Temptation's Kiss

by Lisa Bingham

  Her reaction was instantaneous. She reached behind her and gripped his hair while her lashes squeezed shut as if to savor the sensations more fully.

  One of Sullivan’s hands splayed wide over her ribs, while the other climbed higher, tracing the whalebone strips of her corset beneath her gown until he reached the firm mound of her breast above. But even though he ached to cup the swell, he tormented them both by dragging just his thumbnail across the tight, aching nub of her nipple.

  She moaned, low in her throat. A sound so uninhibited, so sensual, that he was stunned. She arched her back, pressing her hips against his arousal. “Rich-ard,” she gasped.

  Sweet bloody hell, she was so alive in his embrace. So natural. To think that all this was hidden beneath her staid governess’ uniform. The thought alone caused his heart to thunder so hard he was sure it could be heard half a county away. Why would she want to leave him? Why would she pack her things if she meant to stay?

  She twisted against him, not to escape but to draw closer. Pressing chest to chest, thigh to thigh, she kissed his chin, his neck, his chest. Kittenish sounds of distress poured from her throat.

  Then, in a choreographed movement of mutual desire, her head lifted, his dipped. Despite the aching hunger that consumed them, the rage of passion that drove them, they both paused, a mere hair’s breadth away. Eyes locked in anticipation. They stilled. Until slowly they closed the distance. Mouth blended to mouth, heart to heart.

  The embrace held the gentle heat of spring and the fervent promise of summer. What had begun so simply was suddenly not so simple. His head slanted, bringing their lips more tightly together. Mouths parted, tongues met, retreated, then finally dueled.

  In an instant, their mutual desire swept away all thought of caution. Sullivan moaned as Chelsea fought to get closer. Need stumbled, then roared. Passion glowed, then exploded. He wanted her, heart, soul, and body. His body strained toward her, caution scattered to the wind.

  There was only one possible conclusion to their actions. Gently disengaging himself from her embrace, Sullivan made her look at him. He saw what he had hoped to find. A consummation of fire and passion. Ecstasy and delight.

  But what disturbed him were the shadows he found there as well. Guilt. Shame. Fear.

  Fear.

  Gently, he began to woo her again. Smiling in reassurance, he kissed her lightly, quickly. He couldn’t resist her. He couldn’t deny her. Pressing his lips to that sensitive arc, he drew her down onto the ground, pressing her into the softness of the rug.

  When he would have removed the pins from her hair, she stayed him, one last vestige of propriety hanging poised by a silver thread. Her gaze grew dark. Tormented.

  “Shh, shh,” he whispered.

  Her head shook slightly from side to side. A tear fell down her temple.

  “I meant to be strong,” she whispered. “I meant to help you. I meant to protect you. I would have run away if I could, but now I’m powerless to go.”

  Sullivan sensed the anguish behind the words and an overwhelming defeat. But his own body pulsed in relief to hear she wouldn’t escape him. His heart pounded against his ribs. He wanted to take her in his arms and love her until they both grew senseless. But suddenly he couldn’t finish what they had begun. He couldn’t take her this way, defeated and unsure of herself.

  When did I grow so noble? he thought self-deprecatingly. Mere days ago, he would have ravished her here, on the grass, with little thought of possible witnesses or future consequences.

  So what had caused him to develop such an interfering conscience? Had it happened the day she’d brought him his breakfast tray and refused to blanche at his nakedness? The day she’d tried to cut his hair? Or when she had introduced him to the long-lost Sutherland heirs?

  He smoothed away the teardrop that had melted into an almost indistinguishable silver track. He kissed her once, twice, and breathed deeply of her scent. Then he rolled onto his back and drew her into the hollow of his shoulder, holding her, soothing her, as the maelstrom of fading passion and confusion seeped from her body, leaving her drained and quiet in his arms.

  Never would she know how much he ached for her then. Never would she know the inner hell he suffered as Sullivan was brought face to face with his own brand of dilemmas.

