Lady Beauchamp's Proposal (19 page)

“Beth?” Lord Rothsburgh stood and took a
step toward her. She backed away and his face fell. He looked
haunted. Stricken.

“I’m sorry, Beth,” he whispered. “I’ve
shocked you.”

“Yes.” Her breath was coming in short ragged
gasps. “I…I just need some air…I need to think.” She took another
step back, and then another.

And then she turned and fled.

* * * *

Elizabeth didn’t stop until she reached her
bedchamber. She shut the door and sank to the floor. Her legs were
shaking and she realized she was crying. She felt so unlike
herself, it was as if she didn’t know who she was anymore.

What, in God’s name, am I going to do?

The only sensible, sane thing to do, was
pack her trunk and leave here first thing tomorrow morning, as soon
as the tide was safely out, as she should have done this
morning.

But she didn’t feel sensible, or the least
bit sane. She felt as if she’d broken into a thousand pieces. The
image of Lord Rothsburgh’s tortured expression when she’d rejected
him, kept entering her mind. As well as the memory of his
heart-stopping, bone-melting kiss. She had never, ever been kissed
like that before. And probably never would again.

How could she walk away from that?

But she must. She pushed herself up and
brushed the tears from her eyes. Crying wouldn’t do her any good.
She must be strong. She would endure this set back because there
really was no other choice.

Elizabeth crossed to the wardrobe and began
to remove, and neatly fold her gowns before placing them into her
travelling trunk. She could do this. See, it was easy. She’d only
been here two weeks. She would soon forget about the too handsome,
too charismatic, too tempting Lord Rothsburgh and his kisses.

I’m such a hopeless liar, even to
myself.

She dropped her dark grey, wool gown onto
the pile in the trunk, and stared at her right hand. Her wedding
band glimmered dully. What she suddenly couldn’t work out, was why
she kept lying to herself that her marriage to Hugh mattered at
all? She had truly loved Hugh at the start, and had tried so hard
to make it work, but he had forsaken her and their marriage vows
long ago. So why was she still trying so hard to remain faithful to
a man who had never valued her love or commitment in the first
place, and had broken his own promises to her countless times; a
man who would have carelessly infected her with a deadly
disease?

She had no idea.

Before she could stop herself, she slid off
the ring and dropped it into her trunk. Then turned to go back to
the library.

As she traversed the hall and descended the
stairs, her footsteps quickened. She was being reckless. She was
being wicked. This new shameless Elizabeth—the woman who no longer
wore a wedding ring—decided that she didn’t care that what she was
doing was dangerous, not when she was standing on the brink of
something that promised to be the most profound experience that she
would probably ever have.

Perhaps she would be damned, but right here,
right now she was willing to risk all for the chance to have
something that she’d always been denied—the physical fulfillment of
her desire. She suddenly knew who she wanted to be. Not Elizabeth,
the Countess of Beauchamp. Not Mrs. Beth Eliott.

She would be Lord Rothsburgh’s
mistress
.

* * * *

After Beth had fled from the library—from
him—Rothsburgh had taken the bottle of Burgundy and his glass over
to his chair by the fire with the intention of getting as drunk as
humanly possible. Anything to drown his frustration and anguish at
Beth’s rejection. She said she’d needed air, time to think, but he
knew she’d only said those things out of desperation so she could
leave. She wouldn’t be back.

He’d shocked her. In fact, he’d made a
complete hash of everything. Come morning, he suspected Beth would
be packed and waiting to cross the causeway at the earliest
opportunity to go back to Torhaven, in order to catch the
mail-coach to Edinburgh or Aberdeen. He’d see that his
man-of-business paid her for her first quarter. No, to hell with
that paltry amount—he’d pay her a six month wage. She would need
some funds to sustain herself until she found another situation. A
better situation. At least one where her employer didn’t
proposition her to become his mistress.

How had he got it all so wrong?

Because you are an arrogant, selfish
brute that’s why
. He’d thought to reduce a lovely, virtuous
woman into something less than she deserved to be—a means of
relieving his tension, an entertaining diversion. And now she was
gone.

