Beauty Tempts the Beast (11 page)

Even as he ran from her, his desire had not dimmed. His blood scalded, knees shook, pulse hammered. He could still smell her essence on his fingers, taste her skin on his tongue.

A draft whispered about the room, cooled his skin. But not his need.

Ashworth dropped back on the mattress. His heartbeat echoed in his skull. Vivian’s pink nipples graced his daydream as he closed his eyes. He recalled running his tongue across their pert loveliness. She tasted of the wild honeysuckle growing on the hillside. Inside her folds, slick warmth swallowed his finger.

And as he thrust it over and over, he imagined his erection in its place.

Ashworth clenched his teeth, but it was no use. He unbuttoned his breeches and fisted his pulsating shaft.

Instead of his fingers on his erection, he imagined her damp tunnel enclosing over him. He’d sink deep inside her, filling her, driving her.

Yes, he could envision it all so clearly! Her hips rocking against his. His hands squeezing her breasts, thumbs rolling her nipples. Sharp fingernails tracing down his back, reaching lower…

Tingling raced from his spine, circling his toes, tickling his nipples. Ashworth threw his head back, tightened his grip.

In his fantasy, he could hear her whimpers rising to moans. Finally she’d cry out while her spasms wracked his slick flesh. It would drive him deeper. Faster.

Ashworth moaned and pumped his erection to a hot release.

He slid his hand away and stared at the dark canopy above his head. His breathing shattered the stillness of the night.

Vivian…Vivian!

She tortured him so blessedly, so exquisitely, his whole life was in chaos. Did he want her to leave him to his tightly controlled world or stay and absolve him of his delusions?

He wanted her warmth, yet feared her intimacy. He yearned for her body, yet refused her tenderness.

Suddenly parched, he turned to his nightstand. Pinkley had left his nightly potion, a watered-down laudanum concoction. Without hesitation, Ashworth swallowed the liquid in a gulp.

He needed to find peace. Pray God this potion brought him peace tonight.

***

Martin avoided looking at the brick manor as he walked up the drive. A wave of fury rippled through his blood. The entire trip over he attempted to control the rage he knew would surface. With this hunt for Vivian already gnawing at his nerves, facing his mother would only incense him more.

But he had to come. He had to see her. After all, his mother was the reason he’d become who he was.

It was as if he was to blame for her careless mistake in getting pregnant. She never would answer why she didn’t abandon him when he was a baby instead of a young lad.

A crisp breeze lifted Martin’s hair as he walked around to the back of the house. He’d not knock on the front door, allow a servant to turn him away. No, Martin would see his mother today.

She always sat on the back porch, staring at the trees. Even as a small child, he remembered her watching the branches sway out their tiny flat window. Usually she retreated to her private world after kicking him for ruining her life by being born.

The ground squished beneath his feet, the sky swarmed above his head, building to a storm. He didn’t plan to stay long. Just enough time to get what he needed.

Martin slowed his walk as he approached the rear of the manor. He heard voices chattering. Servants.

He pressed himself against a large statue and waited for them to pass.

Finally there was no one but himself and the cool air. Himself and the first woman to abandon him.

A set of steps led up to the terrace, where his mother often drank her tea in the afternoon. He’d come here enough over the years to watch her, to sense her movements and patterns, to decide what to do about her future.

The clank of a tea cup told him she was up there. Just as he suspected. Habits did not change much in the old. The infirm.

A few silent footsteps brought him up the stairs and to her side. Her eyes widened at the sight of him, then dropped with resignation. Shoulders slumped, hands knotted, mouth tensed. Whether it was guilt at what she’d done to him or fear at what he could do again to her, she always reacted to his presence in the same manner.

“Mother.” He looked at her gnarled hand, but didn’t touch it. “It has been a year since we’ve talked.”

“Go away. I will yell for someone.”

Martin grinned at her hoarse threat. Without access to a bell—which he blocked from her reach—no one could hear his mother call.

“Why don’t we take a walk?”

Her dark eyes glared. “You’ve seen to it that I can never walk again.”

