She couldn’t remember. Really. “I don’t know, Ian. I don’t. Honestly.”
He abruptly pulled back, and a small moan escaped her throat.
“Now, let’s talk about that painting.”
Flustered, she glanced down to notice that he’d left her exposed. “Would you please offer me a bit of decency and lift the nightgown?”
He lowered his gaze. “I don’t think so.” Then with very swift fingers, he pulled the top of her nightdress down to expose the other. “You have beautiful breasts, Viola.” Seconds later, he leaned over and kissed the space between them, nuzzling her cleavage.
She moaned. “God, Ian, please stop this. Please.”
He raised his head a fraction and glanced up. “Then tell me about that painting.”
“What—” she gasped. “What do you want to know?”
Without pause, he asked, “Was it of you and me, together?”
“No,” she stated emphatically.
His tongue found her nipple, nearly jolting her off the mattress. Obviously, he didn’t believe her.
“It was a fantasy,” she whispered.
Seconds later, he raised his head once more and looked at her. “We never made love like that?”
“No, I swear it.”
He watched her closely, trying to decide if she offered him the truth. Then he asked softly, “Was it something you envisioned us doing?”
She hesitated, and just as she felt his palm begin to lift her nightgown at her ankles, she admitted, “It was my dream, Ian, yes. I wanted to be with you like that. But it was a long time ago, when I was young and naive.”
He smirked. “The painting certainly doesn’t depict that of a naive artist.”
She looked at the ceiling.
“So,” he continued, “if we didn’t make love in that particular . . . pose, how then did we do it?”
She didn’t respond.
He sighed. “Viola, we both know your child is also mine. How was he conceived?”
She closed her eyes. “He is not your child.”
For a long time, it seemed, he remained still and silent beside her. She could feel his gaze on her, as if he was trying to penetrate her mind, perhaps trying to decide if he should continue this ridiculous game or release her knowing he’d never get her to divulge her secrets. And then, just as she was about to suggest a truce, she felt his fingers pulling at the hem of her nightgown as he very slowly began to lift it.
She raised her lashes; her mouth went dry as she gazed into his eyes once more, a witness to a defiance she’d never seen in him before.
“Since you refuse to tell me the truth, much less the details,” he murmured, “it appears I’ll have to try to remember it myself.”
“There is nothing to remember,” she said, attempting to be rational.
He ignored her, continuing to raise the soft linen past her calves, her knees.
“Please don’t do this, Ian,” she whispered, though she knew the words sounded more like forced, ladylike appropriateness than pleading despair.
He never dropped his gaze from hers, though he paused in his movements when his fingers reached her thighs. “Then tell me honestly: did I teach you passion, Viola? Did I touch you the way you touched me?”
She really didn’t think it mattered now if she lied or not. “Yes.”
The slightest flicker of surprise crossed his features. “Did you beg me?”
Heat flowed through her veins as she shook her head. “No. I—I didn’t know.”
“Didn’t know?”
For seconds she said nothing, then again felt his fingertips begin to trace a line of tender circles up her thigh. “I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know anything.”
He drew in a long breath. “I see. You didn’t know what an orgasm was?”
Squeezing her eyes shut, she whispered, “I can’t talk about this.”
He continued to caress her. Then in a soothing, velvety voice, he asked, “Did I give you your first orgasm, Viola? Make you come for me?”
She shook her head.
“I wasn’t able to pleasure you?”
He sounded almost incredulous. With a growing sense of guilt, embarrassment, and desperation, she said, “I don’t remember, Ian, it was so long ago—”
His chuckle cut her off. “You’re lying again, my dear Lady Cheshire. I may not be the world’s greatest lover, but I am not inept, even when physically hindered, as I was then. And if I made you climax, you would remember.”
She whimpered just as she suddenly felt him push his fingers up and under her nightdress so that they brushed against her intimate curls. Now exposed nearly to her hips, she instinctively crossed her legs.
“That won’t work,” he said. Using both hands, he pressed them between her knees, pulled them apart with little effort, leaned over one leg and braced his body between them—propped up by his elbow—to keep her wide open for his view. “God, this is a lovely sight. I could stay here and stare at this all day.”
She wanted to cry, to scream, bewildered as to why a man would want to look at a lady’s private parts for any length of time, and completely unable to tell if he was teasing or serious or just trying to torture her with continued mortification. But most of all, she desperately wished he would lean forward five inches and kiss her there.
“Is your goal to utterly humiliate me?” she managed to whisper as each passing moment under his scrutiny grew ever more intolerable. “Because you’re doing a stupendous job, your grace.”
When the silence continued to linger, she bravely raised her lashes to find him watching her, his eyes narrowed and focused intently on her face.
“I can smell your scent, Viola.”
She stilled inside. It wasn’t as if his words shocked her more than any others, but rather his tone had changed so abruptly, altered so dramatically in its intensity, that she realized he’d suddenly remembered something intimate about her and their time in the dungeon. Nerves afire, she licked her lips and said nothing.