  He desired this woman. Not just physically but emotionally as well. He wanted her to rely on him. He wanted to strengthen that elusive bond that grew steadily between them each day. He wanted her as his lover and his friend.

  But how could he possibly resolve the obstacles that lay between them? He was sworn to help his brother but wanted to help this woman. To aid one would be to endanger the other. If by some miracle of heaven he could find a way to resolve that particular problem and help them both, how could he make her love him, not the title? It was still too risky for him to abandon his masquerade of adopting Richard’s identity. Was it fair to offer her the enticement of position, wealth, when all he possessed was a tiny parcel of land half a world away? How could he live with himself if she accepted him, thinking he was Richard Sutherland, seventh Earl of Lindon, and he was forced to take such luxuries away?

  Thunder rolled overhead, seeming to echo his own confusion. Clouds spread thready wreaths over the brilliant sun, bringing a chill to the air and the heavy muskiness of impending rain.

  When she would have withdrawn, Sullivan held her still. Just a few more minutes. He needed a little more time to dream of the impossible becoming suddenly possible.

  The thunder rattled again, closer this time, lingering, drawing nearer, until Sullivan realized that this time it wasn’t thunder he heard but the clatter of a carriage approaching the cottage below.

  The woman in his arms stiffened, hearing it, too. Twisting free, she scrambled to her feet, lifted her hems, and hurried to peer past the hedge.

  Sullivan was awarded with the flash of petticoats and the sight of trim ankles clad in ivory silk stockings with an elaborate clocking design embroidered over her ankle. For some reason, the sight of such frivolously feminine undergarments hidden beneath her severe gown caused a bolt of reaction to course through him. Someday, someday soon, he would love her. When he did, she would be wearing those stockings. And nothing else.

  Propping his elbow beneath him, he rested his chin on his fist. But when she didn’t immediately return, he experienced a shiver of foreboding. The heaviness of the air gathered around him, settling like a lead weight deep in his chest.

  Long before she faced him again, he saw the way she cloaked herself in an emotional armor, piece by piece. By the time she faced him again, her stance was brittle.

  Despite her obvious effort of outward calm, she hadn’t guarded her soul. He read the traces of a tortured hunger. Then the shadows encroached. She stood, still silent. He became witness to a flash of haunting pain, so eloquently expressed that it tugged a response from his soul. Not lust but empathy. Compassion.

  One of her arms wound around her waist and the other crossed diagonally over her chest so that her fingers curled around the base of her neck. It was a defensive stance. A vulnerable one. But the determined tilt of her chin and the fire that flared briefly in her expression negated her own posture.

  “It seems we have guests, Master Richard. Your grandmother, Dowager Lady Beatrice Sutherland, has arrived.”

  Chapter 14

  After making her announcement, Chelsea waited for Sullivan’s reaction, but he didn’t move. Not because he wasn’t supposed to understand her, but because he didn’t know what to say or how to act. This woman on whom Chelsea placed so much importance was nothing to him. A face without a name.

  “Come, Richard. Beatrice will be anxious to see you.”

  Anxious to see him? After she had endangered his family? After she had paid bloodhounds to bring Richard home?

  His father had been sent away from this place in shame. He had died cursing the geography, the people, and his enemies. He’d thought himself
abandoned by his family. So far, Sullivan had not been persuaded to the contrary. He saw no reason to stay. Moreover, he saw no reason to drag Richard the length of the globe to return him to a climate that would probably kill him.

  “Richard?” She crooked her finger, then turned and began the trek back to the house.

  Sullivan fell into step behind her but followed much more reluctantly. He was annoyed and angered by the intrusion of this old woman. Not just because his body still thrummed and he wanted to lie upon the grass with Chelsea Wickersham, but because he did not want to meet Beatrice Sutherland.

  It was this woman who had forced Sullivan to adopt an elaborate masquerade in order to protect those he loved. If not for her persistent attempts to find Richard, he and his family could have lived their entire existence quite happily on Sutherland’s Roost. But no, she had been intent upon immersing them in the mire of deceit and intrigue, without a thought that they might not wish to become involved.

