In an instant the night rail lay upon the floor by the bed. His robe speedily followed.
Outside, the plaintive melody rose in aching cries, subsided, and cried again. Inside, he cried out for the woman he crushed in his embrace. Life was her soft flesh against his, her supple limbs entwined with his. Here the world was warm and rich with her drugging scent. Here it called him in her low, breathless voice. She spoke his name, and all his being answered, desperate to be lost inside her and kept safe, where he belonged.
He knew it was only lust’s madness. He knew he didn’t belong. He was an intruder, seeking only for himself. He heard the faint, shrill warning at the furthest edges of consciousness.
I need her, Varian answered silently, while he murmured love against her mouth, her neck, her breast. She answered with urgent caresses. They claimed him instantly, and the warning voice sank and died.
His hungry hands found her silky nest of curls and the damp softness they sheltered. She tensed, gripping his shoulders, but this time he didn’t pause. It was beyond him. His conscience shrilled again, weakly and unheeded, because her damp innocence was too sweet. Gentle despite his ravening need, he stroked and coaxed and urged, and she moved restlessly against his hand. He felt the tremors run through her, each stronger than the one before, felt her fighting them…and the rush of warmth as they overcame her.
“Varian.” A small, ragged cry. “Oh, peren…di.”
She clawed at his shoulders and pulled him toward her, demanding his mouth. He gave what she commanded while his fingers stole deeper. She groaned and jerked away from his driving kiss, frantic and impatient in the storm wracking her body. She turned her face into the pillow and moaned helplessly, while her body surged and shuddered against him, wildly seeking release.
His own frame vibrated with impatience, urging him to the place he’d readied and into the storm of ecstasy he’d meant to give only her…selflessly...for once in his life. To give the one joy he could without taking as well. To give lovingly, only to her, his wild beautiful girl. He’d meant only that, truly, minutes, years ago. But he found he couldn’t give her release, not as he’d meant. Her ferocious hunger would not yield to his hands.
She groaned and cursed, then caught at his wrist and pulled him away. “Hajde,” she ordered. She raked her strong fingers down his rigid torso, down, inexorably, to the swollen betrayal below.
“Don’t,” he gasped. Too late.
A lightning bolt shot through him, blasting reason and will into scorched nothingness.
He pushed her full onto her back and quickly thrust himself between her thighs. Esme lay trembling beneath him, her breath coming in shallow pants. He stared for one desperate moment into the wild green depths of her eyes. Then his hands dragged possessively down her body, over her tight belly, and on to the hot, dark passage.
He poised himself at the entrance, then thrust inward. She was swollen, wet, but her innocence tightened against him, and he grasped her hips as she recoiled instinctively.
Though all his being throbbed to conquer, possess, Varian willed himself to slow down. Yet even as he felt the way easing for him, he felt her pleasure fading and knew the rest would be no joy to her, only pain. Not all his arts could make that fragile shield of innocence vanish, magically, without pain. Then worse: corruption, dishonor…her destruction. He could stop. It would kill him, but he could do it.
As Varian bent to kiss her, her hands caught in his hair. “I want you,” she said, her voice low, fierce.
“Don’t,” he whispered. “I don’t want to hurt you any more.”
“I want you,” she repeated. “My body will not heed me. Make it obey you. Make me yours, Varian.”
Don’t listen to her. She doesn’t understand. She’s innocent.
But his corrupt self wanted to heed her command. It was the beast in him, the lowest of his nature, frantic to conclude what had begun. Varian ordered himself to draw away. He couldn’t. Sweat trickled down his back.
“I’ll hurt you,” he said hoarsely, as he gazed despairingly into her great, stormy eyes.
Her nails dug into his scalp. “Someone must. You, this night, Varian...or another.”
He tried to tell himself she didn’t know what she was saying, yet the words tore through him, taunting, unbearable. Ismal’s image flashed before him.
“No,” Varian growled. “You’re mine, damn you.”
She shook her head.
He answered with his hands and mouth, rousing her more ruthlessly than before. He was beyond patience or gentleness, and her quick, hot response told him she wanted none. She was as fierce and fearless in passion as in all else. Wild and sweet and beautiful…his.
