For a moment Derek knew a dismay equal to hers. He had frightened her. Holy hell, he thought... and wondered for the first time in his life how to make love like a gentleman. He strove for a measure of restraint, while Sara gave him an apologetic glance. Surreptitiously she pulled long sheaves of hair in front of her, concealing her meagerly clad body. Half-suspecting she might bolt, Derek began to unbutton his shirt.
Sara propped herself against the massive bed, grateful for its support. A whirlwind of panic swept through her as Derek stripped off his white shirt. She switched her gaze to the floor, but not before she had seen how large and formidable his body was, his torso heavily muscled, his chest covered with thick black hair. Silvery scars marked his skin, legacies of his life in the rookery. He was a man of vast experience. All that was new and frightening to her was commonplace to him. He had known countless women who were as familiar with this act as he was. How could he help but be disappointed by her? “You’ve done this many times before, haven’t you?” she murmured, squeezing her eyes shut.
She heard his trousers drop to the floor. “Never with someone I ...” He paused and cleared his throat. “Never with someone like you.” His bare feet padded across the floor toward her.
Sara flinched as his hands slid around her waist, pulling her to his naked body. The heat of his skin sank through the insubstantial layer of her shift. He was aroused, throbbing hard and forcefully erect against her. “Open your eyes,” he said. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
She forced herself to comply, staring straight ahead into his chest. Her heart thumped so violently that it seemed to batter against her ribs.
As if he could read her mind, Derek lowered his mouth to her hair and held her tightly. “Sara ... I’m going to take care of you. I’ll never hurt you, or force you to do something you don’t want.” He took a long breath and forced himself to add reluctantly, “If you want this to stop, then tell me. I probably won’t be kind. But I’ll wait.”
She would never know how much the words cost him. It went against his nature to deny himself what he wanted so badly. He had been deprived of too much when he was young—it had made him selfish to the core. But her needs had become too important to him, her affection too precious to risk.
Sara looked up at him, reading the truth in his face. Gradually her body relaxed against his. “You must tell me how to please you,” she said softly. “I-I don’t know anything ... and you know too much.”
His black lashes lowered over a flick of green fire. A wry smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. “We’ll find some middle ground,” he promised, and kissed her.
Willingly Sara dropped her arms as he pushed the shift down her hips to the floor. He lifted her naked body onto the bed, and the scent of roses drifted over them. A fierce blush covered her from head to toe, and she moved to gather the covers around herself. Derek spread her beneath him with a muffled laugh, his hands traveling over her shrinking body. “Don’t be shy with me.” He kissed the translucent skin of her shoulders and the downy slope of her breast, relishing her lush softness. Raising his head, he stared into her eyes. “Sara, you have to believe ... I’ve never wanted anyone like this.” He paused, aware of the sublime banality of the words. Yet he was driven to continue like an impassioned idiot, trying to make her understand. “You’re the only one who ever ... Oh, bloody hell.”
As he struggled with the words, her small hand came up to his face, sliding tenderly over his jaw. She knew what he was trying to tell her. “You don’t have to say it,” she whispered. “It’s all right.”
Derek turned his lips against her palm, and she closed her fingers afterward, as if to hold the kiss for safekeeping. “Everything I have is yours,” he said raspily. “Everything.”
“I only want you.” She curved her arms around his neck and drew him down to her.
His gentleness was astonishing. She had expected the same violent passion of their other encounters ... but tonight he was no pirate to ravage and plunder. Instead he claimed her with sneak-thievery, exploring her with a stealthy patience that set her nerves on fire. He stole away her modesty, her restraint, her every thought, leaving nothing but a smoldering blaze of sensation.
His hand lightly gripped the round weight of her breast, lifting it as he covered the peak with his mouth. Slowly his tongue traced over the awakening bud, causing the tender flesh to contract. He turned to her other breast, sucking and nibbling until Sara writhed against his mouth. Scooping up a fragrant handful of petals, Derek sprinkled them over her body, gently playful as he nudged them across her skin. Sara arched up to him, abandoning herself to his tender passion. A few delicate petal shards caught in the springy crop of curls between her thighs. He reached down to the soft thatch, but Sara stiffened in surprise and tried to push his hand away.
