The Delicate Matter of Lady Blayne (38 page)

She struggled to suppress those urges and to remain passive beneath him, accepting his lovemaking submissively as he had asked.

Then he bit at her nipple. A light yet sharp sensation, so unexpected, so thrilling that she cried out and arched her back.

He lifted his head and stared down at her, his eyes dilated as though with extreme desire. “Already, eh?” he said.

She lay with her mouth open, gaping at him, amazed that she had already failed.

That easily.

He chuckled softly, caressing both her breasts with his large hands, his thumbs grazing her hard-as-pebbles nipples.

“That was too easy for you,” she said, not without some resentment. “I don’t suppose I made it much fun for you.”

He laughed. “You’re inexperienced at this. You’re actually quite inexperienced at sex in general, for that matter.”

“Then you’re going to give me quarter this time?” she asked, not sure whether to be grateful or disappointed.

“Certainly not. Training is training, even for a green girl such as yourself.” He moved away from her and sat on the edge of the bed.

Delicious fear tingled through her.

He patted his lap, indicating that she ought to come there.

She stared at him, frozen in place. Afraid to do what he bade. Yet excited madly about the idea.

“Cat.” This time there was an edge in his voice.

It sent thrills slamming into her pelvis.

It made her unable to even think of disobeying. If he was still playacting, well, he was a very good actor! She crawled to where he sat.

It was awkward.

He helped her, pulling her in place. Easily shifting her body on his lap.

As he moved, she was aware of his powerful, hard-muscled thighs. Of his large, strong hands.

“Put your hands flat on the floor,” he said.

She obeyed and quickly saw how to balance herself. But she still felt awkward, a little embarrassed at the position. She couldn’t help tensing. She had no idea what to expect with him.

He stroked her buttocks for a few moments.

She became aware of how vulnerable she was, how opened to his view, his touch.

“Ready?” he asked.

She sucked in her breath. “I am ready.”

She wasn’t at all sure she was ready…

But she had longed for this. She had to at least find out what it would be like.

He laid a swat on her buttocks. There was a slight sting. More of a shock that rocked through her. He set up a rhythm, slapping one cheek and then the other and then back again. The slight sting built into a tingling heat that was most…interesting. Thrilling. Tingling fire.

Tingling fire that spread straight to her sex. Her nub throbbed and her channel clenched hungrily. She was getting so wet. She wiggled against his thighs.

He gave her several more spanks.

It was just as titillating as she had ever imagined.

Naughty. Forbidden.

He struck her with more force. She gasped, more at the sharp sound. A stronger, more fiery burning sparked over her buttocks, the sensation flaring deep inside her sex, her belly. He struck her twice more, each time a little harder.

“Enough—for this first time.” He stroked her heated flesh, reigniting the sting.

She caught her breath.

“Your arse is a lovely shade of pink, love.” He traced his hand between her legs. “God, you are so wet.”

She released her breath, her face heating as she realized he was quite correct.

She was dripping for him.

He slid a finger into her wetness and she clenched around it. He moved his finger and suddenly, inexplicably, her sex contracted and released again and again, an explosion of near painful pleasure. Despite the powerful release, she was still writhing, arching her pelvis against his thighs, begging him.

“Hush,” he said, easing her from his lap. Picking her up and laying her on the bed.

He walked away and she cried out, softly.

“Hush,” he said, returning to her. He held something in his hands.

Silk rope.

She began breathing very fast. “What is that?”

“Hush.” He knelt by her on the bed, taking her hands, pulling them above her head. Tying them together.

“I don’t know…”

He paused and looked her in the eyes. “You want to halt?”

Something hot and dark and forbidden pooled deep in her stomach. She had longed for this. Would she allow last-moment fears, baseless fears, to prevent her from experiencing what she wanted most of all from him?

She shook her head.

“Say the words.”

“I want to continue.”

“I am going to tie you up, very simply this time. I am just binding your hands above your head. I want you to become used to the idea. The feelings.” He gave the rope a slight tug. “There, see for yourself.”

She pulled at her hands. They were bound firmly together, however, she could still move her arms somewhat. She could have brought them in front of her instead of leaving them above her head.

But she felt more vulnerable with them above her head.

And that vulnerability aroused her more than anything ever had in her life. Her breath came in little pants. Her nub beat like a second heart. And she was wetter than ever.

