Sophy’s fingers tightened on his shoulders as she leaned into his strength.
“Touch me, sweetheart,” Julian ordered in a husky voice. “Put your hands inside my robe and touch me.”
She could not resist. Slipping her palms under the silk lapels of his dressing gown she splayed her fingers across his chest. “You are so strong,” she whispered in wonder.
“You make me feel strong,” Julian said, amused. “You also have the power to make me very weak.”
He caught her around the waist and lifted her up so that she was looking down at him. She braced herself with her hands on his shoulders and thought she would drown in the emerald brilliance of his eyes.
His dressing gown fell open and he slowly lowered her down along the length of his body until she was once more standing on her own feet. The intimate contact sent ripples of excitement through her and left her clinging to him. She closed her eyes again as his arms swept her up into his arms.
He carried her over to the bed and settled her in the center. Then he came down beside her, his legs tangling with hers. He stroked her slowly, his hands closing around each curve, his fingers exploring every hollow.
And he talked to her—urgent, persuasive, sensual words that enveloped her in a haze of heat and desire. Sophy clung to each soft promise, each tender command, each exciting description of what Julian intended to do to her that night.
“You will tremble in my arms, sweetheart. I will make you want me so much that you will plead with me to take you. You will tell me of your pleasure and that will make my pleasure complete. I want to make you happy tonight, Sophy.”
He leaned over her, his mouth heavy and demanding on hers. Sophy reacted fiercely, eager to claim as much of his heat and passion as she could tonight. There might never be another chance, she reminded herself. She might be lying cold and dead on the grass of Leighton Field by sunrise. Her tongue met his, inviting him into her moist heat. Julian meant life tonight and she clung instinctively to life and to him.
When his hand slipped between her thighs she cried out softly and lifted herself against his fingers.
Julian’s fierce pleasure in her response was obvious but he seemed intent on holding himself in check this time.
“Gently, little one. Give yourself to me. Put yourself in my keeping. Open your legs a little wider, darling. There, that’s the way I want you to be for me. Sweet and moist and eager. Trust me, darling. I will make it good this time.”
The words continued to flow around her, sweeping her away on a tide of excitement and need that knew no boundaries. Julian coaxed her onward, leading her toward a great unknown that loomed larger and larger on Sophy’s sensual horizon.
When he touched the tip of his tongue to her flowering nipples Sophy thought she would come apart in a hundred pieces. But when he moved lower and she felt first his fingers and then his mouth on the small, exquisitely sensitive nubbin of flesh between her legs she thought she would fly into a million shimmering pieces.
She clutched at his head. “Julian, no, wait, please. You should not—”
Her fingers dug into his dark hair and she cried out again. Julian cradled her hips in his big hands and ignored her struggles to dislodge him.
“Julian, no, I don’t want…. Oh, yes, please, yes.”
A shivering, shuddering, convulsive sense of release swept through her. In that moment she forgot everything—the impending duel, her private fears, the strangeness of such lovemaking—everything except the man who was touching her so intimately.
“Yes, sweetheart,” Julian said with dark satisfaction as he moved quickly up her body. His hands speared into her hair as he bent his head to plunge his tongue between her parted lips.
She was still quivering with the aftershocks of her release when he drove himself deeply into her hot, wet tightness and surrendered to his own climax.
Incredibly, her body convulsed gently around him once more and, caught up in the throes of the unfamiliar rapture, Sophy uttered the words that were in her heart.
“I love you, Julian. I love you.”
TEN
Julian sprawled heavily across the soft, slender body of his wife, conscious of being more relaxed than he could remember feeling in years. He knew he would have to move soon, if only to put out the candles. But for the moment all he wanted to do was lie there and savor the splendid satisfaction that enveloped him.
The scent of the recent lovemaking still hovered in the air filling him with a primitive satisfaction as did the echo of Sophy’s words, I love you, Julian.
She had not been fully aware of what she was saying, he reminded himself. She was a woman discovering her own sensual potential for the first time and she had been grateful to the man who had taught her to enjoy the pleasures of sexual release. He would not read too much into words of love spoken under such circumstances, but they had sounded good, nevertheless, and a part of him had gloried in them.
He had sensed the first time he had kissed her that Sophy would learn to respond to him but he had never dreamed that her response would affect him so intensely. He felt all-powerful, a conquering hero who had just claimed the fruits of victory and was content. But he was equally aware of a violent need to protect his sweet treasure. Sophy had finally given herself to him completely and he would take care of her.
Just as that thought flashed through his head, Sophy stirred beneath him, her lashes lifting languidly. Julian braced his weight on his elbows and looked down into her dazed and wondering gaze.
“Julian?”
He brushed his mouth across hers, reassuring her wordlessly. “That is the way it is supposed to be between a husband and his wife. And that is the way it will be between us from now on. Did you enjoy yourself, little one?”
She smiled ruefully and linked her arms around his neck. “You know very well that I did.”
“I know, but I find I like to hear you say it.”
“You gave me great pleasure,” she whispered. The amusement faded from her eyes. “It was unlike anything I have ever known.”
