The Disgraceful Mr. Ravenhurst Read online

  ‘Frippery things?’

  ‘Do-dads. Bits of nonsense men aren’t supposed to talk about. Absolutely nothing sensible or practical, Nell, I warn you.’ She found she was smiling back, carried away by his enjoyment of his plans for her. ‘Now, bed and an early morning.’

  Theo lounged, with a total lack of concern for propriety, on the chair in Elinor’s bedchamber and watched her unpacking their purchases on the bed. Four gowns: morning, walking, half-dress and full dress; a froth of Swiss lawn undergarments and night things; gloves and stocking; fans, slippers and shoes; two shawls, a pelisse and three hats.

  ‘Oh, my goodness.’ She sat down on the end of the bed and looked at him, breathless, and apparently in two minds whether to laugh or cry. ‘Theo, I just don’t believe all this now I see it all together. It is so beautiful. Thank you. I have never been shopping like this before.’ She whisked off the bed and was kissing him, her hands on his shoulders, before he could brace himself.

  Oh, God, the scent of her. It had been torture all day, being with her, watching her enjoyment as he coaxed and teased her into trying things on, choosing between pairs of gloves and then buying them all for her anyway, seeing an utterly frivolous, fun-loving, playful Nell emerge into the sunlight.

  She had accompanied him, shockingly, into bootmakers, had insisted on checking the quality of the neckcloths he bought, dabbed cologne on the back of her hand and then on his new handkerchiefs and teased him into buying a waistcoat all the colours of autumn, which she said would go with his hair.

  ‘I’m glad you like them,’ he said mildly, exercising considerable control of his breathing. ‘I think I can hear the new luggage being brought up.’

  ‘Shall I pack for you?’

  ‘No. I can manage, thank you.’ The thought of her bent over the valises, folding his shirts, acting like the wife he wished she was—that was one torture too far.

  It was as well, he thought wryly over dinner, to be careful what one wished for. He had fantasised about a day spent with Nell, indulging his desire to buy her pretty things and now he was having to live with the consequences. She was happy and sparkling and light-hearted. Which was wonderful. She was also treating him like an indulgent brother, which was not.

  She left him after dinner with a gesture towards the brandy bottle. ‘That gave me a headache, I think I will leave you to it, Theo.’ Something of the sparkle had gone out of her mood; she looked serious as she stood, the door handle in one hand, a copy of Petrarch’s poetry she had insisted on buying in the other. How like Nell, he thought tenderly, off she goes to bed to read fourteenth-century Italian in the original.

  ‘Theo.’

  ‘Mmm?’ He was not sure whether he did not like her best when she was serious, her brow furrowed over a book, or deep in thought. The laughter was never very far away and the look in those clear hazel eyes…

  ‘Theo, wake up! Will you knock on my door when you come up? Say goodnight? I’ll be reading.’

  ‘If you want me to translate, I can’t, my Italian is strictly the modern variety.’

  ‘No.’ Her smile was oddly tense. ‘No, I won’t ask you to translate.’

  How long had she got to wait? Elinor wondered, washing with the tablet of fine-milled soap that she had picked up to smell in the perfumers and which had been immediately added to the pile of Theo’s purchases. She could change her mind, right up to the point where he tapped on her door, expecting to say goodnight.

  Her new nightgown slithered over her shoulders, a virginal pure white that should have prodded her conscience. She tied the ribbons loosely at the neck, for the first time in her life thinking about dressing to please a man. No, she corrected herself firmly, seduce him. It had a matching robe, hardly more practical or modest. She slipped it on, wondering if it was as translucent as it felt.

  Theo had seemed to like her hair loose, she thought, remembering the way he had weighed it in his hands before plaiting it on the river bank. Freed from its ribbon, the braiding shaken out, it rippled over her shoulders and down her back, a shifting veil.

  A more assured woman would have scent and know how to use it, would place a jewel strategically, might use lamp-black to lengthen her lashes, or the petals from those geraniums on the window sill to redden her lips or cheeks. But she had none of those arts, or those accessories. Either he wanted her or he did not. All she could do now was to wait and see whether her nerve held.

