She refused to look away, refused to lower her eyes. “That,” she quietly stated, “is between him and me.”
Luc inclined his head and stepped around her. “Just as long as you know the answer.”
Someone was stalking Amanda, someone other than him. Watching her, watching them. Who? And why?
Over breakfast the next morning, Martin examined those questions from every possible angle, the one topic that could distract him from the frustration simmering just beneath his skin.
While motive was unclear, the evidence was too compelling to ignore. That note that had summoned Amanda to a deserted terrace had been the start. He couldn’t remember any earlier suspicious incident, but later had come the unexpected arrival of Edward and company on the Fortescues’ terrace at a potentially revealing moment, then the mysterious note that had sent Sally Jersey to the Hamiltons’ library, and last night, the arrival of a bevy of young ladies intent on exploring the summerhouse at precisely the worst moment.
The young ladies had been sent by “that gentleman”—Martin remembered the comment.
Some gentleman was trying to bring Amanda undone.
A good scandal would do it, or so someone not in the know would reason. Those of their circle, aware of the caliber of those involved, aware that he’d formally sought permission to address her, would know better; in reality, a scandal involving her and him, while irritating everyone, would only see them married that much sooner.
Indeed, a potential scandal that did not become public—such as her falling pregnant—was still a wild card he might yet be dealt.
So . . . whoever the gentleman was, he had reason to wish Amanda ill, and wasn’t well connected with their circle.
The earl of Connor was the only name he had on his list.
An afternoon call on the earl reduced his list to zero. Connor was genuinely gratified to be suspected, but his explanation of his earlier, benignly avuncular interest in Amanda’s welfare rang too true to be doubted. He gave his word he harbored no ill-will toward her, and then seized the opportunity to lecture Martin against the evil fate of waiting too long to take a wife and raise a family, of becoming an old man with no real reason for existence.
Connor’s parting shot of “Don’t risk it” rang in Martin’s ears as he returned to his house, his library, to once more ponder what exactly was going on. And who was behind it.
“If not Connor, then who?” Amanda glanced back as Martin followed her into her Aunt Horatia’s conservatory. He shut the door, long fingers snibbing the lock apparently absentmindedly; the sounds of the major ball in progress beyond the doors subsided.
A long-forgotten memory flashed across Amanda’s mind— of the time she’d dragged Vane in here to ask him about some gentleman’s suggestion. When they’d emerged, they’d surprised Patience at the door; from her expression, she’d been about to fling it open and storm in. Vane had smiled—untrustworthily—and invited Patience inside to admire his mother’s palm-filled oasis. As she’d walked off, she remembered hearing the door lock snib.
She could still recall the dreamy expression on Patience’s face when she and Vane had emerged, considerably later.
Shaking aside the memory, she refocused on the discussion in progress. “There’s no one else who I’ve crossed.”
“Before you appeared at Mellors, or even later, you didn’t encourage any gentleman?”
“I never encouraged, not in the way you mean.” She glanced up as he took her hand. “That wasn’t my aim.”
He raised his brows. Met her gaze.
The conservatory was illuminated only by weak moonlight drifting past the fronds of various exotic palms; he couldn’t see her blush. “I can’t think of any gentleman who would wish me ill, certainly not to the point of . . .”
When she said nothing more, Martin prompted, “Who?”
His tone left her no option but to admit, “Luc.” She met Martin’s gaze. “He doesn’t approve of me, let alone, as he put it, me leaving you dangling.”
“He spoke for me?”
“Most effectively.” Amanda wiggled her shoulders. “He’s always had a nasty tongue.”
Martin suppressed a smile. “Never mind—it won’t be him. Aside from anything else, it has to be someone who doesn’t know the ropes, and Luc knows every last one.”
“Indubitably,” she agreed. “And it wouldn’t be him, anyway—it’s not his style.”
Martin glanced at her face as she walked along the path just ahead of him. He couldn’t see her features, yet her tone had suggested she was no longer so sure of the wisdom of “keeping him dangling.” If Luc’s strait words had caused her to rethink her position, he was in his cousin’s debt.
