Never Less Than a Lady (20 page)

“An excellent idea.” Mariah’s hand moved unconsciously to her abdomen. “There is too much at risk to be careless.”

Julia agreed. She would be very, very glad when Randall finished his business and returned.

Randall picked up his morning mail with anticipation. Julia had written him a brief note every day, always an amusing description of the trials and tribulations of becoming a grand lady in a handful of days.

Today’s letter described how the modiste had descended with her minions for final ball gown fittings. Julia finished with:

He grinned, hearing her voice sparkling through the words, then set the letter aside and turned to the rest of his correspondence. There were a couple of pieces of routine business, but more interesting, a letter from Rob Carmichael.

He broke the seal and read the Bow Street Runner’s terse words.

Randall frowned at the note. The flat truth was that he wanted nothing to do with any child of Branford’s, but the boy was blood kin. If Rob thought the situation was so bad he was willing to rescue the boy himself, it must be very bad indeed.

Since Rob was difficult to locate at long distance, it was time to return to London.

Guessing that Randall would return to London the day before the ball, Julia assumed that she must wait three more days until he returned. With a sigh, she settled into the deep hip bath, which was large enough for her to immerse herself entirely. The gently steaming water was redolent with floral scents, courtesy of the shockingly expensive bath oil she’d bought the day before on Bond Street.

Though Ashton was planning to have several luxurious bathing rooms installed in the mansion, for now Julia was content with the hip bath. The hot water eased the bruising on her right hip and elbow. So did the goblet of port reposing on a low table within easy reach. She lifted the glass and took a sip, feeling deliciously decadent.

The evening was well advanced and she’d dismissed Elsa for the night. The girl was working out well. Her good nature made her pleasant to have around, and it was useful to have a maid to care for Julia’s rapidly growing wardrobe.

Still, years of being on her own had given Julia a taste for privacy. Since her husband was away, she would indulge herself with peace, water, and wine. She sighed contentedly and savored another swallow of the port’s heady sweetness.

The port was gone and she was half-dozing in the cooling water when the door to the suite opened. She came instantly awake. Neither Gordon nor Elsa would come at this hour unless summoned, and Mariah or Ashton would knock if they came calling.

A few seconds passed, and the door to the bedroom opened. A soft, deep voice said, “Julia?”

Randall!
She scrambled from the hip bath, wrapped herself in a large, luxurious bath towel, and darted around the screen. There was only a single lamp lit, but it was enough to show that her husband had shed his boots, probably so he wouldn’t wake her if she was sleeping. In the dim light, his golden hair and lean, broad-shouldered figure reminded her again of a glorious Nordic god.

“I’m so glad you’re back!” Julia went straight into his arms, half-knocking him over in her enthusiasm.

His weary expression vanished. Laughing, he fell back a step to catch his balance, but his arms went around her with satisfying swiftness. “I’ve been gone less than a week, milady. Not that I mind such a welcome.” He buried his face in her damp hair, which she’d pinned to the top of her head. “Mmm…you smell like a bouquet in springtime.”

He smelled like…himself. Safe and familiar and masculine. All her senses were wide open, absorbing his presence thirstily. She tilted her head back and kissed him with unreserved pleasure. His instant of surprise was immediately followed by fierce response. He kissed her back with matching intensity, tugging the pins from her hair so that it tumbled sensuously over her bare shoulders.

Heat blazed through her, pooling in her loins and breasts. She had felt stirrings of desire for him before, but this was a full-fledged inferno. The calm, reserved woman she’d become over her years in exile was gone, replaced by an eager, shameless wench.

His hand slid seductively down her bare back under the towel. “You aren’t wearing very much,” he said a little breathlessly as he squeezed her bottom.

“And you’re wearing too much.” She put her hands on his lapels and pushed his coat off his shoulders. Her loosely tucked towel sagged open halfway to her waist.

He turned rigid as he stared. “If you have any doubts about where this is heading, milady, the time to retreat is now.”

