Dark Surrender (27 page)

Her hand sought his breeches, slipping between his fall to the hot skin hidden within. She closed her fingers around his member, first gently, then firmly, and slowly began to stroke.

He nearly collapsed upon her, which only served to align their bodies even closer together, as if they were two halves of a whole finally coming together. The closeness of their bodies allowed the curve of her thumb to brush against her own core with every stroke of her hand along his shaft. The warmth of his kisses and the sensation of his fingers lightly tugging at her nipple caused a whirlwind of need and want pulsing between her legs. Violet could hardly process the heady new feelings as they overwhelmed her senses, she only knew she wanted
him
and she wanted
more
.

The combination of kisses and swirling fingers and the relentless stroke of the back of her own thumb stoked her fire until she was certain she would shatter right then and there. Something was happening to her body, something almost painfully sweet, that tightened every muscle with the promise of impending pleasure. Her breath caught. As if sensing her close to the precipice, he lifted his fingers from her breast and loosened his other hand from her nape.

Dismayed by his retreat, she craned her head forward but he was already moving, baring her breast and fastening his mouth over the nipple still swollen from his touch. Her breath was rapid and shallow. He bunched her skirt and petticoat against her waist. As cool air kissed her bare flesh, she could almost imagine they were out-of-doors beneath the stars. Her heart soared.

As he suckled first one nipple and then the other, he slid his hand down her now-bare belly. Her legs parted and widened of their own accord. Thanks to her hard-luck past, Violet imagined herself the most sexually experienced private governess in the history of Mother England, but she had never,
never
imagined lovemaking could be anything like this. Her buttocks tightened and rose up, tilting her pelvis into his touch as if unable to withstand another moment of anticipation.

When his finger slid across the moist heat between her legs, she gasped. When that same finger slid inside, entering her in tantalizingly arrhythmic thrusts, she cried out in wonder.
This
was what she’d been missing. The wanting, the craving, the building pressure infusing her senses with his taste, his touch, his scent. She reached for his hair to lock him tight to her breast, but he was moving once again.

His mouth joined his finger at her core. Bolts of pleasure electrified her entire body. He licked and suckled as his finger relentlessly drove into her again and again. Her hands fell atop her own breasts, the nipples swelling beneath her fingers. Her trembling legs locked about his shoulders, pinning him in place, as his mouth and his finger worked their magical torture. This was beautiful. This was incredible. Her head thumped back against the floor, her eyes closing in anguished surrender.

He slid a second finger in to join with the first, widening her, filling her, as his tongue teased her into a frenzy. He was perfect. He was going to make her—

Helpless, her back arched as her muscles contracted against his fingers. She gasped at the unexpected pleasure, the sudden rush of ecstasy and release as her spasms ebbed and her limbs relaxed bonelessly against the floor.

Only then did he return his hands to her hair and his mouth to hers.

“You’re so beautiful.” The words were so soft, she felt them rather than heard them.

“Mrmph,” she mumbled inarticulately, muscles limp. “And you’re so talented.”

Chuckling, he rolled sideways, pulling her atop him so that he was the one on the floor, and she the one cuddled against his chest. “That was better than boring old gold sovereigns?”

“Mm-hmm.” She opened her eyes to grin at him. “Do it again.”

He laughed at her with his eyes, looking for all the world like a man replete with self-satisfaction, even though it was she and not he whose passion-muddled brain had had the pleasure of release. “Already? Why, Miss Smythe, you are a very strict task-master indeed.”

Wonder filled her. Not only had Violet never previously been in a circumstance where she had even wanted intimacy, he had chosen to pleasure
her
rather than the other way around. Just because he wished to please her. That alone was an unimaginably erotic sweetmeat she was powerless to resist. She’d be a task-master indeed if it meant sharing more moments like these.

She smiled up at him. “None of that ‘Miss Smythe’ anymore. Employer or not, by now you’ve earned the right to use my given name. Please call me—”

His eyes widened with nothing short of horror as he nearly dumped her on the floor in his scramble to his feet. “Oh God. I haven’t any right! I should never have forgot myself.”

