To Kiss a Thief (23 page)

Perhaps Mama had been wrong. About many things.

Tracing her jaw with his lips, he paused once again at her ear. “Let me touch you instead. Let me come inside you.”

She felt she ought to blush at such words, but the heat that was spreading along her skin now had nothing to do with shame. Tugging her hands from his, she reached to unfasten her nightgown with trembling fingers.

“Let me,” he murmured, plucking at the bow between her breasts and slipping the thin cambric over her shoulders. A sudden flare of heat and light swept over her when she was at last bare to his gaze, his eyes traveling leisurely over every inch of flesh his fingers had exposed.

As he spread his dressing gown over the hearth rug, she realized he intended to lie with her there before the fire. Ought she to allow such a wanton thing with a proper bed just a few feet away? The moment was too magical to disrupt.

Settling back onto the silk, she opened her arms to him, welcoming his weight and the feel of his skin against hers. Every sensation was new and sharp: the oddly pleasurable prickle of the wool rug beneath her back only slightly muted by his dressing gown, the hair of his chest that tickled and teased her aching breasts, the graze of slightly coarser hair against her inner thighs as he urged her legs apart with one of his own.

And all of it, all of it illuminated by the flickering light of the fire.

She watched, her fascination tinged with embarrassment, as his lips trailed over her collarbone and down to her breast, pausing to draw its peak between them and then suckling her firmly. A moan rose in her throat and her hips lifted, seemingly of their own volition, urging her mound against the hard muscle of his thigh.

Answering her wordless plea, St. John moved down her body, his lips following the edge of her rib cage, the curve of her waist, the rising slope of her belly. His tongue flickered into the indentation of her navel, a teasing promise of what was to come, and she gasped, wishing she had the courage to curl her fingers in his hair and coax his head lower still.

But that, it seemed, was not the particular pleasure he had in mind.

Leaning his weight on one arm, he slid the other along her side, forcing her hips back to the carpet and slipping his hand between their bodies, cupping her with his palm and pressing the heel of his hand against the ache his kisses had built.

“Is this what you need, Sarah? Or perhaps this?” One long finger ruffled her dark curls and slowly circled the opening to her body until she felt a rush of moisture and her hips began to rise again. “Ah, so many delights yet to learn,” he whispered, watching his hand as he pleasured her.

In the fog of desire that had settled over her brain, she could not decide whether he imagined himself student or teacher. And then that circling finger slipped inside her, rendering her feeble question moot.

He was guiding her once more up that still-unfamiliar climb into madness. But the route he had chosen to take was so different that at first she did not recognize it. She was aware only of the pulse pounding between her thighs, the breath sawing in and out of her lungs, and the certainty that she was about to die.

And moments later, when St. John shifted his hand ever so slightly, she did.

His mouth swooped over hers, swallowing her cry of rapture, and before she had time to gather the scattered pieces of herself, he had kneeled between her spread thighs and entered her on one deep stroke, filling her.

As he slowly withdrew and prepared to thrust again, she instinctively canted her hips, meeting his powerful stroke. Once. Twice. “Oh, God, Sarah,” he groaned, pinning her with his weight so that she could not move with him. A fine sheen of sweat formed across his brow as he strained to hold back the rushing tide. Then a frenzied volley of thrusts. His dressing gown slid across the carpet beneath them as he drove into her. She could hear his rough breath at her ear and the slick wetness of their coupling. And finally, she felt the remembered rush of heat at her core as his seed spilled into her.

He collapsed atop her with a self-deprecating laugh. “Shameful,” he said when he had caught his breath. “Utterly shameful. But the next time will be better.”

But of course there would be a next time. He had announced his decision to stay in Lynscombe, and was that not what she had wanted, for him to assume responsibility for his inheritance, to show he had truly changed? And if they were to live together, a resumption of relations between them was inevitable; even without her father's terrible offer hanging over their heads, St. John would one day expect an heir.

Making love
, people called it. She had let herself fly to him, holding nothing back. Not her body. Certainly not her heart.

It would be ridiculous to go on thinking of the joining of their bodies as a sacrifice or a punishment when it soon might give her another child—children, if the first was not a boy. And tonight, at least, it had also brought warmth. Intimacy. Pleasure.

Even if she could never have his heart, she could have this.

Only a fool would complain.

