by Liz Carlyle
He hesitated as if waiting. For her protest. For the back of her hand. But the dark silence of the library was rent only by the sound of their breathing. She was so tired of fighting her desire for him. Whatever he was, no matter why he wanted her, she ached for him. And when he bent his head to draw her left nipple between his lips, she gasped at the hot ribbon of pleasure it engendered.
He took that as a sound of approval. He drew her breast more fully into the warmth of his mouth, suckling until she began to make small, breathy sounds of pleasure. Then he moved to the other breast, first circling the nipple with his tongue, then sucking at the very tip as he gently nipping with his teeth.
“Ooh, oui!” she murmured. Her hands went to his shoulders, restless and urgent.
Gently, he slipped one hand between her shoulder blades. “No, let me, Camille,” he breathed against her ear as the hooks of her gown slipped free. “Let me unfasten this.”
She did not feign innocence, or further protest. Instead, she gave herself up to the skill of his well-tutored touch. And when he returned his attention to her small, perfect breasts, cupping their weight in his hands, she opened her eyes. “Mon Dieu,” she murmured dreamily.
He kissed her long and deep. Her head moved restlessly against the wall. “Kieran, I want—” she whispered. “I want—oh, I don’t know.”
“Perhaps I can guess.”
But as Kieran cradled one breast and kissed her deeply, and his other hand fisted in her skirts, he realized he should be horsewhipped. He was not so wrapped up in her he could not appreciate the precariousness of their situation. Or the fact that she was a virgin. Instead, he inched her skirts up into his fist, then eased one hand between them, touching her lightly in her most intimate place.
“Camille,” he whispered. “You are going to marry me. In a few days’ time. We will be married, yes?”
“Oh, oui, je suis…” She stopped and swallowed hard. “I am so…yes. Yes.”
With a lifetime of experience in having sex in places he had no business, with women he scarcely knew, Rothewell inched down her drawers until they slithered into a puddle of silk at her feet. Oh, Lord. Her feet. He wished desperately they were hooked behind his neck. They looked slender. Like her legs. Exquisite. And then he touched her again, and heard her gasp. All else, even her small, perfect breasts, was forgotten.
He eased two fingers into the tangle of curls, and felt the answering slickness. “Oh, mon Dieu,” she murmured.
“Ah, Camille, Camille,” he moaned against her mouth. But this was madness. This was no place to make love to an untutored virgin. But none of this—none of it—reached past his brain to his nether regions. In one smooth motion, he pushed her skirts higher, went down on one knee, and stroked his tongue through the soft curls which guarded her pleasure. This time her gasp verged on something more.
He parted her gently, pressing her thighs wide until his fingers found the soft, warm folds of her flesh. Gingerly he drew a finger through the silken wetness. She gave a little moan of surrender when he eased one finger inside. He wanted to give her pleasure. Exquisite, extraordinary pleasure. The kind of mind-clouding pleasure that might make her go unquestioningly to the altar, and not look back at the truth.
With one hand fisted in her skirts, he plunged his tongue deep. She cried out again, but softly. A withering little sound of surrender. Her breathing slowly grew more raspy. Over and over he drew his tongue through the folds which guarded her pleasure until he could feel the little nub of her arousal, unmistakably firm and trembling.
“Kieran, Kieran,” she whispered, her hands coming down to seize his shoulders.
He felt her climax inching near. She was murmuring something over and over in French, he didn’t know what. Her head was back, her breath jerking roughly now. She was passion personified. Beautiful. With one finger and his thumb, he opened her wider, teasing her with quick, delicate strokes until he heard her cry out in the darkness. There was a moan. And then she was shaking, her limbs stiffening as she shuddered with the pleasure. He kissed her lightly across the soft, pale flesh of her lower belly as she trembled, then nuzzled her curls one last time. Beautiful. She was so beautiful.
When she had returned to herself, still gasping for breath, he jerked to his feet, his hands going to the fall of his trousers. Quickly he released the buttons, shoving down his drawers and trousers in one motion. “Let me lift you, love,” he rasped. “Put—Put your legs round my waist. Yes. Like that.”
