All About Passion

Chapter 11

They walked back through the park in the deepening twilight, his arm around her, her head on his shoulder. Neither said a word. Increasingly Gyles felt that between them there was too much to say, and no words in which to say it.

None of his experience had prepared him for this. She seemed more proficient, more attuned, yet even she was wary, careful. Even she protected her heart and screened her thoughts and feelings.

Feelings. Something he could not escape, could not deny. The unfettered joy he experienced when they loved was new. Achingly precious, wholly addictive. Despite that last, he was grateful-for the experience of loving at that level where the physical was subsumed by the ephermal and feelings were elevated to a different plane.

As they neared the house, he glanced at her face. He was grateful for all she was, for all she had brought him.

Raising his head, he looked up at his front door.

And was conscious he wanted still more.

He knew what he wanted-had known for some time. Yet how could he demand let alone claim her love if he was not willing to love her, openly and honestly, in return?

They climbed the porch steps in silence. He opened the door; with a soft, sated smile, she stepped into the hall. He hesitated, then, face hardening, followed her into the house.

They met over the dinner table two hours later. Francesca’s heart was light, her body still aglow as she took her seat beside Gyles. Irving oversaw the serving, then the staff withdrew as she and Gyles tasted the delicate soup Ferdinand had prepared.

Gyles glanced at her. “If you write a letter to Charles, Wallace will see it gets sent immediately.”

“I’ll write tomorrow.” She wanted to get the question of what Franni felt about their marriage clarified. It was a black cloud hovering at the edge of her mental horizon; she wanted it dispersed so, when the time came, she could celebrate with an unfettered heart.

Never had she felt so confident of converting her dream to reality. Although she accepted they still had work to do in establishing the framework of their marriage, after this afternoon, she no longer harbored any doubt as to the basic structure, or the foundation on which they would build.

She knew better than to let her heart overflow, let her expectations show. Throughout the meal, she kept up a steady flow of general conversation, aware but unconcerned that Gyles made no effort, beyond that first comment, to introduce any subjects of his own.

At the end of the meal, they strolled side by side into the hall. She turned toward the family parlor.

Wallace stepped from the shadows and addressed his master. “I’ve left the documents from the study in the library as you requested, my lord.”

Francesca turned and looked at Gyles.

He met her gaze. “You’ll have to excuse me. There’s some research I must do on certain parliamentary matters.”

She couldn’t read his eyes, could read nothing in his bland expression. Thus far, he’d always joined her in the parlor; she would read a book while he read the London papers. A chill like a raindrop slithered down her spine. “Perhaps I could help.” When he didn’t immediately reply, she added, “With the research.”

His face hardened. “No.” After an instant’s hesitation, he added, “These are not matters with which my countess need concern herself.”

She couldn’t breathe. She stood there, disbelieving, stopping herself from believing, stopping herself from reacting. Only when she was sure her mask was in place and would not fall, when she was sure she could speak and her voice wouldn’t falter, she inclined her head. “As you wish.”

Turning, she walked toward the parlor.

Gyles watched her go, aware Wallace was still standing in the shadows. Then he turned. A footman threw open the library door; he walked in. The door closed behind him.

He’d done it for her own good.

An hour later, Gyles rubbed his hands over his face, then stared at the three hefty volumes open on the desk before him, their pages lit by the desk lamp. On the blotter sat the drafts of three bills he and a number of like-minded lords had been discussing for some time. Given he’d decided to miss the autumn session, he’d volunteered to research the key points in their deliberations.

He’d done little to further their goals tonight.

Every time he started reading, the expression in Francesca’s eyes, the sudden blanking of happiness from her face, rose to haunt him.

Lips compressing, he tugged one tome so the light fell better on the page. He’d done the honorable thing. He was not prepared to love her, not as she wished to be loved-it was better to make that plain now and not encourage her to extrapolate-to invent, to imagine-to dream any further.

Focusing on the tiny print, he forced himself to read.

The door opened. Gyles raised his head. Wallace materialized from the gloom.