Apropos of that, it was clearly time for more persuasion. And this time, they wouldn’t be interrupted; he’d taken steps to ensure their privacy, to give him time to reestablish the sensual connection between them, and urge her to yield, tonight and forever.
Vane had suggested his mother’s conservatory; as he glanced about assessingly, Martin approved. The air was warm, slightly humid; the light was dim but not gloomy. They came to a clearing where a fountain stood, a statue of a woman in roman halfdress endlessly pouring water from an urn. The fountain stood on a raised dais; Martin considered the possibilities, yet . . . fingers about her elbow, he guided Amanda, still sunk in thought, on.
The path wended down the long room; it ended in another clearing, an isolated and enclosed half-circle containing exactly what he sought.
“A swing!” Amanda stopped before a padded bench, two people wide, suspended from a cast-iron stand set in the midst of a jungle of ferns and palms. “What a lovely idea. It must be new.”
“We could christen it.” Martin halted beside her.
She turned to sit.
“No.” Fingers firming about her elbow he stopped her. He was waiting when she lifted her eyes to his. “Not like that.”
His tone alerted her; her gaze lowered to his lips, then rose again to his eyes. “The ball—my cousins. What if we’re interrupted? Again.” By them.
“We won’t be. I can assure you your cousins won’t be pounding on the door—they’re otherwise occupied. The moment’s ours to do with as we please.” He made the last phrase a challenge, a dare.
She moistened her lips. “How, then?”
He drew her to him and she came, slightly aloof, as if reserving judgment on his expertise. A subtle taunt, an encouragement to impress. Suppressing a smile of anticipation, he lowered his head and covered her lips.
Kissed her until she’d forgotten all notion of aloofness, until she clung, her lips to his, her arms about his shoulders, her hands sunk in his hair.
“We’ll need to remove your dress—it’ll get too crushed.” He murmured the words against her lips, then took her mouth again, dragged her willing senses down into the heat of the kiss.
Into the fire and flames that so steadily burned between them. In all his experience, exotic and otherwise, it had never been like this—never been such a simple, easy, rapid descent into ravenous desire. Into that primitive place where the need to possess ruled absolutely. With her, it had never been any other way, which was how he’d known, from the first. Known that, ultimately, he would sell his very soul for her, if that’s what was asked.
With her in his arms, he didn’t care; with her body arching, flagrantly demanding against his, he knew only the need to appease her, to feed and satisfy her hungry senses and, thus, his.
As he tugged her laces free, he knew exactly what he wanted to see, needed to see, from her that night. What he wanted, needed—had to have. They were both breathing rapidly, both dark-eyed, tense with expectation.
“Lift your arms.”
He drew the gown off over her head, leaving her curls and the three orchids she’d tonight chosen to wear in her hair bobbing. His gaze locked on her body, concealed only by a diaphanous silk chemise; blindly, he tossed the gown over a nearby palm. And reached for her.
&nb
sp; She came eagerly this time, all pretence at aloofness gone, desire for him in its place, shining in her eyes, in the lips she lifted to his.
He closed his hands about her waist, revelled in the supple firmness of her svelte form, then let his hands slide and gathered her to him. Molded her against him so she could feel his desire, rocked her hips against the iron length of his erection. She all but melted in his arms, her body softening, enticing.
Amanda kissed him back, and set aside all reservations. She wanted him; he wanted her—for this precise moment, that was enough. She needed to be with him again, close, intimate, so their hearts beat together and their souls touched, just for that fleeting instant.
She needed to feel it again, experience it again, before she could make up her mind. Before she could decide to surrender, to give herself to him unconditionally, without stipulations. She was beginning to think it might be the only way, for him, for them, that his surrender could only be won with hers. A risk, one she felt compelled to take.
