“You think too much,” Owen had said. “Just do it.”
It had been good advice. Her heart took a huge leap. The nervousness closed her throat. But her decision was made. It was time that she opened the door and banished those dark memories for good. It was time she stepped into the light.
She was going to seduce her husband. And she was going to do it tonight.
OWEN SAT IN THE CORNER OF THE carriage and watched Tess as they wended their way back to the Old George Inn in Greenwich for dinner. She was leaning forwards and gazing out of the window, her face averted from him. Given that it was almost full dark outside and that the snow was falling like a shroud now, he doubted that she could see much of the heath.
He wondered if her avoidance tactics were because she was shy, shocked by what had happened between them in the caverns. It did not seem likely given her incendiary response to him and he hoped it was not the case. He had seen the bemusement on her face when the candlelight had first fallen on it and there had been astonishment in her eyes but no dread and no fear. Tess was discovering something she had never known, something that she was amazed to find she enjoyed very much, and, truth to tell, he had been equally astonished by her eagerness and her unrestrained response. Owen bit off a smile. He had never seen himself as a tutor. The women he had known had been as experienced as he. But this was exciting stuff. Introducing Tess to physical pleasure, watching her delight in the discovery, was going straight to his head as well as to other fundamental parts of his body. And they had barely started. Soon, if he were not careful, he would believe himself God’s gift to women.
Soon she would be driving him to the edge of madness.
He had promised himself and promised her that he would take matters slowly, but twice now Tess’s passionate reaction to him had almost made him lose that control. He had been taken by surprise. He had underestimated her. She might be damaged by what had happened in her past but she was brave enough to try again.
Tess caught the edge of his glance and their eyes met. She gave him a smile he had never seen on her lips before, a smile full of promise, wickedly teasing. Owen realised with a shock that she had not been avoiding his gaze because she was shy, quite the contrary. She had been exploring all manner of decadent thoughts. She was intrigued by what had happened between them, not repulsed.
The air between them instantaneously seemed to heat and burn. Owen felt his body start to harden into arousal. He wanted to grab her, tumble her onto the carriage seat beneath him and make frantic love to her. The need he had for her seized him by the throat so hard and fast his mind reeled.
Hell. How could Tess do this to him with only a few kisses?
This was going to be excruciatingly difficult. He had had no idea. And now he was committed. He was honour-bound to take this very slowly indeed.
“Will we be there soon?” Tess said innocently, her blue eyes wide. “I am very hungry.”
Hell and the devil. So was he. Owen turned his mind away from the many and varied ways he wished to slake that hunger.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
IT WAS DANGEROUS FOR Tom Bradshaw to venture into Mayfair where so many people might recognise him and where so many wanted him arrested, tried and hanged. But it was more dangerous to stay away, because Tom knew that fate was closing in. It was the end game.
He had been following Justin Brooke all day, noting the places he went and whom he met. Now his quest had brought him to this shabby house in Dover Street, tucked almost unnoticed between Green’s Hotel and the Dragon Club. He slid around the back of the house, scaled the wall with considerable ease and dropped down onto a snow-covered terrace that looked directly through the dusty windows of a library.
There were three men in the room, hunched around a table before the fire. Tom had already known that Brooke would be there. A second man he accurately and contemptuously identified as Catesby, one of Lord Sidmouth’s most treacherous agents. Sidmouth would not attend such a meeting in person, of course. He would want total deniability that he had ever been involved in a plot such as this. But Tom knew the Home Secretary was implicated. He was in it up to his neck, in fact.
The third man was unknown to Tom and he viewed him with some interest. He was not young but neither was he old. He had an equine face framed by excessively large shirt points, a ridiculously dandified waistcoat and a rangy body slumped in one of the battered wing chairs. He was a gentleman by birth perhaps but no gentleman to be part of such an unholy trinity as this.