“Excuse me, my lord, do you wish for anything further? Her ladyship’s retired-she mentioned a slight headache. Do you wish tea to be brought to you here?”

A moment passed before Gyles replied, “No. Nothing further.” He looked away as Wallace bowed.

“Very good, my lord. Good night.”

Gyles stared unseeing across the darkened room. He heard the door shut; still he sat and stared. Then he pushed back his chair, rose, and walked to the long windows. The curtains were open; the west lawn was awash with moonlight, the orchard a sea of shifting shadows beyond.

He stood and stared; inside, a battle raged.

He didn’t want to hurt her yet he had. She was his wife-his. His most deeply entrenched instinct was to protect her, yet how could he protect her from himself? From the fact he had an eminently sound reason for refusing to admit love into his life. That his decision was absolute, that he would not be swayed. That he’d long ago made up his mind never to take that risk again.

The consequences were too dire, the misery too great.

There seemed no other choice. Hurt her, or accept the risk of being destroyed himself.

He stood before the windows as the moon traversed the sky. When he finally turned inside, lowered the lamp wick and blew out the flame, then crossed the dark room to the door, one question-only one-echoed in his mind.

How much of a coward was he?

Four days later, Francesca cracked open the second door to the library and peeked in. The second door lay down a side corridor, out of sight of the main door and the footmen in the front hall. If they saw her approaching any door, they would instantly fling it wide-in this instance, the opposite of what she wished.

Gyles was not at his desk. It stood directly across the room. The chair behind it was empty, but books lay open, scattered across the desktop.

Francesca eased the door farther open and scanned the room. No tall figure stood by the long windows, nor yet by the shelves.

Swiftly, she entered and quietly shut the door. Moving to the nearest corner, she started along the bookshelves, scanning the titles.

Her caution had nothing to do with her search-she wasn’t engaged in any reprehensible act. But she wanted to avoid any unnecessary encounter with Gyles. If he didn’t want her in his life, so be it-she was too proud to beg. Since the evening he’d elected to spend his after-dinner hours separate from her, she’d ensured she made no demands on his time beyond the absolutely necessary.

He still came to her bed and her arms every night, but that was different. Neither she nor he would allow what occurred between them outside her bedchamber to interfere with what lay between them inside it.

On that, at least, they were as one.

She hadn’t been back to the Dower House. While she would have liked to indulge in the comfort and support of her mother-in-law and aunt-in-law, the first question they would ask was how she was getting on, meaning getting on with her husband.

She didn’t know how to answer, couldn’t conceive how to explain or make sense of it. His rejection-how else was she to interpret it?-had been a blow, yet, stubbornly, she refused to give up hope. Not while he continued to come to her every night-not while, during the day, she would catch him watching her, a frown, not one of displeasure but of uncertainty, in his grey eyes.

No-she hadn’t lost hope, but she’d learned not to prod. Henni had definitely been right about that. He was a latent tyrant; tyrants did not appreciate being dictated to. She had to let him find his own road, and pray it was one that led to her desired destination.

Such patience did not come easily. She had to distract herself. Remembering her intention to find the old Bible and copy the family tree therein, she’d asked Irving about the book; he believed the Bible, a huge old tome, was in the library. Somewhere amid the thousands of other old tomes. All Irving could recall was that it was covered in red leather with a spine nearly six inches wide.

Minutes ticked by. Half an hour elapsed as she circled the huge room. It would have taken longer, but there were few books that large on the shelves. Indeed, there was no book that large on the main shelves. Which left the shelves in the gallery.

Built over the side corridor from which she’d entered, the gallery was fully walled rather than railed. From a corner of the main room, a set of spiral stairs led up to an archway; stepping through, Francesca looked down the narrow room lined with floor-to-ceiling bookcases. All filled. Halfway down the room, a floor-to-ceiling partition, also covered in shelves, jutted across the room, dividing it roughly in half, leaving only a door-sized gap on one side.

The earl of Chillingworth possessed too many books. Ignoring the crick in her neck, Francesca circled the room, searching for an extralarge tome in red leather. The first room had no window; the only light came slanting through from the long windows in the other half of the gallery. She had to squint to check the titles of the few large red books she found.

