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Chapter Ten
Your inspiration has filled me with inspiration of my own, my love. And pushed me into a greater understanding of my duty.
Sybil lay silent and tortured in the darkness of her lonely bedchamber. Humphry had visited her here on the rarest of occasions. This was the scene of her greatest humiliations. Never more acutely did she understand her failure as a wife than beneath the covers of the large, empty bed that cocooned her restless body.
When the discreet scratching at the door was followed by the spill of light across the carpet, she turned on her side to face the opposite wall, trembling with a despairing resignation that was almost painful.
Light footsteps sounded. She squeezed shut her eyes and fisted her hands as the mattress dipped. This was followed by the touch of a hand, light and tentative.
Not belonging to Humphry. She would know Stephen if she were bound and blindfolded. The gentle pressure of his lover’s touch and the bergamot and equine smell of his strong young body never failed to thrill and delight her.
“My lady, I know you’re angry with me but hear me out before you send me away.”
“Stephen! You mustn’t be here!” Sybil jerked into a sitting position as he reached for her hand. He’d placed his candle on the chest of drawers and in the glow he looked earnest and desperately young.
Her heart beat erratically and despite herself she gripped his hand.
“I’m not angry, Stephen.” She wasn’t, either. Just filled with a deep sadness that everything they’d shared had been reduced to dust by the latest developments. She’d joined herself with Stephen through duty. Now she must rend herself asunder—and apart from him—through duty. She squeezed his hand. “I believe everything you said about you and Araminta. Nor am I jealous.” She lowered her eyes and added painfully, “Though I wish I were twenty years younger and free to marry—like her.”
“For then you’d marry me!” In a burst of feeling, Stephen leapt athletically across the bed and took her into his arms.
Despite the answering passion in her breast, Sybil held him at bay, unclasping his hands, which bound her tightly to his chest, but holding them in hers as she gently chafed them, staring into his confused and troubled eyes.
He shook his head and she longed to smooth away his troubled frown as he said slowly, “If you’re not angry with me then what must I do to convince you that what we have together is pure and good and right?” He put his head on one side, his expression quizzical. “I feel nothing for Araminta. I’ve told you more than once I would not marry her, even if she has no mind to wed Edgar following your decidedly extraordinary announcement. But Sybil, now that you’ve said you’re with child, it’s your duty to follow through.” His eagerness grew as he slipped out one of his hands to stroke her arms, her breast. He cupped her face. “I have two more days here. We must make the most of every opportunity.”
She let him touch her, allowed him to whip up the deepest passions only he could evoke, knowing she should push him away. But the warmth of his caring touch was so welcome after so many cold, loveless years. She acknowledged her love for him was forbidden but surely she could bask in his fleeting caress?
Closing her eyes, his lips on hers, she wondered how he would think of her when he returned to his old life and made his own way in the world, surrounded by fresh, beautiful young women. Would he be horrified? She doubted he’d be indiscreet. He had integrity and was certainly too fond of her and aware of the potential danger of a misplaced remark to cause harm to her reputation. No, he was simply a young man enjoying the novelty of an older woman who, for her own reasons, had offered him unfettered access to her body—for what that was worth.
With an effort that tested the utmost limits of her self-control, she pushed him away. “Stephen, we cannot do this anymore.”
Oh God, how she hated the finality of those words. His disappointment as his hands dropped away cut deep. Of course he was disappointed. What libidinous young man wouldn’t be disappointed at the withdrawal of sexual relations?
Forcing herself to sound strong, she said, “Humphry’s interest appears to have been aroused once more by the prospect of siring his own heir.”
Stephen’s face fell.
Sybil swallowed. “You’re a wonderful lover, Stephen. You’ve been very kind—” “Kind!” The explosiveness of his words suggested she’d just delivered the greatest of insults.
Suddenly she was once more pinioned against his chest, his mouth working in anger—for she could feel it against her cheek, which was pressed beneath his chin—as he ground out, “Kindness had nothing to do with everything we’ve had together. Sybil! Don’t you understand? I want you. You! I’m not here because of some perverse pleasure in siring the next heir to this...this pile of stones. Not because of the free sex. I’m here because of you! I love you, Sybil. Not anyone else, and I want you.”
Despite the comfort of his words, she tensed as he stroked her breast, unleashing once again the carnal desires she thought she’d successfully reined in. The carnal desires she dare not act upon. Hot wanting curdled in her lower belly and she squirmed at the rush of moisture between her legs.
“And you want me,” he whispered, his mouth barely moving against hers. “Otherwise your body would not respond to me like this.”
She moved into him, despite herself.
“Humphry will be visiting me tonight.”
Stephen registered her words in silence, still gently cradling her breast.
Slowly, thoughtfully, he conceded, “It’s Humphry’s right to sire his own heir.” He drew in a labored breath. “But if he refuses to give you what is your right...if he cannot take the trouble to bring you pleasure in the process, then I can do that very nicely.” He kissed her earlobe, his fingers plucking at the ribbon that tied her night rail as his voice gained force. “Without putting you in any danger of conceiving a child.” He paused, adding in a tone both proud and vulnerable, “Unless you wish to end...everything...now.”
“Stephen, I—” Her sentence was truncated on a groan as Stephen’s hand skimmed her inner thigh.
“So you do want me.”
She almost laughed in a burst of abandoned joy at his near-adolescent satisfaction as he dipped his fingers into her moisture, withdrawing them and presenting them to her in the glow of the candlelight as if it were proof.