  The book she had bought was hard to translate, forcing her to concentrate as she struggled with the meaning. But it was not a good choice for the love-lorn wrestling with conscience and desire, filled as it as with sonnets written by the poet to his unfulfilled love, Laura.

  ‘Wherever I wander, love attends me still, Soft whispring to my soul, and I to him.’ That was lovely, and, sadly, implied that love would never let you alone.

  ‘Sighing?’ She had not heard the tap on the door. Theo was standing just inside, regarding her with affectionate amusement. He had taken off his boots, which was perhaps why she had not heard him. ‘That is heavy stuff for this time of night. Are you having trouble with the grammar?’

  ‘No, it isn’t as bad as I feared. Theo—’ Now was the moment to make up her mind, take that second chance. ‘Would you come in and close the door?’ He raised his eyebrows, but did as she asked, putting his chamber stick down on the dresser and watching her in the candlelight.

  ‘Are you afraid of sleeping again?’

  ‘It isn’t that.’

  She put the book down with care and stood up. How difficult could it be? He only had to say no. Theo’s eyes widened as he took in her loose hair, the fragile white lawn garments. As though his gaze was being dragged, it travelled down her body to her toes, bare under the lacy hem.

  ‘I want you to stay with me tonight, Theo, and make love to me.’ A frank demand, not one of the careful phrases she had rehearsed, but at least it was said, even if her stomach did seem to have shrunk to a tight knot of apprehension and she could feel the colour rising in her cheeks. He was standing there, watching her, his face a mask, yet she sensed anger, not any of the other emotions she would have expected—embarrassment, alarm, pity.

  ‘You do not have to pay for what I bought you today,’ he said finally, and the rage was there, clear and cold in his voice. It was the tone she would have imagined one man would have used to another in the moments before rapiers came sliding out of scabbards. And something else. Pain.

  ‘Oh, no! Theo, I would never…I was going to ask before today, before I knew what you intended.’ She was normally so calm and articulate and now the words were tangling in her mouth and she found that, confronted with pure emotion, she had no idea how to put right what she had done. This was Theo and she was losing him.

  Elinor fought down the panic and took a deep breath. ‘I realised the night before last, when you slept in my room, how much I wanted to…’ Her resolution died away in the face of his implacably blank expression. She tried again.

  ‘Theo, I know I’m not going to get married, I have always known it. I would never settle for anything other than a love match, and I know I’m not going to find one of those. But I find I don’t want to live the whole of my life not knowing about—’ She swallowed hard. ‘Not knowing about physical passion. It is not something a single woman can seek out, not without terrible risks, not unless there is someone she can trust, as I trust you.’

  The anger was leaving him, she could sense it, although she was still surprised by how quickly it had flared up in him, the hurt she sensed. Was it simply touchy male honour? Surely not.

  ‘As you say, there are risks,’ he said steadily, his eyes watchful on her face. ‘Your reputation, if word gets around that we have been travelling together, is ruined anyway. But with your mother’s connivance and the Maubourg court as cover, there is no reason why it should ever get out. Unless you become pregnant—and if we make love, then that is a very real risk, and one I am not prepared to take.’

  Because, if tha
t is the consequence, you will be trapped? one part of her mind asked. He is quite right, said her common sense. You would both be trapped.

  ‘It is possible to make love without that risk, is it not?’

  ‘Ah.’ Theo came fully into the room, leaning against the bedpost, a faint smile lifting the corner of his mouth. ‘My very well-read and very innocent Elinor, you are quite correct. But there is one proviso—you have to trust the man who is making love to you not to get carried away in the heat of the moment.’

  ‘And you do not trust yourself?’ she queried, sceptical. ‘What exactly were your intentions those times you kissed me, might I ask? Were they completely dishonourable? Were you confident things would go no further than a kiss? Or were you going to risk the consequences and rely on disappearing back into your wandering life afterwards?’

