The End of her Innocence
Page 17
‘I tried to sound soothing—said I was sure it couldn’t be as bad as all that, and suggested she got Andrew to take her away somewhere romantic on a second honeymoon.’
He grimaced. ‘And with that the floodgates opened. She collapsed on the bed beside me, crying her eyes out. Told me it had never been a real marriage. That Andrew had made a few half-hearted attempts to have sex with her in the first couple of weeks, but they’d ended in failure, and they no longer even shared a room. She claimed he’d never loved her, and had married her only for an heir to the Maynard name, except he couldn’t force himself to do what was necessary. And my father had begun dropping pointed hints.’
‘Oh, God.’ Chloe drew a shaken breath. ‘How awful for her. For them both.’
‘But she hadn’t finished,’ Darius said grimly. ‘And this was the worst of all. She said maybe Andrew wasn’t the kind of man who should be married, or not to a woman anyway. Except that was something he wouldn’t admit, even to himself.
‘And while I was still reeling from that, the door opened and Andrew himself came in with my father close behind him, and found her on the bed with my arm round her.’
He shuddered. ‘God, it was terrible. He was shouting he’d always suspected there was something going on. Accused us of meeting secretly in London. Said she was nothing but a dirty tart.’
Chloe gasped. ‘But he couldn’t have meant it.’
‘Not unless he saw it as a convenient way of getting rid of a girl who’d become an embarrassment—a living reproach in his own home. And apart from the obvious denials there wasn’t much we could say. Penny wasn’t prepared to tax Andrew with his failings as a husband in front of his father, and I respected her for that.’
She said quietly, ‘Poor Penny, knowing her life was in pieces and unable to do anything about it.’ She hesitated. ‘But should you be telling me all this? Won’t she hate my knowing these things?’
‘It was her own idea. She’s always felt that, by asking my help, she cost me my family, my home and the girl I loved for seven whole years. She told me she needed to set the record straight.’
She said, ‘Did she tell your father—about the marriage?’
‘She didn’t have to.’ Darius sighed again. ‘Andrew wrote to him before that last climbing trip, saying he’d realised the truth about himself a long time ago, but had never been able to accept it. Saw it as some kind of betrayal of his heritage. I think the rogue horses and dangerous sports were just symbols of the ongoing struggle his life became.’
He shook his head. ‘It was the letter combined with the shock of his death that probably triggered Dad’s stroke. On the other hand, while he was recovering, it changed his perceptions of a great many things, as he made clear tonight. But, I believed it was much too late for me. Because, when I tried to contact you afterwards and explain, your aunt sent me away, saying you were totally disgusted and never wanted to see me or speak to me again.’
His mouth twisted. ‘I’d been condemned without a word in my own defence and that hurt, so I left bitter and angry.’
He added softly, ‘But I couldn’t forget you, Chloe, no matter how hard I tried. Then I heard you were coming back, and I felt I’d been offered another chance.’
She began to smile. ‘You weren’t very nice to me when we met that first time.’
His mouth relaxed into a teasing grin. ‘You thought I was someone else. And then you hit me with your supposed engagement. I knew Lindsay and Ian were an item and I thought you were simply using him as an excuse to keep me at bay.’
She said in a low voice, ‘I think I was. I told myself I couldn’t bear to be hurt again. So I tried to fight my feelings and lost every time. I only wanted to stay away tonight because I’d heard Penny was back. When I saw she was pregnant, I thought it must be your baby, and that you were going to marry her and the pain of that was so bad I had to run away.’
He said gently, ‘My darling, there’s only one girl in the world I’ve ever wanted to be my wife and the mother of my children.’ He paused. ‘I said earlier, I was prepared for a long and patient wooing, but my patience has almost run out.’ He smoothed back her hair, cupping the curve of her face in his hand as he looked into her eyes. ‘I want you so much, my sweet one. Are you still going to make me wait?’
Her whole body clenched in sweet, fierce yearning. She moved into his arms, her hands gripping his shoulders through the layers of cloth, her lips already parting for his kiss.
