didn’t realize I needed to be made over.”

  “We never do. But women have a different view, and it pains me to say they are usually right. I’m not sure what it is about the so-called, yet ridiculously inappropriately named ‘weaker’ sex, but they manage to strip a man bare and expose him completely. You can’t hide your flaws. Worse, they have a tendency to magnify such flaws, until you cannot escape the sad fact that you’re not the man you should be or could be.”

  “Christ. I often wonder why men ever marry. Who wants to face their deficiencies? Perhaps I’d rather continue to live in blissful ignorance.”

  “Because your life is not truly blissful.” Anthony leaned forward. “You have no idea of what true bliss is until you’ve given your heart to another, until she owns your soul. When you find that perfect woman who completes you, and only then, will you know true bliss.” He sat back with a sigh. “It’s heaven on earth, and nothing else can compare.”

  Richard blinked hard in response; the emotion in his twin’s voice had brought tears to Anthony’s eyes. He’d never envied Anthony in his life and now envy burned deep in his soul. He wondered if he would ever get to experience such joy, happiness, and contentment.

  “How did it happen with Melissa? I trapped you into marriage with her, a virtual stranger. How did you find the courage to let her into your heart?”

  Anthony scoffed. “Find? I had absolutely no choice. I could no more ignore her than the air I breathe. I didn’t let her in, she demanded entry, and she forced her way in until I had no choice but to obey.” He smiled at Richard as if he had a lot to learn. “Such is the power of women. The right woman, that is.”

  Richard’s mouth dropped open. “When did you know?”

  “You mean when did I surrender to the inevitable?”

  He nodded.

  “When I thought I’d lost her. My heart stopped beating in my chest. I knew that should she die, it would be as if I too had died. All I’d have left was a living death, I guess. He clenched his fists. “I pray you never experience the same. When I saw what Rothsay had done to Melissa, my world went black and I wanted to rip the bastard’s head from his body.”

  Richard had been at his brother’s side when they’d found Melissa in the hands of Anthony’s sworn enemy. He swallowed hard. How would he have felt if it had been Madeline?

  His skin prickled with fear. In that moment, he knew he’d kill anyone who tried to hurt Maddy or take her from him.

  His fear and protectiveness must have shown on his face because Anthony said softly, “I see it’s begun. She has slipped into your heart already. I’m pleased.”

  He gave a sheepish smile. “How could it happen so fast? I have fallen in love so quickly before, what if this fades too? That would destroy Maddy. To love her and then take that away from her.”

  “I’m sure it will be different this time, because she is not a stranger. She’s a beautiful, intelligent woman with whom you’ve been friends for almost six years. Part of me thinks you recognized she was your destiny many years ago. Why else would a grown man befriend a young girl?”

  Richard couldn’t deny his words. Something about Maddy had drawn him all those years ago. By choosing not to acknowledge these strange feelings, it had allowed him to entertain a totally inappropriate relationship with his best-friend’s younger sister. Even Rufus recognized the bond they shared and did not deny them. Was it because in the depths of his soul he knew Maddy was the one? That one day he’d realize he needed her and only her.

  “It will be hard on Sarah to learn my affection has waned. But I really have no idea why she has asked to see us both.”

  “Perhaps it’s to maintain the pretense of respectability,” his brother sardonically stated. “It appears we will soon find out,” and only then did Richard notice the carriage had slowed to a stop.

  “We won’t find answers sitting here.” With that Richard leapt from the carriage and strode to the front door. He did not even have to knock because the late Lord Wrentham’s butler opened the door immediately and ushered the men into the drawing room.

  When his eyes fell upon Sarah, he had to prevent himself from letting the shock show on his face. He heard Anthony’s indrawn breath beside him. She sat ramrod straight on the edge of her chair. Her arms were wrapped round her as she gently rocked to and fro. Her face was pale and she looked desperately thin. Guilt consumed him at thought of how he’d left her to her fate. A part of him recognized he was grateful she’d married Charles. It would have been a huge mistake to marry Sarah given how he now felt about Maddy. But still, he had at one time been as close to her as any man and woman could be, and he owed her. This debt almost saw him rush across and pull her into his arms, but that wouldn’t help anyone, especially not Sarah.

