Valentine

Chapter Twenty-four

It was after midnight when Foster let the Earl of Stoneridge into the house, and Sylvester was surprised to find his household still busy, the main salons still brightly lit.

"What's to do, Foster?" He sidestepped a servant hurrying from the dining room with a tray of dirty dishes. His mother and sister kept early hours, and the household should have been abed long since.

"Oh, quite a party we've had, sir." Foster beamed, taking his cape and cane. "Quite like old times it was, my lord, to have the family all around the dinner table, and Mr. Edward, too, and Lady Clarry's beau."

He closed the front door, observing judiciously, "That young Mr. Lacey seems a nice gentleman. He and Lady Clarry will be making a match of it before Christmas, you mark my words."

He turned back to the earl, his beam fading as he took in his lordship's expression, a mixture of chagrin and acute exasperation. "Am I to understand Lady Belmont and the girls were here to dinner?" Sylvester asked slowly. "With my mother and sister?"

"Oh, yes, indeed, sir. But Lady Gilbraith and Miss Gilbraith retired early, before tea. I understand her ladyship does not approve of lottery tickets and such trivial amusements." Foster's voice was now expressionless, his face impassive, except for his eyes, where Sylvester swore he could detect a glimmer of unholy amusement.

"The family do tend to become a little noisy, of course, when playing such games," Foster continued blandly. "Many's the time I've heard Lady Belmont beg them to quieten down, but never too seriously… Will I lock up now, my lord?"

"Yes, I'm going to bed," the earl said curtly, striding to the stairs.

"Oh, by the by, my lord. Miss Gilbraith had to be moved from the Chinese room," Foster intoned. "She found the dragons on the wallpaper made her bilious. Good night, my lord."

Sylvester's lip quivered despite his annoyance, but he managed to keep his amusement from his voice as he bade the butler good night.

He strode upstairs in a seething muddle of acute frustration and reluctant amusement. Instead of suffering a boring and thoroughly disagreeable evening, Theo had obviously had a wonderful time with her favorite people, contriving to exclude his mother and sister into the bargain. He was getting very tired of being outmaneuvered by that ramshackle gypsy.

And then he thought of Mary and the dragons, and a reluctant little chuckle escaped him. Bilious, indeed! He could imagine how his in-laws would have enjoyed it. Even Elinor would have had her quiet smile.

A thin gold line of candlelight showed under Theo's door as he went past to his own room. Presumably, she was relishing the success of her ploy. He marched into his room, letting the door bang shut behind him, hoping it had made her jump… hoping she might even be a little apprehensive, knowing he was back.

Henry never waited up for him, and his own room was lit by the banked fire in the grate and a single lamp, turned down low on the dresser. Yawning, he undressed and was about to climb into bed when he heard a chair scraping across the wooden floor in the room next door.

Theo was still awake. He shrugged into his dressing gown and softly opened his door onto the corridor, where candlelight now flickered from the wall sconces and there was the deep hush of a sleeping house. He glanced down and saw the light still below Theo's door.

He lifted the latch and pushed open the door. Theo was standing at the dresser, her back to him, a glass in her hand. She saw him in the mirror and spun around, placing the glass beside a small brown bottle on the dresser.

"Sylvester!"

"Why aren't you asleep?" he asked, coming into the room.

"I wasn't feeling very sleepy." She pushed her tumbled hair away from her face.

"Too stimulating an evening, perhaps," he observed dryly.

A slight guilty flush tipped her cheekbones. "I thought your mother might enjoy the company."

"Fustian!" he declared.

Theo's flush deepened. She regarded him in silence for a minute, then said with an air of resolution, "I am truly sorry about this afternoon, Sylvester. It was stupid and reckless and anything else you want to call it"

He strode across to her, catching her chin, saying roughly, "What you mean is that forgetting to take your pistol was all of those things. Isn't that what you mean, Theo?

"Isn't that what you mean?" he repeated when she didn't immediately respond.

"I suppose so," she confessed. "I do believe everything would have been fine if I'd thought it through. Only I didn't."

