Silk and Shadows (19 page)

At first it was a still, gentle kiss like the one they had shared at the ball. Then he opened his mouth and instinctively she mirrored his movement. Though a small shock of surprise ran through her as the kiss deepened, she did not withdraw. Instead she responded with innocent, questing enthusiasm.

Peregrine had thought that his desire was safely banked, but the taste of her tentative, yearning mouth made passion flare with white heat, needy and demanding. If Sara had been a woman of experience, he would have stopped at nothing to sweep her along with him into a fast, furious, heedless mating.

But she was not experienced, and he retained just enough control to refrain from doing what might frighten her. Wrapping his arms around her slim waist, he drew her close, needing to feel her body against his. Sara came willingly, her restless hands sliding under his coat, her mouth as hungry as his.

He leaned back against the wall, drawing her along so that she lay half-sprawled across him, breast to breast, her thighs bracketing one of his in a simulation of lovemaking that made him want more. Cradling the soft curves of her buttocks, he pulled her tight against his groin. Her hips pulsed against him, and he responded with frustrated pleasure, mentally cursing the layers of heavy fabric between them.

Over the years, Peregrine had survived and prospered by learning to seize what fortune offered, and now he discarded his earlier plan of limiting what happened today. Sara might be inexperienced, but she was a woman grown, well past the age of consent. Teaching her the joys of the flesh would not only be deeply pleasurable, but would serve his larger goals as well.

"Sweet Sara," he whispered, caressing her slender form as if his hands could meld them into one flesh, "you are as rare and lovely as the treasures of the Silk Road."

Unbuttoning her jacket, he slipped his hand inside, mentally cursing the blouse, petticoat, and corset that still separated them. Gently he squeezed the soft, fluid weight of her breast. "You are like gold and silk and ivory that have been warmed to wondrous life."

Sara gasped as his words dissolved the intoxicated delight that held her in thrall. Though not unaware of what she was doing, all normal constraints had vanished when she discovered the headlong urgency of desire. As she yielded to that urgency, shy acceptance had changed to fierce response, and in the tumult of her senses, she had been shameless.

But now passion no longer clouded her judgment, though it still burned in her blood. She broke the kiss and made herself focus on Peregrine's dark, craggy face. His green eyes were misty with passion, and this time there was nothing enigmatic about him. He wanted her. And, heaven help her, she wanted him.

She pushed herself off his lap and slid across the window seat so they were no longer touching. "No," she said, her voice raw. "I'm sorry, this is wrong, I can't do it."

After a startled moment, he sat up and wrapped one arm around her waist, pulling her close again while he lifted her face to his. Murmuring, "But of course you can do this. See how easy and right it is?" He drew her into another drugging kiss.

For a moment her resolve thinned to snapping point. Then she jerked away and stood, almost falling in her awkward haste to put distance between them.

"It may be easy," Sara said unevenly, "but it isn't right, because I am promised to another man." She backed half a dozen feet along the wall, using it to steady her precarious balance. "I have dishonored both him and myself."

Peregrine's wavy black hair had fallen across his forehead, and his chest was heaving, as if he had been running. As Sara looked at the harsh planes of his face, for a moment she was frightened. They were alone in the house, and she was completely at his mercy. Even an English gentleman, raised to the same notions of honor as Sara, might be dangerous under these circumstances, and a man from an alien culture might decide that Sara deserved whatever he chose to do to her.

"My behavior gives you every reason to be angry, but please…" Her voice broke; even more than fear, she felt shame.

He looked away for a moment, and she saw a faint shudder run through his powerful frame as his fingers tightened on the edge of the window seat. When he turned to her again, his eyes were clear and the sense of danger had passed. But as Sara began to relax, she recognized a subtler danger, for once more she felt his mysterious, potent attraction, as if an invisible current was reaching out to draw her back to him.

Sara's willpower almost broke. She wanted to walk straight into his arms and surrender to passion, and she knew that if he embraced her, she would yield utterly. But to her infinite relief, he did not move from the window seat, and she offered a swift inward prayer of thanks that he did not know how much power he had over her.

"You have not married Weldon yet, and perhaps you should not do so," he said coolly. "Do you react that way to his kisses?"

"That is none of your business." Sara flushed. "Besides, marriage is not about passion. It is about trust, about mutual values and respect.''

"Don't forget mutual property," he said, his tone ironic. "You are a considerable heiress, and Weldon's businesses are less prosperous than they appear."

She inhaled deeply, trying to steady herself amid a maelstrom of emotions. "Charles is no fortune hunter, but even if he were, it would not alter the fact that I am pledged to him. By my actions, I have already betrayed him unforgivably."

His expression became even more satiric. "If you think that the modest kisses we just exchanged are unforgivable, why not finish what you have begun? Not only would you enjoy the experience, but you would also have something worth feeling guilty about."

Modest kisses, indeed
! Her flush deepened as she remembered the wanton way she had twined around him. Thank heaven for complicated clothing; if she had been wearing one of the flimsy dresses of the previous generation, they would have been coupling before she had had time to realize what was happening.

"I behaved badly to you as well as disgracing myself, and you have every reason to be angry," she said, raising her chin, "but don't mock me. It is unworthy of you."

His expression changed. "I was not mocking you," he said gently. "But I do think you are making too much of a momentary lapse. You are a lovely woman, I kissed you, and you enjoyed it. That is not such a great sin."

"Perhaps that was trivial to you, but it was not to me." Merciful heaven, what had been a "momentary lapse" to him had been one of the most shattering experiences of Sara's life. She rubbed her damp palms on her skirt, then leaned against the wall, needing the support because her leg was throbbing badly again.

