Chapter Sixteen
Graham took note of her response to his proclamation. Her breath caught, her eyes widened and her lips parted. But she did not back away, she did not cow from him, nor did she contradict him.
“I want you in my bed, Beatrice,” he admitted roughly. “But I will not force you there. It must be your choice.”
“Is it a choice? From the moment you returned, it is as if I have been falling downhill. Try as I might to catch myself, I simply keep tumbling headlong into this thing that we are both either unable or unwilling to name.”
He reached out, cupping her face. The softness of her skin was a wonder to him. “Is it so important to give it a name, then? Must we label what we are to one another?”
“No. Because the outcome will not change, regardless… have you seen all that you require in this chamber?” she asked.
“I have. Nothing in it has given me any inkling of what is truly afoot and who, if any, is a coconspirator.”
“We should return… the longer we’re here the more risky it becomes.”
Graham stepped back from her on a heavy sigh, reluctantly letting go of her. “Very well. I’ll escort you back to your room and say goodnight.”
“I do want you to escort me back to my room, but I hadn’t intended that you should leave me there alone. I had thought you would stay with me—that is what you want, after all? For us to become lovers?”
The words were uttered matter of factly, with little fanfare and no warning. He had prepared himself to be turned away, to be rejected by her. By all rights, she should turn him away. And yet, the invitation hung there between them, a promise of something that he had no doubt would alter both of their lives irrevocably.
“You’re certain?” He called himself a thousand kinds of fool for even offering her the chance to renege.
“I am certain… we cannot continue dancing around one another as we have. If you are Lord Blakemore, and I believe that you are with my whole heart, then you will never be my husband. But for now, for this short time until things are proven, you can be mine in the only way that I will ever have you.”
Graham didn’t hesitate a moment longer. He took her hand, tugging her behind him and back into the narrow corridor. The cape and hat lay forgotten behind them as they closed the panel and made for her chamber.
As they entered, he noted that the tray bearing her dinner had been delivered and Betsy was nowhere to be found. Quietly offering thanks that the maid understood the better part of discretion, he shut the panel as soon as Beatrice’s skirts were free of it. She preceded him into the room, crossing it with purpose, until she reached the bed.
He remained where he was, leaning back against the wall. For the longest moment, Graham simply stood there and looked at her. The simple truth was that he had no idea where to begin. The women of his experience had been well versed in the carnal arts. Beatrice, while passionate, was still an innocent and the rules of play as he knew them did not apply.
“Is something wrong?” she asked. “You’re looking at me very strangely.”
“It’s just that you’ve no idea how much I want you,” he admitted, his voice gruff and ragged.
She ducked her head, a blush staining her cheeks and a shy but cheeky smile turning her perfect lips up at the corners. “No, I do not. But even my limited understanding of what is about to take place points to the fact that I will never know if you continue to maintain the width of the room between us.”
He chuckled, which had no doubt been her intent. It was a pleasing counterpoint to the tension that, even during their most proper exchanges, remained ever present between them. “I’m nervous,” he admitted to her. “I’m not one for wooing and seduction. I’ve never had to be.”
“Since I’ve invited you into my chamber to go to bed with me, one could argue that you aren’t the seducer but the seducee,” she replied. “Does that alleviate your nerves in any way?”
“You deserve better than this… far better than me. You deserve a man who knows a gentle touch, whose hands aren’t rough and callused.”
She walked back to him, but said not a word. Instead, she reached for his hand, lifted it and pressed the tenderest of kisses into his palm. “I do not mind your work-roughened hands, your calluses or your scars. They are all part of what made you the man you are today, are they not?”
That simple touch, along with the complete and utter acceptance that she offered him, was his undoing. His arms snaked about her, tugging her closer until she was pressed fully against him, the weight of her breasts crushed against his chest a welcome torment. Her breath rushed out on parted lips and he swooped in, kissing her eagerly.
He claimed her lips like a man starved for them. In truth, he was. Every minute of every day when he did not have the taste of her on his lips was a moment wasted.
As she kissed him back eagerly, his blood thrummed in his veins, his pulse echoing in his ears as it pounded ferociously. Her hands pressed against his chest, sliding upward, over his shoulders. It was a timid caress, tame and fairly innocent by most standards, but his response to it was anything but.