“Oui,” she whispered. “Yes. Inside me.”
She felt weightless. Heavenly. He lifted her another inch, and the hot length of his cock slid into the wetness. Carefully, he positioned himself, and pushed gently. He felt her stiffen at the invasion, and then relax again in his embrace.
“Camille, I might hurt you.” He let his eyes roam over her face. “Christ. I don’t know.”
She buried her face against his neck. “N’importe,” she whispered. “I want this. I want you, Kieran, inside me.”
He knew, vaguely, that he would regret it. That it was tasteless—and probably the worst possible position for a woman of no experience. But he could not wait. His desire for her now blinded him. The scent of her, of him; all of it swirled about them in a sensual heat.
“Ah, Camille,” he said, unable to resist the silken, welcoming warmth. He pushed again, and felt a faint resistance. She sucked in her breath on a gasp of pain.
“Oh, hell,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Don’t,” she whispered. “Please. Don’t stop.”
He eased himself deeper, and felt Camille relax to take him. To draw him in. Literally. Figuratively. He began to move slowly inside her, savoring the sweetness. She wrapped her arms about him and kissed him deeply. He reveled in her every motion. Cherished her every sound. He was lost to the passion, and yet fully, completely aware. His thrusts came faster.
“Camille,” he groaned, pushing deeper. Her head was back, her eyes closed, her exposed breasts rising tantalizingly with every breath. “Camille, say my name again.”
“Kieran.” The word was a soft sigh.
His climax came upon him with merciful swiftness, and he did not try to hold it back. He thrust. And thrust again, trembling as the warmth of his seed finally spilled inside her. It felt like the end of a perfect dream. A dream which had felt nonetheless inevitable. The release sent relief shuddering through him. And then Camille’s slender arms were twined around him, her face buried against his neck as he returned to himself.
It was done. The paper in his pocket had just become a mere formality. They were joined now; joined in a way he would let no man put asunder.
No one looked at Rothewell and Camille—suspiciously or otherwise—upon their awkward return from the library. Indeed, the other guests were so obviously not watching them, the omission left Camille a little embarrassed. She joined Lady Phaedra on one of the sofas, and hid her shaking hands. After a few moments of their idle chitchat, Rothewell once again withdrew from the crowd and took up his solitary vigil by the window. He looked strangely distant. Almost pained. Camille’s heart sank. Had his seduction been a disappointment to him after all?
The Dowager Lady Nash joined them, and the conversation turned to Parisian fashions. Camille responded to the lady’s questions almost mechanically. She watched from one corner of her eye as Xanthia joined her brother by the window and rested her hand upon his arm, her expression concerned. Rothewell appeared strangely pale, and had set one hand almost protectively over his lower ribs.
“Excusez-moi.” Camille rose abruptly in the middle of a discussion about ladies’ hats. “I…I should speak with Rothewell.”
She went at once to the window. “My lord, you are unwell?” she murmured, drawing up beside them.
Xanthia cast her an uncertain glance. “Kieran?” she asked pointedly. “Are you?”
His lips thinned as if with irritation—or pain—and his forehead, Camille noted, was beaded with perspiration. “Thank you, it is
nothing,” he managed.
Then, without another word, he left them by the window, and crossed the room to pour himself a brandy at the sideboard.
Xanthia cursed beneath her breath. “That,” she muttered, “is the very last thing he needs.”
Camille suspected Xanthia was right. But Rothewell was a stubborn man. She rather doubted his sister’s chiding—or hers—would change that.
She did not have long to fret about Rothewell’s mood, however, for the first of the guests began leaving shortly thereafter. Lady Nash looked exhausted by the time she escorted the last of them to the door. She hugged everyone in turn, Camille included, and sent them down the steps to their waiting carriages.
Camille climbed into the shadows of Lord Sharpe’s barouche, greatly relieved to be making her escape. She wanted very much to be alone. To lie in bed and consider the gravity of what she had just done—and, if she were honest, to relive it in her mind. She looked down and realized that her hands were still trembling a little at the memory of Rothewell’s touch. Hastily she pressed them to her thighs and forced herself to smile.
