One Little Sin (30 page)

Esmée thought she would explode the moment Alasdair touched her. She lay pinned beneath him, her body aching and throbbing. His mouth found her breast, suckling hotly. Raw need surged through her like nothing she’d ever known. Over and over he drew her nipple between the sweet heat of his lips, nibbling and tasting as his finger circled the center of her desire. Esmée was left writhing and gasping. And then ever so gently, he bit down, forcing her to stifle a cry of pure desire.

Perhaps she was a wanton. Perhaps she was worse than her mother. It did not matter now. Nothing mattered except the awful ache between her legs. “Oh, now!” she choked, tilting her head back. “Let me—give me—oh, God!”

With his finger, Alasdair touched the hard nub of her arousal, making her hips jerk. She opened her legs wider, begging him. “Slow down, love,” he crooned, his lips teasing at her earlobe. “Let me touch you. Let yourself feel it. Here—yes? Umm.”

Esmée strained against his hand, unable to still her body. Her head swam with the scent of him. Soap and sweat. Male musk and luscious warmth. She wanted to drown in it.

“Oh, so beautiful,” he whispered. “Let me make it perfect for you, Esmée love.”

“It—it—it’s perfect now,” she choked. “I’m—I can’t…
Please.”

He raised up on one elbow, watching her face as he touched her. His eyes held hers, hard and dark by the glow of the dying fire. The long, sleek planes of his body were sculpted by the shadows. Then he bent his head and kissed her again, pushing his tongue deep into her mouth, tasting her deeply. He made a sound, a groan, and against the flesh of her thigh, she could feel the burning weight of his erection. The thought of it frightened her. Thrilled her.

He was still touching her, but it was not enough.
Madness.
Oh, such madness. Esmée circled his tongue with her own and tilted her hips eagerly upward. Another finger slipped inside, spreading her wide. His thumb eased higher, teasing the tip of her need, torturous and more demanding now.

“Do you want me inside you, love?” he rasped. “Do you ache for me?”

“Yes,” she whispered, riding greedily down on his hand.
“Yes.”

To her shock, he bent his head, and his tongue trailed fire up her throat. He nuzzled her earlobe, then sucked it lazily between his teeth, matching the rhythm of his mouth to the touch of his thumb. Esmée arched off the floor again.

At last, Alasdair sat back on his knees. His erection rose between them, a shaft of warm, silken flesh. Tentatively, Esmée slid her fingers around it, marveling at the size and the strength. Alasdair shuddered and let his head tip back. Intrigued, she eased her hand down to the base, then up again. He made a growling sound deep in his chest, and one tiny pearl of moisture beaded from the tip. Esmée touched it with her thumb, circling it gently around and around the satiny head of his erection.

The gesture seemed to meet with Alasdair’s approval. His eyes were squeezed shut now, his nostrils flared wide. Suddenly, his head came up, his hair falling forward to shadow his eyes, which were hot and intense. She could see the depth of his need in them.

“Come inside me, Alasdair,” she whispered. “Do it—
please.”

She couldn’t catch her breath. She really feared he was going to stop. And yet to go on was insanity. An insanity she craved, no matter the ruin it might bring. She could think of nothing save him; of his touch, his mouth, his essence.

Wordlessly, he set one muscular arm above her shoulder, and with the other hand, pressed his male hardness slowly but insistently into her. Esmée closed her eyes and forced her legs to fall apart, relaxed and welcoming. The pressure was daunting, but she never once considered stopping. Right or wrong, this was inevitable. It was meant to be. Slowly, oh so slowly, he sheathed himself, rocking backward and forward, each stroke deeper than the last.

A sharp, sudden pain made her cry out. His eyes snapped open, urgent and questioning. Esmée slid her hands around his hips, curled her fingers into the hard, sculpted muscles of his buttocks, and urged him deeper. The pain did not matter. He drew back and entered her again on a guttural cry. A sound of triumph. She rocked her hips experimentally forward. He filled her. Claimed her—at least in this one moment. He set the pace, a rhythm of pure pleasure. Esmée met him stroke for stroke, feminine instinct guiding her.

