How to Romance a Rake (33 page)

“You were a child, darling,” she told Alec against his temple, holding him to her breast as if he were the child he had been all those years ago. “You can have done nothing to stop your father from hurting her. If you had intervened he would likely have hurt you too.”

She felt him tremble against her, his grief over his memory of that awful day, coupled with the absolution she offered, seeming to draw a response that was at once sorrowful and cathartic. He took her mouth in a kiss that was none too gentle. And she welcomed it.

“Juliet,” he murmured against her mouth, stroking his tongue between the seam of her lips, “Sweet, combative Juliet.”

She might have objected to being characterized as thus, but she was too overcome by the feel of his strong arms surrounding her, his hard body pressed insistently against hers. Her need to comfort him with words was swiftly transformed into a desperation to comfort him with her body, to give him everything he asked of her now.

Wanting to feel his skin against hers, she pulled his shirt from where it was tucked into his breeches, even as he pulled the sash of her dressing gown and bared her to his gaze.

“Beautiful,” Alec said, lifting her into his arms. All Juliet’s worries of how to surreptitiously remove her prosthetic foot were forgotten in the heady sensation of skin against skin as Alec swept her against his strong chest and carried her to the bed.

He pulled the counterpane down, along with the top sheet, and laid her down on the mattress.

“You are so lovely,” he whispered, climbing up after her, stroking a reverent hand over the skin of her breasts, her belly, her legs. He paused just above the place on her right calf where her wooden foot was fastened to her with a small corset that wound round her just below the knee. Juliet had laced it with a red ribbon, a touch of whimsy and prettiness for the utilitarian instrument that was at once a shoe and not a shoe at all.

Just as he had done with the sash of her dressing gown, Alec pulled the red ribbon, untying it and unlacing the contraption from where it held the false foot in place. Before Juliet could stop him, before she even knew what he was about, her husband hovered over her newly liberated lower leg, pressing his lips against the indentations in her skin where the ribbon and canvas had pressed into her skin.

To her shock, he ran his tongue over the seamlike scar that ran down and around the bottom of her leg, where once her ankle had been.

“Don’t,” she said, instinctively pulling her leg away from him. But Alec’s grip was firm, and strong.

“Juliet,” he said, even as he worked his way up her leg toward her knee, “your leg is nothing to be ashamed of. It is a part of you. And I am determined to worship,” he said against her thigh, “every…”

He kissed her inner thigh. “Last…”

He moved up her body toward that part of her that cried out to feel his mouth close over it. “Part.”

With that last word, he slipped her knees over his shoulders and kissed her extravagantly at the apex of her thighs, his lips, teeth, and tongue working against the sensitive skin of her molten core in a way that robbed her of breath.

Her every objection to such an intimate position was forgotten in the sheer overwhelming pleasure of his mouth on her. Before long she was moving involuntarily against him, and when he added his fingers into the mix, she had little choice but to succumb to the onslaught of sensation overtaking her.

She was still trembling with her release when she felt him move up her body, felt him take her mouth with a tenderness that nearly moved her to tears, her own flavor still present on his lips.

“Thank you,” he said against her mouth, settling his body between her thighs.

“For what?” she asked dreamily, her body’s languor from her earlier release being quickly replaced with a growing excitement at the feel of him pressed against her.

“For letting me in,” he said simply. And before she could ask just what that meant, he lifted her hips and pressed himself into her, and thoughts were no longer possible.

Twenty

Unwilling to subject herself to another day of sitting in her own drawing room and being ogled like the unfortunate creatures in the London Zoo, Juliet informed Hamilton the next morning that she was not at home to callers.

Alec had gone out before breakfast, but not before a very satisfactory good morning that had left them both thoroughly sated. After his confidences of the night before, she felt closer to him than she had since their hasty marriage. It had been difficult to lower the defenses she’d spent the past several years putting solidly into place, but the more she came to know Alec—not the fashionable creature who led the
ton
about by the ear, but the real man beneath the costume—the more she simply liked him. He was funny and self-deprecating, but what she appreciated most of all was that he did not treat her like some wounded bird who needed to be rescued or mended.

