The Earl of Her Dreams

by Anne Mallory

  “And perhaps I’ll have you for dinner instead.” He touched her cheek. “And this time, Kate, I won’t let you hide in the dark.”

  Kate swallowed nervously as he untied her dress. He left it hanging loose and threaded his finger through the ties of her bonnet. She pulled away as he withdrew the cap and she heard it plop on the Aubusson rug, her eyes tightly closed.

  Silence.

  She held in a sob, unwilling to open her eyes to see the disgust on his face.

  “Kate?” His voice was low and flat.

  She opened her eyes and started fumbling with the ties of her dress.

  “What is this?” His voice was harsh, and she thought she detected an underlying hint of betrayal beneath.

  “I’m sorry. I—I couldn’t tell you. I’ll go.”

  He grabbed her wrist. “Why?”

  “Because I couldn’t bear it.”

  “I don’t understand.” He looked pained.

  “The chandelier hit me. It caused this.”

  She reached down for her bonnet, but he pulled her up and lifted her chin. There was question in his eyes and a hint of relief.

  “What are you talking about?”

  She stared at him. Why was he making her spell it out? “My ear.”

  “So you aren’t rejecting me because of something else? This house? The situation? Or just…me?”

  Kate could do nothing but blink. He thought she had rejected him when she had frozen up. That she was rejecting him.

  She couldn’t reassure him; her thoughts were in too much disarray. “Aren’t you horrified?”

  Christian looked at her ear and lifted a tentative finger to touch it. The light stroke sent a not unpleasant shiver through her. “It’s not your best feature Kate; I think that distinction belongs to your bright eyes or luscious lips. But horrified? No.”

  She licked her lips and stared at him. Willing herself to believe him, to believe the look of need in his eyes, that he still wanted her.

  Christian could be brash and careless and sometimes insincere, but he was also warm and funny, smart, caring, and genuine.

  And she was falling in love with him.

  She closed her eyes.

  “Kate?”

  She pushed the thoughts aside and opened her eyes. “Yes?”

  “Did you think that I would think the less of you because of a scar? That it would make you any less beautiful?”

  Kate couldn’t answer as tears welled in her eyes. Of course she had. Her brother and Connor had claimed that she was disgusting and no one would ever want her. And Kate had been all too willing to believe it.

  Now here was a man, himself a catch by any woman’s standards, who claimed she was beautiful, scars and all.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  He touched her forehead and brushed a curl away. “Ah, Kate. So little faith. Have I impressed you so little?”

  “No, I mean, yes, you have impressed me. I—I value your good opinion.” And that had been the trouble really. She hadn’t wanted to lose him, even though she barely had him.

  He rubbed a finger along her cheek. “How could you think that one minor flaw would make you any less desirable? It only makes you, you. And I find you irresistible.”

  It wasn’t a minor flaw. She could hide it with the judicious use of hats and hairstyles, but it was far from being unnoticeable otherwise.

  “I’m going to show you exactly how much that scar doesn’t bother me,” he whispered as he tilted her chin and brought his lips to hers.

  The kiss was sweet. So sweet that Kate could have cried. To have this man…to stay with him instead of going to London…even to stay with him as his paramour…

  “Kate?”

  “Yes.”

  She answered the unspoken question and he lifted her under the knees and walked into the bedroom. He laid her gently on the soft, velvety counterpane. His hands shook slightly as he undid her dress, and as she touched his shirt, hers did as well.

  Soft hands brushed over clothes, then skin, and soon there was nothing to separate them.

  He pulled back the covers enough for her to slip inside and followed her beneath. The room had contained a distinct chill before they had started moving. Now there was a peaceful, languid warmth that infused the air around them.

  “Beautiful, lovely Kate.”

  Christian dragged a finger down her throat and chest, and circled her belly button.

  “No one around to hear you scream and moan tonight. These walls are much thicker than those at the inn.”

  His finger continued downward, circling the curls below and then skirting back up to catch a breast.

  “I’m going to make sure we use the soundproofing to our advantage.”

  He kissed, no claimed, her lips, and she arched into him, unable to help herself. Not wanting to help herself. She pressed against him, arching off the bed, and she heard his harsh intake of air. He pushed back into her and her lower body pressed against his, a desperate searching of his body for hers as they rocked against each other. He slipped inside her folds, rubbing gently against the spot that he had teased so much the night before.

  She kissed him more hungrily, her body demanding more as they clasped together and his body rubbed against, and nearly inside, hers.

  He broke the kiss and dipped his head to pull her right breast into his mouth. She arched again, and the thought briefly flickered past that her body liked the position.

  “Raspberries.”

  Her fingers reached up and curled into the soft dark strands at his nape. His deep blue eyes searched hers, and he held the contact as his hand played with her nipple and his body continued to move against hers. There was something building in her body, just as there had been both times before. Christian smiled, a real smile that lit up his eyes and spread happiness across his face. A mischievous glance replaced the smile a moment later as he slid down her body and disappeared from view.

