The Lady Risks All

  And tonight—all night—was theirs.

  They moved in perfect harmony, in instinctive accord. Clothes fell, shed and discarded; hands touched, stroked, caressed, and possessed.

  Claimed anew, with a confidence that was shattering in its directness, its unshielded desire.

  If he was an expert in this sphere, she’d learned quickly. Learned to respond to him, to his caresses, to appreciate the thousand tiny pleasures that built and built as together they waltzed down their road to paradise.

  Miranda followed his lead without hesitation. Without thought or reservation. They didn’t rush, didn’t hurry; even when they both stood naked, cloaked only in insubstantial shadow but otherwise blazing to each other’s senses, they yet seized the moment to absorb. To touch, caress, and wonder. To take joy in the other’s delight, and find pleasure in the other’s sensual exploration.

  Breaking from the kiss on a shuddering gasp, she let her head tip back, eyes closed the better to draw in and hold the sensation of his hard palms tracing from her shoulders, over her breasts, down over the indentation of her waist, over her stomach, then sweeping wide to possessively sculpt the flaring curve of her hips, before gliding down over her bare thighs.

  He bent his head and his lips found hers again as his wicked fingers reversed direction and trailed slowly, delicately yet deliberately, up the inner face of her thighs. One hand continued its trailing rise to close about her hip, while the fingers of the other lingered, lightly brushing the curls at the apex of her thighs.

  Then the hand at her hip gripped, anchoring her. Nudging her thighs apart, he slid his fingers past the screening curls and stroked.

  Slowly exploring, testing and tracing. Learning anew. Impressing her, her so sensitive intimate flesh, with his touch anew.

  His mouth supped from hers as his fingers played, on her senses, her nerves, as they stoked her desire. She fed from him, and fed him back the steadily rising heat of their passions, the surging, swelling desires, the burgeoning need. He took all she had to give and returned it in full measure, but . . . she wanted more.

  Drawing one hand from the taut, steely muscles of his back, she slid her palm over his side, reached between their bodies and found the hard column of his erection, curled her fingers about the hot rigid length and boldly stroked.

  His concentration fractured. She slid her fingers up, then sent them lightly skating over the engorged head. His chest swelled as he drew in a breath, but he didn’t stop her. Instead, he resumed his stroking between her thighs, refocusing on their kiss, on the increasingly intimate melding of their mouths, the probing plunder of his tongue mimicking the increasingly probing pressure of his fingers . . . and left her to her own play.

  To her own delight in pleasuring him.

  She threw herself into the game, one that quickly became a sensual tit-for-tat, where she repaid his increasingly intimate forays with provocative caresses of her own . . . even though she knew it couldn’t last, not for long, not with the swelling beat of passion thrumming ever more compulsively in their veins, she clung to the exchange, to the give and take.

  The musk of their arousal, his and hers, wreathed around them.

  Their skins burned, grew damp; their breathing grew harried.

  She could take no more; pulling back from the kiss, her nerves afire, eyes closed, she gasped, “Now.” She licked her lips, then murmured, sultry and low, “How?”

  He chuckled, the sound a gravelly rasp, then stooped, swung her up and into his arms, and carried her to the bed.

  Stripping back the covers, he laid her down upon the sheets, straightened, and, a naked god in the darkness, looked down at her. His gaze slowly swept from her face to her toes, then back, then she saw his teeth gleam fleetingly in the dimness. He knelt on the bed, caught one of her calves in each hand, spread her legs, let himself down between, and put his mouth where his fingers had been.

  She bucked, only just managed to hold back a shriek as the wave of sensation evoked by the touch of his lips and the rough rasp of his tongue crashed through her.

  He swept her away.

  Swept her from this world and into another where sensation ruled. Where the fires of passion burned and desire was a scalding whip driving her on.

  Into a cataclysm of delicious pleasures that grew and built, swelled and rose, then imploded.

