The Seduction (21 page)

Before he entirely lost control, he broke the
kiss, with small nips and caresses - to her neck, her eyelids and earlobes. She
sighed, her head pillowed on his arm, her mouth swollen and hot.

"Ah, Mistress Juliet," he whispered,
rubbing his thumb over her cheek. "I am the one conquered."

"No." Her pupils were dilated, huge, as
she glanced up at him. "Don't be dishonest now. Ι know this means
nothing."

"It means that Ι am on fire for you,
Juliet. No truth ever burned brighter or more starkly honest than that."

Her fingers touched lightly on his cheek, as if
she would trace the lines of his face and commit them to memory. "You
think to add more fuel to the flames?"

"I’m damned if Ι care. Let's create a
conflagration!"

He kissed her again, deeper this time, while his
fingers trailed down her throat and over the exposed swell of her breasts. The
soft ball of his thumb lingered in the crevice, pushing aside her locket, as he
kissed deeper yet.

Deeper. Deeper. With every ounce of his skill and
experience. With a surprising and unlooked-for passion. Devouring her mouth.
Exploring the soft shape of her breasts.

Intensity erupted in a flood tide.

His very bones responded with stark need. To
touch her, any where, everywhere! Consume her with hungry hands and starving
mouth. Invade her lush beauty and meld his flesh into hers. Now! Now! Make her
body sing as his lips were singing - keen, sharp, burning with desire. Bury
himself in her hot female heart. Find a soul-shattering pleasure. Sweep her
with him to their mutual release.

Now! Lust soared in crescendo. More! Further!
Deeper!
Now!

His control began to slip-

His legs were entangled in pink satin. His palms
met only whalebone and lacing. He dropped his head to tongue her breasts,
wanting to slide her dress from both shoulders - wanting to see her naked -
feel her naked - and tasted a mouthful of lace from her cuffs as she pushed him
away.

He glanced up into her eyes as he opened his
hands and released her. "Juliet, please!"

"You have failed," she said, turning
away. ''You leave me cold."

For one split second he believed that she truly
repudiated him. The pain of it paralyzed him.

"For pity's sake," he said at last.
"We have hardly begun-"

"To play this game?" She laughed.
"But we shall see, sir, who forces checkmate."

Alden spun away from her and leaned back into his
corner of the seat. His breath rushed uncontrolled from his lungs. His mouth
felt bruised, burning.

"There won't be checkmate," he said.
"Ι concede and withdraw my forces. If you wished to wound me, you
have succeeded beyond your wildest expectations."

She covered her mouth with her fan. The fan trembled,
quivered as if shaken by an earthquake. She clasped one hand over the other as
if to keep it still.

In the language of the fan:
Forgive me.

He caught her by both shoulders and turned her to
face him.

Her breathing, her color, her dilated eyes gave
her away. She was brimming with courage and a determination to beat him at his
own game, but if he asked now, she couldn't refuse him. What the devil did
Juliet Seton think she was doing, trying to match wits with a rake? Although
she didn't know it, her body had already betrayed her.

His blood surged and sang, while his mind filled
with victory. "Ι am burning for you. You are truly different,
Juliet."

"For today," she said. "For now.
Pretty lies."

"Why would Ι dissemble now? Do you want
me to pretend I'm not frantic with desire? I've never felt this desperate
before." It was true - all of it.

She glanced down and bit her lip, absentmindedly
opening and closing the fan.
You are cruel.
"If you are wounded,
sir, it is only in your pride."

"Perhaps, but it feels like a much deeper
laceration than that and not one that Ι fathom at all. In truth, Ι
feel a little dazed and uncomfortably vulnerable, neither of which are my
normal reactions to kissing a lady."

She clenched her hands in her lap, staring down
at the closed fan. "It was only an experiment-"

"An experiment! And what did you feel?"

The fan snapped open. "Nothing-"

He laughed then, a great shout of laughter,
filled with joy. "Oh, Juliet! What a blatant untruth! It's all right to
admit it. Faith! It can still stop here, if you wish. Ι may never touch
you again, but the truth is this: "I’ve never known such a kiss-"

"Flattery," she said desperately.

"Lud, no! Why the devil flatter? It's more
true than the blue sky. If you insist otherwise, then Ι might insist we do
it again, just to prove you wrong."

"Ι think-" She grabbed her bonnet,
thrust it on her head and frantically tied the ribbons under her chin.
"Ι think we should not."

"Hush, hush," he said. "Valiant
Juliet. You have stabbed me to the heart. It's not something I'm used to, but
Ι won't die. Meanwhile, the control is all yours. If you say it stops
here, it stops here."

She turned her head so he couldn't see her face
and said nothing.

"Alas, ma'am. Your sweet peas are
wilting."

He signaled John to stop the horses and leaped
down. Red campion grew along the roadside. Alden picked a handful of the wild
blooms, then swung himself back into the carriage. The grays started forward
again.

Her hands were locked on the edge of the side
panel, her back turned toward him. She was looking away through an opening in
the trees.

"What place is that?"

He tore his gaze away from the gathered drapes on
the back of her dress and the vulnerable white nape framed by the rose satin
neckline. In the blue distance a house nestled in its grounds, hazy in the
afternoon heat. They were already approaching the southern borders of his
lands.

"Gracechurch Abbey."

"Who lives there?"

He pulled the dying flowers from her hat. One by
one, he dropped them into her lap.

"The viscount, though he's seldom in
residence."

She sat as if frozen, clinging to the carriage
door, staring at his house. "Viscount Gracechurch?"

Alden wove the fresh wildflowers in place of the
sweet peas. "The fellow's a gambler and wastrel, but the very devil, they
say, with women."
 

He leaned down to kiss the tender curve where her
shoulder met the column of her neck. Once. To show her his control. To remind
her of his skill.

