The Fire's Center (33 page)

Cradling her head against his shoulder, they both instantly drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

Early the next morning, Riona stirred against Lucien’s huge frame, stretching like a contented cat. Their legs had become entangled in the middle of the night, and the skirts of her dressing gown were now riding up to her waist.

Lucien, snuggling up against the lovely soft form in the bed beside him, stroked Riona’s warm curvaceous body under the woollen fabric of the dressing gown, and drowsily opened his eyes.

My, but she's breathtaking,
Lucien thought as he kissed Riona.

She laced her fingers in his hair, and soon he had divested them of both their dressing gowns. They lay naked, sprawled among the covers, enjoying a feast of the senses neither had ever dreamt possible.

Warning bells went off inside Lucien’s head, but he couldn’t help himself. After all, Riona seemed a more than willing partner, exploring him all over, as she claimed with an impish grin, in order to further her knowledge of the male anatomy.

"In that case, my dear, you won’t mind me furthering my knowledge of the female anatomy," Lucien countered, spreading her legs wide and exploring her until she breathlessly pleaded for him to take her.

Lucien couldn’t be sure who was taking and giving as their pleasure mounted to indescribable heights. He feasted his eyes on every inch of her.

From looking he moved to touching, caressing, possessing, and even attempting some of the more athletic positions he had once seen in an erotic book they had been passing around the men’s club.

Riona felt slightly shy, but only because she was concerned about pleasing Lucien, and in one of their quieter moments, she admitted as much to him.

"You have no worries on that score. You please me very much, as you can plainly see," he whispered, moving her hand lower down his abdomen to prove his words.

Her sapphire blue eyes widened.

Lucien stared at her with his unusual golden ones for a brief second before saying, "Will you do something for me, Riona?"

"Yes of course, if I can," Riona assented readily.

"Kiss me," Lucien requested softly

"What?" Riona stared, startled.

"Don’t think about it, just do it, Riona. I want you to kiss me."

Riona sensed it was some sort of test, and summoning up all her imagination, she kissed him ardently on the lips.

Any doubts Lucien might have had about making love to Riona fled at that moment. He rolled her under him and joined with her in an ecstasy of passion that sent them both soaring to the heavens and left them completely spent.

It was about nine the next morning when Riona finally opened her eyes, and by then Lucien was already up and nearly dressed.

"There’s some hot water in the basin for you, my dear, and breakfast is on its way up."

Riona drowsily reached for her dressing gown, which Lucien had laid at the foot of the bed, and tugged her arms into it.

"What time do you have your first patient, and when you want to head for the clinic?" she asked sleepily, shoving her heavy auburn tresses away from her face to look at him.

"You’re staying in bed today, my girl, after the scare you gave me yesterday. I won't have you overdoing things," he said as he helped her put on the robe, then brought her the breakfast tray when it arrived a few moments later.

Riona bristled visibly. "I can’t sit around all day doing nothing like, like...."

"Like what?" Lucien prompted coolly.

"Like your mistress!" Riona blurted out as she pushed the tray away slightly.

"Too late for regrets now isn’t it, Riona?" Lucien said, his nostrils flaring. "But you're right, it was a foolish thing to have let happen. I blame myself. I took advantage of your position in this house, of your trust in me, for the past two nights. Surely you must see it cannot possibly be allowed to happen again."

Lucien stepped away from her as though he had been burnt.

Riona kept her mouth clamped shut, terrified she would be sick.
After all they had shared, Lucien was now telling her what a
mistake
he had made?

"I'm of course, an unsophisticated country bumpkin, and such matters are beyond me," Riona said, rising from the bed stiffly. "I’ll leave you now, sir."

Lucien grasped her by the shoulders, appalled at her pallor and her obvious shock at his seemingly callous words.

"Riona, I have a responsibility to you and your family to look after you, don’t you see? I’ve already harmed you, and you might even be with child already. Can’t you understand, I led you into it. I, well, I used the close friendship we have to get under your guard, to get you to do things no respectable woman should ever..."

Riona shot him a murderous look then, and shook his hand off her as she headed for the door.

