Promise Me Heaven (14 page)

Her lips were parted, her breath coming unevenly between their plump curves. Her eyes were brilliant, luminous with awakened sensuality. Unaware as yet of her own state, she gazed at him with undisguised desire. It was enough. His hands tightened on her, crimping the soft muslin of her sleeves. He saw her flinch. Immediately he let her go.

“Am I expected to slap your face now?” he asked tersely. “Well, is that not my part? Have I not executed the proper maidenly restraint? My God, milady, I can assure you I have shown more restraint than any unfixed man in the entire kingdom!”

She looked up confused by his venom. And hurt. He saw it flicker in the silvery green eyes. But she quelled it quickly, her chin tilting defiantly. “No more restraint than any lady of the ton must exercise on a daily basis!”

His eyes narrowed to ebony slits. “I can personally vouch for the fact that my restraint has far exceeded that exercised by any number of tonnish ladies.”

Stung by the blatant reminder of his experience, she reacted. “You may be sure that the provocation I have teased you with is slight compared with what I might do!”

He reached out reflexively, catching her shoulders in his grip. As instinctively, she raised a warding hand to his bare chest. His heart thundered under her palm. She looked up into his eyes, her anger dissolving before his eyes with the contact.

“Play on or lose,” he challenged in a low voice. “My body is at your disposal and I am as biddable as a lamb. Go on then,” he said in a low voice, “seduce me.”

He pushed back the loose cloth of his shirt, baring his heaving chest. “Touch me.” He reached down, pulling her other trembling hand up, and gently pressing her palm over his heart. “Take from me my heat.” He bent his head down toward her. “My breath.” Her eyelids fluttered shut. “My virtue.” His lips were a feather’s breadth from hers.

Without volition, she moved to meet them in the gentlest of kisses. She brushed her lips tentatively over his then more deeply, her mouth opening to more fully encompass his.

His sigh was more a growl; but other than that one sound, he somehow remained true to his word, neither encouraging nor directing her. She bracketed his face with her hands and tilted his head to afford her better access to his mouth, catching his lower lip between her teeth, running the tip of her tongue along its contours.

Breathlessly, he opened his mouth. She took advantage of the access he afforded her and lapped her tongue into the warm sleekness, the ridge of his teeth, the inside of his cheek, his own tongue.

And with that he could take no more. Abruptly, he snatched her to him, lifting her onto his lap in a powerful, crushing embrace. Her head was bent over his arm. Her tongue came alive beneath his own, demanding entry to her mouth, to caress, to fill with deep strokes. He caught her very breath, sucking in each exhaled bit of air, licking with explicit hunger each virgin crevice, each untouched recess. She lay back, overwhelmed by his passion, unaware of the restraint that tested him, causing his body to tremble. She received the potent hunger of his lovemaking with equal ardor, holding her arms tightly about his neck to keep his head bowed to hers, to keep his mouth alive on hers.

Her hands roved without restraint upon his body, though he held her as close as he could, pressing her thigh to his thigh, her hip to his hip, her breast to his breast. There was more her body instinctively sought, and though she was not aware of it, in her need she made soft whimpers of demand.

But Thomas heard and recognized the source of that sound. He tore his mouth from hers and pressed her face against his chest, nearly undone by the exquisite feel of her lips on his person. His body was rigid with urgency. He steeled himself with the need for self-control, even though her arms were still wrapped about his neck, and her body was warm and vibrant on his lap, and her mouth moved softly against his throat.

He had not been aware he possessed such restraint. Part of him was grimly amused. Ten years prior, he would never have considered letting her go. But ten years ago she would not have been lying in his arms, panting in her first discovery of passion. Of utmost import was the simple, undeniable fact that she was Cat, and, being Cat, was in all probability the one woman for whom he would need to exercise this near self-abuse. And while he was able to keep from actively encouraging her passion, he could not bring himself to discourage it. And so, stretched on a rack of need and want, honor and desire, he closed his eyes, clenching his teeth as he endured the sweet abandonment of her exploration.

