Awash in a stunned awareness, Vivien read the truth in Michael’s grim features. He had been cuckolded by his childhood friend. Betrayed in the most despicable way possible. No wonder they’d fought a duel. No wonder he still loathed Lord Faversham.
Then her mind made another shocking leap. Her mouth went bone-dry, so that she could barely speak. “Amy—”
He said nothing, though the starkness of anguish in his blue eyes spoke volumes. Dear God. Amy had been sired by Lord Faversham? “Are you certain?” she whispered.
He looked away from her, staring fiercely down the deserted corridor. “It can’t be proven. So don’t repeat it.”
She drew in a shaky breath, then expelled it slowly. “I would never speak of this to anyone. Please believe that.”
Michael brought his gaze back to her. His agonized, skeptical gaze. Heartsore, she stared at him, letting all of her love shine in her eyes. A faithless wife explained his mistrust of women. His mistrust of her.
No wonder he’d barred Lord Faversham from his house. No wonder he’d lashed out with his fists. He feared losing his beloved daughter. Vivien felt his torment as if it were hers, too. The threat of another man laying claim to Amy must be eating at him like acid.
And she had so blithely ignored Michael’s wishes and led Lord Faversham upstairs.
Feeling inadequate to comfort him, she put her arms around him, pressing her cheek to his clenched jaw and reaching up to stroke his hair. His body felt rigid with tension. “I should have stopped the earl,” she murmured. “Oh, what have I done?”
“It isn’t your fault. Brand does as he damn well pleases.”
Remembering the earl’s interest in Amy, Vivien lifted her head. “Do you think...he knows, then?”
A muscle worked in his jaw. “She was nearly a year old when I realized the truth. For the three years since then, I believed he didn’t know,” he said, the words sounding dragged from him. “Until tonight. The way he looked at her...” His voice broke off, and his gaze pierced her with an almost frightening intensity. “Vow on your life you will tell no one of this.”
“Of course,” she said. “I would never, ever betray you or Amy.”
He regarded her with a cynical aloofness, and she knew with despair that it would take time and patience to prove to him that she wasn’t like his late wife. But she would convince him. She must convince him.
And perhaps he already did trust her, at least a little, for he had allowed her to befriend his daughter, a right he had given to only a select few. The thought filled her with a hopeful warmth.
The sound of voices came from the far end of the corridor. Several ladies in costume rounded the corner. Their giggling conversation echoed down the long passageway with its Gothic tables against the stone walls.
Michael hissed out a breath from between his teeth.
Sheltering her with his body, he thrust open the nearest door and urged her inside. Vivien had the swift impression of a rather small room with shelves full of linens, and a large worktable holding neat stacks of bedsheets. Then he closed the door, plunging them into total darkness.
He held her close so that she felt the steady beating of his heart. Out in the corridor, the ladies strolled past, probably on their way to freshen up before the midnight supper. As their chatter faded into the distance again, she leaned into Michael, letting his heat radiate into her.
How she wanted to heal him, to help him forget—at least for a short while—the dreadful burden he bore. And deep down, she admitted she also craved a memory to take with her when she returned to the Rom. Sliding her arms around his waist, she smoothed her palms up and down his muscled back, tilting her head to kiss his throat and jaw.
The tension in him altered subtly. His hands skimmed over her shoulders and down to her waist, where he gripped her tightly. “Vivien,” he muttered.
He lowered his head, but she needed no encouragement. Eagerly she lifted her face to meet his questing mouth. He kissed her hard and deep and long, and she surrendered to the rush of passion. The darkness heightened her other senses. The faint scent of soap clung to his flesh, along with his alluring masculine musk. He tasted of wine and wickedness, of all the sins she ached to learn from him. From Michael alone.
He tugged down her bodice and cupped her breasts, weighing them in his hands, his thumbs stroking the tips. Pleasure jolted her so that she shuddered in his arms. Then he did something even more extraordinary. He bent down and suckled her, tasting her with his tongue and teeth until she almost swooned.
With a whispery moan, she writhed against him, trying to press herself as close as possible to him. Her hands moved restively over the smoothly hewn muscles of his shoulders and chest.
“Tell me you want me,” he said gruffly in her ear. “Say it.”
“I want you,” Vivien murmured readily. She no longer cared if loving him was right or wrong. She knew she couldn’t live another moment without him. Without this. “Oh, Michael, I’m yours. Only yours.”
He made an unintelligible sound of satisfaction in his throat. Then he undressed her quickly, stripping off her bodice and sash and skirt until she stood naked before him. Cloaked by darkness, she felt only a twinge of modesty. How gloriously decadent to feel his large hands on her, touching places no other man had ever touched.
