Читать книгу The Regency Season Collection: Part Two - Кэрол Мортимер, Кэрол Мортимер - Страница 21
ОглавлениеChloe reminded herself of Virginia’s opening words and decided she had been given the best godparent ever born and felt as if her mentor’s hand stroked her fiery curls for a moment to confirm her true place in Virginia’s heart.
So there it is, child. I confess my part in you being misplaced for so many years, not so much from your family, who don’t deserve you, but from wider society. I am a wretched old sinner and the more I knew you, the less I wanted to live without you and Verity. Now I sense my race is almost run, and about time too, so don’t you dare mourn and mope over me, my girl. I have set my conscience to consider my sins a little more seriously than I quite like of late and will do my best to atone for the worst of them. It has to start with you and darling Luke, because I have finally realised why he avoids Farenze Lodge as if it were a noxious pest house. That selfish little cat he wed convinced him he was a heartless monster because he wouldn’t fawn on her, but I was wilfully blind to his feelings for you for too long.
How very much I wish I had used the brains God gave me sooner, dear Chloe. Of course Luke is attracted to my beautiful young companion housekeeper and won’t let himself stay more than a couple of days in this house I love because you live here as well and he’s an honourable fool. Don’t shake your head again and wonder if I’ve gone senile. Look deep into your heart and his before you risk breaking them both. I suspect Luke also thought both your daughters would suffer if he made an unequal marriage. The poor darling clearly has no idea you’re his equal and possibly superior in rank. Legend has it the Thessalys were princes in Byzantium before they landed in England and settled for being warlords instead.
Chloe did shake her head this time, not because Virginia raised the mirage of love binding her and Lord Farenze together, but because she knew the Thessalys were descended from a Barbary pirate who captured, then fell in love with, the widow of a crusader, on her way back home to claim her husband’s lands before the king could seize them. Apparently the lady captivated her captor, married him, then brought him home and set that legend about to baffle those who might take Crowdale from them. Chloe was torn between pride in her adventurous ancestor and doubt the Winterleys would consider it a wonderful connection if they knew. Descent from a pair of bold adventurers and a long line of gamblers, opportunists and downright thieves wasn’t much to boast about.
Anyway, that is all by the by—I have been a wilful fool about you and Luke for far too long. Lately I have taken the chance to observe the two of you on his fleeting visits to Farenze Lodge and believe you are as besotted with him as he is with you, even if you don’t yet know it. It would be a far darker sin to turn away love than to leap straight into the joy of it. Age comes on far too soon, so grasp your youth and beauty and reach for the happiness you deserve. I beg you not to fail yourself and Verity by letting the sins of others stand between you and a man truly worthy of you. Society would accept Verity as your adopted child, if Luke does the same. He is a truly noble man, so please don’t hurt him even more than his wretched wife managed to during that ill-fated marriage of theirs, dear Chloe.
By now you will know there are more things to put right than this, even if this tangle concerns me most, but I beg you not to refuse the role I allotted you. I am forcing your hand and making you reveal things to my great-nephew you would rather keep secret, but those things need to be out in the open.
Chloe gasped and found out she was nowhere near as strong as she hoped when it came to Luke knowing the full details of her ancestry. She tried not to notice how sadly her hand shook when she took up Lady Virginia’s letter again to read the last page.
Stubborn independence is all very well, but it’s terribly lonely and for you I fear it might also be dangerous. Your brother Crowdale has fallen into bad company since he inherited, so be wary if he pretends repentance and wants to take you and Verity home. Please don’t push Luke away when he comes to ask you about yourself, as he must once he’s reads the letter beginning my year of wonders. I hope and pray it will be wonderful. There are four wrongs I must see righted and thank God I was granted time to realise they cannot stay quietly wrong for ever.
So there we are. I trust you to do your best to make sure my sins of omission are put right. You are a better woman than I ever was, my love, and you have a fine mind to go with that soft heart. Remember Luke is nothing like the harsh recluse he would have the world believe and look how he loves and indulges his daughter if you doubt me. If the worst comes to the worst, at least you now have a year’s grace to decide what you want to do, but I hope and pray you will reach for a better future and a fine man instead.
Goodbye, my dear, live well and be happy; nobody deserves a blissfully argumentative marriage more than you and my stubborn great-nephew.
