A Scoundrel's Surrender (17 page)

He shrugged. “I suppose you shall be very busy in the next few days.”

She nodded. “I would think so,” she said quietly. “Victoria and Justin have been nothing but kind and generous to me. I will need to be there for them.”

And for Caleb, she silently added. Caleb, who would probably need her more than ever. And despite her declarations to the contrary, she couldn't imagine simply abandoning him to his grief without
some
attempt to offer her friendship.

She would just have to be certain that friendship was as far as it went.

“May I call on you tomorrow afternoon, still?” Emerson asked, hesitant.

“Tomorrow?” Marah asked, bringing her thoughts back with some effort, to the man before her. “I-I don't know—”

“Please,” he insisted. “It is events like this that sometimes make us see clearly. I would like to call on you. After all, you will be running around offering everyone comfort. Perhaps I can give you a little of the same. Will you see me?”

Marah nodded because she could think of no reason to refuse. “I will try to be here to receive you at two for tea, will that be satisfactory?”

He nodded briefly as he took his hat from a footman who scuttled away immediately, leaving them alone.

“Marah,” Emerson said softly, moving a little closer. “I realize how this news grieves you.”

Marah began to answer, but before she could, Emerson cupped her cheek with one hand and leaned in. His mouth touched hers with gentleness and finesse, and Marah shut her eyes as she fully recognized that after a year of friendship, after months of awkward courtship, Emerson was finally making his move.

She tried to lose herself in the kiss. To let it comfort her, as he suggested. But instead of feeling desire or relief she felt . . . nothing.

The kiss was perfectly pleasant, with just the right pressure and gentleness. But she wasn't stirred by it in any way.

After a brief moment, Emerson stepped back. “I'll see you tomorrow.”

She nodded and then he was gone, hurrying to his carriage with a lighter step. He waved and then the vehicle pulled away, leaving Marah in the foyer to stare into the night and contemplate what had just happened. She might have stood there forever, but Victoria bustled into the front hall.

“We're going to the marchioness and Tessa,” she explained.

Marah turned to her friend, and Emerson and the confusion he had caused by his unexpected and lacking kiss vanished. She held open her arms wordlessly and Victoria stepped into them. Her friend caught her breath, trembling as Marah hugged her.

“Of course you are,” Marah said softly as she stroked Victoria's shiny dark hair. “And I'm going with you.”

Victoria drew back with a look of surprise and utter relief. “You will?”

“Of course. Perhaps I can help in some small way. At the very least, I want to be there for you.”

Victoria tilted her head. “For only me?”

Caleb and Justin came into the hallway toward them. Before they got too far, the butler, Crenshaw, stopped them. He said something to Justin, and the earl smiled sadly and squeezed the butler's arm gently. Caleb reached out to shake his hand.

“Of course I'll be there for the whole family,” Marah said, distracted as the two men continued their journey up the hall.

“Yes,” Victoria said as they all hurried as a group to the carriage that was waiting. “I'm sure
everyone
will appreciate it.”

Justin helped his wife up and then Marah. The two men climbed in afterward and the carriage raced forward. And though Marah was beside her friend and Justin was the one across from her, she couldn't keep her eyes off Caleb, who was staring out into the dark night.

He was heartbroken. And she knew that there was no comfort she could offer that would ever change that fact.

Chapter 17

M
arah walked through the eerily quiet hallways of the London home of the Marquis of Stratfield and his wife. Only now that marquis was Justin, not the generous man she had met just a short time before. She shook her head at the thought, for she knew it wasn't a title Justin had wanted to be elevated to so soon.

Behind a few doors she heard the soft crying and whispers of servants. The sound both broke her heart and made her smile, albeit sadly. The late marquis had clearly been a very good man to inspire such loyalty and love among those who had worked in his home for so many years.

Otherwise, though, there was little sound. The very walls of the house itself seemed to be in mourning.

The marchioness had been given something by her late husband's doctor to help her sleep and had been almost forced away from his room, where his body still lay. The most senior servants would soon come in and lovingly prepare him for his burial.

Tessa had gone with her mother to her chamber. She said it was only for a while, but Marah had a sneaking suspicion that the young woman wouldn't leave her mother tonight. And it would be good for them both.

As for Justin and Victoria, she wasn't certain where they were. Justin had been sequestered with the doctor for almost an hour after their arrival. Even when the physician had departed, Justin had busied himself with estate paperwork before Victoria took his hand and led him away. They hadn't been seen since and Marah could only hope that her tired friend had been able to convince her heartbroken husband to join her in the bed that had been prepared for them.

No one was going home tonight. Marah had a chamber ready for her as well, and had been told to ring for a servant whenever she was ready to be undressed. She wasn't sure if she would take that kind offer. It seemed on this night, of all nights, she could tend to herself.

Besides, there was still one person whom she hadn't yet accounted for. One person she shouldn't seek and yet was compelled to do so.