  She saw stars, touched their sensual sun, but even as she crested and sensed the void waiting, she felt him move and forced her lids up. Watched as he rose, wedged his hips between her thighs, braced his body above hers, for one instant hung over her, then he thrust deep and sure, and joined them.

  Closed his eyes and softly groaned.

  She closed around him, clamped tight, and held him.

  Raised her arms, reached up, and embraced him.

  He drew a huge breath and withdrew, then pressed in again, slowly. He kept the pace slow, achingly intent, eyes closed, concentration and focus etched in his face as he thrust, deliberate and controlled, within her.

  As he pleasured her, and himself.

  Lids falling, her parted lips lightly curving, she gave herself up to following his lead, to meeting each invasion, taking him in, rising beneath him as they rode on.

  And on.

  Roscoe was determined to string the moments out, to extend the pleasure to the ultimate and beyond. To wring every last ounce of pleasure and passion from her, and himself.

  To indulge as he never had before, not with any woman.

  Only with her.

  Why he had no idea; as he hung his head and, his breathing harsh with the need to hold back, to hold on and stretch the moments, he gave himself wholly to the sensual devotion, he only knew that it was unquestionably, irretrievably, and immutably so.

  She was all firm, sleek flesh and heated skin, supple and giving; the scalding slickness of her sheath was a sensual wonder, the subtle clamping of her inner muscles an intimate embrace he felt to the depths of his soul.

  That she was with him, openly, joyously, as immersed as he in the senses-stealing act was a fact imprinted on his skin, on his muscles, deep in his bones—utterly irrefutable. There was no surrender here, only a meeting, a mating, of equals.

  In an exchange of pleasure so deep it scored his soul.

  And ripped away any veil.

  She came to the exchange with unstinting honesty; he could do nothing less than match her, so there was no shield, no screen, not even a veil behind which he could hide his feelings. Or hide from them. Feelings so powerful he refused to name them, let alone acknowledge them and give them greater purchase, yet as he thrust deep within her and felt her rise to meet him, those feelings swamped him and overwhelmed his mind.

  Miranda heard his breath hitch. Glancing up from beneath her weighted lids she saw the rippling clenching of muscles already rock-hard as he strove to prolong their mutual delight. Clinging to his rhythm, urging him on with her body and her hands, urgent and desperate yet willing to remain with him even at the excruciatingly slow pace, willing to brave the ravaging flames of their need as through his very slowness he whipped them to a raging inferno, breathless, gasping, she raised a hand and laid her palm against one lean cheek.

  He turned his head and blindly pressed a hot, openmouthed kiss to her palm.

  The intimate, evocative caress made her heart leap.

  Made her fingers curl.

  Before she could focus on it, on her response, he hauled in a huge breath—and increased the tempo. Set them and their passions on the rising, spiraling path to completion.

  And drove them into the furnace of their ravening need. Into flames of desire that seared her skin, that flashed along her nerves and left her wits, her thoughts, all external awareness cindered. That seized her, body and mind, in a vise of sensation so demanding she knew nothing beyond the striving driving of his body into hers, the abrasive rasp of his hair over her burning skin, the sheer power that rocked her with every thrust—then he bent his head, captured her lips, filled her
mouth, and raced her into the heart of their sensual sun.

  Sensation imploded.

  Her scream smothered by their kiss, her being, her reality, shattered into shards of brilliantly hued perception that flashed down her nerves, raced through her veins, and consumed her from the inside out . . . until there was nothing left but scintillating ecstasy, and the emotion that waited beyond.

  The emotion that caught her, that embraced and enfolded her, that was not of her, not of him, but of them both . . .

  Wracked and shuddering, he joined her in the glory, and they clung . . . held tight.

  Wrapped in that powerful, potent joy, locked together, feeling together, they fell and spiraled back to earth.

  To the tangled sheets, to each other’s arms, and the glow of aftermath that claimed them both.

  He wasn’t going to think about it.

