The Rake's Mistress (11 page)

Rebecca’s humiliation made her cheeks burn. ‘I had not thought—’

‘Of course not. I do not believe you have done any thinking tonight.’

Rebecca gave him a look of intense dislike. ‘You mistake, my lord. I thought enough about turning you down!’

For a moment she thought she had gone too far. She had wanted to explain to Lucas that the only reason she was at the masquerade at all was because she had been lonely. She had had a craving for light and company. She wanted to forget, for one evening only, that her life was so constrained and full of struggle. The desire to escape had overcome her common sense and she had ignored the warnings that her tired mind was trying to send her. Now she was richly rewarded, for she had lost Nan’s friendship, if friendship it had been, and she had lost Lucas Kestrel’s good opinion. She stared at him for a moment of frozen apprehension, wondering what on earth he was going to do, and then he laughed.

‘So you did, Miss Raleigh. Upon which note we should end this charade.’

Rebecca scarcely saw the opulent gold-and-scarlet staircase as he swept her down to the front door. Lucas’s arm was tight about her waist and he did not stop to speak to anyone. The music still played and the guests still danced, their behaviour even more unbridled than before.

In the hackney carriage she shrank within her cloak and curled up in the corner as far away from Lucas as she could. They did not speak. Rebecca watched the light flicker past the windows and listened to the reassuring beat of the horse’s hooves on the road and wondered how matters could possibly get worse. For a few brief hours she had imagined herself as Cinderella, only to find herself banished back to the garret, her dreams in shreds. She could feel Lucas’s gaze resting on her unfathomably. She could still sense his anger and frustration and beneath that something deep and elemental that made her shiver. She turned away and looked out into the dark, but she knew that his scrutiny had not wavered from her face. She could feel it and it stirred emotions that were barely beneath the surface.

Lucas had recognised Rebecca as soon as she stepped into the room. He had only attended the masque on a whim, for he was bored with the prospect of another night teaching Stephen to play snooker, or a gambling session at White’s. Even
worse was the thought of another dinner with Cory and Rachel Newlyn, glowing with happiness, making him feel like a frustrated outcast from a very exclusive club.

So he had gone to the masque and had felt the boredom and dissatisfaction grip him afresh at the sight of all that exotic and erotic excess, and then Rebecca Raleigh had walked into the room in her sinfully tight red silk dress and his heart had almost stalled. For a split second he had thought her to be the wanton she had always denied, and the hot disillusion and anger threatened to swamp all other feelings. Yet as he watched her he realised that there was something shocked and innocent in her demeanour as she stared at the licentious throng. And when he had seen her trying to refuse Fremantle’s attentions, he had been sure of it.

He had not intended to see Rebecca again, for both their sakes. He had resolved that Justin should take over the investigation into the engraving. Yet the minute he laid eyes on her it had made mockery of his good intentions. He had forgotten his honourable resolve, his determination to disengage before matters spiralled out of control. Instead he had flirted with her and pushed her hard with a desire that was entirely unfeigned. She had played her part well, but with enough hesitation and innate modesty for Lucas to know that she was part afraid, part intrigued. He could tell that she felt the
same irresistible passion that he did and that it confused her. The knowledge was the only thing that held him in check and prevented him from sweeping her into his arms and his bed. The strong protective urge that he felt for her had not diminished. When he had seen Fremantle about to lay his disgusting hands on her, he had almost given way to violence.

Now he looked at Rebecca curled up in a corner of the hackney carriage and his heart twisted with pity and the need to comfort her. She looked so small and forlorn. He wanted to chase those shadows from her eyes. The surge of feeling she stirred within him threatened to overwhelm him.

On impulse he put out a hand and touched her shoulder. She did not move.

‘Rebecca…’ his voice was gentle this time ‘…what were you doing at the masque?’

He caught the sheen of tears on her cheeks as she turned her head towards him and he pulled her into his arms. She came easily to him, curving against him.

‘I wanted everything to be different,’ she said softly, ‘just for one night.’

Lucas pressed his lips to her hair. ‘I understand,’ he said, ‘but did it have to be a masque?’

He felt her smile against his chest. ‘There was nowhere else to go.’

