A Dangerous Beauty (18 page)

He must have sensed her growing frustration, for all at once he held her tight and rolled to switch positions. His weight sunk into her, heightening the sensations to overwhelming proportions. His hands hooked her
knees, opening her wider still as he plunged into her in one thick, heavy slide, surging deeper and deeper until he was fully seated within her. And finally her body tightened, and in that pulsing, exquisite second she let go of the edge and fell helplessly into a molten spiral of release as a bolt of liquid pleasure shot from his body into hers. She heard him gasp, “Rosamunde. Oh Rosamunde.”

He collapsed on her and she reveled in the immense weight of him. Caressing his long black hair, still infused with dampness from his bath, she turned her face to kiss his jaw. She tried to memorize the feel of him against her, the scent of him, the very essence of this man who made her heart nearly burst with longing.

He rose to his elbows and his eyes were filled with sightless emotion. It took nearly every ounce of self-discipline not to whisper her great love for him. For there was not a shadow of doubt that he would construe it as pity or worse. And so she remained silent.

And so did he.

It was better that way.

He moved his mouth to speak, but she forced herself to turn the moment in the most painful way she could imagine. “Why are you known as Lord Fire and Ice?” she whispered, her heart breaking.

“Rosamunde…” He rubbed his temple.

She continued doggedly, “It’s something I’ve overheard several times since the day I first met you.”

He pulled her into his embrace and kissed her until her toes curled from the heat and power of his need.
“Don’t change the subject. I wish to tell you some—”

She interrupted. “Is it because of the way you make a woman feel or the way you fought while commissioned in the Royal Navy?” She strained to blather on when she saw his troubled expression. “You never speak of the battles you fought. How, for example, did you receive this impressive scar?” She tried to inch away from beneath him with little success.

He remained blessedly silent for long moments. “I’ll answer your questions, but then you shall answer my own.”

She swallowed and murmured her assent. “Your scar?” she prompted him.

“God knows why women find scars romantic. I assure you there is nothing good about being sliced like a ham.”

“It’s a badge of courage,” she answered. “So how did you get this one?”

He paused. “Would you like the story I usually tell, or the truth?”

“Oh, both. Definitely both.”

“You would. Let’s see. The one with valor first, I think. It was during the battle of Trafalgar. I dispatched twenty-seven French soldiers aboard the
Redoutable
before being cut down by the captain.”

“Oh, very good. Perhaps a
bit
overdone, but women love heroes, even braggarts.”

“Yes, well,” he said dryly, “I found that version reeled them in quite well.”

“That explains the Lord Fire part, but not the Ice,” she said. “And the truth?”

“That was the truth. Except the scratch I received courtesy of
Capitaine
Jean Lucas is here.” He touched the scar on the back of his neck. “That particular frog was the best in the French navy, I always thought.”

She examined the scar and he continued when she didn’t answer. “Now this other scar you admire so much was given to me by my dear brother. He was teaching me how to fence but lost his sword’s leather button during the exercise. I did learn an important truth that day.”

“Yes?”

“When fencing you should remember the lie your parents tell you at Christmas…” He captured her face between his beautiful strong hands and kissed her gently. “It’s always better to give than to receive.”

She shook her head and laughed.

“Although,” he said, “at a time like this, there is something to be said about the joy of receiving.”

She felt a surge of hardness within her.

She squeezed her eyes shut. She wasn’t sure she could do this again. Each time he spoke to her, touched her, she fell deeper in love with him. She couldn’t bear the agony of maintaining a façade of lightheartedness when what she really wanted to do was give him her heart and receive his in return. But her conscience forbade it.

Ata was right. He needed a wife. A wife who would give him an heir. A quiet, elegant wife admired and respected by all the peers of the realm. In short, the perfect duchess. Certainly not a barren widow past the first blush of youth with a hideously blemished repu
tation. A woman not received in any respectable drawing room.