Chloe let the letter drop into her lap and stared out of the nearest window, surprised to see twilight outside when she hadn’t noticed she was straining to read the last few words of Virginia’s letter. She wondered how she was supposed to face Lord Farenze with this epistle in mind and decided the best thing to do was to give him his letter and leave him to read it.
* * *
‘Here is your task from Lady Virginia, my lord,’ Chloe told Luke, her composure so brittle he wondered if she might shatter if he breathed too hard.
Luke left it in her outstretched hand and waited for her to meet his eyes with a challenge in her own—ah, that was better. There was his Chloe, furious and ready to fight the world with any weapon she could lay hands on if it threatened those she loved. Somewhere along the long line they’d walked towards each other these last ten years he’d come to know her, despite his resolution never to expect more than hot passion and a few nights of mutual pleasure from any woman when he found out what Pamela had done for ‘love.’
‘I suspect my great-aunt of plotting to push us together as well, Mrs Not-Wheaton, but so far I’ve barely seen you,’ he said, holding her eyes and wishing she would trust him.
‘Read your letter,’ she said with a resigned gesture that might be designed to show off her long-fingered hands and elegant wrists, if she wasn’t his contrary Chloe and convinced there was nothing worth showing.
‘Stay,’ he ordered, wrapping her slender capable hand in his own larger paw and pulling her down on to the elegant little sofa by the fire they had stared into last night. ‘You’re half-frozen,’ he reproached as he rubbed her chilled fingers to get some warmth back into them.
‘Never mind me; you must read your letter. It’s my job to make sure you do, don’t you see?’ she asked and the blank look in her eyes tore at his heart.
‘Just this once I think we can let duty go hang, don’t you? Sit with me, Chloe, let someone take care of you for once in your life.’
‘I don’t want to be a cause you champion because nobody else will.’
‘Apart from our daughters; my late great-aunt and Mantaigne, I suppose? I thought Tom was too idle to bother with anyone but himself these days, then he ups and tells me I should look after you properly before another man leaps in and does it for me. Even my self-absorbed brother wants to make sure you come out of this odd affair unharmed and I thought Poulson was going to adopt you himself if you refused Virginia’s original offer of employment for the coming year.’
‘That’s very kind in all of them.’
‘I tell you people around you have come to care for you and you call them kind? You must always be the one who gives, must you not?’
‘It’s what mothers do,’ she said with a shrug.
‘And fathers,’ he said and decided, since he had her hands locked in his, he might as well put his free arm about her stiff shoulders and offer her some of his warmth and maybe more, if she would only let him.
‘I’m not your daughter,’ she argued with a militant stir in his embrace he gloated didn’t go far enough to shake him off.
‘Does it feel as if I look on you as other than a fully mature woman totally unrelated to me, Mrs Wheaton?’ he asked and let the heat of her next to him run under his skin like wildfire wherever their bodies touched, despite her bombazine armour and that truly absurd cap she had jammed back on her head any old how.
‘Um, no,’ she admitted and he waited for a militant objection.
She surprised him by sighing deeply, then snuggling into his embrace as if she’d needed him to hold her all day. Something like triumph roared through him, but caution came in its wake. She was looking for comfort. Only yesterday they had buried the woman who had given her security, shelter and love these last ten years, while the rest of the world turned its back on her and twiddled its thumbs.
Perhaps his friend Mantaigne could have offered her a broad shoulder to lean on and share some human warmth with on a dark day and been just as welcome. Grief and injustice had ruled her life for too long and the world must seem out of kilter to her now Virginia wasn’t here to keep it at arm’s length. Maybe wily old Poulson would have done equally well to offer comfort, or even, Heaven forbid, his brother James?
He would have wanted to kill every one of them if he’d found them sitting in his place like petrified granite, trying to give what she wanted and not what he needed so badly it hurt. Except for the extraordinary fact they would probably offer comfort and no more, whether from male stupidity or fear of him he wasn’t quite sure. He seemed the only one deeply aware of her beauty and potential for passion, but he lusted after her so rampantly it made up for them. He squirmed in his seat to shift her so she wouldn’t be terrified by the evidence, fully awake and roaring for satisfaction as it was when she was in the same room, let alone in his arms.
‘I don’t want a stand-in father,’ she murmured and he could hardly believe his ears.
‘Good, I want you so badly I can’t remember my own name,’ he admitted with shaken acceptance she was looking at him as if the sky might fall on her head.
