St. Raven, page 12
He laughed again. “Dear Cressida . . .”
The disbelief shriveled her.
“Do you see her as the motherly sort? Even the Duchess of Arran saw her children for only an hour a day until they came to an age to be interesting. I gather my aunt did even less. Her daughters were raised in a separate house from birth until they had their courses. Then they moved into Mount St. Raven and were presented to her daily for examination of their progress in ladylike accomplishments. Not, I assume, life as it is lived in Matlock.”
“There’s no need to sneer. It is not, I assume, life as it was lived at Cornhallows, either.”
“Touché. But my father was a mad republican.”
“Your father sounds more sane than his brother.”
“Possible. I have reports that my uncle frothed at the mouth when told of my birth. I suspect my father would have liked to have dangled a string of six boys in front of the duke—he could probably have driven him into the grave that way—but he married late, and had more sense than to marry a young miss. My mother was thirty-five when he married her, an independent, intelligent woman.”
Cressida recognized a deep fondness there. Beneath adult cynicism and bitterness, did that shocking childhood loss still bleed?
“She could have no more children?”
“Apparently not. She suffered two miscarriages after me. My father probably made sure she didn’t conceive again, for she was more precious to him even than points in his rivalry with his brother. And he had, after all, achieved his aim. His line would continue the duchy, not his brother’s. My father’s early death must have been some solace to the duke and duchess, but not much.”
She wished they were closer in all ways and that she could offer sympathy in a touch. “Can it really have been as hateful as that?”
“Oh, yes. I encountered them once in London. I was eighteen, and I remember the shocking awareness of hatred. The duke merely looked through me, but the duchess . . . I believe she would have put a dagger through my heart if she could have avoided hanging for it.”
It was so far beyond Cressida’s ability to imagine that she could only shake her head. “But you had a good home at Lea Park?”
“Thanks be to the Peckworths. They’re a kindly family.”
Peckworths. Cressida’s memory made connections. “Lady Anne Peckworth! Daughter of the Duke of Arran.”
“You know her?”
Cressida almost laughed, though she supposed she might have found herself involved in charity work with a duke’s daughter. It was one way for outsiders to push their way into the circles of the great.
“I saw you with her at Drury Lane. It was the first night of A Daring Lady.”
And you kissed her hand in a way that could break my heart now if I were so foolish as to care.
Cressida concentrated on that image of him and Lady Anne, looking into one another’s eyes, connected, intimate. If she had the slightest temptation to idiotic dreams, it should remind her that he was already committed.
She tried to pity poor Lady Anne, bound to this feckless rake. She failed. Perhaps even crumbs were worthwhile. . . .
“An amusing play, don’t you think?”
His words dragged her out of her thoughts.
“Amusing? Shockingly so. My mother didn’t approve, but my father laughed uproarishly.”
“And you?”
Remembering that night, she was amazed that she’d paid so much attention to the stage when she could have been looking at him. “I think I missed some of the witty references.”
She saw him move. Saw and heard him begin to cross the dark room toward her, though his Eastern slippers made no sound.
“Are you feeling more enlightened now?”
The air was suddenly thin. “A little.”
She remembered a joke in the play about proud cocks that made altogether too much sense now. Her wickedness began to stir again, and he was almost here.
Their purpose.
Their quest.
Think of that, Cressida!
“What are we going to do?” she blurted.
There was a ticking clock in the room so the bakers could tell how long their loaves were in the oven, but in the dim light she couldn’t make out the time. Most of the hour must still need to be passed, and he was too close. Only a few feet away.
She turned, trying to avoid him without seeming to, and her hand touched the iron door to the oven. She flinched, expecting a burn, but then realized that it was only warm. She pushed down the handle and opened it between them. Hot aromatic air rolled out.
“They must have baked those tarts and rolls and such earlier in the day.” Succulent tarts. Long rolls . . .
Don’t think about those things!
He moved around the door, came closer.
She needed a new barrier. “What of Lady Anne?”
“What of her?”
“Rumor says you will marry.”
He was only inches away. “Rumor, as usual, is wrong. She’s my foster sister, and she’s in love with someone else.”
Her insane heart leaped.
Then he asked, “Jealous?”
“No!” Cressida retreated, but she was trapped, her back against the other side of the oven.
“We are comrades in arms tonight, Cressida. Nothing more, but nothing less. And I like you in my arms.”
He took the extra step, trapping her between his heat and hardness and the oven’s, resting his arms on either side of her, leaning in to kiss her in the dense darkness his body created.
This was wrong. Worse, it was foolish. All that talk about his family, about his childhood pains, could have been a rake’s trick, designed to weaken her. It suggested an intimacy that did not exist.
And yet, he had just warned her of the truth. Nothing more, nothing less. They had this night, and only this night. She thought that her lips were silently speaking this uncertainty against his. Whatever they were doing, it was enough to stir the turmoil inside her to fever pitch again.
“What are you doing?”
“Pleasuring you,” he murmured. “Trust me. Surrender to pleasure.”
“I shouldn’t. We shouldn’t. What are we doing? . . .”