“No,” she protested as he used his leg to pry hers apart.
Derek held her down easily and smiled against her throat. “Why not?” He closed his teeth on the small lobe of her ear. Tracing the fragile rim with the tip of his tongue, licking hotly inside the shell-like curve, he spoke to her in the softest of whispers. “Every part of you belongs to me ... inside and out. You’re mine everywhere. Even here.” Cupping his hand between her legs, he toyed with her until he felt a sheen of moisture against his palm. Her weak protests faded into silence as he parted the soft curls and searched her with extreme care. He found her sleek and swollen, sensitive to the touch of his fingers. Pressing, stimulating, he carefully worked his fingers into the slickness, until she gasped and pressed the crescents of her nails into his shoulders.
Derek shuddered with desire, raising himself over her, possessing her mouth with a wet, carnal kiss. Sara responded with her own feminine demand, running her hands over the muscled plane of his back, seeking to pull him more heavily on top of her. Unable to wait any longer, Derek urged her knees wide and positioned himself against her. Carefully he pushed himself inside, easing beyond the virginal resistance. Sara cried out as she was sundered, invaded, in a deep thrust.
Derek held her hips steady as he drove even further, immersing himself in her warmth. His senses hovered on the verge of rapture, and he fought to contain himself as she twisted beneath him in discomfort. “I’m sorry,” Derek whispered, closing his eyes. “I’m sorry ... Oh, God, don’t move.” Sara subsided against him, her breath falling on his shoulder in delicate puffs.
Gradually he mastered himself and pressed his lips to her drawn forehead. “Is it better this way?” he murmured, shifting his weight.
Sara quivered, feeling the altered pressure inside her. “I-I don’t know.”
He pushed again, a long, gentle slide. “Or this ... ?” he asked, his voice hoarse.
She couldn’t answer, her lips parting in suspended silence as he began an easy rhythm. Each surge brought a flick of pain, but a deep instinct clamored for her to arch upward, her inner muscles grasping to hold him inside. His black head dropped to her breasts, his mouth pulling at her nipples with gently flirting suction. Lost in a tide of building sensation, Sara felt more slickness emerge between them, until the back-and-forth motion became a smooth, frictionless glide. “Please ... you must stop,” she gasped, while her muscles squeezed around him. “I can’t bear any more.”
The emerald eyes glittered with triumph. “Yes, you can.” He plunged deeper into her struggling-body, his thrusts relentlessly regular. With a gasping whimper, she went still beneath him while a great wave of pleasure rolled through her, unmatched by anything she’d ever felt before. He wrapped his arms around her, impelling himself more strongly, prolonging the exquisite spasms. When she was finally satiated, he took his own fulfillment, his body shaking with violent release.
They remained locked together for a long time, relaxing amid the rumpled sheets. Derek reclined on his side and kept her against him, his lips drifting over her forehead and the silken edge of her hairline. Sara smiled in drowsy wonder, breathing in the perfume of the crushed petals and the scent of his s
kin.
“Was it what you expected?” He traced a gentle pattern on her hips.
She blushed and pressed her face against his chest. “No. It was much better.”
“For me too. It was different from—” Derek stopped himself, hesitant to speak of his past experiences.
“From all your other women,” she finished for him dryly. “Tell me how it was different.”
Derek shook his head. “You’re the one with the fancy words. I can’t explain it.”
“Try,” she insisted, tugging threateningly at his wiry chest curls. “In your own words.”
He covered her plucking fingers with his own, pressing her hand flat. “It was just better, all the way through. Especially this part.” He cuddled her closer. “I’ve never felt so peaceful afterward.”
“And happy?” she asked hopefully.
