Beguiled (7 page)

“Do you think I’m evil for desiring sex with my married
cousin?” she asked.

“If you are, then I am as well. I have fantasized about
fucking you since we were betrothed.”

“You never said.”She blushed hotly with his use of the
profanity. “You were always cold to me. I thought you didn’t like me.”

“I liked you too much for our own good.”

“Oh, Bran, make love to me! I want you to.”

Branson was half out of his mind with lust. Leaning on one
elbow, he bent over her naked body. His cousin was young and vulnerable; he was
taking advantage of her predicament and her feelings for him, but he had no
conscience when it came to Clara. He wanted to be inside her, to claim her and
ride her hard. Lovemaking would punish them both.

He pushed away from her long enough to tug his breeches off
and free his cock that was thick and ready to impale her.

At last they were both naked, smooth perfect
flesh meeting its mate in the other. Branson covered his cousin’s body with
awed kisses. He felt charged and alive again now that she was back with him.

He touched her, mapping her breasts and
belly, hips and thighs in his mind, imprinting her on his soul. Clara moaned in
response and they were one. One soul coming together as he moved between her
legs and her hips widened and lifted, welcoming his penetration.

Branson fingered his cousin, stroking the bud between her
legs and palming the springy mat of hair that drove him wild. “Oh sweet hell, I
want to taste you.”

Clara moaned and thrashed, chafing her pelvis against his
broad hand.

“I cannot bear it, Branson. You must stop. We have to stop!
Is it supposed to feel—to feel—like
this
?”

He flicked her satiny, pink clitoris with his thumb until it
was engorged, slick with fluid and ready to burst. She was like a ripe, sweet,
juicy peach.

“What does it feel like, Clara? Tell me.”

Damn, he was hard!
Barely breathing, trying to control his arousal.

“It feels like ... like I am going to die if you keep
touching me that way, and I am going to die if you stop. I want ... I want....”

With a roar, Branson gripped Clara’s small buttocks and
lifted her cherry red slit to his mouth. Being orally pleasured by her cousin
in the middle of a field in broad daylight was bold and dirty; not an
experience Clara was likely to forget. He was an animal, suckling and
plundering her womanhood with his lips and tongue, his head bobbing between her
thighs as he lapped at her clitoris like a dog in heat.

Clara’s body stiffened and arched and she gave out a sound
that was both a cry and a
bellow
—the sound of a woman
climaxing. Fluid poured out of her pussy and Branson knew she was ready to be
penetrated. He positioned himself between her legs and pressed the knob of his
cock at the entrance to her vagina.

He pushed. She was tight.
So tight
.
And hot and wet. He
pushed harder, unable to hold back the tide of carnal lust. He wanted her so
terribly, it was inhumane. Clara tried to squirm away at the last instant. He
gripped her buttocks tighter and thrust with all his force into her vagina.

CLARA CRIED out. Tears stood in her eyes.
He bent over her, his cock thick and hard inside her quivering, wet sex.

“There is no going back for us now,” he groaned. “I want you
to know me just once as your husband.
No one else’s.
Just yours, Clara.”

Branson smoothed her hair out of her eyes, kissed her face
and then her mouth. He parted her lips with his tongue and burrowed inside. His
weight pinned her down but she fought his lovemaking until she began to feel
aroused again.

And then Clara was transformed, seemingly amazed at what he
was doing inside her. Her eyes fluttered open and they met Branson’s,
bewildered and curious at first, and then they darkened with arousal.
She was so innocent
, he thought. His
cousin did not even know she was aroused or how desirable she was.

He controlled his lust, waiting until her hips moved under
his, responding to his thrusts, following a secret river to climax. Her firm
breasts were squashed against his chest.

“I am yours now, cousin,” she breathed and dug her nails
into his back.

He drove his cock deeper inside her, pumping her young
womanhood as slowly as he could bear. “Damn you, Clara. You make me forget
everything I’ve ever wanted,” Branson whispered in his cousin’s ear. “How am I
ever going to let you go?”

He slipped his hand between their writhing bodies to finger
her and she whimpered and thrust harder and faster. The orgasm built and
tightened in his testicles.

“Clara—oh God—
Clara
.”

Branson ground his teeth against the climax.
He had wanted to take his time fucking her; he wanted this hour in the field to
last until eternity. A day when the air was clean, the birds sang and the sun
shone on them both. The earth smelled of cut hay and dew.

“Love me, love me,” she cried. “I love you,
Branson. I love you.”

Her words were like rain on his parched
being, so long alone and empty. His manhood was full of sperm and near to
splitting open. He roared like an animal off his leash and pounded Clara’s
vagina; a wild man with his mate—unbound, unstoppable.

