The Lady Confesses (10 page)

Elizabeth trembled anew and she drew in a shuddering breath as she felt the rasping of his tongue against her sensitive flesh. ‘Nathaniel…’

‘Yes—Nathaniel!’ he encouraged throatily. ‘Say it again, Elizabeth!’

‘Nathaniel…’ she repeated breathily as his lips explored the dark hollows at her throat, the long column of her neck, the softness of her earlobe before once again capturing her lips in a kiss that seared and seduced in its intensity as that clever tongue of his swept between her lips to capture and claim her.

Elizabeth’s hands moved up to touch his chest before exploring the hard contours of his back and shoulders, totally lost to the seduction of that kiss even as she marvelled at all the other sensations she was being bombarded with—the warmth of Nathaniel’s skin as his muscles shifted and moved beneath her lightly caressing fingers, the silky hair on his chest that was slightly abrasive against her highly sensitised breasts.

Nathaniel dragged his mouth from hers to look down at her with fevered dark eyes as his hands framed the pale beauty of her face. ‘You are temptation incarnate, Elizabeth,’ he muttered. ‘Deep, dark, wanton temptation!’

Those blue eyes widened. ‘But I did nothing—’

‘You tempt simply by existing,’ he declared gruffly, his arousal an unbearably hot, hard, pulsing need.

‘But—’

‘Feel how much I want you!’ He captured one of her hands in his and brought it down to touch that rigid throbbing need, his breath releasing in a tortured groan as he felt those slender fingers against his responsive flesh, instantly knowing that he wanted more. Needed more! ‘Touch me,’ he begged even as he unfastened the buttons at the front of his pantaloons, allowing himself to spring free. He took her hand in his and wrapped her fingers about him before he showed her exactly how to squeeze and stroke him.

Elizabeth had never experienced anything so wondrous. Nathaniel’s arousal was hard and pulsating in her fisted hand. Steel encased in velvet. He quivered all over as she ran her thumb lightly over the sensitive tip.

Her gaze widened as she saw the expression on his face as he sat back upon his booted heels and let her stroke him; it was almost one of agony rather than enjoyment, a dark flush to his cheeks. ‘Am I hurting you?’ she gasped, ceasing her caresses.

‘God, no!’ he groaned. ‘Do not stop, Elizabeth…!’ he entreated even as his fingers wrapped about hers as he encouraged her to begin a rhythmic caress of that silken length.

She swung her legs to the floor as he released her to continue that caressing rhythm alone, aware of his passionate gaze on her bared breasts as she sat up to look down at what she held clasped in her stroking fingers. He was beautiful, truly beautiful, and so very thick and long.

Elizabeth’s eyes widened as she saw the bead of creamy moisture that escaped the tip, quickly followed by another, that liquid moistening her fingers. She licked her lips, wanting, wanting—

She acted on instinct as she slid to the floor in front of Nathaniel, on her knees before him as she lowered her head to flick her tongue over him, tasting the salty liquid, and then tasting him again, and again, finding him as addictive as she did his aching moans of pleasured response.

‘Dear Lord!’ Nathaniel exclaimed weakly as pleasure beyond measure coursed through him, both at the erotic vision of Elizabeth on her knees before him and the feel of her hot, lapping tongue flickering over his arousal before she took him fully into the heat of her mouth. He was all the more aroused because he knew that her actions were purely instinctive rather than practised.

His fingers became entangled in the darkness of Elizabeth’s curls as he gave himself over to the pleasure she bestowed upon him so completely, his back arching, his teeth tightly clenched together as he surrendered to the need to thrust himself slowly and rhythmically into the moist, sensuous cavern of her caressing mouth, her slender fingers barely able to meet around the base of him.

Would Nathaniel have allowed Elizabeth to continue her delightful ministrations if the sound of his aunt’s and Letitia’s voices outside in the hallway had not permeated his ecstasy-driven brain? Would he have succeeded in destroying her innocence totally by allowing her to take him to the explosive conclusion he so desperately needed?

Perhaps—he could never remember being this out of control and totally at the mercy of a woman’s mouth and hands before, but he hoped he would have been able to pull back before it was too late to stop himself from releasing completely.

