Lady of Sin

by Madeline Hunter

  He kissed her shoulder. His hand moved in a firm caress over her hip. Excitement glistened through her, making her wish he had not slept so soundly.

  “The house is still quiet. I can delay a short while.” He gently palmed her nipples. They hardened at once.

  There was no ravishing this time, but instead a slow, luscious blossoming of pleasure. She noticed every nuance of the sensations, every inch of every caress. With him behind her she could not even kiss him in turn. She could only accept the pleasure he gave.

  She felt his erection pressing between her thighs, and realized what he was going to do. He felt very deep after he entered her. Very tight. She did not become crazed this time. Even her climax was lazy and quiet, breaking as softly as the dawn itself, sparkling through her with a lovely, sweet tremor. The closeness of their sleeping embraces deepened the pleasure. The approaching return to their normal lives added poignancy.

  She did not watch him dress afterward. She kept her gaze on his face, so the movements were a blur.

  His parting kiss was sweet. His last look was warm. After he slipped out the door, she was left with her thoughts, wondering if dreams could ever outlast the night.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTEEN

  Charlotte came down from her chamber late. She entered the morning room just before noon. Nathaniel looked up from the letter he was scribbling to see she wore a carriage ensemble and carried a parasol.

  The scent of lavender entered with her. He guessed she had called for another bath. He pictured her in it, hair bound up and skin slick and rosy. He wished he had been there.

  “I apologize for the delay.” She propped the parasol on a chair. “It is only noon, however. We should still have time for one of the villages today.”

  The mood of the morning’s passion had not left him yet. He drew her to him and kissed her. Sounds outside the chamber forced him to release her quickly.

  “It looks to rain. I think we will put off visits to villages today, Charlotte.”

  “Can we do them all tomorrow? I should return to London soon.”

  As should he. There were affairs waiting attention that could not be ignored forever. Right now he wished they could be.

  The door opened a crack, then closed.

  “We are delaying some servant’s duties in this chamber,” he said. “Take a turn outside with me.”

  They strolled through the garden and beyond to the field. The day was warm but the air carried a heavy damp. No clouds showed in the soft, gray, hazy sky.

  “I have decided that it is not worth the effort to visit those last villages,” he said. “This has been a fool’s errand on my part, and there is no reason to prolong it.”

  She trod on in silence. At the base of the next hill, she stopped and faced him.

  “Nathaniel, it would be a sad thing if last night started our lying to each other. You do not really believe this has been a fool’s errand because, while there is much that you are, a fool you are not.”

  Nor was she, unfortunately. An arrow of the old exasperation poked at him. If he was willing to retreat, she might allow him to do so gracefully.

  “We have visited ten villages to no avail. If we visit three more we will only further waste our time.”

  “I will not consider it a waste of time. Oh, I do not believe you will find Harry’s family in one of them, or even information on where that family can be found. But that is not why you seek out that old woman. Not really. Therefore, I believe that you should look for her still, and hear what she has to say, and whether it supports your suspicion that Harry has Mardenford blood.”

  “What does it matter, Charlotte? If Harry is an illegitimate son of any man in that family, finding the truth will not make a difference.”

  She looked him in the eyes so directly it was disconcerting. The cool, even light allowed his tiny reflections to show in each dark pool of her irises.

  “Is this the gesture of gratitude you referred to last night?” she asked.

  Hell, he didn’t know. He just wanted to put all of this away and stay in this house with her for a few days.

  Her expression softened to the warmest, gentlest countenance she had ever shown him. “Nathaniel, I am without defenses today. I am incapable of dissembling, and you are doing a poor job of it as well. If an illegitimate son is abandoned, it is the way of the world. As you once said, it is a moral injustice but there is no legal claim.”

  “Exactly. Which is why there is no real purpose to vis—”

  “That is why I know that if you pursued this, it was because you feared Harry is more than a lost bastard.”

  Damn. Now she decided to baldly state it. Now, when he had just spent hours convincing himself to walk away.

  Her brow puckered over earnest, concerned eyes. “You think Harry may be a son of a secret marriage. You think he may be my brother-in-law’s legal, firstborn child. There is no other explanation for your interest. There never was.”

  He crossed his arms and gazed up the hill. A full-bellied mare walked along its crest.

  “Has anyone ever told you that sometimes you are too clever by half, Lady M.?”

  She laid her hand on his arm. “Do not be angry with me. I want badly to grab this offer that you make. It would be easy to accept, because I know you are wrong. However, if you do not complete what you started, you will never know the truth as surely as I do. You will always think you did not do your best for that boy who is alone and lost. Questions will always be there.”

  There, between us. She did not say it, but it was in her tone and eyes.

  “And if I am right, Charlotte? If the truth is the worst that I first suspected?”

  He wanted her to say it would not matter. He wanted to hear that this passion could not be destroyed by truth. In the pause that followed, however, he knew that she was picturing the devastation to Mardenford and the child she loved so deeply. Nathaniel Knightridge was no more than a shadow on that vision.

