Julia London 4 Book Bundle (32 page)

He spoke of the abuse, of Archie’s doting on Benedict. Of how Benedict had gone from an eager, devoted
lad to a sullen, weak young man who hid behind Archie’s promise of Kealing Park. Strangely embarrassed, he admitted to taking Archie’s challenges and turning them into gold, all the while pushing him, pushing him, with everything he could think of. Nor did he shy away from telling her of the whoring, the gambling, and the reckless reputation the Rogues had eagerly earned, of the friends that meant more to him than his own kin.

At one point as he gathered his thoughts and his breath, he heard her move from her chair, caught the scent of her as she brushed past him. For one terrified moment he thought she had left in disgust, but she returned, wrapping his fingers around a snifter of brandy. Adrian gratefully took the snifter and let the fire stream down his gullet. Then hoarse from the brandy, he told her how he had finally given Archie the reason he needed to disinherit him.

Everything tumbled off his tongue, every minute of the appalling weekend when he had killed Phillip, every thought, every moment of horror on that field. The shock at seeing a gun pointed directly at his chest. The terror upon realizing he had killed one of his very best friends. The guilt that would not leave him. He told her how Archie had disinherited him, and how he had sought her out in an almost mad state of revenge. How he regretted what he had done to her, for telling her the truth in such an abhorrent manner. And how that regret had led him to drink himself into such a state of oblivion, he could not even tell her what had happened with the gun.

When he at last finished, the pounding in his head was relentless, the pain almost nauseating.

An eternity seemed to pass before she spoke. “I understand everything but this. Why would he despise his son from birth?”

Ah, yes, the one thing he could not quite put a voice to. But it was all there, his whole life, lying like bits of debris scattered on the floor between them—except the one thing that had shattered it all in the beginning. “Because my birth was conceived outside the bounds of
lawful matrimony.” And he laughed bitterly, almost choking on it.

“How do you know that?” she asked quietly.

“Because nothing else can explain it. The names he called her, his disdain for me, his absolute adoration of Ben. I am my mother’s bastard son, Lilliana, and Archie hates me for it” He laughed again, desperately this time, suddenly wishing he could retrieve every word he had uttered and stomp the truth that damned him and gave everything to Benedict. “He cannot bring himself to admit he was cuckolded. He would prefer to ruin me, as I am the single reminder of her infidelity. And, I fear, he may finally succeed.” Adrian sucked the thin air around him. “That is why you must go, Princess. This is my fate, not yours, and I cannot bear to see you harmed. It is my dirty secret, and you should not have to pay the consequence.”

The silence that filled the room unnerved him; his breath came harshly as his secret hammered in his ears and his head. Adrian gulped for air, silently crying to God to let him see her one more time, to see her
now
and if the light was still in her eyes … or the revulsion that he feared.

He didn’t realize she had moved until he felt her hand in his, then her lips brush his fingers. “I won’t let him hurt you,” she murmured.

He groaned; there was so much she could not possibly comprehend. What a father and son could do to one another—her tender soul should never know what darkness men were capable of. “On my
life
, I won’t let him hurt you ever again,” she said, and pulled lightly on his hand. “No one will hurt you.” She tugged again, pulling him to his feet.

“Lilliana—”

“Shhh.” She pressed a finger to his lips, then drew him slowly away from his chair. Adrian followed her mindlessly, moving carelessly across the carpet, not really conscious of anything but his desperate need to see her. Surprised when his leg bumped up against the bed,
there was no time to react before she pushed him down. He fell onto his side; Lilliana fell on top of him.

“I love you Adrian,” she whispered, and quickly covered his mouth with hers.

Impossible!
his mind screamed, and he struggled to push her off, afraid unto death of what those words meant, that they should come
now
, after everything he had told her. But the touch of her lips detonated something inside him, and his pushing suddenly turned to a fierce embrace. He raked his hands through her curls, cupped her face, felt her neck and eyes and ears with his hands. Lilliana straddled him; there was nothing but a gossamer layer of undergarments between them.