As he pulled back now, his hands cradling each side of Elizabeth’s face as she looked up at him, her gaze slightly unfocused, obviously completely unaware as yet of the other women’s presence outside in the hallway. ‘We are not alone in the house,’ Nathaniel reminded her in a hoarse whisper.

She blinked dazedly before looking about the room, as if half expecting to find another person had entered without her knowledge. Once she was assured they had not, her darkened gaze returned to his. ‘I do not—’

‘Shh,’ he warned. ‘Listen.’

Elizabeth became very still as she did as he asked, her face paling as she heard Mrs Wilson and Letitia talking as they went up the stairs together.

As she realised that only a thin piece of wood was standing between herself and complete exposure as the wanton Nathaniel had just minutes ago accused her of being!

Chapter Ten

‘T
here is no need to look quite so stricken, Elizabeth,’ Nathaniel murmured as he stood beside the fireplace, the force of their lovemaking, and the pain from his now aching ribs rendering him completely sober. He had righted his pantaloons in the past few minutes and pulled on his shirt to leave it hanging loosely over the top of them to hide his still-burgeoning arousal. No doubt it would remain that way for some time to come!

‘How can I not be stricken?’ Elizabeth had refastened her gown, but her curls were still in disarray and her face was now flushed with mortification. She could not even meet his gaze as she stood across the room from him. ‘What if Mrs Wilson had decided to come into the library to say goodnight to you?’

‘She did not,’ Nathaniel said soothingly.

‘But—’

‘There are enough things to worry about tonight, without troubling yourself over something that did not happen,’ he said wryly, reaching for his brandy glass and downing the contents in one swallow, welcoming the burning sensation down his throat before that warmth hit his stomach.

Elizabeth breathed in indignantly. ‘Of course I must trouble myself—what things…?’ she prompted warily as the rest of his comment obviously pierced that indignation.

Nathaniel eyed her with a touch of exasperation. ‘Such as how we are to continue here together in future.’

‘Continue?’

‘Really, Elizabeth…’ he sighed ‘…you are not usually so lacking in intelligence.’

‘I am not in the least lacking in intelligence now, my lord—’

‘Call me Nathaniel!’ he ordered as he moved forwards suddenly. Only to come to an abrupt halt as she instantly took a step away from him. His eyes narrowed. ‘Have I shocked you so much you are now frightened to even be near me?’

It was not Nathaniel whom Elizabeth was frightened of, but her own responses to him!

As for being shocked? How could she not be shocked at her own forwardness? How could she not wish to run away to her bedchamber and hide beneath the covers on her bed at the thought of the intimacies they had just shared? That she had allowed herself to indulge in?

For self-indulgence it had certainly been to give in to the desire she had known to not only touch Nathaniel with her hands, but with her lips and tongue… Elizabeth could still taste him now, that addictive, salty-sweet taste. Could still feel the velvet softness of his skin as it encased the long and throbbing length of his arousal, a living, moving entity almost beyond his control.

All of it so much…different, to what Elizabeth had imagined it might be. And all of her behaviour was so shocking to herself that she could not even look Nathaniel in the eye, but instead concentrated her gaze somewhere over his left shoulder. ‘I will tell Mrs Wilson first thing tomorrow that I must leave her employment—’

‘Why must you?’ he demanded.

Now Elizabeth did look at him, her heart faltering in her chest at the coldness of his expression as he looked down the length of his aristocratic nose at her. Looking so unlike the man who had made love to her only minutes ago and who had become lost in the pleasure of her hands and mouth upon his body…

She looked quickly away again, her face aflame with memories of those intimacies. ‘One of us must leave—’

‘If that is true—’

‘You surely cannot doubt it!’

‘—then surely that one should be me?’ Nathaniel finished coolly.

Elizabeth gave a rueful shake of her head. ‘Mrs Wilson would far rather her nephew remain here than the young woman she hired as companion to her dog.’

‘I would not be too sure of that if I were you,’ Nathaniel drawled. ‘I have no doubt that my aunt loves me, but she adores Hector!’ he added drily in answer to her questioning glance.

