Читать книгу Regency Scoundrels And Scandals - Louise Allen - Страница 43

‘It is very nice, my lady. Will you be going in to see if they have it in a different colour?’

‘What?’ Bel found she was standing in front of a milliner’s shop, regarding a hat on a stand, and Millie was waiting patiently at her side.

‘You said it was perfect, my lady. But I don’t think you usually wear that shade of blue, do you, ma’am?’

Now she was talking to herself. Bel took a long, steadying breath. She was a grown-up woman, if a naïve and inexperienced one. Now she knew about Lady Pamela Ashe would not come to her again, not after having found himself in public between his lover and the object of his more permanent attentions. One just had to put it all down to experience. And at least she had experienced physical pleasure. She knew what all the fuss was about now.

All she had to do was to stop aching with desire for Ashe. Surely that would happen naturally after a few days? One simply could not exist as she was now, feeling like this, not without going mad.

Bel pushed open the shop door and stepped in. Shopping as a cure for misery was shallow, but she did not care. Tomorrow she would find something worthwhile to do. Today she was going to buy a hat.

The soothing qualities of a new hat, even an outrageously frivolous one that an unmarried girl like Lady Pamela would not be allowed to wear, were predictably short lived. Bel knew perfectly well that she could shop until she dropped, dance her slippers through, read the most frivolous journals and gossip until she was hoarse—but the empty ache would still be there. It did not help to tell herself that by the very nature of their relationship there could be no emotional commitment. Ashe had made none. What she felt now was too close to that for either safety or comfort—perhaps it was better that it was ending now.

Bel found herself at half past midnight unable to sleep again. She sat up in bed, her arms wrapped round her knees, her books discarded on the table and tried to think.

She was twenty-six. She was never going to marry again and she would never dare entangle herself with another man. That left a considerable number of years stretching into the future to be filled with something other than domestic duties or passion. Bel knew that while she was perfectly intelligent she would never be a bluestocking like her cousin, so retreating into some form of intellectual study was out of the question. Parties and shopping were fun, but hardly the basis of a fulfilling life.

Which left good works. Bel contemplated the idea. When she had been married she had undertaken charitable activities on the estate and in the surrounding parishes as a matter of course, but now there was no estate to provide her with a ready-made supply of children to educate, elderly and infirm persons to support or fathers of large families to find work for. She was going to have to find a cause of her own.

Throwing back the covers, Bel slid out of bed and padded across to the table, the voluminous skirts of the plain cotton nightgown she had chosen flapping about her ankles. She found paper and ink and settled down to make a list of causes. It would need to be something engrossing and worthwhile—she was not going to play with this like so many society ladies did.

Children, widows, animals, the elderly, she wrote, biting the end of her quill. Education? Employ…

The door opened. Bel swung round on her chair and stared. ‘Ashe?’

‘You were expecting someone else, Bel, my sweet?’ He strolled in and dropped his hat and gloves on a chair. Tonight he was elegant in evening dress. ‘Lord, my great-aunt’s parties are a bore, bless her. I love the old darling, but her entourage of geriatric swains is quite another matter. I have just sat through at least six elderly gentlemen telling me how Wellington should have deployed his troops at Waterloo and one who was confused enough to think he had been at Quatre Bras personally.’

‘I was not expecting you,’ Bel said, her pen dropping unheeded and spattering ink spots across her list.

‘Why not?’ Ashe shed his jacket and waistcoat and began to deconstruct his elaborate neckcloth. ‘You sent me a reply to my note.’ He walked towards her, the ends in his hands, then stopped, frowning. ‘Aren’t you well, sweetheart? Do you have a headache? I’ll go, of course.’

‘No, I do not have a headache and I am quite well. Don’t sweetheart me.’ Bel stood up and saw his expression change as he took in the exceedingly chaste nightgown and the sharp tone of her voice. ‘And I replied to your note before I saw you with Lady Pamela. If I had had any notion that you were involved with someone else, I would never have embarked on this…liaison.’