“I don’t know how ‘happy’ feels.” He sought her mouth for a brief, hard kiss, and his voice turned to rough velvet. “But I know I want to stay inside you forever.”
As evening approached, Sara closed herself in the seclusion of the tiled and furnished bathing room. She was nonplussed at the arrival of a housemaid who insisted on making the preparations for the bath: warming towels, drawing and testing the water, setting out a tray of soaps and perfume. Although Sara had heard it was common for aristocratic ladies to require help with their baths, she felt it was unnecessary in her case.
“Thank you, that will be enough.” she said with a disconcerted smile as she stepped into the warm water. But the maid waited while she bathed, and held up a heated towel when she emerged. Another towel was employed to pat her back and arms dry. It seemed terribly decadent, allowing someone to do what she was perfectly able to do for herself, but there seemed to be no choice. Sara sniffed curiously at the proffered flacons of perfume, detecting rose, jasmine, hyacinth, and violet, but she declined to use any of them. The maid helped her into a large robe of heavy textured silk. Murmuring thanks for the assistance, Sara was finally able to dismiss the maid. She rolled up the long sleeves of the robe and wandered back to Derek’s bedroom, the hem of the garment dragging on the floor behind her.
Clad in a similar robe, Derek was standing in front of the fireplace. He poked at a blazing log with a fire iron. As he glanced at her with a half-smile, the golden-red light played over his black hair and swarthy face. “How do you feel?”
“A little hungry,” she replied, and then added self-consciously, “very hungry.”
Derek approached her, taking her shoulders in his large hands. Smiling, he brushed a kiss on the tip of her nose. “I can do something about that.” He turned her to face a table laden with trays and silver-domed platters. “Monsieur Labarge outdid himself for your sake.”
“How wonderful, but ...” Color climbed high in her cheeks. “I suppose everyone must know what we’re doing.”
“Everyone,” he agreed. “I think you’ll have to marry me, Miss Fielding.”
“To save your reputation?”
Derek grinned, bending to kiss the flash of pale throat revealed by the robe. “Someone has to make a respectable man of me.” He led her to the table and seated her. “We’ll have to serve ourselves. I dismissed the stewards.”
“Oh, good,” Sara said in relief. Draping an embroidered napkin on her lap, she reached for a platter of tiny molded pates and puddings. “I think it would be tiresome, having servants hover around all the time.”
Derek ladled out a broth flavored with vegetables, wine, and truffles. “You’ll get used to it.”
“What if I don’t?”
“Then we’ll let some of them go.”
Sara frowned, knowing how difficult it was to find employment in London. Many of the prostitutes she had talked to had once been maids dismissed by aristocratic employers. Cast out in the streets, they had no choice but to sell themselves. “I couldn’t dismiss anyone just because I’m not accustomed to being waited on,” she protested.
Derek was amused by her dilemma. “Then it seems we’ll have to keep the servants.” He gave her an encouraging smile, handing her a glass of wine. “You’ll have more time for your writing this way.”
“That’s true,” she said, brightening at the thought.
They consumed the supper at a leisurely pace, while the level of wine in the bottle dipped lower and the fire on the grate burned to hot red coals. Sara had never eaten such a delicious meal in her life: succulent lobster and quail meat baked in pastry, and chicken breasts rolled in crumbly batter, fried in butter, and covered with a rich Madeira sauce. Derek kept urging her to try different morsels: a bite of potato souffle dabbed with soured cream, a spoonful of liqueur-flavored jelly that dissolved on her tongue, a taste of salmon smothered in herbs. Finally replete, Sara collapsed in her chair and watched him as he left to stoke the fire. “Do you eat like this all the time?” she asked contentedly, dabbing her spoon in a delicate almond-flavored custard. “I don’t understand why you’re not fat. You should have a belly the size of the king’s.”
Derek laughed and returned to the table, pulling Sara into his lap as he sat down. “Thank God I don’t ... or I wouldn’t be able to hold you like this.”
