The Saint (20 page)

“Were you miserable?” Her face showed genuine concern.

“No young man is miserable at university. It is a free and privileged life. Those poets and philosophers had a thing or two to teach me. The experience influenced my thoughts, but not my natural inclinations. Your grandfather recognized that, I think. He and I became more familiar after my brother died. On occasion I went with him to see some of the new machines being built. I watched my first working steam engine with your grandfather by my side. When we left, he spoke his mind. ‘Your world is dying,' he said. ‘It will never be the same again.' ”

“It sounds to me that he enjoyed your company.” She slid the book back onto its shelf. “I think he was impressed by your interest in machines and how things work. It was unfair of your father to interfere with that.”

Clever, clever girl. Subtly laying the foundations before she began constructing her argument.

She strolled back to the settee and perched herself carefully in the corner again. She appeared vulnerable and desirable in her baggy clothes and simply bound hair. The firelight broke her form into lovely glows and mysterious shadows.

He looked at her and she looked right back. Innocent wariness flickered despite her falsely carefree smile. Only a saint could ignore the anticipation pulsing through the air, and he was hardly that where she was concerned.

He found himself swimming against an incoming tide of indifference to notions of honor. The exhaustive effort began to seem increasingly futile.

Yes, she should have never left that chamber.

He kept looking at her. Directly. Intently. As if he waited for something. She suspected that he knew what his prolonged attention was doing to her and drew it out deliberately. Maybe he heard that physical hum drumming louder.

The silence became dangerous. Her skin flushed and her mouth dried. She kept expecting him to get up and come over and … but he just sat there. Waiting.

This would never do. Besides, they had business to settle. It was why she was here, wasn't it? She forced some semblance of composure.

“Well, Laclere, what are we going to do about this?”

He favored her with a small smile: “I would say that is up to you. What do you want to do about it?”

“I think that any understanding that we reach should be a mutual one.”

“I am at a disadvantage here, and we both know it. Any resolution of the situation must be your initiative.”

“The course is obvious, I think. It is unfair of you to demand that I spell it out.”

“I suppose that it is, but I am incapable of stating a rational case for myself, because there isn't one. The only thing I want right now, the only obvious course that I can see, is to take you to bed and trust that a mutual understanding can be reached tomorrow.”

Her heart skipped and then rose to her throat. “You misunder … That is not … We are speaking about the mill.”

“No, we are not.”

“
I
am.”

“Are you? My apologies.” He rose and paced to the hearth. She would have preferred he remain seated. He gazed into those flames for a while before turning. “Fine, let us discuss the mill and your discovery first.”

First?

“My disadvantage in that matter is even more acute than in the other.”

“I have already said that I will tell no one.”

“I thank you for that. Now, what will it cost me?”

“Nothing that is not already mine. What is my income from the mill?”

“This year, at least four thousand pounds.”

“Goodness. You must be a very good manager, Laclere.”

“Thank you. However, since it grew to that amount two years ago, neither Adam nor Mr. Clark took it all out. We have been reinvesting in an expansion. If you demand the whole sum, I have no choice but to give it to you, however.”

“How much did you reinvest?”

“Half.”

“That still leaves quite a lot. More than enough.”

“More than enough for what?”

“For me to live in Milan, of course.”

“So the true cost of your silence is that I permit you to pursue this rash plan. If I refuse, you will announce to the world that I am Mr. Clark.”

“I did not say that.”

“No, you did not. Your blackmail was more clever than that. You will keep my secret, but if I do not agree to your terms, you will sell your interest when you are of age.”

It would help her to concentrate if he didn't keep pacing around the settee. Circling, circling. It reminded her of that morning in the guardroom of the castle. So did his manner, and his eyes.

“The problem, as I see it, is that you cannot guarantee your side of the bargain,” he said.

“Do you doubt my word?”

“I doubt your ability to foretell the future. If you marry, the decision whether to sell or hold that investment will cease to be yours.”

“I will not be getting married.”

He paused behind her. “You think not now.”

“I know not, ever.” She twisted and looked up at him. “You yourself pointed out that no decent man would want me if I performed. Besides, a woman cannot be a wife and mother and also an opera singer, no matter what society will permit. With babies, the career must end.”

“You may change your mind someday about what is important to you.”

Twisting to see him was uncomfortable, and he seemed disinclined to move. She turned and knelt on the settee. It brought her closer to him than she thought it would. “I told you once, this is essential to me. I must do it if I have the talent to even try. I will die if I do not. No husband will interfere with our bargain.”

“I find that hard to accept.”

“You doubt my resolve? You of all people have seen evidence of it.”

“I do not doubt your resolve, but it has never been tested. Time has a way of turning life's blacks and whites into grays. The singularity you describe is a freedom that grows heavy and dull with the years. Trust me, I know. I think that the bargain that you offer in good faith tonight will one day become meaningless.”

