Tempt the Devil (18 page)

“We lived together for almost four years and had two children we both adored.”

Roma must have jerked on the reins because her horse snorted in protest and tossed its head. He waited for her to argue his choice of words but she didn't speak. He had her complete attention. But what she felt, he couldn't have said. It struck him again that his daughter was a stranger.

“When your mother died, I wanted to die with her. In many ways, I did die with her. Your aunt offered to look after you and William. Everyone told me it was the best thing.”

“And you wanted to run away.”

“Yes, I wanted to run away.” How could he explain to a girl of her age what that grief had been like? How crippling. How selfish. How all-encompassing. He couldn't bear to be in the same room as his children because they were alive and his beloved was dead. He realized he owed Roma the full shameful truth. “I was a coward.”

She studied him with a steady gaze that he couldn't entirely read. There was certainly condemnation in her eyes. Which God help him, he'd earned. There was also something that could be the birth of understanding. “You were only twenty-two. That's just four years older than I am now.”

“I was young. That doesn't excuse the wrong I did.”

“No, but it makes everything a little easier to comprehend.”

She was far from offering him forgiveness. His sins of weakness and neglect against her were so great, he wondered if he deserved forgiveness.

He'd been wrong to abandon his children. A broken-hearted boy might evade his responsibilities. To be fair to Celia, he'd been in such a fit of sorrow after Joanna's death, he hadn't been capable of caring for his son and daughter. But he flinched to think that so many years had passed and he'd never returned to shoulder his family duties.

That was where his real crime lay.

Overwhelming guilt left a rusty taste in his mouth. He'd give his soul for a chance to change the past, to fix his mul
titude of mistakes, but it was too late. All he could do was blindly stumble forward in hope that the future might allow him some bond with his children.

“I'm glad we had this talk,” she said softly as they came out into the sunlight.

Her small, almost grudging admission made him feel like a king. Those few words signified a massive concession. Choking gratitude ambushed him and he had to struggle for words. “So am I.”

He couldn't pretend he'd won the battle for Roma's love and respect. That would take time and perception and every ounce of love he could find. But perhaps this morning he'd made a small step toward what he wanted. With patience and, heaven granting, goodwill on both sides, perhaps that small step would be followed by another and another.

Olivia, you've taught me so much.

They entered a busier section of the park. The time for confidences had passed. He turned to his daughter. Odd what a difference an hour could make. “Let me help you into the saddle. It's getting late. Aunt Celia will think we're lost.”

Surprisingly, she giggled. He realized with a pang that it was the first time she'd shared a moment of genuine amusement with him. “She'll think I've fallen off and you've had to chase my horse all over the park. It's happened before.”

“I'll give you riding lessons if you like.”

The lovely openness left her expression and familiar wariness returned. “I'm no good with horses. I never have been. There's no point trying to change me.”

“I wasn't—” he began impatiently, then realized that if this was a test, he was about to fail. “The decision is yours, Roma. I ride every morning. If you'd like to come, you're welcome.”

Her eyes filled with amazement that lasted even while he lifted her into the saddle. It was torture not telling her to straighten her back and relax her stiff arms but somehow he managed it.

Calling an order to the groom who had fallen into a doze on his bay pony, Erith strode across to his horse and mounted. He wheeled his horse around and found his attention riveted on a woman riding a spirited chestnut thoroughbred.

Olivia.

She was well across the clearing but he recognized her immediately. Even though her back was to him. Even though she wore the black riding habit that was any serious horsewoman's uniform. Even though she'd bundled her distinctive hair under a stylish and rather mannish hat.

Her horse curvetted restlessly but she quieted it with a casual movement of one graceful hand. Joanna had been a magnificent rider. But Olivia surpassed her the way the sun outshone a candle. She and the horse looked like one being. Her seat was perfect, her posture graceful, her supreme confidence clear. And that ebony habit followed every sinuous line of her body so closely that he guessed she'd been sewn into it. It was a courtesan's trick he'd seen before, but never to such glorious advantage.

The horse was an eye-catching beast. Fresh, all long sensitive lines and delicate legs and curving neck. But the woman atop his back was more striking still.

Erith's breath stopped in his throat at the superb sight.

Beside him, Roma had trouble getting her placid mount under control. He was vaguely aware of his daughter's fumblings, even as his gaze remained glued to Olivia.

His mistress chatted to two young bucks. One looked familiar. Erith supposed he must have been at Lord Peregrine's. The other was a stranger. Handsome, blond like a Norse god, young, obviously rich, riding a roan almost as fine as Olivia's chestnut.

Was she using her morning ride to select a new lover from among the young men who frequented the park at this hour? The thought ate at him like acid and his hands clenched, so his mount danced under the unexpected tug at the bit.