"You needn’t bother to say any more. I understand perfectly," Riona hissed, clutching his dressing gown to her throat tightly. "I'm the hired help, that's all. I mustn't dare get above my station, nor should I inconvenience you by giving you any cause for worry about an unwanted child. I’ll pack my things now, sir, and trouble you no more."

"Don’t be silly! Where would you go?" Lucien demanded as he ran after her and blocked the door before she could leave.

Riona turned her back to him then, not even daring to look at him for fear of feeling an even bigger fool than she already did. "To find my father,
 
which is why I was coming to Dublin in the first place, and I shall seek employment elsewhere."

"Riona, be reasonable," Lucien demanded angrily. "So far as we've heard, your father has gone to England with his employer. As for you looking for work elsewhere, you already have a job. I just want you to be sure that if I, well, er, if I do do anything foolish towards you ever again, I want you to stop me. It isn’t right, do you understand? If there is any, er, trouble, well of course I will help you. I want you to stay in this house at least until you are sure, do I make myself plain?

"Then hopefully this whole thing will blow over. I don’t want to ruin your whole bright promising future just because I found myself lonely. It was just raw desire. It got out of hand. I’m sorry."

Lucien walked away from the door then, and sat down with a sigh.

"And you mean I wasn’t lonely too? And that I didn’t desire you?" Riona asked suddenly, her hand on the door knob.

"D-d-don’t be silly, the medical books tell us that women aren’t the same as men in that way," Lucien stammered.

"In what way?" Riona asked sarcastically.

"Well, you know, they don’t feel the same sort of needs, or pleasures." He shrugged, running his fingers through his hair. "The pains of Eve, you know..." he added lamely.

Riona smirked. "I see, so I was groaning in agony a few hours ago, was I?"

"Don’t, please, I don’t wish to be reminded of my callous behaviour!" Lucien protested vehemently.

"Forget I mentioned it, then," Riona said with a dangerous smile, and stalked out.

Lucien shook his head as she left.

Why were women such a mystery?
he wondered. Certainly Riona was the biggest enigma he had ever come across.

Almost as confusing as the feelings which surged through him every time he looked at her, and which Lucien desperately wished he could suppress….

Lucien tried to maintain his resolve not to see Riona alone, or approach her in any way which might lead them to repeat their two nights of passion together, but it was so difficult to live under the same roof with her, work with her, and not want to be with her night and day.

After an uneasy truce for three days, in which Riona was completely silent except when spoken to, and worked long hours outside the house, either at the clinic, or attending some lectures he had arranged for her, Lucien found himself making up pretexts for seeing her.

 
He had many clinical examinations, particularly of female patients, that he let her sit in on, and discussed with her afterwards, and of course he was always eager to hear what she had learnt at her lectures.

Bath time again reminded him of their former intimacies, even though there was no more companionable chit-chat through the partition door. Riona never once stepped foot inside his bedroom or dressing room, she simply took her bath first, and left, or, if he got in before her, she waited outside in the hallway with a book until he was finished.

If Riona cut short her time in the dining room with him at supper to go do some more reading, he usually managed to find an excuse to go into the library or the two studies to carry out some work there.

Their relationship continued on in this way for about another fortnight, until one evening when Lucien received catastrophic news.

Riona and Lucien were in the dining room finishing their supper. Riona was reading up on some details for a lecture and demonstration she was to see the following day, whilst Lucien sat there pretending to read the paper, but in truth looking at her longingly and hoping she would speak to him.

Suddenly, Old Tom, from his house out in County Wicklow, entered the room, and brought Lucien the devastating news that his uncle Oliver had just suffered a severe stroke.

Lucien jumped up instantly to gather his things, overwhelmed and distracted by his emotions, and trying to fetch everything he would need in a hurry.

Riona remained calm, packing some clean shirts and a change of clothes, his toilet kit, and then fetching his bag and cloak, before asking quietly, "Do you wish me to come with you to help?

Lucien hesitated only for a second before nodding gratefully, and she was ready herself within minutes.

On the way down in the carriage, Lucien filled her in on details from his family life. "Oliver is my father’s only brother, as different from him as the sun from the moon. He was my constant boyhood companion, until of course Quentin was born. My sister was always a trifle weak and sickly, and in any case my father wanted me to be manly. It would have been unmanly to spend time with girls, not even my own mother," he laughed bitterly.