by Laura Parker
She should have been dismayed, insulted, and enraged by his revelation. After all, he had hidden that secret while he pretended to court her. No, he had not pretended courtship. Their encounters could never be mistaken for that genteel exercise most often practiced between lady and suitor. He had never shown the least tender emotion toward her. He had exhibited disdain, disinterest, mild amusement at her expense, even a strangely aloof passion when he had taken her in his arms the night before.
Sabrina closed her eyes and rested her cheek against his back, lured by the inviting warmth of him into acquiescence. She had not felt in the least aloof in his arms, only a sense of wonder and a burning curiosity to feel more of his kisses.
Perhaps that was why she had refused to acknowledge the subtle hints of familiarity in his voice and manner. A phantom suitor on horseback was much easier to manage than a flesh and blood man. Viscount Darlington had a reputation as both a difficult and contrary soul. Loving him would be …
Sabrina’s eyes popped open. Love Lord Darlington? Preposterous! She did not love him. She was infatuated, yes, she could admit to that emotion. Even enthralled by the temptation he presented. And he would likely, before they were done, be her downfall.
She was not a fool. He would ruin her, break her heart, and leave her unfit for decent men and unsatisfied by the ardor of any man. A woman did not love such a man, she merely desired to dance before the wicked allure in his gaze.
And desire him she did.
Her body tingled everywhere they touched. She knew, with a womanly instinct of which she had not heretofore been aware, that lying with him would be as fiercely sweet as his kiss.
So then why should she not behave as the libertine Cousin Robert had often branded her? Her life as a lady was over. After the indiscretion of running away with a man this night, she would never again be received at court or ever again be invited to associate with the aristocracy. Even dear sweet Lotte would be scandalized. But what did that matter? If her plan succeeded, she and Kit might well spend the rest of their lives an ocean away from their homeland. The only moments that were certain were these now, with her arms wrapped about the one man who had made her feel that odd sensation that more weak-willed women called love.
Oh, but she must not make that mistake. To pin her hopes on that easily vanquished hope that he might return her feelings would drive her mad. Better to admit to lust than to expire for a man who avowed that he did not know the meaning of the word love.
Yes! If the moment presented itself before their parting, she would take Jack Laughton as her lover. What better revenge against all her former stifled and ruled life than to lie for one night with the wild and unrepentant “Black Jack” of her dreams?
She wanted him and he must want her, too.
She pulled her arms from around his waist and then reached behind him and pushed her hands through the slashes fashioned at the back of a gentleman’s coat and vest so that he could ride astride.
“My hands are cold,” she said loudly enough for him to hear. He said nothing.
Once underneath, she pushed her hands forward until her fingertips met. How warm he was! The heat of his body was very like that she experienced when holding her hands to a fire. She had not known anyone could be so hot.
After a few moments more, she began flexing her fingers against the fabric of his lingerie shirt, as thin and fine as any lady’s chemise. He jumped once, as though she tickled him, yet he did not order her to remove her hands. Chagrined by her own temerity, she pressed her face into the natural valley formed between his shoulder blades and began to slowly rub circles into his skin. She did not think too hard about what she was doing, as yet uncertain of what roused a man. She let instinct direct her, seeking what would amaze her if he chose to touch her in such a fashion.
The first tentative circles with her fingertips became a more general caress, sliding slowly up and down from the waistband of his breeches up his chest as far as the restriction of his coat and vest would allow. How smooth his skin felt beneath the thin lawn fabric of his shirt. Gathering determination from his lack of response, she found his lower ribs and slowly traced the curving lines of them to his sides and back.
He shivered once and then again, taut muscles dancing beneath her touch, then muttered something she could not understand. Perhaps it was just as well. Unless he stopped her by direct order she had no desire to abandon her design.
The rhythm of his breathing came a little faster now, as if he had walked a long distance when in fact it seemed they plodded along with all the speed of donkey cart. She smiled when he sucked in a quick breath as she pressed a finger into his belly button. She had forgotten until just this moment that he had been breathing heavily when he broke their last kiss. She had assumed at the time that, like her, he was trying to master emotions of anger and resentment and uncertainty. Now she wondered if, like she, he had been also attempting to subdue the desire that flooded him.
Her fingers tingled as she stroked him. The heat from him seemed to invade her own body, swirling through her, flushing her face and bosom and low down where her loins pressed against his buttocks.
Squirming in unconscious response to the feelings she had aroused within herself, she hugged him tighter and whispered, “Is it very much farther, my lord?”
“I devoutly hope not!” he bit out, sounding in a cold fury.
Disappointed, Sabrina tried to yank her hands free of his garments but she was hampered by the tangle of clothing. Rather than tear his clothing, which she was certain would further infuriate him, she balled her hands into fists and hung grimly on. How could he be so unmoved when she felt as if she held the sun within her embrace?
