The Bride Price (27 page)

“Be my mistress,” he said quietly, the words shocking him as they spilled from his lips, but then forming into a resolve as they echoed in the still cottage. “Leave Meadowbrook behind. I’ll take care of you. Tell me you do not see Roseford in this cottage? You will have Roseford. We will have it.”

She looked down, quickly enough so that he couldn’t catch the emotions flickering through her eyes, then glanced back up, all sultry knowledge and carnal innocence. The sudden switch made him nervous. She walked toward him, a definite swing to her hips and fullness to her slightly parted lips, a knowledge in her suddenly heavy eyes.

He wet his lips as she insinuated herself in the vee in his legs and slowly slid her hands up his chest and around his neck. “A tempting offer. And if you don’t win? What then will become of Roseford? Of me?”

He wound his hands down her sides and clasped her backside, hiking her up and into his heat. “I may have damaged my standing, but I will still win. Roseford will still be mine.”

She worked her fingers into his hair, the feeling sending pure shocks straight down his cock. Her lips brushed against his. “Quit the tournament. Find another Roseford.”

He brushed his lips back. “No,” he said quietly. “I will have my revenge. I will grab the power. I will have Roseford back.”

“Then you won’t have me,” she said just as quietly.

Something elemental surged within him. “I
will
have you.”

He pulled her against him, grinding her back into the wall, dropping his lips to her neck, pulling the skin, marking it, traveling farther until he had one firm breast in his hand, pushing the rosy peak up, the perfect cherry sucked between his lips.

She arched and pleaded. “You won’t. I’d never do that to Sarah.”

He sucked harder, pulling his tongue across her nipple, causing her to push against him, one leg curling around his, bringing them closer.

He lifted her skirts and ran a hand along the heat of her, already wet. “I’ll have all of you.” He dipped two fingers into the liquid gold and pressed his mouth against hers, swallowing her cry.

Her breast, pushed above her bodice, rubbed against his chest, and she shuddered as he pressed into her in a riding rhythm. A rocking canter.

“Be here in the morning when I wake,” she said between pants as his fingers stroked and begged, one of her legs wrapping around his thighs.

“No.” That would mean he’d be there every morning thereafter. Something fierce and wild surged inside him, and he pulled his fingers to her hips. “But I’ll be here right now.” He lifted her in one motion and thrust into her, pushing up as deep as he could go.

The back of her head hit the wall, and a low
moan wrapped around him, emerging from her and disappearing into him as she clenched him inside.

His control broke, and he pushed into her again and again as she rocked against the wall, mewling sounds and his name on her lips, hands curled into his neck as she simply held on, drugged and wanting.

He was going to brand her his. He was going to—

A picture fell from the wall, and he froze as it hit the floor. A vision of the gaming hell filtered through his mind.

“Sebastien?”

He slowly pulled out of her.

“Sebastien?” Her voice was a little higher and completely unsteady as she gained her feet on the ground. Her chest rose and fell in great waves.

He looked at her for a moment, his breathing equally heavy and his thoughts terrifying.

He lifted her, and her arms automatically wove around his neck. Trusting. The terror dulled into a constant thump in his chest.

He laid her on the bed and quickly stripped first her clothing, then his, trying to keep his thoughts from spinning out of control.

She looked up at him, naked and beautiful, her trust entirely misplaced. What he would do to trust like that…What he had always done to trust like that…

He stroked her skin, smooth and perfect to his touch. He felt every shiver and shudder, every sigh and gasp as he put all his considerable knowledge
to use, hating himself as he did so, and wanting so badly to make this the most enjoyable experience of her life that she’d never,
never
, forget him.

And they’d said he wasn’t selfish.

He watched himself slide inside her, too scared to see her expression, so open and wanting. Wanting to see her expression so badly that he was nearly tormented by it. He shuddered as she closed around him, once again, as he pushed in farther, sweet, slick wetness encasing him in a velvet grip.

She tightened around him, squeezing in a welcoming embrace or final farewell. He pulled back out and watched between their bodies as he slid in again, disappearing into her heat. Little shudders gripped him, inside her, flowing out, over her stomach and up. He pulled back so that the only thing still inside was the very tip of him. He shifted his hips in small circles, trying to figure out how not to look at her, and at the same time how to make the entire act last forever.

Caroline seemed to have other plans as she arched up into him, seeking, pushing, wrapping her ankles around his thighs to pull him back inside.

He thought to teach her a lesson and thrust all the way in, all the way up in a movement that had her producing strangled sounds beneath him, her hands grasping his hips. What he hadn’t relied on was being left gasping for breath himself.

