So in Love (17 page)

“Do you think so?” she asked, too breathlessly for composure. He stroked a finger down a delicate fold, hesitating where the flesh looked puffy and swollen. She closed her eyes and moved her legs wider, an unspoken entreaty to continue.

“Yes, I do,” he said, as if they were conducting a civil conversation within earshot of others.

Another stroke.

“Has no one ever told you?” He bore down with one tender fingertip, found the one place he sought, and gently circled it. She made a slight sound in response.

He pulled on the stock with his free hand and it slid across her breasts, further stimulating them. Inserting a finger, then two, into her, he stroked her with his thumb. Brushing a palm over her sensitized nipples, he leaned over and kissed her. His fingers kept up a rhythm of fast, and then slow, repeating the motion until her hips arched. He inhaled her soft sounds as she climaxed, held her as she shuddered in his arms, moved his fingers gently to prolong the sensation.

Winding her arms around his neck, she held on to him, trembling. Sighing against his cheek, she whispered, “Come in me, Douglas. Please.”

So much for restraint.

In record time, he’d thrown off his clothes and freed his erection. She reached out to touch him, her hands stroking him tenderly.

He was both the winner and loser in the game of seduction. Suddenly he realized it didn’t matter anymore, they were so equally matched in lust that they were both winners. And if they lost, perhaps it was only a sense of themselves.

She stroked him between her palms and looked entranced as he grew harder and longer under her ministrations. He spread her legs with both hands on the inside of her thighs and lowered himself over her. She widened her knees still farther so that he could have easy access to the core of her.

All he could feel as he entered her was Jeanne, not vengeance or retribution, only the pleasure she effortlessly offered and he selfishly accepted.

He moved closer and bent over her, bracing himself on his forearms. Only then did he kiss her again, a deep drugging kiss that sent his mind spiraling in delight.

Her hips arched as she surged upward, granting him a sensation of dizzying pleasure. He prayed for control and found it only with the greatest of wills, thrusting into her again and again. Breathing hard against her throat, he repeated her name over and over as if the sound of it granted some power beyond that which he’d ever known.

“Douglas.” She shuddered around him, pulling him to her. When he climaxed, it felt as if he’d expended all his life force into her. She returned it to him in an exclamation, a soft crying gasp that made him surge forward repeatedly.

He thought he might actually die in that moment when his breath raced in the same frantic patter as his heart. His vision darkened and his memories faded, leaving only Jeanne and then simply nothing.

Long moments later, he roused to find that his weight was fully atop her. He drew back and she moved her hands over his shoulders as if to keep him with her.

“I’m too heavy.”

“No,” she said softly, sweetly, her voice low and seductive.

A soft sheen of perspiration was on her chest and her face. A rosy glow transformed her torso, and her eyes were languorous. If he could have, he would have commissioned an artist to paint her just that way, pleasured and flushed. He knew in that instant that he would never satiate his lust with her. She would resurrect it with a smile, a kiss, or a look in her eyes.

Standing, he donned his clothes again, slowly so that his mind might have an opportunity to catch up with this body.

The only solution to his dilemma was to send her away.

Instead of dressing, she sat up with her legs to one side, one hand braced on the mattress, the other draped on her thigh. Her head rested against the headboard as if she had
been wearied by seduction. He glanced at her once and then away, thinking that the sight of Jeanne naked was too tempting. He wanted to join her on the bed, tease her with his fingers and his lips. Make her sob with pleasure until she was hoarse.

“I missed you,” she said, the words little more than a whisper.

He wanted her again.

“Did you?” he asked, thinking that it would be just as easy to strip off his clothes and join her. He’d wake in the morning, before the servants were up. No one would know that he’d spent the night in decadent pleasure with Jeanne.

“I did,” she said, her voice sounding throaty and passionate.

He removed his trousers, and then his shirt, uncaring where they landed. Naked, he went to her and embraced her, bending down to kiss her again.

“Show me how much.”