Clara made a high keening sound as she
reached orgasm. That he could bring her such pleasure filled him with pride and
possession. She was his and she always would be. The truth of their union was
that she was his woman, his other self, created for him.

As he was created for her.

Branson’s body jerked spasmodically with the
sweet torture of climax as her pussy tightened around his cock, joining him in
ecstasy. He shouted at the crest, startling the birds in the trees. He
plummeted into a pleasure that took him out of himself, howling a long haunting
cry of release.

The climax shattered his consciousness—he had never
experienced that before—he didn’t know it was possible for a mortal man to know
such pleasure on earth.

Branson ejaculated inside her, pulling out a hair too late for
safety. A stream of semen landed on her breasts and belly and streaked down her
leg. His seed was mingled with her juices and he was furious with his lack of
self-control. She was only nineteen—he might’ve got her pregnant and what
future would she have then? Hired rooms and a monthly allowance such as
Strachan would have offered? Clara would never ransom her life to such terms.
With Edgar’s help, she would cope on her own.

Branson flung him
self to the gras
s,
panting and dripping sweat, reeling from the intensity of their mutual climax. He
could
no
t do anything
—not even
think—
for a moment but lay
there and try to recover. Clara was quiet beside him.

“We must go,” he said. But he could not find
the will to move.

“There must be a way for us to be together,”
she said piteously and drew under his arm.

“I have a wife. You know there is not.”

“And I had a father and a home and my
reputation, yet here I am with you. I have lost everything for your sake.” She
bit back tears of frustration and heartache. Clara knew she was being
unreasonable but could not stop herself from trying to hurt him. “If you have
nothing more to say to me then leave me here. I shall manage to get along
without you.”

“As you were at Gateshead, yes, you were
managing beautifully,” he said bitterly. “I warned you not to leave my
protection. Your father was the danger to you all along. Not me.”

Clara broke free of his hold. “Is it my
gratitude you want? You have it. I am grateful.”

“It is not your thanks I seek.”

“What then?”
she demanded, sitting up and looking at him. “Why did you rescue me?”

“Your brother
asked for my help. I’ve told you.”

“No, I don’t believe that is the reason.
Seeing me incarcerated in an insane asylum is the revenge you desired from the
beginning. It would have thrilled you to hear of my disgrace. I don’t
understand you, Branson. You had every reason to tell my brother to go to
hell.”

He shrugged and closed his eyes. “What your
father did was not fair and I am a fair man. There is no glory in besting a mad
woman. If you really were mad, I would have left you there. You are as sane as
I am.”

“That remains to be seen. Much depends on
what happens now. You and Edgar did not think this rescue through. I can’t go
home to my father.”

Branson opened his eyes and fixed them on
her face. “You cannot return to
Windemere
Hall. It is
not safe.”

Clara seized on this. “In what way is it not
safe? Come now, no more secrets! There is nothing left to destroy between us.
When I was with Grace in the chapel, she said something that puzzled me. She told
me she hurts you. What did she mean by that?”

“I will not discuss my wife with you,” he
said coldly.

“If you are hoping to put me off with your
usual incivility, Branson, it won’t work. I am too familiar your bad nature.”
Clara wrapped herself in his frock coat as she had done the first night they spent
together and crouched beside him. “To protect your secret you allowed me to
believe I was going mad. It was Grace in the chapel choking the life out of
me—not an apparition—not a hallucination. Your wife was alive yet you allowed
me to believe I was going insane.”

“You asked for the truth,” he said tightly.
“This is the man I am. It is too late for me to change, Clara. I’m not a man
given to forgiveness or trust.”

“You have no idea how you are hurting me,”
she said. Her voice carried on the still autumn air. “How it wounds me to be in
your company. I am not a strong woman. At times I wish I was more like Trudy
Delisle, able to ignore feelings for practicality. But I see you and I must
love you, and this love is tearing me apart. You may not be given to
forgiveness, but I am cannot live my life in resentment and bitterness. I
forgive you, Branson. I forgive you everything.”

Branson’s blue eyes darkened. He did not speak
for several seconds. “Do not despise me for doing what I must. I live with a
madwoman. There is no escape for me but I will not lure you into the same trap.”

“I do not care to be free without you!”

“You are talking like a child! Grace was in
the bedchamber the night we made love. She was watching us.” Branson reached
for his breeches and yanked them on, dressing as he talked. “I instructed Piers
to lock her in her apartment after your arrival, but she wheedled and begged
and he gave in to her that night. Piers Leeds is her brother,” he said tersely.