None of them was the Bible.

Finishing with the first room, she stepped through the doorway into the other half of the gallery. Momentarily dazzled by the sunshine streaming in, she halted, blinking.

The silhouetted shape she’d thought some odd form of library ladder resolved into her husband sitting in a large wing chair with his long legs stretched out before him.

She gave a start, quelled it. “I’m sorry-I didn’t know you were here.” She heard the defensive note in her voice. She turned. “Pray excuse me. I’ll leave you.”

“No.”

She took an instant to consider his tone-absolute command laced with an underlying hesitancy-then she swung back to face him.

His expression was impassive. “You weren’t in England at the time of the Peterloo Riot, were you?”

“The riot in Manchester?” He nodded; she shook her head. “We heard about it sometime after-most mentioned it as a regrettable occurrence.”

“Indeed.” Half-rising, he tugged a chair close to his; with the paper he held in his hand, he waved her to it. “Sit down and read this, and tell me what you think of it.”

She hesitated, then crossed the small room. Sinking onto the chair, she accepted the paper, some sort of formal declaration. “What is this?”

“Read it.” He sat back. “You’re the nearest thing to an unbiased observer, one who only knows the facts without the emotions that, at the time and subsequently, have colored discussions in England.”

She glanced at him, then dutifully read. By the time she reached the document’s end, she was frowning. “This seems-well, illogical. I can’t see how they can claim such things, or make such assertions.”

“Precisely.” He took back the paper. “This is supposed to be an argument against repealing the Corn Laws.”

Francesca hesitated, then quietly asked, “Are you for, or against?”

He shot her a dark look. “For, of course. The damned bill should never have been enacted. A lot of us argued against it at the time, but it went through. Now we have to get it repealed before the country crumbles.”

“You’re a major landowner-aren’t the Corn Laws to your advantage?”

“If the only measure used is immediate financial gain, then yes. However, the overall effect on large estates, such as mine, or Devil’s, or a whole host of others, is negative, because of the social costs.”

“So your principal argument for repealing the bill is a financial one?”

“For the Lords, the financial arguments must be strong, but to my mind, the other arguments are stronger. Having legal title to their estates didn’t save the French aristocracy. Those who won’t see that, who refuse to see that times have changed and that the populace in general has rights, too, are denying a self-evident truth.”

“Is this what you’ve been researching-how to repeal the Corn Laws?”

“That and a number of related issues. Reformation of the voting franchise is the key, but we’re years away from getting anything passed.”

“What’s this idea about voting? Tell me.”

“Well-”

He explained, and she questioned. A spirited discussion arose over the extent of the franchise necessary to satisfy the inherent demand from the presently unenfranchised.

Gyles was surprised to see the sun slanting low, surprised to realize they’d been talking for hours. Although her experience was foreign, she, too, had seen the need for wider suffrage, for establishing a broader common goal.

“Waterloo was the end of it-the point where everything became clear. We’ve been distracted with the French for over two decades and not paying enough attention at home. Now there’s no war to bind us together, to keep people and government acting as one, the social fabric’s starting to unravel.”

“And so things must change.” Francesca nodded. She’d risen and started pacing sometime before.

“Times change.” Gyles watched her parade before him. “And the survivors will always be those who adapt.”

That was a truism and applied in many circumstances, in many arenas.

She nodded and paced, her expression alive with intelligence and her own intrinsic energy. He couldn’t escape the obvious-that with her beauty, understanding, and vitality, he couldn’t have found a more suitable wife to partner and support him in the political sphere. That had been the consideration furthest from his mind in arranging his marriage, yet how very important it would indeed be. If he took her to London, she would become one of the political hostesses, socially adept, quick-witted, and manipulative-all in the best interests of their cause.

He knew she had the power to manipulate men-that she knew how just as she knew how to breathe, knew how to make love with him. But she’d never made the mistake of trying to manipulate him, not even in these last days when he would almost think her justified.

For one of her temperament, that couldn’t have been easy.

Times change.

And those who wish to survive adapt.

