Читать книгу Impetuous - Candace Camp, Candace Camp - Страница 7

Chapter One

CASSANDRA WAS AWASH in pleasure. She had never experienced anything like it, dreaming or awake. She had been dreaming lush, colorful dreams from the moment she fell asleep. Somehow she knew they were dreams, and yet she was unable to awaken from them. She had been walking through her house—the old mansion of Chesilworth, not her aunt’s more habitable, yet far less pleasant, home—and she had been warm and happy. Her father was still alive and puttering downstairs in his library. The walls were a warm, buttery tint, touched by the rays of the sun, and she passed a bedroom, where a jewel-toned red velvet spread covered the bed. Candles burned inside, beckoning her. She started into the room, but then somehow she was outside in a cool, vibrantly green bower. The leaves of the hedges were dark and waxy, smooth to the touch. A breeze swept over her, lifting her hair and tickling the back of her neck. She shivered a little in delight. The sun was warm upon her shoulders, the breeze caressed her. She closed her eyes, luxuriating in the feeling.

Pleasure welled up inside her as the wind played over her cheek and neck. She was aware that now she had on no clothes, but strangely this fact did not seem to bother her. She loved the way the sun felt on her naked skin, the way the air drifted over her. Now there was a man with her. But that did not bother her, either. She knew him, though she could not see his face or say his name. He put his hands on her, and her loins turned to warm wax. She felt weak and shaky as he kissed her over and over again. His lips pressed against her mouth, opening it to his questing tongue, and she jerked with the violent, unexpected pleasure of it. Warm moisture pooled between her legs, and she squeezed them together, trying to satisfy the ache that had arisen there.

His kisses filled her even as they consumed her. She clung to him in a maelstrom of pleasure. His hand traveled down over her body and delved between her legs, sending waves of pleasure through her. She moaned and moved her hips against his hand, instinctively seeking something, though she wasn’t sure what. Then, suddenly, a pleasure more intense than anything she had ever felt seemed to burst within her.

Cassandra jerked, and her eyes flew open. She was awake. And a man she had never met was leaning over her, staring down into her face.

For an instant, she simply stared at him in stupefaction that matched the stunned expression on his face. Then horror rushed through her as her befogged mind began to function. She drew breath to scream. He saw her intent and quickly covered her mouth with his hand, which frightened her even more. She grabbed his arm, trying to pull his hand away, and at the same time, she struggled to sit up. He pushed her back down firmly, and she swung her hand up, hitting him sharply on the ear. He winced and grabbed for her wrist with his free hand, but she swung the other at him, too, and kicked, trying to wriggle off the bed. He threw his weight upon her to pin her down, and she was aware of every hard line of muscle and bone.

He was stronger than she, but Cassandra was not one to give up, and she had an advantage in that he had to keep one hand pressed across her mouth to keep her from screaming. She rained blows on his head and shoulders and back, and thrashed her legs, trying to land a kick that would do some harm. It took him a good while to finally get his legs wrapped tightly around hers and his hand clenched around both her wrists, pinning them to the bed above her. He was lying completely atop her, bearing her down into the mattress. Cassandra could not help but be aware of the intruder’s power, of his very maleness. The position frightened her, yet at the same time she was confusedly aware of the heat that sizzled through her veins and lay pooled and heavy in her abdomen.

She wished that she could think better. Why was her head so heavy and groggy? And what was a man of the wealth and position of Sir Philip Neville doing assaulting a woman in her bedroom at a house party in the country?

He was breathing heavily, and Cassandra saw that sweat glistened in the hollow of his throat, just above the undone button of his shirt. Cassandra pulled both her eyes and her mind away from that tanned hollow of flesh that was visibly pulsing with each beat of his heart.

“Don’t scream!” he whispered, leaning down close to her face. “I promise you I mean you no harm. I will let you go, if you will promise not to scream.”

She gazed at him, wide-eyed, and nodded her head. He looked at her for a long, doubtful moment, then eased his hand from her mouth, moving in tiny increments, always ready to clamp it back down if she showed signs of screaming. Cassandra said nothing, merely watched him steadily.

He relaxed a little. “I swear to you that I mean you no harm. I will leave this room. I won’t harm you. Do you understand?”

