Engaged in Sin (10 page)

He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t risk having a nightmare and hurting her. He was sure that when he was in the depths of sleep, the feel of her body against him would set him off, just as he’d confused her touch for that of a soldier trying to kill him.

“I’m not quite finished,” she murmured, underneath him. “All that lovely hair of yours needs a trim.”

He was supposed to be pushing people away. For their own good. That had been the direction he’d given to Treadwell and the handful of other servants he kept here.

Yet Devon sat on the stool with his back to his dressing table while Cerise washed his hair. She had forced him to sit, then had tipped his head over the basin while she soaked his hair with handfuls of water.

Now she massaged soap into it. He groaned, shut his eyes, and savored the firm, circular caresses of her fingers.

He had fought against battalions of French soldiers—at Waterloo, they had faced more than seventy thousand men—yet this slip of a woman was bustling him around his dressing room with more capability for direction than his vice general had shown.

It was amazing how good a woman’s hands felt on his scalp. How good
her
hands felt. She wasn’t trying to make this sensual. She rubbed his head too hard for that to be her plan, and she massaged every spot—his temples, behind his ears, along the nape of his neck.

He could hear rain thrumming against the windows, rattling the panes.

“Tip your head back farther, please, Your Grace.” She rinsed his hair, using her hand as a barrier to keep the soapy water off his face. He jerked instinctively as the warm water sluiced over his head, and rivulets ran down into his eyes.

“Please keep still,” she admonished. “Or I will end up splashing your face by mistake.”

“Yes, dear,” he murmured obediently.

Her hands twisted his hair behind him, gathering it up, squeezing the excess water from it. She let it go, and
it fell wetly against his neck. Vigorously, she rubbed his head with a towel.

He almost laughed. She definitely wasn’t trying to artfully seduce him. She tugged his hair as she patted it between the towel, dabbed up the water that dribbled from his hairline. Then she laid the towel around his shoulders.

Suddenly his hair was yanked as though she were trying to scalp him. He tried to jolt away.

“I am sorry, but I must get the comb through.” Suspicion, not apology, laced her tone. “When was the last time you took a comb to your hair?”

“Before Watson left. It must be at least a week ago.”

She clicked her tongue. “It is very wrong to let yourself go to seed like this.”

She spoke to him like a governess with a recalcitrant charge. He wanted to fill in details of the vague story of her past she’d given him. She did not behave like a girl who had spent much of her life in London’s stews. “Why didn’t your grandfather help you after your father died? Why didn’t he take you in?”

“He had died by then. And we had no other family. My mother and I truly had nowhere else to go.” Her voice trembled, and she sounded as though she did not wish to speak of it.

Then cold brushed against his neck, and he jerked away again. “What is that?”

“The scissors, Your Grace.” She tipped his head and he felt the comb run through his hair, pulling it straight, then he heard the first swift snip of the blades. She worked around his head, telling him everything she was going to do, directing his head this way and that while she trimmed his hair.

“Angel, in London, did you have much call to shave your clients and trim their hair?”

She paused, and he felt pieces of hair feather past his
cheek. “No,” she said slowly. “Do gentlemen ask for such things?” She sounded utterly innocent and surprised.

“Then why did you think of doing this, love?”

“I thought it would make you feel better,” she said. “I know a mistress is supposed to do things such as warming brandies and … and pleasuring a man with her mouth. But this, I thought, was what you needed.” She stroked the comb through his hair, caressing his scalp. “Do you feel more like yourself?”

She was right. He did feel more like himself without the itching beard and the dirty, unkempt hair. A light
clunk
told him she’d set down the scissors. And he was certain he’d heard a blush in her tone when she’d said
pleasuring a man with her mouth
. Amazing she had stayed so ingenuous.

“I wondered if you would want to come with me,” she said. “For a walk outside.”

That he hadn’t expected. “Outside? It’s raining, love. Even I know that. I can hear it.”

“I know. I’m asking you to go outside because it
is
raining. I think it will help you. Come with me and find out.”

HE DUKE WOULD
not let her outside until she assured him she was properly dressed for a cool and rainy afternoon. Rather than struggle with her gown, Anne borrowed one of his shirts and a pair of his breeches. After that, an elderly footman had helped her don a hooded cloak. The duke wore an open many-tiered greatcoat to keep off the rain, and tall, immaculately polished boots. Since arriving yesterday, she had not seen him with anything but bare feet. Yet his boots had been kept in readiness, as though he was about to attend a
ton
ball.

He looked stunning and intimidating when fully dressed. His beaver hat added a foot to his already impressive height. She was accustomed to his nakedness or seeing him with his shirt free of his trousers. Her throat dried when she saw how impeccable and ducal he could look.

“Wait for one moment,” she advised him, and her voice trembled a bit. She stepped from the library to the terrace. It smelled crisp, fresh, and she couldn’t help but exclaim, “It’s lovely!”

On the threshold, the duke waited. “Angel, it sounds like it’s teeming down.”

“It is. That is what makes it so perfect.”

Anne crossed to the stone balustrade that ringed the flagstone terrace. She leaned forward until her head was beyond the cover of the balcony above. Closing her eyes, she tipped up her face and let the rain hit her cheeks. She stuck out her tongue and tasted a few cool drops.

She breathed in the rich, earthy scent of mud and wet grass. From the forest, she could smell the dankness of rain-soaked leaves and rotting wood. Some would curl their noses, but she loved the smell. Memories of Longsworth rose like an ocean swell. She couldn’t stop them.

“Angel,” the duke said quietly, “are you perhaps as mad as I am?”

She spun to face him. Perhaps he was right. Perhaps she
was
mad. She could not think of anyone else who would drag a reluctant duke into a downpour. He would certainly think her deranged if this idea didn’t work. He would want to be rid of her at once.