‘Kiss me, you idiot,’ she ordered.
‘Willingly, my lady,’ he agreed with a sense of inevitability in his heart and did it anyway.
To leash his inner beast he framed her face with his hands, noting the contrast of pale feminine skin with his calloused hands—he was so impatient of wearing gloves he often rode without them. Her lashes swept down to hide her thoughts from his fascinated gaze so he studied them instead. Tipped with fiery gold, they were darker than her hair and ridiculously long, almost sweeping down to touch high cheekbones he wanted to explore in the finest, most intimate detail.
No good, he was making himself more outrageously male rather than less so by lingering over every detail of her face like a miser. She was a lovely woman; not a secret cache of inanimate gold. He sighed a whisper of intent against her pert nose and felt the precipice they were walking narrow under his feet and still couldn’t make himself draw back from the brink. He gloated over the perfection of her rosy lips before he met the slick softness of them with a gasp of awe and they stepped off the cliff together and who knew where they would land?
Let me not hurt or shock her, his inner lover begged as she seemed to have to remind herself to breathe under the onslaught he was holding so carefully under control. Let her be caught up by this endless storm of wanting too much to fear it.
‘Delicious,’ he heard himself whisper as if testing a fine wine and a flush of mortification almost burned away the one of fierce arousal already scorching his cheeks. Idiot, he chided himself and heard the word slip from his lips as he held a little away from her tender mouth and sucked breath into his aching lungs. Somehow he had to stop himself plunging into her shy welcome like a boorish great bull.
‘If I’m one, you are too,’ she informed him crossly and so close he felt the movement against his aching mouth and her breath on the tongue he used to slick moisture on to his dry lips.
‘Not you, me,’ he managed to rasp and heard her chuckle, felt her chuckle and it threatened to turn him completely feral.
‘My idiot,’ she argued, sounding nearly as ambushed by need as he felt. ‘Kiss me properly then, you great fool. I won’t break.’
‘No, but I might,’ he breathed and did exactly what they both wanted until he could hardly remember his own name for wanting Chloe Wheaton with every fibre of his being.
* * *
Chloe tumbled into mysteries that had been beyond her wildest imaginings even after their first, disastrous kisses all those years ago. Not even longing for him so badly it hurt had prepared her for this. Her wildest fantasies; dreamt of and half-recalled with a blush when she woke, hadn’t said how it felt to be kissed so deeply by this unique man. Those wild dreams, she supposed now, were brought on by lack of this. Lack of him; Luke Winterley; the only man she would ever love. It jarred through her in a long, hot shudder as he used touch and taste to fit them closer, strove for unity deeper than flesh on flesh. It opened up huge chances for pain as well as promises, added the feel of falling through vastness, tumbling into loving him as if her life might depend on it, to the already novel feeling of walking on fire.
He was the one—her Luke; her love. Of course it didn’t hurt, his mouth on hers, his gentle, fascinated touch as he padded sensitive fingers through her loosened hair as if he loved the feel of it and when had he done that?
Her mouth kicked up in a smile even as he teased her lips apart. The rogue had more seduction in his fingertips than a hardened rake had in his whole armoury. He’d disposed of her hairpins so neatly she hadn’t even spared a breath to ask why he’d let her heavy hair hang loose down her back and now seemed to adore the heavy weight of it against his skin. The thick mass felt wild and undone, just like her.
The hand he hadn’t kept free to weave her ever deeper into his spell, learning her features by touch, was smoothing her back through the waves and weight of it. The bane of her younger life was being gloated over by her lover; a shiver of joy slid through her as he reminded them both he liked her carroty hair far more than she’d ever dreamt a man could, but he also adored her eager mouth and had work for it.
Oh, never mind her hair, he’d thrust the tip of his tongue into her mouth as if asking if he could. Chloe gasped in a breath and opened on an unmistakable yes. He would be a fool not to read surrender in every inch of her and she spared a thought to chide herself for that, before he cindered it by deepening his kiss. This was him, the man she had longed for and lingered over in her head for so long passion and need and love stuttered down her supple spine and warmed her toes. Yes wound a little tighter, she wriggled closer so she lay against the cushions and felt him shift to follow her down with a smile of satisfaction he read on her lips. She used her freed hand to pull him after her and still his hot, deep kiss never hesitated on her willing mouth.
