A Lady Undone (5 page)

The soft brush of Lord Wyndham’s lips sent Clare reeling. In all her life, she’d never been kissed. Not like this. Not this kind of kiss that every girl imagined and cherished in her heart.

She should have jerked back, but she couldn’t. She was too stunned, too curious, too absolutely drawn into the heat of him to do something so reasonable. And she was sick of being reasonable.

All her life, she’d longed in vain for a moment like this, and now it was happening.

Even so, she wasn’t quite sure what to do. While her husband had been a violent man, their exchanges in the bedchamber had been brief, silent, and over quickly. She’d disliked it, but there had been far worse encounters with her husband outside the marital bed.

As if all her unpleasant memories might be wiped away with a gentle caress, Lord Wyndham’s broad hand, gently cupped her jaw, angling her head to aid their kiss. But his other hand slipped from her grasp to the curve of her corseted waist.

As those lips of his moved hypnotically over hers, stealing her thoughts and breath with each subtle movement, he pulled her against him.

That solid wall of his body met hers and she gave into the sheer pleasure of her body leaning into his. She couldn’t make sense of the shocking sensations giving her body an unbelievable lightness. Indeed, she was certain she was going to fly away at any moment.

Quite unthinking, she raised her arms to his shoulders, and looped her hands behind his neck. His rough hair brushed her fingers and she pulled herself closer to him, needing more.

All her life, she’d been denied this kind of real intimacy, and now that he was offering it to her, she never wanted it to end.

This was the stuff of knights and their ladies, of Abelard and Eloise, of Darcy and Elizabeth, of Jane and Rochester, of every romance she’d ever read. How she’d longed for it.

She nearly laughed with delight. A strange moan purred from her throat.

Goodness, was that she?

As his tongue teased her open lips, she let out a moan again.

Yes. Yes, it was she who had made such an unrestrained cry.

Unbidden, unknowing if what she was doing was right, she sucked his tongue into her mouth, tasting with her own. He tasted of desire, heat, and the brandy he’d drunk earlier that day.

His hands slipped into her hair, tilting her head back, and his kiss grew more demanding, hungrier, hotter.

She gasped against his mouth. A thousand foreign sensations raced through her. Her breasts felt heavy and tingled against his chest, and she felt the most bizarre urge to rub herself against him as if she was an alley cat. Surely such a thing was mad?

Well if it was mad, then she’d happily throw sanity aside, for this was the most glorious she’d felt in all her life.

His mouth moved to her jaw and she drew in great lungfuls of air, as if she’d been drowning, but it wasn’t pain that had her crying out with need. It was his strong hands, stroking her back, sliding down to the curve of her bottom.

Despite the heavy folds of her skirts, he pressed his hands into her hips, urging her body into the bowing sway of his. God, those rigid muscles of his chest pressed against her corseted form and she let out a cry of frustration that so much was between them.

A lifetime of waiting stole all her inhibitions and patience. “Please,” she moaned. “Please, yes.”

In truth, she wasn’t even sure what she was asking for, but she knew that her body had some eternal, elemental need that only he could satisfy.

He paused in his movement and he rested his forehead against her shoulder, his breath harsh against her neck. “Your Grace, I’ve never wanted a woman as I want you.”

A rich, dismayed laugh lilted from her throat. “I give you permission to call me Clare.”

“Clare,” he repeated, murmuring against her throat. “Let me make love to you.”

Those words which should have thrilled her instead sent a shiver of fear down her spine. Speaking it aloud, his intent, seemed to strike her with reality. She’d never
made love
. What happened between a man’s and a woman’s body in her experience couldn’t be called anything like making love
.
“I— I don’t know.”

“Clare,” he said, his voice a deep, rough caress as he pulled back. “Then we will stop. Today, it’s been—”

“Yes,” she said, her voice cracking. “Today has been full of unpleasant events, but this isn’t one of them.”

He held her gaze, patient. “I don’t understand.”

“When you say you wish to ‘make love’
to me, I don’t. . . I don’t know what to make of that.”

