Seduced by a Scoundrel (26 page)

At once he felt a desire so fierce it shook him. She stood naked, and he cursed the darkness that prevented him from seeing more than the glow of creamy flesh, a hint of ripe breasts. God! Despite all that had happened, she still desired him.

“Your duty,” he murmured, “is my pleasure.”

“No,” she corrected, “
my
pleasure is
your
duty.”

He chuckled at that, his body reacting with animal readiness. When she slipped into bed, he pulled her atop him so that her soft slim body draped his. He knew she could feel his arousal, thick and hard against her belly. He wanted her so much his fingers trembled as he cradled her head in his hands.

She sighed, lifting herself slightly so that the tips of her breasts brushed tantalizingly close to his mouth. He drew one into his mouth and suckled her until her hips undulated, rubbing his hard length, torturing him with anticipation. The darkness fired his blood and heightened his other senses. The faint rosy scent of her skin. The warm silk of her breasts. The sweet taste of her nipples. He slid his hands down her smooth spine and over her shapely backside, touching her thighs before bringing his hands back up to lace his fingers with hers.

“No knife,” he murmured into her fragrant hair.

“Knife?”

“Darling, I thought you’d come to skewer me.”

“Mmm.” Reaching down, she caressed his throbbing arousal. “I’d far prefer you do the honors—to me.”

He sucked in a sharp breath. Where had she learned her sultry playfulness? He must be corrupting her. And he ought to regret it. But he could only anticipate all the endless depravities he wanted to teach her. Subjecting her to a hungry kiss that roused a demon in him, he slid his hand between them and found the warm, slippery elixir of her passion. Alicia moaned and arched to him, and he needed no further encouragement. Rolling her onto her back, he mounted her, plunging deep enough to touch the mouth of her womb.

A primitive exultation stilled him for a moment. Her wet silken heat surrounded him. No other woman had ever fit him so tightly, so perfectly. He could get no closer to her than this, yet irrationally he wanted more. Rubbing his unshaven cheek against her soft skin, he muttered her name and moved slowly, torturously inside her.

Her lips sought his in little stinging kisses. Like a blind person in the darkness, she touched his face with her fingertips, tracing the contours. “Drake … oh, Drake … I love you.…”

Something strange and powerful gripped his throat.
No.
She didn’t love him; she loved
this.
He thrust hard and deep into her sheath, honing the tension with his sword, determined to prove her lust by carrying her to new heights of rapture. He relished her soft sounds of passion, the eagerness of her hands on his body. Panting, she locked her legs around his waist. He felt her begin to convulse around him in delicate inner shivers that pulled him deeper inside her, driving him wild.
His woman. His wife.

In the moment before he spilled his seed in a violent rush, he had the illogical sense that they had ceased to be two separate beings. As one, they cried out with the explosion of ecstasy. As one, they held fiercely to each other through the long waves of pleasure. As one, they sank into the peaceful aftermath.

*   *   *

Grateful for the darkness, Alicia rested her cheek against Drake’s sweat-dampened shoulder. His heavy weight pinned her to the bed, and he lay with his face tucked into the crook of her neck. His breathing was slow and deep, and she wondered if he’d fallen asleep. A terrible tenderness caught at her throat. She was glad of the reprieve, for it gave her a chance to face her newfound feelings.

In the throes of passion, she had voiced words of love. She had spoken ardently, without thought, the disclosure rising from a hidden place in her heart. And she feared it was true. She loved Drake Wilder.

The knowledge left her feeling vulnerable and shaken. Never could she forget what he had done to her, taking merciless advantage of her desperate situation. Never could she overlook who he was, a man who had made his fortune off the weaknesses of others. Those facts shone as clearly in her mind as the admirable charity he bestowed on other people. He was a complex, ruthless autocrat, and she had wed him because she’d had no other choice. But she did have a choice in matters of the heart.

Or did she?

Beset by a helpless yearning, she savored his sheltering closeness. She could not ignore the deep river of emotion that flowed inside her heart. Her long-ago attraction to the Duke of Featherstone had been mere infatuation; her regard for Lord Hailstock, only affection for an old family friend. Then fate had brought Drake into her life. He had wanted a wellborn wife, and he would stop at nothing to have her.

