How to Woo a Reluctant Lady (33 page)

Her amusement fled. “Is that so? And what about
you
, pray tell? All you do is keep your distance. So don’t accuse
me
of—”

A squeak from the doorway alerted them to someone’s presence. Giles pushed away from the wall and glowered at the maid, who stood mumbling apologies.

“Ah, good,” Minerva said blithely. “There’s the tea.”

“Leave it and go, Mary,” Giles ordered. “And close that damned door. We don’t want to be disturbed.”

“Y-yes, sir.” Mary darted in to set the tray down on the desk, then fled, shutting the door behind her.

“Speak for yourself.” Minerva glared at Giles. “I am perfectly happy to be disturbed when you’re behaving irrationally.”

“You haven’t begun to see me behave irrationally, Minerva.”

With a sniff, she edged past him for the door, but he blocked her path with a scowl. “I want to know what Pinter was saying to you so confidentially. How long have you been meeting secretly? Exactly how cordial
are
you two?”

She figured this wasn’t the moment to reveal that she’d hired Mr. Pinter to find out his secrets. Or that she had hundreds of questions for him. Best to wait for that until he’d calmed down.

She cast him a lowering stare. “I haven’t seen Mr. Pinter since the wedding, you dolt. There is certainly nothing going on between us, which you’d realize if you could ever see fit to trust me.”

The words seemed to shake him. “I do trust you.”

“Yes, I see how much you trust me. You think I’m having an affair with Mr. Pinter, of all people. Less than a week after our wedding. In
your
study.”

He had the good sense to look uneasy. “You have to admit that the two of you appeared very—”

“Cozy? Yes, you said that. And
you
have to admit that I’d be a fool indeed to carry on a flirtation with the door open for all the servants to see. You’re letting jealousy blind you to the facts.”

“It’s not jealousy,” he protested. “I merely don’t want people thinking that my wife might be . . .”

As he trailed off, she eyed him coldly. “Yes? Might be
what
? Visiting with a family friend? You have the audacity to worry about
my
actions when less than a week ago, you left me alone in a hotel to do God knows what, with little explanation?”

She pushed past him, now fully in a temper. But he grabbed her by the waist from behind and pulled her up against him to hiss in her ear, “If I ever really thought you were dallying with Pinter, I’d do more to the man than beat him up.”

She hated herself for it, but the possessive edge in his voice thrilled her. “Does that mean you
don’t
really think I’m dallying with Pinter?” At his hesitation, she snapped, “Well?”

His arm tightened about her waist. “All I know is that when I saw him sitting so close to you on that settee, I wanted to lay him out cold.”

“You were jealous,” she prodded. When he stiffened, she added, “For once in your life, be honest with yourself and me, Giles. You were jealous. Admit it.”

He muttered a foul curse. “All right. I was jealous.” He pressed his mouth against her ear. “I would never let another man have you. You know that, don’t you?”

She hadn’t known it. But she was certainly glad to know it now. “And I would never let another woman have you, so we’re even on that score.”

“Is that why you’ve been making me insane these past few
days? Holding me at arm’s length? Because you really thought I was with another woman in France?”

“Have I been making you insane?” she countered.

“You know you have,” he ground out.

“You deserve it.”

“Perhaps I do,” he said in a low, husky voice, “but not for the reasons you think. I want only you, Minerva. Never believe otherwise.”

“I don’t know
what
to believe with you.”

“Believe that I want you.”

“My body, you mean.”

“Not just that. All of you.” Moving his hand up, he fisted it against her chest, and his voice grew ragged. “Your heart. Your mind. I want the woman you’ve denied me ever since France. The woman who laughs with me, who opens herself to me.”

She could feel him hardening against her bottom, and it aroused her. He was different from before, more . . . impassioned. As if he really
felt
something for her. “You already have that woman, and you don’t even know what to do with her.”

“I know what I want to do with her right now.” He flattened his hand over her breast and lowered his voice to a thick growl. “I want to take her to bed.”

“No,” she whispered, just to see what he would do.

“Don’t deny me, love,” he said in a choked voice. “Not today.”

