Their Wicked Ways (14 page)

“Do you think that it never
bothered me to think of you in Isaac’s bed?”

Bronte stiffened, pulling
away slightly to look at him.  “It did?” she asked in surprise

His lips twisted wryly.  “It
did.”

Bronte settled her head
against his shoulder again.  “There was something in the punch.”

“I know.”

“I feel most strange.”

“I’m trying very hard not to
take advantage of you, Bronte.  Do, please, cease to remind me that you’ve had
far too much to drink.”

Bronte chuckled.

“Why don’t you tell me what
frightened you?  Why you’re so upset?”

The urge to laugh vanished
abruptly.  Bronte swallowed against the surge of fear and the sudden urge to
burst into tears that replaced it.  She could not bring herself to tell him
that it was fear for him, though.  He had punched Lord Fairfax out.  She didn’t
want to think about what the repercussions might be.

The urge to tell him, and to
beg him not to meet Lord Fairfax in a duel was nearly overwhelming, but she
knew it was useless to try to wring such a promise from him.  In the first
place, he would consider it an insult to suggest that he couldn’t hold his own
in any duel.  In the second, he had hit Lord Fairfax.  Lord Fairfax might well
call him out on account of it, and Nick would not refuse a challenge.  He might
be persuaded not to call Fairfax out, but no amount of pleading would convince
him to ignore Fairfax if he decided to pursue the dispute.

“You went to the party
because of me, didn’t you?”

He’d been stroking her back
almost idly.  At that, his hand stilled.  “And?”

She released him and sat up. 
“I wish you had not.”

He stopped her when she would
have moved back to her own seat.  “I make my own decisions and I am responsible
for my own actions, Bronte.”

She shook her head.  “Even
when you did it because someone was where they should not have been and you
felt duty bound to protect them only because it had become a habit with you?”

His eyes gleamed with
amusement.  “You are a difficult habit to break, Bronte.”

“I do not
want
to be a
habit!” she snapped, angry that he was making light of the situation when she
was so swamped with guilt over the possibility that he could be hurt, or worse,
only because of her own willfulness.  Resentment swelled inside her too, for
she could not have anticipated anything that had unfolded.

“What
do
you want?”

She looked down at her hands
in her lap.  She had wanted to hate him and Darcy.  Better yet, she wanted not
to care at all.  She had wanted that most of all--not to feel hate, or yearning
but a complete absence of anything that would continue to haunt her whenever
she considered seeking a life for herself that included a husband. She had
wanted to discover that the feelings that had begun when she should have been
too young to have felt them at all had not been real.

Now, all she wanted was to
undo everything she had done since she had made the decision to return home to
England.  Like the slow deterioration of dying nerves around an aching tooth,
time and distance had dulled the pain of her memories.  She should have been
content with that.

Instead, she had opened
herself up to even more pain because she saw now that, no matter what happened,
it was going to end badly and she was going to take even more regrets back with
her than she had had to start with.

Now she’d had a taste of the
forbidden and gotten hooked.  Simply thinking of one or both of them set her
body ablaze with desire.  It hurt to gaze upon them and know that she could
never be with Nick or Darcy.

“Peace,” she replied almost
angrily, trying to wiggle off his lap once more.  “The freedom to make my own
decisions and take the consequences without having to worry that someone else
will suffer for my poor judgment.”

Nick’s hand tightened on her
waist.  His face hardened with anger.  “That is only because you do not fully
comprehend what the consequences might have been if I had not intervened.”

“Do you think I am so naïve I
don’t know that I might have ended in Lord Fairfax’s bed, or that that was his
intention?”

“You wanted that?” he
demanded, furious now.

“No!” she retorted before she
had time to consider it, making no attempt to hide her revulsion of the idea. 
The denunciation was no sooner out of her mouth, however, than it occurred to
her that she had intended to convince Nick and Darcy that she had no interest
in either of them even if she couldn’t convince herself of it.  “At least …
that is not why I went.  It wasn’t what I’d planned, or even expected, but
there is no reason why I should not take a lover if I wish to!  I am not an
untried girl!  I am a woman, a widow who knows her way around a man’s bed!”

His voice lowered, carrying
with it a dangerous undertone.  “So … you’re saying you went looking for a
lover?”

“Yes!”  It was only partly a
lie.  She had not intended or expected anything of the sort when she’d decided
to go to Mrs. Bolington’s affair, but she had realized that the only way she
was going to avert a breach in the long standing friendship between Darcy and
Nick was to eschew the company of both.  She didn’t need to know why they had
taken the notion to pursue her.  It was sufficient that she could see that
she’d aroused the fierce competition between them.

“Why?” he demanded tightly.

Bronte stared at him in
growing agitation.  “Do you think because I am a woman that I do not have the
same needs that you do?”

“Then seek a husband,” he
said harshly.

“I cannot!”

“Again, why?”

“Because I’m barren!” Bronte
blurted.  “Because I could not give him what he would have a right to expect of
me, an heir, a family.”

