A Gentleman Never Tells (5 page)

Roland’s body stiffened, jolting her out of her daze, back into the coldness of the present.

The soft footsteps had halted, and new ones entered the building: firm, purposeful, nothing to hide. The feet marched in their direction—even Lilibet could tell that—closer and closer, until she squeezed her eyes in anticipation of discovery and pressed her back into the wall as if it could close around her. Roland held himself preternaturally still, his body forming a shelter around hers.

The new footsteps stopped abruptly. A male voice penetrated the stillness, low and hard. She couldn’t quite make out the words, but they sounded unmistakably English.

A female voice emerged, the first intruder, answering him.

Oh God. Who was it? It couldn’t be Abigail.

Alexandra?

Alexandra?
Meeting a strange man in an Italian stable?

Surely not.

A slight quiver moved across Roland’s chest. He whispered in her ear: “Lady Morley, by God.”

Don’t laugh, Roland
, she thought.
For God’s sake, don’t laugh.
She fought the desire herself: amusement and relief and horror, all muddled together. What if she and Roland were found, clenched together in the darkness, in what could only be a lover’s embrace?

They were exchanging words, Alexandra and her male visitor. Who was it? Wallingford, probably. Hadn’t there been something between the two of them, long ago? Lilibet opened her eyes at last, trying to peer past Roland into the darkness, but his chest and shoulder engulfed her, and the only light came from a pair of dark lanterns hooked near the doorway.

Another quiver shook Roland’s chest, stronger this time. He must have known who the other man was.

The voices continued, soft and intimate. Good God, they weren’t going to . . . they weren’t meeting here to do
that
!
Not Alexandra, not with Wallingford.

Were they?

Lilibet rolled her forehead into Roland’s shoulder. No. Anything but that. She could not stand here in the arms of Lord Roland Penhallow, of all the men in the world, and listen to her cousin engage in carnal union with the Duke of Wallingford.

Please, Lord.
Please
.

She listened with horrified fascination as the voices rose and fell, always too quiet to discern, the round English tones floating across the cold air, an occasional word breaking through the murmur:
ravish
and
stepladder
and
devil
.

Damn the both of them.

Lilibet never swore aloud, of course, but in her thoughts she profaned as frequently as the captain of a China clipper, though she supposed not with as much potency and variety. Hers had been a sheltered life, after all.

The voices dropped to whispers. Bloody hell.

And then, without warning, the words stopped altogether.

She held her breath, waiting to hear the rustle of clothing, the telltale groans and sighs and gasps. The sound of flesh against flesh, of bodies thumping on the ground or—she shuddered—against the same wall that supported her now.

But all she heard were footsteps. Footsteps, treading back down the length of the stables, disappearing out into the night.

FOUR

L
ilibet sagged into Roland’s shoulder, shaking with laughter at last. His arms closed around her, held her upright as he laughed, too, in great suppressed jolts of his body. “Good God,” he whispered, “I thought we were finished. Done for.”

“I was afraid they would start to . . . oh Lord!” Tears formed at the corners of her eyes; she struggled to raise her hand between their bodies to brush the wetness away.

“Start to what?”

She blurted the words without thought. “That they were lovers!”

He chuckled. “No, no. Not that. I was only afraid I’d lose control entirely and give us away.”

“Oh Lord.” She covered her face with her hands. “They’d have thought
we
were . . .”

“When of course we were only . . .”

The air turned to crystal between them. Roland’s hands dropped away; he took a short step backward. The separation, the loss of him, was like her heart hollowing out from her body.

“We were only . . .” she repeated softly.

“. . . saying good-bye,” he said. Without the lantern’s glow, his voice came out of the void, unmoored from his beautiful face.

She didn’t need to see his face. She knew exactly how it looked: how his hazel eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled, how his golden brown hair curled on his forehead. How his strong jaw met his sturdy neck, how his full lips parted just before he spoke.

How would those lips feel upon hers?

She’d never known. Their years-ago courtship had been long on elegant words and clandestine glances, and short on physical expression. Proper English ladies, dutiful daughters of proper English ladies, did not accept kisses before engagement rings.

But she’d imagined his kisses, more than once, in the lonely dark hours of the night, curled in her bed, eyes dry and aching. She’d imagined more than that. She’d imagined how his body would feel atop hers. She’d imagined how his face would soften with passion as he looked down at her, how his legs and belly would stroke against her, how their limbs would entangle afterward as they drifted to sleep.

Imagined it, and despised herself in the cold light of morning.

No one would ever know
, she thought. Tomorrow she and the other women and Philip would be off to hide in a hillside castle, and Roland would be off to Rome or Venice or somewhere equally amusing. They wouldn’t meet again for ages, if at all. He was an honorable man; he’d never tell a soul. He’d take the secret to his grave.

Why not?

He was a man. He wouldn’t refuse her.

Only God would know. And surely God would understand, would forgive her. It seemed—it almost seemed—that He had arranged this meeting, just for her.

