She grabbed his hand and pulled with all her might. Various parts of him caught on the latch or were squeezed in the aperture. Eventually he made a mammoth effort and half stumbled, half fell into the room and into Clara’s arms.
“I came to tell you that I love you,” he said, burying his face in her hair and holding her warm body against the coldness of his.
She eased back from him a little. The smile in her blue eyes was delicious. “You have told me that already today, Sebastian.”
“I could not wait until tomorrow to tell you again. Besides,” Sebastian said, gesturing toward the ivy, which would probably never recover from his onslaught, “I wanted to prove that I would do anything for you, even risk life and limb, flora and fauna, hauling my weight up to your balcony.”
He released her and stood regarding her intently. In her flimsy peignoir and similarly transparent nightdress she looked luscious.
She gave a little giggle. “Dearest Sebastian, you have no need to prove anything to me. I know how much you love me.”
He felt humbled by her generosity. “Clara, you do not understand. I will always think of you as too good for me.” He slid his hand into his pocket. “I brought you this. It is a betrothal gift. I wanted to give it to you in private. I hope that you understand.”
Earlier that evening, in full, approving view of the family, he had given her the Fleet betrothal ruby ring, which he had retrieved from the bank that very day. Now she was looking puzzled.
“A gift? But I thought—”
He held the box out to her. “Take it. Please.”
Clara took it slowly, ran her fingers over the smooth leather case, then opened the box.
“Oh!”
The huge ruby star pendant was nestling in the palm of Clara’s hand now, its surface striking sparks from the candlelight. She looked up and her eyes were misty with tears.
“It is the most beautiful thing…”
She laid it reverentially in its box on the window seat, then came and took his hand and drew him down to sit on the bed beside her. She rested her head against his shoulder. “You know that there are things I need from you, Sebastian.” She nestled closer. “You always claim that I am too good for you, but you are strong and courageous and loyal, and I admire those things.”
Her nightgown slipped a little, the virginal white linen sliding from one rounded shoulder. Beneath it Sebastian knew that she would be soft and smooth, curved in all the most perfect places, warmly inviting.
He averted his eyes.
Her hair brushed his cheek—soft, confiding, innocent. She was tilting up her lips so that he could kiss her. His throat closed with nervousness. He gave her a tiny peck on the lips and withdrew hastily. Clara sat back, looking at him with a suddenly arrested expression.
“You do not intend to stay with me tonight?”
Sebastian stared at her in consternation. “Stay? Of course I will not stay.” He knew that he sounded like a dowager. “That would be most inappropriate.”
“So says the greatest scoundrel in London,” Clara said.
“Clara, you are to be my wife. We must do these things properly.” Seb wiped his brow. It was an excuse, of course. He wanted nothing more than to take her in the most improper ways imaginable, but he knew he could not do it.
Clara’s lower lip quivered. “I am not certain I wish to marry you if you have become stuffy and proper all of a sudden. I do not want a reformed rake as a husband. I want a rake who will devote his attentions to me!”
Sebastian spread his hands helplessly. “You know I am yours, body and soul.”
“And it is the physical side of you that intrigues me at present, I confess.” She peeped at him. “No doubt I am shameless, but since you are to be my husband…”
She was tracing one finger down the line of his sleeve and when she touched the back of his hand, light as a breath of wind, he flinched as though scalded.
“No.”
He could sense the uncertainty in her. She wanted him; she had courage, but in the face of his blank refusal she was too inexperienced to push for what she wanted. His heart twisted. He was hurting her again with a different sort of rejection now. He knew he had to explain to her. It was only fair. The difficulty was finding the words.
Clara covered her face with her hands. “Oh, dear! I was relying on you, Sebastian! I thought that one of us at least would know what to do.”
“I do know the theory,” Sebastian said. “Clara, I love you! I have never felt like this about anybody before—” He stopped.
Clara’s eyes widened. She stared at him for a long moment. “Sebastian, you are afraid!”
He gave her a lopsided grin. “I confess it.”
“When you said that I had unmanned you I did not think you meant…” Clara said, beginning to comprehend.
Sebastian looked down. He remained obstinately limp. He sighed.
“I am sorry.”
“But what will happen on our wedding night?” Clara wailed.
Sebastian imagined that the longer their betrothal lasted, the more nervous he would become. Sebastian Fleet, the greatest rake in London, reduced to a quivering wreck by a slip of a girl.
Clara was looking at him, her blue eyes wide with apprehension. He felt a wave of hopelessness swamp him. Hell and damnation! The fact that he felt like ravishing her, the fact that he wanted to tear her clothes off and make mad, passionate love to her and yet he was somehow incapable of doing so was the last word in frustration. Theirs had been the most provocative courtship.
Then he saw a spark of amusement in Clara’s eyes. The corner of her mouth lifted in a tiny smile. She traced a pattern on the edge of the sheet with her fingers and did not look at him as she spoke.
“Would you be prepared at least to try?” she asked demurely. “My governess always said that when one did not wish to do something it was better to grit one’s teeth and take courage than to put off the moment.”
