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Varian swallowed his pride in a painful gulp. “Is that where you plan to spend the night?”
A long silence. He waited.
No answer came. Finally, she turned to the door.
“Esme, please.”
“Please, what?” Ret voice was taut, like her posture.
“I’ve missed you, darling.”
She turned back to him, her eyes wary.
“I...I wish you’d stay.”
Her glance darted to the bed, then back to him. “You told me I must go to London.”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t want you! Goddammit, Esme—” Varian caught himself up short. “I’m sorry. I promised myself…but it’s no use, never is. I’ve tried to explain, but I just can’t make you understand. Why is it so difficult, love? I know you want to help me—but if my peers were to hear my wife was slaving for me, I could never look them in the eye again. Nor could I live with myself.”
She said nothing, only watched him.
Varian gazed helplessly about him while his mind frantically sought the right words.
“I would be disgraced,” he said at last. “Worse than I am at present. Far worse. I know it sounds crazy to you, but that’s the way of my world. Ask anybody.”
Esme considered for a frustratingly long while.
“Ask anybody,” Varian repeated, “when you get to London. If even one member of the Beau Monde tells you different, you may tell your grandmother to send you right back to me.”
She folded her hands tightly in front of her. “Do you promise this?”
“Yes. I promise.”
She studied the grimy floor a moment. “I do not like this country,” she said. “The people have no sense.”
“So it would appear.”
Her brow furrowed. “I have a dancing master, you know. And a maid of my own. She thinks I do not know how to dress myself, and so I must pretend I do not or I will hurt her feelings. It is tiresome sometimes to be a lady, and I become cross. I told your brothers I was sorry for my rudeness. I told them my temper is very ugly, and it cannot be helped.” She flushed, and his heart gave a desperate lurch in answer.
“I love your temper,” he said. “They did, too. It was the most excitement any of us have had in weeks.”
“I do not wish to be exciting. It is not ladylike.”
“I like you just the way you are.”
“Tsk.”
“I do,” he said firmly. “Very much. I’ve missed you very much. I’m not happy without you, Esme.”
“I—I am glad,” she said. “You should be unhappy.”
Varian moved past her and shut the door.
“They are waiting for us, Varian.” Her voice was low, shaky.
“I never dine before eight o’clock.” His eyes fell upon the shabby counterpane. It was wrong, he told himself, and he was selfish and base. But he was also desperate.
He caught Esme by the waist and deposited her upon the bed, then knelt before her. “In any case, I’ve two months of conjugal duty to make up for.”
Her beautiful eyes were filled with doubt…hurt as well.
Varian looked down. He’d make it better, he told himself. He knew how. It was the one thing he did well.
He removed one ridiculously tiny half-boot and stroked her foot. “Silk,” he said softly. “Only a concubine would wear silk upon her feet.” He looked up at her. “I wanted you then.”
“Because you are wicked.”
“Yes.” Varian removed the other boot. Then, very slowly, he slid his hand up her leg and unfastened the lacy garter. Slowly again, he inched the stocking down. Her toes curled. He dealt with the other garter and stocking with the same deliberation. She shivered.
He trailed his hands up her bare legs, drawing her muslin frock up over her knees. He kissed each knee. Her scent swam in his head. His fingers tightened on her thighs. He looked up into eyes dark as the forest depths. Watchful. Waiting.
Varian shivered. His trembling hands moved swiftly to the fastenings at her back. Then he took his time again, letting his fingers trail along her creamy skin while he eased the frock down to her waist and past her hips until it sank to the floor.
She wore a gossamer-thin chemise, embroidered in a lacy pattern of twining rosebuds. The rosy peaks of her firm breasts were already hard, trembling against the fragile fabric. His breathing grew labored.
His fingers stiff with the effort not to hurry, Varian slowly removed the pins from her hair. Rippling over his fingers, the loosened tresses tumbled to her shoulders. “Garnet and pearls,” he murmured. His voice seemed to come through a fog. “How I’ve missed looking at you. And touching you.”
“I have not missed you so much.” Her voice, too, was muffled. “I have been very busy.”
Varian watched the rapid rise and fall of her bosom. “Liar.”
“Tsk.” But her eyes told more even than her quickened breathing. Longing shimmered in their green depths, making his heart ache.
He wanted to throw her down and have her there and then, that instant, and let anguish burn up in the savage fury of passion.
Instead, he stood and, his gaze locked with hers, pulled off his clothes. Her darkening glance slid the length of his lean torso, pausing for one dazed instant where his desire was so blatantly evident.
“As you observe,” he said hoarsely, “your husband is prepared to do his duty.”
A small, choked sound escaped her.
Varian silenced it with a kiss, quick and hungry. Then he drew the chemise up over her hea
d and impatiently tossed the flimsy garment aside.
“Eager to do his duty,” he amended. He nudged her, and Esme inched back upon the bed. Kneeling between her legs, he bent over her and took her mouth in a deep, fierce kiss that drove her down onto the mattress. He drew away to nuzzle her breasts. He heard her catch her breath, but she made no attempt to hurry him or even touch him. He teased with his tongue and with his hands. Esme simply accepted, her response a breath of a sigh.
He lifted his head to look at her. Her eyes were sleepy, unfocused, yet he discerned the glint in them.
“Esme.”
“Tell me.”
“I want you.”
“Yes. Want me.” Closing her eyes, she gave a throaty sigh.
Varian’s hand tightened over her breast. She moved sinuously, and the faintest of smiles curved her mouth.
“I want you now,” he said hoarsely.
Slowly she slid her hand over her sleek body until it rested at the bottom of her belly. “No. Not yet.”
He swallowed a groan. “No, first you want to drive me insane.”
“Yes.”
“Revenge.”
“No. Yes.”
“Very well, my lady,” he growled.
Ravaging her mouth with needy kisses, he stroked and caressed, infusing her with his heat. She gave him soft moans and sighs, and stirred under his touch, but unhurriedly. Yet he felt pleasure vibrating within her, felt it growing into urgency while he kissed every inch of her silken skin.
Every art he’d ever learned became part of one tormenting search to make her fully wild as only she could he, and as he wanted. Then, even when she reached for him at last, her strong hands dragging him down to her, he wanted still more. Even when she was maddened fully, sobbing and laughing at once, he wanted more. Then, as she wrapped her hot, supple body tightly about him, his words spilled out. Not the easy endearments of a practiced lover but harder truths: of regret and shame and loneliness…and something else. It was this last he uttered most painfully of all, the words tearing his throat.
“I love you, Esme.”
She pulled his mouth to hers, as though to take the words inside her.
“I love you,” he repeated. The sounds trembled in the darkening room. Again and again he told her, and the words hung in the air as he surged into her…and carried her to rapture…then spilled his love upon the ragged sheets.