He straightened. “I meant we can take a stroll. I’ll push you along the pond. I have something to speak with you about.”

“Let go!” She tried to twist around from her chair, but she was too frail and weak to reach him.

He took a hold of the handles and steered her toward the ramp. It had been built a full year after she fell down the terrace steps. Her husband had some strange belief that his wife would get up and walk again.

But the woman had not worked hard for anything in her life. Why would she start then?

“You want something from me. You only come when you do.”

A wheel squeaked as he drove her down the ramp and started across the lawn.

“Shall I visit you more often?” His pulse jumped, fire tipped his ears. “Perhaps I should come to see you as often as you came to see me twenty years ago.”

He could see her tense. “I—I told you I tried to find you. I asked all the neighbors where you’d gone.

No one knew.”

Rage boiled below the surface of his skin, threatening to crumble his composure. “I waited there six months for you to return. Six months! As winter approached, I grew too cold to sleep in alleys and steal food.”

The wheelchair bumped over dips in the grass, jostling his mother in the seat. She cried out, but then settled when they at last reached the pond’s edge.

“You left me to fend for myself. I was still a boy. A child.” He let go of the handles and walked around to face her. She wouldn’t look at him. “I made my own way. Whatever way I could.” Martin narrowed his eyes. “And
I
am the one who finally found
you
.”

“And then ruined my life when you did!” She gasped at her outburst. Her face paled.

His hand shot out as reflex, but he stopped just short of making contact. “I ruined your life from the moment I was born. How often did you tell me that? How often did you kick me to make me pay for your sin? Finally, you just walked out and left me behind.” Martin crossed his arms to keep his impulses in check. “But you found a way to marry yourself into wealth and status. And now I will do the same.”

“What…what do you want from me?”

As a mother, he could give her nothing. He’d long lost the opportunity for kindness and comfort.

Now, she was only worth the money and connections she could provide him.

Voices startled him. People were gathered on the porch. He didn’t have much time.

“I need invitations to balls, parties and the like this season.”

“Why?”

“Why doesn’t matter!” Martin squatted before her, not to become less intimidating, but to hide from the onlookers. “Just find a way to get my name on as many invitee lists as you can.”

“And if I don’t?” A tremble lurked beneath the words.

He peeked around her to see three people coming down the steps and looking this way. “Send the cards to Crawley’s Hotel.” He stood, backed away toward the trees crowding the banks. “You should know better than to cross me.”

Martin did not wait for a reply, nor to hear what was said to his mother by the servants. He knew enough of this land to skirt around the pond, through a path in the woods and to follow it to the road a quarter mile down.

Now he had only to wait a day or so for the invitations to arrive at the hotel. Then, he would find Vivian Suttley and bring her back home.

He would have the wealth and status he deserved. He would not be cast off again.

“What is she doing?” Catherine’s pungent lavender scent assaulted Ashworth’s nostrils.

He tensed, taking a step away from her. “I believe she and Pinkley are finding a way to keep the egg warm.”

“The egg?”

Yes, the bloody egg Vivian had saved from a fox at Briarwater. Now she tried to build a warm nest for it, keep it secure until it hatched.

He turned away from the window, though he yearned to watch Vivian longer. “Tell me,” he said as he poured a splash of brandy. “Why are you really here?”

Skirts rustled as Catherine crossed the room to join him. “I’ve missed you. You’ve not returned to London in all these years and…”

“And?”

“And I was curious as to what kept you away.”

He swallowed the liquid and set the glass on the table. “Surely you were able to talk with my mother.”

“I did see her now and then.”

Ashworth nearly snorted. At this point he wasn’t sure which vixen sought out the other, but he was certain it was more than now and then. “So what did my mother tell you of me?”

Pray God, not Harry. His jaw tightened. His mother promised, on every ring and jewel she owned, not to divulge the secret of her grandson.

Catherine’s eyes revealed nothing. “The Dowager merely told me of your continued refusal to return to the city. I could not imagine it was merely the shame of your face which keeps you away.”