He tried to stifle his wild and immediate jealousy. Unreasoning, unacceptable, unprecedented jealousy.

What was wrong with him? He'd recognized the reality of his liaison with Olivia from the first. She was a courtesan. This was her livelihood. Of course she'd tout for her next keeper. Erith only stayed until July.

Did he expect her to enter a damned convent then and lament his absence for the rest of her life like some spineless heroine from an opera?

She had a career. As did he. And the two would soon put them a continent apart.

None of these undisputed facts quieted the anger and denial twisting like adders in his gut.

Olivia guided her mount to face him. Even across the distance, he knew she recognized him, even if she gave no overt acknowledgment.

That was how it must be too, blast it all to Hades.

“I don't see what all the fuss is,” Roma said flatly from beside him.

“What did you say?” he asked, wondering what she was talking about.

She tipped her head, now covered with its hat, toward Olivia. “That woman. Your doxy. I don't see what all the fuss is about.”

That was startling enough to capture Erith's wandering attention. “What in blazes—” He sucked in a deep breath and struggled to control the furious shock rocketing through him. “I beg your pardon, Roma.”

Her lower lip protruded in a way that was regrettably familiar. “You'll tell me I shouldn't know about such things. But of course I do. I'm not stupid, nor am I deaf. Your flagrant affair with that harlot is the talk of the ton. It was bad enough for the family when you kept your mistresses on the other side of the Channel.”

“This isn't something I can discuss,” he said gently, cursing blue murder inside. How the hell had she found out so much?

“Well, I think it's disgusting,” she snapped, and kicked her horse into a canter.

The groom perforce pursued her, his expression concerned. Obviously the speed was unusual for Lady Roma and he worried about her tumbling off. Erith watched the retreat and echoed his feeling. Roma bounced around with no sense of the horse's rhythm. The poor beast must feel like it had a bag of wheat bumping about on its back.

He looked up and noticed Olivia studying him. She must guess something of what had happened. And a woman on the fringes of society would have a good idea that the young girl in his company was his daughter.

A message passed between them as if she wordlessly sent him strength. Although nothing changed in that beautiful, strong-boned face.

No observer would have an inkling of the silent communication they'd just shared.

Then she turned back to her companions and treated Erith as a complete stranger. Somehow that dismissal was the worst part of the whole damnable situation. Not that his frail truce with his daughter had shattered. Not that he still had to approach his hostile son. Not that he needed to chase after Roma and make sure she didn't land on her aristocratic rump. Not even that Olivia flirted with another man.

No, the worst part of the whole hellish, bloody morning was that Olivia wasn't at his side, openly acknowledged as the lover he was proud to own.

T
he footman let Olivia into the house. She'd been out since her ride in Hyde Park that morning. Now it was past seven o'clock. Perry had wanted more help than she'd expected with the final arrangements for his thirtieth birthday ball, then he'd wanted her to stay for a nice long coze.

He felt neglected. She could understand that. Even so, his insistence on detaining her seemed deliberate, as if he plotted to keep her away from Erith.

Of course he did. His animosity toward the earl was as marked as ever. Stronger.

Now she felt tired and edgy. All afternoon, impatience had eaten at her. Pleasurable expectation focused on a lover was so outside her experience that it shocked her more than all the wanton acts she'd committed. But what else could the lightness in her step signal but happiness at the prospect of seeing him?

Thank goodness Erith left London in July, or she might make an utter fool of herself.

Her racing heart steadied, took up a fatalistic beat. The prospect of Erith's departure didn't give her spirits the boost she'd hoped for.

In a pensive mood, she removed her bonnet and passed it to the butler. “I'll have a bath and a light meal, Latham. Tea. Not wine.”

“His lordship is here, madam. In the salon on the first floor.”

Surprised, she paused in pulling off her gloves. After spending so long in her company yesterday, she'd assumed he would have family commitments today. “Has he been waiting long?”

“Since four, madam.”

Four? That seemed unusually early. “Thank you, Latham. You'd better wait to order my bath.”

“Very good, madam.” The butler bowed and left.

Even though Erith had been cooling his heels for more than three hours, she paused before going up. After the dangerous emotional storms of yesterday, she wanted to be sure of her composure when she saw him again.

In the hallway mirror, she met her troubled light brown gaze. The woman in the reflection wasn't the self-possessed queen of the courtesans. The woman in the reflection was vulnerable and unsure and afraid that she'd already given away too much of herself.

Where could she and Erith go after yesterday?

With him, she'd experienced something she had never felt with a man. A strange, electric intimacy. More than friendship. Different from the bonds of familial love.