  “I’ll get some brandy,” Anthony said softly as Richard began to walk toward her.

  She finally looked up and tears welled in her eyes. “Richard. You came. Thank God.” A sob caught in her throat and he saw she was shaking.

  He crouched at her feet and took her hands in his. They were ice cold. “I know Charles’s death must have come as a shock. But you are making yourself ill with grief, or perhaps guilt. I know I had every reason, as you did, to hate him, but still—he did not deserve this.”

  She gave a brittle laugh and pulled her hands from his. “I cannot mourn him. You know how he treated me.” Her hand shaped his chin. “If not for him…”

  Anthony coughed and Richard removed her hand from his face. Instead, his brother wrapped her hand around the brandy glass and urged her to take a sip. “This will warm you.”

  Then Anthony strode to the large fire and stoked it up higher even though the room was blanketed in heat.

  The brandy seemed to restore Sarah and she asked them to sit.

  “Thank you for coming.”

  “You know I would never turn away from you, Sarah.”

  “It’s ironic, isn’t it? I had to marry Charles and you had to marry Madeline. Neither of us got what we wanted. The devil kicked us while we were down. I have now become a widow and you are stuck in a marriage not of your choosing.”

  “I’m content, Sarah. Madeline is a dear friend and I will not see her hurt.” He hoped she understood without him having to spell it out. They were over—romantically, at least.

  She gave a weak smile. “I know. I lost you the day I married Charles. I realize that now. I was foolish.”

  “We cannot change the past, so don’t let regret destroy you.” Richard held her gaze hoping to diminish her pain.

  She took a large sip of her drink before replying. “That’s true. I’m hoping that one day I may even find happiness once again, but…”

  Anthony said, “Of course you will. You’re a beautiful young woman.”

  It did cross Richard’s mind that she looked anything but radiant at the moment.

  “You don’t understand. I’m worried I may not live long enough to get that chance.”

  That got their attention. “I beg your pardon?”

  She looked directly at Richard and said, “I’m almost two months gone.”

  Anthony cleared up Richard’s confusion. “You’re with child?”

  She was still looking at Richard and nodding her head.

  A rush of thunder filled his ears but he’d never been bad at math. “Two months. But that could mean…”

  Anth
ony turned to him. “Christ.”

  “It could be my child?”

  A tear trickled down her cheek. “You were my lover before I married Charles. We both assumed we would marry, I was never supposed to marry Charles, and so we did not take care…I cannot be sure who the father is.”

  His child, it would be a part of him. He never knew how much he had wanted children until he heard those words. He might be a father soon. A smile was beginning to form until he looked at Anthony. Anthony’s eyes were not filled with joy. They were filled with infinite sadness.

  His smile died. Sarah wasn’t his wife. Cold crept up each limb. He instantly hoped Sarah wasn’t carrying his child, for he’d never be in a position to acknowledge it. At least, not if he wanted to protect Sarah and their child. She could be carrying the next Marquess of Wrentham. A son, regardless of his parentage, would be the heir.

  The thought was too terrible to face. How had he been so stupid? His arrogance and thoughtlessness may end up destroying the three people he cared about, Sarah, Maddy, and a child yet to be born.

  If the babe were his, he would never hear the word ‘father’ from its lips.

  “I know I shouldn’t care but I want it to be yours so badly. Then I’ll have a part of you always,” Sarah admitted softly. “Selfish, I know.”

  It hurt him to say the words. “It would be better for the child, and for you, if it is not mine.” How was he to tell his wife about this? “Maddy.” He didn’t even realize he’d said her name out loud until he noticed Sarah flinch. If the child was his, and looked like him, then society would know, and Maddy would forever be a victim of gossip and pity in their eyes. The child would be her husband’s love child. She’d hate that.

  Would she hate him for putting her in this position?

  “Does she need to know?” Sarah asked.