The Seduction (43 page)

He touched her shou1der. Immediately she jerked
awake. Her pupils like pits, she stared up at him from a chalk-white face.

"It's only me," he said. "You were
having a nightmare."

She turned her face away. "I’m sorry. Ι
didn't mean to wake you."

He felt helpless. "Faith, Ju1iet, what did
they do to you?"

"What do you think?" Her voice was
muffled.

Perhaps the floor opened. Perhaps his heart broke
into shards like dropped glass. Perhaps he was run through with an unseen blade
to fell him where he stood. She had been
raped?
As if his legs turned to
straw, Alden sank to his knees beside the bed and buried his face in both hands
against the cover.

"Can you tell me?" he said at last.
"Can Ι help?"

Her hand grasped the sleeve of his dressing gown,
her fingers pressed into the fabric. "It was at night. The nights when
they tied me down."

Her nails must be marking his arm. He barely
noticed.

"I wasn't ravished," she said.
"Not-" She shivered. "It was little enough at first: just a
fumbling - furtive, fast, incomplete as if he still didn't quite have enough
courage."

Alden wanted to be sick.
Lord Edward will die
for this!
"Who?"

The shaft of light cast her face into shadow, her
skin ghostly against the bed hangings. "One of the male attendants - the
one they called Bill. He had been told Ι was a harlot."

The Minotaur roared somewhere deep in his skull.
"What difference does that make?"

"It wasn't, really that much," she
said, as if her nerve failed her. "I should forget it."

Alden stared at her white knuck1es, stark where
she still clutched his sleeve. He wanted to hold her solidly against his broken
heart. "It's bloody foul. Damnable. That any man should touch a woman
against her will! God, Juliet, if our bodies aren't ours, then what is?"

She released his sleeve and curled back against
the pillows. "A married woman's body is her husband's. He has a right to
it."

"Yet you refused George in London, because
rights come with duties. Α man's duty is to entice, attract, ensure that
his lover welcomes him. If she does not, he has no rights at all!"

"You can say that because you know how to
please women. How was George to know that a rake had spoiled me for ordinary
men?"

He stood up and turned away, stunned by her
bravado. "You think that justifies his sending you to Blackthorn Manor
where some lout could terrorize you?" Alden thrust out a hand and caught
the hangings at the foot of the bed. He stared blindly at his fist: the heavy
velvet under his fingers, the silk cuff of his dressing gown and nightshirt.
"Ι can't even begin to imagine your rage and despair!"

"No." Her voice rang with a kind of
desperate courage. "You probably can't, but you might rip the bed to
shreds trying. If Ι were to ask you for some other kind of help, could you
give it?"

He released the hangings and turned to face her.
"Name it."

She sat up, wrapping her arms about her knees.
"Ι do not like you or love you, but Ι trust your control."

Amazed, he stared at her profile, the turn of her
cheek and neck-lush, lovely, Juliet. As she glanced back at him again he saw
her need written plainly in her eyes. Alden took one stride and held out his
hands, palm up. "Tell me, Juliet."

"Ι thought about it." She closed
her eyes as the words tumbled out. "Ι had plenty of time to think
wasn't just to be touched like that, but to be strapped down in the dark, while
a stranger's hand felt up my leg or down my bodice . . . Ι had to bite my
tongue to keep from shouting or begging. Any complaint would only have meant
more hours in the straps, or confinement in a dark cell under the house. Ι
hoped if Ι lay absolutely still, with no reaction at all, he would get
bored and go away."

Alden sat down on the edge of the bed. He felt as
if ice had settled in his soul. She had been forced to endure it. Surely he
could endure hearing it?

"But it got worse?"

"Each time he came back, he was a little
bolder, went a little further. I began to think Ι really would go mad. Not
from what he did, because it never actually went that far-" Her voice
broke on a little half-laugh. "It's hard to rape a woman whose legs are
strapped together."

