by Julia Ross
Alden laughed at her - a low, lazy laugh - to hide his flare of anger. He released her chin. Why should he be irritated? He was winning. He had made clear what it meant to dally with a rake and she had not panicked. The line of her neck and upswept hair beneath the back of her bonnet held an intense allure. He wanted to touch that soft white skin, trace his fingers over the curve of her collarbone and down the swell of her lush breasts. His body reacted instantly. The trace of anger dissolved into ardent need.
"What is there to risk, ma'am?"
She glanced back, her color still high. Her eyes were stunningly blue. "Oh, affection. Constancy. True intimacy. Love."
"Emotions you have known?"
"No." She seemed starkly virtuous. "But Ι have believed in them."
"You have also known desire, which is more genuine." The throbbing pleasure in his groin made his voice a little husky. "You feel it now."
"Yes," she said on a breath, looking away. "Why deny it?"
Pleasure tightened, growing in intensity. "And you know it is worth it, even without love or constancy. What is more, you know it is safest to explore that ardor with a rake, because he expects nothing else and promises nothing else."
The horses' hooves clopped along the hard road, a heavy counterpoint to the jingle of the harness and the rustling of leaves overhead. It was a strangely innocent accompaniment to the outrageous surging of his blood.
"You think so?" she asked.
"Why else are you here?"
"Perhaps because Ι agree with you." Her breathing was rapid, nervous. "It doesn't have to go any further than this: If a rake asks for more and the lady refuses it, he will forget her and go his own way. If she would prefer to be forgotten, that is better for her. She would be left to her work and her garden, with the memory of a harmless moment of foolishness."
He felt like crowing, shouting to the far blue sky, a male shout of triumph, though he kept his voice calm, even found a dash of humor. "What kind of foolishness?"
"That remains to be seen."
"What if he asks for more and she agrees?"
"She will not. She would then truly prove herself to be a fool."
He closed his eyes for a second to regain control Α madness. He wasn't a boy to be swept up by sexual excitement, and yet he felt a blaze of urgency-
"So though she believes a rake to be unprincipled and dangerous, those very things make it safer that for this one day she can flirt - even kiss him - with the chance to scorn him afterward?"
"Yes," she said bluntly. "That would bring its own satisfaction, don't you think? If she is left unmoved and he is the one still trembling for more?"
"Fair enough, if she has judged her own reaction correctly." He slid one hand along the back of the seat until his fingers touched lightly on her nape. Heat burned from her skin. He stroked gently up to her hairline and back. "Let's find out."
Her face flamed. "You do believe attack is the best strategy, don't you?"
He untied her bonnet and tossed it aside, then traced the line of her jaw with his thumb. Her breasts rose and fell rapidly beneath the gold locket, as if her very skin sang in harmony with his touch. His pulse hammered.
"To be always on the defensive guarantees losing," he said.
She dropped her fan to her lap, but she did not pull away. Her breath fanned his lips, tantalizing, a fast harmony in rhythm with his own. "Yes, attack is always good strategy - in chess."
"Though in life it may lead you further than you want to go?"
"How far is that?"
"At least this far, Juliet."
He touched one thumb to the sensuous corner of her mouth as he lowered his head to hers. Her lips met his softly, lightly, with a small sigh. In spite of the urgent surge in his blood, he answered with delicacy. He kissed her upper lip and the corners of her mouth, then took her full lower lip between both of his and suckled gently, playing with sensation.
Sweetness flooded his mouth.
He pressed for more, let her feel the slight bite of his teeth as he changed the kiss to include her upper lip, then followed it with the soft touch of the lip of his tongue.
She responded with artless bravery. Surprisingly innocent.
Desire began to burn white-hot. Yet he teased, exploring with subtlety, waiting until she began to demand the intensity he was still holding back. At last she clutched at his coat and moaned, then slipped one hand behind his head and opened her mouth to his invasion. Sensations exploded. His blood roared its male exultation, thundering in his ears, as he put his heart and soul into kissing her.
