The Worldly Widow (17 page)

Very deftly, Dalmar used her movements to position her to his advantage. Through the sheer fabric of her gown, Annabelle became startlingly aware of his blatant state of arousal. She stilled. Their eyes locked, and the heat of his ardent expression seemed to melt the edges of her resolve.

"No,
"
she breathed, but they both blew that her small exclamation of refusal was primitive in origin, the impulse of the more vulnerable female when her powerful mate claims her submission. For the first time in her life, Annabelle became conscious of the threat of the aroused male when thwarted.

"David,
"
she said, a new wariness in her expression, "you would not force me, surely?
"

"Oh no. That won
'
t be necessary.
"

His answer was oblique and afforded little comfort. Through her teeth and with more spirit than wisdom, she taunted,
"
Only a cad touches a lady without her permission!
"
Dalmar
'
s mind was of a different persuasion. Though he, none better, knew of men who were brutes with women, these
he held in utmost contempt, deeming them lower than animals in the divine scheme of things. His own deliberate attempt at masculine aggression he did not view in the same light. Some few women, indeed, had refused his advances with no hard feelings on either side. Not for a moment did he think of extending this courtesy to Annabelle. From the first, he had made his design plain to her. Afterward, not only had she accepted his protection in the Palais Royal, but she had also sealed the pact with the surrender of her body. That her circumstances were other than he had surmised did not signify, in his opinion. She had accepted his claims once. She could be made to do so again. Brute force he eschewed. But seduction was a lesser weapon he did not hesitate to employ against her. In short, Annabelle was his woman, and he was willing to protect her from everything and everyone but himself.

He brushed one finger against the tip of a nipple as if he were testing fire. Annabelle felt that gossamer touch all through her body. He touched her again, and the peaks of her breasts tautened and throbbed into life. The hard, quick pounding of her heart was matched by the tempo of her breath, deep, labored, erratic.

"Swear to me now,
"
he said roughly, "that you don
'
t want this as much as I do,
"
and he cupped the weight of one breast in the heat of his palm. Annabelle cried out softly and turned her head into his shoulder.

"Annabelle
…
Annabelle,
"
he said, her name a mere breath of a whisper as his mouth began to explore the wildly beating pulse at the hollow of her throat.

She felt the stroke of his tongue as he laved first one aching peak, then the other. Her body jerked, and heat swept through her, sensitizing every pore, arousing her most secret places, tuning her senses to the anticipation of his possession.

"David
…
"
Whether she meant the plea as a protest or a benediction she could not tell. She felt the soft pull at her breasts as he took full suckle, and everything that was feminine in her went liquid with longing.

When his lips claimed hers again, there was no way she could hide the depths of her arousal. He released her arms.

"Yes, sweetheart, yes, like this,
"
he said, and wound her arms around his neck. "You belong to me. Show me that you know it.
"

This time when his tongue stormed the citadel of her mouth, she allowed him an easy conquest. It drove through the barrier of her teeth and set up a slow pulsating rhythm, the harbinger of things to come.

They seemed to catch fire from each other. His hands, palm open, rode the length of her body, straining her against him, as if he could fuse them into one. The hungry impatience of his onslaught fed the flames of Annabelle
'
s desire.

When he drew back his head, she heard the harsh rasp of his breath as he tried to steady it. "Annabelle?
"
he said hoarsely. "I can
'
t take you here. Come with me now, to my rooms. You can tell your servants that I
'
m escorting you to some party or other. I swear I
'
ll get you back long before morning.
"

She stirred uneasily, unwilling to come to terms with this unwelcome intrusion of reality.

"Annabelle,
"
he breathed, his lips brushing her eyelids. "Let me love you. It
'
s what we both want.
"

To deny the wanting he had deliberately aroused in every cell of her body seemed too cruel to be borne. She wished that he had not put the onus on her to decide how far their lovemaking should go. She struggled to subdue her awakening conscience. She failed. Though she had once, in a weak moment, given in to temptation, she could not, with anything resembling equanimity, break the tenets by which she had been taught from childhood to order her life.

With a small sigh of regret, she curled herself against the wall of his chest. "No,
"
she said softly.

He groaned, "Annabelle, yes!
"
and his fingers speared into her hair, sending pins flying. He raised her face and rained hot, silencing kisses on her mouth.

"No,
"
she said against his lips, more sure of her power to deal with this man, and then with more finality, "No!
"

Her confidence wavered a little when she came under the blazing silver of his eyes, but she braved his fury by repeating her refusal.

As uncompromising as she, he said, "Then you
'
d better be
prepared to talk terms, or I
'
m taking everything you were offering a moment ago here and now.
"

For some reason his harsh words amused her. She touched a finger to his lips to silence him. "Do you love me?
"
she asked softly.

If she
'
d thrown a basin of cold water in his face, his reaction could not have been more startled. She found herself pushed to a sitting position, and the bodice of her gown hauled up roughly to cover her nakedness. Thrown into confusion by this abrupt, unloverlike conduct, she turned to face him. His eyes had darkened and were as unfathomable as the gray of the ocean deep.

