His face flushed. “We both know that Magdalena will say whatever the hell she pleases.”
“While you have said nothing,” she shot back. “Tell me otherwise, Rivers. Tell me the truth.”
He didn’t answer, his jaw tight.
“The truth,” she repeated. “Just—just tell me.”
He took a deep breath, and let it burst out in an oath.
“Very well, then, I did pay McGraw,” he said, biting off each word. “I’ve paid him for the use of his theater for a night, for rehearsals and other actors. I’ve paid for the playbills, and I’ve paid for the musicians, and yes, I paid for the carriage to bring him here for your audition. Is that enough truth for you?”
She gasped, her fury fueled by disappointment, and by fear, too, for a future that had abruptly lost all its bright possibilities.
“Why did you lie to me, Rivers?” she exclaimed. “Why did you tell me I had talent and a gift, when you didn’t trust me enough to win my own praise, but instead had to buy it, like one more foolish bonnet I didn’t want or need?”
“Because, damnation, Lucia, I love you,” he said, his voice raised and his anger a match for hers. “I did it all for you, and I’d do it again.”
“Love!” she cried in frustration. “How can you say you love me? How can you claim to do these things for me, for my sake, when you did not tell the truth to me about the one thing that mattered most?”
She hurled the crumpled rose at his chest and spun around, unable to face him. The last thing she wished now was for him to see the anguish and despair that she knew must show on her face.
But he caught her by the arm and yanked her back around, trapping her close against his chest with one arm. With his free hand, he caught her jaw and tipped it up so she was forced to look at him.
“I never lied to you,” he said, his voice rough, more a command than a confession. “Not once. I never flattered you with empty praise. I never told McGraw how to judge you. It was up to you to impress him or not, and you did, exactly as I knew you would.”
“But you paid him,” she said, her breath coming so short and fast she was almost panting. “When you paid for the theater and the playbill and God knows what else, you bought his opinion of me, too.”
“I never intended it to be like that, Lucia, I swear to you!”
“Then what was it like?” she demanded. “You didn’t trust my talent enough to let it stand on its own, or to let me earn McGraw’s praise. You cheated me, Rivers, and I can’t see it any other way.”
“But why would I do that?” he asked, his voice rough with urgency. “Why would I do that to you, Lucia, when from the beginning I’ve believed in you, praised you, been in awe of everything that your talent and gifts have driven you to achieve? Why would I undermine all that now?”
She didn’t answer, her thoughts so confused that she didn’t know what to say. But she felt: she was acutely aware of his fingers gripping her jaw and the strength of his grip and his will. She’d never seen him like this before, and it excited her, and frightened her a bit as well. She’d never been so aware of the difference in their size, of the raw strength he usually kept carefully hidden away beneath his scholarly gentility. Her breasts crushed to his chest with only two thin layers of silk between them, and there was no mistaking how aroused he was with the thickness of his cock pressing against her belly.
Beyond their own ragged breathing, she heard a bored dog barking in the distance as well as the house sparrows chattering from beneath the eaves outside her open window, ordinary sounds that somehow served to exaggerate the tension between her and Rivers. She tried to push free, and he jerked her back.
“Listen to me, Lucia,” he said sharply. “I could have done what Magdalena said, and forced McGraw to take you whether you deserved it or not. I could have done just enough to win the wager. I could even have paid McGraw to make certain you failed. But I didn’t. I kept my part of our bargain, and gave you the opportunity you wanted.”
She sighed, a deep, shuddering gulp of a sigh that was halfway to a sob as her anger slipped away. She could feel it go, fading beneath the bright truth of his words. She knew he was right. She knew she’d been wrong. But far worse was knowing that she had wronged him, and she didn’t know how to begin to apologize.
“Oh, Rivers,” she whispered haltingly, regret and remorse sweeping over her as she shook her head back and forth. “I never meant—”
“No more, Lucia,” he said roughly. “No more words.”
