A Scoundrel by Moonlight (25 page)

“Your victim,” she bit out, but she poised quivering a few feet away and he knew she listened.

“I could swear that everything you believe is false, but it’s only words,” he said slowly. He drew himself to his full height and faced her the way he’d face a hanging. “Remember everything you know about me. Remember what we shared. Remember, damn it, that I haven’t looked at another woman since I met you. Then tell me I’m the philanderer you describe.”

Something that looked like fear crossed her face and she faltered back. “You’re such a liar.”

Feeling like he set his heart out for her to stamp upon, he remained where he was. “I’ve never lied to you.” He paused. “While you’ve lied from the beginning.”

Her color had long since faded. She looked as pale as the wraith his superstitious servants had once thought her. “I won’t listen. You twist everything.”

He willed her to relent. “Yet even believing what you did, you shared my bed.”

“Because I’m a fool.”

“Because in your heart you know I didn’t seduce your sister.”

“I need to follow my head, not my heart.”

Recognizing this as his last chance, he spread his hands in appeal. He had no confidence that he’d prevail. “Think, Eleanor, think. Think of everything you know about me, and tell me that I could commit these crimes. Tell me that you could give yourself to such a man.”

She regarded him with glassy eyes, myriad expressions flickering across her face. Some he could read. Rage and disgust, certainly. Shame. Guilt. Determination.

Despairingly he reached out, then realized that his touch was the last thing she wanted. In a low voice, he made one last plea. “Trust me, beloved.”

H
elplessly Nell stared into Leath’s face. He shredded her heart into bloody gobbets. He looked so hurt. He looked so sincere. He looked as if her merest word could devastate him. Yet how could a humble creature like Eleanor Trim hold such power over this great lord?

She’d imagined when she found those letters that he’d never again be a danger to her. But her love, she discovered, was tenacious. And stupid.

Her love insisted that he hadn’t lied. Her love urged her to fling herself into his arms and beg him to forgive her for doubting him.

That same stupid, immovable love made her ache to assuage his exhaustion and unhappiness. If he’d been home to receive Sedgemoor’s message, he must have ridden all those miles from the cottage to Alloway Chase the same day she’d left. Then he must have turned around and headed for Fentonwyck. The timing made no sense otherwise. Was he so eager to see her? Or eager to stop her revealing what she knew?

Everything, everything had two conflicting sides. Nell felt ripped apart. Either the marquess was the good man she’d once thought. Or his transgressions condemned him to the lowest circle of hell.

Right now, looking into his strained features, she could almost believe him. Except that the man who had seduced those women must have been a convincing liar.

His story was plausible. Lord Neville Fairbrother had irrefutably been a villain. Was the nephew another rotten apple from the same tree? After tumbling headlong in love with Leath, she knew his ability to charm the most virtuous woman.

“Eleanor?” Her name in that resonant baritone contained every beautiful note in the world.

Nell squared her shoulders against a shiver of awareness and tilted her chin, battling to look defiant, when every atom wanted to stop fighting. How she wished he’d never come to Fentonwyck. Hating Leath from a distance was so much easier.

“I can’t…” She tried to sound strong and dismissive, but her voice emerged as a whisper. “I can’t decide now.”

“Yes, you can,” he said implacably, jaw hardening.

“Don’t bully me,” she snapped, welcoming anger. If Leath continued to stare at her with such yearning, she’d burst into tears. And that weakness would invite every other weakness home to roost, including the one that would make her forgive him, whatever he’d done.

Confusion left her dizzy. She shook her head and stumbled toward the door. She could no longer bear to be in the same room as Leath. Wanting him. Loathing him. Verging on trusting him. Not trusting her instincts. This was like wrestling with an enemy in a mirror.

“I can’t let you go.” His desperation scraped across her skin.

“I must,” she said brokenly.

As she passed, he caught her arm. “Do you believe me?”

“Release me.” She meant to demand, but instead she begged. It was so unfair that even now, his touch made her blood churn with desire.

“Do you believe me?” he repeated in an urgent voice that vibrated through her.

He looked pushed to the edge of endurance. Two days ago, before she’d found the letters, she’d have followed her heart. But those letters hadn’t only destroyed her certainty in him, but also her certainty in herself. How could she be sure that desire didn’t fool her into seeing honesty and need—and something that looked like love, God save her—in his silvery eyes? How could she be sure of anything, now that the Marquess of Leath proved false?

“I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do.”

She jerked without breaking away. “Stop saying that. My sister died speaking your name.”

