Starlight (8 page)

He claimed another bittersweet kiss from her lips before replying. “Humour me,
chérie
. Would you?”

She pressed her bare heels into the small of his back and sighed softly when he began to trace every contour of her face with the tips of his thumbs. “It...it would have to be a spectacular man indeed to convince me to do so,” she finally whispered.

“But you would do so?”

She hesitated.

“Esther, please – I must know!”

Her hands shook as she reached up to caress the Comte’s face with as much intimacy as he was doing to her. “If I found a man whom I could not live without, a man who could convince me that he was worth taking that risk upon…then yes.”

Emboldened by the touch of her hand, Tristan closed his eyes to revel in it before capturing her ear between his lips and kissing it gently, too afraid to see her response to his next words. “And in little more than a day, Esther, you will be living without me.”

Her breath hitched. It was a truth that she had been hiding from ever since she had realised how very much she wanted the salacious Comte for her own. “Just a – just a day?”

“Give or take a few hours,
ma belle
.” He slowly rocked his hips against hers, deliberately grinding against her clitoris as he rested his mouth against her fluttering pulse point. “I hope, Esther, that that does not cause you more pain?”

“But you know that it does.”

Her soft words were barely audible, but in the still of the bedchamber Tristan heard them – and thrilled in them. He covered her parted lips with his own again as he slipped his arms underneath her body and rolled onto his side to cradle her against his chest. The intimacy of their entwined bodies was far more than he had ever had or wanted with any other woman, but with Esther it felt entirely right.

When he broke the kiss, fresh tears were shining in her heavy-lidded eyes. As they began to silently fall, he wiped each one away as the slow, steady thrusts of his cock inside her lifted her effortlessly towards a powerful, all-consuming climax.

“
Je t’adore
, Esther,” Tristan whispered painfully as he felt the heat of her tight muscles contract around his cock and she cried out her pleasure. “
Je t’adore, mon ange
.”

Esther was exhausted by all the emotion she felt and the release of the slow-building and intense orgasm, but she sought deep within her for the strength to respond to the words that had flown from Tristan’s lips. Her hands shook wildly as she touched his face and kissed him again before hiding her face in his shoulder. “This week with you has been spectacular, my comte – my Tristan. You have shown me such pleasure; but more importantly, you have given me back the sense of self-worth and confidence that I lost so long ago. How can I ever thank you?”

Her wavering words were both a thrill and fresh heartache – for once more they were laden with the unshakeable weight of the nearness of their parting. “The gift of you sharing yourself with me is more than enough, Esther – for you are perfect, in every way!”

With a low, agonised groan, he fisted his hands in her hair and jerked his cock out of her as, without barely a warning, his orgasm stole over him. A feverish wave of heat exploded outwards as Esther caressed his face and kissed his racing pulse point.

Tristan craved her. Even as his climax burned inside his body he needed more of her – and she needed him. Now that she had finally revealed just how much, he was determined never to let her go. He steeled his courage and lifted his heavy head to look down at her. “You realise that tomorrow is the last day that we can spend together in secret like this, Esther.”

Esther held back her tears as she revealed something that she knew he would not want to hear – something that, in truth, she wished were not so. “Yes, but we will have to be even more careful than we have been this past week – my uncle arrives tomorrow.”

He inhaled sharply. “The Earl Montfort?”

“And his daughter. Yes.”

“They will no doubt wish to monopolise your time, then – time that you should be spending with me.”

His bitter and possessive words were the guiltiest of thrills. Esther bit on her lip as she nodded without meeting his intense stare. “I...I suppose they will, yes. They are the only family I have left to me, after all, and Uncle Charles is as good as a father to me now.”

The slow-burning flicker of hope that had taken root inside him whilst they had made love so intimately faded away. “You are close to him, then?”

She nestled further into his arms and tugged the sheets up over their bare bodies. “Tristan, he and Charlotte are all I have left. I can neither deny nor defy them.”