  How could she be so thoughtless, so insensitive, so completely wrong? She might call herself his grandmother, but she was nothing more to him than a foreigner.

  By the time he and Chelsea rounded the hedge and began to return, the carriage had rolled to a stop. Before the driver could alight to help, the door was thrown open, and a tiny gray-haired woman emerged. Limping quite noticeably, she stumbled up the walk as fast as her feet could carry her, then ran into the house. A small dog clambered down and yapped about her heels, making her journey even more awkward. Sullivan was offered no more than a glimpse of the tiny birdlike woman before she disappeared, her yapping spaniel in tow. Despite the distance, he could hear her calling, “Richard? Richard!”

  Sullivan ignored the note of panic and longing that tinged her words. She was an interfering, meddling old crone who didn’t deserve another thought.

  Within seconds, she appeared again, directed by Smee, who pointed to the two figures in the distance. She stopped and squinted in confusion, asked something of Smee, who pointed more emphatically at the couple before disappearing inside the cottage.

  Sullivan stopped at the bottom of the path, unwilling to go any farther. He didn’t want to meet her. He didn’t want her to know anything about him. He wished she would climb into her carriage and leave. He wished she would turn away from his savageness in disgust. He wished … he wished …

  Why did she have to look their way so longingly? Why did she have to demonstrate such confusion and hope?

  Chelsea took his elbow and, short of balking against her like a stubborn mule, he was forced to follow.

  Each step he took seemed to make the elderly woman shrink inside herself even more. Huge, watery blue eyes watched his approach, her gaze moving up and down his frame as if she couldn’t believe the evidence of her own senses.

  She was so old. So small, so fragile, so vulnerable. But there was nothing weak about the joyful anticipation that spread over her face as she turned to Chelsea.

  “Where is he?” she whispered, then more strongly, “Where is he?” Limping forward, she smiled in delight. “Where is my boy?”

  Other than another quick glance, she didn’t bother to study Sullivan again, and he grew tense and angry. He wasn’t some stablehand to be ignored so easily. This woman had no right to make him feel inadequate and low. No right!

  She came to a halt directly in front of him, and Sullivan appraised her with arrogant disdain. So this was the woman who had caused so much upheaval and pain? This was the old dowager who had overturned heaven and earth to find them when they had fought to remain hidden?

  “Biddy,” Chelsea began gently. “This is your grandson, Richard Albert Sutherland IV.”

  The old woman’s skin pulled tightly over her cheekbones, fading to an unnatural pallor. Her stare flicked to Sullivan, then to Chelsea, then back again in confusion. “But …”

  “I wrote you a letter last night, explaining—”

  “I couldn’t wait any longer. I had to come. I know we agreed that I should stay in London until you sent word, but … He’s not a boy. He’s grown.”

  “Yes.”

  Her eyes clouded. “The information we were given was wrong. The portrait was much older than we believed.”

  “Yes.”

  She shuffled forward, and for the first time Sutherland noted that she carried a small bundle. It had been wrapped in brown paper and tied with a velvet ribbon. She smoothed the package in embarrassment and quiet regret. “I’m afraid I’m caught unprepared for such … I thought you might enjoy something of your father’s, but … you’re grown.”

  Sullivan looked suspiciously at the parcel. Something of his father’s? What could she possibly have of his that she would think Sullivan would want? His father had already passed on his legacy. A legacy of pride and honor.

  Biddy hesitated, then gave him the package anyway. “Perhaps you will find it amusing.”

  Sullivan reluctantly took the present but did not reply. When the silence stretched taut and interminable, Chelsea inserted, “He doesn’t speak much English, I’m afraid.”

  “No English?” The woman appeared dumbstruck.

  “However, we’re getting along famously as of this morning.” A fullblown pause followed that statement, as if Chelsea were remembering just how “famously” they’d been getting on. She added, “Wait and see, he’ll be chattering to you like an old friend within a few days.”

