The Romantic (38 page)

She took his hand and led him out of the room.

“Where are we going?”

“Someplace where I can take care of you. Do not object or tell me it is too indiscreet. I am thoroughly notorious now so I get to be as naughty as I like.”

“That is one of the benefits of scandal, isn’t it?”

“Oh, yes. I learned that early on.”

She brought him up to her chamber. Indiscreet was an understatement for doing so at midday with the servants’ full knowledge. He would remind her about that later. Today there were no rules he was inclined to obey.

The bath had been prepared near the fire in her bedroom. A steaming tub waited on a large oilcloth that protected the carpet.

“My dressing room is not large enough,” she explained. “I thought you would want to wash the last week away.”

He still smelled the prison on him, and she probably did, too. He was not sure that a bath would completely spare him from smelling the odor. It was in his head, along with the misery and despair that permeate such a place.

He sat down and removed his boots.

The latch clicked. He turned his head. Pen had not left. She had only closed and locked the door.

She came up behind him and slid her hands down the front of his coat. “I said I wanted to take care of you. Did you think that meant like a mother?”

“I hoped more than the bath waited up here.”

“Yes, much more. But first I will take care of you in other ways.” She slid his frock coat down his shoulders and off his arms and cast it aside. Her fingers sought the knot in his cravat.

He closed his eyes and rested his head back against her breasts. Her circling arms and deft touch aroused him. Desire burst like a torch.

He turned his head and kissed the swell of her breast. With a soft smile, she went to work on his waistcoat.

Every small touch inflamed him more. He began thinking that the bath could wait.

She moved in front of him to loosen his cuffs and collar. She slowly lifted his shirt over his head. She paused.

He looked up at her heavy-lidded expression. Sensual lights sparkled in her eyes. She was enjoying this.

She caught him noticing her looking. A pretty flush reddened her cheeks. “You will have to stand now. Otherwise, I cannot …”

Desire still roared in him, fueled by the heady liberation the day had brought. This undressing had become erotic, however, and he did not mind the delay.

He stood. She turned her attention to working the buttons of his trousers. He turned his attention to the way the light from the window made her dark hair shine.

Her hand kept brushing against his erection. Her face flushed more, and she had trouble finishing the task.

“Do you want some help, Pen?”

“No. I can do this.” It sounded more like a statement of resolve than of competence. “I have dreamt for days what I would do if I got you back, and these buttons are not going to defeat me.”

She managed it. The trousers loosened. She paused again.

“No help at all?”

She laughed. “You could kiss me. That would help enormously. This is harder than I thought. I expected to
feel dangerous and seductive, and instead I feel silly and awkward.”

He slid his hand behind her neck and drew her toward him. “You are very dangerous, and I am thoroughly seduced.” His kiss revealed just how thoroughly. He barely kept from devouring her. As his tongue swept the moist velvet of her mouth, he imagined other velvet depths and fought the urge to pick her up and carry her to the bed.

He did not succumb, in part because he could not walk. During the kiss Pen had pushed down his lower garments, and they bunched around his ankles.

Eyes bright with her own desire, she kissed his neck, and down to his chest. The warm press of her lips created spots of delicious fire.

She eased away. “If there is going to be a bath at all, it should be soon.”

She lowered herself to her knees to extricate his ankles and feet from the garments. He looked down at her as she knelt to tend to him. Like a servant to a master. Or a lady to her lord.

It moved him that she would even consider such a pose of submission. She was the daughter of a viscount and widow of an earl. She had probably never knelt willingly to any person except the king. She had not been educated to humble herself in the care of anyone.

He touched her head. “I am honored, my lady”

She looked up and her eyes misted. She turned her head and softly kissed his leg. Then his thigh. Then she kissed him in a way that made his teeth clench.

He held out his hand and helped her to her feet. He walked to the tub and stepped in.

“Is it still hot?” she asked.

“If it isn’t, I am, and my body will warm it fast enough.”

