Rumors That Ruined a Lady

by Marguerite Kaye

  Sebastian made a sound which might have passed for a laugh. ‘Indeed, so did I, and failed miserably.’

  The sheer weight of all she had left unsaid at their last meeting grew too heavy for Caro to bear. There were enough regrets in her life without adding another. ‘I thought I was in love with you, you know,’ she said abruptly. ‘I pretended I didn’t care when you said goodbye, but I did. Anyway, it doesn’t matter now.’

  Sebastian swore under his breath. He had suspected as much, which in a way validated his decision to leave. But he could not reveal the prominent role their respective fathers had played in helping him arrive at his decision.

  ‘I thought my eyes were deceiving me tonight,’ he said instead. ‘I couldn’t believe it really was you.’

  ‘Nor I. You, I mean. I thought—I’ve seen you before, or thought I had, but it never was you. Am I making any sense at all?’

  He laughed. ‘No more than I.’

  His smile faded as he stared at her. ‘What’s wrong, Caro?’

  She made a helpless gesture. ‘Nothing. Everything.’ She wouldn’t cry. ‘If only you knew the half of it. I am so glad you don’t.’

  ‘I really have missed you, you know.’

  ‘No. It’s too late for that. I wish—I wish—oh, what is the point in wishing! I wish it would all go away, just for a few moments.’

  ‘Solace,’ Sebastian said bitterly. ‘No, oblivion. That is a very attractive prospect.’

  ‘We always were of like mind.’ Caro gave a sad little shrug. ‘Let us not dwell on the past. In fact, I’m not sure I want to talk about the present either, and I’m absolutely certain that I don’t want to think about the future.’

  ‘Which leaves us at a bit of an impasse,’ Sebastian replied. ‘Perhaps it really would be best if I go.’

  ‘Yes. That would be the sensible thing.’

  Yet she made no move to see him out and as their eyes met, the air seemed to crackle with awareness. Trance-like, she closed the gap between them. She had no idea who made the first move, but when his lips met hers, she realised that it was this she’d wanted from the moment she first set eyes on him tonight. Just this once, she wanted not the harsh reality of her life but the dream she had once dreamed.

  * * *

  He kissed her, and she felt as if she were drowning. Or perhaps she was dead, and this was heaven. Such heaven. Sebastian’s mouth, his hands, the smell of him, the intoxicating maleness of him, all felt so much better in the flesh. It was not a dream. She was no longer the naïve young girl who had kissed him four years ago. How innocent she had been, how worldly-wise she had thought herself, and how utterly disillusioning the intervening years had proved to be.

  But she would not think of that. Though she ought. This was so wrong. She should not be kissing him. She should not be touching him. She should tell him—tell him the stark truth—and she would, she would, but not now. Not now, when this felt so right, making the harsh reality of her life feel, in contrast, so very, very wrong. Later she would return to her senses, allow duty and propriety to rule her actions, but for now, all she sought was exactly what she knew he wanted too.

  Oblivion. She squeezed her eyes tight shut and balled her hands into fists, making her broken finger throb with pain. Remembering how it looked, ring-less and swollen, this latest bruise spreading purple and yellow over her hand, she felt a spark of rebellion. She had tried so hard to do what she was told was right, tried so hard to please everyone by doing as she was bid, but it was slowly destroying her.

  Sebastian didn’t want her to be someone else. She had always been truly herself when she was with him, and only with him. It was too late, but all the same, here he was, flesh and blood, kissing her, crushing her to him as if she would save him. As if he could save her. If only.

  Wanting to stop her stream of thoughts, to quiet her conscience, she burrowed more closely into his embrace. Bathed in the soft glow of the firelight, he looked older and more world-weary than the self-assured young man she remembered. Changed but no less attractive. If anything more so. More human, more vulnerable. She reached up to trace the shape of his face, smoothing her palm over the roughness of the day’s growth on his cheek. There were not just lines around his eyes, but shadows under them. He had the look of someone to whom sleep was a stranger. She knew all about that. She wanted him so much. The intensity of this wanting made of her youthful desire a meagre flame compared to the fire which burned inside the woman she had become. In contrast, what she had been taught of intimacy by that other seemed a sham. It frightened her, and it reassured her, the strength of that knowledge. This was right in a way that never had been.