Remembering something Charles had told her, she said, "Englishwomen have great freedom compared to women elsewhere, so I suppose it's natural for you to suppose we are immoral. But that isn't true."

He raised his dark brows. "No? I have seen considerable evidence to the contrary."

"Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Englishwomen are neither more nor less virtuous than those of any other race," she said, recalling uncomfortably the women who had fluttered around him. "Certainly chaste behavior is valued."

"But your countrywomen do have more opportunities to be unchaste than women in most societies." He stood and in two steps closed the distance between them, stopping so near that she felt warmth radiating from his body.

"However, fascinating though this discussion is, we are going rather far afield. It never occurred to me that your morals are deficient. You radiate integrity, Lady Sara. It is one of the things I find attractive about you." He reached out and cupped her face in both hands, his long fingers gentle and sensual along her too-sensitive skin.

She knew he was about to kiss her again, and when he did, she would yield, for her whole body yearned for him. Physically she was ripe for the plucking, and they both knew it. But honor was not yet dead, not quite. Her voice breaking, she pleaded, "You know I cannot resist you, but please… please stop. Don't ruin me for the fleeting pleasure of conquest."

He became utterly still. "Is that what you think? No, Sara, my motive is not simple conquest." His hands dropped away. "Nor do I want to ruin you. You deserve better than that."

"Then what do you want?" she asked, flattening herself back against the wall when he reached out to her again.

This time he did not caress her, just tucked a loose wisp of her hair behind her ear with a curiously intimate gesture. "The answer is very simple. It is you, yourself, that I want. No other woman will do."

She shook her head, feeling helpless and confused. With an Englishman, such words might have been a prelude to a declaration of love, perhaps even an offer of marriage, but she was sure that that was not what Peregrine meant. Despairingly she said, "I don't understand you at all."

Before he could reply, a loud knocking echoed through the house. They both tensed at the sound. "That must be the driver with the carriage," the Kafir said after listening a moment. "He is in front of the house. I will tell him to come around to the rear, since that is the only door for which I have a key.''

The prince turned away, and Sara released her breath shakily, realizing that she had hardly been breathing. While he entered a front bedroom, opened a window, and called down to the driver, she walked as quickly as she could to the main staircase.

Clinging to the banister for support, she was just starting her descent when Peregrine rejoined her. For a moment she feared that he was going to carry her downstairs, but he correctly interpreted her warning look.

"So fierce!" he said with amusement. "Don't worry, sweet Sara, you are safe from me."

"The correct form of address is Lady Sara. I have not given you leave to be informal." Suddenly furious, she stopped and glared at him. "This is all a game to you, isn't it? I wish we had never met, for you have turned my life inside out, and it means nothing to you."

"This is not a game, and it is not meaningless to me." He stopped two steps below and turned to face her, his brief humor vanished. For once completely serious, he asked, "Can you honestly say that you have not benefited, at least a little, from my 'turning your life inside out'?"

Sara thought of how he had led her through her fears to the heady freedoms of riding and dancing. And there had been a different, more dangerous freedom when she had discovered passion in his arms, a freedom that could quickly lead to disgrace and subjugation. She closed her eyes for a moment, and wearily rubbed her temple with her free hand. "Yes, I have benefited, and I am not really sorry to have met you," she said quietly. "But I can't see you alone in the future. Don't call on me, or ask me to ride or drive with you, because I won't accept.''

"You do not trust me?" His eyes were level with hers, the green depths fathomless, impossible to read.

"No," she said bluntly. "Nor do I trust myself. I will not risk another episode like this one."

There was a long pause before he spoke. "Of course I must assent to your wishes, Lady Sara." His eyes darkened, something subtle and dangerous moving in the depths. "For the time being."

It was a long, tiring ride back to London. Sara was intensely grateful that the prince chose to ride Siva rather than join her in the small hired carriage. Spending two hours in close proximity, where every jolt might knock her against him, would have been more than she could bear. Even so, it took all of her strength to maintain her composure.

When they arrived at Haddonfield House, he behaved with impeccable politeness, returning Pansy to the stables, escorting Sara into the house with a strong impersonal hand under her elbow, and taking his leave after thanking her for her invaluable assistance. Even the stifif-rumped Haddonfield butler, who watched, did not notice anything amiss.

Sara had just enough endurance left to climb the stairs to her room without aid, though it was a slow, painful ascent. Thank heaven her father was out for the evening. Sara's sour-faced maid, Hoskins, made several acid comments about having warned her ladyship not to try to ride, and only subsided when Sara forcefully told her to hold her tongue.

Blissfully free of her riding habit and corset, Sara would have preferred to lie down and fall into exhausted slumber, but from experience she knew that she would feel much better in the morning if she soaked in a long, hot bath. Besides, there was something else she must do.

After sending Hoskins off to draw the bath, Sara seated herself at the dressing table and stared at her reflection as she drew the pins from her hair, freeing it to fall around her shoulders. It was time to face some unpleasant facts, and looking at the mirror would make it harder to be dishonest.

For she had been profoundly dishonest; from the moment she had seen Prince Peregrine, she had lied to herself over and over and over, denying how much he fascinated her. She had believed herself impervious to his dangerous allure, and that self-deception had led her to today's humiliating scene at Sulgrave.

She ran her fingers through her thick hair, loosening it and easing the tension in her scalp. A pity that her mental tension could not be eased so simply. The cheapest trollop in Covent Garden would have been more honest than Lady Sara St. James had been. Ignorance was no excuse, for she had made a point of educating herself about what happened between men and women, her best teacher being an uninhibited cockney maid. Yet in spite of her knowledge and worldly experience, she had walked straight into a situation that could have ruined her, because in her secret heart, she had wanted passion more than honor.