Lady Wild (12 page)

She arched against him, her mouth opening. Ophelia seized his shoulders, gripping him. She gripped him so hard, he wondered briefly if the fabric would bear up under her ferocity.

“This is pleasuring, sweetheart,” he said, his voice a rough growl.

He slid a finger deep into her core as he continued to tease her clitoris. Her core tightened around him, and her breath came in sharp starts. Andrew bent down and kissed her neck, biting lightly. Claiming.

A cry of pleasure rushed from her, and her body tightened around his finger as she came against his hand. In that moment, he didn’t give a damn that he was fully clothed. All he knew was Ophelia. Her body, her voice, and her passion.

Somehow, he was going to keep them all.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Paradise is within our grasp

if we but have the courage to

seize it.

-Ophelia’s Notebook

Every part of her body trembled, weakened by the sensations that had just overtaken her. Wave after wave of sheer pleasure left her drifting in an unknown sea. “Andrew?” she whispered.

“Sweetheart?” He kissed her neck, slow, soft kisses that only awakened her further. The pleasure that he’d given her had driven her to some strange place where, instead of being satisfied, she only longed for more.

She wished him to bite her again. That primal sensation had driven her over into wildness as much as his touch. “Take me home.”

Home.
It was such a strange thing to say. Where was her home?
With him,
a voice whispered within her.

He lifted his face from her neck, his face flushed with desire. “Is that what you truly wish?”

“I want you to make me yours.”

“You’re already mine,” he replied.

Yes, but for how long? This moment? This year? Forever?
All those questions burned to be asked, but they were all questions of expectation, of unfounded hopes. Now was the only time that mattered. And now, she was unequivocally his.

“Then let us go,” she urged.

The soft thump of footsteps drifted toward them. Ophelia jolted at the sudden intrusion, and Andrew dropped his hands away from her.

“Stark?”

A tall, black-haired man with hard eyes and a shockingly handsome face stopped mid-stride. His brows drew together as he pinned Andrew with a harsh glare. “Forgive me, I seem to have come upon you unawares.”

Ophelia cringed. Who was this man? A friend of Andrew’s?

Andrew stood before her, attempting to shield her. “Vane,” he said, a bare acknowledgment, “you’re in London.”

“So it would seem.” Vane swept a derisive glance over Andrew and Ophelia, barely tucked behind the viscount. “I take it that is Lady Ophelia?”

There was nothing for it. Smoothing her hands over her hair, then her skirts, praying her petticoats were not too disheveled, she stepped out from behind Andrew. “Do I know you, sir?”

The man’s sensual lips turned down in a disappointed expression of almost paternal sadness. “My dear girl, no. But I am your neighbor and have heard of your beauty.”

Vane
. That Vane? Her insides twisted with embarrassment. She’d never met the marquis. And this was how they were introduced? Suddenly, it struck Ophelia just how mad her behavior had been. Anyone could have come upon her and Andrew. And then what?

Utter ruination. That’s what.

“I am entirely to blame, Vane,” said Andrew.

“I do not doubt it,” Vane replied evenly. “You’ve always been a seducer, Stark. But even I didn’t think you’d take advantage of someone in Lady Ophelia’s sad circumstances.”

Her spine snapped straight. “I am hardly a victim. I chose to be here.”
Vane’s brows rose, his face a mask of skepticism. “And he has no advantage over you? None whatsoever?”

She fought the urge to shrink under the marquis’ powerful gaze. In fact, she couldn’t deny the fact that she owed Andrew much. “That has nothing to do with—”

“Your mother is not present at this ball, I take it?” Vane asked.

Ophelia gaped at the man, stunned by his coldness. “She is ill.”

“Perhaps you should be with her rather than putting yourself at risk with Lord Stark, who cannot be trusted to act in your best interests just now.”

The words were like cold water, dampening any joy she’d felt this evening.

“Vane,” Andrew snapped.

“No,” Vane said coolly. “If you truly wished her well, if you truly wished to help her, as you told me in Derbyshire, you wouldn't have her here in this dark hallway. Alone. You do not wish to help her at all.”

“Surely, my lord, you exaggerate?” she demanded. It hardly seemed possible that the one time she gave herself over to pleasure that she should be caught and castigated so readily.

“Do I?” Vane tilted his head, his black shirt points pressing into his jaw line. “I have seen the corruption of women by dissolute men. Men destroy women, and all for their own pleasure.”

“Vane,” Andrew growled. “You go too far.”

“For God’s sake, man,” Vane said, his voice rough. “You’re debauching her in a hall at a ball. Anyone could have strode by.”

Andrew paled, shadows darkening the hollows of his cheeks. “I had not considered—”

“Men of your sort rarely do.” Vane looked from Andrew to her then back again.

Ophelia blinked. Vane didn’t consider himself to be a seducer, then? That stunned her, given his age and good looks. Surely such a man spent a good deal of his time in the pursuit of women?

“I admire you, Stark. You know I do. But. . .” He gestured to the spot where he’d found them. “Do you wish her utterly ruined?”

Ophelia stared at Andrew, praying he would somehow correct this wretched misadventure. But he only stared blankly at Vane as if a hundred torturous thoughts danced in his head.

“My lord?” she asked, wishing she could press his arm with her hand, wishing they could go back to the moments before Vane discovered them.

