‘Clearly,’ he agreed, meeting her eyes full on and how wonderful it felt to be understood. Apparently he agreed she had every right to hate the couple who did their best to make the Alstone sisters’ lives a misery when they were too young and unprotected to fight back.
Heady warmth fizzed through her like a slow-burning firework. He understood her and hadn’t backed away as if she was unnatural and wicked to hate those two so much even today, when she was old enough to at least try to forgive and forget the terrible chaos Nevin Braxton and Cousin Celia wrought on her young life. Instead of condemnation in his eyes, there was warmth and fellow feeling and something a lot more exhilarating. Isabella’s heart raced with excitement and something even headier she wasn’t quite ready to put a name to even in her own head yet.
She did know no other man made her feel as if the world had faded away and they were the only people left in it. She had longed to feel like this again since the moment she left the terrace at Haile Carr, feeling as if a crucial part of her had had to be lopped off so she could do it without breaking down and refusing to take another step away from him and what might have been. Now she could stare into his supposedly icy-blue eyes again and stop pretending she didn’t want to be scorched by his heat so close she could feel him breathe. She was free to be foolish this time and reckless enough not to want to be wise.
‘You don’t think me hard and unnatural because I can’t forgive them, then?’
‘I think they don’t matter, they don’t deserve to. I also think every inch of you is beautiful and never mind how nature made you. Your temper and thorny pride and all those other reasons you’re about to come out with to put me off are all part of you, Belle Isabella,’ he said so softly she had to stretch up to hear.
‘And I think you should hurry up and kiss me, Wulf,’ she said even more softly and licked her lips very deliberately. Wasn’t she brazen?
His hands on her as he urged her even closer were urgent and far more than mere touch. It felt like a merging of him and her, a familiar presence in her heart that she knew as well as she did her own. She struggled to find words or a way to tell him how he made her feel and couldn’t. He was here and reaching for whatever this was at last and that had to be enough. He mouthed her name against her lips; his tongue licked the edges of it as if he had to know the fullness of them from the outside in and she felt a long sigh run through her body like overheated magic. He was gentle against the half-open question of it as she gasped and breathed him in, desperate for Wulf-warmed air. Then his mouth was teasing against her lips so she would part them further and she couldn’t say anything at all.
Here he is again. A familiar, strange and longed-for rush of heady wanting shot through her as he groaned something silently urgent against her mouth. Her fingers trembled as she reached up to feel every bit of him they could get to in the shortest time possible. Ah, here; smooth, firm skin over a wilful jaw; the tension of raw passion on his high cheekbones; the feel of long, unfairly luxuriant lashes against the sensitive pads of her fingers as he closed his eyes to the outside world and plundered her mouth as if he could never saturate himself in enough of her, would always come back for more, so he could sip and demand and beg for another taste, more kisses, more Isabella, more of anything she was willing to give, utterly unable to hold back from him.
So she pulled his head further down, further into her, fully engaged her mouth against his in a demand they echo the roaring need for more, for everything, for all of him. She wriggled against his arms in an attempt to get him to give the last bit of himself he didn’t want her to know about, locked together by passion and the most urgent wanting she could ever imagine feeling if they both lived for ever. She coveted him so wildly now it drove her on with hot need, sharp, goading and demanding. Was it too much to want a man like this? It could be, perhaps it should be. She could feel her pride prickling warily in the far distance, knew the edge of danger in being so close to this uniquely wonderful man in every way. And why couldn’t he ignore it as well and be the same sort of wanting, needing idiot she was?