Jack found he was shaking. Never in his life could he recall ever being more coldly furious or so thoroughly aroused. How could she know that her innocent playfulness was pushing him to the brink of madness? He could have ordered her stop, but to his consternation he had found himself helpless to do that. He had not wanted her to stop but to do more. He wanted to push her hands lower and direct her to unbutton his breeches, to take him in her hands.
He sucked in a deep breath as she rubbed her cheek along his back. If she did not stop soon he would lose command of his lust and abandon his noble plan to take her to a place of comfort and shelter and instead pull her from the saddle and take her in a ditch on the side of the road.
To have her so close, to feel the subtle pressure of her breasts against his back with every roll of his steed’s gait was torture. To know that she all but embraced him while he could not even touch her except passively, inadvertently, helplessly, was a more powerful aphrodisiac than he had ever imagined.
Her hands tantalized him, her unconscious flexing a massage that made him ache to reach down and move those fascinating fingers to a more effective spot. Yet a new complication had arisen.
All his fine plans of seduction and abandonment had been given a new context. She was no longer simply a conquest for his amusement, a spoiled, pampered, proud daughter of the merchant class to be used and cast aside. She had become a very real and unique person for him, capable of selfless acts of chivalry and moments of courage he had not suspected. She had a brother whose life she hoped to save!
The devil confound it! It was a desperate desire doomed to failure. What could a girl and a sickly boy do to protect themselves, even if she were able to liberate him from her guardian’s kin?
Worse yet, he was encouraging her in her folly by helping her escape Bath. Where would he take her? What would he do with her? Women wed every day where there was no feeling of tenderness. She would be a marchioness, her future and those of her children secure. What could he offer her but debauchery and certain doom?
He could not touch her. He could preserve her maidenhead and send her back to her fat, elderly bridegroom intact. That much of her innocence at least could be proven. Yet, he was very certain he was not that good a man.
He shifted in the saddl
e and then reached back to embrace her, his hand finding and cradling the small of her back. “There’s a cottage just ahead. I think we’ve traveled far enough to be safe. Shall we retire for the night?”
“Oh yes,” she whispered.
Poor child, he thought with a protective tenderness he seldom felt toward his victims. She would be asleep before she understood he had other plans for her. Or perhaps he was not as depraved as he thought. Only rime and opportunity would tell.
Sabrina contained her excitement as he turned into the yard of the farmer’s cottage. Did she have the nerve to follow through with her plan? Perhaps, if she succeeded and he liked her, he would take her to Scotland. She knew enough of the world to understand it would be a gamble, her body risked against his offer of continued aid.
Jack threw a leg over his horse’s neck and slipped to the ground. Turning around, he lifted his arms. “Come here, sweeting.”
Sabrina slid easily from the horse into his arms. He took her by the waist and eased her down. But as the horse danced away from them Sabrina realized that he continued to hold her off the ground. For a moment she stared into his eyes, mere liquid shadows in the darkness, and wondered what her future held.
“If you come in with me, sweeting, we will lie together this night. Is that your desire?”
She did want him. But she could not find the words to say that to this superbly confident soul. She felt the awful push of tears at the back of her eyes.
Jack felt the hard tremors coursing through her body as he held her close and understood better than she the enormity of the temptation he had placed before her. He slowly lowered her to the ground, drawing her in against him as he did so. “You do not need to answer, sweeting. Let your kiss answer for you.”
He reached down and tilted her chin up. Anticipation shone in the dark depths of her gaze and he felt almost sorry for her. She was curious and yet desperately abashed by the desire that rendered her mute before the honesty of a declaration.
Sabrina gazed back at the reckless curve of his rare and beautiful smile caught in the stark starlight. That smile touched her like a little caress and made her feel less afraid and even more reckless. She knew there would never be another time. If she did not meet his challenge with courage she would forever after wonder and regret what she had missed by turning away.
In the end it was so simple because he stood before her, looking down at her with the gaze of desire she had never before welcomed on any other man’s face. She laughed suddenly and pulled him to her. To lie with him this once would be worth the gamble.
His kiss caught her. The stark beauty of it was no stroke of the victor’s blade but a balm upon her battered soul. Here is where she belonged, her heart sang, in this man’s arms, with his lips warm and pliant upon her own.
She wrapped her arms about his neck and lifted up to tiptoe, letting her quivering mouth answer in the words she could not speak.
After a long moment of hunger-fed kisses, he lifted his head and ran his thumb across her damp lower lip. “Come inside, where we may both be warm and linger over this matter of kisses until we are quite satisfied.”
To her own surprise, she found her voice. “Yes.”
He scooped her up without another word, walked the short distance to the cottage, and struck open the door with a boot kick. To her surprise a fire burned low in the hearth, breathing its accumulated warmth upon them as they entered.
“Oh, someone must be here,” she said in dismay.
“No,” he answered with authority as he marched into the center of the room. “I am very certain we are alone.”
“How can that be?”
He put her down and turned her back to face him. “Because, sweeting, I am responsible for the fire.”
Sabrina gazed up at him as his words sank in. He had prepared this place before she left Bath with him. Had he meant to come here alone … or had he expected to bring her along?
