Regency Rogues Omnibus (128 page)

“Crom must not know what we are planning, until the deed is done,” Darth said. “Afterward, we will have to find a safe place for Nicholas, until the courts can hear our case for his custody.” Darth stood suddenly. “And now I must go and convince Arabella to marry me. I do not envision that it will be an easy task, and you Beau, can go to Griswold and prepare for a small discreet wedding to take place in two hours’ time.”

***

Arabella lifted her gaze, when Darth entered the bedchamber, and Nicholas turned from looking out the window to stare at him also. He was so handsome, Arabella thought, she would never think anything else. The love in her heart would never allow it, yet she understood how impossible that was. She was only a young woman from Jamaica, while Darth was an earl. The scandal involving her, having been sold by her stepfather could never be lived down. Yet, Arabella knew that she would gladly live with Darth as his mistress, if he would only have her.
Anything
, she thought, she would do anything to be with Darth and to keep Nicholas away from Victor Crom. All of her hope and trust lay with Darth that he would find a way to rescue them, and she realized that she was no longer alone in this great country of England.

Arabella noticed that Darth appeared hesitant; it was an unusual appearance on his masculine features. Also, he walked toward Nicholas and not her, while she heard him quite distinctly clearing his throat. “Master Nicholas,” he began solemnly, gaining Nicholas’ full attention. Arabella thought that Nicholas, even though he had only been in Darth’s company for a few short minutes, admired him. “I have a serious question to ask of you,” Darth continued looking down at Nicholas. “As Arabella’s brother, and the male head of your family, I have come to ask you for your sister’s hand in marriage?”

Arabella choked on her surprise, making a strangled sound behind them, as Darth continued. “I give you my vow, Nicholas, that I will take care of Arabella and keep both of you safe for the rest of my life. I will make it my job, sir, to make your sister happy, if only I can have your blessing.”

Arabella saw the hope in Nicholas’ eyes as he turned his gaze to look to her, asking her with his eyes expression what he should do. She nodded her head vigorously. She was stunned, elated, hopeful, and her nod was overly vigorous, as she smiled with the beginning of tears in her eyes. Nicholas turned his gaze back upward to Darth, as he whispered, “Bella, says it is all right, and I think so too.”

Chapter Twenty Two

That evening after they had been married and Victor Crom had been unceremoniously thrown off Lee Estate, Darth guided Arabella upstairs. Beau and Chicery had taken Nicholas into hiding, until he and Arabella could gain guardianship of him. A legality, which he and Arabella would begin in the morning, and one he did not foresee taking lengthy amounts of time. Everything was in its proper place, he was married now, Arabella was safe, and Nicholas was safe and would be safe. Yet now, after all the struggles of the day, he was worried.

Had Arabella really wanted to marry him
, he wondered for the hundredth time that day? He had used artifice when he’d approached Nicholas to ask for his sister’s hand in marriage. At the time he had plotted that Arabella would be less likely to say no, if he approached her in that fashion. It had been underhanded and Arabella herself had not revealed her true feelings at the time. Everything had been so hurried, and they had both gone along with the events quickly.

At the time they were married, Arabella had looked at him with hope and gratefulness in her eyes. He was saving her that was undeniable, but now it left him to wonder, would she have married the scarred earl, if it had not been to save her brother and herself? But he also wondered, should anything else matter to him but that Arabella was his? His hand lifted unerringly to his scar as he rubbed it absently, while he guided Arabella past his bedchamber, two doors beyond.

She was married,
Arabella still could not believe it and her mind was drifting in the wonderful swirl of dreams every young woman must have. She thought mistily of love, a husband, and children. Her children with Darth. She glanced at Darth, and all her fanciful thoughts came to an abrupt halt. She saw clearly that he was rubbing his scar in a haunting gesture that tugged at her heart immediately. Had she forgotten? Of course she had, she had forgotten all of her insights into her husband’s troubled soul. She knew what she had to do, what she had to do this very moment.

