“Did you always know of my past with Lord Leothaid? Is that why you pursued me?”
He closed his eyes for a long moment, then opened them again. The blue glistened in the feeble light. “Yes,” he said, voice low. “I met Leo at Cambridge. He’d told me all about you. He told me you died. Imagine my surprise when I learned you were alive. When I saw you at Lady DeLinn’s house, it was like a vision, a dream. I was…shocked.” He took a deep, shaky breath. “Yes. I did it because of Leo. We have a long-standing competition—and he has stolen other women from me. I thought”—he coughed, wincing—“when I saw you, I knew that through you, I could achieve my revenge. If I had you, I could flaunt you before him. Soundly beat him at our game, you know?”
She shook her head, regarding him sadly.
“But it changed. I don’t know how. From the first time I met you at Lady DeLinn’s, there was…something about you. You are different. Special. I’d never met anyone quite like you.” He stared at her with shining, pleading eyes beneath all the swelling. “I never lied to you, Isabelle. I fell in love with you.”
She looked down, fingering the striped design on his counterpane with her free hand. How could she hate him? After all, she had sought her own revenge on Leo.
Phil squeezed her hand. “I am so sorry.”
She raised her head, smiling softly at him. “You ought to rest.”
He struggled to rise on his elbow. “No. Not yet.”
She moved to help him, but he waved her away. “I have something to ask you as well.”
“Aye?”
“Do you love him?”
The question slammed into her so hard it left her breathless. She stared at him, groping for something to say, finding nothing.
He fell onto his back.
She grasped some tiny, gossamer thread. “I’ve chosen to be with you. I won’t retract my decision.”
A part of her cried out in horror. No, it screamed. You martyr yourself, just like when you went back to Scotland! Don’t do it!
Someone rapped on the door. The maid poked her head in, her dark eyes questioning. Isabelle glanced at Phil. He hadn’t taken his gaze off the ceiling.
“Come back in half an hour, please,” she said.
“Yes, miss.” The door closed.
“You are unhappy with me,” he croaked. “You came to me because you had no other choice.”
After a long silence, she said, “I’m very fond of you.”
“Isabelle…” His voice cracked, then trailed off. “That’s why you’re so cold. You try not to be, but you are.”
“I don’t mean to be—”
He turned his face away.
“Go, Isabelle. If you love him, I don’t want you here. Just go.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Sunlight cast long beams through the tall windows of his morning room. Leo clasped his hands behind his back, leaned against the wall, and gazed out the window as his solicitor droned on and on about matters meaningless to him.
It was over. He shouldn’t have gone to Sutherland’s last night. He shouldn’t have gone to Scotland. He shouldn’t have tried to pursue her.
Still, the image of her opening the door, half naked, of the look on her face—shock, anger, and something sweet, something uniquely Belle—stamped itself in his mind. He couldn’t shake it.
The solicitor’s words cut into his thoughts. “Wouldn’t you agree, my lord?”
Leo pushed himself away from the wall and paced through the streams of sunlight. “Of course, Mr. Spencer. Absolutely.”
He had no idea what he was agreeing to, but they were discussing his will, and he had no true heir, so what did it matter? It was only money.
With a light knock, his butler cracked open the door. “My apologies, my lord, but there is a lady here to see you.”
His heartbeat ratcheted up a notch, but then slowed as he forced himself to think rationally. There was no hope. She had refused him last night. She was with Sutherland now.
He’d had many female visitors since his release from Lady DeLinn’s cellar, after all, women of dubious character, ladies sniffing for a tryst, past acquaintances wanting something from him. Something he had not given.
He stifled a bitter groan. “Put her in the drawing room. I will be there straightaway.”
Jenkins bowed, murmured, “Yes, my lord,” and disappeared.
Still, Leo concluded his meeting with the solicitor faster than he might have otherwise, just so he could see who it was, just so he could satisfy his niggling curiosity.
