St. Raven (20 page)

She rolled her eyes. “There are the Ten Commandments.”

“Which forbid only adultery.”

“Oh, you are outrageous!”

He smiled, an eloquent statement of wickedness. “That, I do not dispute. What I offer is honest, however, and I thought we had already established that you trust me. Haven’t I proved worthy of your trust?”

Cressida pressed her hands to her temples, into her loose hair. “The devil is bound to be enticing, and even convincing.”

“You disappoint me, Miss Mandeville. This is very conventional thinking.”

She seized on it. “I’m a very conventional woman.”

His brows rose, and his lips twitched.

“I am! This is an aberrant voyage. My home, my true place, is Dormer Close, Matlock. Can’t you see?” she asked, suddenly seeing the truth herself. “If I give in to you, I may never be at home there again.”

As her father had failed to find a home back in England.

Had she already gone too far?

“But is Matlock such a good choice?”

It echoed her sudden doubts and fears.

“It is my home, and I need it. I need family, friends, habitual activities, routine comforts. I need to be someone I know and am comfortable with. I am not a wild spirit like you, Tris. I’m not.”

She begged that he’d understand, that he’d believe.

He studied her, then sighed. “As you wish. But it would be as well, I think, if we do not touch or talk until we arrive. My willpower, dear Cressida, is not as strong as yours.”

By the time they arrived at Nun’s Chase, Cressida was heavy with weariness, but most of it was of the spirit. She wasn’t sure she would be able to sleep. She knew her decision was right, sane, and even logical, yet it churned in her like a mistake.

It wasn’t only lust. It was something else. Instinct? She’d never felt she was a person who relied on instinct. Yet here, instinct said she had taken a wrong path despite all the evidence of her more rational side.

When the coach drew up before the house, she hastily restored her disguise of veils and mask. St. Raven got down on his own side even though it was away from the front door. Cressida wondered if she were supposed to scramble over there, but then the groom opened the door on her side and offered her a hand out.

The man was impassive, but for the first time in an age she felt all the peculiarity of her costume. Trousers! Nakedness beneath thin silk! The memory of Henry VIII bellowing comments about her posterior made her think longingly of her forgotten cloak.

She didn’t know the time, but it must be gone two, that dead hour of the night when everything feels bleak, even when there’s no cause. And she, heaven help her, had plenty of cause. No wonder St. Raven thought her ripe for seduction. In the cold light of reality, she saw that she’d behaved improperly all night.

He walked with her toward the door but without offering his arm. The hour and the chill air had her almost aching with cold, and she thought wistfully of his warm body against hers, but he was following the path she had insisted upon.

The door opened before they arrived, and Harry stood aside to let them enter. What did they look like to him? What on earth did he think?

Was she ruined anyway? If so…

St. Raven turned to her. “Do you require anything before you retire, Miss Wemworthy?”

She felt she should drop a curtsy, though it would look ridiculous in these clothes. “No, thank you, Your Grace.”

There should be something significant to say at the end of their adventure, but all she could manage was, “Good night, Your Grace, and thank you for your efforts.”

She turned and walked up the stairs, praying that the men weren’t watching her behind. Once in her room, she turned the key in the lock, then sat on the bed and sank her face in her hands.

Tris watched for a moment, but then Harry said, “Some papers arrived by courier, sir. They are in your study.”

The last thing he needed now was paperwork, but then he sighed. If Leatherhulme had sent them urgently, they were urgent, and perhaps fusty paperwork would chill lust.

A glance showed that they weren’t as urgent as all that. A signature needed for an investment. Documents on sale of property in Lancashire. They were probably more Leatherhulme’s way of reproaching him about his continued absence from London.

What he needed was a secretary who could travel with him, and not be easily shocked. Cary would do except that he had no interest in such dull work, and money enough not to need employment.

He tossed the papers aside, but then picked them up again, glanced over them, and signed them. He put them in their leather pouch and sealed it shut with wax and his ring. Poor Leatherhulme would throw a fit if he thought papers were left open to casual eyes.

