Читать книгу The Louise Allen Collection - Louise Allen - Страница 30

‘No!’ It was Olivia, transformed from a tearful mouse into a spitting cat. ‘Henry was not ravishing me, he would do nothing so dishonourable. We love each other!’ She turned and took Henry’s arm, twining herself close to him. ‘I defy you to accuse him. I know I am ruined, but I do not care!’

‘Let me be the first to congratulate you,’ Adam said warmly.

‘What?’ It was Henry, one arm tight around Olivia’s quivering form. ‘Are you making sport with us, my lord? Because I have to warn you that I have no intention of standing by and seeing you insult this lady. All blame for what has just occurred is mine and I insist—’

‘Stubble it, do,’ Adam interrupted, lapsing into exasperated cant. ‘You love her, she loves you. Miss Channing and I find that we were mutually mistaken in our affections and have agreed, on the friendliest of terms, to sever our contract.’

‘We were? I mean, we are?’ Olivia was staring at him, her pretty face flushed, the snail tracks of tears drying on her cheeks. ‘But the scandal…’

‘What scandal?’ Decima decided it was time to take a hand. ‘Lord Weston, and you and Henry, will all appear in public on the friendliest of terms. Lady Freshford will be delighted, and will say so. Your parents will express their approval—’

‘They will?’ Henry was staring at her, apparently dumbfounded.

‘They will when they realise how wealthy you are,’ Decima retorted. ‘And how generous you will be with the settlements. And, of course, the fact that you will be persuading your cousin the duke to host the wedding at Farleigh. Adam might be a viscount, but he is not closely related to any living dukes, are you?’

‘No, although I am a distant connection of Freshford’s duke.’

‘He’s only a second cousin,’ Henry protested faintly. ‘Once removed.’

‘How are we going to tell Mama?’ Olivia enquired, going a little pale again and clutching Henry’s arm.

‘Are both she and your father out of town?’ Adam asked.

‘Yes, until Wednesday—three days’ time.’

‘Then we will both talk to them then, together. We will explain how we are mistaken in our feelings and how, although you tried to hide it from me, you loved another. I saw through your honourable deceit, leaving you free to marry the man you love, and so forth. I will exit, looking noble, to be followed by Freshford, hard on my heels before they have time to think of objections.’

‘I will be so frightened.’ Olivia’s eyes were wide. ‘I cannot do it, I know I cannot.’

‘Do you want to break Henry’s heart?’ Decima enquired bracingly, satisfied when she saw Olivia’s jaw set with determination.

Henry appeared to be a man coming out of a dream. The stunned expression was vanishing rapidly, to be replaced by a look of deep suspicion. ‘A word with you, my lord,’ he said grimly.

‘Not here.’ Adam held the door wide and ushered Henry out. ‘We do not want to confuse or alarm the ladies, do we?’

Adam closed the door and leant back on the panels. ‘Before you ask, yes, that was all a ruse.’ It was just beginning to sink in that it had worked, that he was no longer tied to Olivia and that he could at last tell Decima how he felt about her.

‘Your leg?’ Freshford was still eying him with a degree of suspicious hostility, unwilling to trust him entirely yet.

‘A trick.’

‘Someone could have been killed, shots were fired, Olivia was alone in that curricle.’

‘Every pistol, including yours, was loaded with blanks. The “highwayman” leading the curricle is a highly competent groom and the horses were less than fresh after a long drive. I did what I could.’ Suddenly bone weary, he let his eyes close for a moment, then reopened them to find Freshford regarding him quizzically.

‘Why did you become engaged to Olivia in the first place?’

Adam shook his head. ‘Ask her. If she will not tell you, I cannot. I suggest you drive her home in your curricle now. Take the picnic hamper from mine and have a pleasant journey back.’

‘And leave you with Decima?’ To Adam’s eye, Freshford was looking less like a man in love and more like a suspicious relative. ‘Just what are your intentions, my lord? I should tell you, I regard her as my sister. If you hurt her, you will have me to answer to. I am more grateful than I can say for what you have done for Olivia and me, but I won’t let that stand in my way.’

‘My intentions? To marry her, if she’ll have me. Do you think she will?’

Freshford grinned suddenly. ‘You’ll have to ask her and see.’

Adam reached into his pocket and withdrew the pistol. ‘You had better have this, just in case. The ammunition is live. If Decima were to be…delayed this afternoon—’

‘I will tell my mother she’s staying with a friend.’ Henry took the pistol, pocketed it, then held out his hand. ‘Good luck.’

Adam stepped aside as he opened the door and called. Olivia came out, too wrapped up in Henry to even notice Adam standing back in the shadows. He shook his head ruefully, wondering what transformation in the pretty little mouse the experience of loving Henry Freshford would bring about. It would be intriguing to watch, but now he had his own fate to put to the touch.

Decima was standing by a cold fireplace, staring down at the empty hearth. She glanced up as he came in, her face serious. ‘Olivia has just told me about the house party and why you had to propose to her. She feels so guilty about that.’

‘Water under the bridge now.’ Adam shrugged. ‘At the time I almost welcomed it. I had lost something very precious and I didn’t think I had a hope of finding it again, so nothing else really mattered.’ Did she understand him?