Shame. Is that what she thought kept him within these walls? His motivation was far more agonizing than that.

Resisting the urge to return to the window, Ashworth wandered the parlor room. It was here that he first laid eyes on Vivian. He knew so much more of her, and yet so little, since that fateful day.

“Shame is not what keeps me from London.”

“Oh?” Catherine sat on the deteriorating sofa, her back erect, chin forward. She was an elegantly cut gem set within an utterly flawed setting.

“I have no reason to go back. Nothing is there for me.”

“A bride?”

He nearly had that. Until Catherine slammed the door on his face. “Why go there for one? I have my bride here.”

Her lips pursed. “Yes, Miss Suttley. What do you know of her?”

Branches swept up against the manor, scratching the stones with an ear-shattering screech. Ashworth watched Catherine’s reaction. Her eyes widened, face blanched. He hid his grin.

“I know enough of Miss Suttley to know she will not desert me.”

Catherine stiffened. “Are we back to that? Doesn’t it say something that I’ve journeyed all the way out here to see you again?”

“After your husband has died.”

“You certainly didn’t think I would come while he lived, did you? I could not do such a thing.”

“But you thought of me then?” He knew better, but he enjoyed seeing her indignation. Perhaps he would draw enough ire to have her stomp out of Silverstone.

She glanced away. “At times I did. I regretted my decision to end our engagement.”

“You told me yesterday it was your father who put a stop to it.”

She caught her breath, then recovered. “I’ve made a mistake. I see that now.”

Lies. All of her words were lies. He went past her and back to the window. Down below, Vivian was arranging straw in a box. Shifting rays of sunlight danced upon the black strands of her hair. He wanted to join her.

Instead, he crossed his arms. “What do you see now? A man still marked, a house in disrepair. I have nothing for you, Lady Wainscott.”

“Yes, you do.” She remained on the sofa, her voice carrying through the dust. “You have our memories. We once loved one another.”

Ashworth stared off at the approaching clouds. The pain of her rejection had long since been replaced by emptiness. Now only Harry could fill that void. “No.
I
once loved
you
.”

He would not get the truth from her today. “I have business I need to attend to.”

He started for the door but Catherine blocked his path. Her gold hair and pale skin appeared fragile in this harsh environment, yet her lips glistened a vibrant red. “I did love you.”

If she loved him, his scar and the mystery of that horrible night would not have deterred her. But there was no point in telling her.

Catherine raised her chin, her lips curving as a gloved hand touched his chest. Green eyes sparkled with overt seduction.

Though Catherine had matured into a woman, her bosom larger after pregnancy, she held little appeal for him. He once coveted her fair, unblemished skin, her lithe body. But now he coveted nothing.

Catherine traced a finger along his shoulder. “Things are different now.”

His jaw clenched as a storm raged in his blood. He wanted her gone from his sight, but his anger yearned for revenge. “You are not safe here.”

She lifted her chin, her face so close to his own. “I am safe anywhere with you.” Then, her lips touched his.

She had seen them at the window.

Lord Ashworth and Lady Wainscott in the parlor looking down as she worked. Despite what Lord Ashworth told her of his feelings regarding Lady Wainscott, Vivian could not stem her fear that he would return to his former love.

But what of last night?

Vivian rested against a boulder, her knees suddenly weak. What he had done to her, the passion he had brought from her lips…oh, she scarcely slept afterward. Even now, her nipples ached, heat gathered between her legs.

She wasn’t a virgin. But she had never known true desire. And now she desired more. Her dreams each night left her quaking for release, Lord Ashworth’s kisses left her breathless.

There were times when she could think of nothing but having his large hands on her skin, his mouth on her breasts. She considered how hard the muscles on his legs were, how long he could control his urgent needs.

Above all, she wondered what it would be like to be loved with tenderness.

And yet, what had started last night with gentle awareness then progressed into passion, ended in an abrupt mystery. Once again he left her cold and alone, once again he would not discuss what had transformed him. He did not trust her.