Lucas’s mind filled with images of all the places that he would like to take her. She would enjoy the theatre, or an evening stroll through Vauxhall Gardens in the summer, when the sun was setting indigo and red and the lanterns were lit. Or a ball at Carlton House, or to visit the Royal Academy… There were so many places, so many treats that he wanted to shower upon her. Such matters were easy for him to arrange and he took them for granted. It was not the same for Rebecca, tied to earning a living, relentlessly working in order to survive. It made him feel oddly humble.

Rebecca shifted slightly in his arms and Lucas became instantly aware of the press of her body against his. Her cloak had slipped to reveal the bodice of the scandalously low red silk dress and the pale swell of her breasts above it. His body tightened in instinctive response to her luscious beauty and he bit back a curse.

‘And the dress?’ His voice sounded harsher than he had intended.

Rebecca snuggled closer to him, causing his body further agonies of self-denial. ‘It belongs to Nan Astley.’ She sounded a little sleepy.

‘Of course it does.’ Lucas, compensating for the tightness in his breeches that the dress caused, sounded pompous. ‘And the flirting?’

‘
You
flirted with
me
,’ Rebecca said.

‘And did you know it was me?’

There was a pause. ‘Yes,’ Rebecca sounded cautious. ‘I… I thought it was you.’

‘You
thought
it was me?’ Lucas felt outraged. ‘You mean that you flirted like that with a masked stranger without knowing his identity for sure?’

Rebecca tried to sit up, but he held her tightly in arms that were suddenly as hard as steel.

‘I was certain it was you,’ she said. She sighed. ‘Besides, I doubt you meant a word you said.’

‘Every word,’ Lucas said. ‘I meant every word.’

Suddenly the silence between them was vivid with unspoken emotion. Rebecca struggled to free herself from him and even in the dark he could see the hectic colour in her face and the glitter of her eyes.

‘Lucas—’ she said.

‘Hush.’ He pressed his fingers to her lips. ‘Rebecca.’

The hackney turned into the street and drew to a halt outside the silent workshop.

Lucas helped Rebecca down and turned to pay the jarvey. She heard the chink of coins and a mumbled word of thanks from the driver as he raised his whip and the carriage moved off. The night was cold and damp. Light no longer shone from the tavern and the street was silent.

Lucas waited whilst Rebecca unlocked the door. Her hands were shaking and it seemed to take her a long time, but it was not the cold that was making
her tremble. The air between them was thick with sensual awareness. She felt as though she could touch it, taste it. She felt as though it was smothering her.

She stopped and turned to him. Behind her was the darkness of the workshop, the fitful moonlight lying in scattered beams across the floor. It was waiting for her—all the loneliness and the misery and the emptiness that had trapped her since her uncle’s death had left her almost alone in the world. Yet before her was a man who could block out all that sadness and solitude, if only for a short while. He could hold her, give her comfort, turn the darkness to light for her.

Lucas did not move. She could not see his expression. She did not need to.

She put out a hand and her fingertips came up against the smooth material of his coat. Her fingers drifted across his chest and his own hand came up to imprison hers.

‘What is it that you want, Rebecca?’ he said. His voice was husky.

‘You.’ Rebecca spoke barely above a whisper. She knew nothing other than that the desire for him burned hotter than all else. Almost all…

The words
I love you
were blazed across her mind, so vivid she almost spoke them aloud.

‘I need you,’ she said. She tugged on his hand very gently and he followed her across the threshold.
The door closed behind them with a gentle click and they stood in total darkness.

Time spun out between them. She could feel the tension emanating from Lucas’s body. It felt almost as though he was about to turn and leave her. She could not bear for him to go now. She wanted to blot out the pain and the anguish and the unhappiness, just for one night.

‘Lucas,’ she said beseechingly, ‘please…’

Then he closed the distance between them and took her mouth with his, and as he drew her into his arms, his kiss turned the darkness to light.