“Next time,” he whispered as he rolled away and carried her with him, cradling her against his chest, “I will be all yours, to do with as you please.”

“All mine?” Sarah nestled her cheek against his shoulder, hiding the tears that threatened to spill from her eyes. The temptation to hope was too strong. “Someday, I shall hold you to that promise.”

* * *

When St. John awoke in his bed some hours later, he had no memory of how he had got there. The room was dark save the glow of the dying embers in the fireplace.

And something was tickling his thigh.

“Did I wake you?” Sarah asked, burrowing up from beneath the covers. “I'm sorry.” Her expression was anything but contrite. “But you did say . . .”

He ran his hands over her shoulders, drawing her gently upward until he could capture her mouth with a searching kiss. “So I did.” Then he lay back, closed his eyes, and allowed her to indulge her curiosity, grateful for this proof of her desire. “I'm in your hands.”

Much to his surprise, she began by running her fingers through his hair and then tracing the contours of his face, along his brow, around his jaw, down his scar. When he tried to turn away from her scrutiny, she gave a
tsk
of displeasure. “It gives your face character,” she insisted. “It reminds me of your bravery.”

St. John smothered the scoffing laugh that rose to his lips.

“And your foolishness,” she added, almost as if she had read his thoughts.

As she moved down his body, she stroked and then kissed everything within her reach, learning him in a way no other woman ever had.

Her passion was an unexpected gift. Not that he had seen no signs of it. It was there in her fierce devotion to her daughter, in the beautiful music that flowed from her fingertips, and even, he supposed, in the fury she had vented on him once or twice.

But he had never imagined that her explosiveness would extend to the bedchamber.

When her mouth reached his abdomen, her unbound hair once again tickled his groin. And then she paused. He felt her shift her weight and realized she was no longer touching him. Chancing a peek, he caught her studying his manhood with wonder-filled eyes as it grew and hardened beneath her gaze.

“Touch me,” he breathed when he could stand it no longer, and then hastily added, “if you wish.”

She reached out with tentative fingertips. In her uncertainty, she teased and tormented him—although he was sure she did not mean to—until he gave in to his own desperate need and showed her how to hold and stroke him. Closing his eyes again, he surrendered himself to the sensation of her touch.

And then he felt her lips on him
there
. The gentle kisses she was stringing along his hardened length were more sweet than sensual. Still, the feel of a woman's mouth on his cock had not been so frequent an experience that he had grown complacent about the sensation. Idly, he considered whether he ought to stop her. Surely a gentleman would not allow a lady to—

Then she took him into the wet heat of her mouth, and all thoughts of stopping her scattered on a deep groan.

Sarah looked up at him with anxious, uncertain eyes.

“Yes,” he hissed in answer to her unspoken question. Twisting his fingers into her hair, he urged her back to her task in a most ungentlemanly fashion.

Fortunately, Sarah did not seem to mind.

What she lacked in technique she more than made up for with her enthusiasm, and in another moment, St. John was clawing the bedsheet in a desperate attempt to retain some measure of self-control. He had already tumbled her on the bloody hearth rug, for God's sake, demonstrating all the restraint of an untried schoolboy. And now this?

Nevertheless, it was almost all he could do to cup her shoulders and lift her mouth to his for a somewhat more conventional kiss.

“Was that—?” she asked hesitantly when they broke apart.

He laid one finger against her lips. “It was perfect. Too perfect.”

Beneath his fingertip, her mouth curved into the most delicious pout. “But you said I might do as I pleased.”

St. John could not argue with her logic. So he kissed her instead, reveling in her warm weight where she lay across his chest. He stroked his hand down the curve of her spine and over the swell of her buttocks. She was kneeling on the bed beside him, her bare bottom tipped upward so that she could return his kiss.

Dragging his mouth to her ear, he gave a whispered command. “Come on top of me,” he urged as his fingertips dipped into the hollow at the top of her thighs.

Sarah shot him a skeptical, uncertain look, but she braced her hands against his shoulders and straddled his hips. “Like this?”

He shifted slightly, enough that the head of his cock nudged her damp curls.

Her eyes widened. “Oh.”

Setting his hands on either side of her pelvis, he helped her slowly lower herself onto his shaft. “I think if you are to make your life in the country, Lady Fairfax, it is time you learned to ride,” he teased when she was fully seated. “Are you ready to take the reins?”

