Devil's Embrace (12 page)

Stop it, Cassie.
She held her breath, for he stirred. How could she face him when she could hardly face herself? She felt his arm slip down to her hips. She tried to ease herself away from him, but realized that if she moved he would surely awaken. She looked down at him. He appeared strangely vulnerable in sleep, a lock of raven hair falling over his wide forehead. Vulnerable indeed, she thought. His black eyelashes were long and thick, lush as a girl’s,
but there was nothing else about him that was remotely feminine. She looked at his straight nose, a Roman nose, his finely etched cheekbones, his wide sensual mouth, his square jaw. She remembered other ladies of her acquaintance talking of him as devastatingly handsome, wickedly handsome. She decided that wicked was the more apt term. She felt his belly beneath her thigh, tautly muscled, his hair caressing her skin.

He sighed deeply in his sleep and rolled onto his back. Slowly, Cassie slipped out of his hold and wriggled off the bed. She breathed a sigh of relief that he still slept. The water in the basin was cold, but she paid it no mind. She wanted to be bathed and dressed before he awoke. She was leaning over, scrubbing herself, when she heard his voice from behind her, lazy and teasing.

“I would be delighted to perform that duty for you, Cassandra.”

She whipped around, the washcloth dangling from her fingers. She looked wildly about for something with which to cover herself, but there was nothing. Her dressing gown was on the far side of the cabin, on the floor, where he had stripped it off of her the night before.

“You are awake,” she said, holding the washcloth in front of her belly.

“Yes. I missed you. Come back to bed, Cassandra, it is so early the seagulls are still at roost.”

“I am not tired.”

“Then we will talk. You do not mind that I am unshaven, do you?”

“You are very dark.”

“I really do not wish to come and fetch you.” He patted the bed beside him.

She wanted to tell him to take himself to the devil, but she found herself gazing at his body. A light, tingling sensation pulsed through her belly, and she shivered. “We will talk?” she whispered. “You promise?”

“Of course. We shall do whatever you wish.”

She placed the damp washcloth atop the commode and walked slowly to the bed, not looking at him. He held the
cover back and she slipped in, pulling it down over her and clutching it to her throat.

She lay on her back, her eyes fastened on the cabin ceiling.

He was on his side facing her, his head propped up on his hand. “You slept well?”

Her wayward breathing calmed, for he had made no move to touch her. She replied honestly, without thinking, “Yes, very well.”

“Excellent. I will not remind you of the reason.” The teasing went out of his voice as he continued easily, “Don’t be afraid of me, Cassandra. I will keep my word.”

“I am not afraid of you.”

“I know. Now you have only to be afraid of yourself.”

She choked, hating him for so easily guessing her thoughts. She compressed her lips into a tight line and turned her face away.

“I told you last night that you had betrayed no one. It is true, you know.”

“That is a lie.” She turned back to face him, surprised at the desolate calmness of her thoughts and voice. She drew a deep, steadying breath. “But it will not happen again. I will not allow myself to feel such things again.”

“One cannot control passion, Cassandra. It is a mighty force, one that cannot be denied. It simply happens between some people.”

But I felt passion for Edward.
But even as she thought it, she could not be certain. She had felt curiosity, to be sure; she had never doubted that the strength of her love for him would allow them to share physical pleasure.

He saw her confusion, and her pain, and sought for soothing words to help her. He was taken aback when she said suddenly, her voice deadly calm, “My mother. Did you feel such passion for her?”

“I never made love to your mother. As I told you yesterday, I was but a lad at the time, though as you can imagine, I dwelt with a boys’s fervent imagination on what the experience would be like.”

“Did she desire you?”

Constance. It had been such a long time since he had
thought of her in that way. So many years. If Cassandra did not so closely resemble her, her face would have become but a blurred image in his mind long ago.