“Of course I understand!” Cassandra hissed back in the same undertone. “I’m not an idiot.”

He moved off her with a groan. “Bloody hell! What a tangle.” He looked at her, frowning. “You’re the wrong one.”

“I should certainly hope so,” Cassandra retorted acidly, sitting up. “Oh, my head! I feel as if a thousand hammers were banging away inside it.” Why was she so groggy? And why did she feel strangely hot and tingly inside?

She looked at the man sitting cross-legged on the bed beside her. She supposed she ought to be frightened, but, once that initial spurt of terror was past, once she recognized the stranger for Sir Philip Neville, she had not been scared, only stunned and confused.

The lingering emotions from her dream unsettled her, and she took refuge in sarcasm. “What young lady’s room were you trying to break into, may I ask?”

“I wasn’t breaking in,” he responded, stung. “I was accepting an invitation.”

“Of course. I should have known.” Cassandra’s voice was dry, and she arched an eyebrow. “I am sure that Sir Philip Neville has ample invitations to enter women’s bedrooms.”

Neville gazed at her for a long moment. “You are a most unusual female.”

“So I’ve been told.” Cassandra did not deceive herself that his words were a compliment.

“I would think a young lady would be...rather more distraught in this situation than you are.”

“Would you rather that I were?” Cassandra retorted. “I fail to see how it would help matters any if I were to fall into hysterics.”

“I didn’t say it would help. It just seems more...natural.”

“I must be an unnatural female, then. It is what my aunt and cousin tell me. They say it is why I never caught a husband. But I think that had more to do with the sad state of our finances than with my attitude, for I have seen odder women than myself marry well, as long as they had a wealthy father. Wouldn’t you say?”

“I daresay you are correct.” Sir Philip gazed at her in a sort of dazed fascination. He had never before met a woman who spoke in the candid, no-nonsense way this woman did. Indeed, it was something of an oddity to speak to a woman who did not immediately set to flirting with him. He had found that an income of one hundred thousand pounds a year acted as a powerful aphrodisiac.

“To return to the subject at hand,” Cassandra continued crisply, “exactly why are you in my room rather than that of the female who issued the invitation?”

Neville grimaced. “I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere.” He turned to light the candle he had set down on the bedside table earlier. Taking out a note from his pocket, he unfolded it and reread it. “Though I don’t see how. It’s quite clear—the fifth door on the right from the stairs. Isn’t this the fifth door?”

Cassandra thought for a moment. “Yes.” Curious, she rose onto her knees and looked over his shoulder at the note. She gasped as she recognized the blotted, sloppy handwriting and the distinctive looping initials at the bottom of the paper. “My God, that’s Joanna’s script!”

Neville turned to glare at her, crumpling the note in his fist. “I beg your pardon, madam. This is a private correspondence.”

“Mmm. I think it’s hardly a private matter, considering that you are sitting in my bed reading it.”

“It would be the death of her reputation if this were known,” he countered grimly.

“I think that my reputation is of more concern at the moment, since you are in my bedroom.”

“I would trust, madam, that you would have enough sense not to bandy it about that you were entertaining a man in your room, and since I have no intention of revealing it, I think it is clear that your reputation is safe.”

“Of course I have enough sense to keep quiet,” Cassandra retorted, nettled by what she considered a rather excessive concern on his part over Joanna’s reputation. “The one you ought to be concerned with is Joanna, since she is obviously so hare-witted that she directed you to the wrong room.”

She reached over and plucked the ball of paper from his hand and smoothed it out, bending close to read it in the dim light of the candle. “Ah, yes, I see. She didn’t say fifth door, she wrote fourth. You see? It’s just her abominable handwriting, and she left out the u. She never was much good at spelling, I’m afraid. I can see how you made the mistake—especially with, ah, your undoubted eagerness clouding your thinking. I have had a bit more experience with reading her notes.”

“Then it is too bad that I did not consult with you first,” Neville snarled, “but, you see, I was not aware that I needed an interpreter.”

“There is no need to be testy,” Cassandra stated. “And you needn’t worry for your, uh, for the lady’s reputation. I’m not likely to besmirch my family by telling anyone that Joanna makes assignations with men in her bedchamber. She is my cousin, you see.”

“Your cousin?” Neville studied her face in the candlelight. “That’s odd. I don’t recall seeing you with her.”