His hands, roving over her, set her skin afire, then slid lower; he flipped up the hem of her chemise, then his palms were on bare skin, fondling, kneading her bottom, then gripping. Long fingers slid down and inward to stroke, caress, then he opened her, tested, pressed in.
Drank her gasp through their kiss, gave her breath as he stroked and probed. Then he drew back from the kiss, drew his hands from her. One remained on her hip, steadying her, the other slipped between them; she felt him fiddling at his waist, looked down, slid her hands down his chest. Brushing his hands away, she dealt with the closures and opened the flap of his trousers; her lips curved as she laid him bare.
Filled her hand with his length and heard the raspy breath he sucked in, felt him tense. Felt him wait as she decided just what she would do, then she closed her hand lovingly. Marveling anew at the contrast of silken softness enclosing such potent, patently masculine strength, she let her nails gently score upward.
She repeated the torture three times before he carefully disengaged; she didn’t think he was breathing. Then he stepped back and sat on the swing, urged her to follow.
“Kneel astride.”
She put one knee up, then the other, felt the damask cushion under both knees. She wrapped her arms about his neck, tilted her head and set her lips to his, then shifted closer, until her stomach met the wall of his abdomen, then she slid sensuously down. The touch of his clothes, rough against her soft skin, was a reminder of her nakedness, his relatively clothed state. Her vulnerability, his strength; her giving, his need.
He ravaged her mouth and urged her lower. His hand was beneath her, guiding her, guiding the head of his erection into the softness of her swollen flesh. She felt its touch, felt the strength as he pressed in just a little, just past the constriction. Her lungs seized and she stopped, then, slowly, slowly—as slowly as she could—she eased fraction by fraction down, taking him in, glorying in the pressure, the fullness, the ease with which her body adjusted, then closed lovingly about him.
She didn’t stop until she was fully impaled, until it felt like he was nudging her heart. Her skin was alive, heated, nerves flickering.
His tongue thrust deep into her mouth, fracturing her attention. Then she felt his thigh, beneath hers, flex.
The swing started to rock.
Sensation washed through her. Surprised, she clung, pressed nearer, then she felt his hands on her legs, urging her to wrap them around his hips.
She did, and he was even deeper inside her; the sensations intensified, driven by the swing, by the increasing momentum. The swing was well oiled, well balanced; the occasional push from Martin’s foot was enough to keep them whooshing gently back and forth.
Which one of them started the dance, she wasn’t sure, layering one rhythm atop another, matching an effortless thrust and withdrawl to the swing’s motion. Amplifying the effect. She controlled it, using her arms to ease herself up, using her locked legs for leverage. Once she had the rhythm established, once their bodies were merging freely, deeply, in absolute harmony, his hands left her hips, moved over her skin, caressing, knowingly stroking, igniting a million small fires that slowly, gradually, coalesced to a blaze. Then to an inferno.
A vortex of heat and movement that swept them up, then sent them whizzing dizzily down, that snatched their breath, pressed pleasure and yet more pleasure upon them, through them, one to the other, then back again.
The ultimate give-and-take, the epitome of sharing.
As she clung, her lips melded with his, her mouth all his, as was her body, Martin let past and present slide, let the future free, and gave himself up to this, to her, to what he now needed beyond all else.
This was what he had wanted tonight, this complete, unreserved giving. Her legs, naked but for her sheer stockings, wrapped about his hips, his hands on her skin beneath her chemise, able to touch and savor as he chose. Her body, slick, hot, all but molten, enclosing him, clamping down as the swing descended, easing as it swung up again. Open and generous and his.
Again, and again, and again.
The powerful repetition for once beyond his control held him captive, held his senses in unparalled delight. Until they fractured.
She shattered in his arms, her cry muted by their kiss; he followed, unable to break the link that held them, that fused her pleasure with his, that made them one and the same. One whole—with one beat driving their hearts, one passion melding their souls.
One future. If he’d ever had any doubts, as the swing slowed and he caught his breath, held her tight in his arms and felt her heartbeat deep within her, the last moments had eradicated them.
