The Affair (Entangled Scandalous) (3 page)

“I see.”

Her back stiffened. She turned to gaze in front of her. “I can already tell he’s much kinder than my husband. And I’m not young and foolish anymore.”

“Your parents would be in favor of the match, I assume.” The careful neutrality of his voice made her feel like she was being accused of something.

“Yes.”

“But what do
you
want?”

“I want to please my parents and further my sisters’ chances at good marriages,” she said. As an aristocratic daughter, her duty in life was to marry well. Useless desires didn’t signify; it was who she was.

“You never wish for something different?”

“Such as a bookseller?” she asked lightly.

She saw his smile in the dim light. “Contrary to common perception, booksellers are rather exciting people.”

“I have no doubt of it.” At least when it came to one very specific bookseller. She was sure she could walk with him until the sun crested the horizon without experiencing a second of boredom.

“You never told me what poets you like.”

She was startled he remembered. “Oh, I don’t know. You probably have much more knowledge on the topic.”

“But I want to know what
you
like,” he said, as though her opinion mattered to him. It was a heady, dangerous thing. Elizabeth had never felt her opinion mattered to anyone—not her parents, especially not her husband. It was something one could get used to all too easily.

“I like Shakespeare and Marlowe. I read…” She paused.

He was silent, waiting for her to continue. Another man might have leaped in to smooth over her lapse.

“
Poems
by John Keats. His first book of poetry, I think. Have you heard of him?”

“Yes. We have a copy at Cameron’s. What did you think?”

“I enjoyed it,” she admitted. “I know most people didn’t.”

He smiled at her. Another flash in the dark. “I liked it, as well. I heard he changed publishers after the release. I should have liked to have him.”

She glanced at him in surprise. “You didn’t tell me you were a publisher.”

“I bought a printing press, at any rate. I’ve only published a few things, but I’m hoping to expand. I’ll need to hire more people first, of course.”

“And add more to your banner,” she teased. “Do you think ‘Cameron’s Lending Library, Booksellers, and Publisher’ will fit?”

“I’ll have to buy a bigger one. Or just paint the name across the outer wall.” He glanced at her, and his strides slowed. Finally he stopped, turning toward her. Her hand slipped from his arm, but he caught it and held it. She felt disturbingly exposed. A shaft of light fell from a gas lamp onto her face, but his expression remained hidden in shadow. “I’m hosting a dinner party next week, for some authors I hope to acquire, and the ones I’ve already published. You could attend, if you’d like.”

For a moment she couldn’t find her tongue. “People would think I was your…”

“Paramour?” he finished for her, his voice sounding wryly amused.

“Yes, your paramour,” she said. She was blushing like mad but hoped he couldn’t see it.

“These authors move in different circles than your acquaintances. I doubt anyone of import would find out you’d attended. But if you were worried, we wouldn’t have to say who you actually are.”

She studied him. “Why would you want me there?”

“Two reasons. First, I think you’re restless. I think you want something more than what you try to convince yourself of. I think you never would have agreed to walk with me if you didn’t.”

Her lips parted on a startled breath.

“The second reason? I want you in my bed.”

Her mouth went dry. “I already told you it won’t happen.”

“What was it like with your husband?”

Her cheeks burned. “You shouldn’t ask me that.”

“But I
am
asking you. Damnation, Elizabeth, you’re a grown woman. You’re an intelligent woman; you’re a desirable woman. It’s not wrong to acknowledge that you have sexual needs.”

She swallowed and shocked herself by answering. “It was pleasant, at first,” she bit out, almost challengingly. “But it soon became rather perfunctory. I viewed it as an obligation to get through as quickly as possible.”

“If your husband wasn’t dead I would strangle him,” Cale said in a mild tone, which was clearly deceptive. “So you think there is no pleasure in the act?”

She lifted a shoulder. “Perhaps for others. Not for me.”

“What about the first few times? Why was it better then?”

Her face and chest were on fire. She tugged her hand away from his, belatedly realizing it was still captured in his grasp. “It doesn’t signify. I simply wasn’t very good at it, and Charles lost interest in me.”

“He blamed you for that, too,” Cale said flatly. “Did you ever stop to think it was something
he
did or didn’t do that caused your encounters to be less than satisfactory?”

“No…I— What could he have done?”

“Did he go slower the first times? Did he touch you more?”

She lifted her fingertips to her forehead, dizzy from this insane conversation. But her curiosity got the better of her. “Why should that make a difference?”

He swore softly under his breath. “It can make a world of difference.” He stepped closer to her.

She stepped backward. A wrought-iron fence in front of someone’s townhouse pressed into her spine. “You said you wouldn’t try anything untoward.”

His gaze caught hers and refused to let go. “Let me kiss you. I want to prove your husband was a fool, since you can’t see it for yourself. Will you let me?”

