A Fool Again (6 page)

Tobias pulled her against his shoulder. She heard a little squeal of indignation as he shoved the piglet away from his boots. The only other sound was the faint shrieks of boys and the silver-white rain slanting down and bouncing from the ground.

“I should like to kiss you,” Tobias said suddenly.

Genevieve had her head tucked against his shoulder, and she'd been thinking the same thing except, of course, it was only due to nostalgia. Because she was desperately in love with Felton. Yet Felton and all his elegant refinement seemed very far away at the moment. So she turned her face up to his.

Tobias was not one to wait for a second invitation. His head blocked out the rain so fast that Genevieve might have closed her eyes. If ladies didn't eat in public, they definitely didn't—

But she lost the thought. His mouth felt sinfully sweet on hers, a wild sweetness that melted her bones with his very touch.

“Tobias,” she breathed, putting her hands into his hair and pulling him to her. He didn't mind her forwardness: He groaned against her mouth and pulled her onto his lap. Through the thin muslin of her gown she could tell
exactly
how he was feeling. It was there: in the strength of his arms around her, in the barely audible groan that burst from his throat, in the way his mouth wandered away from her lips, tasting her cheek, her eyebrow, her earlobe.

Genevieve was trembling all over. The only thing to be seen through the door was a curtain of silver rain. No one could see them, and they could see no one. It was as if the world had narrowed to Tobias's mouth, slanting hard over hers again and again, those locks of hair sliding past her fingers. Thoughts crept into her head that weren't ladylike— they weren't even within the bounds of ladylike!
Touch me?
No lady would say such a thing. Why did he have his hands on her shoulders when she wanted—she wanted—
No lady wanted such a thing!

“Tobias,” Genevieve heard herself say breathlessly.

But his answer was inarticulate, more like a purr than a word.

She took his hand in hers. He pulled back instantly and looked down at her. His face was in shadow. “Genevieve?” he asked.

She knew with a swift flash of perception that he thought she wanted him to stop kissing her. To venture out into that chilly sheet of rain and fetch the carriage. Without saying a word, just keeping her eyes on his, she brought his hand slowly, slowly to her breast. Her cheeks were burning, but the look in his eyes made
ladylike
seem a foolish, piddling word.

“Ah, Genevieve,” he said against her mouth, and his hand was there, shaping her breast. She gasped into his mouth, feeling her nipple strain against his palm, in tandem with the burning weakness between her legs. “You undo me,” he said, and his voice was hoarse and yearning.

She barely understood him; her legs had turned to water, and it was all she could do to lie back in his arms and watch the way his eyes moved over her breasts.

He stood up and twitched closed the scarlet curtains, separating the Snake Charmer's hut from the rest of the world, lost as it was in the rain. The light in the shed turned a rosy pink, suffusing a glow over their clothing. He wrenched off his jacket. Then he bent to kiss her neck, and she threw her head back, giving him an arch of creamy skin, a fall of tawny hair, a body straining for his touch.

When she'd put it on, she hadn't thought about the fact that her docile, oh so docile gown was rather easily unfastened. Such thoughts never occurred to ladies.

“You look at me,” she said haltingly, “in such a way—”

He raised his head. “As if you were all that I wanted, Genevieve? As if I could bury my head in your breast forever?”

Words choked in her throat.

“As if you were the Holy Grail,” he said, and the rasp in his voice couldn't be mistaken. “A cup of sweetness that I traveled hundreds of miles to find. I found you so easily the first time....”

The words drifted dizzily through Genevieve's head. His lips drifted over the curve of her breast and then...and then he was suckling her. A little explosion of noise came from her throat and he pulled harder.

“My honeysuckle,” he said hoarsely. “Honey sweet Genevieve.”

It had been all of seven years ago, and many a bad memory had come in between...but Genevieve knew exactly what would happen now. He would come to her. Seven years ago, when Tobias had her on the carriage seat, her clothes vanished. Of course, it hurt back then. But Genevieve didn't even care if it hurt. Let it hurt! Anything that would assuage this burning impatience. She pulled at him.

