Married to the Viscount

by Sabrina Jeffries

  A perplexed frown furrowed her brow. “Am I?”

  “You know very well that you are.”

  “How does it feel, Spencer, to have your life clutched in somebody else’s hands? To know that they can ruin your future, and you can’t do a thing about it?”

  Her allusion to her own situation reignited his temper. “The same way it felt the day you showed up on my doorstep. You’re not the only one my brother wronged, Abby. You’re not the only one having to adjust.”

  “True. So why not let me put an end to both our miseries?” A thin smile touched her lips. “Come now, admit it—if you weren’t so worried about a scandal, you’d be delighted to see me go. One less nuisance to deal with, one less annoyance underfoot. With me gone, you can look for your brother at your leisure without the urgency of trying to regain my money. You won’t have to act like you’re married. You can return to your bachelor life. It will be nothing but a relief.”

  “It will be nothing but a torment.” When surprise suffused her face, he glanced away, not wanting her to see how badly he needed her to stay. “If you leave, I’ll know it’s my fault you’re struggling in America all alone. The guilt of what my family has done to you will prey on me, and I’ll blame myself for driving you to flee.”

  “But you mustn’t.” She laid a gentle hand on his arm. “Nobody asked you to fix your brother’s mistakes—you took it on yourself. You could have told me I was mad and thrown me out of the house or decried me to the authorities, but you didn’t. You’ve gone beyond any possible obligation, and I know that. I only wish I could have been more helpful by better playing the part you required.”

  “There was nothing wrong with how you played your part,” he said, shifting his gaze back to her. “If I hadn’t meddled, tonight would have gone perfectly well.” He covered her hand with his. “And even tonight wasn’t all bad, was it? You got on well with my friends. You even seemed to enjoy the dancing for a while.”

  “When I wasn’t bumbling my way through it.” Humiliation flared in her eyes. “The rest of the time I was miserable. And you were embarrassed. I’m sure you were.”

  “To be with the most beautiful woman at the ball? I wasn’t the least embarrassed. Despite the few things that went wrong, I enjoyed being there with you. I wouldn’t have wanted to be there with anyone else.”

  She tugged her hand free. “Not even Genevieve?”

  Bloody hell, he’d forgotten about that. “Certainly not Genevieve. If I could tolerate her company for an entire evening, I wouldn’t have left her two years ago.”

  “You didn’t have any trouble tolerating her company tonight.” She lowered her eyes, but not before he glimpsed the hurt in them.

  “We merely talked for a few minutes. She asked why I’d decided to marry after all these years, and I gave her some answer. There was nothing more to it than that.”

  “What did you tell her? That you’d grown bored with all your achievements and figured that civilizing a stupid American wife would provide you a new challenge?”

  Cursing himself for what he’d unwittingly done to make her feel so wretched about herself, he reached out to tip up her chin with one finger. “I told her that my wife was the most enchanting woman I’d ever met.”

  Her lower lip quivered as she stared at him. “You lied, in other words.”

  He shook his head. “I never lie about essentials.”

  “Really?” A welter of confused emotions passed over her face. “Then tell me this, Spencer. Do you have a mistress?”

  “I told you, Genevieve and I—”

  “Not her. A regular mistress. Some ladybird stashed away in a little house in a less savory part of town. Because from what I heard tonight, half the married men do and nearly all the unmarried men.”

  “Good God, who did you hear all this from? I know Evelina and Lady Clara weren’t filling your head with such ideas.”

  She arched one brow. “I spent a lot of time in the ladies’ retiring room repairing my fichu. One hears things in the retiring room.”

  “If you heard anything about me, it was lies. I have no mistress.”

  “No one said you did, but…I also heard you’re discreet.” She swallowed. “As long as you stay discreet, it’s all right. But it’s bad enough to have people talking behind my back about the vulgar American—I won’t have them talking about how you prefer your ladybird to your wife.”