Without warning, he simply scooped her into his arms and carried her toward the bed. As he deposited her there, he could see the uncertainty in her gaze.
“If you’ve changed your mind—”
“I haven’t,” she replied, her voice breathless and husky. “I’m simply nervous because I’ve no idea what I’m supposed to do.”
He settled onto the bed beside her, reaching for the simple ties that closed the bib front of her gown. “You do not have to do anything other than feel. If you like the way I touch you, tell me and I will continue it. If you do not, tell me and I will do something different. That is all.”
With the ties of the gown loosened, the fabric sagged. She clutched it to her chest for a moment and then with a boldness that hit him like a blow, let the bodice of her gown fall. The simple stays and shift she wore beneath did little to conceal the bounty. Above the sturdy white cotton, he could see the dusky pink of her areolas. Unable to resist, he reached out and cupped one lush mound, closing his hand over it and letting his thumb brush lightly over the sensitive peak. Her responding shudder was all the encouragement he needed.
Pressing her back onto the bed, he laid down beside her and continued his exploration. At every turn, he reminded himself to go slowly, to ensure that her desire for him surpassed any fear or reservations that she might have.
Kissing her neck, her collar bone, the tender skin just behind her ears, he continued to tease her nipples to aching awareness. A soft cry escaped her as he closed his thumb and forefinger over the taut little bud and rolled it gently. He repeated the movement and she arched her neck, her head falling back as a guttural moan escaped her.
“I feel like I’m burning up inside,” she murmured.
“We are burning,” he replied, carefully stripping her gown from her entirely. Loosening her stays, he slid the delicate straps down her arms until she could shrug free of it. Her petticoat was next. Then she lay before him wearing nothing but a thin linen petticoat and her stockings.
“When I rescued you at the Cauldron and brought you back here, it should have been the last thing on my mind,” he uttered, his hands coasting over every curve, into every dip and valley. “But the image of you clad only in your shift, your perfect body bared to me, has haunted me from that moment.”
“I was so embarrassed,” she admitted. “It was awful.”
“Do not ever be embarrassed,” he said. “You are beautiful. Perfect in every way.”
The words sounded trite to his own ears, but he did not possess the ability to tell her how much she moved him, how she consumed him. She was everything he’d ever dreamed of in a woman. Full, lush breasts with large, dusky-hued nipples that begged for the warmth of his mouth, ribs tapered to a narrow waist that flared out into generously curved hips and at the juncture of her thighs, the dark triangle of hair that shielded her most intimate parts beckoned him. He longed to stroke that flesh, to find her wet and ready for him. She was a virgin, but not some shy and innocent miss. Would she be shocked at all the things he wanted to do with her—all the ways he wished to explore the secrets of her body?
“You’ve no idea just how enticing you are,” he murmured thickly.
She reached upwards, closing her hands behind his neck and pressing the length of her nearly nude form against him. “Then show me.”
*
Perhaps it was her own heightened desire, or perhaps it was the way his heated gaze traveled over her, that emboldened her so. Whatever was responsible, Beatrice was more than ready to explore this much more risqué aspect of her character. With her naked breasts pressed against the rough cloth of his tattered shirt and the rasp of his woolen trousers against the soft skin of her thighs, she wanted nothing more than to have him naked as well, to feel the heat of his skin against her own.
“Do not let me linger in ignorance any longer,” she implored softly. “Touch me.”
Those words were like a catalyst. It was as if she’d struck a match to tinder. He lifted her then, heedless of his wound, and stripped her shift from her. But he was no longer content to lie beside her. He was above her now, his body pressed intimately against hers. He pressed his knee between hers, parting her thighs. She could feel the hard and unrelenting ridge of his manhood against her. He pressed against her more fully, his hips grinding against hers until she let out a shattered moan. Then he was gone, pushing his weight off her and taking stock of her nakedness.
Laid out beneath him, he touched her everywhere. His hands stroked over her, building the fire that burned inside her. Then his mouth followed, trailing hot kisses over her fevered flesh. He touched her everywhere—her shoulders, her neck, the swells of her breasts, the aching peaks of her nipples that made her cry out. But when he pressed a hot, open-mouthed kiss low on her belly, just above the thatch of curls at the apex of her thighs, panic struck her. Surely he did not mean to kiss her there?
