by Sara Bennett
He began to unfasten his trousers, watching her, waiting for her to grow shocked and coy, perhaps hide her face in her hands. She didn’t. Her gaze took in his body as it was revealed, only widening when his cock sprang free.
“G-goodness,” she managed. “Does it always do that?”
“Only when I’m aroused,” he said, “and believe me, I am very aroused right now.”
“I can see you are.” She brushed her hair from her eyes for a better view. “How can you tell if a woman is, eh, aroused?”
Nic couldn’t remember ever having a conversation like this one, but then Olivia Monteith wasn’t like other women.
“Your breasts. See how your nipples are peaked. Hard.”
She looked down at herself and then reached to touch a pink bud with her fingertip, her face flushed and rapt. Nic tried not to groan aloud. He climbed onto the bed and moved closer, his heavy erection swaying between his legs.
“I see,” she whispered, touching herself again. “And there’s an ache…” Her bright eyes lifted to his.
“An ache?” he rasped, running his hand up her stockinged leg, bunching up her skirts as he went. “Where does it ache?”
“I can’t say…”
Or she wouldn’t.
Nic smiled to himself as he carefully lowered his body onto hers. She made a sound, falling back into the soft mattress, and he propped himself up on his arms so that he could see her glorious face.
“The ache means you’re getting ready for me,” he said. “Growing warm and moist and soft, so that I can slide all the way inside you. Deep inside you.”
“How deep?” she whispered.
He bent his head to hers, anticipating the kiss. “Deep enough to make you mine,” he told her.
Her lashes lowered. She smiled. “I think I would like that.”
Her lips were soft and eager, and he slid his tongue inside her mouth, aware of her thighs beneath his, the hard nubs of her breasts against his naked chest. Desire, the need to possess, had overcome all his scruples. He’d have her, and the consequences be damned.
Nic reached down and closed his fingers over her hip, caressing the satiny flesh, moving lower. She was wearing something silky in place of the usual hideous drawers that women tended to wear under their pretty skirts, but the fact that she was wearing anything at all made her unique at this gathering. Still, there was a slit into which he could slip his hand. His fingers touched soft hair and slick flesh, and he felt her instinctive withdrawal. He began to murmur soothing words as he continued to stroke her, feeling her respond. Her nectar coated his fingers as he pressed them inside her, preparing the way.
Knowing he was the first had a peculiar effect on him. Before tonight he’d never thought of himself as possessive, but now the need to hold on to her, to own her completely, gripped him with an unstoppable urgency. Nic told himself not to be ridiculous, but the feeling remained. Was it some fundamental male urge left over from the days of the cavemen, who had to fight for everything they wanted and then fight to keep it?
But what right have I to keep Olivia Monteith? This will only lead to trouble. Remember Sarah…
“Nic?” Her soft voice pierced his distraction. She was touching his cheek, and then she began to nuzzle her lips against his jaw. “Nic, don’t stop,” she breathed. “I don’t want you to stop. I like what you’re doing to me.”
But it was too late. The intrusive voice in his head had acted as a brake. Nic had come to his senses with the realization that he was about to deflower Miss Olivia Monteith. Remember Sarah? How in God’s name could he forget her and the tragedy that had ripped his family apart, a tragedy Olivia knew absolutely nothing about? Why the bloody hell did everything have to be so complicated?
He lifted his head and met her eyes. “Olivia…”
She stared at him, reading his words before he could utter them, and the desire in her face drained away, leaving her white and tired, and suddenly very vulnerable.
Chapter 11
She couldn’t believe it. Well, she could, but she didn’t want to. To suddenly develop scruples now, at the last possible moment! Her body was humming from his touch, aching for more, and he was going to tell her that stopping was for her own good. It really was too much.
“I’m taking you home,” he said gravely, and sitting down on the edge of the bed, began to pull on his black evening trousers. The silky cloth slid over his thighs and his shaft, still erect, but when he saw her watching he turned prudishly away.
