by Lucy Ashford
Lucas whirled around to face her. And what had registered only faintly at first in her mind became all too clear. Verena, you fool, charging in without waiting.
He was clad only in hip-hugging buckskin breeches. His calves, strong and shapely, were unclad, as were his feet. She was presented with the full sight of that manly golden torso rippling with muscle, the broad chest and shoulders tapering down in smooth sculpted ridges to the perfection of his slim waist and loins.
Her throat was dry. No man had the right to look so beautiful.
In the unfortunate event of a young lady finding herself alone in a room with a man, she must avert her eyes, say nothing and leave immediately.
Miss Bonamy should try looking at Lucas Conistone, half-undressed, and see if she could avert her eyes.
Verena swallowed and said, as steadily as she could, ‘What has happened, my lord?’ and then she realised. He had been trying his best to hold a wad of bandaging to it, but his wounded arm was bleeding again. ‘Oh, Lucas’. She hurried instinctively towards him, all embarrassment forgotten. ‘Let me see to that, before you bleed to death. But how…?’ She glanced in distress at the broken window again.
He said through gritted teeth, ‘It’s nothing. Just the gale outside. A piece of a branch came flying through’.
There was a breeze from the sea, but she wouldn’t have called it a gale. Doubt assailed her. She stiffened. ‘Really? Then where is it, this branch?’
‘I tossed it outside again,’ he swiftly replied. ‘You weren’t meant to be here, you were meant to be at your sister’s’.
‘The visit had to be cancelled,’ she muttered. ‘Just as well—I cannot leave you for one hour, it seems. Please sit on the bed, my lord, and I will bandage your wound again. Where is Bentinck? I must send him for Dr Pilkington in Framlington—’
‘No’.
His voice was so harsh that she looked at him wonderingly. ‘No?’
‘There is no need, Verena,’ he said more gently. He sat down at last, on the edge of the bed.
Then she saw it. The ugly scar snaking along his left ribs, a raised and angry seam, still not fully healed; the result, Dr Pilkington had said, of a vicious thrust from a French sabre… ‘Lucas’. She was staring at it, horrified.
‘An old wound,’ he said quickly. ‘It’s nothing’.
‘It’s not old! I’m not a fool, Lucas!’
He sighed. ‘You’re determined to out all my secrets, aren’t you? Very well—I fought a duel a few months ago’.
A duel? With a man wielding a French sabre?
She thought not.
None of her business. None of her business…. But her hands were shaking.
‘I’d better patch you up again,’ she said as steadily as she could.
‘Yes, but, Verena, look, the bleeding’s all but stopped’. He had turned so she could no longer see that scar, but instead she saw the blood that still trickled steadily down his right arm.
‘It hasn’t stopped and I must bind it’. She did so quickly and efficiently, finding a pad of clean linen and getting to work. She pretended to herself that it was just like seeing to one of her younger sisters’ scratches when they used to romp in the garden; pretended that the warm skin overlaying taut sinews against which her fingertips brushed was having no effect on her whatsoever.
A downright lie. She had never realised a man’s body could be so exquisite. The strong, golden musculature of his chest and shoulders made her pulse race sweetly. Her head was swimming at his nearness. At the male scent of him. ‘There,’ she said, with a passable effort at brisk efficiency. ‘Now, I will fetch you some tea, or brandy, and something to eat. Cook left a tray for you in the kitchen, for your supper, but I saw it has not been touched’.
‘No!’ he insisted again.
She lifted her shoulders in near-despair. ‘Lucas, you need to restore your strength! Wherever has Bentinck got to? He might persuade you into some sense!’
Lucas said shortly, ‘I sent Bentinck to the village earlier’.
‘To the village…’
‘Yes. To the alehouse’.
‘Then we are alone?’
‘We are alone’. He added, disarmingly softly, ‘Is that so terrible?’
She tried to draw away, pushing back her tousled chestnut hair from her cheeks. ‘What’s happened to this room is terrible!’ she declared, trying to hide her confusion by feigning housewifely concern. ‘My goodness, I really must tidy up the broken glass, and see about getting the broken window boarded up before I go—’
‘There are shutters,’ he gently reminded her. ‘Will not they suffice? And Bentinck will sweep up the glass when he finally returns. There’s no reason for you to do the work of a servant’.
