Counterfeit Countess (21 page)

She couldn’t wait for the evening to end. Her first social occasion as countess ended in depressing anti-climax as she collected her wrap and hat and waited at John’s side for the carriage.

They didn’t speak, but he reached for her hand and clasped it warmly.

At home, she allowed Turvey to disrobe her in silence. Even Robinson’s usual ebullience seemed lacking, but perhaps it was the, to her, late hour. Dressed in her nightclothes and wrapper she sat at the dressing table to allow Turvey to brush out her hair, and saw the connecting door move.

John was still fully clothed. “I have an errand.” He bent over her and kissed her cheek. “You must be tired. Go to bed without me.”

So she didn’t even have the comfort of his arms, although she settled in the bed in his room, as she’d become accustomed to doing. She didn’t cry herself to sleep, but her sense of failure rested on her, a heavy weight on her chest.

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She awoke when he got into bed with her, and though he murmured “Go back to sleep,” she turned around into his arms. It occurred to her that she would find great difficulty sleeping without him, although they had only slipped into the practice in the last two weeks.

“I should have slept in my own bed,” she murmured, her cheek nestled against his bare arm. She’d wanted his scent around her to soothe her to slumber but it hadn’t worked very well. The events of the evening spun around her head. However much she’d tried not to think of them, they returned to plague her.

“I’d have joined you if you had.” He kissed the top of her head and glanced down at her face. The room should have been dark, but someone had left one of the shutters over the window open.

Moonlight filtered through so she could see his features dimly delineated in silvery light. Tilting her chin up with a gentle touch of his fingers, he grazed her lips with his and they shared a long, sweet kiss. Faith loved the way he did that, as if he savoured every moment of it.

It went some way to smoothing her ruffled feathers. Here in this bed only they existed. Nothing else mattered. His strokes soothed, but they aroused as well and she felt the familiar dampness gather at the apex of her thighs.

He broke the kiss, breathing a little heavier than before. He framed her face with his hands, studied it as if he’d never seen her before. “Perhaps you’re better leaving town for a while.”

Alarm streaked through her. “Why? What’s happened? Is it about tonight?” The anxiety that had clawed at her ever since the ball increased in strength, her stomach twisting into knots. “They hate me, don’t they? Do they know we’re not married?”

He sighed. “Were it merely that I’d remedy it tomorrow, despite your misgivings. I’ve only given you time because you asked for it, but now, I fear you’d be better off without me.”

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“What are you talking about?” She was the liability, not him.

“Did they find out I’m the widow of a mere lieutenant?” Her heart plummeted. They’d rejected her, not him.

“No. They can ask and I will tell them. You noticed the people moving away from us tonight?”

Bitterness clogged her throat. Not quite her nightmare, but close enough. “Yes, I did.”

He glanced down at their bodies, so closely pressed against each other, only her night rail between them, then back at her face. “I went to the clubs and conversed with men I can trust. Men I served alongside.” He stroked her cheek, his palm cupping it warmly. “The reason for our treatment this evening is not what you’re imagining.

They’re saying I killed the two brothers in order to inherit the title.

That rumour has flourished and prospered.”

Pulling away, she sat up, staring at him in horror. “What? How dare they?”

He watched her, his features clear of expression. “We sailed on the same ship. Society doesn’t know me; I was always the poor relation as far as the sticklers were concerned. That’s only fostered the rumours, that I’m an outsider and, they think, one with barely a modest fortune. What concerns me is the rumours are remarkably accurate.”

She caught her breath. “In what way?” In her heart, she had no doubt John didn’t have anything to do with the brothers’ deaths, but what else was there?

His eyes hardened. “The details. They know how exactly it happened. That I was safely secured and they were not. That they weren’t dressed appropriately. That Stephen died trying to save Vivian.”

No, she wouldn’t believe it. He was leading her to believe the rumours were true, and she knew they weren’t. “You couldn’t help.”

“And you believe that?”

