Wedded in Scandal (36 page)

“It must have been a woman,” she guessed.

“It was,” he confirmed. “My mother. I remember a time when she laughed. There was a day when I was just a boy when we had a picnic outdoors. I went swimming and Gwen sat on the blanket and smeared jam all over herself. Jack hadn’t been born yet. Mother looked at Gwen and laughed. She’d pressed her hands to her mouth but we could hear it.” He closed his eyes, pretending he could remember the sound of it. He couldn’t, but he imagined it. “She’s beautiful when she’s happy. Really, really beautiful.”

“Of course she is. Do you know what happened? Why she changed?”

He shook his head. He dropped his cheek on the top of her head, needing the support as he spoke. “I didn’t even notice at first. She’s never been a loud woman and if she spent most of her time indoors, I didn’t care. I was a boy. I wanted to run around without my mother, not have her trail around behind me.”

Helaine shifted against him, twisting slightly while his body thrilled to the sweet torture. When she looked him in the eye, he stole a kiss from her lips. It was sweet and stirring. And she ended it much too soon.

“Your mother seems sad to me. Just…well, desperately sad.”

“I know,” he said as he dropped his back against the wall. “As I said, I didn’t realize it at first. I was a boy and then I was at school. But one summer I spent a month at my friend’s home. His mother was never still, always busy, always expressing herself.”

“Expressing herself?”

“Well, she had five children plus guests. It was like a house party but for children. Jamie’s mother would be
laughing at one of us while chiding another child to stay out of the tarts. Meanwhile, she ordered the household and helped teach the younger kids while the tutor worked with the older ones. Every day we went outside for hours, probably just to save the furniture, but it was never ending. And it was the best month of my life.”

“Until you went home and compared that woman to your mother,” she said, proving that she understood exactly what had happened.

“I tried to help her. I did everything I could to please her, to make her smile. I tried to get her to go on walks, to sing, anything that might work. Over the years, I’ve begged, teased, coaxed, even yelled.”

“And none of it worked?”

“Oh, it all worked for a short while. As it is working now with Gwen’s future in-laws. She’ll make the effort for a bit, pretend that she is feeling better, but eventually it stops. In time, she returns to her bed worse than before.”

She pressed a kiss to his neck and stroked her fingers idly across his chest. “How awful. What a terrible thing to grow up, see your mother suffering, and not be able to do anything about it.”

“It never stops, Helaine, but I can’t help hoping. Each time, I can’t…not hope.”

“Of course not. She’s your mother.”

“There was a day back when I was in my twenties. Gwen was about to come out and Mother had to help with that. She went to the dressmaker’s, attended parties and routs, I even saw her smile when she watched Gwen dancing at a ball. I thought that finally we had broken through. Finally…”

“The Season was too much for her?”

“Right before Gwen’s court presentation, Mother took to her bed and would not come out. Wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t bathe, wouldn’t do anything. Gwen and I both tried to help. Even my father took a stand, but it was like she wasn’t there. A body without a soul. It was terrible.”

She was silent with her arms wrapped around him and
her head on his shoulder. She lay there thinking. He knew she was thinking, but about what?

“It was at the presentation that I realized the truth. I looked at all the court ladies in their gowns, I looked at Gwen practically shaking in her excitement, and I finally knew that Mother would not change. She would never be a woman fully alive the way other women were. I had to accept that, do what I could for her, and not spend my days worrying after her.”

“You had plenty to do with a sister coming out, a younger brother in school, and the management of the earldom.”

“That was also when I barred my father from the house. The maids lived in terror of him, and the footmen had no love of his drunken tirades.”

She shuddered against him, and he knew she was much too familiar with drunken exploits.

“The point is that everything crashed about me that Season. What had started out as a delightful time with Gwen’s coming out ended in a home in total disarray.”

“You cannot think that was your fault.”

“Of course not. But it didn’t change the disaster.”

“So what did you do?”

