Love on a Midsummer Night (Shakespeare in Love #2) (17 page)

“No,” she said. “I will not marry again. I must be gone.”

“If you think I am letting you go now that I’ve found you again, you are lying to yourself.”

She laughed louder then, her old, free laugh from her belly. He held her close and felt the vibration of her laughter through his own body, coaxing out his own.

“I love you, Arabella.” He needed to say those words again and to have her hear them.

“I love you, Raymond. And I am still leaving.”

He pressed her lips closed with his own, knowing that he did not have the strength to argue with her anymore.

He had waited for her ten years already. He would keep waiting for as long as it took. Now that he had her back, he felt as if his heart had grown large enough to encompass the whole world. She would marry him, no matter what she said. He would see to it.

He kissed her until she was leaning full against him, soft and pliant. When he drew back from her far enough to look down into her eyes, she sighed and smiled at him.

“Be my mistress then,” he teased. “Live with me in sin. Let us have twenty bastard children together and be the talk of the
ton
.”

Arabella laughed, raising her head. He saw the light in her soft blue eyes. “Twenty children?”

“Too few?” He smiled down at her, smoothing her caramel hair back from her face where it had come loose from its ribbon. “We can compromise on the number of children,” he said. “I want only to be with you.”

She did not speak at once but lay her head back down on his chest. Her breathing was even and calm, her body warm and soft against his. Pembroke took the moment in, giving thanks for it even as it passed.

This moment was what he had waited for all his life. This moment was why he had not died in Spain, or Italy, or Belgium. He had lived so that he might one day stand with her like this.

Arabella pulled back a little so that she might look up at him again. This time her eyes were clear. They bore no tears and held no fear. Only her love shone on him, reflected in the ghost of a smile that touched her lips.

Pembroke kissed her again, his touch as soft as a butterfly’s wing. Arabella sighed and opened her lips beneath his, so that his tongue might enter.

The kiss began soft but did not stay that way. In the next breath, Pembroke’s hand moved up her back and into her hair, drawing the ribbon out, her hair soft between his fingers.

Arabella moaned at the feel of his hands in her hair, pressing close to his hard body that she might take in all of him at once. She knew that no matter how long she was given to be with him, she would never be able to get close enough.

Her fingers rose between them, running over the muscles of his chest. His waistcoat and linen shirt blocked her touch, but she could still feel the heat of him rising through the layers of his clothes. When she reached up to touch his cheek, his cravat got in her way. She drew back a little so that she could see to begin to unravel it.

Pembroke laughed, his breath gone. He took her hands gently in one of his and drew them away from the linen at his throat.

“Arabella, I was joking when I said I would take you as my mistress. You will be my wife.”

“And I told you that I will never marry again. Why don’t we save this argument for another time, and let this night be what it will?”

She smiled up at him, knowing that he fought with himself over his rediscovered honor. She saw his desire for her in the heat of his eyes. She felt it along the palm of his hand where he held her by the waist, as if wanting to draw her close and push her back all at once.

Arabella pressed herself against Pembroke without warning, wrapping her arms around his neck, her fingers in the soft blond of his hair. The nape of his neck was bare, his blond mane close cropped for war, but she found a few curls buried in the military style that he had not given up in all his years of debauchery.

Pembroke moved to pull away from her, and she clung to him as a burr might to his clothes. Her hands were tenacious as she wrapped her arms around him tighter. She had spent all her life alone. She wanted this night.

He stopped trying to pull away.

She saw a look of hunger cross his face, but she knew that it was not food he wanted. She pressed herself against him, suddenly remembering how her husband had mounted her in their marriage bed. She shuddered inwardly and pushed all thoughts of the old duke away.

“I love you, Raymond,” was all she said. Then she raised her lips to his and opened her mouth over his.

The sound of his name on her lips worked like the incantation of a spell, for he responded, sliding his tongue over her lips until she opened her mouth and let him devour her. His palms ran down her back and over the curve of her hips, pressing her thighs into the hardness of his body.

She felt his manhood high and hard against her belly, and instead of making her retreat, the feel of him against her made her want to get closer. With her husband, she had wanted to flee, but with Pembroke, even knowing the pain that was to come, she wanted to be nowhere but in his arms.

She drew back to take a breath and Pembroke met her eyes, his blue gaze dark with desire. Even then he tried to rein himself in, to retreat, to withdraw from her. She saw his honor war with his desire. She fought on the side of his desire, for it matched her own.

