“I’ll stay for a short time.” Her skirts rustled. She was sitting in the chair. Too far away.
“Until…until they return home,” she added.
“Are Lady M and Mistress Jane away?”
“Aye. They went to…visit a friend.”
The waver in her voice made him think that she was lying. But why lie about such a thing?
“Will you sit beside me?”
She did not answer, but a few seconds later, she settled beside him. Close enough that he could feel the heat of her.
“You are so warm,” he murmured.
Bound behind his back, his fingers curled, aching to touch her. To stroke her soft, warm skin. Her smooth cheeks, her arms, her shoulders. He’d raise her skirts and stroke his hands up and down her legs. He’d search her between her legs, in that hottest, softest part of her. He’d lower his mouth to that place. He’d taste her sweetness, drink in all of her warmth, take it into himself.
“You are very cold.” She arranged the blanket over his shoulders and then sat quietly for a time, not touching him. He imagined her sitting beside him, her hands clasped in her lap, her cheeks pink, her unruly blonde curls framing her face.
She could look different now. Her hair could have straightened, turned dark or thin or even gray. She could be too fat or too bony. Her complexion might be sallow. She might have even lost some teeth.
He didn’t care.
His mind reeled. He didn’t care! What had possessed him to stop caring about a woman’s outer shell? Even when he first met Belle, her appearance was what had attracted him—her sweet face, her ripe, lush body.
The true connection, though, had come later, when he realized he didn’t just lust for her, he liked her. He loved her. How strange that he still felt this connection after all this time.
He didn’t know what to say. The desire to explain everything to her and ply her with excuses for his past behavior struggled with thoughts of bedding her, of that summer he had spent with her, beside her, inside her, above and below her. He settled for something altogether neutral.
“How long have you been in London?”
“Since the spring,” she replied.
“What brought you?”
“My aunt invited me. I come to London in the spring sometimes. This year… Well, I’ve stayed longer than usual.”
“Do you like it here?”
“Aye. My aunt… Well, she is the kindest of my relatives.”
“I see.” Then, curiosity overwhelming him, he asked, “Why didn’t you write to me?”
“I wasn’t allowed. I tried, but they controlled everything I did. They found the letters I wrote and burned them. I lived with my Aunt Flora for the first two years. She said…she said my desperation showed the weakness of my character. She said I was depraved and repulsive. She said you would laugh at me.”
He felt like banging his head against the wall. He was responsible for this, for all her pain. If he had any sense at all, he would have seen through his brother’s ruse, he would have demanded substantial proof of her death.
“Your aunt lied to you. She knew nothing of my feelings. I wanted you more than anything.”
He felt her stiffen beside him. “I can’t… Please. I don’t wish to speak of this.”
He wished he could touch her, hold her, comfort her. What he wouldn’t give for his hands to be free at this moment.
He moved blindly toward her scent, toward the sound of her breathing. His lips caught her hair, and he burrowed into it, inhaling deeply, kissing the side of her head. Behind the blindfold, his eyes closed in pleasure. His cock hardened. His muscles tightened. He was buried in perfection.
“I want you, Belle,” he whispered.
She shifted away. “It’s been too long.”
He groaned. Frustration slammed through him, and he sat rigidly, trying to combat it. Don’t be an ass. Don’t scare her away.
He wanted her to stay. He needed her to stay.
But where did she intend this to go? He would be chained here for an indeterminate amount of time. Would she continue coming to him?
She must; otherwise, he would go mad. If they kept him without access to her, they might as well take him from here and deposit him directly in Bedlam.
On the other hand, if Lady M decided to release him, what then? Would Belle come with him? If not, how would he find her?
He could find her this time. He was older now, with more connections, and would not be so easily led astray.
Belle’s fingers traced his jaw, then smoothed over his face, his neck. She touched his shoulders over his shirt. “You’ve changed,” she murmured.
He stiffened.
“You’re…larger.”
He’d been just a youth when he’d last known her. And after he’d lost her, he’d turned to boxing for an escape from grief. He’d never stopped fighting—he went to his boxing master three times a week without fail whenever he was in Town. When he was in the country, it was easy enough to find someone to fight him. The sport had honed his muscles.
She kept touching him, moving her hands over his chest in tentative exploration. These were not Mistress Jane’s seductive hands on him—they were intrinsically different. And yet he still knew them. After Belle’s death, he hadn’t been able to find a woman who could replicate the way her hands on him had made him feel.
“I dreamed about you sometimes,” she whispered.
“I dreamed about you, too.” In his dreams, like the one he’d had here, she was elusive, almost but not quite able to grasp and hold on to. She’d turn away and disappear into the ether, or she’d simply melt through his fingers. In other dreams, he saw the accident. Her broken body on the ground after being flung from the carriage. “I’m glad you’re here now,” he said. “That it’s not a dream.”
“I’m glad, too.”
“Untie my hands, Belle. I want to touch you.”
“I cannot.”
