Blake sighed. “We must talk about more pressing matters. I had a long meeting with Dodge today.”
Violette met his eyes. “Can this not wait until the morning?” She knew she was going to have nightmares that night. If she slept at all. And dreaming about Blake being forever out of her reach was bad enough. She did not want any more anguish in her life. She did not want to know another thing about her legal predicament that night.
“No. I do have some good news.” His gaze never left her. “The venue has been changed. To the Lords. The bad news is that there is going to be a trial in the Lords next week. Charges have been pressed against you, Violette.”
Violette could not move. It felt like her heart had stopped. “A trial? Next week?” She forgot about the crisis that was their marriage. All she could think about was that the incredible had happened, that she had been charged with murdering a man she had truly cared for—and that she might hang for a murder she had not committed.
“You have been officially remanded into my father’s custody, so little will change right now.” He smiled at her and she knew he was trying to reassure her, but he failed. “For the next few weeks you shall live here, as if you are still a free woman.”
She could not speak. She could not move.
As if you are still a free woman
. His words echoed. She was frozen with fear.
“Violette?”
Violette said, “Oh, God.”
“My father, Rutherford, and myself are calling in all of our markers. We have many allies already, Violette. And of course, I am hoping to locate the real killer as soon as possible.”
Violette was ill. She was trembling. She dreaded the idea of facing an assembly of powerful nobles, all of whom would rip her apart in order to decide if she were a murderess or not. “What happens in a few weeks?”
He shifted. “There will be a verdict, if the trial runs to its conclusion.”
“A verdict.”
“We will find the real killer,” Blake said firmly. “And you are innocent.”
“I don’t think I can manage this,” she whispered. “They will destroy me.”
“You can. And you will.” Blake’s tone was firm. “We shall be there together. I shall coach you all week. You have nothing to worry about,” Blake said forcefully. “Remember, you are now Viscountess Neville.”
But it was a lie and they both knew it. So many lies. And Violette wanted to rush into his arms. To hold him, hard, press her face against his chest, and have his strong, powerful arms holding her. And perhaps, if she didn’t love him so much, she would have leapt up and embraced him. But she did not move.
“Violette?” Blake was standing. “You are pale. I do not want you to worry. We have uncovered some interesting news. I have begun to wonder about Joanna Feldstone’s involvement in all of this. As it turns out, her housekeeper has purchased quite a suppy of arsenic this past year.”
Violette already knew that. She stared up at Blake, incapable of speech.
“I will be right back,” he said decisively. Violette watched him return to his rooms. She dropped her gaze to her hands, which had become icy, in her lap. It had become difficult to breathe. She was short of breath. How could she go to trial in the Lords? Those men were not her peers. She was an impostor, a pretender, a fraud. And before the trial was over, they would all know it. Oh, God. She did not want to die. She was only eighteen.
Blake returned, carrying a snifter in his hand. “French brandy. Drink it.” He handed it to her, his eyes on her face.
Violette stared at the amber contents. She was frightened. Very frightened. And filled with panic.
“Drink,” Blake said, a command. “It will help you sleep.” His tone softened. “You look very tired, Violette.”
Violette glanced up at him, met his compelling eyes, unable to understand the sudden gentle light she saw there, and she obeyed.
But she could not sleep, not even after she had drank half the glass of brandy. Violette sat on the edge of her big bed, staring toward the fire, which was dying—staring at the door which adjoined her room with Blake’s.
It felt as if her entire life were passing before her eyes. She was going to lose everything—Ralph, Blake, her new friends the Hardings, her life.
Violette hugged herself. Her life was at stake. If she were dead her marriage did not matter.
But Violette thought about the look in Blake’s eyes when he had handed her the brandy. It was a look which made her believe, in spite of all logic, that he did care for her a little bit, that all that he was doing now was because of some fondness he held for her, and not just because he was such a heroic man.
She stared at Blake’s door. She needed him now. Like never before. She needed to be held, touched, kissed. He could caress away her terrible fears. And she could express her love for him with her hands and her mouth. She did not have to be experienced to know that, because the urge was overwhelming. She might never have this opportunity again. A few weeks from now, she might be dead.