‘Nevertheless, I—’
He caught hold of her shoulder. ‘I meant it. You should value yourself more, Verena’.
She froze at his touch. Her eyes were wide and heartsore. ‘Value myself more?’ she whispered. ‘When you do not even value me enough to tell me the truth? Ever since you arrived on the day of that hateful sale, things have happened here, Lucas, bad things! Those men above Ragg’s Cove, who shot you. Now, this!’
‘Sit down, Verena,’ he commanded quietly.
She did so, almost numbly, on one of the chairs beside the bed. He poured her some wine, kept by his bedside, and pushed the glass towards her. ‘Drink,’ he said. ‘It will help’.
Her fingers trembling, she took a tiny sip.
He dragged another chair across and sat astride it, his eyes never leaving her face. ‘Do you know,’ he went on softly, ‘when I saw you two years ago I thought you were something out of a dream’. Her pulse began to race. ‘It was that wonderful autumn,’ he went on. ‘You were sitting in the shade of the haystack, Verena, in your sprigged muslin gown and sunbonnet, with your spectacles perched delightfully on the end of your nose. You’d flung aside your book on etiquette and were reading about farming. Turnips’.
Her heart thumped. She gulped down too much wine. She said tightly, ‘I suppose you found me—and all of us—amusing!’
‘Amusing?’ He refilled her glass; his face was serious. ‘I was home, from the war. And you were my island of sanity, Verena. You were at the heart of my dream of another life’. His hooded eyes darkened. He whispered, ‘I need that dream now’.
For a moment she was unable to speak. He went on, ‘They were happy days, that autumn, weren’t they? You know, I’d made such plans for myself, Verena. But then I found my world turned upside down. Because I’d fallen in love with you’.
She could hardly breathe. She was sure he must hear her heart breaking all over again, for she could. His grandfather’s hideous message still seared her mind.
She drank more wine. She said, striving to keep her voice steady, ‘Lucas, there is no point in going back over all this…’
‘There is,’ he said. ‘There is every point. Now I have some idea, at last, of the damage my grandfather has done. Not only did he try to ruin your family financially; but he has insulted you quite vilely’.
‘How do you—’
‘I’ve been to see him. This afternoon. I know everything, Verena. And I want you to know that I’ve said nothing at all to him, either two years ago or at any time since, of how I felt about you; of my plans, for the two of us…’
Her heart was thudding wildly. ‘Oh, Lucas’.
He caught her hand. ‘I loved you,’ he broke in. ‘But you stopped caring for me. Tell me, for God’s sake, why you despise me so much. Why you were so ready to believe slanders about me, even though I begged you to trust me before I went away. Is it because you think I’m a coward?’
‘No! Never!’ Her voice broke. ‘I’ve told you—how could I possibly think you a coward, when you were actually shot for saving me from those vile men who attacked me?’
‘Having observed for myself how intrepid you are,’ he said drily, ‘I believe you could probably have taken them on yourself’. And he smiled. But suddenly he
looked deathly tired. She wanted to take him in her arms, and soothe that pale, handsome face, that strong jawline now shadowed by stubble, with soft, cherishing kisses. He’d talked of his love for her. He said he hadn’t betrayed her to the Earl. Too late. Far too late. All in the past. And oh, Lord, she’d had too much to drink.
She said, her heart and mind in turmoil, ‘Lucas, listen to me, please! I cannot let you pay Mr Mayhew’s bills, or the surety! We must talk of this again, tomorrow, perhaps, or with Mr Mayhew present—’
‘No,’ he said. ‘No. We might not get this chance to talk again, for some time!’
Her eyes clouded. ‘You have had opportunities before, Lucas. Long before, if you had wished to take them’.
‘I wrote to you. You never replied. You told me yourself that you burned my letters’.
Her hand flew to her throat. True.
‘Then,’ he went on steadily, ‘I heard your sister Deborah would be at Lady Willoughby’s party in London—though what your mother was doing taking her unmarried daughter to such a shabby affair I could not understand—so I went, and asked your sister to tell you that I needed an answer to my letters, for all sorts of reasons. Obviously my plea did nothing to change your mind’.
