The Study of Seduction: Sinful Suitors 2 (33 page)

She sat back against the seat. “I can’t believe it. I know your father had his weaknesses, but to be a
traitor
to his country . . .”

“It came as a shock to me, too.”

“And you’re sure these ‘reports’ aren’t forged?”

“They certainly looked genuine. And clandestine activities would help to explain why Father was always running off to London and abandoning us.”

Mulling that over a moment, she wondered what to say, what to do to help him. This duel clearly wasn’t just about her. It was about saving his family—all of them—from scandal. It was about eliminating Durand as a threat.

She folded her arms over her waist. “How do you know that if you kill Durand, he won’t have already
instructed someone, in the event of his death, to expose your father’s activities?”

“I don’t. But it’s better than waiting around for whenever he
does
choose to do it. And it will be a great deal more difficult for him to fan the flames of a scandal if he’s dead.”

“Not if
you’re
the one who’s dead.”

He turned his head to the window, and the streetlamps caught the consternation on his face. “I won’t let him kill me.”

“You are not God, Edwin! You’re fallible. And the thought of something happening to you—”

When she broke off with a choked cry, he shot her an alarmed glance, then moved to sit beside her. “Sweetheart, nothing will happen to me, I swear it.”

“You don’t know that!”

His hand clutched hers. “You’re really worried about me.”

“Of
course
I’m worried about you. You’re my husband.”

“And you’re not angry with me for keeping the full extent of Durand’s blackmail from you until now?” he said, sounding a little incredulous.

“Why should I be? Do you really think I care what your father did?”

“I’m sure you care that I married you knowing perfectly well that if Durand acted on his threats, you and I would be outcasts. Traitors aren’t well regarded in this country, even long-dead ones.” His voice roughened. “And if Durand succeeds in somehow connecting me . . .”

“How could he do that? I don’t understand.”

“I was nineteen when I was seen going into that
same opium den. It was only the one time, but all it takes is a single witness remembering my being there, and it will be enough to foment speculation and cause trouble for me.”

Frustration twisted inside her. “That count is a blackguard!” she said stoutly. “I don’t trust him. You can’t play into his plans, whatever they are, by meeting him for a duel.”

He stiffened. “I have no choice.”

“That’s not true! You have friends at your club—Lord Fulkham, for example. You should go to him for advice. I hear he’s high up in government.”

“All the more reason he won’t want to be tainted by helping the son of a traitor.”

She huffed out a breath. “So talk to one of the other gentlemen. There must be someone who can help you rout Durand. Those Duke’s Men friends of Jeremy’s, for example.”

“Not a chance. I am not risking anyone else hearing of it. I will fight Durand at dawn, and that is that.”

“But Edwin—”

“Enough! This is my decision, not yours.”

The force of his declaration shattered her confidence. “You’re upset because he called me a whore, aren’t you?” Ever since Durand’s words, she’d wondered if Edwin might have taken them to heart.
She
knew Durand had been goading him, but what if Edwin thought otherwise? “Are you afraid that he had a reason, that while he was courting me I allowed him to—”

“No, of course not. I asked you before if he forced himself on you, and you said he did not, and I believe you.”

“B-but his words made you so angry . . . Are you sure that they didn’t make you uncertain whether to trust me?”

“Don’t be absurd. I trust you, I swear.” He pulled her into his arms. “It’s you who don’t trust me . . . with your life, your future. Hell, you won’t even let me make love to you in the usual way, because you’re still afraid I might hurt you.” When she groaned, he let out an oath. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, I shouldn’t have mentioned that. It doesn’t matter.”

“Clearly, it
does
.”

And she should have realized sooner that he saw her difficulties as a mark of her continuing distrust of him. Even the most understanding man in the world had his pride, and it wounded her husband’s that she couldn’t entirely trust him in bed.

“All of it matters,” she went on. “Whether you ignore my advice and I ignore your desires
matters.
Because if we don’t trust each other, what is left?” She clasped him about the neck. “And I
do
trust you. I trusted you from the moment you proposed marriage.”