Heavy steps took him to his drawing room. He gazed through the half-open door. A woman in white stood centered between the two Grecian pillars framing the windows, her back to him. Stray blonde curls escaped from her straw bonnet.
He let out a breath. Belle.
She turned.
His hands were free now—he could touch her. A few weeks ago, he had wanted only to be free of his bonds so he could touch her. But now, a different kind of bond held him back.
She’d slept with Sutherland.
He didn’t move.
“Why are you here?” He eyed her warily, keeping his distance.
She seemed taller, more slender, more mature, even more beautiful than he remembered.
That magnetic attraction called to him, but he fought it, damning the sudden ache in his skin for her touch, silently cursing the stirring of his cock.
She didn’t greet him nor answer his question but regarded him with a guarded expression, her gaze roaming his face, lingering on his bruised jaw. She posed a question of her own. “Why did you come to Phil’s house last night?”
Not “Mr. Sutherland.” It was “Phil” now. His fingers curled.
“I was looking for you,” he said tightly.
“You found me.”
“Yes.”
She stepped forward, looked into his eyes. “Tell me why you were looking for me, milord.”
He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter anymore, does it?”
Her gaze swept downward, then back up to his face. “It matters to me.”
“Why?”
“I spent years waiting for you.” She took a deep, irregular breath. “I must know. Did you come for me last night, Leo? Did you finally come for me?”
She was so close now she overwhelmed his senses. He closed his eyes, trying to break that inevitable connection.
“Yes.”
She sighed, a long, low hiss of breath.
“But I was too late,” he said.
“Why do you say that?”
“You betrayed me.”
Silence. Then, a whisper. “You hypocrite.”
“You’re with Sutherland. You allowed him…to have you.”
“And what if I did?” Bitterness leached into her voice. “Would that make me any worse than you?”
He opened his eyes. How could he tell her that he had always thought she was his and nobody else’s, in life and in death, but by giving herself to Sutherland, she proved it was all an illusion, a series of dreams he’d foolishly thought he could make real? Last night, when Sutherland had said it was too late, it had cleaved Leo’s cracked heart in two. He had stopped hoping. She wasn’t his. She never had been.
“Seven years ago, I thought you were mine,” she said. Her words mirrored his thoughts; their tone mirrored his feelings.
“I was, Belle.”
She took a step closer. “You never were. Never. As soon as I left Scotland, you turned to others. Did I mean that little to you?”
“I thought you’d died—”
Her features hardened. “I don’t care! Could you not at least have waited? Was that too much to ask? I heard about you, Leo. They made certain I heard all the stories. Six weeks after I ‘died,’ you cuckolded a minister in Cambridge, remember?”
“I was distraught, out of my mind. Trying to obscure the pain of losing you—”
“Then there were more, and more.” Tears glistened in her eyes now. He stared down at her, wanting
so badly to hold her. But if he gave in, if he touched her, he might lose control, do something he might regret.
“And then you hurt my friends.”
She reached up and pushed him. Hard. He stepped back in shock. Still, her fleeting touch thrilled through his shoulder.
“You hurt my friends, Leo.”
“Belle, I—”
“You made them suffer. You made me suffer.”
She prodded him again. This time he held his ground, knowing he could do nothing to take it all back.
He reached for her. “I never meant to make you suffer.”
She slapped his hand away. Again, her touch buzzed along his nerves.
“I dreamt you would come to me,” she said. “But you never came.”
“I would have—”
“If you cared enough, you would have discovered the truth. It wouldn’t have been difficult. But you didn’t care enough, Leo. You don’t care!”
Tears streaked glistening wet lines down her face.
“Did you even think of how you affected us? How you ruined our lives?”
He stared at her. He wanted to kiss the tears away.
“I was such a fool,” she groaned. “I knew you were no good. You’d discarded me, but I couldn’t help hoping. I couldn’t stop dreaming. I was such…such a bloody fool.”
