The Greatest Lover Ever (26 page)

And this quiet, dark-eyed young man who was to be her husband seemed no better. Reticent to the point of brusqueness, the cares of the world on his broad shoulders, he did not seem like the sort of man who’d treat her as an equal when it came to matters of business.

She knew Marcus had had much to bear from his grandfather while the old earl had lived. Even she’d heard tales of drunken rampages and mindless, twisted violence. And those were the stories people in the district had thought fit to repeat to a young girl.

Marcus was determined to continue his former guardian’s work, putting his grandfather’s estate to rights. She honored him for it, knew that he would husband her land equally well. But if her own father shelved her like a china doll, what hope did she have that any other man would respect her opinions?

Years passed. Lady Arden swept into her life and taught her everything she needed to know about the Ton. She’d been a late bloomer, physically. But as her body developed interesting curves, she’d learned lessons her mentor hadn’t taught her, too. About attracting men, controlling them.

She remembered presenting herself to her papa all decked out in her finery on the night of her come-out ball, hoping her appearance would somehow reanimate his affection for her. He’d barely looked up from his work.

Something had snapped inside her that night. As the gentlemen of the Ton fell like spillikins around her, she’d taken pleasure in playing the femme fatale, enjoyed the heady rush of power her appearance brought.

Only Beckenham had refused to play her game. The one man she’d wanted was the only one she couldn’t bring to heel. And in the end, she discovered the kind of power she’d wielded wasn’t power at all. Quite the reverse, in fact.

Tonight, she’d committed the folly of trying to use that illusory weapon against Beckenham. If she’d succeeded, she would have ruined any chance they might have had.

He’d seen through her. Dear God, how that had hurt. She’d thought herself so clever, brilliant and untouchable as fire before he’d called her bluff.

And he’d done it without any assertion of his own considerable power. He’d seen her clearly, and he’d cherished her for who she was.

If that wasn’t love …

Did it truly matter that he hadn’t said the words? Perhaps he never would. Perhaps in time he would say them. She wouldn’t try to force him or beguile him into it.

Her love for him was a foregone conclusion. She’d loved him for so long, she couldn’t pinpoint when she’d begun. It was simply a part of her, like her heartbeat.

With a hard clutch in her stomach, she remembered Pearce. The letter.

No. She would not let Pearce spoil everything again. She’d tell Marcus. All of it must be open between them now. She didn’t think he’d spurn her when he knew the truth. Not if he loved her. Once she and Beckenham were married, Pearce could not injure her in any way that truly mattered.

She stretched, exhilaration flowing through her body, despite the anxiety. Tomorrow, she would tell Marcus yes. She couldn’t wait for the morning to come.

As she lay there, wakeful in the darkness, the minutes dragged by. She was so restless, she was almost tempted to slip out and throw herself into the lake. All this nervous energy needed expending somewhere.

Suddenly, the door opened, startling her. Beckenham paused in the doorway, holding his candle, watching her.

*   *   *

“Marcus!” Georgie scrambled up to a sitting position, the covers drawn up to her bosom.

Her eyes were wide with shock, lips slightly trembling. The glorious hair was neatly plaited into a braid. Her face looked scrubbed clean, fresh as a daisy, her creamy complexion glowing with innocence in the moonlight.

He experienced a momentary qualm. There was no going back for either of them if he went through with this. “Tell me to go away and I will.”

“No, don’t go.” She dropped the covers, held out a hand to him, her smile luminous. “How did you know I’ve been wishing for you?”

Desire flared as he came into the room. Her night rail was unadorned, made up high at the throat. Prosaic. Out of character, if one considered the inflammatory gown she’d worn that very evening. Only he knew that this was the real Georgie.

Softly, he closed the door, turned the key in the lock.

“I’ve come for your answer,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed beside her. “I couldn’t wait.”

“Yes, Marcus.” She said it simply, closing her eyes, opening them again. “Of course. The answer is yes.”

Beckenham leaned in, capturing the hand she stretched out to him, and kissed her.

