Tempt the Devil (27 page)

“Leave her alone, my lord,” she said coldly. “She knows she shouldn't have come, and she won't do it again.” She moved across to stand at Lady Roma's side. “Your father's right, my lady. I'll take you upstairs to wash your face and hands and then you must go.”

“Thank you.” Lady Roma rose to her feet.

Olivia glanced at Julian. Her voice was frosty but calm. “I suggest smuggling her into the mews then into your carriage, my lord.”

He sent her a searching look but didn't take her up on her formality. “Yes. Nobody will look twice at my rig parked at your door.”

Olivia led the silent girl out of the library and up the stairs. The acrid regret coiling in her stomach made her feel ill. But she'd have space to dwell on her sorrows once Roma was safely away. God help her, she'd have the rest of her life. “Take your time. A few extra minutes now will make no difference.”

“And give Papa time to cool down.”

Ironic that Olivia found herself compelled to defend her shallow lover. “He's only upset because he loves you.”

Lady Roma looked at her as they reached the spare bedroom. “He's not very good at showing it, is he?”

Olivia gave a low, caustic laugh. “He's a man. Of course he's not. But he'd die to save you an ounce of pain.”

“I know. It's the day-to-day stuff he needs to practice.” The girl's eyes became grave. “When I came here today, I hated you.”

Olivia's wry smile faded. “I'm sorry you even learned of my existence.”

A hint of humor entered the blue eyes. Suddenly she looked startlingly like her father. “Oh, I've known about you for years. You're famous. All my friends wish they had half your dash. I'd give anything to sit a horse the way you do. You look like you grew up in the saddle.”

“I did.” Although that horse-mad child was a million miles away from the world-weary woman she'd become.

“I ride like a sack of potatoes. My father is ashamed to be seen with me.”

“Perhaps you could ask him to give you lessons. Sometimes you have to make the first step, even if you're the one who's been wronged.”

“I wish I could know you better,” Lady Roma said quietly.

“Oh, sweetheart.” Olivia bit her lip to stem her foolish tears. Tears never helped anything. She'd learned that long ago. “You don't, really. But I treasure what you said.”

She leaned forward and hugged the girl, feeling the desperate fragility under the defiance. For a fleeting moment Lady Roma was stiff under her embrace. Then she surrendered to Olivia's arms and hugged her back with deep emotion.

If life had proceeded as her parents planned when they hired governesses and drawing masters and dancing teachers for their precious daughter, she could have had a child like this. A daughter to guide and to love when she was hurt and bereft as this child so clearly was.

But Olivia was left with nothing. No brilliant marriage. No sweet daughter. No devoted husband. Not even a lover to warm her yearning heart. Just a son she idolized but could never acknowledge and who would only grow more distant as the world beckoned him.

But she would survive. She always survived.

Even if right now she didn't see much point.

She gathered her courage and gently pulled away from the girl's clinging hands. “Come downstairs when you're ready.”

“Papa will scold me all the way home.”

“He's right about one thing—you shouldn't have come.”

“I'm not sorry.”

Before Olivia could summon an answer, Lady Roma slipped into the room and closed the door firmly after her.

Olivia straightened her backbone and lifted her chin. For a brief, brilliant interval she'd believed she could escape the hard, heartless courtesan. Now she knew better.

 

When Olivia returned to the library, Julian stood staring down into the empty grate with a brooding expression. She paused in the doorway and watched him for a long, silent moment while she tried to quell the chagrin that ripped at her.

How could she have been so deceived in him? After so many years of hating the arrogant scions of the ton, how could she have been so fatally stupid as to fall in love with one?

He raised his head to meet her gaze and his masculine beauty pierced her like a knife. The rich blue of his coat and the startling white of his shirt and neckcloth emphasized the saturnine distinction of his features.

“I regret that Roma has made things difficult for you, Olivia.” The silver eyes glinted between their lush fringe of lashes. He rested one long-fingered hand on the mantel.

