Craving the Rake's Touch (Rakes of the Caribbean) (3 page)

Chapter Five

Pink was probably the favorite color of every man in the room after they got a look at her, Benedict thought uncharitably as they took their seats for dinner. God knew pink was
his
favorite color now. Had any woman ever looked as alluring in that shade as Sarah had when she’d entered the drawing room?

The gown had shown her figure to perfection, revealing without revealing, and every man had noticed. Trimmed with delicate falls of ecru lace, the gown had a demure quality to it without being girlish, more fitting for a woman of twenty and three who had seen five Seasons by choice, not from lack of it. The sweep of the low, round neck and the tight, pointed bodice made sure of that. The fabric was all the rage this season and expensive. Benedict could only imagine what the gown had cost Ren. But he knew without doubt its purpose was to act as a testament to Sarah’s wealth just as the pristine pearls about her neck were to act as a testament to her purity. A message that was not wasted on Brisbourne.

Watching her with the handsome viscount made dinner a special torture. Oh, Benedict was doing his duty quite well, talking with the young ladies on his left and right. Benedict was certain they had no clue anything was amiss. His explanations for his late arrival by two days were firm—he’d promised the earl he’d watch over the family in his absence, but business had kept him in London longer than anticipated. It was all true.

Only he hadn’t meant to stay and actually do any of that watching. He’d meant to deliver his news, leave and keep his familial vigil from afar once he’d known Sarah was safe. He’d also meant to stay as far away from Sarah Dryden as possible, just as he’d managed to do for the last three years. At least physically. Mentally, his mind had never been far from her.

Benedict reached for his wineglass and found it empty again, his hand nearly colliding with the footman’s effort to refill it. Down at the other end of the table he could see Sarah lean slightly forward to hear something Brisbourne was saying, the candlelight catching the brilliantines in the upsweep of her hair. She looked stunning and Brisbourne was noticing, the way he’d once noticed her, the way he
still
noticed her.

Benedict wished he had something negative to say about the viscount. But by all reports, Brisbourne was a decent fellow. He didn’t gamble too much, had his finances in order, didn’t carry on with opera singers and the like, and the man actually had an interest in his seat in the House of Lords. In short, Brisbourne was a good choice. But watching them together was a knife in his gut. Still, wasn’t this what he’d come here for? To make sure Sarah was safe? She’d be safe with Brisbourne. She’d find comfort with him, if not pleasure.

Benedict nodded at something the young woman beside him was saying and reached for his newly filled wineglass. Sarah was the perfect woman, she deserved the perfect man. Her father had made sure he knew just how far from perfect he was for her, too, when he’d gone to him three years ago. But damn it all, rejection didn’t stop the wanting, it never had. He drained his wineglass, wondering how much longer he’d have to endure the sight of Brisbourne and Sarah before it was time for the port.

Why endure?
If you want her
,
do something about it.
Did you come here to be a bystander or to fight for her?
The thought came out of nowhere, the product of a drink before dinner and four glasses of wine during. But the idea held possibility and it began to put down roots.

Perhaps it was time to admit he had come down here to do more than warn her of impending scandal, more than save her. The game was starting to change. Maybe he’d really come here not just to save her from herself, but to save her for
him
. He thought of the deed to the tin mine tucked away now in his dresser drawer. He had wealth now, a wealth her father had insisted any husband of hers be able to give her. That it had been won in a high stakes card game was a detail that didn’t matter. With that piece in place, he felt any promise he owed the dead had been kept.

Benedict watched Sarah rise from her place, signaling the ladies to follow her to the drawing room while the men enjoyed their port. Sarah gave him a discreet nod, indicating he should slide into the role of male host as her brother’s proxy at the table. If he was going to pretend he was here as her brother’s adjutant, he was going to have the play the part.

He’d not been playing a part this afternoon. Pleasuring Sarah had been an honest venture, far less calculated than she believed. Taking things that far had been a rather hasty decision not necessarily made by his brain. He’d meant it to be a reminder to her of what she was giving up. But it had become a reminder to him as well.

Stake your claim now or live with that choice forever
, his conscience urged. Did he dare? He noted how Brisbourne’s eyes followed her to the door, entranced with her already. He noted how Brisbourne’s gaze was not the only one. There were some present who hadn’t given up yet, the unfaithful Devonshire among them. That decided it. Benedict wasn’t one to back down from a fight of any sort.

He wouldn’t let Sarah go, not even to the perfect Viscount Brisbourne, without one last battle. These men had had two days to stop dancing around the issue and declare themselves. If they had left it too late, that was their fault. He had only two nights of the house party, he’d have to move fast. But he had an advantage, Benedict thought as the port buttonholed its way to him. He was the man who knew her best and loved her most.