She drew her arm back and punched him in the rib cage. A jolt reverberated through him. He looked down at her fist, stunned.
“It would have been nothing for you to find me in Scotland. You said you wanted me, you loved me. You gave me hope. I tried to ignore it, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t!”
She hit him again. Normally, her small fists wouldn’t have the capacity to harm him, but each strike seemed to target one of his bruises from last night and sent sharp pains stabbing through his chest.
“And of course you didn’t come for me. I should’ve known you wouldn’t. I am such a stupid, miserable fool.”
She sobbed openly now. Her words came in short staccato bursts. “And then I saw the carriage, and I laid eyes upon that shiny boot, and I wanted so badly for it to be you, I knew it was you, but of course it wasn’t, it was…it was Phil-Philip Sutherland.”
She beat at his chest, fierce in her righteous rage. She hit one of his aching ribs. Pain bloomed in his gut. He sucked in his breath.
“Why wasn’t it you, damn you?”
Thump.
“I hate you!”
Smack.
“I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!”
Whack, whack, whack.
He caught her wrists and pulled her hard against him.
Their bodies collided, her soft, sweet body against his rigid, dissolute one. He flicked open the ribbon ties at her chin and tossed away her bonnet. Then he clasped one hand on each side of her face and tilted her head up to face him.
His voice was torn, ragged. “I am sorry, Belle. Forgive me.”
A pink flush washed over her tearstained, freckled face. Her skin warmed his hands. She was so beautiful.
“I’m sorry. So sorry.”
He had to. He couldn’t stop it.
He clamped his mouth over hers.
She didn’t fight it. Instead, she thrust her body into his, took handfuls of his coat in her hands, and kissed him back. Hard.
The force of it made him stagger backward into one of the pillars.
He was free. Ropes didn’t tie his wrists together behind his back. Rough twine didn’t lash him to the bedposts. For the first time in years, he could touch her.
His hands shook as he moved them up and down her back, feeling her again, after all these years. She was thinner now, her womanly curves more strongly defined—the dip in the small of her back, the indent of her hips.
He needed her. Her hands were on his coat buttons; his were on the buttons trailing down her spine. He needed to see her, to touch her everywhere.
His fingers fumbled on her buttons as he kissed her harder. She kissed him back, so hard he tasted blood in his split lip. She kissed his cheek, his nose, his bruised jaw. Pain and pleasure conspired to make him lose his mind.
Finally, frustrated with her stubborn clothes, he grabbed the edge of her dress and yanked. Buttons flew everywhere, and she gasped in surprise. He yanked her bodice down, then made quick work of her stays. Finally, he pulled down her chemise and took a step away from her, gazing down at her beautiful breasts.
“God, Belle,” he murmured, reaching up to cup one of them in his palm. He bent down and fastened his lips to the warm, taut bud.
He groaned over it. She tasted so damned good. And she pushed herself into him, against him, like she wanted more. Like she wanted everything. And he wanted to give it to her.
Here and now. There was no better place or time.
Her hands thrust into his hair, holding him tight against her breast. He flattened his hands over her silky soft skin. He sank to his knees, drawing her down along with him, moving his kisses back up to her sweet mouth.
Kissing, their mouths hard and frantic, they lowered themselves to the floor. He divested himself of his tailcoat and waistcoat. Then he grabbed handfuls of her skirt and yanked upward, feeling the soft, warm flesh of her thigh.
God. It was too much. His senses were near to bursting. Belle, he was touching Belle. Feeling her. She was so soft and warm. Her body molded against his so perfectly it was uncanny. It was like she was made for him.
He moved his mouth everywhere, over her collarbones, up and down the slope of her neck, the line of her jaw, inhaling that sweet, womanly scent he’d identified her with in the cellar. He kissed her cheek, tasting the salt of her tears.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered into her hair.
She bit his neck. She scraped her teeth over his jaw.
