by Liz Carlyle
“Roll onto your belly, love,” he whispered. “I’m not finished with you.”
She nodded, her hair scrubbing the pillow. The morning sun was slanting through the window now, and as she turned, he caught something like a diamond glistening in her lashes. Not a tear, he thought—for was a tear truly a tear if it had not been shed?—and in the urgency of the moment, he did not question it.
Gently, he pushed a pillow under her hips, urged her legs apart, then knelt behind her.
“Up on your knees a little, love,” he whispered.
Isabella rose, bracing herself on her hands, sensing instinctively what he wanted.
She was utterly open to him now as he pushed his throbbing cock back into her passage. He thrust hard and fast on that first stroke, intent upon finishing his business with what should have been practiced efficiency.
But it was not.
It was exquisite, and he did not want it to stop.
He felt himself slide deep on another long, perfect stroke, her womanly scent washing over him, and suddenly something altered. His pace hitched, then slowed. He looked down at her—not the woman who’d slapped him and tormented his dreams but Isabella, his lover.
He knew it was a romantic and silly notion even as he felt himself being drawn into her, drawn into that moment, melting into her. And strangely, he let the moment go. He watched her sweetly familiar profile and felt no need to hasten it. On and on it stretched as he slowly pumped himself into her, as though for him only Isabella existed, her head bowed in supplication, her body warm and purifying.
After a time he felt the quickening inside him, the unmistakable instant when release edged near. Then Isabella made a sound; a soft exhalation in the rain-washed light, and suddenly reality hung suspended. His vision seemed to blur and warm, as if those exquisite strokes had pushed him into a different sort of light, into a place where his past twirled like an ornament in the sunlight, throwing off glimpses of a memory resurrected.
Glimpses of her, a woman he hardly knew.
And yet he did know her. He knew Isabella in his bones.
He drew a deep, wracking breath and thrust harder and deeper. Then she became the light, surrounding him in a haze of joy as he convulsed, pumping his seed inside her. And when at last the ecstasy surged through him, it shifted and became something more, bringing with it a sense of completeness that melted through muscle and sinew, down to his bone, the pleasure so intense that his breath stopped.
So intense that the world as he knew it stopped.
Time and light ceased to exist, the moment spinning away. He could hear a distant heartbeat, dropping slower and slower, and knew it was his own.
Suddenly, his entire body seized. On a harsh cry, he collapsed, his face buried against Isabella’s neck. He gasped for breath, then gasped again. He drank in air in deep gulps, even as he wished to return to that place of light and joy.
But the oxygen was flowing into his brain once more, bringing him back to life.
La petite mort.
This time, it had damn near killed him.
And for the first time, he understood what it meant.
He stirred long moments later to the sound of rain spattering on Isabella’s windows. Water was gurgling down the drainpipes, edged with the sound of ice, but within it was as if the room cocooned them in warmth. Dimly, he realized he lay on his side again, spooned about her fragile body, one hand cupping her belly, awash in a sense of well-being that, had he been fully awake, would have worried him.
But he was not quite ready to wake yet; not quite ready to let go of the ephemeral pleasure. Burying his face between Isabella’s shoulder blades, he kissed her, drawing in the scent of his own sweat mingled with the smell of her soap and her skin. The scent of purity and perfection. Then, through the sensual languor, he felt her stir a little, the stark flatness of her belly shifting beneath his hand.
She was rail thin, he mused, for all that she was beautiful. Perhaps later they might do something foolish—like toast cheese over the fire in their wrappers. And tomorrow—yes, tomorrow he would put extra butter on her bread, or feed her on strawberries and cream. Yes, tomorrow he would have Yardley see if hothouse berries might be had.
Still, he thought on a drowsy chuckle, he hoped it was not a telling gesture, the way he’d spread his fingers almost protectively over the flat of her belly.
Over her womb.
Then, on his next breath, he remembered what he had not done.