Soon the pain was forgotten. Instinctively, Esmée curled one leg round him and dragged herself hard against him. The feeling building inside her was uncontrollable. She urged him deeper. Faster. There was something—oh, something wonderful just beyond her reach. Esmée closed her eyes, and begged him for it with words that were hungry and incoherent.

Alasdair obliged her, driving himself madly back and forth. Sweat beaded on his brow. One drop fell between her breasts, warm and enticing. Something inside her broke away, and flew to him—her heart, she thought. “Look at me, Esmée,” he commanded. “Look at me. Come to me, love.”

His dark, smoldering eyes held her prisoner. And then he drove into her again, and Esmée’s world exploded. Her entire being throbbed and cried out. Light surrounded them, melted over them, warm and pure. She felt his seed pump hotly into her, heard his guttural cry of joy. And she fell back onto the carpet, spent and glorious.

Alasdair fell across her, the weight of his body pressing her down. “Oh, Esmée!” he said as he gasped for breath. “Oh, love.”

Esmée must have drowsed for a time, gloriously sated and almost content. Eventually, Alasdair rose from the rug to turn the lock. Oh, what fools they had been! But better late than never. He returned, and tucked her back into her nightdress, then pulled on his clothes.

She knew they should not remain here, stretched out before the dying fire like lazy cats. She waited for Alasdair to tell her so, but he did not. Instead, he rolled onto his side and drew her body back against his, encircling her waist with his arm. They did not speak—perhaps because they were both too afraid.

Behind them, the fire was all but dead now. A sense of near peace stole over her as she listened to the soft, rhythmic sounds of Alasdair’s breathing. The arm which bound her to him seemed to fit so naturally. She could not even kiss Lord Wynwood without automatically turning her cheek. And yet she could bind herself to this man with an ease which she should have found alarming.

She was not alarmed. Instead, there was a sense of inevitability about what they had done. She had believed him a scoundrel from the very first, and she had not been entirely wrong about that. But he was so much more. The blithe charm and physical beauty were unmistakable, but there was a rock-hard foundation of honor beneath it all. Perhaps she had inherited her mother’s impetuosity. Perhaps she was letting her heart rule her head. She simply did not care anymore.

Quietly, she turned in his arm to face him. In the gloom, she could just make out that his eyes were open, and soft with sleep. Impulsively, Esmée reached out and traced its shape of his sinfully beautiful mouth with the tip of her finger.

She had done something so irrevocable, some would even say dishonorable, that it seemed incomprehensible to her. And yet she did not regret it. God only knew what she would say to Lord Wynwood.

“He will likely call me out before all’s said and done,” said Alasdair, as if reading her thoughts. “I would, were I in his position.”

Esmée shook her head. “He does not love me enough to trouble himself.”

“Then he is a damned fool,” said Alasdair, rolling away from her to stare at the ceiling. “A bigger fool, even, than I have been.”

Esmée drew back to study his face, but he said no more. Oh, God, how she wished he would simply say what was in his heart, whatever it was. But her betrothal to his best friend hung between them, an awful, unspoken thing, and the next step was hers. She knew what it had to be, too, but the doing of it was her duty, not his.

For a long moment, his eyes held hers almost beseechingly. But what did he want? What was he asking? He tore his gaze away, as if whatever he had seen there wounded him. Instead, he took her hand in his and entwined their fingers together. He pressed his lips to her knuckles and refused to look at her.

“There is a part of you which must hate me, Esmée,” he said, “for what I have done to Sorcha. To your mother. To you. I have lived my entire life with a cavalier disregard, never thinking the damage my carelessness might do another. Some might say that my making love to you tonight was but another example of that.”

“Oh, Alasdair! Don’t speak of it. Not of Mamma, nor of Quin. Not even Sorcha. Let us just pretend for a few moments that none of those complications exist. That it is just us, here, like this.”

“But they do exist.” In the gloom, his eyes drifted over her face. “Will you ever be able to look at me with Sorcha and not feel a moment’s bitterness? You said there was ‘
no us,’
Esmée, and there isn’t—or shouldn’t be—because I was trying so hard to make it right for both of you. I was trying to give you the life you were meant to have, and to give Sorcha the father every child deserves. But it is so bloody hard. If I had met someone like you a decade earlier, perhaps I would not have wasted so much of my life.”