She keened something inarticulate and needy against his mouth as he still seemed to hold back. She was so close to the edge she wanted to jump straight off and be damned to any tomorrows. Even his breath was short and deep now, almost a groan as his body leapt against hers, despite his gallant attempt not to let her know it. He did want her desperately, though; his sex needed her even if his mind didn’t want to let it. She savoured the fact, sipped it from his opened mouth as he stifled a moan of frustration against her lips. How wanton a lady’s hands could be as she wilfully tried to undo his manly scruples. A little whisper of sanity said he was right, this wasn’t the place or time for such a naughty exploration. She tipped her head back so he could work his hot mouth down her throat and she could tangle his crow-dark curls with her fingers and feel the shape of him, learn the secrets of his muscle-corded neck, finely made ears and the sensitive line of his jaw while he drove her to the edge of madness by licking the pulse at the base of her neck, as if he was in awe of the frantic beating of her heart under his ravenous mouth and wanted to explore and incite it even more.
His hands shifted to keep her at his mercy when she wriggled her frustration. She wanted his hands to be busy undoing her. She longed to be utterly open with him as she’d never wanted to be with another man in her entire life. She couldn’t even begin to imagine wanting any other man except this one so hugely. Shock trembled on the edges of this sweet, relentless, driven need inside her.
Here she was, swamped in raw, relentless need and a curiosity it felt impossible to fight was pushing her ever closer to the edge of that chasm. An opening up inside her that felt more than physical wanted to invite him in: Take all I have and give me every way of being between a man and a woman; show me everything. She must have whispered something almost as untamed as that in his ear while she was round there to make him groan, then try to stifle it against her skin before he gave them away, spellbound together in this vast, deserted stairwell. He trailed kisses back along the pathway he’d burnt down her throat and up to sip at her mouth as if he couldn’t quite bring himself to part from her, but he was still going to. She silently cursed his formidable self-control, hated his ability to detach himself from what their senses and their bodies wanted so much all her scruples were flown. His will was stronger than hers. His experience so far ahead he knew where they might get up to if they dared and had decided, no, they would not dare. It had felt so precious and unique for her to long to be his lover like this and now he was drawing away? Distancing himself, she accused silently. She met his eyes with a challenge and dared him to risk her anyway.
‘We can’t,’ he whispered raggedly and at least that meant he was less cool than he wanted to be while he was busy shutting down the real Wulf FitzDevelin as if she’d imagined him. ‘Not here—not like this,’ he added as he met her eyes again and let her see more than he probably wanted her to.
‘Why not?’ she whispered as if it was halfway between a threat and a promise. Was he protecting himself from the myth no lady could love the Countess of Carrowe’s bastard? Or maybe he didn’t want to love her more than he didn’t want to love any other woman. If she wasn’t hurting so much at the idea he was backing away from her more than any other female, she might wonder if she was insane to want to take the last tumble into love with such a stubborn, complex and utterly infuriating man.
‘You’re not getting away that easily,’ she threatened half-jokingly, seeing the promise of true intimacy if only he’d believe in it in his wary eyes. Warmth threatened the cool of his ice-blue irises as he looked down at her and almost smiled. She knew if he ever let himself love her, he’d do it more fully and deeply than any other man could. If only she was the woman he could love and trust, he would make her feel extraordinary for the rest of their lives, she thought wistfully. ‘I’m not letting you get away with running to avoid me this time, FitzDevelin,
’ she threatened softly. ‘I’ll chase after you if you go anywhere near a port, and if you get aboard one ship, I’ll simply board the next one.’
He ignored her attempts to joke and managed to put enough distance between them to watch her reluctantly make herself as neat and smoothed down as she ought to be after calling on his mother. She deliberately didn’t mention the fact his own dark hair looked as if he’d been out in a gale after her amorous attention. Was that because she half-wanted them to be found out? Maybe—perhaps she secretly wanted his mother and sisters to know he meant more to her than a polite almost-gentleman who could escort her downstairs as coolly and calmly as if she really was only a nodding acquaintance.
‘You should let me go,’ he said bleakly, eyes back to the arctic wastes he used to set the world at a distance, as if she was a brief madness he’d recklessly allowed himself and now regretted.
‘Never tell an Alstone what to do, Mr Wulf. We tend to do the opposite simply to prove we can,’ she half-warned and half-threatened.
‘If you refuse to be careful for your own sake, then do it for my mother’s and learn from her example,’ he said soberly. ‘She thought she could take an impossible lover and look where that got her.’