The word
love
drove her over the edge. Remembering how he’d claimed that she would never be able to “drag him about by his arousal,” she said, “Very well. But only if we do it my way.”

“Your way?” he echoed.

“You have to take me here. Now.”

“In my
study
?” he said, clearly flummoxed by the idea.

He’d never tried to seduce her anywhere but in the bedchamber, as if keeping her there somehow kept her out of the rest of his life. Well, she was putting an end to that.

“Yes. Oh, yes.” She rubbed herself against him, delighted to see that her suggestion had excited him even more. She wanted to see him lose control for once. She wanted to see
him
enthralled. “Take me like an animal, right here in your study.”

“If I were to take you like an animal, darling,” he rasped against her ear, “I’d bend you over my desk and take you from behind.”

The minute Giles said the words, he regretted them. What was he thinking, to propose such an outrageous thing to his
wife
? She wasn’t some whore, for God’s sake.

So he was shocked to hear her say, “Yes. Do
that.
”

His cock gave an instant response. It didn’t have any problem whatsoever with the idea. “It’s not . . . A man doesn’t . . . not with his wife.”

“Why not? Is there a separate set of rules for wives than for loose women?” She moved her bottom along his rigid flesh, and he thought he’d go out of his mind. “It’s here and now, like that, or nothing. I’ll sleep alone tonight if I must.”

“The hell you will.” So that’s what she wanted, did she? Him behaving like a beast?

Then he would damned well give it to her. He tugged her over to his desk. “Why do you want to do this?” he bit out as he urged her forward until she was bent over it with her hands resting atop it.

“You said you don’t want me keeping you at a distance,” she whispered as he lifted her skirts. “Well, I want all of you, too. I want you as you are, not the small part of yourself you offer when you come to me in our bed. I want your heart and mind
and even your soul. I want your trust.”

Never trusting anyone is a hard way to live.

Damn Ravenswood for putting that thought into his head. “You want to twist me about your finger,” he growled.

“Yes,” she admitted without a trace of remorse.

“Bloody temptress,” he muttered. Yet at the moment he didn’t care. He was so hungry for her, for the
real
her, not the version she’d been giving him, that he could hardly think straight.

He fumbled to open his trousers, frantic with his need for her. The sight of her with her tender parts exposed to the air, exposed to
him
, was fueling his lust beyond endurance.

He didn’t like being at her bidding, yet he did her bidding anyway. “Demanding wench. You won’t rest until you have me panting at your feet like a lapdog.”

Though she trembled a little in his arms, she managed a chuckle. “Somehow I can’t imagine you as a lapdog. I imagine you more as a slave to my feminine charms.”

At this moment, that’s what he was. He spread her legs with his knee, more roughly than he should. “Given your present position, I’d say you’re the one who’s the slave.”

He slid his fingers inside her drawers to fondle her. When he found her hot and moist and ready for him, he nearly spent his seed right there. “My God, you feel so good . . . I don’t know how long I can wait to be inside you.”

“Remind me again, who’s the slave here?” she taunted.

“Damn you,” he hissed as he jerked down her drawers, then rubbed his hard flesh against her. “You enjoy torturing me, don’t you?”

“No more than . . . you enjoy torturing me.” She let out a gasp when he slid into her without warning. “Night after night . . . lingering over me . . . never losing control . . .”

“I’m bloody well . . . losing control now,” he rasped as he
began to thrust hard, his breathing heavy and thick.

“Good,” she whispered.

Teasing wench. Maddening seductress. She wanted him at her mercy, and God knows she was getting him there with this little stunt.

But he wasn’t going to be alone in all this wanting. He reached under her to cup her breast, kneading it through her clothes. His other hand found her pleasure spot and worked it feverishly.

“You won’t be so pleased . . . if I finish too quickly.” His voice grew hoarse as he pumped into her, unable to restrain himself. “God help me, I haven’t even . . . kissed you . . . sucked your lovely breasts . . .”

“I don’t care! Take me quickly. Show me what you want.”

“What I want is you, darling . . . so badly . . . you have no idea.” The words boiled out of him, unthinking truths he couldn’t help admitting. “All I think about is you. Having you. Being with you the way you were before. When you were truly mine.”

