To Seduce a Sinner (30 page)

She didn’t want his gentleness. The dam had broke, and all the emotion she’d suppressed for years was pouring forth. She held his shoulders, used them as leverage to reach up and bite him on the ear. He jerked his head back and, in a swift movement, swept her off her feet. She screamed, long and loud, as he threw her over his shoulder and bore her to the bed. He let her fall there, the impact cutting off her scream. He was upon her before she could move, his legs over hers, her wrists caught in one strong hand.

A pounding came at the door.

“Go away!” he shouted, his eyes never leaving her face.

“My lord! My lady!”

“No one opens that door, do you hear?”

“My lord—”

“Goddamnit!
Leave us alone!
”

They both listened as the footman’s steps left. Then Jasper leaned down and licked her neck. “Tell me.”

She arched up, but his legs held her down, and she couldn’t get purchase. “All those years . . .”

He pulled off his neck clo›ff anth and tied her wrists to the bed rails over her head. “All those years, what? Tell me, Melisande.”

“I saw you,” she panted. She looked over her head and yanked on the neck cloth. It didn’t give. “I watched you.”

“Stop struggling,” he ordered. “You’ll hurt yourself, sweet lady.”

“Hurt!” She laughed and it had an hysterical edge.

He took a knife from his pocket and began cutting away her clothes, each rip a sensuous tug against her oversensitive skin. “Tell me.”

“You bedded them, woman after woman.” She remembered the jealousy, the deep, cutting pain. He pulled the bodice entirely off her. “So many I couldn’t even keep track. Could you?”

“No,” he said softly.

He wrenched off her skirts and threw them to the floor. Taking off her shoes, he tossed them away as well. “I don’t even remember their names.”

“Damn you.” She was naked now, save for her stockings and garters. Her hands were bound above her, but her legs were free. She kicked at him and hit his thigh.

He fell on her heavily, his hips across hers. His mouth was on her breast again, his hand combing through the curls at the top of her thighs. “Tell me.”

“I watched you for years,” she whispered. The tears were drying on her cheeks, and heat was building within her. If he would just touch her. Touch her
there.
“I watched you and you never saw me.”

“I see you now,” he said, licking around a nipple. He trailed his tongue across her breast and to the other breast, circling the nipple there. Delicately. Tenderly.

Damn him.

“You didn’t even know my name.”

“I know it now.” He tested her flesh with his teeth.

Pleasure mixed with pain shot through her, straight from her nipple to where his hand still played. She arched, silently begging, and he relented, sucking the nipple strongly into his mouth.

“You . . .” She swallowed, trying to focus her thoughts. “You didn’t know I existed.”

“I do now.”

And he slid down her body, spreading her knees and draping her calves over his shoulders.

She bucked, trying to dislodge him, but she couldn’t budge him any more now than she could before.

He lowered his head and licked her sex.

Her belly contracted in shock, her bound hands fisted, and then she closed her eyes and simply felt. The wet stroke of his tongue, the fingers of one hand flexing on her hip bone, the other petting her mound. He licked and licked again, each stroke slow and intimate. Each stroke hitting her clitoris. She flexed her fingers, feeling the tension build. He moved his hands, spreading her folds, opening her and making her vulnerable.

She bit her lip, waiting, waiting.

And then he set his mouth directly on her bud and sucked. Nibbling, dragging, pulling on that bit of flesh until she couldn’t stand it anymore and broke. She arched, thrusting her pelvis into his face, feeling the heat flashing through her, hearing the pound of her heartbeat. He still licked and sucked, his hands heavy, holding her down. Another wave hit and she moaned, the sound loud in the quiet room. Some other time she might care, might feel embarrassed at the erotic sounds she was making, but right now . . .

Oh, God. Right now, she was a creature of pleasure.

He thrust two fingers into her, still gently licking with devastating accuracy, and she trembled. Her whole body tightened, arching, her muscles tensing, waiting. She couldn’t. She was too weak, too spent.