He looked as tempting as sin itself standing there, those gorgeous blue eyes fixed intently on her, the thick gilt of his hair slightly tousled, the neck of his shirt open just enough to give her a glimpse of the skin beneath. And that was precisely what Ashe was: sin. Highly experienced, completely unprincipled sin.

‘Lady Pamela? You think I am in some way committed to Lady Pamela Darlington?’

‘Yes, Lady Pamela. Is there anyone else I have missed? So far she is the only one I have seen hanging on your arm, exchanging little smiles with you, generally behaving as though she has proprietorial rights over you and getting doting looks in return. And as Lady Pamela is a well-bred, single young lady and the leading light of this year’s Marriage Mart, there is but one conclusion to be drawn from such behaviour.’

‘You are jealous.’ Ashe said it with a hint of a smile. She glared and the smile vanished. ‘But that’s ridiculous Bel.’

Bel took two rapid steps forward and jabbed him in the chest with one sharp finger. Ashe swayed backwards a trifle, but did not retreat. ‘Yes, I am jealous, and do not tell me I have no right to be because I know that perfectly well. But don’t you dare tell me I am being ridiculous either; you told me you had no commitments and I would not have dreamed of…of…’ she waved a hand towards the bed ‘…that if I had known.’

‘Ah.’ Bel narrowed her eyes at him. He did not look the slightest bit chastened, not the remotest bit guilty. ‘I have known Lady Pamela since she was six. She is a minx and as much of a hussy as a well-bred girl can be and, despite her father’s adamant refusal to consider the suit, she is head over heels in love with a very good friend of mine.’

‘That makes it worse!’

‘Head over heels,’ Ashe persisted, removing himself to the relative safety of the fireside. ‘And set on persuading me to invite both him and her to a house party.’

‘Which house party?’

‘The one she expects me to host for the sole purpose of allowing her and George to moon about in the shrubbery out of sight of her chaperon.’

‘If that is the case, why was she spreading herself all over you like butter?’ Bel demanded, provoking a grin from Ashe at her language.

‘Because she is one of the prettiest girls in London, used to being the acknowledged star in any firmament and, when she comes face to face with another lovely woman, her instincts are to lay claim to any male in the vicinity between the ages of sixteen and seventy. I happened to be handy.’

‘Oh.’ Bel swallowed, clenching her hands. Lovely woman? Her? ‘I have made a fool of myself, haven’t I?’

‘A bit.’ He smiled affectionately. ‘I suppose I helped. But, given the basilisk eye of your Aunt Ravenhurst, I thought it best to play up to Pamela and to treat you with polite indifference.’ Bel bit her lip and focused her gaze on the point where his shirt opened over golden skin. ‘Were you truly jealous? That is very flattering.’

‘Flattering? It was horrible. Jealousy was a thoroughly reprehensible reaction in the first place, and I know I have absolutely no right to feel it. I felt mean and miserable.’ Bel sifted through her emotions, then added honestly, ‘But it hurt, and I do not like you telling me I am being ridiculous.’

‘I am sorry.’ Ashe stepped over Horace and gathered her in against his chest. Bel gave a little sigh and clung to as much of him as she could get her arms around. ‘I forget you are very new to these intrigues. It is not in your nature to dissemble, but we cannot afford to look at each other and have our closeness show, you know that.’

‘I know.’ Bel nodded, rubbing her cheek against the warmth of his shirt front. ‘It is all right now.’ She had dissembled for all the years of her marriage, feigning interest and obedience. But that was a very different thing to hiding desire and the intimate knowledge of another person.

‘I am not sure that it is all right,’ Ashe said gravely, running his hands up and down her back. ‘What on earth are you wearing, Bel? I thought I had strayed into a nunnery.’

‘I did not think you would be coming and this is the most boringly respectable nightgown I have. I didn’t want to think about you, you see.’

He gave a snort of laughter and stepped back to study her. Then he frowned. ‘We have a problem. You want to make love, I imagine, but I am very much afraid that garment has killed my passion quite dead, which was obviously the intention of the designer. There is only one thing for it, unless you wish me to leave or to spend the night reading poetry with you.’