The haze of well-being lifted like a veil, and his blood ran cold.
“Isabella,” he rasped. “Isabella, when did you last bleed?”
She lay silent for a moment. “Five days past?”
It was a question, not a statement. He cursed beneath his breath.
Damn it, what had he been thinking?
Was he so selfish—so caught up in his own depravity—he simply didn’t care for her? He drew a deep breath and looked at her again, impassive and quiet beside him. Good God, she was innocent—or nearly so.
With a hand that shook a little, he tucked a loose curl behind her ear.
He had learned the hard way to be excruciatingly careful. To find ways of taking his pleasure that didn’t involve such a risk.
Still, if she was right, they should—should—be safe. And yet, for all his experience in pleasuring women, their bodies were still a physiological mystery to him. He stroked one finger around the pink shell of her ear, still shaken.
“Next time I won’t spill myself inside you.” His voice was far steadier than he felt. “Please. Forgive me. I won’t take that risk again. I swear it, Isabella.”
“Thank you,” she murmured, her voice distant. “Are we . . . finished?”
Something inside him froze; something uglier, even, than cold terror.
“For now, yes,” he said, levering up onto his elbow.
She did not move, but he had the overarching sense she wished him to leave.
Women never wished him to leave. They always begged him to stay, sometimes literally on their knees. Of course, most of it was just artifice. Hepplewood did not delude himself; he knew what such women were.
But did he know what Isabella was?
Did she just not know how the game was played?
Clearly the woman had no real sexual experience. Clearly she wanted teaching. Indeed, he had begun it this morning; begun the process of hardening a new lover who would be able to take all that he could give, and who would perhaps tempt, at least for a little while, his jaded palate.
In that, however, would he be making of her what she was not?
It was a novel thought—particularly for a man who had long ago vowed to stop thinking.
But the chill was still stealing over him and deepening to something a little like fear. Isabella’s face was still emotionless, her gaze fixed on the distant wall.
He had the most frightful sense of having misjudged. Of having pushed too far, too fast. Of having lost all capacity for true tenderness. He’d never had a virgin. Never had a woman who wasn’t well experienced. Never had a woman he’d wanted with such . . . wrath and desperation.
Yes, that was a part of it. He wanted Isabella so desperately that it made him angry.
At himself.
The sick chill deepened. He shoved it away ruthlessly.
It would not do. He was what he was.
Isabella was still curled around the pillow he’d placed under her hips. He lowered his mouth and kissed her cheek. “Isabella,” he murmured, “how long have you been without a lover?”
She drew a shuddering breath. “Eight—no, nine years.”
“Good Lord,” he said. “Were you married from the cradle?”
“At seventeen,” she said.
“Ah, a marriage of short duration, you’d said.”
“Yes,” she said. “A few months. Weeks, really.”
Hepplewood waited, accustomed to more talkative females—females that ordinarily would never stop nattering at him, even w
hen a man yearned for silence. But this was not, he sensed, a good sort of silence.
Damn it all, he did not mollycoddle women. He did not coax or cajole. He rolled onto his back and dragged an arm over his eyes. He had fucked himself blue and ought now be grateful for the opportunity to skulk off and go to sleep in his own bed.
That was another thing he did not do, he remembered as he drifted off again. He did not sleep with women. That could turn to intimacy, and in a damned quick hurry, too.
He dragged the arm away and turned back to her. “Isabella,” he pressed, “what happened to your husband?”
“He died.”
“May I ask of what?”
At last she rolled over to look at him. “You may do anything you please,” she said, her eyes glistening. “I think we just established that.”
Hepplewood looked at her and sighed. “Oh, Isabella,” he said, reaching up to push his fingers through her hair. “Perhaps that’s the sort of arrangement we have, yes. But I should like to please you in the process. And you seemed, in the end, to take pleasure in what we just did.”
“Pleasure?” she said, her lips thinning. “It was like nothing I’ve ever felt before. Yes. It was a sort of pleasure.”