She blinked up at him in confusion. He’d agreed the moment was amazing. They had shared something incredible. What was the problem now?

He backed away from her. As she rearranged both bodice and skirt, Violet’s brain worked triple time, but could not comprehend how quickly the situation was deteriorating around her.

“Employer,” he choked, his face blanching with shame. “As you said, I’m your employer. You should be safely under my protection, not requiring protection
from
me.” He tore his anguished eyes from hers to the stained glass window, then ripped his gaze away as if the three kings might smite him where he stood. “Forgive me.”

He took himself from the room forthwith, leaving her bereft and deserted beneath the tricolored light of the moon.

She buried her face in her hands. The worst was that she’d managed to convince herself, for that one beautiful moment, it meant as much to him as it had to her. That they had somehow transcended a mere master-servant relationship. That he felt for her as strongly as she foolishly, cursedly felt for him. But even after lovemaking that surpassed her wildest dreams, he’d left her.

Sprawled and alone among the rotted boards, with one breast exposed and her heart undone.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Later that evening, the relentless snip . . . snip . . . snip of Alistair’s garden shears finally began to pervade his consciousness. Slowly, he became aware that in his distraction he’d managed to behead most of the roses rather than tend them. He leaned back. Of course he had done. Everything he meant to nurture and preserve ended up cut short before its time. Sighing, he tossed the shears aside and threw himself on his back to stare up at the stars.

Here he was, then. On the Waldegrave family lands, crouching six feet above one third of the Waldegrave family. Or was he? They had never been three. There had only been he and Marjorie, and then he and Lillian.

And Violet, he acknowledged slowly.
Now
they were three.

Or could be, if he didn’t ruin it. Hadn’t already ruined it. He’d been a fool.

He’d been a fool because he
was
a fool, and would likely do a thousand foolish things more before his time on this earth was through, but he had not meant to take advantage—if that was how she felt—and he most certainly had not meant to storm off without explanation. Well, all right, that was clearly what he’d meant to do in the moment, but he couldn’t have treated her more shabbily.

In fact, very little spoke well of Alistair these days. He thought of his first wife fondly, but more and more infrequently. He spent half of his Sundays thanking God for the miracle of Violet’s arrival in his life rather than saving all his prayers for his daughter. And after nine long years, he still failed to find a cure for Lillian.

He glared up at the stars and stabbed the shears into the dirt. God helped those who helped themselves. If he wished himself to be worthy of the gifts he’d been given, then he needed to corral his wandering attention and focus. Mooncalfing over an angel in governess’s clothing would not get him any closer to his goals. Besides, if he wanted Violet to hold him in half the esteem in which he held her, he must first do something to deserve it.

Which meant what? More books? More medical society memberships? More semi-secret cabals with even better and brighter minds? He propped himself up on his elbows. All of that and more, he supposed. There was no excuse for slackening, no rest until his daughter could finally have the life she deserved.

“Master?”

“Roper.” Alistair hauled himself to his feet and brushed an errant leaf from his breeches. “How may I help you?”

His manservant’s expression was strangely solemn. “It is I who wish to help you, master. There must be something we can do.”

Gooseflesh raced beneath the lawn of Alistair’s shirt. Roper had always had a serious disposition, but the grave concern he currently wore filled Alistair with trepidation. “What is it? What happened?”

“It’s the townsfolk, master. They grow restless. I have had another report that the suspicion of your supposed vampirism is growing more and more widespread.”

“Oh, that.” Alistair relaxed. “It’s just schoolchildren and the idle gossip of a few country provincials. Let them think what they like. What do I care?”

“They’re banding together,” Roper insisted, his scarred face sober and unsmiling. “Master . . . soon they will act.”

Alistair’s blood ran cold. “Act?”

“They plan to drive you from this place.”

“From my home?” He reeled in affront. “They cannot! This property has belonged to my family for centuries.”