He took her legs and parted them, holding them apart, giving her no choice but to be spread wide to his view. “I am just going to take you this time. I am going to allow you to experience what it is like to be taken whilst you are bound. Whilst your arse is burning from my hand.”

She swallowed and nodded.

“Tell me that you understand.”

“I understand.”

He pushed himself into her.

She was so wet that he slid to the hilt swiftly.

He groaned and then began thrusting, still holding her legs firmly, shifting her body to suit his desires. “You’re here to serve my needs, do you understand?”

“Yes,” she said, remembering to speak and not to nod.

He gave her a series of vigorous thrusts. Then paused. “Your body exists to give me pleasure and I shall do with it what I please. Do you understand?”

“Yes, I understand.”

His words excited her madly, as did his continued strokes in and out of her channel. Her bottom rubbed against the linen sheet, raw and burning. Her channel rippled over his cock, and violent shudders of pleasure overtook her. The intensity took her breath, swift and unbearably sweet.

After the spasms, she lay gasping, amazed that release could catch her so totally by surprise.

Catriona’s body bucked and writhed beneath James. He held her hips, holding back from his own release, focused on watching her come undone. Focused on simply enjoying the way her channel clenched on his cock. As her climax subsided, he put his lips to the crook between her shoulder and her neck, right on the love bruise that he’d left there previously.

He drove into her with deep, rapid strokes, his hips pumping and pumping. He couldn’t get enough of her tight, wet, hot channel. His heart pounded, his whole body strained. He drove himself to his limits of endurance and still he couldn’t get enough of her.

He fucked her with desperation, driving himself to his very limits.

Afterwards, he lay against her panting. He couldn’t push her too hard, too fast. He knew that. But, oh, today he had wanted more from her, much more. Listening to her breathless little confessions about lusting for a man to punish her, to dominate her, had nearly proved his undoing.

He’d had to remind himself that now was a time for creating experiences for her.

Later, there would be time to sate his every fancy and whim with her luscious body.

Now was a time to show her enough of a glimpse of what things could be like between them, so that she would be intrigued enough to submit to him. To allow him to awaken her.

She was innocent. Inexperienced. He would have to be patient. Meeker had already hurt her. Frightened her. Disappointed her. She wasn’t yet willing to admit all the truth of her start with the physician. Maybe she never would. That was all right, she’d admitted enough for James to understand her better.

James had been too young and inexperienced himself, all those years ago in the Landbrae garden. He hadn’t understood that she had craved a firm hand. Needed someone to lead her, to dominate her with sensual pleasure. Not someone to ravish her and pressure her.

All the pain for both of them might never have been, if only he had possessed more finesse eight years ago.

She would have been his wife.

The torment of that thought ate into him and he was forced to push it away.

Chapter Twenty-Six

The chiming of the clock seemed unnaturally loud, echoing within Sunny’s chest. She startled and moved to the edge of the settee.

“Catriona, it is going to be all right.”

She looked to where James sat beside her. He put his hand over hers. “You’ll like Aggie. She’s kind and warm. Everyone loves her.”

He spoke of his cousin, who would arrive any moment from her husband’s highland estate. She had generously accepted his request that she company him and Sunny to London. Though, yes, he was generously paying her for her time. Her husband often had bad luck at the tables.

Sunny couldn’t help tapping her foot. It was all she could do not to leap from her seat and pace the chamber.

For the first time in weeks she was dressed formally, her stays tight and cutting into her ribs just a bit. Her hair tidily confined in a chignon, the severity of which was relieved only by a loose curl left to fall on each of her cheeks.

“It’s really going to turn out fine,” he said.

She looked up again and tried to smile, but she knew the effect was wooden. She wasn’t comfortable with the idea of having any woman be a “companion” to her. Someone who would watch over her, reporting her every move.

“Would you like more tea?” he asked.

“Oh goodness, no.” She was full of tea and a bit of peach brandy. It had been quite enough.

He reached up and touched one of those loose curls. “You have a small fortune’s worth of hair jewelry. Yet I never see you wear it. Why not?”

She lifted one shoulder slightly then lowered it, not caring about the topic of jewelry at the moment.

He stood.

“Come,” he said, holding his hand out to her. “Let’s go to your chamber for a moment.”

“Why?”

“Just come along, to please me.”

She let him lead her back up the stairs to her chamber.

“Where is your jewel case?”

“Back at Blayne House.”