R
ebecca’s head was spinning, her heart racing at the shattering sensations that were coursing through her. Lucas’s mouth claimed hers again with a hungry demand and she responded with all the pent-up longing and loneliness and need in her soul. Her breasts felt full and heavy against the slippery silk of the ballgown and his hand slid up to cup her there. Rebecca shivered and pressed closer. It felt as though she had always known it would come to this. It had been inevitable from the moment that they had first met and now she wanted nothing more than to lose herself in him.

Her cloak fell to the floor in a pool of darkness, and then Lucas had swept her up off her feet and into his arms.

‘Where is your room?’

‘Up the staircase in the corner.’

They wasted no further breath on words.

The wooden stair was a narrow spiral, but it posed no difficulties for Lucas, who carried her as
though she weighed nothing at all. Halfway up the stairs he stopped, and in the pulsing darkness, looked down into her face. Rebecca’s lips parted as she stared up at him and he gave a ragged groan and swooped down to take her lips with his, his tongue darting wickedly to part them farther and invade the moist sensitivity of her mouth. Rebecca’s senses reeled.

She had no memory of how she came to be on her bed in the tiny garret under the eaves. Lucas was leaning over her and she raised a hand to touch his lean cheek with a shy possessiveness, entranced to feel the roughness of his stubble beneath her questing fingers. There was a tender wonderment in her touch. Nothing had ever felt so good, or so right. She wanted to see him, but there was very little light in the room. Her other senses were heightened, drinking him in like water in the desert, the feel and the taste and the scent of him.

‘Lucas,’ she said.

His only reply was to slide his hands into her hair and find her mouth with his again. Rebecca was drowning in acute longing, waiting breathlessly in fevered, urgent desperation. He shed his clothes and hers too, their hands bumping impatiently as Rebecca sought to help and to rid herself of the constraining layers that came between them. She wanted to feel his skin against hers, but when they were naked together and she felt his hands on
her body, she thought she would burn up with sheer, agonising need. He bent his head and nipped at her breasts, torturing her with his tongue and his teeth while Rebecca writhed beneath him and gave a low, wanton cry of total abandonment. She was driven to near madness by every sure, knowing stroke of his hands and his mouth on her. This was beyond anything that she had imagined.

She slid her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck. He felt warm and strong, and she revelled in that strength. Her hands brushed the tousled hair from his forehead and slid over the hard, muscular perfection of his shoulders and down his chest, until he captured them and spread her arms wide apart on the mattress so that her body was open to him.

Rebecca shivered convulsively. Her mind was cloudy with heated desire. When he teased her thighs apart she shuddered, jerking and gasping as he found and traced the hot, intense centre of her. The exquisite sensations built and crashed about her, and wrenched a tormented gasp from her.

‘Lucas,
please
…’

She was dimly aware of the urgency in his hands as he slid over her, then he plunged into her and the passionate invasion wrenched a sharp gasp of pain from her lips. He stilled in an instant.

‘No! You can’t be!’ He sounded breathless and ragged.

Rebecca shifted slightly, utterly distracted by the tiny movements that were easing him all the way inside of her. It was impossible to concentrate and talking was the last thing that she wanted to do. ‘I
told
you,’ she said.

‘Yes, but I thought…’ Lucas sounded dazed.

Rebecca rubbed his arm in a gentle caress. ‘Do you really wish to speak about it now, Lucas?’

His eyes came back to hers and she saw him register their situation, his expression darkening as he took in the tension and heat of her body wrapped about his in intimate conjoining. He gave a groan. ‘No.’

‘Then do not.’ Rebecca wriggled a little and Lucas groaned again, bending to kiss her, ravishing her mouth with the same thoroughness with which he was now taking her body. He took his time now, building up the new and devastating sensations that had fled briefly from her when he had stopped. Raw desire possessed her again, whirled her up, mingled with the pounding surge of his body within hers. She was spinning, tense and tight and out of control, until the mindless pleasure burst like stars and tumbled her over the edge of a shattering release.

For a long time there was no sound but their breathing as it slowed and calmed, and then Lucas pulled Rebecca close to him and wrapped his arms about her. His mouth was against her hair.

‘I am going to light a candle.’

Rebecca stiffened. It seemed too soon. Suddenly she needed the anonymity of the darkness. ‘Please do not.’