Rothsburgh didn’t want to think of it, how
much it bothered him that he’d treated her so shabbily. He
especially didn’t want to think about the kiss he’d stolen from
her; a kiss that had shaken him to his very core and had left him
craving so much more.

But there would be no more kisses. There
would be no more Beth at all.

He’d perhaps made his way through two-thirds
of the Burgundy when he heard the door to the library open, then
shut. Even though he’d instructed Roberts not to bother coming back
to clear the dinner trays, sometimes the man couldn’t help himself,
and would return to check if his master required anything else
before retiring for the night.

“It’s all right, Roberts,” he called, not
bothering to turn around in his chair. “I don’t need anything
tonight. Just take yourself to bed, man.”

“It’s…it’s not Roberts, my lord.”

Beth.

Rothsburgh sprang from his seat. He couldn’t
believe it. But there she was, coming slowly toward him, her cheeks
flushed and her ash blonde hair spilling in hopeless disarray from
its fearsome bun, courtesy of his careless predation during their
kiss.

“I…I thought…I didn’t think you’d come
back.” His voice sounded cracked, broken. What did she want from
him? He couldn’t even allow himself to think she’d changed her
mind. He wouldn’t believe she had until she said the words.

She paused before him, but an arm’s length
away and he noticed then that she was just as breathless as he was.
Her luminous grey eyes locked with his. “I…I have considered your
proposition, my lord.”

“And?” He was on a knife’s edge. The
suspense was killing him. “What did you decide, Mrs. Eliott?”

She smiled softly and reached out her hand,
placing it against his cheek. “I want to be your mistress,” she
murmured. “That is, if you still want me.”

There was only one suitable response to her
statement as far as Rothsburgh was concerned. He caught her against
his chest and kissed her, his mouth laying claim to her so
completely that she would not doubt his need for her—or that he did
indeed, still want her.

She gasped against him, but surrendered to
the demands of his lips and questing tongue. She tasted delicious.
More intoxicating and heady than wine or whisky could ever be.
Sweeter than honey.

He felt one of her hands, the one that had
cupped his cheek, rise to tangle in his hair while the other
pressed against his chest. But he wanted, needed her closer to him.
He slid one of his hands from her elegant shoulder downwards,
mapping the curve of her full breast, her delicate ribs, her narrow
waist, and then behind her to cup one cheek of her deliciously
rounded derriere. He pulled her hips against him, so she would feel
how she affected him so completely, and he was gratified to hear
her moan as her hand twisted in the linen of his shirt.

He couldn’t believe it. She wanted him just
as much as he wanted her. But kisses were soon not enough; the
thunder of his blood, through his veins, in his heart demanded
more, so much more.

He dragged his head up for air. “Beth.” He
was panting, but he didn’t care.

And so was she. She stared up at him through
her long lashes, her beautiful mouth glistening and swollen from
his kisses.

“Beth, I want you to do something for
me.”

Her lips tilted in a shy, yet almost
coquettish smile. He’d never seen her smile like that before, and
he felt himself grow harder, if that was at all physically
possible.

“Of course, my lord.” She sounded
deliciously breathless. “I suppose this is when a mistress should
say,
whatever you desire
.”

He smiled. There was plenty of time for him
to make salacious requests, but his first one was quite simple and
not salacious at all. “I want you to call me by my first name.
James. Like you did when you first arrived. Would you do that for
me, Beth?”

Her smile lit her eyes. “James,” she
murmured.

He didn’t think he’d ever heard anything
quite so beautiful. His gaze fell to her mouth again, and to his
amazement, she seemed to quite deliberately press her perfect white
teeth into her full lower lip. That simple act was the equivalent
of setting tinder to a fire. He groaned and hauled her against him,
crushing her mouth with his, plundering her mercilessly with his
tongue until she was moaning and frantically tugging his shirt from
the waistband of his breeches. Her fingers slid beneath the linen
to make contact with the bare skin of his stomach and then she
skimmed her hand upward to his chest. Her touch was like fire, a
brand upon his already heated flesh.

