“Miles and I reconciled the very next night,” Esme said hastily. But she knew it was of no use.
“This may well be my babe. Mine and yours. In fact, mathematically speaking, I believe that Miles and I are in a dead heat, given that we each had the pleasure of one night, and one night only.”
“It is surely Miles’s. He wanted a child so much!”
“Unfortunately, wishes have never influenced paternity in the past.”
Esme had to acknowledge the truth of that statement. “Do you remember when I told you about my mother’s letter? The one in which she told me that she didn’t feel she could attend my confinement?”
“Of course.” He began unbuttoning his shirt.
“She added a postscript saying that she hoped I knew who the father was. That was the worst of it. Because I don’t know. If only we hadn’t slept together, I could have written my mother an indignant letter, and perhaps she would have attended my confinement. Perhaps she would be here at this very moment.”
“I trust not in this particular room,” Sebastian said, pulling her into his arms. He smelled gloriously male and windswept. “I wish your mother felt differently.”
His hand was so comforting on her back. It was no wonder that Esme kept blurting out every humiliating secret she had.
“I love you, do you know that?” he said.
She chose her words carefully. “I believe that you think you love me, Sebastian. But I know the guilt you feel because of Miles’s death as well. There is no need to compensate for what happened, truly.”
“Compensation has nothing to do with what I feel for you.”
“How could it not?” she asked, looking into his clear blue eyes.
“Because when I fell in love with you, Miles was alive and sporting with his mistress,” Sebastian said, watching her just as steadily. “I loved you all the time I was engaged to your friend Gina. I watched you dance; I watched you flirt; I watched you think about an affair with that abominable idiot, Bernie Burdett.”
Esme turned away, wrapping her towel tighter around her shoulders. She would cry in a moment, and she needed to keep her head.
“Esme,” he said.
She sat down heavily in a chair, heedless of the fact that her damp towel was likely to spot the pale silk. “I know you think you love me. But there’s lust—and then love. And I don’t think you know the difference.”
He watched her for a second. She bit back tears. Why couldn’t he just see that it was impossible? She couldn’t marry the man who had caused her husband’s death. The scandal would never die, and she couldn’t revisit that scandal on her child.
He walked over and picked her up.
“I must be straining all your gardener’s muscles,” she whispered, turning her face against his shirt.
“Not you,” he said, carrying her to the bed. “I think we’ve talked enough, Esme mine. The night is long.”
She felt the breath catch in her chest. But Sebastian was as methodical in seduction as he was in every other part of his life. He turned down the wicks and poked the fire before he returned to the bed. She watched the long line of his thigh and tried to remember if his legs had been so muscled last summer when he’d been a mere earl. Before he was a gardener. She didn’t think so. His legs had been muscled, but not with the swelling sense of power they had now.
“Oh, Sebastian,” she said, and the aching desire was there in her voice for anyone to hear.
He strode to the other side of the room to snuff yet another light. Firelight danced on his back. He must have done some work without a shirt because his skin was golden to his waist, and then it turned a dark honey cream over his buttocks. There were two dimples just there…Esme found herself moving her legs restlessly, and she almost blushed. He had snuffed the candle and seemed to be inspecting the wick.
Finally he turned around. Esme’s mouth went dry. He stood there with just a whisper of a smile on his face. He knew what he did to her. Firelight flickered over his thighs, over large hands, over golden skin, over…
And still he smiled, that wicked, slow smile that promised everything.
“Was there something you wished?” he asked, mischief dancing in his eyes.
Esme felt nothing more than liquid invitation between her thighs. How had she survived even a single night without this—without him? How could she survive another moment? “You are beautiful,” she said, and the hoarseness in her own voice surprised her into silence. He sauntered over toward the bed, looking like Adonis and Jove all rolled into one: golden boy and arrogant king, sensual devil and English aristocrat.
