Bought: The Penniless Lady

by Deborah Hale

  Her words sent him flying out of the chair to kneel at her feet and lift his gaze to her. “You are welcome to use them for that purpose as often as you wish. Then I will have the pleasure of staring at you without having to look away in case you catch me at it.”

  Sweet, melodious laughter bubbled up from some secret spring deep inside her. “You have done that, too?”

  “I couldn’t help myself.” A thought sparked by their earlier exchange suddenly came clearer to him. “Was there one particular man who had a harsh opinion of you?”

  Her features froze into a tight, fragile mask. “What makes you ask?”

  “You once told me you’d been deceived by someone you thought you knew. It was him, wasn’t it? He made a fuss over you, then turned and showed his true colors?”

  Artemis gave a shamefaced nod, as if she was somehow at fault for whatever had happened. “I was young and foolish enough to fancy myself in love. But my uncles disapproved of the match, so I refused his offer of marriage. I wanted to run away with him, but the family would have disowned me. I would never have been allowed to see Daphne again. She was so young. She needed me.”

  The poor lass, bound by duty, all the while knowing she might be forfeiting her only chance for love and a family of her own. Hadrian knew all about hard choices. He admired people who were willing to make them and do the right thing, no matter how difficult.

  As for the man who’d won Artemis’s heart only to lose her, he was torn between scathing contempt and irrational envy. “This suitor took your rejection badly, did he?”

  “Very badly, though not because I broke his heart. Charles Nugent only wanted me for the distinction of having a titled wife. When I refused him as gently as I could, he took the opportunity to tell me his true opinion of my charms.“

  As she related, in halting words, the humiliating abuse heaped upon her by a man she’d trusted and cared for, Hadrian smoldered with indignant rage. Bad enough for the scoundrel to say such things if they’d been true. But to plant such malicious false doubts in a sensitive nature like hers, for no better reason than because she’d been loyal to her family, was downright wicked! If he could have got his hands on Nugent just then, he would have thrashed the bounder within an inch of his miserable life!

  “Don’t you see?” he ventured when her voice trailed off. “You cannot go by the judgment of such a conniving rascal. Not even if those were his true feelings, which I doubt. You thwarted his scheme. So he revenged himself in the only way he knew how. I hope you give my opinion more credence than his.”

  Artemis did not hesitate. “Of course! You are ten times the man Charles Nugent will ever be. But I fear you are partial in your judgment of me.”

  “Perhaps I am…now. But you must recall when we first met. Then, I detested you. I thought you were haughty and superior. I blamed you for what had happened to my brother. In spite of all that, I was drawn to you, against my will.” He had long been ready to surrender to his physical attraction for Artemis. But there were other feelings he needed to guard against, for both their sakes.

  The best way for him to resist might be to offer her some final words of reassurance, bid Artemis a chaste good-night and make his escape. When she had first invited him inside, he’d thought of her bedchamber as a glittering treasure box, ripe for plunder. Suddenly, he wondered if it might be a tempting trap.

  Not that Artemis intended it to be. She was not to blame for his unruly desire or his insidious doubts. If he walked away from her now, when it was clear she wanted to let him stay, he would only confirm every miserable falsehood Charles Nugent had made her believe about herself. Not to mention that wretched old nurse and the wellmeaning relatives who’d spent a lifetime telling her how little she resembled her beautiful sister.

  Hadrian could not let that happen, no matter how it might complicate his life.

  What had possessed her to invite Hadrian into her bedchamber so late at night? Artemis chided herself as she stared down at him, kneeling on her carpet with outrage and pity written plain on his bold, compelling features. Had she truly wanted to explain her reluctance to consummate their marriage? Or had she secretly hoped Hadrian would take that decision out of her hands?

  Though she was fully clothed, every word she’d spoken about Charles Nugent seemed to strip away one more covering from her heart. If she kept on, she would soon leave it naked and vulnerable.

