Читать книгу Regency Affairs Part 1: Books 1-6 Of 12 - Кэрол Мортимер, Кэрол Мортимер - Страница 35

As they stepped outside, Genevieve was unsure as to which was her more predominant emotion: nervousness at being outside alone on the terrace with Benedict, or her need to laugh at his obvious discomfort—both with her having witnessed the scandalous behaviour of some of their dining companions and the unmistakable state of his own arousal. She firmly believed this to have been behind Benedict’s driving need to escape the dining room, if only for a few minutes’ respite. Indeed, his last comment to her would seem to confirm that it was …

‘I trust you are not about to laugh, madam?’

Benedict’s disgusted tone was Genevieve’s undoing and she instantly burst into the laughter she had been fighting against since they both stood up from the table. ‘I am so sorry, Benedict.’ She finally sobered enough to look up at him in the bright glow given out by the hundreds of candles burning in the dining room behind them, only to burst out laughing again as she saw the look of haughty reproach on the harsh planes of his aristocratically handsome face as he looked down the long length of his nose at her.

‘I trust you will forgive me if I find your apology less than sincere,’ he murmured after several more minutes of her obvious amusement.

‘But it was. Truly it was.’ It took all her effort to hold back her humour for a third time. ‘Some of our fellow guests are behaving extremely badly.’

His nostrils flared. ‘If you were meaning to imply that it is viewing their antics which is to blame for my inappropriate condition—’

‘I was not, Benedict.’ She placed her hand on his tensed forearm as she looked up at him shyly through the sweep of her lashes. ‘Really, I was not.’

He drew his breath in sharply. ‘Genevieve—’

‘Benedict?’

A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw. ‘Do you have any idea how close I am to dragging you off somewhere and taking you right now, this minute, quickly and explosively, but hopefully also to both our satisfactions?’

Genevieve gave a slight squeak at his honesty. ‘You would not dare, Benedict!’ She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue.

‘Would I not?’ Benedict gave a self-disgusted groan, closing his eyes before passing a hand across them.

‘Would you …?’

He lowered his hand, but kept his lids closed over those jet-black eyes. ‘At this moment I wish for nothing more than to be alone with you, preferably with a bed near at hand, so that I could do the job properly.’

‘The “job”, Benedict …?’ Genevieve pressed her lips firmly together as laughter threatened once again.

Not at Benedict, but from the euphoria of knowing it was desire for her, Genevieve Forster, that had totally penetrated this handsome gentleman’s defences, to the point that Lucifer’s cold and legendary control was now balanced upon a knife’s edge. That knowledge empowered her, tempted her, to learn more.

He gave a self-disgusted snort as he looked down at her once again. ‘Do you have any idea how many ways, and in how many positions, I would enjoy making love to you at this moment?’

‘No,’ Genevieve answered honestly—how could she have, when she was completely innocent of how many different ‘ways and positions’ there were in which to make love? ‘But it does sound … interesting?’

A nerve pulsed in that tightly clenched jaw. ‘You are playing with fire again, Genevieve.’

Yes, she believed that she was. And it was all the more surprising, in view of the fact that Lord Benedict Lucas, Lucifer, was known as being a cold and unemotional gentleman by the majority of the ton. But Genevieve trusted him in a way she had never trusted any man. ‘Would you prefer that I did not …?’

‘No!’ Benedict’s nostrils flared. ‘Perhaps no one will notice if we steal just a few more minutes of privacy!’ He stepped forwards to draw her purposefully into his arms, careful to avoid her broken wrist as he did so, the long length of his arousal now pressed intimately against the warmth of Genevieve’s thighs as he lowered his head and claimed her lips with his own.

She tasted of wine and honey, her lips soft and yielding beneath Benedict’s as he drank his fill of them, not assuaging his desire for her in the slightest, but instead increasing it, to the point that he could feel the pulsing surge and swell of his cock. He gave a low groan in his throat as he felt Genevieve’s fingers gently threading into the dark thickness of the hair at his nape, before she deepened the kiss by parting her lips and slanting them more accommodatingly beneath his.