“Did it feel . . . distasteful?” he asked, crooking his head. “Isabella, did it?”
“It felt frightening at first.” She looked away. “What am I to say, my lord? I am your wh—I mean, your lover—and here to accommodate your wishes. Please, may we not have this discussion? It seems perilously near those things we vowed we would not discuss.”
Hepplewood felt as if he’d just been shut out of something at once precious and yet deeply unpleasant. He did not like it one damned bit.
And what was far worse, he didn’t like that he didn’t like it. He much preferred to not give a damn. Yes, he was what he was, and he’d best remember it. Isabella’s beauty and her goodness would never change him.
And perhaps he ought not change her.
“Can you be content here, Isabella, in my bed?” he said gruffly. “Will you wish to continue this arrangement?”
She was staring up at the ceiling now. “I am content enough,” she said. “I agree to continue our arrangement. And I will give you satisfaction—and obedience—from here out.”
Hepplewood felt a prick of raw anger. “Good,” he snapped, “because that’s damned well what I expect of you.”
She drew another long, uneven breath. “My husband died of drinking,” she said, her voice emotionless. “Acute alcohol poisoning, the coroner called it. He was young and romantic, and married, he’d once proclaimed, to the love of his life. And yet his life still turned out to be not what he’d wanted. So one day he took the cork out of a cheap bottle of gin, and washed that bottle down with another, and perhaps even a third, and that is all I know, my lord. Beyond that, his death is as much a mystery to me as it is to the next person. Now, have I given satisfaction with my answer?”
Hepplewood got the unpleasant feeling he’d just struck a nerve.
“You’re right,” he said, forcing down his ire. “I should not have asked you. But if it is of any comfort to you, my marriage was also short, and it ended just as miserably, trust me.”
“How can anyone take comfort in another’s misery?” Isabella murmured. “And you had a child. At least you got a child for your misery.”
Her tone, husky, with the barest hint of longing, made him shiver. Was that what she wanted, deep down? A child, a husband, a family? The simplest of dreams? And if she did, why was she wasting her time and her beauty on him?
The question chafed at him. He did not wish to feel tenderness.
“Yes, I got a child because I seduced her,” he snapped, since simple subtraction made it obvious. “She was rich, lovely, and green as grass, and I was charmingly irresistible. So I seduced her—easily—and by the time she climbed out of my bed and came to her senses, she had my babe in her belly and it was too damned late. So yes, I got a child. And she died bearing it—married to a man she despised.”
Isabella folded her hands just below her breasts and studied the room’s crown molding in excruciating detail. “Well,” she deadpanned, “I’m glad we got those little formalities out of the way.”
Hepplewood laid back down on the bed again, oddly exhausted. He knew he was not done with Isabella; no, not by half. Not in the physical sense. Ordinarily he would have permitted her to drowse a few moments before urging her on to the next step, then taking her again.
But this time the raging need had seemingly burned clean through him, and now his hunger for her lay more like a cold weight over his heart than that familiar, pooling warmth he would ordinarily be feeling in his groin.
Ah, God. He could feel what this was coming to.
“Isabella,” he said quietly, “would you like me to leave you now?”
“If you are finished with me,” she said with exquisite politeness, “then, yes, my lord, thank you.”
If he was finished with her?
Was he finished?
Yes, thank you, he very much thought he was.
Certainly, he’d better be finished—for the sensual experience he’d so triumphantly anticipated upon reading Mrs. Litner’s letter did not feel at all like the experience he’d just had.
It should have been just the raw, sexual release born of driving himself into a beautiful woman’s body. Why, then, had there been nothing releasing about it?
He let out his breath in a long, pensive exhalation, still savoring the warmth of Isabella’s body beside his. But their mingled warmth changed nothing. Nor did his anger. A wise man knew when to surrender and how to cut the ache of his losses before they were . . . well, losses. For if he did not, the ache he’d feel then might just eat him alive.