She swished past him and turned. He reached out and curled his fingers about her wrist, locked them. Surprised, she looked down at him.

He met her eyes. “We’ve discussed politics enough… for the present. I have something else I’d like to discuss with you. Another matter on which I’d value your opinion.”

His gaze locked with hers, he lifted the papers from his lap and dropped them beside his chair. Rising, he stood beside her, and with his free hand gripped the high back of the chair and pushed it around until it faced the windows. He stepped around it and sat, drew her closer, drew her down. She let him sit her across his lap, facing him.

Her neckline was cut wide and scooped but modestly filled in with diaphanous gauze, opening shirtlike from the point between her breasts to fold back in an open collar. Closing his hands about her waist, he bent his head and touched the tip of his tongue to the bare skin at the top of her cleavage, then he stroked slowly upward, nudging her head back, feeling her shudder between his hands as he set his lips like a brand to the base of her throat.

She was his, so totally, unquestioningly his, he was starting to believe he must be hers.

Within seconds the atmosphere in the small room changed from the politically charged to the intensely passionate.

Intensely erotic.

That was his idea, one she fell in with eagerly, searching his face only briefly before complying with his command to turn and face the windows. He lifted her slightly, settled her bottom on his thighs, then, sitting upright, his chest not quite touching her back, he bent his head and trailed his lips up the column of her throat from the curve of her shoulder to the sensitive spot beneath her ear. “Place your hands on the arms of the chair.”

Without hesitation, she did. He glanced up, out of the window. “See that large oak-the one directly in front?”

Her head rose and she looked, then nodded.

“I want you to watch the top branches. Don’t look away. Don’t think of anything else. Just think of those branches.” Releasing her waist, he trailed his fingertips-just the tips-up and around to tantalizingly trace her breasts. Her spine locked. “Concentrate on the branches.”

She shifted slightly. “But… they’re bare.”

“Hmm. There’s one or two leaves yet to fall.”

He didn’t touch so much as tease. One hand administering to each ripe mound, he watched from over her shoulder as he mirrored the movements of his hands, circling but never touching the tightening peaks, his fingertips whispering over the fine fabric as he enticed her body to respond, to react.

Her breasts swelled and firmed. He could see her tightly furled nipples taut beneath the restricting bodice. She shifted in his lap.

“Are you concentrating on those branches?”

“Mmm. Gyles-”

“Think of how bare they are.”

How bare she wished to be; he didn’t need telling, but that wasn’t in his rapidly yet expertly designed script for this afternoon. Gently, he cupped her breasts, tested their firmness, then he took his palms from her. “Totally naked.” Using only his fingertips, he closed them about her nipples, gently at first, then with increasing pressure. She gasped, and tilted her head back. “Totally exposed.”

He squeezed, and her back bowed, then he released her and returned to his gently teasing touches.

“Keep watching the branches.”

He repeated the torture-she was a very willing victim-until she was breathing rapidly, shallowly, and her skin was lightly flushed. She slumped against him, tipping her head back to look into his face.

She searched his eyes. “I want you inside me.”

“I know.”

“Well?” There was more than a hint of imperiousness in her tone.

His lips curved. “Raise up for a moment.”

Her legs had remained to one side of his; bracing her weight on the chair arms, she rose just a little. He drew up the back of her skirt, lifted it and her petticoat and the back of her silk chemise to him, then slipped his hands beneath the froth of materials. Setting his palms to her naked bottom, he briefly gloried in the firm contours, satisfied to find her silky skin lightly dewed. Then, grasping her hip with one hand, he sent the other sliding between the backs of her thighs to gently cup her.

She gasped; her arms wobbled. He drew her down. She gasped again as her weight pressed her into his hand, fully exposed to his touch.

Francesca sensed the strength in his hand, felt his long fingers trace. Heart thundering, she wriggled, then shifted one leg to swing it over his and open herself to him, to his tantalizing touches.

“No. Sit as you were-demurely.”

Demurely? She was finding it difficult to breathe. Both his hands were under her skirts, one splayed across her stomach, gently kneading, while the other touched her intimately, explored her.