Before he entirely lost control, he broke the kiss, with small nips and caresses - to her neck, her eyelids and earlobes. She sighed, her head pillowed on his arm, her mouth swollen and hot.
"Ah, Mistress Juliet," he whispered, rubbing his thumb over her cheek. "I am the one conquered."
"No." Her pupils were dilated, huge, as she glanced up at him. "Don't be dishonest now. Ι know this means nothing."
"It means that Ι am on fire for you, Juliet. No truth ever burned brighter or more starkly honest than that."
Her fingers touched lightly on his cheek, as if she would trace the lines of his face and commit them to memory. "You think to add more fuel to the flames?"
"I’m damned if Ι care. Let's create a conflagration!"
He kissed her again, deeper this time, while his fingers trailed down her throat and over the exposed swell of her breasts. The soft ball of his thumb lingered in the crevice, pushing aside her locket, as he kissed deeper yet.
Deeper. Deeper. With every ounce of his skill and experience. With a surprising and unlooked-for passion. Devouring her mouth. Exploring the soft shape of her breasts.
Intensity erupted in a flood tide.
His very bones responded with stark need. To touch her, any where, everywhere! Consume her with hungry hands and starving mouth. Invade her lush beauty and meld his flesh into hers. Now! Now! Make her body sing as his lips were singing - keen, sharp, burning with desire. Bury himself in her hot female heart. Find a soul-shattering pleasure. Sweep her with him to their mutual release.
Now! Lust soared in crescendo. More! Further! Deeper! Now!
His control began to slip-
His legs were entangled in pink satin. His palms met only whalebone and lacing. He dropped his head to tongue her breasts, wanting to slide her dress from both shoulders - wanting to see her naked - feel her naked - and tasted a mouthful of lace from her cuffs as she pushed him away.
He glanced up into her eyes as he opened his hands and released her. "Juliet, please!"
"You have failed," she said, turning away. ''You leave me cold."
For one split second he believed that she truly repudiated him. The pain of it paralyzed him.
"For pity's sake," he said at last. "We have hardly begun-"
"To play this game?" She laughed. "But we shall see, sir, who forces checkmate."
Alden spun away from her and leaned back into his corner of the seat. His breath rushed uncontrolled from his lungs. His mouth felt bruised, burning.
"There won't be checkmate," he said. "Ι concede and withdraw my forces. If you wished to wound me, you have succeeded beyond your wildest expectations."
She covered her mouth with her fan. The fan trembled, quivered as if shaken by an earthquake. She clasped one hand over the other as if to keep it still.
In the language of the fan: Forgive me.
He caught her by both shoulders and turned her to face him.
Her breathing, her color, her dilated eyes gave her away. She was brimming with courage and a determination to beat him at his own game, but if he asked now, she couldn't refuse him. What the devil did Juliet Seton think she was doing, trying to match wits with a rake? Although she didn't know it, her body had already betrayed her.
His blood surged and sang, while his mind filled with victory. "Ι am burning for you. You are truly different, Juliet."
"For today," she said. "For now. Pretty
lies."
"Why would Ι dissemble now? Do you want me to pretend I'm not frantic with desire? I've never felt this desperate before." It was true - all of it.
She glanced down and bit her lip, absentmindedly opening and closing the fan. You are cruel. "If you are wounded, sir, it is only in your pride."
"Perhaps, but it feels like a much deeper laceration than that and not one that Ι fathom at all. In truth, Ι feel a little dazed and uncomfortably vulnerable, neither of which are my normal reactions to kissing a lady."
She clenched her hands in her lap, staring down at the closed fan. "It was only an experiment-"
"An experiment! And what did you feel?"
The fan snapped open. "Nothing-"
He laughed then, a great shout of laughter, filled with joy. "Oh, Juliet! What a blatant untruth! It's all right to admit it. Faith! It can still stop here, if you wish. Ι may never touch you again, but the truth is this: "I’ve never known such a kiss-"
"Flattery," she said desperately.