He lifted his head off hers, shame making him look away. “I left it all to Gwen,” he finally confessed. “The finances were in order. That much I had seen to. And Jack was at school, so he was fine. But I had reached my limit, so I packed up and came here.”

“Here?”

“Here, where I saw patients, made notes in my books, and consulted with doctors. Here, where I had more than a dozen women grateful for my attention, and Chandelle, who managed the running of the household. And here is where I got blind drunk one night, sought out Chandelle’s bed, only to be refused, and ended up passed out on the floor outside her door.”

Helaine’s hand stilled on his chest. “She refused you?”

“Of course she did. If I had been anyone else, she would have thrown me out on the street. And in the morning, when
I had a splitting head and a foul temper, she kicked me upright and handed me a mop and a bucket. I was to clean up the mess I’d made and, while I was at it, to mop or sweep the rest of the house. And if I didn’t like it, then I could leave.”

“She would have tossed you out? You were her benefactor!”

“And my father is the earl, but I also barred the door to him. Rules have a purpose. Father had violated the rules of the house in accosting the maids. And I had violated the rules of this house. Rules that I myself had established. No drinking. At all. Not in this house.” He chuckled as he recalled that time. “I spent a week cleaning bedpans and mopping floors. Every dirty, disgusting job she could find, she gave to me.”

“And you did it?” He could hear the surprise in her voice.

“I did. And at the end of a week she said something to me that I’ll never forget.” He remembered the moment. He had been wringing out a filthy mop, and sweat was stinging his eyes.

“Don’t stop there!” Helaine cried. “What did she say?”

He smiled at her eagerness. “She pointed at the bucket of foul water and told me, ‘That’s yesterday. Looking at that will just get you more sick. And thinking about what might have been if someone didn’t get sick is a waste of time.’ Then she picked up the bucket and tossed the foul water outside. Then she handed me the empty bucket and said, ‘This is now. Look at now. Deal with the sick you got now.’ If I wanted to think about tomorrow, then I could. But only if I started with now. Not with yesterday, because that was gone.”

He watched her eyebrows contract as she sorted through the words. Eventually she nodded. “So you listened and went back home?”

He laughed. “No. I thought she was a bloody idiot. It took me a long while, but I realized she was right. My parents were my parents. Life has given me so many good things, it stood to reason that something else would be off. No one can have a perfect life.” He touched her chin and gazed into her beautiful eyes. “I look at the moment right now and think I am blessed.”

She smiled and he saw tenderness in her eyes. “That’s a lovely story, Robert, but I’m afraid I don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me. That I should think of only now and not yesterday? I have been living from moment to moment since the day my father first forgot to pay the rent.”

He nodded, seeing that she had indeed learned, younger than he, that the past can’t be changed. “But you fear you have cheapened your name. You worry what your grandmother would say. Helaine, your father destroyed your family name long before you had a chance. If things were different, then we would not be here now. But we are here now. And I can offer you so much. Do you really want to say no to that?”

She shook her head. “I haven’t said no, Robert.”

He brushed his thumb along her jaw. “And yet you cried, Helaine. What can I do to fix that?”

“Promise me that my business will not suffer because of this. Promise me that I will still have food for my mother and a home to live in. Promise me that what is between us will remain just us.”

He smiled. “This is my sanctuary here, Helaine. Only Chandelle knows my real name.”

“They know my name, Robert. They—”

“No one will speak of it. You are safe. Now and in the future. I promise.”

She released a slow exhale that heated the air between them. And as her breath released, her body relaxed as well. “You are right,” she said. “The past is long gone. Whatever might have been or might be thought is also long gone. I am not the girl I once was.”

“I like the woman better anyway.”

“Good,” she said as she lifted her mouth to his. “Then make me your mistress.”

He paused to search her face. “We could wait a bit. This is still very new.”

She wrapped her arm around his neck and drew his mouth down to hers. “Now,” she said.

He grinned. “As you command.”

* * *

Helaine slid her hands down his back until she came to
the barrier of his pants. Slipping her fingers underneath, she slowly worked her way around to the front button clasp. He had gone absolutely still except to lift up enough to let her work. His breath was a hot caress on her neck, but her mind was on her fingers. Could she get him undone?

