by Betina Krahn
She stilled abruptly, drew a tortured breath, and began to push back from that sensual boundary with everything in her, desperately battling the seduction of her senses.
As her head cleared, she found herself on her back on the settee with Remington wedged intimately against her body. The front of her bodice was gone and her damp nipples tingled decadently above the edge of her corset. He braced above her, staring down at her with eyes like burning coals, his passion unslaked and raging visibly.
The sense of it shocked her to the ends of her soul. She was lying with him, entwined, exposed, and aching with unspent pleasure. A chilling draft of horror began to invade the steamy expectation that suffused her body and limbs. When he reached for her mouth with his, she turned her head and squeezed her eyes shut.
Denied her mouth, he kissed the edge of her jaw instead, then bent to aim his kisses toward more appreciative targets.
Frantic to escape, she gave him a shove that caught him off guard and sent him rolling off the settee. She scrambled up and staggered back with her knees trembling, her skin on fire, and a humiliating wet heat in her woman’s core. Wrapping her arms over her exposed breasts, she searched frantically for the missing placket of her bodice.
“Antonia, wait—” he ordered as she located the missing part of her dress and started for the door. She wouldn’t look at him, but whatever self-possession she had just managed to salvage fled as her heel struck one of the round buttons littering the floor. She slid with a cry of surprise and barely kept herself from hitting the floor. That delay gave him time to reach her.
“Antonia, I—” He seized her shoulders and stared in frustration at her anguished eyes and kiss-swollen lips. “Look at me,” was all he could say, sensing that looks might reach an understanding that would elude mere words.
Her head came up with a snap and he caught a sharp breath. Her eyes were deep wells of emotion, open, vulnerable. In them he could read every shred of confusion, every impulse of longing and self-loathing she was suffering. The impact hit him like a fist in the gut.
When she wrenched from his hands and slipped out the door, he didn’t try to stop her. Wobbling back to the settee, he sank down on it and rubbed his face. His body was overheated, his blood was pounding viciously in his head, and his loins felt as if they were going to burst. He gave the aching ridge in his trousers a pacifying stroke that only sent a wild rush of heat through his loins and made him writhe with unexpected misery. With no immediate relief to be had, he shot to his feet, threw open the window, and gulped breath after breath of fresh air.
Several moments later he was marginally in control again, and he forced himself to think about what had happened.
Antonia. She astonished him. He leaned a shoulder against the window frame and closed his eyes, seeing her as she had lain beneath him: her bodice cut away, her long, velvety nipples peeping over the erotic constraint of her corset, her expressive eyes glistening pools of desire, her passion-stung lips parted invitingly. And he felt again the way she had moved: hesitant at first, then yielding and fluid beneath him, around him. She was sensuality personified. He’d never had a woman respond to him the way she did … fully, genuinely, with every part of her.
Then reality descended; the distress in her face, her shock at her own response. What did she know of such things? Had she ever felt pleasure before? She was a widow; she had known a man’s passion. But had any man ever known hers? The sight of her as she stood by the door rose in his mind: her eyes were luminous with desire and confusion. Antonia Paxton without defenses. Antonia Paxton as a woman, a lover.
Suddenly his body was vibrating, his chest was tight, and his breath was coming hard and fast. Pressure surged in his loins. He wanted her … God, how he wanted her.
He started for the door, but his heel also struck a stray button, which threw him off stride. Recovering, he snatched up the offending sphere. As he stared at it, his irritation slowly transformed into a smile. He closed his fingers around it, and when he stepped out of the room later, there was a handful of buttons in his pocket and a hum of expectation in his blood.
Down the hall, at that very moment, Antonia sat on the bench before her dressing table, staring at her mussed hair, swollen lips, and guilt-darkened eyes. She rounded her shoulders and clasped her hands together between her knees. Her wild and uncontrolled response to his lovemaking shocked her to the very ends of her being.
