The Skilled Seduction (32 page)

They were the sweetest words she had ever heard. “I’m sorry, Tristan. I never meant to force you to purchase another ring for me.”

“No, you were right. I based my decision upon the quandary what do I get for the woman who has everything. Instead, I should have gone with my gut.” He reached for the box, prying the ring from its velvet confines. Tristan then took her hand in his, removing the gaudy ruby before placing it upon the bedside table. Gently, he began caressing her ring finger, as if removing the blemish of the other piece of jewelry.
 

She studied her hand in his.

“I can’t tell you that I love you, Victoria. I just can’t utter the words,” His tone was brimming with emotion. “I can tell you that I married you because I wanted to. That admission alone is difficult for me, as is the fact that I wish I had fallen in love with you from the beginning.”

His heartfelt declaration caused her heart to skip a beat.

“This ring represents a promise, my vow that I see you for precisely the woman you are and that with you is the only place I wish to be.”

Victoria recognized the significance of his statement. She knew what a risk he was taking, understood what a huge step this was for him. It gave her hope that he could love her – why else would a guarded man take such a chance?

“I feel the same, Tristan.” A tear drifted down her cheek as her adoration lay bare for him to see.

“No sadness tonight,” Tristan brushed his wife’s cheek with the soft pad of his thumb then slipped the new ring on Victoria’s finger.
 

“I want to be here, with you,” he paused, kissing the back of her hand. “My wife,” he whispered, kissing her forehead. “My lover,” he murmured, kissing her cheek.

“Can’t we just pretend?” Tristan leaned his forehead against hers, cupping her face in her hands. “Can’t we pretend that we love each other, pretend we’ve said the words to each other? Or, better yet, pretend the words don’t matter? Please.”

Victoria swallowed hard.

I do love you.
Her heart yearned to speak the words aloud yet her pride wouldn’t allow her to. So she chose the only other option. She’d offer her body to him, and save her heart, holding on tightly to her remaining dignity.

Victoria brushed her lips against his in a gentle kiss. She then parted her lips, tracing his firm, full mouth with her tongue. Tristan’s deep intake of breath told her it was what he wanted as his hands trailed towards the back of her neck.
 

Her fingers nimbly unbuttoned his shirtfront, having earlier noted that his valet hadn’t fully helped him undress as Tristan still wore his shirt and trousers. Much like their first night together, she thought, as she splayed her palms over his shoulders, gently pushing the fabric aside.

Tristan tossed his shirt onto the leather chaise near the windows then stood to remove his trousers. Though it had been dark when they first made love, the room was now illuminated by candlelight and a raging fire in the grate. For the first time, raised opaque scars were visible on his back.

“What happened to your back?” Victoria asked in a gentle tone.

“It’s nothing I discuss,” he said, his voice rough with emotion. He remained stock-still, as if he didn’t wish to meet her gaze.

“Who did this to you?” she bridged the distance between them before tracing the raised flesh with her fingertips. In response to his silence, her mind jumped to the obvious conclusion. “Is Lachlan responsible?”

Tristan didn’t confirm her theory. He didn’t have to. Victoria knew him too well.

“Don’t pity me,” he bowed his head, anguish dripping from his every word.

Sliding her arms around him from behind, she placed her cheek against his back. “No pity. Only understanding of all you endured and admiration at your courage.”

Tristan turned to face her, noting that she refused to release him. Instead she pulled his naked form closer, wrapping her arms around his neck. Her intense gaze, the deep azure of the ocean depths, showed no sign of pity. Instead, reflected within, was understanding and admiration, just as she had declared.
 

With sudden clarity, he remembered their conversation in his suite the night they made love. What had she said? Something about having firsthand experience with monsters, wasn’t it?
Then later, in her art chalet, she said something about surviving. Her words failed to register at the time but now Tristan suspected that his wife held her own secrets, though tonight wasn’t the time to explore what they might be.

No, tonight was to make up for their first time. With that goal in mind, Tristan slowly and methodically made love to his wife, their gentle joining on this evening even more intimate than their first encounter. With every impassioned kiss and each caress, Tristan heightened her desire until Victoria was writhing beneath him as he joined her, their bodies entwined as each breathlessly reached their rapture.

Once their spasms had subsided, Tristan held his wife in naked splendor, his palms possessively cupping her breasts.

Victoria noted the change in him. Unlike their first bout of passionate lovemaking, this night’s intimacy seemed deliberately slow and methodical. He meant to pleasure her completely and not until Tristan had ensured that his wife had reached an earth-shattering euphoria did he allow himself to join her.

This was Tristan’s attempt to repent for their first encounter, Victoria was certain of it as she drifted to sleep in her husband’s arms.
 

* * *

Her eyelids fluttered open, noting that it was still night. She scanned the dimly lit room, locating Tristan’s naked silhouette stirring the embers in the grate. He appeared deep in thought.

Victoria slipped out from under the warm covers and slid into her silk robe, her bare feet padding in silence across the room.

He stirred, his arousal evident as she approached, as if he sensed her presence. “I didn’t mean to wake you—”

“Shush,” she whispered, sliding her arms around his shoulders before pulling him towards her. Just as he’d done earlier, Tristan kissed her with a slow, heartfelt desire as if in a deliberate effort to prolong her rapture.

“You have no reason to restrain yourself,” Victoria confronted their predicament with a solid resolve.

Tristan studied his bold, truthful, magnificent wife as he stroked her lustrous auburn curls now illuminated from the glow of the fire. Her radiance was even more breathtaking in her current disheveled state, with her hair untamed from the combination of lovemaking and sleep.
 

