He drew back, uncertain. “Tonight?”
She smiled, her eyes both understanding and teasing in a way that smote him to the heart. “Now you need not have any concern for my honor, sir, if we are found together. I have none, remember? I gave it away for love.” Her eyes sparkled with captivating mischief. “And I love you too much to send you back out into the rain.”
Rob tugged Vivienne back into his arms. “I didn’t think I could ever be this happy,” he said softly before he kissed her.
With equal fervor, she returned the kiss, passion meeting passion and exploding into burning desire.
He swiftly untied the lacing of her bodice. Sighing, she twisted so that it was loose enough for him to slide his hand into it and caress her warm, soft breast.
Excitement swept over and into them. Rob shucked off his shirt and let it fall to the ground, regardless of his usual care of the few things he possessed.
Vivienne wriggled out of her gown and it puddled in a heap of silk and satin on the floor.
Rob bent down to pull off his stockings and when he straightened, Vivienne wore only her thin chemise, made of fabric so fine it was nearly transparent. Her breasts rose and fell with her quick breaths and the aroused peaks of her nipples pressed against the thin material.
“Oh, sweet heaven,” he muttered thickly, his voice weighty with desire as he swept her up into his arms and carried her to her bed. She sank deep into the featherbed, on the clean white sheets and silk damask spread.
Nearby, beeswax candles flickered, sending shadows of the bedcurtains and his body dancing on the tester. The polished wood smelled of wax and wealth.
“What is it?” she whispered, watching him.
“I have never been in a bed like this.”
“Only on one.”
“Nor with such a wonderful, desirable woman,” he murmured, forgetting the furnishings as he gazed at her questioning face. “I feel like a pauper in a princess’s chamber.”
She reached up to caress his cheek. “Rob, I was the poor one until I met you,” she whispered. “I was alone, with nothing and no one. You have saved me from that. You are my knight, my champion, my dearest, dearest love.”
Her hand moved lower, to the buttons of his breeches, which were strained against the evidence of his arousal. “We are equals here, Rob. Equal in love and equal in need.”
“My darling, my love,” he murmured, feeling the weight of his past slipping from his shoulders. He would be tender and gentle, not as he had been before.
He would be the lover she deserved. “I am going to pleasure you, my love. I want you to feel as you have never felt before,” he vowed as he pulled off his breeches and lay back down beside her.
How can that be? she wondered vaguely as his lips swept down upon hers. What more could there possibly be?
She soon found out as he stroked and caressed her as if they had all the time in the world together. Then his lips moved, trailing his marvelous fingers.
It was as if her body were a new country, more foreign to her in its responses than to the man exploring it. He seemed to know every small, secret place where a touch of fingertip or lip would send her into dizzying new realms of pleasure and sensation, until she lost track of all the places he touched.
Then her breath caught in her throat as his palm came to rest between her legs. Arching, she pressed against him, the feeling that engendered both wonderful and yet lacking.
He kissed her collarbone and she clutched the hard curve of his shoulders, oblivious to almost everything except the constant pressure of his hand. Slowly, he began to move his hand, increasing the pressure ever so slightly, while his mouth teased her nipples through the thin fabric of her chemise.
The movement of his hand quickened, and she could think no more. All she could do was surrender to the sensations.
Incredible sensations, of fullness and fire and tension building. Building.
She knew what she wanted, needed, had to have—what he had done before. As marvelous as she felt now, she would still feel incomplete until he was inside her.
When he was ready. When she had made him ready, as ready and anxious as she was.
He groaned softly as her tongue flicked across his naked chest, the hairs tickling her nose.
His chin nuzzled her chemise lower and lower, until he captured her nipple between his lips. His tongue flicked over her as she squirmed, held prisoner by that never-ending pressure of his hand moving in slow, deliberate circles.
Then his finger slipped inside her—and she was over the brink, carried away on waves of such incredible feeling and relief that she cried out, unthinking of who might hear, until his mouth swooped down upon hers and silenced her with an ardent kiss.
Still arching, still throbbing, she thrust her tongue into his mouth. A low moan escaped his throat as he moved over her and between her parted knees.
She took hold of his shoulders and raised herself to meet him. Her hand guided him eagerly.
He pushed inside her—and again a cry of pleasure rose in her throat. She pressed her mouth to the bare skin of his neck to stifle it.
He thrust inside her again and again, powerfully virile, making her his. Possessing her as she was possessing him, taking all that he offered and giving all of herself.
With a fierce, savage, guttural growl, he stiffened and new waves of sensation rocked her, leaving her spent and weak as he laid his head on her chest, her damp chemise against his cheek.
“I wanted …” he began, panting softly, “I wanted to be slower this time.”
Enveloped in the bliss of love, she laughed softly. “You were. Any slower, and you would have murdered me.”
“I did not think I was so fine a lover that I could kill you with desire.”
She was even more delighted to hear the hint of laughter in his voice. “I assure you, you could.”
He withdrew and moved to lie beside her, insinuating one muscular arm beneath her so that she lay nestled in his arms, her head against his chest.
He lightly ran his finger over her cheek.
