Forbidden (Regency Lovers 4)

by Carole Mortimer

  “Angel—”

  She pulled her mare’s head aside as Zachary would have grasped hold of the reins. “I have nothing more to say to you at this time, my lord,” she said frostily.

  Zachary placed his hands against the mare’s neck. “I thought only to protect you with my silence.”

  Her gaze swept over him scathingly. “And instead that silence almost resulted in the death of one or both of us.” Her voice was as cold as her demeanor.

  Zachary gazed at her for several minutes before nodding his defeat, his hands falling back to his sides. “You are right. It is time we returned to Weston Park.”

  A journey that was made in complete silence, despite the fact Zachary and Rissa rode side by side.

  Rissa did not bother, once the two of them arrived back at Weston Park and she had deposited her bonnet and leather riding gloves with the butler, to then go to her bedchamber to freshen up and change, as she would normally have done after going riding. Instead, she made her way straight to her stepmother’s bedchamber, where she was sure by this time of the morning, her father and Sophia would be enjoying breakfast together.

  She was aware of Zachary following closely on her heels but did not acknowledge his presence by word or deed. She was currently too angry with him and her parents to be capable of stringing a sentence together which would not be full of that anger and accusation.

  As for the death of her Aunt Susan…

  No doubt the other woman deserved punishment for having helped that madman escape from the asylum. But surely no one, least of all Susan, could have expected Royston to deal with her with such callous finality.

  Her father rose to his feet immediately after Rissa burst into the room, having been seated with his wife, as Rissa had suspected he might, at the small breakfast table in front of one of the bay windows in Sophia’s bedchamber. “What is the meaning of this?” he demanded as Zachary followed Rissa into the room. “Can a man no longer be left in peace to enjoy a leisurely breakfast with his wife?”

  It was a fair enough question, Zachary conceded, but one that was not relevant when the man’s daughter was obviously set on demanding answers.

  “Not when he and that wife have been keeping secrets from me that could have resulted in either my death or someone else’s!” Rissa’s furious accusation confirmed that demand.

  Someone else? Was that what Zachary had been reduced to in Rissa’s mind?

  “What has happened?” Sophia’s face paled as she also rose to her feet, her week of resting in her bed obviously at an end. She also seemed completely unconcerned with the fact she was still dressed in a white silk nightgown covered only by a matching robe.

  Zachary stepped forward. “I accept full responsibility for Rissa not having been fully informed, as the two of you wished her to be, of the seriousness of this situation. Unwisely, as it turns out.” He winced. “Royston is in the near vicinity,” he informed the married couple.

  “You have seen him?” the duke demanded.

  Zachary nodded. “He spoke to us.”

  “What the hell…” Weston threw his napkin down on the breakfast table with disgust. “Where were the guards I employed to protect us all while this was happening?”

  Zachary winced as he sensed Rissa’s accusing gaze turned on him. “I was aware of two of them following from a distance when we first rode out, but I became…distracted after that, and have not seen either man since. Royston implied he had somehow incapacitated both of them, but I did not want to waste any more time searching for them. I believed Ang—Lady Clarissa’s return to Weston Park to be more important. A search down by the river will probably find them both trussed up and gagged.” He sincerely hoped that was the case, although Royston’s word could not be believed. The other man’s respect for life seemed to be nonexistent.

  Weston nodded. “I will have some of the other men go and look for them.” His gaze narrowed on Zachary. “What was the nature of your distraction?”

  Zachary had no idea how to answer that question.

  But he did not need to do so as Rissa stepped closer to her father. “Is the escape of this madman from the asylum the reason you chose to come personally to collect me from Catchpole Manor?”

  A nerve pulsed in the duke’s tightly clenched jaw. “Yes.”

  “The reason I have now learned you have guards dogging our every move?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it also true Royston tried to shoot you a year ago?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you know that it was Aunt Susan who helped the earl escape from the asylum?”

  “Yes.”

  Rissa’s eyes narrowed. “But I doubt you know that he has since killed her and consigned her body to the Thames.”

  Weston’s jaw tightened. “No, I did not know that.”

  She nodded. “The earl wished us to tell you he has every intention of seeing both you and Sophia again very soon.”

  “Over my dead body!” her father rasped.

  Rissa gave a dazed shake of her head. “How could you have kept any of these other things from me? To have lied, by omission, if nothing else,” she accused. “To have treated me like a child!”

  Zachary could not allow the other man to take responsibility for something he had done. “I told you that is down to me, Angel. Your father and the duchess wished to tell you all of the truth, but I believed it to be unnecessary at the time. I wished only to protect you,” he added with a pained wince.

  She gave him a scathing snort. “I do not need the protection of ignorance. Of being treated as a child who cannot hear the truth. Besides, my father is not a man whose decisions are easily swayed by another.”

  “He is when those decisions involve the safety of his wife and daughter,” Zachary reproved quietly.

  “I do not care what his reasons are. It is unacceptable that—” She broke off at the sound of a pained cry.

  They turned as one to look at Sophia.

  The duchess’s face was deathly white. She clutched her swollen belly as her eyelids fluttered closed and she slowly sank onto the carpeted floor.