His fingers glided over the globes of her breasts, brushed the indentation of her waist and roamed downward to her hips. She arched to him, impatient to experience again that wondrously intimate caress. As if he’d read her mind, he touched her exactly where she ached, and she gasped from the ever-increasing torment of arousal, burying her face in his throat to muffle the little cries she uttered. The skillful stroking of his fingers made her twist and moan from a maddening swell of passion.
He took her right to the verge, then withdrew his hand without satisfying her. Kissing the protest from her lips, he guided her a few steps backward through the darkness until her thighs met softness. There, he pressed her down onto something cool and smooth. She smelled the freshness of starched linen.
The bedsheets. The table.
In a daze, she sank back, her legs too weak to support her. Through the shadows came the rustle of his clothing, the tiny ping of a button that rolled away on the floor, his curse of impatience. A faint light seeped in from beneath the door, enough for her to see the dark shape of him looming over her. Then he came down onto her, his body strong and hard, as naked as hers but oh, so wonderfully different.
She explored him with her hands, admiring the texture and contour of muscle and flesh. On a dim level of rationality, she was amazed at herself. He was a nobleman. But she felt no misgivings, no panic, no shame, only a burning desire to become one with Michael Kenyon. He was her bokht, her fate and her fortune. The man who was destined to ignite a fire in her heart.
His male member lay thick and hot between her legs. Yet still he didn’t join their bodies. He stroked her and kissed her until she murmured incoherent words of pleading in a mixture of English and Romany.
“I’ve dreamed of this,” he said, his voice rough and low. “Of you, Vivien.”
She touched his cheek, faintly bristly against her fingertips. “I’ve dreamed of you, too, vestacho."
“Vestacho?”
“Beloved,” she translated, pressing a kiss to his chest and tasting the saltiness of his skin. “You’re my beloved.”
He said nothing to that, and despite the darkness, she felt his brooding disbelief in the faint glittering of his eyes. He didn’t love her, she knew. Yet Vivien felt a soul-deep tenderness, for her own love ran strong and true.
Then he positioned himself over her, and it seemed the most natural act in the world to open her legs to receive him. From nature, she knew the way of mating, yet the reality of it surprised her. She hadn’t expected him to be so large, like a stallion. Nor had she anticipated the stabbing pain of his entry or the whimper it wrested from her.
He went utterly still. “Vivien?”
Incredulity underscored his raspy tone, and she sensed that even faced with the proof, he doubted her virginity.
She answered his question before he asked, saying fiercely, “Yes. You are my first, my only.”
His harsh breaths broke the silence. Braced on his elbows, he regarded her through the darkness. After a long moment, he bent his head to her, his lips nuzzling her hair, a curious roughness to his voice. “Are you...still hurting?”
“No,” she whispered, closing her eyes. “You feel wonderful. We were made for each other.” It was true. As the discomfort subsided, she undulated her hips, marveling at the way he filled her so completely.
He uttered a tortured sound deep in his throat. He withdrew a bit, then slowly pushed back in, his movements incredibly sensual. Again and again he did so, each time increasing the fervor inside her. When she caught the rhythm of his thrusts, he quivered and a groan of pleasure tore from him. She knew, then, the power she wielded over him. She belonged to him, and whether he admitted so or not, he also belonged to her. Their joining was an act of mutual possession.
He kissed her with gentle savagery, arousing her with his mouth and his hands until Vivien thought she might die of need. She writhed and twisted beneath him, gasping from the urgency inside her. Just when she feared she could bear no more of the torment, she fell headlong into ecstasy, into a pulsating pleasure more brilliant than a thousand stars. His body shuddered from the force of his climax, and she sensed him right there in heaven with her, making her joy all the sweeter.
It was done.
In the quiet aftermath, Michael came to a gradual awareness of his surroundings. His chest heaved, and the sweat began to cool on his skin. He felt wrung dry, yet supremely satisfied.
Vivien was his. His alone.
She lay beneath him, her face tucked into the crook of his neck, her breath warm and ragged. They were still joined, and he felt no inclination to disengage himself as he did with other women. In truth, he should have withdrawn in the moment before spilling his seed; he had taken a serious risk. Yet oddly, he felt no regrets.
He wanted to crow like a barnyard cock. He had been her first. No other man had known the wildness of her passion. No other man had aroused her to the ultimate pleasure. No other man had heard her whisper ardently in the darkness.
Vestacho.
Beloved.
