What a Lady Craves (15 page)

Francesca screwed up her face. “Papa won’t tell it the same way Nipa did.”

Alexander ruffled her hair. “Shall I fetch Satya to tell it?”

Henrietta bit her lip and wordlessly willed him not to send for his servant. But then Francesca came to her rescue. “He won’t tell it right, either. And I don’t like that story.”

“Sometimes we have to tolerate things we don’t like and not let on we don’t like them.” Henrietta willed herself not to look at Alexander. “It’s part of having manners. Why don’t we let Helena pick the story tonight, and tomorrow it will be your turn. Wouldn’t that be fair?”

“That sounds very fair.” The rich sound of Alexander’s voice tempted her to raise her eyes. He wasn’t quite smiling, but his expression could be described as nothing less than grateful. “A quick story and then it’s bedtime.”

Thank goodness, and afterward she could escape to her own room and forget the way the four of them together nearly formed a family. The last thing she wanted was another poignant reminder of what might have been.

Henrietta dropped her hand from Helena’s shoulder as Alexander sat on the edge of the bed and patted the place next to him in invitation. Francesca clambered into his lap. Helena joined them, but stayed out of arm’s reach. A hint of sadness flitted over his face before he cleared his throat.

“Once upon a time, a lion and a tiger lived next to each other under a rock. Surprising as it seems, the two became very close friends, until the day they got into a dispute over something of little consequence.”

He went on to describe the argument, and how each side became more firmly entrenched in his own opinion, until it seemed their friendship was doomed. In desperation, they consulted a hermit, who told them they were both wrong, and at any rate, their friendship was worth far more than their dispute.

An uncomfortable prickle ran up Henrietta’s nape. His concentration might be focused on his daughters, but the story seemed aimed at her, even if he hadn’t chosen it. That was simply too bad. If her relationship with Alexander had fallen apart, it certainly wasn’t due to any fault of
hers.

He wants to make it up to you. He proposed.
But the thought only brought about a tightening in the back of her throat. If he’d wanted her badly enough, he’d have married her and taken her to India with him.

“And now it’s time for bed,” Alexander announced when he finished.

Francesca bounced in her father’s lap. “Tell us another.”

“Not tonight,” Henrietta admonished, struggling to keep her tone calm. No sense in coming across like Lady Epperley. “Remember what we agreed on? You can choose tomorrow’s
story. Now into bed with the pair of you.”

Helena pulled back the coverlet and climbed in. Francesca followed, and a brief struggle for an equal share of the blankets ensued. At last, they settled, and Alexander kissed them goodnight.

In the doorway, he turned. “Do you have a moment?”

“Again?” Henrietta couldn’t keep the terseness from her tone. Standing in the narrow corridor with him was the last thing she wanted to do. He was already too close with an entire room between them. But she had no choice. The girls needed to go to sleep, and they were hardly of an age that she had to wait for them to drop off. If she stayed with them, they were more likely to remain awake and fight over room on the mattress.

“Sometimes we have to tolerate things we don’t like,” Francesca murmured sleepily.

Bugger it all. She had a duty to set an example. Lifting her chin, she strode stiffly across the room and shut the door behind her with a soft
click.
The corridor in this part of the house was dark, and Alexander stood in shadow, a reminder of a previous kiss.

Not that she was about to allow him any more liberties. She kept her face averted and took a step away from him.

“Thank you,” he said.

Without permission, her gaze jerked to his. “What is this about?”

“The girls, actually.”

“Oh.” She pressed a finger to her lips and motioned for him to follow her silently down the passage. Once they were well away, she stopped and kept her voice pitched low. “I was their age once. If I had the slightest suspicion someone was discussing me outside my door, you can be sure I’d be out of my bed and listening in.”

His wry smile made her heart stutter. “You understand young girls much better than I ever could. Now that you’ve seen how they are with each other, I thought you might help me.”

“I’m not sure how. I’ve little enough experience with children.”

“You’ve as much as I had when Helena was born, and you’re handling things far better than I would.”

