The Mammoth Book of Regency Romance Read online

  She lowered her eyes and pleated the sheets with unsteady fingers. “Are you coming to bed?”

  He arched one eyebrow in mocking amusement. “Why, Lady Kinvarra, is that an invitation?”

  She felt her colour rise. How ridiculous to be a worldly woman of twenty-eight and still blush like a seventeen-year-old. “It’s a cold night. You’ve had a hard ride. I trust you.” Strangely, so quickly on top of her earlier uncertainty, it was true.

  He released a short laugh and turned away. “More fool you.”

  Confused she watched him set the big carved chair beside the fire. He undressed down to breeches and a loose white shirt. “It’s only a few hours until dawn. I’ll do quite well here, thank you.”

  When he’d insisted they share a room, she’d wondered if he had some darker purpose. Some plan to take the wife who so profligately offered herself to another. To teach her who was her legal owner.

  But his actions proved her wrong.

  What did she expect? That he’d suddenly want her after all this time? She was a fool. She’d always been a fool where Sebastian Sinclair was concerned.

  The constriction returned to her throat, the constriction that felt alarmingly like tears. She lay back and forced herself to speak. “Goodnight, then.”

  “Goodnight, Alicia.”

  He blew out the candles so only the glow of the fire remained. She listened to him settle. He tugged off his boots and drew his greatcoat over him for warmth. There was an odd intimacy in hearing the creak of the chair and his soft sigh as he extended his legs towards the blaze.

  She stretched out. The bed was warm and soft and the sheets smelled fresh. She was weary to the bone but no matter how she wriggled, she couldn’t find that one comfortable spot.

  Recollections of the day tormented her. Harold’s desertion, which should have been a considerably sharper blow than it was. If her original plans had eventuated, she’d now be lying in his arms. She should regret his weakness, his absence, but all she felt was vast relief. Her mind dwelled on Kinvarra’s unexpected gallantry. The fleeting moments of affinity. The powerful memories of their life together, memories that tonight stirred poignant sadness instead of furious resentment.

  Kinvarra had turned the chair towards the hearth and all she could see of him was a gold-limned black shape. He was so still, he could be asleep. But something told her he was as wide awake as she.

  “My Lord?” she whispered.

  “Yes, Alicia?” He responded immediately. “Can’t you sleep?”

  “No.”

  Their voices were hushed, which was absurd as there was nobody to hear. The wind rattled the windowpanes and a log cracked in the fireplace. He had been right, the weather had worsened.

  “Are you cold?”

  “No.”

  “Hungry?”

  “No.”

  “What is it then, lass?” He sounded tender and his Scottish burr was more marked than usual. She remembered that from their year together. When his emotions were engaged, traces of his Highland childhood softened his speech.

  Strangely that hint of vulnerability made her answer honestly. “Come and lie down beside me. You can’t be comfortable in that chair.”

  He didn’t shift. “No.”

  “Oh.”

  She huddled into the bed and drew the blankets about her neck as if hiding from the cruel truth. Hurt seared her. Of course he wouldn’t share the bed. He hated her. How could she forget? He just played the gentleman to a lady in distress. He’d do the same for anyone. Just because Alicia was his wife didn’t make her special.

  When they’d first married, she’d tried to establish some rapport between them in the daylight hours, but when she’d rebuffed him in bed, he’d rebuffed her during the day. He hadn’t wanted her childish adoration. He’d wanted a woman who gave him pleasure between the sheets, not a silly little girl who froze into a block of ice the instant her husband touched her.

  She blinked back the tears that had hovered close so often tonight. She’d cried enough over the Earl of Kinvarra. She’d cried enough tears to fill the deep, dark waters of Loch Varra that extended down the glen from Balmuir House, his ancestral home.

  “Hell, Alicia, I’m sorry. Don’t cry.” She opened her eyes and through the mist of tears saw he’d risen to watch her. The fire lent enough light for her to notice that he looked tormented and unsure. Nothing like the all-powerful earl.

  “I’m not crying,” she said in a thick voice. “I’m just tired.”

