Regency Pleasures and Sins Part 1. Louise Allen

back hair.’ She relieved her feelings by jabbing in pins enthusiastically. ‘When do you dance with the master?’

      ‘The next dance. Jenny, am I flushed?’

      ‘Just nicely,’ Jenny pronounced, head on one side. ‘Bite your lips a little. There, now off you go.’

      A quadrille was in progress and Katherine stayed where she was rather than make her way round to where Lady Fanny was deep in gossip with a bosom friend.

      ‘Another glass of champagne?’ It was Nick, standing right beside her, a glass in each hand.

      ‘I have had two,’ she said realising how gauche it sounded.

      ‘Another will not hurt.’

      ‘Very well.’ Katherine took the glass, startled to find that Nick’s fingertips touched hers. She looked up and found herself gazing deep into black eyes that seemed to burn hot.

      The quadrille came to a close, the dancers clapping and walking off the floor. Nick retrieved her half-empty glass and set it down. ‘Now, Kat.’ And took her in his arms.

      She was reminded of how he had held her the morning she had left him in Newgate; that fierce intensity. She looked up, but only his eyes betrayed any emotion beyond a pleasant social smile.

      The music started and she was swept into the dance. This was nothing like Mr Graham’s carefully executed steps or the cautious and proper approach of the other gentleman she had waltzed with that evening. This was a very different experience indeed.

      Her head whirling, she was conscious that she was improperly close to Nick’s body. When he whirled her round their thighs brushed, his hand tightened on her waist. She was so close that when she tried to look up she had to tip her head. It would be much more comfortable just to move closer and rest it against his waistcoat.

      It was very strange, the music seemed to be getting softer, the floor harder, the air cooler. Hazily Katherine realised her eyes were closed and her head was, after all, resting on Nick’s chest as he swept her round and round and round. And there was no more music, only Nick humming softly in her ear.

      ‘Nick?’ It was far too difficult to open her eyes.

      ‘Mmm?’

      ‘Where are we?’

      ‘On the terrace. Look.’

      He came to a halt and reluctantly Katherine opened her eyes and gasped. They were standing on the edge of the terrace, looking out towards the lake. Instead of it being merely a darker smudge in the dark parkland, it was illuminated with lanterns all around the edge and on what she realised must be boats on the surface.

      ‘Nick, it is magical.’ It came out as a whisper. Had anyone seen them come out here? It was a very fast thing to be doing, yet here, now, in his arms, prudence fled.

      ‘Look at the house.’ He turned her within the shelter of his arm to look at the fairytale palace the Duke had conjured up with light. Flambeaux blazed along the frontage, lanterns flicked and danced on every balcony and, amidst the urns and containers of white flowers that seemed to be everywhere, more lights glowed silver.

      ‘Come this way, let me show you a secret.’ She was almost unaware of his arm around her waist, drawing her to him. All she was conscious of was enchantment, a feeling of safety and warmth, and a stirring deep in her veins as though her blood was turning to liquid silver, flashing and running through her.

      In a dream she let Nick guide her slowly along the broad terrace and round the corner of the great house. On this façade too the flambeaux blazed and the lanterns glowed. Nick stopped at the foot of one of the turrets. One flaming torch was thrust in a holder by a small door. In the breeze the flame snapped and flared, colouring Nick’s face with red light. He looked unfamiliar, but not frightening.

      ‘Kat, look at me.’

      ‘I am.’

      ‘Kat …’ His mouth took hers in a hot, fierce claiming that swept her away instantly. There was nothing to do but yield to it, arch her body into his, open her lips to the pressure of his, ignore the voice of common sense that was battering away at her mind like a moth at a lighted window. Stop this now, before it is too late … It’s a kiss, only a kiss, her yearning, loving, heart argued back. I can stop any time I want to … I love him, he will never hold me like this again … It is only for a moment, then we can go back and no one will know.

      His mouth was kissing, nibbling a hot path down her throat, up again to the lobe of her ear. One hand held her hard against him, the other strayed down caressingly to circle her breast.

      Katherine gasped, stunned that the touch could send fire deep into her belly, set up an ache that could find no relief in either his touch or his mouth returning to hers. The earth moved, the stars and the looming bulk of the tower above her shifted. At first she thought dazedly that she was fainting, then she found she was in Nick’s arms and he was shouldering open the tower door.

      No. Her voice was not working; she mustered all her strength of will now, while his caressing hands were stilled and his mouth had left hers, and tried again. ‘No. Nick, stop, this is madness. What are you doing?’

      ‘Carrying you upstairs to my bed where I intend making love to you.’ His voice was calm, not even breathless with the climb; if she had not been pressed against his chest, able to feel the thud of his heart, she would have thought him unmoved.

      ‘No!’ she said again. ‘You promised me that I could have the marriage annulled. How can I if we make love?’

      ‘I would never break a promise to you, Kat.’ He had reached a landing on the spiral stairs and shifted her in his arms so he could open the door. ‘I did not say we were going to make love. I said I am going to make love to you. There is a difference.’

      ‘I … I do not understand.’

      ‘I know.’ They were at his bedchamber door. Katherine knew she should struggle, but the same trust that had filled her when she had looked across that prison room into the eyes of a filthy, unshaven felon possessed her now.

      They were inside the room. Candles burned steadily, there was a fire in the grate and on the washstand steam rose lazily from the jug. Someone had only just left. Nick set her gently on her feet and reached behind him to turn the key in the lock. ‘The key is in the door, Kat—you can walk away if you want to.’

       Chapter Twenty-Four

      ‘I do not think I do want to leave,’ she said with difficulty, searching his face. ‘I should, I know. Nick, why?’

      ‘I asked you to wait a month before you made your decision. I have shown you my family, my home, the house you can make our own. I just wanted to give you a glimpse of one of the other benefits of married life.’ He was smiling at her reassuringly, but the dark fires were in his eyes and she knew that, whatever he was feeling at this moment, it was not calm, not restrained. And yet he was holding all that back for her.

      She knew she was blushing and suddenly did not care. ‘Yes, Nick.’

      ‘You trust me?’

      ‘I have always trusted you,’ she said simply and was rewarded by the flare of emotion in his eyes.

      ‘I think we had better dispense with this very beautiful gown extremely carefully,’ he said thoughtfully, letting his hands rest on her shoulders. ‘I look forward to seeing you wearing it again. Now, how does it fasten, I wonder?’ His hands drifted, explored while she held her breath. ‘Ah, I see, little buttons: one, two, three … four.’ The narrow shoulders of the gown slipped down under his palms. ‘If I hold it and you step out—or is the approved method over your head?’

      ‘Over.’ It was so hard to speak. She was suddenly blind in the rustling silken darkness, then