A Scoundrel by Moonlight (26 page)

Her hand curled into his shoulders as she clenched, provoking another long exhalation. “Shall I move?”

“Ride me as you will,” he bit out. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he struggled for restraint.

He wasn’t a man who relinquished the upper hand easily. He wasn’t a man who relinquished the upper hand at all, if he could help it. Yet here she was, naked except for her chemise and stockings, holding him deep inside. If that explosive encounter against the wall had proven anything, it was his physical superiority. Yet he gave her the initiative.

A slow, pleased smile curved her lips and this time she deliberately tightened around him. To the music of his groans, she adjusted her position.

Experimentally she rose. She loved the glide of his body. She loved to control the pace and depth. His hands flexed on her hips and she waited for him to take charge. But he didn’t. She poised above him, their bodies only just joined, then descended hard. Immediately he filled her.

Nell couldn’t credit how different this felt. She’d like to do this again. And again.

She swiveled her hips. Through her chemise, his hands
framed her waist. Their joining seemed more decadent because neither was naked. Every time she moved, his breeches slid against her thighs.

Her breasts bounced wantonly. He caught one peak between his lips and drew until she cried out. She broke the contact as she sank, eager to feel him inside her.

His breath emerged in humid gasps and a fine sheen of sweat covered his torso. Every time she took him, her muscles clamped, demanding his surrender. Such heady knowledge that she’d brought him to this edge. Except that she too verged on climax.

She wasn’t there yet. Not… quite.

This time when she took him, he tilted forward to nibble an incendiary path up her neck. When he reached her mouth, his tongue stabbed into her the way his body did. She sucked hard, loving the taste of his desperation.

Kissing her as if he starved, he stroked that secret place between her legs. She launched into flight, crushing her face into the hot curve of his shoulder to stifle her guttural cry as she split into a thousand incandescent shards.

Through her rapture, she felt him push upward. Heat flooded her. As her body milked him, he flowed endlessly. For time without measure, she floated in a golden orb where she only knew delight and the warmth of Leath’s arms.

After an eon of glory, she drifted back to earth as softly as a feather on a gentle breeze. Nell opened her eyes to find him tipping her back against the couch. After he’d taken her against the wall, she’d read so many conflicting emotions in his eyes. Sexual repletion. Anger. Regret. Now she saw joy. The dark gray shone like the lake at Alloway Chase at dawn.

As she stared up at this man who watched her as if she was the greatest miracle in creation, she believed in him
completely. No heartless seducer could make her feel so precious. It was beyond any deceiver’s art.

She swallowed, preparing to confess that she no longer doubted him. But he spoke before she mustered a word.

“Marry me, Eleanor.”

L
eath felt Eleanor stiffen beneath him, then frantic hands shoved him away. She toppled off to crouch with a hunted expression before the fire. She looked like she hated him again. Which hurt even more, given that seconds ago she’d been staring dreamily into his eyes as if she never wanted to leave him.

He sat up, running a hand through his hair. “I take it that’s a no.”

She scowled as if he’d suggested some perverse liberty. “You’re feeling guilty because you’ve ruined me.”

“For God’s sake, Eleanor, that’s not why I proposed.”

“I’m sure it isn’t.” Her tone indicated the opposite. She looked magnificent on the red and blue rug with her breasts catching the fire’s glow. The flames lent her hair a hundred different colors.

When she noticed the way his gaze lingered on her chest, she clumsily tugged her chemise into place. He couldn’t help regretting her modesty, although having her half naked did nothing for his concentration.

She looked around, flustered. “What on earth are we thinking, staying in here so long? Everyone will know just what we’ve been up to.”

“That’s not why I proposed,” he repeated grimly, ignoring her sudden concern for propriety. If his behavior shocked the Sedgemoors and their friends, too bad. “But I have ruined you. Earlier tonight, I treated you like a tart I picked up off the streets, instead of a woman I esteem.”

The resistance ebbed from her expression. To his surprise, she laid her hand on his knee. “You were angry and you set out to teach me a lesson. But we both know that’s not how it turned out in the end.”

“I lost control.” His gut cramped to think what little reverence he’d shown her against that bedamned wall. Worse, he’d be a liar if he said he hadn’t enjoyed it.

“I love that I make you lose control,” she whispered, staring at him with shining eyes. “And I never felt like you didn’t care. Either time.”

His lips twisted. “I care too much.” A confession of love hovered, but her dismayed reaction to his proposal silenced him. Right now, he felt infernally vulnerable. He didn’t like it, but he didn’t know what to do about it.

“I felt your care in your hands and your kisses. That’s why I believe you didn’t ruin Dorothy.”

He sighed, although her declaration of trust settled warm and sure around his aching heart. “I probably should have told you about my uncle.”

