At Long Last

by Shirlee Busbee

  Together they fell back against the pillows and, for the moment, were content merely to kiss and embrace, the wild urgency that had marked their joining at the lodge not evident this time. For a long time, their mouths simply mated and parted and mated again, their hands drifting dreamily over each other, touching, exploring, teasing.

  Those gentle kisses and light touches had an effect, though, and soon enough, the need for more—for more explicit, more intimate caresses—rose inevitably within them. Arabella had no thought of resisting him, not even when her gown went flying to land on the floor beside the bed or Tony's clothes were disposed of as swiftly and carelessly.

  The pale yellow candlelight flickered and danced over their naked bodies as they lay together on the bed. For Arabella this languid, delicious drift toward passion was a novel experience, and she delighted in it.

  Dreamily aware of the sweetly nagging ache within herself, half-sitting, she stared down at Tony, marveling at the masculine beauty of his body. He was all sleek male muscle, from his broad shoulders to his narrow hips and handsomely tapered legs. In the past, there had never been the leisure to look her fill, to touch him, to explore and see the results of her actions.

  The hard little nubs of his breasts fascinated her; his low groan of pleasure when she bent forward and ran her tongue delicately over them excited her, as did the pulsating swell of his organ when she clasped it and stroked its broad length. Arousing him aroused her. Heat massed in her loins, her breathing became irregular, and the ache between her thighs became almost painfully insistent.

  Unable to bear not touching her as she was him, Tony reared up, pushing her down into the feather mattress. She was incredibly appealing in the soft candlelight, that glorious hair of hers flung out like a living blaze across the sheets, the shadows and dips of her lush body full of carnal promise as she stared up at him through half-closed eyes. He caught his breath, blind desire slamming through him at the invitation he found in their golden brown depths.

  He kissed her hungrily, his hands cupping her breasts, fondling and caressing their warm fullness, teasing the nipples into plump points. She tasted so good, he thought hazily, like warm wine on a winter's eve. Felt so good, her skin like hot satin under his hands.

  Intoxicating though her mouth was, other parts of her body sang a siren's song to him, and unerringly his lips found her swollen nipples. He suckled strongly, his teeth lightly grazing the puckered tips; Arabella's gasp and arching body incited him to greater efforts.

  Eyes blissfully closed, her hands tangled in his black hair and she cradled his dark head even closer to her bosom. She could feel the damp heat of his mouth against her skin, the burning warmth of his body half-lying on hers and lower still, the heavy, insistent probe of his erection against her thigh. She felt utterly alive, full of eager anticipation for the pleasure she knew they would share. Her blood was humming, all her senses clamoring for the moment they would join together, become one. Every tug of his mouth on her nipple, every touch of his hands as they skimmed her body, only intensified the sensation.

  When his head dipped lower, she sighed, twisting restlessly under his nipping teasing kisses. It was only when his questing mouth reached the V between her legs that her eyes flew open in shock.

  "T-T-Tony."

  Her uncertainty was obvious, and, reaching up to kiss her mouth, Tony murmured against her lips, "Only a variation, my sweet. Nothing to frighten you."

  But it did. The stunning sensation of his mouth moving hotly over that most intimate part of her was like nothing she had ever imagined. The wild, uncontrollable feelings that erupted through her at the flick of his tongue over that damp, aching flesh were terrifying and yet... A soft, shaken scream rose up through her as her body arched helplessly, sensations never dreamed of exploding through her. Her fist in her mouth to still the sound of that scream, she twisted and thrashed beneath Tony's hungry mouth as she was assaulted by wave after wave of intense pleasure.

  Her body was still throbbing and trembling when Tony slowly slid upward, a satisfied smile curving his mouth. Taking a nipple into his mouth, he bit down gently, and she shuddered, feeling that caress clear to her womb.

  Looking up at her, he asked, "And did my heart enjoy herself?"

  With wide, dilated eyes, Arabella stared at him. The stunned, dazzled look on her face told its own story, but the dazed nodding of her head confirmed it.

  He smiled, an incredibly tender smile that made Arabella's heart melt.