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Any hesitation and he’d take it as a negative response. “Yes, of course I do.” She didn’t need to pause, she knew the truth. Either that, or her entire moral compass had gone awry. She lifted her hand and curled it around his powerful upper arm. His muscle flexed under her palm but he didn’t throw her off. “I know you. I watched you lead your men through years of the worst conditions anyone could imagine, and you never lost your integrity and your beliefs in what was right. Why would you kill two men you barely knew?”

“Because they treated me as a steward-in-training for much of my childhood?”

“You walked away from that. You didn’t need it. And you’re wealthy.”

“You only have my word for that.”

“And the word of your shipping agent,” she reminded him. “But I didn’t need it. I believe you.”

He gave a harsh laugh. “More fool you. You could be in bed with a murderer.”

She moved closer, felt him tense, but he didn’t move away.

“You’ve killed people, as most soldiers have, but never by murdering them.”

He said nothing for a few moments, then let out another great sigh. “I should send you away. Keep you safe. You shouldn’t have to face this.”

“Absolutely not.” All at once, her idea of leaving seemed ridiculous, foolish. She couldn’t go, not on account of this new crisis, but because she’d never leave him behind. Never forget him.

She’d tried before and it hadn’t worked.

“You can go to the country. I have business there you could undertake.”

She shook her head, her curls clinging to the pillow. Somehow she’d lost her nightcap, and her hair was free. He usually pushed the cap off, although Turvey furnished her with a fresh one every night.

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She should tell the maid not to bother. “We can both go to the country when the season is done. We can’t retreat, John.”

“We’ve done it before. Not all campaigns are straightforward.”

Her hold on his arm tightened. “You’re not giving up, then.”

“God, no!” Finally he moved, reached for her and thankfully she went, tangled her legs with his, curled into him, his warmth surrounding her. Instantly she felt so much better, protected, cared for, things she’d never experienced in her life before. With John, every day was an adventure, but one they shared, and more often, experienced apart. “I can’t give up. I don’t know how. But I don’t want to take you with me.” He paused and she listened, unsure what he meant to say. “Down with me, I mean, if the worst happens.”

“The worst?”

“I could be arraigned for murder.”

The words dropped fatefully into the silence. “So my leaving you would help prove your innocence? I don’t think so, John. If you send me away, I’ll move to my old house and visit every day. I won’t let you push me out. I believe what you told me, and I will not go.

John, I waited for you.” Bearing his name meant she had the reminder of him every day. She’d never forgotten him. “I spent two years living off an income I wasn’t entitled to.”

“Shhh.” He pressed a kiss to her temple. “I’m glad you did.

Without that, you might not be here.”

“I’m staying. Don’t think about asking me again. We face it together.”

When she lifted her chin to meet his gaze, she met his lips instead. He kissed her, opening her mouth with a flick of his tongue to explore her with a luscious thoroughness she knew she’d never get enough of. Eagerly she responded, increasing her grip on him, uncaring if she left a mark or not.

He lifted himself over her as she opened her legs to accommodate him. The way he settled between, his shaft, already
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hardening, hot against her stomach, made her squirm. “I want you,”

she whispered, the words for him alone.

“Me too.” He kissed her again, while his hands slid up her body, taking her nightdress with them. He broke the kiss long enough for her to lift her arms so he could tug the garment over her head and discard it. “Without this, I’d be bereft.” He gazed down at her.

Beyond reticence with him, she moved her shoulders, to display her breasts to him.

Avid desire filled his gaze. “So lovely. All this beauty a few tents away from my own.”

“I wasn’t always lucky enough to have a tent.”

He groaned. “I’d have made certain you always had somewhere comfortable to lay your head at night. Even if I had to become your mattress.”

She believed him. As she watched, he visibly relaxed, the taut lines around his mouth relaxing, his lips turning up slightly at the corners. One part of him was anything but relaxed, though. It nudged her when he moved to stroke her, supporting himself on one arm, the muscles bulging in mouth-watering perfection.