Rosamunde was about as far removed from qualities of a suitable duchess as she could imagine.

“Rosamunde,” he whispered, “let me love you.”

She almost cried out with agony. She wasn’t strong enough to resist this.

“Please…” he said when she didn’t move.

As she wrapped her arms about his shoulders, accepting the inevitable pleasure and pain that was to follow, she was at least grateful he wouldn’t be able to see the tears already threatening to spill onto her hot cheeks.

With his kiss, her heart splintered into a desperate maelstrom of unspoken dreams that would never be fulfilled.

Luc kissed her, pouring all his undeclared feelings into his embrace. He knew with crystal clarity that he was taking her in fear now.
His own
.

His sight gone, his other senses drowned in Rosamunde’s essence. Her unique sweet scents, the softness of her sleek skin, the crooning of her low whispers. It was unbearably intoxicating. He couldn’t get enough of her. And now he knew he never would.

Despite the curse of blindness it seemed momentarily a blessing, for he suddenly realized, sight or no sight, he had been living in darkness. Only when he was with her did he experience…light.

But she didn’t want his declarations, didn’t want him to tie up her emotions with his own. In short, she
didn’t want him. And he knew why. Yet, she was too good to refuse him because of this illness and blindness.

He had thought she might regain her courageous former spirit and let the repressed horrors dissolve, leaving her open to the possibility of love and marriage once again. But it was obvious she could never come to trust another man. And how could he, blind and with a ruthless temper, hope to bring lasting happiness to any woman? He hadn’t even been able to give his beloved mother the only thing she had ever asked for in desperation. And wasn’t he disregarding his grandmother’s sickbed wish?

He could not be counted on.
By anyone
.

Rosamunde’s arms brought him closer to her and he felt the moment when she gave herself up to him again. This would have to be the last time. The very last time he would allow himself the illusion of a happy future with her.

He pressed a kiss on her forehead and slowly thrust into her, expertly prolonging the sensations with every stroke. He knew how to bring her to the agonizing pinnacle and he thought at the darkest moment of his longing for her that he might just sweep her there and leave her hanging repeatedly, until he would force her to listen to his avowals and drag out a promise to stay with him.

If he thought he had hated himself in the past, he was wrong. He now knew there was the potential for a new low in self-loathing.

In the unseen twilight hours he almost succumbed
to his sinful object, forcing them both to mind-numbing heights of desire and passion until she was mute with fulfillment. He breathed her name. “Rosamunde, I—” He was on the verge of spilling himself and his declarations all over her soft body when he felt a single tear splash onto his cheek.

It sizzled through all the taut layers of his face and lodged itself next to his self-respect. In the end he could not force her to love a blackhearted devil. Her tears were proof of her sadness and regret. In agony he released his seed and his dreams into her barren body. He closed his lips, closed his heart, and opened his eyes only to notice…
an elusive shadow
.

Quill,
n.
An implement of torture yielded by a goose and commonly wielded by an ass.

—The Devil’s Dictionary, A. Bierce

T
he almost imperceptible scent of parchment and India ink met his senses as Luc awoke sprawled over his massive desk in his lair. He rubbed his hands over his whiskered face and stretched back. He felt like hell. But it was a good sort of feeling. There was nothing like accomplishing something, anything after inactivity. And work was also balm for a wounded heart.

The lure of his writing and books had been too much to resist last night after Rosamunde had left his chamber in a rush to find the doctor down the hall. Even though he knew she had left to get the doctor, it had also felt as if she was running away from him. And the pain had been vicious.

The doctor had echoed the cautious advice Rosa
munde’s brother had offered in an express received earlier. It seemed Miss Tandy had recovered her sight three days after becoming afflicted. All doctors advised bed rest. Little did they know that he would have showered them with gold guineas if just once they would exclaim, “Yes, Your Grace, carry on, exhaust yourself. That’s the answer!” He almost chuckled to himself.