  "Good," he said simply. Slipping between her thighs, he murmured, "And now we shall do it again—only this time together."

  Arabella gasped as he took her, her arms reaching convulsively for him as he joined their bodies and the magic between them began anew. And this time it was sweeter, more potent, because Tony was with her, his mouth capturing her cry of release, his own groans of satisfaction as he emptied himself into her intensifying her own completion.

  They lay there locked together for several long moments, Tony lazily kissing her, his hands lightly cupping and fondling her breasts. Arabella was touching him, too, her fingers running up and down his long back, marveling at the pleasure they had just shared.

  Her eyes were closed, and she was smiling dreamily when Tony kissed the tip of her nose, and said softly, "Marry me, Bella."

  Her eyes flew open, and her smile vanished. Pushing him away, she sat up. "Marry you?" she asked incredulously, ignoring the eager beat of her heart. "Are you mad?"

  Flinging himself back across the bed, his hands behind his head, he regarded her somberly. "No. I am not. Why would you think so?"

  Flustered, suddenly embarrassed to be sitting naked on the bed with him, she scrambled after her gown. Finding it, she hastily pulled it on and turned to face him.

  Tony had not moved. He lay on her bed, like a splendid jungle cat at leisure, his tousled black hair gleaming with blue glints in the candlelight, his sleek hide smooth and golden, as he coolly looked at her across the brief space that separated them.

  His nakedness seemed not to disturb him one whit, and, averting her eyes from all that handsome masculinity, Arabella said weakly, "Tony, you can't have forgotten what happened the last time you asked me that question."

  "You're wrong there, Elf. It is vivid in my mind," he said mildly. "You said yes."

  Her mouth tightened. "And I paid for my foolishness."

  He muttered a curse and, rising up in one fluid motion, found his breeches on the floor and dragged them on. Shrugging into his white-linen shirt, he snapped, "Must you always throw the past in my face? Won't you even give me a little credit for having learned from my mistakes?"

  Sadly she stared at him, her heart splintering into tiny shards. Her eyes shimmering with tears, she said painfully, "Tony, don't ask this of me. I did believe you... once. I fought with my parents; I turned a deaf ear to all their entreaties, to all the hints and lectures from friends and relatives alike. I was so certain. So certain you loved me. So positive that my love was strong enough to overcome whatever troubles came our way. So positive that everyone was wrong about you, and then to find it was all a lie..." She swallowed, unable to go on.

  Fighting the urge to smash something, Tony took a deep breath. "I loved you, Bella. I never lied about that Never."

  Unable to look at him, she turned her head and put out a hand, silently entreating him to stop, but he would not.

  Capturing that slender, protesting hand of hers, he kissed it. "Elf, I never lied to you about anything. I never denied that I had been as wild and spoiled as everyone had ever thought I was." When Bella kept her head averted from him, he went on desperately, "I wasn't a good husband to either of my wives—I told you that. I was young. I was selfish. I was arrogant. And I married them both for all the wrong reasons. I did things then that make me ashamed now." Heavily, he added, "I can't undo my past, Bella. Nor can I pretend that my reputation, black as it is, is not well earned."

  She risked a glance at him and even though she knew ot
herwise, needing to hear him say the words again, needing to be reassured that she did not love a murderer, she asked quietly, "Are you admitting then that what everyone says is true? That you murdered them?"

  He shook his head, ignoring the stab of anguish her words gave him. "No. As I told you in the beginning, I did not murder either one of them." Letting go of her hand, he tiredly rubbed his forehead. "I married Mercy to please my grandparents—I told you that, too. They wanted to hold their grandchild and it seemed an easy thing to do for them." Simply, he explained, "I loved my grandparents—selfish as I was, and I don't deny that I was selfish, but I would have done much to please them. And when my grandmother suggested Mercy Dashwood, the granddaughter of her dearest friend, I saw no reason to object. Mercy was a taking little thing and I was conceited enough to believe that she would do very nicely for me. Why wouldn't I? I had been brought up to believe the world revolved around me, why wouldn't Mercy?"