Violette stood and walked over to the table in front of the sofa. Her snifter sat there, the brandy catching the light from the fire. She bent to pick it up and took a long draught. Heat warmed her insides considerably.
She had to go to him. Because she needed him so badly and because if she didn’t try, in this final hour of her life, she would never know what might have happened, what might have been. Wasn’t it better to go to Blake, risking rejection, than to allow things to continue the way they were? Maybe they would share this one night together. Or two, or three, or even four or five, before the final verdict.
Violette caught the end of her braid with shaking fingers. She took off the red ribbon, then finger-combed her hair until it fell in rioting blue-black waves around her shoulders and down her back. Her heart beat now with alarming strength; her knees were weak. Violette found herself reaching for her sash and pulling it more tightly around her. She walked to the door separating their room and tested the knob. It was unlocked.
Violette turned the knob and opened the door, almost ill with desire that was far more than physical. She peered into the sitting room, which was dark. There would be no turning back now. There was no other choice.
And across the carpeted expanse she saw that the bedroom door was open, a light spilling out. Blake was still awake.
Violette entered the outer room, shivering. ’And before she could reassure herself that she was certainly the only one deafened by her heartbeat, she tripped on the tasseled edge of the rug. Crying out, she almost fell to the floor.
“Violette?!” Blake exclaimed from the other room.
Violette was standing when he appeared in the doorway of his bedroom, holding aloft a taper. His eyes widened. He stared.
Violette faced him, feeling her cheeks heat. She was at a loss for words, but not because she had been discovered in the act of entering his rooms. He wore nothing but a pair of silk drawers. She hadn’t realized how broad his shoulders were, how muscular his chest, or that it was dusted with black hair. And when he moved, muscles rippled everywhere, dear God. Nor had she realized how flat and hard his stomach was. It was indented with sinew. She glimpsed his navel and forgot to breathe. Her loins had become alive in a shameful way.
“What are you doing?” he asked tightly.
Violette took a gulp of air, trying not to look at his thighs, which bulged with muscle above the knees. “I can’t sleep.”
His gaze swept over her. Violette realized her robe had opened, the sash loosened from her fall, and although the heat in her cheeks increased, she did not tighten it. Her behavior might be wanton, unladylike, but she felt wanton now, like never before.
And she knew with certainty that he found her beautiful. She could tempt him the way Eve had tempted Adam.
“Maybe, if you go back to your bed,” he said harshly, “you can.”
“I can’t,” Violette whispered, her tone odd even to her own ears. It seemed thick. “I’m too afraid.”
His regard was unwavering.
“Blake,” she said, low. “I can’t stand the thought of facing the Lords. I am not afraid, I am terrified,” she cried.
Blake’s jaw flexed.
“I don’t want to die,” she added, her gaze glued to his face. “I don’t want to die,” she repeated. “I,” she stopped. She had almost blurted out,
I need you. Please.
“You are not going to die,” he said firmly. “Come. Sit with me and we will talk about this for a while.”
Violette nodded, her pulse skipping wildly, her legs almost failing her.
Blake moved past her and set the light down on a small side table. He gestured and she came around and sat down on the sofa. He hesitated briefly before sitting beside her, leaving an ample amount of space between them.
Violette stared at him. He stared back. It was hard not to
look at his left arm, because it was so starkly bare, or to let her gaze wander to his shoulders, his chest, or his crunched-up abdomen.
“You’re shaking,” he said suddenly. “I don’t want you to be afraid.” His voice was hoarse.
“Help me forget,” she whispered, a single tear slipping from one eye.
He suddenly reached out and touched her hair, catching strands of it in his fingers, weaving the strands there. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you,” he whispered. “I swear to you, Violette.”
She believed him then. His words were a vow, made from the heart. She didn’t mean to, truly she didn’t, but tears slipped down her cheeks. She wanted to tell him how much she loved him—with all her heart, and then, somehow, impossibly, more—but of course, she did not dare. Yet the words were there, inside of her, a bubble bursting, about to explode forth.