Tris leaned back in the chair, rubbing his hands over his face. Thoughts, questions, doubts, regrets tumbled at him from all sides, and all to do with recent events, but he couldn’t think straight yet.

He’d return Cressida to her precious propriety and get her damned statue. He’d pay Leatherhulme a visit and catch up on all the paperwork. And then—?

He’d like to flee the country, but the best he could permit himself was a repairing lease in Cornwall.

Or no. He’d made a promise to himself that once he was duke, he’d marry and procreate. That was now a year overdue, and he’d met all the fashionable contenders.

He might as well get it over with and choose a bloody wife.

Cressida would like to cry, but she might make noise. Tris might hear. He’d come to her then, and it would all be to do again. She couldn’t bear to hurt him anymore.

She straightened, frowning.

Hurt? The Duke of St. Raven?

That was extreme. And vain. Her rejection of him was a minor inconvenience, not a wound. He’d probably already forgotten it.

And yet, she sensed something, some kind of pain. He was, she thought, largely what he appeared to be— a healthy, privileged young man who enjoyed life. Beneath, however, lurked a nugget of unhappiness.

Perhaps it came from the death of his parents.

How old had he been? Twelve. His parents had clearly loved each other, and he must have loved them. She tried to imagine it. Everything lost, everything changed, in one stroke of fate.

She remembered him asking, “What is a home?” Foolishly, she longed to give him one, a cozy simple home like her home in Matlock.

He had many houses, but no home. Cornhallows, his home from birth, had passed into other hands. Officially his home was Mount St. Raven in Cornwall, where he’d clearly spent little time. Nun’s Chase? She had the impression it was mainly used for his wicked entertainments.

He must have a house in London as well as all the other ones listed among his burdens.

Poor Tris Tregallows.

Poor orphaned child…

She stood, pushing that away. If she indulged in such thoughts, it would sap her willpower. She dragged off her veils and mask, remnants of a wild night. Tomorrow morning she would return to reality, and soon this would all be like a dream.

She slipped off the bed and went to the washstand. A glance in the mirror showed Roxelana’s face—her darkened brows, a hint of the paint on her lips. Had it faded with time, or been worn off in those endless, endless kisses?…

She washed her face, scrubbing until she looked like Cressida Mandeville again. How peculiar to find that that conventional lady still lived beneath.

She opened her valise to look at the small selection of clothes she’d packed for her ordeal with Crofton. He’d insisted that she wear an evening dress for the journey, and bring another for her stay, but she’d also packed two day dresses and changes of underwear.

She could laugh at herself now. She’d had no idea of what she’d face.

She pulled out her nightdress, which was quite pretty, but had no place in Crofton’s milieu. It was her summer one, of light, fine lawn with short sleeves and a scoop neck trimmed with green ribbon.

Almost reluctantly now the moment had come, she stripped off her two wicked garments and put it on. Strange that one garment was more decent than two. No, the point was that she would not be going out in public in her nightdress. She was going to bed.

Her hair. She had her bristle brush now.

She sat at her dressing table and brushed it out. She normally plaited it, but more because that was ‘“proper” than from necessity. Straight and heavy, it didn’t tangle.

Tris was right about that. So much of propriety was nonsense. That a lady should always be gloved when she went out, and wear a hat or bonnet. That if she had need to refer to a man’s pantaloons or breeches she call them “unmentionables.” That she never walk down St. James’s Street, where the men’s clubs were.

In a moment of defiance, she decided to leave her hair loose, and turned toward the bed.

And stood there.

After a while she accepted that she wasn’t going to get into that bed. Strange how clear things had become, as if a mist had lifted.

Tris was right. She could not leave here, end this voyage of adventure without exploring what he offered. Her fatal curiosity pushed her, but the main impetus, the force that overwhelmed her will entirely, was the compelling sense that it mattered to him.

She didn’t understand his precise needs, but she knew they went beyond lust. Perhaps, above all, he needed her trust. He had, she decided, won the right to that.

So she turned her back on propriety and left the room, still sensible enough to peer out to be sure no one was around. She went to his door. Walk in on him again, or knock?