“Yes, you can. I swear I won’t do anything but touch you. Please.”
She sighed. “There is still a matter of trust…”
Of course. And she shouldn’t trust him. Still, he tried. “I swear I will not harm you.”
“I cannot,” she repeated.
He groaned. “It’s torture not to be able to touch you.”
“Lady…Lady M would find out.”
“And what would happen if she did?”
“It…it wouldn’t be pleasant, Leo. Please do not ask me again.”
He touched his forehead to hers. He rubbed his nose over hers. Then he kissed her lips. “I just want to see you, to touch you.”
“This is all we can have,” she said against his mouth.
“Why?”
He heard her sharp intake of breath and kissed her harder, even as he felt her withdrawing. No!
Panic twisted in his gut.
“I must go. They’ll be returning shortly.”
He fought to calm the rising storm of panic and frustration. “Will you…will you come back?”
She hesitated. “Aye.”
“Soon?”
“Aye, Leo.”
She paused, and then with a little gasp, she leaned toward him and took his lips in a ferocious kiss, her hands slipping under his shirt and grabbing on to his skin. His body burst into flames, and he groaned, kissing her back, taking in as much of her as he could with these bloody shackles on him.
Stay, Belle. Stay with me.
But he knew she wouldn’t. So he kissed her harder, slanting his mouth over hers, nibbling, swiping his tongue over her lips, even as his arms and legs struggled fruitlessly against his bonds.
He took strength from her touch, from her kiss, from the ragged sounds of her breath. Those were the gifts she gave him. Those would sustain him until she came to him again.
***
Isabelle paced her room, restless as a feral animal, her arms wrapped around her body, squeezing tight.
Lust. It was all she could ever allow to be between
her and Leo. All she could allow between them.
And yet those old feelings were there. Reawakening, reemerging, seeping around the brick tower she’d tried to build up around her heart.
Who had she been fooling? Her brick tower was made of matchsticks, and Leo burned more of them away every time she saw him.
If Susan and Anna were correct, these meetings were to culminate in carnal fulfillment for her. It would happen soon. She couldn’t keep herself away from him for much longer. She had hardly been able to drag herself away from the cellar today. Only constant reminders to herself of her duty to her friends gave her the strength to pull away.
It would happen one more time, just once more, and then it would be finished. He would be set free. She would go to Scotland.
Nothing between them could last. All that he had done over the last seven years was proof enough of that.
She knew it now. It would be easy to leave this time.
Please let it be true.
She crawled into bed and lay there, awake, until dawn.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
With a sigh, Isabelle closed Les Liaisons Dangereuses and set it on the table beside her hairbrush and perfume. She could not feel pity for Valmont. He was a stupid, selfish, ultimately weak man. He had killed the woman he loved.
She stroked the cover, fighting back a surge of emotion. Still, his story was so sad. If only he hadn’t been so weak. If only he’d let himself love her properly….
She knew now why Susan had given her this book.
Isabelle knew what she must do. Susan and Anna had agreed that if things went as they hoped tonight, they would release Leo to his own devices on the morrow.
He had been taken to the bedchamber adjacent to Isabelle’s. Susan had insisted they move him there so Isabelle would not be relegated to the cold stone floor and narrow chaise longue of the cellar. Susan said they must have a proper bed, that it would make everything much easier for both of them.
Nevertheless, it fell on Isabelle to explain the change of location to Leo, and fear of that alone made her wish Susan had left him in the cellar.
Isabelle rose from her chair, pulling her wrap tightly around her. She went to the door of the neighboring room and stared at it, then rested her forehead against it. All was silent inside.
She would go through with it. She would summon the strength to be cold. She would summon the will to walk away.
Slowly, she opened the door. It swung silently on its hinges. She stepped inside.
He lay in the center of the massive curtained bed that dominated the room, his body concealed to the neck by a damask coverlet, his arms splayed wide, sleeves billowing, wrists tied to the posts on either side of the bed with taut ropes. A black strap covered his eyes.
He was beautiful.
“Belle?” His call swept over her, low and deep, inexorably drawing her closer.
Her arm rose of its own volition, seduced, fingertips aching to touch him. She clenched her hand and forced it to her side.
“Aye?” She could hardly speak through the panic welling in her chest. She would fail her friends. She would fail herself. She would beg him to love her, to stay with her always.
Some of the wariness seemed to fade from his body. “What’s happening?”
“I said I would see you again.”
“Yes, but…like this? Tied to a bed? How did you conspire to bring me here without Lady M’s knowledge?”
Be brave.
She stiffened her spine. “Both ladies have gone. They are attending a…party at a house outside London. I shall endeavor to have you back in the cellar before they return.”
“The servants?”
“They understand. The Frenchman has explained everything to them.”
He seemed to ponder this for a moment. “I didn’t think you—” His voice dwindled. He cleared his throat. “What I mean to say is that I would not have expected this from you, Belle.”