‘You, it got her you. I think your parents loved to very good effect, even if you don’t,’ she said brazenly.
At last he smiled reluctantly, as if her refusal to be brushed off had to amuse him because it flew so wildly in the face of common sense. ‘I believe I’ve just been deeply flattered, Belle.’
‘So do I, Wulf, although you’ve done little enough to deserve it.’
He quirked an eyebrow at her to challenge that denial and stood back to survey her as if she was a novelty he couldn’t quite believe he was seeing. ‘Be careful where you light wildfires, Miss Alstone,’ he warned soberly. ‘They smoulder for days before they set whole forests ablaze, hot enough to terrify the damned back into hell.’
‘There you are again; melodramatic to a fault. I was right about you, Mr FitzDevelin.’
‘Wulf,’ he corrected sharply, as if it mattered that she thought of him as he truly was and it felt like a small victory. ‘And I’m still illegitimate and have three sisters, a mother and an elder brother to set up before I can afford a wife.’
‘I don’t need supporting.’
‘And that’s supposed to make me feel better?’
The offended pride in his deep voice was evident, but he had no idea how determined she was when she really wanted something, or how dirtily an Alstone could fight when they wanted to win badly enough. Perhaps he should take a closer look at her ruthless piratical ancestors if he thought she was about to go away and give up on him simply because he thought she ought to.
‘No, it’s supposed to make you realise most of your scruples about offering for me are irrelevant.’
‘They will be real enough if we’re caught here like this and whispers start doing the rounds about us. Can you even imagine how many of your relatives and friends will line up to challenge me if they find out what we were doing just now? Oh, no, that’s right,’ he said as he stood further away to look back at her, ‘I forgot; I’m not worthy of a sword or a pistol, am I? So will it be an ambush in the dark and a good whipping or two in order to teach me not to tilt at windmills?’
‘Not on my account. I’m quite capable of standing up for what I want and I’m not sure I like being called a windmill.’
‘Don’t make a joke of it, Isabella,’ he said rather painfully. ‘I know you’re an independent woman of means who thinks she knows her own mind, but I won’t let you be ostracised and mocked for the sake of a by-blow other ladies used to toy with in secret. You might think you could dare to be a pariah and a laughing stock with such a lover, but I won’t let you risk it,’ he said grimly and she could see from the stubborn set of his mouth he believed it.
‘Do you really think I care what the scandalmongers think of me?’
‘You might not, but I do.’
Chapter Ten
‘Is that you, Miss Isabella?’ Heloise asked uncertainly from the dusty hallway below. ‘Are you all right?’
Isabella felt her heartbeat start to race at a gallop and told herself of course her personal maid hadn’t heard anything they had said or done up here. When they found time to speak, they spoke softly and Wulf would have known if anyone was listening because his ears seemed to be uniquely honed for trouble whenever he was in this poor old house. There was no need for her to jump guiltily as if they’d been caught plotting a scandal between upstairs and down, but if he wasn’t prepared to own up to what they were, she would have to be guilty about it as well.
‘I’m not quite sure,’ she murmured.
‘If you don’t know, nobody else will,’ Wulf mocked softly, then bowed stiffly and ghosted back up his half of the stairs as if he’d never come this far down them to swap secrets and kisses with her.
‘Perhaps I imagined him,’ Isabella whispered wistfully to herself, then spoke up to reassure her maid all was well and now the sun had come out it wouldn’t be such a hardship to walk back to Hanover Square after all, would it?
Heloise sniffed so loudly Isabella heard her even up here and smiled ruefully at her own reflection in a dusty and badly speckled mirror on the half-landing. She felt so flat and alone now Wulf had withdrawn his vital presence, but she still looked as if someone had lit a good chandelier’s worth of candles inside her. So she took a moment to remind herself he hadn’t even whispered a word of love to salt all that drivel about gossip and duty for her. Apparently even if he did love her he wouldn’t marry her and risk a lifetime of being more important than the polite world to her, so she really had no reason to look kissed and sleepily on fire as well as more alive than she’d felt in six long months while he was away.