When he'd wept in her arms, she would have offered all of herself to save him shedding one of those difficult tears. It hadn't been only the worldly demimondaine who suffered for him, but the lost girl who skulked inside her. And Leo's yearning mother. And the free woman she hoped to become when she abandoned this decadent life forever.

She didn't understand the feeling. But she recognized its power. And its appalling perils.

She'd never felt connected to any of her lovers before. But from the beginning, Lord Erith had set out to foster a link between them that she now had no power to break.

Curse him for luring her into this quicksand. He must know that any genuine emotion between them was doomed to end in heartbreak and loss.

He was an aristocrat at the summit of society. He had a family to whom he owed duty and care. She was a whore.

For both of them, the affair could only be a brief interlude.

Slowly, she made her way up the stairs, doggedly rebuilding her defenses with every tread. She was strong. No man could do her lasting damage. She would survive anything.

Still, as she opened the salon door, knowing Erith waited, she was trembling as she'd trembled when he kissed her in the rain.

Erith sat in a large leather armchair turned away from the fire. He had a book on his lap and his hair was ruffled as if he'd repeatedly raked his fingers through it. In his black silk robe, he presented a picture of perfect relaxation, with one hand holding his book steady and the other curled around a half-full glass of claret.

She tried to stem the wild fountain of pleasure that the sight of him set flowing. But it was like trying to stop a thunderstorm or a tidal wave.

He looked up at her entrance and gave her a sweet, lopsided smile.

She'd seen him rakish. She'd seen him sardonically amused. She'd seen him laugh.

But this smile was so exquisitely tender, it made her heart turn over in her breast. And sent any chance of her playing the cold cyprian flying to the winds.

Stop it, Olivia
.
He's a man. All he can offer is pain, slavery, and destruction.

Too late for warnings. Under that smile, her icy, barren soul expanded as though it basked in the sun's warmth after endless winter.

Would she freeze again or was this feeling a portent of summer?

“Good evening, Olivia.” Even his voice sounded tender.

“Good evening, Lord Erith.” Devil take her shaky response. She closed the door after her and took a few steps into the room.

“So formal?” He placed his wine on the mahogany side table.

Her eyes followed the movement. A bundle of colored silk rested on the polished surface near his glass.

Ribbons? She dismissed the small puzzle as she found herself drawn back to studying his face.

“Erith.”

“Julian.”

She didn't know why, but using his Christian name denoted surrender. Nonetheless, she nodded. “Julian.”

The smile deepened. “Thank you.” He spoke as if she'd granted him the greatest reward.

She sank into the chair opposite, never taking her eyes from him. She couldn't read his mood. What she did recognize was that he hadn't retreated from yesterday's intimacy.

After seeing him in the park, she'd wondered if when they met again he'd pretend they had never shared difficult confidences in the quiet watches of a rainy night. It would be simpler if he chose that path. But then he never did choose the simple option.

He hadn't yet touched her, although his state of undress was a message in itself. Even so, his physical reality captured her so strongly that he might as well have grabbed her up against him.

His eyes were a soft, misty gray. Hard to remember a time when she'd considered that steady gaze steely and unemotional.

Gray, God help her, was quickly becoming her favorite color.

“You've waited all afternoon.” An inane remark, curse her for a bedazzled fool.

He bent his head in agreement. “Yes.”

“I was with Perry.”

Another inane remark. Anyway, she didn't owe Erith explanations of her whereabouts. That was the bargain they'd made.

But she was despairingly aware that what hovered between them had nothing to do with that cold bargain and everything to do with a dangerous, world-shaking emotion she could never acknowledge. Even to herself.

Yesterday had changed so much. If only he hadn't followed her to Kent. She might have some faint hope of dousing this wildfire inside her if he'd stayed a stranger.

The smile still teased his mouth and he hadn't taken his eyes off her. In all her years as an object of desire, no man had ever regarded her with quite that degree of attention. It was unnerving.

Except she couldn't look anywhere but at Erith either.

“No matter. I needed time to think.”

She avoided the obvious question. She wasn't sure she wanted to hear the answer. “Have you eaten?”

“Later. Have you?”

She'd had cakes and sandwiches with Perry mid-afternoon and had felt mildly hungry when she returned to the house. Enough to seek some fortification before her night with the earl. But this strange encounter sent any thought of food to oblivion.

“I'm fine, thank you.”

He laid his book on the table with the wineglass and the pile of ribbons. “Good.”

She leaned forward in her chair. “Erith, I hate to admit this, but you're making me nervous.”

He smiled again, or rather the curve of his lips stretched
into something closer to real amusement. “You have nothing to worry about.”

The hands she braced on the arms of her chair curled into fists. “Now I'm really worried.”

“Would you like wine?”

“Why?” she asked suspiciously. “Am I going to need it?”

