Chapter 6

Mmm, she was warm for the first time in hours, if not days. Cynthia snuggled closer—and stopped. This was not a hot brick brought in by the maids. This was…She could hardly bear to think about what this was. She opened one eye. The room was still dark, although she could see a dim shaft of daylight creeping under the edge of the shutters. The coals still glowed in the fire, but they did not cast much light. The dark did not hide the huge shape of the man who lay beside her, however, nor did it hide the fact that she was cuddled up close to him, one arm draped about his waist, her hips cradled against his backside. It would have been easy to blame James, but given that she was clearly on his half of the blanket, she couldn’t lie, even to herself.

With care she eased herself away, returning to her side of the blanket. Instantly she felt cold and bereft. No, she just felt cold. She certainly did not miss lying next to him. That would be indecent, no matter what plans, what secret adventures might have entered her mind in the late of the night.

He didn’t even have a shirt or breeches on.

Her mind filled with the feel of his skin, smooth and hot, with just the slightest abrasion of hair. And his scent, leather, sweat, and something else, something spicy that she could not identify, could only think of as man. The smell should not have been attractive. He hadn’t washed when he’d come in, and although the rain had soaked him, he certainly had not seemed clean. So why did she want to push close again to bury her nose into him and simply breathe? Suddenly she was warm again, hot almost. She loosened the blanket that was still wrapped about her, the feel of it tight on her skin, doing nothing to improve the restlessness that filled her.

He hadn’t recognized her. He had no idea who she was. She’d been so sure that he would know her when she’d hidden behind Jasmine’s settee and yet it hadn’t even occurred to him that she was not a stranger when he arrived at the cottage.

If she did allow herself to give in to the temptation to cuddle back against him, would it matter? Nobody would ever know. Would they? She could give him a fake name and…No, that was foolish, and she had dismissed any such thought last night. It wasn’t as if she could just slip away into the dark. He was bound to realize who she was at some point.

Still…Thoughts filled her, beating at her willpower. Why not have a bit of adventure, break a few rules? She’d certainly never shied away from risk before. And she’d noticed how he looked at her, stared at her breasts. Surely it wouldn’t hurt to just lie pressed to him? And if they shared a few kisses? She’d considered that last night, too, decided it would not be such a bad thing. And what if he did remember then? Perhaps he’d realize how sweet and charming—and alluring—she actually was.

She allowed herself a smile and a wish—knowing that her childish dreams were not as forsaken as she had thought. And then she shook her head and returned to her real life. Dreams of a secret adventure were one thing, putting them into practice was another—wasn’t it?

Closing her eyes, she rolled on her side, away from him. Getting up would probably be the proper thing to do, but then what? She wouldn’t go out by herself. Despite what he’d said, who knew when the men might return. And she wasn’t going to sit and stare while waiting for him to wake up. No, she would keep her eyes closed and think only of how happy her father would be to see her when she returned—assuming she could think up a proper story to tell him. She was not going to think of James at all and certainly not about how dangerously good he smelled, all leather and rainwater and man. And with that last thought, she fell promptly back to sleep.

That felt good, so good. She moved toward the nuzzle of skin and heat, toward the gentle kisses that showered her jawline and the length of her neck. Hands stroked down her arms, releasing her from the tight fabric that held her captive. Her breasts ached, full and heavy. The private space between her legs began to throb.

What a wonderful dream. She hadn’t imagined that her dreams about James could get any better. She’d certainly had dreams like this before, but never one like this, never one that seemed so close to perfection, so close to that point she always awoke before.

A hand stroked the upper swell of her breast, teasingly near the nipple, but not near enough. Another hand stroked her upper thigh through her chemise, tingles of lightning shooting through her.

No, she’d never dreamed like this before.

And if it wasn’t a dream…? The thought teased about her, but she put it away, letting her mind wander to how James would look at her with affection once he realized it was her, perhaps he’d even declare his undying love, and then…

The upper hand teased the tip of her nipple, barely breezing over the top.

A moan escaped her.

The lower hand slipped beneath her chemise, stroking farther up her leg, pulling softly at her nest of hair.

Another moan. She’d never felt anything like this before.

Fingers moved between her folds, sinking into the dampness that had grown there. She pressed her hips forward, wanting to feel more. A single finger stroked her and she jerked, her whole body alive. The finger stroked again, more softly, and she gave in to it, gave in to the shudders of delight that began to run through her. So good. So good. God, she needed more. She was close. She wasn’t sure to what, but she could feel it coming, feel the tension grow until she knew it must break.

She fought to stay asleep, to avoid coming fully awake. If she awoke then this would end—and she knew she didn’t want that. No, dreams—perfect, wonderful dreams—were what she needed.