‘What?’ Bel enquired, heat pooling inside her. Ashe was teasing her, of course. No man wearing thin skintight knit breeches could pretend he was not aroused when he was.

‘You will just have to seduce me.’ He looked rueful.

‘Seduce you?’ Bel heard her voice squeak. Me? How?

‘Yes, seduce me. On the bearskin rug, I think. The novelty will, perhaps, arouse my jaded appetites.’ Ashe leaned negligently against the bedpost and waited for her reaction.

Jaded appetites, indeed! This was a game. Bel suppressed her immediate reaction, which was to blush and stammer that she did not know how. He probably expected her to do that, but she would not. The sight of him, elegant and hard and all of him—every inch—hers, made her blood sing and her breath come short. She wanted him desperately, she wanted to learn more about lovemaking, she wanted to please him, and herself.

‘Very well, but you must promise to do as I say,’ she ordered boldly. She waited for his nod, noticing with interest the effect her agreement had on him. The pulse under the sharp line of his jaw was very visible, the skin at the base of his throat was flushed and his pupils had begun to dilate, turning the deep sea blue a darker, stormier purple.

Very deliberately Bel undid the top two buttons on her nightgown, but that was all. Then she folded her arms, knowing the action pushed up her breasts, and stood there, considering. If Ashe thought she was going to drape herself all over him like a cat begging for caresses, he was mistaken. ‘Take off your shirt.’

He pulled it over his head, giving her a view of the muscles of his back rippling as he bent right over, then stretched upright, magnificently unselfconscious. Bel stood looking, studying the way his muscles strapped over his ribs, the way his chest hair changed texture as it narrowed down towards his navel. She saw his nipples harden under the caress of her gaze. Power. Such power.

‘And now the rest of your clothes,’ she said, making her voice indifferent. He kept his eyes locked with hers as he undressed and Bel toyed with one more button on her gown. He was so beautiful she found it desperately hard to keep her hands off him. Her own nipples were peaking painfully against the thick cotton, her breasts ached into heaviness; the intensity of his gaze seemed to bore through her to hit at the base of her spine.

‘Now lie down,’ she ordered, gesturing towards the thick white fur at her feet. Seduce him? As if he needs it! If he becomes any more aroused, I will refuse to believe it physically possible.

Ashe stretched out on the great pelt of fur, a magnificent barbarian in his shameless nudity. He moved sensuously on it, his broad shoulders shrugging into the softness, the movement of his hips a demonstration of lithe masculinity.

‘Am I arousing your interest yet?’ Bel enquired huskily.

‘Mmm? This is very comfortable, I may go to sleep.’ He was watching her like a hawk from beneath hooded lids, his very focus a contradiction to his words.

Bel moved to stand at his feet and let her gaze wander up the length of him from the high arches, up the straight shin bones, up the trained muscles of his thighs, up—lingeringly—past the slim hips. She let her tongue tip run over her lower lip and saw him shift restlessly as she did so. Bel stepped forward so her feet were either side of Ashe’s knees and started to undo the rest of her buttons.

Despite the expression of languid uninterest he was maintaining the heavy lids rose, dragged up to follow her slowly moving hands. Bel fought her own eagerness as she made herself free each button with finicking care until the entire gown to below her waist was open. Then she shrugged one shoulder free. Ashe’s tongue slid between his lips and she saw his hands fist into the fur at his sides. Another shoulder, then she let go and the entire garment slipped down to pool around her feet.

She kicked it aside as Ashe came up on to his elbows. ‘No, my lord, I am sorry if you are bored, but I must insist you lie down. Do try to sleep if you wish.’

He fell back with a growl as Bel knelt, her knees either side of his hips. The power of what she was doing felt incredible. It was like sitting astride a thoroughbred horse; she could feel the leashed strength beneath her, knew she could not control it, that only his will was keeping him tame, biddable to her.