They fit together so perfectly, like her body was a hand-tailored glove just for his fingers, his palm. Each finger covered and cared for.

It was too much.
Too
much.

He started to pull away. He couldn’t do it. He needed to leave. Leave and board it all back up, swallow it all back in, find his identity again, and clasp the cold, comforting blackness to him.

She caught him just as he was almost out of her body.

“Sebastien?”

The whispered entreaty caused him to look at her. A fatal mistake. Eyes turned deep blue with passion questioned him, asking for answers. And beneath was a well of feeling, some sort of redemption that he could nearly touch. Nearly taste.

“Please. Please.”

He wasn’t sure what it was. The look in her eyes, her pleading words, the touch of her skin that felt so right, but his removal changed into the setup of a deep, soul-touching thrust that pushed her up the sheets of the bed and pushed the bed an inch across the floor. Her head arched back, but she kept her eyes open and connected with his. Staring out from under golden lashes.

“Please.”

He slid into her again and again, pushing deeper and farther, softer and harder. Trying to reach something, to grab her heart, or her soul. She gripped the pillow above her head, and he didn’t think he had seen anything quite so erotic as her complete surrender, her fine breasts up and stretched. Her back arched, her legs clasped around him.

Her head arched back on a particularly fantastic thrust, and he could feel the erratic build
of an earth-shaking orgasm. She tipped her head to catch his eyes once more, and blue eyes were almost black with pure desire and complete want. A desire that transcended mere physical feeling.

This was what people said was love. There reflected in her eyes like shining beacons in the storm. Not mere desire that was so tangible you could taste it, but something behind the desire that lingered long past the sensations.

The moment hung, suspended. A precipice rife with feelings and illusions on the verge of irrevocable shatter. He laid his face bare to her for once. The vulnerability and uncertainty combined with the need he had for her that he’d never known for another.

His name stuttered from her lips as she burst beneath and around him, bucking and gripping. And as the last syllable still hung on her lips, he joined her, lost, lost, lost to himself.

She opened her eyes to the morning, the lightening shadows creeping up the walls. A quick glance and a clench of her eyes told her she was alone.

She touched the empty pillow next to her, fingers curving around the paper lying there. She tipped it to see a full sketch of her face, her eyes open and gazing back for the first time, all manners of things reflected. It was a magnificent sketch. She had never looked so seductive and sated and
in love
, except in her imagination.

A single rose brushed her fingers, lying next to
the sketch. She picked up the flower and brought it to her nose. Freshly picked.

A farewell. She knew it in every fiber of her heart.

She felt a sob building and tried to hold it in, her shoulders shaking as the dawn fully rose, as she clutched the bloodred flower and precious drawing to her chest.

The glory! The pain! Pure entertainment for us all and pure heaven or hell for those involved.

S
ebastien entered the arena for the final game.

He sought the coldness, but it didn’t come. He sought the heat, but it wasn’t there.

Hands reached out to touch him and he barely felt the pats, barely heard the good wishes. The field spread out before him. The bright targets gleamed in the sun, as his fingers curved around the handle of his weapon. Gold rimmed circles promising all manner of prizes and glory should he extend his fingers and grasp the apple. Gold, that wretched color he had always hated, which still whispered of things he could never have, but in quite a different manner than before.

“Line up.”

He took his place and extended his arm toward the gleaming gold. He had reached the apogee.

Shots rang throughout the arena as the men fired at targets located across from the stands. The gleaming banners shifted in the warm
summer breeze, at odds with the stagnant cold feeling in her heart. Spectators shouted and cheered as one match after another was fought and then concluded. Rakish brown hair and aquamarine eyes held steady as the only competitor Caroline watched advanced from one round to the next.

Sarah gripped her hand more firmly as each round was completed and the men in the lower ranks of the competition bowed out. Only those at the top still had a chance and the factions were clearly delineated as natural sons stood to one side and legitimate sons gathered on the other to watch Everly, Sloane, Benedict, and Sebastien, the final four.

Sebastien was going to win. She knew it. Everything in her screamed the verdict.

Caroline squeezed Sarah’s hand. “Pardon me, Sarah. I remembered something I must do for the earl.”

“But Caro, don’t you want to see—”

“No.”

Sarah bit her lip and nodded, tears forming in her eyes. Caroline smiled as comfortingly as she could and made her way through the row of seats. She barely apologized to the disgruntled spectators she blocked or jostled as she shimmied through. She cared little about propriety at the moment.