Was there a better way to start the morning? James nuzzled the back of the woman’s neck as he let his fingers play on the path to heaven. She was wet and ready and getting readier by the moment. Her pelvis thrust into his hand rhythmically, wanting more.

He indulged her. He shifted slightly, bringing his hips to her, pressing his ready cock into the cleft of her incredible ass, the thin layers of fabric between them little hindrance. He rubbed hard against her, each movement sending a wave of pleasure through him.

It was good. Good. So good.

God.

He didn’t know what it was about the girl, but she had him hotter than he could remember being in years, since he’d been a randy boy eager for his first woman.

He moved his fingers faster, feeling her grow slick and soft about him. She pressed tighter to the fingers. More kisses on the back of her neck, a slight nip. He ground himself against her, her full ass surrounding him.

Her thighs clenched, her body stiffened. A soft moan sounded from between her lips.

Close. She was getting close.

Her body began to thrust, wanting more, wanting what only he could give her.

Closer. Closer.

Her back arched. He slipped his other hand down, unfastened his smallclothes, then moved it to her buttocks, separating them even as his first hand kept working, pressing, stroking, pinching.

Closer.

So close.

She was becoming frantic. He could feel it in her movements, hear it in her rapid breaths, taste it in the perspiration that dampened her neck.

She wrapped her legs tightly about his hand, wanting more, needing more.

“Easy, girl,” he whispered. “Relax. Just relax and I promise I’ll make it good.”

She started slightly at his words, but then settled back into her insistent rhythm.

He almost had her.

There.

There.

She was almost there.

He pressed his hips forward, pushed up her chemise, settling his bare cock between her buttocks, fighting the urge to push home.

Another moment. Another moment. All he had to do was be patient.

He didn’t want to be patient. His cock was ready now, demanding now.

He stroked her harder, pinched her tight, released—even as he nipped down upon her neck.

Her hips jerked forward—and then again.

Her head thrust back at him.

A cry of glory left her mouth. Her lower lips convulsed about his fingers.

He pushed her buttocks farther, moved forward—and slid home.

Warm. Wet. Sleek. And tight—so tight. He pushed harder, needing, wanting.

He was there—almost there.

God, she felt good.

Tight. So damn tight.

She moaned again. This time the tone was different.

“Easy, girl,” he whispered again. “God, you’re tight. I’d almost think you were a virgin if I didn’t know better.” He pulled back and pushed hard one more time—and felt the barrier break.

Oh God! The gratifying dream dissolved abruptly. What was happening?

Pleasure gave way to pain, and passion to truth, in a single blinding moment of clarity.

Yanking herself forward, Cynthia threw herself from his arms, threw herself from the twisted blankets.

What had she done? How had she let that happen? Yes, she’d been lost in the pleasure of the moment, but…

“Fuck, girl. What the hell are you trying to do?” James said.

She turned to stare, even as she started to scuttle away from him across the cold boards of the floor.

He was naked. His prick still large and full and protruding, marked with her blood. She closed her eyes, wishing she could make the world disappear as easily.

“You promised not to touch me!” she cried, although she knew how nonsensical that sounded under the circumstances. She would not pretend to be blameless—at least not to herself. Her mind simply refused to work, to accept what had just happened.

He stared at her, confused, but with a growing edge of anger in his glare. He grabbed his shirt and breeches and pulled them on. “What the hell are you talking about? I woke up with your ass rubbing against me and there was no mistaking those moans you were making. You knew exactly what you were doing. What, are you worried I won’t pay you?”

“Pay me?” She whispered the words, trying to get even farther away. “What are you talking about? And how can you think that I understood what was happening? What kind of woman do you think I am?” Her heart was beginning to slow, but her mind still refused to function, refused to understand. James might not have recognized her immediately, but how could he think that…

“We both know what type of girl you are. You work for Madame Blanche. Or do you mean to pretend you’re a chambermaid? Or a cook?”

“Work for Madame Blanche? Work for Jasmine? What are you talking about?” God, she hadn’t thought about that. It seemed so obvious and yet it had not even occurred to her. She’d been abducted in front of a brothel. She blinked, wishing she could go back to sleep, wishing she could believe this was all a dream—or perhaps a nightmare. “I realized you didn’t remember who I was, but still…How could you think that?” She wasn’t even sure she said the last words out loud.

“Knew who you are? Why should I know who you are? Or did I fuck you before? Is that what I was supposed to remember? There was something familiar about you. Is that why you’re upset, because I don’t remember? I am sure you were very good.”