His other hand came up to her hair. “I need to do this,” he said, tugging the ribbon from the tail of the braid. He ran his fingers through it to loosen and separate the thick strands of fire until they spread and rippled around her face. So soft …

“There.”

When he moved to kiss her again, she stopped him, her palm pressed flat against his chest. “Marcus, I hate to do this, but before we … I—I need to tell you something.”

Everything inside him stilled. His body felt the delay as an acute form of torture, but he could not afford to make a misstep now. Not when he was so close to making her his.

“Yes?”

She touched his arm. “I have to tell you the truth about that duel. About Pearce.”

There was a sick churn in his stomach but he forced himself to nod. “Go on.”

She dropped her gaze. “Yes. Well.” She drew a deep breath. “When you would not listen to me about the duel, I became frantic. You see, I knew the ugly mood Pearce was in. I knew he wanted to kill you. I went straight back to the ballroom and found him. I told him that you and I had fought. That our betrothal was over. And that…”

She raised her gaze to the silk canopy overhead and swallowed. “I said that I would run away with him, as he’d begged me to do. But that it would have to be the following morning, early, for Papa was taking me back to Gloucestershire on the morrow.”

He sat back, stunned. “And he believed you?”

Her mouth took on an oddly grim line. “I can be very convincing. But he didn’t entirely trust me, even so. He made me write him a letter.”

He frowned. “A letter. What did it say?”

She flushed. “It doesn’t matter what it said. I didn’t mean a word of it, not about him. The point was to give him something that would prove my intent to fly with him to Gretna Green. He’s not stupid. He knew my motive was to prevent the duel. The only way I could convince him I would go through with the elopement was to pen that note.”

“A love note, one presumes.”

She nodded.

“And he threatened to make the letter public if you didn’t follow through.”

“Yes.”

It was as if he’d separated into two distinct versions of himself. The one man consumed with rage of such a magnitude, he could have laid waste to entire civilizations. The other considering, calculating, planning what must be done.

“I duped Pearce,” said Georgie without any vestige of pride. “I didn’t turn up at our meeting place, and by the time he’d realized I wasn’t coming, the hour for the duel had passed.”

And he’d been oblivious to it all. Beckenham stared at her. Devil take it! Pearce had been blackballed from every club, shunned by his peers, practically hounded out of the country once the news of his supposed cowardice had become common knowledge. All Georgie’s doing.

Beckenham ought to be furious with her. If he’d known at the time, he would have found her interference appalling, scandalously reckless, emasculating, impossible to forgive. Now, all he cared about was that she must not suffer for what she’d done.

“What happened to the letter?” Surely all this careful planning had allowed her to retrieve it, also.

“He still has it. I couldn’t see a way to get it back without showing my hand, you see. And of course, he left England immediately afterwards. There was simply no time to get it back.”

“Damn it, Georgie!” A blistering oath ripped from him. He needed to find Pearce and get that letter, then make him pay.

He made as if to stand, but she caught his wrist. “I don’t think he’d use it, Marcus. Not once we are wed. What would be the point?” She gazed up at him with fear in her eyes. “That’s if you still want me.”

He stared at her. “You sacrificed your reputation. For me.”

“I loved you, you see,” she said softly. “I always have.”

The shock of that revelation, coming hard on the heels of her disclosures about Pearce, froze him in place.

Hoarsely, he said, “Georgie, I—”

She surged up to press her mouth to his. Something broke inside him, and then he was kissing her fiercely, wildly, dragging his lips across her cheek to her earlobe, to her throat. His emotions seemed to expand until they were too large for his soul to contain.

When she fell back against the pillows, she brought him with her, and he knew that he’d do whatever it took to keep her, to protect her, to
love
her until the day he died.

That kiss was incendiary, lascivious, thoroughly consuming, everything he’d dreamed. He shed his robe and flung it away, moved over her, desperate now to be inside her, to show her, to discover for himself all that the act of making love could be.

Georgie writhed beneath him, her slender fingers sliding over his shoulders, plunging through his short hair, kneading his nape. Her breathy pants, her senseless murmurs spurred him on.