But she didn’t want to retreat. “I have no doubts, Alex,” she said softly. “Tonight I want us to come together like lovers who have never known shadows.”

He took a deep breath. “I would like that more than anything on earth.”

She smiled and dropped the towel so that it crumpled to the floor around her bare feet. She didn’t feel like a flawless, unscarred young girl. She felt feminine and experienced and powerful.

Her scars were unimportant, a remnant of the past.
Now
was the hot beat of desire that drew them together like opposite poles of a magnet. “About those clothes…”

She tugged his coat off the rest of the way and let it drop while he untied his cravat and tossed it away. Swiftly she undid the buttons at his throat and stretched up to kiss the smooth, faintly salty skin. His pulse hammered under her lips and he made a choked sound of pleasure.

Richly pleased with herself, she attacked his other garments. Since he was doing the same, their hands tangled and fingers wandered in a glorious welter of touch and laughter. As a way of undressing, their mutual efforts lacked efficiency, but it was delicious fun, and the absence of fear was the greatest aphrodisiac she’d ever known.

Unclothed, he had a hard male beauty that put Greek sculptors to shame. She ran her hands over his shoulders and torso, feeling the changing textures of skin and scars and pale hair. “I’ve never seen all of you at once before,” she breathed. “What was I waiting for?”

“For the right time.” He scooped her up and deposited her in the middle of the bed. “Having had a long ride today, I’m hungry. And you, milady, are a banquet as well as a bouquet.”

Before she’d finished bouncing on the mattress, he was stretched out beside her, the length of his body pressed against her from ribs to calf. He bent into a deep, open-mouthed kiss. Her toes and fingers curled at the wanton carnality of their mating tongues and lips.

The kiss went on and on until they were both breathless. He lifted his head. “You taste most deliciously of Ballard tawny port.”

Julia laughed giddily. “You can identify the maker?”

“Ashton only stocks Ballard port since it’s made by a friend,” Randall said with a grin. “And very good port it is, too. But you taste sweeter and more intoxicating than the finest spirits.” He pressed his lips to her throat as his hand came to rest on her breast.

As his thumb stroked her nipple, she arched against his palm. He began nibbling his way down her body in a slow blaze of kisses.

She gasped when his mouth fastened on her left breast and he sucked hard on her nipple. Her hips rocked against him. After kissing her other breast with matching thoroughness, his mouth moved lower, lower, over her belly.

Surely he wasn’t going to…she gave a strangled shriek and almost leaped out of her skin when his skilled lips and tongue reached her most private parts.
“Alex!”

She’d learned how to pleasure a man with her mouth, but never once considered how it would feel to receive rather than give. Her fingers knotted in his hair as her body coiled tighter, tighter, tighter, her need so frantic it was almost pain.

Release ripped through her with shattering power. She cried out, every muscle in her body rigid. As the tide of sensation ebbed, Randall rested his head on her thigh, his breathing soft against her groin.

“Alexander the Great indeed,” she said weakly as she released her grip on his hair and stroked the thick gold waves back from his forehead. “No wonder you liked it so much when I did that to you.”

“‘Like’ is far too pale a word for such an experience.” He tilted his head so their gazes met. “I’ve wanted to devour you since the first time I saw you.”

She could feel a hot, delighted blush coloring her face. “I’m glad I didn’t know. You were quite fearsome enough as a disapproving soldier.” She traced his ear with her fingertip. “But surely we’re only half done?”

“If you’ve had time to recover your breath…” He raised himself over her, using one finger to delicately stroke the moist, exquisitely sensitized folds of flesh between her legs. Small shocks of pleasure tingled through her as he found the center of sensation. “Are you ready to provide me with a second course, milady?”

“And to think I read your letters and thought you had no poetry in your soul!” she said with a laugh.

“Not poetry, perhaps. But a deep and abiding appetite that only you can appease.” He settled between her legs carefully, stroking with unerring skill until she was writhing against his fingers. “Now?” he asked.