“Perhaps you ought to stop wasting it now,” she suggested. “But that is a discussion, I daresay, for another time and place.”

There were a great many other questions she wished to ask him, too. But those questions would wait. Tonight was for cherishing the moments they had together. Tomorrow was for making things right with Wynwood, and asking his forgiveness. After that…well, life was unpredictable.

Alasdair drew his arm tight again and set his lips to her forehead. Esmée vowed not to think about the future, or of the painful task which lay before her. Instead, she tucked her head on his shoulder and forgot about scurrying back to her room as she ought to have done.

Just then, a noise beyond the door made her jump. Alasdair pressed his lips to her ear. “Shh,” he whispered. “A servant.”

Esmée’s heart leapt into her throat. “Good heavens! At this hour?” She heard it then, a racket which sounded like the scrape of the shovel on the hearth. The clank of a bucket being moved about.

“Damn, they’ll be here next,” said Alasdair. “And wondering why they’re locked out. Quin must have bloody insomniacs for servants.” Silent and sleek as a cat, he rose and swiftly neatened his clothing.

Esmée felt a moment of panic. “How will we get out?”

Alasdair offered his hand. “This way,” he whispered, pulling to her feet. “There is an old butler’s pantry which leads to the parlor. Let them figure out how the door got bolted.”

Hitching up her wrapper as they went, Esmée hastened after him. The pantry opened silently, but the room beyond was devoid of all light. They slipped inside, and Alasdair set an arm about her waist. “Stay close to me,” he mouthed against her ear.

With great care, he wound them around the furniture. In the room behind them, Esmée could hear the servants—two of them, debating about the locked door. A very close call. On the opposite side of the room, Alasdair opened the door which gave onto the main passageway, then peered out.

“It’s clear,” he whispered, tucking her wrapper close about her neck. “Go, love. You mustn’t be seen with me.”

Esmée was loath to leave him, and he sensed it. Swiftly, he kissed her, hot and openmouthed. “Oh, Esmée, Esmée!” he whispered, his lips pressed feverishly to her throat. “What is to become of us?”

A sense of urgency drove her. “I do not regret it,” she whispered hurriedly. “Please, Alasdair, tell me you feel the same.”

She felt the heat of his eyes on her, even in the dark. “I
do
regret it, Esmée,” he answered. “But God help me, I would do it all over again.”

“As would I,” she said simply. “Oh, what a soss we’ve got ourselves into!”

His hands tightened on her waist. “Esmée—I—oh, God, I have no right to ask anything of you just now,” he rasped. “Indeed, I won’t. Do what is best for you, my girl. Take care of yourself. Take care of your heart.”

Esmée considered telling him it was much too late to take care of her heart. It had long been his. But the awful task which lay before her was heavy on her mind now. “We will see one another tomorrow—or rather, today—will we not?” she said hastily.

He shook his head and dragged in his breath roughly. “Merrick leaves for London at first light,” he answered. “I must go with him.”

“Must you?”

He ran a hand through his disordered hair. “I think it the only honorable thing to do, under the circumstances,” he said hollowly. “I cannot bear to remain here, partaking of Quin’s hospitality—and his fiancée.”

Esmée shook her head. “Alasdair, it isn’t like that.”

The clanking and scraping in the library had begun now. Somehow, they’d unlocked the library, and would be moving on soon, perhaps in this direction. Alasdair opened the door again and gently pushed Esmée out. She hesitated an instant, then considered the risk she was running. With one last glance over her shoulder at Alasdair, Esmée left.

She made her way quietly through the house and up the stairs, certain she would sleep no more that night. Instead, she slipped back into her room, lit the lamp, and curled up on her bed with the same dull novel which had sent her downstairs to begin with.

Alasdair was not going to ask anything of her, he had said. She was to do what was best for her. But the decision had been made a lifetime ago, it seemed, and what she cared most about was Alasdair. That much had never really changed, and never would change. Which meant that everything else—Wynwood, Mrs. Crosby, Aunt Rowena, Sorcha,
all
of it—would somehow work out. It had to. It just had to.