Adrian’s hands and body operated feverishly, stroking every curve, seeking her warm flesh. He buried his face in her neck and ran his tongue inside her ear as he inhaled her scent. Lilliana worked just as feverishly, ripping the neckcloth from him, then sending her fingers flying down the buttons of his waistcoat. He felt his shirt being pulled from his trousers, then somehow, she managed to claw it off of him. Her delicate hands were everywhere, caressing him, gliding over his chest, stroking the soft down of hair trailing to his groin.

Adrian caught a breath in his throat when her tongue flicked across his nipple as her hands fumbled with his trousers to free his arousal. It was an assault, a blind assault on all his senses, and he was mad for her. Frantic, he sought the fastenings of her gown, releasing her breasts from the confines of fabric. He groped for the softly pliant flesh, moaning with pleasure when they began to swell in his hands. He suddenly sat up, holding her tightly on his lap to take one succulent breast in his mouth, sucking the hardened peak into his tongue.

Her hand surrounded his rigid erection, making him ache with desire. With her other hand, she shoved him backward again, then covered his face with kisses, pressed her lips to his blind eyes, his nose, his lips, and trailed a river of simmering kisses to his chest. And then,
Lord God
, down the length of his torso, pausing to flick
her tongue into the crevice of his navel. Adrian held his breath; every fiber was burning with a fire that licked at the deepest recesses of his soul. He felt her body as he had never felt a woman, aware of every place they touched, of the scent of their lovemaking, of the sound of their eagerness.

When her lips touched the velvet head, Adrian lurched violently. “Shhh,” she whispered, and with her tongue traced the length of him. Gasping, he tried not to writhe beneath her like an animal. But it was no use; she was destroying his control, pushing him to the brink of yearning that made him shudder with anticipation. Her lips left him long enough to glide across the slippery skin of his testicles, and Adrian shot upward in the dark, bracing himself on his elbows. But his mind went blank when her lips slid slowly down the length of him and back, tantalizing him to the point of madness.

The seduction was overwhelming; dangerously close to losing his control, he groped for her, yanking her up to him like a rag doll and encircling her tightly in his arms. Her lips landed softly on his, and she continued the wild seduction of his soul with the thrust of her tongue into his mouth.

Adrian fought her skirts until they were hiked above her hips, then slipped his hand between her legs. Lilliana gasped against his lips; he breathed a silent moan into her body upon discovering she was slick with desire. His fingers slipped inside her heat; his thumb stroked her mindlessly until she made a little cry and shifted suddenly, lifting herself above the hardened length of his passion.

Adrian impaled her. Fiercely, completely, he thrust into her, again and again, burying his face in the valley of her breasts, struggling to take them as fully into his mouth as her body took him. Over and over again he thrust into her, rashly seeking to touch her very soul. With every stroke he came closer, and when he felt her tighten around him, he was unable to contain the powerful
need to release his life’s blood into the very core of her.

It was Lilliana who cried out first. Her fingers dug into his shoulders as she shuddered, contracting around him and drawing a powerful climax. With a strangled sob of ecstasy, Adrian released himself into her with a potent thrust. And another. And one more, until he was spent, drained, and in absolute awe of what had just happened. He somberly gathered her in his arms and pressed his face to her neck, rocking gently as the heat ebbed from their bodies. Lilliana held him just as tightly, her arms wrapped around his head, her breath ragged in his hair, the dangerously erratic beating of her heart keeping time with his own.

Slowly he leaned back, taking her with him until he was prone on the bed, and leaving himself buried somewhere near the warmth of her womb. “My darling Princess,” he whispered reverently. “My demon Lillie, what have you done to me?”

A sob lodged in her throat; she buried her face in his neck. He felt the hot path of her tears and he finally,
finally
understood them. He had been almost moved to tears himself.

They lay entwined in each other’s arms for what seemed hours, until he could tell from her breathing that Lilliana was sleeping. Still, he did not let go of her, afraid of losing the magic they had just shared. He felt
alive
, and Lord save him, he had never made love so intensely or experienced such heartfelt emotions, such wondrous joy at giving her the fulfillment he so desperately wanted and received for himself.

And as he held her tightly to him, he was, strangely, reminded of what the vicar had said at Phillip’s funeral.
Know ye the quality of love, the quality of life, and the quality of mercy.

