A Wicked Way to Win an Earl (23 page)

Robyn looked from one to the other of them, his eyes narrowed. “Delia?”

She glanced at Robyn and nodded briefly. He gave Alec a long, searching look, but then he bowed to Delia and disappeared into the ballroom.

“Very well.” She allowed Alec to escort her back into the
garden. “For a moment only,” she added when he didn't stop on the terrace, but tugged her along with him into a darker, more private part of the garden.

Once they were shielded from the guests on the terrace, he released her arm abruptly, as if her skin burned him. He gazed at her for a moment, but then turned away without a word, running a hand roughly through his hair. Delia waited for him to speak, but when at last he faced her, he looked so tormented she felt her calm desert her.

A shocked little cry escaped her lips. “Alec?”

Alec stepped toward her and grasped her shoulders in his strong hands. “Delia, the conversation you overheard the other day,” he began in a rush. “I have to explain—”

But she was already trying to squirm out of his grasp. “No, Alec! I don't want to hear an explanation.”

Alec's hands tightened. “But you
will
. I know you would never agree to be any man's mistress. I never thought it of you. I never
could
think it.”

“You must have done, Alec. Why else would you suggest such a thing to Robyn?”

“I suggested it to Robyn to hear him deny it. I hoped he'd deeply resent the suggestion.” He dropped his hands from her shoulders and dragged them down his face. “Robyn has spent most of this year carousing through London with a wild group of young noblemen. I had heard rumors he . . .” He stopped. “Well, it doesn't matter what I heard. It doesn't bear repeating.”

“Why not simply ask him?” Delia said, puzzled.

“He doesn't confide in me, and I had to know the truth, for the family's sake. It never occurred to me you would overhear us, but that doesn't excuse my behavior. It was unforgivable. Cruel. It's driven me mad, thinking of the look on your face that day.”

Delia took a deep, shuddering breath. She couldn't
identify the strong emotion that passed through her then. She knew only the hard, cold, bitter thing lodged in her heart since yesterday suddenly gave way.

Alec wasn't finished. His hand shot out to grab her wrist and he pulled her roughly against him. “Do you know why I hate to see you with Robyn? Do you, Delia?”

“Y-yes,” she gasped, her hands flying to his chest. “To protect him. To protect your family from a shameful connection—”

“No.” Alec's voice had gone low and ragged and his breath came in harsh pants. “It's because I can't bear to see you with him. Because you're
mine
.”

Delia's heart stopped and then surged to life again on a tremendous, aching shudder. She opened her mouth to speak, but only a quiet sob emerged. Hot tears pressed behind her eyes. Alec's hands came up to cradle her face almost desperately. He brushed his thumbs gently under her eyes to catch her tears, his face a mask of anguish. “Don't.” And then he was kissing her, his warm mouth moving tenderly across her eyes and her cheeks, tasting her tears. The garden, the ball, it all faded away as her entire being focused only on the feel of his mouth as it glided across her skin. “Say it, Delia,” he commanded softly, the whisper like a brush of silk against her ear. “You're mine.
Say it
.”

But she couldn't speak. She couldn't breathe or even think. She could only feel. She snaked her arms around Alec's neck and her mouth sought his, her tongue stroking inside to tell him what he demanded to know, without words.

“No.” Alec's quick, labored breaths sawed in and out of his chest. “We can't.” He tried to pull away from her. “Come back to the ballroom.”

No. She wouldn't let him go.

She tugged boldly at the knot in his cravat, making a frustrated noise in her throat when it didn't yield. Desperate to feel more of him, she reached her hands inside his coat
to caress his lean waist, pulling on his shirt until at last it came loose from his breeches. She plunged her hands inside, glorying in his sharp gasp and the way the hot velvet of his skin moved over his taut muscles under her questing fingers.

“My God.
Delia
.” With a defeated groan he at last surged urgently into her mouth. He dragged her hard against his body as he took masterful possession, stroking and caressing her tongue with his own until her head fell helplessly backward against his invasion.

She unclasped her arms from around his neck so she could move her hands over his broad chest. She paused to stroke her fingers shyly against his masculine nipples, at first curious, then fascinated when she heard his low growl and felt his entire body go rigid with need. She brushed her hand wonderingly against his hard belly then, excitement pooling low in her own belly when his head fell back on a deep groan at the caress.

“Yes,” he hissed softly.

His hands felt hot and heavy against the silk at the back of her gown, but his fingers were deft as he coaxed the top buttons open. The neck of the gown relaxed around her and then his lips were there, his demanding tongue like rough silk against the tops of her breasts.