It was no time to worry about what she looked like. If a woman is lucky enough to lure such a man into her bedchamber, it would be a true waste to let an enormous expanse of belly get in the way. So she sat up and reached for him. When he stood just before her, she wrapped her legs around his so he couldn’t escape.
“I have you trapped,” she said, smiling a little.
“And what will you do with me?” he said, and he wasn’t smiling at all.
She reached up and ran her fingers over his nipples, felt the tiny tremor that rippled through his body, right down through his legs. Her fingers drifted south, touching muscled ridges, skin kissed by the sun, drifted around his bottom and pulled him even closer. He seemed to be holding his breath, silenced.
Whereas she…she felt greedy and loving all at once. She wanted him never to forget her. In fact, had Esme admitted it, the thoughts she was having were hardly generous. Distilled, they ran like this: she couldn’t marry him herself, but she could make it very, very hard for him to marry someone else.
And besides, she wanted him, every sun-ripened inch of him. There was no better place to start than the hard length of him, straining toward her even as he stood still. She bent forward and he said something, strangled in his throat, drowned by her warm mouth. She pulled him closer, hands on his muscled rump, and he arched, not pushing forward, simply a body exalting in pleasure.
The pleasure she was giving him. A shiver of delight pulsed down Esme’s body, and she leaned even closer, torturing him, loving him. He arched his back again and groaned, a deep pulse of need that made Esme’s heart pound.
But then he reached down and pushed her back onto the bed. She resisted for a second and then melted under the pressure of his powerful hands. She felt like the merest wisp of a girl, lying back on the bed with Sebastian towering over her. “I can’t wait,” she said, her voice revealingly hoarse. But there was no room for embarrassment between them.
Powerful hands pulled her to the edge of the bed. He leaned over her, cupping her face in his hands, kissing her until she was senseless, delirious, but not so lost that she didn’t feel him there.
Asking.
“You do remember,” he said some time later, and now that wicked grin was back, “that I’m a virgin, don’t you?”
She couldn’t help laughing.
“Not anymore.”
Sebastian’s voice was an amused, dark whisper against her skin. “Do you remember the night when you took my virginity, Esme?” His hand was on her womb. “This child might well be mine,” he said into her hair.
“Or Miles’s,” she said, but the shrillness of her tone was wearisome even to her. She closed her eyes and leaned back against his shoulder, letting him continue his gentle caress.
“It makes me very happy.” She could hear the joy in his voice. “The very thought of the child.”
“And what if we married, and the child was Miles’s? You would never know.”
“I would love him or her as my own,” he said. “I would never do otherwise, Esme.”
“I know,” she said, humbled by the look on his face.
“If you allow me to have a place in this child’s life,” he said, cupping her belly in his warm hand, “propriety will not be foremost on my mind. I’m not criticizing Miles’s wish that you become a respectable woman. But I don’t think it’s the most important aspect of raising a
child either.” She couldn’t see his face because a lock of hair had fallen over his eyes.
He leaned forward and dropped butterfly kisses on her stomach. “You have to understand that I don’t want to imitate my father, for all you wish to imitate your mother. He was quite respectable. I have trouble remembering his first name.”
She reached out and pushed the hair back so she could see his eyes.
“You’ll be a wonderful mother, Esme.”
She bit her lip hard. It was that or cry, and she had firmly resolved not to cry. “I worry,” she said, and her voice cracked.
“Nothing to worry about. The child is lucky to have you.”
“I couldn’t…I didn’t…” The tears were coming anyway. They blinded her.
“Why on earth are you worried, sweetheart?”
“Benjamin,” she said, “just my brother Benjamin. You do remember that he died as a baby? I’m afraid. I’m…I’m just afraid.”
“Of course I remember that you told me of Benjamin.” He folded her in his arms then, and rocked her back and forth. “Nothing will happen to your baby. I promise you.”
They fell asleep together, she curled in his arms as if he could protect her from all the evils that life could offer. When she woke, hours later, Sebastian was still holding her against his chest. The fire had burned out, and the room had taken on a pearly, luminous light. He was sleeping, lashes thick against his cheeks. His hair gleamed as if it were gilt. All her fear seemed to have been burned away.