  “There’s no ladybird. There hasn’t been one since Genevieve.” He dragged his finger down her throat, then in widening circles over the petal-soft skin. Touching her like this was a mistake, yet he couldn’t stop himself. “You’re the first woman to interest me in a very long time.”

  Her eyes flared with suspicion. “I don’t interest you—you said so yourself.” Pain sharpened her words. “You said you only felt desire for me, and even that was no more than you’d feel for any beautiful woman pressed up against you.”

  He winced to hear his foolish comments thrown back at him. “I thought perhaps saying it would make it true. But it’s not. It never was.” He slid his other arm about her waist, seized by a need to reassure her. “I want you more desperately than I’ve ever wanted any woman. I keep expecting the urge to pass, but it hasn’t.”

  As she stared up at him with those impossibly green eyes, he splayed his fingers over her throat, her lovely fragile throat with its madly beating pulse. “Even with your ridiculous droopy curls and that absurd fichu I foisted on you, all I could think tonight whenever I saw you was how badly I wanted to kiss you again.”

  She met his gaze evenly. “Then why don’t you?”

  That was all the encouragement he needed—that and the driving ache for her that he’d felt since the day they’d met. Slipping his hand beneath her heavy hair to clasp her neck, he drew her near to cover her mouth with his.

  Just this one indulgence, he told himself. One sweet kiss to hold him for a lifetime in case he couldn’t stop her from leaving.

  Then her lips parted beneath his, and he knew he was lying to himself. He could never stop with one kiss from Abby.

  Chapter 12

  What goes on in your employer’s bedchamber is none of your concern. Forgetting that rule is the surest way to lose your employment.

  Suggestions for the Stoic Servant

  Abby probably shouldn’t have encouraged Spencer to kiss her. What was she thinking? The wily rascal already had her wavering about leaving, and this only further tempted her to stay. Was that why he was doing it?

  No, she’d swear it wasn’t. His mouth was too ardent in plundering hers, his hold on her waist too urgent for this to be some callous ploy.

  And after all his sweet words and pleas, how could she resist? Especially when he was being the nice gentleman she’d come all this way to marry. She delighted in having that man kiss her again, so fervently, so deeply he made her palms sweat. Why not enjoy it? She might not get another chance.

  Winding her arms about his neck, she threw herself into it, opening her mouth wider, touching her tongue to his. A growl rumbled through him as he tightened his embrace, sending an avaricious thrill up her spine.

  After ravishing her lips for a while, he turned to ravishing her chin and her jaw, raking his open mouth down her neck to tongue the hollow of her throat. “Ah, Abby,” he breathed, “I dream about this at night, about holding you like this.”

  More sweet words. And she lapped every one of them up like honey. “Do you?” She dreamed of him, too, of stroking the close-cropped hair at the nape of his neck as she was now, touching him as intimately as a real wife.

  “It’s all I can think about. I even smell you in my dreams. What’s that scent you wear, the one that smells like flowers and rosemary?”

  “Not a scent,” she whispered against his ear, pressing a kiss to the lobe and glorying in his sharply indrawn breath. “It’s the Mead. I use it to sweeten my breath.”

  “And drive me insane.” He dropped his head to nuzzle her collarbone through the nightdress,
and she drank in his own heady scent, thick with musk and candle smoke and bergamot. “Every time I smell it, I think of you, of kissing you, tasting you…Oh, God, I want to taste you so badly…”

  His hand found the small buttons at the neck of her nightdress and deftly unfastened them until it gaped open at the throat. “I want to taste this,” he murmured, pressing his mouth to her bared collarbone. He danced his tongue along it as his fingers marched down the placket, working loose every tiny button. “And this.” His head dipped to sow kisses in the furrow between her breasts.

  She caught her breath. He should definitely not be taking such shameful liberties.

  On the other hand, why not just a little more? Something to remember when she was gone.

  Then before she knew it the placket gaped open clear down to the last button above her waist. Spencer’s breath beat hotly against her skin as he drew the edge aside to expose one breast. “Then there’s this,” he rasped. “I’ve wanted to taste this most of all.”