“But without my child in her belly,” he said harshly.

“How can I believe you?”

She saw his expression change to anger and purpose—and flaring passion. A snarl bared straight white teeth. “Perhaps this will convince you.”

Fear engulfed her like a rush of icy water and she parted her lips to call for Sedgemoor’s footman. But before she could make a sound—at least so she told herself as she hung from his grip—Leath’s mouth crashed into hers.

The kiss was all about dominance. She felt none of the heartbreaking tenderness, familiar from the cottage. She should be glad. That tenderness had been a lie.

Although even now, she had difficulty believing that.

She kept her lips closed as his physical reality enveloped
her. Heat and musk, overlaid with horses and sandalwood. With a muffled groan that vibrated on her lips, he wrenched her closer until she sprawled against him, too aware of every muscled inch.

She tried to force a gap between them, but against his implacable hold, she had no hope. The last time she’d been in his arms, they’d shared a joy that she refused to recall, because events since had tainted it so fatally. The last time she’d been in his arms, he hadn’t needed to fight to keep her. She’d been avid to stay—and she still couldn’t forgive herself.

He raised his head and stared down impatiently. “Kiss me, Eleanor.”

“Your kisses are lies,” she hissed, straining uselessly in his embrace. She’d always known how strong he was, but only now, when he used that strength against her, did she realize how gentle he’d been.

Her fear—and wicked excitement—sparked higher when his eyes narrowed in rage. “Then let me lie some more, my dear.”

She was mortified how easily he restrained her with one arm. He caught her chin and tilted her face. His grip was hard without bruising. She resented that he retained such control when his nearness ate at her willpower like rust at metal. “You’re contemptible,” she spat.

The smile curving his lips was wolfish. He knew how she struggled against giving in. “Let me prove it.”

Nell’s panic mounted to titanic heights. Not panic that he’d hurt her. Despite her silly fidgets earlier, he wouldn’t crush her rebellion with violence. No, he’d crush her with pleasure. And with the aid of the enemy inside Nell, the woman greedy for his touch.

Ruthlessly he kissed her. “Open for me, damn you,” he muttered.

She flattened her hands on his chest and tried to shove him away. This was like trying to move a mountain with a spoon. A warm, breathing mountain. A mountain that smelled like the promise of heaven.

He nibbled at her lips until she trembled. Still she wouldn’t relent. Even when she was so giddy with need that if he released her, she’d fall.

“Let me go.”

At her hoarse plea, he took advantage to slide his tongue between her lips. The satiny invasion shuddered through her and made her hands curl into his coat until she held him instead of pushing him away. He kissed her until she clung without any show of reluctance. If his touch could vanquish her like this, could he be the evil man she believed him? Could he deceive her so profoundly?

After their night together, he knew what stirred her. In her daze, she didn’t recognize the purpose in his touch until her bodice sagged. Vaguely she was grateful that he’d unhooked her dress instead of ripping it away. Even through rocketing arousal, she knew that beneath this calculated seduction, he was angry. If she had any pride, that anger should freeze her responses. Instead it whipped her to a frenzy.

“You’re a… swine,” she managed to hiss, then spoiled any show of defiance by turning her head until her lips met his.

“You don’t know the half of it,” he sniped back, sounding like he hated her.

She couldn’t even pretend that her shiver wasn’t anticipation. He’d always had this power. Only now did he exercise it with no regard for her inexperience. And the brazen, unprincipled woman who had never stopped wanting him, no matter what he’d done, reveled in every caress.

Those strong, capable hands, hands that had once touched
her so carefully, wrenched at her clothes. He groaned deep in his throat as her breasts bobbed free. Before she thought to cover herself, he bent to suck her nipples. To her humiliation, they ached for his touch.

His hands spread across her back, curving her into him to offer better access. She muffled cries of delight as he scraped his teeth over one crest and set her on an exquisite edge.

As a bite intensified the pounding pulse between her legs, she cradled his silky head to her. She moaned, and the sound spoke surrender. At last she admitted that she wanted this. She was as damned as he was. God help her if he truly was the villain of her accusations.

He hauled up her skirts. Staggering, she parted her legs to let him touch her where she yearned. He shuddered and muffled a curse as his hand curled around her mound. She gasped into his shoulder when he invaded her with one long finger, stroking to build a response that already threatened oblivion.

Still no tenderness. He touched her hard, lifting her quickly toward climax.