Wasn’t it amazing what ten years of trying to live without a man she’d cried for far too often could do? Fire shot through her everywhere they touched and she found out how to shiver with sensual heat in mid-winter. Still he held himself away to shield her from the full force of his arousal. Bless the man; doesn’t he know his rampant need makes me melt from the inside out? If he wanted her this much, it must be possible to play with fire, now she had the lick of it deep inside her to remind her there was more to making love than kissing.
A snatch of uncertainty nibbled at her conscience, but she loved the tightly muscled fact of his powerful torso tensing under her hands, as if he felt her touch and wanted to take her deeper. All the reasons she couldn’t loose her gown or rip off his neckcloth and push away his snugly tailored coat to insinuate herself closer screamed in her head. She tried to ignore it as every inch of hot satin-smooth skin over hard muscle fascinated her; for a precious few moments he was her Luke.
She wanted to be naked with him, was almost ready to find allure enough and even some feminine enchantment she hadn’t recognised in herself until today. All the reasons that couldn’t be were stronger now; Verity was full of life and promise and must soon dream as a young girl should, without her hopes being smashed before she had time to grasp the bright promise of all life might give her.
Meanwhile Luke was kissing his way along the pared-down curve of Chloe’s jaw, as if it was uniquely fascinating to feel his mouth there. Ah, just one more minute, she promised her inner woman as her breasts seemed to swell and kick up against the buttons of his waistcoat and the leashed strength of him, begging for release from the demure gown and very correct corset she’d imposed on them for some reason that eluded her right now. Somehow her nipples felt as if they had a life of their own, needs they hadn’t fully told her about until this moment and now they were hard and tight and begging to be satisfied.
Under their disguise they pouted and longed, then made her sigh when she shifted against the cool silk and jet of his black waistcoat, fine buttons and him, then felt them tighten even more. Far better with his bare skin over taut muscle to writhe against her, her wildest instincts whispered sneakily. Chloe moaned at the very idea and almost wished it hadn’t sprung into her head that to feel his fingers explore her might go beyond pleasure into something desperate and driven and even needier.
Maybe he read her mind because he rolled a little closer, lay half over her and she felt those wanton breasts of hers bloom with satisfaction against a hard wall of muscle and her almost painfully hard nipples tightened even more mercilessly. He raised his head to look down at her with so much in his eyes she had to blink and decided there was no point trying to hide her arousal from him. She held his hot grey eyes with steady acceptance they wanted each other more than she’d known a man and woman could. No use guarding herself from him any longer, no point pretending he was only a man just like any other. Luke was the man; the only one who could build a universe for her; spin stars and planets into the sky, and if only this world was different, go on doing so for the rest of their lives until it was vast and beautiful and all theirs to explore together.
‘I want you so much,’ she murmured as reason slammed back into his dear grey eyes and she finally saw his beloved northern skies, clear cool moorland air and the full depth of his fine mind and loving heart in them.
‘You know I’m on fire for you,’ he muttered, endearingly gruff about the fact, so explicit now even she could hardly help but know it.
‘I want it all with you, Luke Winterley, everything a mature woman can share with a very well-grown and mature man,’ she murmured with dreams in her eyes and far too much love in her heart to hide it from him. He’d awoken a wicked sensuality she hadn’t even known she was capable of until now and it whispered of endless delight and satisfaction to be had, if they were not who they were.
‘But?’ he whispered and the knowledge there was always a ‘but’ for them was deep in the clear depths and complex shadows of his gaze.
‘You know why,’ she said with Verity’s secrets misting her gaze with tears.
‘Aye, I do,’ he acknowledged roughly, as if saying so hurt.
‘Not because of you,’ she said as if that might make it right.
‘Yes, because I’m me,’ he argued and it nearly broke something in her when he levered himself away to put distance between them. ‘If I wasn’t a titled aristocrat with more houses than a one man can decently live in, you would give yourself to me heart and soul, Lady Chloe Whoever-You-Are. If I could offer you decent obscurity and a full heart, you would marry me and be my love for the rest of our lives, but because I’m Farenze and will be until the day I die, you won’t see what we could be.’
‘Oh, I see,’ she argued shakily, ‘but I won’t do. You don’t believe in love and swore to marry again only for convenience. In your wildest dreams you could never describe me as convenient.’