“Exploring. Explore with me, nymph, and we will all the pleasures prove. . . .”
“Marlowe. A very naughty poem.”
He moved back a little, but his hands still caged her. “Don’t run from this, Cressida. You have the name and the heart of an explorer. Explore me, Cressida Mandeville.” He brushed her mouth with his, more torment than kiss. “Come on, sweetheart. Explore. I promise you a safe return to harbor.”
He slid his hands down her arms to capture her hands, to draw them to his sides and put them there. “Pull my shirt loose.”
It was as well she was leaning back against the oven or she might have slid to the floor. Hands over hers, he pulled his satin shirt loose of his trousers inch by inch and then—oh, Lord!—he pressed her hands to his hot skin.
He held them there for a moment, then played his hands back up her arms and across her shoulders to feather-stroke her neck.
She couldn’t help but stretch, but lean her head back against the curving oven. Couldn’t help but flex her fingers against his skin, so soft and smooth over bone and muscle.
His knowing fingers explored her neck and traveled up into the edge of her loose hair, where his gentle play was like magic sparkles.
She pulled him closer. When his lips touched hers again, she pressed. Then, hesitantly, she put out her tongue to lick.
Chapter Eleven
Tris smiled and deepened the kiss. Cressida Mandeville had been driving him mad for hours, and now she was willing to play. Besides, he’d left her dissatisfied earlier. How very ungallant.
But then she pulled back. “I’m afraid.”
Her retreat gave access to the buttons down the front of her jacket. As his fingers crept there, he asked, “Of what, love?”
“Of this.”
He undid the first button. “Do you want to stop?”
“No . . .”
He smiled at the breathy hesitation and undid another button.
She reached up and grasped his hand. “We can’t! What if I . . . conceive?”
“You won’t. I promise.” Despite her attempt to control him, he had another button loose.
She grasped the edges to keep her jacket closed. “Any rake would say that. Let me go!”
He stilled, but did not retreat. “You trust me, Cressida.”
“No, I don’t!”
“Then why are you here? Why are you so sure I won’t toss you to Crofton? Or obtain your jewels only to steal them?”
“You’re rich. They would mean nothing to you.” He could feel her agitated breathing. To give her time, he surrendered the top of her jacket and slid his hand down and under the bottom edge. There he used his nails to tease the skin of her side. When she inhaled and shifted her hips against him, he knew it would only take patience. He could be very patient in pursuit of what he wanted.
“I don’t know how much the jewels are worth, but I could do with more money.”
“A duke?”
“Would you believe me if I explained?” He lowered his head and nuzzled her neck.
“Yes.”
“Because you trust me,” he stated, then licked around her ear, heard her catch her breath.
Waited.
“I suppose I do.”
He loved the grumpy reluctance of it when every movement of her body showed how much she wanted what he was doing, and more.
“So, trust me in this, sweetheart. Come explore with me. There are many things we can do without risking a child. Trust me. . . .”
He eased aside her clutching hands, found one sweet, full breast, and tickled her nipple with his thumb.
A gasp escaped her, and she went up on her toes. He couldn’t stop a soft laugh of triumph. “See?”
“Yes . . .”
He slid his hands up to her shoulders, pushing the jacket away—
She put both hands to his chest and shoved.
He stepped back, shocked, his eyes adjusted enough to see how she had her jacket clutched shut again, how she was looking at him, eyes wide.
Frightened.
Frightened.
Dear God.
He raised his hands. “It’s all right. It’s all right. I won’t force you.” His heart pounded as if his life depended on her response.
She looked down and fumbled at the gilt buttons. He wanted to help but kept his distance. “Talk to me, love. I thought you were enjoying that.”
Her hands stilled. “I was,” she whispered.
Despite everything, he melted at her gallant honesty.
She made short work of the remaining three buttons and then looked at him. “But it would be wrong. You have to know it would be wrong.”
“I told you I wouldn’t get you with child.”
“That’s nothing to do with it! At least it is . . .” She stared at him. “I’m not sure we speak the same language.”
The chill he felt was quite steadying. She was right. Miss Mandeville of Matlock was absolutely right. Insane to imagine more than this quixotic quest.
“We have indeed been speaking in foreign tongues. I thought I heard you say that you trusted me.”
“I do, I do! But it’s wrong. Perhaps not in your world, in this world. But in mine. In mine, people—decent people—don’t do things like this.”
“You’d be surprised.”
He should be finding this laughable. Why was his heart pounding? Why did the gulf between them cause such pain?
“I think we have understanding now,” he said, with all the cool he could summon. “You are denying your body’s very natural desires, Miss Mandeville, because Matlock propriety has triumphed.”
“As it should!”
“Nonsense. Propriety is a straitjacket, but if you feel comfortable locked up in it, so be it.”
He meant the words to be cool, but hot anger flickered along the edge of his words like the flames along the blade of a dagger. Wisdom sword. God, he needed wisdom here. He needed to show her that this didn’t matter.