Caleb.

He had sat with his father's body for a long time, the door closed as he privately said his good-byes. When he came out, she'd seen his crumpled face, and the pain in it had been palpable. She'd left him alone for a little while, determined to speak to him after he'd had a bit more time to digest what was happening, but he had crept away at some point when she was out of the room.

He wasn't downstairs. She knew because she had searched every room. She moved up to the second floor with its family and guest chambers. Creeping past the shut door where the marchioness and her daughter slept, Marah listened at some of the other doors. At one chamber, there was no mistaking the low, soothing tones of Victoria's voice answered by the soft and gravelly grief of Justin's. She moved swiftly on, not wanting to intrude on their privacy.

A few doors down, she opened another chamber and found what she sought. The dressing room was dark, but beyond it she saw a fire lit in the grate. Moving into the room, Marah shut the door behind her.

Caleb stood by the window in the bedroom, his back to her as he gazed out the window into the dark night outside. Since entering the room, he had removed his jacket, which was tossed on the floor alongside his boots. His shoulders slumped, his posture telling a story of grief she doubted he would ever fully express.

She could have backed away. She knew she probably should have. But everyone else in the family had someone to turn to in this moment of heartbreak and loss except for this man. And she cared enough about him to know that he needed support and attention as much as anyone else. Perhaps more, since his relationship with the marquis had been the most complicated.

“Caleb?” she whispered.

He jumped with surprise at her voice, but didn't turn to face her.

“My earliest memory of my father is standing at this window,” he said, his voice soft.

Marah moved forward and stood beside him. “Oh?”

“I must have been unwell, because I recall standing here in my nightshirt watching him down in the yard with Justin. I think they were playing around with the cricket mallet.”

Marah smiled. “The marquis did that often?”

“Yes.” Caleb's voice was rough. “He did. He truly seemed to enjoy his children.”

Marah nodded as an encouragement for him to continue with his story.

“He must have sensed I was watching because he turned around and looked up at my window. And he waved to me and smiled.”

Tears stung Marah's eyes but she blinked them back. This was Caleb's pain, and she had no right to cry and force him to be the one to console her.

“He loved me,” Caleb whispered. “Even though he knew I wasn't his. Even though I was the result of the worst experience of my mother's life, of his life. I am not even half the man he was.”

Marah touched his arm and gently drew him to face her. “Don't say that.”

He looked down at her, utterly beautiful in his sorrow. His bright blue eyes were filled with true emotion and the cocky shield he normally raised around him was long gone. What she saw before her was his real and true heart. And it melted her own even when she knew she shouldn't allow it.

“I must say it, Marah, it is true,” Caleb said with a shake of his head. “What have I done? What have I
ever
done that is meaningful? That is good?”

She had never seen him broken, not truly broken like this. She lifted her fingers to cover his lips.

“You saved me,” she whispered. “When you found me tied all those years ago, you saved me.”

“No, you are scarred,” he protested as he took her fingers and gently pressed them away from his lips, though he didn't release them. “And by me, as well as by the men who tied you so cruelly. I
know
I hurt you back then. I was selfish and wrong and I—”

Marah lifted up and pressed her mouth to his. She did it because she didn't want him to berate himself anymore. She didn't want him to twist the afternoon they had shared and somehow make it ugly. It wasn't. When she was honest with herself, it was one of the few times in her life she had ever felt alive and wanted and loved and cherished.

The aftermath was something else, but that day was glorious and so she kissed him so that his words and denials and self-abuse wouldn't tarnish her memories. Or his.

But the moment his arms came around her and his mouth parted over hers, she forgot that. All she knew was that his kiss was home to her. It was food when she was starving and liquid in the desert. She clung to him and opened her mouth to him, driving to meet his tongue with hers.

He pushed her toward the bed and they fell across it. Caleb's mind was clouded with grief and anger, but when he touched a woman . . . no, it wasn't
a
woman. It was
this
woman. When he touched this woman, everything bad, all the heartache that was lodged in his chest like a hard cruel fist, dissolved.

All that was left was her.

He arched against her, feeling his cock rub on her body as their fingers tangled, and he lifted her hands above her head. She offered no resistance, rather she mewled in pleasure and encouragement as he plundered her mouth and used her body to make his pain go away.

And the more he lit on fire, the more he forgot his pain. And also what he should and shouldn't do.

His fingers found the sloping neckline of her gown and he pulled until more and more of her breast was revealed. He buried his mouth there, tasting the delicate flesh as he fumbled with the buttons around the back of her gown. Finally the silk gaped and he was able to tug it down, revealing her breasts.

Marah's head hung back over her shoulders, her back arched as he held her breasts together and sucked one hard nipple and then the other. Just as he remembered from that stolen afternoon years ago, she responded to his touch with heat and fire, arching into him as her fingernails dug against his shirt and scraped the skin of his arms beneath.

