Having formulated a plan, he focused on its implementation. He kissed her deeply, searchingly, evocatively-and felt her flaring response. Her tongue boldly tangled with his; distracted, keen to experience the sweet response again, he tempted her, taunted her, to repeat the caress. She did, but slowly, so slowly his senses followed every flick, every sliding contact, with giddy intensity.
Not until he finally summoned his wits and eased back from their kiss did he feel her hands on his chest. Through his shirt, her palms branded him, her fingers kneading. She swept her hands up to his shoulders; his coat impeded the movement. She tried to push the coat off. Breaking their kiss, Vane released her and shrugged. Coat and waistcoat hit the floor.
She fell on his cravat, as eager as his demons. Brushing her hands aside, Vane rapidly flicked the knotted folds undone, then dragged the long strip free. Patience had already transferred her attentions to his shirt buttons; within seconds she had them undone. Hauling the tails free of his waistband, she flung the sides wide and greedily set her hands searching, fingers tangling in the crisp hair.
Looking into her face, Vane savored the look of sensual wonder in her features, the glow of anticipation in her eyes.
He reached for her laces.
Patience was enthralled. He'd explored her, but she hadn't, yet, had a chance to explore him. She spread her fingers, and her senses, drinking in the warm resilience of taut muscle stretched over hard bone. She investigated the hollows and broad planes of his chest, the wide ridges of his ribs. Crisp brown hair curled and caught at her slim digits; the flat discs of his nipples hardened at her touch.
It was all perfectly fascinating. Eager to extend her horizons, she seized the sides of his shirt.
Just as he seized the sleeves of her gown.
What followed had her giggling-foolishly, heatedly. Hands locked on each other, they rocked and swayed. Simultaneously, they both adjusted their grips. While she fought to wrestle his shirt from him, he-far more expertly-divested her of her gown.
He hauled her into his arms and ravished her mouth, plundering deeply, one arm locking her to him while his other hand dealt with the drawstring of her petticoat.
Patience answered the challenge and returned the kiss avidly-while her busy fingers fought with the buttons of his breeches. Their lips met and melded, parting only to fuse heatedly again.
Her petticoats fell to the floor in the same instant she pushed his breeches over his hips. He broke from their kiss. Their eyes met, heated gazes colliding. With a soft curse, he stepped back and stripped off both boots and breeches.
Eyes wide, Patience drank in the sight of him, the brutally hard, sculpted planes of his body bathed in the fire's golden light.
He looked up and caught her watching. He straightened, but before he could reach for her, she grasped the lower edge of her chemise and, in one smooth movement, drew it up and over her head.
Her eyes locked on his, she let the soft silk fall, forgotten, from her fingers. Hands, arms, reaching for him, she deliberately stepped into his embrace.
The golden instant of meeting, the first touch of bare skin to bare skin, sent exquisite delight lancing through her. She sucked in a quick breath. Lids lowered, she draped her arms over his broad shoulders and pressed closer, settling her breasts against his chest, her thighs meeting his much harder ones, her soft belly a cradle for the rampant hardness of his staff.
Their bodies slid and shifted, then locked tight. His arms closed, a steel vise, about her.
And she felt the coiled tension that held him. The leashed tension he held back.
The power, the force, she sensed in his locked muscles, in the taut sinews that surrounded her, compelled her. Fascinated her. Emboldened and encouraged her. She wanted to know it-feel it, touch it, revel in it. Tightening her arms about his neck, she pressed even closer. Lifting her head, she brushed her lips across his. And whispered, "Let go."
Vane ignored her-she didn't know, couldn't know, what she was asking. Lowering his head, he captured her lips in a long, lengthy kiss designed to intensify the glorious sensation of her naked body sinking against his. She felt like cool silk, vibrant, delicate, and sensual; the slide of her against him was a potent caress, leaving him achingly aroused, achingly urgent.
He needed to get her to the bed. Soon.
She broke from their kiss to place hot, openmouthed kisses across his collarbone, across the sensitive skin just below his throat.
And to reach for him.