  Later, much later, when he stirred enough to lift from Miranda and settle them both beneath the covers, with her sleeping, deeply sated, her head pillowed on his shoulder, he lay back and closed his eyes.

  And rather less successfully tried to close his mind against the treadmill of unfruitful speculation his mother’s well-meant suggestion had raised and given life.

  He didn’t need to revisit the prospect; he’d already thought it through, in depth, and had seen the flaw in his mother’s view. And even if he could revert to being Julian, it would be for naught—it wouldn’t get him what he wanted.

  What he now knew he wanted most—the one element crucial to the future he would choose if he could. Yet nothing he could do would yield him the prize the last days had revealed as his holy grail.

  Nothing he could do would turn back the clock and wipe out the last twelve years. The years he’d spent being Roscoe, slowly, steadily, purely by virtue of his wits and his innate talents becoming London’s gambling king.

  He’d done it to save his family, but that didn’t make Roscoe any more respectable. Didn’t remake, and would not allow the man who had been Roscoe for twelve long years to be reformed into a suitable husband for any lady, let alone into the sort of husband a lady with a deep-seated belief that her future was contingent on her adherence to rigid respectability would accept.

  He understood—none better—that respectability was a malleable thing, a concept governed by perspective. He didn’t need to ask to know that in Miranda’s view becoming his lover and indulging in a short liaison while away from her home, away from society, away from all who knew her, was quite a different matter to consorting openly with him in London.

  Let alone marrying him.

  More, one aspect he valued in all that had passed between them was her directness, her openness, her unguarded honesty. And if one tiny yearning part of him fantasized about finding some way in which they could continue their liaison and still keep that clear, open, and so wonderfully refreshing connection, the cynical and sophisticated majority of his mind knew there was no hope.

  Knew that if he pushed to hold on to what they had, he would damage it, irretrievably tarnish it.

  Tonight had been their last at Ridgware. If they were lucky enough to find the right inn, tomorrow night would be the very last of their liaison.

  They would reach London the following afternoon, and he’d go back to his house in Chichester Street, and she would return to Claverton Street, and . . . it was perfectly possible he would never see her again.

  The thought filled him with a leaden sense of loss, but he was too much of a realist to pretend; for them, for this, for what had grown between them, the end was impossible to deny.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Late the next morning, Miranda sat on the box seat of Roscoe’s curricle, determined to make the most of every moment she had left with him.

  The day was overcast, the air carrying the crisp brashness of an autumn that had finally trumped summer. Luckily, there was no rain and little wind to cut through their coats as they rolled along, making it a decent day to travel.

  They’d left Ridgware shortly after breakfast; Lucasta, Caroline, Henry, and Sarah had stood on the porch and waved them away. With his leg propped up in the comfortable traveling coach, already drained by the rush of their departure, Roderick had slumped back against the seat and fixed her with an unreadable gaze. “You should ride with Roscoe. I’ll be no good company.”

  She’d studied him briefly, then agreed. Roscoe had handed her into the curricle without question. Once they’d started on their way, driving through the estate to the rear entrance, with the curricle rolling steadily in front of the slower coach, Roscoe had said, “Kempsey and Dole worked on their own, but given we’re so near Birmingham and their families, and have to pass through Lichfield, it would be wise to keep your eyes peeled for any sign of recognition or pursuit.”

  She’d nodded and done just that, but they’d encountered no villains or danger of any stripe. Once safely through Lichfield, they’d given Birmingham a wide berth and taken the road through Coventry, then turned south along the Banbury road toward Oxford. While the route through Banbury was a few miles longer, they’d agreed it was safer to go that way rather than via the route through Leamington Spa, a retreat favored by some of Roderick and Miranda’s country neighbors and by local gentry from near Ridgware.

  If they hadn’t had Roderick to consider, they might have headed even further east before turning south for the capital, but given how difficult each hour of traveling was going to be for him, they’d elected to return via Oxford. As Roscoe had pointed out, “At least we know the Oxford to London road is in reasonably sound condition.”

