The Return of Lord Conistone (14 page)

‘No! Never!’ Her voice broke. ‘I’ve told you—how could I possibly think you a coward, when you were actually
shot
for saving me from those vile men who attacked me?’

‘Having observed for myself how intrepid you are,’ he said drily, ‘I believe you could probably have taken them on yourself’. And he smiled. But suddenly he looked deathly tired. She wanted to take him in her arms, and soothe that pale, handsome face, that strong jawline now shadowed by stubble, with soft, cherishing kisses. He’d talked of his love for her. He said he
hadn’t
betrayed her to the Earl. Too late. Far too late. All in the past. And oh, Lord, she’d had too much to drink.

She said, her heart and mind in turmoil, ‘Lucas, listen to me, please! I
cannot
let you pay Mr Mayhew’s bills, or the surety! We must talk of this again, tomorrow, perhaps, or with Mr Mayhew present—’

‘No,’ he said. ‘No. We might not get this chance to talk again, for some time!’

Her eyes clouded. ‘You have had opportunities before, Lucas. Long before, if you had wished to take them’.

‘I wrote to you. You never replied. You told me yourself that you burned my letters’.

Her hand flew to her throat.
True.

‘Then,’ he went on steadily, ‘I heard your sister Deborah would be at Lady Willoughby’s party in London—though what your mother was doing taking her unmarried daughter to such a shabby affair I could not understand—so I went, and asked your sister to tell you that I needed an answer to my letters, for all sorts of reasons. Obviously my plea did nothing to change your mind’.

She gazed at him, transfixed. ‘My—my sister did not pass on that message’. She felt sick to her stomach.
Oh, Lucas
. No point in telling him about Deb’s lies and multiplying the mischief already done.

Lucas raked his hand tiredly through his hair. ‘Deuce take it,’ he said tersely, ‘between us we have been ill served by our families! I’m sorry. You loved your father very much, I know. Verena—is it true he promised you that some day he would make you all rich?’

She swallowed, hard. ‘He did, yes. He—he spoke of some secret that is gone now for ever…’ Her low voice resonated with heartbreak. ‘We lost my dear father. We lost everything’.

Lucas was silent for a moment and the candles flickered fitfully. ‘Do you know how he died?’

‘It was an accident, in the mountains. A terrible accident’.

Lucas bowed his head so she could not see his eyes. Then he lifted his face again and said, ‘Verena. What if I can help you? What if I can help Wycherley? ‘

She lifted her head with a jerk.
Guard yourself, Verena
. ‘We will not accept charity! We will not be any further in your debt!’

His jaw was set in determination. ‘I’m not
offering
charity! What if there’s a sum of money that’s legally
owed
to you, Verena? Do you place your damned pride higher than your concern for the estate, its workers, your own family?’

Her distress showed in her amber-gold eyes. ‘How can you even ask? I care more than anything! Not just for us, but—if the Earl buys Wycherley, our villagers will suffer. I
know
the Earl will be a harsh landlord’.

‘If you just trust me,’ he said, ‘I will see that justice is done’.

She stood for a moment in stunned silence, her face a vivid picture. At last she breathed, ‘Each way I turn, you are there ahead of me. It is as if you are pulling strings over which I have no control. Oh, Lucas, I cannot take the
risk
of trusting you!’

He said—nothing. She clenched her hands at her sides, and went on, rather desperately, ‘This must be tiring you. I will leave you to rest’.

He sighed. ‘Come here,’ he said quietly.

Lucas knew this was the moment.
‘Come here,’
he murmured again.

And slowly, as if mesmerised, she obeyed.

H
is grandfather. Her foolish mother and sisters
. They’d all worked their mischief on this beautiful woman. Lucas Conistone steeled himself. Now he, with full knowledge of what he was doing, was about to take the greatest of all risks with her future happiness.

‘Verena’. With his free hand he again took her by the shoulder. Turned her to face an oval looking-glass hanging on the wall. ‘Look at yourself, Verena’.