He looked away, looked at the clock. “It’s fifteen minutes to midnight. Time to retrieve your other treasure.”
He looked around and saw the pale puddle of her discarded veils. Why had she shed them if not to invite him? He gathered them up and offered them to her.
Cressida snatched them. She wanted, she needed, to be angry at him—for sneering at her, for trying to make virtue seem like folly. She needed to gather her wits, but her dissatisfied body tangled her, suggesting that impossible things were still possible. . . .
She was right. She knew it. She had to believe it.
But he was angry, and something more than angry. She wanted to go to him, surrender to him, as much for him as for herself.
It had to be another rake’s trick. It wasn’t her fault if she didn’t belong in his world, wasn’t willing to play his lewd games!
She had to put on the things in her trembling hands. She wasn’t sure she could. She must. She couldn’t, mustn’t, ask his help.
As if he sensed something, he took another step away, freeing her to move into the center of the room without going near him. She walked to the big table and dropped the things in her hand there.
What order? Head veil. No, face veil first. Or mask? No, that held the head veil on. With shaking hands, she tried to tie the strings of the face veil at the back of her head.
“Let me help.” It sounded strangely like a plea.
Perhaps that was why she said, “Very well.”
His slippers were silent again, but she felt his approach. She was prepared and did not shiver when his hands touched hers as he took the strings, when his fingers stirred her hair, brushed it as he tied the knot.
The shiver was there, however, deep inside.
Painfully, she was aware of his care, aware that he stood not an inch nearer than he had to, when once he would have pressed close. When once he would have teased. Would have kissed her neck . . .
Ah, Cressida Mandeville of Matlock, you are a fool. But which part of this is the folly?
With her back to him, she picked up the blue veil, shook it, and draped it over her head, then let him tie the mask to hold it in place. She was Roxelana again, queen of the harem, wife to Suleiman. . . .
He stepped away from her. She felt the space where once he had been. Now that she had been clear, he would not intrude again. It had been a case of different languages.
She turned to him. “I’m sorry.”
“It is I who should be sorry for upsetting you.”
“You didn’t upset me—” But she stopped that, for it was a lie, though perhaps they weren’t talking about the same upset.
She longed, against reason, for some scrap of the closeness they’d had before. She reached for an explanation. “I was not myself. I’m sure it seemed to you that I—” She bit her lip. “I think it was the spirits in that drink.”
“Crofton’s brew? But you hardly took a sip.”
She was glad the dimness concealed her red face. Intoxicated. She had been intoxicated! “I drank a cupful. One of the servants replaced my beaker with another.”
“Good Lord.” But then he laughed, even if it did sound a bit wild. “Poor Cressida! That, my dear, was a potent aphrodisiac. It’s what caused all that rutting in the corridors. Even at the wildest parties, people usually seek a bit more comfort than that.”
“Aphro—”
“Aphrodisiakos,” he said, and it had to be Greek. “From Aphrodite, Goddess of Love, or to be more precise, of sexual pleasure. Cressida, forgive me. I did not know—”
“It was my fault. How could you?”
Aphrodisiac. That burning lust came only from a drink? She remembered that time in the drawing room and the raw desperation she’d felt then. If he’d not stopped, would she have had the strength to?
“Thank you,” she said again.
“There is nothing here to thank me for,” he said flatly. “I should never have brought you, but having done so, I should have guarded you better. And I never should have even attempted what I did. I should have known it was not truly what a woman like you would want.”
A woman like you.
A lady of Matlock.
Locked in Matlock.
And this lady of Matlock did want, and she wasn’t sure it was all aphrodisiac anymore. Temptation flickered. She stamped on it.
“It is almost midnight,” she said in the most prosaic voice she could muster.
“Yes. We should go. As soon as someone wins that statue, we can get the jewels and this will all be over.”
Over.
“How strange that after all this, it will be so simple in the end.”
He laughed. “I’ll believe that after the event.”
“It will work, Your Grace.”
“St. Raven.”
Folly, but she surrendered. “St. Raven.”
“Tris.” It whispered on the air toward her like an invitation to sin.
She tightened her lips and would not give in. Did she seem foolish to be afraid of a name?
“It might slip out in public,” she offered as excuse. But that was foolish, too. “Not that I think we’re likely to meet in public.”
“I do attend the occasional ball and rout.”
She could have pointed out that during weeks of the London season and a surfeit of balls and routs, Miss Cressida Mandeville had not once been introduced to the Duke of St. Raven. Instead, she said, “But I will be returning to Matlock.”
“I assume even Matlock is not barred to outsiders.”
“You have need of the restorative waters?”
“After this, almost certainly.”
It was a joke, and it broke her heart. If only they could be friends. “It’s time to go, St. Raven,” she reminded him, “if we’re to know who wins my statue.”
“Yes.” Still he didn’t move. Then he said, “Let me be your agent in this, Cressida. Let me deal with it while you stay here.”
Until relief unsteadied her, she hadn’t realized how desperately she didn’t want to return to the disgusting house.
“You should be safe. Everyone not mightily engaged elsewhere will be watching the contest.”