She felt heat in her belly and in her chest, expanding like a tide coming in to shore. She moved against him, not knowing what she wanted, knowing only that if any man could give it to her, that man was Pembroke.

“Do not leave me tonight,” Arabella said. Her voice sounded like another’s, some other wanton woman, a woman Pembroke might have taken into his bed on any night before this. But she was not any other woman. She was the woman he loved. She was the woman who loved him.

She pressed herself to him, letting her body move as it wanted to, as if she had never known another man, as if she was free to love him alone.

“Stay,” she said.

Pembroke stopped fighting himself and his own desire, turning the force of that desire on her. His hands moved over her again, smoothing down the soft silk of her new gown. He pressed against her slender form, drawing her close to the fire.

The sun had long since set, and the fire and candles were all they had to light their way. Pembroke could not seem to get enough of touching her. He raised her in his arms, carrying her to the bed. The fire still burned in the hearth behind them, but it gave no light where the bed lay in its alcove of blue silk. Pembroke laid her body down on the soft feather bed, and pressed a kiss first to her forehead, then to her lips. “Stay here,” he said.

He rose and looked down at her, his hair wild from where she had mussed it, his eyes consumed with wanting. His hand shook as he brought a candle close to the bedside. The long taper burned bright, casting a deep yellow light across the counterpane, across her body, across the blue of her silk gown. Shadows stretched as she did, and she saw her shadow as another creature, something outside herself that reflected her desire.

She stretched again, languidly, and watched as Pembroke’s eyes caught fire. Arabella felt her own power then, for the first time in her life. With Pembroke, she was safe to feel it, to savor it, the joy of her own need for him, and joy of the need she inspired in him. She spread herself out along the soft contours of the feather bed then raised one hand, beckoning him to lie down beside her.

Pembroke did not move to join her at once, but stood staring. She saw in his eyes that he hesitated not because he doubted her desire but because he was drinking in the sight of it. Arabella raised herself on one elbow, patting the bed beside her. “Come here, Raymond. I have need of you.”

He laughed then, and she shivered at the sound. It was not mocking laughter, but a surrender. He laughed not at her, but at himself.

He took off his coat and tossed it behind him on a chair. He left his waistcoat and linen shirt on, as well as his breeches. He took his boots off carefully, one tight sheath of leather at a time. Arabella sat up so that she could see him better, taking in the play of his muscles beneath the sheer linen of his shirt.

“I did not know what desire was until I saw you,” she said to him.

Another woman seemed to have taken over her body, and yet she had never felt more completely herself. And it was not wine this time, or mead, for she had not taken a drop. This night she was drunk on her love for him and on the fact that, for this night, he was hers.

He sat on the bed with her then, his weight making a deep depression in the soft mattress. Arabella rolled toward him and caught herself against his thigh. She ran her hand idly over the muscles beneath the taut breeches, touching him as she had always longed to do. Before this, she had always been afraid. This night, she felt as if she would never be afraid again.

She did not know what to do, but she was not embarrassed by her ignorance. Her innocence was a gift she could give him along with her body, an offering in the face of all they had lost, of all that had been taken from them in the last ten years. They had lost time and youth, but they were together now, and that was an unlooked-for blessing.

Arabella kissed him gently then drew back to unlace her gown. She took off her bodice, kicked away the silk of her skirt.

Pembroke helped her draw each piece of clothing off, laying them carefully on the chair beside the bed. Arabella undressed until she wore nothing but her thin chemise and her stockings. She untied each garter and slowly rolled the stockings down her legs, tossing them aside.

She smiled at him, drew out the pins from her hair, and it fell around her face and shoulders like a veil. She pushed the caramel locks back so that she could see him clearly, so that he could see her.

He seemed to drink in the contours of her face, the curves of her cheeks, which she knew were pink with joy. She felt herself blush beneath his hand, but she did not turn away. She savored the heat as it rose beneath her skin, knowing that when he touched her, her skin would heat still more.

Pembroke stood to draw his own trousers off, as well as his waistcoat, so that he faced her in just his shirt. The edges came down over the tops of his thighs. The golden trail of hair on his chest disappeared beneath the linen, only to reappear as a golden fleece along his thighs.

Arabella did not back away from him even then. Her old fear did not rise to overwhelm her, and it was yet another victory. She longed to draw that shirt off him, so that she could see the hair on his chest. When he sat beside her again, she pressed her hand to his heart, moving his linen shirt out of her way so that she might lay her lips on his skin as she had always longed to do.