Andrew seemed struck by Vane’s words, his entire demeanor in the thrall of some unseen demon.

Ophelia frowned as she realized exactly what she was doing. She was waiting for Andrew to rescue her from this strange situation, but as she took in the man who had rescued her and her mother, giving them hope in a time of sorrow, it became infinitely clear that it was he who needed saving.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Never yield to shame if you have

been true to your heart.

-Ophelia’s Notebook

Vane’s words slammed down on Andrew, driving at his heart and soul, each incrimination an anvil meant to pound him through the floor. He couldn’t reply, but only because he had no defense, no contradiction.

And it was bloody well shocking that such realizations had come from the former lecher. Had Vane retired from his once-scandalous behavior? It certainly seemed so. Vane was not, nor ever had been, a hypocrite. Still, what had made him change so drastically? A few years ago, Vane would have laughed and jested at their circumstances.

But for all his altered demeanor, the marquis was in the right.

In his need for Ophelia, Andrew had given no thoughts or concerns to the consequences of taking her out in the hall, hoisting up her skirts and pleasuring her. He’d thought of nothing but himself and his desire to satiate her newly discovered passion.

He was the one with experience. The one who knew how to control his urges if necessary, and he’d controlled none of them. Ophelia was already in precarious social circumstances, an artist, an artist’s model, which was only just acceptable by polite society because of the precedent set by a few important ladies, such as Effie Ruskin. There was also the fact that Ophelia was the rejected half-sister of an earl.

He’d wanted to release her from the fetters of her cold, country prison. To help her embrace the passions of this life. But if he’d wanted to cast her as a strumpet and a jade to the world, he was going about it in an excellent manner.

He felt sick. His stomach twisted, and he could not even bare to look at the woman he’d used so foully. She was a fiery angel, and good God, he was dragging her down into his oily hell, a soul-coating hell that she’d never escape from once he truly inundated her in it.

“Lord Vane,” she said, her deep voice resonating with the power of that seraphim he loved so well. “You blame Viscount Stark for that which is my fault.”

Andrew blinked.
Her fault
?

Vane angled toward Ophelia, his face surprisingly kind. “My dear, you are mistaken.”

She pressed her lips together for a moment, then said, “I asked Viscount Stark to make love to me.”

Vane stilled. “Indeed? I beg your pardon for my forwardness, but you strike me as untouched.”

“Not. . .untouched,” she replied evenly. “And I do not wish to be so.”

The softness vanished from Vane’s face. “I see.”

Andrew stared back and forth between Vane and his Ophelia, who was casting herself into moral ruin. “Vane, she’s had too much champagne,” he began, desperate to save her from her own burgeoning madness.

“I have not,” she said sharply, before she locked unrepentant gazes with him. “I wish for you to make love to me.” Then she lifted her chin and leveled those unyielding eyes at the marquis. “As many times as Viscount Stark wishes.”

Vane stared, his face unreadable. “I only wish to protect you. Forgive me if I have misstepped.”

Andrew’s gut clenched. He couldn’t let her do this. Not for him. Not to rescue him. He wouldn’t allow her to take the blame for his asinine and selfish behavior. “Ophelia,” he said lowly, “you speak out of grief.” He looked to Vane. “Her mother is dying. You know that. She doesn’t know what she is saying.”

“Andrew,” she whispered. “Are you casting me off? So quickly?”

Something in that quiet plea of hers circled around his heart and squeezed, bloodying it. Turning it inconsolably raw. Touching it as no thing had in years. Their eyes met again, and as always seemed to happen when their gazes locked, everything but the two of them vanished. Vane, the strains of the orchestra drifting down the hall, and the brash din of the company. There was nothing in the world but she. “How can I cast off myself?” he asked.

The tension in her shoulders eased, and her gaze softened. “Take me away from here.”

Without a word, Andrew went to the woman who had somehow stolen his heart and soul like a night thief and took her hand.

“You’re marrying her, then,” Vane demanded. “You must, Andrew, if you’re to continue this sort of behavior.”

Andrew barely heard his old acquaintance. His entire attention was focused on Ophelia’s beautiful face and the frame of her red-gold hair and the halo it made.

“It is the only way,” Vane insisted.

“You assume I’d accept,” Ophelia said.

And the reverie broke. Andrew sucked in a sharp breath and yanked his gaze from the woman who’d just held his heart in her hands and now twisted it in her pale, harsh fingers.

You assume I’d accept.

Vane bowed. “I see you do not wish my interference in your choice, my lady. Once again, forgive me. But. . .I beg you, do be careful. Ruination is a cruel thing.”

And with that, Vane turned and strode down the darkened hall, vanishing into the shadows, leaving Andrew alone with Ophelia.

Her rejection boomed in his brain. Boomed again and again. Until a clear voice made it inescapable in his mind. She didn’t love
him
. She never could. She wanted him for the pleasure he could give her. The distraction. The escape from pain. She wanted him for what he did best. And apparently she was willing to ruin herself to get it.

And if that was what she so truly desired, he was suddenly unsure if he could do as she wished.

The hypnotically sad notes of Chopin’s Nocturne No. 7 drifted down the long hall, calling Andrew toward its source. Of course, he knew where it came from. The melody, both dissonant yet perfect, held such passion, such knowledge.