Debauchery and the Earl, page 11
In something like desperation, she twisted her face up, to see his face, to ask, but he bent his neck and kissed her mouth, and she was lost all over again. Sensation bombarded her, from his kiss, from his fingers, which somehow had found the naked skin of her breast, from the hard column pressing against her rear. Her whole body seemed to be in flames, her breath coming in short, erratic pants between kisses. The hand on her stomach stroked lower, over and over until she came to understand where the core of her desire, of her pleasure, lay. She barely even noticed when he began gently, gradually, to tug upward the fabric of her gown and her petticoat.
“I want your naked skin,” he whispered in her ear, his fingers rolling her aching nipple. “All of your naked skin. But I will settle for a little. Just now…”
He shifted, inserting his knee between hers, and his hand smoothed the fine, gauze-like lawn of her chemise over her thigh and between her parted legs. A tiny moan escaped her trembling lips as her head fell back against his shoulder. Instinct made her move against his fingers, relieving the strange ache, reaching for the sweet, wild sensations flooding her. And suddenly they all coalesced into one blinding, stunning pleasure, convulsing her in waves of it.
She reached up with both hands, twisting her neck to find his mouth and gasping her bliss into his kiss.
“Marry me,” he whispered against her mouth. “Love me. Trust me. Marry me.”
“I do,” she gasped, and even through the pleasure that seemed to go on and on, she felt him smile. She touched his cheek, felt their lips slide apart. “I will…”
She turned in his arms, throwing both arms around his neck and clinging to him. “I loved you before. From the beginning.”
“I suspect I did, too, but it took me a while to realize it.”
“Not that long,” she said in his throat. “We’ve hardly known each other any length of time. We must be mad.”
“If so, I like it better than sanity.”
She kissed his damp skin. “So do I.”
“Then I will speak to your father in the morning, though I might have to bundle Talley out of the way first.”
Chapter Eleven
Calton had not set out to win her by wickedness. He had intended a respectful declaration, along with, perhaps, a few relatively chaste kisses and reasoned argument where necessary. But nothing with Josephine ever went to plan. However, the blinding rightness of his instinctive actions was clear in her acceptance. And in her sheer, wondering joy at this discovery of passion.
His triumph might have been mitigated by his own ferocious frustration, and God knew, he was sorely tempted to take her on the lush green grass beneath their feet. She would welcome that, too. But it seemed he was still a gentleman and he had thrown enough at her for one night. There would be other nights, endless nights and days of pleasure.
She loves me.
And that was enough for him.
For now.
He shifted position against the hedge behind him, and gently eased her garments back over her naked breast. His blood clamored to see her completely naked in candlelight and sunlight, but that, too, was for other days, other nights.
For now, he needed to get his lust under control before they returned to the party, so he adjusted them so that he held her more against his side while their heartbeats returned to something more normal. Still, he gloried in the feel of her languid fingers in his hair, of her soft, contented body sagging against him.
“You are beautiful in the moonlight as passion takes you,” he whispered in her ear, and felt rather than saw her smile.
“I don’t even know your Christian name.”
“No one uses it. Everyone calls me Calton.”
She lifted her head, peering up at him. “I don’t want to be everyone.”
He met her gaze and felt laughter rise. “Then you had better invent a nickname for my given name is Aurelius. Which is why no one uses it.”
“I expect you beat them until they stopped. Aurelius. I rather like it.”
Oddly enough, it sounded different on her lips. Kind and mysterious and…arousing, damn it. “My father was a great admirer of the writings of Marcus Aurelius,” he said a shade desperately. “So, apparently, he felt necessary to burden me with it. Fortunately, I have been Calton since I was in short coats.”
Idly, he stroked her hair and made a discovery. “I have ruined your coiffure, and I suspect it’s beyond my ability to repair.”
“I will have to sneak back to my bedchamber, where there is also another pair of dancing slippers. I suspect these are muddy and grass-stained.”
“Come, then, if we can slip back in the way we came out, you can use the servants’ stairs. They will still be busy with supper.”
Hand in hand once more, they found their way out of the maze and flitted across the lawn to the half-hidden door between the supper room and the kitchen. They had just made it to the staircase before two footmen bolted through the passage, but they saw no one else.
At the ground floor, he said reluctantly, “If you are seen with me now, it will do your reputation no good at all.”
“Are we really engaged?” she said in a rush. “Because—”
He stopped her mouth with a quick, hard kiss. “Very much so. I will not allow you to forget it.”
She smiled, looking beautiful and happy and delectably rumpled. It took considerable willpower to let her go, but he managed it, though he watched her vanish completely around the curve in the staircase before he pushed past the baize door that led to the main entrance hall. It was reasonably well lit. He walked to the large mirror near the cloakroom and straightened his cravat. He ran his fingers through his hair and brushed a few hedge leaves from his coat. Then he continued on his way to the mostly empty ballroom where the orchestra was beginning to tune-up for the final few dances.