He bent to kiss her, still holding her jaw captive as he slanted his mouth over hers, his tongue plunging and searching and marking her as his. His unshaven face scraped against her lips, burning them. His anger hadn’t lessened: his kiss was demanding and possessive, and just short of punishing. If his words had failed to make her understand, then he clearly intended to do so this way.
But she could do that, too, and she reached up to hold the back of his head, her fingers tangling into his hair as she held him as steady as he’d done her. She freely gave herself up to the kiss and to him as well. She should never have doubted him, never have questioned his trust, and she kissed him in hungry abandon to prove that she was completely his. Off-balance, she clung to him, and together they toppled backward onto the bed.
Still joined to her by the kiss, Rivers shoved open the bodice of her sultana, not bothering to untie the sash as he exposed her from the waist. Immediately he bent to lick her bared breast, drawing her nipple into his mouth and rolling his tongue against it, a pleasure that was velvety-deep and streaked straight to her core. He ran his hands along the sides of her rib cage, caressing her but also holding her in a way that was every bit as possessive as the kiss had been. Lucia arched into him to seek more, and blindly tried to unfasten the silk frogs on his dressing gown.
He pushed her hand aside and impatiently tore at the fastenings himself. She’d a fleeting impression of Rivers in all his perfection, of focused power and hard muscles and a lion’s mane of blond hair. His eyes were dark with lust, his entire body taut with it, and she could tell he’d crossed the point of self-control. Not that she cared; she’d crossed it, too.
“Hurry,” she said breathlessly, whispering her legs apart in invitation. She felt heavy and full from wanting him, already wet with desire and longing. “Please.”
There was too much tension in his face to answer as he settled between her legs, and she sighed as he eased his cock into her passage. She always loved the moment of joining with him, of becoming truly his, and she caught her breath as he sank deeper and filled her all the way. He hooked his arms beneath her bent knees to open her even farther, and began to thrust in steady, forceful strokes that pushed her back across the bedcover. She reached up to hold his shoulders, the rose-colored silk sleeves slipping back and pooling around her arms, and crossed her legs over his back. Their bellies struck together with each thrust, and she loved that, too, arching her hips from the bed to meet him.
“Open your eyes,” he ordered. “Damnation, Lucia, look at me. Don’t hide. Don’t run away again.”
She hadn’t even realized that her eyes had been closed, but she opened them now, wide, her gaze locking with his and her lips parted. With each plunging stroke she felt the tension building inside her and growing in shimmering, heated waves that melted away the last of her doubts. He was relentless, giving her everything she needed and more, and she writhed beneath him, doing the same for him.
It was always like this between them when they made love. Here there were no doubts, no suspicions, no secrets, no difference of ranks. Here everything was reduced to the essence of love, and the two of them bound together.
“I love you,” she said raggedly, her words punctuated by the rhythm of his thrusts. “Oh, Rivers, yes!”
“Yes,” he repeated, a single raspy, guttural syllable as he bowed his head against her shoulder. “Yes.”
She came before he did, clawing at his shoulders, with her cries of release echoing in the bedchamb
er. Still she shook beneath him as he joined her, tensing as at last he spent in waves that shook them both.
Afterward they lay close together, their arms and legs entwined. She held him, and he held her, neither wishing to relinquish the other. It had as much to do with peace as with love: peace, and love, and trust, and contentment, all woven together so perfectly that it was impossible to tell where one ended and the next began.
She shifted just enough to pull the coverlet over their bodies, and then curled against his body. She smiled down at him, lightly tracing the bow of his lips with her fingertip.
Without opening his eyes, he caught her finger to stop its roaming.
“You’re tickling me,” he protested mildly. He turned her finger to kiss the tip, then swiped it wetly with his tongue.
She laughed, thinking of how impossibly dear he had become to her. It wasn’t just their bodies that were joined, but their souls as well.
“What you said about McGraw and the audition and the rest,” she said softly. “Why did you do that for me?”
He opened his eyes, as blue and clear as truth itself.
