Lady of Sin (16 page)

She had to laugh. She pictured that meeting, with a startled Earl of Norriston facing a son equal in height and force of will, being informed that son would become an actor.

“And your mother? Did she not know you either?”

“That was different. As the youngest, I had her attention in ways the others never enjoyed. In that I was blessed.”

She should have been able to understand that, but she did not. She had also been the youngest, but she had not enjoyed a similar attention. She had been not so much invisible as much as an afterthought. As a child she had been a potted palm in the room while her mother plotted the future of the family.

That had been part of Mardenford’s appeal. His attention had disarmed her. A cool peace surrounded her when he came to call. She was at the center of someone’s attention for what seemed the first time in her life. Finally, what she said was heard and not lost in the noise of others’ opinions and views.

Not only heard, but respected as the words of an intelligent woman and not those of a little sister.

She had found her voice and her character in her marriage. She had forgotten how much. Now images of that quick blooming sped through her head.

It appeared that the sharpened memories did not harbor only disappointments. The truth might reveal value she had not counted too.

She blinked, and realized she had been lost in a brief reverie. Nathaniel was watching her, permitting it, just as he had in her sitting room that day.

His gaze held the same patient understanding.

“Tell me about him. I did not know him well.”

The overture stunned her. He appeared truly interested, and that surprised her more. She looked at her plate, trying to think of what to say, and how.

“I am sorry, Charlotte. You said you no longer mourned him. I thought—”

“Do not apologize. I just . . .” A year ago she would have spoken freely. Everyone always commented on how she could talk about her husband and marriage with ease, how one did not have to be cautious around her in making reference to him.

“I was happy,” she said firmly. “He was a good man. Generous and caring and kind.” And affectionate, in his way. Her own love had been quiet too. There had been no tumult in her emotions.
He was a good man, but he was nothing at all like you.

“I want to know something. It is important to me to know it, so I hope you will tell me honestly.”

“What is that?”

“When I kiss you, do you feel that you betray him in any way?”

Her pulse quickened, but everything else in the chamber went still. The question did not shock her as much as it should have. It had been waiting on the edges of her confusion as she contemplated memories old and new.

“No. That frightens me. I think that is what undid me at that party. How he was not there with me, and I was alone. Truly alone as I had never been in years. And when you spoke to me . . .”

Are you realizing that you do not belong here?
That was what the voice behind her in the shadows had said.
Sit here. No one will approach you, I promise.

What followed could be seen as a betrayal, if she thought about it long enough. Not the acts, but the emotions. The passion and the intimacy. What kind of woman shared that transforming bond with a man anonymously, when she had not done so with her husband?

If indeed it had been shared at all.

She felt helpless. “I do not know what to make of what happened between you and me. I think if I ever do, the conclusions will not be flattering to me.”

He took her hand and kissed it. “There is nothing in my memory or my thoughts about that night that is not flattering to you. Are you convincing yourself to feel guilty for not feeling guilty? If you have decided to live the life of the moment, and not the past, that is a good thing. It is why you went there that night, you said.”

“Perhaps it had nothing to do with the past, or even the present. Maybe it was appropriate that I was masked, made anonymous, because it was not really me there.”

He looked down at the hand he held. His thumb caressed its back. “It was you. Unless you tell me that you never think of it, that it made no difference in the days ahead, and that you reject the memories and regret the passion, it was you.”

She could not say that. It had made a difference. The old ennui was dead. She saw the world differently. She noticed colors and lighting, and felt the cold of the air and the warmth of the sun, as if her senses had been revitalized. All of them. Those of the body, but also the more primeval ones of the heart and soul.

He raised her hand and kissed it. “We both went there alone, two people who had loved others long ago, and we shared something very unusual. The only question is whether the intensity was born of the mystery, or whether it can happen again. I have to know. Don’t you?”

She had not expected such a question. He was not seducing her at all, but requiring a deliberate choice.

The sensual lure remained, however. The firm hold of his hand, masculine and firm and strong, excited her. She had been waiting, waiting . . . now waiting became anticipation, making her vibrate.

It was his gaze that undid her, however. It claimed her more completely than his hand. The stark familiarity in his dark eyes, their fathoms of comprehension and desire, drew her in. The most potent memory from that night became real again. Not one of pleasure, but of a trust born of knowing another so thoroughly, so instinctively, that her own soul could hide nothing in response.

They might never find common ground except in this bond, but she could not deny its power. Only the biggest coward would reject what might be waiting.

“Yes, I have to know too.”

CHAPTER
TWELVE

S
he rose to retire at once. She could not bear to be in his presence, trembling and breathless, while servants waited nearby. She could not make polite conversation now and pretend she had not just given him an astonishing agreement.

The fire in his eyes as he watched her leave almost had her swooning. Feeling so alive it was unearthly, she hurried to her chamber.

Nancy was surprised by her early return. With wordless gestures, she had Nancy undress her and prepare her for bed. Then she sent her maid away, with instructions not to wake her in the morning or return until called.

Gowned in a bed dress of fine white cotton, she realized that she now had hours to wait. Nathaniel would not come here while the servants were about.