She had been a pawn to his ambitions. He might have lured another nobleman into debt, then taken his sister or his daughter as payment. But by a twist of fate, he had chosen Alicia. And to her shame and chagrin, she could no longer lament what had happened.

She had decided to make the best of her marriage. She had wanted to wring a bit of happiness from a circumstance she could not change, to find some comfort in the physical. She had never meant to fall recklessly in love.

Drake lay over her, dominating her even in sleep, his arm slung beneath her breasts. He didn’t love her; he felt only lust. It served no purpose to delude herself about that. Though she felt cozy and protected in his embrace, it was all an illusion. And she knew she mustn’t lie here all morning, pining for his heart, while he slept.

Easing away, she gasped when his arm tightened, trapping her against the bed. He turned onto his side to face her, though she could barely see him. “Stay,” he mumbled, his voice raspy and deep. “It’s early yet.”

“I thought you were asleep.”

“Almost.” As he idly stroked her breast, a slumberous seductiveness crept into his tone. “This was an unexpected pleasure. I expected you to be angry … about your brother.”

“I…” How could she explain the torment that still lurked inside her? How could she
think
while he was touching her? “I cannot like Gerald working in such a place. But you were right to say that I shouldn’t make his decisions for him. We must all make our own choices.”

“Except you,” he mused, as if too relaxed to guard his words. “You had no choice but to marry me.”

She swallowed hard. “I’m here now by choice,” she said steadily. He might not love her, but by heaven, she wouldn’t share him. “And you will have no need for any other woman. Should you stray, I might just get that knife.”

He said nothing to her bold assertion, and Alicia wished she could see more than the faint black outline of him against the shadows. Would he remember her declaration of love? But perhaps he hadn’t even heard it. Perhaps he had been too lost in passion to heed her. Another thought pierced her. Or perhaps he was accustomed to women proclaiming their love in bed.

He seemed suddenly like a stranger. She knew so little about him, and she felt the jealous need to share more than just lovemaking. To make their relationship special compared to the women in his past.

“Will you tell me about your childhood?” she asked, laying her hand on his broad chest. “I understand you were born in Scotland.”

His muscles tensed beneath her fingertips. “Fergus told you.”

“Yes.” She wouldn’t let him keep a wall between them. She would break it down, brick by brick. “He said you were born in Edinburgh, and your mother was an actress. What was her name?”

The dark silence seemed alive. She could feel the strong pulse beating in his throat. Slowly, almost reluctantly, he said, “Muira Wilder.”

“What was she like?”

“Why do you want to know?” he countered.

“You’ve met my mother. Now I’d like to know at least something about yours.”

“It was a long time ago. I’ve forgotten.” Shaping his hand around her breast, he fondled her so that she gasped with involuntary pleasure.

But Alicia wouldn’t be distracted. Seizing his wrist to still his caress, she said firmly, “Then I’ll ask Mr. MacAllister. He’ll tell me.”

She feared Drake wouldn’t answer. But he did finally, his voice flat and emotionless. “She sang like a nightingale. She baked bannocks that would melt in your mouth. And she would give her last pence to the poor.”

“But
you
were poor.”

“And now I’m not. Thus ends my rags-to-riches tale.”

Bracing himself on his forearms, he slid his body back and forth with slow eroticism so that springy hairs on his chest teased her breasts and his masculine flesh touched her between the legs. She clasped his lean waist and struggled to keep her mind focused. Not even for lovemaking would she relinquish this opportunity. “You were only ten years old when you came to London. Why didn’t you stay in Edinburgh?”

For a moment he paused, his big body hovering over hers. She sensed a peculiar tension emanating from him, but the darkness kept her from reading his expression. “Can’t you guess?” he taunted. “Scotsmen are notorious misers. So I came to where the pluckings are richer.”

“You can’t have decided to be a gambler at age ten,” she said logically. “There had to have been another reason to uproot yourself.”

“Fergus and I wanted a grand adventure. So we joined a theatrical troupe here in London.”

“The theater? You were an
actor
?” How strange to imagine him in the artificial life of the stage. Yet it made sense. He would follow in his mother’s footsteps; he would gravitate to the world he knew.

“I wasn’t an actor,” he said. “I worked behind the scenes, doing odd jobs. I hardly even remember what.”