Chapter Six

Sarah gave Brisbourne her best smile as he took a lamp and headed up to bed with the other guests. He’d been charming, polite, easy to talk to throughout the evening. She had the sense that everything he did would be charming and polite. Even sex, something she felt was better enjoyed with less charm and more directness than was possible when one was concentrating on being polite. At least that was how she remembered it the one and only time she’d indulged, or perhaps it was simply the nature of the person with whom she’d indulged that had made it so bold. It had certainly been that way this afternoon with Benedict’s sinfully delicious mouth play. She could hardly imagine Brisbourne bedding anyone with Benedict’s forthright abandon.

Sarah felt heat creep up her cheeks. It was not well done of her to compare the two. Brisbourne was an upstanding man, gracious of manner. Benedict was a rogue of the first water who had hardly any manners at all. And yet she hadn’t been able to keep her attention solely on Brisbourne all evening. Her eyes had kept straying to Benedict’s end of the table, where he was charming and gorgeous in dark evening clothes that were the height of respectability, a diamond stickpin flashing in his cravat.

No one looking at him could complain over his appearance and yet there was still an unfinished sense about him, a wildness there that lurked beneath the surface, in the depths of his eyes, the tilt of his smile, the thick hair that couldn’t quite be tamed. Did others see it, too, or was she being fanciful?

“Harboring wicked thoughts, my dear?” Benedict’s voice low near her ear caused her to jump. They were alone in the dark hall. The heat of his body was warm at her back, the scent of him pleasant in her nostrils. His head was bent to hers, his hands on her arms, a reminder of how he used to touch her, of how he’d touched her today. The passion burning between them was a long-standing flame. His lips skimmed the column of her neck as he murmured, “If so, might I hope I number among them?”

“You dare too much,” Sarah scolded in stern tones. “You are apparently more confident than I that no one will return to the hallway.”

“Not for an hour or so.” Benedict chuckled irreverently. Once, she’d loved that laugh, irreverence and all. “Come back around one and I imagine you’ll see all nature of clandestine maneuverings.”

“This is not that sort of house party,” Sarah replied, trying to ignore the shivers down her spine, the heat pooling in her belly, the race of her pulse. She would have thought she’d be far more immune to him after all this time, after having her need slaked just hours ago. She had to hold on to other memories, too, less pleasant ones.

He’d bedded her, and left her with nothing more than false promises. Surely she’d learned her lesson about toying with such a man. Yet, her body didn’t seem to agree. It was all too ready to play with Benedict’s brand of fire again even when it knew better. This afternoon should have been proof of punishment, not pleasure.

Benedict ignored the comment. “I wouldn’t be so certain of that. I’m sure Devonshire has a little something lined up at the very least.” He kissed the tip of her earlobe, sending a frisson of want down her spine. Did anyone touch as well, kiss as well, as Benedict? She should move away and make it impossible for him to touch her. That had always been her undoing. Once he started, he was unstoppable.

Summoning all her reserve to pull away, Sarah stepped inside a small sitting room off the hall. It was a room her mother used for personal business on occasion. At least now they’d be out of plain sight should anyone wander by, and there would be some distance between them.

Her efforts didn’t stop Benedict. He leaned an arm against the wall above her head in casual gesture that trapped her between him and the wall, making her acutely aware of his maleness. His catlike eyes, alert and predatory, glinted in the dark. “How was Brisbourne, Sarah? Was he all you thought he’d be?” She did not feel intimidated by such a show of power. She felt aroused by it; all that primal possessiveness focused on her.

“Could you imagine him in your bed?” The question brought a blush to her cheeks. How had he known? Even her private thoughts were not sacrosanct when he was around.

“Ah, I see you were contemplating it. As rightly you should.” Benedict gave a wicked grin. “Marriage demands one be comfortable granting intimacies to one’s partner, after all. I seem to recall we were once quite comfortable with such intimacy between us.” His eyes lingered on her lips in fair warning. She had only moments to recognize the signal and no time to react before his mouth slanted over hers, his desire evident in the press of his body against hers.

He kissed with his entire body—his mouth, his hips, his hands all worked in concert in those heady moments of contact. But what her mind had tried to forget, her body remembered with shocking clarity. Sarah felt herself respond as if his last kiss had been yesterday instead of years ago. Her mouth parted, her tongue flicking out to taste him. Her arms were around his neck, hands digging into the depths of his hair, her hips arching in to his in answer to his intimate press. This was sin at its most sensual, futility at its finest. How dare he dangle such temptation in front of her when he knew she could not do this, not now when so much was on the line. “What you are trying to prove, Benedict? What do you want?” she managed to ask between kisses.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Benedict nipped at her ear with his teeth. “I want you. And you rather want me, too, if I’m not mistaken.”