She knocked.

No response.

Then, faintly, she detected his voice from downstairs, probably giving orders for tomorrow, for their journey to London. That was that, then. She should go back to her room and go to bed…

Then the voices became louder. She heard, “If Mr. Lyne returns soon, pass that on…” Then soft footsteps. He was coming up the stairs!

Cressida had a momentary decision point. She had just enough time to rush back to her own room—or to enter his.

She opened his door and went in, closing the door with exquisite care in perfect silence. Once she was committed, doubts struck.

What if the mood had passed for him?

What if he’d thought better of the risks?

What if he was the rake she’d first thought and she ended up with child?

She was tempted to hide behind the curtains, but she made herself stand her ground. She was shaking, though, with her hands clasped tight in front of her, when he opened the door.

He stopped. Then slowly, without moving his eyes from hers, he closed the door and leaned against it. His eyes, his breathing, told her that one fear was groundless. The mood had not passed. But still, he did not come to her.

“I see no buttons to undo,” he said at last, his voice deep, almost hoarse.

Her fingers were pleating the thin cotton. “No.”

“Are you here only to torment me?”

“I don’t know.” She swallowed. “You’re the expert guide.”

He looked down, laughing a little. “At this moment, I don’t feel like it.” He looked up again. “Why, Cressida?”

Her feeling of confidence weakened. “Has it all changed? Do you want me to go?”

He came forward then, took her hands. “God, no. No. Never. I’d given up. If you’d planned to turn me on my head and shake all coherence out of me, you couldn’t have managed this any better. Are you aware, woman, how much more devastating that pristine nightdress is than your harem costume?”

She could feel heat prickling all over her, and relief bubbling up. “No, truly. I didn’t plan to come. I intended to go to bed. To my own bed…”

“But changed your mind.” He still only held her hands, but her mind swooped down to that touch and for the moment found it enough. “Can you tell me why, Cressida? I hate to question such a precious gift, but I couldn’t live with myself if I do anything tonight to harm you.”

She looked at him with tenderness and laughed. “Only you, St. Raven, would balk now! Aren’t you afraid that if I probe my motives, I’ll flee?”

“If you flee, you flee. First rule. Call me Tris. If you can’t do that, we have no business moving an inch closer.”

It should have been easy, but she hesitated. “Tris is such a simple person.”

“No, he’s not.”

“I mean, ordinary. A man, not a duke.”

“True.”

“Tris is the duke, though.”

“True enough. But not tonight. Tonight it would be Tris and Cressida. Hot, sweaty, and naked. Tonight you will be more intimate with another person than you have been since the day you slid messily from your mother’s womb. That’s what we’re talking about here, Cressida. Do you want it?”

She stared at him. “Oh, you wretched man. You know me so well! How can I resist after that? Yes, I want it—Tris.”

He pulled her into his arms. “Don’t you realize that those words would have sent most virginal ladies screaming?”

“They’re afraid of the mess?”

“Or of the hot, sweaty, and naked.”

She felt hot, sweaty, and naked already. “Perhaps it’s because I’ve been through the orgy.”

“Perhaps it is…”

His hands began to move on her back. Through the fine linen, his touch almost felt as if nothing lay in the way.

“I hope to please you, too,” she whispered.

“You will.”

“I mean, to do things that please you. I want… I don’t know what I want, but something for you.”

He lowered his head to brush her lips with his. “Be quiet. We’ve done our duty. We’ve thought and we’ve talked and we’ve tried to be sensible. Now we can simply feel…”

He reached behind himself for her hands and brought them forward, rubbed them slowly over his brocade jacket, then settled them on the buttons down the front. “If you want to do something for me, love, undo them.”

Undress him?

Oh, yes.

Cressida began to release the buttons one by one, aware all the time of his heat, his spice, and his deepening breaths. When they were all free, she pushed the garment open, then off his shoulders, uncovering his white silk shirt.

She glanced to see if he had further instructions, but he was relaxed, almost passive, letting her do as she wished.