“Now!” She pulled him down hard against her, raising her hips to receive him. Amazing how she yearned for him to fill her after so many years of fearing male invasion. But when he buried himself inside her, it wasn’t invasion. It was completion.

She rocked against him, startled that desire was rising to match what she’d felt before. But this time the tide carried them both, the mad rhythms of their bodies matching until he shuddered and poured himself into her with a deep groan. She echoed his release, uncertain which of them had culminated first.

His harsh breathing slowed and he rolled onto his side, drawing her tight against him. She relaxed with her face against his shoulder and her arm across his waist. Once she had been grateful for her celibate life. Never would she have believed she might experience such a stunning explosion of desire and release. But the evidence of their bare, intertwined bodies proved that this was no dream.

He curled his hand around her head, his fingers sliding into her tangled hair. “I wonder if I sensed that you were capable of such generous passion?” he murmured. “Or am I merely the luckiest man on earth?”

“I’m the lucky one.” Julia gave a choke of laughter. “Lucky, and selfish. You probably really are hungry if you rode all day. And I had to go and distract you.”

“Actually, I stopped in the kitchen for a bite before coming up.” Gently he massaged her head. “But even if I hadn’t, you are a more satisfactory meal than any other I could have found.”

“That’s good, because I haven’t the strength to go down two flights of stairs to raid the pantry. I barely have the energy to choose a scar for you to identify even though there are so many to choose from.” She traced a line over his ribs with her forefinger. “This, if I recall correctly, was a bayonet slash you received on the retreat to Corunna.”

He nodded. “Half the military campaigns of the last fifteen years are engraved on my hide. I’ve been lucky that in all that time, there has only been the one serious injury.”

She shivered. “I’m trying not to think of all the times you might have been killed, Alex. I would never have met you.”

“That means you wouldn’t miss me, either,” he pointed out, a smile in his voice.

“I refuse to think philosophically tonight.” She frowned as her fingers moved down to his groin. She’d never seen him entirely naked before, so she was discovering new scars. “These faint lines are odd. There look to be a dozen or more and they’re roughly parallel.” Her fingertips skimmed lightly over the ridged flesh on his groin. “What on earth could create such a wound? A few inches more to the left and we would not have had such a delightful evening.”

“Not a weapon.” He sighed. “Branford.”

She snapped to full attention, pushing herself up with one hand so she could study the scars more closely. “Good God, he cut you deliberately?”

“It was when I first arrived at Turville.” Randall’s voice was flat. “He would declare a hunt and start to chase me. When he caught me, which he always did because he was older and taller and faster, he would pin me to the ground. Then he dragged down my breeches and sliced me with his stiletto. Each time this happened, he cut a little closer. He said that when he reached my cock, he’d cut it off.”

Julia gasped in horror, her hand over her mouth. “Why did no one stop him?”

“He was the young master. No one dared cross him.”

“So you learned to fight, and how to behave so badly that you’d be sent away.” She pressed her lips to the scars, aching at the picture of a small boy being tormented and having no one to turn to. No wonder Randall had become a protector.

As she kissed the scars, she felt him stir a little in response. He said wryly, “Leave it to Branford to ruin a perfect moment even now. We need to talk, milady, and that means you’d better put some clothing on, or I will be useless for rational speech.”

“Then you must cover yourself as well, Major,” she said tartly. “Do you think women immune to such distractions?”

“I’m glad you’re not,” he said warmly, his hand stroking down her side. She flinched at the pressure on her bruises.

Frowning, he leaned over her for a closer look. “Good God, what happened to your hip? I can’t believe I didn’t see these bruises earlier!”

“The light was low and we were both otherwise occupied.” Julia sat up, more aware of the injury now. “A runaway carriage almost struck Mariah and me when we were shopping yesterday. I fell getting out of the way.” She took a deep breath, wishing she didn’t have to break the mood. “It was probably an accident, but…we’re not sure. Ashton is having the incident investigated.”

Randall exhaled roughly. “One can’t shut out the world for even one night, apparently. Is there any port left? We have even more to discuss than I realized.”