Maybe he hadn’t noticed. Maybe he couldn’t tell how close she had come to …
How would she ever face him again? How could she possibly sit at the supper table with him that evening and hold her head up? She glanced at the mirror, and it seemed to her that the illicit pleasure she had taken in their encounter was written all over her face. He would see it and take loathsome satisfaction in it and …
And what? Shame her?
Good Lord, wouldn’t he love that? To seduce her and then torment her with her surrender … to reduce her to a shamefaced little shrinking violet before his awesome male prowess and potency. Wouldn’t he love to claim her response as his victory?
That was what he had come to do, after all: seduce her. And on one level he had just succeeded—with her help. But, she made herself think more rationally, there was still a vast difference between what had happened and a full sexual encounter. The joining of bodies, of course. And completion. Technically it couldn’t be considered intercourse if he didn’t … finish … could it?
A cool draft of relief wafted through her as she recalled the unslaked need visible in his face and body, and realized that he couldn’t have taken the satisfaction he probably expected from that licentious encounter. Close on the heels of that thought came another rather surprising one: just as he couldn’t seduce her without her cooperation, he could not shame her unless she allowed him to do it.
It was nothing short of a revelation to her. Shame was an internal thing … a punishment a person inflicted upon herself. She thought about it for a moment, then relief poured through her like a cool, cleansing balm. He might smirk and wink and make tawdry, suggestive remarks, but she hadn’t done anything truly dishonorable or immoral. She didn’t have to feel dirtied or disgraced. She didn’t have to let him win that way.
Her shoulders squared, her chin rose, and when she met her eyes in the mirror this time, they were bright with fresh insight and resolve. In her mind she conjured an image of him strutting into the dining room, full of triumph and condescension. If his devious lordship expected her to be cowed and contrite, he was in for a rather nasty surprise.
But apparently even the memory of his aristocratic features had the power to send a shiver through her. The tips of her breasts tingled and drew taut, and she looked down at the rosy edges of her nipples, still visible above her corset. With a huff of disgust she began stuffing them back into place.
“That will be quite enough of that.”
Chapter Ten
That evening Antonia sailed into the dining room like a naval frigate, bristling with visible defenses. She smoothed and adjusted her severe charcoal-gray jacket, checking every one of its thirty-four buttons, and tugged upward on her lace-rimmed standing collar, the stiffness of which was a continual reminder to keep her head up. But all the sartorial and emotional armor in the world couldn’t have prepared her for what happened when Remington strode into the room.
She watched in mounting confusion as he went straight to Aunt Hermione, who was already seated, greeted her, and kissed her hand. Her disbelief turned to dismay as he personally escorted to the table Eleanor, Pollyanna, and Florence, and every other lady still standing. When he finally turned to her and extended his hand, it was impossible to refuse without being inexplicably rude.
“You look lovely this evening, as usual, Lady Antonia,” he said with a smile that was irresistibly polite. Before he released her hand, he brushed it with his lips.
She stiffened and clasped her hands in her lap as he pushed her chair in, feeling the spot he had kissed glowing in hea
ted contrast to the chill of her fingers. For the rest of the meal he was the most gracious and entertaining table guest she could have imagined. He made it a point to speak to each woman present and to tease and flirt within the bounds of good taste … until it came to her.
For her he reserved looks and comments carrying an understated warmth that made a shambles of her hostile expectations of him. Smirks and leers and smug male arrogance she had expected, and was prepared to handle with cool, vengeful grace. But this warmth, this genuineness, this wretched charm of his—she didn’t know what to make of that, or how to deal with it.
Why wasn’t he gloating and preening?
He was either far more decent than she had given him credit for, or far more devious. And she hadn’t a clue which.
By the end of supper, when she escorted him to the front doors, she was reeling inside from vacillating between those two extremes. He took his hat and cane from Hoskins and stood a moment, looking at her with an intimacy that disarmed and unsettled her. When he reached for her hand, she couldn’t bring herself to deny him.