“You treat me like some silly child playing a game. It is as if you assume I am too ignorant to know my own mind. I realize that men think women are too stupid to think things through and weigh their decisions, but your attitude is very insult—”

Suddenly his hand pressed on her cheek, startling her into silence. He looked down with an expression that suggested he had not heard one word.

“A mistake, Miss Kenwood. Letting your annoyance show. Innocence I am duty bound to respect. Worldliness I am adept at resisting. But the light in your eyes when you fly at me reveals a passionate spirit that provokes me until nothing else matters except possessing it.” His thumb seductively brushed her lips. “Which brings us to the rest of what must be settled between us.”

That thumb stroked and stroked, as if preparing her for him. She knelt dumbfounded, on wobbly knees, staring into a face darkly pleased by her mesmerization. Her lips tingled under the subtle caress. He coaxed a gap so he could skim the moist inner edges.

“Do you want me to kiss you?”

He had never asked before. She could not summon enough breath to respond. Her lips pulsed with swelling sensitivity at his luring touch. Her whole being trembled with anticipation, as if the expectant tension in the room had entered her body.

“Do you?”

“Yes.” No sound came out, but her lips formed the word.

He did. Wonderfully. He cupped her face in his warm palms and his mouth replaced his thumb in those caresses. She grasped the back edge of the settee to keep from wilting right into him. The new Bianca soared with triumphant relief.

Gently, carefully, he obliterated thoughts of anything but him and the pleasure he created and implied. He tasted and savored with firm, acquisitive, titillating nips and slow, shallow, sweeping invasions. This was a different path to passion than the abrupt release in the ruins and the study, and she instinctively knew, a more dangerous one. His tender exploration of her consent aroused her emotions as well as her body. She wanted him to kiss her like this forever, even while that inner voice began its chant for more closeness, more pleasure, more giving.

The luring warmth hypnotized her. She could not move, even to embrace him. When he broke the kiss she could only look wordlessly into blue, deliberating eyes.

He caressed down her neck, his fingers splaying over flesh, pressing beating pulse, exploring trembling shoulders. He watched his hands' progress. That expression of hooded contemplation still veiled his eyes. It dully occurred to her that her mind might be blank to everything but this entrancement, but his was not.

Hands and gaze lowered to the valley between her breasts. She felt the top button on her waistcoat loosen. Then the next. She gripped the back of the settee harder.

The waistcoat fell open and he brushed the sides away. She glanced down. Hard nipples pushed against the shirt fabric like proud announcements of desire. He caressed around the sides and bottoms of her breasts, outlining their swells. Her eyes blurred as all of her body and mind and heart narrowed into one tiny, intense ache of waiting and want.

“Do you want me to make love to you?”

She almost didn't hear him. Her eyes met his and she struggled to recover the capacity to think and speak. He still stroked her breasts, distracting her, making her helpless. He studied her face as if he sought to read her mind.

“Do you know what it means if I do?”

She heard her voice speak. “I am not ignorant of such things.”

Her words might have been sharp tools poking holes into their trance. Rationality leaked in. He smiled with amusement, and regret. “I was not talking about that.”

He walked away. She sank around into the settee, flooded with confusion and a visceral disappointment.

He retrieved her candlestick from the mantel and brought it over. A strong hand beckoned her up. Her thoughts still were muddled, but her body practically shrieked with relief.

With disarming courtesy he led her to the door. Placing the candlestick in the hand he held, he closed her fingers around it.

“Go up now. Quickly.”

She glowed at his thoughtfulness. Grasping her light, she scurried to the stairs. As she mounted them her thoughts unscrambled and the last minutes began making sense.

By the time she reached the landing she realized what had just happened. He had not sent her ahead to prepare for a bed that he would share.

He had no intention of following, now or later.

chapter
14

B
ianca twisted restlessly. She punched the pillow, pulled another over to make a high mound, and flopped onto her back.

She certainly was fortunate that Laclere was such a decent man. Yes, indeed.

The nightshirt that Morton had laid out rucked up. Her exposed hips felt annoyingly titillating. Leveraging them, she pulled the fabric down.

A very decent man. Very honorable. A saint, by God.

Any other man would have ravished her right there on the settee. Any other man would have carried her up to this chamber and would be lying beside her right now… .

And she would be facing the morning, knowing that she had made a mistake, probably worrying about all kinds of things.

Then again, any other man would be holding her in his arms, soothing her concerns with his embrace.

She could not get comfortable. She should be exhausted, but she was horribly awake. All of her. Awake and alert with a huge portion of her still waiting.

Half the night must have passed. Hours with her contemplating what he had meant by that last question. Endless minutes with her secretly wishing he had never found that decency.