Apart from one quick, intaken breath, she didn't
move.

He could imagine the next scene as clearly as if
it were a play he had written. There was no need to go all the way to the
house. She was already his. In another mile he could signal John to stop the
horses, leap down from the carriage and take her by the waist to swing her into
his arms. In a cloud of rose satin and lace she would land against his chest.

He would kiss her until she was on fire and
helpless, then he would lead her through the little spinney and kiss her again.
Where the trees thinned there was a private, sunny dell filled with
wildflowers, sheltered by the curve of a ruined wall, an ancient, abandoned
outpost of the Abbey that his father had rebuilt into a charming folly.

There he would remove the glittering dress. Peel
away petticoats and corset. Slide off the beribboned high-heeled shoes, untie
her garters, kiss away her stockings. His coat would cushion her powdered head,
his shirt make a soft bed for her naked back. She would press her lips to his
bare chest as he kicked away his shoes, moan into his mouth as she helped slide
down his breeches. He would take her, there in that dell, as she begged him not
to, then begged him not to stop.

His blood burned.

His knowing, practiced body was hers to use
however she desired.

In exchange, he promised her ecstasy.

It was no overconfident fantasy. It was the
simple truth. She wanted him as much as he wanted her. There among the crushed
thyme and forget-me-nots, he would devour her. When she was enthralled,
helpless, he would bury himself to the hilt in her sweetness and her courage
and her fortitude, and win her.

No woman had ever denied him. He could take her
to Marion Hall before midnight, certain that she could refuse him nothing.
Whether she realized it or not, Mistress Juliet Seton was already his lover.
The wager was as good as won.

With gentle fingertips he stroked the back of her
neck, marveling at her silky white skin.

The matched grays trotted confidently toward the
spinney.

Alden had already put out his hand to tap the
signal to halt, when she turned to face him. Her eyes were brilliant, dilated,
her color high. There was everything there he had worked for: her body's
craving and its female vulnerability. The answering pressure of his own desire
raced hot through his blood, importunate, demanding. He cradled her cheek in
one palm as if to kiss her again.

She clutched at his hand, pulling it down.

"Ι cannot," she whispered.
''Ι cannot win. Ι was lying. You have defeated me. If you have any
mercy at all, you will not touch me again."

Checkmate!

He was stunned into silence.

Alden dropped his hand.

There was a distant growl of thunder. Α
raindrop splashed on his knuckles.

He glanced up. Black clouds had gathered and
built, rapidly boiling up into thunderheads. Α cold breeze blew her skirts
and fluttered the ribbons on her bonnet. Raindrops began to patter audibly on
the road.

"Thank God," she said, tipping back her
head and closing her eyes as the water ran down over her ravaged face. ''At
last."

He fought for escape, desperate to find a way
past his unwelcome surge of scruples. Gracechurch Abbey was close. They could
arrive wet from the rain. Comfort and warmth would be a simple prelude to a
civilized seduction in a drawing room, or a bundling in towels and warm sheets
in a bedroom. Easy to tease a woman out of her damp clothes and into his arms.
He had done it a hundred times.

Then afterward he would take her, soft and
glowing from his lovemaking, to Marion Hall, where he would ravish her again to
satisfy the wager with Lord Edward and Sir Reginald Denby. Where he would give
them her locket as proof - or be ruined.

He had been so certain he could do it. Why the
devil not?

It would be something he would regret to his
dying day, if he did not make love to Juliet Seton. If he failed to bed her
tonight at Marion Hall, it would cost him his home and his future, and very
possibly his freedom. It would cost him Sherry and Peter Primrose and the
future of all of his dependents

Alden didn't know what else he thought it would
cost him, except that it would be a travesty to take her in a field or under a
hedge like a farm girl-and the act of a blackguard to take her to Gracechurch
Abbey only to feast off of her vulnerability.

With rage at his own incomprehensible feelings tearing
at his heart, Alden signaled John to turn the carriage.

"Then Ι had better take you home,"
he said savagely. "Unless we wish to play chess in a downpour."

He let his mind run through every blasphemous
curse that he knew. From somewhere, unlooked for and unwelcome, some tiny shred
of honor or pity or restraint seemed to have become seeded and sprouted into
this unlikely plant.

The notorious Lord Gracechurch was going to
refrain once again from making love to a willing woman that he passionately
desired. Even though this time it would cost him his home and his future, and
very possibly his freedom.

He had gone mad.

THE HORSES TROTTED ON. FOLDED KNUCKLES PRESSED TO
HER burning mouth, Juliet huddled inside his coat. He had insisted on taking it
off and draping it around her shoulders. The thunder shower had faded to a
sprinkle, then stopped altogether, but she didn't return his jacket. She sat
enfolded in its dry warmth, with the carriage blanket tucked over her knees.

Eyes closed, arms folded, Alden Granville lay
back on the seat next to her. Rain had soaked his hair, his shoulders and
waistcoat, plastering the fabric to his body, washing over the severe, beautiful
lines of his face. His expressive lips lay still, robbed of words, robbed of
kisses, dampened only by rain.

If he had asked, he could have made love to her
right there in the carriage. Tossed up her skirts and thrust himself boldly
into her moist, willing body. He had not, though he had, of course, wanted to.
She believed him in that.

She did not believe it was because she was
special, or because she had moved him in any unique way. He wanted to, because
he was a rake and she was female.

He was a libertine, a man who broke hearts for a
pastime. She was a married woman, who - in spite of everything - felt bound by
the vows that had cost her so much and was even more bound by her fear of
discovery. She was not free. And even if she were, she would never be just
another mistress to a man who had casually enjoyed so many. Though she wanted
him with a longing that shook her to her soul: wanted the wit and the
attention, and the lean masculine body.