Olivia felt like screaming. Where had the rake gone? He’d disappeared, along with the Nic who had stood before her, naked and unabashed, talking of tutoring her in the ways of the demimondaine and making her feel weak at the knees. Now in his place stood a puritanical prude who seemed determined to spoil everything while telling her it was for her own good.
Olivia could weep with frustration, but she wouldn’t let him see how much she was affected. He’d probably offer her his handkerchief and tell her she’d have forgotten all about him by morning. She’d had such hopes for tonight, such certainty that he would finally wake up to the truth, and instead she was right back where she’d started.
“There’s no need for you to take me home. I’m staying at the inn,” she informed him coldly. “Besides, I might remain at the ball for a little longer. I was enjoying myself before you—”
“Spoiled it?” he mocked, and began to pull on his white shirt, covering the broad expanse of his wonderful chest.
“Exactly.”
“Believe me, Olivia, you’d be sorry if I left you here. These people don’t have your best interests in mind.”
“I thought they were your friends!”
“They are acquaintances, and I hold no illusions about their reasons for being here.”
“How do you know I’d feel sorry if you left me here? You don’t know me at all. I might be glad!”
He didn’t seem repentant, and the look he gave her was totally unmoved. “You are coming home. That inn is no place for you. I will have someone collect your belongings and then we will leave.”
Olivia opened her mouth to argue, and then paused as the meaning of his words sank in. “But I thought you were going to Paris?”
“I thought I was, too,” he muttered, stooping to pull on his shoes.
He wasn’t going. He was changing his plans. For her. Olivia tried hard not to let a triumphant smile slip out. She’d won! Not in the way she expected, but nevertheless she had won this bout.
Slowly, as though unwilling, she climbed off the bed and began to straighten her clothing. Now that her head was clearing she couldn’t help but notice her surroundings. The bedchamber was shabby and none too clean, and there was an odd smell coming from the empty fireplace, as if something had died in the chimney. This was not the sort of place she would have chosen to be initiated by Nic into the pleasures of the flesh. She gave a shiver, and then started as his arm came around her shoulders.
“You’re cold,” he said, his deep voice sending more chills up her back. “Did you bring a cloak, Olivia?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll fetch it on our way out. Are you ready? Can you walk in your stockings, or would you rather I carried you?” His eyes slid down, and for a moment he seemed to lose his train of thought, before his gaze skittered away.
Olivia looked down at herself. The décolletage had slipped again, and once more she tugged it up to a respectable height. “I will walk, thank you,” she said. As they went toward the stairs, she noticed Nic was limping quite badly, and she was glad she hadn’t asked to be carried. He’d already carried her from the ballroom, she remembered, and he’d only just recovered from his fall. Had he injured himself further? She thought about asking him, but knew it would only make him cross to draw attention to his infirmity—he seemed to consider his lame leg a weakness of character rather than a physical affliction.
Downstairs, her cloak was fetched, and Nic sent for his coach. When it arrived, Olivia was surprised t
o see Abbot with it. “Miss Monteith!” he said, obviously as surprised to see her. “How…how extraordinary!”
Nic gave his manservant a cool glance. “‘Extraordinary’ is one word for Miss Monteith’s appearance at the demimonde ball, Abbot, but I can think of others. I’m wondering exactly how she managed to get here all by herself.”
Immediately Abbot’s face assumed a blank expression.
“I am very glad to see you, Abbot,” Olivia said, with a reproving frown at Nic. “I did not realize you were attending the ball, too. What do you do while Lord Lacey perambulates?”
Abbot’s mouth twitched. “I wait, Miss Monteith. This ball is not for the likes of me.”
“When you are both quite finished passing the time of day…” Nic interrupted with quiet menace.
Abbot hastily resumed his blank servant face. “I’m sorry, my lord. May I inquire if we are still going to Paris now that Miss Monteith is here? You are not thinking of taking her with us, surely?”