"Lud, no! Why the devil flatter? It's more true than the blue sky. If you insist otherwise, then Ι might insist we do it again, just to prove you wrong."
"Ι think-" She grabbed her bonnet, thrust it on her head and frantically tied the ribbons under her chin. "Ι think we should not."
"Hush, hush," he said. "Valiant Juliet. You have stabbed me to the heart. It's not something I'm used to, but Ι won't die. Meanwhile, the control is all yours. If you say it stops here, it stops here."
She turned her head so he couldn't see her face and said nothing.
"Alas, ma'am. Your sweet peas are wilting."
He signaled John to stop the horses and leaped down. Red campion grew along the roadside. Alden picked a handful of the wild blooms, then swung himself back into the carriage. The grays started forward again.
Her hands were locked on the edge of the side panel, her back turned toward him. She was looking away through an opening in the trees.
"What place is that?"
He tore his gaze away from the gathered drapes on the back of her dress and the vulnerable white nape framed by the rose satin neckline. In the blue distance a house nestled in its grounds, hazy in the afternoon heat. They were already approaching the southern borders of his lands.
"Gracechurch Abbey."
"Who lives there?"
He pulled the dying flowers from her hat. One by one, he dropped them into her lap.
"The viscount, though he's seldom in residence."
She sat as if frozen, clinging to the carriage door, staring at his house. "Viscount Gracechurch?"
Alden wove the fresh wildflowers in place of the sweet peas. "The fellow's a gambler and wastrel, but the very devil, they say, with women."
He leaned down to kiss the tender curve where her shoulder met the column of her neck. Once. To show her his control. To remind her of his skill.
Apart from one quick, intaken breath, she didn't move.
He could imagine the next scene as clearly as if it were a play he had written. There was no need to go all the way to the house. She was already his. In another mile he could signal John to stop the horses, leap down from the carriage and take her by the waist to swing her into his arms. In a cloud of rose satin and lace she would land against his chest.
He would kiss her until she was on fire and helpless, then he would lead her through the little spinney and kiss her again. Where the trees thinned there was a private, sunny dell filled with wildflowers, sheltered by the curve of a ruined wall, an ancient, abandoned outpost of the Abbey that his father had rebuilt into a charming folly.
There he would remove the glittering dress. Peel away petticoats and corset. Slide off the beribboned high-heeled shoes, untie her garters, kiss away her stockings. His coat would cushion her powdered head, his shirt make a soft bed for her naked back. She would press her lips to his bare chest as he kicked away his shoes, moan into his mouth as she helped slide down his breeches. He would take her, there in that dell, as she begged him not to, then begged him not to stop.
His blood burned.
His knowing, practiced body was hers to use however she desired.
In exchange, he promised her ecstasy.
It was no overconfident fantasy. It was the simple truth. She wanted him as much as he wanted her. There among the crushed thyme and forget-me-nots, he would devour her. When she was enthralled, helpless, he would bury himself to the hilt in her sweetness and her courage and her fortitude, and win her.
No woman had ever denied him. He could take her to Marion Hall before midnight, certain that she could refuse him nothing. Whether she realized it or not, Mistress Juliet Seton was already his lover. The wager was as good as won.
With gentle fingertips he stroked the back of her neck, marveling at her silky white skin.
The matched grays trotted confidently toward the spinney.
Alden had already put out his hand to tap the signal to halt, when she turned to face him. Her eyes were brilliant, dilated, her color high. There was everything there he had worked for: her body's craving and its female vulnerability. The answering pressure of his own desire raced hot through his blood, importunate, demanding. He cradled her cheek in one palm as if to kiss her again.
She clutched at his hand, pulling it down.
"Ι cannot," she whispered. ''Ι cannot win. Ι was lying. You have defeated me. If you have any mercy at all, you will not touch me again."
Checkmate!
He was stunned into silence.
Alden dropped his hand.