“She hasn't made things difficult for me, Lord Erith.” She moved into the room, making sure to keep her distance. “I just pray nobody finds out about today's escapade. She mustn't suffer more than she already has.”

His mouth turned down in a wry line. “I deserve that.”

Olivia sank down onto one of the chairs near the saturated rug. “Yes, you do.”

“Damn it, I know I spoke out of turn. It was just the sight of Roma…” He paused and made a frustrated gesture. “We can't talk about this now. I've got to take Roma home and then there's a blasted family dinner with the Rentons. It was planned weeks ago and it's important. I won't be back here until late.”

“Don't hurry on my account, Lord Erith.”

His lips twisted in a sardonic smile. “You don't have to keep calling me that. I know you're displeased with me.”

“I'm not displeased with you.”

He prowled across to array himself upon the sofa, studying her with heavy-lidded concentration. He looked like some
eastern potentate considering his nightly selection from the harem. Except his jaw set in a determined line that indicated he wasn't nearly as relaxed as he wished to appear. “You're doing a remarkable impression, if you're not.”

“Displeasure indicates I feel something for you,” she said steadily.

A faint mocking smile curved his lips. “And clearly you're a monument of indifference.”

“Bickering will get us nowhere.” She spoke in clipped tones. “When we made this arrangement, I told you I reserved the right to end the liaison. Well, I'm exercising that right.”

Anger sparked in his eyes and he made a sound of denial deep in his throat. “And you tell me now, when I'm on my way to an engagement I can't get out of?”

She clutched her hands in her lap and fought for the cold hard certainty that had gripped her when he'd lashed out at her over his daughter. That was truth. Not this subtle play of attraction.

“Whores can't always be particular about their timing.”

“I've never treated you like a whore,” he said hotly, his face tightening.

“You did today.”

His fist curled on the arm of the sofa. “That's not fair. No man wants his daughter to risk her future.”

“Yes, your actions as a parent do you credit, in spite of your temper. Your actions as a lover do not.”

His eyes darkened to the color of thunderclouds in a summer sky. He made a convulsive move toward her then stopped himself.

“My God, Olivia. I'm sorry.” His voice cracked with regret. “I found Roma here and I saw red. I acted like a confounded blockhead. But you must know I didn't mean what I said. Damn it, I hurt you. I give you my word that was never my intention.”

“I'm sure it wasn't.” Her words dropped from her lips as if
cut from glass. “But a number of things have become clear, including that this liaison has gone as far as it will.”

“For God's sake, stop calling it a liaison.” Any pretense of detachment disappeared in an instant. He surged across the room to fall to his knees at her side. His hands shook as they grabbed hers. “I love you. You love me.”

From the start, she'd known what they had couldn't last. It had to come to this. She'd tried to prepare herself. But nothing could ready her for the shock of parting from Julian. It was like amputating a limb.

A gangrenous limb.

She looked him straight in the eye and wrenched her hands free of his. “I'm glad I made you think so. After all, you handed over a fortune to have every fantasy satisfied. Arousing a frigid woman was clearly what you wanted.”

The muscles of his arms bunched and his face went white as parchment. The color even seeped from his lips. For one appalled moment she feared he might hit her. Trembling, she shrank away before pride stopped her retreat.

He placed one shaking hand on the back of the chair near her shoulder. A tiny muscle at the corner of his mouth flickered erratically as he fought for control. “Damn you, you're lying.”

“If you like to think so,” she said calmly, while feral beasts screamed inside her. “Obviously I lied about something. It's up to you to decide what was true and what wasn't.”

“Hell, Olivia. I can't stay and fight this out now.” He bent his head and shook it. His eyes were stormy when he looked at her. “Stick me with knives tonight but don't walk out like this.”

“I won't change my mind.”

“I might change it for you.” He lurched to his feet and frowned at her. “I'll get out of this dinner as early as I can but I can't let Roma down. I've let her down too often.”

Olivia rose too, with the courtesan's conscious grace. “Good-bye, Lord Erith.”