He began washing, wondering if she even knew what that last kiss had implied.

She knelt beside the tub, no doubt to help him.

“You will get your dress wet.”

“I do not think some soap and water will ruin it.”

“There is no reason to take the chance.” He rinsed his hand and reached behind her. He began unfastening her dress. “If you are going to be dangerous, Pen, you may as well do it right.”

She twisted so he could reach better. He sat up in order to deal with her stays.

He gestured to the chair where his garments were lying. “If you take them off over there, they won’t get wet.”

He also would be able to watch. She realized that as soon as she stepped out of her dress.

She looked quite demure as she set aside the dress. Less so while she released her petticoats. A sensual smile softened her mouth as she let the stays fall.

“I like the way you are looking at me, Julian. I feel very seductive and dangerous now. I want to see if I can be devastating and wicked, too. You must stay there while I finish.”

“Trust me, I am incapable of moving.”

She deliberately took a long time to remove her chemise. She teased him with a slow unveiling. The fabric inched down the full, creamy breasts he had dreamed of kissing, over the lovely curve of her waist, around her hips, and over the dark hair below. Finally she stood naked except for her hose, a perfect feminine vision, all white and pink and soft.

Her gaze never left him. Her expression revealed her arousal, and other things, too. Triumph at what she was doing to both of them gave her a very worldly air.

She walked over to the tub. She appeared incredibly erotic like that, nude except for the white silk covering her from thighs to toes. The effects of this disrobing collected in him with a ruthless fury. When she got within reach he grabbed her arm and pulled her down so he could kiss her.

She joined him as if it was the first kiss in years. Her response was shy and tentative at first, then impassioned and aggressive. She bent over the tub, hands on its edges, arms flanking his shoulders.

Her breasts hung inches from his face. He kissed each one, then moved his tongue over one tight nipple and his fingers over the other. Her breath quickened the way he loved, then escaped in little gasps. She moved slightly to make it easier. He knew that her breasts were more sensitive when she straddled him or sat, and he caressed and drew gently, the way that gave her the most pleasure.

“That feels so good,” she whispered between deep sighs. “At night I would remember making love with you, and I could not sleep.” She touched his face, stopping him, and raised it so she could kiss him. “I could have you do that forever, Julian, but I am taking care of you today, remember?”

She straightened and looked down at him. “I haven’t finished undressing.”

She raised one foot and propped it on the edge of the tub right near his shoulder. With slow, deft hands, she began rolling down her stocking.

There was no reason for that to make him impatient,
but it did. He was halfway to madness already, and the descent of that stocking made another restraint break. He circled her hips with his arm and kissed her flank and the outside of her thigh. A glorious passion started breaking in him. A magnificent turmoil of hunger and pleasure and unspeakable need.

She switched legs, raising the other, turning slightly within his arm to keep her balance. This position exposed her as the last had not. He had to clench his jaw to control the sexual lightning that flashed through his mind and body.

He became aware that her hands had stopped at her knee. He looked up at her face. Her expression said that she had noticed he was not watching the stocking at all.

“You are very good at being devastating and wicked, Pen.”

“You are quite devastating yourself, my love. And right now you look extremely dangerous, in the most thrilling way.” She glanced down to the curls and pink flesh he had been looking at. “Do you want to kiss me there?”

“Yes. Does that shock you?”

“A little. It is not something I have done before.” She bit her lower lip and suddenly appeared very young and innocent. “I think that I would like to do things with you that I never did before, Julian.”

He finished removing her stocking, and used the time to force some control. He put her foot down and rose out of the water. Not bothering to use the towel, he lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bed.

He reclined beside her, braced up on one arm so he could see how beautiful she was in the soft light streaming through a nearby window. He smoothed his hand
over her, marveling anew at how soft her skin was, how silken and warm.