Despite her simmering annoyance, warmth spread through her belly at the compliment. She couldn’t remember the last time a gentleman had complimented her on anything other than something shallow like her looks, and this, this was far better. This was an accomplishment. Perhaps even a talent, one she might hone through her own exertions.

“I thank you.” She stopped herself short of curtseying like some green chit in her first
season, but she couldn’t prevent the blush that spread up her cheeks. Thank goodness for the darkness in the corridor. If he saw it, he’d likely mistake it for something it wasn’t. Something like forgiveness.

“You can’t have missed how they behave,” he went on.

“They’re sweet girls. There’s not a malicious bone in either one of them.”

“But all the squabbling—it makes me want to tear out my hair. And no matter what I do, I can’t seem to win Helena over. She was always so attached to her mother, but she will have to learn to cope.”

“Occasional squabbling is perfectly natural. My goodness, you have sisters. You must have seen them do similar things.” The good Lord knew relations between Henrietta and her younger sister had known the odd moment of strain.

“To be honest, I don’t remember.” That, or he hadn’t paid them enough heed.

“I do. Jane came out the year after I did, if you remember. And Cecelia was three years behind her.” Good heavens, she hadn’t thought of his sisters in ages. In fact, she was certain her acquaintance with Jane had prompted him to ask her to dance that first time—out of politeness or duty. And there was something else she’d lost since Alexander’s sudden marriage—the friendship his sisters had extended to her. Once the rumors started, she’d avoided paying calls on them. She didn’t think she could tolerate their expressions of pity. “They were always trying to outdo each other when it came to dressing for balls and such. But perhaps that’s not the sort of thing a man notices.”

“Not in his own sisters, certainly.” He sounded scandalized.

“Not in anybody, I daresay.”

“I noticed when you had a new ball gown.”

Oh, dear. Bollocks. Bugger. Suddenly they were treading on dangerous territory. How had they gone from a simple matter of sisterly squabbles to their shared past? Damnation, she knew which particular gown he referred to. Pink as a blush and low cut, it somehow accentuated her meager curves. She’d felt brazen wearing it. She’d felt powerful. She’d felt like she’d owned the entire ballroom when he saw her in it and gazed her up and down with such possessiveness, such appreciation. Such want.

Oh, she remembered the want. The stark power of awakening need. The way he’d dragged her off to some corner the first chance he’d got and devoured her with sense-stealing kisses. Before that night, their explorations had been relatively chaste, no matter how scandalous she’d felt afterward. That night with hungry lips, with hot tongue, with wandering hands tugging
at the fastenings of her bodice, he’d shown her the meaning of urgency, of desperation, of raw desire.

The next day, he’d paid a call on her father, and she spent the next few weeks in a dreamland of preparing a trousseau and being fitted for a wedding gown and anticipating the full exploration of that raw desire on her wedding night.

Most frightening of all, now, was the realization that he could sweep her back to that place so easily. With a mere sentence, he’d just done so. She made a desperate attempt at stoking the fire of her fury, but any heat originated from much closer to her feminine core, where a liquid pulsing had taken root.

“What are you thinking?” he asked, the words low and compelling.

She ought to tell him off, but she couldn’t summon the words. Her thoughts escaped against her will. “I’m remembering.”

“So am I.” He drew the pads of his fingers along her cheek to her neck, just as he’d done that night. Her skin recalled the exact texture of his caress, and deep inside, she clenched with anticipation. That night, he hadn’t stopped at her shoulder. No, he’d continued and taken a great deal more liberties, and she’d allowed every last one. Allowed, reveled in, craved more.

He still had the power to awaken even her tiniest nerve endings with a mere touch.

“We were good together.” He repeated the stroke, moving closer, crowding her with his body, but her own ached for the contact. “So, so good. Have you ever wondered just how good it might have been?”

“I … no,” she sighed, helpless to stop the flood of memories and desire that doused her ire.

“You’re lying.” Not an accusation. Not at all, when he leaned so close she could taste the words on his lips.

How he tempted her to bridge the gap. In fact, she was sure that was just what he wanted. She lifted her head oh-so-slightly, not quite giving in.