Silence filled the whole manor. Somewhere Morton slept in his chamber. Somewhere else, in one of the rooms too unsuitable for her, Vergil did too. No doubt he snoozed the calm, deep slumber of the righteous. Even the ghosts dozed. She was the only soul wide-awake, twisting on this big bed, torn between gratitude and regret.

She flung back the bedclothes. Maybe if she read for a while it would distract her enough to aid her repose.

The nightshirt was warm enough in the bed, but a chill hit her once she stood. No one would see her, but she felt exposed in it too. She dragged a blanket from the bed and draped it like a cape. She grabbed the trousers and pulled them on.

She bent the candlestick to the coals in the hearth. She pushed her hair over her shoulders and carried the small spot of illumination while she clutched the blanket. Treading silently on bare feet, she descended the stairs.

The library's fire had almost died. Her little circle of candle glow barely penetrated the darkness. She skirted along the wall and made for the books beside the hearth. Holding the flame near the bindings, she searched for something dull.

A low noise crunched and a burst of light suddenly broke the shadows. She jumped in surprise and turned. Vergil crouched in front of the hearth, watching the flames climb from a new infusion of fuel. A dark counterpane lay rumpled on the settee where he must have been reclining.

He rose and her heart flipped. Coats and collar had been discarded. He stood in a shirt showing a lot of neck and a V of chest. Snug trousers delineated the lean strength of his hips and legs. She stared like an idiot at the magnificent image he presented. He examined the hearth with a casual stance while he waited to make sure the fire had taken.

Finally he turned to her. Flaring eyes raked her from head to toe and then met hers. He reached for a glass of port that he had set on the mantel.

“I thought that I would read for a while and …” She stammered and flustered and held the candle toward the books, pretending to examine them.

He strolled over. “Poetry or prose?”

“Um, prose I think. Maybe your brother's.”

He set down his glass and took the candle from her. “Allow me. You are in danger of setting your lovely hair on fire. You want the blue folio on the bottom.”

He stood behind her, holding the candle to her search. She reached to pluck out the thin volume. Her hand shook beside his steady one.

“The treatise may not induce somnolence, if that is what you seek. My brother was brilliant.”

She clutched the folio to her chest. She could not walk away without turning, and she feared facing him. A power poured out of him, exciting parts of her spirit and unnerving others. “I thought you would have retired by now,” she said, thinking it a good idea to clarify her presence.

He did not respond at first. He just stood there closely, as if he tested the attraction he could wield if he chose, even when he was invisible to her.

“I decided to wait, for you to return to me.” Firm fingers fell on her right shoulder in a caressing hold. “For you to realize that sending you upstairs was my last bow to the gods of propriety where you are concerned.”

The candle flickered away while he placed it on the mantel's corner. He reached around and removed the folio from her grasp and set it next to the glass of port on the book ledge. He stepped closer so that he entrapped her against the stacks.

Warm breath flurried through her hair. Two arms circled her shoulders. He gently pried her hands from her chest and spread them wide. Like a curtain the blanket opened, stretched, and fell. She found herself grasping at bookcase uprights to her right and left.

“I thought … I came for a book,” she said a little desperately.

Hands on her waist held her to her vulnerable position. Kisses on her neck and ear lit shimmering lights in her body.

“No, you did not. You came here to give yourself to me.”

It embarrassed her that he knew her heart better than she did. She
had
hoped he would not be gone. The dark room and dying hearth had provoked a spike of disappointment.

“No more facades, Bianca. No more pretending. That is one thing that this means.”

It was the first time he had ever used her name. That, even more than his decisive handling, told her where he was leading her. He caressed up her back and around her neck and pried the top button of the nightshirt free. Its neckline slinked loose. He eased the fabric down her shoulder and kissed the exposed skin, finding spots of unexpected sensitivity.

So strange to feel protected and helpless at the same time. Her skin awoke with a thousand sparkles as the suppressed anticipation surged into a hunger crying for resolution. She dropped her hold of the bookcase and sank back into his surrounding embrace.

“What else does it mean?” Coming down the stairs had made negotiation irrelevant, but she should know what she agreed to.

His hands moved over her sides and midriff, learning the parts previously encased in her stays. “That you are only mine. I do not share. That you give yourself to me when I want, how I want. That …” He broke the explanation with a tingly nuzzle on her nape.

It was a lovers' pact that he sought. “Perhaps I will not like it.”

“It is for me to make sure that you do.”

He turned her. Holding her with one arm, he dipped his finger in the port. Like a painter working a delicate canvas, he smeared the rich liquid across her lips and down her neck. He lowered his head to taste.

It was a wonderful kiss, full of complex flavors and mysterious emotions. He licked the streak marking her neck, kindling tiny flames of giggly pleasure. The light glowed brighter in her breasts and thighs, a suffusing inner warmth anxious for more fuel.

His hand moved to the port again. She waited for the drips to heat her lips. Instead he drew the lines of his own mouth.