‘I suppose we can let ourselves out through the front door, since the latest flood of callers seem to have given up and gone away,’ she said to her maid as she finally reached ground level and hoped Heloise wouldn’t notice her latest employer was nowhere near as calm and carefree as she sounded behind a hastily donned bonnet.
‘I’ll look outside before you walk out there, then, Miss Alstone,’ Heloise said doubtfully, peering through the dusty glass of a Judas opening from another age. ‘I knew it was a reckless notion. A lady has just arrived and from the look of the horses she’s come a fair way.’
‘What sort of lady?’ Isabella asked warily, picturing one of the formidable matrons who had tried so hard to bluff their way through these doors the last few days after staying away for twenty-seven years after the Countess of Carrowe was publicly disgraced by her own husband. Cursing Wulf for leaving her to deal with his family’s visitors as if they were nothing to do with him, she wished she had stolen out of the back door as usual now and not decided to pin her colours to the front door of Carrowe House whether Wulf wanted them there or not.
‘She looks a few years older than you, Miss Isabella, and a quietly dressed, decent sort of lady.’
‘Not the kind who would come here solely to collect gossip about her ladyship and the Miss Hailes and spread it abroad?’
‘She’s gone to a lot of trouble if that’s all she’s here for.’
‘Then we might as well open the door and see what she wants, since we are on our way out and Lady Carrowe’s staff are otherwise engaged.’
‘Aye, both of them,’ Heloise murmured and stepped back so Isabella was the one to let whoever was out there into another lady’s house as if she had a right to.
‘Oh, hello,’ Isabella greeted the lady on the doorstep as if she’d had no idea she was there when she opened the door.
‘Hello; do you know if Lady Carrowe is at home?’ the stranger asked as if she’d travelled too far and too fast to bother swapping polite formalities with a stranger.
Feeling dismissed and chilled by the cool and wary look th
e newcomer was sending her from a pair of wide blue eyes gentlemen probably found irresistibly vulnerable, Isabella shrugged. ‘That depends quite a lot on who you are,’ she said and stood in the way so this stranger couldn’t simply march inside uninvited.
‘Obviously she was at home to you and I’ve never set eyes on you before, so she is sure to welcome me,’ the woman said with an arrogance Isabella suspected was mostly for show, but it felt quite real when you were on the wrong side of it.
‘So you say,’ she challenged back. She had a strong suspicion who this was and, if she was right, she’d decided not to like Lady Delphine Drace the moment Magnus confessed the real reason why he proposed marriage to her on his father’s orders and the appalling dilemma this woman had left him in. Isabella might have put an end to the engagement with a secret sigh of relief, but this woman had hurt a friend and could have helped trap her and Magnus in a chilly marriage where both of them secretly longed for lovers they couldn’t have.
‘Delphine! Oh, it’s so good to see you again at long last. But why on earth are you standing on the doorstep arguing with Miss Alstone? Mama and the girls will be so pleased to see you and Wulf’s here as well,’ Aline said, beginning at the top of the stairs and chattering all the way down as if she couldn’t get here fast enough to hug the wretched woman. Isabella stepped out of Lady Delphine’s path and wondered if she should get ready to break Aline’s fall, but she’d underestimated the energy behind her friend’s normally contained manner. Aline managed not to crash into the newel post before she launched herself at the newcomer to hug her as if she thought everything would be all right now the wretched woman was here at long last.
‘Lady Delphine; what the deuce?’ Wulf’s deep voice called as he strode hastily down from his vantage point at the top of the stairs and whatever room he’d retreated to so he could pretend he had no idea why Miss Alstone was still here. Then he grabbed the newcomer and hugged her in turn and Isabella wasn’t jealous in the least. No, not at all. He wouldn’t hug the woman like that if he knew what she’d done to his brother, though.
A Wedding for the Scandalous Heiress Page 12