She touched him. Vane stilled. Delicately tentative, she curled her fingers about his rigid length. He stiffened-and hauled in a desperate breath.
Her bed. His demons roared.
Guided by unerring instinct, her fingers closing more confidently about him, she licked one flat nipple, her tongue scalding hot, and murmured, "Let the reins go."
Vane's head reeled.
Releasing him, she raised her head. Twining her arms about his neck, she stretched upward against him, and, bending one knee, lifted one firm, ivory thigh to his hip. "Take me."
She was out of her mind-but he was already out of his.
All thoughts of beds, and civilized sophistry, vanished from his head. Without conscious direction, his hands closed about the firm globes of her bottom and he lifted her. Instantly, she wrapped her long legs about his hips and drew herself tight against him.
It was she who made the necessary adjustment to capture the throbbing head of his staff in the slick flesh between her thighs, leaving him poised, aching and desperate, at her entrance.
And it was she who made the first move to sink down, to take him into her body, to impale herself on his rigid hardness.
Every muscle locked, Vane struggled to breathe, struggled to deny the impulse to ravish her. Sinking lower, she found his lips with hers, brushing them tantalizingly. "Let go."
He didn't, couldn't-to relinquish control completely was beyond him. But he loosened the reins, slackened them as much as he dared. Muscles bunching, flexing, he lifted her-and thrust upward as she sank down.
She learned quickly. The next time he lifted her, she relaxed, then tightened as he filled her, slowing her downward slide, extending it to take even more of him than before.
Vane set his teeth. His head whirled as, again and again, she closed, scalding hot, about him. When it was that the truth dawned and he realized she was loving him, knowingly pleasuring him, lavishing the most intimate of caresses upon him, he never knew. But it was suddenly crystal-clear.
He'd never been loved like this-had a woman set herself to lavish pleasure so determinedly upon him-to ravish him.
The slick caresses continued; he was sure he'd lose his mind. Fire rose, flame upon flame within him. He was burning, ana she was the source of the heat.
He buried himself in the wet furnace she offered him, and felt her boldly embrace him. With a half-smothered groan, he sank to his knees on the rug before the hearth.
She adjusted instantly, eagerly using her new purchase on the floor to ride him more hungrily.
He couldn't take much more. Vane locked his hands about her hips and held her to him, trying to catch his breath, desperate to prolong the glorious congress. Patience squirmed, fighting to regain control. Vane set his teeth on an agonized hiss. Sliding both hands up, along her back, he tipped her back and away, arching her so her breasts, swollen and ripe, were his to feast on.
He feasted.
Patience heard her own gasp as his mouth fastened hungrily over one engorged nipple. A sobbing moan followed moments later. Hot and ravenous, he laved her breasts, then suckled the hypersensitized peaks until she was sure she would die. Within her, his heavy hardness filled her, completed her; pressed deeply into her, he rocked deeper still, claiming her-body, mind, and senses.
Trapped in his hold, she gasped and writhed; unable to rise on him, but refusing to be gainsaid, she changed direction, and rolled her hips against him.
It was Vane's turn to gasp. He felt the coiled tension inside him
tighten, then tighten again, invested with a force he had no hope of controlling. Of holding back.
Reaching between them, he slid his fingers through her damp curls, and found her. Just a touch was all it took, and she shattered, fragmented, her senses exploding in a fractured cry as she tumbled over that invisible precipice and into sated oblivion.
He followed a heartbeat later.
The fire had burned to embers before they stirred. Their bodies, locked together, felt too deeply enmeshed to part. Both roused, but neither shifted, both too content with their closeness, their intimacy.
Time stretched, and still they clung, their heartbeats slowing, their bodies cooling, their souls still locked in flight.
Eventually, Vane bent his head and brushed his lips across Patience's temple. She glanced up. He studied her eyes, then kissed her gently, lingeringly. As their lips parted, he asked, "Have you changed your mind yet?"
He sensed her confusion, then she understood. She didn't pull away, but shook her head. "No."