He had meant to make her smile—instead, those deep blue eyes filled up with tears. This was a mess to be sure, Nathaniel accepted heavily, at the same time as he accepted he was the one to blame for it. Bad enough that he had touched Elizabeth so intimately, but to have encouraged her to return those intimacies, by undoing his pantaloons and guiding her hands onto his naked body, was surely unforgivable!

The shocked bewilderment on her pale young face surely attested to that…

Nathaniel released a heavy sigh. ‘I will explain to my aunt in the morning that business necessitates I leave Hepworth Manor immediately.’

‘She will then wonder why did you not mention it this evening,’ Elizabeth pointed out.

His mouth thinned. ‘To which I shall reply that I am unaccustomed to having to explain myself. To anyone,’ he added grimly.

Elizabeth gave a wan smile. ‘Your aunt is not just anyone. Neither is she accustomed to being refused.’

Nathaniel could not miss the emphasis on the word
she
. Neither could he deny the claim; his Aunt Gertrude was indeed a formidable and forthright woman who would demand more explanation than he might wish to give. He also realised his aunt still had concerns over his injuries, despite them starting to heal nicely.

What a tangle. What an awful mess this was, to be sure. Maybe if he had not been so angry with Elizabeth for having changed her mind concerning accompanying Tennant on a drive tomorrow, then he would not have drunk the brandy, would not have encouraged her to come into the library at all, would not have kissed and caressed her, before encouraging her to do the same to him—

Damn it, yes, he would! Nathaniel knew he would have done all of those things whether or not he had imbibed brandy; the fact that he was now completely sober showed he had not drunk anywhere near enough brandy to blame his behaviour on that. He had wanted to make love to Elizabeth, had wanted her to make love to him in return.

God, the way she had kissed and caressed him…

Nathaniel had never experienced anything like it in his life before. Oh, he had been with women during his years in the army, and since, all of whom were experienced in every way there was to give pleasure to a man, but never before had he felt such uninhibited pleasure at the hands and mouth of an innocent young lady.

Never had he been so lost in pleasure, so out of control in a lady’s presence that he was in danger of releasing himself into the heated moistness of her mouth!

And he had been in danger of doing exactly that, he acknowledged self-disgustedly. Had been on the very brink of losing all control when he’d been brought to his senses so abruptly by his relatives’ voices.

Just looking at Elizabeth’s mouth now, imagining those soft and delectable lips about his shaft, was enough to make him pulse and ache anew, warning him that he must leave here as soon as was possible, if for no other reason than to find a woman, an experienced woman, to ease that ache before he made a fool of himself again!

He turned away from even looking at the enticement of Elizabeth’s pouting pink lips. ‘I will speak with my aunt in the morning and make my excuses.’

‘I really wish you would not, my—Nathaniel,’ she corrected swiftly as he shot her another scowling glance. ‘I had not intended my employment with Mrs Wilson to be of long duration in any case.’

Dark eyes narrowed. ‘Why not?’

Elizabeth frowned at him. ‘I do not have to explain my reasons to you—Nathaniel!’ she gasped as he crossed the room in two long strides to take a firm grasp of her arm.

‘Do not “Nathaniel” me in that recriminating tone.’ He looked at her intently. ‘If you leave here tomorrow, where will you go? To whom will you go?’ he added suspiciously.

She met his accusing gaze calmly. ‘Once I leave here it will be none of your business where I choose to go.’

His mouth compressed. ‘Or to whom?’

‘Exactly.’ Elizabeth nodded.

He raised arrogant blond brows. ‘I think you underestimate my powers of persuasion.’

‘I think you underestimate my own ability to withstand that persuasion, my lord,’ she came back just as firmly, her expression defiant as she deliberately freed herself from his grasp.

He released a frustrated breath. ‘I refuse to allow you to just leave here without saying where and to whom you will be going.’

‘You do not have the right to refuse me anything,’ she insisted vehemently.

This young woman was going to be the death of him, Nathaniel decided grimly. The slow and agonising death of him!

How could it be any other way, when she pleasured him to the heights of release one minute, before then sweeping him to the depths of frustrated impatience the next? When just the thought of her disappearing as completely and as suddenly as she had entered his life was enough to throw him, a man who rarely if ever lost his temper, into a state of such dissatisfaction it could not be called anything else but that?