He, too, gazed in silence at her huge dark-lashed amber eyes set in that perfect heart-shaped face. Saw the gleaming chestnut hair, rippling loosely past her shoulders; saw those full, curving lips that looked as if they remembered his last kiss, and longed for another.

This was the moment
. Enemies were closing in. He had to make her his, before it was too late.

Before she found out—everything.

And, God forgive him, innocent that she was, wronged as she was, she was making it so damned easy.

He lifted her rich heavy hair that was faintly scented with lavender and kissed the nape of her neck. Before she could
say anything, he began to gently ease her shabby old gown from her shoulders. Her creamy smooth skin glowed in the candlelight. His long fingers pushed her bodice lower.

The silk chemise. No corset, but—she was wearing that silk chemise.

‘Lucas…’ she breathed. ‘Lucas, no…’

He let his warm hand rest on the sweet swell of one breast. Felt his loins tightening. He said, ‘Once I thought you loved me’.

She bit her lip and tried to pull away. ‘Ridiculous! Why should I imagine that there could be anything more than friendship—’

He clasped her closer.
‘Friendship?
’ he broke in. ‘What about—desire? Look into that mirror. If nothing else, I want you to see how beautiful you are. You have been cast into the shade by your selfish family for far too long. What man in his right mind would
not
desire you?’ He swung her round to face him.

‘Lucas,’ she whispered, ‘this is impossible…’

The silk chemise had slipped, to reveal one cherry-tipped breast. He put his left arm round her and drew her close.

He was standing over her, towering over her. He put his finger to her cheek and drew it lightly down her skin. Scorched by his touch, Verena instinctively backed away, only to feel his arm curl more firmly around her and tug her towards him so she all but fell against his naked chest. ‘Lucas—’ Strong fingers caught hold of her chin, tilting it as his mouth closed over hers in a kiss that stopped the breath in her throat.

And Verena was lost. To his tenderness. To his silken voice. The sensation of her acutely sensitive bosom chafing gently against his rippling, hard-muscled chest, his silken warm skin, was so delicious as to make her almost swoon.
The wine
, she told herself. But it wasn’t the wine. It was Lucas.

‘You are beautiful, Miss Sheldon,’ he murmured in her ear.

And it was then that his kiss began. A kiss that reached in and tugged at her heart and deeper. A kiss so exquisite she thought she would die of joy, except that she wanted more; her breasts ached for more and at the juncture of her thighs was liquid longing.

She leaned into the welcome of his warm enfolding body, weak with desire. Now he was prising her lips apart, his tongue assertively tracing the soft inner flesh of her mouth, then probing, teasing, enticing.

Little flames began their dance of desire at the pit of her abdomen. His hand slid up to cup the nape of her neck as he deepened his kiss and she felt herself responding.

Lucas
. Her eyes fluttered shut. She felt her nipples pucker and tingle as his firm tongue began an insistent, rhythmic probing in her mouth that awakened still further the tormenting desire at all the sensitive parts of her body. Her own hands were sliding round his shoulders with a will of their own, pressing flat against the firm, muscled flesh of his back that was so silken, so warm. She let his tongue in deeper, shyly caressed it with her own, becoming so lost in this wondrous feeling that embroiled all her senses that she forgot everything as she clasped him tighter and felt—oh, Lord, she felt the hard, pulsing arousal at his loins.

‘Hell’.
It was he who pulled away from her, gasping. ‘My arm…’

‘I’m sorry, Lucas. So sorry!’

‘Don’t be’. He was still caressing the nape of her neck where her chestnut curls tumbled free. Circling the spot rhythmically with the pad of his thumb, in a meaningful pattern that made her go hot and cold. ‘No harm done’.

But much harm had been done.
A harlot. No better than a fortune-hunting harlot
. The Earl’s savage words lashed her anew, for that was what everyone would think… She jerked away. Stood clumsily, straightening her hair and pulling up her gown, unable to meet his eyes. She could still taste him. Still feel that strong, warm body, lithe and hard against her own, compelling her, so clearly desiring her.