Then when she was on the brink, ready to tumble over into rapture, he pulled free. She’d so lost contact with reality that this seemed spiteful, rather than a merciful escape. With another moan, she pressed forward, digging her fingernails into his fine cambric shirt. Somewhere in this profane encounter, he’d ripped away his coat.

Still he didn’t resume that glorious torture. Instead he caught her by the shoulders. Slowly she opened eyes that she’d kept closed against shame and confusion.

His expression was composed and watchful. She’d almost believe that she suffered this lust alone. If he wasn’t hard against her quaking belly. If his eyes didn’t glitter with primitive hunger.

“What is it?” Her voice sounded raw, as though she’d already screamed her fulfillment to the roof.

“Do I have your consent?” he asked hoarsely.

“Don’t talk.” Past all caution, she cupped him.

He groaned and ground into her palm. For a heady moment, she thought she’d won, then his grip firmed on her shoulders. “Is it yes, Eleanor?”

She scowled, her skin itching for his touch, a heavy, yearning weight in her belly. A braver woman would own her desire. Cowardice won out. “I have no choice.”

His eyes narrowed. “Yes, you do.”

Was he a monster or was he everything she’d always wanted? Her heart insisted that she couldn’t love him so much if he was truly evil.

“Devil take you, Leath,” she grated. “Do what you must.”

“Only if you agree.” His jaw was iron with determination. She knew him well enough to recognize that when he looked like that, she had no hope of prevailing.

Still, she could try. Very deliberately, she stroked his length. Even through his breeches, she felt his pulsing heat. She meant to claim some power in this battle—because for all the passion, it was a battle. She underestimated her reaction to the audacious ploy. Before she’d completed the leisurely caress, her knees threatened to buckle beneath her.

He caught her hand before she could repeat the action. “One small word, Eleanor.”

On a sob, she released the breath she’d held and sagged into him. She hooked her free hand around his neck and the softness of his hair against her fingers was her final undoing.

He didn’t feel like a monster. He felt like the man she loved. Her sigh was laden with tears. “Yes.”

R
elief punched the air from Leath’s lungs. Roughly he tore at the strings of her drawers until they sagged about her ankles. Eleanor stepped free as she fumbled clumsily with his breeches. He wasn’t in much better case as he brushed her hands away and unfastened the front fall.

A downward glance tinged her cheeks with pink, a reminder that she remained in so many ways an innocent. The tenderness that he experienced only with her surged, but he beat it back. Be damned if he’d be gentle. If she was so determined to believe him a heartless seducer, he’d seduce her heartlessly. Her suspicions made him want to howl with pain and rage.

The memory of the doubt in her eyes, eyes that had held such wonder the last time they’d been together, made him ruthless. He hitched her up, cupping her bare bottom in his palms. She gasped with surprise.

The gaze that met his was feverish with excitement. She clutched at his shoulders and laced her legs around his waist. “Leath?”

Last time, she’d called him James. It hadn’t missed his attention that she’d used his title all night. James would coax her to arousal, awaken her gently but thoroughly, make magic. Leath was a barbarian. Leath cared only for his own pleasure.

“Hold on tight,” he snapped, anger flaring as he recalled her accusations.

He turned, feeling the delightful tumble of her weight, and pressed her against the wall. He waited for her eyes to darken with fear, as they had when she’d tried to run. Instead he caught another unearthly blast of excitement and she wriggled down, almost taking him.

No, my lady, I’m in charge here.

He rubbed against her until she moaned with frustration and tore at his hair. How he’d love to keep torturing her. Except torturing her, he tortured himself.

“Damn you, Eleanor.” He thrust powerfully.

She was tight, so tight, but sleek as oiled satin. When he was sheathed to the hilt, she clung, crushed between the wall and his body. Every breath pushed her breasts against his chest. He held still, claiming her without words. Then remorseless, he moved in and out, forcing rhythmic gasps from her. Those husky little sounds punctuating his ferocious possession made him crazy.

Soon, far too soon if she hated him as she declared, the ripples began. On another guttural curse, he tightened his hips and pushed so deep that she lifted against the wall. Then he kissed her to muffle her cries of completion as he pumped into her. In an ecstasy of release, he flooded her.

As he slumped, she kissed him back just as ardently. Her arms tightened with a trace of what his needy heart read as care.

Triumph rang out. Then he looked down into her shocked
face, saw her great eyes bruised with anguish, and a trace of blood on her reddened lips where he’d kissed her too hard.

Acrid shame at his wild abandon clenched his gut.