  ‘Caro, we should not.’ Sebastian kissed her forehead. Her eyes. Her cheeks.

  ‘Sebastian.’ She meant to agree with him, but was distracted by the silkiness of his sun-bleached hair.

  His fingers plucked at the pins which held her coiffure, spreading her tresses out over her back. He lifted the weight of her hair to kiss the nape of her neck, the hollow at her throat. ‘Fire,’ he said, ‘you set me alight.’

  His mouth found hers, his lips hungry on hers, his tongue stroking along the soft inside of her mouth, making her moan. His hands were feverish now, as were hers, struggling with his coat, his waistcoat, in the urgent need to feel skin on skin.

  ‘We really should not be doing this,’ he muttered as he shrugged impatiently out of his evening coat, dropping it onto the floor.

  ‘No. We should not.’ She tugged his shirt free of his trousers, running her palms up his back, relishing the ripple of his muscles in response.

  ‘Caro.’ His voice was rough, his breathing hard. ‘Wait. Stop. We have to stop.’

  But she could not. She could not leave any room for rational thought. Besides, she was still fully clad. ‘Yes. We will. But not yet. Take it off. I want to see you.’

  He hesitated, his eyes clouded with confusion and desire. Then he laughed. A throaty, utterly masculine sound, quite different from anything she had heard before, it made the muscles in her belly tighten. His movements cast shadows on the walls as he tugged the garment over his head, revealing his body from the waist up. Concave belly. Rib cage. The musculature of his chest. A spattering of hair. Nipples flat, dark brown. His skin was tanned, a golden brown all over. He was much broader than she had imagined. So different. A body used to sunshine and exercise. Where had he been, what had he been doing, to have acquired such a colour?

  His laughter stopped when he saw the way she was looking at him. She reached out, running the flat of her palm tentatively over his skin. The muscles of his stomach tautened. ‘Caro.’

  There was a warning note in his voice. The effect it had on her was quite the opposite from what he intended. It had been so long since she had indulged her rebellious spirit. It was roused now, just by the way he looked at her. I dare you, she thought. And dared, spreading both her palms over his chest, feeling the friction of his hair, the smoothness of his skin, the hardness of his nipples.

  ‘Caro.’ Not a warning now. Anguish. Desire. She was playing with fire. She’d forgotten how much she enjoyed it. She splayed her hands over his back and kissed his throat. His shoulder.

  The muscles of his chest tensed. He swore a short guttural oath. Then he swept her into his arms, laying her down on the hearth rug, kissing her wildly. His fingers struggled with the fastening of her gown. His hands were shaking which she found strangely reassuring. He was in the same uncharted waters as she. She was shivering. Finally, the laces gave. He eased her robe over her arms, running his hands down her sides, her waist, her thighs, as he removed it. Her corsets fastened at the front. She loosened them herself. The soft cambric of her chemise was no barrier. It grazed her nipples deliciously as he pushed it aside.

  For a long moment she gazed up at him as he lay over her, the pair of them half-naked. His eyes were dar
k, hungry with desire. Like her, he seemed to be torn by the need to resist and the irresistible urge to continue. Like her, he seemed to be assuring himself that they would stop after this, after this, after this. And they would, but not yet.

  Not when he was looking at her with such desire as she had never experienced. Not yet, when her desire matched his. Not yet, when he was cupping her breast in his hands. The hard length of his erection nudged at her belly. She reached around him to stroke his buttocks through his trousers, revelling in the way his muscles flexed, contracting and expanding as she ran her fingers over him, thrilling in the way her lightest touch made him moan.

  He bent his head to take one of her nipples in his mouth. His tongue was warm, licking slowly over the aching bud before he sucked, jolting her to a new level of wanting. He licked again, then sucked again, while his other hand stroked languorously.