“Sebastian,” she said, and his eyes opened immediately. They looked black in this light. She licked her lips and tasted salt tears and desire.
“How are you?” His voice was deep with sleep.
It set off a quiver between her thighs. “I don’t think that I have the imprint of your body on mine yet,” she whispered.
“Oh?” He raised one eyebrow. How had she ever thought he was a priggish Holy Willy? She must have been blind.
“Not at all.” She shook her head sadly. “I’m sorry. All your efforts don’t seem to have succeeded.”
“You’ll have to excuse my failures.” His voice purred with seductive power. “I am practically a virgin.” One hand brushed over her nipple, returned, returned again.
A strangled little sigh came from Esme’s throat.
“I need practice.” His voice was dark, gutteral, possessive. A shiver of ecstasy jolted Esme’s spine. “You will have to give me another chance.”
She couldn’t answer. His lips had replaced his hands, and his hands had drifted lower. He was fierce and possessive, and he left no space for words. All Esme could do was try to stop the broken moans that came from her chest. But she had his smooth skin to put her mouth to, all those muscles to shape with her tongue.
It was around an hour later that he asked her a question. “Did you ever read Romeo and Juliet?”
“Well, of course. I only read it once. She was daft to kill herself for the sake of that lovelorn boy, that I remember.”
“My hardheaded Esme,” he said, dropping a kiss on her nose. “That’s the sound of the lark outside your bedchamber window. I must leave soon.”
The light filtering in her window was a watery yellow, filtered through spring leaves. Esme didn’t want to acknowledge what those greenish ribbons of light meant. “Would you massage my back?” she asked, ignoring the whole exchange.
Sebastian pushed his thumbs into the very base of Esme’s spine. She seemed to have forgotten that mornings always come. That she had told him to leave at the very first light. The sun was pouring under the curtains, and her maid would arrive any moment. She moaned like a woman in ecstasy. Her gorgeous hip rose from her waist like a creamy wave.
“My back hurts more than normally this morning,” Esme said in a fretful voice. “You don’t suppose we did it any injury, do you?”
Sebastian rolled her over on her back and grinned down at the huge mound of belly that reared between them. “Not the slightest,” he said, rubbing a little hello to the babe. His babe.
“I suppose you should make your way out of here,” Esme said, eyeing him. She had a distinctly jaundiced and irritable air. “Where are you planning to travel, anyway?”
“I’ve always enjoyed France,” he said rather evasively.
If he didn’t wish to give her his direction, that was quite all right. “Well, drink some champagne for me,” Esme managed.
“Don’t you wish to give me a weeping farewell?”
“I’m not up to hysterical farewells at the best of times,” Esme snapped. She struggled up on her elbows and then Sebastian helped her to her feet. “You’ll have to leave, because Jeannie will appear soon.”
Sebastian smiled to himself. Esme was protecting that vulnerability of hers, the heart she hid amidst all her seductions and flirtations. The heart she had never given to anyone—but him, he thought. Although she didn’t seem to know it.
He bundled a dressing gown around her and pushed her glorious tumbling locks back over her shoulders. “You’re beautiful in the morning,” he said, cupping her face in his hands.
“I am not,” Esme said, pulling away. “I have a perfectly foul taste in my mouth and my back hurts like the devil. I am not in the mood for sentiment, Bonnington, and so I’ll thank you to find your way out before the household awakes.”
Sebastian obediently pulled on his trousers and shirt as she watched. He was buttoning the last button on his placket when he realized that tears were sliding down her face. “Sweetheart.” He pulled her into his arms. “Don’t cry.”
“I can’t help it,” Esme said, sobbing. “I know you have to go—you have to go!—but I’m so lonely without you. I’m a fool, a weak, silly fool. I’m just…I’m just—”
“I love you, Esme,” he said, finally. “If you need me, just ask. I’ll always come to you.”