“Violette, don’t cry,” he said, agonized.
She shook her head, trying now to stop, but it was impossible. Just as her love for Blake was impossible, just as the crisis of her life was impossible.
Suddenly he gripped both of her shoulders with his hands. Violette cried out and leaned against him; his arms closed around her, hard and strong and warm and safe. She had found her haven.
“Hold me, please, like this, Blake,” she whispered, her lips moving against the naked skin of his throat. “I need you so much!”
“Violette.” His tone was hoarse. His hands slid up her back, beneath the heavy mane of her hair, then down, low and lower still, past her hips. They remained there, splayed wide. “Violette.
I need you too.
”
Violette gasped. Their eyes met. His gaze was brilliant. Fire.
Violette did not move, knowing, hoping, waiting.
His expression changed. Suddenly fierce, he caught her face in his two big hands, and seized her mouth with his.
VIOLETTE
fell backwards on the sofa, Blake on top of her. His mouth took hers again and again. Violette clutched his shoulders, tasting the saltiness of her own tears as their mouths fused. He suddenly pulled back from her.
She gazed up at him and without realizing what she was doing, she touched his face, cupping his cheek. “Blake,” she whispered, consumed with her love for him.
A brilliant light flared in his eyes. And abruptly he had her face in his hands and he was kissing her wildly, tugging on her mouth, devouring it, pressing it open, their tongues finally meeting. And then his arms were around her and her spine was pressed deeply into the soft again. Violette kissed his throat repeatedly, his collarbone, his shoulder.
He groaned, embracing her tightly, shifting his body so her thighs opened and his legs pushed between them. Violette gasped when the hardest part of his body, a shaft that felt like steel, came into contact with her sex. His arousal was rock-hard, massive, and feeling him there against her sent a fever raging through her veins.
“Violette,” he said thickly against her neck. “I am trying very hard to think clearly about why we should not do this.”
Violette ran her hands up and down his hard, naked back. His skin felt like velvet, his muscles tight and taut beneath it. “You feel so wonderful,” she whispered. “Nothing has ever felt this good before.” Her fingertips skimmed the waistband of his drawers.
Blake groaned, lifting himself up slightly so their gazes could meet. With one hand he suddenly anchored her face. “You are so very beautiful,” he said. “So beautiful and so real. I have never met anyone like you before.” And he kissed her hard before she could respond.
Her heart soaring, Violette found herself wrapping her calves around the backs of his knees. His manhood settled more intimately against her and she moaned into his mouth, thinking that this was what she had waited for her entire life without even knowing it. Blake slid his palm beneath her gaping wrapper, covering her breast. Violette whimpered as her nipple tautened beneath his fingertips. She was beginning to feel dazed.
He shifted so their eyes could meet, then bent, pushing the satin rose wrapper off of her shoulders. Through the lace panel, he tongued her nipple, causing Violette to jerk and gasp, stunned by the pleasure he had induced. He tongued it repeatedly, finally tugging the erect point between his teeth. Violette squirmed, gasping, her fingers buried in the hair at his nape.
“I think I am going to die,” Violette managed in a queer tone of voice.
“No, don’t die,” Blake said hoarsely, sliding her lace straps off her shoulders, his hot gaze briefly holding hers. “Come with me instead.”
Violette wanted to say yes, that she would go anywhere that he wished with him, but she failed to speak, it was impossible, as he slid the nightgown down to her waist. He stared at her heaving, ivory-hued breasts.
Violette wanted him to kiss her, taste her, again.
And he did.
And then he lifted her into his arms and strode across the sitting room, into his bedroom. Violette glimpsed a massive four-poster bed, the wood so dark it was ebony, the covers crimson and gold. As he laid her down in the center of the mattress, he said, “If you shall have any regrets tomorrow, then now is the time to tell me to stop, while I, just possibly, still can.”
Violette lay in the midst of the bed; Blake stood by the bed’s edge. She had never seen a man like this before, had never even imagined Blake this way. With his eyes burning so brightly for her, his entire body rigid with tension and desire, his manhood tenting his silk drawers. Violette tried to speak. To tell him she could not ever have any regrets for any time, brief or not, spent with him. But all she could do was wet her lips. “Please,” she heard someone whisper; it was herself.