It was, at one and the same time, both heaven and hell.

Heaven, because Benedict had been longing to kiss her again since the moment he had first arrived at her home earlier this evening and looked at her glowing beauty as she obviously anticipated the excitement of the evening ahead.

And hell, because the terrace of Carlton House really was not the place for Benedict to be able to make love to Genevieve as fully, and as thoroughly, as he might wish to do.

Might? There was no ‘might’ to him at all at this moment, Genevieve’s vivacity and sensuality having broken through his defences, so completely and utterly, that it robbed him of any strength or willpower to resist her to the point that nothing else mattered at this moment, but the need to continue kissing her as he enjoyed the perfect fit of the softness of her breast in the palm of his hand.

Genevieve ceased to breathe as she felt the heat of Benedict’s hand cupping her breast, squeezing, kneading her aroused flesh, before seeking out the swollen and engorged tip with the soft pad of his thumb, those slow and rhythmic caresses inciting an answering throb that centred between her thighs.

An aching need, which although utterly new to her since meeting Benedict, she already knew he could assuage, that he had already assuaged several times four days ago, with the merest touch of his fingers against that swollen nubbin nestled amongst the red-gold curls between her thighs.

‘Sorry to keep you waiting—Ah! Excuse me for intruding. I had not realised! Well. I—you will both accept my apologies, it is to be hoped?’

Genevieve had pulled quickly away from Benedict at the first sound of another man’s voice—a slightly accented, foreign voice?—on the terrace behind them, glad to have her back towards that gentleman so that he should not see the deep blush that now coloured her cheeks, or witness that Benedict’s hand still cupped the swell of her breast.

Benedict gave a soft groan as he rested his forehead against hers. ‘Sorry for ruining our evening, pet,’ he murmured so that only she could hear.

Genevieve was equally as sorry to have their interlude together so rudely interrupted. ‘The evening is not yet over, Benedict,’ she returned equally as softly.

He squeezed his eyes closed briefly before opening them again. ‘I am afraid it is over for the moment. I suggest you excuse yourself and go to the ladies’ retiring room, whilst I remain here and deal with this unmannered buffoon.’

Genevieve chuckled softly. ‘Please try to be gentle with him, Benedict!’

He arched one dark brow. ‘Strangulation is out of the question, then?’

‘I believe so. Especially so, considering where we are.’ She nodded, her eyes once again glowing with laughter. ‘Even the Prince Regent would not be able to condone murder taking place upon his own terrace!’

Benedict released her before straightening with obvious reluctance. ‘I will rejoin you in the dining room in just a few minutes.’

‘I shall look forward to it.’ She gave him a last meaningful glance, before turning to bestow a haughty nod to the foreign gentleman who had interrupted them as she moved past him and returned to the dining room with a brisk swish of her skirts.

Benedict’s eyes narrowed as he looked across at the man standing slightly in the shadows of the house. ‘I believe you have some information for me, monsieur?’

‘I hope I did not interrupt at a crucial moment—’

‘You hope no such thing, Devereaux, otherwise you would not have interrupted at all,’ Benedict rasped scathingly. ‘Now say what you have to say and then be on your way.’

‘Your … haste to return to your lady is—’

‘There will be no conversation, either now or in the future, in regard to the lady who has just left us!’ Benedict’s anger was barely contained.

‘She is very beautiful—’

‘And absolutely none of your damned business!’ Benedict’s eyes glittered as hard and black as the jet they resembled. ‘Do I make myself clear?’

‘Of course.’ The other man gave a mocking bow in acknowledgement.

‘Well, get on with it, man.’ Benedict might have to deal with these traitors to their own country, out of the need to protect his own, but he did not have to respect them for it.

And he was, as Devereux had just remarked, ‘in some haste to return to his lady.’

‘You have been very quiet these past few hours, Benedict …?’

He turned from where he had been staring broodingly out of the carriage window watching the dawn break, only late-night revellers like themselves returning home in their carriages, and the early morning bustle of traders starting to deliver their wares, travelling the otherwise deserted London streets.