‘I want to look at you.’ He sounded adamant.

Rebecca sighed with acquiescence. She heard him grope for the tinderbox and strike a light. The small flame flared, bringing the shabby garret into warm focus. Lucas lit the candle, set it down and turned to her.

‘Now…’ he said.

Despite the severity of his tone, there was gentleness in the way that he pulled her close to him once again, his arms going about her, drawing her against the hard, warm length of his body. Rebecca relaxed into his embrace. He smoothed a tender hand over her hair.

‘You should have told me that I would be the first.’

Rebecca laughed. ‘I told you several times.’

‘You said that you were no courtesan.’ Lucas hesitated. ‘I thought you inexperienced, but I did not realise…’ He sighed. ‘I should have known.’

Rebecca gave a tiny shrug. ‘I told you that I was virtuous.’

‘Then why this—now?’

Rebecca turned her face against his shoulder. ‘I told you that too. You said that you understood. I
wanted to escape—forget everything—for a single night.’

Lucas took her chin in his hand and turned her face to his. His eyes were golden in the candlelight. ‘Oh, Rebecca…’ He sounded rueful and tender.

Rebecca kissed his shoulder, touching her tongue to his skin, inhaling his scent and tasting the faint tang of salt and sweat. She did not want to talk. She wanted to live in the moment.

She ran her hands down his body, exploring, learning as she went. His muscles felt tense and coiled and she wondered whether he was going to repudiate her, but after a moment he gave a soft sigh and she felt him surrender to her touch. Her mouth followed the path her fingers had taken. His skin felt hot and damp and as her hands drifted lower he rolled over and trapped her beneath him.

‘That’s enough…’ His tone was rough and when she looked at him wonderingly he touched her cheek, his voice softening. ‘I do not want to hurt you any more than I already have done, sweetheart.’

‘You have not hurt me,’ Rebecca said, ignoring the slight ache of her body, ‘and the morning is not yet here—’

Her words broke off as his fingers found the damp warmth that he had left only minutes before,
and gently caressed and teased her into a state of shameless pleasure.

Fierce heat flowered in her and she pulled him close, arching against him, crying out as his mouth closed over her breast.

He nudged her legs apart and entered her again. This time was slow and gentle, a matter of small, exquisite movements and drugging sweetness that cast them adrift in sensuality until they finally and, oh, so slowly, slipped into pure ecstasy and from there to oblivion.

Rebecca woke to find that they were still intimately entwined. He was still inside her. She had
slept
with him like that. The shock ripped through her, followed almost immediately by a quivering leap of raw excitement at the shattering intimacy of it. She made a small sound, half-astonishment, half-pleasure, and as Lucas started to move she felt her body tighten once again into a slow, shimmering climax that went on and on. His hand slid up possessively from her stomach to her breast with a gentle, sleepy touch that made her want to press herself against him in sheer contentment. She was dazed and weak with the hot, endless pleasure, her mind as cloudy as her body was limp. Lucas kept her spread beneath him, shifting more firmly over her, lowering his head to take her nipple in his mouth so that the rasp of his tongue over her skin
made her arch with desperation. He did not move within her but kept himself anchored deep, and she tautened like a plucked bow beneath his hands, his lips and his tongue, frantic for release whilst he played with her breasts. Finally she grabbed him to her, kissing him, lifting her hips in hopeless frustration until he could resist the temptation no longer and drove himself into her and the dizzying heat overtook them in endless waves.

When Rebecca woke again it was late. The damp grey skies of the previous day had given way to a fresh autumn day of blue promise. The pale sun dappled the floor of Rebecca’s bedroom and lit up the dust motes that danced in its beams. Rebecca felt warm and dreamy and heavy with contentment. She knew that there was no likelihood of her working today, though when she did finally drag herself from her languor she wanted to continue engraving the kestrel glasses for Lucas. Lucas, who had taken all the passion she usually reserved for her work and transformed it into the most wicked, sensual and perfect night that she could ever have imagined.

She turned her head. The space in the bed beside her was empty, but the tangle of sheets and the dent in the pillow showed where Lucas had lain. She remembered waking at one point to find herself clasped tightly in his arms. She had lain quiescent
and still, revelling in the close contact of his skin against hers and the warmth and intimacy of the embrace.