“Because I love you, Lucia,” he said. “Because I love you, I will give you whatever makes you happy.”
“You make me happy, Rivers,” she whispered, bending down to press her lips to his. “You make me, oh, so, so happy, and you must know I’d give the world for you to feel the same.”
He smiled. “You already have.”
She smiled, too, and bent to kiss him. So it was as simple, and as complicated, as that. It was love, and she felt the tears well up clear from her heart.
Rivers slowed his horse as he came within sight of the Lodge. This was his favorite time of the day in summer, early in the morning when the dew glistened on the grass and the still-rising sun hadn’t yet found its midday heat. He smiled fondly at the Lodge and its imposingly homely façade, wanting to remember it like this when they returned to London this afternoon. He’d been happier here these last weeks than at any other time in his life: so blissfully, joyfully happy that he’d sound like a complete love-struck fool if he ever tried to describe it aloud.
His smile turned into a grin. He was a love-struck fool, and he’d make no apologies for being so. He glanced up at the corner window that belonged to Lucia’s bedchamber, imagining her as he’d left her earlier to go riding. She’d been sleeping, curled on her side with one little hand tucked beneath her cheek, and she’d scarcely stirred when he’d smoothed her hair back from her face to kiss her.
But sleepy or not, she was happy again. He was certain of that, and the certainty was what made him so happy now as well. He supposed they’d had a quarrel last night—he wasn’t entirely sure—but he did know that he’d managed to say the proper words to make things right between them once again. No, he hadn’t just said the proper words, calculated to please her. He’d spoken the truth, straight from his heart, and that was how she’d heard it, too. Love and truth and Lucia: what better combination could there be?
She’d be awake by now, and likely reading. She was desperate to finish Tom Jones before they left, even though he’d told her she could have the book to take with her. He imagined her now, lying naked beneath the sheets that still smelled of sex, a little frown on her face as she raced through the book. He could already predict they’d spend most of breakfast discussing Tom and Sophie, and that made him smile, too.
He whistled for Spot, and turned his tired horse toward the small stable yard. He could hear voices from the other side of the tall stone wall, though he couldn’t yet quite make out who it was. The hour was too early for any tradesmen; most likely it was simply stable boys or one of the footmen from the house.
But as soon as he turned the corner, he saw it wasn’t a servant at all. It was his father, watering his large bay gelding as he addressed Rivers’s groom. He’d thought Father would remain in London at least another fortnight, but apparently he’d decided to follow the ladies to the country early.
Even at this hour of the morning, Father cut an impeccably imposing figure. Although he was past sixty now, he still sat straight and tall in the saddle, his crimson riding coat perfectly tailored over his shoulders and the long row of engraved silver buttons glinting in the sun. His queue was tied back with a black silk ribbon, and his boots were polished to a mirrorlike gleam. Even the silver spurs on his heels shone.
And from the clipped way in which he was speaking to the way his black cocked hat was jammed low on his head, it was also abundantly clear that His Grace the Duke of Breconridge was not in an agreeable humor.
“Good day, Father,” Rivers called, striving to remain cheerful in the face of his father’s grimness. “How fine it is to see you here this morning. I didn’t expect you to leave town this early.”
“I came because of Gus.” Father’s expression did not change. “If she has come down to Breconridge Hall to birth my grandson, then I wish to be here as well. And you needn’t ladle out the pleasantries, Rivers. Under the circumstances, they are unnecessary, even distasteful.”
“Ahh,” Rivers said as he dismounted, handing his reins to one of the grooms. “Then at least let me offer you a bit of refreshment.”
“Thank you, no,” Father said curtly. “We shall walk amongst your mother’s wildflowers. It will not take me long to say what needs saying.”
Immediately he turned on his heel, expecting Rivers to follow. For a moment Rivers considered not doing so. He wasn’t a child, but a grown man, and it irritated him to be treated this way. On the other hand, he’d no wish to make a scene before his own stable men, and so in the end he did follow, catching up to Father in several long strides so that they were walking together.