Slowly she became aware that he was not returning her kisses and, while she was still being held tightly against him, he had raised his head. She shifted and the movement pressed her softness against the most rock hard part of him, causing his involuntary groan.

Her struggle to push herself upright on his lap alerted him to her realization, the embarrassment he knew was inevitable. Still, he could only look with a sad smile into her clouding eyes and say, “I am completely undone. Your reputation as a roué is confirmed. You have proven your point, and any further demonstrations shall leave my reputation in shreds, m’dear. So I must humbly beg you to have mercy on my over-tried body because I haven’t the strength of will even to put you from me, let alone say you nay.”

Her lovely face went white. Her lips, swollen with his kisses, trembled. “You needn’t mock me!”

He wanted nothing so much as to take her once more into his arms, to smooth her furrowed brow with kisses and enfold her in his clasp. But, though he was no stranger to passion, he judged her to be, and therefore uncomfortable in its wake. She had read his response as simple lust and had not yet recognized the depth of emotion that had compelled him.

He was a fool, he acknowledged to himself, but not so much a fool as to allow himself to be flayed beneath her tender pity.

“Not at all,” he said. “I congratulate you. I concede your victory. Stramp does not have a chance should you choose to utilize this… gift.”

“I never would!” she said. “And his name is
Strand
!”

Quivering with fury, Cat bolted out of his arms to stand over him. Thomas relaxed against the wrought-iron seat and stretched a long arm along its back. The act cost him much, but at least she would not see his hands shaking. Cocking his head, he looked up at her.

“Whatever,” he said, relieved to hear that the tones so closely impersonated normalcy. “And now, how do you intend to cap the afternoon’s instructions? Shall we go a bout of fisticuffs or try our hand at a round of intense petit point?”

“Thomas, you are insufferable,” she sputtered. “As far as I am concerned, the afternoon’s instructions are at an end. I leave you to find your own way out.”

“Not very gallant. I never seduced a lady and left her to her own devices after sampling her gifts. What? Leaving so abruptly? I shall be here to collect you, that you may collect my forfeit, at seven o’clock. Did you hear me, Cat? Seven!”

Chapter 13

I
t meant nothing. She was making herself ill, needlessly. To Thomas, her extravagant reaction to his lovemaking must have seemed a tepid entertainment. And, truthfully, it was not
his
lovemaking at all. She had incited the entire scene. Yet she could have sworn her breath mingled with one nearly as ragged as her own.

And his casual teasing—for it could only be that—must have been his way of extracting himself from her embrace. Why else would he have pulled away from her with such gentle determination?

She would retreat into the absurd charade of friendship. She must allow him to dictate the parameters of their relationship or risk losing him altogether. And that, she would not do. If only she could forget the awful, wondrous sensation of being in his arms, of his mouth open over hers…

Well, she must.

And Lady Catherine Sinclair always did what must be done.

Thomas and Cat approached each other warily when he arrived to take her and Hecuba to the Pavilion. Answering his impersonal greetings with monosyllables, Cat was unable to meet the gaze she knew was unwaveringly on her. Finally, defiantly, she looked directly into his eyes, only to find to her relief and irritation that he was not staring at her at all but nonchalantly studying his Hessians.

“What do you think, Cat?” he asked in a patently normal, friendly voice. “I hied myself off and acquired this entire getup just that I might not embarrass you. Though I must say, these boots are deuced uncomfortable. Am I not grand?” He quirked a black brow, blatantly imitating her words of the previous evening.

She could not fail to respond to such a good-humored overture.

“Don’t beg for sweets,” she said, answering his grin with her own.

He looked magnificent. The dark broadcloth stretched across his shoulders, emphasizing their great breadth; the buff trousers displaying the long muscles of his thighs and calves to advantage. His shirt was a flawless expanse of snowy linen, his waistcoat of pearl gray satin, his cravat an intricately tied demonstration of the knot maker’s art. And his roguish, charming smile lit up his gypsy-dark eyes.