“Mine,” he said savagely. In one mindless instant, he drove himself into her. An instant of animal triumph…possession…conquest. He heard her gasp, felt her tense against the pain. Then remorse knifed through him. Too late.
“I’m sorry,” he gasped. “Oh, love, I’m sorry.” Blood pounded in his temples as it thundered in his veins, urging him to release, but he willed himself to pause. His hands moved soothingly over her shocked, stiffened frame. “Let me love you, sweet. Forgive me, and let me love you. I need you, Esme.”
Her eyes flew open. “There is more?” she asked shakily.
Oh, Lord, she’d had enough. She wanted it to be over, poor darling. Varian drew his hand longingly over her taut breast, and his flesh stirred, moving him within her. Yes, his body wanted it to be done as well, brute that it was. But he needed more. He wanted her entirely, soul and body, for himself. Selfish. But so he was.
“More,” he said. “As much as you’ll give me.” He let himself move again, slowly, while he stroked her belly.
She caught her breath. “Varian. “
But it wasn’t pain, not now. Surprise, perhaps, and then, as she moved cautiously in response, a soft sound of pleasure.
“Yes,” he whispered. “Like this, sweet. All the world goes away, doesn’t it?”
He felt it, felt the world leaving her, as it did him. He felt her pleasure growing as her body yielded to him, learning to match his rhythm. Her pain was forgotten, like his regret. He could feel no remorse now, not while he was surging back to life within her. There was only this moment, and Esme, and sweet, dark rapture as she yielded to the storm.
His body pounded with her life, her being. He was lost inside her, racing with her on a furious torrent that clawed and pulled him into eternity. He felt her shattering around him and heard the cry rising in her throat. He sank down to her, caught her tight in his arms, and covered her mouth with his.
Chapter Twenty
Esme knew he was gone before she opened her eyes to the bright morning light. She had felt the chill of his absence in her last dream. Other dreams had preceded it, but those had been filled with warmth and a delirious gladness.
She could never have dreamed such joy before. She could never have imagined what happened when a man joined his body to a woman’s. She’d understood there must be pleasure in it. She’d tasted pleasure weeks before, in Poshnja, when Varian had kissed and caressed her so intimately. But last night’s pleasure was darker, more turbulent. It was as though a powerful demon became trapped inside one’s body, where it made a terrible but beautiful struggle, like an unearthly thunderstorm, until at last it was released. And with release came the sweetest peace.
But not for long, Esme discovered. She touched the pillow where Varian’s head had been and remembered how tenderly he’d smiled as he held her in his arms in that rapturous peace.
Still, he’d surely smiled at all his women so. He’d know how to drive away every doubt and twinge of conscience. He’d know how to keep his women quiet. He didn’t like turmoil. He’d leave them, and that must cause unpleasantness, but later. He’d prefer to leave them to be unpleasant all by themselves.
Certainly it was better he had left, Esme told herself. She hoped he was already on his way to Corfu. She didn’t know how she could ever look him in the eye again. She’d be
gged him to take her, and then—oh, how clumsy she’d been. Her childish body had been so awkward, inept. No wonder he’d tried to stop, repeatedly. What a chore it must have been to appease her lust.
She covered her face. She’d behaved like a bitch in heat. She was disgusting.
“Ah, the morning after.”
Esme dropped her hands and stared in horrified disbelief at the doorway.
Varian stood there for a moment, a faint smile curving his beautiful mouth as he studied her. Then he closed the door as quietly as he’d opened it, crossed the room, and picked up her nightgown.
“You’d better put something on,” he said. “Otherwise, I may be tempted to reacquaint myself with what’s under the blankets, and I had rather not wrinkle my trousers.” He dropped the gown on the bed.
Her face blazed.
Varian retired to the window and turned away.
His dark coat fit as though it had been sculpted to him, emphasizing his broad shoulders and narrow waist, and his trousers hugged the muscles of his long legs. Last night she’d shamelessly wrapped herself about his naked, sweating body; this morning, he seemed a stranger. Esme wanted desperately to dash out the door while his back was turned and run far, far away.