  Chapter 9

  “This is all my fault.” Rissa prowled the confines of the family’s private parlor. “I thought only of my own anger and hurt feelings when I made those accusations and then blurted out the knowledge my Aunt Susan has been killed by the Earl of Royston.” She drew in a shaky breath. “If anything happens to Sophia or the baby, my father will never forgive me. I will never forgive myself,” she added emotionally.

  Her father, having carried the unconscious Sophia to her bed, while at the same time barking out instructions for the doctor to be sent for, had then dismissed everyone else from the room. Including Rissa and Zachary.

  The two of them had now been waiting in this parlor for the past two hours but so far, no news on the duchess had been forthcoming. The only information brought to them, by the butler when he delivered a tray of tea-things, was that the doctor had arrived and the two guards had been found, tied and gagged as Zachary had suggested they might be, but otherwise unharmed.

  “If anyone is at fault, then it is me,” Zachary accepted bleakly, seated in one of the armchairs. He had decided one of them pacing the room was enough and Rissa had more right to do so than he did. “Difficult to believe Royston was once a close friend of mine, but I remained completely oblivious to any of his madness until a year ago.”

  Rissa ceased her pacing. “From what has been said, it seems that Sophia was equally as blind to the earl’s unhealthy obsession with her, and she had known him all her life. Indeed, he appears to have been her closest friend until she learned only a year ago what a monster he is.”

  Zachary felt a glimmer of warmth at the realization his Angel was trying to ease his distress. Perhaps there was hope for their friendship after all? “Royston will surely hang after this.”

  “Yes,” Rissa agreed without sympathy for the fact. “I was not particularly fond of my Aunt Susan, nor was my father aft
er she treated Sophia with such contempt before and after their marriage, but I do not believe any of us wished her dead. Do you think Sophia is going to be all right?” Her lashes were wet with tears as she looked to Zachary for reassurance.

  A sign of her distress to which Zachary immediately responded as he stood and crossed the room to her side. “Sophia is a strong and determined woman. Much like her stepdaughter,” he added huskily. “She will fight for herself and the life of her child. Your father will fight for both of them.”

  Rissa rested her forehead against Zachary’s chest “Papa loves Sophia so much. It will be the death of him too if he loses her,” she stated with certainty.

  “He will not lose her.” Zachary’s arms moved about his Angel, relieved when she allowed him to pull her close against him. “Sophia is far too stubborn to allow such a thing to happen.” He had known Sophia only slightly eleven years ago, but this past year, he had developed a genuine affection for the indomitable woman she had become before and since becoming Weston’s duchess.

  Rissa’s arms held him as tightly. “But it is too early for the baby to be born.”

  “Only a few weeks,” he dismissed.

  “Almost six,” she corrected.

  “We do not know if that is what is happening,” Zachary reasoned. “Sophia might only have fainted from the shock of learning Royston is here and that he has already killed Lady Hampton.”

  Rissa raised her head to look at him, her lashes still wet with unshed tears. “Will you kiss me, please, Zachary?”

  The warmth deepened in his chest. “You never need to ask me that.”

  “No?”

  “No,” he assured. “I will happily kiss you any time of day or night.”

  She smiled ruefully. “I doubt Papa would be pleased to ever learn of the latter occurring.”

  He doubted the duke, from his interest in the reason for Zachary having been too “distracted” earlier, would be pleased to learn of Zachary having kissed his daughter even once. Not without a formal engagement having been announced between the two of them. With Royston’s arrival in the neighborhood dredging up so many bad memories of the past, and his actions now promising more scandal in the future, Zachary was more determined than ever that could never happen. It would ruin his Angel socially to even be associated with him.

  But none of that concerned Zachary right now. Only his Angel’s needs concerned him, not those of the duke or anyone else. “Then we shall have to ensure he does not learn of it.” He placed a finger beneath Rissa’s pointed chin and tilted her face up toward his before lowering his head to claim the soft pout of her lips.

  He meant it only as a kiss of comfort, but the moment his Angel’s lips parted beneath his, he became lost in the pleasure of her mouth.

  Rissa’s heart leapt and her body heated as Zachary kissed her, as they always did, allowing for no other thoughts but the two of them.

  Her arms entwined about Zachary’s shoulders, her fingers becoming entangled in the hair at his nape and she pressed closer to him as his lips passionately claimed hers. His tongue plunged deep into the heat of her mouth in a parody, she believed, of the sexual act her body ached and longed for.

  She had not forgotten the anger she still felt at having been treated like a child, and had only become more determined than ever to prove to Zachary that was not what she was.

  Her fingers tightened in his hair as her tongue met and slid alongside the length of his, following as his retreated and was instantly enveloped in the heat of Zachary’s mouth. He groaned as Rissa broke the kiss to rest her head against his chest so that she might watch her fingers caress lightly along the hot length of his arousal trapped inside his riding breeches.

  “Angel!” he gasped. “I cannot— I will surely— Dear God…!” His throat arched as her fingers caressed harder against the throb of his erection.

  “I want to see. To touch,” Rissa told him urgently even as she unfastened the buttons of his breeches before slipping her hand inside. “Oh,” she gasped as she touched that pulsing length of what felt like steel encased in velvety soft skin.