  She writhed with pleasure under his expert caress. Her hands slid under the waistband of his trousers. He shuddered. ‘Caro. God, Caro, I have never felt—and you feel so—oh God.’

  She knew they were reaching the point of no return. She knew she should stop. She wanted to stop. Or at least she wanted to want to stop. Or at least she wanted. She wanted. She wanted so much.

  His hand was on her bottom now, tilting her up towards him. She fumbled for the fastenings of his trousers. He kicked off his shoes. All the time she told herself she would stop. She knew he was thinking the same, but every time he hesitated she drew him on. As he did her. Or that was how it felt.

  She tugged at his trousers, encouraging him to slip them off. She undid the ties of her pantalettes. ‘Caro.’ His breathing was harsh. ‘If we do not stop now...’

  ‘Do you want to?’

  ‘That’s not the point.’

  She closed her eyes momentarily. For the last four years she had done what she ought and not what she wanted. Not once. Opening her eyes again, she met his gaze unwaveringly. ‘Yes it is, Sebastian. It is. It is exactly the point.’

  His hand swept up her back, pulling her hard against him. The shock of his shaft nudging against her thighs made her gasp. She arched her back, wrapping her arms around him, pressing her breasts against the soft hair, the hard muscle of his chest.

  Sebastian moaned. ‘You have no idea what you do to me.’

  ‘I know exactly what I do to you, because you do it to me. Fire,’ she said, ‘you set me on fire.’

  He kissed her hard. She kissed him back harder. His tongue thrust into her mouth. She dug her fingers into his back. He nudged her legs apart. She thrust herself up at him shamelessly, wanting him inside her now.

  His kisses deepened. He rolled over to lie beside her on the floor, his hand splayed across her breast, travelling down her belly, fingers trailing fire over the soft flesh at the top of her thighs, teasing her open then sliding inside her, making her cry out with the delight of it.

  She reached for him blindly, her fingers circling the unfamiliar girth of him, satiny skin, hard muscle, throbbing in her hand. Her mouth was dry. He was so—so—potent. Caro closed her mind to the cruel connotations of that particular word. Hard. He was so hard. And she was so—she had never been so—yielding?

  His fingers move further inside her, gently, so gently, then out, then over, stroking, circling, making her squirm as the tension inside her tightened, knotted. She couldn’t bear it, but she didn’t want it to stop. She tensed as he touched her, stroked her, so wet that his finger slid over the hard nub of her arousal. She tried to focus, not on this, but on him. On the thickness of him. On the way he pulsed in response to her strokes. On the tightening she could feel at the base of his shaft, heavy with his need for her.

  ‘Caro, Caro, oh God, Caro, I’ve never...’

  His kiss, the plunge of his tongue into her mouth, set her over the edge. She climaxed with a shudder and a hoarse, guttural cry. Wave after wave sent her spinning out of control, her muscles contracting and tensing. She released her hold on his manhood, desperate for the final oblivion of having him inside her, hands tugging at his back, his buttocks, pulling him on top of her. ‘Please, please, please,’ she moaned, hardly recognising herself in the wild creature and not caring, desperate to give him the release, share the pleasure he had given her.

  He hovered over her, his shaft nudging at her sex. ‘I’ll be careful. Are you sure?’

  He thought her an innocent. If only. It would break her heart when she thought about it later, how honourable he had been. So she resolved not to think about it. ‘I am certain.’ She wrapped her legs around him, pulling him to her.

  He watched her intently, his eyes dark, focused entirely on her face, as he slid inside her. Slowly. Carefully, though there was no need. She wished there was.

  He stilled. It felt so right. He felt so right, the thickness of him buried deep inside her. Just this once, she thought, closing her eyes on the sudden rush of tears. Just this once. Then she dug her nails into his buttocks, and thrust up under him, tightening around him, making him shudder in response.

  He thrust deeper into her. He withdrew slowly, then thrust again. His eyes were focused on hers. She could feel the strength of his gaze through her closed lids. She opened her eyes, blinking away the tears. He thrust again, sending ripples through her. And again. She held onto him, tightening around him, as the surge of her climax renewed with each thrust, building quickly, making him thrust more urgently, until she broke and he came in unison, crying out, withdrawing at the last moment, spilling on to the rug.