“Are you certain you would not prefer to go inside, Father?” he asked. “The sun—”
“The sun does not offend me,” Father said, pointedly looking Rivers up and down. “If you were dressed like a Christian gentleman with a hat on your head and a coat on your back, then it would not affect you, either.”
Self-consciously Rivers raked his fingers back through his hair. Beside his father, he did look like a ruffian: he hadn’t bothered to shave or tie back his hair, his most comfortable boots were scuffed with muddy heels, and he wore a well-worn and grimy pair of buckskin breeches, a shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, and an old waistcoat.
“If I’d known you were coming, Father, I would have dressed with more formality,” he said, trying to make a jest of it and not sound defensive. “My guests at the Lodge are infrequent.”
Father made a dismissive grumble deep in his throat. “A gentleman of your rank should always take care of his appearance, no matter the hour or expectation.”
Rivers didn’t answer, letting his father have his rebuke. Arguing wouldn’t solve anything, not with Father. It never did. Besides, he doubted that his attire was the reason Father had come here today, and it would be better to marshal his defenses for whatever the real reason was for this visit.
“I’m glad to see you’ve kept up the flowers,” Father said with brusque approval as they entered the garden behind the house. “They always gave your mother great pleasure.”
“They do to me as well,” Rivers said, thinking of Lucia bending over the blossoms to relish their fragrance. “They’ve flourished this summer, thanks to my gardener, and I—”
“I haven’t come here to discuss your servants,” Father said, wheeling about to face Rivers. “What I wish to know is your reason for foisting that impudent little baggage on Celia and the other ladies yesterday afternoon.”
Rivers stared, aghast. He had not expected that, not at all. “You mean Lu—that is, Mrs. Willow?”
“Her name does not matter to me,” Father said sharply. “What matters is that you had neither the right nor the decency to present such a creature to those ladies as if she were their equal.”
“Mrs. Willow is not a creature,” Rivers said, “nor did the ladies themselves appear insulted by her company. In fact, Celia he
rself welcomed her most cordially, enjoying her company, and invited her to return.”
“That is because they did not know who or what she is,” Father said, his voice rising. “You know I don’t give a fig about the low women that you choose for sport and amusement. I do, however, expect you to have the decency to keep your tawdry misadventures apart from the ladies of your family, as a gentleman should. For you to bring her into my home, to parade her about as if she’d a right to be there, is despicable. Utterly despicable.”
“You are wrong, Father,” Rivers said firmly. “If you were to put aside your pride and permit me to present Mrs. Willow to you, then you would see what a wonderful woman she is. You would understand.”
Father stared, appalled, his face mottled with outrage above his snowy linen shirt.
“Present her to me, Rivers?” he demanded. “Have you lost your wits entirely? Do you truly believe I am ignorant of who this person is? She is a foreign-born dancer from a family infamous for rascals and harlots. She has agreed to be a part of some outlandish theatrical wager between you and Sir Edward Everett that is the talk of London, and she has spent the last month sequestered alone with you here as your mistress. What else need I know of her?”
“That I love her,” Rivers said. He couldn’t help glancing up at the Lodge, thinking of her in her bedchamber on the other side of the house. He almost wished she could overhear this conversation so she’d know exactly how he felt, though it was just as well she couldn’t hear Father’s side of it. “That is the truth, Father. I love her as I have never loved any other woman, and I am happier in her company than I have ever been in my entire life.”
“Then you are mad, Rivers, as mad as any happy lunatic in Bedlam!” Unable to contain his disgust, Father stalked away from Rivers, his boots crunching on the gravel, and then stalked back again. “You are in lust, not love. The damned chit has beguiled you, that is all, and will no doubt try to take as much money from you as she can. A woman like that is a born mercenary. Consider who you are, and who she is. There is nothing to sustain an impulsive infatuation such as this.”
A Reckless Desire Page 28