“Slow,” he murmured. But she didn't want slow. She wanted speed and heat, all those things she remembered.

“No!” she said. Then daringly, she pulled up his white shirt. His skin burned under her skin, muscles moving under her fingers in great swaths of power.

“I want you, Genevieve,” he said hoarsely. His shirt was gone now and—

“You're so much more beautiful than you were as a boy,” she whispered, awed, reaching out with a tentative hand. His skin was golden brown from the Indian sun, a large, powerful man's body. He shivered at the slow sweep of her hand, jumped when her fingers brushed his nipples. Genevieve was beside herself, lost in a wild sweep of exuberance racing through her veins like the rough wine, like the wind in her face when they rode the Flying Boats.

She leaned toward him and rubbed her lips over his flat nipple, tasted him with the tip of her tongue, heard a harsh groan. She laughed softly, triumphing.
She
was the one in charge this time! She was no tender miss anymore, startled into blissful silence by every twitch of his finger. She— She— She—

His hand caressed her leg with a sensual shock that sent her body bucking against his, rational thought flying from her head again. And she would have stopped him—of course she would!—except that he was suckling her, and the sweetness of it, the honey of it, spread through her veins until she couldn't even move her legs.
This
she remembered. The drugging, achy desire that turned her legs to water and her will to nothing, that made her throw away the precepts of a lifetime and dash into a carriage bound for Gretna Green.

His hand was above her garter now, touching her skin, and her skin never felt so soft. It was as if she could feel herself through him, as if his hand were hers, sliding along skin as smooth as that of a baby, slipping between, dropping one finger into—

Genevieve's back arched straight off the couch. His mouth took hers, hard and fast, and his hand was still there, where no one had ever touched her except him. It was all she could do to wrap her arms around his neck as tightly as she could because the tingling was there again, almost frightening, growing and spreading down her legs, making her buck against his fingers....It was better than it had been seven years ago. Worth ruining herself. Worth it all. Even worth Erasmus.

And then, blissfully, it wasn't his hand anymore, but To-bias himself, coming to her with a groan that tore from his throat. She froze.

“Genevieve? Does it hurt?”

It didn't hurt. It was—it was the feeling of him, the odd, wonderful feeling of being part of Tobias. She tasted her own tears.

“Genevieve?” His voice was strained, as if he were clenching his teeth. He didn't move.

So she moved for him: up, up, and the sparks flew clear to her toes. Up again, and again. Then he took over with a groan of pleasure, plunging into her as if he had no control, no borders between his body and hers. Liquid gold ran along her legs like summer lightning, and then she arched against him, shaking and trembling and just managing to say his name before—

Pleasure burst over her head as if she were drowning, pulsed its way to her fingertips. She cried out, buried her face in Tobias's chest, and let the bliss of it pound through her body, a sweet wave of fire that came again and again before it receded.

She didn't even open her eyes afterwards. She was too tired, too weak and too hot. He seemed to know it too. She lay there, feeling the hair sticking to her forehead, and feeling the premonition of tears. He kissed her cheek, her lips, her throat. Then, when she still didn't open her eyes, he began buttoning up her bodice, fumbling a little in an endearing way.

A few seconds later she heard him open the curtains. It sounded as if the rain had lessened, but she wouldn't— she couldn't—open her eyes. That would mean returning to reality, to the truth of the situation. She was ruined
again.

How could she marry Felton now? Ruined again. Again. Perhaps she would just lie on this dingy couch for all eternity and never return to the fragments of the life she had put together. He came back and picked her up, tucking her against his chest in a manifestly unsuitable position. But after being ruined, it seemed pointless to plead for circumspection.

When he finally spoke, his voice was still rough, with a faint rumble of elation. “Sometime, Genevieve, we're going to have to find a bed together. We could make love slowly, just for a change.”

She lay back and let that remark sink into her mind. How much slower could they go? Before he gave up trying altogether, Erasmus had skipped all the parts Tobias began with, and just kept trying to take his—his tool and put it inside her.