And then she felt his finger, one finger on her, tenderly brushing the curls, as if he was trying to discover a treasure beneath the folds. She inhaled sharply as her breath caught, but she couldn’t drop her gaze from his.
“Answer my question,” he said, his voice low and rough.
She couldn’t remember the question at all. “I can’t . . . think, Ian.”
His jaw twitched. “Did I pleasure you?” he asked again, his finger still teasing her intimately.
“God, why are you doing this?” she asked through a whimper.
His touch grew bolder as he moved in closer. “You’re getting so wet now,” he said. “Tell me what I want to know and I’ll stop.”
She didn’t want him to stop! But she couldn’t move at all, couldn’t resist, couldn’t defy him. Closing her eyes once more, she turned her head to the side. “Yes . . .”
Pausing, he pulled back a little. “Yes? I made you come?”
“Yes.”
A soft groan escaped him, and she couldn’t decide if he was disturbed by the revelation for some reason or feeling rather triumphant as a man. But she didn’t dare look at him.
“Please leave, Ian.”
“No.”
He said the word so softly that she almost didn’t hear it. And then she felt his finger slide up and down her intimately again, then two, then three fingers.
He began to stroke her slowly. She whimpered, shook her head, eyes squeezed shut. “Ian . . . no . . .”
“I have another question,” he whispered, leaning over to brush his lips against her thigh.
She shivered.
“When you touch yourself now, like this, do you think of me?”
She pulled against the ribbons, moaned lightl
y, tried to lift her hips to shove him away even as she knew he’d pinned her so well beneath him that the act was fruitless.
“Viola?”
The tension began to coil within. Her breath quickened, her pulse raced. Finally, she raised her lashes again just enough to find him staring at her face, his gaze focused, grave.
“Do you ever think of me making love to you?” he asked in a deep whisper. “Do you stare at your paintings and touch yourself and think of me?”
She couldn’t believe he was asking her this, stroking her intimately, watching her as he took her to the heights of bliss with a purpose so fervent she could see it in his expression, feel it radiate from him. Suddenly it became clear how desperately he wanted her to want him. Then, and now.
“Always,” she breathed, “and only with you . . .”
He hadn’t expected that. For a slice of a second he hesitated, his features going slack as genuine surprise crossed his face. Then he swallowed hard and glanced down to where his fingers caressed her.
And without warning or expectation she felt his lips on her, then his tongue, and she softly cried out in exquisite delight. He ignored her shock, her breathless wonder as he spread her knees wider apart to give him better access.
Finding his rhythm, he began to stroke her, to make love to her with his mouth, and she gave in to the pleasure, raising her hips to meet his every move. It took only seconds for the tension to once again build to delicious heights. She gripped the ribbons with her hands, whimpered as he brought her closer to the edge, and just as she felt his finger glide into her, the pressure exploded within.
She arched back, moaning, feeling each powerful pulse course through her. He continued his glorious assault for several long seconds until he felt her begin to relax, heard her breathing slow. Finally he pulled away and sat up a little. He wiped the sheet across his mouth and stared down at her flushed face.
“You’re very beautiful, Viola,” he said contemplatively.
Senses returning, she suddenly felt exposed, overwhelmed, embarrassed. She closed her eyes and turned her head away again, having no idea what to say.
“Tell me what happened. Tell me he’s my child.”
His voice remained quiet, but beneath the masculine bravado, she could sense his frustration, his longing, and a bit of resentment. It took all that was in her not to blurt out the truth.
“I suppose you want to take me now, tied up and at your whim?” she asked without looking at him.
After several seconds of strained silence, she heard him reach into his satchel. She opened her eyes to see him remove a six-inch knife. Quickly, he leaned over her and cut both ribbons at mid-stream.
“Sleep well, madam,” he said flatly.
With that, he gathered his things and left the cottage without another glance in her direction, locking her inside once more, alone with only her thoughts.
Chapter Seventeen
Today was the end of my innocence, in every way. It was an end he sought, but to which I yielded, with compassion and desire and love in my heart, and now that it’s over, I have no regrets, only memories to last a lifetime. . . .
Ian paced the floor of his study, too anxious to sleep, unable to focus on anything but her and the miserable position he’d put himself in when he’d decided to tease her, taste her, then leave her instead of having his way with her delectable body and relieving the sexual tension that had been building inside him since Fairbourne had introduced her to him weeks ago as the beautifully sensual, grown-up Lady Cheshire. Now, after hours of trying to rationalize it all, he felt all the more confounded by his behavior toward her, and angry for denying his own needs for the sake of . . . what? His honor? Her honor? What a damnable laugh.
He couldn’t get her out of his mind. Her scent lingered on his skin, the sound of her breathless climax both soothed and irritated his senses, making his head hurt more than the half bottle of whiskey he’d downed since he’d left her. And all of it stirred his forgotten memory, turning his usually practical, intelligent brain into a muddy puddle of acute distraction and mild bewilderment.