  They waited in expectant silence, but Sullivan refused to speak.

  Beatrice’s face became starkly vulnerable. Her chin quivered. “He’s so thin.”

  “He’s strong and healthy, Biddy.”

  “He’s pale.”

  “Nonsense, he’s got a nice golden glow from the sun.”

  “He’s weak.”

  “He has the constitution of an ox, I assure you.”

  Biddy’s chin crumpled, huge tears appearing. Sullivan tried to push away the pang of reaction he felt as he saw her struggle to blink them away before they were noticed.

  She took a step forward. Two. “Richard?” she whispered, reaching out to touch his face. “How like my Albert you look. Come. Won’t you give your grandmother a kiss hello?”

  She reached out as if to draw him down to her, and he jerked back, stunned by how much raw emotion this woman displayed. He was no one to her. He was a barbarian. An unknown quantity.

  He didn’t want her to touch him. He didn’t want her to get to know him, to learn to like him, to decide to love him as her own. He didn’t want to admit that there was anything between them but hard feelings. He didn’t want to come to terms with the naked love and adoration he saw.

  That was the way things had to be.

  When she tried to restrain him, he twisted free, stormed to the cottage, and disappeared inside.

  “Richard. Richard!”

  He heard Chelsea call to him, but he didn’t stop. He slammed the door resolutely behind him, refusing to acknowledge the dart of guilt he felt for such an action.

  Chelsea had never been so angry and ashamed of another human being in her entire life. She had dealt with cruelty before. She had been raised at the knee of a dour, petty man. She had evaded the clasps of lechers and sycophants and fools. But never, ever, had she seen such deliberate hatefulness toward a helpless woman.

  It took her some time to settle Biddy in her room upstairs, to reassure her that Richard was merely confused and overwhelmed. The whole time a fury burned in her chest. How could she have thought this man gentle and noble? How could she have misconstrued his apathy for tenderness?

  Riding on a storm of inner castigation for believing this man could be something good when he was not, she marched down the corridor and threw open the nursery door.

  “That was cruel, Master Richard. Completely and utterly cruel!” She planted her hands on her hips. “That woman has pinned her whole life upon the hope of seeing you. She has sacrificed everything she owned and everything she held dear. You turned away from her
as if she were nothing but a chambermaid. How dare you? How dare you be so ungrateful.”

  He stood with his back to her, his head bent. Incensed that he hadn’t even acknowledged her presence, she stamped toward him, forcing him to turn.

  The anger drained away as she found a still, silent confusion radiating from his features. He held the small, stubby shape of a stuffed dog. Blunt masculine fingers stroked the rabbit’s fur that covered the toy. There were bald spots where a child had already rubbed the pelt away.

  “Oh, Richard.” Chelsea squeezed his wrist. Part of the shame she felt became her own. “This hasn’t been easy for you, has it? You must be extremely confused about all that’s happened. After this morning’s success, I expected you to understand the import of meeting your grandmother. But to you, she’s just another strange face.”

  Sighing, she continued more gently. “I wish there were some manner of communication we could share. But there’s no easy way to explain how you came to be here and how imperative it is for you to stay. Some things can’t be put into words.” She thought for a moment, then continued. “Biddy, your grandmother, is a special woman. She is kind and loving and devoted. She would never see another person in pain, but if she found herself in trouble, she wouldn’t say a word. For years, she’s fretted and agonized and worried about your father and mother. After she learned of their deaths and your existence, she began to worry about you.” She gently asked, “Why don’t you meet with her?”

  She tried to draw him toward the door, but he refused to budge.

  “Please don’t punish her this way. She’s lived through so much unhappiness. She deserves a little joy.”

  But the man she spoke to remained immovable. Knowing he didn’t understand and guessing that at the moment he needed some time alone to gather his own thoughts and impressions, she backed away.

  At the door, she turned. He stood exactly where she’d left him, his expression grim. “Rest, Master Richard. We’ll come and fetch you in time for supper.”