  Her countenance must have betrayed her misgivings, for Hadrian rose from the floor and held his arms open to her. “Are you going to let a blackguard like Nugent continue to stand in the way of our pleasure? Or are you going to make us both pay the price for his sins? If you come to me now, I swear I will put all my skill and experience as a lover at your service. I will initiate you as gently and pleasurably as any maiden ever was.”

  His words set her desperate eagerness at war with her agonizing reluctance, wrenching her back and forth until she feared they would tear her apart. But when those two opposing forces were balanced in unbearable tension, Artemis suddenly felt herself no longer bound by either, but free to make a choice. In that moment she knew that although she could never banish all her doubts, she would regret it more if she did not act upon her feelings for Hadrian. Even if she was not entirely certain what all those feelings were.

  Slowly she arose from the bed—not like the chaste huntress for whom she’d been named, but as the love goddess, Aphrodite, had emerged newborn from the sea foam. Slipping into Hadrian’s waiting arms, she raised the chalice of her lips for him to fill with the rich, potent wine of his kisses.

  For weeks, she had watched his lips whenever he spoke, remembering how they’d felt against her skin and the sensations they had kindled. How often she’d longed to feel them on hers again, not struggling to resist their attraction, but surrendering to it.

  Hadrian obliged her with the delectable play of his lips and tongue until she was light-headed, giddy and almost satisfied. Surely a man could not kiss a woman that way unless she roused his desire to a fever pitch.

  His fingers plunged into her hair, tugging out the pins that bound it up. Once he’d set it free to cascade over her shoulders, he lavished it with admiring caresses.

  “I have wanted to do that almost from the moment I first set eyes on you,” he whispered, releasing her lips to strew kisses down her cheek and neck. “A more glorious head of hair I’ve never seen on a woman. Puts silk clean to shame, it does. And the smell of it…” he inhaled deeply “…like a country garden after the rain.”

  She hid her face against his shoulder, intoxicating herself on breath after deep breath of his scent. “I rinse it with lavender water, the way my mother did. It reminds me of her.”

  “After this…” his deep velvety murmur made her knees grow even weaker than his kisses already had rendered them “…it will remind me of you.”

  He sounded so sincere that a lost, searching part of Artemis could not help but believe him. “Keep talking like that and you will make me insufferably vain.”

  “I doubt it.” He nudged her chin with his shoulder, making Artemis lift her face to meet his admiring gaze. “You don’t know how beautiful you are by half. But if you are still uncertain after I’m done with you tonight, I will have failed in my aim altogether.”

  With that, he scooped her into his arms and carried her to the bed. “You must know by now, I hate to fail. Especially at something so important.”

  He lowered her onto the bed with great care, as if she were a delicate treasure he wished to admire at his leisure. But the very next instant, he turned away from her and perched on the edge of the bed. Her bewildered body throbbed with an infernal compound of itch and ache.

  One after the other, Hadrian’s boots hit the floor with a soft, provocative thud. Then he slipped off his coat and tossed it onto the chair in front of her dressing table. His waistcoat swiftly followed. Did he mean to disrobe completely, in front of her?

  What if he did? Curiosity sought to soothe her ruffled modest
y. For all her innocence, she had seen a number of naked male figures in classical statues and paintings. There should be nothing about Hadrian’s bare body to shock her. While he untied his neck linen, she wavered between averting her gaze and continuing to watch him undress. But when he pulled off his shirt, Artemis could not have looked away if she’d tried.

  His torso was not as tanned as his face, but enough to give him the look of a Greek god, one carved out of rich, warm mahogany rather than cold, white marble. For a moment, she forgot all her earlier misgivings, lost in her admiration of the ideal proportion and contours of his physique: the spare masculine grace of his bare back, tapering from a magnificent pair of shoulders to a firm, trim waist; the hard, lean muscle rippling down his chest toward his taut belly, lightly shaded with fine dark hair; the powerful swell and sweep of his arms ending in large, strong hands, hands that nimbly unbuttoned his breeches and slid them down over lithe, smooth thighs.