Sadness crept into his whiskey eyes.

“I’ve never known what making love is. To me, it’s the same as my girlhood dreams of family—an illusion.” She swallowed, amazed by her own boldness at sharing her feelings. What was it about this man that made her feel as if she could say anything?

“I’ve been very thoughtless.” He stroked his fingers along the side of her face, a comforting gesture. “Can you forgive me for not considering that your past might make intimacy with me a difficult thing?”

She let out a frustrated wail. “You are not the person I need to forgive, for you have done nothing wrong. I hate that memories make the contemplation of being with you frightening—for if it wasn’t for those previous experiences, I’m certain nothing would stop me.”

He pressed a kiss to her forehead then pulled her close, rocking her gently. “I won’t lie. I wish to know your body with my own, to map it out. To learn its curves and lines and secrets. I wish you to do the same with mine. If that can never be, I will understand. But I also must say that your husband was particularly cruel. He stole so much from you, but do not let him continue to steal away your hope of a happy future.”

With a last, gentle hold, he began to pull away from her. “I am honored just to be your friend, Clare. Know that.”

As soon as his body began to withdraw from hers, her heart protested fiercely. This isn’t what she wanted. She didn’t wish for a dead husband to drive a wedge between her and this kind man.

“No,” she said abruptly, her hands holding tightly to his back. “I need this. I need to know that this kind of intimacy does exist, that it wasn’t all some dream I made up as a girl and that only dwells in fairy tales.” She reached up and took his face between her hands, lifting it so that she might look into his eyes. It was imperative she make him understand. “I need to know that you are right, that Mary is right, that passion is possible, that
he
was the mistake, the aberration. Please help me believe that my dreams were not entirely foolish.”

His gaze darkened not just with wonder but reticence. “I wouldn’t have you burdened with regret come the dawn.”

“The only regret I should have is if you take this from me now. After the duke, I thought I was a foolish girl to think a man and a woman could feel thus. Prove to me, prove that it was
he
who was the fool.”

To Wyndham’s credit, he didn’t bother asking for any more details of her past. After all, that past was a cold, harsh reminder of stolen dreams and broken hope.

His face softened, his amber eyes alight like the hottest yellow flames dancing in the fire. “I would have something of you first.”

She licked her lips, afraid that he might suddenly pull away and take this marvelous moment away. “What is it?”

“Say my name.”

She stared up at him. “I do not know it.”

Those seductive, soul-burning lips of his tilted into a smile. “Byron.”

“Like the poet?”

A laugh boomed from him and he tugged her closer. “My mother was a romantic.”

“Just like you, Byron,” she breathed.

With that, he lowered himself to his knees.

“What are you doing?” she marveled.

“Well, I can’t pay proper homage to you with those dratted hoops about your legs.”

“Homage?”

“Mmmm,” he murmured as he reached out and slid his hands beneath the hem of her dark gown.

The moment his fingertips met her stockinged ankles, she gasped. No man had ever touched her ankles. She barely touched them.

He caressed his hands up her calves, massaging, firm yet patient.

Her legs wobbled under his touch. So this was why she always had to keep her limbs hidden? Because good Lord, they were sensitive to him.

Her eyelids fluttered closed.

“Oh, no, lady mine,” he growled. “I want you to watch.”

In one swift move, he whipped up her petticoat and skirts to her waist, exposing her hoops and stockinged legs.

“Oh, yes,” he groaned. “Now, to free those beautiful legs of their prison.”

She stared down, transfixed by the sight of him gazing through the dark hoops to her bare thighs.

Smoothing the fabric back, he reached up and around, finding the tapes of her undergarments. He gave a tug, allowing them to slide to the floor.

The hoops clattered amidst her petticoat.

He offered up his hand, helping her step free of the restrictive undergarments. “Now . . . what next?”

He eyed her gown before rising to his feet, tracing his hands to her back and the lacings of her bodice. “I want you so much, Clare,” he whispered.