She had never kissed him before. She sensed that complying meant crossing an invisible line. Accepting was one thing and sharing was another.

The port glistened.

“I thought you said that I could not have more than one small glass,” she said, trying to hide her fear that he lured her into deep water.

“A drop or two will hardly turn you into a Bacchic maenad.”

“I'm not so sure.”

“I will not ask anything else of you, but I want you to kiss me, Bianca.”

And she wanted to. Very much so. That frightened her too.

She slid her hand behind his neck and pressed him down. She pursed her lips on his and then ventured to flick up the port. His mouth parted at the touch of her tongue and suddenly she was inside him. He pulled her into a tighter embrace and a quickly escalating response. His reaction incited a different type of pleasure, and a reeling sense of power.

She watched her own fingers dip in the port and followed their path up to his neck. The liquid streaked down and meandered to the wedge of chest exposed by his shirt. With kisses and toothless bites she followed the daring stream. Her fingers pressed the taut skin beside her mouth while she lost herself in the sensations of touch and taste. Even her ears fed the sensuality, hearing the heartbeat and tight breaths that revealed what she was doing to him.

Yes, yes. Need me and want me like I do you. Fear me a little, like I do you. Lose part of yourself, as I have with you.

He took her hand and kissed her palm, her pulse, and the soft flesh of her inner arm. “I ask you again. Do you want me to make love to you?”

Tonight, in this manor, in this room, she wanted it desperately. An important part of her had never wanted anything more, not even success in her art. Admitting that startled her, but still she nodded.

“You are very sure? There will be no going back to innocence for you.”

At this moment she had never been more sure of anything.

He backed away, leading her toward the hearth. “Here, then. The first time I saw you I thought of firelight and velvet counterpanes.”

He pulled the coverlet to the floor and lowered her until she sat on his lap, encircled by the warmth of the hearth and the strength of his arms. It was bliss to melt into him and yield herself to his support. He looked at her in that considering way while he stroked her hair.

He tilted her to a long, ravishing kiss. Luscious sensations cascaded and her expectant senses whirled. The world constricted to the five feet of light and warmth in front of the hearth. The only solidity became the body of the man who cradled her on his crossed legs.

Yes, yes.
So good. So delicious. Her heart reveled in the intimacy, and her stomach and loins tightened with that marvelous tension.
Ah, yes.
He kept his need in check, but she could feel it, a power coiling out of him and pulling her into its spiral.
Please.
His arm arched her back, raising her body to him. His kisses explored down the gap in the nightshirt, to the skin above her breasts.

She wanted his touch so badly that she let out a little cry when his hand enclosed her breast. He caressed softly and then teased at the nipple until she could not keep her body still.

“Do you think that you will like it?” He nuzzled at the other breast, warming her through the cloth with his breath.

“If it is all like this.”

The gentle friction of his palm warmed her skin through the cloth. “It is better than this before the end.”

Firm lips took hers in a gently exploring kiss. It was so good and right to be in his arms. She experienced utter peace with her decision.

“What do we do now?” she whispered.

“Now I give you the pleasure that you already know, and while I do, I undress you.”

“Completely?” The notion of being totally naked for him both dismayed and excited her.

“Completely. Eventually. Right now I think that I will unfasten these buttons. You look very beguiling in my nightshirt, by the way.”

“I feel a little wicked in it. It is modest enough, but knowing it was yours made putting it on more daring than if it had been the most shocking silken boudoir gown.”

“I look forward to seeing you in one of those sometime, but I find this very charming tonight.”

He released the second button and worked on the third. He took his time and his hand nestled tantalizingly between her breasts. The thin opening grew down the front of her body, revealing a line of skin and then the top of her trousers.

He laid her down, and brushed the halves of the shirt aside, exposing her body to her waist. The fabric hung off her shoulders and sagged along her sides. She doubted that being completely naked would prove more startling.

He caressed the soft skin of her breasts and circled and rubbed her nipples, unleashing a craving sensitivity that almost made her jump. Her back arched involuntarily, invitingly.
Yes, oh, yes … more …
She returned his kisses with increased vehemence, in an effort to assuage the pressure building and filling her.
Yes, yes …
Her hands and arms scrambled to find a hold on him that could not be broken. His shirt did not obscure his body the way the coats had, and the delight of feeling him only made her want more.

He took her breast in his mouth and sucked. The pleasure grew so excruciating that she wanted to weep. She clutched and his shirt became a frustrating impediment. Pulling it loose of his trousers, she dragged it up his body.

He released her to draw it off.

He really was quite magnificent to look at. She could not resist running her fingers along the ridges of the muscles defining his chest and shoulders.

He came down to her, sealing their bodies skin against skin. New astonishments spilled through her, of touch and scent and mingling breath and long caresses that learned and possessed. The intimacy left her helpless and tight.