He had always recuperated much faster than any physician advised, and no one was going to keep him away from the page now that he had regained his strength and the beginnings of his sight. Especially if he had a chance of meeting the deadline Mr. Murray had suggested. And he could still do it. With every passing hour the darkness receded and he could focus better, although his handwriting, never precise to begin with, now suffered from his blurred vision. He doubted many could read such chicken scratch.

He had already finished the chapter headings and the first seventeen chapters. Now he was at the climax, when Nelson, mortally wounded, uttered the words every midshipman knew by heart: “Thank God I have done my duty.”

He looked down at the heavy black scrawl and shook his head. That draught he had accepted from Ata to stop her coddling last night had been laced with something that fogged the mind. He screwed his eyes shut and rubbed his face.

He looked up to see the devil’s handmaiden herself, Ata, open his door without warning. And Rosamunde, looking embarrassed and flustered, appeared behind her, carrying a tray. His heart constricted at the sight of
her. He felt the same rush of joy and longing he experienced last eve when she was the first thing he saw…He had almost forgotten, taken for granted, the beauty of her ethereal eyes and the milky translucence of her skin against her lush black hair. She was quite simply an angel.

He clenched his jaws and hoped he wasn’t going to make a fool of himself like every other lovesick idiot. He would get over this. He would have done with it.

Luc glanced at Ata. “If you are daring to bring me more of that vile concoction from last night, I shall pinch your secret reserve of Armagnac. Oh, what? You thought I wouldn’t find it?”

“Well!” Ata huffed and looked toward Rosamunde. “This is the thanks one gets for bringing him tea.”

He always knew he was in for it when Ata began to pretend he wasn’t in her presence.

“Ata…”

She addressed Rosamunde. “I suppose he doesn’t even want to know about the awful visit by that revolting…well, by your cousin Mr. Baird.”

“Ata, tell me right—”

“Or the things I said to the toad. Or how I have ordered the servants to prepare for our removal to London. Or how the doctor from town is certain it was the salted fish or the ham that made everyone so ill…”

He stopped listening to all the things he wasn’t supposed to want to know when Ata drew nearer. Perhaps it was the clear morning light, or perhaps his vision had improved dramatically. Whatever it was, he was left reeling from the sight of his grandmother’s face.

She had aged almost overnight.

With his perfect streak of ill fortune, he was given back his sight only to see his dearest relation look more haggard and closer to the grave than ever before.

“I’m so sorry, Ata,” he said gruffly. “Are you feeling better?”

That stopped her.

“Well, this is a first. What, pray tell, is going on now? You’ve never, ever seen fit to apologize before. I’ll have the reason now, if you please. And even if you don’t, please.”

“Forget I said a word,” he said dryly.

“Dukes,” said Ata with a huff. “Can’t count on any degree of correct manners from them, or any sort of refined deference.”

“You should know,” said Luc.

“Well!” she said much annoyed. “Luc, we have a serious problem. Enough of this tittle-tattle. I have my ideas but I need your help in convincing Rosamunde.”

“Yes?”

“That nasty Algernon Baird came ’round, or rather paraded into our house with six other neighboring lummoxes.”

“To what did we owe the pleasure of the lummoxes’ calls?”

“Well, they suggested that…” Ata cleared her throat. “They suggested that…”

“I’m a
whore
twice over,” Rosamunde said quietly, not quite meeting his eyes. The light had left her expression, leaving her vacant and disengaged.

Luc’s head snapped up. “What? The bloody fool used that word here?”

Ata was so distraught she didn’t bother to chide him on his language.

“Why wasn’t I summoned?”

“You were, Luc,” Ata said. “But the footman returned and said you weren’t in your bedchamber.”

“You, of course, told Baird to take his sorry—”

“Luc, you were seen escorting Rosamunde onboard
Caro’s Heart
with nary a single female accompanying her.”