“That is often the case.” Cassandra kept her voice light. She was used, after all, to being overshadowed by her beautiful, flirtatious cousin. Joanna’s guinea-gold hair and large blue eyes generally captured all male attention when she was around.

Cassandra, at the ripe old age of twenty-seven, knew that she was on the shelf and, indeed, had never been popular with men. She had not “taken” one during her season, and her father had not been able to afford more than one. Cassandra knew, anyway, that any number of social seasons would not have seen her married. For one thing, she had no knack for flirtation and even less interest in it. For another, while she was not precisely plain, her features lacked the even perfection of a true beauty. Her cheekbones were too high, her jaw too firm, and her mouth was much too wide for the popular rosebud look. Even her eyes, which she felt to be her best feature, were a quiet gray rather than a soulful brown or a sparkling blue, and she did not use them to her advantage, instead gazing at the world in a straightforward, clear way that did not lure men.

So she had retired from the social world after one year, not really displeased that she had not made a successful marriage. She had done the season as a duty for her family. They were, as always, in desperate need of money, and she would have gritted her teeth and said yes if an eligible man had asked for her hand. But she had found no man during the year of her debut whom she had accounted as anything but boring, and she was, frankly, quite glad to return to the bosom of her family at Chesilworth unengaged and unlikely ever to be so. With relief, she had donned her old clothes, wound her hair up into the familiar bun and jumped back into the management of her father’s household, which had fallen into a woeful state in her absence. She found contentment in raising her younger brothers and sister, and intellectual companionship with her father, and if there was anything missing in her life—other than a chronic lack of money—she had not felt it, or at least had not allowed the feeling to dwell long. At social functions, she sat with the matrons overseeing the antics of the youngsters, rather than with the giggling, hopeful maidens, whose conversations she found stultifying, and in the last couple of years, she had even taken to wearing a small cap over her hair in acknowledgment of her spinster status. It was just as well, she thought, that men’s eyes slid past her indifferently. It was much less trying not to have to make conversation about nothing.

Still...she could not help but feel a twinge of hurt at the thought that Sir Philip had not even noticed her when he was standing not three feet away from her, chatting with Aunt Ardis and her cousin Joanna.

“You were otherwise occupied,” she continued, not without a sting.

“I see.” He turned and looked at her. It puzzled him that he could have missed noticing this creature with the wide eyes and tumbling mass of bright hair and...other, entrancing features. His gaze dropped down to her torso, where her nightgown, still unbuttoned, had once again slipped off her shoulder and down her arm, revealing a high, firm white breast with its enticing pinkish brown nipple. Even fully clothed and with her hair done up in proper midday form, how could he not have noticed her?

Cassandra, following the direction of his gaze, glanced down and saw with horror that her breast was exposed. Blushing furiously, she jerked up the neck of her nightgown and began buttoning it up, keeping her eyes turned down. This was the worst thing that had ever happened to her! How could she face him again? No man had ever seen more of her than what was bared by the neckline of an evening gown. Now this man, this stranger to her, had seen her with the intimacy of a husband. Worse—what was she doing with half the buttons of her gown undone? She thought of the wild, swirling emotions of her dream, the startling sensations and the heat in her abdomen. What had happened? Had it been not a dream lover but a real man touching her in those intimate ways? Had this man caused that fierce, primeval jolt of pleasure that had finally dragged her from her slumber?

She looked up at him, color still staining her cheeks. She was embarrassed, but Cassandra Verrere was not one to flinch from the truth. “What happened? Here, tonight, I mean. I—I feel so strange. I dreamed, well, bizarre things, things that I— Were they real? What did you—what did I do?”

Sir Philip hesitated, then he leaned over and took her hand gently. “You did nothing. I assure you. I entered your room, thinking you were another. You were in the midst of a fevered dream. I—you were tossing and turning. Thinking you were Joanna, I came over and, ah, took your arms. I tried to wake you, but you were very heavily asleep. I...kissed you. And you woke up. That is when I realized that you were not Miss Moulton.”

“And that is all?”

His eyebrows rose lazily. “Yes. Of course. What else could there be?”

Cassandra let out a sigh of relief. “Nothing. It was just peculiar. I felt as if I were not quite asleep, yet I could not seem to pull myself out of my slumber.”

