Once Upon a Scandal (11 page)

“My life certainly didn’t turn out any better without you. If you haven’t already heard, my father has less than a year to live. I don’t need any more grief in my life.” She looked away and leaned toward the arm of the sofa, away from him. “Please do not sit so needlessly close.”

If only she could understand everything he’d been through since she’d last seen him, and how much this moment meant to him. “I will not touch you. But I will not move, either. I’ve waited years. I need to be near you.”

She lowered her gaze and watched her own gloved finger as it trailed back and forth along the carved wooden arm of the sofa.

He ached as he watched her hand, wishing that hand would touch him instead. “Victoria. There were so many times I wanted to write. So many.”

She glanced toward him tartly. “So why didn’t you?”

“I couldn’t.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“I know. But I promise over this next hour—”

“Did you even bother to read any of the letters I sent? Any of them? At all?”

He swallowed and lowered his gaze. “No. I…didn’t live at the address you were sending all of your letters to. But my stepsister was there to receive them all. Despite my request that she burn your letters upon arrival, Cornelia defied me and pocketed all fifty-three. My stepmother informed me of it a little over a year ago. When I confronted her and demanded she relinquish them, she refused, stating unless I answered them, they were hers, not mine. Though I wanted to read them, I knew what awaited me in those letters. Your hate. Your anger. I still haven’t been able to force myself to read them. In the end, I never wrote, Victoria, not because I didn’t want to, but because it was best for your safety.”

She jerked toward him, her knee bumping his thigh. “For my safety?” Her blond brows came together. “Whatever do you mean?”

Damn his own infernal tongue. He was saying far too much, far too soon. There was so much to explain to her. Too much. Jonathan slid his arm from around her and shifted away from her, struggling not to think about the life he’d been forced to lead all these years. A life he’d been unable to crawl out of due to his own stupidity.

He eventually confessed in a quiet, apologetic tone, “I was a cicisbeo, Victoria. And the husband whose wife I served was a bastard. I didn’t want him or anyone else knowing anything about you, lest you or your reputation be harmed as a result of our connection.”

Victoria stared at him for an abashed moment, then glanced away, back toward the hearth. She drew away, leaning toward the arm of the sofa. “So you were a paid lover to another man’s wife?”

“Yes.”

“You slept with a married woman—after all your talk about the sanctity of love?”

“There is far more to my story than you think.”

She rolled her eyes and held out her hand. “Now that we have a complete understanding of one another, might I have the sealed parchment that was provided to you?”

“No. I am not done speaking.”

She continued to coolly hold out her hand. “Lest you forget, there are rules we must abide by and I will not permit my inheritance to be put at risk. Now give me the parchment. Or I will leave this room. Don’t think I won’t.”

Damn her and this entire situation. He yanked out the parchment from his coat pocket and paused when her shawl cascaded out and unraveled onto the cushioned space between them.

She eyed her shawl. Then him. “A thief, too, I see.”

He snatched it up and dangled it before her. “Frankly, dearest, I was hoping for a silk stocking.”

She snatched it out of his hand, draped it around her neck and set her shoulders. “I’ll have one of my servants deliver it for you on the morrow. I most certainly cannot have you being displeased. Not after all that you have done for me.”

He lowered his gaze. “You really despise me.”

She sighed. “No. But I don’t like you, either.”

“It is all the same to me.” He leaned toward her, closing the space he’d earlier created, and held out the sealed parchment, hoping to God that this indifferent and bitter façade of hers wasn’t real. He prayed it was a mask of pride she had placed over the endearing woman he once knew and loved.

She snatched the parchment from his hand. Cracking the red wax seal, she unfolded the paper. She scanned what was written, reading through it line by line, and paused. Her eyes widened as she fumbled to fold the parchment back together. She seemed unable to.