When the horizon began to show the first hint of daylight, Esmée rose and went to the window to wait for Alasdair’s carriage. She did not have to wait long. With her fingertips pressed lightly to the glass, Esmée watched as his baggage was loaded. Then Alasdair and his brother came out, flanking Lord Wynwood, and shook hands all around.

At the last instant, Alasdair hesitated, then grasping Wynwood’s right hand again, he set his left upon his shoulder, as if reassuring him of something. They exchanged a few quiet words, then the men climbed in, the coachman clicked to his horses, and the carriage spun away.

That was it, then. Alasdair was gone. Esmée turned from the window and began to lay out her clothes. With any luck, most of the other guests would still be abed, and there was no putting off what she had to do this day. Reluctant to ring for a servant, she bathed in the previous night’s cold water. Her body, she noticed, was sore, and there was just the slightest hint of blood when she washed. Alasdair had been gentle, but no matter. Her body was forever altered. Forever his.

She would certainly never be Lord Wynwood’s, she thought as she dressed and twisted up her hair, and the sooner she told him so, the better. And yet, he had been exceedingly kind to her. She wished very much that she could love him; that she need not humiliate him. The thought brought a tear to her eye. She rummaged through her valise, extracted a handkerchief, and went out into the passageway. There, she hesitated. Perhaps she would find Wynwood in the breakfast parlor?

The breakfast parlor was indeed occupied, but not by Lord Wynwood. “Good morning, Lady Charlotte,” she said.

“Why, good morning, Miss Hamilton,” said the elderly woman. “And what is this ‘lady’ nonsense? You must call me your great-aunt now.”

Esmée smiled weakly. “Thank you,” she said. “You are very kind.”

Lady Charlotte laughed. “I see you are an early bird like me. All the others will be abed for another hour. May I pour you some coffee?”

Esmée hesitated on the threshold. “Actually, I was looking for Lord Wynwood. Have you seen him?”

The old lady’s eyes twinkled mischievously. “Oh, he came in for coffee, then scuttled off to his study,” she said. “He’s still in there, I do not doubt. Do you know how to find it?”

Esmée twisted a little desperately on her handkerchief. “I do not,” she confessed. “Could you please direct me, ma’am?”

Lady Charlotte set her cup and saucer down. “It would be easier to simply take you there,” she admitted. “This is an inexcusable monstrosity of a house. I should know. I grew up here.”

She set off down the corridor at a pace which seemed too brisk for a woman of her advanced years. “The study is in the very back of the house,” she said over her shoulder. “In the oldest part, overlooking the rear gardens. Quin hides there when he wishes to escape Gwendolyn’s whining.”

Esmée followed along, her dread deepening as Wynwood’s great-aunt turned left, then right, then trotted up a little flight of stairs, along a crooked passageway, and back down an even shorter flight of stairs. They passed a pair of housemaids assiduously engaged in sweeping the carpets, then suddenly, a huge slab of solid oak appeared around a corner.

“And here it is!” Lady Charlotte whispered, gleefully pushing the door open against a gust of cold air. “Nowadays, I can forget my own name, Miss Hamilton, but I have not forgot—”

The old lady froze on the threshold.

A woman lay sprawled across the desk in the center of the room, forced down by a man who was violently kissing her. The woman was kicking and flailing like a tigress, but the man—
good God, Lord Wynwood
—held her pinioned by both wrists.

Somehow, she jerked her face away.
“Fa schifo!”
she spat, jerking up her knee as if to do him serious injury.
“Sporco!
Get off me, you bastard English pig!”

With a muttered curse, Wynwood half lifted his body from hers. Only then did Esmée see the riding crop clutched in her glove. The woman lashed it hard across Wynwood’s face, sending bright red blood spattering across his linen. Neither seemed aware of the two ladies in the doorway. Not, that was, until Wynwood’s great-aunt fainted dead away.

Silent as a stone, the old lady collapsed, slithering into the floor with remarkable grace. Esmée must have screamed. The housemaids appeared from nowhere. The woman—Contessa Bergonzi—shoved Wynwood away and rushed toward Charlotte, tripping over the hem of her riding habit as she came.

