Authors: Patricia Oliver
So he had merely acquiesced to Perry's suggestion, surprised his son with an affectionate hug, and gone in search of Sir Henry before his courage could forsake him.
And now he waited, hands faintly damp and heart racing, for the woman who might—or might not—agree to bring joy back into his life.
***
Athena paused for a moment before she tapped on the library door. She hoped her father had not changed his mind about returning to Rothingham tomorrow. Lady Sarah and Aunt Mary had hinted again this afternoon over tea that there was really no need to go rushing off when Sir Henry had barely arrived. Lady Ridgeway had loudly and persuasively lamented her precipitate departure, remarking—with a mischievous twinkle in her expressive eyes—that had she not known better, she would imagine her friend to be running from the devil himself.
Peregrine had interrupted this piece of facetiousness with the comment that his father had confessed only this morning at breakfast that he would miss watching Penelope's progress on Buttercup, and had begun looking about for a bigger pony for her. Penny had naturally taken this opportunity to beg her mother to stay at the Castle for the rest of the summer.
When Perry had moved on—quite deliberately, Athena was convinced—to describe the exciting winter activities he had enjoyed growing up at the Castle, her daughter had confessed that she had never learned to skate and demanded that Peregrine promise to teach her. Athena was not surprised when he promptly did so.
"So you see, Mama," Penelope cried with the innocent logic of childhood, "we cannot leave before Christmas, can we?"
But leave they certainly would, Athena told herself, firmly dismissing all those wonderful reasons for staying. The reason to leave was too compelling to be ignored. She could not—would not—spend another day under the same roof with a man who gave her severe palpitations every time he looked at her.
Those blue-black eyes of his seemed to promise so much of what she needed from a man, so much of what she had enjoyed with John in what already seemed like another lifetime. Her dreams had become increasingly and disturbingly full of him. He had been no hesitant, tongue-tied lover in those dreams. Nor had he tantalized her with half-kisses, or half-spoken promises, or half-veiled glances that teased her into a frenzy of desire. Oh, no, she thought, feeling her cheeks grow warm at the memory. There had been nothing half-hearted about the man in her dreams. And if she were not to commit the ultimate indiscretion of imagining that the real man was her dream lover—a prospect that was becoming dangerously appealing—she would have to put as much distance as possible between herself and the temptation to throw discretion to the winds and reach out for what she wanted.
Pausing a moment longer to allow the color in her cheeks to subside, Athena opened the door and stepped into the library.
The room was dim with the summer dusk outside, and Athena wondered idly why her father had not rung for candles. Then it dawned on her that the man standing outlined against the window was not possessed of Sir Henry's comfortable bulk.
This gentleman was taller, leaner, and his eyes were almost black in the shadows of his face. She had no difficulty at all in recognizing him. He was the man she had, not two minutes earlier, been thinking of in highly immodest terms. She felt the color rise again to her cheeks. A single nervous glance around the room told her that they were alone together. Her father was not there to support her, to steady her nerves, to save her from the very impropriety she had contemplated so recently.
"I beg your pardon, my lord," she whispered in a voice that sounded like a shadow of her own. "I had thought to meet my father—"
"I know, my dear," the earl cut in. "Sir Henry has given me permission to speak with you alone, Athena."
His words washed over her incomprehensibly while Athena stared at him in dismay. Her practical self warned her to flee instantly from the man behind the desk, whose stance reminded her so vividly of their first disastrous interview during which she had likened him to a wolf. His demeanor had been distinctively predatory, she remembered. His gaze, blue-black and threatening, had raked her until she was certain there was nothing about her person he had not considered and discarded as unworthy of his son.
Now they were here alone again, but instead of fear, Athena was conscious of a heart-wrenching need for this man, who she had discovered had nothing in common with a wolf at all. He was more like a magnificent, highly-bred horse, she thought irrationally. A breathtaking animal, regal and full of restive power, but also nervous and almost skittish in his reluctance to bow his head for the bridle. Athena smiled inwardly at her fanciful notion.
