"Enough, Nicholas!" Her voice rose. "Stop right now"
He paused and tried to focus his dazed eyes on her face. Hoarsely he said, "Christ, Clarissima, not this time." His hand crept up her thigh. "Let me just show you..."
A tumult of emotions showed in her face, but there was no doubt in her voice. "No more! Today's kissing is over."
He felt paralyzed, unable to proceed, unable to move away. In the taut silence, the striking of the drawing room clock was clearly audible. One, two, three...
Twelve. Triumphantly he said, "Midnight. It's another day, Clarissima, and another kiss."
Then he bent and pressed his hungry mouth to her breast.
Chapter 21
It had taken every shred of Clare's determination to tell Nicholas to stop, and her resistance crumbled when his heated mouth made magic on her breast. She arched against him, no longer able to remember why she had wanted this to end, for she had no will beyond desire.
He pulled the strap of her shift off her shoulder and began kissing her other breast, this time on her naked flesh rather than through sheer fabric. Feverishly she stroked his bare back, her hand digging into the flexing muscles. His fingers traced a burning path to the secret place between her thighs. When he touched her intimately, she moaned and rolled her head back and forth, for she had no words for the fierceness of her response.
Deftly he caressed the moist folds, spreading and opening her. Then she felt a hard, blunt pressure, slow but inexorable. Instinctively she knew that he offered the completion her body craved, and she moved upward against him, welcoming the weight of his body.
Then pain struck, tearing her so fiercely that desire vanished. Feeling that she was being ripped apart, she pushed frantically at his shoulders. "Stop!"
He froze, his weight supported above her, his face ravaged as he stared at her. The hard shaft that pressed against her throbbed menacingly as if determined to thrust forward of its own will.
As pain and panic pushed her beyond thoughts of morality and revenge, she begged, "Please—no more."
For a moment the outcome hovered in the balance. Then, the tendons in his arms standing out like steel bands, he lifted himself off her, swearing viciously under his breath.
Relief was instantly followed by shattered confusion. Dear God, how could she have allowed this to happen? She pressed her wrist against her mouth, trying to contain the bitter shame that swept through her. Sow the wind, and reap the whirlwind.
Knowing that she was a hair's breadth away from hysteria, she pushed herself to a sitting position and pulled her shift down to cover as much of her body as possible. Nicholas had folded onto the floor, his head bent forward so that his face was invisible. His hands were locked around the opposite wrists and he was shaking as badly as she was.
She looked away, guilt stabbing her as sharply as physical pain had a few moments earlier. Even at her most angry, this was not what she had intended. She had wanted to teach a lesson, not ravage both of them.
After inhaling deeply, Nicholas said with bitter humor, "Your imitation of a pious schoolmistress isn't bad, but you're a damn' sight more convincing as a teasing bitch."
The tears she had tried to contain broke through and she began to weep with gut-wrenching misery. Hating herself, she gasped, "Don't stop there. I'm not only a bitch but a spiritual fraud, a hypocrite. For a few moments I wanted to be a fallen woman, and I couldn't even get that right!" She buried her face in her hands. "I wish to God I had never been born."
After a long silence, he said dryly, "That's a bit extreme. What would your father have done without you?"
"My father hardly knew that I was alive." Her throat closed, as if retaliating for the fact that she had said aloud what she had never admitted to herself.
And Nicholas, damn him, understood the significance of her agonized statement. Voice more controlled, he said, "You didn't feel that he loved you?"
"Oh, he loved me," she said bleakly. "He was a saint—he loved everyone. He had time and compassion and wisdom for everyone who asked. But I couldn't ask, so there was never any for me." She kept her head down, unable to look at Nicholas. "You're the only one who ever asked what it was like to live with a saint, so I'll tell you the truth: it was pure hell. The first thing I learned from my mother was that God's work was more important than the preacher's family, and we must always put that work first. I tried so hard to be what my father expected, to be devout and serene and generous, as good a Christian as he and my mother were. I suppose I believed that if I made my father's life easy enough, eventually he would have more time for me. But he never did."
Her mouth twisted. "When you told me how he helped when you came to Aberdare, I was jealous because you had so much more of his time and attention than I did. Not very generous of me, was it?"
"It's very human to want a parent's love. Perhaps we never get over the lack of it."
"I don't know why I'm telling you this," she said miserably, her nails biting into her palms. "Your family was far worse than mine. At least my father never sold me, or said that he wished another girl was his daughter. And when he remembered, he always thanked me very politely for taking such good care of him."
"It's simple to hate someone who has openly betrayed you," Nicholas observed. "Perhaps it is more corrosive and painful to resent a selfless saint who has betrayed you in more subtle ways—especially when everyone in your community assumes that you must be selfless and saintly, too."
He understood too much. Angrily she wiped the tears from her eyes. "But I'm not a saint. Though I didn't mind giving, I wanted something back, and I've never stopped resenting the fact that I didn't get it. I'm selfish and greedy and I deserved to be driven out of Zion Chapel."
"Why do you think you're a fraud?"