She could feel the slickness, feel how hot and swollen she was. Her naked thighs and bottom rested on the fabric of his trousers, a constant reminder of her vulnerability.

“Keep studying the tree.”

She dragged in a breath, lifted her head, and fixed her gaze on the collection of bare branches.

One finger pressed possessively into her. She clutched the chair arms, vainly bracing against the jolt. Her lungs seized. He stroked, then pressed deeper. She felt her body tense, had never been so aware of how her nerves coiled and tightened. An ache swelled inside her. She wanted more, much more.

Another finger slid in with the first. Her body reacted, eagerly, hungrily-she’d reached a point of strange detachment where she could feel, enjoy, yet also observe. He reached deeper, his bunched hand moving beneath her. Spine rigid, she shook her head wildly. “No!”

The movements of his fingers between her thighs, within her, slowed. “Demanding woman.”

His tone was deep, gravelly-taunting.

Then he pressed his fingers deep inside her and held still, hand pressed to her swollen softness.

“Are you still concentrating on the branches?”

Her gaze was pointed in that direction, but she hadn’t been seeing anything for some time. “Yes.”

“Some are knobbly, aren’t they?”

She looked, noting what he’d directed her eyes to see. She was dimly aware of him shifting, that the hand at her stomach had slid away, that behind her he was opening his trousers, releasing himself. Impulsively, she let go of one chair arm and groped behind her.

He slapped her hand away.

“You’re supposed to be concentrating on branches. Knobbly ones. Something nice and thick and smooth.”

There was only one nice, thick, smooth and knobbly object in her mind, and it had nothing to do with trees. Family trees, perhaps, not physical ones. The reason she’d come to the library floated through her mind, and out. She looked at the tree, forced herself to see it.

His hand returned, slipping under her skirts to curve possessively over her bare stomach. “Look at the tree. Concentrate on the branches.”

She didn’t understand but did as he asked, forced her mind as well as her eyes to focus on the naked branches, finding a thick, knobbly protrusion-concentrating on that.

He lifted her slightly, shifting her back, sliding his body beneath hers. Then he eased her down.

And she suddenly learned why she was looking at branches.

His fingers withdrew from her but remained between her thighs, guiding his erection. He entered her slowly, deliberately, drawing her to him, filling her relentlessly until he was fully seated within her, and she was fully impaled upon him.

And she’d felt every inch, every tiniest, most minute sensation, amplified by the fact that, with her mind and senses distracted, the anticipated had become the unexpected. He’d ensured her nerves were highly sensitized, sure to react intensely to the penetration. And they had. Eyes closing, she let her head fall back against his shoulder, sank her fingers deep into the arms of the chair. That slow claiming had been, not a shock, but a moment in which her sensual defenses had been down. She’d felt more. Experienced the illicit intimacy of their joining to the fullest.

There was more to come.

He closed his arms about her, his body curled around her, his head bowed beside hers. With his lips at her throat, he undulated slowly beneath her.

It was a different kind of dance. Eyes closed, concentrating on something other than branches, she used her grip on the chair arms to shift upon him. The chair was too wide and her arms now too weak to lift herself, but that, it seemed, was not required in a chair. Not the way he managed it.

She surrendered to his managing, to letting him dictate the pace and tone of their dance. Her senses were wide-open, more receptive than usual; she was more focused on their bodies merging than she’d thus far been. Embracing the experience gladly, she relaxed, released the chair arms and wrapped her arms about his.

He murmured his approval and gathered her deeper into his embrace; she felt his pleasure in his slow, rigidly paced probing of her body.

Gyles skillfully steered her up to and through a long, extended climax, stretched out so she was floating before it ended, and continued floating for long after. He seized the moments to savor her more fully, to enjoy the bounty of her body closing so hotly about his.

He wondered how long he’d last-how long his control would endure the sweet heat, the luscious, scalding silken firmness that sheathed him. Leaning back, he urged her to lie back in his arms. Thus positioned, he could prolong their joining for a considerable time. He intended to reap all he could from the interlude. Give her, show her, all he could. She lay relaxed, boneless, against him, only the faint trace of concentration between her brows attesting to her awareness. He continued to move beneath her, wallowing in the hot slickness and the pleasure her body lavished on him.