“I wanted to make tonight special for you,” he murmured. “I wanted to erase all the heartache that led to this night.”

“You did,” Victoria assured him, her fingers tracing his jaw line. “Now make it real.”

Tristan narrowed his eyes, cocking his head to the side.

“We are not tame, Tristan,” she said, now sliding her fingers down his neck, to his chest.
 

His skin quivered with her every touch.

“Ours is a fiery, all consuming give and take.
 
Let’s not pretend otherwise.”

Victoria’s fingers trailed further downward, over his abdomen. “I want
you
. That passionate, enigmatic, all consuming presence that is
you
.
 
Don’t tamper who you are on my account.”

As her fingers continued their descent, Tristan placed his hands on Victoria’s waist, lifting her off her feet. She straddled his naked form as he carried her to the bed.
 

“You intoxicate me,” he admitted in a heated whisper before making love to his wife for the second time that night, the full extent of his passion for her evident in his every kiss, caress and intimate joining.

Once sated, Victoria lay within his solid embrace, both of them damp with perspiration. She belonged with him. Tristan knew it now more than ever. But his realization was followed by apprehension, because she would eventually discover the secrets about his reputation that he had protected for so long.

He had obligations she knew nothing about and she would soon know only a small portion of the truth, for there were too many dangerous secrets for him to ever be able to confide. He had made a promise. One he would keep, even if it meant hiding the truth from his wife. His silence would keep her safe. It was his solemn vow as he cradled Victoria in his arms.

Tristan vowed to go to great lengths to protect Victoria as well as the girl … the one whose safety he was responsible for. Like it or not, he had made the choice to become involved in that child’s life. Now, with the presence of his wife, Tristan realized just what a sacrifice it truly would be. But it must be so. Even though his suspected machinations painted him in a worse light than he deserved, a promise is a promise.

Eventually, he would admit the supposed truth to his wife and her opinion of him would undoubtedly be affected. He just hoped that by that time she would be carrying his child. She must, for it would solidify all they shared, guarantee that she could no longer run from him.

The urgency of his situation weighed heavily upon Tristan. He must impregnate his wife before it became too late.

If not, he would lose Victoria to the phantoms of his past.

Chapter 14

Victoria headed towards Sebastian’s office, her footfalls tapping gently against the marble tile, well aware that Kellington Manor was no longer her home.
   

What was once familiar now seemed almost unrecognizable, as if she were viewing it through different eyes. Of course the layout was the same, as were the furnishings, yet she was so altered from the person she used to be. How was it possible for someone to change so drastically, within such a short duration?

She rapped on her brother’s door, anxiously awaiting his instructions, her erratic pulse increasing upon hearing Sebastian’s smooth baritone call, “Enter.”

Tori complied, taking several steps inside the rich, mahogany paneled room. Her eyes were immediately drawn to Sebastian’s desk, where he sat behind a stack of papers, signing pages of correspondence.

“Sebastian?” she watched as his hand stilled.

That one motion was Victoria’s only sign that he had heard her, as he remained silent and failed to make eye contact with her. This hush, this eerie silence, was so unlike Sebastian that it turned her blood to ice. He might have already decided never to forgive her, she surmised with a heavy heart.

After summoning the courage to cross the room, Victoria placed her reticule upon Sebastian’s desk. He still refused to look at her, she noted with a pang of alarm. Never before had she received such a cold response from her brother. She deserved it, of course. But the fact that she herself precipitated such a metamorphosis within her kind and loving brother sent a jolt of anxiety throughout her body.

Victoria bent down beside him, placing her hands on his neck as she kissed his cheek, fully expecting her brother to withdraw. Instead, he clamped his hands over hers.

“Where is your husband?” he demanded, his cadence lethal. “Did he not have the courage to face me?”

She noted the deep frown lines etched around his eyes and across his forehead. “Tristan is at Ainsley. He wants to make amends with both you and Gwen, however, I requested time alone with you first.”
 

Sebastian scoffed, releasing her hands with a cool reserve. “Ironic, since you had no desire to confide in me before your union.”

Her eldest brother, who had been more of a father to her than their own, was angry with her as he rightly should be. Victoria had anticipated that Sebastian would be incensed as well as hurt and disappointed though she hadn’t anticipated the extent of his uncontrolled contempt and it chilled her to the core.

Victoria had truly lost her brother.

“I am sorry, Sebastian.” Her apology, though genuine, seemed wholly inadequate.
 

It wasn’t enough.

Regardless of whether he ever spoke to her again, Victoria needed for Sebastian to know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, just how much he meant to her.

“I was ashamed of myself and didn’t want to disillusion you,” she admitted, her voice more calm than she expected.

In response, he pulled away from her, rising from his chair in one swift motion as he tossed his spectacles upon his desk. Her brother then walked to the bank of windows on the far wall.

Creating as much distance between them as possible, she noted.

“But you could entrust your secret to our half-brother,” he replied at last, his timbre tinged with reproof. “You trusted a man whom you didn’t know existed until a couple of years ago more than the brother who raised you?”

She was quick to explain. “Colin learned the truth, but not from me. Tristan confided in him.”

Her brother remained silent as he stared out the window to a scene that she knew all too well – his gardens, where he played with her when she was a little girl.

Did he understand the importance he held in her life?

She must remind him.

“I love you, Sebastian. You are my brother, yes, but you are so much more than that,” she admitted, quietly crossing the room. “You are also a father to me, one whom I admire and respect.” Her voice trembled with emotion.