J
eanne woke in the night to find that Douglas had left her, which was just as well. She didn’t know what to say to him. They had not yet admitted the past to each other. Yet each time they met and loved, they stripped another layer of pretense away.

A glance at the clock on the mantel made her sigh. Only three-fifteen. But she knew that she wouldn’t fall asleep again.

Just then, she realized that the connecting door to Margaret’s room was ajar. Donning her wrapper and slippers, she pushed open the door to see Douglas sitting on the edge of a bed in a room created for a princess.

The bedroom was unlike Davis’s spartan chamber. Margaret’s furniture was constructed in scale for a child. The four-poster bed was hung with shirred white silk, the coverlet monogramed with two
M
’s intertwined. A flowered carpet in shades of blue and pink stretched from the bed to a miniature mahogany armoire topped with an arched pediment.

A little girl sat in bed propped up with at least four pil
lows, all of which were covered in a thick crocheted lace. Her black hair hung loose around her shoulders in a cloud. The candle on the nightstand sent shadows around the two of them.

“Just remember, Meggie,” Douglas said tenderly, “that nightmares can’t hurt you.”

The little girl’s gaze was fixed on her father as if he were the center of her universe.

“But it was coming after me, and it was making me run. Why?”

“I don’t know,” Douglas said, smiling lightly. “Nightmares aren’t supposed to make sense. When I was a little boy I used to dream about a bull. It was coming through the fence after me, and chasing me into my mother’s parlor.”

“A bull? That’s silly, Papa. A bull can’t come in the house.”

“Neither can a wolf.”

“But it had big long teeth,” she said, protesting.

“It’s not here now. Shall I check to make sure?”

She looked away and then back at him, the beginning of a smile on her face. “Please, Papa.”

He made a great show of looking under the bed and in the armoire. As he turned, he glanced at Jeanne, but didn’t say anything to alert Margaret as to her presence.

“No wolf here, Meggie.”

She slipped down farther beneath the covers and nodded.

“Could you stay just until I fall asleep?”

“Of course I can,” he said easily. “And after that, Betty will be here with you if you like.”

Just then Margaret glanced toward the door, and Jeanne almost gasped aloud. The child’s eyes were the most beautiful that she’d ever seen. Like Douglas’s, they were blue but much lighter than her father’s, giving her an almost ethereal appearance. Coupled with her pale skin, Margaret
looked not unlike a fairy princess. The portrait had not done her justice. But then, she doubted any artist could have captured the child’s beauty.

“Who is that, Papa?”

Douglas glanced at her. “Your governess, Margaret. Miss du Marchand.”

Jeanne didn’t know whether or not to stay where she was or enter the room. Margaret herself ended her confusion by slipping from the bed and coming to the doorway.

She pulled the door open all the way and then presented the most perfect of curtsies to Jeanne.

“How do you do, Miss du Marchand? I’m Margaret MacRae. Are you truly my governess?”

Jeanne exchanged a quick glance with Douglas.

“Yes,” Jeanne said. “I am.”

“I have never had a governess before. Papa says it’s because I was too young. I read a great deal, however. I’ve educated myself, but I don’t suppose it can be a good thing to do that.”

Startled, Jeanne smiled down at the child. “I don’t suppose it can.”

“Do you know Latin?”

“A smattering of it,” Jeanne confessed.

“I would very much like to learn it. And geography as well. I’m an heiress, you see, and I must know as much as I can before I become wealthy.”

“Tomorrow is soon enough, Margaret,” Douglas interjected, “to ascertain your governess’s strengths.” He patted the coverlet and she returned to the bed, clambering up beside her father.

He stood and then leaned down to kiss her on the forehead. She scooted beneath the covers without another word, smiling up at him in perfect trust. The picture they presented made Jeanne’s heart ache.

“It’s time for you to go to sleep, Margaret.”

“You said you would stay with me.”

“And I will, but I have something to do first. I’ll return in a moment.”