No more than she desired him.

As if he guessed her innermost thoughts, he rapped out, ‘My grandfather is a fool and a liar. Forget his wicked insults. Stay with me’.

She whispered, ‘But this is madness. Someone might come in’.

He went to bolt the door. ‘Stay’.

It was nothing less than a command. And resistance was useless, for by the time he returned to take her in his arms again, her body had already surrendered.

His long, fine fingers stroked her velvety throat, then tilted her chin as he lowered his lips to hers. Gently he savoured her; it was not enough. The touch of his silken skin, the strong smooth muscles beneath, the male scent of him, the feel of his tongue stroking hers rhythmically, all were intoxicating. Heady as rich wine, causing the blood to pound heavily through her veins, making her languorous, dizzy with desire.

With the utmost care, he eased her gown down to her waist.
That silky undergarment: sensuous, gorgeous…
. He felt lust rearing, fought it down; he needed, above all, not to frighten her. He slipped off one delicate shoulder strap with care, with devotion. The peak of her breast stood out, coral-red, from its flushed areola; he caressed the nub with his thumb pad, then bent to take it in his mouth. She cried out as tremors ricocheted through her and clung to his shoulders for support, arching her back in an intense spasm of
primitive desire. He lifted his head, watching her face, his eyes dark and unfathomable.
‘Meu amor,’
he whispered.

He guided her to the bed and eased her down against the pillows. She was clad now only in her flimsy chemise and stockings. Verena clung to him, heavy with need, wanting him to lie with her, wanting to feel his muscled body hard against her nakedness, wanting him to fill her aching emptiness. But he kissed her mouth instead, until she was liquid with hunger, and then she felt his hand pushing up her gown, touching the delicate skin of her thigh above her white stocking.

His lips moved to her breast, drawing in the exquisitely sensitive peak again.
‘Lucas
—’ She was writhing against him. Begging him. Wanton.

A gasp of pleasure escaped from her lips and her thighs fell apart as his fingers found her very core of need and caressed her insistently there.

No
, she told herself.
This is wrong. The Earl was right to think you a whore.

But the room was swimming around her in spiralling circles of pleasure as the candles cast sensual golden shadows across the beauteous male curves and planes of this man’s exquisite torso as he hovered purposefully beside her, over her. She was beyond control. Utterly in his power. And she wanted to be nowhere else.

She dug her fingers into the lean muscle encased by his breeches, her whole body pulsing to the rhythm of his fingers, crying out his name over and over as he caressed her to her extremity.
Lucas
. Her entire being, her very soul, melted with incandescent pleasure.

* * *

Lucas Conistone knew that he’d made her—almost—his. His plan was underway.
You are a bastard
, he told himself.
A cold, cynical bastard.

It would be so easy to make love to her. He knew she was beautiful and brave, but he had not realised she would be so incredibly sensual. His own arousal throbbed devilishly within the constraints of his clothing.
You must control yourself. You could easily take her
. But—not yet.

Forcing himself to subdue the pounding at his loins, he held her until she was quite still. He smothered her sighs of ecstasy with his deep, sensual kisses. She clung to his wide shoulders as if she were drowning, and he was her only safety in the whole wide world.
If she knew.

Suddenly she pulled herself away. ‘Lucas,’ she cried desperately. ‘Lucas, what must you think of me?’

He planted a trail of kisses from her throat to her lips. ‘I think you are perfect,’ he murmured, easing his muscled thighs against hers, praying she wouldn’t realise how hard he still was for her.

She coloured. She
did
realise. She started, in anguish, to pull herself up, to gather her things, to leave.

She must never be alone with him again. To have let this happen was madness. Lucas could not be serious in his lovemaking, he could not. Her family was poverty-stricken; the Earl his grandfather had detested the Sheldons ever since he had that last, terrible row with her father, before Jack went away for ever. The Earl still had the power to spread ruin.