Delia knew she should be shocked, that she should stop him, but instead she felt only a heated flood of desire as his fingers and mouth moved against the skin revealed by the sagging gown. She strained closer, desperate to feel his hands on every part of her body.

“Alec,” she gasped. “Please, I want . . .”

But he already knew what she wanted, even if she didn't. He murmured soothingly to her and ran his fingers lightly under the swells of her breasts. “Hush. I know, love.” He pressed hot kisses against her skin as his hands inched up slowly, slowly, torturously. They both moaned when he brushed his thumbs at last across the hard, straining peaks
of her breasts. She jerked in his arms, overcome by the shocking pleasure of his touch.

Alec's head descended then and Delia felt the rough scrape of an emerging beard against the tender skin of her breast. She triumphed in it. She tilted her head back and invited him in, gasping when she felt his tongue dart out to lick the pink tip of one breast. Her fingers closed in his hair, holding him to her as his mouth lingered over the place where her heart jumped madly in her chest before he closed his lips over her other nipple and drew it into the heat of his mouth, suckling her.

Delia's head fell back and she pressed the back of her hand against her mouth to keep from crying aloud as he drew on her nipple, his tongue circling lazily. “
Alec,
please 
. . .” She clung to him, trembling, shivering in his arms, and her sweet arousal inflamed him to madness. His control slipped farther away with each of her breathless sighs. His hands drifted from her waist to cup her bottom and draw her harder against his body, groaning at the intense pleasure. He urged her against his hard arousal, thrusting slowly, letting her feel his desire through the gathered fabric of her skirts. His restless hands roamed across her back until they settled at her hips, caressing her there and drawing her even tighter against his hard length.

She made a small sound—a sigh of protest? Surrender? It didn't matter.
It didn't matter
. Because he was gathering fistfuls of her silk skirts in his hands and raising them . . .

His tongue invaded her mouth, his fingers stroking the smooth warm skin above her garter. Just as Alec's fingers skimmed across the sensitive skin of her upper thigh, he felt her tense in his arms. He felt her hands on his chest, trying to push him away.

He ached for her. He'd gone nearly mindless with need, but he wrestled to subdue his body, to come to the surface. “Delia? What is it, love?”

Then he heard it. A gasp, and a woman's strangled exclamation. Alec turned and instantly stepped in front of Delia to shield her.

But it was too late. Lily stood there, stricken, her hand over her mouth and her face drained of color. “Delia?” Her voice was incoherent with shock. “Oh, Delia,” she whispered, her voice low and despairing. “You're ruined.”

Lily was pacing. The door to the bed to the window. Door, bed, window.

Delia watched Lily retrace her steps over and over again. Door, bed, window. The carpet was thick, but even so she began to watch for a tear to appear under Lily's daintily slippered feet.

The room throbbed with silence. Lily hadn't said one word since she and Delia had fled the garden. They might all still be standing down there gaping at one another had Lily not gathered her wits and swept into action like a general marshaling the troops.

“Come with me, Delia,” she ordered. Then she turned to Alec, averting her eyes from his disheveled clothing. “Lord Carlisle, please make our apologies to your mother. You may tell her Delia has the headache and I've taken her upstairs. No one need be the wiser about this.”

Like proper marionettes, they'd all done as Lily ordered, and it seemed no one
was
the wiser, though for all Delia
knew, the
ton
could even now be whispering gleefully behind their fans about poor, ruined Delia Somerset.

Now she had to face Lily, who was still pacing.
Door, bed, window.

Delia waited. Lily wasn't one to speak until she was sure of her words. She wasn't given to impulsive exclamations or wild assumptions. Delia had always admired that about her sister. They did say, didn't they, that one tended to admire in others the qualities one lacked themselves?

Whoever
they
were.

“Are you terribly ashamed of me, Lily?” Delia finally blurted out miserably, unable to bear the silence another second.

Lily turned to face her at last. “Ashamed? Astonished is more like it, Delia. What can you have been thinking? In the garden! Why, anyone could have stumbled upon you. It could have been Lady Cecil.” The horror of that possibility made her face go white again. “You'd have to flee much farther than Surrey to escape the effects of her vicious tongue.”

“But it wasn't Lady Cecil, Lily.” Delia made her voice as reasonable as she could, given the circumstances. “It was you.”

“By the merest stroke of luck only.” Lily crossed the room and threw herself into the chair opposite Delia's. “I blame Lord Carlisle. I wouldn't have believed he could behave so disgracefully, but it's clear he has no honor—”

“Indeed, Lily, you are very wrong!” Delia cried, leaping to Alec's defense. “He is honorable, and a gentleman. It wasn't his idea . . . That is”—she swallowed nervously—“I'm to blame.”