  With an abrupt, sickening jolt, all Artemis’s doubts engulfed her once more. Much as Hadrian’s glorious masculinity stirred her admiration and desire, it also intimidated her. What did she have to offer him in return?

  The cruel words Charles Nugent had hurled at her ten years ago burst from the locked cupboard of her memory to taunt her. The only way I could stand being wed to such a pallid, scrawny milk-and-water miss would be to engage a plump, pretty mistress at the earliest opportunity.

  All that had saved her pride was her relief at escaping the torment of marriage to such a scoundrel. She had never submitted to his mortifying caresses or let him deep enough into her heart to break it.

  As Hadrian turned back toward her, Artemis caught sight of something her stolen glances at antique statues had not prepared her for—the rampant shaft of arrogant manhood, rising from his loins. A gasp of awe and a shriek of alarm collided in her throat, threatening to strangle her! Forcing a deep draft of air into her lungs, she pulled herself upright and swung her legs over the opposite side of the bed.

  An instant later Hadrian’s arms twined around her. “You’re not running away on me, are you? I didn’t mean to frighten you, just now. But I cannot hide the effect you have upon me.”

  She was responsible for that? Preposterous as the notion seemed, it sent a heady surge of power through Artemis.

  “I am not frightened.” Dearing pride refused to let her admit otherwise. Besides, it was not her husband’s size and power that intimidated her as much as the renewed consciousness of her own shortcomings. “I thought since you were undressing, I should, too.”

  “Taking your own clothes off?” Hadrian raised his hands to her hair and ran the back of one down her neck. “Where’s the sport in that?”

  The next instant he swept her hair to one side, draping it over her shoulder. “But since you’re sitting up, I will take advantage of this opportunity to unfasten your gown.”

  His fingertips brushed against her back as he slid the mother-of-pearl buttons free from their ribbon loops. Then he eased the short sleeves off her shoulders and peeled down her bodice, exposing her chemise and short stays. A moment later he had her gown off and folded neatly over the back of the chair on which his garments lolled with such careless abandon.

  Her slippers were next, and as he reached up under her chemise, the skimming caress of his deft, powerful hands sent shafts of pleasure racing up her legs to converge at the point where they met. At that instant, Artemis discovered a perfect balm for the itchy ache that had beset her earlier. It was her husband’s touch.

  Yet even as his touch soothed one yearning, it provoked another—a deep, desperate hunger for which even her self-conscious wariness was no match.

  His upward journey halted at the top of her stockings. When his fingertips fluttered against her thighs as he untied the ribbons that secured her stockings, a soft whimper of need escaped her clenched lips.

  “There, you see?” Hadrian murmured in a tone of warm satisfaction. “I knew you’d enjoy this.”

  Artemis tried to answer, but her mouth craved his kiss with such savage intensity, she could not coax out a single word. When Hadrian tugged the hem of her chemise upward to expose her naked loins, her head thrashed from side to side. She prayed he would not think she wanted him to stop.

  “You needn’t deny it.” He nudged her legs apart and knelt between them, looming over her. “Your body will give the truth away.”

  He slid a finger into the crease between her legs, the center of her smoldering need. She gasped and writhed as it glided on the slick moisture.

  Leaning closer, until his cheek rested against hers and the swift, hot breath from his nostrils tickled her ear, he whispered, “We both show the signs of wanting. Quite a wonder how a man and woman are made for each other, isn’t it?”

  A sound of inarticulate need escaped her lips. It was no use trying to deny the fierce passion he had wakened in her body. The proof was there, wet on his fingers, ready to ease the entry of his shaft deep inside her.

  Until that moment, Hadrian had been so gentle and controlled even as he drove her mad with desire. But now a tremor rippled through his magnificent body. His voice grew harsh and husky as he whispered, “I wish I did not want you so badly. But I cannot help myself.”

  His lips moved down her cheek in search of her mouth. He found it open, her lips moving as if gasping for air. But it was not air she craved, only him. The insistent pressure of his lips upon hers and the ravenous thrust of his tongue filled some long-denied need in her.