“A panicked crowd cares little for legalities. I am told they gathered just last night, and have even appointed the smithy to head the pack should it come to violence.”

“Violence!” He shot an anxious glance toward the sanctuary. Lillian must remain safe. “What can we do to stop them?”

Roper’s expression was bleak. “I fear there is nothing I can do that I have not already done. I am not the one they fear. The madmen have not seen your face in the past decade. They
have
seen pale-faced young maids flee the abbey with fresh bite marks upon their flesh.”

“Only once.” Alistair’s shoulders tensed. “It never happened again. I personally tended Lillian every single moment since that night. Maids have now begun to attend her again, and she is comporting herself admirably. There will be no more wild tales from this home.”

Roper shook his head, looking every bit as distraught as Alistair felt. “Her existence remains secret, but the villagers’ memories are long. You employ a sizable staff in a boarded-over abbey and are never seen out-of-doors whilst the sun still shines. Even those without superstition, who have always believed your reclusiveness evidence of having contracted the sunsickness disease the midwife described, have heard of the many visits from far-off surgeons and fear an epidemic of contagion brewing in our midst. A confrontation will happen soon, master. The smithy wishes to storm the abbey. The others may join him . . . with weapons and torches.”

Alistair blanched. “Over my dead body.”

Roper’s eyes were bleak. “As may well be, if their threats materialize.”

“Never.” Alistair’s hands balled into fists and his voice hardened. “I shall be the first to act.”

His manservant’s brows rose. “How can one man defend himself against a pack of frightened townsfolk driven to violence?”

“By taking away their reason to fear,” Alistair said simply. “You are right. Far too much time has passed without showing my face in town. I will go this week. One afternoon, when the sun is at its highest.”

Could he? He had lived so long in the shadows, he was not certain he could face the sun. He didn’t deserve it. From the moment of Lillian’s birth, he’d sworn to live as if they shared the disease. What his daughter could not have, he did not take for himself. He would enjoy sunlight when Lillian finally was cured.

“Master . . . ” Roper’s expression was tense. “I understand where your heart is, but how can you continue the sunsickness ruse to the scientists once word spreads that you were seen in daylight?”

Heart racing, Alistair gazed at the familiar abbey as if it were the last time he would ever see it. This was his home. He must protect it at all costs. “Clearly I will not be able to. But Shrewsbury is small and gossip may spread slowly. More importantly, I need not worry about scientists if my family is set upon by a frenzied crowd. That is the more present concern, and one I am able to quickly address.”

Roper nodded unhappily. “As you wish.”

Alistair frowned in the direction of the main road. He did not wish to do anything less than tramp into town under the full heat of the brilliant sun and spend an awkward afternoon answering suspicious questions with fictitious excuses in order to prove himself a human man of flesh and bone. His time was better spent concentrating on a cure. Why couldn’t the villagers leave him be?

His manservant still stood before him, not speaking, and yet not returning to the abbey. Roper’s gaze slid to the gravestones behind Alistair, then tracked sideways to the decapitated rosebuds and the discarded shears. Roper’s face lined with concern. “Tending flowers again?”

“Not very well,” Alistair replied wryly.

If Roper saw any humor therein, he showed no sign. “Were you . . . visiting with your wife?”

“Yes,” Alistair lied, pricked anew with guilt for having dwelt upon his unexpected feelings for Violet rather than paying Marjorie his respects. It wasn’t that he cherished the time with his first wife any less, he reminded himself sternly. It’s just that, lately, that life seemed less vivid than it had before. Not less important, just less . . . present.

Roper’s mouth twisted, as if he was carefully considering his next words. “May I speak frankly, master?”

“Of course.” Surprise and self-recrimination washed over Alistair at the realization that after decades of service, Roper still felt he needed permission. Roper had always been far more than a mere manservant. He was Alistair’s sole confidant, Alistair’s sole friend. The man was almost family . . . to Alistair, at least. Was he truly so single-minded and unapproachable that after all these years, Roper still could not feel comfortable in his presence?