“Why? You owed me nothing.”

“Perhaps not at first. Once you became my mistress, you had a right to know about the shadows in my life. I’m so ashamed that a man who shares my blood wreaked such harm.”

“Harm which I blamed on you.” Remorse thickened her
voice and her hand clenched on his knee. “I have more to feel guilty about than you. I lied from the start.”

Wondering if she’d reject his touch, he laid his hand over hers. To his surprise, she laced her fingers through his. After their raw passion, that simple, affectionate gesture shouldn’t cut so deeply. But it did. Perhaps because there had been times tonight when he’d thought she’d hate him forever.

“You weren’t to know that my uncle had assumed my identity.”

She looked troubled. “Is that it? Months of deceit and you dismiss it by saying I meant well?”

Leath shrugged. “I forgive you.”

He hardly cared that she’d lied. If not for her quest, they wouldn’t have met. While she’d caused him an ocean of heartache, and was likely to cause him an ocean more, the idea of never knowing her chilled his blood. Eleanor had enriched his life beyond his wildest hopes. Even if she abandoned him now, she’d leave a better man than the one she’d encountered outside his library that windy September night.

Her softening gaze pierced his heart. “You’re remarkable, Leath.”

His grip tightened. “You called me James at the cottage.”

“James,” she murmured, and the soft music of his name on her lips dissolved all lingering resentment. “Despite everything I knew about you, I couldn’t ignore the evidence before me. You’re a good man.”

“Thank you.” He raised their joined hands and kissed her knuckles. “Then when you found those letters, you were afraid you’d been duped.”

“Like Dorothy,” she murmured, rising on her knees and cupping his jaw with a tender gesture that made him wonder if she returned his love at least a little. “And I wasn’t my
usual sensible self that morning in the cottage. I still hadn’t reconciled myself to becoming a fallen woman.”

“What about now?”

“Now I can’t help cringing to think that everyone will guess exactly what we’ve been doing in this library.”

“I’m a big reader.”

Despite her reluctant laugh, a blush heated her cheeks. “What you did to me was so exciting. I’d like you to do it again.”

“I promise, my love.” He didn’t choose the endearment lightly. “When we’re married.”

He wasn’t surprised that she tugged free and shifted beyond reach. “The Marquess of Leath can’t marry his housemaid.”

That was exactly what his mother had said. And again his whole being rejected the statement. “Why?”

She regarded him impatiently. “You know why.”

“Tell me.”

She rose and prowled around the room, her knee-length chemise revealing shapely calves and ankles. “Cinderella is a nice story, but in the real world, great noblemen don’t marry girls like me.”

“Like what?”

“Girls of no pedigree. Girls who work for their living.” She ducked behind the couch. “Girls society will despise.”

“Sedgemoor doesn’t despise you,” he said neutrally. “What the devil are you doing?”

She rose, struggling to fasten the gown that had given him pause when he’d first seen it. “Getting dressed.”

For a few seconds, he observed her futile wriggling. “Come here.”

“Thank you.” She stepped around the couch and presented her back.

He stood. “Lift your hair.”

With a grace that jammed the breath in his throat, she raised the glorious tumble of silver. He stared transfixed at the elegant line of her neck and shoulders. Sweet heaven, she was lovely everywhere. He kissed her nape. She shivered and released a little exhalation of pleasure.

He smiled as he made short work of the dress’s fastenings. The primitive who came to the fore with Eleanor wanted her half naked. Hell, completely naked. But they were in another man’s house and while they’d been left alone, that happy state mightn’t continue.

She returned to the argument. “The duke and his friends were kind.”

He sat. “So?”

“So I’m a fleeting visitor. I’m not a permanent fixture.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure.”

She turned in a swirl of dark blue silk. “You’re talking nonsense. I can’t marry you.”

He surveyed her, hands clasped loosely between his spread thighs. “Does that mean you don’t want to?”

“I don’t want you to do something that you’ll regret,” she snapped.

That didn’t answer his question. Interesting. “Why should I regret it?” he asked, still in that even tone.

“Because I’m a peasant and you’re a great lord,” she almost snarled, stepping away as if distance could silence him.

He smiled. “You’re a natural aristocrat, Eleanor. My mother recognized it. That’s why she made you her companion.”

Eleanor didn’t look pleased. Given rotten apples like his uncle, she mightn’t aspire to join the aristocracy. “Your mother would be appalled to think you contemplated marriage with a poor sergeant major’s daughter. She’s plotting a brilliant political alliance with a powerful family.”

Leath fell back on an uncontroversial answer. “She likes you.”

“As a servant, not as a daughter-in-law.” Her eyes narrowed. “What about your career? If you marry me, your dreams of influence are finished. You’ve hated the recent scandals that exiled you to Yorkshire. Imagine the scandal if you marry the girl who scrubs your floors.”