“Blast you, it's not good-bye.” He snatched her into his arms and pressed her to his chest. His heart pounded like a mallet wielded by a madman. “Wait until tonight. You owe me that at least.”

She made herself as unresponsive as a doll in his hold although the heat of his hands seeped in to threaten the frozen layer around her cold, cold soul. “You have no right to touch me anymore.”

“Don't do this.”

“It's done.” She tried to extricate herself but his grip was too tight.

She wondered if his grip on her heart was too tight for her ever to be free again. She had a doomed feeling it was.

“Like hell.” He grabbed her head with both hands and held her still while he covered her mouth with his. The kiss was hard and unforgiving. Almost insulting in its ruthless possession. But she found herself clawing at his shoulders and responding with every ounce of furious passion in her.

For an endless space they continued their argument with teeth and tongues and lips. Neither would admit defeat. Neither could gain victory.

The fierce heat scorched through her, right to the soles of her feet. She kissed him back but didn't surrender an inch of her determination that this affair ended now. She was adamant as rock.

Until the kiss changed.

Gradually, tenderness loosened the taut hands framing her face. The lips ravaging hers became less insistent. They wooed rather than demanded. She tumbled headlong into helpless pleasure as his mouth became an instrument of forbidden delight. Her body softened, her bones loosened, heat pooled between her thighs.

She wanted to pull away, to dismiss him, deride this magic. But she was unable to stop kissing him, every slide of lips or tongue a warning of how dangerous he was.

He tore away from her. His eyes were alight with hunger
and rage and something she didn't want to recognize as anguish. A muscle jerked spasmodically in his lean cheek.

“And you toss this away for the sake of pride?” His question was blistering.

“It's over,” she said rawly. Her knees trembled and she could barely stand. The force of his kiss still pounded through her like a hammer on an anvil. Her hands formed fists and she beat at his chest. “For God's sake, leave me in peace.”

He caught her flailing hands. “You'll never be at peace until you come to terms with your love for me.”

“I don't love you,” she snarled, straining to escape his hold.

“Then why are you so upset?”

“Because you won't let me go.”

“You don't want me to let you go.”

“Yes, I do.”

Temper lit his handsome face and made his eyes flare brilliant silver. His hands tightened on hers, although he didn't hurt her. She wished he would. She'd dearly love some reason to hate Lord Erith aside from the irrefutable fact that she could never be a fit consort for him.

“To hell with you, Olivia. You know I've got to go.”

“Then go,” she said stubbornly.

“I go and you mightn't be here when I come back.” He hooked one hand behind her neck and forced her head up so she met his burning gaze. “If you have an ounce of feeling for me, stay.”

“There's nothing to say.”

“Well, give me a chance to say nothing, then. I owe Roma tonight. It's my fault she took this stupid risk. She's acted like a ninnyhammer but she's my daughter and I can't abandon her.”

“Julian…” she started, then stopped, unsure how to continue.

“I'm ready, Papa.” Lady Roma hovered at the door.

Olivia expected Erith to jump away from her in embarrassment. After all, his daughter caught him clutching his mistress in a torrid embrace.

“The carriage is at the back gate.” He didn't shift his intense stare from Olivia and he only slowly lifted his hands from her. In spite of everything, she mourned that he let her go. He would never touch her again, and his touch had become so very precious to her. For one brief deceptive moment he'd made her feel cherished, alive, clean. “I'm sure Miss Raines will lend you a veil and a bonnet.”

“I brought one.” Roma went across to the chair where she'd left her coverings. She seemed remarkably unfazed by her father's flagrant flouting of convention.

“Good-bye, Lady Roma,” Olivia said with a regret that surprised her.

The girl glanced up and, astonishingly, sent her a smile of surpassing sweetness. “Good-bye, Miss Raines. I'm grateful for your kindness.”

“I wish you every joy in your marriage.” Her voice was choked and she avoided Lady Roma's curious stare.

“Roma, come along,” Erith said impatiently. He turned as he ushered his daughter ahead of him out the door. He sent Olivia a stern look. “Don't you dare think of going anywhere. We're not finished.”