A Matter of Sin (17 page)

And those feelings went far beyond an affair or a meaningless tryst. He feared they would haunt him even when this party was over.

Chapter Nineteen

“There is nothing more erotic than watching and being watched.”
—The Ladies Book of Pleasures

When Isabel came into the gatehouse and found Seth was not there waiting for her, she was happy, not worried. The time they’d shared at supper had erased any lingering fears she might have had of his boring of her. He had made such a special effort to make her comfortable.

And now she wished to do the same for him. On the other nights they came here, he had prepared the room for her, lighting the candles, standing at the ready for her. She liked the idea of being the one to greet him.

She busied herself with the fire and the lighting in the room. The servants had made the bed already and she briefly wondered what they thought of the mysterious woman their master was taking to this bed.

She stifled those thoughts. She was too immersed in the desire to continue this affair to let herself be frightened away by worries about what others might say. Seth had assured her his men would be discreet—she had to trust him.

And surprisingly, she did. She had certainly given her body to Seth with abandon and talked to him about things that she had kept inside herself for years.

Only she couldn’t let those feelings grow any more than they already had. She thought of her conversation with Grace that morning. Her heart and her body couldn’t be tangled or she risked hurt and heartbreak at the end.

As she sighed with the thought, the door behind her opened and Isabel moved from the bedroom to the front room just as Seth entered. Her breath caught at the sight of him as he shrugged from his jacket and tossed it across the room toward the nearest chair.

So much for separating her heart and her body. She could feel both of them yearning for him with everything within her.

“Hello,” she said, her tone breathless as she moved to him.

He looked at her, watching her every move as she made her way to his side. She couldn’t help it. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she drew him down for a kiss of welcome and relief.

He crushed her against him unexpectedly, driving his tongue into her mouth with a desperation and a heat she hadn’t felt from him before, even in the height of passion. He seemed
angry
with this touch, though not at her.

She drew back to look up at him. “I’m so glad you’re here, but I sense that you are troubled.”

Seth stared at her as he backed away from her. His surprise was evident in his wide-eyed expression. “You can sense my mood?”

“I feel it in your kiss that you are out of sorts,” she admitted.

He nodded. “I confess, the night did try my patience.”

Isabel frowned. “I hope I had no part in your ill temper. And that I did nothing to offend you at supper.”

His expression softened greatly as he took her hand and drew her closer. “On the contrary, you were a delight from beginning to end. Though I admit, I was surprised more than once tonight. I had no idea those people were all so interesting and yet you spoke to them, you drew them out.”

Isabel smiled at what she considered a great compliment. “Everyone has something of value to them, Seth. And I was lucky enough to be exposed to many different people during my marriage. I came to appreciate the hidden parts of their personalities.” She shrugged. “But I’m glad my effusiveness isn’t what upset you.”

He smiled but she could see his emotions remained jumbled.

Her own smile fell. “Do you want to tell me what it is that keeps you looking so unhappy?”

He looked at her and there was a brief flash of something in his eyes. Of—of
pity
, though she could scarcely believe it was there. Not in him. Her good mood was gone in an instant and she drew away out of instinct.

“What is it?” she whispered, hating how her voice broke. “Why do you look at me that way?”

He shook his head but he couldn’t meet her eyes any longer. “It isn’t worth discussing, Isabel. Let us simply enjoy our time together.”

“Someone said something about me,” she whispered, her cheeks heating at the thought that someone was talking about her to
Seth
of all people. “What did they say?”

“It isn’t important,” he insisted as he reached for her hand again.

She dodged the offering with a side step. “Please tell me.”

There was a long hesitation and then he sighed. “I assure you, my mother meant nothing.”

Isabel gasped as her hand came up to cover her suddenly trembling lips. “Your mother. Your mother spoke to you about
me
?”

He nodded once and his miserable expression told the full story. But she wanted to hear him say it. To tell her.