She was relieved. What had happened, anyway? She had kissed him. A simple, momentary diversion for a man like Thomas. He was well used to that type of play.

Taking his proffered arm, Cat was surprised by the flash of relief that had preceded his casual pat of her hand. By the time the carriage deposited them at the Pavilion, they were once again friends.

Stepping inside the Prince Regent’s newly begun fantasy Pavilion, her eyes grew wide. She had heard of the plans to renovate it, and the Prince Regent’s new enthusiasm for anything Oriental was well known, but this! Faux bamboo furniture, dragons, papier-mâché, and red lacquer met, mingled, and fought for attention in dizzying opulence. Carved wooden lotus blossoms, heavily gilded, acted as light fixtures. Palm leaves had been pressed into wet plaster, their pattern repeated in the bejeweled border of a table scarf. Huge pots of Chinese porcelain held enormous stands of flowering jasmine. It was overwhelming now; when completed it would be garish, gaudy, blatantly extravagant.

Hecuba peered through her lorgnette with ill-disguised disdain. “The lad has never understood the meaning of restraint.”

Cat had to hide her smile behind her silk fan.

There was a small group of forty or fifty assembled. Though Cat did not personally travel in their circle, she had met most of those present: Lord Mansfield; the Creeveys; Sir John Lade and his wife, Letitia; the Canfields; and the Earl of Barrymore, “Hellsgate” Barrymore.

At the sight of Hellsgate’s pale, lined face, Cat shuddered. She had crossed his path once before. He had fairly oozed dissipation. When she had been introduced, he’d grabbed her hand. His was hot, dry tensile strength in his long, bony fingers. She had had to forcibly remove her hand from his prolonged grasp. He had flung back his head and laughed.

He saw her from across the room. Raising two fingers to his lips, he kissed their tips lingeringly, his eyes bright with sarcasm. She turned her shoulder to him, looking for her host, the Prince Regent. On the far side of the room, she saw him.

Ornate, overly tight evening attire bedecked Prince George’s stocky figure. He was bending to capture the words of the diminutive beauty next to him. She was fashionably pale, tendrils of black hair framing a piquant, angular face. Her eyes were dark, huge, their color indiscernible from across the room. Her mouth was a startling red bow.

The woman tilted her head, her eyes gleaming up at the Prince Regent. The crowd of people in the room shifted, and Cat could see her gown. It was pearl-hued, a shimmering, clinging fall of the sheerest muslin. There was no doubt in Cat’s mind that the woman’s under-gown had been damped. Cat had heard of the style but had yet to see any lady adopt it. The woman’s small, pointed breasts were apparent beneath the moist, molded fabric, her fine-boned ribs and narrow waist clear to see beneath the all-but-transparent material. Cat beckoned Thomas near. He bent his head.

“Who is that extraordinary woman?”

“A whore,” Hecuba answered loudly.

Thomas, his eyes bright with amusement, looked over Cat’s shoulder. She saw the nearly imperceptible flare of his nostrils. Tension stiffened his body.

“Her name is Daphne Bernard.”

“The name is French, is it not? Do you know her?”

“Yes.”

“But how?”

“There are many people I have met over the course of the years. Don’t forget, Cat, that I have led a much longer and infinitely more varied existence than you.
I
shan’t.” His tone was laced with bitterness at odds with his casual words. Cat frowned.

“You have more honor than sense, Montrose,” Hecuba grumbled.

“As always, Lady Montaigne White, you are correct,” Thomas said before turning back to Cat. “His Highness always demands a near infernal climate and far too much food, so I suggest we find ourselves a window to wrest open when his royal back is turned.”

It
was
overwhelmingly hot. The ladies were already vigorously fanning themselves and the gentlemen in their high collars, vests, and jackets were glistening with perspiration. Thomas led them to a window and was in the process of heaving it open when the Prince Regent saw them. His face beamed with delight as he led the petite Frenchwoman through the brilliantly colored throng that parted, fluttering like disturbed butterflies, in his wake.