“I cannot be certain. The years blunt the edges of every memory.” He paused a moment and gazed closely at Constance’s daughter. The physical similarities to his mind were all that they shared. He saw that she was waiting for him to reply, her eyes almost accusing on his face. He said deliberately, “Even though I was quite young at the time, I can remember thinking that your mother feared anything that she did not understand. That is why, I believe, she married your father, a man who cared little for people, a man who was most content contemplating his possessions. She was but another possession, one to be prized and cherished, to be sure, but nonetheless a possession.”

She interrupted him, her teeth clenching. “You speak with such certainty about my family. Could you possibly know more of my father’s character than did I?”

“You regarded him through a child’s eyes, Cassandra. I know that you suffered because you sensed his indifference to you, but so did Eliott. At least he treated you no differently because you were a female.”

She was silent. What he said was true, but it pained her too much to admit it. “We were speaking of my mother and your love for her.”

“No,” he corrected gently, “you asked me if she felt passion for me. You are unearthing old memories. In all honesty, no, I do not believe that she did. She was always afraid, not of herself, but of society and what her friends would think if they believed her to be indulging in such a liaison.”

“If she had been your . . . lover, and if she had been afraid of herself, felt that she was betraying my father, had told you that she hated you, would you have released her?”

He smiled at her ruefully. “You are like an agile spider, weaving her web. I was younger than you at the time, Cassandra. For many years I believed that all women, all women with incredible beauty that is, were like Constance: vain, without character, save when it achieved their desires, and spineless. And, because she did as she was bid, and
wed your father, she sealed her own fate. She used me, a boy who adored her, worshiped her, to bolster her image of herself as a desirable woman. Your father, she admitted to me once, was not a sensual man.” He stopped abruptly, sensing her bewilderment.

“I will always hate you.”

“And I, my dear, have enough love for the both of us.”

She turned on him, rising up on her elbows, unaware that the cover dropped below her breasts. “It is ridiculous, my lord. You cannot love me. If I have my mother’s face, I cannot help it. To love someone simply because she looks like someone else—it makes no sense.”

He kept his eyes resolutely upon her face. “I suppose that I cannot expect you to have given me your full attention our first afternoon together. I told you then and I will repeat it—the fact that you resemble your mother merely pleases me, for she was a beautiful woman. All else about you is unique. It is you I love, Cassandra, no one else. When I saw you at seventeen I was more sure about my feelings for you than anything in my life.” A sudden, rueful smile lit his eyes. “If you would know the truth, I had thought that I was beyond the age of romantic attachment, and it came as quite a shock to me, I assure you. I remember—it was not above a year ago—a dinner and ball at Belford House. At seventeen, it was your first excursion into society. You were so unlike the other girls of your age. Do you not remember dancing with me and in the most candid manner imaginable telling me that you were having a marvelous time but that your slippers were pinching your feet?”

She nodded slowly. “Yes, and you offered to lift me in your arms so I would not have to walk.”

“And I recall that you laughed delightedly and told me it was a fine idea. You also told me that you were not a featherweight and trusted that I would be strong enough to oblige you. It required a great deal of resolution, Cassandra, not to oblige you.”

A reluctant smile appeared, deepening the dimples on either side of her mouth. “I do not remember how it happened, but you escorted me to dinner. You filled my plate
and I choked on my lobster patty because I was laughing at one of your stories. You called me graceless while you thumped me on the back. I thought you very nice, and terribly amusing.”

“Do you not remember what else I said to you?”

She dropped her eyes from his face, and said in a voice dulled with insight, “You told me that you would be delighted to provide me instruction, since one day I would doubtless be called upon to fill a position of importance.”

“Not precisely, but your memory is accurate enough. And the day I offered to mount you on an Arabian mare that I doubted you could handle. You coldly informed me, your eyes twinkling all the while, that you were quite up to snuff and could manage any piece of horseflesh from my stable. I recall that you would have taken a nasty spill had I not, at the last moment, lifted you off the mare’s back.”

“Have you forgotten nothing?”

“Anything that concerns you, I trust not. I think you much liked being held in my arms, though you did not guess what it was that I was feeling for you. You quite artlessly confided in me that it appeared that I was certainly strong enough to oblige you.”