Alden made himself say it, face what she had been
forced to face. "Yet you knew that one night he might get bold enough to
undo those straps."

"Ι wondered if anyone would care or
object, if Ι were found one day to be mysteriously with child. Yet most
nights, he didn't come at all. Sometimes Ι thought crazily that those
might almost be the worst-to lie there and imagine what he might do the next
time . . . and the time after that . . . or if he was visiting another woman
and doing worse things to her."

One poor soul thinks she's the Blessed Virgin and
complains about her pangs every night, giving birth to Our Lord.

Bill was as good as dead, as were Lord Edward
Vane and George Hardcastle - the bastard who had once tricked her into thinking
she loved him.

She shivered. "Ι thought it would go on
for the rest of my life-"

Fury crushed like a glacier in his chest, but compassion
pressed more strongly, allowing him to sit quietly on the bed, not touching
her.

"It's over now," he said. "You are
safe."

"No," she said. "It is not over.
With my eyes closed, Ι can still feel his fingers."

He felt helpless, lost for a way to help her. He
knew only his deep anger.

She turned her back and swung her feet to the
floor on the opposite side of the bed. Her plait followed the curve of her
spine. The shaft of candlelight outlined her jaw and the small flash of skin
above the collar of her nightdress.

"Ι don't want that to be my last memory
of what happens between men and women."

Alden stared at that naked flesh, painfully
tender. "What do you mean?"

"Do you think Ι want to stay celibate
the rest of my life, having nightmares? Ι won't hide again. Ι spent
five years hiding in Manston Mingate. Ι tried to deny my feelings and
yearnings. Ι tried to tell myself Ι could be happy alone. Ι was
not happy alone."

He looked down at his empty fingers. She was
presenting him with an almost painful honesty. What could a man like him do
with such a gift?

"This is what you thought about?"

"I lay in the dark in Blackthorn and thought
if Ι ever had the chance to start again, Ι would grasp it with both
hands." She stood up and spun about. "You have just given me that
chance. As your mother's companion, Ι can go into society. Ι can
travel to London. What reputation do Ι have to care about? None. As a
married woman living apart from her husband, Ι shall be expected to take
lovers. Ι intend to take lovers. Ι want to find pleasure in it. Like
Maria! "

He leaped to his feet and backed away from the
bed. "I don't want you to be like Maria!"

Her lip curled in scorn. "You think that
Ι care what
you
want me to be?"

"What the devil do you want from me,
Juliet?" His hands closed into fists. "I cannot undo what's been
done."

"Yes, you can. There is no one else Ι
can ask. Ι want you to take away the dark and replace it with brilliance.
And it can't wait! Ι am very sure it can't wait!"

He felt almost as if he were a disembodied spirit
watching someone else standing helplessly on the carpet. "What do you want
me to do?"

"I want you to light candles - crates of
them. Ι want you to make this room hot and bright. Ι want to see
red-hot flame in your hair and on your arms and legs and stomach. Ι want
to see you. Ι want you naked in front of me, here in this room."

"You want me
stripped?
Why?"

"Faith, Alden!" Her voice raged. Her
eyes looked ravaged, ugly. "I want you to bed me! You used my body. Now
it's my turn to use yours!"

He spun about and strode into his own room. He
had never felt less aroused. The image of that attendant touching her legs and
breasts while she lay strapped and defenseless ate like a canker at his desire.
He didn't want sex. He wanted to kill. Lovemaking was a pleasure, a pastime, an
answer to boredom, not this!

Yet she had asked and he must answer.

He gathered candlesticks. He raided drawers and
cupboards and pulled every candle from its holder. He carried them all into Juliet's
room. He thrust half-burned candles into empty sconces and glued them with
melted wax to her supper plates. He filled the cold fireplace and set
candlesticks on every horizontal surface. Then he spread flame from wick to
wick.

When the walls burned with light, Alden turned to
face her. Α terrible finality shone in her eyes.