Her hand slipped between her thighs, found him, hot, hard, impossibly aroused, and positioned herself. ‘Now,’ she whispered and slowly sank down, taking him within her, stroking every inch of him with her heat and her slickness and her desire.

He growled, reached for her and she caught his wrists, leaning into him so she pressed them to the ground on either side of his head and the tips of her breasts caressed his chest. ‘Awake yet?’ she teased, her lips hovering an inch above his.

‘Ride me.’ And he surged up against her. Bel heard herself cry out, knew her body was responding, plunging, demanding, but it all became a blur, a wonderful, intense, heated blur with the only reality the deep blue-black eyes holding hers, the beat of his pulse under her fingers, the musk of their lovemaking as potent as drugged incense in her nostrils.

Ashe bucked beneath her, then she was beneath him, her own wrists trapped, and she cried out again and again as she fell into a whirlpool of velvet darkness and he finally left her body.

Some incalculable time later Bel felt Ashe roll away from her and reached for him. He was back in a moment, carrying pillows and the bedcover. ‘I like it on this fur. Here, these will make us more comfortable and preserve your chaste bed from disturbance.’

Bel snuggled up against his chest again. Horace’s soft fur was warm and sensual beneath her, Ashe’s body was hot and smooth under her hand. ‘This is nice.’ This is Heaven.

‘You are addictive Bel,’ Ashe said ruefully, gathering her snugly against himself. Other women had curled against him like this, but none had ever seemed to fit so well. ‘But I am going to have to leave you for a few days.’

‘Leave? Why?’ Bel wriggled free and sat up, shaking her head at her own vehemence. ‘No, I am sorry, I did not mean to sound so demanding, or to pry. Will you be away long?’

‘Ten days, perhaps.’ He reached up and traced a finger round the curve of her jaw, enjoying the way she turned her head into his hand for more caresses. Bel was so sweet, so formal somehow—when she wasn’t in the throes of passion. She had even managed to be jealous in a polite manner. Ashe could recall mistresses and lovers who would have thrown ornaments at his head for less provocation than he had given her that morning. ‘I am going home. I should have gone at once, but somehow—’ How to explain to her?

‘Somehow what you had just experienced abroad was too raw?’ Bel suggested.

‘Yes.’ She understood what he sometimes had difficulty articulating to himself. Ashe lifted her hand and kissed the knuckles, then turned them against his cheek. ‘Exactly. But if I stay away any longer, they will start worrying that I am hiding something after all.’

‘And you can make arrangements for the house party you are going to give,’ Bel suggested slyly.

‘I had no intention of doing any such thing, although if you would come to it, I might be persuaded to change my mind.’

Bel looked deliciously ruffled by the suggestion. ‘I could not bear to be so close to you and have to behave properly all the time.’

‘Who said anything about behaving? That is the whole point of house parties—camouflage for misbehaviour.’

‘I…I find I am shocked.’ She shook her head in wonderment at her own reaction. ‘How very hypocritical of me!’

‘You are not being uniquely wicked in taking a lover, you know, ma belle, other people have liaisons too.’ But in a way she was unique, Ashe realised. Bel would not move from him to another lover when this was over. This was an experience for her that she would sample because she had needed so badly to understand physical love, then put aside, never to be repeated.

‘What are you frowning about?’ She reached out and massaged the crease between his brows with the pads of two fingers. Ashe fought not to close his eyes and simply purr.

‘I’m not sure,’ he confessed, smiling at her anxiety. But he knew, all the same. He did not want to envisage life without Bel, he did not want to imagine her alone, chaste, unkissed and uncaressed and he could not imagine having another woman in her place, in his arms. But affaires ran their course, it would happen one day and they would move on. He would find someone else.

‘Tell me about your home,’ she suggested, snuggling down again, her hand drifting slowly up and down his chest in a way that predicted any conversation would be short.

‘Coppergate? Well, it is in Hertfordshire, out beyond St Albans in the hills. It was built in the seventeenth century by a Mr Copper, a merchant who made his fortune, bought by my ancestor when Mr Copper’s luck ran out and it has been with us ever since. There is a lake…’