“No—I had all your personal effects sent here.” He walked over to where the trunks were all still lined up against the far wall. She had only opened one or two, to access her day dresses and nightgowns. He opened them one by one, rifling through the contents until he found what he sought. He brought the wooden case with its bright brass accents to her bed, then motioned for her to come and sit.

She complied, holding her breath as he opened the rather large case and revealed its sparkling contents.

“You have some very pretty pieces here,” he said. “I wonder why you would purchase all of these and never wear them.”

“I bought them because they are pretty and I like pretty things.”

“But you never enjoy them.”

“I do look at them from time to time.”

“But they are made to be worn, not just looked at. Yet you never wear them.” He smiled, but Sunny detected an impatient edge in his voice. He lifted out a comb adorned with emerald stones and examined it. “It is a very good rendition. If I hadn’t seen your bills myself, I wouldn’t know it was paste.” He held the piece up to her hair. “It would go well with your apple-green gown.”

She took the comb from his hand and studied it, running her finger along the elegant scrollwork. “It is one my favorites.”

“Have you ever worn it?”

“Once, on Christmas.”

He took the comb from her. “Here, wear it today.” He slipped the comb into her hair above her ear. “There.”

She frowned then swept her hand over the case of glittering jewelry. “I suppose I hardly ever wear any of these because I am never quite sure they look right on me.” She frowned deeper. “Proper.”

“Of course it looks proper.”

She glanced in the mirror then tilted her head this way and that, letting the stones catch the light. “You don’t think it looks garish?”

“I think it looks charming.”

The reflection of the sparkling stones in the mirror seemed to accuse her. People would look at her, and she knew what they would think.

Frivolous woman!

“I think it is a bit much for today.” She reached up to remove the comb.

He put his hand on hers. “Leave it. The green stones are very becoming against the gold in your lovely hair, and it pleases me.”

“It is a sign of my frivolity, my extravagances.”

He smiled at her. “I was only teasing you, the other day, about your expenditures. Do you think that the total for all your little paste baubles could ever equal what Aunt Frances paid for Freddy’s snuffboxes and gambling losses for a single year?”

“I don’t know.”

“They couldn’t.”

She gaped.

His mouth twitched in amusement.

She realized that for all her time as Freddy’s wife and Frances’ petted and spoiled daughter-in-law, she was still common.

She had no idea what James would consider expensive or not.

He traced his fingertip along the comb. “Let me care for you, Catriona. Let me pamper you and shower you with luxuries. I have never cared for anyone in my life the way I care for you. I want to give you everything.”

His words and the sudden impassioned note in his voice startled her.

“Honestly, I have never cared for anyone before—not truly. No one before you.”

Her mouth dropped open. “How can you say that?”

He shrugged. “It is the truth.”

“But surely, your mother…your Aunt Frances. Wait, and you have a half-brother and half-sisters.”

“I do not know them.”

“What do you mean you do not know them? Of course you know them,” she insisted.

“No, I really don’t. They do not allow themselves to be known, just as I have never allowed myself to be known by them.”

“But they are your family, your blood!”

“Our blood runs cold, my love. The Blaynes do not know how to love; we only know how to buy and obligate. How to coerce and conquer.”

She studied him, could see the honest light in his eyes. It almost seemed he was begging her to see, to understand. He was letting her see into his soul. She saw the flatness, the resignation, the lack of warmth and hope. Icy fingers of dread curled around her spine.

Again she noticed the refined cut of his features. The self-determination and discipline that radiated from him. The easy acceptance of privilege, as though it had always been a part of him.

He was an aristocrat right down to his bones.

He might settle for her as a playmate in his private hours, but she would never truly be a part of his life. Never truly become a part of him.

The thoughts had rushed into her mind, most unwelcome, but they were now impossible to put aside.

A knock sounded from downstairs. Sunny’s heart leapt into her throat. She jumped to her feet then smoothed her gown. “Oh! Oh, we are surely caught unawares.”

He gave her an arch look. “Earlier, now that would have been caught unawares.”

She stared at him stupidly, then remembered how he had bound and tied her hands above her head and had her in the garden at dawn. Her face grew hot.

He laughed softly and stood. He took her hand. His look was heated. Passionate.

Those icy fingers of dread still entwined her heart. Would not let her go.

****

James opened the door. Standing there was a man wearing rather threadbare looking livery.

“Good morning, my lord,” the man said, fidgeting with his hat.