She stared at her hands, which were knotted together. "The heart of my religion is direct experience of God. In the early days of English Methodism, John Wesley personally interviewed prospective members of the society to be sure that their experience and belief were genuine. If that had been done to me, I would have failed, for I have never—not once—experienced the sense of divine presence. I've seen it in others—sometimes when I was talking to my father he would stop listening and gaze into the distance, his face glowing as the spirit flowed through him."
Her voice broke. "I was jealous of that, too. When I was younger, I prayed for hours every day, asking God to let me feel, if only for an instant, that spiritual connection. But even though my mind believed, my heart was empty."
"The horrible irony is that others learned of my prayers and assumed that I was deeply pious. When I declined a leadership role in the chapel, it was thought that I was becomingly modest. I should have told the truth, but it was easier to pretend to be what others thought I was. Acting saintly and selfless made me seem to be a real person. But since I met you, all my pretenses have crumbled away, one by one, and now there's nothing left. I'm not a real person at all."
She didn't know that he had risen and crossed the room until his fingers lightly brushed her tangled hair. "You seem very real to me, Clare, even if you're not the woman you thought you were." His fingers slipped around her head and caressed the taut nape of her neck. "It will take time for you to learn who you really are. The old has to be destroyed before there is room for the new, and it's a painful process. Though in the long run you'll be happier, I'm sorry for my part in bringing you to this. I know it sounds contradictory, but though I've wanted to ruin you, I never wanted to hurt you."
She rested her cheek against his hand, thinking how strange this conversation was. Both of them seemed to have moved beyond anger to bleak resignation. "It's not your fault, Nicholas. There is nothing you have done to me that is as bad as what I have done to myself. And I'm thoroughly ashamed of what I tried to do to you." She attempted to smile. "Now I understand why God reserved vengeance for Himself. When a mortal attempts revenge, it goes wrong too easily."
"Things often go wrong between men and women,"
he said wryly. "It's amazing the human race manages to survive. Mating seems much easier for beasts that don't think."
Perhaps that was her problem—she thought too much. She sighed. "I don't know why I've blurted out all the worst things about myself. Expiation for my bad behavior, I suppose."
His fingers tightened around hers. "I'm rather flattered that you have chosen me to be honest with. Stop castigating yourself, Clare—your sins are minor, a product of confusion rather than malice."
"A woman my age should not be so confused."
He moved away for a moment, then returned and draped his coat around her shoulders. "Go to bed. I'll take care of things here. No one will know what... almost happened."
Even now, that mattered to her. With his help, she climbed off the table. She still could not bring herself to look in his face, but she was glad to see that he had put his pantaloons back on. The more barriers between them, the better.
She slipped out the door and made her barefoot way through the sleeping house. The moon was nearing full, and it cast enough light for her to find her path.
It wasn't until she reached her own room that she realized she was bleeding. A bubble of hysterical laughter rose in her throat. Did that mean she was no longer a virgin? Could one be partially virgin? Nicholas would know, but she couldn't imagine asking him about such an intimate topic, even though he was the one responsible for her semi-virginal state.
As she fashioned a pad to absorb the blood, she thought that it would be ironic if she was now officially ruined without having enjoyed any of the benefits. She wrapped a blanket around herself and curled up on the windowseat, too tense to go to bed.
Reluctantly, as if testing a sore tooth, she thought back to those mad moments when she had been blind to everything but passion. She shivered as the memory of desire swept through her, warming the secret places he had brought to aching life.
For the first time, she truly understood how passion could blind someone to honor, decency, and common sense. It hadn't even occurred to her how ludicrous, how vulgar, it was to be deflowered on a billiard table. If it had not been for the sudden, unexpected pain, she and Nicholas would be lovers now.
Though oblique references by married women had hinted that losing a maidenhead hurt, Clare had had the impression that the discomfort was minor and would quickly pass. Obviously women must differ in the amount of pain they experienced. Should she be glad that it was hard for her because pain saved her from the ultimate folly? Or should she be sorry? She would probably be much happier if she had irrevocably turned away from virtue; certainly she would be less confused.
Now that both passion and pain had cooled, Clare wondered if she had planned her little revenge with the secret hope that Nicholas would overwhelm her with his intoxicating masculinity. If he had succeeded, now she would be sleeping in his bed, warm and protected in his arms. A sinner, but a happy one.
She looked up at the cool face of the moon, which floated dispassionately above the teeming hive of London. In western mythology, the moon was always female; Diana, goddess of the moon, had been aggressively virginal. What would the goddess have made of Nicholas? Clare smiled ruefully. Diana would probably have thrown away her bow and arrows and pulled him down into a mossy forest bed.
She drew the blanket more tightly around herself, thinking how much she missed the solid certainty of her old life. Though she had occasionally had secret doubts, she had been able to ignore them most of the time. Then she had become involved with Nicholas and certainty had dissolved like a house of sand, leaving her in a state of constant, uncomfortable flux.
Yet, though she had finally admitted that she was a fraudulent and inadequate Christian, she could not jettison morality entirely. In her heart, she still believed that it would be wrong to become Nicholas's mistress. If she gave herself to him simply to satisfy lust, she would despise herself as soon as desire was satisfied. And from a strictly practical point of view, she would be a fool to trust herself to a man who would neither love nor marry her.
