Chapter 21
"I'll arrange everything." Beth was filled with a warm trust which eased away her anxieties. She returned his smile and climbed the stairs.
She did not quite feel it appropriate to put on her nightwear, however, and changed her walking gown for a soft muslin with simple drawstrings at neck and waist. She had Redcliff brush her hair into its natural style. She didn't even bother with the cosmetics to hide the bruise. Without honesty there is nothing.
Finally she gave Redcliff the evening off and lay on the chaise in her boudoir. The events of the afternoon had already become like a dream. Had she really been held at gunpoint in danger of her life? She remembered the threat to Lucien's life, however, with crystal clarity. Her heart started pounding even at the thought. Oh, it was frightening to love like this. What had this to do with Self-Control?
There was no place in her heart for rationalization, no place for moral judgment. She remembered him saying, "Even if you were debauched, I would still love you." She felt exactly the same. Love was a madness, a tyrant.
It was wonderful.
When he walked in she smiled and held out her hand. He came over and sat on the edge of the chaise. He had discarded his jacket, his waistcoat, and his cravat. In the open-necked lawn shirt and buff pantaloons he looked relaxed and... and accessible.
She raised a hand and touched the skin of his chest at the base of his throat.
"How can you look so bright-eyed?" he asked as he covered her hand with his. He felt hot to her fingers.
"Because I'm in love," she replied softly.
"So am I. Remarkable, isn't it?"
"Convenient, at least," she teased. "You were worried once, I remember, about me falling in love with someone else."
He shook his head and drew her into a warm embrace. "Don't. I don't ever want to think about the things that have happened, the things we have said. Let's put everything behind us."
She rubbed her cheek slowly against his chest. The fine weave of his shirt was silky soft, but his flesh beneath seemed to burn. She could sense the pounding of his heart and each breath brought the warm and musky scent that was his alone. "I don't want to forget anything," she said. "Everything that is you, I will cherish to my dying day."
His fingers gently traced her discolored cheek. "Even this?"
"Even that," she said, looking up at his troubled face. "Because I know it will never happen again. The circumstances were a little strange, after all."
It was most extraordinary. All he was doing was holding her and yet her mouth was dry and her heart was pounding. A faint, aching need was growing in her that was driving her. Demanding. She reached up and took his face between her hands.
"Kiss me, Lucien."
His mouth settled on hers, slick and hot, assuaging some of her hunger. Her hands slipped into the crisp silk of his hair to hold him close and she opened to taste the sweetness of him. His tongue played against hers, and her whole world concentrated into that point of contact. Then she collapsed back and his solid warmth settled over her so that the delight extended the length of her body, every part in contact with him.
It was not nearly enough.
She felt his hand at her breast through the soft muslin, a thumb rubbing softly at her nipple. When the kiss ended, his mouth trailed down to play at the same spot, and a shudder passed through her like a wave.
He deftly changed their positions so she was lying in his lap. Clever fingers made short work of the drawstring at the neckline of her gown. Beth made a brief, instinctive move of denial but then relaxed. She was his. He smoothed the creamy material back from her breasts.
"Ah, my darling," he breathed softly as one long finger slowly circled first one nipple then the other. Watching her with a loving smile he played with her. Beth was trapped by his passionate eyes as her body was caught in delicious, spiraling magic. Then his mouth came down, warm and moist to tease her.
Beth released a shuddering sigh. "Oh heavens. Oh, Venus and Mars," she whispered.
"What?" he asked, laughing.
"I'll tell you sometime. Not now. Don't stop."
"Oh, I won't, my love," he said huskily, his fingers returning to their magic game. "Just promise me there's no surprise guest next door. No secrets lurking."
Beth shook her head, hot and dizzy. "Nothing." She feasted her eyes on his beauty. The long muscles of his neck begged to be stroked, and she raised her hand to them. Then she boldly slid her hand inside the neckline of his shirt to feel the rippling muscles of his shoulder.
He caught his breath and she hesitated. "Am I allowed to do this?" she asked.
He stripped off his shirt. "You can do anything, Beth. Touch me anywhere. Ask anything of me."
Beth looked at his beautiful torso and licked her lips. It was finely muscled and tawny from some type of masculine outdoor exercise. She wondered what, and if she might have the chance to watch. There was a line of golden curls down the center of his chest, and she reached up to tangle her finger in them.
"You are very beautiful, my husband."
"And so are you, my dearest wife."
Beth moved to plant little kisses over his warm and silky skin and found this brought her naked breasts against his chest, where they found a new delicious pleasure. She heard his breathing become ragged and delighted in it. Perhaps Venus could take part as well as Mars. She let her tongue begin to trace moist patterns working towards his small, flat nipples. He stood suddenly with her in his arms.
"My room, you requested, madam?"
"That was only because of Clarissa," Beth mumbled, continuing her delicious work.
"Never mind," he said unsteadily and twirled her around and around across the room.
At the door he bent slightly and Beth turned the knob. They progressed through the sequence of rooms somewhat unsteadily, but finally arrived at his bedroom.
Beth had never been here before. It was, as he had said, very much like her own save that the colors were greens and golds, not blues. The bed was larger and had a canopy over it with curtains hanging down which tied back against the wall. When he laid her down on the silken cover, she saw the underside of the canopy was decorated with his coat of arms.
Beth chuckled. "For the glory and honor of the de Vaux!" she declared, opening her arms.
He fell beside her on the bed so that the whole solid frame shuddered. "Indeed yes. Lots and lots of little de Vaux. Don't mind the escutcheon," he said, laying a flat possessive hand on her abdomen. "It was commissioned by my grandmother for my father. She didn't think he was sufficiently aware of his dignity."
