She extinguished the candle and drew the blankets to her chin. The rain had started up again. She fell asleep listening to the soft patter on the window and the crackle of the fire on the hearth.
§
THERE WAS no clock in the room. She had no idea of the hour when she was pulled from sleep by a sound. Someone was moving around, inside her room.
Her first thought was that it was Branson, intent on fulfilling their bargain, but it took every ounce of her courage to lift up on one elbow and peer into the darkness. The fire had extinguished to low coals, just enough to cast shadows and little else.
In the corner of the room, Clara saw another shadow; deeper, darker and more substantial. The shadow moved slowly toward her bed.
“Who is there?”
No answer.
The wind rose to a scream. The rain had stopped.
She said again: “Who is there?”
No response.
Her hair stood up on the back of her neck. Clara was overcome with terror. “Branson, if that is you, show yourself! You’re frightening me.”
The shadow sighed.
A woman’s sigh.
Then she heard the rustle of silk skirts and smelled perfume. Roses. Clara struggled to keep her eyes fixed on the shape. Her skin crawled.
The presence moved closer.
Clara squeezed her eyes shut and let out a bloodcurdling scream.
Branson banged into the room. “Clara! Clara, I’m here! You’re safe! I could hear you screaming from all the way down the hall. What is it? What’s wrong?”
“She’s here,” Clara whispered fearfully. “She’s here in the room. Can you see her? Where has she gone? She stood at the side of my bed and—and I—I—c-c-c—”
“Take your time,” Branson said. “Calm down. I’m here now. You are safe. Slowly, tell me slowly. Who was here?”
“A woman! It was too dark to make out her features but I smelled her perfume and I heard her silk gown rustling as she moved.”
“Clara, Clara, there is no one here! See for yourself.” Branson lit the candle and moved from corner to corner, even pulling back the draperies to look behind. “There is no one here.”
Clara sat up in bed. “She must have escaped before you arrived. Check the other room!”
“The connecting door to the sitting room is locked on this side. No one could have got in or out without the key. Clara, there is no one at the Hall besides the two of us.”
“She was here, Branson. I swear. I saw her! I didn’t dream it—I smelled her perfume!” Clara fell back against the pillow. She sounded like a raving lunatic, babbling about a woman who was not there. “I don’t know what is happening to me. I think I’m going mad.”
Branson sat on the bed and drew her into his arms. He had burst into the room wearing only a pair of linen breeches. Clara was still shaking from the vision and rested her cheek against his bare chest for comfort. The steady pounding of his heart was reassuring. Her cousin’s skin was warm and his chest well muscled.
“You had a nightmare, Clara. That’s all it was. You’ll be all right now. I’ll stay with you until you fall asleep.”
“Please don’t tell my father about this. He’ll think it is happening again and he spent so much money to make me well.”
“Calm down, it is all right now. Nothing has happened here that I need to discuss with my uncle. It’s been a difficult day and I am partially to blame for that.”
“Don’t be so modest. You are wholly to blame.”
He laughed. The low chuckle rumbled in his chest.
The night closed in around them. The embers on the hearth cast a golden glow at the foot of the bed. Clara felt the nightmares in the shadows recede from her mind and nerves. Lying in the arms of a man who was not her husband was a sure path to ruin. Yet being with Branson was the greatest comfort Clara had known in a long time. She was tired of being alone with the shadows, forbidden to confess them to anyone outside of Dr. Hargreaves.
“Do you feel better now? The trembling seems to have passed. Do you think you can sleep?” He drew the covers over her shoulders and held her tighter against his chest, as though he had no desire to leave her side.
“I feel much better. Thank you for staying with me. Perhaps I am mad after all,” Clara said with the hollow laugh.
His breathing changed slightly, becoming sharper, more rapid and shallow. “I think we are all a little mad.”
An uneasy silence fell between them. Clara was thinking of the stories about Branson Hamilton—that he was unstable. “You may return to your room if you like,” she said. “I think I shall be quite all right now. No more shrieking, I promise.”
“I’ll stay until you fall asleep.”
The events of the past twenty-four hours had stretched Clara’s nerves to the breaking point. The entity that had come into her room for the purposes of terrifying her was either real or a manifestation of her mind brought on by the stress of her situation. Either way, she was in danger staying at Windemere Hall.
Branson seemed to be reading her mind. “What did she do that frightened you so?”
Fearfully, Clara searched the shadows for the woman. She had already revealed too much. For all of Branson’s assurances, if her father learned of this episode, he would have her committed to Gateshead Insane Asylum. Arthur Hamilton had threatened it more than once.
“She did nothing but appear. Her presence alone terrified me. I don’t know where she came from. My emotions may be disordered but I am not illogical. I was taught by Dr. Hargreaves to trust my senses. I heard the swish of her silk skirt, I smelled her perfume, I could see the colour of her dress—but—but I must have been hallucinating because she vanished as soon as you entered the room!”
“The colour of her dress?”
“Yes. It caught the light as she approached the bed. She was wearing a red dress.”
Chapter Eight
BRANSON LAPSED into silence.
“Branson? Are you sleeping?”
“No. I am still here.”
