The Secret to Seduction (25 page)

“But the carpet belonged in this
house,
Sabrina.”

“Have you seen the church, Rhys? It’s neglected, and tattered, and smells of mildew in the vestry and…Well, people need a proper church. The people of Buckstead Heath should have a proper church. And it’s your town to look after.”

She’d thought it a wonderful idea. Sabrina had demanded Mr. Croy tell her the names of the people in town who might be persuaded to carry a carpet from La Montagne to the vicarage, and Sabrina had subsequently recruited three brothers, Mr. Ferris, Mr. Ferris, and Mr. Ferris, to help remove the carpet from the office of Rhys’s father’s man of affairs, the room he’d said was seldom used.

“I’m no expert, Sabrina, but I’m fairly certain a church can still be considered a proper church without an antique carpet in the vestry.”

Gilded in sarcasm, that sentence was.

“Yes—but—tell me, is there a carpet in this house worth less than the one I gave away?”

There was a silence.

“No,” Rhys conceded at last. The word clipped and all but edged in flame.

“And are there carpets in this house worth more?”

“Yes.”

Interesting that he should know the worth of the carpet precisely, Sabrina thought. She stopped and flung her arms out, as though the logic of this should end the argument.

Unfortunately, he was still staring at her with the same bald incredulity. “Sabrina.” Exaggerated patience, as though her very name was too heavy for his mouth. “That carpet was
very
valuable.”

“That carpet is a
carpet,
” she explained just as patiently. “It’s meant to be used. It’s meant to cover a floor. Whoever made it
meant
for it to
cover a floor.
And now it’s covering the floor at the vicarage.”

Rhys made a wild little frustrated noise and swept a hand through his hair.

“Well, several floors at the vicarage,” she modified. “The carpet was rather large, so I imagine they cut it to fit properly in the various rooms.”

He froze as if she’d just produced a weapon from beneath her skirts.

And then gave a low moan and sank down on the settee, leaned back and closed his eyes.

A silence ensued, weighty and resigned.

“Sabrina, it wasn’t yours to give away.” He sounded weary.

She was a little unnerved by his reaction. Then again, she was no less stubborn than she was when he’d left for London. “I was told I could choose from any of the fixtures in the house for my own use. And this is my own use for the carpet. I wish for the vicarage to use it.”

His eyes snapped open then, and he turned his head slowly, slowly toward her. He gazed at her for a good long time.

She met his eyes unflinchingly, those crystalline, see-everything eyes. Which was much harder to do than one might think.

And at last, surprising her, a slow reluctant smile crept over his lips, and he shook his head slowly.

Good heavens, he looked like a boy when he smiled like that. It felt like the sweetest sort of pincers around her heart, his smile.

“Are you certain you were raised by a vicar, Sabrina? I’m beginning to suspect Mr. Fairleigh was a lawyer, instead.”

Sabrina smiled a sweet little smile in return. “You can request that Geoffrey return it, of course. The parishioners will, of course, miss it, as they are delighted with it. But they will probably understand if the earl wants to take his carpet back.”

His smile vanished, to be replaced by an expression of patent respect.

And then he turned his head away from her and leaned it back against the settee again.

They sat in a sort of silent stalemate for a moment; détente, if not complete peace.

“Rhys…may I ask why it is so very important?” she ventured. “It’s one carpet. And you have…you have so many.” She tried not to betray how this felt to her: the great regiment of things that surrounded her in this house. All of which were pretty, and few of which were necessary—to her, anyhow. She felt them like weights.

But as Rhys was a clever man; he heard it anyway.

“Sabrina…people
want
their earls to be wealthy. People want their earls to have…things. It’s expected of us. You should want them, too. They’re now an emblem of your station in life.”

“But shouldn’t we take pride in being able to give things away?” Odd to say we, but they were a “we” now, despite the nature of their marriage.

He leaned back against the settee again. And then he sighed. “But I’d only just…gotten all of it back.” He sounded rueful.

She risked the question: “Gotten all of it back?”

He seemed to consider whether to speak. And then he turned to her. Something in her face, perhaps, helped him decide.

“My father lost La Montagne years ago, Sabrina. He lost everything that wasn’t entailed to the title, in fact, and the properties that stayed in the family soaked up every last shilling we had. There were bad investments, and…well, I’ve spent so many years attempting to restore to the title everything he lost. Tracking it down, purchasing things when and as I could. Everything here at La Montagne is part of the Rawden legacy, and has been for three hundred years, and as long as I’m alive, will never again leave this house. And as far the carpets in the house are concerned…the carpet you gave away was a relatively new carpet. But it was ours. It was Rawden.”

She remembered now. Geoffrey had said they were poor, and had marveled at how Rhys had managed to rebuild a fortune.

And then she remembered that achingly blank spot on the wall in the portrait gallery, and understood something in an instant.

“It was a lovely carpet, Rhys,” she said gently. “But it won’t bring them back.”

He snapped a startled expression toward her. He stared for a moment, and she saw again on his face astonishment. Which was shuttered quickly. He turned his face away from her again.

Perhaps it was best she didn’t make any pointed observations for a moment or two. She allowed a beat of silence before she spoke again.

“Rhys?” She liked his Christian name.

“Yes?” At least he hadn’t snarled the word.

“You’ve made dozens of people inordinately happy with one carpet.”

He made a sound then, and it was almost a laugh. Shook his head resignedly to and fro slowly.

“It looks very well at the vicarage,” she offered, encouraged by the laugh.

A soft snort. “Oh, I’m certain it does.” But he didn’t sound angry anymore.