She gazed at him, transfixed. ‘My—my sister did not pass on that message’. She felt sick to her stomach. Oh, Lucas. No point in telling him about Deb’s lies and multiplying the mischief already done.
Lucas raked his hand tiredly through his hair. ‘Deuce take it,’ he said tersely, ‘between us we have been ill served by our families! I’m sorry. You loved your father very much, I know. Verena—is it true he promised you that some day he would make you all rich?’
She swallowed, hard. ‘He did, yes. He—he spoke of some secret that is gone now for ever…’ Her low voice resonated with heartbreak. ‘We lost my dear father. We lost everything’.
Lucas was silent for a moment and the candles flickered fitfully. ‘Do you know how he died?’
‘It was an accident, in the mountains. A terrible accident’.
Lucas bowed his head so she could not see his eyes. Then he lifted his face again and said, ‘Verena. What if I can help you? What if I can help Wycherley? ‘
She lifted her head with a jerk. Guard yourself, Verena. ‘We will not accept charity! We will not be any further in your debt!’
His jaw was set in determination. ‘I’m not offering charity! What if there’s a sum of money that’s legally owed to you, Verena? Do you place your damned pride higher than your concern for the estate, its workers, your own family?’
Her distress showed in her amber-gold eyes. ‘How can you even ask? I care more than anything! Not just for us, but—if the Earl buys Wycherley, our villagers will suffer. I know the Earl will be a harsh landlord’.
‘If you just trust me,’ he said, ‘I will see that justice is done’.
She stood for a moment in stunned silence, her face a vivid picture. At last she breathed, ‘Each way I turn, you are there ahead of me. It is as if you are pulling strings over which I have no control. Oh, Lucas, I cannot take the risk of trusting you!’
He said—nothing. She clenched her hands at her sides, and went on, rather desperately, ‘This must be tiring you. I will leave you to rest’.
He sighed. ‘Come here,’ he said quietly.
Lucas knew this was the moment. ‘Come here,’ he murmured again.
And slowly, as if mesmerised, she obeyed.
Chapter Eleven
His grandfather. Her foolish mother and sisters. They’d all worked their mischief on this beautiful woman. Lucas Conistone steeled himself. Now he, with full knowledge of what he was doing, was about to take the greatest of all risks with her future happiness.
‘Verena’. With his free hand he again took her by the shoulder. Turned her to face an oval looking-glass hanging on the wall. ‘Look at yourself, Verena’.
He, too, gazed in silence at her huge dark-lashed amber eyes set in that perfect heart-shaped face. Saw the gleaming chestnut hair, rippling loosely past her shoulders; saw those full, curving lips that looked as if they remembered his last kiss, and longed for another.
This was the moment. Enemies were closing in. He had to make her his, before it was too late.
Before she found out—everything.
And, God forgive him, innocent that she was, wronged as she was, she was making it so damned easy.
He lifted her rich heavy hair that was faintly scented with lavender and kissed the nape of her neck. Before she could say anything, he began to gently ease her shabby old gown from her shoulders. Her creamy smooth skin glowed in the candlelight. His long fingers pushed her bodice lower.
The silk chemise. No corset, but—she was wearing that silk chemise.
‘Lucas…’ she breathed. ‘Lucas, no…’
He let his warm hand rest on the sweet swell of one breast. Felt his loins tightening. He said, ‘Once I thought you loved me’.
She bit her lip and tried to pull away. ‘Ridiculous! Why should I imagine that there could be anything more than friendship—’
He clasped her closer. ‘Friendship?’ he broke in. ‘What about—desire? Look into that mirror. If nothing else, I want you to see how beautiful you are. You have been cast into the shade by your selfish family for far too long. What man in his right mind would not desire you?’ He swung her round to face him.
‘Lucas,’ she whispered, ‘this is impossible…’
The silk chemise had slipped, to reveal one cherry-tipped breast. He put his left arm round her and drew her close.