Vane didn't argue. He held her, and felt her warmth surround him, felt her heart beating in time with his. Uncounted minutes later, he lifted her from him and carried her to her bed.
Chapter 16
Why wouldn't she marry him?
What did she have against marriage?
Those questions revolved in Vane's brain as he headed his horses down the London road. It was the second morning after Gerrard's accident. Pronounced fit to travel, Gerrard sat on the box seat beside him, idly studying the scenery.
Vane didn't even see his leader's ears. He was too engrossed with thoughts of Patience, and the situation he now found himself in. The lady herself, with Minnie and Timms, was traveling in the carriage following his curricle; behind that, a pageant of hired coaches bore the rest of the Bellamy Hall household away from Bellamy Hall.
Sudden pressure on his left ankle made Vane glance down; he watched as Myst recurled herself against his left boot. Instead of joining Patience in the closed carriage, Myst had surprised her mistress and elected to ride with him. While he had nothing against cats, or youthful sprigs, Vane would readily have traded both his companions for Patience.
So he could interrogate her over her inexplicable stance.
She loved him, but refused to marry him. Given her circumstances, and his, that decision more than qualified as inexplicable. His jaw setting, Vane looked ahead, staring fixedly between his leader's ears.
His original plan-to break down Patience's barriers with passion, to so addict her to his loving that she would come to view marrying him as very much in her best interests, and so admit to him what was worrying her-had developed a major hitch. He hadn't reckoned with becoming addicted himself, possessed by a desire more powerful than any he'd known. Addicted to the extent that that desire-and his demons-were no longer subject to his will.
His demons-and that mindless need-had broken free that first time in the barn. He'd excused that as understandable, given the circumstances and his pent-up frustrations. On the night he'd invaded her bedchamber, he'd had all the reins firmly in his grasp; he'd coolly and successfully retained control, even under the full force of her fire. That success had left him complacent, confidently assured.
Their third interlude, two nights ago, had shattered his complacency.
He'd come within a whisker of losing control again.
Worse-she knew it. A golden-eyed siren, she'd deliberately tempted him-and very nearly lured him to the rocks.
That a woman could reduce his vaunted self-control to the merest vestige of its usual despotic strength was not a fact he liked to contemplate. He'd slept alone last night-not well. He'd spent half the night thinking, warily wondering. The truth was he was more deeply entangled than he'd thought. The truth was, he yearned to let go-to lose himself utterly-in loving her. Just formulating that thought was enough to unnerve him-he'd always equated losing control, especially in that arena, as a form of surrender.
To knowingly surrender-knowingly let go as she'd asked-was… too unnerving to imagine.
Their interaction had developed dangerous undercurrents-currents he'd failed to forsee when he'd set sail on this particular tack. What would happen if she held firm to her inexplicable refusal? Would he ever be able to give her up? Let her go? Marry some other woman?
Vane shifted on the hard seat and resettled the reins in his hands. He didn't even want to consider those questions. Indeed, he refused point-blank to consider them. If she could take a stance, so could he.
She was going to marry him-she was going to be his wife. He just had to convince her there was no sane alternative.
The first step was to discover the basis for her inexplicable stance, the reason she would not agree to marriage. As the curricle rolled on, the pace slow so the carriages could keep up, he wrestled with schemes to uncover Patience's problem, which had now become his.
They stopped briefly for lunch at Harpenden. Both Patience and Timms spent their time cosseting Minnie, still under the weather. Other than a low-voiced query as to Gerrard's strength, Patience had no time to spend with him. Laying her sisterly qualms to rest, he let her return to Minnie's side, squelching all thought of taking her up in his curricle. Minnie's need was greater than his.
Their cavalcade got under way again. Gerrard settled back, surveying all with a keen and curious eye. "I've never been this far south."
"Oh?" Vane kept his gaze on his horses. "Where, exactly, is your home?"
Gerrard told him, describing the valley outside Chesterfield using words like brushstrokes; Vane had no difficulty seeing it in his mind's eye. "We've always lived there," Gerrard concluded. "For the most part, Patience runs things, but she's been teaching me the ropes for the last year."