“No doubt you had a tiring day.”

“Mmm.” Cassandra knew it had not been at all tiring physically. But the social interaction that a large house party involved was rather wearying. Still... “I think you had better leave now.”

“Yes. You’re right.” He slid off the bed and walked toward the door. Cassandra followed him. He paused and turned toward her. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she responded automatically, then added, “What are you thanking me for?”

“For being a most calm and reasonable young woman. There are not many who would have reacted as you did.”

“Oh.” Cassandra nodded matter-of-factly. “I am afraid I haven’t much sensibility.”

He reached for the doorknob, but Cassandra laid a restraining hand on his arm. “No. You had better let me see if anyone happens to be out in the hall first.”

“Of course.” He nodded and stepped back.

Cassandra eased the door open a crack and put her eye to it. She gasped and jerked back, closing the door hastily. She turned to Sir Philip, her eyes huge.

“What is it?” He made a move toward the door, but she raised her hand.

“Don’t!” she cautioned. “Shh. It’s my aunt!”

Almost without thinking, she reached down and turned the key in the lock. The last thing she wanted was for Aunt Ardis to barge into her room.

“What is she doing here?” he whispered.

“I have no idea. Could she have seen you enter my room? If she knocks on the door, you will have to hide.” She looked speculatively toward the window. “I wonder if you could escape out the window.”

“We are on the second floor,” he reminded her.

“There might be a trellis or a tree.”

He raised one brow sardonically. “You seem awfully familiar with this sort of predicament.”

“Don’t be absurd.”

Their discussion was interrupted at that moment by heavy pounding on a door, not Cassandra’s, but the one next door. Cassandra jumped at the sound, then relaxed with a heartfelt sigh. “Thank God. She’s at Joanna’s room.”

“Joanna!” Aunt Ardis bellowed, her voice carrying clearly through the walls. “Open this door. This is your mother! Open this door at once, I say!”

“Is your aunt in the habit of waking everyone up in the middle of the night this way?”

Cassandra shook her head, puzzled. “No. I cannot imagine what has possessed her. She is always in bed by ten.”

“Joanna!”

Cassandra stealthily unlocked her door and opened it a fraction, peering out at the spectacle of her aunt. Aunt Ardis was a sizable woman, with a large bosom that thrust out like the prow of a ship when she was corseted. It did so now, despite the fact that Aunt Ardis wore a red velvet dressing gown and bedroom slippers. Cassandra noticed, too, that her hair was still coiled up into its usual flat braided bun, not hanging loose down her back. Cassandra frowned, wondering what could have happened to put her aunt into such a state.

“Joanna! Open up I say. Who’s in there with you? I heard voices.”

“Voices!” Cassandra exclaimed softly and looked back at Sir Philip. “Oh, dear, do you think she could have heard us?”

Neville shook his head, his eyes narrowing thoughtfully. Cassandra had to admit that it seemed unlikely, given the fact that her aunt’s room was on the other side of Joanna’s.

At that moment Joanna’s door was wrenched open, and Joanna cried out in a carrying whisper, “Hush! It’s too early! He’s not here yet!”

Aunt Ardis’s jaw dropped, and she stared at her daughter in horror. All up and down the hall, doors were opening and heads were popping out, their expressions variously sleepy, irritated or avid, and some all three.

“I say, what’s going on?” Colonel Rivington, across the hall from Joanna’s room, called out. “What is all this commotion?”

“Uh.” Aunt Ardis’s mouth opened and closed like that of a landed fish.

“I’m so sorry.” Joanna smiled sweetly at the man. “Please forgive my mother. She was, uh, she was just...”

“Worried!” Aunt Ardis found her voice. “That’s it. I was worried. I heard Joanna crying out in her sleep. She must have been having a bad dream.”

“Yes,” Joanna agreed quickly. “A nightmare. I was having a nightmare.”

Cassandra eased the door shut and turned toward Sir Philip, frowning in puzzlement. “How odd. Why are they—” She stopped short at the forbidding expression on his face. “What is it?”