The power that had flowed, briefly but so powerfully, that had so effortlessly fused them not just in this world but beyond it, was undeniable.
He had to accept it, which meant he had to find a way forward, no longer just for him, but for her, too. For them. He hadn’t needed Connor’s warning—he knew he couldn’t risk losing her.
He dragged in a breath; his lungs were still too tight. He nuzzled the curls about her ear, struggled to speak the words he knew she wanted to hear. Couldn’t get his tongue to do it.
“Marry me.” Those words came a lot easier. “Soon. This game’s gone on too long. We have to end it.”
Sincerity rang in his voice. Amanda lifted her head from his chest, looked into his face, raised a hand to his cheek. Tried to smile but her muscles were still too lax to do it properly. Her head was reeling—impossible to think. “Yes” hovered on the tip of her tongue . . .
She wasn’t sure what stopped her from saying it, from agreeing then and there to marry him regardless. In faint moonlight and shadow, his face was stripped to its essential lines, to the harshly angular planes, an honest reflection of the man he truly was without the softening effect of his gold-tipped hair and the mossy shade of his eyes. He waited, a sense of darkness still inhabiting his face, a shadow of things denied, hidden. Suppressed, but not for his good—they were the burdens of others he yet carried.
Would he accept that he needed to give them up, that he needed to revisit the old scandal, open it up for investigation regardless of what they might find? If he did, then Lady Osbaldestone’s caveat was met, and she could safely agree.
“I . . .” She paused to lick her dry lips, shifted in his arms, fixed her eyes on his. “I’m not saying ‘No,’ but . . .” She frowned; no matter how hard she stared, she could detect no sign of compromise. “I need to think.”
His expression was not one of capitulation. “How long?”
She narrowed her eyes, but he was right; they had to bring this to an end. “A day.”
He nodded. “Good.” And set the swing swinging again.
A shiver of delight spiralled through her. Eyes widening, she stared as his hands rose beneath her chemise to close once again about her breasts. Inside, she felt him stir, strengthen.
Then he pushed harder. His fingers closed tight about her nipples. Her lids fell. “Good God!”
&nbs
p; “They were watching the entire time!”
“What?” Amanda glanced at Amelia. They’d parted from Louise at the top of the stairs and were heading down the corridor to their rooms.
Amelia’s expression was grim. “You and Martin slipped into the conservatory. Demon immediately started hovering near the doors, as if he was just propping up the wall, looking around—you know how they do.”
“So?”
“So when another couple looked as if they’d try the doors, he was there to head them off. I saw him do it. Then he went back to watching. Then, when Flick wanted to leave early, Demon caught Vane’s eye, and Vane took over. He was there until you came out—you didn’t notice because he was standing back by the wall.”
They’d reached their rooms; Amanda stared at her sister, for one of the first times in her life truly speechless. Her head was spinning. She squeezed Amelia’s hand. “Change, then come in and we’ll talk.”
The minutes spent with her maid, climbing out of her gown for the second time that night, donning her nightgown and brushing her hair, did little to improve her state. When the maid left and Amelia popped in and scurried to jump under the covers, her wits were still whirling, as were her emotions, shifting and swirling until she felt almost ill. Worse than giddy. Both head and heart were swinging wildly; both seemed unreliable. The only certainty seemed gut instinct. Gut instinct told her to take a large step back.
“I can’t fathom what’s going on.” She climbed into bed beside Amelia. “I know Devil gave his permission, but . . .” Anger and confusion clashed; she shook her head. “After all these years of getting in our way every time we showed the slightest sign of even smiling at some wolf, they turn around and happily hand me over to a lion!”
Amelia slanted her a glance. “Is he really that lionlike?”
“Yes!” Amanda folded her arms and glared. “If you knew what went on in the conservatory, you wouldn’t ask.” Amelia looked like she wanted to ask; Amanda hurried on, “I assumed they’d grudgingly agreed—instead . . .” She narrowed her eyes. “I know why. It’s because he’s just like them!”