Caprice: The Masqueraders Series - Book One (33 page)

Clarissa shut her eyes as a moan of delicious agony issued softly through her parted lips. Locked in his embrace, experiencing the wicked push-pull of the ancient rhythm of love, she could not catch her breath. Completely vulnerable to him in this most sensitive and intimate way, she could not long keep back the small cries of pleasure that came to her lips. But he was not nearly finished.

Without releasing her mouth, he again lifted her away from the wall and carried her to the bed. He lowered her onto the counterpane and then rose up away from her, breaking their contact. She watched him in silent wonder as he quickly stripped off his cravat and then unbuttoned his waistcoat so that he could shrug out of it and his tailcoat at the same time. When he paused to smile down at her, she rose to her feet and began to unbutton his shirt.

The tiny buttons resisted her trembling fingers, but he stood as still and silent as a statue until she had worked them free. Against the stark whiteness of his shirtfront, his throat appeared very tan. The impulsive desire to reach through the opening and touch the crisp dark hair peeping over the top of the placket was so strong that she did not resist it.

Hadrian sucked in a quick breath as her cool fingers tangled in his chest hair. After a moment, her caresses grew bolder. She slipped a hand inside to find and rim one smooth warm masculine nipple, and his belly quivered. As she quested the shape of his masculine contours, he recalled how she had once before held his aroused flesh in her small hands and the knot of desire tightened.

Clarissa withdrew her hand after a moment. In the moonlight she saw his pulse beating quickly at the base of his throat. Gazing up into his harshly handsome face, she knew that there was something she needed to tell him, before circumstance altered its context.

“I love you.”

Hadrian stared at the mysterious, confounding, beguiling woman before him. For months he had been aware of her in one guise or another, denying the potency of her attraction yet circling, teasing, sparring with her; unable to believe that something as natural and necessary as love could begin from the primitive feelings she aroused in him. He had managed to remain alive these last years of his life by trusting only himself. Emotions, even passion, had value only insofar as they could be used to gain his objective. Distrust was second nature to him, mystery a challenge to be solved. But somewhere in the midst of solving the mystery of Princess Soltana, he had fallen honestly and completely in love.

He held out his hand to her. “Come here.”

His lips were hard with desire, his touch ungentle, but Clarissa did not care. She felt, as he did, the hammering, clamoring craving to become part of each other and, in doing so, to obliterate the finite edges of their separate bodies in the binding need to become one.

His hands were at her back, freeing her laces, and then she heard the whispering of silk as her frock slid off her shoulders and down past her hips. The night air touched her skin. Oh, but she was warm, and warmer still where he touched her. His mouth found one breast as his hand lifted its full weight to the pleasuring heat of his lips and tongue. Her hands found his breeches buttons, working them with more assurance. And then his hard, lightly haired belly was caressing hers. His muscular thighs spread to pull her in tight so that she could not doubt how badly in need was his body of hers.

They spoke no words when he tipped her backward onto the bed, following her down with his weight balanced on his elbows and knees. None seemed needed. Hands and mouths, bodies surging together, eager to possess and be possessed, pressing and touching, straining and thrusting with a need long denied; they sought all the answers they needed on the expanse of the bed beneath them.

Finally he lifted her, cradling her hips in his hands as he found the home he sought. As he slipped into her willing wet warmth, an inarticulate cry escaped her, and the soft yielding body beneath his suddenly went rigid as she dug her fingers into his arms.

“Clarissa?”

“Shh!”
She pressed a finger to his lips. She did not want his words to disturb the precious perfection of the moment she had been waiting for without realizing it since the moment she met him.

The heat was now all inside her. He was there, a throbbing living thing of incredible flesh and power. If he moved, she felt she would burst into flame.

But Hadrian could not long remain still. When he could not contain that pounding desire to thrust into her, he began sliding away from her, only to hear a dragged cry very much like pain.

“Shh,
Bahia.
’Tis only pleasure!” he whispered by her ear.

“Too much! Too much!” she answered in panicky gasps.

“Nay, darling. Never too much. You are meant for this. Your body seeks it. Lie still and let me pleasure you.”

But he wondered if he could. The slightest movement on his part sent such great shudders through her body that his own trembled in response. She was so tight and he was in so deep. Where there was usually room for pleasant friction, this time there was only this incredible, nearly intolerable sensation of being sheathed in an exquisite fit.