Even when they had not known the true reason for her limp, the gentlemen she had interacted with since her injury had always made her consciously aware that they knew. It went beyond mere consideration—she would not have minded a discreetly offered arm to lean on—but instead was an emphasis on the fact that she was
other
. That they even condescended to speak to her was always held up, albeit without direct acknowledgment of the fact, as an act worthy of accolades. She should be grateful for their attention, they seemed to say.

But with Alec, there had never been the least hint that he considered himself her superior. Always, even when they had hardly known one another, he had treated her as a woman, not a person, worthy of his attention. It was a heady thing to be noticed by a man as charismatic as Lord Deveril. But it was the notice of Alec Devenish that truly made her heart sing. And that was what terrified her most of all.

After a leisurely breakfast in her room, Juliet headed for the music room to practice. The tumult of her life these past weeks had left her with little time for the things she had done as a matter of routine in her old life. Now, having been so long away from the music that she loved, Juliet sat down at the perfectly tuned instrument and to her pleasure found that her own sheet music had been installed there. Taking the new sonata by Beethoven she had purchased just before her escape from her parents’ home, she applied herself to it, taking out all the frustrations and angst of the past weeks on the highly polished keys of the pianoforte.

She had just mastered a particularly difficult passage halfway through the work when she heard an apologetic throat clearing behind her.

“I beg your pardon, my lady,” Hamilton said from the doorway, “but you have visitors and they insisted upon seeing you.”

Before he could step forward to give her the card, Juliet saw her father and a gentleman she did not know pressing into the room.

“Daughter,” Lord Shelby said, his voice clipped, “tell this fellow that you will see us and send him away at once.”

Juliet opened her mouth to protest, but her father continued. “I know you have little reason to welcome a visit from either of your parents, but I promise you that what I have to tell you is of import. Not only for you but for your husband as well.”

Since this was the most her father had spoken to her in some years, Juliet found herself nonplussed. Why on earth would he be so insistent upon speaking to her unless what he had to say was truly important? Deciding to let her curiosity rule her in this instance, she waved Hamilton away and led her visitors to the arrangement of seats on the opposite side of the room.

“Father,” she said, her tone imperious, much to her secret pleasure, “I see that you have returned from Paris. Pray continue with what you have to say.”

Now that he’d gained entry, Lord Shelby had the decency to look abashed. As she gazed upon him, Juliet realized that this was the most haggard she’d ever seen him. Gone was the elegant, controlled diplomat she’d become accustomed to. In his place she saw a man who got too little rest and who had pushed himself beyond his limits.

“I do not believe you have met Admiral Frye,” Lord Shelby said, gesturing to the man next to him.

As her father’s companion bowed, Juliet noticed for the first time that his coat sleeve was pinned up where his right arm should be.

“My lady,” the admiral said with what appeared to be genuine pleasure, “I am delighted to make the acquaintance of the young lady who has set the
haut ton
on its ear.”

Juliet looked from one to the other of the two men. “I do not understand, Papa,” she said carefully. Could her father actually have brought this man who had clearly lost his arm in battle to give her some sort of encouragement about her own injury? The idea was so foreign as to be laughable.

Perhaps sensing the tension between the father and daughter, the naval man stepped into the breach. “Lady Deveril, I requested that your father, whom I have known since we were both in short coats, bring me to see you as soon as I learned of your courage the other evening at the Wallingford ball.”

“But there was nothing courageous about what I did,” Juliet said, shaking her head. “My secret was revealed and I took the soonest opportunity to make my escape. It hardly compares with what you must have endured in the war.” She paused, and color suffused her cheeks. “Unless your injury was not received during the war. I simply assumed with your naval background that…”

Frye laughed heartily. “No, indeed,” he assured her, “you are perfectly correct. I lost my arm at Trafalgar, make no mistake on it. And I wasn’t the only one that day either. Though I was lucky enough not to have perished like Nelson did.” He sobered at the thought of the great hero of the maritime war against Napoleon.