  They’d left Coventry behind and were bowling along a well-surfaced stretch, the coach wheels rumbling in their wake. With the likelihood of danger well past, and Roscoe intent on managing his team, on discouraging the powerful blacks from surging too far ahead of the coach, she grasped the opportunity to sit back, fix her eyes on the road ahead, and consider just where he and she stood. Vis-à-vis each other, now, tomorrow, and the day after.

  He hadn’t said anything, but the prospect his mother had alluded to was not one she felt she could raise. Between Lucasta and Caroline, she now understood his past sufficiently well to comprehend his present, but neither his mother nor his sister-in-law seemed all that cognizant of the man he now was—of who and what Roscoe, as distinct from Julian, was.

  To her mind that was crystal clear—Roscoe was the man who had from the first fascinated her, the man to whom she’d grown so attracted, the man she’d taken as her lover. It wasn’t Julian who sat beside her but Roscoe, and that distinction became only more definite with every mile they got closer to London.

  Lucasta’s and Caroline’s insights were centered on Julian, but the man she had to deal with was Roscoe. And no matter how she analyzed all he’d said and done—all she’d sensed through the passionate interludes they’d shared over the last eleven nights, through the evolution of the closeness she could all but feel growing between them—she still had no idea what was in his mind, what direction he’d decided on regarding their liaison. Their affair.

  She’d initiated it and had continued it at first solely because she’d wanted to know, because she’d been desperate not to have to live out her life as a spinster without ever knowing what it was that passed between a man and a woman in that sphere, and he’d been the only man with whom she’d ever felt she might learn those lessons. He’d been a willing and expert teacher, a devoted instructor, and she’d learned a great deal; indeed, she’d learned all she’d initially set out to discover in just a few nights.

  But that hadn’t been enough, and still wasn’t enough. She now wanted more. More of him. Much more time with him.

  To explore, with him, the nebulous but infinitely alluring potential she sensed now lay within their grasp . . . if they wished to reach for it.

  And therein lay the rub. They both had to wish to go forward; it wasn’t just her decision, and it wasn’t a decision she could make for him, or even steer him toward. He had to want it?
??want her, want to continue their liaison—of his own accord.

  As the blacks’ hooves drummed on the macadam and the curricle’s wheels rattled on, she spent uncounted minutes considering that and evaluating her options, only to reluctantly conclude that in the absence of any sign from him that he wished to shift their relationship to some more permanent arrangement, all she could do was to go along, to let their connection evolve as it would—as he permitted—and see what happened. See where their road led. She would acquiesce and encourage, but she couldn’t push.

  The realization that she could do little to influence his decision even though said decision would significantly affect her wasn’t easy to accept.

  “A penny for your thoughts.”

  She realized she’d been frowning. Wiping the expression from her eyes and face, she looked at him; he’d glanced at her, but his horses had reclaimed his attention. For an instant, she let her gaze linger on his profile, then she looked ahead. “That would be a waste of money. I was just . . . mentally rambling.”

  After a moment, he nodded down the road to where a conglomeration of roofs was drawing steadily closer. “That’s Southam. I suggest we stop for lunch there.” He glanced briefly her way. “Roderick could no doubt use the break, and Banbury’s still some way on.”

  She nodded. “A halt for a little while would be sensible.”

  They found an inn by the bank of a small river. A private parlor looked out over a grassy slope to the rippling water; weak sunlight flashed off the surface, lightening the room and giving the illusion of a more summery day.

  After arranging for the parlor, Roscoe left Miranda, once more bedecked in her widow’s weeds and veil, to select suitable dishes for their meal, then returned to the coach to help Roderick down.

  Accepting the assistance, Roderick swung his injured foot to the ground, then hobbled slowly along using one crutch. His balance had improved, and, Roscoe judged, he was no longer in quite so much pain.