  “Angel, we cannot— You cannot—” Zachary broke off his husky protest as he felt his Angel’s slender fingers first encircle his throbbing cock and then begin an up-and-down stroke that pushed him perilously close to the edge of releasing. He stilled her pumping movements by placing his hand over hers through the material of his breeches. “We cannot do this here, or now,” he warned achingly.

  Her eyes glittered with challenge as she threw her head back to look up at him. “Are you telling me to stop or merely stating a fact?” There was an undeniable wildness in her gaze and expression, no doubt partially caused by a need to escape, if only for a short time, the worry about the duchess and the danger of Royston’s presence in the area.

  “Neither,” Zachary conceded, knowing he was too aroused to ever want her to stop. “I only— At least allow me to lock the door so we are not interrupted,” he pleaded.

  She stepped back. “Very well.”

  Zachary felt the loss the moment she removed her hand, his cock throbbing in protest for having been abandoned. But it was only a brief respite, thank God. The moment he returned from locking the door, his Angel completed unfastening his breeches.

  Rissa had never seen a man’s shaft before, had never wanted to do so before she met Zachary. But she did so now as she lowered the unfastened flap of Zachary’s breeches and his long and throbbing member instantly jutted free.

  It was at least eight inches in length and wider around than her fingers could comfortably encircle. The top was a dark red and flared outward, with a slit at its tip from which a bubble of viscous fluid now escaped to dribble down the glistening head.

  “Taste it,” he invited gruffly.

  Rissa glanced up at Zachary from beneath her long lashes. His eyes glittered darkly, his cheeks were flushed, the moistness of his lips looked slightly fuller, possibly from their earlier kiss.

  Taste it.

  Rissa had never been so aware of her inexperience in the giving and receiving of physical pleasure. Did Zachary mean for her to take his cock into her mouth, or lick up the liquid still escaping from that reddened tip?

  She decided to do the former, because once that bulbous top was in her mouth, she would also be able to taste his release.

  “I hope you understand this does not mean I am no longer angry with you,” she murmured.

  “Angel!” Zachary gave a low moan as she sank to her knees in front of him.

  Rissa lifted her gaze. “Do you understand that?” Her fingers tightened about his shaft.

  “Yes! God, yes…” Zachary rasped as Rissa’s fingers once again encircled his cock and she lowered her head, lips parted, to engulf that mushroomed head into the heat of her mouth before sucking and then swallowing the moisture from its tip.

  It tasted glorious!

  Sweet and salty at the same time, along with that earthy maleness she associated only with Zachary.

  “My Angel,” he gasped, fingers digging into the slenderness of her shoulders as she sucked more and more of that release into her mouth, her throat moving as she drank it down greedily. “Stroke the length of my cock,” he encouraged breathily.

  Zachary’s knees became weak as his Angel, usually so independent and unwilling to be controlled in any way, immediately began to caress and pump his cock. With such enthusiasm that, along with the swirling heat of her tongue over the cockhead, it resulted in that tingling at the base of his spine which usually heralded Zachary’s imminent release.

  A release he was unable to hold back when the tip of his Angel’s tongue pierced the slit at the top of his shaft, giving a pleasure that went straight to his balls and resulted in the instant and heated eruption of his cum down the length of his cock to release in spurt after hot spurt inside his Angel’s mouth.

  Rissa continued to lightly pump Zachary’s cock as she greedily drank down every drop of his essence.

  She had
done this

  Clarissa Spencer.

  Zachary’s Angel.

  Surely he could not continue to think of her as a child after this, moreover one he considered more in need of his protection than his passion?

  She could not—

  “Clarissa, are you in there?” The rattling of the doorknob accompanied her father’s sharp query. “Either this door is locked, or there is a fault with the opening mechanism.”

  Dear God, how could she have so completely forgotten everything else but Zachary and his pleasure? When all the time Rissa had been concentrated on that pleasure, Sophia was fighting for her own life and that of her child, and Rissa’s father was frantic with worry about both of them.

  Guilt washed over her in the knowledge she had forgotten those things, if only for a few minutes.

  “You have done nothing wrong,” Zachary reassured as he placed his hands beneath his Angel’s elbows and assisted her back to her feet.

  Perhaps not in regard to Zachary, Rissa accepted, but she had certainly acted selfishly when her father and Sophia were in such dire straits.

  There came another rattling of the door accompanied by “Clarissa!”

  “Open the door while I adjust my clothing,” Zachary encouraged gruffly. “The two of us will talk of this again later.”

  Rissa felt slightly disorientated as she hurried over to unlock and open the door. One look at her father’s flinty expression and her heart sank. “Sophia?” she prompted anxiously.

  Her father’s expression softened slightly at the mention of his beloved wife. “Sophia is well but very tired after the birth of our son. He is tiny, but the doctor assures us there is no reason, with our constant care and attention, that he should not thrive,” he quickly assured as Rissa gasped.

  “I will go to Sophia now.” She picked up her skirts and hurried from the parlor, anxious to see for herself that her stepmother and brother were both alive and well.