“Do I hear a note of censure in your voice, Abbot?” Nic asked in a silky voice. “I don’t expect my morals to be questioned by my inferiors.”
Abbot stiffened. “I am not questioning your morals, Lord Lacey. I am simply asking whether your plans have altered.”
“As a matter of fact my plans have altered. We’re not going to Paris after all…at least not today. We are going to Miss Monteith’s inn so that you can collect her belongings and find her some slippers, and then we are taking her home to Bassingthorpe.”
Taken off guard, Abbot forgot himself. “Well, I am relieved!”
Nic’s eyes narrowed even more dangerously. “Did you say relieved?”
Abbot hesitated and then appeared to decide that if he was already in trouble, he might as well go ahead and express his true feelings. “We are neither of us getting any younger, my lord. Speaking for myself, I would much rather go home to Bassingthorpe than argue with French domestics when the housekeeping in Paris does not please you.”
Olivia held her breath, prepared for Nic to give his manservant a severe set-down. So it came as a surprise when instead he sighed and said, quite mildly, “You are becoming a bore, Abbot. Especially when you are right. Now if we are quite finished with the nonsense, we must get going, or it will be dawn before we start.”
Abbot apologized, although Olivia didn’t think it necessarily his fault, but as he opened the coach door for Olivia, she caught the hint of a smile in his eyes. Perhaps she had things all wrong, she thought, and what had seemed like an argument to her was simply Nic and Abbot’s way of sorting out their differences.
“Are you comfortable?” Nic was watching her from his corner.
“Thank you, yes.”
The Lacey coach might be an antique, old and heavy, but the interior was sumptuous. There was even a monogram etched into the glass windows, an M and a W entwined.
“Who are M and W?” she said, touching the cold glass.
“My parents. It was a love match. You’ll find M and W all over the castle.”
Remembering Nic’s mother and her harsh, unsmiling countenance, Olivia found it difficult to believe she was ever young and in love. She wondered what sort of childhood Nic might have had, and whether love had much to do with it.
Things would be very different when she became the next Lady Lacey, she told herself. Their children would be welcomed and loved, and Castle Lacey would ring with laughter rather than tears. Her thoughts were full of the blind determination that had carried her this far, and if there was a hint of doubt in her heart, then she refused to listen to it. Olivia knew she’d come too far to turn back.
But just for a moment she stared at the entwined letters on the coach window, thinking that not all dreams came true, and not everyone ended up happily ever after, and it was like staring into a cold, deep chasm that had opened unexpectedly in front of her feet.
Nic was trying to sleep. He was tired but not tired enough to stop the brooding thoughts whirling around in his head. After Abbot had collected Olivia’s belongings from the inn and paid her bill, she’d cuddled up in her cloak and a lap rug provided by the ever-reliable Abbot, and promptly fallen asleep. In repose her face held an innocence that made him feel even more ashamed of his lack of self-control.
In the past he’d always assured himself that the women with whom he consorted knew the rules of the game. They were professionals. He did not pursue innocents, and he did not seduce respectable women. The one time he’d become involved with the seduction of a respectable woman, disaster had come crashing down on his family. His father had died as a consequence, and his mother blamed him for his father’s death. Nine years later, Nic was still entangled in that web of deceit and lies.
Why then was he about to make the same mistake? Pursuing and seducing an innocent, no matter that she seemed to want to be pursued and seduced, would have serious repercussions for them both. He’d be setting a marriage trap for himself and dragging Olivia Monteith into the mire of scandal and disgrace.
She didn’t deserve that and he didn’t need the complication.
Eyes closed, Nic toyed with the thought that perhaps he should let Theodore have her. The man was clearly in love with her, and although in Nic’s opinion he wasn’t nearly good enough, Nic had to grudgingly admit that Theodore would do his utmost to look after her. Olivia would be comfortably off, cared for, and treated as she deserved—like a queen.