Tom watched as Brooke took from his pocket some drawings and laid them on the table. Sidmouth’s spy stooped over them like a hawk. The dandy picked one up, perused it lazily and dropped it with a laugh. Tom pressed closer to the window. Even from here he could see the cartoons with their strong black lines and the arrogant signature by Jupiter. For a moment Tom was shocked that Rothbury must have ignored his warning and not told Tess of the danger in which she stood if she continued to act as the radicals’ cartoonist. Then his stomach dropped as the truth hit him. These were not Tess’s drawings. They were Emma’s work. Justin Brooke must have persuaded his sister to take up the mantle of Jupiter as caricaturist for the radical faction, and Emma, always so ardent in support of those causes she believed in, had agreed. Tom beat his fist against the rough stone of the wall. Emma had been in enough danger before when she had merely attended the radical meetings. By becoming Jupiter, the figurehead of the radicals, she was stepping directly into the line of fire.
Sidmouth’s spy was addressing Justin, firing off questions at him. From what Tom could gather they were going to use the caricatures to incite violent trouble at the next big radical meeting the following week. But that was not all. Sidmouth wanted to capture Jupiter, the figurehead, the talisman, and Brooke was nodding. The dandified wretch in his gold brocade waistcoat was suddenly alive as though someone had jerked his strings and was sitting forwards, and it was Tess Rothbury’s name that had caught his interest. Catesby was talking now about how they could use the cartoons to trap and arrest Tess, and Brooke looked as though he wanted to protest, but in the end he slumped in his seat, his face grey, and said nothing at all. Tom could see that Brooke had betrayed Tess, just as he had suspected he would. And now Sidmouth’s spy also knew that Emma had been complicit in the drawing of the cartoons and that made Tom’s heart contract with terror because Sidmouth was ruthless and Emma was in terrible danger and her own brother had put her there.
Tom felt a wave of despair sweep through him. He did not know how to warn Emma. She would never believe a word against her brother, least of all if the warning came from him. Emma had steadfastly refused to see him and Tom knew that Brooke, who had orchestrated his removal from Emma’s life in the first place, had completely poisoned her mind against him. Yet still he had to try to persuade her of her brother’s perfidy before it was too late. And he had no notion how he was going to do it.
TESS WAS NOT HUNGRY. IT WAS A shocking waste of good food, she thought, but there was no getting away from it. Ever since she had decided that she was going to seduce Owen she had been simultaneously exhilarated and terrified, completely unable to eat a crumb. Nature was conspiring with her too; by the time they had reached Greenwich the snow was too thick for them to return to town and they were marooned at the Old George Inn for the night.
The inn parlour was deliciously warm, with an open fire that had soon thawed the cold from the caverns and soothed Tess after the long, slow drive through the snow. The beef pie steamed deliciously and there was hot soup to tempt her if the pie did not. The landlord had already been in twice, his brow increasingly furrowed when he saw she had not touched the food and drunk only a drop or two of her coffee.
“You’ll make the poor man most unhappy if he thinks his food not good enough for the Viscountess Rothbury.” Owen had discarded his jacket and was sitting opposite her, elbows on the table, shirtsleeves rolled up and showing his muscular forearms dusted with golden hairs. His voice was cheerful but in his eyes was
the same concentrated intensity with which he had been watching her since they had arrived. Something clenched inside Tess, released and clenched again, and she found the latest mouthful of pie had turned to sawdust in her mouth and the breath was trapped in her throat.
“It’s your fault.” She wanted to sound cross but the words came out too faint to contain any authority. She drew a jerky breath. “All you do is look at me. Like that.”
A smile she could only describe as smug curved Owen’s lips. “And so you lose your appetite?” he said.
“Yes, damn you.” She pushed the plate away. The soup slopped. “I’m hungry. Starving. But when you look at me like that you make me nervous.”
The smile in Owen’s eyes made her heart ache fiercely. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You have nothing to fear.” He stretched. Tess watched the ripple of muscle beneath the linen of his shirt. “I have booked two separate rooms.”