“She’s very intelligent,” Jeanne said, when Douglas came to her side. He left the lantern lit for Margaret and escorted Jeanne back to her room.

“She’s very much like her mother,” he said.

She wanted to ask about this nameless, faceless woman but pride held her tongue.

“I didn’t mean to intrude,” she said. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“Guilty conscience?” he asked lightly, his gaze intent on her face.

“Perhaps,” she said. “Or memories.”

He didn’t respond to her remark, only smiled. “My sister-in-law recommends Chinese tea for sleepless nights. Shall I have some prepared for you?”

Before she could state that she didn’t want any servants awakened on her behalf, he added, “I was going to make some for myself.”

“If it isn’t any trouble.”

“Not at all,” he said.

How exquisitely polite they were to each other. She followed him down the corridor. At the head of the staircase, she watched him descend the steps. His dressing gown was dark blue, the exact shade of his eyes, and she wondered if a woman had picked out the fabric.

“You mustn’t come to my room again.” She hadn’t meant to blurt it out in quite that fashion, but it needed to be said.

He glanced at her over his shoulder. “Why is that?” Without waiting for her answer, he continued walking.

Irritated, she could only stare at his back. “Because your child is in the house. You didn’t think I would be your mistress and her governess as well?”

Again, he didn’t respond.

At the bottom of the stairs he waited for her. She stopped at the first step so that she was level with him, refusing to have him tower over her. Pulling her wrapper even closer, she belted it tighter with a firm tug. He smiled at her gestures, as if knowing that the filmy material was no barrier to his will or even to her needs.

The staircase around them echoed sound, so she whispered, “You mustn’t come to my room.” Even as she spoke the words she could hear the longing in them. It seemed as if he did as well, because he trailed one hand, fingers splayed, from her waist to the base of her throat.

In the past few hours they’d loved twice. But her body readied for him with that simple touch.

“Is this something you truly wish, Jeanne?”

“It is,” she replied, wishing that the words sounded less tremulous.

“Then that’s what you shall have,” he said casually. “I won’t come to your room until you invite me.”

She wished that he were not so handsome or that his charm was not so effortless. At this moment he reminded her of the boy she’d known, reckless and daring and wild.

“Please,” she said and she wasn’t entirely certain what she was asking for. He seemed to sense that as well because when he looked at her there was compassion in his eyes, as if he knew how foolish she was around him and pitied her for it.

Holding out his hand for her, he waited until she placed her own in it before leading her through the corridors of his night-darkened house. At the Hartley home, a footman had been assigned to stay awake during the night in case one of the family needed assistance. In Douglas’s house, all of the servants retired to the third floor at night.

When they entered the kitchen, he closed the door behind them, going immediately to a cupboard where the
candles were stored. He lit one with a length of twisted paper stored in a container near the stove. Before putting the cover back over the glowing embers, he fanned them into flame. Filling a small kettle with water, he placed it atop the stove.

Jeanne sat at the end of the table, her customary place when the staff was dining, and watched him.

“You’re quite adept in a kitchen,” she said, surprised.

“I didn’t always employ people to obey my every whim, Jeanne,” he said, his smile softening the words.

“Do you cook as well as make tea?”

“Rudimentary meals,” he said. He arranged two cups and saucers on a tray and then suddenly left the room. A moment later he was back, carrying a decanter she recognized from his library. He poured a small amount into each cup before replacing the crystal stopper.

“I’ve never had whiskey,” she admitted.

“It will help you sleep.”

“I trust you do not administer the same remedy to Margaret?”

He shook his head, evidently not realizing she was teasing.

“Does she often have nightmares?”

“Often enough,” he said shortly. The tone of his voice altered, as if he didn’t like answering questions about his daughter. The protectiveness he demonstrated startled her, and made her envious in a way that shamed her.

Why should she be jealous of a child? Or was it more than that? Did she envy the mother, the nameless, faceless, adored woman who had given birth to Douglas’s child and then died?