“What are you thinking?” she asked, seeing a small wrinkle between his brows.
“Of the first time I felt velvet,” he said. “It was so soft, like something from another world. But it was not as soft as your skin.”
“Where was it? How old were you?”
“I was … perhaps seven, give or take a year.” He sighed. “I confess I don’t really know how old I am. Finnigan stole a child’s velvet coat. He put it on me and said what a fine gentleman I looked. He thought that very funny.”
“If he could see you as Heartless Harding the solicitor, he would not laugh.”
“No, I suppose not.”
“It must have been so terrible, Rob.”
“I daresay it was, but I thought everybody lived like that. Some days, I honestly believed I lived well because Finnigan didn’t beat me very often. Jack and Janet were beaten nearly daily by their father, until he fell beneath a wagon one night when he was drunk and was crushed to death.”
She winced and he hugged her a moment. “Forgive me, Vivienne. Parts of my life are so sordid and terrible.”
“If I am to be your wife, please don’t try to shield me.” She sighed. “I wish we could marry tomorrow,” she murmured as she caressed his naked chest.
“So do I,” he replied. He kissed the top of her head. “I confess a part of me doubts what is happening, as if this were all but a blissful dream.”
“I only hope our love can make up for what you’ve endured. If there is anyone undeserving here, it is I. I have done nothing—”
“Except love me. And be the most brave, determined, unprejudiced person I have ever known. Most women of your class would flee in horror from marriage to a man who grew up as I did.”
“Which would only prove them stupid fools, and I am very glad not to be counted among them,” she replied pertly.
He chuckled, the sound a low rumble in her ear as he embraced her.
“Gad, Vivienne, you make me happy.”
“You make me happy and, I fear, wicked,” she said in a low seductive whisper as she began to pull off her chemise. “What else would explain this sudden desire to be as naked as you, my love?”
“A need to be loved again, perhaps?” he suggested hoarsely.
“Is it too soon?”
“If it is, we shall find a way to spend the time until I am able,” he promised with a rueful—and incredibly seductive—chuckle.
A watchman called out the hour.
“Lord, is it that late?” Rob cried softly, regrettably letting go of her. “I had better leave.”
“Must you?”
“Yes. I truly don’t think I should be discovered in your bed,” he said as he rose and retrieved his discarded breeches.
“I wish you could stay all night.”
“As do I, my love,” he said. He went to the candle stand and blew out the spluttering candles, leaving them in the dark, which didn’t seem to hamper his movements at all. “I’m sure my dreams would all be sweet if I were with you, but I dare not linger. The streets are busy early, and I must not be seen leaving here—certainly not climbing down the stable roof, or all your concern for my reputation will be for naught.”
“I wish there was a moon. It is so dark.”
“Have no fear. I see quite well in the dark, and as I said, I learned well how to climb at night.”
“I wasn’t thinking of that. I want to see you.”
He turned to look at her over his shoulder as he pulled on his shirt. “Soon, as I shall be able to admire your lovely body for as long as I like, too.”
“When we are married, I won’t let you leave me so easily.”
“I shall have to work.”
“I suppose.”
“Vivienne, I will have to work, or we shall have to take to begging in the streets,” he said, sitting beside her on the bed and taking her face between his palms to kiss her lightly. “I have done quite enough of that.”
She put her hands over his. “I was but jesting, Rob. Of course you must work. I daresay I shall be busy, too, managing our house.”
“You are sure it will not be too much?”
“Not when it is our household, our family.” She put her arms about him and laid her head on his chest. “We will survive, even if my uncle throws me out of his house with only the clothes on my back.”
Rob rose with obvious reluctance. “Stay in the bed where it’s warm until I’m gone, then close the window tight.”
She nodded, watching him as he pushed open the casement window.
Despite his words, she scrambled from the bed to kiss him farewell one more time.
His passionate response told her he was glad she had. “Farewell, Vivienne,” he said as he pulled away and began to climb out the window.
“Farewell, Rob, my love,” she whispered.
Wrapping her arms about herself for warmth, she watched his athletic body creep along the stable roof as if he were no more than a shadow from the moon.
When she could see him no longer, she hurried to her armoire, found a nightdress and put it on. Then she spotted her discarded dress and quickly picked it up.
It was a wrinkled mess, much like the sheets of her bed. She shook out the dress and leaned it over the back of a chair before she jumped back into the warm bed.
Which smelled of Rob.
Unless Owens was as stupid as she was old, she would realize Vivienne had not been alone in her bed.
She could “accidentally” spill perfume on her sheets. That would take care of that.
These were small problems, easily remedied.
The king’s possibly lascivious intentions and Philip’s lawsuit were much more troubling.
Nevertheless, she silently vowed, together she and Rob would find a way through this swamp.
They must.
* * *
As Robert hurried away, a man stepped out of the shadows of the stable and watched him disappear around a corner.
“Well, well, well, Rob, old son,” Jack Leesom muttered. “Not done thievin’ yet, after all, or aimin’ high.”
Chapter 19
Rob looked up when Sir Philip strode into his chambers the next morning and threw himself, uninvited, into the chair across from his desk.