The quiet that followed was more peaceful, if not entirely comfortable. The clock bonged out the hour, and Sabrina couldn’t help but notice the sound had a bit more resonance, now that the room was no longer carpeted and there was nothing but marble and hardwood for sound to bounce from.

“I didn’t mean to make you angry, Rhys. I would never have if I…I just wanted to—”

“I know. Help.”

She went quiet again. She couldn’t interpret his tone. Not censorious, at least.

“I’m sorry I neglected to arrange for an allowance for you,” he added. “I shall have my solicitor arrange for a substantial one. You may spend all of it on carpets if you wish.”

Humor in the words now, at least.

They were quiet together. It struck Sabrina that, from the very first, they seemed to have little to say to each other when they weren’t sparring.

He turned to look at her, his eyes lingering on her face, then taking in her new cerise gown in heavy silk. “The modiste has been to see you.”

“Yes.” She smoothed down the skirts.

“You look like a countess.” A crooked smile.

“That was the object, was it not?” She was teasing, but then she saw his expression. How quickly it changed to inscrutability again.

Confused, she added quickly, “They’re all very beautiful. More beautiful than anything I’ve ever before owned. Thank you for your generosity. I would not have known how to dress, you see, and Madame Marceau knew precisely what I should have.”

“Have you hired a maid? You can ask Mrs. Bailey to send in a selection of girls to interview.”

“I will”—she was going to complete the sentence with “dress myself, for heaven’s sake,” but she saw his face again. It all seemed so important to him, the title, the trappings of it—“speak with her about it soon.”

He nodded once, shortly. And then instead of saying anything, he continued to gaze at her, and gradually his expression went faintly, gently mystified. Seeing her finally as a woman, and his wife, perhaps, and not as a carpet thief.

Sabrina took advantage of the quiet, too, to reacquaint herself with the contours of his face. The emphatic punctuation of his dark brows over his light eyes. The sharp line of his jaw merging with the hollows of his cheeks. That wide firm mouth, so stern sometimes in repose. Which made his smiles more brilliant and startling when he gave them.

And then solemnly, slowly, as though he couldn’t help it, Rhys reached out and drew a finger along the stylish neckline of her new dress, lightly, lightly over her skin, across the swell of her breasts.

“So soft,” he murmured, almost ruefully.

His finger had all but left a trail of flame. She had no choice but to close her eyes.

So simple, so unfair: with just that touch, she was his.

Odd how passion seemed to create its own sort of time inside of time; instantly, it seemed, a dense, sensual net surrounded them. She went easily when Rhys almost languidly gathered her into him. And then slowly but decisively, as though he’d planned it all along, his dark head ducked and he closed his mouth over her nipple, already peaked and hard against the fabric of her dress. She sucked in a breath at the sudden, sharp pleasure of it; it rayed instantly through every part of her body.

And then with his fingers he gently tugged the neckline of her dress just a little lower to free her nipple entirely, and he closed his hot mouth over it, tracing it with his tongue, then sucking gently.

Dear heaven.

Sabrina’s fingers combed into his hair, clinging, stroking, encouraging his tongue. And his hands were busy gathering up her skirts, sliding them up until the fabric bunched at her hips, and then his fingers were feathering up the vulnerable skin of her thighs.

“Why, look at this…lovely new stockings, too,” he teased, in a voice like night.

“The servants…,” she breathed.

“No one uses this room, remember?” More teasing.

She laughed a little, breathless, in awe of his expertise, of her own curiosity, of how willing she was now to surrender to it. Still a little afraid of how potent all of these sensations were.

He eased her back against the settee, her skirts gathered around her waist, the silk rustling as it bunched and moved together like a sigh.

“I want to show you something, Sabrina.”

When he spoke to her in that voice, she thought she might do anything. It could charm snakes, that voice; it was the voice his poetry would have used if it could speak.

And it was his right to take her, she thought; he was her husband.

But even as something in her reared up against this, rebelling at the thought, her thighs were parting for him. She wanted to know everything he could teach her.

His warm hands, skillful hands, were on her thighs again, his touch coaxing and soothing, and then . . .

Oh, God
…His tongue slid hard against the moist heat of her.

She gasped; the pleasure shocking.

Tentatively, he did it again. And this time she moaned her approval.

“More?” he queried softly, sounding half amused. And waited.

The devil. “Yes,
please
. . .”

And so she became a feast for him, the sinewy heat of his tongue so unlike anything she ever could have imagined, dipping and stroking, over her, into her, as talented and deft as his hands, and soon she was arching with the strokes of it, aiding him.

He paused again. “Sabrina…is it…?”

“Don’t stop.” A curt command.

He laughed, and the low hum of his laugh against her flesh was erotic, too. “You taste wonderful,” he murmured. “Like spring.”

Like spring?
But now she didn’t care if servants intruded. They could have pulled up chairs and watched and applauded the outcome. All Sabrina cared about now was the outcome.

Her arms flung back, her neck arched against the arm of the settee, she moved with him, and stray fevered thoughts popped like bubbles in her mind.
How does he
know…
dear God this is wicked…dear God this is heavenly…how many times has he done th—oh, more, please more there, there
. . .

He knew the right places to taste and touch just as he’d known there was passion in the core of her supposedly temperate nature, because he did, after all, possess the secret to seduction.

And then there was no thought, just the great tide of her release crashing over her, shaking her, and the sound of her own voice keening softly with it coming from somewhere, it seemed, outside her own body.

Rhys rose up over her almost leisurely, his trousers already unfastened, and he was lifting up her hips, and guiding himself expertly home.