  Before she could even consider being embarrassed, his mouth closed over her breast, sucking it hard, shooting wild sensations along her every nerve. He tongued her nipple mercilessly, until she gasped and clutched his head to her chest. When he slipped his hand inside her nightdress to fondle her other breast, she moaned and swayed against him, deliberately closing her eyes to the image of his mouth and hands on her breasts.

  Because maybe if she didn’t see it, it was just a dream she could indulge forever, without guilt or regret. It certainly felt like a dream, his tongue swirling over her nipple and his hand kneading her breast to a taut eager peak.

  He smoothed his other hand down her backside to urge her hard against his rigid arousal, then dragged his mouth from her breast. “I shouldn’t do this. I have no right to take advantage of you.”

  “You certainly don’t,” she agreed, then promptly pulled his head to her other breast so he could suck that one, too. As long as he was taking advantage…

  Next thing she knew, he’d backed her up against the bed and was pressing her down on it, following her until she lay beneath him on the needlework counterpane with her thighs parted. Dear heaven, she was really in trouble now.

  Eyes feverishly bright, he settled himself between her thighs. “Just a little longer,” he promised hoarsely. Then his mouth proceeded to “take advantage” of her bared breast, lavishing such naughty caresses on it that she whimpered and strained up for more.

  “I’ll stop soon, I swear,” he said as he turned to suck the other breast while his hand plumped and teased the still damp flesh of the first.

  “Take your time,” she murmured. “I’m in no hurry.”

  Besides, she wanted to feel his bare skin, too. She tugged at the lapels of his superfine coat until he shrugged it off and tossed it aside. His waistcoat and cravat rapidly followed. But when she went to work on his shirt buttons, he lifted his head with a dazed look. “What are you doing?”

  “I get to touch you, too. That’s only fair.”

  Hunger flared in his face. “Yes, only fair.” Since she’d finished with his buttons, he tore his shirt off, then grabbed her hand and laid it on his chest. “So touch me and we’ll be even.”

  Hardly, she thought as she skimmed her hand over thick muscle and taut skin. Hair whorled around his flat male nipples, which hardened to points at her caress. Hmm. What if she did to them what he’d done to her?

  She leaned up to lick one tight nub, and he jerked. “Christ, you go too far, Abby.”

  But she noticed he didn’t stop her when she licked the other. “It’s only a little playing.”

  “You call this playing?” he growled.

  “That’s what Mama called it. She said it’s what two people do when they desire each other. Before they make love.” Abby always thought it sounded better than the actual act of lovemaking anyway.

  Spencer drew back, his eyes suddenly solemn. “We’re not going to make love.”

  Oh, no, he was starting to come to his senses. Next thing he’d be telling himself all that nonsense about how he had no time for a wife and how she didn’t fit his plans for the sort of wife he wanted. She wouldn’t let him, not yet. “Then let’s just play for a while,” she whispered, wrapping her arms about his neck.

  “You don’t know what you’re asking.” He fixed her with a gaze of such raw need she shivered. “You don’t even really know how to play.”

  True, but she knew it didn’t ruin a woman, and that was all that mattered for now. Mama had said that her and Papa’s playing before they’d married was what had convinced Papa to ask for her hand.

  A forbidden hope sprouted in her heart. If it worked for Mama…“Then teach me, Spencer.” She tightened her grip on his neck. “So I’ll know what it’s like. We’ll stop when it gets to be too much.”

  Skepticism filled his face. “I don’t know if I can.”

  “What? I thought the great Lord Ravenswood could do anything he put his mind to.” She tried to draw his head down to her breast, but he resisted, though his heavy gasps heated her flesh.

  “So now you think to provoke me into it, do you?”

  “If I have to,” she said primly.

  He bent his head to kiss her neck, then sucked on it hard. “Very well, you little seductress, we’ll play. Under one condition.” His gaze burned into hers. “That you stay in London and keep pretending to be my wife. That you don’t go back to America until we find my brother.”