“Yes, for you.”
Once again the enormity to what she was about to do washed over her and she turned away from him to study the contents as though she were being offered the cottage for purchase. There was a small table with two chairs. On the table stood a bottle of wine and two glasses.
“I am thirsty,” she said automatically.
“Later.”
He turned her a little by the shoulders until she faced the one item in the room that she had purposely not glanced at. In one corner stood an old-fashioned cabinet bed, its doors thrown open to reveal the turned-back bedding glowing faintly in the firelight. He was responsible for that, too, she supposed.
She turned back to him very slowly. She wanted this, she reminded herself. Yet she was silent and still, unable to breathe as he carefully turned her to face him and drew her unresistingly to him so that they touched from chest to hip. She was shivering though the room was quite warm. He was smiling, but the time for words was past.
The night was dark and now very still. Her world was the man in whose arms she stood and then even that bit of the reality exploded under the incandescence of his kiss.
Caught up in the rapture of his kiss, she did not realize he had unbuttoned her coat until she felt his hands sliding along the sides of her breasts. She stepped back but, as if anticipating her reaction, he stepped with her, holding her close, and his mouth never left hers. His hands found the hooks of her waistband and began unfastening them. Within moments the heavy woolen skirt of her riding habit slipped to the floor. He lifted her free of it and then stripped her jacket from her arms.
As each garment fell, she stepped away from him, and each time he stepped up to her and drew her close to apply another assaulting kiss which made her feel lightheaded and a little drowsy, almost as though he was plying her with wine. Finally she realized that he had waltzed her back to the bed.
Without the ribbons of the cage-like paniers to hamper him, he quickly unhooked her petticoats and she felt them drop like the weight of her respectability to her ankles. Finally she stood in only her corset and shift.
Daunted by his gaze, she reached up to shield from his sight the deep decolletage of her chemise that served her breasts up like oysters on the half-shell.
“Nay, sweeting. Allow me to look my full. For you are beautiful. You are meant to be admired.”
He slipped off his greatcoat and jacket and left them where they fell on the floor. In rapid succession, he shed his waistcoat and then pulled his lingerie shirt over his head. Finally he stood before her in breeches and boots. Then he came toward her again and enfolded her against him.
She had never been this close to a man before, never felt the heat of another living body against her skin. It was like sliding under his skin, being absorbed by his more physically powerful presence. She had seen him defy and demolish the self-possession of his tormentors at the Thames-side tavern. He was a duelist, a man capable of vanquishing his enemies without reluctance or remorse. She stood no chance against his indomitable will, applied upon her now as the most beguiling of enticements, his kiss.
Suddenly she wanted to hold apart from the next minutes, to hide within some small place inside herself, a place where even Jack Laughton could not reach.
But that was not to be. He applied small kisses to her nose and then her eyelids. He feathered strokes of his tongue over her cheekbones and under her closed lashes and then traced the outline of her mouth. All the while he slowly pressed and rubbed the length of his body along hers, a soothing and rousing rhythm that she began to imitate without conscious thought.
There was no surrender as he lifted her up into the high bed with its pristine sheets. There was no resistance in her as he pressed her gently back into the tick and then framed her shoulders with his hands as he lifted a heavy leg over her to capture her trembling knees within the embrace of his legs.
His smoothing hands chased goosebumps from over her upper arms as he bent his head and tasted the full curve of one breast. She gasped softl
y as his tongue left a slick trail that quickly turned cold in the night air.
Desperate for some modicum of control, she reached up to touch his hair. The thick texture of it shifted effortlessly through her fingers until her fingers flexed and held. He was real, as real as she, and equally vulnerable to passion. She curved her other arm up across his back as he plucked free her corset strings. The strong, smooth surface of his back pleased her. And then his mouth found the exposed tip of her breast and she forgot everything but the exquisite feeling of being with him.
“Yes,” she whispered when he murmured something gruff and urgent against her neck as his hands moved beneath her shift.
“Sweet,” he murmured when he found the soft, wet center of her. “You weep for me, sweeting,” he whispered tenderly as he stroked her. “Promise to weep only for me.”
His voice came to her as if from far away. This was no longer the cool and mocking Lord Darlington who had frozen her with his disdain and ridiculed her for her interest. This was a flesh and blood man who needed as much reassurance as she. At last she understood. They were not enemies in this moment, or even adversaries. For now, in this moment they were equals, he as much hers as she his, if only for this one night.
He slipped off the bed long enough to remove his boots and breeches and then he was again sliding over her, skin to skin.
“You were made for this,” he whispered in her ear as he spread her reluctant thighs with a knee. “Let me show you how, Sabrina.” His hands stilled upon her thoroughly warmed and willing body. “Please.”
The question was so unexpected that she opened her eyes, staring up into his taut face. He knew as she did, even in her ignorance, that he could have taken her without protest or even unwillingness. Yet, at this moment of his greatest authority over her he had thought to give her back a bit of herself, and the right to decide her own fate. That realization broke open her heart.