Rob half rose and bowed, then sat and regarded his client impassively. He had been anticipating Sir Philip’s arrival and had asked Bertie to show him in the moment he arrived.
“It’s all over the city,” the nobleman declared. “You should have heard them buzzing about Vivienne and Charles at the tennis court, and with him not ten feet away. He heard them, of course, and the old lecher couldn’t have looked more pleased about the gossip than if somebody had handed him a thousand pounds.”
“To what ‘old lecher’ do you refer?”
“Why, Charles, of course.”
“I would have a care how you speak of the king,” Rob remarked, “and he is only thirty-four.”
“As for Mistress Burroughs, she is the most brazen hussy I’ve ever met. She would hardly let me touch the tips of her fingers, but she let him slaver all over her like a dog.”
Beneath his desk, Rob’s hands curled into fists as he waited for Sir Philip to get to the point: the legal action he intended to take against Mr. Burroughs. “He is the king, and you are not.”
“I know that! I’faith, I was delighted she had caught his eye. The king hasn’t invited me to play tennis with him for months, and suddenly there I am, in the royal tennis court. I daresay the Burroughses have seen the last of that fool Cheddersby, too. I swear that fellow is a Puritan in fancy dress. So all was quite well in hand—until her old buzzard of an uncle had the effrontery to call off the marriage.”
“You do not wish to end the negotiations, even though we all saw Mistress Burroughs in the king’s arms?”
Sir Philip chuckled his nasty chuckle. “The king’s gratitude for sharing one’s wife is worth a great deal.”
“Enough to give him your bride?”
Sir Philip’s lip curled with scorn. “You sound like a Puritan—or Vivienne. It’s only her body he will have.”
“While you will have …?”
Sir Philip smiled. “Her dowry and a better title, at the very least, I don’t doubt.”
“What if she were to bear the king a bastard?”
“Even better, for the rewards will be that much greater.”
“I see you have reasoned this out.”
“Absolutely, so I will not allow Burroughs to dismiss me as if I were nobody. I was led to believe that the wedding was as good as done, and it had better be done, or Burroughs will be sorry. We’ll sue him for breach of promise.”
“Assumpsit? That is usually a suit brought about by women.”
“I know that, man. But I will have that dowry, or by God, that tradesman will compensate me.”
“You will be free to wed another,” Rob pointed out.
Philip looked smug. “I know that, too—but why should I be denied my rights just because I am a man? There is nothing in the law that says such a suit can only be brought about by a woman, is there? I would expect a man of your”—his disgusting grin grew—“breeding to be more open-minded.”
“I did not say your case was without merit, Sir Philip. I simply indicated it was highly unusual.”
“And that’s why I need you to argue it, for you are reckoned the cleverest solicitor in London. There should be a hefty fee in it for you, too.”
“No, Sir Philip, there will not be.”
“What?”
“I must decline to represent you in this matter.”
“I have a good case—you know I do. That man gave me plenty of cause to believe his niece and her dowry were as good as mine. We’ve got the draft of the marriage settlement for proof.”
It had crossed Rob’s mind to burn that document this morning, but that would have been unethical, so he had not. Mr. Burroughs would have to take his chan
ces in a court of law if Sir Philip pursued this. “Perhaps he did imply a certain sequence of events. Nevertheless, I shall not represent you in this matter.”
“Why the devil not?”
“Because it is my prerogative to decide which cases I take and which I decline. In this particular instance, I decline.”
“You arrogant bastard!”
“Your epithet only hardens my resolve, Sir Philip,” Rob noted with a dispassion that hid his fierce anger. “You may, of course, find another solicitor to take the case, although that may be somewhat difficult once it becomes known that clever Heartless Harding has refused it.”
Sir Philip jumped to his feet. “You rogue! You base, disgusting sodomite! How dare you—”
Rob likewise rose, his gaze boring into the irate man before him. “My clerk will be happy to give you all the documents pertaining to the case. Good day, Sir Philip.”
Sir Philip looked about to speak, took another look at Rob’s resolute face, turned on his heel and marched from the room.
Rob slowly returned to his seat and let out his breath.
Then he smiled. He did have his reputation, after all—the good as well as the bad.
Her eyes full of sympathy, Vivienne regarded the woeful Lord Cheddersby seated in her uncle’s withdrawing room. He looked utterly miserable, his shoulders slumped, his eyes downcast, his every breath a sigh.
When she had been told a gentleman was waiting for her, she had eagerly anticipated Rob. Instead, she found the despondent nobleman.
The dark circles beneath Lord Cheddersby’s eyes indicated he might have had as sleepless a night as she.
As for what might have kept Lord Cheddersby awake, she hoped it had nothing to do with her. Unfortunately, his attitude and his presence there told her it might.
Had she been wrong about his feelings? Did he care for her? If he did, and if he said so to Uncle Elias … No, that must not happen. She had endured the king’s disgusting kisses to be free; she must be free.
“I am happy to see you, my lord,” she began in as bright a tone as she could muster. “I never got the chance to compliment you on your new house.”
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