His mouth was warm and urgent on hers, his hands trembling as he dealt with the long zip at the back of her dress, peeling the jade taffeta away from her body, and dropping it to the floor.
She clung to him, gasping as his crisp dress shirt grazed her bared breasts, her hands stroking his hair, offering him kiss for kiss in the rising tumult of their mutual desire, so long unsatisfied.
His hands caressed her body, moving over her skin in something like wonderment as if he still could not believe that she was here with him—about to be his at last.
His lips traversed the supple line of her throat, letting his tongue make a delicate foray into the inner whorls of her ear, his teeth nibbling delicately at its lobe, while his hands moved down to cup her breasts in his palms and tease each rosy nipple into aching arousal with his fingertips.
She murmured his name pleadingly, her own mouth tracing the strong line of his neck.
When he released her it was only to tug back the covers on the bed, and place her gently against the pillows. He began to strip off his own clothes, his eyes scanning restlessly down her body, still partly concealed by her silk-and-lace knickers.
He said quietly and huskily, ‘Take them off.’
She obeyed, wriggling out of them slowly, languorously, smiling up at him as she watched his emerald gaze kindle. He was naked too, now, and she held out her arms to receive him.
They came together in a breathless, almost anguished silence. Chloe had only instinct and her own burning need to guide her as she held him, opened herself to him. As she found herself welcoming the swift lancing pain of his first penetration of her because it meant she belonged to him completely at last. To him and to no-one else—ever.
And as she lifted her hips to meet each long, heated thrust of total possession, locking her slim legs round his waist to draw him into her ever more deeply, wanting to please him—to satisfy him—to make him forget every other woman he’d ever held in his arms.
Only to discover how richly her generosity was to be rewarded, as the driving force of his lean body ignited new and undreamed of sensations in her inexperienced flesh.
Darius changed his position slightly, so that his hardness came into sensuous contact with her tiny hidden mound, deliberately and deliciously arousing its exquisite sensitivity. Taking her to some edge and beyond.
Chloe could feel the first ripples of pleasure in her innermost self. Recognised with bewilderment the moment when they began to build into a mindless spiral of delight. Tried for an instant to resist their mounting intensity, scared by her own response, only to find herself overtaken, overwhelmed by a harsh, scalding ecstasy that had her sobbing with incoherent joy into his mouth.
And heard his own almost agonised cry of rapture echo hers.
Afterwards he held her wrapped in his arms, his lips against her hair, whispering words she had never heard before. Never believed she would hear.
She lay, her head pillowed on his shoulder, and knew that all the safety and security she had ever wanted was here with her now, and always would be.
Eventually, he said lazily, ‘At some point, we’re going to have to dress and go downstairs. It’s the last Birthday Ball, and I need to dance with you.’
‘Oh.’ Chloe stirred guiltily. ‘What will people think?’
‘The truth probably, but what do we care? We won’t be here when the rumour mill starts.’
‘We won’t?’
He shook his head. ‘I have to go back to France tomorrow. The vineyard needs my attention
.’ He paused. ‘But it occurs to me that this may not be what you want, or not on a permanent basis. The deal with Hatherstone hasn’t gone through yet, and I know how much Willowford has always meant to you. So if you want to live here—have the Hall, the title, the whole bit—it can still be done. The choice is entirely yours.’
‘None of those things mean anything to me,’ she said, adding simply, ‘I never thought of them as mine, anyway.’
‘Ah,’ he said, and she heard the smile in his voice. ‘So if I say to you, my adorable angel, “Come with me now, and we’ll be married as soon as I can get a licence”, what will you reply?’
‘What I’d have said seven years ago if you’d asked me.’ Chloe turned her head, pressing her lips to the pulse in his throat. ‘That my life is yours, wherever it takes us, now and for ever.’
Darius said softly, ‘I think you just rewrote the marriage service.’ And began to kiss her again.
* * * * *
All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.
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First published in Great Britain 2012
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited.
Harlequin (UK) Limited, Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road,
Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR
© Sara Craven 2012
ISBN: 978-1-408-97320-2
Table of Contents
Cover
Excerpt
About the Author
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Copyright