Jonathan reached out and stilled her gloved hands against his own. Tightening his bare hand against her small gloved ones, he slid closer, setting his thigh and hip against her, bundling her gown. He tried to cast aside the intimacy of his touch. God, how he tried. “What does it say?”

She shook her head.

Keeping one hand firmly against hers, he used his other hand to slip out the parchment. As he tried to tug it away, her fingers tightened. “Victoria. It is important we abide by the rules. Now, what does it say?”

She squeezed her eyes shut tighter and allowed her fingers to loosen. “After you read it, burn it.”

Burn it? He slid the parchment loose and quickly unfolded it. It read:

My dear Victoria, I know this comes many a year too late, and that I have not been as understanding during the times that you needed me to be, but I ask you to set aside the past, look toward the future, and be happy in the way your mother and I once were. You will need someone to look after you once I am gone, and according to Grayson, Lord Remington can do that and more. Your Papa, always No questions. Not a single one. Only a simple, heartfelt wish for their happiness, along with the firm belief that he could deliver that and more to Victoria. Jonathan swallowed, feeling his heart and head pounding in unison. It wasn’t by any means relevant if Victoria thought the words deserved to be burned.

Jonathan shifted against the cushion of the sofa and willed himself to remain indifferent and calm, even though he wanted to grab her and shake her and demand she give him an opportunity to redeem himself.

He gestured toward the parchment. “Do you really want me to burn this?”

She stared at the hearth. “Yes. It means nothing.”

Jonathan nodded and watched his own hands fold the parchment. It was nothing more than words on paper. It did not mean it would end things between them the moment he burned it. Even though for some reason he felt like he was about to burn everything they had ever shared.

He rose and with a flick of his wrist tossed the letter onto the burning coals. He blankly watched the parchment as it blackened and curled. The red wax of the seal bubbled and hissed in protest as it dribbled and disappeared into the coals.

He turned to Victoria, who’d been watching the parchment burn along with him, and announced, “I still love you. Nothing will ever change that. Not even your wicked disdain.”

She pinched her lips together, tears glistening in her eyes. She glanced up at him, her features twisting. “Do not speak to me of love. Love could never be so cruel.”

“I never meant to be cruel. I swear it. I swear it upon everything I am and ever was and ever wish to be.” He kneeled before her, her skirts pushing against his chest and gathered her gloved hands, promising himself he would keep his touch brief. He paused as his bare skin grazed something. Something he hadn’t noticed before.

He glanced down, and fingered her gloved left hand, just above her knuckle. She was wearing a ring.

His ring? He glanced up at her in astonishment, his breath almost jagged. “Are you still wearing my ring?”

She dragged her hands from his. “Don’t be ridiculous. I tossed it the moment you ceased writing.”

He narrowed his gaze at the thought that she would maliciously toss the only thing he had left of his mother. “Why would you do that? Knowing what it meant to me? Knowing it belonged to my mother?”

“I suppose anger can make one cruel.”

“Obviously. So what ring do you now wear in its stead? Remove your glove. I wish to see your hand and, in turn, your vanity.”

She cupped her gloved hands together against her chest, burying her left hand beneath the right. “You have no need to see my hand.”

“I say I do. Show me your hand.”

“Last I knew it was my hand, not yours.”

“What are you hiding?”

“I am not hiding anything.”

“Good. Then you will not mind if I impose.” Jonathan grabbed her left hand, jerking it away from her chest and held her wrist fiercely between them, so she wouldn’t be able to wrench it away.

Victoria gasped and struggled against him, her other hand pushing and punching at his shoulder. “Don’t touch me! How dare you—” She hit his shoulder.

Despite the repeated blows against his arm and shoulder, he dug his fingertips into the wrist of her satin glove. In one swift motion, he forcefully stripped it from her hand, flinging it aside.

Victoria stilled. Her eyes widened as her exposed, pale hand dangled between both of their faces, revealing a glinting ruby-and-gold ring on her fourth finger.