She moved hesitantly at first, accustoming herself to the sensations produced by this new position. But in a matter of moments, her confidence grew. She built to a rhythm and her eyes began to look glazed.

He was determined to allow her to find her own pleasure, but that did not mean he could not offer a little assistance along the way. He lifted his head and caught one taut nipple between his lips; as he had expected, Sarah leaned forward to encourage him to suckle her more deeply and discovered, quite by happy accident, the difference a slight change in angle could make.

Sliding one hand over her hip and across her abdomen, he nestled his thumb over her clitoris and then bent his knees, deepening his penetration. But he waited until he was sure her climax was nearly upon her before lifting his hips to meet her downward thrust, filling her as she ground against him.

And she shattered, her whole body clenching around him as she cried out. He waited for the tension to ebb from her before gripping her hips and taking his final pleasure, muffling his own cry of surrender against her shoulder.

“So,” he murmured at her ear a moment later, “how did you like your first lesson?”

Her answering laugh was distinctly short of breath. “You shall find me an eager pupil.”

Suddenly, he realized why it was dangerous to allow a woman to filch the reins. He was going to have the devil's own time getting them back.

And he was going to enjoy every minute of the attempt.

Catching the bedcoverings in one hand, he drew them over their still-joined bodies. He searched his heart and his mind for some lingering traces of misgiving or doubt. But a new and more powerful emotion had swept them away.

He was falling in love with his wife.

And that, he was quite sure, was the most foolish—but perhaps also the bravest—thing he had ever done.

“I
do so regret being unable to attend the ball this evening,”

Sarah's mother said, plucking fretfully at the coverlet with long, slender fingers.

“Best not to tax yourself, Laura,” insisted Papa. “You'll feel better for it in the morning.”

“What a trial it is to have been cursed with such a delicate constitution.”

From her position at the window overlooking the front of the house, Sarah spared only half an ear for their conversation. She was wondering how St. John's conversation with his father's steward had gone. And of course, the one with his father.

She was not sure when St. John had left her side that morning. Sunlight had been spilling across her pillow when she had awoken to the realization that she was alone in the big bed.

She had woken once before, when the light was still gray, to feel his body curled protectively around hers, like two spoons nested in a drawer. When she had snuggled closer, craving his warmth, she had also felt his arousal. Much to her surprise, he had loved her a third time, never speaking, just shifting her leg ever so slightly and entering her from behind. She had had no notion that such a thing was even possible.

He had promised it would get better. And he had been true to his word. This time, he had set a leisurely pace that allowed her to absorb every sensation—his shallow thrusts and gentle, searching fingers had brought her to climax twice before he had surrendered to his.

Heated by the memory, she leaned her forehead against the cool glass, hoping to hide her blush.

“Sarah!” Her mother fixed her with remarkably sharp eyes, for one supposedly so ill. “I hope you're feeling all right. Your color is high.”

“Yes, Mama.” What would her mother say if she knew how thoroughly her advice regarding the marital bed had been flouted? All day, Sarah had been conscious of a few unfamiliar—if not unpleasant—twinges. Her body still thrummed with unaccustomed sensations, while her mind tried to wrestle her heart's doubts into submission. “Everything is perfect.”

“Well, you seem remarkably inattentive today. As I was saying, I hope no one will be offended by your wearing a day dress this evening. It seems ill-befitting the future Marchioness of Estley.”

“Pray God, those duties will not be mine for years to come,” Sarah said, glancing down at the blue-green silk she had kept packed away in her trunk all those years. She had never thought to have occasion to wear it again. “In any case,” she continued, recalling the signs of abject poverty she had seen, the struggles the curate had described to her, “I cannot think lavish gowns will be expected in the country. The money required for them might better be spent assuaging real need.”

“I daresay three years of back payment will go a long way toward improving that dumpy little village.” Mama sighed, sounding as if she could not imagine a worse way for her daughter's dowry to be spent.

“Speaking of the village,” Papa said, casting a glance toward his wife, who frowned and pursed her lips in disapproval, “when I went looking for a present for Clarissa this morning, I saw someone unexpected.”

Sarah lifted her brows. “Oh, and who was that?”

“Captain Brice.”

At the name, her pulse ratcheted upward, but its erratic beat said more of fear than the fascination others supposed she felt. “Are you certain?” she gasped.

