In My Wildest Fantasies (14 page)

"I am the one the Duke of Pembroke chose to be the next duchess. That is why we came all this way through the putrid rain and muck. You are dreaming if you think you can walk in here and turn Lord Hawthorne's head. You are nothing but an unsophisticated country girl." She stood. "Lord Hawthorne might be willing to amuse himself with you in a dimly lit gallery," she added in an angry whisper, "but he knows what his father wants. He will never propose."

With that, she turned and strode to the piano to entertain the guests with another merry tune.

Rebecca remained in her seat with a sick knot in her belly, while she glanced uneasily around the room.

"All is well?" Grace asked, probing discreetly for information about what had occurred between Rebecca and Devon in the gallery, and why Rebecca had suddenly lost interest in the party and wished to retire.

"Everything is fine," she replied.

Her aunt did not seem willing to accept such a vague answer. "Exactly how fine, darling? You mustn't leave me wondering, or I won't be able to sleep tonight. What happened while you were in the gallery?"

Rebecca hesitated while she considered how to satisfy her aunt's curiosities, without confessing the shocking, wicked and depraved details. She had behaved inexcusably in the gallery because she could not restrain her out-of-control desires, and now she was troubled by Lady Letitia's warnings.

She leaned closer and whispered. "He asked me to call him Devon."

Her aunt placed both hands over her heart. "Gracious me. That is as good as a proposal."

"Let us not be overly optimistic, Aunt Grace."

"But he is a gentleman. Surely he would not trifle with your affections in such a way. I am certain his feelings have become engaged."

"I shall go to sleep hoping," Rebecca said.

Grace smiled and hugged her. "You are a gem, darling. Everything is going to work out just the way you want it to. I am certain of it."

With that, they said goodnight, but Rebecca remained in the corridor for a moment, watching her aunt enter her own bedchamber next door.

She hoped she had not made a mistake, surrendering to her passions so openly with Lord Hawthorne and giving in to every erotic suggestion he made. Now he wanted to come to her bedchamber personally and borrow her scandalous diary, which she had never shown to anyone. He was actually going to read it and know all the things she had fantasized about over the past four years. It was beyond scandalous--far worse than being simply pushy.

Just thinking about such things, however, caused something to quiver and pulse inside her, and she realized that even if she was handing over the whole cottage and sheep herd to Devon without so much as a shilling in return, she couldn't possibly turn back now. She'd already said yes to his every request, and he would be knocking at her door in an hour. She could only hope it would lead to a proposal, but it was a risky game she was playing.

With a sigh, she put her hand on the doorknob and turned it, wondering further about the logistics of this. Should she dress for bed or remain in her formal evening gown until he came and left? She couldn't imagine answering the door in her dressing gown. That would only add to the appalling list of sinful improprieties this evening.

She supposed, if she wanted to redeem herself, she could just hand him the diary though a crack in the door, then quickly shut it in his face.

Quietly crossing the threshold, she entered her dark bedchamber, but left the door open for some light while she moved to the lamp on the bedside table. She found the matches and struck one, then removed the glass chimney and touched the flame to the wick. The room took on a golden glow, and she replaced the chimney on the lantern and looked toward the large armoire, where she kept the diary hidden inside her valise.

"Did you forget where you put it?" a masculine voice asked, causing her to gasp and whirl around to face the bed.

There he lay, stretched out at his ease with one long leg crossed over the other, his arms pulled back behind his head. He had taken off his dinner jacket, which was tossed over the footboard.

She laid a hand over her thumping heart. "Good Lord! What is the matter with you, scaring me like that? And how did you get up here so fast?"

"I know every secret passageway in this house like the back of my hand."

"There are secret passageways?"

He pointed at a life-size portrait of an ancestor on the wall. It was slightly ajar. "I came in through there."

She studied it curiously, then hurried to shut the bedchamber door before someone walked by and discovered him laid out like a pleasure god on her bed. "Keep your voice down," she said. "And you promised to wait an hour."

"I was bored."

"You were randy, more like it, wanting to see what's in that diary."

She shut the door and faced him. He leaned up on an elbow. "You have me pegged. But let me hear you say 'randy' again."

His teasing tone sent a tremor of excitement through her. Oh, she was doomed.

"Randy. Now please get off my bed."

He sighed with resignation, then swung his legs to the floor, but continued to sit with his hands curled around the edge of the mattress. "Do you know that you are the most exciting woman I have met in a very long time?"

"More exciting than Lady Letitia?" she boldly asked.

His eyes darkened with desire. "Far more."

It was exactly what she wanted to hear, but now was not the time to be bringing up another woman.

"I asked you nicely to get up," she reminded him, determined to at least try and behave respectably, even though she'd already chopped and burned and utterly annihilated that bridge behind her.

He smirked, then stood up and spread his hands wide. "There. How's that?"

"Better. Now go over there." She pointed to the fireplace on the opposite side of the room.

"Don't you trust me?"

"Frankly, no."

He chuckled and sauntered to the hearth, while she went to the armoire.

"It's damp in here," he said. "Allow me to light a fire for you."

"Thank you."

She knelt and reached into the lining of her valise for the old diary, then rose to her feet and turned to watch him lay out the kindling and strike a match. He was crouching down, his shoulders broad, his torso narrow, his buttocks muscular beneath his formal black trousers, stretched taut.