Instead, she sat up and clumsily yanked the night rail over her head. Her fingers trembled so badly that she tied the ribbons in knots.
“I—I thought you had gone,” she choked out.
“Did you? And where did you think I’d go?” He was still looking out the window.
“To Corfu.”
“Ah, yes. Without you.” He turned around. “Seduced and abandoned, that’s what you thought—along with heaven knows what else. I don’t especially want to know what else. The morning after, as I said. It’s tomorrow, Esme.”
The ominous tone in his voice sent a chill through her. Instinctively, she pulled the bedclothes up to her chest.
“Of course it is tomorrow. There is no need to make it sound like Judgment Day.”
“Is that what it sounds like to you? How interesting. Because it is, in a way. For you, that is.”
Varian leaned back against the window frame and folded his arms across his chest. His face was expressionless as stone, his voice cool and clipped. “I woke early this morning. Among other concerns, I wondered where Percival had got to. I found him downstairs with Qeriba and learned it was he who saved our lives.”
Qeriba. In this house. Esme gazed at the bedclothes in despair.
“Your loyal friends were determined I should have no assistance whatsoever, not even that of my own escort,” Varian went on. “They were convinced I was Beelzebub, apparently. Luckily, Percival disobeyed my orders and was on the spot to reassure them. Unluckily, they refused to trust a translator. Your cousin was obliged to explain our situation in Albanian.”
Imagining her poor cousin struggling with an unfamiliar language while surrounded by a crowd of hostile strangers, Esme winced. “He is a very brave boy. He saved not only us but all my friends as well. All would have punished them cruelly if you had drowned.”
“Percival didn’t know,” Varian continued as though she hadn’t spoken, “that in Albanian, the word for ‘friend’ can also mean ‘spouse,’ just as the word for ‘man’ can mean ‘husband.’ He thought he was telling them I was a good man, a friend, and that you’d run away because of a misunderstanding. What your friends heard was that you’d run away from your husband. That’s why, after rescuing us, they left us to sort out our differences in the time-honored fashion of wedded couples.”
Esme tried to read his expression, but he gave her nothing. She raised her chin. “It was a simple mistake. Everyone will understand when it is explained, besides, it can be no secret that I shared your tent many times. If you are worried that my cousin will be shamed by such a thing,” she went on stiffly, “then you can leave me here. I never wished to go to Corfu, as I have told you countless times.”
Varian’s expression chilled. “I hoped that is not why you ordered me to ruin you, Esme.”
“I did not order you!” But that was a lie. She had insisted. Demanded. Her entire body burned with shame.
“I told you no didn’t I?”
“Yes, but—”
“But you wouldn’t listen.” He approached the bed. “I’ve warned you repeatedly. I begged you last night. You had only to say “no.” But you wouldn’t. You know the sort of man I am. A girl as clever as you must have known the instant you clapped eyes on me. You were clever enough, certainly, to manipulate me in other ways. And you’d sense enough to encourage me to believe you were a child. Regrettably, that is about all the sense of self-preservation you’ve demonstrated.”
He heaved a great sigh and sat down upon the bed.
Esme knew well enough how badly she’d behaved. All the same, she did feel it was unkind of him to add his sarcastic reproaches to what was rapidly becoming the most humiliating morning of her life. But as she surreptitiously studied him, her conscience gave a painful jab.
Now that he was near, she saw he was not nearly so composed as he’d appeared. There were deep shadows under his eyes, and his skin was unusually pale. He looked as though he hadn’t slept a wink.
“You are upset about last night,” she said. It was a stupid, awkward thing to say, but it was out as soon as she thought it. “I am—I am sorry it was—it is not pleasant for you to think about.”
Varian turned his gaze full upon her, his face still blank. “Not pleasant?”