It seemed she did—the colour was high on her cheekbones and her eyes dropped before his. He pressed on. ‘I was running away from love and commitment and marriage. I thought that what I felt for you was desire, just that.’ He was doggedly determined to lay it all out, leave nothing unsaid. ‘Then when I realised what I really wanted, that I didn’t want to run any more, I couldn’t find you. When I did discover who you were, it was too late.’

Decima was silent. Had he misjudged it? Should he have taken her back home, waited, tried wooing her with soft words and flowers?

‘Decima.’ It was four strides to reach her across the room—it seemed like a mile. ‘Decima, I love you. Will you marry me?’

‘Oh, yes.’ She turned to him, her eyes sparkling, her warm, generous mouth curved into a smile that was pure happiness, just for him. ‘Yes, I will, and I love you, I’ve loved you for so long and I never thought you could possibly love me.’

There didn’t appear to be any words, or, if there were, his tongue was incapable of articulating them. Adam took Decima by the shoulders, turned her gently into his embrace and kissed her.

This was real, and it was different, quite different from their kisses before, different from the way she had dreamed it would be. As Adam’s mouth angled over hers, gently insistent as he caressed her lips with his, she realised what it was. There was no doubt, no guilt, no anxiety about why he was kissing her. She knew he was showing her his love and he knew that was what she wanted, too.

Her lips parted and she shuddered deliciously at the heat, at the shocking, velvet slide of his tongue over hers. She moaned a little, deep in her throat and he shifted his hands to bring her closer, one hand in the small of her back, the other at the back of her head, impelling her into his kiss.

It was not enough. Her hands splayed across the breadth of his shoulders, her fingers spreading as they traced the hard muscle under the broadcloth and linen. He was so big, so strong, so hard, that he frightened her and delighted her all at the same time. But she was strong too, she would match him, keep pace with him, incite him to love her without restraint.

Adam’s hands shifted again and she was in his arms, lifted tightly against his chest. Decima muttered a protest as he carried her through into the hall. ‘I don’t want to go yet.’ Her lips found the skin at the edge of his jaw, rough with the start of new stubble, and she nuzzled at it, making him gasp.

‘We aren’t going.’ She felt him begin to climb. ‘Decima, stop it or I’ll make love to you here and now on the stairs!’

‘Mmm,’ she murmured encouragingly. Under her lips she could feel the pulse in his neck, hammering.

‘Witch.’ It was a chuckle, albeit a breathless one. He shouldered open a door, took a few more strides and she found herself laid down on a bed. Reluctantly Decima opened her eyes. She was in a bedroom, but unlike the rooms downstairs that were occupied by only a few items of dust-sheeted furniture, this room was fully furnished with damask drapes at the windows and new candles in the sconces. Adam struck a spark from his tinderbox and set a taper to the fire, which stood ready-made in the grate.

‘You see my arrogance exposed,’ he said, coming towards her, shrugging out of his coat in a way that dried her mouth with desire. ‘I had this room prepared, right down to the fire.’

‘Not arrogance,’ she managed to say. ‘Hope.’

Adam sat on the side of the bed beside her, watching her with eyes that were tender, patient. ‘If you want to go back to London now, wait until we are married, then you only have to say.’ He clasped his hands together as though to show he was not going to touch her without her consent. ‘But if you wish to stay, no one will expect you back.’

‘It seems a very long time since that snowy New Year’s day,’ Decima said slowly. ‘You started something I think we should finish.’ She smiled at herself. ‘I find I am no longer very good at being patient.’

‘You will have to be.’ Adam began to tug off his neckcloth. ‘I have all those freckles to count.’ He tossed the crumpled muslin onto the floor and began on his shirt buttons. ‘Of course, I could always make love to you while I count…’

‘That would save time,’ Decima agreed solemnly, reaching for his shirt placket to help with the buttons. At last, skin. She slid her hands through the opening in the fine linen, sighing with satisfaction as her palms slid over smooth muscle.

‘Hmm.’ Adam pulled her close. ‘Now then, how does this gown unfasten?’ It seemed to be a rhetorical question, for he was managing very well with the tiny buttons and the row of hooks. And then it was sliding from her shoulders and somehow her chemise was going with it.

Decima found herself on her back on the bed, everything but her stockings and garters gone. She gave a little gasp of alarm and tried to cover herself with her hands, only to find them captured and kissed. ‘Let me look at you, sweetheart.’

Adam ran his hands gently over her body, down the length of her, his touch a caress, his expression tender. ‘You are so beautiful. No, don’t shake your head at me. Look at you, so long, so smooth, so rounded.’ His palm stroked lightly over the curve of her belly, cupped her hip lightly, dipped into her waist and up to her breasts. ‘Oh, yes, now these freckles. I cannot just count, I must kiss.’

He bent his head and began to touch her skin with his lips, down, along her collar bone, down to the swell of her breasts. Decima shifted restlessly under the relentlessly soft caress, then his lips captured one nipple and she arched up in shock. ‘Adam!’