  “Christian, wha—”

  Kate gasped as his tongue swirled around her, doing things that his fingers had done before, but more maddeningly. He swept and licked and even nipped, as if he were truly enjoying a dessert laden with luscious fruit. Her fingers found their way into his hair and she could only hold on as he made her buck and moan and thrash. And then there was that beautiful light, made of gold—sweeping from the tips of her toes to the top of her head, making its way up and down, penetrating her very being, and converging where Christian was.

  She heard a sound caught somewhere between a scream and a moan and vaguely wondered if it had been her making the sound as she went boneless on the bed.

  Christian appeared from under the covers a few moments later, a rather smug grin on his face. “I love the sounds you make. And that they are just for me.”

  Kate felt too lazy to respond. Her entire body hummed pleasantly, and it felt as if she had just run to London and back. But she didn’t think that running would make her feel quite so wonderful.

  Christian pulled a cord. Kate gave him a questioning glance, but he just smiled.

  Minutes later there was a knock at the door. Christian threw on a robe and padded into the sitting room. Kate couldn’t see the door from her vantage point, so when he returned with two trays of food, she just stared at him.

  “Thought you might be hungry. And it’s only gentlemanly of me to allow you to rest a bit your first few times.” He said it with a leer. Her insides warmed as he verbally extended their relationship beyond today.

  “I thought you said you weren’t a gentleman?” she quipped and forked a piece of pheasant.

  “I’m not. I have completely dark, ulterior motives for you, my dear.”

  “Thank goodness.”

  Christian twirled his forked meat. “What do you plan to do after you receive your inheritance?”

  She shrugged, but her mouth was suddenly dry. “I had planned to stay on with my aunt in Town. With the extra money she would forgive a few of my less than stellar qualities.”


  His eyes tightened, but he remained quiet as he continued to eat and listen.

  “However, that forgiveness doesn’t encompass dressing like a boy and sharing a room with a man for several days, so I think that plan is definitely out.” She tried to keep her voice light.

  “You don’t want to be with your aunt anyway. Stuffy existence, even worse on the edges of the ton. You’d suffocate. And I’d be most put out.” He reached over and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, her damaged one. His fingers lightly traced the outside, not hurting, but making her shiver.

  He pulled his hand back and resumed eating. “They don’t deserve you.”

  “My brother said I would be lucky to marry his friend. That I would have no other options.” Kate abruptly shut her mouth, not sure what devil had made her admit that.

  Christian looked up. His eyes were serious. He set his tray on the floor and removed hers as well.

  “Your fool of a brother is an ass and knows nothing.” He touched her cheek. “You are beautiful, inside and out. And any man would be lucky to have you.” His fingers trailed down and traced her shoulder bones. “Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.”

  She took a deep, shuddering breath. “You are beautiful as well, you know. I can see you, Christian Black, and I like it when the real you comes out to play.”

  He tightened and she saw him swallow. And then he was kissing her with an intensity that took her breath away.

  As opposed to the last few times they had engaged in such activities, this time his hands stayed near her head, wrapped around her chin, then the back of her head, slowly pulling through the strands and then returning to frame her face. Almost reverently. He kissed her as if he were branding her, but also with an underlying gentleness that brought tears to her eyes.

  His lips touched her eyes, her nose, her cheeks, chin, and ears.

  “Christian,” she breathed, trying to grab onto a single thought as he continued his investigation.

  “Don’t worry, Kate. Now that I have you, I won’t ever let you go.”

  His kisses proceeded to caress her shoulders and chest, down to her stomach and thighs, and lower to her knees, calves, and toes. Warmth spread everywhere he touched, and there was a heightened edge, as if something very important was taking place.

  Something more than mutual pleasure between friends for Christian. Something more than discovery for Kate.

  She ran her hands down his sides, touching him as she had the previous night, and his eyes smoldered. “Playing with fire, Kate?”

  She smiled back.

  Touches continued to be soft and reverent, strong and needy. Lips to her breast, fingers in her short curls. Hands stroking velvet and steel.

  Christian rose over Kate and took in her flushed face, her parted, pink lips, eyelids at half mast. He kissed her softly and then met her eyes.

  “Kate?”

  She nodded, her short curls bouncing on the pillow, and reached for him. He gladly complied, nudging her body and finding her slick and ready.

  He pushed forward, then withdrew. Push, withdraw, push, withdraw, until her face looked as glossy as his felt, until her breath echoed his own.

  He leaned down and whispered in her ear. “I think I’ve fallen in love with you, Kate.”

  Her hands tightened around his back and her body arched upward. He thrust forward and entered her completely, deeply, a shiver racking his body. It was like coming home. A feeling he had never before known.

  Moving in earnest, whispering all the things to her that he had been thinking these last few days, he expressed how he loved her smile and cherished her opinion. How just being in her company made the day that much brighter.

  Her breathing increased with each word and her body moved in tune beneath his. It was a perfect harmony.

  Barriers he had worked to recreate in the carriage crumbled completely. He didn’t want to have them with Kate.