His hands were moving of their own accord now. He shoved at her skirt as he continued to suckle and pleasure her breasts. Her legs parted as he got the wrinkled fabric to her hips and he stepped into the space she had created. Now when he arched into her, he felt the heat of her body through his trousers and it burned at him like silken fire.

Fire that raged out of control when Marah sat up to press her eager mouth against his, hard and hot. Her hands found his waistband and she slipped the four buttons there free. The fabric fell away and his hard, heavy cock sprang to attention against his belly.

She looked down at him for a long moment and he wasn't sure what she would do. He readied himself for her to push away, to run away as she realized just how far they had gone. Instead she licked her lips reflexively and then she reached down and gently traced the curving slope of his erection with one fingernail.

He made a garbled groan that made her smile before she cupped him with a soft fist and stroked him from base to head in a smooth motion that nearly made him lose his mind.

He hadn't had a woman's hands on him, touching him so intimately, since the last time he had made love to Marah. He couldn't find interest in anyone else. Not after her.

He'd tried a hundred ways to explain it, but now, with her stroking him dangerously close to completion, he realized it was because Marah was the only one who could make him want anymore. This uncommon woman had stolen his desire and now she held it captive.

He pushed her backward, sliding her along his bed as he covered her with his body. His cock nudged at her sheath, wet and ready for him. It took every ounce of control to keep from driving forward and filling her.

Control she did not share. With a whimper, Marah lifted her hips, and suddenly the tip of his erection was enveloped in wet heat. It was too much. Control shattered and he slid the rest of the way home until he was fully seated within her weeping, hot body.

Marah lifted her hips, crying out as they were joined once more.

Restraint had never been a friend to Caleb. He had struggled his whole life to control his desires and actions, to withdraw even when his heart told him to drive forward. But now . . . well, in the heat of emotion, his ability to back away was crushed. He forgot right, wrong, should, and any promise he had ever made to respect Marah's wishes. Now that he was buried inside her, all he wanted to do, all he
could
do, was claim her.

He withdrew, reveling in the slick slide of her arousal, the clinging heat of her sheath. She dug her fingers into his shoulders with a whimper as he came dangerously close to exiting her body. Then he glided back home again, her sex squeezing around him exquisitely.

Forward, back, rolling his hips, he drowned in pleasure, both in his own and in that he saw on Marah's face. She met his every stroke with an eager one of her own. Her hips ground against his, her sheath held his body with wild pressure and abandon. Thrust after thrust he saw her moving closer to the edge and then, with a cry that seemed to touch him to his very core, her face contracted and her inner walls pulsed with release.

The feel of her coming, the sight of her ultimate release drove him over the edge. His thrusts became erratic, his hands tightening on her hips as he slammed into her and raced toward his own edge. Just before he reached it, he withdrew from her trembling, clenching body and spent himself with a grunt.

Exhausted by the night's events, by the pleasure she had given him, Caleb fell across the bed beside her.

The room was quiet as they lay on the bed facing each other in the warm glow of the firelight. Marah didn't try to fill the space with chatter or questions and for that he was glad. Pleasure had numbed his other emotions for a moment, but now that it faded, the pain returned. And so did his long-repressed sense of responsibility.

He stared at Marah. Her dress was half around her waist both at the top where her breasts were bared and the bottom where it only half covered the smooth curve of her hips and backside. Her hair was tangled, her mouth swollen. Anyone who looked at her would know what she had done.

What
he
had done.

He reached out to smooth a lock of hair away from her face. Even after seeing the pain his moment of weakness two years ago had caused, even after promising Marah that he wouldn't go so far again . . . here he was. With no promises, with no thought to the consequences beyond preventing a child, Caleb had thrown caution to the wind and once again used this woman to drown his pain.

The marquis wouldn't be proud of his actions. That was the one thing Caleb knew.

“Caleb?” Marah finally whispered, her soft voice cutting through the silence.

He smiled to reassure her. But as she slipped off into exhausted slumber, Caleb's smile fell. Tonight he had crossed a line. Now he had to decide what to do about it.

M
arah slipped downstairs, praying she would find Caleb waiting for her at the breakfast table. She had woken in the middle of the night to find him gone. He hadn't returned.

She opened the doors to the breakfast room but found only Victoria, Justin, and Tessa inside. She smiled softly at them, hiding her reaction. They all had enough to deal with, she wasn't about to pout about her own evening.

She didn't regret what had happened. She had come to Caleb's room telling herself it was only to check on his well-being but deep down she knew the truth. For weeks the tension between them had been rising. She could push it away all she wanted, but all her denials were lies.

She had wanted Caleb last night. And she had felt them make a connection as they made love. She had allowed herself to hope . . . only now he was gone. Again.

Sitting, she said, “How are all of you this morning?”

Tessa's smile was sad. “As well as can be expected, I suppose. Mama refused to come down, but I was about to take her some food in the hopes she will try to eat it.”