“Oh, Giles,” she breathed. “I’ve always been truly yours.”

The words made him exult and panic at the same time. He couldn’t stop pounding into her, holding her hips steady so he could slam into her over and over, rough and fast. His untrammeled need was apparently arousing her, for she squirmed and shimmied beneath him, her breath quickening, her body shaking.

“Forgive me, darling,” he choked out, “I can’t . . . I have to . . . I can’t wait . . .”

He drove into her deeply, triggering her own climax, which she confirmed with her scream of pleasure. And as he poured his seed into her, his hands gripping her hips hard, he reveled at having finally broken through to the real Minerva. The one
he wanted beyond all reason.

Afterward they stood there breathing heavily, like thoroughbreds after crossing the finish line. For a moment, he relished the feel of her against him, her beautiful bottom and thighs so soft that he wanted to stay cradled in them forever.

But his body was already softening. He withdrew from her, scarcely able to believe that he’d just taken his wife over his desk. It was so intensely erotic that he knew he’d be dreaming of it for nights to come.

He hoped she would be, too. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“I’m far better than all right,” she murmured.

Pleased by that, he drew up her drawers, lowered her skirts, then pulled her around into his arms so he could kiss her. God, how he’d missed having her like this, eager in his arms, meeting him kiss for kiss with wild abandon.

When he drew back, the softness in her expression was a punch to his gut. “No more walls between us, all right?” he whispered.

She nodded. “No more walls.” She cupped his face, pressed a kiss to his mouth, then drew back from him. “That’s why it’s time you tell me about Newmarsh and Sir John Sully, and what really happened that night you were gone in Calais.”

Minerva could tell Giles hadn’t been expecting that. He stood frozen. “What . . . how did you . . .” Then understanding came over his face, and he released a bitter oath. “That’s why Pinter was here. You had him investigate me.”

She nodded, bracing herself for his anger.

“You told him about the theft of those papers, I suppose,” he ground out, moving away from her to button up his drawers and trousers. “You risked my career and our future—”

“It wasn’t a risk. He’s very discreet, and I made it clear that if he ever told another soul about it, I would have his head on a platter. But I had to do something. You were never going to tell me the truth. And I had to know.”

“Why?” he snapped. “Why the hell is it so important that you know everything about my life?”

“Because you know everything about mine.”

A stunned look crossed his face.

“You’ve known it all for some time,” she went on. “What you haven’t learned from my family or me directly, you’ve deduced from my novels. Who I am. What matters to me.” Her eyes filled with tears. “Yet I know nothing except the tiny bits you deign to let me see.”

He dragged his fingers through his hair, clearly uncomfortable, and she pressed on. “Don’t you understand? How can I be a wife to you when you keep so much of yourself secret from me? When you won’t even trust me? Here you were,
stealing papers to avenge your father, and you let me think—”

“Pinter told you that?” he interrupted hoarsely. “That I stole those papers because of my father?”

“Mr. Pinter said that what you stole was instrumental in bringing Sir John Sully to justice. And that your father had lost money in an investment with the man. He said that was the real reason your father killed himself.”

Giles fixed her with a dark glance. “How the bloody hell did he find all that out?”

“I don’t know.” She met his gaze warily. “He merely said he had it on very good authority. I gathered that his informant was someone high in government. Although the man knew the role of the papers, he didn’t know where they’d come from. But Mr. Pinter put it together after having heard my part of the story.”

When Giles muttered a curse and glanced away from her, she went on hastily, “What you did is nothing to be ashamed of. Who could blame you for avenging your father’s death? Surely you didn’t think I would.”

“You might,” he said in a dull voice. “If you knew what the result could be.”

She sucked in a breath. “You mean, because of whatever happened in Calais.”

He swung a startled gaze back to her.

“Come now, Giles, I know that
something
occurred in Calais to upset you. We were having a lovely honeymoon until that last night. And Mr. Pinter told me that the government used those papers to make Newmarsh help them send Sir John to the gallows. That in exchange for his help, Newmarsh was pardoned but exiled from England and is now living in France. It can’t be a coincidence that you wanted us to travel there.”