  And as they both peaked and echoed the other’s name, Christian knew it was he who had been branded.

  He was deadly serious with what he had said. He was never going to let her go. Walking into this house today, he had shed the last of the blinders. Making love to her had sealed his destiny.

  Kate was his.

  His dreams were warm and welcome. His arms wrapped around Kate, hugging her tightly.

  But just as he was sleepily trying to decide whether to keep bundled in the covers with Kate all day or to fix all their loose ends so they could stay under the covers for a few weeks, something woke him fully from his sated slumber.

  “Well, well, well, isn’t this a cozy little scene,” a vitriolic voice announced from the doorway.

  Chapter 21

  You will never be rid of me. I will always be here.

  The Marquess of Penderdale

  to Christian, age twenty-one

  Christian whipped around to see his father standing in the doorway, back ramrod straight and nose firmly in the air as if he had just smelled something unpleasant.

  “I know you are hopeless, Christian, but you really should be more careful with what you are saying, especially when in a house with, how did the servant say you phrased it? Ah, yes, with enemy ears. Careless as always, especially letting things out of your possession just so that you can get a tumble with any villager ready to spread her legs.”

  “Don’t call—”

  Christian’s breath died as his father said two words. “Interesting journal.”

  He froze. No, he couldn’t have. He looked toward the sitting room and realized he had left it on the chair when he had carried Kate into the bedroom, too far gone in lust and love to care about anything else. Careless. Careless, useless, wasteful. All the words he had grown up with swirled in his head.

  His father had Anthony’s journal. Oh, not on his person, assuredly, but in his possession. He wouldn’t allow his son to try and physically remove it from him, no matter how crass an action that might be. His father thought much worse of him than just being crass, Christian knew.

  His father had Anthony’s journal. His father, who had more power in one finger than Freewater with his small paper could ever dream. His father, the bane of his existence, the one whom he had tried and tried to please before nearly going mad. If it hadn’t been for meeting Anthony at Eton, he didn’t know what he would have done. Not even when his two elder brothers had died had his father given him a thought beyond criticism. So Christian had lived up to every thought his father had had of him. It had been a damn sight better to live that way than to live under an ever heavier boot.

  Christian looked at Kate. He had worried about her having that power over him, but the more he knew of her character, the more at ease he felt. He trusted her. Twenty-five years’ worth of damaged trust with his father, and Kate had managed to slip past his defenses in under a week. And after last night…

  But Anthony’s journal…He looked at his father, who was too noble to smirk, instead wearing a chilly, distant look, disappointment permanently creased in the lines on his face.

  “You will follow me downstairs. Now. And I want your strumpet out of this house.”

  Christian saw Kate shrink into the bedding.

  “No,” he said calmly, tugging his trousers on.

  “What did you say?” his father asked in his usual low and deadly tones.

  “I said no. Kate is not a strumpet, and she’s not going anywhere.”

  “You dare say no to me, in my own house?”

  “It is my house too, unfortunately for you. And Kate is staying. You were not to return for another week. I do not know why you came back earlier, nor do I care. We would have assuredly bypassed the property if I had known, but as we are here now, we will be staying for two days and then will be gone.”

  “Would that you could have died instead of your mother, instead of your brothers,” he said harshly.

  Christian let the words wash off him. “I know, Father. I am well aware of your preferences, and have been most of my life. Unfortunatel
y for you, I’m still here, and none of them are.”

  He watched his father turn red, trying to control his rage. The marquess shot a poisonous glance toward the bed. “You will follow me to the study, Christian. I will not have this conversation in front of the hired help.”

  “Kate is not the hired help, but do lead the way. I’m sure I’ve forgotten where your study is by now. It has been far too long since I’ve been disciplined.”

  The marquess turned sharply on his heel and stalked from the room. Christian apologetically turned to Kate, whose mouth was hanging open. He concentrated on the anger in her eyes rather than the pity. “Stay here, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. If Sally comes by, have her stay with you too. I should have thought of that last night.”

  She began to speak, but he forestalled her with a sharp hand motion. “No, Kate, please. I can’t let down my defenses to explain right now. I need them to speak with the marquess. Say you understand.”

  She swallowed and nodded.

  He allowed a small bit of relief to overtake him, and he briefly closed his eyes as he kissed her. “Thank you. I’ll be back soon.”

  His father deliberately took his time. It had proven an effective maneuver in putting Christian at a distinct disadvantage in the past. He poured a glass of port, swished it around, sniffed its aroma, then sipped. Christian held himself perfectly still throughout the ritual. It had long ago been beaten out of him not to fidget or interrupt, and even though he had occasionally used the tactic to stir his father to anger during the past few years since he had come of age, he didn’t want anything to distract him from what his father might say.

  This was it. His father thought he finally had something concrete that he could use to bend Christian to his will. The swished port and calculating air always boded ill. His father was nothing if not predictable.

  “I have been talking to Lord Palmer. His daughter is on the market this year. Diamond of the first water, most assuredly. You will wed her by the end of the season.”