Another stroke, a mere flutter of his fingers along the side of her neck, the contact maddeningly delicate. So soft, she clamped her teeth on a protest. She ought to order him to remove his hand from her person, but her traitorous body demanded more. It demanded firm caresses. It demanded the electrifying sweep of his tongue against hers. It demanded scandalous touches in shocking places. It demanded completion.

“What would it take, Henrietta? What would it take for you to let me in? For I haven’t forgotten a single bit of what we were to each other.”

Her mind whirled. Part of her knew she ought to oppose him. More than that, she should push him away and never let him get this close again. But that was only one small fraction of her will. The rest lay enthralled under a blanket of languid sensuality. Her throat was parched, and only he could offer moisture to relieve her. And dear Lord, how she wanted relief.

He touched his lips to her cheek, swift and featherlight. Here and here and here—the edge of her cheekbone, the arch of her brow, the tip of her nose. If he kept up in this manner, she could deny he was actually kissing her and let him carry on. And she wanted him to carry on. With force. A familiar ache radiated through her midsection.

He covered her face with his kisses, all but her mouth, until her lips burned with the need to taste his. Instead, he moved downward along her jawline, her neck, the lobe of her ear. He moistened the spot just below where her pulse raced out of control. Her knees weakened, and she sagged against him, the wall at her back and her hands on his shoulders the only support.

It had been like this then, too, in that darkened corridor, the strains of a waltz filtering from a far-off ballroom. No music reached her ears now. Only the rapid thump of her heart and the rush of blood in her ears.

He took her by the shoulders and molded her body to his. His strength felt so familiar. So right. So necessary to her existence. His hands swept the length of her spine, down, up, down again, daring farther, dipping below her waist to her hips. He fitted her pelvis to his, and the length of his arousal burned against her belly.

Lord, she remembered that, too. Remembered the fascination, the curiosity, the desire to take that hardened flesh in her hand and stroke. She remembered it because the same urgency took her now. She lived at once in the past and in the present moment, because the two had blended into each other.

“Do you remember now?” His voice was rough with need against the crook of her neck. “Do you remember how it was between us?”

“Yes.” She couldn’t have stopped herself if she tried, if she wanted to. But she didn’t want to. She wanted to relive, to experience, to feel. She wanted him.

He pulled away, set his hands on her shoulders, and took her mouth. This kiss was nothing like those that had come before. It was raw and needful, nearly agonizing in its intensity. His lips tore at hers, but she followed, her hands in his hair, her body pressed to his.

His tongue thrust past her parted lips, and she welcomed the invasion. He belonged inside her. She wanted him to be part of her. If only she might hold him, take him into her, keep part of him there, he might never leave her again.

He had returned, after all, and with this reunion, it was as if he’d never left.

She moaned into his mouth, wild now, her blood racing, wanting to get closer. Closer.

His fingers teased at the buttons of her bodice.
Yes.
Let him touch, as he’d touched before. Her nipples ached in anticipation of his hands. His lips. His tongue.

Without warning, he pulled away. “We cannot stay here.”

No, they couldn’t. Not in this corridor. Not when a servant might happen by.

He took her hand, his thumb running across her knuckles, and pulled her down the passageway. She tripped after him, heart still pounding, mind still whirling with the import of what might happen between them.

What might happen … And had he lost his head in this manner with his deceased wife? Is that how he’d ended up married to the woman?

She stopped and snatched her hand from his. “Where are you taking me?”

He pulled up short and turned, eyes smoldering. “To my room.”

As if it were a common, everyday occurrence that he dragged besotted ladies to his chambers. And she’d nearly fallen. “What are your intentions?”

“I thought I’d made them perfectly clear.” The enticing rasp of his voice speared through her heart and deep into her belly. He leaned close once again, as if he planned on befuddling her with more kisses.

She firmed her knees and placed a hand in the center of his chest. Pushed. She’d worked out enough of men’s intentions when she was eighteen. A few heated encounters with Alexander and her mind had filled in the rest. Only, then his intentions had been honorable enough that he was willing to wait for their wedding night.