  Oblivion. She curled herself around him, closing her eyes tight shut. Oblivion. And also, right at this moment, paradise.

  Chapter Six

  Oblivion. Save that oblivion was the state of feeling nothing and Sebastian felt as if he had been turned upside down and inside out. Love-making for him was usually a pleasant release. There had been times when it had amused him and times when he had been bored. There had been women whose performance and imagination intrigued him, women whose gymnastics exhausted him or made him feel slightly ridiculous. But always, he retained an innate sense of self, a detachment which made a mockery of the notion love-making was anything other than the pleasurable and temporary coupling of bodies.

  He felt strange. Empty yet replete. It bothered him that he had lost control, that there had been moments when he hadn’t been thinking at all, had lost himself in sensation. He felt—nervous?—no, not that, but as if he was missing some crucial point. Tense. Edgy. This wasn’t right, though nothing about it had felt wrong. In fact there were aspects of it that hadn’t ever felt so good. Which wasn’t right either. In short, he didn’t know what the devil to think.

  And Caro? The full enormity of what they had done, of what he had done to her, hit him with appalling force. He rolled away from her, scrabbling for his trousers which had landed under a side table. Pulling them on, he grabbed a large embroidered shawl from the faded damask sofa and held it out for her.

  She wrapped it around herself, though she remained curled up on the floor, leaning back against a footstool, saying nothing, her face a blank. With a growing sense of foreboding, Sebastian found his shirt and put it on before sitting down in the wingback chair across from her. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘Whatever you do, don’t apologise. I was as much to blame as you.’

  ‘I should have known better.’

  She smiled wanly, shivering. ‘My maxim.’

  Part of the problem was that he was still caught up in the dizzying aftermath. His body was still tingling, while his mind struggled with the consequences of what had caused him to tingle. It was a small consolation that he’d had the presence of mind to prevent the most drastic consequence of all.

  Sebastian swore under his breath. It was a lie, telling her he didn’t know what to say. There was only possible one thing to say. He pressed his knuckles so hard into his eyes that he s
aw stars. For a fleeting moment the idea had actually seemed attractive. He swore again, and got to his feet. ‘Caroline. Obviously, we’ll get married.’

  She looked aghast. Granted, it was a very poor proposal, but then he had never proposed marriage before. Sebastian cleared his throat. ‘What I meant to say was, will you do me the honour of marrying me?’

  Caro mouthed one of his own more colourful expletives. Jumping to her feet, she dropped the shawl and stood before him in just her chemise. ‘Sebastian, I beg of you, don’t continue in this vein.’

  ‘Don’t—you must see I have to. Having taken your innocence, it is the only honourable course of action. I should not have allowed things to go so far. I don’t know what possessed me.’

  ‘Oblivion,’ she snapped. ‘That’s what we both wanted, wasn’t it? That’s all we wanted.’

  Her response, the aggressive tone in which it was delivered, quite unsettled him. ‘I am trying to do the right thing by you.’

  ‘Yes, just as you claimed you were doing when you left four years ago.’ She threw out her hand. ‘No. No, you don’t deserve that.’

  Turning her back on him, she drew several deep breaths, obviously struggling for calm. The firelight made her chemise transparent. Through the fine cambric, he thought he saw the shadow of a bruise on her left buttock. Had he done that? Surely not. Another fall? He had not thought her clumsy. Sebastian frowned, running his hands through his hair. It had grown too long. He must visit a barber before returning to the country. Devil take it, what was he doing, thinking of barbers at the moment. His mind was as dishevelled as his hair.

  ‘You have to go,’ Caro said, whirling round on him suddenly, cutting through his jumble of thoughts.

  Sebastian nodded. ‘You’re right. We’re both somewhat overwrought. It’s not the time to discuss something as important as this. I shall call on you in the morning when we can talk calmly and rationally.’