She suddenly pulled away from the kiss to
rasp against his throat. “James, will you take your shirt off for
me?”

He was more than happy to oblige. He took a
step back then ripped the linen garment over his head, tossing it
onto the floor.

Beth stared at him with wide eyes. “Oh my,”
she whispered and closed the gap between them, one hand coming up
to trace the line of his collar bone with her fingers before
descending across his heaving pectorals to the ridges across his
abdomen. “James…you are utterly beautiful.”

He felt like a pagan god beneath her
fascinated gaze. But one that was about to burst into flame if he
didn’t have her in his arms again. He reached for her and she
didn’t hesitate; she crashed into his chest, propelling him
forward, deliberately pulling him down to the hearth rug until she
was lying on top of him, loose tresses of her hair falling about
his face as she kissed him with equal ferocity. The strength of her
ardor astonished him, thrilled him, aroused him beyond all reason.
But he wanted to touch her skin too. He reached out a hand to
fiddle with the buttons at the back of her gown, but she suddenly
sat up, straddling him and his hand fell away.

“Not yet, my lord.” She wriggled herself
down his body until she was positioned over his thighs, and then
her hand reached for the buttons fastening the fall front of his
breeches. Her delicious pink tongue slid along her lower lip.

Surely she couldn’t mean to pleasure him
like that. Not the chaste Mrs. Eliott. He caught her wrist. “Beth?
You don’t need to do that for me.”

She frowned slightly. “You don’t like being
pleasured that way?”

“Yes, but—”

“I want to.” She smiled and placed her other
hand against the rock-hard length of him, her fingers gently
stroking him up and down through the fabric at his groin. He was a
large man, and right at this moment, fit to burst. Whilst part of
his brain screamed at him to stop her—he didn’t want to scare her
with the fierceness of his arousal—another part of him was
intrigued that she would willingly want to do this. For him.

He let go of her wrist and rested back on
his bent elbows. “All right.”

Using both hands, she had him free in no
time. His cock was so swollen, and his balls throbbed so much, he
wasn’t sure that he wouldn’t lose himself before she even
started.

He gritted his teeth and stopped breathing
as she looked down at him; she was biting her lip again. Christ,
what was she waiting for? He was in agony. He was in hell.

“Beth.” His voice fell somewhere between a
plea and a groan. He lifted his hips slightly, and then at long
last, she wrapped her hand around his pulsating shaft, then lowered
her head and took him into her mouth. He bucked and cried out from
the pure, exquisite torture she inflicted on him as she slid her
fist and hot wet mouth up and down, up and down in a perfect
rhythmic counterpoint. Every now and again she paused to swirl her
tongue around the head, or lick the entire length of his shaft
before returning to rhythmically suck him again. Where the devil
had she learnt how to do this? Her skill even surpassed that of any
of his previous mistresses.

But thought was becoming too difficult as
the pressure inside him began to build and build to catastrophic
proportions. He should stop her before he erupted in her mouth. He
reached forward to bury one of his hands in her hair to push her
away, but then it was too late. With an agonized cry, he came with
a great volcanic spurt, his body shuddering, every muscle
tightening into rigidity as a titanic wave of pleasure surged
through him. And somehow she was swallowing him, drinking him,
sucking him dry until there was nothing left.

Gasping, he collapsed onto the rug. He
couldn’t move. He couldn’t even open his eyes, although he badly
wanted to look at Beth again. He felt her ease herself off his
legs, and then after a moment, she was at his side. She lay a warm
hand upon his forehead, then brushed a damp lock of hair away from
his face. He looked up, but he still couldn’t even drag in enough
breath to speak.

She was smiling—perhaps even a little
smugly—and holding a glass of Burgundy. She took a sip of the wine
then tilted the glass slightly toward him. “Can I get you some, my
lord?”

He grimaced and pushed himself up to a
sitting position. “Beth…I can’t believe you’re still calling me, my
lord…after pleasuring me like that.”

Her smile grew wider. “James, then. Can I
serve you some wine?”