The mistress issue was probably moot now. Though Nicholas had been surprisingly kind to her after the night's fiasco, she couldn't imagine that he would want to have her around any longer. So perhaps that meant that Clare would be successful in achieving one of her earlier goals: getting him to send her away.
Success, in this case, would not make her happy.
With a sigh, she uncurled herself from the windowseat and went to her bed. She couldn't change the disastrous events of the evening, and it was far too soon for her to understand what kind of woman she would be now that she no longer had her facade to hide behind. Instead, she must bend her weary mind to the question of how to face Nicholas in the morning.
* * *
Business took Nicholas from the house early, for which he was grateful. It was hard to believe how short a time had passed since Clare had stormed into his life; they seemed to be compressing years' worth of complications into as many weeks. Their relationship had changed the night before, and he had no idea what would come next. He desired her more than ever, yet her near-breakdown had been as harrowing for him as for her.
When his business was completed, he briefly considered stopping by a very expensive, very discreet establishment where the girls were beautiful, warm, and willing. He dismissed the thought immediately; coupling with a stranger would not eliminate his desire for Clare, and would surely leave him more lonely than satisfied.
His house was near Hyde Park and Clare often walked at this hour, so he decided to drive home that way. Since the day was raw, the park was relatively empty, and soon he spotted Clare and the dutiful maid who followed her.
He gave his reins to his groom with orders to go home, then quietly dismissed the maid with a gesture of his hand. When he fell into step beside Clare, she gave him an unsurprised glance. She wore her plainest clothing and there were shadows under her eyes, but she had regained her usual composure.
"You've the most remarkable talent for appearing and disappearing," she observed. "Rather like a cat."
He tucked her hand under his elbow and they strolled toward the small lake called the Serpentine. "I'm glad that you're talking to me today."
She sighed and looked away. "I have no cause to be angry with you. Everything that has happened to me can be traced to my own willfulness and bad judgment."
"You may not feel that you're a very good Christian, but you've certainly mastered guilt."
Her head came around and she gave him an indignant glance. "I prefer that to having no conscience, like some I could name."
He patted her fingers where they rested on his arm. "Good. I like it much better when you're snapping at me. More normal."
A reluctant smile tugged at her lips. "If normal means a desire to box your ears, I'm in prime condition."
"The first rule of Gypsy fighting is never to box the ears of someone who is eight inches taller than you."
"I'll bear that in mind."
They reached the edge of the lake, where ducks squabbled noisily and two small boys were launching toy sailboats under the watchful eyes of a nursemaid. As they began circling the water, Nicholas nodded toward the boats. "Lucien says plans are under way to hold victory celebrations here in June. The Prince Regent will probably restage the Battle of Trafalgar on the Serpentine."
"Are you serious?"
"God's own truth," he assured her. "Plus fireworks, parades, and a jolly, vulgar fair for the groundlings. If you'd like to see the spectacle, I'll bring you back to London then."
"I can't look two months ahead—I can barely imagine how to get through the next day." She looked up, her deep blue eyes haunted. "We can't go on as we have. Surely you can see that."
His mouth tightened. "Why not?"
"We've been playing a dangerous game of seduction and teasing, pushing closer and closer to each other's limits," she said bluntly. "Between my hysteria and your frustration, we'll destroy each other if we don't stop."
"Perhaps you're
right," he said with deep reluctance. "What do you propose instead?"
"Surely it would be easiest for both of us if I went home to Penreith."
A wave of anxiety swept through him. "What I said before still stands," he said harshly. "Leave before the three months are over and I'll drop my plans for the valley."
She stopped walking and stared at him. "I simply don't understand why you care that much about my presence or absence. By this time, I would think that you would want to pursue matters at the mine if only to vex Lord Michael."
He didn't understand himself, but he knew damned well that he didn't want her to go. He started to lift his hand, instinctively wanting to persuade her with touch. She tensed in a subtle but unmistakable withdrawal.
His stomach knotted and he dropped his hand. If she started to fear him, he would be unable to bear it. He could think of only one acceptable solution, though he hated the thought. "I'll waive my daily kiss. That should make it possible for us to be together without losing our sanity. Wasn't chaste abstinence what you originally suggested as a stake when we started playing billiards last night?"
Her brows drew together. "Now I understand you even less. You flatly refused to consider giving up your kisses last night."
"That was then. This is now." He took her arm and started her walking again, relaxing since it seemed that he would carry his point. "It should be obvious that I enjoy your company. When we return to Aberdare, maybe I'll look into getting a dog, but for the time being, you'll have to do."
She smiled, her expression easing. "Since you put it in such flattering terms, how can I refuse?"
He was glad to see her smile. But as they walked back to Aberdare House, he glumly faced the fact that he had only two months to convince her to stay with him, and he could no longer use passion to persuade her.
* * *
The Duke of Candover returned home to find his house-guest on the verge of leaving. Concealing his uneasiness, Rafe said, "Have I neglected you too much, Michael?"