“Right,” he said. “Except for demanding a clause in our settlement to ensure I didn’t attack you.”

She swallowed. “Looking back, I can see that perhaps that wasn’t the
best
strategy, but it made sense at the time. And even with that clause, I never locked my bedchamber door to you—not once in our first week alone together. I could have, but I didn’t.”

That seemed to give him pause, for he dragged in an unsteady breath.

“Please, please, don’t fight this duel, my darling,” she went on. “I’m begging you.”

He bent close enough for her to feel his warm breath against her lips. “What kind of husband would I be if I let him get away with all that he’s done and is still trying to do to you?”

“What kind of wife would
I
be if I let you die defending me?”

Their gazes locked for a long moment. Then he kissed her.

Though it took her by surprise, she welcomed it, needing to be sure of him. His kiss was all-consuming, hard and sweet and urgent by turns, as if he couldn’t bear to stop.

And she gave herself up to it with the same desperation. She had to make him see that what they had was too precious to throw away. That together they could get through anything.

“I want you, minx,” he rasped in her ear. “Now. Here. It’s mad, I know—”

“Not mad at all. I want you, too.”

That was all the invitation he needed to start dragging up her skirts while kissing her as if it were their last time together. Which it very well might be.

No, she wouldn’t let that happen. She couldn’t. She would show him just how perfect it could be between them, tempt him not to be so foolish as to risk everything out of some noble pride or fear of scandal.

He unbuttoned his trousers, then tried to pull her astride him.

“No,” she whispered, “not this time. I want you on top of me.”

“Clarissa, I wasn’t saying—”

“I know. I want to do it. I want you to take me
as you’d take any woman. As you’d take your wife if she were . . . any other woman.”

She had to make him understand that she no longer saw him as a man who could ravage her, but as her husband, the only man she trusted with her body.

When he still hesitated, she said, “You’re not remotely like the Vile Rapist, and I’m no longer the same Clarissa he raped, nor even the Clarissa of a few weeks ago. I’m finally ready to put that behind me. But I need to prove that to myself. And to you.”

Even in the dim light, she could feel him searching her face. “Do you realize that’s the first time you’ve ever called it a rape?”

That startled her. Was it? Her heart began to pound. Yes, it was. “He raped me,” she said, trying out the sentence and feeling the truth of it.

“Yes.” His voice was firm and sure, bolstering her confidence.

“It wasn’t my fault.”

“It was
never
your fault, my sweet. It’s time you stop blaming yourself.”

She clutched at his shoulders. “He had no right to rape me,” she said fiercely. She’d partly acknowledged it in her head, but now she accepted it. Believed it. Was angry over it.

“No right whatsoever. As far as I’m concerned, he deserved to die. Who knows how many other women he would have assaulted if he hadn’t?”

She’d never thought of it that way. It dampened the guilt she’d always felt over Niall’s sacrifice, soothed the hurt of his exile a little.

But that didn’t mean she would let her husband follow the same path. “If you’re still determined to
fight Durand, then I’m going to show you what you’ll be missing if you’re exiled or murdered.” Scooting back into the corner, she tugged him toward her. “I’m going to show you how it could be between us if you’d only refuse to fight him.”

He let her pull him against her until he was crowding her in the corner, as much of him between her legs and on top of her as they could manage in the confines of the carriage. “
This
is what I’m fighting for, my sweet,” he growled. “You. Us. Our future.”

“We’ll
have
no future if you die.”

“I won’t.” He seized her mouth once more, and for the first time, the weight of him on her was a reminder rather than a warning of how strong he was. That it made him fierce in her defense, determined and fine and noble.

Yes, the panic was lurking, but it had shrunk to a pea. So very small, she could ignore it. And one day, she would banish it, too.

She tore her lips from his to whisper, “Take me, Edwin. Fill me up.”

With a growl, he entered her, more forcefully than usual but not enough to alarm her. And it was amazing. Not because he was on top of her and driving into her, but because she wasn’t afraid. Because she knew she could stop him at any moment, that she could end things on a word.