  ‘I intended to give you pleasure,’ Theo said slowly, his eyes locked with hers, ‘and I intended to take pleasure myself from doing that. You would still have been a virgin at the end of it. And the intensity of it made me realise that I should not involve myself with virgins and I resolved, somehow, to keep my hands off you in future. Don’t blush like that, Nell, you cannot initiate this sort of conversation and expect it to continue in euphemisms.’

  ‘I see. I beg your pardon for having implied any lack of honour on your part.’ The apology came from stiff lips, but something warmed the cold green eyes and she sensed him relax a little. The wise thing would be to say goodnight, to stop this now while she was still safe from the emotional consequences of what she wanted so much. But she no longer wished to be wise. Or safe.

  ‘Could we not pretend we are still in that study?’ she asked. ‘Could we not finish what began there?’ His lids lowered, hooding his eyes, hiding his thoughts from her. She wanted to shake him, make him realise how much she was suffering from the need he had ignited in her.

  ‘Theo, I know men have ways of dealing with frustration.’ His expression of mingled shock and amusement had her smiling back for the first time since this fraught encounter had begun. ‘Well, I do read, as you say, and all kinds of journals, including medical ones, find their way into the study at home, and I am bright enough to read between the lines. But you have made me want something I do not understand. And I want to understand it and I don’t want to ache like this any more.’

  He was going to refuse her, she was certain. Theo walked to her side, his face serious. ‘Nell.’ His big hand curved under her chin and tipped her face up. ‘I am not sure about revisiting the study. That floor was dreadfully hard and this one looks just as bad. Would you settle for the bed?’

  Chapter Nineteen

  ‘Yes, I will settle for the bed.’ It was difficult to keep her tone light to match his. The bed suddenly seemed very large, Theo seemed very close and it did not seem as though she was wearing very much at all, not with the way he was looking at her now.

  ‘Just tell me if you want to stop, Nell. This is all about you, about your pleasure.’ He had shed his coat and was loosening his neckcloth while she stood there like Pandora, wondering what on earth she had just let out of the box.

  ‘That is rather selfish,’ she demurred, reaching up to take the ends of the long muslin strip from his hands.

  ‘I didn’t say I wouldn’t enjoy it, too.’ Theo bent his head to help her pull off the neckcloth, then added encouragingly as she hesitated, ‘I would like it if you took off my shirt as well.’

  It was all rather leisurely, in contrast to that explosion of passion in the study. Elinor began to unbutton his shirt, her fingers fumbling a little. But the tension this slowness engendered was very real, knotting in her stomach, aching down the inside of her thighs. Between her legs a pulse began to throb with intimate urgency. Then her fingertips brushed skin and Theo caught his breath and she forgot to analyse how she was feeling.

  As she pushed the linen off his shoulders, he pulled at the shirt so it came out of his breeches and fell to the floor and then she was standing, her palms flat on the naked chest of a man. It felt…wonderful. He looked wonderful. She had thought she had known what to expect, but it was not the tactile smoothness of tanned skin over hard, defined, muscle or the strangely arousing tickle of crisp hair or the intriguing way his nipples hardened when she accidentally brushed against one.

  Theo moved his hands to push her robe open and the muscles of his chest shifted, rippling under her hands and she smiled, caressing down to explore as the fine lawn fell to catch at her elbows.

  ‘Are you sure you haven’t done this before?’ Theo asked as her fingertips slipped into the tight waistband of his breeches. ‘You seem to know all the right places.’

  ‘Quite sure!’ Worried she would do something wrong if she went any further, Elinor snatched back her hands and the robe fell to the floor at her feet. Theo made a complicated noise, somewhere between a growl and a sigh and pulled her against him, his hands sliding down her back from her shoulders to cup her buttocks, lifting her against the wonderful evidence that she was doing something very right indeed.

  Then he shifted his grip again and the next thing she knew her nightgown had gone and she was quite naked against him, feeling his heart hammering as his hands skimmed over her back and her buttocks, caressing with a gentleness she did not realise a man could possess. How she got on to the bed she could not say, but Theo was removing his breeches, drawers and stockings in one movement that a part of her brain which was still functioning recognised as honed by long practice.