  She stiffened. “You’d resort to blackmail again?”

  “If I have to.”

  Curse him for using something intimate and beautiful for his own purposes. Just for that, she ought to push him off her and walk right out.

  But she wouldn’t, because his request held more than calculation. He wanted her to stay not only to prevent a scandal, but to keep her close. Surely that meant something.

  Maybe she was foolish to hope for a future with him, but he had no mistress—he was free. And he desired her. That was a start, wasn’t it?

  Besides, she couldn’t go back to America without at least trying to convince him that they belonged together. Otherwise, she would always wonder if her cowardice had deprived her of her only chance of happiness with him.

  “All right, I’ll stay in England,” she murmured. “But I get to say when we stop our playing tonight.”

  A savage light blazed across his face as he loomed over her, his large frame starkly outlined against the white canopy overhead. “If you mean to torture me, be forewarned—I can bear any torture if it makes you stay.”

  Then he swooped down to seize her lips with a greed that matched her own, bold and ravening and unrelenting. His hand was rough on her breast, squeezing and plucking the nipple until she wriggled beneath him in an urgent quest for more.

  Following his lead, she splayed her fingers over his chest, exploring every inch of the hair-coarsened skin drawn tight over sculpted muscle and unyielding bone. Tonight he was hers, and she wanted him to remember it. Tearing her mouth from his, she flicked her tongue over one of his nipples, then nipped at the other.

  “So you want to tease, do you?” He forced her head back up for a brief kiss. Then he dragged his open mouth down to her breast, where he mirrored her earlier tortures, licking her nipple and sending a shiver dancing along her skin.

  She thrust her breasts up higher so he’d suck them, but he only tugged at her other nipple with his teeth, then released it, leaving her aching for more.

  “Please…” she whispered. Grasping his head, she tried to force it back so he’d take her breast in his mouth as he had before.

  He chuckled. “Teasing goes both ways, my dear.” He blew on her damp nipple, watching her squirm. “This is playing, too, you know.”

  Her eyes narrowed. She slid her hand down between them to rub the bulge in his breeches. “So is this.”

  When she withdrew her hand, he caught it and flattened it against the hard length of him. “Play fair, Abby.”

  “Only if
you do.”

  That’s all it took to have him sucking her breasts again, devouring them, caressing them with hot rasps of his tongue. So she responded as best her limited knowledge of men would allow. Letting his groans and eager thrusts against her hand be her guide, she fondled his aroused member through his breeches.

  Until her hand slipped suddenly to one side to press his loin, and he jerked his head up with a curse clearly more of pain than pleasure.

  She yanked her hand away. “I hurt you.”

  “It’s nothing. Old war injury, that’s all.”

  “So close to your—”

  “Yes,” he said tersely. Reaching down, he worked loose the buttons securing the fall of his breeches, then the buttons of his drawers.

  “I-I’m sorry. I’ll be more careful.”

  “Here, this will make it easier.” With a smoldering gaze, he caught her hand and shoved it inside his drawers, closing her fingers around his naked arousal. “Hold on to the handle and you won’t go astray.” He cast her a wry smile. “If you’re going to play, you might as well play right.”

  A treacherous thrill shot through her. Surely this went beyond playing. His rigid flesh felt large and strong and impossibly male, perfectly capable of being a weapon if she weren’t careful.

  Then his hand moved over hers, showing her how to rub him. And when her first tentative caress made him whisper, “God, yes, Abby…keep doing that,” she realized she had a powerful weapon of her own—his need for her.

  Triumph surged through her. She could do as she pleased with him. He even wanted her to. As she stroked him, he uttered sounds from low in his throat that she’d never heard—urgent, keening moans that fed her own need.

  He pulled his hand out of his drawers, but only to catch the hem of her nightdress and drag it up her legs. As if to distract her, he kissed her again, but she was still acutely aware of that hand raising her hem. When he’d tugged the nightdress high enough so he could thrust his hand beneath to find the damp juncture between her legs, she wrenched her mouth free and stopped stroking him.