He bent and kissed her hard, seeking to draw her attention away from the motion of their lower bodies. He sucked hard on her lower lip, nibbling it with his teeth, hoping that she would respond in kind.

After a few seconds she did. Her mouth blossomed under his, her tongue becoming a sinuous agent of ecstasy. Smiling, he opened his mouth to her tongue thrusts, lightly sucking and licking at her until he felt her begin to move intuitively beneath him.

Yes,
he thought in gratitude.
Take your pleasure,
Bahia.
Take what you need from me. My body is yours. Use it. As much as you need. Every inch is yours. Made for your pleasure. Forget the past. It cannot touch us now. There is only you and me, and this. Find the rhythm you need. Use me up, but quickly! I would deny you nothing!

She drew deep voluptuous sighs from him and later deeper groans. In the final moments her voice rang out over his as their bodies reached shattering consummation. If the ceiling had fallen on them in that moment, they would neither have known, nor cared.

Clarissa reawakened to reality slowly. Lying by Hadrian’s side, her fingers interlaced with his, she stared into the darkness, dazed by the revelations of the past minutes. The first time they had shared their bodies, she had not known such sensation was possible. Now she knew that these intense feelings of tenderness and protectiveness and this overwhelming vulnerability to another were a part of love, and of loving this man. If in those final moments of passion he had asked her to turn herself inside out for him, she would not have hesitated to try.

She had never felt as close to any other being. This love, this deep-swelling desire to hold the man lying next to her, remained long after the shattering, shuddering fulfillment subsided. And she knew that she would never be the same, would be forever wounded, if by any means they were to part. As if he might rise and leave her, she turned onto her side beside him and flung an arm across his chest.

“Now that
that
is established,” he said with great satisfaction.

“Now that what is established?” she asked as she rested her cheek on his shoulder.

“That we belong together, like this.” He moved to turn onto his side toward her. Bracing himself on an elbow, he reached out to enclose her hip, his palm searing her naked skin as he pulled her toward him. When they were touching from shoulder to knee, his surprisingly resilient manhood already swelling, his lips found and parted hers.

Renewed waves of pleasure rippled through Clarissa. She hugged him about the waist to draw him down on her as she leaned back on the bed.

“Soltana?”

Neither of them had heard the door open, but the sound of a lady’s voice inside the door froze them with shock.

“Soltana? ’Tis Aunt Heloise. Are you asleep?”

“Aunt Heloise!”

Heloise stepped inside and shut the door. “Were you asleep? I’m sorry to awaken you, but the most extraordinary thing has occurred. Just let me—”

“No!” Clarissa sat up in bed as the moonlight spilling across the middle portion of the room revealed that her aunt was about to light a candle. As Hadrian drew back into the far shadows of the bed hangings at the head, Clarissa scrambled across to the foot. “Please don’t light a candle. I’ve a terrible headache.”

Heloise turned toward her niece, who looked like a pale shadow amid the gathered gloom of night. “Why didn’t you tell me you were ill? We might have made our excuses together and I’d have been saved the trouble … No, fiddle! The most vexing thing has occurred.”

The ominous tone alarmed Clarissa. “What is it? Has something happened to Emory?”

“Mr. Blackburne? Tis Lord Ramsbury who shall be most affected. Servants are searching for him. I hope he does not turn up in Lady Kennan’s bed. She’s been paying him particular attention all week, but I’d rather expected he would seek out your bed.”

“Auntie!” Clarissa felt the bed mattress shake with Hadrian’s silent laughter, which made her indignation more difficult to maintain.

Heloise canted her head to one side, puzzled by the number of shadows moving on the wall behind Clarissa. “You may think my morals exceptional, niece, but I will say it again. You should fix that young man’s affections at once. Then when he’s in a more receptive mood you may explain your harmless tangle.”

“Excellent advice!” came the strangely deep reply.

“Clarie? Was that you?”

Clarissa coughed into the palm of one hand. “Frog in my throat,” she whispered, then nearly shrieked when a warm tongue suddenly traced the arch of the bare foot she had stretched out behind her.

“You sound most peculiar. Perhaps you are sickening.” Heloise took another step toward the bed, forcing Clarissa to intercept her by sliding off the mattress onto the floor before her.
“Bismillah!
You’re naked, child.”

“I was too warm,” she said defensively and reached out to pull the bed curtain before her. “Hadn’t you better return below?”

“I suppose you’re right. I shall explain to the earl that you are ill but it may not prevent him for wishing to search here.”