“What are you thinking about?”
He laughed quietly. “Do you know, that’s the first time anyone has ever asked me that question. The novelty is quite charming. I was thinking about the fact that we share the same last name. Does it bother you that we are related?”
“No. I would say I am more comfortable with you because we are related. I’m glad you are a Hamilton, but I am equally glad that you were born Branson Reilly.”
“Why is that?”
“It makes you different. You are not one of them.”
“Are they so difficult to live with?”
“For me they are, yes. I was born a Hamilton but I no more feel welcome in their drawing room than you do.” She clamped her mouth shut. “I’m sorry, Branson. You probably felt perfectly at ease in London. I shouldn’t make assumptions.”
“No, you are correct I didn’t feel at home, but then I didn’t want to feel at home. I don’t want to be welcomed in your father’s house and I don’t want to be embraced as his nephew.”
“You don’t like him,” she said softly. “I think your father didn’t like him either. I only know a little of their story. My uncle fell in love with your mother and my father objected to the match. That is all I know about the rift between them.”
“Your father hurt my mother. Leonard took her part over his brother’s, as he should, and the rift was never mended.” His voice was muffled. Clara felt his hand stroke her hair gently, as a mother strokes her child’s hair. “Your hair is so soft. Like the rain.”
She looked up at him.
Branson’s eyes were on her face, shadowed with desire and vulnerability. She wondered at the look and what it meant. She had expected to see revenge in his eyes. Not this look of almost boyish hope and awe.
Her breath caught
He turned to her in the dark, bending his neck slightly. His handsome face was caught in the dull glow from the embers. His lips drew near hers and risking ev
erything, Clara rose up to meet his lips. Her cousin kissed her with measured, deep, controlled passion.
She responded, wanting more, heedless of the consequences.
Branson seemed to feel the same way. His tongue entered her mouth. Clara was being driven senseless by his power.
“Do you recall our bargain?” he asked.
“To surrender my virtue in exchange for keeping my father out of prison, yes, I remember. But now I understand what it means to give way to a man. I’m trembling with fear.”
“And arousal,” he murmured. “Tell the whole truth. You are excited by the prospect of being taken tonight.”
His fingers tugged the ribbons holding her nightgown together. The garment opened and she could feel cool air on her skin. Slowly, deliberately, he drew the gown down over her shoulders and off her body.
Supremely masculine, Branson Hamilton’s naked chest, his fingers in her hair, his lips on her lips ignited a sexual tension between them that crackled and sparked. It became hard to breathe. The urge to throw over propriety and succumb to her cousin was strong. She made a heroic attempt to resist.
“We were friends once,” she said, hoping to remind him of happier days. “When we were children....” His fingers found her breast and he thumbed her nipple. Clara gasped.
“We were never friends. The lowborn Branson Reilly never found friendship in a Hamilton. But I like it when you recall our years together as children. Contrary to what you might think, our shared family history excites me. To think the naked girl in my bed is my cousin Clara.” He smoothed her hair off her forehead. “I couldn’t sleep for thinking about you. I don’t believe you think about me the same way. You are too arrogant to have the same fantasies as mine.”
“I only want to help my father. If I have offended you, I hope you’ll remember you have wounded me too.” The words came out as croak. It was very hard to breathe. Their skin-to-skin contact overwhelmed her senses.
“I remember. We have hurt each other, Clara. But I am going to touch you anyway.”
And he did. Branson put his hands on her in every place imaginable. Just when she thought he would stop out of decency, he found a new, private part of her body to fondle. At first she tensed, squeezing her eyes shut, but as the caressing progressed, Clara began to respond. Branson was not hurried or harsh; his steady gentle caress awakened her to sexual feelings.
Clara tried to hold on to a shred of common sense and decency. If Branson did as he promised and kept her father out of prison, this night would have paid well for her sacrifice.
But then Branson Hamilton would discard her after he had spoiled her for marriage and she would be cast adrift.
The palm of his hand passed over her nipples. They budded, instantly aroused and responsive to his touch. She gave a short, sharp gasp and then clamped her mouth shut. Branson drew his hand slowly over her breasts, squeezing them seductively. This time, it was his breathing that changed.
She risked a look at his face and found a man heated beyond reason, as if in a deep trance. Branson was fixated on her body. His hands moved restlessly but with leashed hunger over her flesh to the mound between her thighs.
“No,” she choked. “Not that. No, Branson.”
“Yes, Clara, yes that. Our bargain was for everywhere on your body. It is doing more to destroy me than it is you. You are killing me by inches. But I won’t break my oath no matter what my cock demands. I won’t take you against your will.”
She stared at him round-eyed. “How am I killing you? What do you mean?”
Branson drew her hand down between his legs and she gripped a thick hard muscle that pulsed with power and blood. Her sex responded to finding its mate. A gush of fluid moistened her inner thighs.
She released him and sprang back as though burned. “No, no, we have to stop. Come to our senses. This is not good for you—for either of us. If anyone found out about this, we would both be shunned. You’re not one of them, Branson. I would be excluded from decent society but so would you. You think you’ll be shielded by virtue of your sex but you’re wrong. They will hold you to a harsher standard then they do themselves.”
