The Lady In Question (32 page)

She smiled in spite of her embarrassment. “What a terribly sweet thing for you to say.”

“Perhaps, but it’s no more than the truth.”

“But” — she drew a deep breath — “I don’t think I’m very good at it. You might not like it. Or, rather, like me.”

He stared at her in disbelief, then burst into laughter.

She slipped off the bed to her feet, planted her hands on her hips and glared. “This is not funny!”

“Oh, but, my love, it is.” He sniffed back a laugh. “It may well be the funniest thing I have ever heard.”

“Tony!”

“Not like you?” He shook his head. “If that’s true, Wilmont was either insane or an idiot or both.”

“That too is a very nice thing to say, but —”

He laughed. “It’s not just nice, it’s a fact.” He reached out and pulled her into his arms. “Now, as much as I would prefer to put off discussion of anything short of how intriguing I find the curve of your neck or how inviting I think it is that you hold your breath when I touch you in a certain way —”

“Tony!” She laughed in spite of herself.

“And despite the fact that I want nothing more than to carry you to that bed and disprove your fears that I shall not like you” — he nuzzled the side of her neck — “over and over again, I suspect we cannot continue until you tell me everything.”

“There really isn’t much to tell.” Although it was surprisingly easy to talk with his arms around her. “I shared Charles’s bed, we were married—”

“Afterwards?” His brow rose.

“Yes.” She lifted her chin and stared into his eyes. “Afterwards,” she said firmly. “I assume you will not comment on that, as you and I are not yet wed and in our situation too, marriage will be afterwards.”

“I wasn’t going to say a word.” He widened his eyes in an expression of innocence. “And I’m offended that you think I would.”

“My apologies.” She pulled out of his arms. “As I was saying…” She paused to gather her thoughts and her courage, wrapped her arms around herself and paced. She had not admitted this to anyone, not even to her sister. “After we wed, he no longer seemed at all interested in me. He was preoccupied, brusque in his manner, even somewhat cold. He was away more than he was home.”

“And you thought it was because your night together was disappointing.”

“Yes. No. I don’t know.” She heaved a heartfelt sigh and looked at him. “It sounds absurd, I know, but I did think that at first, and while sharing his bed was not as, urn, glorious as I’d assumed it would be, it was not…unpleasant.”

Tony bit back a grin. “How interesting.”

“I did think it had a great deal of potential,” she murmured.

“Indeed it does,” he said under his breath.

“I thought perhaps it was because there was no love between us —”

“You did not love him, then?” His voice was matter-of-fact, but there was an intense gleam in his eye.

“I know it’s dreadful of me, and you shall think me terribly shallow, but no.” Delia squared her shoulders and met his gaze. “I did not. Nor did he love me, although I did think we liked one another. At least at first.” She shook her head. “It was all such a dreadful mistake, and every day of our marriage that passed I knew it more and more, but…”

“You would not have wished him dead,” he said quietly.

“Never.” She sighed. “And for a long time I blamed myself. As if his death were a direct result of something I had done. Some sort of punishment, a dire fate, perhaps, for not being what he wanted. Or driving him away. Or marrying him at all. Or not loving him.”

“It wasn’t your fault. Not his manner, nor his death.”

“I know,” she said firmly. “But it took me months to accept that, and I’m not sure I fully did until I returned to this house. His house and now my house.”

“I see.” His voice was thoughtful.

“So.” She studied him carefully. “Do you still want to marry me?”

“I don’t know.”

Her heart caught. “Very well, I —”

“I prefer to withhold judgment until…afterwards.” His voice was cool, but there was a teasing gleam in his eye. “Just in case you are indeed a dis —”

“Tony!”

“I would certainly hate to agree to marriage, only to find out —”

“You are a wicked, wicked man, Lord St. Stephens.”

“You’ve mentioned that, and you should be careful, because I’m beginning to believe it.”

“As well you should believe it,” she snapped. “I have poured out my heart to you. Told you all sorts of things I’ve never told —”

“Did you know when you stand in that particular spot, with the light from the windows behind you, your shift, which is, I might add, exceedingly sheer, becomes essentially transparent?”