That was when she slapped him.

Chapter Seven

“Bloody hell, Sarah! What was that for?” Benedict stepped back, a hand going automatically to his wronged cheek, his other hand going immediately to the door and shutting it. It was too late to stop the resounding smack of her hand across his face, but it would certainly muffle the ensuing row.

“That was for kissing me!” Sarah fairly shouted. Maybe the door wouldn’t hold back the sound, after all.

“Me, kissing you? What about
you
kissing
me
? Or am I mistaking the tongue in my mouth for someone else’s?”

“Let me finish.” Sarah moved across the tiny room, putting distance and a chair between them. “That was for kissing me three years ago, for making me believe in your promises, but mostly for making me believe in
you.
Fool me once, Benedict DeBreed, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. That’s how it goes, doesn’t it?”

Even in the dim light of the room, Benedict could see the anger in her cheeks. She might have slapped him but she was angry with herself as well, angry for liking it, for liking him when she didn’t want to. Well, for the record, he didn’t want to like her, either, but he did. He
loved
her. Beyond reason, but that was his secret. He loved her enough to have stayed away this long. Only his friendship with Ren and his promise to her father had compelled him to keep that vow as long as he had. He’d broken the vow only because the situation demanded it.

“We were young...” Benedict began, promising himself he wouldn’t beg, but neither would he put up with this belief that what they’d done had been a mistake. His pride wouldn’t allow it. No woman thought being with him was a mistake. “It wasn’t wrong, only foolish.” Perhaps if they could forgive themselves for the indiscretion they could move past it. They’d never discussed it, there’d never been time, and afterward there’d never been a chance. Her father had seen to that. Even now, Benedict didn’t feel there was anything to forgive. There was nothing
he
needed absolution for. He’d never felt it had been wrong to be with her, it was only wrong how things had worked out.

“Do not try to justify it!” Sarah’s hands gripped the edge of the chair, her fingers digging into the upholstery with the intensity they’d used to oh-so-recently dig into his hair. He had reveled in her touch, the feel of her against his body. “I need you to exercise some restraint. You cannot come dashing in here and wreak havoc with my house party at a time when I need everything to go right. Do you have any idea how serious the situation is? How much I need you to behave?”

Benedict’s temper ratcheted upward. He was going to explode.
Restraint?
She wanted to talk about restraint when he’d been exercising it for three long years? For three years he’d harbored the truth of what really happened. He’d kept his promise. He’d spoken to her father. He’d been refused. Worse, he’d not been allowed to speak of it to her or to Ren. Sarah loved her father and her father doted on his children. It would have broken Sarah’s heart to know her father had disapproved.

When her father had asked he say nothing about the interview, Benedict had agreed. He’d loved Sarah too much to do otherwise. He did not want to make her choose between the men she loved. How dare she stand there and accuse him of callous disregard? But he knew how she dared. She knew no better and now her father was dead. To tell her would risk tarnishing her memory of him and Benedict would not speak ill of the dead even if he considered his promise fulfilled.

Instead, he adopted his usual air of nonchalance, the air that said nothing bothered him. “Would you believe me if I told you I was sorry? That I wanted a second chance?” It was the truth even if it was a significantly watered-down version and delivered with slightly less sincerity than it might have been.

“I think you’d be penitent if you thought it would get you what you wanted,” Sarah replied, but there was no heat behind it. The anger had gone out of her, replaced perhaps by sadness, or memories of a happier time. She understood, as he did, that they sparred to keep true feelings at bay. The line between love and loathing had never been quite so thin as it was between them.

Benedict nodded. “I would, Sarah.” He held her gaze as he dared a slow step forward, approaching as if she was a skittish mare. “I’d dare far more than penitence for you.” She hadn’t grabbed up the vase on the table beside the chair. He’d take that as a good sign. He took another step and ventured another piece of the truth. “I want you, Sarah, and you want me. You were living fire in my arms a moment ago and I brought you pleasure this afternoon. There’s no reason to deny it.” He paused, weighing the moment, the timing. He played his ace. “You’re going to marry someone, why not me?”

He was close enough to touch her, close enough to draw her into his arms. Slowly, surely, she came, her eyes watching his face, looking for signs of...something. “Benedict, I don’t know.” She began her protests.

He put a finger to her lips. “You don’t have to know right now, Sarah. We’ll take it one night at a time.” He pressed a kiss to her mouth. “Let me persuade you.”