FromNowOn (3 page)

Sebastian hadn’t intended to be duplicitous but if that was
what it took to see her, so be it. Once she knew he was gone she would come out
of hiding. Tibbets threw the empty valise into the carriage and Sebastian
tossed his coat on the seat opposite before he and Tibbets climbed in.

The carriage jerked into motion.

About a mile down the road, he rapped on the ceiling and the
carriage slowed. The rain had started again, a slow, miserable drizzle that
would no doubt soak him to the bone before he got back to the manse. He had
instructed the coachman to travel to the inn outside Camborne and there to wait
further news. Tibbets only raised a brow as Sebastian set off.

What if it was all for naught?

By the time he trudged up the lane, water was dripping down
his back. He supposed men had performed more masterful feats and endured
greater miseries in the name of love. The rain did provide a decent cover for
his clandestine return though. He walked toward the stables and then along the
tree line before arriving at the back of the house.

Would she have let her guard down already? Would she have
magically reappeared the moment his carriage had departed? He did not have the
patience for such games, though he had no right to judge her actions when his
were still in question.

As he eased into the back door located on this wing of the
house, he stayed alert for any signs of servants lest she be made aware of his
return.

The hallway was still. He slipped into her room a second
time and shucked his greatcoat before he found a chair to drape it over. His
jacket, waistcoat and boots followed. The duchess would have to accept that he
was in a state of undress when she arrived. If she arrived.

Would he be able to endure seeing what Hammond had done to
her?

There was nothing to do now but wait. She would be angry, of
course. He positioned himself in a comfortable chair on the right side of the
room to alleviate at least part of the surprise. When she entered, he would see
her good side. He was not ready to see her scars. He really wasn’t.

Last night had been unplanned. Tonight he would reveal
himself, allowing her the opportunity to expose herself when she was ready.

At last the door creaked open and shut just as quickly.

Again she was in the dark. He didn’t wait for her to light a
candle.

“Grace?”

Mr. Felix confirmed to her Sebastian had gone.

She hurried to her room, feeling the need to have one last
bout of tears before she put this episode behind her. After all this time, why
had he come? Why had he done this to her?

Initial devastation gave way to reality and slowly her world
had been set right again as she accepted what had happened. She wanted to
believe she had grown stronger but Sebastian’s presence brought back all of her
fears.

Her room was dark since she had told her lady’s maid she was
unneeded today. Grace liked the dark. For her it was peaceful.

“Grace?”

She gasped and turned toward his voice. Her heart leapt, not
able to recognize the difference between fright and joy.

“Grace, please hear me out.”

“You’re not supposed to be here. You left.”
You left.

“I didn’t leave. I had to see you.”

“No. You must leave now.” Only his outline was visible and
he seemed to be drawing closer. She took a step back. “You are not welcome
here.”

“Am I not?” he asked.

Gawd, his voice. He knew how to use all of his not
inconsiderable assets to get what he wanted. There was no demand or rebuke,
only the husky sound of desire—misplaced to be sure.

He was near. His hands gripped her shoulders and he pulled
her close. “I know you, Grace. Nothing will ever change our friendship.”

“Everything has changed.” She struggled but his grip was
firm. Instead she pressed her hands against his chest—his solid, wide and warm
chest.

His hands slid down her arms and then one arm encircled her
waist, holding her loosely but very near. “I should have never let you go.”

“Don’t,” she said. “It’s too late.” She kept her face
averted but his breath caressed her skin.

“It’s too late for what?”

His hand touched her side and slid over her hip. His other
hand gripped her fingers and brought them to his lips. His touch was
affectionate and devastatingly warm. Many, many nights she had dreamed of him,
from the time she was seventeen.

After her marriage, she had clung to her duty, but oh at
night, at night he would slip into her dreams and do things to her.

Things that were only possible in dreams.

“Why are you here?” She croaked as she said the words and
there was no real command in them, only a desperate need to know.

“You know why. You have always known I would come for you.”

“Yes, seven years too late, Ridgley. You are too late.”

He continued kissing her hand and then each of her fingers.
Then her palm.

“Too late,” she said again, barely whispering the words.

She could not breathe.

She jerked her hand from his and braced it against his
chest, fearful she was about to fall. He pressed his body next to hers. His
lips touched her forehead.

“It’s never too late.” He stepped forward, propelling her
back toward the bed.

Then she was falling backward onto the soft mattress.
Ridgley’s hand supported the small of her back as he went down with her. Her
hands dug into his shoulders.

“No.”

“What are you saying no to?”