She realized that she resented the fact that this woman, however long dead, had somehow sullied Jeanne’s memories of those days in Paris. Now, when she remembered that time, she would also recall her current doubts.

Had Douglas even loved her? Had he lied when he told her so? Or had she simply imagined his affection all this time?

“Tell me about her mother,” she said and there must have been something about the question that startled him, because he turned and stared at her.

“Why would you want to know?” he asked, frowning at her.

“Is it something I shouldn’t have asked?”

“She was a spoiled and willful woman. Cruel, and used to getting her own way. Is that what you want to know?”

Yes, blessedly, it was. The look in his eyes betrayed his emotions easily enough. The woman had the power to enrage him still, to anger and possibly even repulse him. His expression hadn’t softened when he spoke of her and his voice had a hard edge to it.

“And yet, you loved her.”

He picked up the tray, holding it so tight that his knuckles were white. Returning to the table, he placed the tray down on the scarred wooden surface with more force than was necessary.

“I’m sorry,” she said in the face of his silence. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“You have a way of cutting me to the quick with a few words, Jeanne. But then you always have.” He smiled lightly.

She felt herself grow cold, then hot as she realized the import of his words. “I was wondering when you would say something, Douglas.” She reached for one of the cups and noticed that her hand was trembling. “Or have you just now remembered me?”

“I might ask the same thing of you,” he said. Sitting beside her, he watched as she poured their tea. Anyone seeing them would be unaware of the deep and dangerous currents that swirled around the room or the fact that they
were speaking so lightly of things that mattered so much.

Her heart felt as if it rested at the base of her throat. Her breath was constricted as if someone had tied a string around her chest and was pulling it tight. And all the while she was pouring tea and acting as hostess. All she needed to make this moment thoroughly ridiculous was to have her father stroll into the kitchen.

Humor was unexpected and not entirely welcome. But she had the sudden, absurd wish to laugh. After all this time, this conversation seemed anticlimactic and almost unnecessary.

“I never forgot,” she said, softly. “Never.”

“Not even during those years at the convent?”

“How could I, when I was punished for even thinking of you?”

He looked startled.

“I confessed, you see,” she told him. “Perhaps I was feeling rash, but I once told one of the nuns that I had dreamed of you. They began punishing me both in the morning and the evening just to ensure that my dreams remained chaste.”

He didn’t say anything for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was low and almost hesitant, as if he framed the words as he said them. “What did you do?”

She laughed, grateful for his question, and her sudden amusement. “What was I to do?” She endured it because there was no other alternative, just like this moment as well.

“You’ve changed a great deal.”

“Ten years have passed,” she said. “You can’t imagine that I would have remained the same. For that matter, you’ve changed as well.”

“I’ve grown more cynical,” he said, his eyes never leaving her face. What was he searching for?

This conversation was dangerous. She felt perched on
the edge of a precipice. One false move and she could go hurtling off into the darkness. She didn’t want to reveal anything to him, and yet, paradoxically, she wanted him to know everything about her.

“Drink your tea,” he said, much in the same way he would to Margaret. Startled, she glanced up at him.

Tonight was not the night for revelations, it seemed. In silence and some sort of peace, she sat and sipped at her whiskey-laced tea.

“Is your tea hot enough?”

“Yes, it’s fine.”

“Is the whiskey too strong?”

“No,” she answered.

“Are you hungry?”

“No, thank you.”

Finally, the silence lengthened between them and she realized that it was not an uncomfortable moment. They sat together almost as friends, or lovers who had accidentally discovered some other link in their lives.

“Margaret is waiting,” he said, standing and moving toward the doorway. “I’ve given my word to stay with her until she falls asleep again.”

“You’re a very good father,” she said, unsurprised. She had always thought him constant, someone upon whom she could depend. Until, of course, he never came for her, never looked for her. Now his child needed him, and he was there.

Like Jeanne had not been for her daughter.

She sipped at her tea and surveyed the empty room, determined that sadness would not ruin the rest of this night.