“And don’t forget,” Rosamunde said with a smile that did not cover the pain in her eyes, “my dramatic return many hours later. Why, three of the witnesses in the port were delighted to describe the colored stripes of the blanket I wore. Of course I did have to correct them on the background. Cream, not white.”

She appeared on the edge of shock.

Was her shame by the hands of the St. Aubyns ever to end?

“And the purpose of the visit?” he asked. His low voice belied the seething rage he felt to his core.

“To inform that everyone has been warned of my indecent actions. That while some had truly hoped I had reformed my character given my long seclusion after my marriage, that it was now obvious I was nothing more than a—a…well, they fear my seductive wiles could contaminate the God-fearing people of Cornwall. They asked me to leave the parish.”

“The hell you will,” he shouted. He stared at the devil-headed ink blotter in his hand and it was all
he could do not to hurl it into the cold grate behind him.

In the silence, the sound of the brass clock’s tick echoed loudly.

“You shall marry me. Then let them dare to say a single pious thing.”

“What?” Rosamunde said. Or was it Ata? Luc looked up from the ink blotter at the pair of them. For a moment, he saw hollow despair in Ata’s eyes before she covered her face with a blank mask.

Rosamunde whispered, “I’m so sorry.” She cleared her throat. “I appreciate the honor you do me by your suggestion, but I am certain you understand I could never, ever accede to your suggestion.” She walked to stand beside his desk. “You and Her Grace have been so kind to me, and I would never repay your generosity and compassion by doing something so foolish. I have lived with—well, I am used to living in the shadows of society, and I don’t mind it. I actually prefer it if you must know. I…” She paused and turned to address Ata in a rush. “I would be very much obliged if you would help me find a position as a lady’s companion. I am, or soon will be, too notorious to find employment here or in London, but perhaps I could find something in Scotland or in Europe. I do speak French and Italian adequately.”

Ata sighed and settled into one of the huge leather armchairs that dwarfed her. “I’m certain I can help you, my dear. But Luc, you must make her see reason. Tell her about the town houses and cottages I inherited. I’ve decided I want Rosamunde, her sister, and
Sarah Winters to take possession of one of them. You did say I had one in Wales, right?”

He became queasy.

Ata continued on without waiting for an answer, blissfully unaware of the financial anxiety that churned in his belly each time she graciously offered up one of her so-called
inherited
cottages. But then it was his fault he was in this conundrum, as Brownie was happy to point out to him on every occasion.

Rosamunde interrupted. “Ata, I’m humbled by your generosity, but honestly, every fiber of my being forbids it. Your family owes me nothing. It pains me to even ask your help in finding a position. But I couldn’t live an idle life, accepting the sort of generosity you are suggesting. It is too much.”

“Luc,” Ata begged, “you must talk to her. I can understand if she won’t allow you to marry her, but I refuse to permit her to languish under the thumb of some demanding mistress.”

“Yes, I’ve found all your friends to be demanding, screeching spinsters, if you must know.”

“Luc,” Ata almost moaned in annoyance. “You must take this seriously.”

Silence filled the room. It was hard to force his mouth open. He was hurt by Rosamunde’s prompt rejection of his suit although he would crawl in a pit of vipers before admitting to it. Oh, he knew she would not agree, but it wounded him nonetheless that she hadn’t even looked the tiniest bit tempted. He pushed back any remnant of pain from his voice. “I do think we are forgetting the obvious.”

They both stared at him.

“Rosamunde has every quality needed to recapture the heart of the
ton
. She is the daughter of an earl, for Christ sake. True, her reputation must be mended. But if a duke and a duchess cannot accomplish that, whoever else can? And after, she will be befriended by ladies because of her kind heart, and”—he felt his hands ball into fists—“gentlemen will be taken by her wit and vitality. She will be an Incomparable. No red- or blue-blooded Englishman will be able to take his…” He stopped and cursed softly under his breath. “Rosamunde, I can assure that you will have several options before you, not including servitude to an ancient crone.” The question was whether or not he would strangle any man who came within an inch of her. He would purchase a whole damn block of town houses for her before he would allow another man to…

“I think you are both being overly kind and optimistic,” Rosamunde said softly.