And with Olivia safe, Nic could then travel to Paris with a clear conscience, despite what Abbot said about being too old.
Blast the man!
He reminded himself that there was a time when Abbot would never have dared to speak to him like that. It was just that after so many years together they had become as familiar with each other as…as, well, friends. The word startled him. He could hear Abbot and the coach driver now, their voices rising and falling over the rattle and rumble of the wheels. He remembered how overjoyed Abbot had seemed when he found out they were taking Olivia home, and how concerned he’d appeared to be that some harm might come to her.
No, Nic admitted uneasily, that wasn’t quite right. Abbot had been concerned that Nic might harm her.
He shifted in his seat, easing his leg into a more comfortable position. Surely Abbot didn’t believe that Nic would really harm Olivia? He might have seen his master do some things they would both rather forget, but Abbot also knew Nic had his own moral code. Nic Lacey had been brought up as a gentleman, and at heart that was what he still was.
What the devil did Abbot want him to do? But he thought he knew. Abbot wanted Nic to marry her. He hankered for the quiet domestic life, wearing slippers and putting his feet up in the evenings, wearing a nightcap and drinking a glass of hot milk. Well, Nic thought irritably, Abbot might be ready to retire but he wasn’t. And why the hell, he asked himself angrily, should he care what Abbot thought anyway!
Nic sank into brooding, his thoughts going around and around, as the coach rumbled onward.
Olivia woke off and on throughout the journey. She was warm and relaxed, and the movement of the coach was soothing. As well as refurbishing the interior, Nic must have had the springs replaced. She could see him across from her, head back against the velvet squabs, eyes closed, his mouth slightly open. Now and again he would give a soft snore.
She felt easy and comfortable in his company, and she couldn’t help but wonder how she might have felt if Nic had done as she wanted him to, and slid deep into her body and made her his own. Surely such intimacy would have brought them even closer, created a bond between them, for how could it not?
The memory brought a smile to her lips. The moments with Nic, brief as they had been, boded well for their future happiness. Olivia was no shrinking violet, and she looked forward to spending many nights in Nic’s bed. And he was obviously physically attracted to her. She imagined them together, enjoying the pleasures of the flesh, as he tutored her in all he knew. And because he was a rake and knew so much, it would take him a long time to teach
her everything.
And then what?
Olivia admitted to herself that if she did have a worry about their future, it was that he might grow bored with her. Once they were used to each other, once they had discovered all their secrets, would he return to his old ways? There was that old cynical saying, “Familiarity breeds contempt,” and unfortunately in Olivia’s experience there was some truth to it. She pictured herself in a year’s time, alone in the drafty castle, while Nic rode off in splendor to the demimonde ball…
“No!”
Olivia heard her own voice with a shock, and held her breath as Nic stirred, a frown creasing his brow, before settling into sleep again.
No, I won’t let him go off alone. If he insists on going to the demimonde ball, then I will insist on going with him!
Chapter 12
When at last Nic opened his eyes, he found they were on the outskirts of Bassingthorpe. Surprisingly, in the circumstances, he had slept deeply and well, better than he’d slept for a long time. On the few occasions during the journey when he’d awoken, he’d only had to look across at Olivia’s beautiful, calm face, and he’d drifted off again, perfectly content.
He yawned and stretched, sitting up straight. Olivia was also awake, watching him sleepily, the hood of her cloak drawn over her head so that only the pale oval of her face was visible.
“You were snoring,” she announced.
He raised an eyebrow at her. “Is that a problem?”
“No, I am a very sound sleeper.” She smiled, and then turned to the window. “We’re home,” she announced, and sighed, as if the fact was a disappointment to her rather than the relief it was to him.
“Yes, we are.”
She looked down at herself, at the black velvet visible beneath her cloak. “I can’t let anyone see me in this.”
He was tempted to frighten her into thinking he was going to drop her at her gate and leave her to explain herself, just to teach her a lesson. But she looked so woebegone he didn’t have the heart.