And then he moved his fingers within her and sucked again on her flesh. The muscles inside her contracted and released. She came, shaking with the force of her orgasm, shuddering and gasping. White heat spread from her center in a widening pool of pleasure. She went limp with warm relief.

She felt him move. Opening her eyes lazily, she found him lowering her legs. She let them lie on the bed, her thighs spread wide and wanton. He stared at her exposed center as he stood and removed his clothes.

“I can’t change the past,” he said. “I can’t unbed the women I fucked before I knew you. Knew
who
you were.”

His eyes raised to hers, and the blue of them was so bright it nearly illuminated the room. “But I tell you now that I will never bed another woman besides you in my lifetime. You are all I want. You are all I see now.”

He stepped from his breeches, and she saw that he was erect, his penis standing to his navel in primitive masculine pride. He climbed onto the bed and prowled up her body, straight-armed. His planted fists made the muscles in his shoulders and arms flex and bunch.

She swallowed. “Untie me.”

“No,” he said calmly, though his voice was a rasp. He bent and scraped his teeth over her throat.

She shivered in erotic anticipation.

He kicked her legs farther apart and lowered his hips, his penis firmly on top of her oversensitive folds.

She gasped.

“You’re wet,” he growled. “Wet and waiting for me, aren’t you?”

She swallowed.

“Aren’t you?” He slid his enormous head through her flesh. “Tell me, Melisande.”

“Y-yes.”

“Yes, what?” He bumped his hips against her, and the shaft of his cock slid through her folds, setting all her nerves alight.

“Yes, I’m wet for you,” she whispered.

She tried to m›>Sh%" ove, tried to arch her hips into his, but he was too heavy, his position too firm.

“I’m going to make love to you now,” he whispered roughly against her neck. “I’m going to put my prick in your cunny and it will be just you and me, Melisande. All those others, all those memories, they don’t matter anymore.”

She opened her eyes fully at this statement and watched him. He was above her, his chest sheened with sweat. It had taken a toll on him as well, holding back, and that fact made her smile.

He looked into her eyes. “But I still need something from you.”

He moved his hips, and the head of his cock slid back until it just kissed her entrance.

She swallowed, nearly mindless with lust. “W-what?”

“I want the truth.”

He shoved and his penis began to enter her.

“I’ve told you the truth.”

He left her and she nearly wept.

He pressed his penis against her clitoris again and bore down. His arms were straight on either side of her, his upper body held apart from her straining one. “Not all of it. Not the whole truth. I want you. I want your secrets.”

“I have no more secrets,” she whispered. Her arms were shaking, still drawn over her head, and she knew her nipples were hard points between them.

He drew back and shoved his entire length inside her. She hissed. So full, so complete. It was nearly heaven.

But he stopped and held himself still. “Tell me.”

She locked her legs about him, holding his thickness within her. “I . . . I don’t—”

He frowned down at her and pulled his hips back quite deliberately. Even with her legs around him, he withdrew easily. “Do you want this? Do you want my cock?”

“Yes!” She was past pride, past deception. She needed his flesh within her. She was half mad with wanting.

“Then tell me why you married me.”

She glared at him. “Fuck me.”

A corner of his mouth twitched, though a bead of sweat ran down the side of his face. He couldn’t hold out much longer either, and she knew it.

“No. But I’ll make love to you, my sweet, my lady wife.”

And he slammed his entire, thick length into her. He pounded into her wildly, completely out of control. She was past caring. Her head arched back, her eyes closed. She felt his hard body take its pleasure of hers. He leaned down and licked her shaking breasts, and she saw stars, imploding behind her eyelids, sparkling through her limbs. She gasped, and his tongue invaded her mouth. His body shook as his penis plunged into her again and again.

He stopped suddenly, and she opened her› shis eyes. His head was thrown back, his eyes blind, pleasure convulsing his face.

“Melisande!” he cried.