“I don’t want my own room,” Tess said. “I want to stay with you.” She felt hot, mortified, and yet there was a razor-sharp edge of excitement in her stomach. She swallowed convulsively. Well, the words were out now. Let him make of them what he would.
Owen stilled. He put down the beaker of ale he was holding. “If you are concerned that you will not be safe on your own I can assure you that this is a very respectable inn.”
“Please don’t be obtuse,” Tess whispered. “I do not want my own chamber as I wish to be with you. I want to make love with you.”
She pressed her palms together. They felt slightly damp. Her whole body felt strange, aware of each shift and slide of her gown like a caress against her skin. She was burning up inside, part anxiety, part wicked delight. She was not sure if she was mad to take this risk and entrust herself to Owen when she was so uncertain of everything. She only knew that her instinct prompted her to give herself to him. She had been alone for ten long, barren years and now that could change only if she took a leap of faith.
Owen looked completely winded. In the light from the fire Tess watched his expression. There was shock there, she thought, but also temptation. She felt a flare of hope.
“Teresa,” he said. “It’s too soon.”
“Ten years is not too soon,” Tess said.
Owen rubbed his forehead. “This morning you wanted a divorce.”
“I didn’t really,” Tess said. “But fear has become a habit for me. I was accustomed to running away, but you made me stand and face it.” She spread her hands in a gesture of appeal. “Owen, if we wait I shall only become more anxious, not less so. I shall be forever worrying about what will happen when finally you … we …” She stopped, groped for words. “The longer it goes on, the worse it will be.”
“So you want to get it over with.” Owen’s face was impassive. “Not precisely the approach I would wish.”
“It’s like riding a horse….” Tess stopped again and blushed. “Well, perhaps that is an infelicitous analogy, but what I mean is that I should have tried again long ago, instead of becoming imprisoned in my own fears.” Her voice dropped. “But until now I had not met anyone I would have trusted sufficiently to make love to me.” She raised her eyes to his. “Please don’t refuse me.”
She could sense the conflict in him. “Teresa,” he said. “Damn it, I’m trying to do the right thing here.”
“This is right,” Tess said. She came across to him and laid her mouth on his. “It could not be more right,” she whispered against his lips.
For a moment Owen did not respond, but then his hand came up to cup the back of her head and his lips parted hers and he kissed her back, fierce and sweet.
Then he put her away from him. “Teresa,” he said.
Tess was not going to give him the chance to refuse her again. She slid onto his lap and kissed him again, her hand delving beneath the linen of his shirt to find the warmth of the skin beneath, splaying her fingers over his heart.
“You know you want me,” she said. “Owen, please …”
Owen gave a small groan. The heat and light in his eyes was so bright it scorched her, arousing in her an excitement that eclipsed the fear as the sun eclipsed the moonlight.
“Please,” she whispered again.
Owen made an inarticulate sound that Tess interpreted as encouragement to kiss him again. She snuggled closer and felt the resistance in him falter. He pulled her to him with sudden need and then he was kissing her deeply, desperately, and the light burst in Tess’s mind like a scattering of stars and she was not afraid at all, but fiercely glad.
“Oh, thank goodness,” she said, as his lips left hers briefly and she was able to draw breath. “At last—”
He kissed her again. It was blissful, wicked and delicious. She opened her mouth to the demand of his and every desire flared into life.
Owen drew back a little. He rested his forehead against hers. He was breathing hard. “You can change your mind at any point, you know,” he said. There was amusement, desire and deep understanding in his eyes and it made Tess’s heart turn over.
“Yes,” she said. “No. I won’t want to.”
She wanted to run from the heat she saw in his eyes. But she wanted to be caught as well.
“You think too much,” she said, smiling. She drew his head back down to hers for another kiss.
“Not here.” A long, breathless, heated time later he released her. “Upstairs.”