“I understand now.” His words were short and clipped, his mouth thinned with distaste. “I was surprised when Miss Moulton threw herself at me this afternoon. Before that she had been acting like the usual coy, flirtatious maiden. Then suddenly she turned into a brazen woman of the world.” He remembered his faint surprise as she had “accidentally” brushed against him three times this afternoon in the conservatory and the seductive looks she had sent him, the long, promising kiss behind a palm tree as she slipped the note into his hand.

“I don’t understand. What are you talking about?”

“Your cousin’s scheme. Your aunt’s. She wrote me that note asking me to come to her room tonight at midnight. She gave every indication of welcoming quite dishonorable attentions. And her mother was primed to come barging in after I was in the room, rousing everyone on the floor with her loud comments.”

Cassandra stared. “You mean, she lured you up to her room so that her mother could catch you in a compromising position with her? But why? Why would she want to destroy her reputation like that?”

A faint smile flickered across Neville’s face. Her lack of comprehension of her relatives’ scheme spoke volumes about her own honest character. “My dear girl, I doubt very much that she cared about her reputation being shredded, as long as it brought her wealth and an old name. Her reputation would not have been ruined, in any case, since she and I would immediately have become engaged.”

Cassandra gasped. “You mean—they wanted to force you into marrying Joanna? I can’t believe it!” But she could; it took only a moment’s reflection to bring her around. Why else would her aunt have been pounding on Joanna’s door so loudly and virtually shouting, except to bring out several interested observers? Why else would her aunt, usually early to bed, still have been up at midnight—and still wearing her corset, her hair done up? She was expecting everyone to look at her, and she had been unable to bring herself to be in true deshabille.

“That’s why I was so groggy...” Cassandra murmured. “Aunt Ardis must have put some of her laudanum in my drink tonight. I should have known she was up to something when she came in here with that warm milk to help me sleep. She knows how lightly I sleep and the difficulty I often have going to bed. She wanted me deep in slumber so I wouldn’t investigate any noise I heard—like you slipping into Joanna’s room.”

“No doubt you’re right. It is merely my good luck that Miss Moulton’s handwriting is so illegible, or you would have found yourself forced into cousinship with me.”

“Oh.” Cassandra raised her hands to her burning cheeks. She wasn’t sure whether she was more humiliated or furious. How could her aunt and cousin have acted in such a despicable way? Somehow the thought of Joanna trying to tie this man to her for life made Cassandra long to slap her cousin. “I am so ashamed. Sir Philip, I apologize for my family. I cannot imagine what made them do such a thing.”

“I have found that the lure of money often causes people to act in a bizarre fashion.”

“That is no excuse for—for such a lack of principles. I am sorry, so dreadfully sorry.” Her eyes shone with angry, embarrassed tears. “You must think we are awful.”

He smiled and took her hand, gallantly bowing over it and brushing the back of her hand with his lips. “My dear lady, I do not think you are awful at all. Indeed, you almost restore my faith in humanity.”

The touch of his lips on her skin sent an unaccustomed thrill through Cassandra, reminding her of the fevered, pulse-racing condition in which she had awakened. That odd melting-wax sensation deep in her abdomen had still not completely gone away. Cassandra swallowed and turned away.

“I, ah, I shall see if everyone has gone back inside.” She opened the door a crack and looked out. When she saw no one, she stuck her head out the door and peered up and down the hall.

She turned back to Sir Philip. “There is no one out there now.”

He nodded. “Then I shall take my leave of you.” He smiled, sketching her another elegant bow. “Thank you for a most interesting evening, Miss Moulton.”

“Oh, I’m—” Cassandra stopped. Now was not the time to go into an explanation that her name was not Moulton. “I’m just sorry for what my cousin and aunt did.”

“And I apologize for...my most ungentlemanly behavior.”

Cassandra felt another blush beginning to rise in her cheeks. She turned away and made another check out the door, then stepped aside for Sir Philip to pass. She closed the door behind him and waited a few tense moments for the sounds of voices that would indicate that he had been caught. There was nothing. Again she ventured a peek out and saw that the hall was empty. Sir Philip had gone.

She closed the door and leaned against it, letting out a sigh. Oh, God! Why had this had to happen? Tonight, of all nights, and with Sir Philip Neville, of all people?