She saw his expression in the gaslight, and his intent swept through it with a ferocity that made her pulse quicken. “You’re the notorious Cale Cameron,” she said, forcing a strangled laugh, trying to diffuse the sudden tension. “I’m surprised you even need my permission.”

“I
want
your permission.” He stepped closer.

Almost unwillingly, her head tipped back.
One kiss. One simple kiss
. What if he was right? What if marital intimacy could be something more than Charles had ever made her feel?

Occasionally, she’d heard married or widowed women of the
ton
speaking of sexual intercourse as something enjoyable. She knew Charles hadn’t been faithful; she’d wondered if some of the women she’d overheard were ones he’d been intimate with. And every time, through every pang of betrayal, she’d wondered what was lacking in her that she couldn’t find pleasure in it. What was lacking in her that caused him to seek out other women?

Could the answer really be nothing?

“One,” she whispered. “One kiss.”

His fingers brushed her jaw as he untied the ribbon of her bonnet. He lifted it from her head and his hand came to rest against her cheek.

She closed her eyes.

She felt his breath first, warm, scented with a trace of brandy, fanning against her lips. Then the gentlest pressure of his mouth on hers, firm yet somehow soft. And then the pressure that started gentle became more insistent.

Her hands fluttered nervously before she lifted them to his coat, clenching handfuls of the fabric. She didn’t know if her action was meant to be a protective barrier so she could push him away or a means to draw him closer.

When her lips parted, his tongue breached her mouth, touched her own tongue before drawing back. He nipped her lower lip, licked it. A low moan caught in her throat.

She finally decided what she wanted her arms to do. They pulled him closer, slid to his back. Her breasts crushed against his broad, muscular chest. Her head was pushed back from the force of his kiss; their teeth knocked together in a frantic dance.

She was surrounded, enveloped by warmth, taste, and scent.

Heat pooled low, a throbbing between her legs. He shifted, and she felt his erection against her abdomen. It was a shock, to suddenly be confronted by the rigid, unyielding force of his desire. She made an incoherent noise and drew swiftly back.

He released her immediately, but she hadn’t doubted he would. She never would have agreed to a kiss if she hadn’t felt safe with him.

He stared down at her, breathing heavily. She stared back, her own breath unsteady, her pulse thudding in her ears.

They were frozen like that for a moment before he grinned. Then he placed her bonnet back on her head and tied the ribbon. She shivered as his fingers grazed her throat.

“Imagine if I kissed you like that all over. From your neck to your collarbone, your breasts—I would suck on them, draw your nipples into my mouth. I would kiss down your stomach, press my lips between your thighs…”

She wanted desperately to look away. She couldn’t. His words held her enthralled.

“I would lick you there, taste you there. And when I take you—”

She drew in a sharp breath. It was impossible not to notice the change in tense. He was no longer telling her what he would hypothetically do if they were lovers.

When.

When I take you
…

“—you’ll be wet for me. You’ll be ready for me. You’ll want me as much as I want you, and I’ll take you to the heights of pleasure.”

She forced her spine to straighten. “I agreed to one kiss.” Lord, she sounded breathless, not crisp and disapproving, as she’d hoped.

He ignored her admonishment. “Do you still think the fault lay with you and not with your husband?”

Charles had barely kissed her before he’d bedded her, or if he had, it had been like the bedding—quick, perfunctory. Cold. She’d never known a kiss could turn into something wild and passionate, a mating of lips and breath, teeth and tongue. There was nothing simple about a kiss.

She’d never known.

Her throat closed up. Not her fault. She couldn’t speak, so she shook her head.

No
.

But at this moment, with the night blanketing their solitude and her flesh still warm from contact, the knowledge was too potent, too seductive.

Far too dangerous a thing to hold in one’s hands.

Chapter Three

At breakfast, Elizabeth sat down with her sisters and mother in the morning room. She reached for a cup of chocolate and let the warmth seep from the porcelain to her palms.

Anne looked up from spreading butter on a roll. “You slept late. Usually you rise earlier than I do.”

Elizabeth had barely slept at all. She’d lain awake into the early hours of the morning, thinking about kissing and desire and Cale Cameron’s body pressed to hers. She hadn’t fallen asleep until pale light began working its way through the panes of her window.

“Restless night,” she said.

It was difficult not to see the pointed glance Olivia and Anne sent each other. Both of them had noticed her absence last night. When they’d asked about it, she’d told them she’d stepped outside for a few minutes.

It wasn’t really a lie.

Her father, Lord Middleton, walked into the room and took his place at the round rosewood table. A footman came forward with coffee and a newspaper, and, after a quick good-morning to the family, her father ducked his head and began to read.