Instinctively, she tried to clench her thighs together, to halt such an intimate invasion. But he placed strong hands just inside her knees, forcing them apart.
“You wanted to eradicate your ignorance, Beatrice. Do not let your bravado fail you now,” he challenged.
“You cannot mean to kiss me there,” she protested.
“But I do… I mean to taste you intimately, to know the very essence of you on my tongue. I mean to kiss you there until you shudder and cry from the pleasure of it. Has your courage failed you?”
“No,” she lied. It had failed her entirely. She wanted to flee from the erotic challenge she saw in his pointed gaze, from the gentle mocking of his slight smile as he surveyed her. But that was only part of her. The other part of her, the wanton creature who had been lurking inside her, demanded that she allow him to do just as he’d stated, that she savor every second of the decadent and hedonistic pleasure he offered.
As he lowered himself between her thighs, Beatrice tried to brace herself, tried to fathom what on earth it might feel like. Nothing could have prepared her for the reality, for the immediate surge of pleasure that washed through her as he kissed her. His tongue moved over flesh so sensitive that every touch seemed to arc outward until she felt it throughout her entire body.
Instinctively, she clenched her fingers in the bedclothes beneath her, searching for something to cling to as the world simply spun away from her. As his tongue speared inside her, intensifying sensations that already surpassed anything she could comprehend, she moaned his name desperately.
He was relentless. His mouth was ravenous on her flesh—nipping, licking, sucking at her until she was breathless and shuddering, poised on the brink of something that she both craved and feared. Her body was no longer hers to control but had been given over solely to him.
Every muscle tensed and quivered. Her entire body had drawn taut, aching with anticipation of whatever was just beyond. Her hips arched upward against his questing mouth and then she simply broke. The tension inside her shattered like glass and she cried out breathlessly as waves of pleasure coursed through her.
As she lay there struggling to regain her breath, to comprehend what it was that had just occurred, he was shedding his clothes. Each garment came off so swiftly that she had no time to study him, to take in and fully appreciate the differences in their forms.
Then he was, once again, nestled between her thighs, the hardness of his chest pressed against her, the thick ridge of his arousal against her thigh. She’d heard the maids giggling about such things. She’d also heard them uttering words of caution to the younger girls, warning of the pain that always accompanied the first time.
“Do not let your courage fail you now,” he uttered in a pained whisper. “Please, for the love of all that is holy, do not ask me to stop.”
“Would that be so very awful?” she teased. She would not, of course. Her own desire, curiosity and the very evident need that he felt all shored up her decision to stay the course.
“It might very well kill me,” he replied. His tone was serious but it was belied by the amused glint in his eye. He’d seen through her completely.
“For the sake of my conscience, I suppose I must endure,” she answered solemnly.
“Endure,” he repeated. “You are hard on a man’s vanity, Beatrice.”
Slipping her hand between them, she tentatively touched the hot flesh of his shaft, stroking it with her fingertips. A strangled sound escaped him, but when she looked up, she could see the pleasure etched there in the harsh planes and angles of his face. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have concerns.”
“Concerns are well and good… you’ve trusted me this far. Why not a bit further?” he asked.
“Why not, indeed,” she capitulated.
He removed her hand from him, pinned both of her hands above her head with one of his and said, “Do not move until I tell you to. I’ve little enough control left as it is without you exploring.”
The notion of him losing control appealed to her more than she cared to admit it. What would it be like to have such power—to rob a man like Graham of his self-control? She wanted to find out, but not in that moment. In that moment, she was fully content to let him take the lead and teach her what she needed to know.
He let go of her wrists, but she did not move her hands. Instead, she gripped the pillow beneath her head, biting her lip at the foreign sensation as he gently parted the folds of her sex. When he began to nudge inside her, panic returned. He felt too large, filling her so completely. She couldn’t breathe from the sensation of it.
“Relax,” he whispered, halting his movements as he gently kissed her ear, her neck. Those slow, languorous kisses eased some of the tension. As she began to relax, he sank deeper. It didn’t hurt, but it was impossibly alien.