He was standing over her, towering over her. He put his finger to her cheek and drew it lightly down her skin. Scorched by his touch, Verena instinctively backed away, only to feel his arm curl more firmly around her and tug her towards him so she all but fell against his naked chest. ‘Lucas—’ Strong fingers caught hold of her chin, tilting it as his mouth closed over hers in a kiss that stopped the breath in her throat.
And Verena was lost. To his tenderness. To his silken voice. The sensation of her acutely sensitive bosom chafing gently against his rippling, hard-muscled chest, his silken warm skin, was so delicious as to make her almost swoon. The wine, she told herself. But it wasn’t the wine. It was Lucas.
‘You are beautiful, Miss Sheldon,’ he murmured in her ear.
And it was then that his kiss began. A kiss that reached in and tugged at her heart and deeper. A kiss so exquisite she thought she would die of joy, except that she wanted more; her breasts ached for more and at the juncture of her thighs was liquid longing.
She leaned into the welcome of his warm enfolding body, weak with desire. Now he was prising her lips apart, his tongue assertively tracing the soft inner flesh of her mouth, then probing, teasing, enticing.
Little flames began their dance of desire at the pit of her abdomen. His hand slid up to cup the nape of her neck as he deepened his kiss and she felt herself responding.
Lucas. Her eyes fluttered shut. She felt her nipples pucker and tingle as his firm tongue began an insistent, rhythmic probing in her mouth that awakened still further the tormenting desire at all the sensitive parts of her body. Her own hands were sliding round his shoulders with a will of their own, pressing flat against the firm, muscled flesh of his back that was so silken, so warm. She let his tongue in deeper, shyly caressed it with her own, becoming so lost in this wondrous feeling that embroiled all her senses that she forgot everything as she clasped him tighter and felt—oh, Lord, she felt the hard, pulsing arousal at his loins.
‘Hell’. It was he who pulled away from her, gasping. ‘My arm…’
‘I’m sorry, Lucas. So sorry!’
‘Don’t be’. He was still caressing the nape of her neck where her chestnut curls tumbled free. Circling the spot rhythmically with the pad of his thumb, in a meaningful pattern that made her go hot and cold. ‘No harm done’.
But much harm had been done. A harlot. No better than a fortune-hunting harlot. The Earl’s savage w
ords lashed her anew, for that was what everyone would think… She jerked away. Stood clumsily, straightening her hair and pulling up her gown, unable to meet his eyes. She could still taste him. Still feel that strong, warm body, lithe and hard against her own, compelling her, so clearly desiring her.
No more than she desired him.
As if he guessed her innermost thoughts, he rapped out, ‘My grandfather is a fool and a liar. Forget his wicked insults. Stay with me’.
She whispered, ‘But this is madness. Someone might come in’.
He went to bolt the door. ‘Stay’.
It was nothing less than a command. And resistance was useless, for by the time he returned to take her in his arms again, her body had already surrendered.
His long, fine fingers stroked her velvety throat, then tilted her chin as he lowered his lips to hers. Gently he savoured her; it was not enough. The touch of his silken skin, the strong smooth muscles beneath, the male scent of him, the feel of his tongue stroking hers rhythmically, all were intoxicating. Heady as rich wine, causing the blood to pound heavily through her veins, making her languorous, dizzy with desire.
With the utmost care, he eased her gown down to her waist. That silky undergarment: sensuous, gorgeous…. He felt lust rearing, fought it down; he needed, above all, not to frighten her. He slipped off one delicate shoulder strap with care, with devotion. The peak of her breast stood out, coral-red, from its flushed areola; he caressed the nub with his thumb pad, then bent to take it in his mouth. She cried out as tremors ricocheted through her and clung to his shoulders for support, arching her back in an intense spasm of primitive desire. He lifted his head, watching her face, his eyes dark and unfathomable. ‘Meu amor,’ he whispered.
He guided her to the bed and eased her down against the pillows. She was clad now only in her flimsy chemise and stockings. Verena clung to him, heavy with need, wanting him to lie with her, wanting to feel his muscled body hard against her nakedness, wanting him to fill her aching emptiness. But he kissed her mouth instead, until she was liquid with hunger, and then she felt his hand pushing up her gown, touching the delicate skin of her thigh above her white stocking.