He laughed softly and the deep sound trickled down her spine like warm honey. “You may. I want to play a game.”

Her gaze returned to the seemingly innocent pile of ribbons. Except they weren't exactly ribbons. More like silk cords in an assortment of jewel colors.

“You want to tie me up,” she said flatly.

He had grown tired of coaxing and persuasion and patience. Now he meant to try and force a response.

If asked, she'd guess he had more imagination than this. She'd overestimated him. Clearly his imagination followed the same tired rut as every other man's.

She supposed she should be flattered he took this trouble to gain her participation. In an obscure way, this new strategy made him both more dear and more disappointing.

Muffling a sigh, she sat back and felt the tremulous tension flow out of her. At last she was on familiar, if banal ground.

He watched her steadily. “You have no objection?”

She began to unbutton her spencer. Of course he'd want her naked. The other men who wanted her arrayed as a captive certainly had. “No. I have no objection.”

Except it would leave her feeling sick and unsatisfied again. And Erith with that hurt, puzzled, sad look on his face.

She could do this, but heaven help her, she didn't want to.

“Good. We'll try that next time, then.”

Her fingers stilled on the third button. She rose to her feet, wondering if her unsteady legs would support her. “What did you say?”

Erith picked up the cords and began to play with them. Her eyes focused on the hypnotic shifts of those powerful
tanned hands. The endless movement was vaguely unsettling, definitely suggestive.

“I said we'll try it next time,” he said peacefully.

The mundane certainties of a few seconds ago scuttled out of the light like crabs disturbed under a rock.

“So what do you want now?” She forced the words past the constriction in her throat.

He stood and moved within touching distance. As always, he towered over her, the only man she knew who made her feel small and feminine. Suddenly, the idea of him tying her down and trying to seduce her into pleasure tugged at her curiosity in a way she wouldn't have thought possible a week ago.

A minute ago.

He still held the bunched cords. “I want you to tie me up.”

She retreated a step. She hadn't read Erith as a man who liked to be beaten into submission. One of her previous lovers had needed pain to reach satisfaction and she'd quickly ended the affair. It nauseated her to subject anyone else to a travesty of her first keeper's violence.

“No.”

Erith gently let the cords slide down his fingers back to the table. “As you wish.”

Her gaze focused on the tangled, vibrant silks cascading onto the rich dark mahogany. Even to a woman dead to allure, there was something undeniably sensual about the slow drift of those delicate strands of color through his elegant fingers.

A strange feeling rippled through her, and she gave a tiny shiver, as if those long fingers touched her bare skin. Then she realized what he'd said.

“You don't want me to beat you?” she echoed, bewildered.

Shock crossed his face and he looked directly at her. “Do you
want
to beat me?”

“No.” She frowned. With every moment, she slipped further from understanding what was going on. “Wasn't that what you asked?”

The smile teased his lips again and he took her hand. As she tried to pull away, he resisted. The warmth of his touch seeped up her arm and melted more of the ice inside her.

Soon no ice would remain at all. Then heaven help her, what would be left?

“You saw me with my daughter this morning.”

“Yes.”

“She made me realize my greatest sin against her wasn't my desertion, bad as that was. It's that I've never given her any choice in what happened to her.” He paused, and she recognized the ghost of last night's sadness. “I lost Joanna because I tried to impose my will on her.”

She tilted her head and arched her eyebrows. “You're a man. You like to push people around.”

“Not tonight. Not you.” He released her hand and straightened. His expression was as somber as she'd ever seen it. “I've been doing some hard thinking, Olivia. Thinking that shines an unforgiving mirror on my behavior toward you. Toward all the women in my life.”

She linked her hands together, trying not to miss his touch. “You've behaved well toward me. And I've hardly endeared myself to you.”

He reached out to touch her cheek briefly. The contact was fleeting and soft as the brush of a swallow's wing. But its tenderness flowed all the way to her toes. “Don't be a fool, Olivia. Endearing yourself is exactly what you've done.”

She blinked away that annoying mist that appeared before her eyes when he said things like that. She wished he wouldn't. Because one day very soon, he wouldn't be here to say them. Even if he was here, he might lose the urge to say them.

Every time he spoke such words, she was like an opium
eater getting her daily dose of poison. And like any poor devil caught in the drug's coils, she only wanted more.

“I haven't proven much of a mistress,” she said huskily.

“We're not done yet, my love.”

Astonishment poured through her in a great wave. He didn't seem aware he'd used the endearment.

Perry called her his love now and again in a careless way. But those two words didn't sound at all casual from Lord Erith.

She berated herself for a sentimental idiot. But nothing stopped her soul from unfurling like a sail in the wind.

“I can't give you what you want.” She had to make him see he wasted these sweet, poignant caresses.

“Give me what you can.”