Ata cupped her face with one small hand. “No, my dear. You must allow us to help you.”

“Ata is correct. We should leave for town at once. We were to go after my sister’s wedding, in any case. It was only this illness that forced a change in plans.”

Ata took over the conversation. “The other widows are waiting for us in Portman Square. Georgiana, Elizabeth, and Sarah are very anxious to see us. And—”

“And Rosamunde must brazen this out,” Luc interrupted. “She has the manner, figure, and face to do it. And she’s a widow. These backcountry yokels breath
ing fire and brimstone have no notion how most widows carry on in town.”

“Well, you would know,” grumbled Ata. “But Luc is right, my dear. This is the very reason I began the Widows Club. Each season for the last two years I’ve been very successful in finding lasting happiness for the ladies I’ve chosen to help. Most remarry. The few who do not reside in the country cottages or London town houses I inherited from my cousin, the Earl of Carmady.”

Ata rose from her chair and forced Rosamunde to take her good hand and sit with her on a small love-seat in the corner of the room before continuing. “But it makes me furious these people are assuming anything happened a’tall.” She turned to Luc. “I told them Mr. Brown is a pillar of propriety. And they saw him board the ship with her. I told them they were a pack of sinful gossips.”

Luc didn’t dare encounter Rosamunde’s expression. He prayed she would not utter a word.

“Ata,” Rosamunde said quietly, “I am begging you not to force me to do this. I have no desire to go to London, no desire to have the St. Aubyn family once again mired in my scandal. And I cannot accept anything from you other than your help in securing a position. In short, I want to leave Cornwall and find a new place to live, far from everything and everyone that I have ever known.”

“My dear,” Ata continued, “as I said to you in my letter inviting you to join the Widows Club, you mustn’t let pride stand in your way.”

“I’m not. I’m asking for your help. And I hate to do even that. But I will not be able to find a position without it. You are my last hope. But I cannot…cannot possibly accept anything else. Nor can I go to London.”

Luc hoped his gamble would pay off. “Rosamunde, you have two choices, you will come to London and allow us to try and restore your standing, until we have found an appropriate, happy future for you, or you will immediately accept some obscure cottage my grandmother has offered you, where you will live in isolation and we will assume your living expenses for the duration of your life. This would of course be the coward’s way out. But we will not hear any more nonsense about you working as a slave to some haranguing old nag like my dear grandmother.”

“Luc!” Ata and Rosamunde shrieked simultaneously.

A knock sounded at the door and Luc thanked some distant lucky star. “Come,” he commanded.

“Your Grace,” a footman said, pretending he hadn’t heard the shouting behind the door, “A note from the vicarage. Said it was to be delivered to you immediately.”

Luc accepted the missive and scanned the contents. Hmmm, a letter from Charity Clarendon.
What the devil
? He pushed back his chair abruptly.

“Ladies, I think enough has been said.” He looked pointedly at Rosamunde. “You’re too practical to behave like some gothic heroine and run off. We’ve time to form a methodical assault on the
ton
on the way to town. We’ll leave at first light.” He strode off leaving
his heart but not his pride behind him. He had never thought he would have the nerve to offer marriage to anyone. Worse, he had never thought to be refused. He wasn’t sure if he was more hurt or insulted. He was furious he wasn’t relieved.

Leaning against the warm leather squabs of the closed carriage a short while later, Luc pushed away thoughts of what had just transpired. And failed.

She had done him a favor. Who would have thought he could be so magnanimous in the cold, clear light of morning. Weren’t proposals of marriage typically rendered in the solitary splendor of the black of night? Well, certainly not in front of one’s grandmother.