It was fortunate that the night was so inclement and the visitors to the inn so few so no one could see them as they stumbled up the twisting stairs and into one of the rooms that the landlord had set aside. Tess barely noticed it, registering only that it had a huge, deep bed. The curtains were closed against the snowy night and the room was warm and intimately dark with only one candle and the light from the fire.
Owen closed the door and stood resting his palms against it, looking at her. He looked wonderfully dishevelled, she thought, his shirt hanging open, the hair falling across his brow. Her pulse was hammering, nervousness and anticipation inextricably bound together in a taut knot inside her.
“Are you scared too?” she asked.
Owen laughed. “It would be an unusual man who would admit to such a thing.”
“You are an unusual man,” Tess said. “So?”
“A little.” He lightly touched a curl of auburn hair that nestled in the hollow of her throat. “It’s a responsibility as well as a privilege.”
It was not, she soon realised, a responsibility that he was going to hurry. He drew her down beside him on the bed and kissed her until she felt dizzy and wanting, and her body felt heavy with desire and her clothes felt as though they were an intolerable imposition.
“I need …” She struggled for a moment to be free and Owen released her instantly. He was pale and breathing hard.
“To get rid of my clothes,” Tess finished, and his expression relaxed.
“I can help,” he said, with a wicked smile, “but you will find me a poor lady’s maid.”
“No matter.” Tess started to unfasten the buttons on her bodice. Her hands shook and slipped a little with impatience, matching the quiver of eager need that was inside her. Owen was watching the movement of her fingers, his head bent and his expression intent. Tess looked up.
“I thought you said you would help.”
His methods, she found, were as direct as the man himself. Direct and intensely exciting. He tumbled her back down onto the bed, pushed aside the bodice of her gown and tugged the ribbon on her chemise. His hands were warm on her bare shoulders as he slid the material down over the curves of her breasts. Tess lay still, pleasurably, sublimely shocked, absorbing the kiss of the air against her naked skin, absorbing too the heat and desire in Owen’s gaze as he looked on her.
“You’re so beautiful….”
He sounded almost reverent. His hands swept over her, every curve and every hollow, worshipping her just as he had promised. He feathered kisses along her neck and down to the tender line of her collarbone. His tongue flicked the ho
t skin there and moved on to taste the base of her throat. Tess found she wanted to arch upwards to the mastery of his touch.
He bent his head to her breasts then paused, his lips an inch away from her nipple. In a second she was back in the Blackheath Cavern, remembering the tug and pull of his mouth on her. The memory conjured a hot, sliding excitement inside her. She could not help herself then; she arched to meet his lips and gave a broken cry as he took her in his mouth.
She wanted more of this. More of the sensuous flick of his tongue over her, more of the teasing nip of his teeth, more of this extraordinary pleasure. She had never known this, never imagined it.
“You taste delicious.” Owen raised his head a little. “I want to eat you.”
He did. Tiny biting kisses that raised the goose bumps all over her breasts as his teeth grazed her and his tongue salved away the hurt, and Tess groaned at the ecstasy of it and writhed against the covers, feeling the provocative chafing of the brocade bedspread against her naked back.
“I should have shaved,” Owen said, looking up, seeing the stung pink skin of her breasts.
“No,” Tess said, with feeling. “You should not.”
He laughed and came down beside her. “My darling.” He kissed her, deep and hot, his hand replacing his lips at her breast, fingers teasing the hard nipple until she squirmed.
She wanted to ask him to hurry. She wanted to beg him to make love to her. There was such a hot, demanding ache inside her. Her legs were all tangled in the weight of her skirts and the linen of her petticoats. The folds of material felt unbearably heavy, holding her down.
“Please …” The word slipped from her lips before she could prevent it and she saw his lips curve into a smile of delight.
“You like it.” He sounded relieved. He licked the underside of her breast and she gave a laugh that broke on a moan. Liking was far too small a word for what she was feeling. She reached out and unfastened his pantaloons, fumbling a little with the button. She heard his breath hiss through his teeth in shock.
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