Dreaming (36 page)

She slipped back inside, picked up a candle, and left the bedchamber. Within minutes she was softly padding down a long corridor at the northern end of the house. Once in that hallway she could follow the distant sound of the pianoforte.

The hallway ended at a set of polished rosewood doors. Though the music had drawn her here, now she stopped before those doors and felt a moment’s hesitation. She wasn’t home, where she could roam from room to room freely.

But so entrancing was the sound from behind those massive doors, she knew she could no more turn away than she could stop breathing. With her hand on the door handle and her eyes closed, she let the music carry her.

The piece ended. She stopped the swaying of her head and opened her eyes. She found herself standing in the open doorway.

A second later came a concerto, played softly at first, then it grew and swelled into the room. She didn’t move, just stared at the broad back of the man playing with such power and beauty.

It was Richard at the pianoforte.

A dark blue coat and white cravat were flung on the marble floor, leaving him in a white shirt. From atop the piano a candelabrum glimmered next to a crystal decanter, and the fabric of his silk shirt caught the light reflected from the flames and facets of crystal, shimmering when his hands moved fluidly over the keys.

She stepped inside as the second movement ended. With only a breath of a pause, the music began again, new and quiet at first, then building and building, until the notes grew into a powerfully dark crescendo that made the air vibrate.

She stood back a bit, watching him. His intensity was breath-catching. Richard was bent over the piano as if the music was a physical part of him. He seemed lost in it, in the sound and notes and the mastery of what his touch brought from that one small instrument.

Across his back, the candlelight flickered like blinking stars and made his shadowed silhouette dance over the floor. The music had changed again. It was dark and mournful, and she felt as if it were calling out to what was inside her heart.

The music stopped as suddenly as it had started His back and shoulders grew tense and tight. He sat a little straighter, then reached for the half-empty liquor decanter and poured a glass, drinking it down in one long swig.

He set the glass down, then began to play a light little tune. “How long have you been standing there, hellion?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s late.”

“I couldn’t sleep.” When he didn’t reply, she added, “The concerto was lovely.”

“Ah. So that’s how long you’ve been there.”

“I didn’t know you played.”

“Just one of many things you don’t know about me.” He stopped playing suddenly, hitting hard on the final chord. And he poured another drink, then spun around on the bench and leaned back languidly, resting his elbows on the keys with a discordant screech of
misnotes
.

Her gave her a mock salute, then threw back another glass, closing his eyes and raising his chin as if he was savoring the burn of liquor down his throat.

He lowered his head and opened his eyes, pinning her with a dark stare that traveled insolently down her person, stopping with purpose and a wicked smile on the parts that were most private to her.

Her blood rushed to her neck and cheeks.

He laughed and poured another drink.

She flushed with embarrassment first, then guilt and confusion, unaware that what she was feeling was not something she could control.

He lifted the glass to her. “Since you are so
hellbent
on destroying yourself, come. Have a little destruction.”

She shook her head.

He stared into the glass.

The air swelled with words neither of them could nor would speak, then grew cold in the silence.

He twirled the glass, seemingly fascinated by the liquid within it. “I warned you.”

“Warned me?”

“I told you to stay away.”

“I tried.”

He slowly raised his head. His face told her nothing.

In one long, lithe motion he rose and walked toward her. There was a hint of purpose in the way he moved. She wanted to run as she watched him close the distance between them.

But she knew it didn’t matter. She could run to the far ends of the earth and he would still be with her, in her heart, in her memory, in her being. And when she looked into the face of the man she had dreamed of for so long, she wasn’t certain if she wanted to run away from him or to him.

His hand was the first thing she felt. It slid behind her neck, cupped her head, and pulled her face close to his. She could smell the wine and brandy, but she caught his scent, the one she remembered from her first ball: the scent of sandalwood. This time there was no clean scent of rain.

And there was no dream hero. Only the man.

What she felt for him was more powerful than a dream of love. A frightening feeling. No mind could imagine the power that she felt, nor the confusion of it.

The intensity of his look was as hot and blinding as if she had stared into the full sun. He held her with more than his hand. He held her with his mind, with his look, with something that was so necessary to her being that what passed between them at that moment was almost magical.

But not magical like a fairy tale, with clouds and pretty endings tied up in soft silken ribbons. The magic was black and dark, and so very powerful that she felt in it her very morality.

The air around them vibrated with that magic as it had with the power of the music. His hand on her cheek made the skin on her arms break out in goose-flesh. Her breath came in small wispy pants, and her heart drummed loudly in her ears.

Slowly he turned her and they stepped back, one step, then another, and another. His touch was both her damnation and her salvation. Like swallowing the brightest star in the heavens. Once it’s halfway down, you cannot stop even should you want to.