"No, you didn't, and nearly got both yourself and Edward killed." His fingers tightened on her jaw. "Well, it's not going to happen again, Theo. As soon as my mother leaves, you're going back to Stoneridge."

"Alone?" Startled indignation flared in the purple eyes.

"Alone," he confirmed. "I have some unfinished business here. When it's done, I'll come myself."

"Oh, so that's it!" She jerked her head sideways, away from his hold. "You're afraid I might dip my toes in your unfinished business! You don't understand. You just don't understand! I want to be a part of what's troubling you. I want to help you. People who care for people want to help them. But you don't understand that because you don't understand what it is to care for someone." Her voice thickened on an angry sob as she flung away from him.

"What do you mean, I don't care?" Sylvester said, taken aback. "Of course I do."

She was standing in front of the fire, and the shape of her body was outlined beneath the almost transparent lawn of her nightgown. He could see the pale swell of her breasts and the darker shadow of her nipples. His body stirred, sprang to life.

"Come here," he said softly, reaching for her hands, drawing her against him. "Let me show you how much I care."

"No!" Theo said fiercely, trying to push him away. "Don't touch me! I don't want you to touch me, Stoneridge. In fact, I don't think I want you to touch me ever again!"

"Now, that's a silly thing to say." And she knew that it was.

He caught her wrists in one hand, clipping them behind her back, pressing her body against his, his other hand tilting her chin so that she had to look up at him. Her eyes were a battlefield of confusion, need, and anger.

She jerked her head aside as he bent to kiss her.

His mouth bumped into her ear, which struck him as good a place as any other. His tongue darted, a hot, moist lance, and Theo struggled in his hold, but he laughed and tightened his grip as his tongue explored the intricate whorls of the dainty shell lying flat against the side of her head.

"I adore your ears," he murmured, his breath a warm and tickling rustle. Theo tried to pull her head free of his grasp, struggling to resist the irresistible. He knew how sensitive her ears were, how after a very few moments she would yield to the tormenting, arousing stimulation that would spread from the spot where his tongue danced right down to her toes.

His teeth nibbled her earlobe, and she bucked and jerked in his hold, every sinuous wriggle increasing his determination to transform her resistance to passion. She was too slender and light to have much muscle power, and he knew her strength lay in the way she could use her body. Swiftly, he adjusted his hold so that he held her sideways across his thighs. She was now unbalanced and could get no leverage. He swung a leg over hers, imprisoning her legs just in case she was contemplating one of her devastating high kicks, and then, confident that he had her firmly secured, he smiled down into her furious, flushed face.

"That's better. Now, are you going to let me get on with giving us both pleasure, or shall we wrestle some more?"

There was something different about him, she thought. Something carefree and impulsive, as if he'd shed some restraints. Desire danced in his eyes, and she could smell brandy sweetness on his breath as he laughed down at her.

"You're foxed," she accused, forgetting her predicament for the moment. It was hard to imagine Sylvester allowing cognac to erode the tight control he kept over himself and his life… and his private concerns, she remembered with a fresh surge of anger.

He shook his head. "Not in the least, my love." He lifted her into his arms. "My dear little gypsy, don't look as if you're going to the gallows." He laid her on the bed and she gazed up at him, her eyes huge and unreadable, her hair a black mantel flowing over the billowing folds of her white nightgown.

He put a knee on the bed beside her and lightly traced the curve of her cheek with his fingertip. Theo didn't move. He ran his thumb over her mouth, expecting her tongue to dart forth in her usual response, flickering against the pad of his thumb. But she continued to lie motionless beneath the caress, although her eyes had darkened and he could read their sensual glow. The glow deepened as he slid his hand down the column of her throat, and his fingers tiptoed into the neck of her nightgown, dancing over the swell of her breast, circling her nipple without touching.

The glow deepened but she didn't move, just lay gazing up at him. There was challenge in her eyes, something he wasn't used to seeing in the bedroom.