“Perfectly,” Papa replied. “I do not think I shall ever forget that face, for all that he looked a bit the worse for wear for his time among the French.”

She could see from her parents' expressions that both were reliving the last time they had seen the handsome young officer. “What on earth would he be doing here, I wonder?” Mama asked with a pointed look, as if trying to divine something written on her daughter's face.

Sarah dropped her gaze to the floor and shook her head. “I have no notion, Mama. I have had no association with the man, and I would far rather hear nothing of him.” Inwardly, she prayed her father was mistaken. And if he was not, perhaps the man's presence here was a mere coincidence.

But what business could a man like Captain Brice have in a place like Lynscombe?

“I should go,” she said, turning from the window. “The carriage will be on the drive any minute, and I would not want to keep the others waiting.”

“Certainly not,” Mama agreed. “You will make our excuses to Lady Estley?”

“Of course.”

“And tell Lord Estley who I saw?” her father prompted. When Sarah made no reply, he added, “You would not wish it to seem as if you were keeping a secret.”

“No, Papa,” she agreed reluctantly. If Captain Brice's presence was not disclosed, and something untoward happened, she knew where the weight of suspicion would fall. Her shoulders had only just begun to ease after carrying that burden for so long.

When she descended to the receiving room near the manor's grand entrance, no footman was in sight. She drew a steadying breath and opened the door herself.

Lady Estley and Eliza Harrington were seated together, as was their wont, while Lord Estley stood nearby. St. John had not yet arrived. Straightening her spine, she marched to Lady Estley and dropped a perfunctory curtsy. “Good afternoon, ma'am. I come bearing my parents' regrets. My mother has taken ill and feels unequal to accompanying us.”

“Ill? Nothing serious, I hope,” Lord Estley interjected, stepping closer. “Shall I call a physician?”

From what she had heard, Sarah would have been surprised to learn that the village boasted so much as an apothecary, but she offered what she hoped was a gracious smile and declined. “I don't believe that will be necessary, sir. It is just a bad cold, no doubt made worse by the strains of travel. I have just left her resting comfortably and in my father's care.”

“A pity your father will miss the evening's entertainment,” said Lady Estley, sounding ever so slightly jealous that someone else had found an excuse for doing so.

“An evening of rest and quiet will do them both good,” she said. “Papa has spent the better part of the day in the nursery and must be exhausted himself.”

“Ah, with Lady Clarissa.” Lord Estley smiled. “So his journey into the village was successful, then?”

She opened her mouth to speak, to share the disturbing piece of information her father had imparted. Breath passed her lips, and then was snatched back. She nodded.

Turning from her father-in-law before he could read the uncertainty in her face, she saw Eliza Harrington approaching, wearing a smile that seemed to have been manufactured for the occasion. “I must say, Lady Fairfax, your charming frock is just the thing for a country dance.”

Sarah smoothed her hand over her dress. It was no ball gown, to be sure—as her own mother had reminded her not a quarter of an hour past. And now several years out of fashion. But
frock
, indeed. Once upon a time, she had imagined it quite elegant. In a past life, it had been her favorite.

“Thank you,” she replied, mustering her own false smile.

“But are you not worried about the night air?” Eliza asked. “Perhaps you should send for your pelisse.”

Behind her, Lady Estley appeared startled by the suggestion. “It's as warm as midsummer today,” she countered with unusual forcefulness, “and the assembly rooms are bound to be overheated. I'm sure she has no need of one.”

“At this time of year especially, it may turn damp with very little notice,” countered Eliza as St. John entered the room and came toward them.

“Perhaps Miss Harrington is right. You would not wish to take a chill when you step outside after an evening of vigorous dancing,” her husband insisted in a voice that warmed her to her toes. “There's a shawl meant to go with that dress, is there not, Lady Fairfax?”

He had seen it, of course, and quite recently, too—folded in her trunk. She nodded.

“Shall I fetch it?”

Lady Estley fluttered bejeweled fingers in his direction. “Nonsense, Fairfax. Ring for a maid.”

“Most of the servants have been given the night off. No doubt they are already on their way to the Red Lion. It will be faster if I go myself.” He drew Sarah toward the door with him, and before he left on his errand, he lifted her hand to his lips and asked in a voice meant for only her ears, “I trust you had a pleasant morning?”

Heat sprang into Sarah's cheeks. “And night,” she managed to quip.