She walked as nonchalantly as she could—with her heart racing and her knees buckling—to the box a few seats down from the king. A roar went up from the crowd as the final retorts from the
weapons of the remaining four contestants blasted through the arena.

“Capital shot. Deville can’t miss,” a man boomed from a group watching from the space between the main stands and the private boxes.

She closed her eyes and touched the heavy draping cloth that hid the back of the stands from view. The weight of the fabric hung in her grasp. All she had to do was slide it up and slip inside. All eyes were firmly focused on the spectacle on the field.

The shaking in her arm combined with the feel of the cloth made the task Sisyphean with the weight of a thousand pounds. She closed her eyes and ducked inside.

Rows of feet clomped on the wood above her as people shouted and stomped their encouragement to the final competitors. She could see through the slats and feet as the championship match was called to order by a man in a frilly costume and repeated by the unwelcome tones of a triumphant trumpet.

She crouched on the ground and picked up the cord she had placed there. Just one pull of the rope when Sebastien was shooting…that was all it would take. No one would notice a target dropping a few inches, putting his shot off just far enough to lose. And if someone did, what had she to lose?

She watched through the jumbled feet and hems as he inspected his weapon and took aim. She gripped the twisted fibers in her hand, prepared to pull. If he failed to win…

Her heart raced. If he failed to win, he would probably lose the tournament. Sarah wouldn’t have to marry him, but she’d have to marry someone else. Everly or Benedict. Maybe Sloane. She didn’t know how the points would fall. If Sebastien failed to win this game…

He wouldn’t gain all that he wished. Her grip tightened as he brought the weapon up. If he failed to win this game…

He would lose Roseford. He would lose his home, his heart.

He took aim, and there was a split second in which she could feel the rope burning against her fingers, the exact moment that he wouldn’t be able to correct his aim and would shoot high.

The retort stung her ears. The rope felt heavy in her hands. She looked down and let the fibers fall. Let the last tear drop as the crowd roared above and around her and she stared at her perfectly fine gloves, not a mark or a tear in evidence. No rope burns from pulling the cord.

She wiped her eyes, brushed her skirt, and ducked back into the crowd, putting her hands mechanically together to celebrate Sebastien Deville’s perfect shot and final victory.

The quill shook, droplets of ink plopped onto the parchment like little black tears. Sebastien stared at his fingers, at the foreign movement as they twitched.

Two months ago he would have signed with a flourish and not thought twice. He’d have signed the unholy agreement and sprinted off to collect
the deed to Roseford, the letters-patent—proof of his new viscountcy—and all the rewards associated therein. Two months ago he would have collected Lady Sarah and dropped her off in his house in Town, leaving her there until she was needed—or at least, no longer forgotten. Two months ago he wouldn’t have known what he would lose by accepting the bride price before him.

Another black tear of ink joined the others, staining the page.

It had come to this. Everything he had wanted, hoped for, dreamed of in life, lay before him, awaiting a simple scritch of the quill in the shadowed chamber. He’d have power—unimaginable power. He’d have revenge. And justice and all those other things that had tempted him and taunted him in the dark corridors of night. All those things that had seemed so vitally important no more than two months ago were his for the signing.

The gold of the mirrors, the gilt-edged ceilings, the honeyed metal of the clock as it tick-tick-ticked his fate, here in front of him, in mere words on a page.

Every slur, every taunt, every sneer wiped away with one press of the quill. A sweep of letters after the words, “I hereby stand by this troth,” and he’d be beyond the grip of the law. He’d be above the law, never to have to pander to it again.

A lock of hair fell into his eyes, and he pushed it back.
I think you get by purely on the way you flip your hair back sometimes, Mr. Deville
. The teasing laughter, the gentle caress of fingers carding through the strands, of heated eyes and hands buried in
his nape as she arched against him. Forever lost to him as soon as he formed the letters on the page.

The quill broke between his pressed fingers. The nib half clinging desperately, the ink spilling onto his fingers and spreading like blood from an open wound.

He stared at it for a second before taking a breath and setting the fractured piece down. He wiped his hand on a handkerchief, picked up another quill, and dipped it into the inkpot. The ink shook off on its own, through no extra motion from him.

All he had to do was give up Caroline. All he had to do was sign.

Who would have thought Sebastien Deville, ambitious, ruthless gambler and bastard in all ways, would be standing before the damn contract that would give him everything he had always wanted—through twenty-eight years of bitterness and need—and ten minutes later still not have signed it? Because of a woman? Because of an emotion he had never acknowledged.

He laughed without humor and set the tip of the quill to the parchment.