He kissed the tip of her nose, her cheek, the corner of her mouth. “Then we are even, you and I. You gave me the same degree of pleasure.”
“Is that really true?” She searched his face intently.
“It’s true.” Nothing had ever been more true or certain in his life he thought.
“I am glad. Try to remember that in the future, no matter what happens, will you, Julian?”
The unexpected anxiety in her words sent a faint shaft of alarm through him. Mentally he brushed aside the uneasiness her words triggered and smiled instead. “I am hardly likely to forget it.”
“I wish I could believe that.” She smiled too, rather wistfully.
Julian frowned slightly, uncertain of her new mood. There was something different about Sophy tonight. He had never seen her quite like this and it began to worry him. “What troubles you, Sophy? Are you afraid that the next time you do something to annoy me I will promptly forget how good things are between us in bed? Or don’t you like the fact that I can make you want me, even when you are angry at me?”
“I do not know,” she said slowly. “This seduction business is very odd, is it not?”
Hearing what had just transpired between them labeled as mere seduction bothered him. For the first time he realized he did not want Sophy using that word to describe what he did to her in bed. Seduction was what had happened to her younger sister. He did not want Sophy putting his lovemaking into that category.
“Do not think of it as seduction,” he ordered softly. “We made love, you and I.”
“Did we?” Her eyes blazed with sudden intensity. “Do you love me, Julian?”
The uneasiness he had been feeling crystalized into anger as he finally began to perceive what she was doing. What a fool he had been. Women were so damned good at this kind of thing. Did she think that just because she had responded to him—told him she loved him—that she could now wrap him around her little
finger? Julian felt the familiar trap start to close around him and instinctively prepared to fight.
He was not certain what he would have said but as he lay there on top of her, alarms sounding in his brain, Sophy smiled her strange, wistful smile and put her fingertips against her lips.
“No,” she said. “You do not need to say anything. It’s all right, I understand.”
“Understand what? Sophy, listen to me—”
“I think it would be better if we did not discuss this further. I spoke too quickly, without thinking.” Her head shifted restlessly on the pillow. “It must be very late.”
He groaned but accepted the reprieve eagerly. “Yes, very late.” He rolled reluctantly off of her onto his back, letting his hand slide possessively along the curve of her hip.
“Julian?”
“What is it, Sophy?”
“Should you not be going back to your own room?”
That startled him. “I had not planned on it,” he said roughly.
“I’d rather you did,” Sophy said very quietly. “Why is that?” Irritation brought him up on his elbow. He had been intending to spend the night in her bed. “You did the last time.”
Only because he had known that if he had stayed with her that first time he would have made love to her a second time and she had been sore and he had not wanted her to think him a rutting bull. He had wanted to show some consideration for the discomfort she had experienced that first night. “That does not mean I intend to return to my own room every time we make love.”
“Oh.” In the candlelight she looked strangely disconcerted. “I would prefer some privacy tonight, Julian. Please. I must insist.”
“Ah, I believe I am beginning to understand,” Julian said grimly as he shoved back the covers. “You are insisting on your privacy because you did not like my lack of response to your question a moment ago. I would not let you manipulate me into giving you endless pledges of undying love so you have decided to punish me in your own womanly way.”
“No, Julian, that is not true.”
He paid no attention to the entreaty in her voice. Stalking across the room, he snatched up his dressing gown and went to the connecting door. Then he stopped and swung around to glower at her. “While you are lying there in your lonely bed enjoying your privacy, think about the pleasure we could be giving each other. There is no law that states a man and a woman can only do it once a night, my dear.”
He went through the door and closed it behind himself with a loud crack that emphasized his frustration and annoyance. Damn the little chit. Who did she think she was trying to force his hand that way? And what made her think she could get away with it? He’d had experience dealing with manipulative females who had far more talent in that direction than Sophy ever would.
Sophy’s paltry attempts to control him with sex made him want to laugh. If he had not been so damnably furious with her, he would have laughed.
She was a silly, green girl in such matters even if she was twenty-three years old. Elizabeth had been older and wiser in the ways of manipulating a man when she had emerged from the schoolroom than Sophy would be when she was fifty.
Julian tossed the dressing gown across a chair and threw himself down onto the bed. Arms folded behind his head, he lay staring up at the darkened ceiling, hoping Sophy was already regretting her hasty action. If she thought she could punish him and thus bring him to heel with such simple tactics, she was sadly mistaken. He had fought far more subtle, far more strategically complex battles.
But Sophy was not Elizabeth and never would be. And Sophy had a reason to fear seduction. He also suspected that his new wife had a streak of the romantic in her soul.
Julian groaned and massaged his eyes as his temper began to cool. Perhaps he owed his wife the benefit of a doubt. It was true she had tried to coax him into vowing his love for her but it was equally true that she had a valid reason for fearing a passion that was not labeled love.
In Sophy’s limited experience the only alternative to love was the sort of cruel, heartless seduction that had gotten her sister pregnant. Sophy would naturally want some assurance she was not being subjected to the latter. She would want to believe she was loved so she would not have to fear following in her sister’s footsteps.