“Good morning. What can I do for you?”

The man turned and pointed to the circular drive where a carriage stood with the door open. “She won’t leave the carriage.”

James pushed past the servant to better to see the drive.

Sure enough, the carriage door was open but the occupants had not yet alighted.

He strode down the drive, pebbles crunching under his boots. “Aggie…” His words of welcome died on his lips as he leaned inside the door of the vehicle.

From the dimly lit interior, two large, silver-blue eyes stared back at him from an ashen, heart-shaped face. A girl not a woman.

Ailise.

The name sounded in his mind with impossibility, even as his eyes took in her narrow, slumped shoulders, her quivering mouth. The masses of dark-auburn curls that peeked from beneath a straw bonnet.

Mother!

The word scorched in his thoughts as pure anger seethed in his blood. What the devil had she done this time?

A little quavering moan escaped his half-sister’s lips.

“Ailise, where is cousin Aggie?” he demanded.

She reached into her pelisse and pulled out a vellum envelope, then handed it to him, trembling all the while.

He swallowed back a curse and backed out of the vehicle into the light. He tore the letter open and swept his gaze over his mother’s dramatic, curving script.

Aggie couldn’t be spared. Ailise will have to do for a companion for Lady Blayne. Perhaps whilst she is in London, as the new Earl of Greythorn, you will give her a season and find her a nice, wealthy husband.

James crushed the paper in his fist.

“Bloody hell.”

Ailise was sixteen years old. Not old enough to be anyone’s companion. Not even old enough for a season, as far as he was concerned.

Then the full enormity of what his mother had done dawned on him.

Had she really sent a virgin all the way here from the Highlands, alone?

He ducked his head back into the carriage and stared at Ailise’s pale, trembling face. “Are you well, Ailise?”

She rubbed her stomach. “I have been a little off my food since the journey b-began.”

“Where is your maid?”

“She became ill, part-way here.”

“Ill? How ill?” Since when did a maid desert her lady, especially a lady of Ailise’s tender years?

“She ate some bad salmon. I-I didn’t…I was already feeling unwell from the carriage.”

James compressed his lips. “Why didn’t you wait for her to recover?”

“Douglas told the driver that my arrival here mustn’t be delayed, for any reason, or-or there would be grave consequences for him.” Her mouth had begun to quiver so hard she clamped it shut.

“Where the devil is the baggage cart? Surely there are other servants?”

“Mama said I wouldn’t need extra baggage. She said none of my clothes would be suitable for London fashions in any case. Douglas didn’t want the expense.”

His half-brother, Douglas Carr, the Earl of Fisher. A man of disgustingly cheeseparing habits except, of course, those that related to the gaming tables or expensive whores.

“Where did you stay at night?”

“Inns.”

“By yourself?”

“The driver, he stayed right outside my door, just as Douglas instructed.”

“How could your brother let you travel alone but for one servant?”

She rubbed her hands up and down the pale gray velvet of her pelisse. “Are you…very angry?” Her voice fell on the last words.

“Not at you, Ailise. Come.” He offered her his hand.

She stared, eyes large, but didn’t move.

Oh, damnation.

Was the girl truly all right?

He remembered his mother complaining about Ailise’s shyness and how she seemed to get more timid as she grew. He frowned then left the carriage.

Catriona waited outside, the sunlight glittering on the green stones in her hair comb. In the stark light, they looked exactly like paste jewels.

He handed her the wadded letter.

Her brow furrowed, but she took it and smoothed out the paper, then read the note. Her forehead wrinkled even deeper.

“She’s only sixteen. What the devil was my mother thinking?” he muttered, then waved his hand toward the carriage. “They have sent her alone.”

Her mouth dropped open. “Not even a maid?”

“She said the woman became ill and had to be left behind part-way here.”

He reached for Catriona’s hand. “She’s terrified. She won’t leave the vehicle.”

“Oh,” Catriona said. She handed him the letter then hurried to the carriage. For long moments, he heard her speaking softly.

Eventually, Ailise emerged from the carriage, moving slowly and glancing all around as she did. James wondered what the devil had happened to make her so skittish.

****

Sunny tried to be patient whilst Ailise stood in the kitchen by the hipbath. The water had begun to steam far less as it cooled, and still the girl refused to remove her shift.

“Please, Ailise, you haven’t many clothes with you. They must all be laundered before we begin our journey south,” Sunny said with a smile.