She couldn’t answer. Honesty warred against hurt feelings
and anger. What would happen in the daylight hours when he actually saw her?

His lips traced a path down the right side of her face and
then her neck. “I want this,” he said. “I’ve wanted this as long as I’ve known
you.”

“You had your chance.” She did not want to be honest now.
She wanted to hurt him. She wanted to deny him the way he had denied her but
nothing had ever been so hard as refusing Sebastian Traynor.

And she needed to extinguish this fire heating her bones.

When he rolled to his side, she cooled.

His hand moved up her body, sliding over the slope of her
breasts. When his fingers reached the left side of her neck, she gripped his
hand. She wasn’t strong enough to stop him but he did not force her.

“I didn’t come here to hurt you,” he said. One of his
fingers soothed over her skin near her scars. Too near.

The darkness shielded everything. Closing her eyes wouldn’t
help. He wasn’t going away. “You couldn’t hurt me more than you already have.”

“You blame me?” he asked. There was no denial in his voice,
only a question.

“Can we not talk about this in the morning?”

“No. I won’t have you running off again or refusing to see
me. I didn’t come here to be turned away without even a chance—”

“There is no chance. What Hammond did to me changed me. I’m
not that silly young girl who thought you walked on water.”

“And I’m not the foolish boy who walked away from the best
thing that could have happened to him.”

He touched her chin with one finger and turned her head. For
the first time in seven years, she felt the touch of his lips to hers. Slow,
sweet and with the ability to make her blind with yearning. Only time had
intensified the need. She clenched her eyes and dug her fingers into his arms.
If he walked away from her at this moment she would die.

“Do you remember when we raced my curricle to Hounslow
Heath?” His lips touched her as he spoke, soft brushes of his skin and wisps of
his breath caressing as any besotted lover might.

“I almost lost my new bonnet.” It was a wonder she could
even speak.

“I thought your father was going to shoot me when he found
out.”

She felt laughter but it was mixed with the sadness of tears
and the sound came out a garbled mess. “I’m sorry. I—”

He kissed her again. When he pulled away, his face was still
close, faintly visible in the darkened room.

“I had to dance the first waltz of this Season with Gina
Smithchild.”

Since you weren’t there
, he seemed to imply.

They had always danced the first waltz together, since
Hammond hated to dance. He might have hated to dance more than he disliked
Sebastian. She had allowed their dance to be her secret pleasure, pretending it
didn’t matter and pretending she was only doing him a great service to be seen
dancing with a duchess. And then he became the earl.

“She probably thought you were going to offer for her.”

“At least her mamma did.”

“What a lucky escape for Miss Smithchild.”

“She had a feather in her hair that swept over her head and
into my face. I could barely get her around a turn.”

Grace did laugh this time until she realized he was slipping
the tiny buttons at the front of her bodice.

“Why, Sebastian? Tomorrow will come. You will leave.”

“Do you want me to leave?” he asked.

Did she? Here in the dark, she could almost make herself
believe it was possible for him to stay. They could whisper anecdotes about the
past. They could discuss their families and friends. They could pretend.

But she couldn’t pretend she didn’t want him. Now that she
had touched him, she couldn’t send him away. Not tonight.

“I’m not beautiful anymore, Seb.” She reached for him,
running her fingers through his hair. “And you need beauty and perfection and
accomplishment.”

“What I need is you.”

“Go back to London. Forget about me. Return to your
mistress.”

“I haven’t had one since the day Hammond was killed. And not
to be crass, but it has been a damned sight uncomfortable. You see, I’ve grown
desperate. I rode halfway across England to be with you. The least you could do
is allow me a few moments of mindless pleasure before you send me packing.”

“Be serious, would you?”

“I am.”

His hand cupped her breast. He pressed his lips to her neck.

“It has been so long.” She sighed with longing. It was not
just the touch of a man causing such a thrill—Sebastian had always induced
physical torment. What would it hurt? She could wake in the morning and pretend
it was all a beautiful dream. In reality, it would be the culmination of her
most cherished desire—to be with Sebastian. Except in her dream, she was still
the diamond, the beauty everyone had fawned over. And for that beauty, she had
sold herself to the highest bidder.

Sebastian sat up and tugged at his linen shirt, the white of
it nearly glowing. When he stood beside the bed, she could no longer see him.
She could hear that he was removing his breeches.

What had she been hiding from all day? Her fear? Her desires
for him? He knew she was scarred and he came anyway.