Holding the diary at her side, she suddenly understood why Lydie had needed to write about her lover and her passions on each glorious page of her diary. She hadn't wanted to forget what it felt like.

Rebecca was tempted to start a diary of her own. Surely, with this man as her subject, it would be a masterpiece. For her eyes only, of course.

He picked up the poker and shifted the logs around, drawing out the flames, sending sparks snapping and floating up into the black chimney, then he straightened and wiped his hands together. He turned to face her, gesturing toward the book she held at her side. "Is that it?"

"Yes," she said.

"May I look at it?"

Her heart began to pound as she held it out. For some reason when they had agreed to this earlier, she had imagined he would take the diary back to his own room and read it in private--for it was, needless to say, a very private kind of book. But she now understood that he intended to read it here.

He moved across the thick oval carpet and took it from her, keeping his gaze locked on hers the entire time until he turned and moved away, back toward the fireplace where the light was better.

He opened the book and read the first page.

Rebecca remained where she was, speechless and paralyzed, as if she were sharing her own diary with someone, for no one else had ever read this treasure she had kept hidden away since the day she'd found it.

Devon stood in front of the fire for a few minutes, then he slowly lowered himself into the wing chair and continued to read.

Eventually Rebecca moved to the bed and sat down. The only noises in the room were the sparks snapping in the fireplace, the mantel clock ticking, and the sound of pages turning.

She removed her earrings and necklace and set them on the bedside table, then sat quietly, trying to stay calm while she watched Devon read.

A short time later, he closed the book and looked at her. "This is indeed compelling reading, Rebecca. I think I should stop."

"Does it make you feel guilty, because it's someone else's private thoughts?" she asked. "I certainly felt that way at first."

"It's not that." He rose to his feet and came to stand before her. "May I ask you something?"

"Yes."

"When you read this book, do you fantasize about doing all the things Lydie does?"

Heaven help her, she wanted him to know. She'd always wanted him to know. "Yes."

"Do you ever fantasize about it with me?"

"Always with you."

His blue eyes warmed, then he held out the book. "Read something to me."

She slowly took it from him. "I'm not sure I can."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't think I could bring myself to say aloud some of the words Lydie uses."

His voice was quiet. "You said some colorful things in the gallery, remember?"

"Yes, but that was when I was..." She hesitated.

"Aroused?"

A passionate fluttering began low in her belly. "Yes."

A log dropped in the grate, and she looked toward it, feeling strangely mesmerized by the dancing flames.

"Why don't you turn to your favorite entry," he said.

Seated on the edge of the bed, she looked up at him. I should not let this go further, she thought. I should ask him to leave. But despite her fears of spoiling everything, she could do nothing but surrender to his will because she wanted him. She wanted this.

She opened the book and flipped through the pages near the start, and began to read aloud.

"Dear Diary,

"Today was my birthday, and Jess gave me a beautiful white stone he had found on a beach when he was a boy. He told me he'd been keeping it all these years just for me, even though we met only six months ago. I will never, ever part with it, Diary. Not as long as I live.

"But that is not all that happened today, for I was very, very wicked, and if Mother and Father knew what I had done, they would surely send me away.

"Tonight, after they went to bed, I locked my door, put the lamp in my window, and waited for Jess to climb inside. We could not speak a word to each other for fear of being caught, but we did not need words, such is the depth of our bond to one another."

Rebecca stopped reading and glanced up at Devon, who was listening attentively. She cleared her throat to continue.

"I never felt such wild desire and passionate yearnings in my body. My blood raced with need as I looked down at his enormous erection. How I longed to touch it and feel the silky heat in my hand. I sat down on the bed, and he sat beside me."

Rebecca stopped reading again when Devon slowly sat down beside her.

"Continue," he said.

Feeling the heat of his muscular thigh touching hers on the bed, she fought her own dizzying desires and swallowed nervously.

"He kissed the side of my neck while he eased me onto my back."

Devon leaned closer and pressed his open mouth to her neck, just below the line of her jaw. His warm, wet tongue sent gooseflesh tingling down her body, as he suckled downward to the juncture at her shoulder.

She went weak all over, and was powerless to resist the lure of erotic sensation as he laid her down on the soft mattress. She knew she should not be giving in so easily. This was not how she'd intended to win his heart, but she could not stop herself. She could not.

"Keep reading," he whispered between kisses as he tasted the base of her throat. Rebecca barely managed to hold the book open in front of her.

"He unbuttoned the top of my nightdress and kissed and fondled my breasts, taking my firm, sensitive nipples into his mouth and sucking greedily upon them, until I was filled with such hunger, it was all I could do to keep from crying out."

Devon had already begun to unbutton her gown, and quivering as she was with desire, she could not continue to hold the book. She let it fall to the bed and reached up to touch his face. He kissed her mouth, thrusting his tongue inside, then pushed her bodice open and probed with his tongue into her cleavage at the top of her corset. It was all too much. She wanted him so desperately. She could not stop.

"Sit up," he whispered. "I need to take this off you." He began to ease her bodice off her shoulders.

She did not argue, for she was floating in the exotic realm of her sexual fantasies, even when she knew she should be thinking about more practical matters--like whether or not this was wise when she wanted a marriage proposal from him.

But she had wanted this for so long, and it wasn't as if she had just met him this week. He had been living in her heart for four lonely years. She was eager and aching with desire. She could not let go of this.