He stood up, shrugging out of his dressing gown, letting it fall to the floor before kneeling on the bed again. Theo's eyes darted involuntarily down his body, and he suppressed a smile. He placed a hand on her ankle and smoothed upward over her shin, cupping her rounded kneecap. Pausing, he watched her face. She gazed at the ceiling, but her mouth was soft, a delicate pink blossoming on her cheek.

She wasn't capable of hiding her responses, he thought, allowing his hand to continue its upward journey. Her body tensed, her skin rippled as his fingertips crept into the heated cleft and flickered momentarily against the tight bud of her sex.

He withdrew his hand, and Theo drew a swift breath of surprise and what he hoped was disappointment. Catching up the hem of her nightgown, he began to fold it backward with deliberate care, smoothing each fold before beginning the next, baring her body inch by inch.

Theo fought her unruly responses as the cool air laved her skin. And then this slow exposure paused for what seemed an eternity at the top of her thighs, and she found she was holding her breath. It took every ounce of self-control to keep from moving, from murmuring her impatience, from putting her hands on his chest, lifting her head to touch her tongue to his nipples as he knelt above her. But still she resisted the temptation.

"Stubborn little gypsy," Sylvester murmured, half smiling, feeling her struggle as if it were his own. He took another fold in the fine lawn of her nightgown and then another, until the material lay in a flat roll at her waist. He bent to kiss her bare belly, drawing his tongue over the smooth skin in a damp, heated stroke that set her muscles jumping with a life of their own. But still she kept silent and made no voluntary move.

"Perhaps I should try another approach," he mused, as if talking to himself, and promptly flipped her onto her stomach.

Theo was taken aback. She'd been expecting that moist and tantalizing exploration to continue its downward progression. But now he was rolling up the back of her nightgown as he'd done with the front, baring her body inch by inch until he reached the small of her back. She felt his breath warm on her skin as his tongue darted into the dimpled indentations above the flare of her buttocks. His hand slid between her thighs as he kissed his way over the damask rounds, his fingers probing, stroking, flickering, opening. And finally Theo moaned and her body lifted to his caress, tightening around the thumb that was within her and the delicate teasing fingers at the core of her sensitivity.

Sylvester knelt beside her, his free hand sliding up and under the nightgown, pressing against her spine, working up the bony column to the nape of her neck, and she stretched and arched catlike as the firm pressure released little knots of tension along her back.

He swept the black river of her hair aside and bent to kiss her neck, nibbling and nuzzling, inhaling the sweet fragrance of her skin and hair. There was something wonderfully innocent about the back of her neck, something milky and soft about its scent. Even when she drove him to distraction with her stubborn impulses or her blunt statements, he had only to think of this delicate, soft-skinned column for his anger to lose its sting.

"Draw your knees up," he whispered, running his hand down again, stroking over her bottom while his other hand continued its work between her thighs.

Theo obeyed the soft command, her face buried in the coverlet. He moved behind her, his flat palms spreading her thighs. The intimacy of his caressing fingers deepened, and she could no longer control her soft, whimpering moans of pleasure, and when she felt his flesh glide within her, she reached behind her blindly, to touch the rock-hard thighs that drove him on this joy-bringing, joy-taking voyage.

At her touch Sylvester knew he'd won. He moved within her until the little ripples of the satin sheath that held him began to gather momentum. Then he withdrew and, before Theo could react, turned her onto her back.

"Now," he said, "I want to see your face, my partner in pleasure."

He drew her legs up onto his shoulder and plunged to her core, his hands sliding over the backs of her thighs, and gripping the firm flesh of her backside.

Theo cried out as the changed position deepened the sensation of his flesh in hers, and she reached up to touch his chest, his nipples, to stroke down the concave belly, to slide between his thighs and upward on a deeply intimate journey that drew a low groan of delight from her lover.

He smiled down at her, and there was no triumph in the smile. Theo's tongue touched her lips, her eyes aglow, her skin flushed, and he knew that for the moment she'd forgotten everything that had brought them to this glorious plane.

She began to move, urgent and insistent, and he held himself still. "Wait a little, gypsy."