There was a distant growl of thunder. Α raindrop splashed on his knuckles.
He glanced up. Black clouds had gathered and built, rapidly boiling up into thunderheads. Α cold breeze blew her skirts and fluttered the ribbons on her bonnet. Raindrops began to patter audibly on the road.
"Thank God," she said, tipping back her head and closing her eyes as the water ran down over her ravaged face. ''At last."
He fought for escape, desperate to find a way past his unwelcome surge of scruples. Gracechurch Abbey was close. They could arrive wet from the rain. Comfort and warmth would be a simple prelude to a civilized seduction in a drawing room, or a bundling in towels and warm sheets in a bedroom. Easy to tease a woman out of her damp clothes and into his arms. He had done it a hundred times.
Then afterward he would take her, soft and glowing from his lovemaking, to Marion Hall, where he would ravish her again to satisfy the wager with Lord Edward and Sir Reginald Denby. Where he would give them her locket as proof - or be ruined.
He had been so certain he could do it. Why the devil not?
It would be something he would regret to his dying day, if he did not make love to Juliet Seton. If he failed to bed her tonight at Marion Hall, it would cost him his home and his future, and very possibly his freedom. It would cost him Sherry and Peter Primrose and the future of all of his dependents
Alden didn't know what else he thought it would cost him, except that it would be a travesty to take her in a field or under a hedge like a farm girl-and the act of a blackguard to take her to Gracechurch Abbey only to feast off of her vulnerability.
With rage at his own incomprehensible feelings tearing at his heart, Alden signaled John to turn the carriage.
"Then Ι had better take you home," he said savagely. "Unless we wish to play chess in a downpour."
He let his mind run through every blasphemous curse that he knew. From somewhere, unlooked for and unwelcome, some tiny shred of honor or pity or restraint seemed to have become seeded and sprouted into this unlikely plant.
The notorious Lord Gracechurch was going to refrain once again from making love to a willing woman that he passionately desired. Even though this time it would cost him his home and his future, and very possibly his freedom.
He had gone mad.
THE HORSES TROTTED ON. FOLDED KNUCKLES PRESSED TO HER burning mouth, Juliet huddled inside his coat. He had insisted on taking it off and draping it around her s
houlders. The thunder shower had faded to a sprinkle, then stopped altogether, but she didn't return his jacket. She sat enfolded in its dry warmth, with the carriage blanket tucked over her knees.
Eyes closed, arms folded, Alden Granville lay back on the seat next to her. Rain had soaked his hair, his shoulders and waistcoat, plastering the fabric to his body, washing over the severe, beautiful lines of his face. His expressive lips lay still, robbed of words, robbed of kisses, dampened only by rain.
If he had asked, he could have made love to her right there in the carriage. Tossed up her skirts and thrust himself boldly into her moist, willing body. He had not, though he had, of course, wanted to. She believed him in that.
She did not believe it was because she was special, or because she had moved him in any unique way. He wanted to, because he was a rake and she was female.
He was a libertine, a man who broke hearts for a pastime. She was a married woman, who - in spite of everything - felt bound by the vows that had cost her so much and was even more bound by her fear of discovery. She was not free. And even if she were, she would never be just another mistress to a man who had casually enjoyed so many. Though she wanted him with a longing that shook her to her soul: wanted the wit and the attention, and the lean masculine body.
Juliet pulled his coat closer about her shoulders. The fabric carried his essence, that clean, male-and-soap smell that she wanted to breathe forever deep into her lungs-to hold in some part of him, even if only his scent.
How foolish, when it was so thoroughly over! The pretty game and the play at seduction. Destroyed forever. He would go on his way and leave her to hers.
Yet her skin craved the touch of his hands. Her mouth silently called out for the press of his lips, for the demon knowledge of his mouth and tongue. Her palms longed to feast on the muscles displayed, clean and hard, beneath his damp shirt. If he asked now, even with a look, she would not be able to deny him.
He did not ask.
So, in spite of his avowed vocation, he was merciful!