This same exciting man, tantalizingly remote by day, had come to her at night in her dreams. Come to her in every sense of the word, causing her skin to tingle with delight, and her body to accept him eagerly, without the inhibitions that held her passion in check by day.
Athena closed her eyes and took a deep breath, forcing her overactive imagination to simmer down. What madness had taken over her senses? she wondered, alarmed at the vividness with which her dreams had superimposed themselves upon her present reality. What demon had possessed her to stare at a gentleman quite openly, like the veriest demimondaine, with less than pure thoughts in her mind?
She soon discovered that closing her eyes had not eliminated the danger. Images from her most erotic dreams encroached upon her consciousness more vividly in the darkness. Dizzy with the irrefutable evidence of her own desires, Athena quickly opened her eyes.
She blinked.
The earl had crossed the room silently and now stood close to her—far too close to her, she felt—his dark eyes filled with questions.
"Are you not feeling quite the thing, my dear?" he asked, his low voice setting off vibrations all along her nerves. "You are very pale." He took her hand and held it close to his waistcoat. Close to his heart.
Athena thought with nostalgia of the afternoon in the dungeon when she had swooned into his arms. She wished fervently that she could swoon at will, but she had never learned the art. And never had she felt the need for such missish subterfuge as she did at this moment.
Instead, she looked up at him boldly and regretted it instantly. The warmth of his gaze burned away any notion she had of resisting him. She had seen that same look often in her dreams, but then in her dreams she had never felt the need to practice caution. She was not dreaming now, she reminded herself sternly, and it behooved her to smother the familiar desire that was curling up inside her before she forgot where she was. And with whom. Despite the warmth in his eyes, this was not the seductive man of her dreams. This was a man who could not, or would not, kiss a willing female on a moonlit summer evening.
Deliberately, and with infinite regret, Athena broke their locked gaze and glanced furtively around her.
"I think we should ring for candles, my lord," she murmured, grasping at something solid, something ordinary and everyday in the midst of the chaos of emotions which threatened to undo her.
She heard him laugh, deep in his throat. A caressing, intoxicating laugh that reminded her again of... But no, she thought, quickly suppressing her imagination. This is
not
the same man. And yet the vibrations of his laugh pulsed through her fingers, still pressed against his chest, sending shivers of delight down her spine.
"If you insist my dear," he said slowly, and Athena knew he was still staring at her. "Do you, Athena?"
Was it her imagination, or had the room suddenly become dimmer and warmer? More intimate? Redolent with the smell of leather, books, Holland water. The scent of gentlemen. Or rather of one gentleman in particular. A scent that was depriving her of reason.
She drew a deep, shuddering breath and whispered, "Do I what, my lord?"
"Do you insist on ringing for the candles?"
This whole scene was so very extraordinary, she thought, so filled with tension, and promise, and the unmistakable pulsing of desire, that Athena had the greatest difficulty in separating dream from reality. This could not be reality, she reasoned, for this was the kind of scene, alive with sensuous undertones, that occurred so frequently in her dreams. It was so familiar that she knew instinctively what her next move would be. Her hand would slip, slowly, teasingly, up his waistcoat and wind itself round his neck among the thick curls that clustered there. She could almost feel the crisp texture of his hair against her bare arm.
This was not a dream, she kept telling herself, but with a shock she noticed that her free hand was already halfway up his chest, slipping through the modest folds of his cravat. She froze and would have snatched her hand away had it not felt so warm and at home where it was. Perhaps he had not noticed, she thought wildly. Perhaps she could slip it down again and things would return to normal.
"Well, my dear," he murmured softly,
"do
you?" The teasing amusement in his voice belonged to her dreams and betrayed her into responding without conscious thought.
"Anything you wish, my lord," she sighed, feeling the familiar lethargy of desire invading her limbs as she swayed against him.