He studied her in silence for
several moments a reached a hand up to cup her jaw, capturing her attention. 
“You don’t know that.  You were not married so long that you could be certain
of it.”

She turned to stare blindly
out the window.  “A physician confirmed it.”

“And he could still be
wrong,” Nick said wryly.

Bronte sighed, having covered
the same ground numerous times with her mother.  “Nevertheless, I could not, in
good conscience, do so, and I have not the stomach to be tied to a man who
would hate me for such a deception if time proved what I suspect to be true.”

Again, Nick fell silent for
some moments.  “If you are determined upon this course, then you have two to
choose from,” he said, his voice laced with cold anger now.  “Me … or Darcy.”

Bronte gaped at him in
dismay.  “I can’t!  I couldn’t!”

His eyes narrowed.  “I have
had no complaints, not in many years at any rate.  So far as I am aware,
neither has Darcy.  Women seem to find me attractive enough.  I cannot speak
for their taste, particularly when they appear to consider Darcy handsome as
well, but I have been led to believe they find little fault in my appearance.
If you are seeking a lover, then you certainly could not object to a man of
experience.”

“No, but … but....”

She could no more tell him
that she couldn’t choose because she didn’t want to create trouble between him
and Darcy than she could plead with him to avoid a duel.  He would not consider
the cost.  Darcy would not consider the cost.  And she’d never been able to
choose between them regardless.  She found each man fascinating and attractive
in their own right.  Darcy charmed her with his easy ways, and Nick attracted
her with his coldly dangerous air.

It was possible that it would
not result in a rift between them, but she could not risk it even if she could
bring herself to choose between them and in her heart she knew she could not.

“I … uh … the thing is, I
just can’t.”

“Why?”

Desperation provided
inspiration.  “You are like brothers to me.  It does not feel right.  I know
you are not, but I cannot help feeling that way when we grew up together.”

He gripped her upper arms,
dragging her against his chest until she felt crushed against him.  Her nipples
prickled to life, growing into hard pinpoints that stabbed against the
musculature of his chest until her breasts felt achy and swollen.

“Liar,” he murmured as he
slid one arm around her, threaded his fingers through her red hair and covered
her mouth in a searing kiss that instantly heated Bronte’s blood to a slow
simmer.  Dizziness swept over her the moment his tongue invaded her mouth in a
possessive caress, demolishing what little resolve she’d managed to summon. 
She clutched the lapels of his jacket as full-fledged desire wound through her
body, rapidly tightening its grip upon her mind and senses, and finally slipped
her arms around his neck.

He hesitated when she
capitulated, but Bronte was well beyond thought of drawing back.  Driven purely
by need, she pressed more tightly against him, caressing his tongue with hers. 
He tensed.  A hard shudder went through him.  He caught her arms once more,
clearly torn between his own needs that urged him to draw her closer still and
the little reason that remained to him.

The coach rocked, as if
trying to draw them back into reality and the fact that they could be
compromised by their position.

Abruptly, he broke the kiss,
moving his mouth along her throat in open mouthed kisses until he reached her
breasts.  Scooping one from her bodice, he closed his mouth around the
distended tip, teasing it with his tongue, torturing her with the heated
adhesion of his mouth as he suckled it.

Bronte moaned, moving her
hands over him restlessly, tightening her arms around his head as he continued
to caress her sensitive nipple, sending waves of intense pleasure through her. 
He caressed her thigh, reaching down to grasp the hem of her dress and slipping
his hand beneath it.  She shifted as his hand skated up her silk stockings to
her bare thigh, trying to move to allow him better access, wanting his hand
between her thighs and inside her.

Lifting his head, he stared
at her a long moment, his breath sawing raggedly from his chest.  “As tempted
as I am, a moving carriage is the worst sort of place to attempt this,” he said
wryly.

Disappointment swamped her,
but reason reared its ugly head the moment her blood began to cool, and she
realized she could not have left him in any doubt that she had lied about
seeing him only as a brother.  She moved away from him jerkily, adjusting her
clothing, fighting the confusing mixture of emotions that pelted her.

Uppermost was the near
desperate desire to finish what they’d begun and to hell with the
consequences.  The temptation to burn her bridges completely and eliminate any
future temptation by lying through her teeth was nearly as overwhelming, but
she could not bring herself to tell him she had pretended in her mind that he
was someone else.

Almost as if he’d read her
mind, he spoke then.  “Don’t bother trying to tell me again that you can feel
nothing beyond a filial affection for me, or that you were imagining I was
someone else.  You and I both know that’s a lie.”

Unable to meet his gaze,
Bronte looked away.  With unimaginable relief, she saw that the carriage had
turned at last upon her street.  “I won’t,” she managed to say after a moment. 
“For Isaac never entered my mind, but I have tasted passion and it has been a
very long time for me.  You will have to agree, at least, that passion has no
conscience and one’s needs can often override … other considerations.”

“In other words, all cats are
gray in the dark?” he said tightly as the carriage came to a stop at last.