“Richard . . . ”

His mouth was close, so very close, his look lazy and expectant. His hands stroked the sensitive skin of her neck and ears with sensual expertise.

She wanted his kiss as badly as she had wished for that star to be in the sky. His lips moved softly, whispered across her brow. Her eyes drifted closed.

His thumbs stroked the skin behind her ears while his hands held her head at the angle he desired. It seemed a lifetime before his mouth brushed hers. Just brushed hers, softly, like a whisper of love.

She moaned, then took a deep breath. “I love you.”

His mouth kissed hers again ever so lightly. Against her lips he said in a breath, “No. Not love. It’s more elemental than love. You should have stayed away, hellion.”

He slid his arm around her and pulled her up against him firmly, quickly. Her breath caught, and she gripped his shoulders. He walked her back to the piano. His free hand swept the top clear.

With a crash of breaking glass the room went dark.

He pinned her between his body and the piano. As if he were filled with an aching hunger impossible to control, he drove his fingers through her hair and gripped her head.

Her eyes adjusted to the darkness.

He didn’t move, his mouth didn’t stroke hers again. His hands, which had gently cupped her head moments before, were inexplicably tense. “I’m not your wildest dream. I’m your worst nightmare.”

He watched her and saw she didn’t understand. Through eyes dulled by liquor, he looked down into her face. He saw too deep a chasm separating the two of them. He didn’t know if he could do this again.

Someone needs to save her.

His mouth closed over hers, hard and demanding. She didn’t fight his hold nor fight the hand that fondled her breasts. She didn’t fight when he slid his hand lower.

All she did was thread her fingers through his hair and then gently stroke his neck. He knew she would let him do what he wanted.

He pulled his mouth from hers and rested his forehead on her shoulder. This hadn’t worked the last time. It didn’t work this time either.

Foolish girl. You should have stayed away.

He took a deep breath, then loosened his tight grip, cupping her head in one hand while the other reached up to gently stroke her jaw and ear. He kissed her this time with gentleness, finesse, seductive kisses along her eyelids, her cheeks, her mouth.

He ran his lips and then his tongue over her ear, down her neck again and again, until she was shaking. She gave a breathy sigh and said, “I’ve wished for this, dreamed of this . . . ”

“This is what you want?” he whispered against her lips.

“Yes, please, Richard. I love you.”

He kissed her with his tongue for long languid minutes, tasted her over and over until he had to force himself not to give in to the passion he felt and his need to make love to her. He paused to get control, then slowly kissed a path to her other ear. He stroked it once with his tongue, then again. “I love you,
Letty
.”

“Oh God . . . ” She hugged him so tightly it was all he could do not to break then and pull away.

He closed his eyes; his lips still touched her ear. “Is that what you wanted?”

Her answer was a passionate, breathy “Yes.”

He pulled back. “Open your eyes and look at me.”

She stared up at him from lazy eyes filled with her heart and her soul, her every thought.

“You want this, love?” He stroked her then rubbed one finger over her swollen lips. “You want me to love you?”

She nodded.

He leaned over and kissed her, some small latent spark of decency rebelling in him and making his motions slower and more awkward because they were forced. Before he could change his bloody weak mind he looked down at her, his mouth a breath away from hers. “Look at me, hellion.”

She opened her eyes.

“I don’t love women. I use them.”

It took a second for his words to register, then her dreamy expression disappeared. Her mouth fell open and she raised her hands to cover it.

“I can say the words. Easily. I love you,
Letty
. I love you, Emily. I love you, Charlotte. I’ve said them before to get what I wanted.” He forced himself to laugh. “They are only words, and they mean nothing but an easier path for a man to get between a woman’s legs.”

She twisted away as if she couldn’t bear to have his hands on her. Her face was filled with disillusionment and disgust.

Seeing her like that almost broke him. He stepped back and stumbled slightly. But from somewhere within him he found the strength to draw himself up. He squared his shoulders when he saw her tears.

Her expression was no longer so naively innocent. Like a piece of paper he had wadded up in his hand and tossed away, her face was crumpled in hurt and pain and humiliation.

Tears spilled from her eyes so freely he almost cried himself. His own throat tight, he had to turn around and take a deep breath, then another, to overcome by sheer stubborn will what he was feeling.

He cursed that weakness in him, that he cared when he was trying so desperately not to. He fixed his gaze on a wall sconce and didn’t move. It took a few seconds for him to speak in the hard, dispassionate tone he needed. “You wanted my love.” He gave a shrug. “And you got what there is of it. Words with no meaning. If you want the act that goes with it, stay there. I can play the lover for you.”