He stroked her thigh, groaning at the feel of her soft femininity under his palms. And then his fingers found her center.
She was hot. Burning. And slick for him. He stroked his fingers through her silky folds. He was so hard he thought he might burst forth from his trousers. Without taking his hand away from her, he worked his falls, releasing his cock from its stifling confinement.
With her eyes closed, still seeping tears, she blindly took his mouth again, biting, sucking. Blood trickled from his lip.
He slipped a finger inside her. She arched up, meeting him, and moaned. He moved within her, emulating the motion of lovemaking. She gasped, arched, met his thrusts with little jerks of her hips. She was so wet, so slick and hot, clenching tight around his finger. Good, how good that would feel around his cock.
He couldn’t live another moment without being inside her.
Removing his hand from her sex, he braced an arm on either side of her head and moved over her, crushing her skirts between them.
Belle was here. Beneath him. Gasping, making sweet little moans, arching up into him, her fingers diving beneath his shirt and rubbing over his nipples, sending sharp pinpricks of sensation straight to his cock. And he could touch her.
He notched his cock at her entrance, then froze, squeezing his eyes shut, savoring the sensation of her slick folds pressing against the head of him.
Slowly, he opened his eyes. He gazed down at her. She was staring at him with her big blue eyes. Her face was flushed, her lips plump and red and shiny from their kisses. Her blonde hair was tousled around her face.
She wasn’t crying now. Her eyes shone, but they were clear and dry.
“Do you want me, Belle?” he asked her gruffly.
“Aye, I do.”
She arched up, and there was nothing he could do. Nothing but slide home.
She sucked in a breath as he sheathed himself to the hilt. He stilled, panting now, feeling her tight, hot body clasp around him.
He groaned. “You’re so tight. It feels so damned good.”
She squeezed him even tighter in that hot velvet clasp. His cock tightened. She squeezed his arse, wrapping her legs around it. She squeezed his shoulders, her arms tightening as she he
ld him.
He began to move, began to take that climb to the pinnacle. God. How was it possible that she seemed to grip him tighter with every heavy thrust he made into her body? She was wrapped around him, her breath gasping out in tandem to every push he made inside her. He buried his face in her hair as her entire body went rigid, and then she began to undulate beneath him, her body moving in waves around his body, her channel rippling over his cock.
This was his Belle. His Belle, always so passionate, being overcome by furious pleasure. Emotion crowded his throat, his own breaths now coming out in staccato bursts.
He loved her so much. He always had, even when he’d thought she was gone from him forever. He didn’t know how it could be possible after so much time, but there it was. He loved her. She was his salvation, his hope, his happiness. His everything.
Her body released, going liquid around him, and now, as he glided into her, she was burning hot, silky smooth.
He raised his head, looking down at her to see her gazing up at him, her blue eyes searching his face.
“Don’t leave me,” she whispered, vulnerability stark in her eyes.
“Never,” he promised. “I’ll never let you go. Never again.”
“I’m afraid, Leo.”
“Don’t be. I want you to be mine.”
“Ex-exclusively?”
“Of course.” Then he understood her meaning. He paused, spearing her with what he knew was complete honesty in his gaze. “You are the only woman for me. For the rest of my life. There will never be anyone else.”
She blinked at him as the enormity of that vow registered. Slowly, he began to move again, the feel of her around him so intensely powerful that he needed to fight to keep his eyes from rolling back in his head, to keep his gaze steady on hers.
Her arms tightened around him. “I want to believe you.”
He groaned softly. He’d never felt more raw, more openly honest in his life. “I don’t deserve you. I don’t deserve this. Please,” he whispered, “give me a chance to prove myself. My loyalty. My…my love.”
She gazed at him, the freckles stark over her nose, her eyes the blue of the sky, so clear, so guileless.
Then, she whispered, “All right. Because I love you, too, Leo. I love you so much.”
The Sweetest Revenge Page 27