She tried to make some plans about the petitions. Her eyes read the notes she made on her paper, but her mind did not see them at all. It pictured Nathaniel down below, waiting too. His expectation flowed to her through the walls and space, arousing her despite his distance.

She did not know how long she sat at the small writing desk, with the phantom sensations building until she neither saw nor felt anything else. She sensed the house quieting, though. The stillness of night crept over it until empty silence stretched.

She went to her bed and lay down. She did not look at the clock. Its ticks did not matter. She was already captivated by his power and he was not even in the room.

He drew her into memories so vivid they became her world, and she did not even notice how they blended into dreams.

The touch, when it came, was no intrusion to that deep reverie. A vague consciousness returned to her, and with it an intuitive awareness that it was Nathaniel’s hand on her arm. Her most basic sense had absorbed his presence near her some time ago. With the gentlest guidance, he pulled her back to the world.

A dark world. No light leaked through the window drapes. Only the small lamp she had left burning near her bed gave any illumination.

He stood beside her, looking down. No urgency marked his expression or manner. He appeared prepared to wait forever for her to open her eyes.

It took a few moments for her to fully waken. During that brief lull of luxurious relaxation, before her body found its own alertness, she languidly admired how handsome he appeared in the lamp’s glow with his dark coats and high boots and his hair falling carelessly across his brow. His eyes held a compelling expression, with nuances of both warmth and severity.

His fingertips brushed her cheek, then gently closed on a lock of her hair. He lifted it while his touch slid down its length. “I was torn between waking you or watching you. You were smiling in your dream, and appeared like a girl.”

She began to rise. He shook his head. “Stay there.”

He began undressing. She watched, fascinated by the distracted male movements. The way he shrugged off his frock coat and stripped away his cravat created a domestic mood that was in marked contrast to the frantic, mutual disrobing of the last time.

She knew then that it would be different. It had to be. They were alone and this was no impulse, no unexpected crescendo of passion. The methodical way he dealt with his garments said as much.

She had never watched a man undress before. The emergence of his true form, the expression that said his thoughts were on the purpose, not the process—all of it captivated her. Her breath caught when he slid off his shirt to reveal his lean, athletic torso. She had held that body in her arms, but she had not simply looked as she did now, stirred by his beauty alone, without so much as a touch between them.

He rested his hips against the bed’s high edge. The muscles of his back corded and stretched as he bent to remove his boots.

His lower garments loosened. He stood and they dropped. Her eyes filled while he stepped out. He had a magnificent form, broad shouldered and wonderfully proportioned. Tight, hard lines delineated his muscles and lured her gaze down the taper of his back to the firm swells of his buttocks. The lamp washed his body in a soft, golden light.

He turned, his expression still lacking any interest in his actions. Their gazes locked and it was clear his thoughts had been absorbed by her. His arousal made that very evident too, but she was halfway to ecstasy herself already. Seeing his erection caused the most delicious thrill to tremble between her legs.

He lifted the sheet and joined her in the bed. She ached to hold him, but he braced his weight on one arm and looked down at her.

His masculinity became a palpable force, altering the energy he exuded, imbuing it with sensual danger. A primitive chime of vulnerability rang in her instincts. It was a reaction as old as time, holding the potential for both excitement and fear.

The bedclothes bunched at his waist, and she let her gaze linger on his shoulders and chest. She wanted to touch those muscles and skim her hand along the shadows created by the light that his body partially blocked.

He dipped down to kiss her lips. Desire pulsed in the soft joining of their mouths.

He rose up again. His palm and gaze lowered to her neck, then to the ribbons of her nightdress. His fingers started loosening them. Her breasts tingled from the proximity of his touch.

“I have been half mad the last week,” he said. “Unable to think clearly. When I realized for certain it had been you . . .”

“When did you?”

“Outside Fleur’s chamber that day. You are better than most at hiding yourself from the world, but that day you could not. Even conceited, irritating men sometimes see what is right in front of them.”

She smiled at his reminder of her barbs. They seemed distant history right now.

Her nightdress gaped at her neck now, and his hand was finishing its work lower. The fabric moved subtly over her erect nipples, causing a delicate caress that proved how sensitive her body had become.

All of her body. From her face down to her toes, she waited, taut with anticipation and enthralled by the smallest sensation. She could not bear the separation even though the waiting was exquisite torture. She moved her hand and slid it up the strong arm braced beside her.

He pushed the edges of her nightdress aside, revealing her breasts. His fingertips and gaze slowly moved around their swells. She grit her teeth to hold in the impulse to moan.

“You did not speak much the last time, Charlotte. Do you intend to be silent again?”

“It may be wise, don’t you think? Our conversations are so often quarrelsome.”

“Only because you take pleasure in challenging me.”

“And you me.”

“Perhaps we both only sought to deny what brings us to this bed. I have found your willfulness more charming than challenging since we have shared indiscretions.”

“Then perhaps I will speak, if I am so moved.”

He dipped low and kissed one nipple. A shimmer of pleasure eddied through her skin. “I will have to remember to move you to speak in pleasing ways.”