With each word, he slipped her bodice loose and when he pressed a kiss to the nape of her neck, he worked it free of her arms and dropped it to rest beside her hoops.

The air, warm now from the fire, brushed over her naked arms and exposed breasts. She drew in a sharp breath but couldn’t quite get enough air.

The movement drew his gaze.

“So perfect,” he murmured, kissing his way from her collarbones in featherlight touches to the swell of her breasts.

Perfect.

Was she? To Byron? Yes, she was. She didn’t doubt the sincerity in his words as he left openmouthed kisses and gentle, teasing bites along her skin.

For so long, everyone had tried to convince her she was far from perfect, that she needed schooling.

But not this man.

This man thought her perfect just as she was.

The excitement growing inside her was inexplicable, but she’d only ever been intimate with the duke, and that had been in the dark, her white night gown tucked carefully about her as her husband had taken her without a sound. It had been unpleasant and absolutely nothing like what Byron was doing.

Just as he had said.

“Are you,” she licked her lips, amazed at her own boldness. “Are you making love to me? Is that what this is?”

Byron traced the tip of his tongue along the line where her breasts and corsets met then lifted his gaze to hers. “That is exactly what I am doing.”

“I like it very much,” she ventured, amazed by the truth in that short declaration.

Taking her into his arms, Byron lifted her and swung her onto the bed. “Thank you for letting it be me who gets to make love to you. It is what you still wish?”

She nodded, touched at his kindness.

Hesitantly, she parted her legs and pulled at the folds of her skirts, ready to allow him between her thighs.

“No,” he said, his hand encircling her wrist. Quietly, he climbed onto the bed, took her skirts from her hands and inched them up slowly, each inch a torture of awareness.

He leaned down and kissed her thighs just above her garters. “I want to please you.”

She blinked at him, astounded. “You do please me.”

He smiled. “I want to please you more.”

“I shan’t argue.”

“Good,” he said just as he bent down and traced a kiss along the line where her thigh met her most private place.

Her whole body jolted. No one touched her there. Not even she, herself. When she bathed, it was an area that she’d been instructed to clean as quickly as possible and not to look at. “Are you c-certain?”

“If you wish me to stop, I shall,” he said, his voice muffled as his kiss moved to the center of her.

A wave of pure pleasure ran up her spine, spiraling up from her low abdomen. How was it possible to feel such a thing?”

Her hands went to his head, her fingers winding into his hair. “Don’t stop.”

And he didn’t.

He traced his tongue over her folds, licking and teasing, torturing with small circles, increasing then decreasing in pressure.

Oh, God. She was flying toward something she didn’t understand. Her breath caught in her throat. She dug her heels into the bed and just as she was going to splinter apart, he thrust a finger deep inside her. A wild sound ripped from her. She tightened around him, and as she was spinning so entirely, he moved between her thighs and his hard shaft rocked against her.

She moaned with the pleasure. It felt just right as her body ached and pulsed. Yes, she wanted something more and as he thrust deep into her body and she gasped, she knew that this was it. What she had longed for, for so long. She’d longed for him. Oh, she hadn’t known who it would be, but for all these years, she’d been waiting for this man, who thought her perfect, who wanted to please her, who was tossing her to the heights of paradise.

Each thrust, deep into her core sent her back toward that mystifying place of pleasure. He took his time, taking long hard thrusts, then adjusted his pace until he was rocking against her, his body pounding against her core.

The intensity of it nearly undid her, but she wouldn’t stop. Not for anything. His face tensed, and his whole body jerked forward. His hand slipped between their bodies, touching the softest part of her sex and she cried out, “Byron,” as he shuddered against her.

He let out a wild groan then took her mouth in a slow kiss.

Staying inside her, he rolled to his side and pulled her up against him, her thigh over his lean hip.

She didn’t know what to say, and so she said nothing. Instead, she wrapped an arm around his back and nestled into his chest, savoring the feeling that with Bryon, she was safe. Safe from all the pain in the world.

The sound of porcelain clinking penetrated the soft haze of Clare’s sleep. She blinked lazily, stretched on the warm sheets then felt her breasts rub against the linen.