“What did she say?” she asked as she lowered her hand and straightened her spine. She had to be strong now. She had done it before, she could do it again.

He looked away and Isabel shut her eyes.

“Let me guess,” she whispered, only barely containing her hurt. “It was something along the lines of how sorry she is for me that no one will ever want me again. Or that only someone who desires my fortune will overlook the fact that I am barren and useless.”

Seth sucked in a breath and Isabel didn’t have to hear his answer. It was clear she was on the mark with her guess.

“It isn’t anything that hasn’t been whispered about me before,” Isabel said, though her defeated tone revealed how much those words pained her. “And I suppose she is right.”

“No!” Seth protested, reaching for her again.

She continued to dodge him. As if she could bear some sympathy embrace now!

“Yes,” she insisted, unable to keep her voice from rising. “You know it to be true more than anyone.”

Now it was Seth who drew back. “What do you mean by that?”

She shrugged, but felt anything but dismissive of what she was about to say. “That
is
why you picked me for your conquest, is it not? Because I am a widow who cannot be ruined? One who would never dare ask for more than whatever you briefly offered me?”

His face actually crumpled in pure horror. “Isabel—” he breathed.

She couldn’t hear him. Not his explanations or his lies or, God help her, his confirmation of her accusations.

“I want to go,” she said as she tried to move past him.

He sidestepped to block her. “No,” he said. “Isabel—”

“Oh, please let me go,” she murmured as the first tear escaped her eyes and slid down her hot cheek. “I can’t bear to have you feel sorry for me. Or to see me the same way she does, the way the others do, even the way Hartley did.”

“How do you think I see you?” Seth demanded as he caught both her arms and held her in place.

She looked up at him as another tear fell. “Damaged.”

He was silent for a long moment and then he shook his head. “Sweetest Isabel, the last thing I see when I look at you is damage. Anyone who does is a fool. I see you as beautiful.” He leaned down and kissed away her first tear. “Delectable,” he murmured as he kissed away another.

She shook her head even as she buried it in his shoulder. “I am
not
.”

He bent to kiss her ear. “You are. And I want you to see it. To see yourself as I see you.”

With gentle fingers he cupped her chin and let her look up at him. “I know I said tonight that you would choose something from the book to explore, but I would like to give you something. It is in your book, and I think it will help you.”

Isabel shivered as his questing fingers stroked down the curve of her throat.

“Seth,” she whispered.

He nodded. “Please. Please stay with me and let me show you how I see you. Let me prove to you that your being a widow or being, as you continue to put it, ‘damaged’ has nothing to do with why you are here with me now.”

She held her breath. God, how she wanted that gift he offered. She needed it in a way she had never acknowledged before. And she found herself nodding before she could talk herself out of the agreement to stay with Seth another night.

He took her hand and drew her into the bedroom. Before he released her hand, he lifted it to his lips and kissed it.

“Stay here.”

Isabel nodded as she watched him walk to the small dressing room attached to the bedroom. He was gone for a moment, but when he returned, he was carrying a large, wood-framed, full-length mirror. Her brow furrowing, Isabel watched as he positioned the item at the foot of the bed they had been sharing since their affair began.

“I don’t understand,” Isabel whispered.

He motioned to the mirror. “I told you, I want you to
see
just how beautiful you are when I make love to you. I want to show you that you aren’t flawed, as you claim.”

Isabel stared. What he described was a whole new level of intimacy. Facing herself, facing exactly what she was doing… She wasn’t certain she could stand it.

“And what if I don’t like what I see?” she asked as she turned toward him.

Seth smiled as he wrapped his arms around her and drew her against the warmth of his chest. “Isabel, trust me. There is nothing more beautiful, nothing more exciting. Please.”

It was the please that did her in. Looking up at him, with his arms cradling her, making her comfortable and warm and safe, she couldn’t imagine a scenario where he would do something to hurt her or make her feel less than worthy.

“Yes,” she said.