If you are finished with me. . . .
Well, be damned to her.
“Then I will leave you, Isabella, to rest,” he said tightly.
And with that, Hepplewood rolled off the mattress, circled around the bed to snatch up his clothing, and went back down to his study, slamming the door behind.
He threw on his clothes, roughly yanking and buttoning and shoving things this way and that, steeping in his own wounded pride.
But once dressed and a little calmer, clarity dawned.
He had known she was a danger; known she was not meant for him. Yes, he’d known it all the moment he’d first laid eyes on her, and the knowledge had both angered him and taunted him.
She really was an innocent, he realized. A sweet and beautiful innocent who wanted children, and an ordinary life, he supposed. And he . . . well, he had not been innocent in a very long time.
On a long sigh, he sat down at his desk and scratched out a few succinct lines. When he was done, he pushed the letter away, shut his eyes, and considered his alternatives.
It still felt as if he had none.
The truth was, he’d had none since that day at Loughford.
Had he been so bloody willing to shove his cock into a meat grinder, he should have simply seduced her then and there. He could simply have dusted off the foolproof Hepplewood charm that once had served him so well and had Isabella tipped back onto his desk in a mere trice, with her skirts tossed up to her waist.
She had been that vulnerable.
And he had nearly been that stupid.
His bitterness burning bright again, Hepplewood unlocked his bottom desk drawer. Then he lifted out all of Jervis’s diligently gathered jewel boxes and simply heaped them atop the letter.
Well, all save one. The one he loved most; a ring set with a ten-carat diamond surrounded by dark, flawless amethysts.
To remember her by, he told himself.
CHAPTER 6
Attired in a fuchsia-colored gown and matching peignoir, her pink satin turban trimmed with magenta-colored ostrich tips, the Marchioness of Petershaw was sequestered in her private sitting room, hastily scratching out invitations to an especially intimate soiree, when Isabella was announced.<
br />
More than three weeks having passed since their last meeting, the marchioness had given standing orders that her former governess should be brought to her at once, at any time of day or night, should she happen to turn up. Thus, upon hearing Isabella’s name announced, the lady immediately flung down her pen and, in a shocking breach of her usual decorum, actually rushed across the floor.
“Wicked girl!” she said, grasping both her hands in a reassuring squeeze. “You’ve left me all agog. The note Dillon brought me was so vague as to be unsettling. Sit down at once.”
Isabella sunk into a chair by the desk, grateful to be received. “Thank you for allowing me time to collect my wits,” she said. “You . . . you are not angry with me?”
The good lady drew back an inch. “Why should I be?” she said evenly. “But are you, perhaps, angry with yourself? Come, child, you must tell me about this Mr. Mowbrey and what he did to make himself so intolerable.”
Isabella caught her lip in her teeth. “Actually, ma’am, he sent me away,” she said. “That’s what I meant, you see, when I wrote that things didn’t work out. And there was no Mr. Mowbrey. It was just as you said—a ruse.”
Lady Petershaw’s eyes widened. “And he did not find you acceptable? I don’t believe it. Well! Did he at least give you his real name?”
“He didn’t need to,” she said quietly. “I knew him.”
“Oh, dear.” The marchioness leaned forward. “That sounds ominous.”
“It was the Earl of Hepplewood,” Isabella blurted, looking up from the floor. “The gentleman who interviewed me as governess. Th-the one who tried to seduce me, and said that I was better suited to—” Tears suddenly welling, she made an impotent little gesture with her hand. “—to nothing, it would appear. It seems he really cannot be pleased.”
“Hepplewood?”
The marchioness was rarely shocked by anything, but this struck her speechless for a full half minute. “Well,” she finally said on a rush of indignation, “of all the impertinence! Still, I cannot imagine how . . . I mean, Tony is clever, of that there’s no doubt. But to manipulate Louisa into literally handing you over? It is unconscionable!”