The contessa fell clumsily to her knees, but did not heed it. “Quin, you fool!” she cried, trying to push the hair back from Charlotte’s face.
“Basta! Basta!
Now you have killed your aunt!”

Esmée had her fingertips on the old woman’s throat. “Her pulse is fluttering,” said Esmée. “But she is not dead.”

Wynwood still stood as if frozen. Behind him, a French window stood wide-open, the cold air from the gardens streaming in. “Shut the window,” Esmée snapped at one of the maids. “Wynwood, send someone to fetch a doctor. For God’s sake,
hurry!”

Wynwood leapt into action. Charlotte emitted a pitiful groan. “No…no doctor,” she managed.

“Oh,
poveretta!”
the contessa was murmuring, still stroking the old lady’s face. “Oh,
non ci credo!”

When Esmée next looked up, Wynwood was gone. The two housemaids were staring after him, eyes wide and mouths gaping. Dear God. They must have seen everything.

The doctor was not long with Lady Charlotte. “Nothing is broken,” he pronounced to the crowd which waited in Lady Wynwood’s sitting room. “But her pulse is still erratic, as it has been this last decade or better. I wish her to have a day’s bed rest, and her usual heart tonic. Tomorrow she’ll be her old self, and may return home, I hope.”

“Oh, thank God!” Lady Wynwood clutched a crumpled handkerchief to her breast. “Oh, I feared the worst.”

“Mark me, Gwendolyn, it was the blood!” asserted the elderly gentleman beside her. “Charlotte never could abide the sight of blood!”

“No, I think it was her weak heart,” said Lady Wynwood. “She overexerted herself, perhaps.”

Reflexively, Lord Wynwood ran his finger along the wound on his cheek. He had been pacing the floor ever since his great-aunt had been carried up by the footmen. His sister, Lady Alice, was scowling at him from the corner and twisting her own handkerchief into knots.

“Remember, Helen, how Charlotte fainted and fell out of the dogcart that time we ran over a squirrel?” the gentleman continued to a woman on his other side.

“Oh, heavens yes!” said the round, silver-haired lady—another great-aunt, Esmée thought. “Charlotte needed six stitches!”

Esmée cleared her throat. “This was a terrible accident, too,” she remarked in a clear, carrying voice. “Really, Wynwood, you ought not creep up on people like that. The contessa jerked instinctively, just as anyone would do.”

The room fell silent for a moment. Lady Wynwood eyed Esmée very oddly over her handkerchief. “Yes, a dreadful accident!” she finally echoed. “We are lucky Great-aunt Charlotte did not break a hip, Quin. Do have a care next time!”

“I’m sorry,” he said for about the tenth time. “I’m just so bloody sorry.”

The doctor looked faintly embarrassed. “Well, I’d best be off then,” he said. “I’ll look in on Lady Charlotte tomorrow, just in case. She isn’t getting any younger, you know.”

The excitement over, the early risers began to trickle from the room and make their way down to breakfast. Lady Alice dragged her mother out, mumbling something about the children. The contessa had already excused herself, leaving Wynwood’s study the way she’d apparently entered it, through the French window which opened onto the gardens. Everyone else was yet abed. Nonetheless, the gossip would likely be running rampant before noon, despite Esmée’s efforts at obfuscation.

Soon, Esmée and Lord Wynwood were alone in his mother’s sitting room. It was time to do what she’d come downstairs to do. She turned to see that he was still staring blindly out the window, as if unaware of her presence.

She went to him and set a hand on his shoulder. “I fear there will be gossip, my lord,” she said quietly. “But perhaps we can counter it. We must continue to assert that silly accident story.”

Lord Wynwood refused to look at her. “Esmée, I can explain.”

“No, don’t,” she said. “I would really rather not discuss it.”

“I don’t blame you,” he whispered. “I am such a fool—and worse, I’ve humiliated you. Can you ever forgive me?”

“’Tis not a matter of my forgiveness,” she said quietly.

“If you think that, my dear, then you are a fool, too.”

Esmée drew a deep breath. “I ought to explain, Wynwood, that I came looking for you this morning to tell you…to tell you that I cannot marry you,” she went on. “I made a grievous error in accepting your offer. I apologize.”