“Would it trouble you if they did?”
“Yes, it would.” She bit her lower lip.
“Why?” His voice was gentle, persuasive.
“I would not like to see you hurt. I think you would shut yourself up here at Windemere even more than you do and—and I would lose you.”
He kissed her lips, tenderly, and then with growing passion. “Then we will be cast adrift together. I’d rather endure the hell of social censure than endure the hell of wanting you and never seizing the chance to have you.”
His voice was raw and rang through her with longing. Branson’s hand moved with purpose between her legs and he stroked the silky pubic hair that covered her mound. She struggled against his mouth kissing her and against his weight that held her down.
And then she surrendered wholly to her passion for him. It was impossible to do anything else. There was nothing she wanted more in that moment than she wanted Branson Hamilton to make love to her. She was nineteen and her twenty-six-year-old cousin was breathtakingly handsome, overpoweringly masculine, and sexual.
Branson was sexually compelling.
Clara had been taught to believe she was protected from lust by her upbringing. But she had no more resistance to a persuasive male than did the average housemaid. Class was no barrier to passion.
His fingers moved between the puffy lips of her vulva and found the tight slick bud that would admit him to her vagina with the right stimulation. He fingered her expertly and Clara opened her legs wider. Branson inserted his fingers into her tight virginal entrance as he thumbed her clitoris with wet, rough, unrelenting strokes.
As Branson fingered the engorged sensitive flesh, Clara lifted her hips, grinding against his hand. Her eyes rolled back in her head and her breasts rose and fell rapidly.
“Careful,” he said with a catch in his throat. “Slowly. Slowly. I have only just begun my exploration. Tell me what you feel.”
“Everything—oh god—Branson!” She cried out as his fingering drove her to climax. “Please, no more!”
Branson put his mouth on her breast. Clara felt the gentle tug on her nipple as he brought it between his teeth and bit it lightly. Teeth and tongue manipulated the tender flesh and she moaned in ecstasy. He did the same to her other breast, latching on and suckling the protruding bud of velvet, an incredibly erotic act that drove her half-wild.
This time it was he who groaned. Her cousin fell over her slender body with his long arms pinning her wrists over her head. Branson kissed her flat belly and her gently curved abdomen. Down he went, further down until she felt his hot breath tickling her pubic hair.
“Spread your legs,” he commanded.
A new fever seized her and set her limbs to trembling with fire and ice.
Branson shifted between her slender thighs and stretched her further to admit his size. Clara dared to open her eyes to see what he was doing. Her handsome young cousin, with his broad shoulders and strong back, was crouched between her legs. The sight was disarming, erotic and unbearably beautiful.
He looked up and their eyes met.
A thatch of golden hair fell over his forehead. His mouth, (though he tried to be cruel and had said many cruel things) his mouth was sensuous and thirsting for her alone.
They gazed at each other in silence for a long moment.
Clara’s skin tingled as she understood what was happening between them.
Branson parted her vulva with his rough, strong fingers and dipping his face lower, her cousin ran his tongue over her highly sensitized sex.
Clara stifled a scream and would’ve pulled away but for the tight grip he had on her.
“Lay still,” he growled. “I’m not finished with you.”
“I did not agree to this! I cannot allow it. I have heard it—it drives women mad with lust and turns young women into whores.”
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“We shall soon see if what you have heard is true.”
He lapped at her soft flesh, licking her sex and gently sucking on the hard, engorged nub. Branson drew her deeper into his mouth, insatiable and greedy. The sensations he was producing in her body were shattering.
Clara babbled incoherently, dimly aware she was begging him to stop, and then she seemed to lose consciousness altogether. A pressure of heat and unbearable pleasure radiated from the region he was tonguing and spread throughout her body.
A feeling unlike anything she’d ever known.
Clara cried out, fighting the orgasm, and then was utterly capsized, delivered into Branson Hamilton’s power. Her back arched, her legs opened wantonly. She climaxed into his mouth, a moment she couldn’t think clearly about, but felt from the roots of her hair to her toes. Her cousin was swallowing the juices that flowed in spasms from her body. Only the lowest sort of man would such a thing. The force of his sexual demand was too powerful to fight.
“I was waiting for you to get old enough to do that to you,” he murmured in her ear. Branson’s voice was hot with passion.
Pleasure and wet arousal concentrated between her legs and parted them for her. The rumours about cunnilingus were true, she thought feverishly. Clara was eager to be penetrated. She caught hold of her cousin’s manhood and guided him to the entrance to her vagina.
Branson pulled away, suddenly opposed to taking her virginity. Clara whimpered.
“You want to take me, I know you do. I’ve given my permission. Make love to me; I want you to, Branson. I am willing.”
“I want you, Clara, but not like this. I want you to choose me.”
“That is not what you said before. You said you would ruin me one way or another. I’m willing. I have chosen you.”
“You have chosen your father. The only reason you’re doing this is to save Arthur. That is not reason enough.”
“It was yesterday,” she retorted. “What has changed?”
“I have!” He looked away. “I don’t know. Don’t question me.”
“Tell me then. As your cousin, you can tell me what is troubling you.”
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