Something very tender clenched in his chest. He swiftly discounted the feeling. Her fervent declaration made him uneasy, that was all. Being an innocent, she would believe herself in love. She had yet to learn they shared no more than an uncommonly intense lust.
He only hoped he could trust her with his secret.
He grimaced to recall his original plan to dishonor her and present the evidence to his grandmother. What a blind fool he’d been not to see her naiveté. But Vivien belonged to him now. He would kill the man who dared to touch her.
The darkness surrounded them in intimacy. He could see the faint glow of her skin, the curve of breasts and hips. When he shifted to get a better view, the table creaked, and he couldn’t help chuckling.
“Why do you laugh?” she asked sleepily.
“We’re in a damned linen closet, that’s why.”
“Your linens are soft, milord.” She stretched sinuously, sending his temperature soaring. “And truly, I desire nothing else to be soft.”
He smiled, stirred by the gentle kisses she strewed across his chest. It was madness to stay here. The table was too small for his large frame. They would be far more comfortable making love in his wide bed. But he balked at separating himself from her, at donning clothing when her naked flesh tempted him like a pagan offering.
It was far too soon for him, of course. That wild release had consumed him. Yet he couldn’t resist moving in her again, his thrusts slow and easy. Her velvety channel hugged him like a tight glove. She moaned softly, her hips rising to his. How responsive she was, how perfectly formed. An exquisite creation of womanhood, all ripe curves and sensual nature. Now that he’d had her once, he could take his time enjoying her.
Bending his head, he lapped at her nipple, and instantly it contracted into a taut bud. She sighed out his name, that one breathy sound delivering an amazing rush of vigor to his loins. With effort he held to his unhurried pace, taking pleasure in kissing the satin warmth of her skin, caressing her breasts and thighs, drinking the honey of her mouth. Like an erotic dream, she locked her legs around his waist, drawing him deeper into heaven. She whispered to him in her exotic tongue, and more than once she spoke that endearment to him.
Vestacho...
Her soft utterances excited him to a fever pitch. Never had he felt such a forceful need. Never had he desired a woman as fiercely as he desired Vivien. Never had he become aroused again so quickly. It was like a wild infatuation, his craving for her. He fought for control, fought to keep from climaxing before her. Desperate, he reached between them and stroked her. She cried out at once, her body convulsing around him, and in the throes of a powerful pleasure, he emptied himself into her.
This time, he knew he would want her again, so he rolled onto his back and brought her over onto him. He was far from done with her. For timeless minutes, she lay sprawled over him in charming exhaustion, her legs hugging him, her head nestled under his chin. Idly he stroked her, enjoying the creamy texture of her skin and the feminine curves of her waist and backside. Her bosom was pressed against his chest, but he could still caress the plump globes.
She stirred, her bottom wriggling delightfully.
He stirred, too, when he’d thought himself drained. “Temptress,” he growled. “You make me feel like a randy adolescent instead of a man of one-and-thirty.”
In a throaty purr, she said, “Men do not make love so often?” Then she undulated her hips...to spectacular results.
He sucked in a breath. “Men,” he said, taking firm hold of her teasing backside, “learn to control their base urges. To take their time in pleasuring a woman.”
“You’ve pleasured me well, milord marquess. I trust you’ll do so again.”
She brushed a tender kiss over his mouth, and with unsteady hands, he cupped her head, leisurely tasting her with his tongue and lips. He could not get his fill of her. Already he felt the hot rise of lust.
Voices intruded from the outer corridor. Lifting her head, Vivien broke the kiss. “Dosta!” she whispered, a note of alarm in her voice. “The guests.”
He, too, had forgotten about the party, though he wouldn’t admit so to her. No one else had existed for him but Vivien. Wrapped in the intimacy of darkness, he had only a rough idea of how long they’d been at their pleasure.
“It’s late,” he said gruffly. “The party must be ending.”
“Shh.” She put her finger to his lips. “Someone will hear us.”
Her sudden attack of modesty amused him. On a devilish whim, he sought out her cleft, stroking slowly in the way she liked.
Vivien muffled her gasp against his throat. "Stop,” she moaned, her voice a wisp of sound. “Oh, please.”
“I thought you liked this.”
“I do.” She caught her breath. “Oh, yes...there...”
Then it was no longer so amusing when she reached down and explored him with delicate fingertips, torturing his exquisitely sensitive flesh. He clamped his teeth to suppress a groan. “Seductress,” he hissed.
“Seducer,” she breathed in his ear.
The footsteps stopped right outside their door. A man and a woman. Their voices sounded familiar.
Abruptly tense, Vivien ceased her tantalizing massage. “Viscount Beldon...and the duchess,” she whispered, so low Michael barely heard her.