Roughly he pushed free, breaking the connection. He held her waist until she found her feet. He stepped back, wanting to appear controlled, but he couldn’t steady his hands as he fastened his breeches.

She watched without speaking, leaning against the wall and panting. He couldn’t read the expression in her eyes. They were dazed with sexual satisfaction, but the line of her voluptuous mouth hinted at tears.

Of course she wanted to cry. He’d treated her like a doxy. Right now, he couldn’t see that he was much improvement on his despicable uncle.

Her pale hair tumbled about her shoulders. She looked untouchable when she put it up, but when it fell about her shoulders in a silvery shawl, she always looked like a wanton. She made no attempt to cover her sweet white breasts with their proud raspberry crests. Renewed shame stabbed Leath as he noticed a bruise on one pale slope.

He couldn’t help recalling her at their first meeting. He’d turned her from that pure, beautiful creature into this temptress. And God forgive him, she was even more beautiful now. No matter how he chastised himself, he couldn’t help wanting her still. He’d want her until the day he died.

Every time he looked at her, he saw more to aggravate his guilt. A red mark on her neck revealed where he’d bitten her. He wanted to ask if she was all right. But he quailed from inquiring after her well-being when he’d destroyed it.

He straightened without shifting his gaze. “No apology can redress my behavior.” Because his emotions swam too close to the surface, his voice emerged hard and clipped as if he was still angry with her. When all his disgust was leveled
at himself. “I never touched your sister, but you have every right to hate me for what I just did. I treated you appallingly, despite my respect for you. Do whatever you must. I won’t bother you again.”

“What about the scandal?” Her brows drew together. “Don’t you care if I make the letters public?”

Her voice was thready. Her throat moved when she swallowed, as if even those few words tested her. A pox on his damned impetuosity. Until he’d met Eleanor Trim, he’d had no idea that a beast lurked inside him. He supposed until he’d met Eleanor Trim, nothing had been important enough to awaken his inner savage.

“Right now I don’t give a tinker’s damn about the letters.” He reminded himself that however heartsick he felt, he had responsibilities. “If… if there are consequences from what we just did, let me know.”

Good God, she had him stuttering. How low she’d brought him.

Her eyes widened and she swallowed again. Abhorring him as she did, the prospect of bearing his child must be anathema. But it was too late to take back what they’d done.

Too late. Too late. Too late altogether.

He cursed himself for taking all the sweetness they’d shared and turning it into this nightmare of lust and anger. Unable to bear looking at her when everything between them had foundered, he faced the door. “Good-bye, Eleanor. And God bless you.”

“Don’t I get to say anything?” she asked unsteadily.

Wearily he turned back. “I know you loathe me. You don’t need to go into details.”

Her chin tilted upward. “Stop telling me what to do.”

“Very well, I’ll listen.” He planted himself with grim stoicism. “I owe you that much.”

She studied him, expression enigmatic. To his relief, she tugged her bodice over her breasts. Her disarray inevitably made him want to tumble her again, despite the weight of self-hatred. Leath had always despised men at the mercy of their baser urges. What a smug prig he’d been.

He noticed her faint stumble as she stepped away from the wall. Another pang of guilt. Another twinge of satisfaction to remember pounding into her as if the world ended any minute.

When she left him, his world would end.

Unexpectedly she approached. After that unceremonious mating, he thought that she’d want to get as far away as she could. “When you touch me, you drive everything else from my mind.”

What the hell? Astonished, he stared at Eleanor and the confession tumbled from his lips, although surely she already knew the truth. “You drive me mad too.”

His shock rose when for the first time tonight, her mouth curved in a faint smile. “That’s good.”

“It is.” Then he realized what she’d said and frowned. “Is it?”

Bewildered, he watched her step even closer. Soon, she’d be near enough to touch. Whatever his good intentions, if she ventured within reach, he’d haul her into his arms. And then he’d prove himself a brute indeed.

She bit her lip and her eyes fluttered down with the first sign of shyness. She’d been too busy hating him to be shy. “I hope so.”

He was accounted a brave man, noted for his dash in the boxing ring, and with a pistol and blade. But her next step forward drove him into retreat. “What do you want?”

For a long moment, the stark question lay between them, as tangible and deadly as a sword.

She licked her lips again and he bit back a groan. After that mighty release when he’d filled her with every drop of his anguish, he shouldn’t be ready for a woman for at least a week. But as he caught a drift of rich female scent, he wanted to kiss her until she yielded again.

“God help me, Leath,” she said in a low voice that lifted every hair on his body. “God help me, but despite everything that’s happened between us, I want you.”