Do it. Do it. Regret it later, if you must. But do it now, before it’s too late. Before he’s gone forever.

She lifted her hand and brushed his cheek with her fingers. “Yes. I suppose it
is
good-bye.”

She couldn’t see his reaction, but she felt it: a flicker of rigidity beneath her fingertips.

His hand appeared out of nowhere to cover hers. “Not good-bye,” he said. “Never good-bye, you and I.”

She was never sure, afterward, who kissed whom. One instant they were apart, his hand holding hers against his cheek, breaths mingling in the dank air, and in the next his mouth brushed her lips, gentle and tender, and his other hand cupped the curve of her head like an infant’s.

“Lilibet,” he whispered. “Oh, Lilibet.”

“Don’t say anything. Don’t say a word.”

He gathered her up and kissed her again, a lover’s kiss, working her lips apart and tasting her, his mouth like silk and champagne and every forbidden thing. She could not hold back, not any longer; she met him unstintingly, stroked his tongue with hers, spread her fingers across the sides of his face, strained her body upward into his.

They kissed for the longest time, more than six years’ worth of kisses, gentle and urgent and then gentle again: his lips sliding across her face to her ear, her jaw, her neck, and then returning to her mouth to absorb her sigh. Each movement, each tiny detail, rent a tear down some fabric at her core and sent an electric current of sensation sparking through her bones to the extreme tips of her fingers and toes and scalp.
Alive, I am alive
, she thought, and thrust her fingers up through the soft waves of hair at the back of his head.

His hands slipped downward. One came to rest at her waist; the other fingered the top button of her coat, inquiring.

She could not say the word
yes
. But she could arch her neck for his lips. She could drop her own hands to the smooth horn buttons of his coat and work them free with fingers that were no longer cold and numb, but tingling and dexterous. She could spread his unbuttoned coat apart and slide it across his broad shoulders until it hit the hay-strewn floor with a whispered
plop
.

Without words, he returned his hands to her coat, sliding each button out of its hole, his head bent forward and his rapid breath warming her face. Words jumbled together in her head,
darling
and
love
and
please
and
more
and
oh
, but she held them all in and concentrated only on Roland, on his hands uncovering her body and his face bent toward hers. Her eyes, accustomed now to the darkness, could just pick out his features in the ghostly light from the distant lanterns; she could just glimpse the way his lids half covered his eyes, as if he couldn’t quite bear to open them fully.

The last button fell free, but he didn’t remove her coat. Instead his fingers moved back to her neck, to the fastenings of her jacket, until the two sides hung apart and only her white silk shirtwaist and underclothes lay between them.

Her heart beat in a mad thumping rhythm beneath his active fingers. One by one he undid the buttons of her shirtwaist, down to her waist, his knuckles brushing her flesh, raising goose bumps.

His hand hovered. “Are you certain?” he said, in a reverent whisper.

She could not say
yes
. But she could grasp his hand and guide it beneath the silk of her shirtwaist; she could slide her own hands to his jacket and unbutton it, while her nerves tracked the hot touch of his fingers along the curve of her bosom and beneath the edge of her corset. She could part the edges of his jacket and tear his shirt from his trousers and slide her hands along the smooth skin at his waist, his abdomen. She could throw her head back in a silent cry as his hands—eager now, bold—freed her breasts from her stays and chemise; as he dropped to his knees before her and suckled her fiercely; as his tongue circled her nipple in languorous strokes. She could gasp as his hands found the edge of her dress and traveled up her legs, while his mouth went on caressing her breasts and her skin shivered and glowed and her thoughts blurred into kaleidoscopic joy.

His fingers plucked at the fastening of her drawers and slid the plain, practical cotton downward. Cold air swirled about the bare skin above her stockings, replaced instantly by the heat of his hands on her thighs, on her hips, in the tangle of curls at her center. His mouth had stilled upon her breast; his forehead rested against her, his breath spreading a pool of warmth about her belly. When at last his tentative finger ran along the rim of her inner flesh and dipped inside, his groan vibrated against her skin to mingle with hers.

He rose to his feet in a swift motion and buried his face in her neck. She felt the tremor in his muscles, the damp sheen of sweat on his skin. His voice came husky and beseeching: “Lilibet, my love, my life, stop me, darling, I must have you, I can’t stop . . .”

She could not say
don’t stop
. But she could unfasten his trousers and draw his member, hard and beautiful, between her hands. She could caress the velvety skin, the curving ridge, and stretch her face toward his; she could kiss him deeply, show him with her tongue what she wanted from him. She could fling her arms about his neck with a gasp as he lifted and swung her downward into the pile of sparse hay on the floor.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry,” and she knew what he meant.

She wanted to tell him that he had nothing to be sorry for, that these rough walls were a palace because he was there. That this haystack was a couch of velvet because he shared it with her, rose above her, parted her legs and her clothing, thrust inside her slippery body and united her to him at last.