He had noticed that hint of loathing in Vivien’s tone on several other occasions. For some reason, she harbored an intense dislike for the duchess. Had the shrew been rude to her? Michael wouldn’t stand for it. He resolved to ask Vivien, but not now.
The muffled smacking of lips came from outside the linen closet. Clenching his muscles, he prepared himself to shield her if the door opened. Not that anyone else in their right mind would choose such a ridiculous place to make love.
The duchess giggled like a coquette, and then the pair strolled away. A few moments later, a door closed somewhere down the passageway.
“They’re gone,” Michael said, setting himself to the pleasure of fondling Vivien again. “The hag took him to her bed.”
Vivien clasped his wrists. “But...she’s married. The duke didn’t accompany her here.”
It struck him hard just how innocent Vivien really was.
He felt old and world-weary, aware of the vast differences between them. No wonder he hadn’t recognized her purity. For so long, he’d known only noblewomen who schemed and manipulated. He’d used them in turn, enjoying their bodies until he tired of them. He intended to marry one of them. The notion held a sudden distaste. “That’s the way of the ton."
“Well, I don’t accept it. You shouldn’t, either. Not after what happened to you.”
A familiar anger smoldered in him, but he shoved it away, focusing his mind on Vivien. “If fornication is wrong,” he said, caressing her backside, “then we’re sinners, too.”
“Perhaps,” she whispered. “Yet we aren’t betraying anyone else.”
“A trifling detail.”
He cupped her warm breast, seeking to distract her, but she firmly pushed his hand away. “No, listen to me. Marriage is sacred. A husband and wife take vows of devotion. They should cleave only unto each other.”
Did she really believe that? Half of him wanted to trust in her sincerity, the other half—the cynical half—told him she was playacting in order to gain power over him. Grace had appeared just as genuine.
“Such loyalty doesn’t exist,” he said bluntly. “You’d know that if you had more experience.”
“I know that miro dado and miro dye would never betray one another. Nor would others of the Rom." Her soft murmur turned challenging. “But perhaps no one in your English society possesses such honor.”
He tensed. “When there are two consenting adults, there is no dishonor.”
“Oh? Then you shouldn’t be angry at Lord Faversham. Unless Lady Grace didn’t agree.”
“Hell, yes, she agreed,” he said tersely. “But I didn’t. She was my wife.”
“Ah,” Vivien said, a quietly triumphant note to her voice. “So you do believe in fidelity.”
Damn the minx. She’d cleverly twisted his words. “I believe in protecting what is mine.”
Drawing her close, he kissed her long and deep, conveying to her in no uncertain terms that she belonged to him. He felt resistance in her, but only for a moment. Then she softened and embraced him, feverishly opening her legs to mount him. As one, they were caught up in the rhythm of passion and the increasing tumult of their bodies. She came first, her delicate shivers and sweet moans sending him over the edge. The pleasure was so intense he sank into an exhausted stupor, and when he awakened later, Vivien slept in his arms, her long silken hair draping them.
An unfathomable tenderness crept through him. Touching his lips to her brow, he breathed deeply, inhaling her exotic fragrance and the scent of their lovemaking. Slowly he became aware of the lumps and bumps beneath them. The linens had shifted during their vigorous activities. One side of him rested against the hard table.
Because of the darkness, he didn’t know how much time had passed, but no doubt the servants would be going about their duties soon, if they weren’t already. A maid could walk in on them. He wouldn’t allow Vivien to suffer the embarrassment of discovery. Her reputation would be ruined.
He grimaced. People already thought her a thief. Due to her unusual upbringing, she’d been tarred by the brush of suspicion. But his own arrogant misjudgment of her had been turned topsy-turvy. If he’d been wrong about her chastity, could he also be wrong to believe her dishonest?
Troubled, he eased out from under her and levered his bare feet to the floor. He stretched his stiff muscles, then donned shirt and breeches while rethinking his convictions. There was the forged letter from Harriet Althorpe, of course. But perhaps he’d only imagined the discrepancies in Miss Althorpe’s penmanship. He’d been twelve years of age when he’d gone off to Eton, right before she’d left. He might be mistaken about the letter. And Vivien might be telling the truth about giving the one hundred guineas a month to her crippled father.
If she were not lying...
He drew a deep breath. If she was indeed Harriet Althorpe’s natural daughter, she would be considered gentry. An unconventional wife, but one who might learn to enjoy society.
Wife.