Arabella moved her lips across the heated warmth of him. The dark golden hair on his chest pillowed her cheek, and she ran her hands across his body. He stripped away the shirt so that she was left with just him and his beauty before her. He lay back and let her look.

Pembroke’s blue eyes were filled with desire for her, but he did not move to touch her. He lay back and let her feast on him, first with her lips and then with her hands.

Arabella’s eyes fell on his manhood nestled in its thatch of golden hair. She had never seen one before. The old duke, when he came to her, had always worn a long gown. In her marriage bed, she had closed her eyes and braced herself, praying for it all to be over quickly. But tonight, with the man she loved, she would keep her eyes open.

He gasped when she touched him. She flinched back, thinking that she had hurt him, but he laughed low, almost like a purr deep in his chest. She saw the heated light in his eyes darkening to a deeper blue. She kept her eyes on his and touched his manhood again.

The pleasure on his face looked almost like pain, and he groaned beneath her fingertips. He wrapped one hand around her wrist as if to stop her, and she bent down and pressed her lips to his fingers. The manacle on her wrist relaxed then as he ran his hand over her cheek. She turned her head and pressed her lips into his palm before she leaned down and brushed her lips lightly against his manhood.

Pembroke leaped then as if she had scalded him. He moved so quickly that she had no time to take her next breath before he had pulled her beneath him. He rose over her, his breath labored as if he had run a fast mile, the laughter in his eyes mixed with desire, and she found herself laughing too.

“Am I wrong to touch you?” she asked him.

He laughed low, the sound sending a shiver along her skin. “No,” he answered, “you are not wrong. But if you do it again, I will not be able to control myself.”

She smiled, running her hand along the line of his jaw. She pressed her lips to his throat. “Why should you control yourself?”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said.

“I do not mind if you hurt me.”

“No,” he said. “Pain does not belong in bed. Only pleasure.”

He pressed her down against the soft feather bed. The shadows cast by the single candle lengthened over them as he moved above her, running his hands over her body, smoothing the skin of her arms, his palms coming down to cup her breasts. Arabella had never been touched that way in her life, and she gasped beneath his mouth as his lips ravished her, as his nimble fingers spread over the rosy softness of her breasts.

She had always thought her breasts too small to be of interest to a man, but Pembroke worshiped them, pushing her chemise aside to run first his hands and then his lips over them. She lost her breath completely when he took one of the taut peaks into his mouth, laving his tongue over it. Arabella thought she might never breathe again, but she did not care. His touch on her skin was more pleasure than she had ever known. If she were to die, let it be like this, with his body over hers and his hands on her skin.

Pembroke raised her chemise altogether then, and she helped him, gathering up her hair and drawing it aside so that he could bring the last piece of her clothing over her head. He tossed the linen away and feasted his eyes on her naked flesh. Arabella froze, thinking to cover herself, for no one had ever seen her naked before.

She forced herself to look into Pembroke’s eyes, and when she saw his love for her mixed with the heat of his desire, she relaxed against the bedclothes, letting her limbs fall limp so that he might look his fill. She covered nothing but let him look, her own eyes following the planes of his body, the hard muscles beneath the skin of his chest and thighs, the power he held in check always, the power and desire that now loomed over her.

She did not feel small or frightened by him as she had always been frightened of her old husband. She felt in some way as if Pembroke’s powerful body was an homage to her, for his strength was humbled by his desire.

Pembroke raised her up then and ran his hand along her back, drawing her close against his body. With his hand on her shoulder he froze, the desire in his eyes freezing with his next breath.

“Arabella. What is that?”

She froze with him, the beauty draining out of the moment, sliding down and away from her like warm water down a drain. She clutched at the warmth, at the joy she had experienced, but she could not hold it. Like all good things, it was not meant to last.

***

Pembroke stared down at the knots and raised flesh along the smooth planes of Arabella’s back. He sat up and drew the candle closer so that he might see them better. A network of scars ran across her shoulders, raised welts that looked to be old and long healed. Pembroke felt his bile rise.

“Hawthorne?” he asked. He could barely force the word from his lips. He felt as if his tongue had seized up, as if the interior of his mouth had turned to dust. He swallowed hard, trying to find his voice. He failed.

Arabella turned her scarred back from him, raising her fingertips to touch his face. Her hand was soft and warm on his flesh. He felt a soothing coolness follow wherever she touched him, as if a drop of her clear sanity was being smoothed over his flushed skin.

“It was not my husband,” she said. “It was my father.”

Pembroke felt tears rise in his eyes, and he let them come. He could not stop them from flowing anymore than he could have held back the tide at Brighton.