He threw back his head and gave a bark of bitter laughter. “I am not surprised you’d wish to cry off now,” he answered. “What an embarrassment this will be! And I believe it is I who owes the apology.”

“You are not listening, my lord,” she said firmly. “I was coming to tell you I wished to cry off the betrothal. I am sorry I interrupted you in…in whatever it was you were doing—”

“Ruining my life,” he interjected. “That’s what I was doing.”

Esmée shrugged. “In any case, it had nothing to do with my decision. I mean to tell your mother so as well. I would not have her think you responsible for my choice.”

Wynwood’s shoulders sagged. “I will send a notice to the
Times
this afternoon,” he said, dragging a hand through his already disordered hair. “No one will be surprised. My dear, I am sorry this has ended so badly.”

“Don’t be so sorry,” she whispered. “Trust me, I never should have said yes. Something…something happened last night to convince me of that.”

Wynwood tore himself from the window and began to pace the room. “I thought it a good match, Esmée,” he said, his tone almost mystified. “I persuaded myself we could make a go of it, you and I. I was a fool to imagine I could—or would ever—oh, damn it, why didn’t I just listen to Alasdair?”

“To Alasdair—?”

“He told me from the very first I was not good enough for you,” Wynwood admitted. “And I knew, even then, he was right. I thought perhaps you might make a better man of me. But it isn’t working, is it? Even Alasdair can see it. Last night, he read me the riot act, then tried to thrash me into a bloody pulp.”

“Alasdair? But—but why?”

“He thought I wasn’t paying enough attention to you,” Wynwood answered. “He thought you looked unhappy. He wanted me to call off our wedding, but I refused, of course. How could I? A gentleman may not do such a thing.” He flashed her a crooked, bittersweet smile. “But now you have done it for me.”

Esmée dropped her gaze to her feet. “Aye, and I think it best,” she said. “We do not perfectly suit after all.”

For a time, he simply watched her without speaking. “Are you a secret romantic at heart, Esmée?” he finally asked, his voice musing. “Do you believe there is but one perfect partner for all of us?”

“I—yes, I begin to believe that might be so,” Esmée admitted.

He turned again to the window and braced his hands wide on its frame. He stared into the distance so long, Esmée wondered if she ought simply to slip out. “I do not know, Esmée, what there is between you and Alasdair,” he said quietly. “Certainly it is none of my business now.”

She began to interrupt, but he turned and threw up a staying hand. “Please, just let me speak.”

Esmée owed him that, at the very least. “Yes. Of course.”

He looked at her almost pleadingly. “All I am saying is that if there is even a scrap of sincere regard between the two of you, I urge you not to let it go. Not until you are sure nothing more can be made of it. For once you let go of that tiny scrap—by accident or by design—it is sometimes gone forever.”

Esmée could not look at him. “That is good advice, I am sure,” she answered. “Now, if you will excuse me, I must go and tell my aunt what we have decided.”

“I shouldn’t wish her to be angry with you,” said Wynwood. “Tell her the truth, by all means.”

“The truth is that we do not suit,” she said again. “We never did. We are meant for other things, you and I. We were fools ever to think otherwise.”

He smiled at her almost wistfully. “Little Esmée,” he murmured. “Always the wise one. Why is it that we cannot love one another? It would make life so much easier, would it not?”

She returned the smile ruefully. “Aye, but I begin to think we do not get to choose whom we love,” she answered. “And that life was not meant to be easy.” Then she stood on her tiptoes and lightly kissed his cheek.

Feeling very much as if she might cry, Esmée turned and hastened from the room. Aunt Rowena would surely be awake. She believed her aunt would support her choice, but by now, Esmée’s nerves were so thoroughly rattled, she wished this next step over with quite desperately. Regrettably, she was not quick enough in her errand.

Esmée went into her aunt’s bedchamber as soon as her knock was answered. Her face a mask of indignation, Lady Tatton sat stiffly in bed with a breakfast tray laid out before her. It looked as though Pickens had carried up the tale of Lord Wynwood’s indiscretion along with her mistress’s morning chocolate.