“I see,” Tristan said stiffly as he allowed her to rest her head on his chest. As he absently stroked her hair to soothe her back into what would hopefully be a more restful sleep, he silently cursed Charlotte Tennyson and her father. Were it not for them, he was convinced that Esther could be persuaded to be his wife, for the love he had for her could break down any protest she offered up – it was a love that he knew now she too could feel for him, if only she allowed herself to.

Nonetheless, he would not give her up without a fight, no matter how futile it seemed his efforts would be. Tristan had never wanted anything or anyone as much as he wanted Esther – if he had to prostrate himself in front of her, her family or even all of England to win her, then so be it.

Neither of them slept well that night.

The Earl Montfort and his daughter had arrived at Fleetwood Hall less than ten minutes after Tristan had left Esther’s bedchamber with one last impassioned kiss that had her wordlessly clinging to him. Tears had filled her eyes again when he had mutely detached himself from her, his jaw clenched tightly when he had caressed her flushed face before departing.

Her uncle had gone to look over the grounds with Anton, leaving Charlotte and Esther to become reacquainted – Esther had not seen her since the previous summer she had spent in London, the summer when she had thrown herself into the arms of any man who would oblige her.

She had never liked her frivolous cousin. Charlotte Tennyson was filled with delight in her own beauty and had no wish to do anything but attend balls and fritter away her father’s vast fortunes on gowns, jewels and soirées.  It seemed that in their year apart, she had not changed.

Esther could pay no attention to Charlotte’s enthusiastic and inane prattling about the ton, for her thoughts were consumed by the memory of the fierce possessiveness in Tristan’s eyes when he had made love to her after the painful secrets she had shared with him. She closed her eyes briefly and allowed herself to imagine a world in which he and her cousin had never met, had never shared the night of passion that had so ruined Charlotte’s prospects.

It was not the act itself which bothered her, for she knew that she herself had many such liaisons in her past. The issue was that Tristan had been so careless and selfish in seeking out his passion; Charlotte said that he had known she was a virgin and betrothed, but that he had only seen her as a challenge and seduced her regardless.

Were it not for that knowledge of how cold and cruel he could be, then Esther knew that she would still be in Tristan’s arms and eagerly accepting all that he had seemed to be offering to her. Though deeply unsettling, far more troublesome was the certain knowledge that she would soon be without him. The mere thought of it was enough to set a spiralling panic inside her.

Still, though, now that she was out of his intoxicating presence, it occurred to Esther that perhaps the man she thought she had come to know was only what he had wanted her to see. He had made it very plain from the first moment they met how much he desired her; the tender sensitivity he had displayed had been so precisely what she needed that it may have been no more than an act to coax her into his bed and keep her there as long as possible.

She doubled over in her chair, gut-wrenching agony suddenly twisting through her as she fought for breath. No! She could not believe that to be true, for if it was, she feared her heart might break all over again. This was precisely why she had tried so hard to resist him. Tristan was without a doubt the most dangerous man she had ever known, and even if they parted after the christening Esther knew he would haunt her forever. Far from purging herself of the lust she felt for him, being with him had captured her inescapably in its grasp.

“Esther, whatever is the matter with you?”

Charlotte’s exasperated cry wrenched her attention back. Esther lifted her head as her chest heaved and she battled back a rising tide of nausea. “S-sorry, Charlotte – what did you say?”

“Why, I do not believe you have listened to even a word I have said, Esther! Really, you are being very rude. You do not even seem pleased to see me.”

Her tolerance evaporated entirely. Esther shoved her chair back without dignifying her cousin’s words with a reply and gathered up her skirts to storm towards the door, but it was opened from the outside before she could reach it. “Uncle!”

Charles Tennyson, Earl Montfort, smiled down at her as he caught hold of her arm. “Just the little lady I was looking for, my dear Esther – but am I interrupting?”

Her eyes flickered towards her furiously reddened cousin as she gave a soft snort of disdain. “No, Uncle. If you have a wish for my company, I will more than gladly oblige you.”