Grit his teeth and summon all his courage. Seb drove his hands into his pockets in a gesture of contained fury. That was not how making love to Clara Davencourt should be.
“It is not that I do not want to, Clara,” he said. “I want to kiss you and take you to bed and make love to you until dawn, but—” He broke off as he saw the rosy color suffuse her face.
“Do you really?” she said.
“Yes!” Seb almost shouted.
Clara looked around hastily. “Quiet! I do not wish Martin to find you here and have to explain that once again nothing has happened between us.”
Seb gave an infuriated groan and sank down onto the bed. “This is humiliating.”
He felt her wriggle across to sit beside him. Her breast pressed softly against his arm. She was warm and smelled faintly of jasmine and clean linen.
“Dear Sebastian.” She was holding his hand in hers now and he let it rest there because it felt so comforting. “You must not worry about it. I shall not press you for my marital rights.”
He looked up. She was so close that he could see the individual black eyelashes and the sweep of the shadow they cast on her cheek in the candlelight. Her cheek was round and smooth and he put up a hand to caress it. He smiled reluctantly.
“I suppose it is a little bit amusing….”
“Yes.” She was nibbling at his fingers now, that full lower lip lush against the pad of his thumb. He felt a sudden fierce urge to kiss her that made him freeze on the spot. She withdrew slightly.
“I promise,” she said solemnly, “to ask nothing of you that you are not prepared to give.”
“Thank you.” He started to relax. She gave him a little push and he lay back on the pillows, closing his eyes. When she lay down beside him he did not stir. Convention dictated that he should leave, but for once he was feeling completely at peace.
“Please hold me,” Clara said, and he realized that in his selfish fears he had drawn so much on her strength and not given enough of himself back to her. He put his arms about her and drew
her close so that her head rested beneath his chin and their hearts beat together.
After a moment he eased away a little and scattered little kisses across the soft skin of her face, paying special attention to those stubborn freckles that had always tempted him. He was trying not to think about what he was doing, trusting to instinct rather than past skill.
She turned her head slightly and her lips met his, then he felt the tip of her tongue touch the corner of his mouth. It set the blood hammering through his body and he opened his lips to hers, hesitantly at first, unprepared for the flash of desire that almost consumed him as their tongues touched, tangled.
Beneath the desire lay acute anxiety. He recognized it with incredulity. It almost paralyzed him. Clara was pressing closer, gently running her hands over his arms and shoulders, sliding the damp jacket from him so that he could feel the warmth of her touch through the linen of his shirt. She was resting her cheek against his chest now and he knew she would be able to hear the racing of his heart.
“I am sorry,” he said, kissing her hair. “I do not wish to hurt you.”
There was laughter in her voice. “I am no saint on a pedestal. You need not treat me like glass, Sebastian. I shall not break.”
“No, but I am very afraid that I might.”
She wriggled up until she was looking him in the eyes. “Then we shall break and mend together.”
She saw the way his eyes darkened with sudden heat and felt a rush of the same excitement through her body with an undertow of fear. Now, at last, she sensed she was close to overcoming that last barrier that lay between them.
With one forceful movement he rolled her beneath him, his mouth crashing down on hers, scattering her own doubts and anxieties. Her senses reeled beneath the onslaught, her body arching, pleading for the fulfilment of pleasure. If he should hesitate now…
She felt his fingers rough on the fastenings of her chemise. He was trembling. She refused to give him time to think. She cast the chemise aside, caught his hand and placed it over her breast.
He groaned, but she knew with a flash of pure feminine triumph that she had won. His mouth was at her breast, hot and wet, and she ripped the shirt from his back so that she could touch his nakedness, skin to skin.
When he tore off his breeches and she felt the whole hard length of him against her for the first time, the shock splintered her. It was so strange but so exquisitely pleasurable. She arched again into his hands, and then his mouth was on hers as he came down over her, caressing her, parting her thighs to find that aching softness at the center of her.
He drew back a little.
“I will hurt you now….”
She sensed his reluctance and once again she was ruthless, straining for his touch.
“Then do so. Please…” Her voice broke on a ragged gasp. “Sebastian…”
The pause seemed agonizingly long, but then he was moving with one sure, hard thrust to claim her, and the pleasure and the pain raked her with fire and she gasped, but his mouth on hers silenced her cries. She clutched him to her, feeling her world shatter and reform as he took her with such thorough tenderness that her body melted into bliss. All she could be certain of was that she had his love and would never lose it.
“I LOVE YOU.” Sebastian’s face was turned into the damp curve of her shoulder. His breath tickled her skin. She could hear the profound relaxation and happiness in his voice and to her surprise it made the tears well up in her throat. Such a painful journey for a man who had rejected his feelings for so many years. She gave him a brief, fierce hug.
“I love you, too, Sebastian.”
“I may not always be as good at showing my feelings as you are, my love. It was your sweetness and honesty that shamed me into such admiration for you. If I falter it will not be because I do not care for you.”
She understood what he was trying to say. It would take time for him to unlock all the bitterness and unhappiness from the past. That did not matter for she would be there with him.
“As long as you can promise to love and be faithful to me alone,” she said solemnly, “then there is nothing to fear.”