“Still,” he continued, “though I don’t say that it’s exactly the same as what we went through, I do know how difficult it is to face a room full of folk staring at you like you’ve just waltzed out onto the dance floor without a stitch of clothes on.”

Lord Shelby glared at his friend, who had the grace to blush. “Begging your pardon, of course, my lady.”

Since she was unaccustomed to her father’s notice of her at all, his protection of her delicate sensibilities came as a surprise. The whole meeting was extraordinary.

“I didn’t know,” Lord Shelby said, so quickly upon the heels of his friend’s apology that at first Juliet thought he meant that he did not know the admiral would be forced to beg her pardon. But as he went on, her father’s meaning became clear.

“I knew of course that you were injured in Vienna,” he continued, his shoulders slumped in defeat. “But I was always inclined to believe that the sickroom was a lady’s purview. I did check in on you, of course. And received daily updates from your mother upon your progress, but I did not know the…” He paused, the lines around his eyes and mouth making him seem older than his years. “For God’s sake, I did not know you lost your foot! And your mother never informed me of the fact.”

The anguish in her father’s voice was genuine.

As if unable to remain still, Lord Shelby rose from his chair and stood before the fireplace, his hands clasped behind his back.

So unexpected was her father’s confession it sent a jolt of surprise through Juliet that shook her to her core. “You did not know?” she echoed. “How is that possible? You were in the same house. You came to visit me in my sickroom afterward.”

But as she cast her mind back to those terrible days when she lay burning up with fever after the amputation, and the subsequent cauterization, Juliet realized that she remembered little of that time. Aside from the pain of course. Hours and hours of unrelenting pain.

“No,” her father said, “I didn’t visit you.” His eyes burned with remorse. “You must remember that those were the weeks leading up to Waterloo, and the entire diplomatic corps was working night and day to secure an agreement, which we did manage in those few days before the battle. Your mother assured me that you were being well cared for, and to my shame, I believed her.”

And Juliet realized he told the truth. Strange that even now she could be disappointed in her father’s lack of interest in her. She had thought she’d eradicated that need to please him long ago. But it would appear that some habits were nearly impossible to break.

“So you are here for what, exactly?” she asked him with a coolness that should please her but only made her stomach ache. “Apologies? Redemption?”

Lord Shelby stepped away from the mantel and knelt before her, like a supplicant. Taking her hands in his, he looked up into her eyes, and Juliet was surprised, and to her shame, moved, to see tears in them.

“Juliet,” he said softly, “I am so utterly sorry that I was not there for you during what must have been the most dreadful weeks of your life.” He shook his head. “My God, you were a girl, a child, really, and you endured more than many men who have been through battle.”

She wanted to punish him for his selfishness, but Juliet knew that the blame did not lie with Lord Shelby. He had been embroiled in difficult diplomatic negotiations at the time. And he had relied upon his wife to let him know of anything he might need to be aware of. No, the real blame lay upon Lady Shelby’s head, though it was doubtful that she would ever be punished for her misdeeds.

“I forgive you, Papa,” she told him, squeezing his hands, and before she could say more, she found herself gathered to him in a hug, something she had not experienced since she was a small child.

“Thank you, daughter,” Lord Shelby said against her hair. “Thank you.”

The sound of a cough alerted father and daughter to the continued presence of Admiral Frye in the room. “Don’t mean to break up the happy reunion,” the older man said, “but I do have another appointment this afternoon.”

“Of course.” Lord Shelby drew back at once, and smiled ruefully at his friend. “Apologies, Frye. I forgot you were there.”

“Don’t mention it,” Frye said. “It does my heart good to see the two of you mending fences. A daughter should be able to rely on her father’s protection.”

Juliet wasn’t sure she’d go so far as to say that, but she was glad to have finally come to an understanding with Lord Shelby. She did not think she would need his support now that she had Alec to turn to, but she looked forward to renewing her acquaintance with the one parent she did not hold in contempt.