He glimpsed searing regret beneath her anger. He surged to his feet. “The girl who advised my mother on her reading, who’s the best secretary I’ve ever had, who’s at home in a ducal residence, who’s charmed everyone on my estate. The girl I want in my bed.”

“I will be in your bed. For as long as you want me.”

He made a slashing gesture. “You deserve more.” His voice deepened into urgency. “You’re not made to be my light of love. You’re made to be my partner, mother of my children, mistress of my house.”

She took another uncertain step back and he caught her arm to save her getting too close to the fire. She was trembling. He hadn’t realized that. She sounded so calm.

He expected her to pull away, but she remained unmoving. “I can’t have all that and have you.”

His heart slammed to a stop, then began to race. The declaration blared through him like a fanfare. Staring into her wide golden eyes, he wondered if this admission meant that she loved him. “You can have me if we marry.”

“Not without destroying everything you want,” she said in a dull tone, breaking free.

“I’ve learned over the last weeks that I can live quite happily away from the corridors of power,” he said mildly.

“In the short term. In the long term, you’ll repent sacrificing your hopes because you feel guilty about seducing a virtuous woman.” Her caustic laugh startled him. “What a
fool I was to think you a rake. I couldn’t be further from the truth.”

He glared at her. “You make that sound like an insult.”

Her sigh was weary. “I want you to see reality, my lord.”

She used the formal address deliberately, to emphasize the gulf between them. Resentment roughened his tone. “And what of the reality of my child growing in your womb? Do you see yourself bringing up a clutch of bastards? Where will your pride be then?”

He’d hit a nerve. “I gave up on pride when I became your mistress.”

It was his turn to laugh. “Rubbish. You’re the most stiff-necked woman I know. You’d make the Queen of the Amazons look humble.”

He caught another glimpse of the vulnerability that she struggled to hide. “Why are you doing this? You’re a clever man. You know marriage is impossible. You knew that when you asked me to be your mistress.”

“I’ve had time to think.”

Her lips turned down. “You’ve had time to feel responsible for my ruin.”

Leath stalked toward the decanter on the sideboard. He could do with a drink. He passed Eleanor a glass, firelight striking ruby lights from the claret.

“This cruel world we live in is particularly cruel to bastards,” he said evenly. “If you don’t believe me, ask Sedgemoor, Hillbrook, and Sir Richard. All suffered because of the circumstances of their birth.”

She frowned. “They seem happy.”

“They’ve been lucky enough to find the right women.” He spoke from the depths of his heart. “As have I.”

She stepped back so abruptly that she spilled wine over her hand. “You devil.”

He seized the glass before she ruined the lovely gown. “Careful.”

She stared at him uncompromisingly. “My lord,” she said austerely, “you’ve done me the great honor of asking me to be your wife. I regret that I must decline.”

His hand clenched on the two glasses. “Eleanor.”

She regarded him, did she but know it, as haughtily as a princess. “You have my answer, Lord Leath.”

No sweet whisper of James now. “I won’t leave it at that.”

“I wish you would.”

“I want you for my marchioness, Eleanor.” He placed the untouched wine on a side table. “And I’m a stubborn man.”

She sighed. “You say I deserve better than a place as your mistress? Well, you deserve better than to let a passing affair dictate the course of your life.”

“You’re not a passing affair,” he retorted, stung.

The sadness in her smile made him want to shout denial to the rafters. “Yes, I am. Because when you make your grand, politically advantageous marriage, as I sincerely hope you do, our affair will be over.”

“What bloody drivel is this?”

“It’s not drivel,” she snapped.

He seized her arms. “Shall I try and convince you to accept me?”

Anger flared in her face. And reluctant excitement. “You imagine you can seduce me into saying yes?”

“We’d both enjoy it if I tried,” he suggested, although already she shook her head.

“You won’t taint what we share with ulterior motives.”

He wasn’t so sure of his scruples. “I’ll ask you to marry me again, Eleanor.”

“I’ll say no again, my lord.” She stepped away. “You’ll waste your time.”

“It’s my time,” he said calmly. He could afford to be patient. She might change her mind. After all, she’d said no when he’d asked her to be his mistress, hadn’t she?

Yes, he could wait. He had a strong suspicion that once she found herself with child, she’d be less adamant. Even if his yearning soul wanted her to marry him because she couldn’t live without him, not because she faced the bleak reality of bearing his bastard.

She looked tired. And beautiful. Tonight had been so crammed with turmoil that he was a beast to expect her to pledge herself just for the asking. Short hours ago, she’d loathed him. At least now he saw grounds for hope. She’d never said that she didn’t want to marry him. She was worried about his well-being. He needed to convince her that their marriage was the best way to promote his happiness.