Esme looked away. “I didn’t realize—oh, I wasn’t thinking, or maybe I would have realized that—that it could not be pleasurable with an ignorant girl. I could not understand why you kept wanting to stop. I was not thinking how wearisome it must be for you. Worse after swimming across the harbor and nearly drowning, too. But it is all of a piece, isn’t it?” she said sadly. “I made you go through the swamps and up and down the mountains and endure all the filth and vermin and—”
“Esme, are you quite well?” he asked in a queer, strangled voice.
“I am much better than I deserve,” she muttered. “I deserve to be shot. I should not be allowed among civilized people. I belong in the mountains, with the wild beasts.”
He cleared his throat. “I did indicate the day of reckoning had arrived, my dear. I had something a bit more drastic in mind, however.”
Her eyes opened very wide. She’d not meant to be taken literally. “M-more drastic?”
“You may well look frightened, Esme. It’s about time you did.” He pried her hand from the blanket and clasped it firmly between his. “Miss Brentmor, like it or not, you are going to do me the very great honor of becoming Lady Edenmont.”
Esme stared blindly at her trapped hand. “What?”
“My wife,” he said. “Marriage. You can’t seduce me and expect to get away scot-free.”
She tried without success to extricate her hand. “Varian, this is not amusing.”
“The knell of doom rarely is.”
“You talk nonsense,” she said. “It is a spiteful joke to get even, because you are angry with me. Or else you lied to me about Ali. Or else...”
Esme paused as another, far more disquieting possibility came to her. “Oh, Varian, it cannot be because I was a maiden. Surely I was not the first—” She stopped dead then, because he stiffened. A shadow crossed his features.
“I am not yet thirty years old,” he said. “I’d not yet got round to ravishing virgins. Not that I blame you for believing otherwise.”
“It does not matter,” she said quickly. “You cannot be so foolish as to tie yourself to a female on that account. You said you would not wed for a thousand pounds, yet you will do so because of a small piece of flesh? That makes no sense. How many girls lose their maidenheads by accident? It may happen on a horse or in a host of ways. I do not understand why nature created such a thing at all. It only makes trouble.”
Varian shook his head. “I might have known. Esme logic, that’s what it is. I should not have lef
t you this morning. I should not have given you one instant to think. I knew you’d need looking after. But so did other people—and I’ve not had much practice looking after anybody.”
“I do not need—”
“Yes, you do. Come here.” He released her hand.
“Where?”
“Where do you think? Where would your lover want you but in his arms?”
“You are not my—”
“Yes, I am. Stop being silly, Esme. Hajde. “
He was her lover—or had been—and in any case, she could no more resist his invitation than night could resist the sunrise. Sheepishly, she crept onto his lap. His arms tightened possessively about her, and her heart gave a mad leap of relief. She buried her face in his coat.
“That’s better, isn’t it?” His voice was gentler.
“Yes.”
“Because we’re excessively infatuated with each other, aren’t we?”
“Yes. At least I am, Varian,” she mumbled to the wool.
“That is why we made love,” he said. “I did not find it wearisome. My only trouble was guilt. I am very fond of you. You make me insane, but that’s simply part of it. I did not want to dishonor you. You’re brave and strong and beautiful, and a great many of my countrymen will fall head over ears in love with you. If I’d left you untouched, you could marry one of them. I had good intentions, you see. Unfortunately, those were no match for my lust and selfishness—and when you wouldn’t say ‘no,’ you quite finished them. I want you to understand that you’re a little to blame in this, Esme. I’ve not much honor left to me, but I would have heeded a no...I hope.”
She drew back to look at him. “Of course you would. Why do you think I would not say it? And do not talk of a little blame. I am sure I would have tried to kill you if you had refused me.”
“Then perhaps you’ll understand why I shall kill you if you refuse to wed me.”
Esme closed her eyes. Every time she had tried to run away from him, she’d felt so wretched she wanted to die. But to tie him to her in the eyes of all the world and God Himself?
She was a rude, ungovernable hoyden, he an English lord…and a libertine. His nature could not tolerate the shackles of marriage. And when his desire for her faded—as it must—he’d abandon her, in spirit if not in fact. His gaze would turn cold, disgusted…How would she bear it? Better, far better, to break away now.