Cassandra made her way over to her bed and sat down heavily. She had schemed so hard to get her aunt to take her along on this visit when she had heard that Sir Philip was going to be here. It had taken numerous careful, subtle hints about the difficulty of chaperoning an active young girl like Joanna on the sort of outdoors amusements that one tended to go on at large house parties, painting a picture of liveliness that was guaranteed not to appeal to Aunt Ardis’s sluggish nature. Concealing any desire on her own part to attend such a function, she had worked her aunt around to realizing that the ideal solution would be to take Cassandra along to chaperon Joanna on the activities Aunt Ardis found too taxing. Reluctantly, Cassandra had let herself be persuaded.

It had been, she thought, a superb performance on her part, especially given the fact that her decisive, straightforward nature did not run naturally toward subterfuge. And now her effort was in all likelihood wasted. How could she even face Sir Philip again, knowing what Joanna had tried to do to him? And knowing, too, in what an intimate situation he had met Cassandra herself?

Heat flooded her just at the memory of the things she had dreamed—the deep, passionate kisses, the sensual caresses. Had those things really happened? Had her drugged mind just turned them into a dream? She groaned in despair, covering her face with her hands. She could never live it down if she had moaned and writhed in Sir Philip’s arms the way she had in her dream. He had told her that nothing had happened, but perhaps he was merely being gentlemanly.

She flopped back on her bed, unconsciously running her hand down her front as she remembered the hot, pulsing sensations that had assaulted her in her dreams...the intense explosion of pleasure that had propelled her out of her sleep finally. What had that been? That deep, hard jolt of pure sensation that had left her feeling weak and quietly throbbing? Nothing in her experience had ever even come close to that feeling.

Was she a wanton woman? The idea seemed absurd. She had had very few dealings with men, really. She did not seem to know how to talk to them. The straightforward way she had talked to her father had seemed to make young men quickly leave her side. Aunt Ardis had told her that young girls did not make conversation about such boring topics as history or politics, much less offer their strong—and often quite radical—opinions. Young ladies, Aunt Ardis had pointed out, were supposed to giggle and flirt, to flutter a fan coyly in front of their faces and let their eyes speak volumes above it. Cassandra had found the whole notion absurd, and she could scarcely believe that a gentleman could decide whether he loved a woman or could even stand to be married to her on the basis of giggles and inane conversation.

Of course, she had had no beaux, whereas the flirtatious Joanna, who had never uttered a sensible word to a man in her life, was flooded with them at every party. It proved, she supposed, the truth of Aunt Ardis’s advice. Cassandra had realized that she was not romantic enough or not interested enough in men to act the part of a ninny in order to snare one. If her aunt was correct, Cassandra thought, then most men were too foolish for her to want to spend the rest of her life with one. It was far better to remain a spinster and her own woman. With such an unromantic, practical nature, she found it difficult to believe that there was a streak of wantonness running through her. If there was, then her earlier dream had been the only manifestation of it she had ever noticed.

This was nonsense, she told herself, sitting up straight. Sir Philip had not been trying to protect her when he said nothing had happened. He had merely been telling the truth. It was absurd to think anything else. Of course he had done nothing except climb into her bed, thinking that she was Joanna. Then he had seen her face and realized that she was not. He would not have been kissing and caressing her for several minutes before he realized that he did not know her.

Cassandra let out a sigh of relief. She had been letting her imagination run away with her. The peculiar sensations she had experienced were doubtless part of the peculiarity of her dreams. She was sure that Aunt Ardis or Joanna must have dosed her with some of her aunt’s laudanum. The sleeping potion had obviously affected her dreams as well as made her sleep, and no doubt it was responsible for the odd sensations she had dreamed—things that had been entirely in her head, not really physical.

Sir Philip would not assume she was wanton. Indeed, he had told her that he appreciated her integrity. She told herself that she need not be embarrassed to face him. And the fact was, she had to talk to him. Her family’s whole future rested on getting him to agree to her plan. Her cousin’s behavior was irksome and embarrassing, of course, but Cassandra told herself that she would have to rise above it. She had to think of her brothers and their future. It was imperative to get their family inheritance, and only Sir Philip could help her do that. She could not let a few well-bred qualms deter her from her course. She had to talk to Sir Philip tomorrow.

Cassandra gave a short, decisive nod, as if she had been arguing with another person. Then she slid beneath her covers, reaching over to blow out the candle. She felt much more like herself now. And tomorrow she would proceed with her plan.