He strolled through the open French windows onto the terrace, in search of a group to attach himself to so that the gossipmongers wouldn’t suspect he had been with Josephine all that time. This worked out quite well, and he was just enjoying an amusing if salacious story when he caught sight of Andre de Talley alone on the terrace steps.
Once the story was finished, he joined in the laughter, then wandered toward the Frenchman.
“You are looking morose,” he said lightly. “Though your lady seems to smile upon you.”
Talley rose with a quick smile. “Not morose. Thoughtful. My lady rather threw a whole new ingredient into the mix.”
Oh-oh. “A pleasant one, I hope?”
“I…I don’t honestly know. I don’t want it to be the reason she marries me.”
Dear God, preserve us. “What reason is there apart from love, in your case and hers?”
“None. And yet there is another.”
Calton smacked him across the shoulder. “You told me you could not live without her. Don’t spoil it now because you discover life is not always the fairytale you want it to be. Everything you say and do has consequences, my friend. For her as well as for you. Don’t be an ass, there’s a good fellow.”
With that, he wandered back to his friends, who were now ambling into the ballroom to seek their partners for the next country dance.
*
Josephine fully expected her sister to quiz her over her absence at supper. But in fact, she barely saw Helena except in the distance, dancing. Josephine did not mind. She had no idea what she could or would say, for she was totally intoxicated by what had happened in the maze.
Lord Calton—Aurelius—loved her. He was going to be her husband. And in his arms… Pure happiness flooded her so that she could not be still. She danced, she chatted, and she laughed with other people while her heart was so full, she thought it would burst. In fact, so absorbed was she in her own secret joy that it took her until the last dance to notice Helena’s.
Her sister looked to be enjoying herself. She smiled and danced with unflagging energy, even though she must have needed her rest. But now that Josephine actually saw her, waltzing past in the arms of a stranger, that brittle edge had returned to Helena’s gaiety. Her smile was too bright, her pleasure too determined.
“Is Helena well?” she asked Talley, with whom she was enjoying the last dance.
“As you see,” he replied dryly.
“I do see,” she said with a hint of grimness. “Have you and she quarreled?”
“Of course not.”
Josephine dragged her gaze back to him and looked into his eyes—stunned, oddly tortured eyes. “She told you.”
His eyes closed briefly. “Did everyone know but me?”
“Since you didn’t trouble to find out.”
Talley flushed. “It shouldn’t… I didn’t… There are matters I cannot discuss with you,” he finished in a rush. “Suffice it to say, I was surprised. And now I am to be married to save face.”
She stared at him and drew nearer. “Talley, if my hands were not occupied, I would hit you. How dare you speak so? Even think so?”
“She only told me after I proposed,” he said miserably.
“So that she would not compel you by it! Dear God, if ever I met such a pair of widgeons. Are you really so self-absorbed that you cannot see her silence speaks of her selfless love? So imbecilic that you would blame her for this? Two of you created this situation, and of the two, you are by far the more experienced. She has tried to keep mere honor out of it, so that love has its chance. I am disappointed to find you are not so brave or so constant.”
Her words tumbled out with low intensity, inaudible to any but him. His eyes widened, darkened with something like shame and guilt, so she pushed her point. “Do you have any idea what she has gone through to avoid compelling you? To be sure you loved her?”
“I… Please stop talking about it. People are looking at us.”
“Don’t want any talk, Talley?”
“That is unkind of you and unfair.”
“I do hope so.”
He regarded her with frustration and a hint of amusement. “I never realized you were so formidable.”
“I am. So is Helena. So, if you want to be part of her life, stop being an ass.”
An arrested look came into his eyes, and she hoped she had finally made an impression, for she had had more than enough of tiptoeing around his feelings. Calton had shown Helena more concern than her lover.
Calton…
She smiled because she could not help it, which seemed to startle Talley, but fortunately, the dance came to an end, as did the ball. Talley left her with her father, seeming in a hurry to be somewhere else—hopefully with Helena.
But in truth, anxieties over her sister had slipped well behind her flowering love for Lord Calton and his even more astonishing love for her. Marriage with him, a lifetime with him and his intoxicating kisses, and that wild, overwhelming pleasure…
She saw him only once as she joined the throng heading upstairs to bed. Somehow, he was beside her, presenting her with a night candle, making sure their fingers touched. And when her gaze flew up to his, a smile trembling on her lips, his eyes smiled back.
“Tomorrow,” he murmured, and that was all. From halfway up the staircase, she saw him vanishing into the billiard room with several other men.
In something of a dream, she made her slow way up the rest of the stairs and along the passage to her bedchamber. Although tired, she didn’t see how she would ever sleep. She felt strange, as if she were floating, disembodied, someone else entirely. And yet at the same time, she had never been so glad to be Josephine Blackwell, because Calton loved her. Because, against the odds, she made Calton happy.
By the light of a solitary lamp in her bedchamber, she saw that Helena was already in bed, although from her breathing she was not yet asleep.
“You must be exhausted, poor thing,” Josephine said softly. “How did you get out of your ballgown?”
“I seized an early opportunity with Darling Aunt’s Bolton.”
Josephine sat on the side of her sister’s bed and presented her back. “Do you have the energy to…?”