For all that he might now play the part of the fashionable man about town, his years in the army had made him a man accustomed to action; Elizabeth’s decision to disappear back from whence she had come, with no intention of telling him or anyone else where that might be, rendered him totally impotent. A situation that was totally unacceptable, to both the soldier and the earl.

He looked down at her between narrowed lids. ‘Perhaps in that you are right, Elizabeth.’

‘Of course I am right—’

‘I am, however,’ he continued firmly, ‘completely at liberty to tell my aunt that my actions this evening are the reason for your decision to leave her employment.’

Elizabeth gasped in horror. ‘You would not!’

‘I believe you know me better than to believe that,’ he drawled.

Elizabeth knew this man more thoroughly, more intimately, than any other man alive! As he had said, that was the whole point of her decision to leave Hepworth Manor—it was because of the intimacy that had just occurred between them that she could not stay.

‘Why would you do such a thing?’ She glared up at him.

He shrugged. ‘I will know myself to be wholly responsible if you leave here so rashly and find yourself in difficulties. And I find guilt is not an emotion that sits easily upon my shoulders.’

And they were such broad shoulders too, Elizabeth acknowledged privately. Broad and muscled shoulders that she had moments ago caressed and—Lord, she must stop this! Must put those intimacies firmly from her mind or she would send herself mad thinking about them.

She straightened proudly. ‘You would only succeed in shaming us both if you were to tell Mrs Wilson of the real reason for my departure.’

Nathaniel became very still, his expression unreadable. Shame them? Elizabeth considered their lovemaking to be shameful? Ill-advised, perhaps, even shocking in its intensity, but shameful? No, unlike her, he did not consider their time together as being in the least shameful. But perhaps she was looking for more from him?

His mouth twisted. ‘Do you expect to hear my name, rather than Tennant’s, read out in connection with yours at church on Sunday?’

Elizabeth gasped. ‘I beg your pardon?’

Nathaniel raised an eyebrow at her. ‘A single word of tonight’s events in the right ear—Viscount Rutledge’s, perhaps?—and I would be expected to make an offer for you.’

Elizabeth drew herself up haughtily. ‘I have no intention of my name being read out in church on Sunday in connection with either you or Sir Rufus.’

This young woman never ceased to surprise him, Nathaniel realised ruefully. Most women in her circumstances, when faced with the choice of casting herself back out into the capriciousness of the world, or the possibility of compromising an earl into marriage, would surely have chosen the latter. Not so Elizabeth…

‘Now if you will excuse me…’ She turned to leave.

‘Elizabeth!’

She turned slowly, unwillingly to face him, her chin nevertheless proudly high. ‘There is nothing more to be said, Nathaniel.’

There was much that still could, and should, be said, he acknowledged honestly. But he knew this was not the right time, with emotions still running so high.

He nodded curtly. ‘We will talk again in the morning.’

‘I will be leaving in the morning,’ she announced emphatically.

‘And what of your carriage ride with Tennant in the afternoon?’ Nathaniel asked quietly. ‘Sir Rufus will no doubt be very disappointed if you send him a note informing him that not only are you not accompanying him, but that you are leaving the area completely.’

In truth, Elizabeth had forgotten all about Sir Rufus Tennant and her agreement to go for a carriage ride with him tomorrow afternoon.

Of course she had forgotten him; Elizabeth defied any woman not to have forgotten such a plain and uninteresting man as Sir Rufus Tennant after knowing the pleasure of Nathaniel Thorne’s lovemaking!

‘I am sure Sir Rufus will perfectly understand.’

‘Somehow I doubt that very much,’ Nathaniel drawled. ‘I have never seen a man quite so set upon capturing a woman’s affections.’

‘You are deliberately exaggerating his interest in me in order to cause me embarrassment.’ Elizabeth’s face was flushed with displeasure.

No…Nathaniel did not feel he was in the least exaggerating Tennant’s single-minded interest in her. In fact, he did not believe he had ever seen another man quite as determined in his pursuit as Tennant was with regard to Elizabeth these past few days. Well, her decision to leave Devonshire would at least remove her from that cloyingly unpleasant situation…