  He was even more beautiful naked than clothed, she realised, staring at him with unabashed interest, not even the startling jut of his erection deterring her. Then she saw his eyes and realising he was looking at her in just the same way. I ought to be shy, I ought to be hiding under this sheet, she thought, wondering at herself, but all she could do was bask in the warmth of his gaze.

  ‘I knew I was right about what was under those dreadful gowns,’ he murmured, lying down beside her and gathering her in close for a kiss. That felt safer—wonderful and exciting and inflammatory, but at least familiar, as his mouth worked over hers. But then he moved, slid down against her, and that wickedly knowing mouth was doing things to her breast and to her nipples and she arched up off the bed with a gasp as he nipped the tense buds between his teeth.

  ‘Theo! Theo?’ She caught at his head, her fingers threading into the glorious red mane, but he kept moving, his mouth hot and wet now on her belly. Under his tongue the flesh was sensitive, responsive and she tried to move, only his hands cupped her hips, steadying her. ‘Where? Theo!’ He was nuzzling into the dense red curls at the apex of her thighs and she knew she was wet and hot and aching and it was the most shocking thing she could imagine. And then it became even more shocking as his tongue tip found something, found her, and teased and stroked while his hands pushed her unresisting legs apart and his fingers searched and probed and slid inside just as the complex knot of sensation deep in her belly unravelled itself into something that sent her spiralling into an explosion of feeling that was anguish and was delight and was everything.

  ‘Theo.’ That must be her voice, murmuring. Somehow she was in his arms again and the thud against her cheek was his heart.

  ‘Nell?’ He was stroking her, gentling his hands down over her hot skin, stilling her quivering. Now, at last, she realised that making love meant just that. He might not love her, but he had pleasured her with loving care, was holding her with tenderness.

  ‘That was…beautiful.’

  ‘Good,’ he murmured into her hair. ‘Are you tired?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Elinor answered honestly. ‘Why?’ In answer, his hands began to move with more firmness and he turned her in his arms until he could kiss her, while those clever, wicked fingers searched out that hidden part of her and began to touch and tease while she gasped against his mouth and realised that, no, she was not in the slightest bit tired.

  But what about him? What about his pleasure? Experimentally Elinor slid one hand down bet
ween their bodies to where his heat was most intense and curled her fingers around him. It stopped his mouth on hers and his moving fingers stilled. ‘Yes,’ he said, his voice husky. ‘Like that. Move like that—ah, Nell!’

  She was clumsy, unskilled, she knew, but he didn’t seem to mind and to feel the powerful urgency of his body responding to her while he drove her to the brink, brought her back, over and over, was utterly delicious madness. Then that tightening knot broke, shattered again, just as he surged in her grasp, his groan mingling with her gasps and she collapsed, limp, into his arms as he fell back shuddering with the force of his release.

  Theo woke to find himself in a hot sticky tangle of sheets, hair and soft feminine limbs. He lay looking up at the ceiling in the faint morning light and wondered if he had ever felt better. Beyond the moment, beyond this bed chamber door, was a reality he did not want to think about yet. Time enough to face it. Half on top of him, her face burrowed into his chest, Nell slept, her breath stirring the hair on his chest in an arousing tickle. He thought about waking her, then contented himself with stroking her hair.

  He had roused her once in the night, loving the way she responded to every caress with delighted surprise. And then he had been the one to be surprised when he had woken from a deeply erotic dream to find her small hand caressing him into total arousal. Half-asleep as he had been, he had almost forgotten the overriding need to preserve her virginity, had caught himself just in time as he brought his weight down over her.

  Had he satisfied both her and her curiosity? he wondered. Was she going to put away this awakening, this knowledge, and become once again the respectable bluestocking spinster? She was so vulnerable, trembling in his arms. Would it take so very much to convince her to marry him?

  A hand slid down his belly, its fingers teasing into the coarse hair, then tiptoeing up the rapidly stiffening length of him. ‘Good morning, Theo,’ she said, turning up her face to smile at him.