His jaw flexing, he stepped out of his drawers. Violette stared, mesmerized, drinking in the sight of him, for he was superb. He sat down beside her, his expression almost grave, cupped her breast, bent, and feathered his mouth to hers. It was a gentle brushing, and after the savage way he had kissed her earlier, the exquisite tenderness caused Violette to cry out. She no longer recognized her own body, it was on fire, about to explode from some very deep, inner core she had never before recognized or even known that it existed.
Blake pulled her wrapper off, tossing it to the floor. An instant later her nightgown followed. He inhaled. “God, you are
so lovely. Violette …” He trailed off, his hand sweeping from her shoulder to her hip and then down her thigh, her calf, and to her foot. Giving her one very direct glance, he lifted her foot and pressed a kiss to the arch.
“Oh God,” Violette thought, and realized she had spoken her thoughts aloud.
He smiled slightly, pressing a kiss to her navel. Violette arched up beneath him while his palm stroked up the inside of one thigh. “Blake,” she whispered, half in protest, half in plea. The heat was building, she felt faint. She did not think she could stand too much more, yet she was not sure what awaited her on the other side of passion.
He kissed her nipple, suddenly palming her sex. Violette could not move. It had never occurred to her that Blake might touch her there, or that she would find such an intimate caress so exquisite and breathtaking.
His fingers separated her, slipped over her, found and caressed the most sensitive part of her. Violette could no longer think. Her hips began to shift wildly. She tried to look at him, but her vision was blurred—yet Blake was staring at her now with utter intensity while his hand continued its quest. Suddenly he bent and pressed her thighs apart. Violette did not know what to expect, but when his tongue touched her, she cried out.
He did not release her thighs. He began to suck on her, kissing her, laving her thoroughly. His face was buried between her thighs. Violette had stopped thinking long ago. She had the strongest notion that she was about to die and go to heaven. And if she did not, that would make her die, too.
A sob escaped her lips.
Blake moved on top of her. “Darling, come with me, now,” he said hoarsely, but it was a command.
Violette blinked and met his bright blue gaze, which seemed to contain far more heat than the sun ever could—it was far more potent and far more blinding. “Please,” she begged.
His smile was brief, fierce, and then he drove into her.
Violette had been experiencing the greatest pleasure she had ever known, and when he entered her she was completely unprepared for the sudden pain. She cried out.
Blake froze, eyes wide, the biceps in his arms bulging, his shocked gaze meeting hers.
But the pain was gone as suddenly as it had appeared, and Violette began to relax slightly. He felt amazingly hard packed there inside of her.
He pulled out. “Violette, Jesus, you didn’t tell me!” His eyes remained wide and stunned.
Violette felt the tears gathering. His being joined with her, a part of her, had been so beautiful. “Don’t leave me,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” he rasped, enfolding her tightly in his arms. She felt the stiff tip of his phallus quivering against her belly. He lifted his head to brush kisses to her forehead, her nose, her temples, and finally her mouth. “I am sorry. I did not know. I had no idea that you were a virgin. I never meant to hurt you; I never want to hurt you.”
She gazed up at him, acutely aware now of the heat generated by his manhood on her pubis, equally aware of her thighs wrapped around his, spread achingly wide. She had comprehended his every word, wanted to reply, she truly did, but his body was having a definite effect on her again. She was open, vulnerable, exposed—and lacking. She wanted to tell him that it did not matter, that the pain was long since gone, but she only inhaled air. “Blake,” she said, the sound strangled. She could feel the heavy weight of his testicles wedged against her own engorged sex.
He hesitated, his temples throbbing. “Slowly,” he said. “This time slowly, gently, I promise.” Their gazes locked.
And a brilliant promise was there. Violette nodded, feeling him as he pressed the engorged tip of his penis against her. It was slick and wet with her body’s own secretions.
“If I hurt you, you must tell me immediately and I will stop,” he breathed against her ear, kissing the lobe once.
“You’re not … hurting me,” Violette whispered.