Just then, Rothewell himself came down the steps, his walking stick in hand, and his sister on his arm, urgently whispering.
Lady Sharpe leaned out the still-open door. “Kieran, may we take you up in our carriage?”
Rothewell’s head jerked round. “It is out of your way,” he answered. For a man so dark, his face looked deathly pale. What had Lady Nash said to him?
“Oh, do come along, Kieran,” said Lady Sharpe again. “A gentleman should see his betrothed safely to her door, do you not think?”
“You should go,” said his sister quietly, setting one hand between his shoulder blades.
Lord Sharpe, still standing on the pavement, held his hand toward the door. “The womenfolk have decided, old fellow,” he said. “You may as well climb in gracefully.”
Rothewell’s troubled expression did not abate, but he thanked Sharpe and climbed inside to sit opposite the ladies. Lady Sharpe kept up a constant stream of pleasant chatter as the carriage made its way the length of what Camille now recognized as Mayfair. She was curious to see Lord Rothewell’s home.
The house, as it happened, was in Berkeley Square, and it was very elegant indeed. Camille marveled that she had ever thought Rothewell penniless. Perhaps he had been fleetingly strapped for cash, or perhaps he was simply unable to resist the lure of the game. But impoverished he certainly was not.
The grand front door swung open, and a servant appeared, a slender Negro gentleman wearing a starkly elegant black coat. The butler, she thought, studying him.
Rothewell, however, did not stir. He was looking across the carriage at Lady Sharpe.
“I think,” he said very quietly, “that we have waited long enough for this wedding.”
Lady Sharpe stiffened. “I beg your pardon?”
Rothewell turned his gaze to Camille. “I wish us to be married,” he said. “In the morning.”
“In the morning?” said Lady Sharpe incredulously. “Kieran, no one is ready.”
“We are as ready as we shall ever be, Pamela,” said Rothewell firmly. “I wish us to be married at once. Sharpe, will you make the arrangements?”
Lord Sharpe seemed to agree with this course of action. “Indeed, old chap, if that is your wish,” said the earl, his bald head nodding. “Have you a special license?”
“Yes, for some days now.” Rothewell looked at Camille. He was doing this, she supposed, because he had taken her virginity tonight. She had not thought him as old-fashioned as that.
“My dear, I think we ought not wait.” His voice was surprisingly gentle. “Will you trust me?”
Will you trust me?
Camille swallowed hard at the words.
Rothewell’s mesmerizing, silvery gaze held hers across the gloom, and for an instant, it was as if they were alone in the carriage. This was it. Her last chance to refuse him. To cling to her sanity, perhaps, and to the safe but empty life she had lived for so long.
Lord and Lady Sharpe, too, were looking at her, awaiting her answer.
Camille closed her eyes. No, it was too late, she realized, to refuse. Not because of what they had done tonight. She wished it could be so simple as that. But no, it was too late because of how he made her feel. Because he was what she wanted. God help her, he was what she wanted.
Fool. Fool. Oh, what a fool she was.
Camille opened her eyes, and drew a deep breath. “Oui, monsieur,” she said, her voice amazingly steady. “I should be honored to marry you tomorrow.”
Chapter Six
In which Rothewell Tastes Wedded Bliss
In the end, Rothewell and his bride stood up to speak their vows in the late afternoon before a blazing fire in Lord and Lady Sharpe’s withdrawing room, with only Xanthia and her husband in attendance. It was an unusual time of day for a wedding, but it was a wedding under unusual circumstances.
Lady Sharpe, however, did her best to maintain a celebratory air. With only a few hours’ preparation, and despite a miserable cold snap which brought gray skies and a whipping wind, the good lady had decorated the room with springlike bouquets of white lilies and sprays of fresh greenery, and laid out a cold supper which would have done a sultan proud.