“Company? Conversation more than company, my dear.” With those cryptic words, the earl pushed past her into the parlour and beckoned his daughter towards him. “Charlotte? I need a few moments alone with Esther. Do try to behave yourself in my absence, won’t you?”

The other woman’s flush deepened, but she jerked her head. “Yes, Father.”

When the door slammed in her wake, the genial smile faded away from the earl’s face as he steered Esther over to the armchairs and sat down facing her. “It has been many months since we last saw each other, my dear girl – how have you been?”

A further reminder of Max and Andrew was the very last thing she needed when her emotions were already so heightened by her nights with Tristan. Esther tilted her head to the side and breathed in deeply as she tried to bring herself under control. “Well enough, Uncle Charles. The quieter pace of life away from London suits me better these days, so I am afraid you will likely not see me in the ton this season either.”

“Is that so, Esther? You are out of mourning now, you know – no one would think badly of you were you to rejoin society, and you would be welcomed back with open arms. I am often asked of you, you know.”

“By whom?”

“Gentlemen, mainly; wondering when you will next be in the ton so that they might pay their regards to you. Esther, my dear girl, do you not realise that you are one of the most eligible young ladies in all of the ton?”

“Me?!” She shook her head in astonishment. “Oh, I am nothing but a jaded widow –“

“You are but two and twenty, Esther, and you are by far the loveliest young woman it has ever been my pleasure to know,” the earl replied firmly. “You do yourself a disservice by living a life of solitude and it is high time for me to resolve that.”

Esther stiffened. “How so?”

“I am your only remaining family, cousin, and it is my responsibility to see you wed and settled. Come, do you not want to try again for a family of your own? You were a wonderful mother once and you would be again, I know that.”

Yes, she did want that; and she wanted it to be with Tristan. How she had not seen it before now, she would never know, but seeing him with their little goddaughter made her heart ache and sing in a way that it had not done since she had lost Max. She adored him, wanted him to father her children; to be the one to share her bed, her heart and her life.

Esther was deeply and inescapably in love with the man who had ruined her cousin – the man she had sworn to stay away from above all others.

Stunned by the realisation, she slumped in her seat and covered her face with her hands as her uncle continued.

“It seems I am not the only one thinking along such lines. In fact, I have already had a man come to me since my arrival here to ask for your hand.” The earl’s eyebrows contracted furiously as he rose from his chair to stalk restlessly around the parlour. “I came to you directly from my interview with him. He is the very last man I would have imagined would dare even face me, let alone ask for the hand of a woman who is as good as a second daughter to me!”

“Tristan?!” Esther’s incredulous whisper flew forth from her lips before she had even realised that she had spoken.

She clapped her hand across her mouth as her uncle turned towards her, but too late.

“You are on first name terms with that rogue?! Good God, Esther, I had credited you with more sense than that!”

“Uncle Charles, please!” Her heart was pounding so rapidly that Esther thought it must surely burst out of her chest as she leapt up and came to a shaking halt in front of him. “Uncle, are you saying that the Comte de Rouvroy has made me an offer of marriage?!”

“Yes – but I declined his proposal on your behalf, without even a moment’s hesitation!” Her uncle’s fury was tangible. “Yet you, Esther, seem neither surprised nor dismayed by his arrogant offer...I ask you again, my dear, why are you on first name terms with that most despicable of men?”

She opened her mouth to hotly defend Tristan, but a delicate cough behind them stilled the furious argument that had been about to erupt. “Ah – my lord?”

The earl’s manservant was stood in the doorway, anxiously fidgeting from side to side as Esther and her uncle both turned to face him.

“Shepherd, really – can you not see that this is no time for interruptions?!”

“My apologies, sire, but this really cannot wait.”

Lord Charles tapped his polished boot impatiently against the floor. “Very well, Shepherd. Spit it out, whatever it is!”

“My lord, you asked that I keep a close eye on Lady Charlotte in your absence. I – ah – I regret to inform you this, but she has just gone into the library with only the Comte himself.”