He spoke dismissingly, as if his rough childhood years were of no consequence. He settled onto her, heavy and hot, his hands gliding up and down her body. But she wasn’t ready to acquiesce. “Is that where you met Lazarus Cheever?” she asked.

“Yes—” Drake bit off his words, and through the gloom, she felt the force of his stare. “How the devil do you know him?”

“We were introduced at your club, of course. Yesterday evening.”

“Fergus,” he said through gritted teeth, “has some explaining to do.”

With her fingertips, she tenderly soothed his clenched jaw. “You truly do dislike for anyone to know of your generosity,” she murmured. “But I’m pleased by it. So tell me,
is
that how you know Mr. Cheever? From the theater?”

“I used to help him and the other players learn their lines by reading one of the other parts.” The admission sounded pulled from him.

“Is that how you lost your accent?” she prompted. “By reading aloud from plays?”

His exasperated breath gusted warm against her ear. “Och, dinna go on so,” he muttered. “Ye’re too bonny a lass to blether like an auld fusspot.”

His low-pitched brogue made her toes curl, and she couldn’t stop a delighted laugh. “Oh, Drake. I can see you as a mischievous lad, with your black hair and blue eyes … and your beautiful smile.” She traced his mouth with her fingertips, then the slight indentations on either side that deepened when he smiled. Her voice lowered to a yearning whisper. “I hope … that someday we have a son who looks just like you.”

He pulled in a harsh breath, his chest expanding against her bosom. With quick aggression, he pushed his hand between her thighs and stroked her. This time, she let herself respond with all the passion in her heart and body. Their differences ceased to matter in his arms. He made her feel desired, almost cherished, and she would seize every moment of happiness he offered her.

When it was over and they lay sated, their bodies cooling, she could sense his weariness. Gently she stroked back a lock of his hair and kissed his brow. Drake guarded his privacy, but this morning he had let her see a glimpse of himself. She felt as if he had finally become a whole man to her, a man with a past. Could she ever mean more to him than an obsession that would burn itself out?

She ached to know, to coax more answers out of him, but she had slept last night and he had not. Reluctantly she wriggled out from under him, only to feel his fingers curl around her wrist.

“Leaving?” he asked in a voice thick with exhaustion.

“Yes,” she whispered. “I’ve things to do today.”

She half wished he would draw her back down, but after a moment he loosened his grip. Rising from the bed, she groped on the floor for her nightgown.

The linens rustled as he shifted position. His voice rumbled out of the darkness. “What things?”

“Well … I’ll spend the morning with Mama.…” Gathering her thoughts, Alicia slid the gown over her head, the silk cool on her sensitized skin. She knew one act she must accomplish today. She would visit Lord Hailstock’s son, James.

But she couldn’t tell Drake. Their accord was too wonderful, too new, to risk destroying it with a squabble. Though he had stated his intention to accompany her, she suspected his loathing for Lord Hailstock would cause him to put her off for days, for weeks, possibly longer. In the meantime, a disabled young man would do without the cheering visit of a friend.

Despising the need for subterfuge, she added lightly, “And Sarah came to call yesterday. Likely she’ll want me accompany her to the shops.”

Drake mumbled incoherently. He sounded halfway to slumber already. She could hear his breathing, slow and deep.

Alicia hesitated in the darkness, wishing she knew how to end his hostility toward the marquess. The rivalry between them was ridiculous. She belonged to Drake, and that was that. But men were possessive, territorial creatures who seemed to thrive on competition. Perhaps in time Drake would mellow.

And perhaps in time she would feel easier about loving him.

Chapter Nineteen

A footman led Alicia upstairs, although from previous visits she already knew her way around Lord Hailstock’s house. As she entered the sitting room, she frowned in dismay. Though it was early afternoon, the blinds were down, the lamps unlit, the air stuffy. James must be in one of his more melancholy moods today.

By the meager light from the hearth fire, she could see him reclining on his favorite chaise longue, watching her as she picked her way past the lumps of French gilt furniture to the window, where she drew up the blinds and threw open the casement window, letting the balmy spring air eddy into the chamber. “Good afternoon, James,” she said in her cheeriest voice. “For heaven’s sake, why were you sitting here in the dark?”