  “If you ask that question, Nathaniel, it proves you are not convinced that I have nothing to fear. Let us do what we can to prove your worst suspicion is wrong. Otherwise it will not die. Not my fear, and not your questions.”

  They made the short journey to the village as if the quest did not matter. However, Charlotte could tell that Nathaniel was not pleased. Beneath their banter she heard the echoes of old arguments. In his eyes she saw lights of concern.

  When they arrived at the coast, he wore a stern expression as he entered the village tavern to seek information. He resented that she had forced the inquiry on him.

  The difference when he emerged was indescribable. His mood had visibly lightened. The day remained overcast, but not his countenance. He approached the carriage with a spry step.

  “No Jenny here,” he announced with satisfaction. He immediately climbed back in.

  Charlotte did not share his glee. She wanted the woman found. That he did not only emphasized that he still thought Jenny would tell a story that would support his worst suspicions.

  She was flattered that he wanted to protect her now. She was not pleased that he thought he owed her lies. Worse, whatever truce he made with his conscience would not last. If he suspected Harry was legitimate, this man could no more ignore the injustice than he could agree to become a bishop.

  If they would just find the old woman, all this would end. Jenny would show Finley’s blackmail for what it was—a bold deception built on air.

  As soon as the carriage left the village, Nathaniel pulled her onto his lap. “Duty finished. Now we can play.”

  His kiss let her know what game he intended.

  She stopped thinking about Jenny.

  Amidst kisses and smiles, he had her dress unfastened and stays loose in moments. Cool air fluttered over her naked skin, tantalizing her, hinting at the human caresses that would follow.

  He rearranged her so she straddled his legs. Billows of skirt and petticoats mounded between them, up to his nose. They laughed while he f
ought them into submission. She circled his neck with an embrace and hung on him as the carriage rocked them down the road.

  His kisses lured, claimed, scorched. His fingertips whisked both her nipples like an erotic breeze. Both his hands were free, and they did wicked things to her, increasing her sensitivity until a very impatient hunger cracked her control.

  Feeling very bold, she reached down between them and closed her hand on his erection. She enjoyed seeing what that did to him, how his jaw tensed and the sensations so obviously consumed his attention. She slid her fingertips up the hard length, and found the tip through his garments. She rubbed playfully, then more deliberately as she saw her effect. It became a challenge, to see if she could madden him as much as he did her.

  She released her other hand’s hold on his shoulder so she could loosen his trousers. He did not help, but only steadied her body while the swaying carriage jostled them and she fumbled with the garments. She freed his phallus and circled her palm around its hardness. Looking down, she caressed and fingered the sensitive end.

  He let her, accepting as she had done, permitting this brief command. Just like that, right there, it feels very good. He did not say it, but in a hundred ways he really did. A heady thrill slid through her again and again, descending until her vulva pulsed a hollow ache. Creating this desire aroused her as well as him.

  Suddenly his hands burrowed under her petticoats and grasped her bottom. His eyes opened to reveal ferocious lights. He lifted her and shifted forward and brought her down firmly so that they were joined.

  She was the one who had to move, but his grasp on her hips guided her. What had started playfully ended hard. With consuming kisses and powerful thrusts, their frenzy filled the carriage.

  “Who was she?”

  Charlotte asked the question that night as their hot bodies cooled in the aftermath of another astonishing passion.

  It took Nathaniel a moment to comprehend the question. His mind was preoccupied with calculating how this affair could continue once they returned to London.

  He set those thoughts aside. Charlotte could startle him at the least expected moments.

  “She?”

  “The woman you loved long ago.” She turned in his arms and looked down at him. “The first night here, when you were cajoling me to this affair, you said we had both loved long ago.”

  “How indiscreet of me.”

  He pretended the conversation was completed, but knew she would not accept that. She waited.

  “I was very young and in love the way very young men can be,” he said. “I believed my affections were returned. They were not, as I learned. It is a common story.”

  “Not so common. Nor would its predictability ease the pain.”

  She appeared concerned. That touched him. She was not asking out of idle curiosity. She was not building a jealousy on the past either.

  “How did you learn she did not return the affection? I cannot believe a girl would not fall in love with you. You look like the hero in a book or painting, and did even when you were younger. We all thought so.”

  “If you thought so, why did you avoid dancing with me at the balls during your season? As I remember it, I had one turn. Not even a waltz.”

  Her lids lowered. “I was spoken for, from the first. Everyone knew that.” She looked at him again. “So, how did you learn the truth?”

  She was not to be distracted. Of course not.

  “My father arranged that she should visit us. Here at Elmcrest.”

  “Ah. He is ruthless, isn’t he?”

  “He was more aware of the things that move a woman’s heart than I was at that age.”

  “So she saw all this, and learned of the and more, and did not understand, I assume.”

  “I was hard-pressed to explain it in ways she would comprehend. She only saw that with one word I could offer her fashionable wealth and not merely fashionable comfort. She thought that if I loved her, I would compromise. I thought that if she loved me, she would not ask it.” He shrugged. “Such are the simple ways youth sees the world.”