Genevieve’s remark, as to his distraction during the latter part of the night, was wholly merited. Benedict had indeed been broodingly silent since his conversation with Devereux.

Understandably so, when it seemed that even now Napoleon still plotted and planned for what surely must be an impossible escape from his incarceration on the remote island of St Helena. Nevertheless, as was always the case, Benedict would pass the information on to Eric Cargill as soon as was possible, so that his godfather might deal with it as he saw fit.

God, how Benedict was starting to hate this constant need for secrecy, this seemingly never-ending deluge of information of Napoleon’s machinations for his escape, impossible as most seemed to be, but none of which could be ignored; England and its allies dared not risk allowing the Corsican to escape and run amok for a second time.

He smiled briefly at Genevieve as she continued to look up at him enquiringly. ‘I have no idea how Prinny maintains the stamina for such jaded and lengthy entertainments; I find myself exhausted just from having attended!’

Genevieve gave a dreamy smile. ‘It truly was just as exciting as I hoped it might be.’

Benedict’s smile turned to one of indulgence as he saw the happiness shining in her eyes. ‘Then I consider my own boredom with the evening to have been well worth it.’

Mischief glowed once again in Genevieve’s expressive eyes. ‘I am sure that you—and all the other gentlemen present—did not find the evening quite so tedious when the beautiful Countess of Montgomery decided she was far too hot and began to disrobe completely?’

‘She does have rather lovely—Ouch! There was no need to pinch, Genevieve!’ He winced as she delivered a painful pinch to his thigh.

Genevieve raised mocking brows. ‘Then perhaps you should not remark on the merits of one lady’s … attractions when in the company of another?’

‘I do not see the harm as long as one does not touch?’

‘Perhaps you should tell that to your pinched thigh?’ She arched derisive brows.

Light-hearted teasing, as seemed to be the case more often than not whenever Benedict was with Genevieve, was something completely new to him in regard to a woman. His own humour usually ran to mockery or sarcasm, rather than playful bantering, and he found the experience, although slightly alien, to be as refreshing as Genevieve was herself.

‘You are right.’ He nodded, straight-faced. ‘I am sure, when the countess bent down to remove her stockings, that I detected a bulge of unsightly flesh—Ouch! My thigh will be bruised as black and blue as your wrist before this night is over, Genevieve!’ He clasped his aggrieved thigh once again just as the carriage came to a stop outside her home.

She turned to him. ‘Do you really wish for the night to end quite yet, Benedict?’

He stilled. ‘What do you mean …?’

Genevieve suddenly felt extremely shy. It truly had been a magical evening for her. Being introduced to the Prince Regent and basking in his flattering comments. Able to see all the opulence with which he surrounded himself. Observing the glittering array of his strange mix of dinner guests—and their excess of behaviour! Enjoying the bounteous dinner table of the Prince Regent, both visually and gastronomically.

But best of all had been spending the evening at Benedict’s side, something Genevieve was finding she enjoyed more and more each time they met.

Not only did she know him to be too honourable a man to ever resort to the physical violence with which she had been treated these past seven years—Benedict was far too confident, both of himself and his attraction, to ever resort to such measures in order to dominate—but he was also entertaining and attentive, yet not suffocatingly so. A single glare from those coal-black eyes had been enough to quell even the most daring of advances made to her by some of the other gentlemen present this evening.

Benedict was also, in Genevieve’s opinion, the most handsome gentleman in England. So much so she had felt proud just being at his side, his obvious choice of companion for the evening—much to the chagrin of many of the other female guests, as they gave Benedict admiring and covetous glances and Genevieve envious glares.

It had felt wonderfully exhilarating to know that she, Genevieve Forster, was the lady Lord Benedict Lucas had chosen to spend his evening with, the woman whom he so obviously desired.

As to the heat of the kisses they had shared outside on the terrace …! Genevieve quivered with delight just thinking about them, of how much she wished they had not been interrupted when they had. Although it would perhaps not have been seemly, despite the licentious behaviour of some of the other dinner guests, to have taken their lovemaking any further whilst at the home of their Regent!