“It’s been a most educational day, Antonia,” he said, cradling her hand in his and using it to draw her closer. “And most enjoyable.” Then in forgivable violation of his new courtly manner, he bent his head and brushed a kiss lightly across her palm. And with an openly desirous glance at her tightly buttoned bodice, he strode out.
Antonia stared at the closed door, feeling as if every bone in her body had just melted.
This, she thought helplessly, this was being seduced.
Dreading a repeat of what happened between them, Antonia absented herself from Paxton House the next day, leaving Remington to spend the day with Gertrude in the kitchen, implementing the menus he had planned the week before. She spent the day at Walther Place, the settlement house for destitute widows that was operated by the Widows’ Assistance League, and arrived late for supper.
“How good that you could clear your busy schedule to join us,” Remington said with a caustic edge that caught her back for a moment. Strained silence ensued as she hurried to the table, saw the unused china, and realized they had waited for her. Lifting her chin, she allowed Hoskins to hold her chair, then gave him the nod to proceed with the serving. When she looked up, Remington was giving her a dark look indeed.
“Gertrude has had his lordship working hard all day to lay on this supper,” Hermione explained, catching Antonia’s eye with a mildly accusatory look.
“The lettuce will be wilted,” Remington said in a scathingly patrician tone. “And my peas will have turned to mush.”
Antonia chewed the inside of her lip to keep from smiling at the irony of the high-handed Remington Carr sounding for all the world like a neglected housewife. Collecting herself, she looked straight at him and smiled.
“Sorry I’m late. We had several new arrivals at Walther House and I lost track of time.” She allowed some of her humor to warm her expression. “But I’ve always liked wilted lettuce salad. And I’ve always been a bit suspicious of peas that are too … round.”
Early the next afternoon Remington found himself being tutored on the finer points of making and preserving marmalade and jam, a lesson in patience if there ever was one. And patience was one thing he was running precariously short of just then. He slogged his way through peeling and cleaning and squeezing, washing glass jars and straining pulp through colanders, all the while growing more and more annoyed. He hadn’t seen Antonia alone since their encounter in the upstairs parlor nearly two days ago.
He was beginning to regret his decision to take the high road in dealing with her, expecting that his gallantry would lull her into another delicious indiscretion. Somewhere at the bottom of his strategy was the assumption that her own intensely sensual nature would help create the appropriate opportunity. He paused in the midst of chopping a mountain of orange peel and scowled at his recent memory.
Cocky bastard, he thought, expecting that her desire for him would prove so overwhelming that she would make it easy for him to seduce her again. In her actions and demeanor he could see no trace of the passionate and vulnerable creature who had taken such pleasure in his arms. When she had given him a cool, civil smile down the dinner table two hours earlier, it had taken every bit of his self-control to keep from snatching her out of her chair, throwing her down between the salt cellars and the sauce bernaise—and kissing her until she melted into a searing hot—
He came abruptly to his senses as Gertrude gave his arm a shake.
“I said ye’ve got a caller, yer lordship,” she repeated with a quizzical look.
“A caller?” He straightened, put his knife down, and began to wipe his hands. “Who could possibly be—”
His brow smoothed and his eyes narrowed. Would Hillary dare intrude on him again? Ripping off his apron, he donned his coat, and in a moment was bounding up the stairs with fire in his eyes.
He stopped dead in the middle of the hallway, staring at an ample woman wearing a flame-red dress and a hat with the dimensions of a beach umbrella. She was fidgeting with silk flowers on the shoulder of her dress until she caught sight of him from the corner of her eye.
“Remmy … darling!” She extended a fashionably gloved hand and floated toward him as if propelled along by something other than human limbs. “So this is where you’ve been keeping yourself!” She cast an appraising gaze around her at the understated elegance of the hallway. “I just had to see, darling. You’re in all the papers, you know. Such a naughty boy. Such outrages …”
“Carlotta?” he growled, reddening. “You?”