  He flashed Arabella a twisted smile. "The problem was that Mercy was as spoiled and selfish as I was, and in a short time we were at each other's throat, neither one of us able to understand why the other wouldn't do precisely as we wanted. Our marriage was brief and stormy, and in just a few months we couldn't bear to be in each other's company. It wasn't my fault and it wasn't Mercy's fault. We were young—she, barely eighteen and I, twenty-one, and we had both been outrageously spoiled. She infuriated me, as I'm sure, as I look back, I did her, but I didn't kill her." He took a turn around the room, his face bleak.

  "I have to live with the knowledge that in a way I did contribute to her death—if I hadn't been right on their heels, if they hadn't been trying to escape me, their carriage might not have plunged into the river. I shall regret it to the end of my days."

  He gave Arabella a long, steady look. "I have many things to regret, many things I would do differently now. But I can't change the past. I can't pretend that I wasn't furious when I found out that she had taken Terrell as a lover, and I can't deny that when I was told they were running away together that I went after them with the express intention of dragging Mercy back to Sweet Acres. My pride demanded it. But cold-bloodedly drown Mercy and her lover?" He shook his head. "No. I'm as capable of killing someone as the next man—I will not lie. I could have shot Terrell down on the dueling field, if it had come to that, and not missed a wink of sleep. And if I had caught them... We would have faced each other over drawn pistols, I'll not deny that either—only one of us would have ridden away from that meeting.

  "As for Mercy..." He looked pensive. "I suppose there could have been a set of circumstances that would have driven me over the edge, that would have had me murdering her with my bare hands. But for me to take cruel advantage of a terrible accident? For me to have waded into the river to the crumpled wreckage of their carriage and then held them under the water until they drowned? No. That I would not and could not do."

  "Tony, whatever else is wrong between us, I never thought you murdered Mercy," Arabella said softly, her heart wrung by the expression on his face. Resisting the urge to go to him, to comfort him, was unbearably difficult, but the need to protect her vulnerable heart was stronger.

  Tony looked back at her where she stood by the bed.

  "Ah, you believe me about Mercy, but you have doubts about Elizabeth?"

  Before she could reply, he crossed to her, grasped her shoulders, and shook her.

  "I admitted that I was blind drunk, out celebrating my twenty-fifth birthday, when I made that unfortunate wager to marry the first eligible woman who crossed my path that night," he said sharply. "And, God rest her soul, it was poor Elizabeth Fenton who did exactly that. But I didn't murder her to end a marriage that should never have happened in the first place."

  "It doesn't matter," Arabella said desperately. "I've heard all this before—and it changes nothing."

  Tony's face was grim. "Can you swear that you don't harbor doubts about the way she died? That you don't wonder if I didn't, as some people say, give myself an alibi, get Blackburne to lie for me? Do you wonder if I didn't really creep back to my own home and shoot her dead?"

  "Tony, don't," Arabella whispered achingly, hurting and ashamed for having opened this old, painful wound. "Don't torture yourself this way. I know that you did nothing of the sort. And those who say that you did are petty and mean-spirited."

  He gave a bitter laugh. "Well, thank you for that!" He looked away from her, his features pale and strained as remembered anguish tore through him. "She was carrying my child, Bella. No matter how I felt about her, I would never have harmed the mother of my child." He glanced back again at Arabella. "My marriage to Elizabeth wasn't a good marriage, you know that." He smiled grimly. "Hell, everyone knew it and the circumstances surrounding it. But it wasn't the terrible, acrimonious travesty that Mercy and I had shared. Elizabeth was content to be wife and mother—she was looking forward to the birth of our child—as I was. And though we were vastly different and had little deep emotion for each other, we rubbed along together tolerably well."

  Hoping to distract him, aching for him, Arabella asked, "Have you ever wondered who did kill her?"

  The blue eyes glittering menacingly, he muttered, "Only every day of my life. Elizabeth did not deserve to be murdered. Nor my unborn child; and someday, if God is kind, I will find the person who shot her down and show him as much mercy as they were shown."

  Staring at him, at the savage promise in his face, Arabella believed him—with good reason. She knew he was fiercely protective. He had gone after Leyton because he had believed that Leyton had attempted to rob her; he would be even more driven to go after the person who had so brutally murdered his wife—even a wife he did not love.