He tucked one hand behind her knee, hitching it higher until she had no choice but to wrap her leg around him. It opened her more fully, easing his passage. There was a slight flash of pain, a second and no more and then she felt him deep within her.
Graham rested his forehead against hers for a moment, taking deep, steadying breaths. Then he began to move. Long, slow strokes as he set an easy rhythm that had her gasping. All the giggling, whispered conversations between maids had not prepared her for the reality of what it meant to have him inside her. The soul-scorching intimacy of it as she looked into his eyes as he sank into her again and again stripped her of every defense and left her vulnerable in a way that rattled her.
But soon, such thoughts fled. As the tension built again, it robbed her of thought altogether. There was no time to contemplate the emotional ramifications of what she had done. There was only one exquisite sensation bleeding into the next, driving her upward, climbing toward release.
It happened quickly. The tension sharpened, her muscles drew taut and she knew what it meant, understood the pleasure that was to come and she reached for it, arching up to meet him as he thrust more deeply into her. She shattered, her body spasming around him. He tensed, every muscle of his body like warm stone against her as his breath escaped on a shattered groan. His hips jerked against hers and she felt the warmth of him flooding her as he took his own pleasure.
Afterward, lying there in his bed, their limbs twined together and sweat drying on their skin, neither spoke. Neither of them was ready to acknowledge the magnitude of what had just occurred or the consequences it could bring for them both. The morning was soon enough to think of such things.
*
Edmund drew his horse up, pausing at the side of the road as he looked back over his shoulder. He had not put as much distance between himself and Castle Black as he’d intended. What he’d intended to be a brief stop at the inn had turned into something else entirely.
Young Christopher had been there, drinking ale with the light skirt he fancied. They’d shared a few pints of the swill and discussed what to do about the great pretender in their midst. Then, slightly drunk and feeling a bit envious of the boy’s lusty tavern wench, Edmund had spent a bit of time with her compatriot. For a bit of coin, the lovely girl had taken him in her mouth and shown him a bit of heaven.
A noise from the trees beyond pulled him from his sensual reverie. “Who’s there?” he demanded.
No answer came, and yet he’d never been more certain of the fact that he was not alone. He felt watched, hunted even. Was it that upstart following him? Trying to avoid the inevitable outcome of being labeled an imposter by the House of Lords?
Edmund turned his horse and headed back the way he’d come. There, just beyond the trees, he saw a shadowy figure emerge. “Identify yourself!” he demanded.
The figure stepped forward, the blond hair gleaming in the moonlight. Immediately, Edmund relaxed. “Christopher! What are you doing out here? I thought you meant to stay at the tavern?”
“My plans have changed it would seem.”
Edmund frowned. The voice was wrong, different, the words accented strangely. Was it just the drink?
“Are you with me to London then? It would lend weight to my petition for you to be there with me! Together, we can have him declared an imposter with little or no effort, I think,” Edmund said.
He stepped forward, coming closer. It wasn’t just the voice that was different. The clothes were as well. He’d changed into a heavy redingote that Edmund did not recall seeing before.
“No, Edmund. That is not part of my plan… I cannot afford to have you drawing undue attention to us right now. Not when I am so close to having all that I have ever wanted.”
Edmund didn’t question the statement. Instead, his attention was focused on the pistol that Christopher had drawn from the pocket of his great coat. “What are you about? This is madness!”
The weapon fired with a flash and blinding pain exploded in Edmund’s side. He tumbled from his horse, falling to the ground as he gasped for breath.
The blond man walked toward him then. The closer he came, the more wrong he looked. It had to be Christopher. Who else could it be? Yet even as he lay there awash in his own blood, Edmund was not certain. Pressing a hand to his wounded side, he tried to staunch the blood.
His shooter slapped the rump of Edmund’s mount, sending it fleeing into the woods.
“I only brought the one,” the man said, gesturing to his pistol. “And no extra shot. A merciful man would have shot you in the head or the heart and made it quick. As you lay here bleeding from your gut, you may draw your own conclusions about my character.”
“Not Christopher,” Edmund muttered.
The man squatted down next to him. “Not yet. But I will be.”