She curled her arm around his neck and drew him down for another kiss, letting her body say the things she couldn’t. Didn’t know how to. In her life she’d never tried to articulate the emotions coursing through her. Even desire had never felt so insistent, so raw before. He took her with an expertise that told of his observation of what she liked and his willingness to give it to her.

When their lips parted, he shifted on to his knees, never taking his avid gaze from hers, while he took his cock in his hand and pumped it. The head strained dark purplish-red, the shaft flushed with colour, hard. She couldn’t take her attention away from it, watched the bead of liquid emerge from the tip and reached out to claim it as her own. He let his hand fall away, gave her control.

“You’re so handsome,” she murmured. “I had no idea, although I thought I did. I used to dream—“ Startled, she broke off and her
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stare flipped to his face.

“Thank you,” was all he said, but his tongue flicked over his lower lip, and she wanted it again. “I don’t want you to change. I never want you to look at me as if you didn’t care, or worse, as if you despised me.”

“I’ll never do that.” She couldn’t be more sure. “I swear it.”

He shook his head slightly, as if he found it difficult to believe.

“The best part of this was coming home and finding you here. A ready-made wife. I couldn’t have chosen better.”

It meant so much to her that he didn’t resent what she did. He had every right to. Her guilt had been so overwhelming when he’d come home that she’d have done anything to amend for it. Now she’d do anything, with no reason except she couldn’t bear to see him hurt or in trouble. Another woman might have resented the necessity, but not once she’d seen him. Then she had to consider herself lucky.

“Make love to me, John,” she said. “Fuck me.” She’d never used that kind of language in the bedroom before, not thought it attractive. Now, with him gazing at her like he wanted to devour her, preparing his erection so he could enter her, she appreciated the physical side of marriage as never before. She’d always imagined the mental part, the partnership, practical surviving the important part, but now she couldn’t think of anything more urgent or imperative. She wanted the physical, longed to see his need for her body as hers for him.

Curving her legs around his, her arm around his neck, she drew him down. His cock only needed a little guidance, and then, poised at her entrance, it pierced her and she cried his name when he slid deep. He kept his penetration slow and sure, so they could both experience every bit of his entry completely. Every fraction of an inch. When he grazed the spot inside her that held the key to her sensuality, she concentrated and knew when he touched it. The responding shivers racked her, and Faith closed her eyes to
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experience it better.

“So good,” he whispered, his voice holding awe. “So wonderful.

The way you take me, I could stay here forever.”

She chuckled, low in her throat. “No you couldn’t, though we could try. Maybe this summer?”

The last vestige of her resolve to sneak away disappeared then and there. How could she run from this man? She couldn’t leave him. She needed him, to know he was happy. He’d made it as clear as possible he wanted her by his side, so she had no choice but to stay there. When she wasn’t under him, taking him deep into her body, hearing his groan as he pulled out and pushed back in. She opened her eyes, smiled at him.

He kept his movements slow. No hurry and he adjusted his position a little, lifting on to his elbows so he could watch her face as he fucked her. No, no he was making love, she was sure. Every touch he gave her was a caress. She loved when he lifted one hand to cup and stroke her breast, then bent to take it into his mouth. He licked around her nipple, sucking in time with his thrusts.

Her back arched, thrusting her nipple into his greedy mouth.

She responded to his urgent drives by bracing her hips and backside against the mattress. That provided resistance so he could plunge deep, and deeper still.

She drew her nails down his back, not enough to pierce the skin, but to stimulate him. The action gave her some relief from the tension building inside her, readying her for the inevitable. Her culmination, the moment when everything stopped before the rush of emotion and sensation that froze every nerve, forced her to cry his name.

Her channel clenched around his shaft, repeated the motion in a series of ripples, and he lifted his head from her nipple, choked her name and—pulled out of her. His seed gushed over her belly.

He hadn’t done that since he’d brought her to this house and his action devastated her.

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