This
was what trust felt like.

He gave her no quarter, and to her shock, it thrilled her. He thundered into her, she rained on him, and it was like coming home. They were two parts of a whole, moving together in such intimate perfection it made her want to cry.

“Edwin,” she whispered. “Yes, like that. Harder. More. Give me everything, my darling.”

“Everything is already yours,” he rasped as he fondled her breast through her gown. “That will never change.”

For her, either. And as the truth blazed into her soul, she kissed him to keep from blurting it out.

She loved him. She wasn’t sure how or when it had happened, but somewhere in the past few weeks, she’d fallen in love with Edwin. And now that she’d found him, was she to lose him?

No.
No!

Slipping her hands down to his fine, taut buttocks, she cupped them to get him closer, deeper. She would drown him in pleasure, if that was what it took.

Instead, he drowned
her
in it, reaching between their bodies to finger her until she was fighting for breath and thought, fighting not to be the first one to succumb to her release. If she couldn’t have his love, she wanted his surrender.
Needed
his surrender.

Shimmying and writhing beneath him, she ran her hands down the backs of his thighs, the tips of her fingers just brushing his ballocks between his legs.

He swore under his breath. “Come for me, sweetheart . . . please . . . I can’t wait . . . much longer.”

Neither could she. “Don’t . . . wait.” She kissed and caressed, touched and met each thrust eagerly, hungry for all of him . . . for the man who was her husband, the man whom she loved.

“I need you,” he murmured against her ear. “God . . . stay with me . . . Clarissa. Never leave me.”

“I wouldn’t,” she choked out. “I couldn’t.” Like
a rising tide, her release was rolling up in her, wave after wave, urge after urge, driving her up toward the surface, toward the sun . . .

“If I have to go into exile . . . promise you’ll go . . . with me . . .”

“I will.” She clenched on his cock as she felt herself exploding through the surface into sweet oblivion. “To the ends . . . of the earth . . . if I must.”

With that, he, too, found his release. As they strained together, she milking him, he filling her, she held him close and thought the words she dared not say to the man who didn’t believe in love.

I love you, Edwin.

By the time they turned onto his street, they’d made themselves presentable again. Or as presentable as two people could be who’d just been swiving wildly in a carriage.

Edwin didn’t really care if anybody could tell. He meant to spend all night making love to his wife. Because this might be his last night with Clarissa for some time.

Or forever.

He scowled. No, he would not let Durand win. Surely Fate would not allow such a bastard to prevail.

It allowed Clarissa to be raped.

Which was precisely why it was long past time she got some reward for all her trials. She deserved it. He would give it to her.

You are not God, Edwin!

Great, now his conscience was quoting his wife. And no, he was not God. Because if he had been, Whiting would have been struck by lightning before he’d ever brought Clarissa into that orangery.

“Edwin, something’s going on,” Clarissa murmured.

He glanced out the window as their coach came to a halt. There was another carriage in front of his town house, which he recognized as one of Warren’s. Had Clarissa’s mother come here? No, why would she? They’d just left her.

So Edwin wasn’t entirely shocked when the footman opened the door to the coach and greeted them with the words, “Lord Knightford is here to see you, milord.”

“Warren is back?” Clarissa exclaimed as Edwin helped her out. Then her face turned ashen. “Oh no, something must have happened to Niall!”

Before Edwin could stop her, she raced up the steps, with him following. When they entered the house and were directed to the drawing room, they found a grim-faced Warren waiting for them with a glass of brandy in hand. Edwin tensed up.

“What’s wrong?” Clarissa cried as she ran over to Warren. “Is Niall all right? Why are you back so soon?”

“Niall is well. But he told me something so alarming that I spent only a day with him before I rushed back.”

Clarissa edged closer to Edwin, as if seeking support, and he looped his arm about her waist.

Warren’s gaze narrowed on them. “And by the way, congratulations on your nuptials.” He swallowed some brandy. “I go away for a few weeks, and you two get married behind my back.”

“We had no choice,” Edwin said. “Durand left us none.”