He didn’t move.

Uncertainty darkened her eyes to brandy. “Don’t you care?”

In frustration, he ran his hand through his hair. “Of course I bloody care. But you don’t trust me. You accuse me of unspeakable things.”

She stared him down. “If that was true, could I feel as I do in your arms?”

“Are you saying you trust me?”

Her hands twisted together at her waist. Her voice emerged as a whisper. “I’m saying that for both our sakes, I hope my heart is leading me right. I hope that you’re not the man who destroyed my sister, but the man I’ve pledged myself to, body and soul. Heaven save us both if I’m wrong.”

Shocked disbelief held him paralyzed, before he swept her up into a kiss that made a mockery of regret.

This time, Leath’s touch was different. The hunger remained, but his kiss lured instead of commanded. Nell quivered with anticipation as he tumbled her down onto the leather couch.

His hands lit fires everywhere they touched. After losing herself so spectacularly in his arms—against the wall, no less—she was sure no scrap of energy remained for pleasure. It turned out that she had much more than a scrap. By the time he tugged her dress over her head and unlaced
her corset to kiss the peaks of her breasts, she moaned and moved restlessly. His teeth scored one hard nipple, shooting jagged lightning through her. She bit back a cry.

He settled between her legs and she bent her knees, arching to bring him closer to where she wanted him. Again. Forever. She pushed his shirt up his back and let her fingers play across flexing muscles as he feverishly kissed her shoulders. She sucked in his delicious scent, redolent with arousal. Her stomach clenched with forbidden excitement.

“Take your shirt off,” she muttered in a voice that she didn’t recognize. This time, she could demand too.

He reared up and carelessly hauled his shirt over his head, flinging it away. He came down over her, bearing his weight on his arms. Nell made a deep sound of enjoyment as her rapacious hands explored him.

That broad, naked chest with its silky black hair set her heart cartwheeling. He was breathtakingly strong. The memory of how he’d held her so effortlessly against the wall made her shiver with pleasure. To punish him for that turbulent union, she curled her nails over his nipples.

“Witch…” he grunted, shuddering. It was the first word he’d spoken since carrying her to the couch. It sounded like an endearment.

As her hands tore at his breeches, she nipped and licked her way across his chest. He reached to help her and she released a drawn-out hiss when her hand closed around hard flesh, satin over a steely core. He felt so potent and vital.

Fascinated, she looked down. His nakedness remained a mystery. She’d been too overwhelmed on their first night and tonight’s tempestuous mating had given her no chance for leisurely exploration.

She tightened her grip, making him jolt. He groaned and
angled forward in encouragement. Tentatively she slid her hand toward the nest of black hair at the base of his belly.

“Beloved Lord in heaven,” he groaned. A muscle danced in his cheek and his lips tightened.

“Should I stop?” she asked uncertainly, gently squeezing him. Holding him here, where he was most a man, teased her appetite.

“No,” he said, his voice raw. He rolled over until she rose above him. He caught her hand, firming her grip and shifting her fist up and down in a compelling rhythm.

“Like this?” To her delighted astonishment, he grew even heavier.

“Yes,” he said on a long exhalation. He still looked tormented, but she came to realize that strain didn’t necessarily mean displeasure.

Soon Leath was breathing roughly. He seized her hand, but tempered his impatience with a sweet kiss across her knuckles. She sighed, then sighed again when he kissed her lips with more sweetness. He shifted until they sat facing each other.

Blindly she wriggled closer, bracing her hands on his chest. Hardly knowing what she did, delirious with desire, she squirmed on his thigh. Keening whimpers escaped her and her nails marked his skin.

Leath grabbed her hips and lifted her. “Take me,” he grated out. “For God’s sake, take me.”

Uncertainty pierced her fog of need. “Is it possible?”

His short laugh cracked and his hands dug into her hips. “Try.”

He drew her close for another kiss, biting gently on her lower lip. The mixture of pain and pleasure turned her liquid and she shifted downward. To her shock, he slid into her with exquisite smoothness.

“Oh.”

He nipped her neck at the place that always sent her wild. She felt another surge and took him completely.

Unsure, excited, a little frightened, Nell gripped his shoulders. His jaw seemed chiseled from granite. His long, expressive mouth parted. Under heavy lids fringed with thick eyelashes, his eyes were black with arousal.

She knew enough to read his expression as profound satisfaction. And when she instinctively wriggled to settle his thickness, he closed his eyes and exhaled in shuddering pleasure.