His head thumped to the pillow beside hers, his lungs sucking air. He was heavy and hard, and her arms were still drawn over her head. It didn’t matter. She’d gladly suffocate here underneath him. She turned her face toward him and licked the ear she’d earlier bloodied, and she finally said it. She gave him what he wanted.

“I love you. I’ve always loved you. That’s why I married you.”

Melisande loved him.

He opened his eyes on the thought. He probably didn’t deserve her love. She was an intelligent, sensitive, beautiful woman, and he was a man who had watched his best friend burn to death. In some ways, he bore scars deeper than the men who had been physically tortured. His scars were on his soul, and they still seeped blood now and again. He was hardly a worthy object of any woman’s love, let alone Melisande’s. And what was worse—what made him tružsouly a cad—was that he had no intention of ever letting her go. He might not be entirely worthy of her love, but he would hold it close until the day he died. He’d not let her change her mind. Melisande’s love was a healing salve, a balm upon his scars, and he would treasure it for the rest of his life.

The thoughts made him restless, and he rolled to his feet. He didn’t bother ringing for Pynch but washed and got dressed by himself. He ran down the stairs, where he found out from Oaks that Melisande had gone to visit his mother and wouldn’t be back for an hour or more.

Jasper felt a vague disappointment, mingled with relief. The discovery of her love for him was very fresh—it was almost too sensitive to bear touch. He wandered into the breakfast room and picked up a bun, biting into it absentmindedly. But he was too restless to sit and eat. His limbs felt as if bees had entered his blood and buzzed through his veins.

He finished the roll in two more bites and strode to the front of the house. Melisande might not be back for several hours, and he couldn’t simply sit and wait. Besides, there was a chore he needed to get through, and he might as well do it now. He should finish this thing with Matthew. And if it was another dead end, as he suspected, well then maybe his lady wife was right.

Maybe it was time to let Spinner’s Falls go and let Reynaud rest in peace.

“Ask Pynch to come here, please,” Jasper said to Oaks. “And have two horses brought ’round.”

He paced the hall as he waited.

Pynch appeared from the back of the house. “My lord?”

“I’m going to talk to Matthew Horn,” Jasper said. He gestured for Pynch to follow as he strode out the doors. “I want you to accompany me in case of . . .” He waved his hand vaguely.

The valet understood. “Of course, my lord.”

The two men mounted the waiting horses, and Jasper nudged his bay into a trot. The day was a grim gray. Low clouds hung overhead, threatening rain.

“I don’t like this,” he muttered as he rode. “Horn is a gentleman from a good family, and I consider him a friend. If our suspicions are correct . . .” He trailed off, shaking his head. “It will be bad. Very bad.”

Pynch didn’t answer, and they rode the remainder of the way in silence. Jasper did not relish this task, but it must be done. If Horn was the traitor, he must be brought to some kind of justice.

A half hour later, Jasper pulled his horse to a halt in front of Matthew Horn’s town house. He looked at the old bricks and thought of the family that had lived here for generations. Horn’s mother was an invalid, confined to this house now. God, this was a nasty business. Jasper sighed and dismounted his horse, then climbed the steps grimly. He knocked at the door and waited, conscious that Pynch stood on a step just below him.

There was a long pause. The house was still, no sound coming from within. Jasper took a step back, glancing up at the windows above. Nothing stirred. He frowned and knocked again, more forcefully this time. Where were the servants? Had Horn told them not to let him in?

He was raising his hand to pound once more when the door creaked open. A harried-looking young footman looked out.

“Is your master at home?” Jasper asked.

“I believe so, sir.”

Jasper cocked his head. “Then will you let us in so I may see him?”

The footman flushed. “Of course, sir.” He held the door wide. “If you’ll wait in the library, sir, I’ll fetch Mr. Horn.”

“Thank you.” Jasper entered the room with Pynch and looked about.

Everything was the same as the last time he’d visited Matthew. A clock ticked on the mantelpiece, and from the street came the muted sounds of carriages. Jasper strolled to the map that was missing Italy to examine it while they waited. The map hung beside two large wing chairs and a table in a corner. As he neared, he heard a sort of whimper. Pynch started toward him even as Jasper leaned over a chair to look in the corner.