“What kind of speech would be pleasing, Nathaniel?” She doubted it would matter. Speech required breath, and she was losing hers.

“Let me think.” He peeled the dress off her shoulders, and lifted her so he could slide it down her arms. “I think I would be partial to
Do not stop, because I am in heaven.
”

She laughed, but most of her attention centered on the way he pushed away the bedclothes. “I can see how you might prefer that to contradictions.”

He slipped the dress lower, and gently tapped her hip. “Up.”

She raised her hips so the dress could continue its path, exposing her naked body.

“Then there is
Just like that, right there, it feels very good,
” he said. “I am sure I would welcome discourse of that nature.”

“That sounds like instruction and command. I would not expect you to welcome that at all.”

He smiled vaguely as he bent to pull the billowing fabric down her legs and over her feet. “There will be no mistaking who is commanding, pretty lady.”

His caress and gaze proved that. Both took possession of her body in a masterful way. Both moved without restriction, freely taking what she had offered.

That chime sounded in her instincts again.

He eased atop her. The sudden contact, so full and complete, made their playful talk a game now ended. Braced on his arms, he filled her sight, and his weight and strength lined her smallness, dominating and overwhelming her. That intuitive fear spoke like a soft voice, pointing out her helplessness.

“Or if you prefer, you need not say anything at all,” he said. “I do not need words to know you.”

He had said something similar that night. The repetition now startled her.

She bit her lower lip and placed a hand flat against his chest. “Do you say that to everyone?”

“Only once before, with a woman I met at a party, who in donning a mask became free to reveal more than she hid.”

She gazed directly into his eyes for the first time since he had arrived.

She had feared what she would see or not see if she did that. Now the most beautiful reassurance waited for her. Suddenly they were back in a dark corner of a salon, and the laughter and movements of others were dimming into obscurity. An intimacy deep and profound instantly built between them that made the world irrelevant. No judgment showed in his eyes. No questions. Only an acceptance and comprehension that made her tremble, and deep fires of desire that burned only for her. She might be a stranger, but the things that mattered were understood.

She responded the same way she had that night, with a soul so grateful and relieved that she wanted to weep. The chimes died and the instinctive fear retreated. Trust drenched her, a trust complete and certain.

He kissed her. She could not mistake that it was different from that night, even if much else was the same. Their mutual awareness was starkly alive. They were not strangers. Nathaniel Knightridge was in bed with Charlotte Mardenford.

If not for the trust, that might have made her shy in her response. Instead she discovered that she liked the fact that he knew it was she in his arms. It added layers of history and familiarity to the knowing.

The kiss deepened, increasing the tense anticipation that had kept her alert and aroused the last days. Like a string stretched too far, it snapped. Sensations of bliss trickled through her body, tantalizing her with streams of pleasure. He lowered and embraced her, his firm hands sliding beneath her body to hold her, his breath teasing her neck and ear and skin as his mouth pressed other spots of excitement.

Just holding him sent her senses spinning, then narrowing on the feel of his skin beneath her fingertips. Each touch and moment was real, perfectly alive. Already dampness slicked her thighs and passion had her half-crazed. She felt the hardness of his erection pressing her thigh and parted her legs to bring him closer.

She waited for him to move, to join, to quickly succumb to the onslaught of desire just as they had the first time. Instead he rose and looked down.

“It does not have to be fast tonight. No one can see us, Charlotte.” He did not wait for a response, but shifted a little lower and flicked his tongue on her right nipple.

She closed her eyes to attempt to contain what that did to her. She failed. Her whole body trembled. It became a wonderful torture, one that she did not want to end but that created cravings for more. “Yes,” she heard herself whispering. “Just like that. It feels wonderful.”

He paused. She opened her eyes to see him looking at her, pleased that she had spoken. He turned his attention to her other breast and with licks and nips made her insistent hunger even more intense. When he began drawing on the tip, sighs sounded in her head and breath. His fingertips caressed her other breast, multiplying the sensations, and rational thought escaped her mind’s grasp. She arched, swaying into it, offering her swollen breasts in a begging movement that knew no shame.

Instead he stopped and looked down with an expression chiseled and hard. The sensual energy she had sensed at the beginning poured off him, exciting her more. He caressed down her body and shifted off her so her legs were free.

Suddenly her pose felt vulnerable and scandalous. She began to close her legs. His hand had reached her hips and with a firm hold on one leg he stopped her.

He touched her down there and she was lost. Nothing else mattered, no kiss or embrace. Only the incredible pleasure and crying need commanded by that touch existed. She floated in it, awed by the pleasure lapping through her and the way it affected every inch of her body.

Then it changed. Not floating, but climbing. Reaching. Frantic impatience trembled within the pleasure. The sensations became excruciating and desperate. Nothing but yearning lived in her head, no other sights or thoughts. She dimly knew she was crying out, giving voice to the silent screams of pleasure racking her.

Nathaniel’s face was close to hers, saying something, praising her. She barely heard. She had reached an unbearable place. She either had to stop him or jump off a cliff.

She clawed at his shoulders and jumped.