Biting her lip, she hurried back to him. She placed his hand in the crook of her arm and led him to the edge of the terrace. He frowned as the breeze blew rain into his face and almost sent his beaver hat tumbling off his head. He caught it by instinct and replaced it. Then he licked droplets from his full lips with a sweep of his tongue.

“Are you sure about this, Cerise, my dear? We’re going to get soaked.”

“Yes, I’m certain.” Though in truth she wasn’t.

Lights glowed from some rooms of his house, warding off the afternoon gloom. With her hand clasped over his, Anne found the steps leading down from the terrace. Their boots crunched on the gravel path at the bottom at the same time. She led him a few yards from the house. “Stop and listen, Your Grace.”

He frowned. He tipped back his head. Just as she had done, he caught drops on his tongue. Then he pulled off his hat, letting the rain fall on his black hair. It didn’t take long before his thick, silky, newly trimmed hair gleamed like jet with wetness. Water dripped from his lips.

Anne caught her breath. Her hair was plastered to her face, her wet cloak sagged around her, and she suspected she looked like a drowned rat.

The Duke of March looked magnificent wet.

She truly looked at him for what he was—not only a duke with the wealth and power to save her and give her freedom but a man, a gorgeous one. She stared at his unusual lilac-purple eyes and his sensual, full-lipped mouth, and she saw the way the water droplets clung to his cheeks and aristocratic nose as though reluctant to let go. Heat washed across her face. Her bosom seemed to swell and tighten beneath his sandalwood-scented linen shirt.

She had never felt this with any one of her clients. Not this desire to keep watching a man just for the pleasure of it.

The duke’s fingertips coasted down her arm and he clasped her hand, threading his fingers with hers. His hand was warm and strong, his fingers big but elegant. He had touched her most intimate place, but this—standing in the rain, holding his hand—felt unique and special.

The duke had trusted her enough to do what she’d asked, even though he had doubts. What man had ever done that for her? “Tell me what you hear,” she urged.

He cocked his head. “I can hear the rain striking the ground.”

She had to explain more. “Listen to the sound of the rain on the leaves close to us—those are the roses. Can you hear the way the rain sounds when it lands on the
grass? Is it softer than the patter of the rain striking the gravel of the path?”

His dark brows drew together. “The clattering sound—is that rain hitting the window?”

Anne closed her eyes to experience it as he did. She tried to follow the sound, then opened her eyes. She was facing the house. “Yes, it is.”

“The drumming sound, as though it’s hitting something hard—what is that?” he asked.

“It might be the sound of rain on the path. Or the stone fountain. We are only half a dozen feet from the fountain.”

“All right. I think I can distinguish the sound of the raindrops on the water in the basin.”

Carefully, she described everything that surrounded them and how far they stood from each item, but then His Grace began to stroke her wet bare palm with his thumb and she stumbled over her words. That simple touch was so electric. She’d never had her hand caressed like this before.

“It’s beautiful,” he said huskily. “It’s like a magical sheet has been thrown over everything that was invisible to me. When I had sight, I could assess the world around me in an instant, but now that I’m blind, I wouldn’t know if a tree was stretching over my head, or if I was under a ceiling, or if there was nothing above but sky. The rain changes that.”

It was what she’d hoped he would discover, but the way he described it made her throat ache.

“How did you know this?” he asked.

“My grandfather used to like to walk in the rain. He told me he loved the sound of it on the leaves, loved the way it drummed on the roof of the house and spattered against the windows. Rain brought everything to life for him. You told me about the void that your mind fills in
with battle memories, and I thought this might help you.”

He stayed silent, and she could tell he wasn’t straining to listen to the rain anymore.

“My grandfather used to ask me to walk with him when it rained. Everyone thought he was mad to go out in a downpour, and my father worried about my health when I went out, but I didn’t mind. Wet clothes and hair can be dried. My grandfather was so delighted when I took him, and I loved it too. I loved the smell of the lawns and gardens.”

He tipped her chin up. His long lashes shielded his eyes, and droplets of rain hung on them like small diamonds. “I’ve had to fight in the rain,” he said, “but I never thought my blindness would force me to
walk
in a downpour to know where my house stands or what is above my head.”

Oh, no. Irony was thick in his tone. Perhaps her idea
had
been idiotic—

Then his large hands cradled her chin and his lips lowered to hers. For one moment she was mesmerized by the small glimpse of violet in his eyes. Suddenly his lashes dipped the rest of the way, and Anne gasped as his mouth came to hers. He kissed her sweetly. Her heart beat so fast she feared it would burst. She had never dreamed he would kiss her like this. He made love so fiercely, yet this … this was the most tender caress she’d ever known.

Last night she’d kissed him in the hopes of seducing him. He’d rejected the kiss, and after that, she hadn’t tried. She’d never dreamed the gentle touch of his mouth to hers would root her to the ground, would make all sound vanish, rain disappear, time cease. She’d thought the stroke of his thumb over her palm was electric—this was like being struck by lightning. This was dazzling. Heat washed over her. Dizzying heat, as if she had
walked too close to a raging fire. She was … 
steaming
, even in the cold rain.

His kiss deepened. His arms tightened around her, pulling her so close that her breasts crushed to his chest and she could barely draw breath. She’d never been held like this. She twined her arms around his neck to hold him, in case he changed his mind. Men rarely kissed, she knew that. They always wanted to move on to sex. Eventually the duke would want to stop. She didn’t want to let him—

He stopped. Anne’s heart dropped to her toes, until she realized he still held her. He wasn’t letting go, and his ragged breaths mingled with hers. “Thank you,” he growled, and his mouth slanted over hers once more.