Helena sat up, and Josephine glanced over her shoulder. Even in the dim light, it was clear her sister had been crying. Josephine faced forward while Helena unhooked the gown and unlaced her stays with more speed than care before dropping back onto the bed and turning her back.
Josephine gazed at her unmoving figure for a moment, then said, “I gather your revelation did not go as well as we had hoped?”
Helena hunched her shoulder in silence.
“Lena,” Josephine urged.
“No, it did not,” Helena snapped. “He thought I was marrying him only because I am with child.”
“I’m sure he does not really think that. You have had weeks to come to terms with this. He is only just beginning.”
“I do not have weeks for him to forgive me! I shall have to go abroad after all.”
“No, no, I don’t believe so, Lena! Tomorrow—”
“He does not love me at all, does he?”
“Oh, he does. He would not look so tormented if he did not care. He is just an idiot male making adjustments to your pedestal—and his own.”
“You sympathize with him,” Helena accused.
“I am trying to understand him.”
Helen jerked her head around, staring at her. “Do you love him, too? You would not take him from me, would you, Jo?”
Josephine blinked. “Why the devil would you think that?”
“Don’t swear,” Helena said loftily. “I saw the way you were talking to him during the last waltz, the way you smiled at him.”
Josephine jumped to her feet. “Oh, for the love of… Trust me, if I smiled at him during the last waltz, I was thinking of something else entirely!” She took a deep breath. “Go to sleep, Helena. Tomorrow, everything will be better.”
Helena did not move or reply. Josephine paced to the window and sank onto the embrasure seat without removing her clothes. She was fairly sure the situation between Helena and Talley would resolve itself in the light of day when Talley had had the chance to think and come to his senses.
In any case, there was nothing she could do for them tonight, and all she really wanted to do was remember her dances with Calton, to go over every word they had exchanged, and relive every kiss and embrace and…that.
She was not blind to the fact that despite his obvious delight, even triumph, in the bliss he had given her, it had been a one-sided pleasure. Which was odd, because from all she had ever heard, it was meant to be the other way around.
Perhaps I am wanton.
And perhaps there was a lot more to come. More than anything, she wanted to give him the same bliss he had given her. Only she didn’t know how.
She had a good deal to learn, and the thought of it made her smile into the darkness. The house had grown quiet, and the lights on the grounds below were all extinguished. Reaching up, she opened the window a narrow crack to let in some fresh air.
Some activity was still going on in the distance. Low voices, the faint clop of horses’ hooves in the gravel, the trundling of carriage wheels. Mr. Gough, probably, making his departure. Which made tomorrow just about perfect.
She touched her lips in wonder.
Helena made a huffing noise in her slumbers. If Josephine did not sleep now, she would never be ready for tomorrow.
It is already tomorrow.
A scratch sounded at the bedchamber door, so unexpected that she merely stared toward it without moving. It came again.
Calton. She rose, snatching up the nearest shawl and flinging it around her shoulders to hide her unfastened state. She blushed, tingling all over to remember what he had seen and touched in the maze.
Trying to breathe normally, she opened the door. A man with a single candle stood there. But it was not Calton. He was older, shorter, well but plainly dressed and when he bowed, it was with the oddly superior servility of a gentleman’s valet. He held out a folded paper to her, bearing her name.
Calton’s valet. With a quick smile, she took the note and closed the door.
I cannot wait. Come to the stables, I beg you. C.
Wretch, she thought, catching her breath on a laugh. But at least he begged, and that was not characteristic. Moving as quietly as she could, she took her warm traveling cloak from the wardrobe, slipped on her comfortable half-boots, grabbed a reticule from habit, and left, relighting her night candle and dousing the lamp as she went.
Hurrying along the now dark passage and down the stairs by her solitary candlelight, she wondered what was so urgent. Was it to do with Helena and Talley? Or just with them? Her stomach twisted in anticipation.
But why the stables? Just because it was far enough away from the house? And it would be quiet with Gough gone…
He would not want to elope, would he? He must know her father would raise no objections to the match. No, it was either a private discussion or an assignation, either of which was fine by Josephine.
Even the hall was in darkness. The servants and the billiard room party must already have retired. She turned the huge key in the front door, quietly pulled back the bolts, and opened it. An unlit lantern stood on the front step, so she lit it from her candle before lifting it and leaving the candle in its place.
She closed the door right over without letting the latch click and hurried down the path to the stables. Emerging through the overhanging trees, she saw a traveling carriage with matched greys in the traces, pointing toward the main drive. For the first time, a hint of unease passed through her, making her pause, because if this was Gough’s coach, she wanted to be nowhere near it.
On the other hand, it could equally be Calton’s vehicle. If he had been called away suddenly, it would explain his urgency, although that didn’t quite fit with the terse message he had sent via his valet.
She edged around the trees, noticing that the coachman was already in place, that bags had been strapped to the back of the vehicle and its lanterns were lit for traveling in the dark. A furtive glance showed her that the carriage itself was empty. But then, surely it would be driven up to the house to collect the traveler.