Her eyes flashed open and she gasped. She stared up at the folded brocade canopy. This was Byron’s bed. In Byron’s home. And she was
in
it.

“I’ve done the criminal,” a deep voice rumbled from across the room.

She tensed then felt a slow smile play at her lips.
Byron
. Even as the delicious realization that last night had truly happened dawned on her, she felt a moment of absolute vulnerability.

Clutching at the covers, she peered over at him. As always, his clothes looked as if they’d been tugged on in haphazard fashion. In his arms he carried a large wooden tray. The tray didn’t hide the way his shirt was open at his throat and barely tucked into his trousers. To match, his hair was a boyish riot about his face and slightly stubbled jaw.

“What law have you broken?” she forced herself to ask. She wouldn’t turn into a twittering girl. She wouldn’t.

“I’ve woken you,” he said matter-of-factly. Crossing the room, he hefted the tray from his arms to the bed. “And you were such a lovely sight dreaming away.”

She tucked a lock of hair away from her face. During the night it had fallen all about her shoulders. “Thank you,” she replied, not knowing what else to say.

He smiled a cat-with-the-cream smile. “You’re welcome, oh beautiful one.” He adjusted the tray again, the source of the earlier clinking becoming clear as she spotted a teapot painted with violets, matching cups and saucers, and several plates laden with food.

“Are we feeding an army?” she gasped.

“This?” He tsked. “This wouldn’t serve a major, let alone an army.”

She laughed. “Is that what you were? I don’t know.”

“A major?” he queried.

She nodded.

He rolled his eyes heavenward. “A lowly major? You wound me.”

She laughed again at his theatrics. “Well, do enlighten me.”

He lifted the teapot and poured out the steaming brew into a cup. “Colonel Wyndham, lady fair. And no, I didn’t order fellows about a board in regiments.”

He offered her the teacup. Without hesitation and amazed at their easy banter, Clare sat up, keeping the sheet tucked about her frame. She took the cup. “What did you do, then?”

He poured a second cup, growing silent.

“I apologize,” she rushed. “I’m being terribly impolite.”

He quirked a brow. “Clare, we’ve made love, and I’ve admitted to having feelings for you. It’s perfectly acceptable for you to ask questions about my past. It doesn’t pain me. I promise.”

“I . . . I’ve no real idea how men and women talk in private.”

Leaning forward, he whispered conspiratorially, “I’ve no idea about how other men and women talk to each other in such moments, but I believe you and I are doing just fine.”

“Truly?” She clutched her cup, wishing more than anything not to offend the man who’d opened her eyes to something she’d been certain was impossible.

“Mmmm.” He raised a hand and took a lock of her hair between his fingers, slipping it along his skin. “We shall say whatever comes into our heads and just enjoy each other, no?”

Her breath caught at his sensuality. “That sounds splendid to me.”

“Good.”

She grinned. “Now, tell me what you did as a mighty colonel, then.”

He opened his mouth, but suddenly she exclaimed, “Wait, I know!” She gestured to the tray filled with poached eggs, toast, rashers of bacon, and pots of jam. “You cooked, did you not?”

“My God, woman, your imagination is quite zealous.”

She laughed, a deep, free sound. It astonished her, but she loved the feeling and so she let the laugh continue. “Do forgive me, but I am amazed by your preparations. I doubt I could boil water with any real skill.”

“One does learn certain things when out and about, fending for one’s self.”

She drew up, tucking her legs beneath her. “Tell me more.”

“Well, I spent a great deal of my time searching out information.”

“And you were often on your own?”

He nodded before he took a long swig of tea. “I fought in battles, that’s true enough, but my real skills were honed away from the army, elucidating helpful information from the enemy.”

“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“Why is that?” he said carefully.

“You have a manner about you which makes one want to share their deepest secrets.”

“And you, Clare? Will you share your deepest secrets with me?”

Her deepest secrets were far too dangerous for such a moment. So, she took a sip of tea and glanced at him over the rim of her cup. “I suppose we shall have to wait and see.”

