Читать книгу Regency Pleasures and Sins Part 2 - Elizabeth Rolls - Страница 25

‘You’re very good at this.’

‘You bring out the best in me, sweetheart.’

Helen gave him a speaking look and turned her head on the pillow.

Jason supported his weight on brawny forearms, dipping his head to nudge Helen’s face up to his and take her lips in a wooing kiss. His eyes, dark with desire, meshed with hers and he smiled crookedly. ‘It’s true …'he softly emphasised. ‘You bring out the best in me … just you … no one else.’ His thumb traced gently where his mouth had plundered hers and plumped the skin to dual scarlet bows. ‘Do you believe me, Helen?’ Jason asked gently. ‘This is unique, I swear.’

She swung back her head, coating his fingers with the black silk of her hair. ‘Yes, I believe you. But …’

‘But …?’

‘I’ve been jealous, too,’ she quietly admitted whilst watching one of her fingers caress the lean flesh of his hand. ‘It was silly of me to say that I would not care if you did not devote yourself exclusively to me.’ She curled the stroking finger back into her palm. ‘In fact, I have been tormented, thinking of you doing this with someone else.’

‘I have not, Helen.’ Jason’s voice was thick with reassurance. ‘I swear to you that since we first went to Hyde Park together I’ve not been with another woman.’

Helen swung her face back and her eyes clung to his. ‘Mrs Tucker still lives in one of your houses.’

‘Who told you that? Was it George making more mischief?’

‘No. Bridgeman taunted me with it. He said Diana was still ensconced in one of your houses.’

‘Bridgeman knows nothing,’ Jason said with a scornful laugh. ‘Had he bothered to check his facts, he would have found out that the property is now Diana’s. I gave it to her as a parting gift.’ Jason’s mouth set grimly. ‘I wish now I had not let Bridgeman off so lightly when I saw him earlier. Just for upsetting you over that he deserved another—’

Helen placed a finger on his lips. ‘Hush, or I will think you a ruffian to get into two scraps in one day.’ She suddenly chuckled. ‘But I’m glad you hit Bridgeman, he deserved it … horrible man. He would have tried to coerce Charlotte into marriage and thought nothing of it. And he tried to intentionally hoodwink George with his contract. I don’t want George to go to gaol.’

‘He won’t. I’ve paid Bridgeman his money.’

Helen hugged him in gratitude then ran loving fingers over the ridges on his chest, luxuriating in the touch of silken skin sheathing rough muscle. ‘So a notorious rake has been faithful to me, has he?’

‘Absolutely.’

Helen undulated unconsciously beneath him in cat-like contentment. Their slick skin was bonded, their sated bodies still in congress, yet she felt the stirring inside her that told her he was ready to love her again. She felt the warm rush of excitement that made her breasts heavy and her hips instinctively tilt. ‘I’m a wanton,’ she sighed huskily and nipped his shoulder with teasing teeth.

‘Obviously I bring out the best in you,’ Jason murmured suggestively.

‘You do … but Harry will always have a place in my heart. Do you mind?’

Jason shook his head. ‘I’m glad you were happy with him. But I’ll make you happier …’

‘I wish George was happy.’ Helen sighed. ‘I know he is a selfish schemer, but it is hard to hate one’s own kin. And now I know what it is that has made him so sour.’ She met Jason’s smouldering eyes. ‘I never guessed about him and Beatrice, you know. I had heard that you fell out over a woman, but that was all I knew.’ She frowned. ‘I imagined Beatrice stayed away from Charlotte’s betrothal party because she had guessed about us and wanted to avoid me. It was George she didn’t want to see, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes.’ Jason twisted a smile. ‘In fact, as soon as she heard George was in town with his wife, she found an excuse to return home.’

‘Does she hate him?’

‘Actually, I think she still has a scrap of tender feeling for him. Perhaps I was wrong and I should have let them be.’ Jason grimaced indecision. ‘At the time my mother was distraught and imagining all sorts of ruination and disaster. I couldn’t be sure George would act honourably and, had the marriage not taken place, Beatrice’s reputation would have been irreparably sullied. She was only sixteen.’ Jason gave a sigh. ‘He should not have done it … and it is pointless dredging it up—nothing can be changed. But I hope, as brothers-in-law, we might again be friends.’

‘I would like that,’ Helen said, a little wistfully, for something else was troubling her. ‘When Iris told me of it this morning she said you were bitter over it all and that’s why you took me for your mistress … as an act of revenge.’

‘You don’t believe that, do you?’

Jason’s voice held such arrant scorn that Helen quickly shook her head.

Jason forked long fingers over Helen’s sharp little chin, keeping her facing him. ‘It’s utter rubbish, not least because, if I’m truthful, I never held George wholly responsible for what went on.’

‘Beatrice happily went with him?’

‘Yes … but that is not exactly what I meant.’ He slanted her a crooked smile. ‘George didn’t start the madness of lusting after teenage sisters, I did. I told him during a drunken spree, sometime in our misspent youths, that I found you attractive. He then declared that he felt the same way about Beatrice.’ He gave Helen a wry smile. ‘I wanted you, but I would never have acted on it. George took it further. He and Beatrice started meeting secretly. Then one night they eloped.’ A gentle finger traced a curve on Helen’s cheek. ‘Had I never admitted to that secret yearning for you, perhaps George would have controlled his feelings until Beatrice was older.’

Helen gazed up at him with wide golden eyes. ‘You wanted to marry me when I was fifteen?’

Jason subdued a wolfish smile. ‘No … when I was twenty-four I never thought about marriage. But I certainly thought about—’

Helen gave his arm a silencing thump to spare her further blushes. ‘I had a crush on you, too. My intentions were honourable,’ she said, mock-prim. ‘I dreamed of marrying you.’

‘And now you are.’

‘And now I am,’ Helen echoed softly, wondrously. A wounding memory haunted her mind. ‘Bridgeman called me Hunter’s whore and said other people were saying it, too. He never imagined you would make me your wife.’

Jason dipped his head to tenderly kiss away her sadness. ‘I think I fell in love with you from the moment you opened the door to me at Westlea House. You looked like a little waif.’ He threaded his bruised fingers through the silky black tresses crumpled on the white linen. ‘It didn’t matter that you were shabbily dressed or had your hair loose. I thought I had never seen a woman as beautiful. I delayed making you my mistress because I intended you to be my wife, Helen.’ He kissed her with seductive sweetness. ‘Why worry what’s been said? We know you’ve always been Hunter’s Lady….’