“Whatever are you talking about, dear Aunt?” Clarissa asked impatiently, for—incredibly—Hadrian had come up behind her in the darkness and cupped one of her buttocks.

Heloise frowned. “Didn’t I tell you? Lady Bloomsby’s brooch has been taken. Doubtless Lord Ramsbury will not rest until he has spoken to every guest.” She peered at her niece, who seemed to be dancing on tiptoe behind the curtain. “Are you certain you are well?”

“I’m perfectly fine,” Clarissa managed between gritted teeth. Hadrian was pressing his body to hers in unmistakable meaning. “Now please—ah! Leave me to my dressing.”

“At least I know
you
did not take it,” Hadrian said softly behind Clarissa after her aunt shut the door.

“That is not amusing, my lord.” She danced away from him, swatting at the hands that reached out to draw her back. “We must dress. You heard my aunt. There’s been another theft under your roof.”

Hadrian watched her cross the room, moonlight playing over every delicious inch of her naked body, and the desire he had thought under control reared dangerously. “Come back to bed. A moment only.”

She shook her head and she reached for the first of her petticoats. “A moment won’t be nearly enough, and you know it. Anything else, and the entire house shall be searched in want of you.”

“Damn the household!” He crossed to her in long strides and caught her from behind. “Then let me come back.” He pushed suggestively at her squirming hips. “Say yes!”

She turned within his embrace and looped her arms about his shoulders. “I love you. Now get dressed, Hadrian.”

“Termagant!” he whispered.

They dressed quickly in the moonlight. Clarissa chose a simple gown from the armoire instead of her ball frock. Hadrian stuffed his shirt into his waistband and breeches into his boots and then slipped on his coat.

“They will suspect something unusual has occurred,” she said in misgiving as she looked at his disheveled attire.

“They will damn well know it!” he enjoined. “Doubtless the morning’s gossip will link several lucky ladies’ names with mine.”

“You sound delighted by the prospect.”

He grinned at her. “I never underestimate myself.” He motioned to her. “Go to the door. If the hall is empty, signal to me.”

Clarissa did as he asked, smiling all the while. “This is prodigious fun!” she exclaimed when she had peeked out and found no one in the hall.

“You are too eager for intrigue, madam. I can’t wait to get you safely under my protection.” He kissed her hard and then slipped out into the hall.

Princess Soltana appeared below shortly thereafter. She slipped quietly into the back of the room and was glad when no one seemed to notice. Not, it seemed, that the company would have remarked anything less startling than a company of mounted cavalry riding into Wolfscote’s ballroom at full charge. The room was in pandemonium, with gentlemen addressing one another heatedly while ladies cried or exchanged resentful and accusing glares.

In the center of the storm stood Hadrian, looking utterly relaxed and pleased with himself. If this was how he always responded to the possibility of scandal and strife, she decided, it was no wonder that he had made so competent an agent.

“It must be clear to all that there is a thief among us!” one of the older gentlemen cried when the level of noise suddenly dropped.

His statement brought the room to a halt as all gazes swung unerringly toward their host.

Hadrian stepped forward to the center of the room, his expression resolute but not especially grave. “My friends, please!” He held up a hand for silence and received it. “Remember only a day ago Lady Norman thought she had lost a diamond ring only to find it in her portmanteau this morning. Now a brooch has gone astray. I shall need your cooperation to recover it. In the meantime, let us not say or do anything that might later cause any among us regret or embarrassment. With a little vigilance on your part, I’m certain we can solve the mystery.”

He walked over to the weeping lady in royal blue who was being supported by her husband. Taking her hand in his, he patted it. “Now then, Lady Bloomsby, would you care to describe for the company the piece that has gone wanting?”

“It’s priceless! Irreplaceable!” the lady shrieked.

“All the more reason to find it.” Hadrian smiled kindly at her. “A description, my lady?”

“It is a moonstone cameo surrounded by rubies; the likeness carved thereon is that of her ladyship’s Elizabethan ancestor,” supplied her husband. “The detail of collar ruff and gown cannot be mistaken.”

“Thank you, Lord Bloomsby.” Hadrian again patted the distressed lady’s hand before releasing it.

All gazes still upon him, he strolled over to a nearby piano and rested an elbow on the top. “There you have it. A singular piece. Unlikely to be long overlooked. Perhaps the latch failed and it dropped off to be caught in the hem of a lady’s frock. Or perhaps it has been unknowingly kicked into a corner or under a piece of furniture. Whatever the answer, I’m certain it shall turn up by morning.” He tapped the piano lid. “When it does, no questions will be asked. Now good night, ladies and gentlemen.”

