The light from the fire’s dying embers sketched her silhouette perfectly. He stared hungrily at the upturned breasts outlined through her nightrail. Even more tantalizing was the beautiful view of her tear-shaped bottom. His palms itched, tingled to cup and feel the shape for himself.
He shifted, adjusting himself through his robe. No good. He was hard as a rock. It didn’t help that he was nearly naked. That one pull of his belt would free him. That one stride would bring him directly behind her, only the thin cotton of her nightrail separating them. A lift of her hem and he could press himself against the length of her, rub himself between her sweetly rounded cheeks.
Book in hand, she lowered herself back down, examining the pages and tugging her bottom lip in that achingly erotic way. With a decisive nod, she turned to leave.
And he couldn’t have that. Not yet.
“Couldn’t sleep?”
She gave a small start and dropped the book at her feet. “Spencer. I didn’t see you there.” Firelight moved over her face. With her hair loose, she looked different. Younger. Fresher. The narrow lines of her face less angular, soft.
“You should be asleep,” he murmured. “We’ve a long day tomorrow.”
“I could say the same to you.”
He lifted his glass to his lips, drank deeply, welcomed the warm burn down his throat.
She observed him warily, her gaze traveling over the long stretch of his legs before him.
“I’ll be to bed shortly.” He motioned to the small rosewood table beside him. “Care for a drink?” He leaned over and filled a waiting glass sitting on the tray. “Might help you sleep.”
She opened her mouth—to decline, he would guess—then stopped. Surprising him, she simply shrugged and stepped forward to accept the glass. Her fingers brushed his, igniting a spark.
Sucking in a breath, she sank into the chair across from him, clutching the glass with both hands. She sipped delicately. “When do you expect we’ll arrive?”
“Gretna Green is just a skip over the border.”
Nodding, her gaze drifted, roaming the room, the shelves of books lining the walls, stretching toward the mahogany domed ceiling. “Fortunate your mother left you this house. More comfortable than a posting inn.”
“According to my father, she was one of his greatest mistakes.” His lips twisted. “And he had many.”
“Why was she his greatest?”
“A poor match, he claimed. She was somewhat of an embarrassment to him. Her family possessed a bit of money—owned a factory in Morpeth, but her provincial ways, her inability to accept his many affairs . . .” He shrugged.
She paused to sip again. “Your father must have loved her very much once. In the beginning,” she murmured.
He laughed, the sound low and rough, void of humor. “Yes, he did. She and every other wife. He loved them all in the beginning. In the beginning, he only saw their lovely faces.”
Her eyes widened. “How many wives did your father—”
“Four. My current stepmother, Camila, was the fourth and final. She lasted the longest. She was the most understanding of his . . . habits, his many lies.”
“Lies,” she echoed, her voice strangely quiet.
“Yes, he was a proficient liar, excelling at convincing any woman that he loved her alone.” He felt his lip curl involuntarily over his teeth. “He could make anyone believe anything. Even me. Sometimes I even imagined I meant something to him.”
“He sounds an unpleasant sort.”
Spencer paused to clear his thickening throat. “When I was six, I caught my father with the midwife’s assistant soon after my mother delivered a stillborn son.”
She drew a sharp breath.
“She didn’t live long after that. A fortnight. Then came Camila. Fortunate for her, he beat her to the grave.”
Eyes wide, she gulped from her glass and winced. “You’re not saying your father—”
“Was a murderer?”
She nodded mutely, no doubt horrified at the prospect of marrying a man whose father murdered his wives. A man who spewed forth nothing but lies and venom.
“No. Simply unlucky. His first wife died in a fever. The second in a carriage accident, the third—” His throat thickened here. “And my mother never recovered from giving birth to my brother.” While his father shagged another woman in the next room.
“I’m sorry.”
He grunted. “My father wasn’t. It freed him to marry Camila.”
Evie cleared her throat and sipped again. He wondered if she had considered any of this. That marrying him was entering into his world—a world she knew nothing about. A world she had seen fit to ask little about.
“You look frightened.”
Her gaze snapped back up to his.
“Reconsidering?”
“Of course not. Everyone in Little Billings has seen you and is likely jumping to the same conclusion Peter reached. There is nothing to consider.”
“Perhaps I should have reassured Sheffield that I am not Nicholas’s father—merely a relation who bears a strong resemblance.”
Her eyes widened. “Are you reconsidering?”
“Me? No.”
She moistened her lips. “It’s as you said. This is the best thing for Nicholas. And it’s not as though our lives shall change that greatly.” She smiled, her lips wobbly.
“You think not?”
She blinked, her smile slipping. She set her glass down on the table beside her with a clink. “It isn’t as though it will be a true marriage. It’s more like a partnership. A business relationship.”
“Ah, that is how you see it, then?”
She nodded. “Indeed. Should I look at it differently?”
“Hmm,” he murmured, his mind immediately drifting to that kiss in the garden, brief, but intense. He certainly didn’t think their relationship could be characterized as businesslike.
“Things will change.” He felt the need to point out the obvious.
She twisted her fingers in her lap. “How so?”