Even so, Genevieve felt a little shy in regard to voicing her wish that they might continue that lovemaking now … ‘I had thought perhaps you might come into the house and join me in a nightcap? There is something I had wished to discuss with you,’ she added quickly as she saw him frown.

‘Oh?’

‘Yes.’ She kept her lashes downcast over her eyes, so that Benedict should not observe the disappointment in them, which she felt in his not having immediately accepted her suggestion for what it was—an invitation to continue their lovemaking of earlier. ‘It—something you said to me two days ago, in regard to the investigation into your parents’ deaths, troubled me.’

‘Why did you not mention this earlier tonight?’

She shrugged her shoulders beneath her evening cloak. ‘I—it is not a matter in need of urgent discussion, just something I wished to discuss with you more fully the next time we found ourselves alone in private conversation.’

‘I see.’

Did Benedict ‘see’, and was this delay in answering her his way of indicating he had no interest in resuming their lovemaking of earlier this evening?

Genevieve had no experience upon which she might draw in order to know the answer to that particular question—betrothed and married before her very first Season had come to an end had given her little opportunity to understand the workings of a true gentleman’s mind. Her brother, Colin, had been transparent to her from childhood, of course, but in Genevieve’s mind, Josiah and William Forster did not count in the least as being gentlemen!

Whatever the reasoning behind it, she found Benedict’s less-than-enthusiastic response to her invitation to be less than flattering to her fragile ego. ‘I will understand, of course, if you feel this is not the right time for such a conversation?’

Benedict was not convinced for a moment of that understanding, knew by the edge to Genevieve’s tone that she was more than a little piqued that he had not readily accepted her invitation to accompany her inside, for a nightcap or anything else. Under normal circumstances he would have been happy to do so; this constant state of physical frustration was starting to wear a bit thin. But …

There was always a but, it seemed, whenever his actions involved the work he did secretly for the Crown. And, this evening, despite Genevieve’s obvious enjoyment of it, had been another occasion when Benedict had needed to be in a certain place at a certain time, in order to receive vital information. A case of mutual needs being satisfied, he had reasoned with himself when he had asked Genevieve to accompany him this evening.

The problem now was what to do with that information; Devereux had been most insistent it be passed on to the powers that be—in this case, Eric Cargill—at the earliest opportunity. And Benedict was very aware that he had already delayed relaying that information for several crucial hours, as he remained at the dinner party far longer than he needed, because he had been loath to bring Genevieve’s enjoyment of the evening to a close.

The temptation to say to hell with it and delay passing along Deveraux’s information for several more hours—hours he might spend making love to Genevieve!—was highly tempting. Even if Benedict knew he could not, in all conscience, act upon it … ‘I have something else I need to do this morning, but I would be more than happy to return later in the day?’

‘Of course.’ Genevieve drew back into herself, her expression one of politeness now rather than the mischievous one Benedict had so enjoyed just a few minutes ago. ‘I fear I will probably sleep away most of today anyway, following such a late night, so perhaps you might consider calling tomorrow, if you find you can spare the time?’

He winced. ‘Genevieve—’

‘I really should go in, Benedict.’ Her smile was as coldly dismissive as her tone. ‘Thank you again for a wonderful evening. I have enjoyed it immensely.’

Benedict breathed out his frustration with her cool politeness. As if she were thanking a benevolent uncle for taking her on an outing; Benedict did not feel in the least benevolent at this moment, nor did he have any wish to be treated as Genevieve’s uncle!

He reached out and laid a hand on Genevieve’s as his groom opened the door to the carriage so that she might step down. ‘I insist on calling upon you later this afternoon, Genevieve, if that is convenient?’

Her gaze remained distant. ‘As you please.’

‘Genevieve—’

‘I really am very tired, Benedict.’