"It must have been hard when your father died so unexpectedly-difficult for your mother and Patience to take up the reins."
Gerrard shrugged. "Not really. They'd been managing the estate for years even then-first Mama, then Patience."
"But…" Vane frowned. He glanced at Gerrard. "Surely your father managed the estate?"
Gerrard shook his head. "He was never interested. Well, he was never there. He died when I was six, and I couldn't remember him even then. I can't recall him ever staying for more than a few nights. Mama said he preferred London and his London friends-he didn't come home very often. It used to make her sad."
His gaze grew distant as memory took hold. "She was always trying to describe him to us, how handsome and gentlemanly he was, how he rode so well to hounds, how he carried the cloak of a gentleman so elegantly. Whenever he appeared, even if for only one day, she was always eager for us to see how impressive he was." He grimaced. "But I can't recall what he looked like at all."
A chill struck Vane's soul. For Gerrard, with his vivid visual memory, to have no recollection of his father spoke volumes. Yet for well-heeled gentlemen to behave toward their families as Reginald Debbington had was not unheard of and no crime. Vane knew it. But he'd never before been close to the children of such men, never before had cause to feel sorrow and anger on their behalf-sorrow and anger they themselves, the deprived, did not know they should feel-for what their father had not given them. All the things his own family, the Cynsters, held dear-all they stood for-family, home, and hearth. To have and to hold was the Cynster motto. The first necessitated the second-that was something all male Cynsters understood from their earliest years. You desired, you seized-then you accepted responsibility. Actively. When it came to family, Cynsters were nothing if not active.
As the curricle bowled along, Vane struggled to grasp the reality Gerrard had described-he could see Gerrard's home, but couldn't conceive of its atmosphere, how it had functioned. The entire concept-a family without its natural leader, its most stalwart defender-was alien to him.
He could, however, imagine how Patience-his determined, independent, practical wife-to-be-would have viewed her father's behavior. Vane frowned. "Your father-was Patience very attached to him?"
&n
bsp; Gerrard's puzzled look was answer enough. "Attached to him?" His brows rose. "I don't think so. When he died, I remember her saying something about duty, and what was expected." After a moment, he added, "It's difficult to become attached to someone who's not there."
Someone who didn't value your attachment. Vane heard the words in his head-and wondered.
The shadows were lengthening when their cavalcade pulled up in Aldford Street, just west of South Audley Street. Vane threw the reins to Duggan and jumped down. Minnie's traveling carriage rocked to a stop behind his curricle, directly before the steps of Number 22. A discreet, gentleman's residence, Number 22 had been hired at short notice by a certain Mr. Montague, man of business to many of the Cynsters.
Opening the door of Minnie's carriage, Vane handed Patience to the pavement. Timms followed, then Minnie. Vane knew better than to attempt to carry her. Instead, with Patience lending support on her other side, he helped Minnie climb the steep steps. The rest of Minnie's household began debouching from their carriages, attracting the attention of late strollers. An army of footmen swarmed out of the house to assist with the luggage.
At the top of the steps, the front door stood open. Patience, carefully guiding Minnie, looked up as they gained the narrow porch-and discovered a strange personage standing in the front hall, holding the door wide. Stoop-shouldered, wiry, with an expression that would have done credit to a drenched cat, he was the oddest butler she'd ever encountered.
Vane, however, appeared to find nothing odd about the man; he nodded briefly as he helped Minnie over the threshold. "Sligo."
Sligo bowed. "Sir."
Minnie looked up and beamed. "Why, Sligo, what a pleasant surprise."
Following in Minnie's wake, Patience could have sworn Sligo blushed. Looking uncomfortable, he bowed again. "Ma'am."
In the melee that followed, as Minnie and Timms, then all the others, were received and shown to their rooms, Patience had ample time to observe Sligo, and the absolute rule he wielded over the junior servants. Both Masters and Mrs. Henderson, who had traveled up with their mistress, clearly recognized Sligo and treated him as a respected equal.
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