“Oh dear God,” she moaned. “Piers
is
Grace’s brother—why did you not tell me? You took another
woman to bed right under your wife’s nose! You are without pity.
Cold—heartless—I cannot endure!” Clara turned away, horrified. “Oh God, what
have I done? I didn’t know. I thought it was only me you sought to destroy with
a false betrothal. You were trying to destroy your wife as well. You beguiled
us both.”

“I beguiled no one, least of all Grace,” he
snapped. “She knew from the first about our plan; Piers and I explained it to
her. She wanted to see you ruined as much as I did. She’d become increasingly unstable—something
drastic had to be done. I hoped that by getting justice for her, it would ease
her mind and bring her peace.”

Clara scrambled to gather her clothing
together, trying to get away from him as fast as possible. “She is your wife.
You should have sought help for her—not a pathetic scheme of revenge. I know
what it is to be cast aside by the one I love. Whatever you may think, it was
cruel to let Grace witness what she did.”

“The whole of my life for seven years has
been dedicated to trying to make her well!” Branson shouted. “You cannot
endure? Consider what I have endured living with that monster! If you mean to
go, then go! But you will listen to my story before I’ll suffer you to judge me.”

He gripped Clara’s wrists and dragged her
down to the earthy furrows. The ground was hard. The day grew cold. Branson
forced her to look into his haunted sapphire eyes.

“I have been without love for seven years. I
have not lived with her as a man lives with his wife—as I have lived with you.
Grace attacked me on our wedding night. She cannot bear to be touched. She
cannot tolerate another woman at
Windemere
.
Piers is
tasked with keeping her under lock and key. You
have seen what happens when she is at liberty. Our lives are shattered—all
three of us. I do not tell you this to be pitied or even to gain your
understanding. I knew what Grace was when I married her.”

She was chilled by his words but the heat
from his bare chest and his hands on her wrists steadied her. Her frantic haste
to get away was subsiding. “Go on. I am listening.”

“After her breakdown, Piers would not allow
her to be placed in an asylum. He convinced me she was better off among
familiar faces and I hoped she would eventually recover. But her emotional
frailty is an inherited condition. Piers confessed his mother had suffered from
delusions and bouts of rage. Grace was a mathematical genius, a highly strung
temperament that matched my own when I met her, though I hadn’t her
ruthlessness back then.”

“But you do now.”

“Yes,” he said brutally. “What would you
have me do—live like a monk for the rest of my days? I didn’t lie when I said
Grace Leeds had died at her own hand. When it became clear she was not getting
any better, I told Piers I would pay for treatment at a private sanatorium in
Switzerland. Grace became violently angry, refusing to leave
Windemere
, saying she would kill herself if I ever attempted
to leave her.
Ruthless?
I would tear her heart out if I could! I pitied her once, but no more. My wife
chose this prison of the mind and she has imprisoned me with her. Grace chose a
living death and I was resigned to dying with her. The life I have been living
these past seven years was not a life for a man. But I could endure it—until
you.”

His speech moved her as it was meant to move
her. Branson could be very persuasive, as she well knew. But it was not Clara
he was trying to convince this time. She could probably forget that Grace
existed but Branson could not. Whenever he bedded Clara, his wife would come
between them, buried in his sub-conscience, poisoning his mind. Grace had a diabolical
power over him.

“Is she violent with you?” Clara asked.

“On occasion, but her true gift is her
cunning cruelty. I was responsible for introducing her to your father and she
has never let me forget it. When she is crossed, she is dangerous. Her rages
are violent but she is always sorry for them after.”

“Please let me help you. I want you, I want
you,” she breathed desperately. “I love you.”

Branson dropped her wrists and lurched away
from her, reeling across the field like a drunken man. He pounded his fist
against the trunk of the oak tree and uttered a cry that wrenched her heart. “The
only time we have left to us is now—here in this field. This day is ours. We
will not have another. Even this is more than I deserve.”

Clara’s heart sank. She blinked back tears. It
was as though
Windemere
Hall itself held him captive.
He would not leave. Branson Hamilton was a married man. Clara’s feelings were
beside the point. His marriage to a living Grace Leeds terminated all hope for
a future with him.

“How am I to live without you,” she said
weakly.

He turned to gaze at her. “How am I to live
without you?”

“Branson,” Clara sobbed. “Please. You must
help me let you go.”

She held her hand out to him and he closed
the distance between them in two strides.

He fell on her, fastening his mouth to her
lips and then to her breast. Clara clawed at his breeches until they opened and
she released his already rigid male sex organ. She caught his hair in her fists
and cried out when he entered her. If this was to be their last time, she would
not hold anything back. He would know everything about her—her love, her passion
and her obsession with him. She was his other self, created for him from his
very body. She was his rib, if such a thing were possible, and when she was
with him, Clara was complete.