Slowly, he reached forward and took her cup away. He placed it and his own on the tray before putting all of it on the table beside his bed.

She studied his movements, wondering what he was up to; but when he turned back, she knew. It was in the deep fire of his eyes, and the intensity of his stare.

“Clare, I will wait as long as it takes for you to share your secrets.” He slid toward her and pulled her into his lap. “I will tell you anything you wish to know about me and one day, you will do the same.”

“You’re confident?” she asked, her heart slamming against her ribs. Each breath she took seemed to draw her nearer to him, nearer to the wonderful, terrifying feelings blooming within her.

He looked down at her, his gaze half lidded with hunger. “Oh, yes. Aren’t you?”

In answer, she threw her arms around his shoulders and pulled him into her kiss. For now, it was the only honest answer she could give.

•   •   •

Clare couldn’t believe the easiness of the next few days. Lord Wyndham, Byron, had seen to everything. A woman came daily with provisions from the village and for the first time in her whole life, Clare did nothing but eat, read, and make conversation with a man who had stolen her heart.

It was the only thing that gave her fear, for her heart had indeed been stolen.

What was she to do now?

She’d not let herself think on it, but with each day that passed, drinking good wine and listening to him recite Shakespeare’s sonnets as they sat wrapped up in blankets by the playful late-winter stream, she felt her heart becoming ever more his.

It didn’t matter that in the back of her mind was the ever pressing fear of what was happening in London.

Byron had kept true to his words. Missives came to him through secret messengers and she’d learned that her home for women was proceeding without any threat. Indeed, her disappearance seemed to have done the trick.

It was the one thing that saddened her. She hated to think that whoever had threatened her had won. But Byron insisted that he would discover who it was.

She turned her face up toward the sun and tucked a thick shawl Byron had found about her. This place was heaven. All her life, she’d lived in great houses with hundreds of rooms and servants scurrying every which way. Yet, somehow as large and full of people as those places had been, they had been so lonely.

Here at this cottage, with just the two of them, she felt the most peace she had ever known. How long could it last?

Forever
, a little voice whispered inside her. If she would let it. Oh,Lord, if only that could be true. But she was not as naive as she once was.

For this to last forever, she’d have to trust that Byron would never betray her.

No. She almost laughed at her own attempt to place doubts on Byron. If she was truthful with herself, she knew he never would. Lord Wyndham was a man of honor. He would never control her the way her husband or her family had tried to do.

He cared about her, not her status or her role as a good lady. The awful, heartbreaking truth was that to keep him, she would have to lie to him for the rest of her days. For how could she ever confess what she had done?

No man, no one, would ever forgive her, even if she had done it to save herself.

Tears stung her eyes. It seemed so unfair that she should finally find happiness and not be worthy of it.

“Clare?”

She whipped around to the sound of his deep voice calling from the cottage.

He held up a note. “I have news.”

She nodded and ran toward him, her feet skipping lightly over the grass. She ran right into his warm embrace, tilting her face up for his. His strong, tender mouth closed over hers. After the soft exchange of their kiss, he wrapped his arms and the long tails of his greatcoat about her and tilted his head away.

Today, his face was serious, holding none of usual joviality.

“What is it?” she asked.

“We must go to London.”

She searched his features, wary now. “Will it be safe?”

“You’ll be with me for the entirety of the time.” He glanced away. “I think I’ve discovered who is behind all this.”

“But you’ve been here with me,” she exclaimed.

“Indeed, I have, but I have a network of spies that are far more skilled at discovering that which lurks in the shadows than I.”

She nodded. Why wasn’t he pleased? Dread formed a hard knot in her stomach. “And they have discovered something?”

As serious as she could ever recall seeing him, he wrapped his arms around her. “They have, sweetheart. In fact they’ve discovered who is almost certainly behind all this, and we’re going to confront him right now.”

•   •   •

The carriage pulled up before the imposing limestone town house near Green Park. Byron stared at it for a moment, his gut tense, and then he looked back to the lady he’d so quickly fallen in love with.