  Until that moment, she had kept her arms resting upon the bed lest they reveal her awkward inexperience. Hadrian’s kiss shattered the bonds that restrained them. One hand rose to rake through his hair, ready to hold him if he tried to break from their kiss. The other found his smooth, taut torso, stroking it with greedy relish. Her mouth moved, too, her tongue caressing his. Her hips thrust against the sinful delight of his finger’s velvet caress, even as she yearned for something more substantial.

  “I wanted to…go slow.” He panted the words into her mouth and she drank them like fiery brandy. “Make the first time…easy for you. But you are just too…I cannot hold back.”

  A voice that was not hers gasped, “Don’t!”

  Was she urging him on or protesting the abrupt, frustrating withdrawal of his finger at the peak of her need? Artemis was too deep in the grip of pure sensation to be certain. She only knew that her command or entreaty spurred Hadrian to renew their kiss with even more reckless passion.

  In place of his finger, the searing, silken crown of his shaft rubbed against her, seeking entry. Spreading her legs wider and tilting her hips, she exposed the sensitive core of her yearning to the sleek friction of his thrust. A sharp burst of ecstasy merged with the hot stab of pain as he dived into her. With each reckless thrust of his hips, wave after shuddering wave of pleasure broke over her, drowning her, filling her.

  Then his body wrenched and writhed in the grip of forces too powerful for him to control. Forces she had unleashed.

  Afterward, as lazy ripples of delight pulsed through her body, Artemis looked forward to the next time Hadrian bedded her…and the next. Though she wondered how it could possibly be more satisfying, she nursed a sweet, secret confidence that it would only get better.

  A sunrise concert of chaffinches, blackbirds and song thrushes woke Hadrian the next morning. For a disoriented instant he wondered why his heart responded with an answering trill of high spirits.

  Then Artemis stirred in her sleep beside him, rousing lush memories of the previous night. Slumber enhanced her beauty, relaxing the guarded set of her features to something infinitely more approachable. It brought the pearly glow of dawn to her alabaster skin. While feasting his eyes on her delicate beauty, Hadrian recalled their midnight tryst with a mixture of delicious exultation and bitter shame.

  He had not meant to take her with such wanton vigor. He’d promised to proceed with deliberate restraint, the way a gentleman should initiate such a rare lady. He hadn’t wanted t
o alarm or repel her with his attentions, but to coax her to such a keen pitch of desire that pleasure would ease the sting of her first time. He’d also been thinking of himself, when he’d sought to maintain control. Like a rider on the back of a wild stallion, he’d been determined to master his passion. Otherwise it might run away with him…perhaps into dangerous territory.

  A lock of his wife’s rich dark hair lay upon the pillow beside him. Reaching up carefully so as not to disturb her, Hadrian twined the silken curl around his finger. Then he brushed it over his cheek and under his nose, where he caught a tantalizing whiff of lavender.

  He had never expected Artemis to thaw so quickly to his touch…then take fire. For all he’d boasted of his experience, he’d never had an encounter so shattering in its intensity. Before last night, he’d always chosen the right instant to surrender control. But when his reluctant virgin bride had suddenly turned earthy temptress, she’d shattered his noble intentions and his iron self-control, making him passion’s willing slave.

  Much as Hadrian savored the triumph of rousing her to such powerful heights and the tumultuous ecstasy they’d shared, he feared he had made a grave mistake in consummating their marriage.

  He considered stealing away before Artemis woke and he had to face her reaction to his rough lust. But his father had taught him to face the consequences of his actions. He could not turn his back on that lesson now.

  Her eyelids fluttered open, just then. For a breathtaking instant, Hadrian gazed into an intricate, intriguing labyrinth hidden in their amethyst depths. If he entered, might he penetrate all the way to her secret heart? Or would he wander forever in a perilous twilight, seeking in vain? Perhaps it would be best for both of them if she despised him for the way he’d handled her last night.