“For one.” He motioned around him. “You’ll share my bed. Sex changes everything.”
Her head snapped up at this announcement. Her cheeks burned an attractive pink at his bluntness. “Not for any length of time.”
He angled his head. “Long enough.” And perhaps if she proved as passionate as he suspected, they could arrange the occasional visit . . .
She cleared her throat. “About that . . .”
“Yes?”
“I think it ill-advised for us to immediately engage in conjugal relations—”
“Ill-advised?” He leaned forward in his seat. “You wish us to wait?” He couldn’t wait. He could hardly sleep at night without thoughts of her tantalizing him.
“Until we became better acquainted.”
“I know you well enough.”
“Do you?” Her voice rang almost angrily.
“Well enough to know a few weeks won’t change anything. I need an heir.” He set his glass down with a dangerous clink, gazed at her with a hunger he didn’t care to disguise. “And I’ll have you in my bed.”
She blinked. “You said you never would force a woman—”
He chuckled. “Think you that I would need to resort to force?” He slowly appraised her. “With you?” A small shiver rippled over her. “You’ll be willing.”
“Arrogant—”
“Have you never been seduced before? You were just an inexperienced girl when you met Ian . . . I’m sure there was some gentle persuasion involved.”
Her hands strangled fistfuls of her nightrail. Her blue eyes looked almost haunted, pained. “That was a long time ago.”
“I’ll be more than happy to reintroduce you to the joys of seduction.”
She moistened her lips and forged ahead as if she hadn’t heard his offer. Only the bright spots of color on her cheeks told a different tale. “Truly, must we rush into it? Give it some thought—”
He leaned forward in his
chair, hands dangling loosely from his knees. “I was clear on what kind of relationship we would have.”
Her nostrils flared. “Not everything goes according to design.”
He shook his head, glaring at the obstinate thrust of her chin. “You don’t grasp the concept of marriage, do you? It’s not that tricky.”
Grimness filled him as he studied her tight expression. Her absolute distaste over becoming his wife was clear to read. It galled him. She should be thrilled at any distance from the scandal hanging over her head, an avalanche ready to bury her should the fact that she’d invented a husband come to light.
Instead she looked as though she faced a hangman’s noose.
“We had an understanding. Unless you’ve changed your mind. In that case, we will need to discuss what’s to be done about Nicholas.”
She frowned. “Nicholas?”
“I intend to be a part of his life, with or without you as my wife. We’ve already discussed all the advantages I can provide him. He can live with me some—”
“You’re not taking my son from me!” Sparks glinted in her eyes. Her body quivered where she sat, vibrating with anger. His blood warmed at the sight, and he imagined that this was how she would look lost to passion, naked and writhing beneath him in his bed.
“I wasn’t suggesting that. Precisely.”
She glared at him hotly, her blue eyes fevered and bright. “You make it sound like my son has suffered a lack with me as—”
“You love him. You’re his mother. He needs you. There’s no discounting that. But what happens when he’s older? When his needs change? When he wants to go to university? I can provide that. Guidance and the kind of opportunities a boy needs to become an estimable man. Even your home—”
“What about my home?”
He waved a hand about him. “A finer home shouldn’t signify, but to the rest of the world it does. What the rest of the world thinks does matter . . . determines what doors will open for him—”
She surged to her feet. “You arrogant . . . ass!”
Spencer stared, his mouth twitching. “Did you just call me an ass?”
She nodded fiercely, her hair tossing wildly over her shoulders.
He couldn’t help himself. He smiled, certain that no woman had ever spoken to him thusly. A short bark of laughter escaped him. He could not even recall a female losing her temper with him before. It was . . . refreshing.
She glared at him as though he’d taken leave of his senses.
He rose to his feet as well. “I’m an ass?”
“Yes. You are.”
“Because I want the best for Nicholas?” He stepped nearer, arching a brow in challenge.
She stomped her foot, color burning her cheeks in the most fetching manner. “I’m his mother. I’ve raised him since—”
“You’re ruined,” he stated baldly. “How you’ve managed to keep it under wraps this long is a miracle unto itself.”
She stopped and scowled, crossing her arms tightly. “Not that surprising. A humble country widow doesn’t attract much attention.”
“Scandal,” he continued, stalking her, “nips at your heels, waiting to cast its taint on Nicholas. Marrying me doesn’t mean your little subterfuge will forever stay hidden, but it does mean people will care less if it should come to light.”
Her chest heaved with angry breath, but she said nothing. What could she say? He spoke the truth.
“Which leaves me wondering . . . are you merely senseless or . . .”
“Or?” she prompted, her eyes snapping blue flame.
“Or the thought of being married to me—sharing my bed—repels you so much that you clearly won’t do what’s best for yourself and Nicholas.”
Some of the angry color ebbed from her cheeks. She looked nervous, her gaze darting over him. “I didn’t say I changed my mind. Only that I wanted some time before we engaged in intimacies.” She moistened her lips.
His mind turned again to that kiss in the garden. Sweet, but too brief. Her response before she’d pulled free had promised great passion. He dropped his gaze to her lips, hungry for another taste.