  She drew a little pattern on his chest with her fingertip, reminding him how her hands had inflamed him today. This night’s passion had been different from last’s. The eroticism had contained a mutual aggression that hinted at bold developments to come.

  “You said marriage would demand consideration of compromise,” she reminded him.

  “I am no longer so young, and the world is no longer so simple to me.”

  He realized as soon as he said it that he was not speaking the entire truth. Not only experience would make him consider it. The different woman involved would too. Charlotte would never have asked it of him so that she could buy more gowns or someday be a bishop’s wife. Even if she had been poor, she would not have done that for those reasons.

  He knew that as surely as he knew anything. He had never in his life been as sure he knew the character of a woman as he did this one’s.

  “I assume she married someone else.”

  “Eventually. We had been discreet, so our alliance did not affect her. Still, having almost had the son of a peer, she could not settle for less. She waited until she found another one who suited her better.” He tapped her nose. “As I said, it was long ago, and it was not a love like you had. I have no memories and no regrets.”

  Her expression softened and turned private, as if his words had called forth those memories. He began cursing himself for a lack of tact.

  “I suppose one cannot have one without the other, memories and regrets, that is,” she said, coming out of the distraction as quickly as she had entered it. “The trick, I am concluding, is to respect both, but to let neither own you.”

  She kissed him in a way that suggested she was proving neither owned her now. The declaration was unnecessary. It was not the past that might fracture this fragile contentment they had found in each other, but the future.

  Charlotte waited in the carriage, as she always did in the villages. Nathaniel strode into the second tavern located in this one, his blond hair ducking below the low header of the ancient doorway.

  They had already been to another village, with no Jenny found. They would visit one more before they were done. Tomorrow they would begin the journey back to London.

  She tried to picture how this affair would change then. She attempted to try it on, much as one did a new dinner dress. Would this passion survive the daily living in town? Would the suffocating need for discretion, and its tiresome lies and games, annoy them both?

  They had not even spoken of what would happen in the days ahead. Nor had she given it much thought. She now did, and hoped that they could find a way to be together at least on occasion. She did not expect the astonishing intensity of the last few days to continue, but having found some common ground, she trusted they would not quickly relinquish it.

  The fishing village had a picturesque quality, with some very old houses facing the lanes that tumbled down a low slope toward the sea. A few had been painted red and yellow, as if a fisherman had visited the Mediterranean a decade ago and brought back a new fashion. A breeze carried the scents of fish and salt to her. She could see the water’s expanse, and make out the tall masts of ships aiming in a diagonal line toward the horizon.

  Nathaniel did not return quickly. When the door finally opened and he stepped over the threshold, she knew he had learned something. His countenance was serious and thoughtful.

  “There is a woman named Jenny Thresher here.” He spoke through the window. “She takes in boarders.” He gazed down the lane. “That should be her place down there, with the white door.”

  “Let us visit at once.”

  He handed her down and they walked up the lane. “You do not seem pleased to find another Jenny,” she said, glancing at his firm, straight mouth. “You think this is the one, don’t you?”

  He shot her the same look he had yesterday, when he told her she could be too clever by half. “The tavern owner remembered
a young boy from some years ago. However, this Jenny is not old, he says, so that may be a coincidence.”

  They presented themselves at the white door. The house was old and modest but well kept. White curtains showed at all the windows.

  A serving girl brought them to a tiny sitting room. Its furnishings, with too many chairs, suggested this functioned as a common room for the guests.

  They waited as the girl’s steps sounded on the stairs and across their heads. Then more steps retraced the path.

  An expectation built in Charlotte. She tried not to succumb to the certainty they had found the right Jenny, but her heart beat with the excitement of running the fox to ground.

  Nathaniel did not appear to share contentment in the victory. “I will introduce you as Mrs. Duclairc,” he said. “We will keep Mardenford out of this, unless Jenny says the name.”

  Jenny was not really old. As soon as the woman entered the sitting room, Charlotte understood the confusion, however. This Jenny had the gray hair and mature form that would have a child thinking her old, but her face and bearing suggested she was at most forty-five.

  They sat on some of the many chairs, and Nathaniel explained their visit.

  Mrs. Thresher shook her head. “I have had no boy named Harry living here at any time.”

  “That may not be his name. He would have been between six and eight, I think. Dark hair and eyes, and the appearance of foreign blood. He would have been here with his mother.”

  Jenny’s eyes widened. “You are describing Joseph. José was his name. You have met him?”

  José. Charlotte saw how that became Harry in the rookery. A child says his name is José, and an old thief hears Harry.

  “We know of the boy. He is safe and healthy,” Nathaniel said. “We hope you may know of his mother’s family, so the boy can be returned to them.”

  Jenny thought that over, shaking her head all the while. “It was a bad business from the start. I tried to tell her, gently, mind you, but she would not hear. I know nothing of her family, or even much about her. She took chambers here for herself and the boy soon after she arrived in Britain. She came in through Southampton, and we are the first village with a place like mine if you travel east from there. She paid with links from a gold chain.”