She managed it, able at last to push the fabric away. She had never touched a man’s body before. Not his bare skin anywhere but his hands. To stroke Robert’s flat stomach was like a special treat all in itself. But to touch lower was beyond anything she had ever dreamed before. Her fingers explored his wiry hair and then touched his upthrust organ. He sucked in his breath and she felt the muscles of his stomach ripple against her hand. But he did not move away. If anything, he pushed harder against her hand.

“This is good?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said, his voice tight.

She rolled her thumb along the tip, surprised at the moisture there. Meanwhile, he returned to kissing her neck, to nipping lightly at her flesh before soothing it with his tongue.

“Robert,” she said, frustrated because she could not touch more of him.

“Yes?”

“Take off all your clothes.”

“Hmm. Yes.”

He spent one last moment kissing her neck, and then abruptly he was gone. He leaped off the bed onto his feet and then was stripping out of the last of his clothes. She lay there, watching him closely. It wasn’t just his organ, which was so large and thick to her mind. It was all of him. She loved the play of light and shadow on his muscles. The glow from the fire cast his skin in a golden red tone. But most of all, she saw him as he slowly straightened to his full height. To her shock, he dipped his head in an awkward movement and his hands twitched at his sides.

“Are you embarrassed?” she asked, her surprise clear in her tone.

“A little. You are staring so intensely.”

“I have never seen—”

“I know. That’s why I’m standing…I’m letting…” He cleared his throat, obviously working hard to stay calm. “I know you want to see, but it’s a little unnerving. I don’t know what I look like to you.”

“You look like you,” she said as she pushed up from the bed. “Strong and proud.” The sheet moved with her, but soon pooled about her waist as she reached for him. He was near enough to touch, so she did. She stroked his chest, watching her fingers outline his muscles, the narrow tapering of hair down his belly, and even lower. She touched him gently, finally able to stroke his length, curl her fingers around, and even shift to touch the sac beneath.

She watched as his thighs bunched beneath her strokes, and she heard his breath grow ragged. “Should I kiss you? The way you did me?”

“Sweet God,” he muttered as she moved to do just that. But he stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. “If you do, I shall explode. Helaine, you don’t know what you do to me.”

She looked up at his face. “Only what you do to me.”

“Lie back, Helaine. Let me love you.”

She nodded, a little afraid of what was to come. And yet, one look into his heated eyes and her fear drained away. He was hungry for her, but he was not out of control. She could trust him. So she slowly lay back, the sheet still covering her from the hips down, but her torso bared for his view.

He didn’t look. He touched. He stroked her breasts, lifting the nipples for his thumb and mouth. He was a master at what he did, caressing her until she was mad from heat and desire. Her breasts came alive under his mouth. Her body arched, giving him better access and relieving some of the heat that he built. But it wasn’t enough and she grew restless. She wanted a return of what he had done before. Of that wave of pleasure, and so her thighs slipped open in invitation.

He didn’t disappoint her. His hand slid down, stroking her. His touch invaded every part of her. He pushed his fingers inside, stretching her again while his thumb circled the place that was so hungry for him.

The wave was building; the tension made her belly taut and arched her back. She was losing control of her body in a way that was wholly amazing. And still he stroked her, rolling his thumb up and down, up and down.

And then, just as she neared the precipice, he stopped. He stripped away the last of the sheet and moved so that he was poised above her. She didn’t bear his weight. There was room between them, and she was so startled that she opened her eyes.

She had begun to ask what he was doing when she felt him. His organ, thick and hard as he placed it at her opening. It felt right, pressing against her. But he did not stop there. Slowly, while her eyes widened in surprise, he pushed inside. She felt every inch of his invasion, every excruciatingly slow push. Every time she thought she had him all, there was a little more. A little more, until he stopped.

She looked at his eyes, seeing that his jaw was tight and his breath came in tight pants.