But she couldn’t tell him that, couldn’t tell him that the memory of this instant would live sacred in her mind through all the remaining years of her life, and so she held his big body against her and wept into his shoulder while they rocked together, shuddering, fighting the urge for completion.

But the imperative could not be denied: the need curled around her womb, the friction ached between their matched bodies. At last he rose up on his elbows and began to thrust, gently at first, and then with growing strength, deep inside her, his hips grinding against hers at each plunge, reaching for more of her, all of her. She reached her hands to his face, his cheekbones, his jaw, his hair, as if touching all the precious pieces of his body would brand him on her fingers.

He is inside me, he is part of me, we are one, oh God, let it never stop, let this wave never break, let it keep on building and building forever, oh God
.

The wave built and it built, and his thrusts came harder and more urgent, and release began like a slow explosion within her, spreading in long shocks down her limbs and up through her belly and breast to force a cry at last from her throat. He bent and took it into his mouth, where his own shout met hers. The jump of his body, the tremor of his climax, echoed through them both.

*  *  *

R
oland’s mind, ordinarily a nimble and fluent instrument, seemed to have been drenched by a barrelful of treacle.

Lovely treacle, of course. Thick and dark and sweet, it spread around the folds of his brain in lazy trickles, obscuring all nimbleness and fluency. All that remained was sensation: the softness of Lilibet’s body wrapped around his; her honey-rich scent, laced with lavender, filling his nose; the gentle rush of her breath in his ear.

He attempted to lift his head, and discovered that the treacle was also heavy as the devil.

He kissed her ear instead. “Darling. My love, my Lilibet, you . . .”

“Shh.” She stroked his hair, his back. “Shh.”

Roland closed his eyes and obeyed her, because the treacle seemed to want him to, but after another moment of blissful lethargy he became aware of other and more uncomfortable sensations.

Namely, the hard wooden floor beneath his knees and elbows.

He lifted his head, this time with more success, and gazed at her face in adoration. In the shadows, she looked like a figure from a dream; the faint bluish light blurred her edges, hollowed out her cheeks, caught her loosened hair in a halo about her head. His angel, his love.

There would be scandal, of course. They might have to live abroad for a time; perhaps for a long time. He’d have to give up his work at the Bureau, or else take on strictly foreign assignments. There was also the small matter of Lord Somerton. Medieval sort of chap, Somerton; a duel might be involved, for formality’s sake.

But it would be worth it. Lilibet would be his at last. He pictured a cottage by a lake of some sort, snow-tipped mountains in the background, sunshine gleaming from a red-tile roof. He’d turn his hand to that poetry he’d always meant to write, and she . . . well, she’d do whatever it was women did. Read novels. Warm his bed. Raise children. A tingling feeling invaded his chest at the thought: their child growing in her belly, nursing at her breast, toddling about the cottage, all immaculate and smiling and polite and well behaved. Perhaps even another one, after a suitable interval.

Oh yes. It would be well worth it.

He kissed each of her closed eyelids. “Darling. Sweet love. You’re mine at last. Tomorrow we’ll . . .”

Her eyes flew open. “Good God!” she hissed.

“Or we can wait until I’ve paid a call on Somerton,” he added hastily, mindful of her notions of propriety. “To make things all right and tight. I’m sure he’ll give you a divorce, when I’ve explained . . .”

She pushed him away and sat upright. “A divorce! No! Good God! What . . . what are you thinking?”

Dear skittish creature. He smiled and leaned forward to kiss her. “That I love you, a thousand times more than before. That the rest will take care of itself. That nothing matters except . . .”

“Except my son! Except my honor!” She shoved her breasts back into her corset and struggled with the buttons of her shirtwaist. Her eyes were wide and horrified. “Do you know what he’ll do when he finds out?”

“I daresay he’ll be rather put out, but I shall stand firm . . .”

She made a sound, somewhere between a groan and a sob. Her hands shook at the buttons. “Roland, you’re a fool. Oh, he’ll divorce me, I’m sure, if he ever finds out. But he’ll take Philip. I’ll never see my son again; he’ll make sure of that . . . Oh, these damned buttons!” She covered her face with her hands.

“Darling, darling. Calm yourself. He won’t do any such thing. Here.” He reached out with tender fingers to fasten her buttons.

“Don’t!” She brushed his hand away and stood up. “Don’t touch me! Don’t . . . Oh God, what have I done?”

He rose, found his trousers gathered rather ignominiously around his ankles, and pulled them up into decency. “You’ve done—we’ve done—what we were meant to do all along. I love you, Lilibet. I’ve loved you from the day we met, and I shall bless you forever for allowing me the chance to redeem myself.”

“Redeem yourself?
Redeem
yourself?” She stood there in astonishment, shirtwaist and jacket and coat still ajar, and he couldn’t help dropping his eyes to the curve of her bosom: so recently overflowing his hand, and now overflowing her corset with every indignant heave of her breath.

Not his wisest moment, by any means.

“Look at you!” she exploded. “Still ogling me, for God’s sake! You’ve no idea at all what this means!”