She steeled herself. She must take extreme care, or he would suspect this was Susan’s or Anna’s idea, not hers. She had to appear confident. Casual. And she had to appear to want him desperately.
That would not be a lie.
“I wanted to be alone with you, Leo. I wanted for us to be…comfortable together. For just one night.” She lowered her voice. “I wanted to remember what it was like.”
He did not speak. Why was he silent? Was it because he was confused or horrified? Perhaps he truly did not want her after all.
“I am sorry.” She blinked back a tear. “If you are unhappy with me, I will go.”
“Don’t go.” He smiled, and memories flooded through Isabelle. How he’d smiled at her that summer, over a meal, in bed, as they’d walked along the banks of the loch.
“Stay,” he said.
She breathed a faint sigh of relief, and from the corner of her eye saw a brandy decanter on the side table. Susan thought of everything.
“Would you like something to drink?”
“I would kill for it.”
With shaking hands, Isabelle took up the bottle and poured him a drink.
She turned to the bed, crawled up beside him, and helped him to take a sip.
“Ah,” he said after he had swallowed. “Excellent. Another?”
She held the snifter to his lips as he tilted his head up and drank.
“When you are free,” she said carefully, “do you intend to pursue us? Will you seek to discover the identities of my friends through me?”
It was a question she had given much thought to, one she was sure Susan must have worried over as well. Isabelle would be in Scotland, but once they released him, he could pursue her there.
He pulled back from the brandy with a slight grimace. “It depends on what is yet to come, what tortures they have in store. Lady M assures me they’re nowhere near finished. She says they have yet to achieve their revenge.”
Isabelle caught her breath, then prayed fervently that he hadn’t noticed. He had said “they” instead of “you,” as if he placed her in a separate category from Anna and Susan.
“What if they released you…tomorrow?” she asked.
“Well…no. I wouldn’t pursue them.”
“Why not?”
“Because.” His chest rose as he took a deep breath. “I believe I understand their motivations.”
Isabelle’s mouth dropped open. For a long time, she simply gaped at him.
After a lengthy silence, he continued. “More to the point, I ought to thank them. They led me to you. For that, I will be eternally grateful.”
“Oh…” She shook her head at him. “I cannot believe you.”
“Why?”
“You must be resentful about being held prisoner and bound, but you don’t admit to it. You speak with a seducer’s tongue. You know what to say, when to say it, even when you are the one who is tied to the bed.”
He went very still. “Not with you, Belle. Never with you.”
If she believed him, if she truly believed him, she would fail in her task. She would fail her friends.
“You knew I was part of their scheme,” she said tightly. “I shared their motivations.”
His brow furrowed. “I know. But you’re different, Belle.”
“Nay, I’m not.” She wasn’t. His motivations might have been different with all three of them, but the end result was the same.
“If only I could make you understand how much you meant to me,” he murmured. “How much you still mean to me.”
She struggled to find something, some remaining rational wit, some part of her to fight against his charms. She found it deep within her, dark and sullen, and gathered it close.
He’s lying, it said. He seduces you to gain his freedom.
“I would never lie to you,” he said.
Think of what he is. Think of what he has done to your friends, how he has hurt them.
“I want to be with you,” he said.
It is too late.
“I would give anyth
ing to see your beautiful face.”
Masculine wiles, the voice inside her head hissed. Flattery. Manipulation. And Lord only knew how many women he had used his wiles on. How many he’d flattered and manipulated.
Still, something, something about what had happened between them that summer had been real. It must be.
But she could no longer separate the fantasy from the reality when it came to her and Leo. All she knew for certain was that he’d nearly destroyed Anna. He’d made Susan cynical and bitter. He’d hurt both her friends.
And if nothing else, her friendship with Anna and Susan was real.
“How can you know whether I am beautiful?” she said. “You haven’t seen me! What if I drowned my sorrows in confections and became fat? What if I lost half my teeth? What if—”
His lips twisted. “I do not care whether you are fat, though I know you are not. And I know you have all your teeth. I felt them with my tongue when we kissed, remember?” He nudged his body closer to hers. “But I still want to see you. Take off the blindfold.”
“Nay.”
“Kiss me, then.”
She stiffened. “I will put the glass away.”
“A little more first?”
He finished the brandy. She slipped off the bed and set the glass on the small table, watching him. His face turned toward her expectantly.
Every nerve she possessed drained from her body. The edges of his features blurred and wavered back into focus.
She should run. She couldn’t do this.
“Come to me, Belle.”
Slowly, she ascended the steps once again and settled beside him on her knees.
“Take off the blindfold.”
“Nay.”
He sighed. “Kiss me.”
“I don’t think I can do this,” she choked.
“Are you having second thoughts?”
She was. But for different reasons than he thought. He thought she feared being with him, joining with him. She didn’t fear that; she longed for it. She feared what must come afterward.
“We want each other. What is the harm? I won’t hurt you. I’ll make you happy. I’ll give you pleasure. I want to give you pleasure again. Don’t you remember how it was between us?”
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