Jonathan’s breath hitched. His mother’s ring. The one he had asked her to keep on her finger in memory of their love. He had hoped. He had prayed. But he never truly thought—

“Victoria,” he breathed, his chest tightening.

He savagely brought her hand to his mouth and buried his lips and nose against her soft skin, refusing to let go for fear that this moment would disappear. A moment that achingly whispered to him that not all had been lost between them after all, and that she was merely tormenting him in the name of her own pride.

“Release my hand,” she choked out, wiggling her hand against his hold.

Jonathan’s grip tightened. “No. I will not.”

He turned her palm upward and gently trailed his lips across the soft, curved surface, then trailed them toward her wrist until they met the ruffled sleeve of her gown.

He lifted his eyes to hers. “You have honored me all these years. I am without words.”

She tried yanking her hand from his grasp again. “I always thought it was pretty. The fact that I wear it means nothing.”

Jonathan gritted his teeth at her resistance, leaning against her legs and in turn trapping her against the sofa with his body. “Look at me and tell me you feel nothing. Tell me you do not even feel the merest whisper of what we once shared, and I will gladly walk out of this room and out of your life. Do it. Say it. Save us both the misery of living with memories that apparently no longer mean anything.”

Her full lips parted. Yet not a single word tumbled forth. She simply stared at him, her breath coming in uneven, visible gasps. The rapid rise and fall of her chest brought his attention to the full breasts displayed by her gown.

Jonathan trailed a bare finger toward her other hand, the one set on her lap that remained gloved. He slowly stripped that white satin evening glove from her wrist, palm and fingers, receiving no resistance. He tossed it beyond the sofa and rubbed her pale, soft hands, watching his large fingers rubbing against her much smaller ones. He could feel himself physically and emotionally coming alive again. It was amazing.

“It is so strange to be touching you again,” he murmured, still watching the movement of his fingers against hers. “You are the same, and yet in many ways you are not.”

He lifted her right hand to his lips and, unable to refrain, slid the tip of his tongue across her skin, savoring every inch of its salty sweetness.

Her hand trembled. “Remington. Please.”

He withdrew his tongue. “I do not wish to hear meaningless words brought on by pride. Victoria. We are being given an incredible opportunity to return to what we once shared. Do we take it? Or do we abandon it once and for all?”

She shook her head. “Cease. Cease this. My mind is too muddled to—”

“Shh. Give yourself time. Simply know that I do not need time. I still want this. I still want you. That has never changed.” He released her hand. Unable to resist, he slid his bare hands up the length of her thighs, hidden beneath the fullness of her gown. Incredible thighs that were firm beneath his palms.

His muscles tightened. “You have grown into your curves beautifully. Do you know that?”

She drew in a shaky breath, but otherwise did not resist the movement of his hands against her gown and thighs. “You are making it difficult for me to even think.”

“I do not want you to think. Thoughts are not always reliable once tainted by pride and prejudice.” His hands veered toward Victoria’s corseted waist and rounded in, pausing just beneath the curve of her breasts hidden within her bodice. Jonathan swallowed tightly, refraining from touching them, and fingered the silk of her bodice instead. “Tell me what it is you feel instead. The truth. For that is all I wish to know.”

She closed her eyes, her chest rising and falling in uneven takes that matched his own. “I feel as though I have lost the last of my mind by allowing you this much freedom.”

He leaned in closer. “So why are you letting me touch you? Why are you not pushing me away? Is it because you still want this? Is it because you still want me?”

Her eyes fluttered open and met his gaze, confusion illuminating them.

To have her this close after all these years was maddening. And despite her obvious confusion, he’d be a fool not to live in this moment. He could feel himself growing unbearably hard, but forced himself to suck in a harsh breath in order to maintain control. He gently placed his hands on her hips and leaned toward her, eyeing the fullness of her moist lips. Those beautiful, soft lips that he’d dreamed about since he was nineteen. “Kiss me.”