She fumbled a hand over the loose fall of her hair, continuing, “I couldn’t have come this far with a man I found repellent. I simply don’t know you.”
Don’t want to know you.
She didn’t say it, but she might as well have. He heard it. Saw it in her stiff, angry posture. Felt her unspoken words dig deep in his gut. For whatever reason, she was attempting to construct a wall between them.
And he didn’t like it.
“You’re right.”
Her eyes brightened. “I am?”
“Some things don’t go according to design.”
She smiled uncertainly. “Yes. Precisely.”
“Precisely. Sometimes”—he cocked his head—“one doesn’t even wait until the wedding night to begin carnal relations.”
Chapter 13
He closed the brief distance separating them, his eyes glittering as he stalked her, the green lit from a fire within. Her back collided with the bookcase at her back. Trapped.
She clung to her composure. He’d rattled her enough during their conversation. She wasn’t accustomed to losing her temper, but with him it was alarmingly easy. “What are you—”
Whatever she’d meant to say fled, vanished from her head as his body surrounded her, pushed against her, large and masculine, overwhelming. His chest mashed her breasts. His leg slipped between her thighs, the muscled thigh wedging against the core of her with shocking intimacy.
She gasped, swallowing down the urge to cry out. Certainly a virgin would not appear so skittish.
Inhaling deeply through her nose, she hissed. “What are you doing?”
He pushed his thigh higher, raising her until her toes brushed the carpet. The act pulled her nightrail high, lifted the worn fabric to her knees, bringing her eyes nearly level with his. This close, his eyes gleamed brightly, the green so pale, so light.
“What does it look like?” He lowered his hands, dropped them to her hips, slid them around and cupped her bottom. Squeezed her flesh in his large hands.
She gasped. Heat shot directly from his hands to her core.
His gaze traveled her face, dipped to her throat and lower. She swallowed. Or tried. She seemed to have trouble with that. And breathing.
He smiled, the white flash of his teeth wicked and wolflike.
“I suppose,” she managed to choke out past her constricting throat, “this is your attempt at seduction.”
He slowed his hands, massaging her cheeks deeply and thoroughly until a moan welled from deep in her chest. “How am I faring?”
She shrugged one shoulder. “Not too affecting,” she lied, desperate to conceal that what he was doing left her utterly shattered.
His dark brows winged high. “Really?” His eyes glinted with such determined light that she immediately knew she’d taken the wrong approach.
Before she knew what was happening, he tugged her nightrail up and over her head. His large, bare hands clutched her naked bottom. A strangled, guttural cry burst from somewhere deep inside her, tearing past her lips.
Mortified, she quickly attempted to extricate herself, squeezing out between him and the bookcase at her back. No use. He was too big. Too strong. Panicked at the naked press of her body against him, she struggled, thrashed, her hair a wild tangle around them.
“Sssh,” he soothed, dragging his hand down the bare line of her side, over the flare of her hip, grasping her thigh and pulling it high, wrapping her leg around his waist. The bulge of his erection prodded directly at her heat.
She stilled, air sawing from her lips. Her gaze locked with his. Longing ripped through her. Need. Her body trembled, ached, wakened after years of dormancy. A lifetime.
Her gaze shifted. Dropped. The air rushed from her lips, drying her mouth. His robe was parted, revealing all the gleaming hardness of his chest. The chest she remembered in her dreams. In a
burning instant, everything became horrifyingly clear.
He could do anything he wanted to her. She didn’t have the will to stop him.
Her request for him to wait, to give her more time was absurd. She couldn’t resist him.
Was this what Linnie had been up against? Why she’d succumbed? In the back of her mind, Evie had always rather arrogantly thought her sister naïve. Sweet, but weak-willed.
If that had been true, the same could now be said of her.
“Please, just a little time.” She stopped, gulped a breath.
His eyes changed, the pale green deepening to a dark green, a forest after heavy rain. He thrust against her. A throbbing ache began low in her belly. “Back to that again, are you? Never took you for such a coward. What are you afraid of?”
You, she thought, but held her tongue.
After a tense moment in which neither spoke a word, he dropped her leg and stood away from her. She quickly snatched her nightrail from the floor and wrestled it over her head. With her face burning at the eyeful he viewed, she smoothed the fabric down her body, grateful to feel the worn cambric covering her again.
Tying his belt back in place, he turned, granting her only a glimpse of his profile, the strong line of his jaw a bristly shadow.
He dragged both hands through his dark hair, declaring, “I’ll give you until we’re married. Then, my patience runs out.” He looked at her then, his eyes hard as polished malachite.
She inhaled sharply, nostrils flaring at the forbidding sight of him.
He hated liars. She’d gathered that much when he’d talked about his father. And she was one colossal lie. She shivered to think how he would react to the fact.
For a moment, she considered demanding that he leave her alone, that he renounce all demands on her—on her body. But then she recalled how he’d reacted when she’d tossed down the gauntlet a few moments before.
Her nightrail had ended up on the floor.
Simply eager to escape, she snatched up her book. “I think I should be able to sleep now.” Her voice rang tight and clipped, as proper as a schoolmistress’s despite her thundering heart. “Good night.”