  A quiver of fear rippled through her at the image of Tony facing a man who had already murdered once, and she could not help blurting out, "If you find him, take care, Tony."

  His lip curled. "Careful, Bella, say things like that and I might think you care."

  "I do care! I just will not subject myself again to the pain of finding you in bed with whichever woman has taken your fancy."

  He cursed under his breath and his hands tightened painfully on her arms. "I was not making love to Molly," he growled. "I had broken off from her months before that night." His voice thickened, "Once I had seen you, no one else mattered. I wanted no one else." At Arabella's disbelieving snort, he shook her. "I was at the lodge to meet you that night, and no one else, goddammit! I knew you were coming. Why in the hell would I arrange to have a romp with Molly? Tell me that, if you dare!"

  She wrenched herself from his grip. "I don't know!" she cried, angry and hurt all over again. "I only know that when I arrived, I found the two of you naked and in bed together." Accusingly, she glared at him. "She was draped all over you—your arms were around her. No one had to tell me what you were doing, Tony, I saw the pair of you with my own two eyes. It hurt me more than I have ever been hurt in my life." Her voice shaking with remembered fury and pain, she spit, "The only thing that hurt me worse was to find out that our entire betrothal had been a sham—that you'd only pursued me because of another damned wager!"

  His mouth grim, Tony sat down on the chair near the French doors and began angrily to pull on his boots. "There is no talking to you," he said wearily. Standing up, he fastened his shirt and put on his jacket. Finding his stock where he had thrown it on the floor, he picked it up and stuffed it into the pocket of his coat.

  "What are you doing?" Arabella asked uneasily from her position near the bed.

  "I'm preparing to leave—there is no longer any point to this conversation," he said harshly.

  Fighting back the urge to weep and an equal urge to slap his face, Arabella snapped, "Afraid to face your own sins, Tony? Afraid to admit to my face that you made the wager with Blackburne? It won't come as any shock, you know—Richard told my father, months after our parting, that Blackburne himself confessed to the wager one night when he'd had too much to drink. Am I to believe that Richard lied to m
y father and my father to me? Am I to pretend I did not see what I did? Can you deny any of it?"

  "I did make the bloody wager with Patrick—I admit it," Tony snarled. "But once I'd met you... once I'd met you, I forgot all about it." Drearily, he added, "Patrick and I constantly made wagers. Half the time we couldn't remember what they were by the time we sobered up the next morning. Neither one of us is proud of the particular wager involving you—but neither one of us really knew you, and we were half-drunk—a usual state for us in those days. It seemed an uproarious jest at the time, to see if I could catch the interest of the, oh-so-cool-and-proper Arabella Montgomery. Everyone talked about how devoted you were to your dead fiancé, how inspiring it was the way you were so constant to his memory, unwilling to give the slightest encouragement to any of your worthy suitors. We thought it would be vastly amusing if an unworthy suitor could topple you from your pedestal." His gaze bleak, he said bluntly. "You were a challenge, sweetheart. But our wager was cruel and unkind—we never should have made it." He smiled painfully. "You'd think that I would learn, wouldn't you?"

  When Arabella remained stonily silent, he said levelly, "I know that you found me in the most compromising position imaginable. I know that. But I also know that I had nothing to do with Molly Dobson since I had paid her off—handsomely, I might add—the day after I met you."

  His eyes locked with hers, he said evenly, "I went to the lodge that night to meet you. Only you. I arrived early as I always did. You were running late, and I helped myself to a glass of wine from one of the bottles we kept there. That," he ended coolly, his features grim, "is the last thing I remember until I looked up and saw your horrified face staring down at me."

  His words shook her, as much because she wanted to believe them, as the ring of truth about them, their very simplicity giving them credence. And yet the entire scenario was incredible.

  Skepticism on her face, she demanded, "Are you telling me that someone knew we used the lodge to meet? That this person knew we were going to meet that particular night? That he or she arranged for me to be late? And drugged the wine? And brought Molly Dobson there? Is that what you're saying?"