“I am glad to hear it,” St. John murmured, his voice rich with the promise of nights and mornings yet to come.

“And you?” she asked, meaning to enquire after his meetings.

But he sent a languid gaze down her body that set her heart racing. How could those cool eyes hold such heat? “
Pleasant
does not begin to describe it,” he said softly, his mouth upturned in a rather wicked smile.

Sarah swore she could feel Eliza's eyes on her, but when she turned, Miss Harrington was gazing at a picture on the opposite side of the room. She and Lady Estley had broken up their tête-à-tête. In St. John's absence, the moments ticked by in silence. Lord Estley wandered to look out the garden doors; her mother-in-law shifted to a chair closer to the empty fireplace. Sarah twisted her fingers to keep herself from twisting her skirts.

When St. John returned, the shawl draped over one arm, he stood lingering at the threshold, as if reluctant to cross it. “Sarah?”

Although his voice was barely a whisper, she heard the question in it and went to him immediately. The warmth in his eyes had been replaced by something colder. Something very like anger. Hesitantly, she took the shawl from him. The fringe of the peacock feather patterned silk slithered away to reveal his outstretched palm.

Coiled upon it lay the Sutliffe sapphires.

* * *

With a cry, she brushed past him and out the door. Surely she could be forgiven for not wishing to hear again the all-too-familiar accusations. In any case, he made no move to stop her. As she left, she caught another glimpse of the unreadable emotion in his eyes.

What was he thinking? She could not bear to learn the answer.

In a quiet, private moment, he had claimed to believe her innocent. He had asked her forgiveness. And despite her determination not to live in some fairy-tale world, she had allowed herself to hope that his words might be the first steps on a journey toward something more.

But could his feelings stand up to family and friends who had always believed her capable of terrible things, even when there had been no proof? For now they had proof in spades.

It is foolhardy to run
, her head reminded her flying feet.
It only makes you look guilty
.

No. The necklace had already done that.

The Sutliffe sapphires
. Those blessed gems that she had once been so proud to don because she had seen them as a mark of her father-in-law's acceptance—believing, naïvely, that if she had won Lord Estley's approval, then her husband's could not be far behind.

“Pretty Mama,” Clarissa exclaimed.

Sarah started to find herself in the nursery. How had she got here? Gathering the child from her place on the floor, she clutched her against her breast. Hot, silent tears dripped onto her golden-brown curls.

“What's happened?” Emily asked, hovering nearby.

Sarah shook her head. It was an excellent question—one for which she had no answer.

Where had the necklace come from after all this time? And how had it turned up in her things?

When Clarissa struggled against her smothering embrace, she put her down and allowed her to return to serving her doll on the delicate tea set her grandpapa had found in the village.

“I'm afraid I must ask you to promise to stay with her, Emily,” Sarah said, turning to her friend with a fierce, breathless whisper. “Somehow.”

“Of course, Mrs. F.,” Emily replied, lapsing into the more familiar address. “Are you goin' someplace?”

A year from now, would the child remember Haverhythe? Would she even remember her mother?

Sarah rose from the floor and strode across the room, and then turned back to Emily. “No. I'm done with running from a crime I did not commit. I'll stay right here until they send me away.”
Which will likely be soon
, she added silently. “Running is for the guilty.”

Emily looked bewildered, but she nodded. “Good for you, mum.”

Sarah drifted over to the window. She looked out at the bright sky over the Channel, then down at the darkening garden, where the light pouring from the room she had left just moments ago cast jagged shadows. A movement closer to the house caught her eye.

Eliza was strolling across the flagstone terrace. Alone.

She could still hear St. John's murmured words to Eliza Harrington on the night of the nuptial ball.
She can never have my heart. And you know why.

Sarah had always known why. His heart had belonged to Eliza. But Eliza had wanted more than his heart. Was she at last going to get it?

Tonight, when Sarah had left St. John's side, Eliza had no doubt stood ready to slip into the vacant place. But she certainly hadn't stayed there for long.

Sarah's eyes followed Eliza as she made her way down the steps and hurried toward the garden, as best her dancing slippers would allow. Where on earth was the woman headed? She seemed always to be by when something bad happened to Sarah—it would not have surprised her one bit to see Eliza's gloating smile as the magistrate dragged her off.

Curiously, though, she hadn't stayed to witness it.