"Naked," she said.

He wrenched away his dressing gown and let it
fall to the floor. Using both hands, he pulled his nightshirt over his head and
tossed it to a chair. With one bent finger he tugged away the ribbon, so his
hair fell freely over his shoulders. The glare of flames licked over his naked
body like a thousand lovers.

He strode to the bed and stood at the foot of it.

Color rose in her face as she met his gaze, a
flush like a fever, the antithesis of desire.

"I would never deny you, Juliet," he
said quietly. "Nor will Ι give you hypocrisy."

HER
HEART POUNDED IN Α CACOPHONY OF
MAD RHYTHMS, AS if it leaped and bounded within a cage of chains. He was
beautiful. Soul-shatteringly beautiful. The corded legs and arms; the flat,
tight stomach and narrow hips; the hard flare of muscle over chest and ribs.
Beautiful. Beautiful.

Blond strands curled, caressing, over his
shoulders. His skin gleamed gilt in the blaze of candlelight, his sex darker,
bronze against his thigh: the man's body she had worshipped with mouth and womb
and fingers at Marion Hall, but never seen - and then he had betrayed her.

The wild pulse of her angry heart ran deeper and
deeper, aching between her cramped, ugly legs. She had felt ugly ever since
Blackthorn: ugly, hideous, as if her very soul had become twisted and deformed.

"Ι am determined to become free,"
she said. "Ι will be free of you, too."

"Yes," he replied. "If you
like."

"Ι want to touch you." The madness
careened, making her dizzy.

He walked around the bed, his arms relaxed at his
sides, a tiny smile at the corners of his mouth. His naked skin gleamed, defenseless
in the candlelight. She could hurt him, if she wished. Why wasn't he afraid?

Yet he stood confident and unashamed by her bed.

Juliet rose up on her knees and set both palms
flat on his chest, against the soft crinkle of hair and the compact muscle
beneath. His sex stirred and hardened.

"You feel desire for me?" she asked.
"Even now?"

"Ι am a fool of desire, Juliet. Ι
desire you to the depths of my soul."

She slid both hands down to rest on his hips,
then leaned forward to lay her forehead in the firm hollow of his shoulder.
His arousal lay heavy against her nightdress. The
thin
fabric was all that held her together, stopped her from shattering into tiny,
brittle
pieces. She lifted
her face.

"Kiss me," she said. He began to lift
his arms. Juliet pulled back. "Don't touch me with your hands!"

He dropped his hands and tipped his chin for a
moment to stare at the ceiling. He was stripped, this lovely man, this fool of
desire, totally vulnerable to her furious whim and her ugliness. Α pulse
beat hard and fast in his strong white throat.

"Mouth only?" he asked.

"Mouth only. Kiss me, Alden."

He lowered his head and smiled.
Smiled.
The
shiver of anger raced up from her heart to explode on her empty tongue.
Gripping both of his shoulders she leaned forward and pressed her mouth to his.
His lips softened under her assault, allowing it, allowing her angry pillaging
of his masculine beauty, while his sex reared, hard and firm, against her
belly.

Juliet thrust her tongue between his teeth,
plundering the wine-dark secrets inside. Her fingernails sank into the muscles
of his shoulders. Her breasts pressed against his chest, separated only by the
fine fabric of her nightdress. She was monstrous, as if all her limbs had
become distorted and grotesque.

Why wouldn't he lead her from this clumsy, wild
assault into those skilled, lovely embraces they had shared before? In spite of
his rampant arousal, he stood passive in her arms, letting her lead him. His
tongue matched hers, his lips responded, touch for touch. He kissed, but he did
not take charge.

She pulled away at last, filled with fury.

"What is this?" she asked. "Kiss
me!"

He stepped back, staring into her eyes. "If
we would replace all your horrific memories with tender ones, then we mustn't
couple in anger, Juliet."