She forced herself to stand, although her eyes were almost blinded by horror and growing rage, although her legs were shaking so much she wasn’t sure they would hold her. She wrapped her arms tight about her chest. Her chemise slipped down her legs, covering her—except for—she gazed down, horrified to see her left breast pushing out above her crossed arms, bare and proud. She yanked up the straps of her chemise, giving herself more cover, then crossed her arms again, tight. She forced out the words, although her throat wanted to close, “Remember? Yes, I am upset you don’t remember me, but not quite for the reason you think. At first, it didn’t occur to me that you wouldn’t recognize me. We practically grew up together. Only later did I understand the mistake, but even then…” she sputtered.

“Don’t lie to me. I’d remember if I knew you—and a woman I know wouldn’t work at Madame Rouge’s.”

“It’s Madame Blanche’s now. And actually I gather you know a number of women who work there, and that’s not mentioning your sister—or perhaps I should say sisters.”

His lips thinned. “We will leave Jasmine out of this. And how would you know about my visits to Madame Blanche’s if you don’t work there.”

“I don’t think it is possible to leave Jasmine out of this. And she told me about your visits. Apparently Ruby told her that both you and your brother Langdon visited on occasion.”

“Why on earth would Ruby tell her that? Who would tell a man’s sister such a thing? Ruby was known for her tact.”

Cynthia smiled bitterly, feeling the need to hurt him. “I believe it is a thing one sister might tell another.”

“What on earth are you talking about? I have only one sister.” He stood, stretching, his height making her feel very small.

“Why, only the fact that Madame Rouge is your sister as well—or at least your half sister.”

“That is nonsense. I know there have been rumors, but they are just that, rumors.”

“Not according to Jasmine. She says she talked with Ruby before she left and that it was unmistakable.”

James looked shaken, but only for a moment. “Nonetheless, she is mistaken.”

“And why else would Madame Rouge have given the house to Jasmine?”

His mouth opened and then snapped shut. Cynthia almost felt sorry for him.

The feeling lasted no longer than his next words. “Women are irrational.”

Fire rose in her brain, all the fury for everything that had happened this morning—and yesterday, too. She’d worked hard at remaining calm in spite of everything, and now he called her irrational. Well, he hadn’t called her irrational, but she was a woman and the implication was there. “I do not believe I am acting irrationally at all. I was abducted off the street, thrown into a bouncing carriage, driven for hours, left alone in a cold, dark cottage in the midst of a storm—and then rescued by a man who robs me of my virginity and then acts like I am the one who did something wrong. And then somehow we end up talking about a brothel instead of what you have just done. I, my lord, am not the one of us who is irrational.”

He looked at her as if she had lost her wits. “Now, settle down and we can talk about this calmly.”

There was no choice. She grabbed the mug off the table and threw it at him. He ducked and it clattered against the wall.

She wasn’t sure whether to be glad it was tin and not heavy stoneware. “You are an ass. An absolute ass. The worst kind of ass. A pompous ass. An absolute ass.”

“You used that one already.”

She wished there was another mug. This time she would not have missed. “And you are an ignorant fool. Do you realize that you still have not asked my name? If you’d bothered to ask last night when you realized I was not your sister, I daresay that this morning’s events would not have happened. You’ll be lucky if my father doesn’t kill you and I reckon your father would just about let him. It’s not as if you are the heir.”

His shoulders went back. He always had been sensitive on that subject. “And who exactly are you, my lady?” He said the last with a sneer.

With a sudden sense of victory, she spat out, “ ‘My lady’ is right. Lady Cynthia Westhope.”

He stared. His jaw dropped open and stayed. “Sin.” There was something in his pronunciation that changed the nickname, just as it always had. “Sin? Lady Cynthia? Lord Westhaven’s daughter?”

She didn’t answer, but only smiled—and not happily.

His eyes roamed over her, moving from toe to top and back again. Finally, his gaze settled on her eyes. And she thought she saw the first glimmer of true recognition in his.

“Bloody hell,” he whispered.

Those eyes. Those eyes, big and green and adoring. He’d known he’d seen them before, but he’d been very mistaken about where—and exactly what that look of adoration meant.

As he stared at Cynthia, he felt the room change, felt her face change, the chin narrowing, the lips growing less full, everything about her smaller—except those eyes. Those eyes stayed the same.

They’d been out early one Saturday morning, just as the sun rose, standing at the edge of his favorite trout stream on his father’s main estate. He’d agreed to take the girls as long as they agreed to be quiet and well behaved, a promise he knew better than to believe. All had gone well until Sin had cast her line into the water and almost instantly felt it jerk tight. Within seconds she was pulling in the biggest trout he had ever seen in that particular stream, the type of fish a man dreamed about and worked for years to capture, not the fish that a child with a worm should land with little effort. He’d been cursing to himself for bringing the girls when he’d seen the look of horror on Sin’s face as she drew the fish in and lay it flopping on the grass, its great gills heaving in search of water. She’d stepped back, her whole body stiff, her face without color.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Don’t you like your dinner?”

“Put it back,” she’d murmured. “Put it back. Don’t make me touch it.”