  His mouth lengthened at her unconvincing assertion. He reached out with one hand to clutch the back of the chair. “Go to sleep.”

  “I can’t.” She wondered why she didn’t let him be instead of courting further misery like this.

  “Damn it, Alicia . . .” He drew in a shuddering breath and the hand on the chair tightened so the knuckles shone white in the flickering firelight.

  “I’m not . . . I’m not attempting to seduce you,” she said, and suddenly wondered if she was being completely truthful. What in heaven’s name was wrong with her? Surely she couldn’t want to revisit the humiliations of her married life.

  Kinvarra was as taut as a violin string. Tension vibrated in the air. “I know. But if I get into that bed, there’s no way I’ll keep my hands to myself. And I don’t want to hurt you again. I couldn’t bear to hurt you again.”

  She was shocked to hear the naked pain in his voice. This wasn’t the man she remembered. That man hadn’t cared that his passion had frightened and bewildered his inexperienced bride.

  This man sent excitement skittering through her veins and made her ache for his touch. She raised herself against the headboard and drew in a breath to calm her rioting heartbeat. Another breath.

  Her voice was soft but steady as she spoke. “Then be gentle, Sebastian.”

  Alicia hadn’t used his Christian name since the earliest days of their marriage. The shock of hearing her say “Sebastian” meant he needed a couple of seconds to register what else she’d said.

  His grip on the chair became punishing.

  He must be mistaken. She couldn’t be offering herself. She’d never offered herself in all these many years. Even in the beginning, he’d always had to take. He’d come to hate it, so that when she’d finally suggested a separation after those miserable months together, he’d almost been relieved.

  Of course, he hadn’t realized then that his agreement would lead to ten excruciating years without her.

  She sat up in the bed and watched him with a glow in her blue eyes that in any other woman he’d read as blatant sexual interest. She’d taken her beautiful hair down and it flowed around her shoulders, catching the firelight. She became his fantasy Alicia. He had to be dreaming.

  A frown crossed her face, he guessed at his continuing silence. “Sebastian?”

  “You don’t know what you’re asking,” he said in a constricted voice, wondering why the hell he tried to talk her out of fulfilling his dearest hopes.

  He’d wanted his wife for ten lonely years and now she was near enough to touch. He’d always been blackguard enough to want more from their forced intimacy tonight than mere conversation.

  Then he’d remembered those disastrous encounters at Balmuir House. He couldn’t bring himself to inflict himself upon her once again.

  She raised her chin, a signal of bravado that had been familiar in the young Alicia. The memory made his gut clench with longing.

  “You’ve chased one lover away. Honour compels you to offer recompense.” Then in a less confident voice: “Sebastian, once you wanted me. I know you did.”

  He swallowed and forced his response from a tight throat. “I still do.”

  She’d taken her thick red cloak off when she entered the room. Now she raised trembling hands to the buttons on her mannish ensemble. An ensemble that looked anything but mannish on her lush figure.

  Her travelling garb was cut like a riding habit and the white shirt was suitably modest, high at the throat. Even
so, when her fumbling fingers loosened that top button, every drop of moisture dried from his mouth and his heart crashed against his ribs.

  The Earl of Kinvarra was accounted a brave man. But he recognized the emotion holding him paralysed as ice-cold fear.

  Tonight provided a miraculous second chance to heal the breach in his marriage. But if he hurt Alicia again, he’d never have another opportunity to bring her back to him.

  He needed patience, restraint and understanding to seduce his wife into pleasure. Yet he burned like a devil in hell. What was he to do? He wanted her too much. And wanting her too much would destroy the fragile, uncertain intimacy building between them in this quiet room.

  When his family had presented him with such a beautiful bride, he’d been sure they’d find joy in each other. Instead every coupling had been furtive and shameful, accomplished in darkness and ending with his wife in tears. No wonder he’d lost his taste for forcing himself upon her, although to his endless torment, his desire had never waned.