Hadrian did not get away so easily, however. Many things had been said in the heat of the moment. At least two gentlemen had gone from a discussion of the missing jewel to a remembrance of a previous personal slight, to threats of challenge and satisfaction.

Fascinated, Clarissa watched as he quickly cajoled the blustering pair into smiling and shaking hands. How well he handled people. Whatever he chose to do in the future, she knew he would be a success. Only when the bulk of the guests had departed did she realize that her continuing presence might cause a few, more pointed, glances to be sent her way. She looked around for her aunt but, failing to find her among the last guests, turned back to the main hall.

Hadrian caught up with her just as she was mounting the first step.

“Princess Soltana,” he called softly and came quickly up to her. “Allow me,” he said and offered his arm.

“I think you handled it very well,” Clarissa said as he joined her, resisting the fingers sliding up her arm.

“I wish more could be done beyond suggesting that the damn piece may turn up with the morning’s light,” Hadrian muttered.

“You did more than suggest,” she reminded him. “You hinted that the brooch might turn up in or on the pianoforte.”

“I suppose I did.” He smiled. “Yet I fear half of them were too drunk to heed the hint, while the rest were too incensed by the implication to be of use. ’Tis a ticklish business, implying that the
ton
shelters a thief. Yet I began to suspect as much in London weeks ago.”

She turned to him at the first landing. “You did?” And then she read the truth in his rueful expression. “You thought it was
I
!”

“I thought it might well be Princess Soltana. You were present at nearly every party where a jewel disappeared.”

Clarissa simply stared at him, not out of anger that he could consider her a thief but because she had also once passingly given consideration to the idea that
he
might be the thief. “Now you’re convinced otherwise?”

He gave her a look that stirred the fine hairs along her spine. “We were very much within each other’s view when the piece disappeared. I think that exonerates you.”

“Yet if I had not been?”

He shrugged. “I confess that I would still be wondering.”

She stared into his face for several more seconds. “At least you are honest.” She turned away.

When he followed her, she turned back and quickly extended her hand. “Good night, my lord.”

He accepted the formal expression of cordiality with a secret smile. “I was hoping for a more personal
adieu.”

She looked away from him, for when his eyes blazed with secret fires she could not think. “You have just admitted that until one short hour ago, you thought me fully capable of thievery.”

He stepped up close to her, uncaring that they might be seen from the hallway below. “Marry me.”

Clarissa raised her brows. “You cannot seriously wish to marry me, my lord. You do not even know who I really am.”

“I know enough,” he answered and pulled her back into the corner where the stairwell curved out of sight of those below. Brushing aside her veil, he bent his head to hers.

His kiss left her with very few defenses, but she managed after a moment to push him away.

“So
when
will you marry me?” he challenged.

“How conceited you are!” she said with a shaky laugh. “How smug, so certain! What if I tell you there are still mysteries to be resolved, things you don’t know about me?”

“I do not care.”

She reached out to cover his mouth with her palm. “Don’t say that! We mustn’t challenge our luck.”

“The last four years of my life have been nothing but a challenge,” he said when he had lifted her hand away. “I don’t fear the future. Neither should you. Now go up to bed, darling, before I cannot resist following you.” He gave her a little push. “You must be fresh for our morning ride.”

She shook her head. “Oh, no. Mrs. Willoughby and Princess Soltana are going to sleep late!”

Once Clarissa had again removed her disguise, she decided that she could not go to sleep without first telling her aunt her news. After all, a proposal from an earl was not an everyday occurrence. And she had accepted him. Well, he knew she would.

She waited until she was certain that the house was quiet, and then she slipped out of her room with a candle. She had discovered the quickest method to go from Soltana’s room to her aunt’s was via the servants’ hall at the back of the house. She met a sleepy footman in the passage, who bowed deferentially but was not alarmed. When she reached the hallway on the far side of the house and saw a light coming from beneath her aunt’s door, she could contain her excitement no longer and burst in.

“Guess what, Aunt Heloise! Lord Ramsbury has asked
me
—Clarissa—to marry him!”

Dressed in her bedgown and her curls kerchiefed for the night, Heloise sat at her vanity. She turned slowly at the sound of her niece’s voice. “A proposal,” she said. “That is nice, dear.”