What a mockery those words had seemed then. How extraordinary they seemed now. He must be incredibly unperceptive, but now he understood with vivid clarity. This Princess of the Grange, the woman he had married
in an act of revenge, had shown him the quality of mercy.
Had
been showing him, many times over, forgiving him everything he thought had damned him, even though he had begged God for mercy, had deemed himself cursed and unworthy of it. And all along, unrecognized and unappreciated, his unremarkable country wife had been trying to show him the true quality of mercy. But he had been too damned blind to see it.

God forgive him! He had been blind
long
before the accident—blind to her many qualities, to her unique and forgiving spirit, to the life she could give him, whether he deserved it or not. She had not turned away, not once, not even when he had been so brutally honest. She had heard the whole ugly truth and had responded by showing him what it meant to make love, guiding him through one of the most extraordinary experiences of his life—if not the most terrifying!

He had no idea what it meant to feel like this, no notion of what would come, if the feelings would be as intense on the morrow, or if they would only grow stronger.

If only he could see her! He would give his life to look into those wide, gray-green eyes once more, to see the dimple of a cheerful little smile that seemed glorious in his mind’s eye.
Dammit!
Why hadn’t he looked at her more often? Why hadn’t he memorized her features, her luscious body, her silky hair?

Adrian suddenly came up on his knees.

Liliiana thought she was dreaming; the soothing caress felt like a whisper of a breeze on her skin. She drowsily opened her eyes to find him bent over her, on his knees, his face burrowed in a frown of concentration that looked quite fierce in the dim light of the waning fire. With his hands, he was touching every inch of her. But not just touching her—
examining
her. She stirred,

“Be still, love,” he murmured,
“be still.”
Her heart fluttered wildly; she watched in fascination as he continued his examination, leaving no patch of skin untouched in a trail of tingling warmth. Slowly, methodically, he
traced her body with his hands, moving from her toes, to her knees, drifting over the apex of her thighs, then her torso. Reverently, he stroked the skin of her arms, her breasts, and then her neck.

“W-What are you doing?” she whispered as his fingers curved around her ears.

“Seeing you,” he muttered, and traced a line over her lips before moving to her eyes, then her hair. When he reached the top of her head and ran his fingers through the curls there, he sighed longingly and lowered himself to her, kissing her tenderly as his hand slipped down to her breast again.

He made love to her with great deliberation, taking his own sweet time to touch every part of her with his hands and mouth, stroking and tasting her skin and the heat of her desire between her legs. His tongue was everywhere, in every crevice, in all the places that she was certain would condemn her directly to hell—but she didn’t care. This glimpse of heaven was worth every moment of eternal damnation. The warmth began to build in her belly as he laved the tender flesh between her legs. She squirmed as his tongue flicked in and out of her, then over the most intimate part of her. Adrian grasped her hips in his hands as she began to thrash beneath him, holding her firmly as he buried his face in the valley between her legs, torturing her with his teeth and tongue.

Intense pressure was reverberating through her, but Adrian did not allow it, not yet. He rose up, and slowly he entered her while he feathered her face and neck with kisses. Smoothly and gently, he provoked her with a tantalizing rhythm, pausing when she was on the brink of losing herself, then starting the whole extraordinary experience again, all the while touching her, feeling her.
Seeing
her. When she at last begged him for mercy, he took her to yet another pinnacle of ethereal fulfillment, whispering her name again and again … groaning it one last time as he found his own release. And Lilliana felt as if she was floating far above herself as he wrapped
her tightly into his arms and rolled to his side. It wasn’t until she heard the deep breath of his sleep that she finally floated back to earth, secure in his arms.

When Lilliana finally roused herself from a deliciously deep sleep, Adrian had gone. Her first thought was that he had left her again, just as he always did. No,
no
, she thought frantically, not after last night! She climbed out of bed, wrapped a sheet around her and rushed to her own rooms, where she washed and dressed quickly while fighting a growing sense of urgency and fearfulness. What had occurred between them last night was a dream—and she couldn’t be entirely certain it
wasn’t
a dream. Had she imagined an outpouring of emotion? The desperate way he clung to her? Had she somehow seen emotions he truly did not have? It certainly wouldn’t be the first time she had done so. But last night—last night had been different than all the times before. He could not be so unfeeling!