When he sat at the edge of the bed, he removed her shoes.
When his hand slid up her leg and peeled back her stocking, she gasped. His
fingers seemed to travel more slowly up her other leg, the tie loosened with
less haste and her stocking peeled back with deliberate attention to every inch
of her skin. Her heart galloped as if she were being chased. Her mouth had gone
dry. Because he had touched her leg.

“Seb?” She reached for him. He lowered himself beside her.
His naked heat seared through her clothing, his scent filling her senses.

“I love you, Grace. I always have.”

When his mouth moved over her lips, she opened for him,
wanting to taste him again, to take him in. To be part of him.

His hand worked at her bodice, finally peeling back her
sleeves and her chemise. When her arms were bare and free, she wrapped them
around his neck and pulled him closer. His chest, lightly furred, rubbed
against her breasts.

“Leave it,” she said between kisses. She reached for her
skirts and pulled the material to her waist.

Sebastian leaned over her, his breath warming her breast. He
slid his hand between her legs, wet with undeniable desire for him. “I would
promise you the moon if you would let me light a candle right now,” he said.

He had always made her laugh—he had always been irreverent,
inappropriate and uninhibited. A perfect foil for her youth and innocence and
naïveté. Opposites.

And attracted.

But what did they have in common now? She, the lonely and
ugly widow. He, the dashing, unattainable bachelor who had rejected her when
she had those things men like him wanted—beauty and desirability.

What had she to offer now?

He was no longer the second son in want of a fortune and
willing to accept a less-than-perfect wife.

His fingers soothed through the aching folds between her
legs. His mouth sucked at her breast. The sweet, gentle tugging of his mouth.
The cool wetness as air caressed the firmed tip. The sharp, unfulfilled
pleasure of longing.

Had it ever been like this with Hammond? This craving? This
willingness to abandon propriety and do what her head knew was wrong but her
heart wanted more than anything?

He didn’t rush. Slowly he stroked and circled. Where he led,
she followed.

Sweet peace enveloped her body. Each kiss and caress
entranced her.

She hummed with every chord he played until she could do
nothing but forget and enjoy the beauty of the moment.

“Do you forgive me, Grace?”

She pulled him closer. Now that he was here she did not want
to think about the mistakes they had made and she did not want to let him go.

His skin was warm. She searched the contours of his back and
then traced down his arms. Broad-shouldered and muscular, he was sinfully
formed. With clothes, his physique had whetted her curiosity. Without? He was
fire and earth come to life. He felt like she imagined he would. Solid. Full of
life.

She wanted to absorb his essence, to remember each moment
before it all came to an end. They shared a wonderful past, one she believed
was perfect until Hammond’s title had intruded. One where the darkness allowed
her to keep alive her dreams of flawlessness.

In his arms she was whole again.

She was the beautiful Miss Grace Lawton, desired by the one
man she had wanted above all others.

Everything came together. She arched upward as he pushed
fingers inside her body and his mouth devoured hers, his tongue sweeping inside
and taking possession. She gripped the sheets, arching against the rising tide.

Seb stroked along the wet folds between her legs. Knowing
touches, as if he had been with her many times and understood the secrets of
her body. He was slow. He circled the nub, now swollen and sensitive. And then
dipped into her sheath to tease her with the promise of things to come.

Each touch made her gasp. She undulated against his fingers,
encouraging him.

At her breasts, his mouth worshiped each budded nipple in
turn. The lavish attention was enough to make her mad with need.

She speared her fingers into his hair, the silken strands
just another tie to bind her to Sebastian.

The dull ache of desire weighted her limbs and spread as if
she were in a cloud of drug-induced euphoria. She had always been addicted to
the madness and magic of loving Sebastian Traynor.

She didn’t scream when the pleasure consumed her but the
groan that emanated from deep inside made her doubly glad Sebastian could not
see her true self.

Beauty radiated outward, lifting her in perfect pleasure.
Seb was with her, his mouth and hands pushing her onward. For long seconds she
lost herself, clawing at the need to stay in this secret place where only she
could see and feel true beauty.

The descent was just as sharp, her body jerking against the
pulsing contractions.

Oh, it was so good here in the dark with Sebastian. She
mewled, a soft utterance proclaiming her complete happiness.

When she could hear something other than the sound of her
own desperate panting, she heard Sebastian whisper, “Grace, I want to be inside
you now.”

It was impossible to say no to someone she had wanted since
she’d first met him. Not when he was this close, not when she was feeling
desired and not when she thought this might be her only chance to feel perfect
again.

He took her silence for acquiescence, but instead of
mounting her, he rolled her over and unfastened her skirts, working them down
her legs and throwing the swath of material to the floor. Then he peeled away
the rest of the rumpled gown.