  The shirt fell open another fraction, revealing a delicate line of collarbone and a shadowy hint of her breasts. She still studied him with an unwavering stare. Her hand dropped to the next button.

  “Stop,” he said hoarsely.

  Her hand paused. “Stop?” The vulnerability that flooded her face carved a rift in his heart. “You said . . .”

  He shook his head and finally released the chair. He flexed his aching hand to restore the blood flow. “And I meant it. But let’s do this properly.”

  Her hand fell away from her shirt to lie loose in her lap. “Shouldn’t I take my clothes off?”

  Dear God, she was going to kill him before she was done.

  He closed his eyes and prayed for control as images of Alicia’s naked body crammed his mind and turned him as hard as an oak staff. When he opened them, she stared at him as if he were mad. She wasn’t far wrong.

  “We’ve got plenty of time.” He stepped towards the bed, his hands opening and closing at his sides as he fought the urge to seize her and tumble her back against the mattress. “Why rush things?”

  “Kinvarra . . .” she said unsteadily.

  “You called me Sebastian before.”

  “You weren’t looking at me as if you wanted to eat me before.” She clutched at the sheet although she didn’t pull it higher. He was close enough now to notice the wild flutter of her pulse at her throat and the way her breathing made her swelling breasts rise and fall.

  “Believe me, I’d love to.” He couldn’t move too quickly. He had to rein himself in or the sweet promise of joy would disintegrate into dust.

  Her scent washed over him, floral soap and something warm and enticing that was the essence of Alicia. He drew a deep breath, taking that delicious fragrance deep into his lungs.

  Slowly, he reached to hold the hand that clutched the sheet. At the contact, she jerked and released a choked gasp.

  “Don’t be afraid, Alicia,” he murmured. “I won’t hurt you.” He hoped to hell he spoke true. His hand tightened on hers even as he told himself he needed to be careful with her.

  “I’m . . . I’m not afraid,” she said on a thread of sound.

  He laughed softly and lowered himself to sit on the bed. “Liar.”

  She blushed. As a girl, her blushes had charmed him. They still did, he discovered.

  “I’m nervous. That’s not the same as afraid.”

  He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. He felt her shiver. Turning her hand over, he kissed her palm. As he heard her breath catch, desire spurred him to take more, satisfy his pounding need. With difficulty he beat the urge back.

  Tonight what he wanted didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was his wife’s pleasure.

  She remembered him as a selfish lover. He needed to vanquish those unhappy memories and replace them with bliss. His voice deepened into sincerity. “Alicia, trust me.”

  He held her gaze with his. Doubt, fear and something that might have been reluctant hope swirled in her eyes. He felt tension in the hand he held. In desperate suspense, he waited for her to agree. Surely she wasn’t so cruel as to deny him now.

  The silence extended. And extended.

  Then finally, finally, she nodded. “I trust you, Sebastian.”

  Relief flooded him, made him dizzy. Relief and gratitude. He didn’t deserve her consent. Now he had it, he’d make sure she never regretted it.

  “Thank you,” he whispered, wondering if she knew how deeply he meant those simple words.

  He leaned down to brush his lips across hers. A light kiss. A glancing touch that promised more. A salute to the woman who would be his partner in rapture tonight.

  Her lips were impossibly soft. Smooth. Satiny. He lingered a second, savouring the sensation. He hadn’t kissed his wife in nearly eleven years. He’d kissed her before they’d married. He’d kissed her during their first weeks together, but the spiralling misery of their days had soon made kissing seem a travesty.

  Kinvarra started to pull away, even as the beast inside him surged against restraint. Then Alicia made a soft sound deep in her throat and her lips parted.

  Her warm breath filled his mouth. She tasted familiar. Yet as fresh and new as a fall of snow. Hot darkness exploded inside his head and reaction ripped through him. He longed to ravish her mouth with all the passion locked in his heart. He clenched his hands in the blankets. His control already threatened to shred and he’d hardly started his seduction.

  She reached out and cradled his head between her hands, holding him close. He shut his eyes and prayed for fortitude, even as she tilted her head and pressed her mouth to his.