But she was a married woman sharing a bed with her lawful husband, Julian reminded himself angrily. She had no reason to fear being abandoned in her sister’s condition. Hell, he wanted an heir—needed one. The last thing he was likely to do was cast her off if she got herself pregnant with his child.
Sophy had both the protection of the law and the Earl of Ravenwood’s personal vow to protect and care for her. To go about in terror of her sister’s fate was to indulge in a great deal of feminine nonsense and Julian decided he would not tolerate it. He must make her see there was no parallel between her sister’s fate and her own.
Because he definitely did not want to spend many more nights alone in his own bed.
Julian did not know how long he lay there plotting how best to teach his wife the lesson he wanted her to learn but at some point he finally dozed off. His sleep was restless, however, and hours later the sound of Sophy’s door closing softly in the hall jarred him from a light slumber.
He stirred, wondering if it was already time to rise. But when he opened one eye and glared balefully at the window he could tell it was still dark behind the curtains.
Nobody, not even Sophy, rose to ride at dawn in London. Julian turned over and told himself to go back to sleep. But some instinct kept him from dozing off again. He wondered who had opened Sophy’s door at this ungodly hour.
Finally, unable to withstand the curiosity that was growing quickly within him, Julian climbed out of bed and went to the connecting door. He opened it quietly.
It took him a few seconds to realize that Sophy’s bed was empty. Even as he was reaching that conclusion he heard the faint rattle of carriage wheels in the street outside the window. As he listened, the vehicle came to a halt.
A jolt of irrational but violent fear went through him.
Julian leapt for the window, tearing aside the curtains just in time to see a familiar slender figure dressed in a pair of men’s breeches and a shirt jump into the closed carriage. Sophy’s tawny hair was bound up in a severe coil under a veiled hat. She was carrying a wooden case in one hand. The driver, a slim, red-haired lad dressed in black, clucked to the horses and the carriage moved swiftly away down the street.
“Damn you, Sophy.” Julian’s fingers clenched so fiercely into the curtains that he nearly ripped them from the rod. “God damn you to hell, you bitch.”
I love you. Do you love me, Julian?
Sweet, lying bitch. “You’re mine,” he hissed through his teeth. “You are mine and I will see you in hell before I let you go to another.”
Julian dropped the curtains and raced into his own room, snatching up a shirt and pulling on a pair of breeches. He grabbed his boots and ran out into the hall. At the foot of the staircase he paused long enough to pull on the tight leather riding boots and then he started for the servants’ entrance. He would have to get a horse from the stables and he would have to hurry if he was not to lose sight of the carriage.
At the last moment he swung around and dashed back toward the library. He would need a weapon. He intended to kill whoever had taken Sophy away. And after that he would consider well what to do with his lying, deceitful wife. If she thought he would tolerate from her what he had tolerated from Elizabeth she was in for a great revelation.
The pistols were gone from the wall.
Julian barely had time to register that fact when he heard the sound of a horse’s hooves in the street. He ran for the front door, throwing it open just as a woman dressed in black and wearing a black veil started to alight from a tall, gray gelding. He saw that she had ridden astride, not sidesaddle.
“Oh, thank God,” the woman said, clearly startled at the sight of him in the doorway. “I was afraid I would hav
e to awaken the entire household to get to you. Much better this way. Perhaps a scandal can be avoided after all. They have gone to Leighton Field.”
“Leighton Field?” That made no sense. Only cattle and duelists had any use for Leighton Field.
“Do hurry, for heaven’s sake. You can take my horse. As you can see, I am not using a lady’s saddle.”
Julian did not hesitate. He seized the gray’s bridle and vaulted into the saddle. “Who the hell are you?” he demanded of the woman in the veil. “His wife?”
“No, you do not understand, but you will soon enough. Just hurry.”
“Go into the house,” Julian ordered as the gray danced under him. “You can wait inside. If one of the staff finds you there, say nothing except that I have invited you to be there.”
Julian put the big horse into a gallop without waiting for a response. Why in God’s name would Sophy and her lover run off to Leighton Field, Julian wondered furiously. But he soon stopped asking himself that question and began trying to figure out which male of the ton had sealed his own doom by taking Sophy away that morning.
Leighton Field was cold and damp in the dim, predawn light. A cluster of sullen trees, their heavy branches drooping moisture, crouched beneath a still-dark sky. Mist rose from the ground and hung, thick and gray, at knee level. Anne’s small, closed carriage, the yellow curricle a short distance away, and the horses all looked as if they were floating in midair.
When Sophy stepped out into the mist, her legs disappeared beneath her into the fog. She looked at Anne, who was securing the carriage horse. The masculine disguise was astonishingly clever. If she had not known who it was, Sophy would have been certain the smudge-faced, red-haired figure was a young man.
“Sophy, are you sure you want to go through with this?” Anne asked anxiously as she came forward.
Sophy turned to gaze at the curricle stopped a few yards away. The veiled figure dressed in black had not yet alighted from the other vehicle. Charlotte Featherstone appeared to be alone. “I do not have any choice, Anne.”
“I wonder where Jane is? She said that if you were determined to be a fool, she would feel obliged to witness it.”