"Love,
"
he said, not quite meeting her eyes. He laughed. "Love, I leave to the poets. Thankfully, that trite emotion and I are strangers to each other.
"
Almost regretfully, he continued, "Annabelle, love is transitory. Only fools and romantics think otherwise. I am neither. But words are cheap. I can say them as well as the next man. Is that what you would have me do—swear to an emotion I put no stock in?
"

His candor left her more disappointed than she would have thought possible. She herself was no stranger to love, and she knew from experience how treacherous a snare it was for the unwary. Having shunned its allure for any number of years, she ought to have felt some empathy for Dalmar
'
s convictions on the subject. She did not. If anything, she felt deceived, and in some unspecified way, grossly insulted. She knew of at least a dozen men in London who professed to be madly in love with her. Why not he? She resolved in that moment that whatever the future held for them both, the subject of love would never again be raised by her.

Nothing of her feelings showed on her face when she finally said, "Of course I don
'
t wish to hear any declarations of love. What could be more tedious? Nor shall I ever bore you with an expression of those same sentiments.
"
The relief which showed plainly in his eyes goaded her to add, "One grand passion is enough for anyone
'
s lifetime. Having experienced it once, I have no wish to experience it again. But perhaps you find yourself in the same position?
"
She let the question hang on the air.

"No,
"
he said, frowning slightly. "But what I
'
ve seen of it, I don
'
t like. Forgive me, but I understood from something you said that your marriage was not a happy one. Was I wrong?
"

"Edgar made me very happy,
"
said Annabelle. It wasn
'
t exactly a lie, she reasoned. For a time she had been happy
…
and in love. And blissfully ignorant. And then had come the disillusionment. But she wasn
'
t about to reveal the details of her private life to a comparative stranger, especially when that stranger had disavowed any romantic interest in her.

"Do you still love him?
"

She was conscious of a vague desire to ruffle his feathers, and she wondered at a streak of spite which had never before manifested itself in her nature. "Oh, I shall always love Edgar a little,
"
she said. "If it were not for him, I would not have my
son.
"

After this exchange, their conversation became desultory, touching on any number of topics which could be safely broached before a whole roomful of people. Annabelle could scarcely credit that only moments before the man had acted like a passionate lover to whom she had almost surrendered everything. It occurred to her that such goings-on were mere commonplaces to Dalmar. His experience and expertise were far beyond anything she could claim. The thought that she had been easy prey for the Earl was the perfect antidote to the more tender feelings she had begun to entertain for him. In no time at all she was congratulating herself on a lucky escape. She had put him in his place and was glad of it.

It was his parting words which disabused her of the notion that she had inadvertently turned the tables on him.

"I shall wait on you tomorrow.
"

"Tomorrow? For what purpose?
"

"Did you think that I
'
d forgotten? To discuss the terms of your surrender, of course.
"

She met his roguish grin with a faint but eloquent lift of her eyebrows. "You do that, Dalmar,
"
she said. "But don
'
t think to pick up any bargains. I think my price is more than even you can afford.
"

She ascended the stairs and went first to her son
'
s room.

Richard, as was his wont, was tangled in bedclothes, as if he had been fighting an imaginary army. Smiling, Annabelle smoothed the eiderdown coverlet over his sleeping form and touched her hand to his dark head. Now here was a love, she thought, that was true and enduring. Her thoughts shifted to Dalmar, and she began to speculate again about his own childhood—not very happy, she decided, if she was the judge of anything.

In her own chamber, as she absently allowed a stony-faced, tight-lipped Nancy to disrobe her and prepare her for bed, her thoughts became desultory, drifted, and finally focused on the man who had been the instrument of bringing Richard into her life.

His name had been Edgar Jocelyn, and he
'
d ridden into Yorkshire as if he were young Lochinvar coming out of the West, or so she
'
d thought at the time. She first became aware of his covert interest during Sunday services at York Minister, of all places, and had been introduced to him at one of the assemblies. Of course, she
'
d fallen head over heels in love with him. What young woman wouldn
'
t? He was like one of the knights on the rubbings she
'
d made of the brasses at various parish churches she
'
d visited with her father. The Black Prince, so she
'
d persuaded herself, could not have been more chivalrous than Edgar. At thirty he was in the flower of English manhood.

Within a month they were wed. She could scarcely take it in—that she, Annabelle Summers, only moderately pretty, painfully shy and past the first bloom of youth, had captured the heart of the dashing captain of dragoons. And they were in love. There could be no doubt of that. There was only a modest portion settled on her by her maternal grandfather, certainly nothing to attract a fortune hunter. And Edgar
'
s circumstances had not been much better. He was a younger son and was expected, by and large, to make his own way in the world. In those days, in spite of lack of fortune, they had counted themselves rich in the things that mattered. They were deep in love. What could they lack?

Two months later Edgar was on his way to Portugal with Wellesley, and she was installed at his brother
'
s house in town.

It was to be Annabelle
'
s introduction into circles to which she had never thought to aspire. The Jocelyns, she discovered, moved in the higher reaches of polite society. Annabelle
'
s debut into that brilliant world was not auspicious. She was too shy to make much of an impression, too nondescript to attract any notice. It troubled her in no wise. She was impatient with anyone and anything that kept her from Edgar.