He wanted to say more, to say something—anything!—which might prevent them from parting in this distantly polite manner. But his oath of secrecy meant he could not tell her the truth of why he must leave her now, and none of the excuses that immediately sprang to mind, to explain his refusal of her invitation, sounded in the least convincing, even to him!

No, Benedict knew he had no choice but to part from Genevieve, knowing that she believed him to be less than eager to make love with her again. Nevertheless … ‘I promise I will make it up to you later today.’

‘I am sure, when I have already expressed my enjoyment of the evening, that there is nothing you need make up to me for, either later today or any other,’ she cut in sharply, her eyes flashing deeply blue. ‘Now I really am most fatigued, Benedict, and—and my arm is once again paining me a little, too.’

Damn it, Benedict had all but forgotten about Genevieve’s broken wrist and bruised arm in his need to reassure her he was not refusing her invitation, merely delaying it! ‘Of course.’ He nodded tersely, stepping down from the carriage before her and dismissing the groom to the back of the coach as he turned and helped her down the carriage steps. ‘You must call for Dr McNeill again if you feel it necessary.’

Genevieve kept her face averted from Benedict’s in an effort not to let him see the tears of humiliation she was sure must, or very shortly would be, glistening in her eyes. ‘I am sure that it is only a case of over-exertion and that I shall feel better after a few hours’ rest. Goodnight, Benedict.’ She gave him another cool nod. ‘It really has been a most entertaining evening.’

He sighed heavily. ‘Must we part at odds with each other, Genevieve?’

‘Why, what on earth do you mean?’ Years of hiding her true emotions from both her husband and her stepson—she had refused to give either of them the satisfaction of knowing if she was upset or hurting from anything they had said or done to her—now stood her in good stead as she gave a lightly dismissive laugh. ‘Have I not just told you that I had a most entertaining evening?’

Benedict scowled darkly. ‘Yes. But—’

‘Do you doubt my sincerity?’

‘Not in the least. It is only—’

‘Really, Benedict, you are making no sense at all. And I had thought it was the ladies who were accused of being contrary!’ she taunted.

His mouth tightened. ‘Do not pretend to act the tease with me, Genevieve. You are angry with me because I have refused your invitation—’

‘I am not in the least angry with you—’

‘—and quite rightly so,’ he continued determinedly. ‘Damn it, I would spend the rest of the night and day with you if I could—’

‘I do not believe I asked you to do so—’

‘You implied it—’

‘I am sure I did not, Benedict. Can it be that you are slightly foxed?’ She eyed him disapprovingly.

‘You know damn well I barely drank anything at all this evening!’ he snapped his impatience.

‘Then I can only assume that the rumours about you are correct, and that you really are just arrogance personified!’ Genevieve glared up at him indignantly, even as a blush of that humiliation now warmed her cheeks. ‘I invited you in for a nightcap as a pleasant way of ending our evening together and you have turned it around in your mind into being something else completely! You then have the gall to imagine I am piqued because of your refusal.’ She gave a disgusted shake of her head. ‘Goodnight, Benedict.’ She tilted her chin disdainfully. ‘I sincerely hope that the next time we meet you have remembered your manners!’

Benedict could only stand on the cobbled roadside and watch in frustration as Genevieve walked briskly away from him and entered her house, knowing that there was nothing he could say at this moment that would put matters right between the two of them.

Women came and went in his life—not as often as the ton imagined—with never a single moment of regret on Benedict’s part when they ‘went’.

It was unfortunate that Genevieve was angry with him—and he knew her well enough to know that she was very angry with him, no matter what she might claim to the contrary!—but he could no more allow himself to feel regrets over her than he had any of those other women who had passed so briefly through his life.

Benedict had set himself two missions in life: to work for the Crown and to continue to search for the person responsible for murdering his parents, no matter how long it took, and the complication of a woman such as Genevieve Forster was something he most assuredly did not need or want.

Damn it, he had already allowed himself to be distracted enough by her this evening that he had neglected his other duties by not reporting to Eric Cargill as soon as Deveraux had imparted his information.

If Genevieve wished to be angry with him, then she could damn well stay angry with him, and to hell with her!