She felt him smile against her skin. “I can promise that without a shadow of a doubt.”
“Good.” Clara turned to look at him. “This business between us, then—” she gave a little voluptuous wiggle “—this rather pleasant business of making love…Is it all settled now?”
His lips quirked into a smile. “I think it may well be.”
She caressed his chest, feeling his muscles tense in sudden response to her touch. “Do you think that we should do it again, to make certain?” she whispered.
In reply he pulled her down on top of him, tangling a hand in her hair, bringing her mouth down to his.
“Yes,” he whispered against her lips. “Yes, I do.”
CLARA KNELT on the window seat, the ruby star in its box beside her. In the faint light before dawn it seemed to have a radiance of its own. She looked from her own particular star to the one she had seen that night a few weeks ago as it paled in the dawn sky over the roofs of London.
Have hope.
Have faith.
She smiled a little.
Sebastian stirred and she went across to the bed, slipping into the space beside him.
“How strange,” she said, as she cuddled close to his warmth. “I never thought this would be the season in which I found a suitor.”
He smiled, drawing her closer into his arms. “I never thought it would be the season in which I found a wife. Clara Davencourt, my love, my life.”
THIS WICKED GIFT
Courtney Milan
For Mass-yo (with a dash), the best little brother that staged protests and hunger strikes can buy.
We wanted to do everything for you,
and you were too smart to let us.
P.S. You know that thing with the face, shoes, Germany? Sorry about that. But can you stop mentioning it every time we see each other?
CHAPTER ONE
London, 1822
IT WAS FOUR DAYS until Christmas and four minutes until the family lending library closed for the evening. Lavinia Spencer sat, the daily ledger opened on the desk in front of her, and waited for the moment when the day would end and she could officially remove her five pennies from the take. Every day since summer, she’d set aside a coin or five from her family’s earnings. She’d saved the largesse in a cloth bag in the desk drawer, where nobody would find it and be tempted to spend it. Over the weeks, her bag had begun to burgeon. Now, she had almost two pounds.
Two pounds in small, cold coins to the rest of the world. For Lavinia, the money meant pies. Spices, sugar and wine to mull them with. And, once she scoured the markets, perhaps a goose—a small goose—roasted alongside their usual turnips. Her two pounds meant a Christmas celebration that would make Papa sit up and smile. Six months of planning—but the effort had been worth it, because Lavinia was going to deliver a holiday meal just like the ones her mother had prepared.
The business they’d conducted today had been frenetic. Lavinia finished adding columns in the daybook and nodded to herself. Today’s take—according to her records—had been very fine indeed. If she hadn’t miscalculated, today she’d let herself take six pennies from the till—half a shilling that made her that much more certain of goose, as opposed to mere stewing fowl. Lavinia took a deep breath. Layered atop the musk of leather-bound volumes and India ink, she could almost detect the scent of roast poultry. She imagined the red of mulled wine swirling in mugs. And in her mind’s eye, she saw her father sitting taller in his chair, color finally touching his cheeks.
She reached for the cash box and started counting.
The bell above the door rang—at a minute to closing. A gust of winter wind poured in. Lavinia looked up, prepared to be annoyed. But when she saw who had entered, she caught her breath.
It was him. Mr. William Q. White—and what the Q stood for, she’d not had the foresight to demand on the day
when he’d purchased his subscription. But the name rolled off the tongue. William Q. White. She could never think of him as simply a monosyllable last name. His name had rolled off her tongue, as it happened, far too many times in the last year for her own good.
He took off his hat and gloves at the threshold and shook droplets of water from the sodden gray of his coat. Mr. William Q. White was tall and his dark hair was cropped close to his skull. He did not dawdle in the doorway, letting the rain into the shop as so many other customers did. Instead, he moved quickly, purposefully, without ever appearing to rush. It was not even a second before he closed the door on the frigid winter and entered the room. Despite his alacrity, he did not track in mud.
His eyes, a rich mahogany, met hers. She bit her lip and twisted her feet around the legs of her stool. He spoke little, but what he said—
“Miss Spencer.” He gestured with his hat in acknowledgment.
Unremarkable words, but her toes curled in their slippers nonetheless. He spoke in a deep baritone, his voice as rich as the finest drinking chocolate. But what really made her palms tingle was a wild, indefinable something about his accent. It wasn’t the grating Cockney the delivery boys employed, nor the flat, pompous perfection of the London aristocracy. He had a pure, cultured voice—but one that was nonetheless from somewhere many miles distant. His Rs had just a hint of a roll to them; his vowels stretched and elongated into elegant diphthongs. Every time he said “Miss Spencer,” the exotic cadence of his speech seemed to whisper, “I have been places.”
She imagined him adding, “Would you like to come with me?”
Yes. Yes, she would. Lavinia rather fancied a man with long…vowels.
And oh, she knew she was being foolish and giddy about Mr. William Q. White. But if a girl couldn’t be foolish and giddy about a man when she was nineteen, when could she be foolish? It was hard to be serious all the time, especially when there was so much to be serious about.
And so she took a risk. “Merry Christmas, Mr. White.”
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