“But then you always were headstrong and full of surprises,” she carried on, ignoring the warning signs of his temper as she swayed voluptuously to his side and threaded her arm through his. “Tell me, Remmy dear … I’m dying to know …” She lowered her voice and winked seductively. “Does she make you wash out her unmentionables?” Halfway through her next cooing laugh, she choked. “Ohhh! Remmy, w-what’s gotten into you?”
He had grabbed her by the arm and was hauling her at breakneck speed toward the drawing-room doors, where he thrust her ahead of him into the empty salon and turned to slam the doors behind them. When he turned on her, she was adjusting her hat with a coquettish wriggle of her overblown curves.
“My, my. We are in a temper, aren’t we?” she crooned.
“What in bloody hell are you doing here, Carlotta?” he demanded, jamming his fists on his hips in a way that thrust his shoulders forward ominously.
“But I just said, Remmy.” She smiled up at him. “I simply couldn’t stay away. I’ve read every article they’ve written about you and your little arrangement.”
“Now that does surprise me,” he replied. “I didn’t know that reading was among your … accomplishments.”
“Oooh, we are testy,” she declared in a husky voice, swaying closer and giving his body a thoroughly insulting examination with her kohl-rimmed eyes. “All overheated and sweaty. Goodness, doesn’t she know to give a thoroughbred a rubdown after a good hard ride?”
He seized her by the arm, his eyes narrowing to burning slits. “Enough, Carlotta. How dare you come here?”
“Well, if I didn’t, I wouldn’t get to see my Remmy, would I?” she said with exaggerated petulance, pressing the arm that he held against her breast so that his hand was trapped against her pillowy softness. “Spank me purple if it hasn’t been more than a month since you came by. And you know how lonely I get.” She wriggled suggestively against his hand and sent him a through-the-lashes look.
Her daring eyes and hennaed hair, her avid, rouged lips and excessive cleavage, were caricatures of what had once been sexually mesmerizing attributes. In former days her exquisitely sensual face had commanded male passions, her scandalously ribald talk had titillated the most jaded of male sensibilities, and the sultry sway of her opulent curves had set proper society on its ear. She was a woman who loved carnal sport as much as men did, and who didn’t mind playing by their rule
s—hot and consensual sex, no holds barred, and no grudges or obligations. To a number of London’s elite she had been a ravishingly good ride, the carnal adventure of a lifetime.
But to Remington she was merely a ravishingly huge pain in the neck.
“I’m not your ‘Remmy’!” he ground out, ripping his hand from her and jolting back a step. Rising fury temporarily choked off his speech.
“Oh, but you are,” she said, scowling resentfully at him. “And in one way or another you always will be mine. You can’t escape it, Remmy dear. And it strips the drawers off my rosy bottom why you would even want to. I mean, it’s not as if you have a wife or a reputation at stake.” Beneath her playful and seductive manner the glint of determination showed through. “You’ve already abandoned all that—”
“Don’t say another damned word,” he ordered. “How I live and who I see is my affair. I want you out of here”—he pointed toward the door—“now!”
“Well, now that you’ve brought it up,” she said, slipping back into her provocative teasing. “I want something, too.”
His countenance turned to granite and his hands curled into fists at his sides.
“Madame Pernaud’s bill was returned unpaid, and Galtier Brothers actually tried to reclaim those cases of Perrier-Jouet champagne I ordered.” She oozed coquettishness. “They said your offices refused payment, and I just knew it had to be a mistake. So I thought I’d come and have you straighten it all out for me, Remmy.”
“It is no mistake,” he declared tersely. “I sent back the bills myself. You get a stipend—a damned generous one, at that. Learn to live within it, Carlotta.” He seized her upper arm and propelled her toward the door. “If you cannot, then find some other poor wretch to badger and stick with your bills.” He halted with his hand on the door handle and glared at her wriggling, sputtering form. “From now on you will contact me only through my solicitors. Harass me again and I swear I’ll have you in the courts before you can say ‘Spank me purple’!”