Regency Surrender: Passion And Rebellion. Louise Allen

calm voice, his apparent nonchalance, had an instant, and highly satisfactory, effect on her. Just as a skilled groom would gentle a skittish, badly broken mare, his retreat roused her curiosity. She stopped scrabbling round on the floor for any item of clothing she could find and looked at him fully for the first time since he’d withdrawn from her body.

      Though there was still wariness mingled in with the curiosity.

      ‘What do you mean, no good? You are the son of Lord Finchingfield.’

      ‘He was always my sternest critic. I’ve never had any ambition, you see, which in his eyes is the greatest sin a member of the Harcourt family can commit.’

      It was some consolation that he’d taken a stand and broken free of his father before tonight. Otherwise, he’d have had to go and tell him that he’d never forgive him for what he’d done to Amethyst. For what he’d made him do to Amethyst. For making him an accomplice in her heartbreak.

      Meanwhile, Amethyst had found a shoe, sat down on the edge of the bed with it and was sliding it on to her foot.

      He pulled himself together, sat up, slithered closer and slid his arms round her waist.

      ‘You don’t really want to leave, do you?’ he murmured the words into her ear. She shivered, but didn’t pull away. ‘I won’t mention marriage again,’ he breathed, before nibbling his way down her neck, ‘if the prospect of being legshackled to a man of my calibre is really so offensive to you.’

      ‘It isn’t you,’ she huffed, arching, probably involuntarily, to grant him better access. ‘I don’t want to marry anyone. Ever.’

      He wondered why not. It was generally the height of every woman’s ambition.

      His mouth flattened into a grim line. He had a sneaking suspicion that might be his fault too.

      ‘I can understand that,’ he said. ‘Having gone through the misery of being chained in a bond of mutual antipathy, I would not lightly enter into the state again.’

      ‘But you said...’

      ‘It was the shock, my sweet,’ he said, sliding one hand inside the quilt, to cup a breast, ‘of finding you a virgin.’ Well, it was true, up to a point. ‘But if you really don’t want to get married, we can forget all about it.’

      ‘There is no if about it,’ she said vehemently. ‘I did not get into your bed in an attempt to extract a marriage proposal from you.’

      ‘Oh?’ He nibbled round the outer edge of her ear. ‘Perhaps you would like to tell me what you did want to achieve, then. Because you aren’t the kind of woman who routinely has affairs, are you?’

      ‘Well, obviously not. You’ve just discovered that! I...’ She faltered into a sigh as he slid the quilt from her shoulders and started kneading at both breasts at once.

      ‘Then tell me,’ he urged her. ‘Tell me what you want from me.’

      ‘I don’t know, exactly,’ she protested. ‘I just...wanted to know what it would be like.’

      ‘Curiosity? Is that all that drove you here? I don’t believe that,’ he reproved her by nipping hard at her earlobe.

      ‘Well, no, that wasn’t all,’ she confessed, her eyes drooping half-shut. ‘It is...it has all been building up for some time now.’

      ‘Building up, yes,’ he agreed, sliding his hand down her torso until it rested just above the soft downy hair at the juncture of her thighs.

      ‘I’m so sick of people telling me how I ought to behave,’ she said, her head lolling back into the crook of his arm. ‘Of how to think. And never ever being...happy. I wanted...’ She ended on a whimper as he stroked lower.

      ‘You wanted to break free. To be yourself. Even if you’re not sure who that is, just yet.’

      ‘Yes,’ she moaned. ‘Ooh, yes...but how did you...?’

      ‘How did I know? What do you think I’m doing in Paris?’

      ‘I don’t know. I don’t know what you’re doing. But...’

      ‘But it feels good, doesn’t it. No pain now. Only pleasure, I promise.’

      He pulled her back down on to the bed and shifted so that he was beside her. And kissed her.

      She kissed him back for a while, but then stiffened and pulled her mouth away, and said, ‘What are you doing?’

      ‘I’m giving you what you want. I’m going to be your lover. For as long as you’re in Paris, we are going to keep on coming back to this bed—’

      ‘You must be joking!’

      He lifted one leg over hers when it looked as though she was going to struggle out of his arms, pinning her down while he kissed her again. Until she stopped struggling and kissed him back.

      ‘This is too important to joke about,’ he said grimly. ‘I hurt you. And made you want to run away when I should have given you the greatest pleasure you have ever known.’

      ‘It wasn’t all your fault,’ she conceded. ‘I knew you’d assumed I was being kept by Monsieur Le Brun, and even though I did tell you he wasn’t, I did nothing to discourage you from thinking I was the kind of woman who might. And then, when I agreed to your proposition and came straight round here, just as though I was used to doing this sort of thing...’

      ‘Even if you were an experienced woman, I should have been more considerate. But I wasn’t thinking straight. I was...’ His arms tightened round her convulsively. He’d never, ever, been so insensitive to a bed-partner’s needs. He hadn’t cared whether she enjoyed the coupling or not, that was the sordid truth. He had been angry with her when he’d carried her to this bed. He had still been blaming her for everything. ‘I wasn’t thinking about much of anything at all. Only counting the seconds until I could make you mine,’ he finished lamely. He couldn’t tell her the truth, or anything that might hint at it, because it would only hurt her more. And she didn’t deserve more hurt.

      She hadn’t deserved any of it, ever. Her only crime had been winning his heart and thereby falling foul of his powerful, manipulative, cold-hearted father.

      Well, this was where the hurting would stop. From now on, he would only bring her pleasure.

      ‘I may not be good for much,’ he said, ‘but one thing I am most proficient at is making love.’

      She didn’t look as though she believed him. He couldn’t blame her, considering the way things had gone so far tonight.

      ‘Give me another chance, Amethyst,’ he said, sliding his fingers between the legs she’d clamped shut. ‘Just see how it goes, hmm?’ She was already damp down there. Her body was responding to his kisses and caresses. It was only her mind that was still resisting. ‘You can stop me any time you want to. But I don’t think, this time, you will want me to stop.’

      He nuzzled her neck as he slid one finger inside her. She gasped and tensed. His heart lurched. But as he continued to caress her and nibble at her neck, she slowly relaxed, until he was able to slide another finger inside her.

      ‘Nathan,’ she moaned, half-plea, half-protest. ‘I really don’t think I want to do this...’

      ‘Hush,’ he murmured into her ear. ‘You don’t know what you want. You cannot, because you have never experienced any of this before, have you?’

      He groaned into her neck as another wave of anguish assailed him. They’d been on the brink of something, ten years before, which would have resulted in them both becoming very different people. He wouldn’t have become the cynic, or the rake he was, if he’d married her. And she... Well, he didn’t know what she’d become since they’d last met. But she didn’t look any happier than he was. She had that mean, pinched look about her mouth common to impoverished spinsters. She dressed dowdily, as though she had