  Her kiss was clumsy, as if she hadn’t kissed anyone in a long time. Shock rocketed through him. On an intellectual level, he’d known she’d never been unfaithful. But that passionate, needy, unpractised kiss assured his soul that in all the years they’d been apart, she’d belonged only to him.

  Automatically his arms encircled her, curved her against his body. She moulded to him as his mouth opened over hers. Blazing heat threatened to incinerate his good intentions. Even as he kissed her deeply, ravenously, stroking her tongue with his, he struggled to remember that he couldn’t yield to this fire.

  His resolution faltered when her tongue moved in unmistakable response. Restraint became even shakier when she sighed into his mouth and rubbed her body against his.

  His shaking hands rose to her head to hold her as he plundered her mouth, stoking her passion with every second. His heart slammed hard at her unfettered response. He’d never guessed she had such wildness in her. She was glorious. When he finally raised his head, she whimpered in protest and her eyes were dark and slumberous under heavy, drooping eyelids.

  A soft, shaken laugh escaped him as he feverishly stroked his hands through the soft hair at her temples. He couldn’t resist touching her – he couldn’t rely on fate being generous enough to keep his wife in his arms. “I’m struggling to be gentle, my darling, but you make it almost impossible.”

  Her breath escaped in uneven gasps from moist, parted lips. Her face was flushed with arousal. “I’m not seventeen any more, Sebastian,” she whispered. “I won’t break.”

  Almost reverently, he cupped her jaw. “You deserve tenderness and respect.”

  Her smile was tremulous. “Is that what you feel for me?”

  “Of course,” he said immediately. Then after a pause: “And desire.”

  “Show me the desire.”

  He bit back a groan. Leashing his hunger was the most fiendish of tortures. “I promised I wouldn’t hurt you.”

  Her gaze was steady. “You won’t.”

  Shame bit deep, chastened his craving, although nothing could ease his need apart from having her. And he already suspected that one night, no matter how dazzling, wouldn’t be enough even then. “I did once.”

  She touched his cheek with a tenderness that filled him with guilty awareness of how badly he’d once treated her. “We ’ve both grown u
p since then, Sebastian. I trust you. Please, trust yourself.”

  The yearning to prove himself worthy of her confidence flooded him. He couldn’t fail her now. But nor could he continue to treat her as if she were made of spun glass. It would destroy him. As he looked into her beautiful face, he realized she was right. She was no longer the frightened girl he’d first married and he was no longer the greedy, thoughtless young man who hadn’t appreciated the treasure he held in his arms.

  Time had changed them and now it offered the opportunity to start again, to move beyond their mistakes and create something new and invincible and shining. He wanted to insist on promises from her, but he was wise enough to know that it was too early to burden the moment with talk of the future.

  His hands were gentle as he undid the next button on her shirt. By the time he slid the garment from her shoulders and let it fall to the floor, she was trembling. Her hands had dropped to her sides.

  It seemed she left everything to him. Was this a test?

  Her scent filled his head and his thirst for her maddened him. Even so, he held back. Carefully he undressed her. Finally she was bare to his sight and he paused in wonder. In ten years, she’d changed. Her body was a woman’s, ripe, voluptuous, alluring.

  He drew a shuddering breath and reminded himself of all that was at stake. His blood beat hot and hard but he managed to cling to control.

  Just.

  Alicia lay before him in shy wantonness. A flush lined her slanted cheekbones and the breath came fast between her lips. Almost hesitantly, Kinvarra reached out to cup one full breast. It curved into his hand as if created for his touch and the raspberry nipple pearled into tightness. When he bent to kiss that impudent peak, Alicia’s surprised gasp of pleasure was his reward. He drew harder on the nipple and ran his hand down the soft plain of her belly to the curls at the juncture of her thighs.

  She was already damp. This slow seduction worked its magic on his wife too. He took her other nipple between his lips and nipped gently at the crest. She shifted restlessly under his hand and he caught the scent of her arousal. She buried her fingers in his hair, urging him closer.