“Darth.” She tugged his hand, stopping him beside her as he turned and looked down at her, dropping his other hand from rubbing his scar. “I love you,” she exclaimed abrupt and very bold, looking up at him with all the love in her eyes that she could muster. He flinched visibly with his gray eyes widening, but otherwise his expression remained unreadable as he peered down at her. She would hold her heart out on a limb forever for him, he must never wonder at her devotion.
Never.

“Arabella …” Darth began slowly.

“I love you,” she said again. “I love you with
all
my heart. I ... Oh!” she yelped as Darth swung her up into his arms with his mouth instantly descending over her surprised lips. His lips were hot, insistent, and powerful as he took her mouth hungrily.

Suddenly, he lifted his head, breaking their urgent lips apart. “Say it again,” he demanded in a rush.

“I love you!” she exclaimed.

“Oh God, Arabella, I love you,” he murmured just as his head descended again and her lips were beneath his in an instant. Their lips meshed and twisted, with her lips against the firm power of his lips and his against the soft delicacy of hers.

Darth reached for the door knob behind Arabella as he kept her lips beneath his with deep searching kisses. He had a goal for his love, the room behind them. And now he was completely and wonderfully certain, Arabella loved him. He nudged Arabella backward as he continued to kiss her thoroughly, while he moved them until they were inside the room. A room that he had filled with yards of cloth, every type of cloth that Grainier’s carried. This was his surprise wedding gift to his bride.

Darth forced himself to lift his lips from Arabella’s and saw that he had completely entranced and aroused his wife with his kisses. “My wedding gift to you, little dove,” he murmured. “You will never want for clothes again, my love.”

Arabella’s passion-kissed mind tried to clear to the significance of the mound, no, a great towering heap of cloth before her. She understood there was something of vast importance to understand, which should attend her concentration. Unfortunately, her husband it seemed had other thoughts on his mind now that he had made his announcement.

“I lose all thought, Darth,” she grumbled at him, while he was in the process of gathering her up into his arms for another kiss.

“I know, little dove,” Darth murmured huskily, just before he slanted his lips over Arabella’s and she flowed into him with a honeyed whimper of longing and surrender. The sound of it stirred his blood hotly as he continued to plunder and pluck her mouth, but at the same time, he moved them both toward a mounded pile of cloth. Darth maneuvered his back to the pillowed mound, while his fingers pulled the laces of Arabella’s bodice free, never giving her lips a moments mercy. Soon the material slipped free over her apricot-tinted shoulders, to become fetchingly caught on her full high breasts. Breasts filled with creamy promise. The sight of the material clinging around Arabella’s pernicious cleavage and lofty mounds sent another curling heat, spreading through his blood.

Then abruptly, he fell backward onto a stack of cloth, taking her with him. A surprised giggle erupted above him as he held carefully onto her slender waist. His eyes growing heavy-lidded with hunger as he watched her bodice slip irrevocably downward with their motion. The excited buds of her nipples jiggled, so close to his mouth that his tongue demanded, and then reached forward to lick one.

“Darth, please,” she moaned.

His mouth suckled on the aroused kernel of her nipple, while throaty “Pleases,” filled his ears, as he settled her thighs over his stomach, spreading her legs along either side of his hips. His hands found her ankles and the bottom hem of her gown, lifting upward over her bent knees and softly laid thighs. He lifted the gown as he went, until he had bared his prize, around her warm supple buttocks.

Then he peeled Arabella completely free of her gown, while liberally sucking on her aroused nipples, rendering her thoughtless on any proprieties or modesty. As he loved her breasts thoroughly, he lifted her hips with resolve, closer and closer to his chin, until by his hands command alone, she straddled his welcoming face.

“My tender bud,” Darth charged hoarsely, then he found Arabella’s pussy with his tongue, lifting her completely over his opened mouth.