Two people were on the floor behind the chairs, a woman cradling a man in her lap. She rocked back and forth steadily, a whispered whimper coming from her lips. The man’s coat was fouled with blood, and a dagger still protruded from his chest. He was quite obviously dead.

“What has happened here?” Jasper asked.

The woman raised her eyes. She was pretty, her eyes a lovely blue, but her face was bone-white, her lips colorless.

“He said we would have a fortune,” she said. “Enough money to go to the country and open a tavern of our own. He said that he’d marry me and we would be rich.”

She dropped her eyes again, quietly rocking.

“It’s the butler, my lord,” Pynch said from behind him. “Mr. Horn’s butler—the one I talked to.”

“Pynch, go get help,” Jasper ordered. “And see that Horn is all right.”

“All right?” The woman laughed as Pynch ran from the room. “He was the one who did this. Stabbed my man and shoved him back here like so much rubbish.”

Jasper stared blankly at her. “What?”

“My man found a letter,” the woman whispered. “A letter to a French gentleman. My man said Mr. Horn sold secrets to the French during the war in the Colonies. He said we would make a fortune selling the letter back to the master. And then we could open a tavern in the country.”

Jasper squatted by her. “He tried to blackmail Horn?”

She nodded. “We’d be rich, he said. I hid behind the curtain when he asked to talk to Mr. Horn. To tell him about the letter. But Mr. Horn . . .”

Her words trailed into a low keening.

“
Matthew
did this?” Jasper finally grasped the full horror. The butler’s head lolled on his bloody chest.

“My lord,” Pynch said from behind him.

Jasper looked up. “What?”

“The other servants say Mr. Horn is nowhere to be found.”

“He went looking for the letter,” the woman said.

Jasper frowned at her. “I thought your man, the butler, had it.”

“Nay.” The woman shook her head. “He was too smart to have it on him.”

“Where is it, then?”

“The master won’t find it,” the woman said dreamily. “I hid it well. I sent it to my sister in the country.”

“Good God,” Jasper said. “Where is your sister? She might be in danger.”

“He won’t look there,” the woman whispered. “My man never spoke her name. He only said who had told him to look through the papers in Mr. Horn’s desk.”

“Who?” Jasper whispered in dawning horror.

The woman looked up and smiled sweetly. “Mr. Pynch.”

“My lord, Mr. Horn knows I am your valet.” Pynch was white as a sheet. “If he knows that—”

Jasper was already scrambling to his feet, racing desperately for the door, but he still heard the rest of Pynch’s sentence.

“—then he will think that you have the letter.”

The letter.
The letter he didn’t have. The letter Matthew would naturally think was in his house. His house where his darling wife had no doubt returned by this time. Alone and unprotected and thinking Matthew was his friend.

Dear God in heaven.
Melisande.

“MY MOTHER IS
an invalid,” Matthew Horn said to Melisande, and she nodded because she didn’t know what else to do. “She cannot be moved at all, let alone flee to France.”

Melisande swallowed and said carefully, “I’m sorry.”

But that was the wrong thing to say. Mr. Horn jerked the pistol he held against her side and Melisande flinched. She really couldn’t help it. She’d never liked guns—hated the loud explosion when they fired—and her flesh cringed at the thought of a ball tearing through her. It would hurt. A lot. She was a coward, she knew, but she simply couldn’t help it.

She was terrified.

Mr. Horn had been a little strange when he’d come to the door. He’d seemed agitated. When he’d been shown into her sitting room, she’d wondered whether he might’ve been drinking, even though it was still not noon.