“I need you to leave! I can’t have an earl hiding as a gardener on my estate. Everyone will know in a matter of minutes, and my reputation will be blackened, more than it is already.”
He handed her a handkerchief.
“Thank you. And I wouldn’t even mind my reputation being ruined,” she wailed, “except for the baby. But you know all this, Sebastian, you know it, and I know it, and—and there’s nothing to be done. So please, go.”
He didn’t move.
“Go!” She looked at him, face shiny with tears, eyes red, a handkerchief balled in her hands, and Sebastian knew that he would never love anyone so much as he loved her.
He leaned forward and kissed her quite simply on the lips. “Good-bye,” he said. Then he put his hands over her belly. “And good-bye to you, little one.”
“Oh God, I can’t bear it!” Esme said, her breath caught on a sob. “You have to leave, or I’ll lose my resolve. Please go.”
He slipped through the door and looked to the right and left. He’d entered Esme’s chamber by means of one of the ladders being used to fix the roof; he had never actually been in the upper reaches of her house before.
Suddenly there was a polite cough, almost at his shoulder. “If I might help you, my lord?”
He swung about to find Esme’s butler bowing before him. “Slope, isn’t it?” Sebastian asked.
“Just so, my lord.”
“I know your mistress trusts you implicitly. I trust her loyalty is not misplaced.”
“Absolutely not,” Slope replied, with just a tinge of offense in his voice.
“A workman, Rogers, is stealing slate and selling it in the village,” Sebastian told him. “You might want to tell the foreman such. And I am leaving Lady Rawlings’s employ, so you’ll have to find a new gardener.”
Slope bowed again. “I am most grateful for the information, my lord. May I direct you toward the side door, under the circumstances?”
“Thank you,” Sebastian said, walking into the light of dawn.
16
The Unexpected Pleasure of Your Company
Esme placed compresses on her eyes for a full hou
r, but it didn’t reduce the swelling in her eyes. When Arabella entered her room, she advised a cucumber mask, but that didn’t help, either. Esme suspected there wasn’t much one could do to plaster over a broken heart. I sent him away because I had to, she told herself fiercely. The only problem was that he’d actually left. That was the worst of it: the petty, mean, screaming little voice in the back of her head that kept saying, He wouldn’t have left if he really loved you! If he really—
And then the tears would well up again, because why should Sebastian be any different from the other men she’d known? Miles never really loved her. Sebastian said he loved her, and perhaps he did. But it felt like a stab in the heart. If he loved her, really loved her, he wouldn’t have left, no matter how many times she commanded. Didn’t he know how many women died in childbirth? Didn’t he care?
The ache in her chest answered that. He did care. He just didn’t care as much as she wanted him to care. You chased away Miles by creating a scandal, Esme thought dully. And then you chased away Sebastian in order to avoid a scandal. But it was all the same, really. If either man had truly loved her, he wouldn’t have left. He would have fought for her. But Miles had just smiled politely and slipped away to other pursuits, other bedchambers…. Sebastian smiled painfully and slipped away to the Continent to protect her reputation. It was exactly the same situation. Apparently she was the kind of woman whom men found easy to leave.
The tears welled up so fast and furious that Esme felt she would never stop crying. But she did, finally. More cucumber compresses and an hour later, she even thought drearily about going downstairs. The only reason she would consider it was to talk to Helene. She was faintly curious about the outcome of the previous evening.
Any questions were answered when she entered the sitting room. Helene looked happier than Esme had ever seen her, sitting across from Stephen Fairfax-Lacy and playing chess. An utterly suitable game for such an intelligent couple. She herself didn’t even know how to play.
“Hello,” she said, standing at Helene’s shoulder. Stephen immediately jumped to his feet and gave Esme his chair. She sank gratefully into it as Helene waved Stephen away with a smile. He bowed and pressed a kiss into her palm before strolling off. They certainly seemed to have got themselves on intimate terms in a hurry. Well, a shared bed could do that.