She knew she loved him.

Rebecca rolled on to her back and stared at the cobwebby ceiling. She did not feel guilty at what she had done. She did not feel embarrassed or ashamed or any of the other conventional responses that she might have expected to feel having given herself to a man with such passion and wild abandonment all through the night. It had been exquisite bliss. She wriggled slightly. So there was one thing that Nan Astley had been right about, after all. It had not been difficult in the end. It had been magical and far from the mercenary arrangement that Nan had advocated.

Rebecca got up very slowly and dressed with absent-minded movements, somehow managing to get herself down the stairs and into the workshop, where she threw open the windows and let the fresh air flood in. She could hear the scrawny stray cat mewing at the back door. She ignored it whilst she built up the fire—the wood that Lucas had purchased for her would last a good while longer—and set a light to the tinder. The flame caught and the studio immediately looked brighter, the light winking off the rows of engraved glass on the shelves. Rebecca’s spirits were soaring and she hummed as she swept the floor. A servant had
called to collect the last of her uncle’s commissions the previous day, so at least she had been paid. She could eat.

And she would see Lucas again. Of that she was certain.

The mewing of the cat had become more insistent now, accompanied by a repetitive scratching that threatened to wear away the back door. Rebecca went through to the scullery. When she opened the door the cat shot in, accompanied by a blast of cold air that Rebecca knew would make the chimney smoke. She was about to slam the door shut again when she saw the bag.

Her heart started to race. She bent down and picked it up. It had been wedged in a gap between the wall of the house and the drainpipe that ran down from the roof, which was even now emitting a sluggish stream of rainwater from the night before. The bag was made of oiled canvas and was slightly damp, but Rebecca could feel the shape of a small, folded piece of parchment inside—and the outline of golden sovereigns.

She took the bag into the scullery. When she pulled the drawstring, the sovereigns spilled out on to the table, dull in the darkness of the room. She ignored them and took the note across to the window, her fingers shaking slightly as she unfolded the thick parchment.

Rebecca sighed, refolded the note and stuffed it back in the canvas bag. Pleasant as it was to have fifty gold sovereigns, it was no compensation for her brother’s absence. Nor had he indicated when she would see him again. Very likely he did not know. He was away at sea for months at a time and seldom knew in advance when he would make landfall again. He came to London even more rarely since it was too dangerous for him. It was close to a year since they had last met.

She scooped up the sovereigns, put them in the bag and placed it beneath the stale biscuits in the china crock, along with the money she had received for her uncle’s commission. She had seldom had so much cash in the house. She should find a better hiding place.

Her heart ached with a sudden, fierce pain. She would give almost everything she possessed to have Daniel home. But she knew it could not be—not yet—and in the meantime she must make shift
as best she could. She tried to feel better by telling herself that she would see Lucas again soon, but the feeling of warm intimacy had drained away and something colder had taken its place. It nagged at her—where was Lucas and why had he not left her any message? The day seemed suddenly pale and the sunlight dim. Rebecca poured herself a mug of milk and cut a piece of bread and cheese for her breakfast, then went back into the studio, sat down at her workbench and picked up her diamond scribe. If she could not see Lucas, then she could try to lose herself in her work, but somehow she could not quite shake off the creeping chill that told her everything was not well.

When Lucas awoke in his own bed, it was with a blinding headache. It was not alcohol induced, but the result of an over-active conscience, a conscience that had singularly failed to do its job and protect Miss Rebecca Raleigh from him the previous night. He lay still and stared at the ceiling. Last night he had behaved in the most dishonourable, disgraceful and discreditable way imaginable. It was the first time in his adult life that he had tried and failed to keep a measure of control. He had tried to do the decent thing. His mind recalled with perfect accuracy all the
indecent
things that he had done with Rebecca and the fact that he wanted to repeat them all again—and again. His
body hardened into arousal instantly at the same time as he sat up and clutched his head in his hands with a groan. The fact that the night had been the most satisfying, exquisitely pleasurable and ultimately perfect experience he had ever encountered was beside the point.