"The duke?" Beth queried in surprise. Her mind seemed to be neatly divided—one half in passion, aware of his hand as a fire which burnt its way into her, the other still capable of rational conversation. She decided to try fingers on his nipples. Then, gently, her nails.
Lucien sucked in a sharp breath. "He was... less starchy in his youth, I gather. Beth!" He captured her hand and kissed each fingertip moistly. Then he began to suck on them. He rolled onto his back and carried her with him so she lay on top of him. "Don't worry," he said as his fingers loosened the waist-tie at her back, "I've been sleeping under the thing since I left the nursery and it hasn't stiffened me yet." The drawstring fell loose, and her dress was held in place by nothing at all.
Lucien's fingers played messages on her bare back. "But speaking of stiffening...." he said softly.
Positioned as she was, Beth was perfectly, and nervously, aware of his stiffening. All unconsciously, she wriggled, and he caught his breath and held her still. With a wicked smile, Beth fought his hold and wriggled again. She had never realized what fun it could be to stir a response.
"God save me," he muttered and rolled her off him. "Listen, you delicious wanton, you can seduce me and drive me to incoherent delight as often as you want after the first time, but I'd rather have some hold on my senses just now."
"Why?"
"Because I don't want to hurt you, my love," he said seriously, cradling her head, "and believe it or not, I've never taken virginity before."
"That's ridiculous."
"Why?" he asked as his hand slipped down the front of her body and came to rest at the cleft of her thighs. "I can't see that it adds to the pleasure. Look what it's doing to us now. I could be lying helpless under your delectable, wriggling body." He leaned down and brushed his lips softly over hers. "Let me love you, Beth, and carry you to delight. This time, just let me love you...."
It hardly needed the touch of his lips to spin her beyond thought, beyond control, beyond everything except pure sensation. His hands worked tantalizingly up her body beneath her loosened gown. It was up and over her head and she was naked. She hardly noticed, except that it was better to have her skin against his. She wrapped her arms around his chest and filled her mouth with his flesh. It was a hunger she felt. A driving need to engulf and possess.
He left her briefly and returned. Now the contact was complete, head to toe. He parted her legs and moved between. Suddenly, the hunger, the need, the ache, all centered there.
"Lucien," she moaned.
"I know, love," he said unevenly. "I know." He began to slide slowly, tentatively, into her. Beth's need coalesced into driving hunger. This. This was what she wanted. She rose to meet him and the brief pain was nothing. She wrapped her legs around him in fierce delight.
* * *
She lay in the dim evening light, resting her head on his shoulder, playing gently with the sweat-damp curls on his chest. "That was remarkable," she said.
"Thank you," he replied. His chest shook slightly with a chuckle.
"Oh. Was it just you, then?" she asked with an assumption of innocence. "Would it not be like that with anyone?"
"Beth," he warned.
She turned on her front and looked up at him. "No free love?"
He tried to look stern. "Only with me."
Beth began to feel breathless again just looking at him. A Greek god. She'd thought that when she'd first seen him, and it had terrified her. Now it excited her. His hair was in disarray and darkened by sweat along his brow. His color was heightened, and his eyes seemed a brighter blue than ever. His magnificent body was stretched beside her, smooth and muscular. Hers. Hers to touch, to taste, to take within her.
"And you?" she asked. "Will there be free love for you?"
He gathered her into a fierce embrace. "Impossible. I can't imagine wanting any other woman, my pearl. You radicals do have a way of taming the aristocracy, don't you?"
"We'll do anything for the cause," said Beth contentedly.
* * *
It was a considerable time later that they ordered a meal. It was already dusk and the candles had to be lit. They were hungry by then, but that didn't stop them feeding one another tidbits and stopping often for a kiss. They talked of their time together and the time before they had been together. For the first time they shared the hidden parts—the hurts and disappointments of their lives, the hopes and the dreams.
Beth tentatively raised the question of social issues and found that in his own way, he was not indifferent. One of the reasons there were so many servants in the de Vaux houses, he told her, was to give employment. It was family policy to buy local products as much as possible and they were careful of the needs of their tenants.
Beth's instinct might say that it was not enough when the family continued to live in such rich state and yet she had learned to balance two very different realities. Little purpose would be served by the de Vaux family going off to live in a cottage on dark bread and stew. It was enough for the moment to know that her beloved did not look on hardship with callous indifference.
The clocks were striking midnight when they extinguished the guttering candles and climbed into the big bed to snuggle together. Beth let her hands stroke over the beloved contours of his back, but he captured them.
"Oh no, you don't, you enchantress. I'll go odds you'll be sore enough tomorrow as it is. And I'm only a mortal man, you know."
But Beth was a clever student and would not be restrained. "Hoc volo, sic iubio, sit pro ratione voluntas," she said with a grin as she slid on top of him and wriggled. "I refuse to be reasonable. What I want, I get. And I want to seduce you to incoherent delight."
She saw his eyes darken, but he grabbed her to try and hold her still. "Back to the schoolroom for you, my girl," he said huskily. "That is not a good translation."
Beth nibbled on the nearest tasty object, which happened to be his earlobe. His grip relaxed. "At a time like this, Lucien," she muttered, "you expect a good translation?"
"I've lost faith in the classics entirely," he said unsteadily as she moved to one side and her hand wandered down past his navel. "God, Beth...."
She found the hot, velvety firmness of him. "And what have the classics to do with this?" she asked softly.
"Juvenal," he said like a groan. "'Nemo repente fuit terpissimus. No one becomes depraved in a moment.' The man was a fool, or he just didn't know anyone like you." Softly in the dark he added, "Poor man."