He’d grabbed the line and lifted the struggling fish into the air. “Surely you don’t mean that. It’s one of the finest fish I’ve seen.”

She gave him a look that warned he must have lost a good part of his wits. “I am not eating him. Put him back. Don’t you see he is in pain? He’s suffering. Please put him back.”

Grabbing the fish firmly, he carefully dislodged the hook from its cheek and with a regretful sigh tossed it back into the clear stream. He watched as it flashed under the edge of a large rock, his mind already filling with just how he’d lure it back out the next morning, or the morning after that. If a girl child could catch the creature then so could he.

And then he’d turned to look at her and he’d seen that look, the one that said he was greater than a king. Her eyes had shone full of stars, an expression he’d previously taken as nonsense. It was a heady feeling to be the focus of such admiration. He’d smiled and flirted and spent the rest of the morning laughing with the girls.

He wasn’t sure if he had seen her since. He’d been off at school and then traveling. He certainly didn’t remember any such instance, although it was probable that their paths had crossed at some point. He most likely hadn’t recognized her if they had. The willowy woman with the fabulous ass who stood before him was far different than the gawky girl he remembered, the girl with her hair in two long braids and elbows and knees that always seemed to be poking in odd directions.

And then it hit him.

A boulder falling from the sky.

The absolute horror of it.

He had just ruined the daughter of the Earl of Westhaven. He had just fucked an earl’s virginal daughter. He had just fucked the daughter of one of his father’s chums.

He was lucky she wasn’t crying rape.

It hadn’t been rape, had it? He didn’t think he’d forced her. She’d certainly been passionate and willing until that last moment.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck.

“We will have to marry.” The words cut his throat like broken glass as he forced them out.

She blinked, looking at him as she had last night.

God, how had he not known her? She’d been his sister’s best friend.

His sister’s best friend. “What the hell were you doing at Madame Blanche’s? Has it become some kind of game you girls play?”

She pulled in a deep breath and pushed her shoulders back, bringing her arms down to her sides, looking like a queen despite the thin chemise that was her only covering. “I would imagine much the same as you, trying to get Jasmine to leave and pursue some other plan of action. Although, unlike you, I took the time to meet her daughter. Hope really is quite extraordinary.”

“Hope?” he said, playing for a few more moments before he must force her to answer.

“Your niece.”

“Jasmine’s bastard.” The words came out far more harshly than he had intended.

Cynthia closed her eyes and lowered her head for a moment. He heard her counting under her breath. Then she raised her head again. “Suddenly I understand very well how even a well-bred young lady can end up with a bastard in her belly.”

Now, that struck home. “As I said, we must marry.”

“At this moment I think I would rather join Jasmine at Madame Blanche’s than marry you.” She turned from him and stomped across the cabin to swing the door open with a violent pull.

Rain still fell in sheets. He must have become so accustomed to the sound that he’d ceased to notice it.

“God has a nasty sense of humor,” she said, and slammed the door shut. “I will begin praying for an ark.”

She marched to the hearth and broke off a piece of bread, flakes and crumbs flying everywhere. Overnight, it had become brittle. She bit down hard, chewing and chewing. Her eyes did not lift to him once.

“I do not think marriage is a good choice for either of us,” she said, looking away and chewing. “If there is one thing Jasmine has taught me it is that there is always a choice. And we do not even know if I am with child. Perhaps it will not happen the first time. I know many couples who try for months—or longer.”

“Our situation is different than Jasmine’s. Nobody knew she was expecting until she began to show. Will your family not have noticed you gone and wonder?”

Her fingers grew white about the crust. “I will think of something to tell them, some excuse. Perhaps because of the weather I chose to spend the night with a friend and could not get a message out. I am sure I can find somebody who will agree to help me.”

“And you do not think they will ask further?” He reached out and took the remainder of the loaf, breaking off his own chunk. His stomach was feeling distinctly sour.

“I will make it work.” She did not sound confident.

How had it come about that he was the one pushing for marriage? It went against everything he believed about himself—except for that most important thing, his sense of honor.

Fuck.

Fuck.

He moved to the table and, pulling over a chair, sank down into it. He was feeling distinctly sorry for himself, a sensation he was most unused to. “I am afraid there really is no choice. Your father will skin me if I don’t do the right thing and my father will probably hold me down while he does it.”

“So you are the one with no choice, not me. But you are forgetting that unless I tell people that you were here nobody will know. Even if I tell my family what happened, I will simply lie and say that my captors abandoned me because of the weather and I rescued myself. I am known for being quite resourceful.”

He rested his chin in his palm. “While I am sure that is true, I am equally sure that no one will believe it. Whether you mention me or not, you are ruined unless we wed—or do you have another gentleman who will do the right thing?”