Blake smiled slightly, briefly at her, bent, and began to tongue her nipple. As he did so, he rubbed himself back and forth slickly, wetly, over her sex. The pressure inside Violette quickly crested again. A feverish tightness reappeared, one explosive and filled with possibilities far too immense for her to grasp.
“Oh, God,” Violette said.
“I agree,” Blake murmured thickly, beginning to test and penetrate her.
Violette tensed, waiting for the sudden stabbing of pain. But as he slowly moved his length inch by inch inside of her, it did not reappear. Instead, the fever raged, hotter, brighter, than before.
“How does that feel?” he asked thickly, sheathed entirely inside of her.
Violette stared at him, unable to answer, unable to speak. She could feel him there, so tight and hot and deep inside of her, and nothing had ever felt so good, so right, so beautiful, so utterly perfect before. “Never stop,” she managed. Tears suddenly filled her eyes as she held him tightly to her.
“Never,” he said hoarsely, and he began to move.
Violette whimpered, purely in the throes of pleasure, holding onto him now, somehow knowing that heaven loomed before her again. Blake groaned, finding her mouth, driving faster now. With one hand he reached for her thigh and encouraged her to wrap it around his hips.
“Darling,” he gasped, the sound raw. He searched for and found her lips again for another hungry kiss.
“Blake!” Violette gripped his back, pumping her hips up at him as his thrusting increased, her mind spinning, her chest choked. And then it happened. Stars exploding. Brilliant, bright lights. Death. A wonderful, wonderful explosive death. And Heaven.
Blue-black, star-studded, weightless, timeless, infinite, immense.
Violette was vaguely aware of Blake crying out, straining over her, while she floated slowly, bonelessly back to earth. He collapsed on top of her, cradling her tightly in his arms. His labored breathing was harsh but so wonderful against her neck.
Violette sank deeper into the mattress. She smiled against his face, joy welling up inside of her from the spring that could only be her soul. Who had ever known it could be like this? Could anything be more glorious than two people, a man and woman, in love, coming together like this? Oh, my. Still smiling, she stroked his sinewed back. Joyous.
She realized that he was lifting his head in order to regard her.
Violette smiled into his eyes. How blue and beautiful they were. She looked at every perfect, breathtaking feature of his face. Her heart was so very tight. So very full. The words were there, on the tip of her tongue.
I love you.
God, she did. But she said, “I had no idea.”
His expression was grave. He did not smile. He continued to study her, then slipped onto his side. But he kept his arm around her. “I am sorry I hurt you,” he finally said. “I did not realize it was the first time for you. I am an ass.”
“You are not an ass.” Violette’s smile faded. “I should be
angry with you. Not for hurting me, but for thinking so little of me.”
Blake grimaced. “You were married to Sir Thomas, Violette.”
“But he was an old man!” she exclaimed. How could Blake have imagined her to have shared a bed with her husband—who had been seventy years old?
“But it is the way of the world, the way of men,” he said. His gaze roamed over her face. Suddenly he cupped her cheek. “God, you are so beautiful,” he said, and he leaned forward to kiss her. “And that”—he hesitated, unsmiling, intense—“was incredible.”
Blake watched Violette as she slept.
The sun was finally rising. He had not been able to sleep all night. Now soft, pink-hued light came through the windows—the draperies were open—and played over her sleeping form. She lay on her belly, her face turned toward him, a small smile on her face. Her black hair cascaded all around her. She was so very beautiful. And being with her was not like being with any other woman he had ever known. Being with her felt like that was where he belonged.
He stared up at the ceiling grimly. He tried now, very determinedly, to recall just how it had felt making love to Gabriella. Oddly enough, the memories were so dim now, so muted, so old, that he really couldn’t remember. And wouldn’t he be able to remember if he had had the same overwhelming sense of belonging?
Blake flung one arm up over his head. The past no longer seemed to matter. How could it, when he had just made love to Violette with far more than his body—with all of his heart, and maybe even his soul?
Yet he wasn’t sure how last night had happened. He had been determined not to consummate their marriage. Determined not to become involved, not like this.