Camille, however, barely saw the flowers. Despite her outward calm in the carriage, she had passed a sleepless night, her mind going over and over everything which had passed between Rothewell and her in the library. This marriage was not to be the mere formality she had wished to believe it. This was a holy sacrament. Already she had given this man her body, and even as she stood before the priest and the blazing fire, surrounded by the dizzying scent of the lilies, she was frightened by the depth of her reaction to him.
She felt as if she were stepping off the edge of a precipice, and into a black, unknowable void. Involuntarily—and perhaps absurdly—Camille’s nails dug into the wool of Rothewell’s coat sleeve.
The priest opened the prayer book, and began to read. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here…”
The words quickly faded from Camille’s consciousness in a buzz of sound and a blur of light. She had to remind herself to breathe.
Rothewell, perhaps sensing her discomfort, laid his hand over hers and drew her nearer. The gesture oddly strengthened her and stopped her knees from shaking. She managed to murmur her vows, and when Rothewell whispered, “Give me your hand,” she responded mechanically, then watched in mute amazement as he slid a band of bloodred rubies onto her finger.
“Send thy blessing upon these thy servants, this man and this woman, whom we bless in thy Name,” intoned the priest, “that, as Isaac and Rebecca lived faithfully together, so these persons may surely perform and keep the vow and covenant betwixt them made, and may ever remain in perfect love and peace together, and live according to thy laws; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
In perfect love and peace together. Camille closed her eyes and let the gravity of the words sink in.
But was there to be either love or peace for her? She had given herself to this man; this dark, seemingly dangerous man whom she still did not know. And would likely never know.
When the blessing was finished, Rothewell’s hand fell away. Camille watched as the stones twinkled and blurred before her, and realized in some embarrassment that she was on the verge of tears.
The final prayer followed, then Camille was caught in the crush of one embrace after another.
Two hours later, after having been kissed and toasted and set to blushing more times than she could count, Camille sat shivering in Rothewell’s carriage, waving good-bye to her new sister and to her kind and generous hostess. Despite the unseasonable cold, Lady Sharpe stood upon the top step, fluttering a lace handkerchief as the horses clopped away. Camille’s time of sanctuary was at an end.
“Well, Camille,” said her husband in his low, rumbling voice, “we have done it.”
Camille drew a steadying breath. “Oui, we have d
one it,” she echoed. She prayed to God that neither of them regretted it.
He spoke not another syllable during their short journey through Mayfair. It was to be, she suspected, the first of many silences their marriage would endure. Rothewell was a man of few words.
By the time they reached the house in Berkeley Square, dusk had settled over London. The air was sharp, and once again thick with the metallic tang of coal, which burned in the hearth of nearly every drawing room and coffeehouse in London. They entered the shadowy portals to be greeted by the same butler whom Camille had seen standing on the top step the previous evening.
Rothewell introduced the servant as Trammel. Inside the broad, unadorned entry hall, the air was laced with some exotic, spicy scent. The only ornament, a fine Persian carpet in shades of red and gold, rolled down the passageway and up the stairs. The butler bowed and welcomed her warmly, then threw open the doors to a large if somewhat austere drawing room.
“Given the dreadful chill,” he said, “I thought my lady might wish tea?”
“Or something stronger, perhaps?” Rothewell suggested. “My new wife has a something of a backbone, Trammel, when it comes to wine and spirits. And if I recall, she prefers claret.”
“Merci,” said Camille, surprised that he had remembered—or even noticed. “Any sort of strong red wine would be most welcome.”
Trammel made a gesture to a waiting footman, then motioned them into the room. Inside, a low fire burned in the grate, but as Camille’s eyes adjusted to the light, something small came hurtling off the sofa. The creature skidded to a halt at Trammel’s feet, its tongue lolling cheerfully out.
“What the hell is that?” said Rothewell, frozen.
“Oh, yes,” said Trammel as the tiny creature danced about their feet. “This is Chin-Chin, my lord.”
“The devil!” said Rothewell.
“Bonté divine!” declared Camille, her anxieties instantly forgotten. “Is he a cat?”