“Oh!” Arabella cried as her fingers found leverage on a high wooden chest, luckily before her, and her mind became fully aware of what was happening. She had been unfurled and afloat, completely caught in the passion that Darth wielded over her like the finest sword. Her body molded by his every touch and action, until she came awake out of her heady dreaming to realize that he had settled her sex astride his face.
Mouth!
Any thought of shy incredulousness she might have had, scampered hot on her breath, with each stroke of his tongue inducing fiery passion between the wet lips of her sex. And Darth licked her pussy possessively, thoroughly, like a great cat indulged in leaving his scent on her ... his mark.

Her gaze turned downward, to see his raven black hair, stark with color and feathered strokes against her belly and inner thighs. The blackness of it interweaved with her own intimate curls as she cried out passionately. “Darth!” While he flicked his tongue with vigor over the bud of her sex, rocking her hips with his large hands squeezing her buttocks. She begged him to stop or she begged him to continue ... or she simply begged him, until she panted and found herself pressing her sex downward, adjusting her pussy for the desire of more of his tongue.

Darth wanted to shout to heaven and stay seated in the molten lips of shimmering desire for the rest of his days. His hands lifted, swaddling Arabella’s heaving breasts. His palms frisked over them as his fingers shaped the slopes and valleys. The kneading motions he used over Arabella’s breasts, played guide to her cunt draped over his tongue’s wet nuzzling.

“Oh! Darth!”

Her thighs quivered and heaved, straining against him as he increased his assault, to her spiraling and delirious cries. He had Arabella singing a wild sumptuous ballad that curled the groping hands of passion through his tendons, muscles, and deep into his blood. It danced along his hot receptive flesh and strained his cock to thickening new heights in the binding of his pants.

Darth sought the buttons of his pants with one hand, releasing the rigid pound of flesh as he pushed his body upward. He slid his chest up over Arabella’s voluptuous curved body, which was ripe and damp with love. His head, chest, and belly moved upward, until he caught Arabella’s mouth on a scream of pleasure as he seated her on the thick demanding mast of his cock.

A hoarse groan of hot arousing bliss expelled from deep in his chest as he lifted his knees behind Arabella to sit and lock his hands onto her hips. Her head fell back swirling mahogany rivers of her hair over the tops of his boots as she laid her naked spine to his knees. Darth boosted his hips off the mound of cloth beneath him holding firmly to Arabella’s hips. The impelling thrust tried to lift her body upward but he denied it, holding her down to his rapid repeating thrusts.

She cried his name, digging her fingers deep into the ridges of sinew across his chest. Through eyes, half closed with his driving hunger, he watched emotions that were his own dance across his wife’s body and echo his feeling across her love ravished face. She was freed in her love making, completely unbidden beneath his hands as he lost himself in her journey.

Darth was everywhere. He was around her, he was through her, and he was inside her. Darth commanded her every sensation, as she spiraled free of physical boundaries beneath his pounding and giving rhythm. Arabella caught her legs high on Darth’s chest, begging him for the impossibility of going faster, deeper. She panted and whimpered as he gave her more ... everything his powerful body could command. He was magnificent and she screamed her love and appreciation as she tumbled over the peak and shattered into a thousand riveting convulsions, all wrapped into one agonizing throe of pleasure.

Still, Darth thrust upward into Arabella’s sex, bracing his back against the wooden chest as his head fell back and his breathing rushed. His buttocks slapped back and forth across the cloth beneath him as a sound like pain erupted from his throat. He clenched and tightened, straining forward and held. Shaking his head like a lion as he growled through the eruption, pumping hot and fluid deep inside the truest creation of his pleasure.

Long moments later, Darth’s lips found the highest slope of Arabella’s delicate cheekbone in a kiss that found quivering little teardrops.

“Little dove, my love, did I hurt you?”

Arabella was draped over his chest with her legs still straddling his thighs and what was left of his stiff cock, still embedded inside her. His demons chased him at his roughness and his compelling fierce need.