Making love to her had not been his prime objective when he’d gone to the cottage to confront her, his ribbons in tow. He’d merely wanted to put a bit of fear in her, to demonstrate his power over her, to let her experience how it felt to be restrained and at someone else’s mercy. And he’d no doubt accomplished his goal. His plan had worked perfectly, at least at first. Using sexually suggestive touch had been well and good, an added bonus of manipulation, his intention to take her so far she’d beg for release, at which point he’d leave her to her own frustration and musings. Arousing her to climax had never been his intent—until he’d sat there and made her body come alive at his touch, felt her wetness, smelled her, tasted her, and experienced the heart-pounding measure of his own desire. Couple that with the knowledge that they had once been together intimately, and suddenly he’d wanted nothing more than to give her the ultimate physical pleasure and watch her enjoy it.
He would have made love to her all night, too, taking his slow time inside her, had she not sounded so practical and unaffected by him in the wake of his attention, waiting to be used as if he’d picked her up for a price at the docks. Then again, perhaps she had a point, as they both knew he’d initially brought her to Stamford to get answers and make her his without her consent. He simply didn’t know what to do with the lovely, obstinate, desirable Lady Cheshire anymore, which was undoubtedly why he now found himself alone and drinking unsatisfying whiskey in his study in the middle of the night instead of sexually sated and sleeping peacefully in her arms.
Still, it was his reaction to her that gnawed at him the most. True, he needed a woman, but he wasn’t so desperate that he should have to lose himself to this one particular female as if he’d been caged for five years without any diversion at all from the gentle sex. And for the life of him, he couldn’t understand why she, of all the ladies in the land, had to be the one to capture his thoughts and engage his lust so totally as if none other would do, or even existed. He knew he didn’t despise her as he’d once thought he had. He couldn’t possibly despise a woman and at the same time admire her charms and want so badly to be with her physically. Frankly, he had no idea at all what he felt for her aside from absolute confusion.
He couldn’t even say he wanted to ruin her anymore, which, in itself, disconcerted him. Ruining her had lost all meaning, he supposed, the moment he’d discovered the face on the portrait of her child to be his mirror image. Destroying her would destroy her son, and truthfully, he didn’t have it in him to do either. For a fleeting moment marriage to her crossed his mind, but it quickly vanished. She would probably never agree anyway, especially after his telling her that he’d rather see her die in prison than take his name; she didn’t need his money or title, and she resented him totally. Besides, he’d lived his life these last years knowing he had to marry well, needed to marry a noblewoman of pure line descent. He was a bastard, and learning that truth as a grown man had only solidified what he expected for his future. Marrying a common woman, regardless of the title she herself had once married into, would remind him every day of the lie he lived, and he wanted more for his legitimate children. But what about the boy? What should or could he do—what did he want to do—about his bastard son? Especially when she still wouldn’t admit he was his?
Jesus, what a damn mess.
Ian stopped pacing in front of his desk, took a long, full swig from his bottle, then, squinting, glanced at the clock over the mantel. He thought it said nearly three, but it was hard to tell. Too much whiskey and not enough light. He swore loudly and scrubbed a palm down his face.
At this point the only thing he did know with any certainty was that he was fast growing tired of the games. Tired of trying to coerce the truth from her. Tired of not understanding why his own feelings suddenly didn’t seem at all ratio
nal. He wanted answers, and more than anything, right this moment, he wanted her.
Always, and only with you . . .
Ian groaned and placed what remained of his whiskey on his desk. Then he combed his fingers through his hair and left his study—confident, edgy with renewed desire, and ready for a fight.
“Wake up, Viola.”
She stirred, uncertain if she was only dreaming she heard his voice, felt his presence, until she blinked and caught sight of his shadowed face. He stood above her, holding a dimly lit lamp as he towered over her form on the cot.
“Why are you here?” she mumbled, sitting up a little, brushing loose strands of hair from her forehead and cheeks. “What time is it?”
“About half past three,” he said rather casually. Stepping away, he walked to the stove, placed the lamp on the cold surface, then turned back and faced her squarely. “I couldn’t sleep after our last . . . encounter, though I see you didn’t have trouble.”
That flustered her a little. She couldn’t read his mood, mostly because he’d awakened her from a dead slumber and she had yet to fully gather her wits.
“If you’ll recall, your grace,” she said through a yawn, “you told me to sleep well when you departed. I was only too pleased to do as you ordered, so are you trying to haunt even my dreams?”
In a tone low and rough, he maintained, “I hope so, Viola, since you’ve managed to haunt my dreams for five long years.”
She’d been half-joking, but he remained somber, apparently ready to continue a discussion of their past. That meant he’d probably come back for an argument. But why now? She eyed him candidly for a moment or two, noting his tense form, his mussed hair. He still wore the same dark trousers and casual linen shirt, but they were both wrinkled now, his sleeves loose and pushed up to the elbows, the neckline unbuttoned to show a scattering of chest hair. He looked quite troubled about something, and although his gaze never strayed from hers, in a sudden explanation of everything, he swayed on his feet when he reached up to rub the back of his neck.
“Are you drunk, Ian?”
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