She reached and pulled him down into her embrace, the first happy embrace since that day in Hampstead. Holding her quietly and completely, feeling her skin against his, made his heart ache beautifully. Another sentiment, poignant and exquisite and grateful, joined the powerful chaos that possessed him.

It did not remain quiet long. Demonstrating her new aggression, determined to be devastating, Pen pushed him on his back and kissed him hard. She used her tongue as he had, flicking it over his chest, teasing his skin until his mind was blank to everything except the sensation of her mouth and hands and the sounds of her increasing abandon. Desire urged him to take her, but the hunger for a different possession spoke louder.

He flipped her onto her back. He parted her legs and knelt between her knees. Lids heavy and eyes glazed, she looked up at him.

He bent down and kissed her stomach, and then her thigh. When he raised his head, she was still watching him.

He caressed her thighs. “I have never done this before either, Pen. It is not something I have shared with another.”

“I like that,” she whispered. “I am glad.”

He lay between her legs and immediately entered a sexual daze. He kissed the soft flesh of her inner thighs and then the astonishing softness of her mound and silky curls. She instinctively spread her legs wider. He caressed the moist, pink folds exposed to him, and she relaxed and responded to this familiar touch. Her escalating cries filled
his ears and her scent filled his head. Primitive, almost violent pleasure stirred his essence.

He kissed her, gently tasting. Her breath audibly caught. He kissed again, using his tongue, letting her cries guide him, finding the best pleasures. She bent her knees and raised her hips, inviting more. Lost now, absorbed by the mysteries, mindless of everything except the powerful desire and pleasure wracking his body and the begging lilt of her frantic cries, he explored deeper, then higher, circling the sensitive flesh with his tongue.

Her climax engulfed him. It rang in his ear and shuddered through her hips and pulsed at his mouth. While her throaty scream echoed, he knelt and lifted her legs so they rose straight up his body. Supporting her hips with his hands, he entered the sweet warmth he had been kissing.

She absorbed him. She tremored around him and sighed with desperate contentment. He thrust hard and fast and long. She began crying again, joining him in the sublime fury until they shared the cataclysm together.

Pen woke in Julian’s arms in the soft light of dawn. She drifted in a cloud of languid contentment while she listened to him breathe. She treasured the cozy warmth of his chest beneath her cheek and the subtle pulse of his heartbeat on her ear.

There had been many firsts with Julian, and the bold acts of last night only had meaning as metaphors for the rest. There had been her first day of complete freedom when they went to Hampstead. And last night, the first love-making when both of them had escaped all the dangers.

Last night had also been the first lovemaking after she had truly comprehended his love.

It humbled her that he had cared for her so long, so silently. Other men might have sent those letters, or pursued her for a heartbreaking and dangerous affair. Others might have played the lovesick poet on a public stage. Some men would have let the world know about their hopeless passion. Julian’s quiet, dignified love had been much more romantic.

He would have declared himself to a different woman. She did not doubt that. He had remained silent to protect her from Glasbury.

A beam of the new day’s light moved to Julian’s face and he stirred. His arm tightened around her, as if his first instinct was to make sure she was still there.

She remained pressed against him even after she knew he was fully awake. She sensed his eyes were open, then felt the kiss on her head.

“What do you want to do now, Pen?”

There were several things to do today, but they could wait. Right now she wanted to dwell in this lovely contentment.

She knew what the question really meant, however. He was not only asking about this day, but also about the ones ahead. He was asking what she wanted to do with her freedom.

“Today I want to thank the woman who saved you,” she said. “Then, very soon, I want to go with you to the cottage again. Right now, however, I want to make love in this incredible light and glorious peace.”

They did, slowly, sweetly, perfectly. Afterward, they sent a message to Batkin to send some fresh clothes for

Julian. By noon they were in the breakfast room, drinking coffee and reading the post and papers.

One letter had come from France.

“Julian, here is a letter from Catherine. She wrote from Marseilles, right before sailing again. She thanks me for my help that night very explicitly.”