The stunning prospect shook the foundations of his beliefs. A few weeks ago, he’d made a rational decision to marry Katherine, a woman bred to his world and suited to perform the myriad roles of wife to a man of his rank. Now that thought filled him with aversion. He didn’t want another frivolous society lady who spent her days planning extravagant balls or indulging her whims at the shops on Bond Street.
He wanted fire. Laughter. Love.
His fingers curled into fists. Fool! Hadn’t he learned his lesson from Grace? Never again would he let a woman own his heart. Nevertheless, he craved a woman who made him feel alive again, one who fit perfectly into the part of his world he kept closed off from society. His family life with Amy.
Katherine had never sought his daughter’s company as Vivien had done. He was ashamed to realize that he should have put that consideration first. Vivien was a natural mother. She adored Amy as much as he did.
Gripped by a savage protectiveness, he stared into the darkness. He had loved Amy from the moment the nurse had placed her in his arms, a tiny swaddled infant, slumbering peacefully, with the most beautifully delicate features he’d ever seen. At the time, he’d had no reason to believe she wasn’t his, and when he did stumble upon the truth many months later, the irrefutable evidence that explained why Grace had always discouraged him from visiting his daughter in the nursery, he could no more reject Amy than he could cut out his own heart.
Faversham wouldn’t lay claim to Amy. He must never know that proof existed of his paternity. Nor must Vivien know.
And if he proved her a fraud? He would have a tougher decision to make, then. He didn’t give a tinker’s damn what other people thought, but there was Amy to consider. He would allow no one to hurt his daughter.
Bending down, he kissed Vivien. Her purr of protest made him wish she lay in sunlight so he could watch her come awake after a night of loving. He wanted to bed her again. The temptation was surprisingly strong, considering he’d already taken his pleasure of her so many times.
He slid his fingers down her warm hills and valleys, then lightly slapped her backside. “Up with you now,” he whispered. “It’s almost morning.”
Just that fast, Vivien hopped off the table. “Morning! Why didn’t you awaken me sooner?”
“You exhausted me, darling. We’re damned lucky a maid didn’t walk in on us.”
“The servants,” she moaned. “They’ll see us.”
She scrambled around, hunting down her clothing in the gloom, and he gallantly assisted her, stealing a touch now and then as he helped her dress. “Oh, do stop,” she said breathily, when she’d pushed his hand away a dozen times. “We’ll never be out of here.”
“Mm,” he growled, dragging her against him, brushing his mouth over hers. “I’ve developed a new liking for linen cupboards.”
She parted her lips for a brief, tender kiss. “Vestacho,” she murmured, touching his bristled cheek. “I’ll always remember this wonderful night.”
He felt an unmanly melting inside himself. Denying the dangerous rush of emotion, he stepped to the door and opened it. The dim light from the corridor seemed almost bright after the privacy of darkness. After glancing out to make certain the place was deserted, he beckoned to her. “Come, I’ll escort you to your chamber.”
She joined him in the doorway. “I can find my own way.”
“No,” he said, placing his hand firmly at the small of her back. “I’ll make sure you arrive there safely.” He couldn’t let her go off alone, looking so soft and beautiful, her recent pleasuring evident by her rosy lips and rumpled hair.
She opened her mouth as if to protest, then smiled sweetly, her lashes lowering slightly. That look made him hot for another long session of lovemaking. This time, in a proper bed.
As they walked down the deserted passageway, her hips grazed his, and he found himself rethinking his day, feverishly scheming how to arrange some time alone with her. “The guests will be leaving this morning,” he said, as they rounded the corner. “Perhaps after luncheon, we could meet somewhere private. My bedchamber.”
Shaking her head she laughed a little. “The Rosebuds would never allow it.”
“Where, then? There are a hundred places where no one would find us. The armory. The attic. The china closet, for God’s sake.”
They reached the door to her bedchamber. She looked up at him very tenderly, her eyes shining. “The library. But we shan’t be alone. I promised Amy a story, remember?”
“So you did.”
He wanted to watch her cuddle his daughter. He also wanted to see Vivien suckle their baby at her breast. No, he craved most of all the pleasure of planting his seed in her womb. He lusted for her now, with unabated madness, but surely she would be sore after her vigorous initiation. To use her again so soon would be selfish.
He gave her a farewell kiss that tempted the bounds of his control. She felt so warm, so willing, so right in his arms. “You’re mine,” he avowed fiercely. “I don’t ever want to let you go, not even for a moment.”
She rubbed her cheek against his. “Oh, Michael. I do love you so.”
Her declaration boggled him. With a ridiculously satisfied smile on his face, he watched as Vivien slipped into her bedchamber and shut the door.
Yes. She didn’t yet know it, but she would be his wife.