Alec had tried to draw away from her. He'd tried to escort her back to the ballroom. Her response had been to tug his shirt from his breeches. A flush of heat raced through her at the memory, not all of it from embarrassment. Surely tearing off Alec's clothing meant she bore some responsibility for this debacle?

But Lily didn't seem to think so. She shook her head. “No, Delia. Everyone knows the
ton
is wicked, especially the gentlemen. You're an innocent young lady. What can you possibly know of seduction?”

How could she explain to Lily it had nothing to do with
knowing
? Or seduction, even, which was far too cold and bloodless a word for what had happened with Alec in the garden tonight. How could she tell Lily that Alec's gentle kiss had led to a devouring, hungry possession of her mouth, a stroke of fingertips on fevered skin, until there was nothing else to do but to surrender to it? The press of his body against hers had led to a maelstrom of desire so sweet there was no thinking and no knowing. There was only
feeling
.

Some of what she felt must have shown on her face, because Lily frowned. “How long have you and Lord Carlisle been . . .” She trailed off primly.

“Sneaking away to the garden?” It had been difficult, hiding the truth from Lily. Delia didn't want to lie anymore. “There has been an attraction almost from the moment we arrived at Bellwood.”

Lily's mouth dropped open. “What about Robyn, Delia? Have you not been encouraging his attentions? It appeared to me as though you were, and I think Robyn believes so, as well.”

Delia hadn't thought she was, but Alec had been so convinced by her threat to pursue Robyn she was forced to be honest with herself. The truth was she
had
used Robyn. She'd maneuvered him as coolly as if he were nothing more than a pawn in her reckless game with Alec. “I spoke with him tonight. He knows I leave for Surrey tomorrow. I told him . . .” Delia swallowed, thinking of the moment when Robyn's hopeful eyes had darkened with disappointment. “I told him how sorry I was.”

Lily relented a little at Delia's obvious distress. “Well, it's not entirely your fault, I suppose. It would take very
little encouragement for Robyn to think your affections were engaged. It would be a triumphant match for you, but you were never very practical, Delia.”

“No, I suppose not.” Delia's voice was faint. “The practical thing would have been to fall in love with Robyn, not Alec.”

Lily stared at her sister, her eyes wide. “
Love!
My goodness, Delia. Are you
in love
with Lord Carlisle?”

“I'm afraid I am.” Delia tried to smile even as she felt the hot press of tears in her throat. “Quite hopelessly so.”

Lily's face softened and she took Delia's hands in her own. “Does he . . . That is, do you think he has a regard for you?”

You are mine. Say it, Delia.

In the dark of the garden, with her arms wrapped around his neck and his lips on her skin, Alec's words had sounded like a passionate declaration. But now, in the cold reality of her bedchamber, with Lily's anxious eyes on her, Delia wondered
what
Alec had been declaring. Not love, at any rate. She felt her heart squeeze with painful doubts. Alec felt something for her, but was it any more than he'd felt last week for the young woman he'd been dallying with? Even if it was more, what difference did it make? The same ugly scandal still cast its shadow over them both. It was a long shadow. Far longer, she suspected, than any fleeting desire Alec might feel for her.

Delia took a deep, shuddering breath. It was all rather hopeless. “I think whatever he may feel for me will not withstand the
ton
's contempt.”

Lily's hopeful face came crashing down at this. “But if you are not sure of his regard, then how could you—”

“Fall in love with him? Kiss him in the garden?” Delia smiled sadly. “As you say, Lily, I've never been very practical, for if I were, I would have chosen love with my head, not my heart.”

“That sounds like something Mother would say. You're
very much like her, you know, Delia. Mother was a romantic, all the way down to her soul, just as you are.”

“Oh, yes, I'm very romantic, and a great fool as well. At least Mother had the sense not to fall in love with an aristocrat. I think she'd be quite ashamed of me. Just think of the risk Mother took to escape Hart Sutherland, Lily, only to have me fall in love with his son.”

Lily's brow wrinkled in confusion. “Well, Lord Carlisle is nothing like his father, is he?”

Delia shook her head. “No. I don't know much about the previous earl, but what little I have heard isn't to his credit. I believe he was quite cold and unfeeling. Still, Alec is one of the
ton
, and that's bad enough.”

Lily still looked confused. “Are you suggesting Mother would have disapproved of a
tendre
between you simply because Lord Carlisle is an aristocrat? What nonsense, Delia! She'd have done no such thing.”

Delia stared at her sister in astonishment. “Of course she would, Lily. Why, you just said yourself the
ton
is wicked.”

Lily gave a little sniff. “You know better than to listen to me when I'm angry, and you just vigorously defended Lord Carlisle, if you remember. You said he's an honorable man. Your word is good enough for me, and it would have been good enough for Mother, too.”