Myriad other memories flashed through her mind, memories that now held new significance. What pained her most was that all the memories were pleasant, all filled with his wit and kindness. Oddly enough, she recalled now how some ladies had regarded her with suspicion, had treated her coldly; she had thought it was her youth, her inexperience. She saw now that it was jealousy, jealousy of her attachment to the earl.

“What are you thinking, Cassandra?”

“Nothing. I don’t wish to speak any more about the past.”

“Doubt it not, Cassandra, I will not change in my feelings for you.”

“Nor will I, my lord.” She saw that his eyes had fallen to her naked breasts, and she clutched wildly at the cover. His hand stayed hers.

“Leave me be. I don’t want you.”

He cocked a disbelieving eyebrow at her and lowered his mouth to hers.

Please, I don’t want to feel anything. I don’t want your passion.

She shoved at his shoulders and bucked her hips upward to push him away from her. Her mind fought him even as his body smothered hers, pressing her into the soft featherdown. His mouth closed over her breast, and his tongue caressed her. She felt her body urging her to surrender to him, to give in to her own senses, and her struggle dimmed, her mind releasing her, more quickly, more easily this time. She tangled her fingers into his thick hair, and tugged at him eagerly to bring his mouth back down to hers. She parted her lips to him and returned his kisses, frantically, urgently.

When he reared over her, she wanted to feel the power of him. He surged deep within her, possessing her, and she sobbed aloud, clutching his back. Shuddering waves of pleasure coursed through her and she could do naught but cling to him, moaning her climax into the hollow of his throat.

“Ah, Cassandra,” he whispered, his breath warm against her lips. He pulled her onto her side, and took his own pleasure.

It was nearly ten o’clock at night. The earl rose from his desk, closed the ledger book, and stretched. He gazed at Cassandra, who was curled up on the settee, seemingly absorbed by the novel she was reading.

A smile turned up the corners of his mouth. Two fingers wrapped and unwrapped a long curl that fell over her shoulder. It was a habit of long standing, one that he remembered from over a year ago. The blue silk gown she wore was cut low over her breasts, with no adorning lace to hide the expanse of rounded white bosom. He pictured her freed from her chemise, and the feel of her breasts in his hands.

He smiled again to himself. During the last several days her struggle against him had become but a nominal reluctance. Actually, he amended to himself, that was not true
of the days, only the nights. During the day, she lashed out at him, her temper, it seemed, made more acid because she gave herself to him willingly at night.

He walked over to her and held out his hand. “It’s time to go to bed, Cassandra.”

She shrank back against the brocade cushions and did not reply.

“Cassandra,” he repeated softly, closing his fingers over her bare arm.

She pulled away. “I am not the least tired, my lord, and have no wish to go to bed.”

There was something in her eyes, now resting fleetingly upon his face, that held him silent for a moment.

“You like the novel so very much, my dear?”

“Oh, yes,” she said quickly, too quickly, pulling the slender volume close to her chest. “It is so very interesting, my lord, that I have no wish to put it down until I have finished it.”

“Perhaps I should provide you with a tutor.”

She stared at him, at sea.

“You have been reading the entire evening, and have managed to get only to the third page. Really,
cara,
with your obvious intelligence, I would expect a more believable lie than that.”

She closed the volume with a snap. “Very well, my lord, you will have the wood without a coat of paint. I have no wish to be ravished by you tonight. I will sleep here, on the settee.”

“Ravished? Good God, my girl, you know there has been no question of ravishment since our second night together. Indeed, I have sometimes felt that I am the one succumbing to you. Perhaps you fear that I will not wed you now that I have repeatedly plucked the fruit from the tree, so to speak?”

“You officious bore. I tell you again that I will never wed you. If you have a shred of honor, you will leave me be.”

“I am sorry, Cassandra, but I do not believe honor has anything to do with our pleasure. Come, my love, I would like to hear your cries of passion again tonight.”

Furious color stained her cheeks, and she blurted out,
“It’s you who make me like that. I do not want to be abandoned, indeed, I never wish you to touch me again. Leave me now, I order you.”