Then he’d demanded to see Vale, and when she’d told him that her husband was not at home, he’d insisted on her showing him Vale’s study. She hadn’t liked that, but by then she’d begun to suspect something was wrong. When he’d rummaged in Jasper’s desk, she’d started for the door intending to summon Oaks and have Mr. Horn forcibly rem£rn eguoved. Which was when the man had pulled the pistol from his pocket. It was only then, while staring at the big pistol in his hand, that she’d seen the dark stain on his sleeve. As he moved more papers with that hand, she noticed that his sleeve left a dark red smear behind.

It was as if he’d dipped his coat sleeve in blood.

Melisande shuddered and tried to calm her wild thoughts. She didn’t know if the stain was blood, so it was no use becoming hysterical over what might be a misunderstanding on her part. Soon Vale would be home, and he would take care of things. Except he didn’t know Mr. Horn had a pistol. He might come in the door and be taken completely unawares. Mr. Horn’s mania seemed focused on Jasper. What if he intended to hurt him?

Melisande took a breath. “What is it you look for?”

Mr. Horn knocked all the papers from the desk. They fell in a scattered heap, some of the smaller papers fluttering like landing birds. “A letter.
My
letter. Vale stole it from me. Where is it?”

“I . . . I don’t—”

He pressed closer to her, the gun between them, and caught her face in his left hand, squeezing painfully. His eyes sparkled with tears. “He’s a thief and a blackmailer. I thought he was my friend. I thought . . .” He squeezed his eyes shut and then opened them to glare at her and say fiercely, “I’ll not be ruined by him, do you hear? Tell me where the paper is, where he might’ve hid it, or I’ll feel no sorrow in killing you.”

Melisande trembled. He was going to kill her. She had no illusions that she would live through this. But if Jasper came home now, he might be killed as well. That realization marshaled her thoughts. The farther Mr. Horn was from the front door, the more time Vale would have to realize the danger when he returned home.

She licked her lips. “His bedroom. I . . . I think in his bedroom.”

Without a word, Mr. Horn grasped her by the back of the neck and shoved her into the hall ahead of him. The pistol was still pressed to her side. The hall seemed deserted, and Melisande gave a prayer of thanks. She didn’t know how Mr. Horn would react to a servant. He might very well shoot anyone he saw.

They climbed the steps in tandem, his hand pinching the back of her neck painfully. At the top of the stairs, Melisande turned and her heart nearly stopped. Suchlike was just coming out of her room.

“My lady?” Suchlike said in a confused voice. She looked from Melisande to Mr. Horn.

Melisande spoke rapidly before her captor could speak. “What are you doing here, girl? I told you to have my riding habit sponged and pressed by noon.”

Suchlike’s eyes widened. Melisande had never spoken to her so harshly before. And then things got worse. Behind the maid, Mouse poked his nose out of the room and scrambled into the hall. He raced toward Melisande and Mr. Horn, barking madly.

Melisande felt Mr. Horn move as if to pull the pistol from her side. Mouse was at her feet now, and she acted quickly, kicking poor Mouse away. The dog yelped in pain and confusion and sprawled onto his back.

Melisande looked at Suchlike. “Take this dog with you to the kitchens. Do it now. And make sure you ready my riding habit, or I’ll dismiss you this afternoon.”

Suchlike had never liked Mouse, but she scrambled forward and hastily scooped the terrier into her arms. She ran past Melisande and Mr. Horn, her eyes filled with tears.

Melisande exhaled when the maid was out of sight.

“Very nice,” Mr. Horn said. “Now where is Vale’s bedroom?”

Melisande pointed to the room, and Mr. Horn dragged her toward it. She had another leap of fear as he opened the door. What if Mr. Pynch was inside? She had no idea where the manservant was.

But the room was empty.

Mr. Horn hauled her toward the dresser and began throwing Vale’s neatly folded neck cloths to the ground.

“He was there when they tortured me. They tied him to a stake and held his head so he had to watch. I almost felt more sorry for him than for me.” He stopped suddenly and inhaled. “I can still see those blue eyes of his filling with grief while they burned my chest. He knows what it was like. He knows what they did to me. He knows it took the British army two hellish weeks to deign to ransom us.”