“God, Georgie, you’re more than beautiful,” he said, working at the thin pink ribbon that tied the neck of her night rail. “So much more.”

She gasped as the ribbon came loose and he slid her night rail off her shoulders, yanked it down to reveal her breasts.

He lost his mind then, for he was but a man and her breasts were the stuff of fantasies. He set out on a voyage of discovery, first with his hands, his fingertips, gentle touching, caresses, little plucks at the rosy loveliness of her nipples.

As he watched, her eyes closed, her lips parted; she was thoroughly focused on sensation.

He gave in to his desires and used his mouth on her. She was exquisitely sensitive; her body twisted helplessly when he suckled her, so he did it some more, making her buck her hips with the force of her pleasure.

Slow down.…

Giving her breasts one last, loving caress, he moved down her body, kissed the roundness of her belly, the crease at the top of each thigh.

He slid his lips over her, reveling in the texture of that soft, smooth skin, warm and perfect as new cream. His fingertips investigated her long, slender legs, the sweet rounds of her knees, her inner thigh. A soft, welcoming moan told him she was ready for more intimate investigation.

He stroked upward, into the wet folds of her sex.

She was lush and hot there, and he kept his fingers moving as he slid up her body to kiss her lips again. He wanted to be close to her, close enough to swallow her reactions, to look into those amazing azure eyes when she came.

He touched her lightly at first, then dipped his finger into her juices and circled her clitoris with a firmer touch until she whimpered, undulating against him. She moaned; then her hand clamped like a vise around his wrist. Her eyes shot open and she convulsed beneath his hand. He smothered her cry with his mouth.

He didn’t let her rest or come back to herself after that. Instead, he positioned himself, guiding his swollen cock to the moist heat of her entrance.

She stared wordlessly up at him, and the vulnerability in her eyes would have told him she was a virgin even if her body and her untutored responses had not.

He pressed inside a little way, feeling her tightness, knew with an odd mixture of tenderness and elation that he was her first and only lover.

He only wished he could wipe his own past clean. This act was too important to share with anyone who didn’t matter.

He touched her cheek in a gentle caress, but a powerful urge had taken hold of him now and it was all he could offer by way of reassurance. The need for her pounded in his blood, screamed in his head. He drove slowly forward, heard her soft choke of pain.

Realized it was better to get that part over quickly, lunged, and drove home.

The feel of her was everything, all at once. Best for her if he finished quickly, but he’d waited so bloody long for this, the selfish part of him wanted to be inside her for as long as humanly possible.

Which, it turned out, was not going to be very long at all.

After a few careful thrusts, she seemed to pick up the rhythm, lifting her hips to move against him, a stream of talk flowing from her like a light summer breeze. Her enthusiastic participation wound the torture a notch higher.

“Yes, oh, yes,” she said. Her hands ran down his back. She scored him lightly with her nails, sending cascades of sensation through his body.

But the light, almost tentative caress of his buttock, the murmur of appreciation that came from deep in her throat, did for him entirely.

With a harsh cry, he exploded into her.

*   *   *

Georgie bit her lip and slid a glance at Beckenham. He lay on his back beside her, chest heaving with the aftermath of a truly earth-shattering experience.

Her mind had shut down somewhere along the way. She’d been a bundle of need and feeling. The way he’d touched her … She felt a pang of pleasure low in her belly at the mere thought.

But the sensation of him inside her … Ah, that had been extraordinary, despite the momentary pain. She couldn’t wait for him to do it again.

Georgie had surrendered to the inevitability that they would repeat this experience. The sooner, the better, in her view. She smiled as Beckenham trailed his knuckles softly down her arm. On a sigh, she turned into his kiss.

A scratch on the door yanked her from the sensual pleasure of Beckenham’s caresses. She froze. “What was that?”

“Hmm?” Lazily, Beckenham lifted his head from her breast.

“There’s someone at the door!”

“Ah. Just in time to surprise us in flagrante and force you to make an honest man of me.”

“Don’t joke about it,” she whispered, pushing ineffectually at his massive shoulders. The man really was a great lump of rock. “Get up, get up! Where’s my wrap?”