She curled against his hard chest and sipped from the wineglass he held to her lips. “How did you acquire such a talented chef?”
“I’d heard of Labarge’s reputation, and I wanted the best for my club. So I went to France to hire him.”
“Was it difficult to convince him to leave with you?”
Derek smiled reminiscently. “Almost impossible. The Labarges had worked for the family of a French count for generations. Labarge didn’t want to break tradition, not when his father and grandfather had been employed by the same family. But everyone has a price. I finally offered to pay him two thousand pounds a year. I also agreed to hire most of his kitchen staff.”
“Two thousand?” she repeated in amazement. “I’ve never heard of a chef being paid so much.”
“Don’t you think he’s worth it?”
“Well, I enjoy his dishes very much,” Sara said earnestly. “But I’m from the country. I wouldn’t know good French food from bad.”
Derek laughed at her artlessness. “What do people eat in the country?”
“Root vegetables, stews, mutton :.. I make a very good pepper pot.”
Slowly he stroked the tumbled cascade of hei hair. “You’ll have to make it for me someday.”
“I don’t think Monsieur Labarge would allow it. He’s very possessive of his kitchen.”
Derek continued to play with her hair. “We’ll go to a cottage I have in Shropshire.” A smile crossed his face. “You’ll put on an apron and cook for me. I’ve never had a woman do that before.”
“That would be nice,” she said dreamily, lowering her head to his shoulder. But the mention of the cottage had awakened her interest. After a moment she looked up at him with a question in her eyes.
“What is it?” he asked.
She seemed to choose her words carefully. “Mr. Worthy once told me that you own a great deal of property. And everyone says you’ve made a fortune from the club. I’ve heard people claim that you’re one of the wealthiest men in England. I’ve just been wondering ...” She hesitated, recalling Perry’s admonition that it wasn’t a woman’s place to ask about finances. “Oh, never mind.”
“What is it you want to know? How much I own?” Derek read the answer in her abashed expression, and he smiled wryly. “There isn’t a simple answer to that. As well as my personal holdings, there are estates, mansions, and tracts of land deeded to Craven’s in payment of gambling debts. Also a yacht, jewelry, artwork ... even some Thoroughbreds. Those things aren’t strictly mine, since they belong to the club ...”
“But the club belongs to you,” she finished.
“Exactly.”
Sara couldn’t resist probing further. “What do you count among your personal holdings?”
Derek had the grace to look slightly embarrassed. “Four esta
tes ... a terrace in London ... a chateau in the Loire Valley—”
“A chateau? I thought you didn’t like France!”
“It came with excellent vineyards,” he said defensively, and resumed his list. “A castle at Bath—”
“A castle?” she repeated in bemusement.
He made a gesture as if it were nothing. “It’s in ruins. But there are wooded hills with deer, and streams full of fish—”
“I’m sure it’s very picturesque,” Sara said in a strangled voice. “You needn’t go on.”
His eyes narrowed on her. “Why do you look like that?”
Sara nearly choked on a mixture of laughter and dismay. “I’ve just begun to realize how wealthy you are. It’s rather frightening.”
“You’ll get used to it.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
There was a teasing lightness to his tone, but his eyes glinted oddly as he replied. “You’ve been compromised, sweet. It’s too late to change your mind.”
Sara shook her head and stood up from his lap. “I can live with being compromised. Where are my clothes?” She was only jesting, not reading the sudden tension in his face.
“You said you would stay with me no matter what.”
“At the time,” she said, wandering to the fireplace, “I didn’t know that a chateau and a castle would be part of the arrangement.” She shook her head in bemusement. “It’s almost too much to take in. I think I’d better go back to Greenwood Corners.” She didn’t know that he had followed her until he spun her to face him. His hand grasped her upper arms with bruising force. Sara was alarmed as she looked up at his harsh face.
“What?” she gasped. “What in the world—”
“I won’t let you leave me.” His voice was even, but his large body was rigid, his hands hurtful.