His sharp intake of breath jerked her instantly back to reality, the suggestive nuance in her voice still ringing in her ears.
He must have heard it, too, for he removed her indiscreet hand from his cravat and placed a lingering kiss in her palm. The kiss lasted so long that the heat of it had reached her toes before he raised his head and looked at her, his eyes glinting with an odd intensity in the dimness.
That look belonged incontrovertibly in her dreams, and Athena trembled at the thought of what was to follow. Or what would follow, she reminded herself quickly, if she were indeed dreaming this astonishing encounter. But this was reality, was it not? The dimness that surrounded them suggested the darkness of her own room, and reinforced the illusion of the dream world she had visited so often with this man. But the heat of his kiss had felt so real against her skin. The dampness of it still lingered in her palm. And yet, that suggestive kiss and everything that it promised could only exist in her dreams. Or could it?
This delicious sensation of anticipation and the unfolding of desire happened so vividly in her dreams. Athena knew that it led to the searing kisses that melted her bones and obliterated all else from her mind except for her dream lover and what he would do to her. The pleasure they would share. Together in her dreams. But this was reality, a last remnant of sanity within her protested. The temptation to ignore the voice of reason was overwhelming, and for a brief moment, as long as eternity itself, Athena teetered on the edge, between reality and dreams.
The strain of being proper was becoming unbearable. Any moment now she would act out her dreams; she would commit—she
wanted
to commit—some irreversibly sensual act like touching that single black lock that lay curled against the pristine white of his cravat. Or laying her finger against his lips to feel the warmth of them radiating through her body. "I once had a dream about this."
The words were out before she realized she had spoken them aloud. As they hung in the air, Athena experienced the sensation of being on the verge of reaching a crossroads, the point where dreams and reality merged. "Only once?"
There was no mistaking the teasing amusement in his voice. Only in her wildest, most secret dreams had Athena imagined having such a conversation with a gentleman. Particularly with this gentleman, who was so close to becoming the man she had wanted him to be that she felt compelled to reveal more of the truth.
"Perhaps twice, my lord."
"Please call me Sylvester."
"Sylvester," she murmured, savoring each syllable languorously, fully aware that in pronouncing his name she was taking yet another step towards making her dreams come true.
"So have I, my sweet."
Athena could not believe what she was hearing. "You have?" she whispered, watching the whiteness of his teeth as he smiled in the dark room.
"Yes, Athena. Many times, if you must know the truth." His grin broadened, and he placed another sensuous kiss in her palm, quite as though he were deliberately set on driving her wild with desire. Was it too much to hope that he was?
She closed her eyes briefly, allowing the forbidden erotic images of him to run rampant in her mind. How much longer would she have to wait for him to kiss her? she wondered, hoping that he would do so before she became quite irrational with wanting him to. In her dreams, of course, she had often kissed him herself when the need to feel his lips against hers became impossible to resist.
She opened her eyes. At last! she thought, feeling the warm glow of anticipation extending throughout her body. He was going to kiss her. But even as she braced herself to receive that long-awaited pleasure, he continued talking.
"But in my dreams, our encounters never ended so tamely."
"I know," Athena began without thinking, provoking a crack of laughter from the earl. She was glad of the growing dimness that hid her blushes when she realized the implications of her intimate confession.
"And how is it, my dear," he remarked dryly, "that you know so much about my dreams?"
Athena closed her eyes briefly in frustration. If she did not take some drastically improper action, she thought desperately, this man would still be talking when the cocks crowed, and she would have to leave the Castle unkissed. The prospect did not bear thinking of.
"I am assuming that your dreams are not very different from mine, my lor—Sylvester," she pointed out defiantly. "And if that is so, then of course they do not end here."
The earl was quiet for a few moments. Had she shocked him into inertia with her unladylike confession? she wondered. Then his hands moved to her shoulders, and he pulled her gently against him until Athena found herself reposing in a highly gratifying position, close enough to feel his heart beating under her cheek and his breath moving her hair.