His smile widened as he bent his head to kiss her. She parted her lips and wrapped her arms around his neck, clinging to him. She had kissed other men, of course. Hartley, and one boy before she came into Society. None of those kisses were anything like this.

Seth took her away when his lips met hers. Just that touch cleared her mind, stole her breath and made her quiver from the inside out. There had been times when she had lost all track of time when they kissed and wasn’t sure when they parted if they had been standing together for a moment or an hour.

This was one of those times. When Seth broke away from her, she felt dazed and off-kilter and she clung to his arm until the world stopped spinning.

He drew her forward until they stood beside the bed. Isabel stole a quick glance at the mirror, but quickly forgot her nervousness when Seth turned her around and began to unbutton her gown. As her dress loosened, he bent his head and pressed his lips to the bare flesh he revealed there.

Isabel sucked in her breath at the sensation, leaning back almost against her will and flexing her hips against his out of pure instinct and desire.

A correct instinct, it seemed, for Seth growled out pleasure and pushed her gown away. He continued kissing her even as he moved her, turned her and finally withdrew from her, his breath short.

“Open your eyes,” he whispered right against her ear before he darted his tongue out to tease the flesh there.

Isabel gasped with the sensation and did as he asked. To her surprise, she found herself positioned directly in front of the mirror. He stepped behind her so her back was to his chest and let her look at herself. When he knew he had her attention, he slipped his hands beneath the thin straps of her flimsy chemise and pushed the fabric off her upper body, leaving her naked from the waist up.

Isabel blushed, fighting embarrassment at seeing herself like this. After all, a lady wasn’t taught to do these things, which made that naughty book that told women to embrace their desires all the more interesting.

And yet, behind her discomfort was something else. Her desire. A feeling heightened by watching as he covered her breasts with each hand and began to gently massage the sensitive flesh there.

She gasped, and her head came back to rest on his chest. She stared as he rubbed and teased and stroked, making her nipples even darker and their peaks even more pronounced.

She couldn’t help but move her hips again, stroking her backside against him in a mute demand for his cock buried inside of her. If he was moved by that request, he didn’t give her what she desired. Instead he pressed her breasts together, lifting them so they were even more fully on exhibit.

Isabel blushed at the sight of herself on display. She rarely took time to just
look
at her own body. That sort of scandalous thing had been discouraged her whole life and now she sometimes didn’t even see herself in the morning until after her maid had finished with her.

But really
seeing
herself in such a vulnerable position… Seth was right, it
was
arousing. He was so dark in comparison to her pale skin. Clothed where she was naked. His tan hands held her delicately, gently, and yet when he brushed his thumb over her nipple, her knees buckled and began to shake.

“You are so responsive,” he murmured, his voice rough as he repeated the action with his opposite thumb. “I think I could make you come just by touching you like this. Should I try while you watch?”

Isabel swallowed, taken aback and swept away by the low, dangerous, sensual tone of his voice. Her sheath pulsed with empty wetness at the idea he presented.

“Nod,” he ordered.

She did as he had asked and bobbed her head once in the affirmative. She stared as he moved around her body to stand before her. He angled her so that she could still see herself in the mirror when he dropped down to his knees in front of her.

“Seth,” she murmured.

He didn’t answer, but pressed his lips to her breast and sucked her nipple deep into the warm, wet cavern of his mouth.

Isabel cried out as intense pleasure made its way through her. He cupped her backside and pulled her tight against him, stroking her bottom through the thin fabric of her drawers.

“Watch,” he said before he bent his head and sucked harder.

Isabel forced herself to look, and what a picture she saw. An erotic image that put any of the ones she had seen in
The Ladies Book of Pleasures
to shame. And like the women in that book, her expression was taut and filled with pleasure that was intense and never-ending.

Seth sucked and sucked, the intensity of his touch bordering between pain and pleasure, and she watched as her hips rocked. She rubbed against him, reaching for that spot that would bring her relief from the building wall of blinding need.