“Good heavens.” She gasped and at once turned her back to him. “The least you can do is not look.”

“Don’t be absurd. I intend to do a great deal of looking. And I might add that view is nice as well.”

“If you were a true gentleman you wouldn’t look,” she said over her shoulder.

“Damnably lucky for you I’m not.” Before she could protest, he scooped her up in his arms and carried her back to the bed. “I am a newly titled lord without the vaguest idea how to be a newly titled lord, therefore the phrase ‘true gentleman’ is probably questionable at best.”

He tossed her on the bed. “Besides, you said it yourself.” He leaned over the bed, bracing one hand on either side of her. “I am a wicked, wicked man.”

“
You
said you were stuffy and narrow-minded.”

He grinned. “I lied.”

“I’m not certain if I believe you.” She reached up, wrapped her hands around his neck and pulled him onto the bed. “Perhaps you should prove it.”

“Perhaps I should.”

He gathered her into his arms and drew her close until his lips met hers. Her lips parted and a sigh of sheer anticipation whispered through them. His mouth pressed against her harder and she responded in kind, the desire that had ignited between them in the carriage once more flaring to life. Need swept through her with an urgency she’d never known. She reveled in the feel of her mouth against his, demanding and greedy and insistent.

She ran her hand over the curve of his shoulder, his flesh hot and firm and enticing. Delia dragged her lips from his and along his jaw to the strong line of his neck. He stilled beneath her touch and her excitement heightened. She tasted the hollow of his throat, trailed her tongue along his collarbone and nipped at his shoulder. Her hand caressed the flat, hard planes of his chest and marveled at the strength of his body beneath her touch. His hands moved restlessly on her back. She traced a light circle with her fingertips around the slight ridge of his nipple, then shifted and leaned closer to flick it with her tongue, and he gasped.

She rained kisses on his chest and her hand drifted over his stomach and lower still to his trousers. She ran her fingernails lightly over the straining fabric. He drew a shuddering breath. She unbuttoned his trousers with a growing urgency. She wanted to feel him, see him, touch him.

“Wait.” He gasped and pushed her away, then slid off the bed and removed his trousers. For a moment, she could do nothing more than stare. The bedding with Charles had been in the dark of night.

Tony was rather magnificent and compared quite favorably with any statue of a Greek god she’d ever seen. His legs were long and lean, his shoulders broad, his stomach flat. And where his fig leaf would have been he was most impressive indeed.

“Delia?” His brow furrowed. “Are you all right?”

“I don’t know.” She should have been embarrassed, at least a little, but she felt nothing of the kind. Only a warm flush of anticipation and perhaps possession. She scrambled to her feet, pulled her shift off over her head, tossed it aside and cast him a tremulous smile. “Are you coming back?”

In less than a heartbeat she was in his arms, her body pressed tight against his, his arousal hard between them. They tumbled backward onto the bed and any restraint between them vanished in a frenzy of passion. She wanted to taste him, touch him, join her body with his. His hands, his mouth, his tongue were everywhere, seeking every part of her.

He took her breast in his mouth and her breath caught. With tongue and teeth he teased her, toyed with her, until her existence narrowed to nothing more than physical sensation. All she knew, all she wanted to know, was the feel of his mouth on flesh overly heated and far too susceptible to his touch. She wondered if anyone had ever died from pure pleasure. And doubted as well if they’d cared. His hand caressed her stomach and drifted lower to the curls between her legs and she arched upward to meet his hand and urge him on. His fingers slipped over her and she moaned and reached down to find his arousal and grasped it in her hand. He drew a ragged breath. It was hot beneath her palm and hard as stone and covered in silk. His fingers moved over the too-sensitive spot he had discovered in the carriage and she gasped. He caressed her in an ever-increasing rhythm and her breath came short and fast. Without thinking, her hand moved over his erection, matching the rhythm he set. Tension wound tighter and tighter within her, as if she were straining toward something unreachable, yearning for something unobtainable. She noted an odd, whimpering sound and realized it was her. Abruptly he stopped and, before she could protest, shifted to kneel over her, settling between her knees. He paused, poised above her and gazed into her eyes. “Delia, I —”