A few moments passed. Genevieve could feel her heart slowing from its frantic pace. Tobias was tracing little circles on her shoulder with his fingertip. “I have the oddest feeling that you haven't made love since we made our way to Gretna Green,” he said finally.

“Actually, Erasmus...,” she said, surprised to hear that her voice was still wispy and almost breathless.

“Was he incapable?”

“He tried,” she said, feeling a faint pulse of loyalty. Erasmus had not been a very comfortable husband, but he had been as kind as he'd known how.

“Humph,” Tobias said. He was shaping her foot in his palm. “You have lovely, delicate feet, Genevieve,” he said presently. “The toes of an English lady, no doubt about that.”

“Ladies don't act like this,” she said, opening her eyes.

“The lucky ones do,” he said, and the vein of amusement in his voice was healing.

“How would you know anything of English ladies? You've lived in India for years.”

“Well, actually, I don't,” he admitted. “You are the first and only lady I've loved, Genevieve.”

“I suppose you met hundreds of Indian princesses, though.” She'd read a long description of a visiting Indian raja and his exquisite bride in the
Times.

“Are you asking me if I maintained a harem?” He started tickling her feet. She curled up her toes in protest.

“Did you?”

“No.” Then he added, “Harems are found in other parts of the world, Genevieve, but not in India. I did meet some beautiful women, though. They were ladies, if not born in England.”

Genevieve didn't want to discuss it any further. “What time do you think it is?”

“Around eight,” he said calmly.

“Eight!” She sat up straight. “Felton came for me at six!”

“You weren't there,” Tobias pointed out.

She pulled her foot out of his hand, but he didn't let her up. “You're marrying me now, Genevieve.”

Protest flared to her lips and died. Of course she had to marry Tobias. She'd lost her right to marry Felton.

Tobias looked down at her and his heart sank. Obviously Genevieve was having second thoughts, but there were no second thoughts to have. “He doesn't really want you,” he said, as gently as he could, trying to explain. “Felton sees you as an acquisition, Genevieve, not as a woman to love.”

“Nonsense!” she said, and the stifled note in her voice made him feel panic and then anger.

“He would put you on the mantelpiece to admire,” he insisted.

“No, he wouldn't,” Genevieve replied, and her voice was so sad that Tobias had to stop himself from shaking her. He set her on her feet and walked to the edge of the door, where he looked over the Commons. Fear had always made Tobias angry.

“Do you know what you would have been if you'd married Felton?” he demanded without turning around. “The same thing you were for six years as Mulcaster's wife. An old man's possession. It sounds as if Mulcaster considered you the next best thing to a china shepherdess, and Felton was going to dust you off and make you exactly the same.”

“Felton is
not
an old man! How dare you say such a thing?”

“He acts as if he is,” Tobias snarled. “He looks at least forty.”

“He is exactly thirty-two,” Genevieve informed him.

Tobias turned around and leaned in the doorway, watching her twist her curls into an untidy, glorious knot at her neck. “It must be the way he sleeks back his hair,” Tobias said maliciously. “Makes him look as if his hair is going.”

“You're jealous!” Genevieve snapped, shooting him an irate look.

“Not of him,” Tobias retorted. “I've
had
you, if you remember.”

“You unaccountably vulgar—vulgar
cad!
” Genevieve shrieked, suddenly darting toward him and striking him in the chest with her fist.

Tobias looked down at her flailing away at his chest, her hair falling loose from its knot and swirling around her shoulders, and he felt a great well of desire that would never go away. “Genevieve,” he said, grabbing her arms so she had to listen to him. She kept flailing against him, her eyes glistening with tears. “I'm sorry.”

“What?”

“I'm sorry,” he said, and he meant it, with every bit of his heart. “We never should have made love. You had every right to marry Felton.”

She stopped, and her eyes were searching his. The pain in those greeny-gray eyes was enough to make him bellow with rage. But he just stood, holding her fragile wrists in his great paws.

“It's not only your fault. I could have stopped you.”