Theo shook her head, and there was a glimmer of mischief in her eyes. With one devastating wriggle of her exploring finger she broke his last reserve of control, and his body seemed to explode as her own convulsed around him and she no longer knew where his skin began and hers ended. His flesh was integral to her own body and his joy was hers.

"You wicked witch," he gasped when the wave receded and he could draw breath. "I was taking my time."

"You can't expect to have everything your own way." There was a tart edge to the mischievous rejoinder despite her languorous tone.

Sylvester grinned. "I gave up expecting that many months ago, my dear girl… but neither, I'll have you know, can you."

He fell onto the bed beside her, pushing an arm under her body, brushing a damp lock of hair away from the alabaster curve of her cheek. Theo lay still, her head on his shoulder, her eyes closed, wrestling with the idea of defeat. But it wasn't over yet. She still had a few days, until his mother and sister left. Perhaps she'd better try to make her in-laws a little more welcome.

"Why the face?" Sylvester asked languidly at her unconscious grimace.

"I'm thirsty," she improvised.

Sylvester sat up and swung himself to the floor. "Will water do you?"

"Yes, thank you."

She watched him through half-closed eyes as he crossed to the water jug on the washstand. "Where's the glass?"

"On the dresser."

He picked up the glass she'd been drinking from when he came in and filled it with water. He drank himself before refilling the glass and bringing it across to her. "What's in that bottle?" He handed her the water.

"Oh," Theo said, taking a drink. "Well, it's something I should have mentioned earlier."

"Why do I have the feeling I'm not going to enjoy this?" Sylvester mused, picking up the brown bottle and holding it to the light.

"It's a potion that will prevent conception," she said. "I got it from a herbalist in Lulworth."

"What." Sylvester stared at her, trying to understand what she'd said. Women didn't make those choices, they weren't theirs to make. He turned the bottle over in his hands, gazing at her in stunned disbelief. "Are you telling me you've been taking this since our marriage."

"Yes," Theo said. "Didn't you wonder why I hadn't conceived?"

"It did cross my mind," he said grimly. "Dear God in heaven, Theo! Why didn't you discuss this with me?"

"Well, at the beginning you said you wanted to set up your nursery without delay, and I didn't feel ready, and I thought if you refused to listen to me -"

"I'm not a brute, Theo," he interrupted. "I wouldn't force you to carry my child."

"Well, I didn't know that then." She plaited the sheet with restless fingers. "From what I understand about these matters, men don't expect their wives to have an opinion, let alone a way of enforcing that opinion. But I did."

Sylvester ran a hand through his disheveled locks, struggling with a melange of disbelief, resentment, and hurt. Of course, he'd expected her to do as other women did in these matters and simply accept the realities of the marriage bed.

"Why don't you want to bear my children?" he asked finally.

His wounded feelings were clear in his voice and his eyes as they rested gravely on her face, and Theo chewed her bottom lip, trying to think of how to assuage his hurt.

"It isn't that I don't want to," she said. "I just don't want to now. It's what Dame Merriweather said: It's best to look after the loving before you start breeding." She offered a tentative smile.

Sylvester looked down at the bottle he still held. "Do you have any idea what's in this? Have you the slightest idea what damage this kind of stuff can do you? It may well have prevented pregnancy, but what other effects was it having?"

"Dame Merriweather wouldn't give me anything that would harm me," she said with conviction.

"A country herbalist! What the devil does she know?" He put the bottle down and came over to the bed. "Listen, these medicines can do incalculable harm, I've heard horror stories aplenty." Not, however, among the kind of women Theo spent her time with. He kept the wry thought to himself.

Theo frowned. It was true the potion played havoc with her monthly cycle. "So what do you suggest?"

"There's a perfectly simple precaution I can take that involves no dangerous substances," he said, bending to extinguish the bedside candle. "So we'll leave it up to me from now on." Sliding a hand beneath her, he lifted her body so that he could pull down the coverlet. "Get in." Theo wriggled between the sheets, sliding over to make room for him. "Just until I'm ready," she said. "Yes," he agreed with a mock sigh. "Until then." "Perhaps we could try your method now." Her hand moved seductively over his body as he came in beside her. "I'd really like to see how it works…"