‘Not so impatient.’ His breath teased across to the other breast, the other nipple, rousing an ache that filled her body. He nipped suddenly, gently, with his teeth, then, as she was writhing against his mouth, he released her and she sensed him moving away.

It was momentary. Adam’s weight came down on the bed beside her and she felt the whole length of him, naked against her side. His arm went across her body, holding her as she shivered in reaction. Tentatively Decima opened her eyes and found him watching her.

‘I love you,’ he murmured and his hand moved, slid downwards, cupped for a moment against the tangle of hair and then, as she moaned, unable to take her eyes from his, one finger slid into the secret place that was aching so insistently.

The flood of sensation was overwhelming, shameful, pleasurable, beyond her dreams. Decima closed her eyes and turned into Adam’s body, instinctively trying to hide her nakedness against his. He turned and she found herself beneath him, his knee gently urging her thighs to part.

‘Trust me, sweetheart.’ She nodded, gasped his name, hardly able to think rationally as her body took over, reacted to his hands and his body. She shifted, cradling him between her thighs, restless until his weight came down and she could arch beneath him, secure, held, throbbing with need for him.

‘Decima, open your eyes, look at me.’ She tried to obey, dragged her lids apart, gazed into the hot, grey-green depths of his and saw desire and need and love and a kind of worship. ‘Trust me.’ And he thrust, filling her as her body bowed up under his, then withdrawing, returning, while the sudden sharp pain vanished to be replaced by a building, driving need. She cried out, her arms tight around him, letting him sweep her along. It seemed she must die—no one could withstand this. Hazily she remembered thinking she was strong, that she could follow him where he led her.

‘Adam!’ She cried his name, words of love, gasps that were not words, and something happened, something crested and burst and the black behind her eyes vanished in a blaze of light and she was sinking down, back into a velvet, throbbing darkness.

She came to herself to find she was held against a bare chest. Tentatively she moved her legs and found that Adam was stretched full length beside her. Her body was heavy with the memory of pleasure, relaxed beyond anything she could ever recall. Opening her eyes was hard, but she wanted to see him, wanted to see what expression his eyes would hold.

He was watching her, waiting for her. Their eyes met and words did not seem necessary. His hands began to drift, then his lips found hers again and Decima discovered that it was possible for perfection to become better.

How much later it was when she woke she had no idea. This time Adam was out of bed, padding round the room in bare feet, his long frame clad in one of his gorgeous Oriental dressing gowns as he touched a taper to the candles.

He turned as he heard her stir and came across, bent and took her mouth with an intensity that had her reaching up for him. ‘I love you,’ she murmured.

‘I love you, too, and, if we don’t soon have something to eat, neither of us is going to have the strength to prove it all over again,’ he teased.

‘We have to cook?’ Decima stretched. Her muscles felt oiled and sleek.

‘No. Look.’ Adam opened a door. Decima got out of bed, blushed all over when she remembered she was naked, and caught a sheet around her. The next chamber was a dressing room and in the middle of it stood a tub, full of steaming water. The dressing table was set out with her brushes and little silver pots and hanging from the doors of the press were dresses and petticoats.

‘Pru?’

‘And Bates.’ Adam pulled aside a curtain. Through the trees Decima could see lights twinkling. ‘There’s a snug gardener’s cottage. We won’t see them, but the horses are stabled, there will be food on the table shortly and for two days we can run away from the world.’

‘But Pru and Bates aren’t…I mean, I shouldn’t countenance…’ Decima followed Adam’s gaze to where the big bed stood, the sheets a rumpled testimony to an afternoon of lovemaking. ‘Oh.’ She could feel the blush mounting her cheeks and hid her confusion by burying her face in the thick silk of Adam’s dressing gown.

‘I do love you, Decima Ross,’ Adam murmured into her tousled hair. ‘And if you could think clearly after I’ve made love to you I would not take that as much of a compliment. Now, come and let me soap you all over while we congratulate ourselves on our excellent matchmaking skills.’

Decima let him peel away the sheet and slid into the warm, scented water with a soft sigh of pleasure. ‘But everyone must get married soon,’ she said firmly, trying to resist a whimper of delight as Adam squeezed a soapy sponge over her.

‘Absolutely,’ he agreed seriously. ‘I cannot speak for Bates, or Freshford for that matter, but I have every intention of applying for a licence at the earliest possible opportunity. Meanwhile…’ he bent to nibble her earlobe ‘…meanwhile, I intend practising making love to you as often as I can.’

‘Yes, Adam,’ Decima agreed meekly. ‘It is regrettable that it appears to make us late for meals, but I cannot help but feel it is my duty to practise as much as possible to please you.’ She rather spoilt this pious wifely hope by turning to curl wet arms around his shoulders. ‘I do love you, Adam.’

‘And I love you.’ He got to his feet and pulled off the dressing gown. ‘Do you think this bathtub will hold both of us? Because I fully intend being very late for dinner.’

Downstairs in the kitchen Pru shut the oven door firmly on a beef casserole, set the bread and butter on the table and smiled at Jethro Bates. ‘There, that won’t spoil, never mind how late they are. Now, what shall we have for dinner?’