“Tony.” She sighed with yearning and reached between them to guide him to her. He slid into her with a slow, firm ease. Perfect and right. As if he were made just for her. Meant just for her. For a long moment he lay unmoving inside her and she marveled at the odd, lovely sensation of connection and fullness. Then he shifted, withdrew slightly and returned, pressing deeper. And again he slid back, then forward, and again and again, every stroke deeper, harder, more intense. She wrapped one leg around his and thrust upward to meet him.

His rhythm increased. She tightened around him. She matched his every move with a need of her own that surged from somewhere inside her. He thrust into her and she arched her hips upward to meet him. It was a dance of sorts, she acknowledged dimly. And in this dance too they moved together as perfectly as they had in the ballroom. As if they had joined together like this before or always or forever. He plunged into her harder and faster. His heat spread outward from his body to hers, surrounding her, engulfing her. She moaned with the unbearable joy of it and the unrelenting ache of desire. He was pushing her, pulling her, dragging her unresisting to some point she wanted, she yearned for, she would die for but couldn’t reach. The summit of an unknown peak, the top of a newfound world, the very stars above.

Without warning, the tension building ever higher and hotter within her shattered in glorious release. She cried out and her body jerked upward and waves of sheer sensation rushed from their joining to ignite every nerve in her body with an ecstasy that ripped away her breath and hammered at her heart and washed away her mind with colors of blue and gold. And clutched at her soul. He gripped her tighter and thrust again and again until he groaned and his body shuddered and the warmth of his own release filled her. And she clung to him until he lay quiet on top of her and the trembling of her own body eased. And held him for long moments more.

At last he raised himself up and stared down at her, a bemused smile on his face. “Well…”

“Good heavens.” She struggled to catch her breath. “That was indeed…”

He gently pulled out of her and she noted a moment of regret at the loss of him. He shifted to her side and propped his head in his hand. “Yes?”

“Oh, my. It was…” She trailed a tentative finger over his chest.

“Glorious?”

She had the oddest desire to giggle. “If I tell you, it will simply go to your head.”

“Probably.” He grinned. “Have I told you that I like your bed and your room?”

“As well you should.” She laughed. “It was decorated with your seduction in mind.”

“It worked exceedingly well,” he murmured.

“Then am I to assume you were not disappointed?”

“You can certainly assume that. And can I assume as well I — or, rather, this — lived up to its” —

he cleared his throat —
“potential?”

“Most definitely. Although…” She stared at him for a moment, then cast him a smile as wicked as any of his. “I suspect the potential might be far greater than I ever imagined.” She drew his mouth back to hers. “And I think it’s in the best interest of grand adventure to find out.”

Chapter 18

“Don’t you think a blindfold is a rather excessive measure?” Delia called upward, clinging to Tony’s hand for both support and guidance. They were climbing what were apparently endless flights of stairs: some curved, some spiral, some winding. At least, that had been her impression so far. “I feel quite ridiculous.”

“Nonsense, you look rather intriguing. To me, at any rate, although admittedly there might well be men who don’t appreciate a woman in a blindfold,” Tony said from somewhere slightly above her. “No, wait, I can’t imagine any man not enjoying the illusion of a woman under his control. Not one as stubborn and opinionated as you anyway.”

“I’m so glad one of us is enjoying this.”

“Nonsense, Delia, you’re enjoying it as well. Not knowing where you are is adding to the excitement.” He squeezed her hand. “Besides, this particular adventure won’t work if it’s not a surprise.”

“But surely people have noticed a man dragging along a woman in a blindfold. There can’t possibly be that many women in blindfolds on the streets of London.”

“You’d be surprised.” Tony chuckled. “However, I did take precautions to limit the possibility of attracting undue attention. You are wearing an especially deep brimmed hat as per my request —”