“Do I still need to look at the branches?”

“You can if you like.”

Leaving his right hand splayed across her stomach, he retrieved his left, shaking it free of her skirts. He started once more to lightly trace her breasts.

She made a murmurous sound of pleasure. He didn’t think she was watching the trees.

Sometime later she asked, “Does it go on like this to the end, or is there more?”

Her tone was merely curious-a pupil inquiring of her mentor. He understood what she was asking. “No-there’s more.”

The next stage, the next level of sensation. They were both floating on a plane of elevated awareness, where their ability to feel was amplified but in a way that didn’t evoke the usual urgency, leaving them free to enjoy, to prolong the intimacy and appreciate it more deeply.

He changed his teasing to more explicit caresses, until he was kneading her breasts, squeezing nipples tight and aching once more. Her breathing was ragged, her hips squirming. Then she angled her shoulders and tipped her head back; he bent his head and kissed her, let her kiss him.

Tongues tangled. Out of nowhere, desire rose and swamped them. Raced through them.

She ground her hips against him, taking him more deeply, luring him to thrust and set her free. He stubbornly kept to his rhythm, drawing out the moment ruthlessly.

Until their kiss turned frantic, incendiary.

Under her skirts, he shifted his right hand, sliding one finger down through her curls to the spot where she ached and throbbed. He circled the tight bud, and she gasped.

He set his finger lightly on the swollen bud, let it ride there as he filled her once, twice, still to the same, maddeningly slow rhythm. Then he slowed still further, let her sense what was to come, then he pressed down, firmly, evenly, and thrust deeply inside her.

She fractured like glass. He drank her scream, then drove more deeply into her. She gasped, clung, her ebbing strength leaving her open and vulnerable, unable to do anything other than feel as he held her down and thrust more deeply, then deeper still, pushing her on.

With another scream, she shattered again as he felt his own release sweep through him. He held her locked to him as he spilled his seed deep in her womb, felt her body go lax about him, all tension released, open and willing and welcoming. Wanting and accepting.

Chest heaving, he slumped back in the chair and gathered her to him.

“Remind me”-he had to pause to catch his breath-“to teach you about flowers.”

Her fingers trailed down his arm. “Do they differ significantly from trees?”

“To appreciate flowers properly, you have to be standing.”

They lay there, still joined, and let the minutes tick by, neither willing to move, to disturb the moment. To cut short the deep peace that intimacy brought them.

Gyles stroked her head, fingers tangling with the long, trailing curls spilling from her topknot.

He hadn’t bargained for this-not for any of it. Not for her passion, not for her intelligence-not for her love.

That precious something she was determined to give him, that part of him desperately wanted to claim. But… he was unsure he could pay her price. He knew what it was, what she wanted in return, and did not, even now, after four days of considering, know if he could give it to her.

She was a chance he wasn’t sure he could take, yet he knew he would never get a better one. Meet a woman more compelling, one more deserving of his trust.

Honesty, sincerity-an inherent integrity. The passionate wanton who set him alight and his beautiful, assured countess were one and the same. Neither role was assumed; both were different facets of her true character. That was why people responded to her so readily-there was no falseness in her.

Understanding her, learning more of her, knowing more of her, had become an obsession just as much as possessing her physically had been. Still was.

He sensed the soft huff of her breathing, continued to stroke her hair. Continued to stare out of the window.

The barbarian within him wanted to give her what she wanted, and claim in return all she was offering him. Or, at the very least, try. The careful, rational gentleman vowed even trying was too risky. What if he succeeded? How would he cope then?

Yet denying her was beyond him-he, and she, had just proved it. A wise man holding to the arguments he’d espoused would have kept his distance other than in the bedroom.

He hadn’t. He couldn’t. He would have to try a different tack. At the very least, he could search for a compromise, if such a thing was to be found. That much he owed her.

Owed himself, perhaps.