He’d been half in jest when he’d quoted Shakespeare and that line about love at first sight. Now, he couldn’t deny it. His own insides were in absolute turmoil at her potential distress.

Clare looked out the window, her lips parting. “Why are we here?”

“Because this is where my information led,” he said flatly. “Now, we must confirm it.”

She nodded, but her face was pained, as if someone had grabbed hold of her and shaken her brutally. “I don’t want to believe it’s possible.”

Byron could tell from the drawn, resigned pallor of her skin that she knew all too well that some people could do the worst things.

Damnation, how he longed to change that. If he had his way, no one would ever be able to betray her again, and she need never fear such a thing.

The footman opened the carriage door and Wyndham descended quickly, desirous that the whole terrible affair be over with. He offered her his hand, determined to give her comfort if his information proved true.

Together, they quietly ascended the brief steps, and the tall green door opened before them.

“Hello, Bartlet,” Clare said with surprising strength.

The blond, middle-aged butler inclined his head. “Your Grace.”

“I am here to see Lord Soames.”

“He is in his study, Your Grace.”

It was a damned nuisance, but they waited for the butler to lead.

Keeping a careful look on Clare from the corner of his eye, he weighed his options.

Before Byron could decide how best to attack, they were ushered into the large room, decorated with imposing mahogany furniture and towering portraiture of dogs with dead birds in their mouths and announced.

Lord Soames sat before his fire, drinking a brandy and reading the evening paper. But as soon as the butler had departed, he snapped the paper shut and stood. His brandy sloshed dangerously near the rim of his glass. “Where the devil have you been?”

“Your Grace,” Byron added, his voice low and even.

Lord Soames blinked, “What?”

“The proper way to address your niece is either with ‘Your Grace’ or referring to her as ‘duchess.’”

“Lord Wyndham, I appreciate your position in society, but I hardly think it your place to dictate my relationship to my niece.”

It took all his reserve not to cross the room and slam his fist into the offending man’s face. “Who else shall do it then since you appear to treat her with so little respect?”

Soames’s cheeks burned red, but then he let out a slow breath. “Forgive me, I’ve been concerned. Last I saw you, Your Grace, a stone had been thrown through your window.”

Clare’s eyes, usually so kind and compassionate, were hard sapphires now. “You must be relieved that I’ve ceased going to the East End.”

“Well, yes.” Soames took a large sip of brandy. “But it was extremely irresponsible of you to not tell me of your whereabouts. You are still far too young to be living on your own and without the guidance of a husband, submitting to my—”

“You’re a man who likes to have his own way, aren’t you?” Byron cut in.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You were determined that Clare cease working with those women in the East End, women who need her help.”

“It’s scandalous,” Soames said simply. “Her reputation will suffer for it and I’m sure you can help her to understand that as a duchess her role is to host charity gatherings, not throw herself in the muck.”

Byron leveled a stare at the man, filled with all the contempt he could muster. “It really isn’t my place to judge what she does.”

Soames snorted. “Well, it’s mine. She’s a member of my family, and I’m the head of it.”

“Soames,” Clare said calmly, though her hands were clenched in fists. “My husband was a very controlling man—”

“You were young. A girl needs a husband who will—”

“Knock me down?” she gritted. “Beat me? Choose all my gowns and my friends, and bring the doctors in when I didn’t acquiesce to his every whim?”

“Clare,” Soames chided. “If you did not do as the duke asked, of course he beat you. You provoked him to anger. A good wife knows—”

“My God,” Byron seethed. “I never realized how entirely alone Clare was married to that monster. Now I see. You would have thrown her to the cruelest of men for a dukedom and the power it brings.”

“Alone?” Soames echoed, his voice brittle. “I arranged that marriage. It was one of the last things my poor brother wished for and all I want is to see his daughter well looked after and behaving as a lady ought. And don’t you dare paint me the demon. The law, the church, and society commands that a wife obey her husband in all things. To not do so is to go against nature.”