Delia shrugged. She didn't want to argue with Lily, so she held her tongue.

“You speak as if wickedness were the exclusive prerogative of the
ton
,” Lily went on. “The upper ten thousand fancy themselves very exclusive, I know, but they're obliged to share their wickedness with the rest of England. Do you remember old Mrs. Aspley?” she asked suddenly.

“Mrs. Aspley? You mean the old lady who used to throw crab apples at us?”

Lily laughed at the memory. “Oh, my goodness, yes! What an old witch she was, to be sure. I remember being
pelted with crab apples from that twisted tree of hers whenever we dared to approach her door. I always thought she looked just like that tree, with her gnarled limbs.”

“Lily! That's not kind.”

“Well, neither was Mrs. Aspley! That is precisely my point, Delia. I used to hate it when Mother sent us over to her house. I swear Mrs. Aspley kept a supply of crab apples in a tub by the door, just so she could throw them at virtuous young ladies.”

Delia frowned. “Lily, why are we discussing old lady Aspley?”

“Why, only this,” Lily said, as if it were obvious. “Mrs. Aspley was poor as a church mouse, and as far removed from the
ton
as a person could possibly get, and she was a wicked old thing. You can't deny it, Delia.”

“No, I suppose not.” Delia admitted, still not convinced.

“Do you think Charlotte and Eleanor are wicked? Robyn? Lady Carlisle?”

“No,” Delia said, then again with more conviction, “No, of course I don't, Lily.” She paused for a moment, remembering something Alec had said to her a few days ago. “People are either magnificent or appalling. I suppose that's true regardless of their station in life.”

“Magnificent or appalling, every shade in between, and sometimes both at once. Well, then,” Lily continued with a satisfied air. “You know, Delia, many people judged Father harshly because he
wasn't
an aristocrat. Do you really think Mother would have judged Lord Carlisle harshly because he
is
one?”

Delia shook her head. She'd never thought of it that way.

“No,” Lily said. “She ran from a marriage to Hart Sutherland because he wasn't a good man. She didn't love him. That was the only reason. Well, that, and because she was madly in love with Father.” Lily was quiet for a moment; then she added in a subdued voice, “I miss them horribly.”

“I know.” Delia gave her sister's hand a gentle squeeze. “I do, too.”

They were silent for a little while, each lost in her own memories.

“You look tired, Lily,” Delia said finally. “I can scarcely keep my eyes open, either. I'm off early tomorrow morning to Surrey, but I'll come see you before I leave, to say good-bye to you and Charlotte and Ellie.”

Lily nodded. “You'll travel in one of the Sutherlands' carriages?”

“Yes, as far as Guildford. Hannah will meet me there. James will ride along, too. Eleanor would not hear of me going without him.”

“Well, I'm glad of that.” Lily rose to leave, but before she passed through the connecting door, she stopped and turned to her sister. “Delia? I'm not ashamed of you. I never could be. You know that, don't you?”

Delia swallowed the sudden lump in her throat. “I do know it, but I adore you for saying so anyway.”

“You'll be all right?” Lily still hesitated at the door.

“I will be. I promise. I'm sure I'll feel much better as soon as I get home.”

Was she trying to reassure Lily, or herself?

“All right.” Lily didn't look convinced. “Good night.” She passed into her own room and pulled the door closed behind her.

Delia sat on the bed for a long time after Lily left, thinking; then she got up, removed Eleanor's lovely sky blue gown, and laid it carefully aside. She washed her face, changed into her night rail, and slipped between the cool, soft sheets, but her eyes stayed stubbornly open, her thoughts in turmoil.

What a muddle she'd made of everything. Since the moment she'd crossed the threshold of Bellwood, she'd behaved like one of those hardened gamesters in the scandal sheets,
who make one foolish bet after another until they lose everything.

Perhaps Lily wasn't ashamed of her, but she was ashamed of herself.

She frowned a little in the dark, thinking of old Mrs. Aspley and her crab apples. It wasn't the story that struck her; it was what Lily said about their mother having a romantic soul. Delia had always thought her mother so courageous to abandon her privileged life in the
ton
, but it wasn't about bravery. Not really.

As soon as Alec's lips met hers tonight, as soon his arms closed around her and she felt his hair against her fingers, she no longer had a choice. There'd been nothing else for her to do but twine her arms around his neck and hold him against her heart.

She hadn't understood it before, but now she knew it had been the same for her mother, who hadn't been running
away
from something—not Hart Sutherland, or the Chases, or even the
ton
. Millicent had been running
to
something. To someone. To Henry Somerset. It had never been about anything but love, a love for which her mother had risked everything.