“You should wear one of your blue dresses today, Elizabeth. I don’t doubt Lord Thornhill will call on you,” her mother said.

Elizabeth sighed. “Isn’t it a little untoward to hope for a marriage with my dead husband’s cousin?”

Her mother’s eyes rounded. Naturally she would be startled. How often did her oldest daughter do anything but obediently accept her verdicts?

“It’s not as though he’s your brother-in-law,” she finally uttered.

“Close enough,” Elizabeth said under her breath.

She must not have said it quietly enough. Her mother’s mouth fell open. “You are rather contrary this morning!” She glanced at her husband, but Lord Middleton was still shutting them out with the
Times.

“Forgive me, Mama,” she said. She might be feeling contrary, but she didn’t want to have an argument at the breakfast table.

Her mother continued as though their brief confrontation hadn’t ever occurred. “A blue dress with a sapphire necklace, I think, and—”

A maid paused in the doorway, bobbing a curtsy. In her arms she held a very long, oddly shaped package wrapped in brown paper.

“Yes?” Lady Middleton snapped.

“This arrived for Lady Thornhill.” She set it on the table next to Elizabeth and scurried away from her mistress’s disapproving glare.

“Who sent it?” Olivia asked.

Elizabeth frowned at the package and didn’t reply.

“I wager it’s from Thornhill,” Anne said, casting a glance at her other sister.

“Ladies don’t wager,” their mother said coldly. “And please address Lord Thornhill properly.”

Elizabeth barely comprehended the conversation going on around her. With a strange tingling in her fingers, she untied the string that held the wrapping in place. She unfolded the paper to reveal an umbrella on top of a gorgeous book with red-leather binding.

For a moment, the entire table went silent.

“An umbrella?” Anne finally asked.

Elizabeth’s hands weren’t quite steady as she set the umbrella aside and opened the book. The title page read
Songs of Innocence and Experience: Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul
. The book had dramatic color illustrations on every page.

As she flipped through it, she noticed a note scribbled on the inside cover in a small, cramped scrawl.

Elizabeth,

Since you like John Keats, I thought you might enjoy William Blake. He’s one of my favorites, at least. And if you don’t like it, that’s fine, too. Nothing could make me think less of you.

And if you’re wondering why I would be foolish enough to give a lady an umbrella as a gift, it’s because I don’t want you seeking shelter from the rain in anyone else’s shop.

He hadn’t signed it.

She closed the book gingerly, as though it were something infinitely precious, an eggshell that might splinter if it wasn’t handled with care. Tenderness sparked and expanded within, and she experienced the ludicrous urge to cradle the volume against her chest. She felt like the first person in the world ever to receive a gift.

“Elizabeth?” her mother asked, frowning. “Is the package from Lord Thornhill?”

She looked up, realizing everyone’s face was turned toward her. Even her father had paused in reading his newspaper.

“Well?” he prompted, peering over the top of it.

“No. It’s a book I ordered,” she lied.

“You ordered an umbrella, as well?” Her mother sounded disgruntled.

“What is the book?” Olivia asked.

Elizabeth shot to her feet. Her family’s heads tilted up like dogs following a scrap of food. “If you’ll excuse me.”

She felt their eyes on her back as she carefully arranged the gifts in her arms and fled. When she reached her bedchamber, she shut the door with a soft
click
, then knelt on her bed, opening the pages of the volume once more. Reverently, she traced the first colorful illustration with her fingertips.

No one had ever given her a book. The men who’d courted her when she was a debutante would have refrained because of propriety, but she doubted they would have thought of the idea at all.

Had any of them known she liked poetry? Would anyone have cared enough to ask?

When her gaze fell to the umbrella, she smiled. Another gift no one would have thought to give her. Something that hinted at shared experience, a shared joke.

Her smile slowly faded as memories of the night before flooded her mind. Cale didn’t just want to give her books or be her friend. He wanted her in his bed, and he’d made no secret of it.

She would be a complete henwit if she accepted his invitation to the dinner party he’d mentioned.

But a part of her longed to accept, whether it made her a henwit or not. She wanted him, in spite of all her concerns about propriety and all her better judgment and all her fear.

Cale Cameron was like Lucifer with an apple.

And Lord, she was tempted.

…

Lord Thornhill did call for her, and Elizabeth wore a blue dress. She told herself it was easier than arguing.

The day was mild and sunny, so he drove his curricle into Hyde Park. She noticed more than an occasional curious glance sent their way. Everyone would be waiting to see if the new Lord Thornhill would choose the Countess of Thornhill as his bride. They would be wagering on it, she was sure. Anne and Olivia might have already made one.

As she studied his profile, an aristocratic line with high cheekbones and an aquiline nose, something that had been niggling the back of her mind came into focus.

“While your attention is flattering,” she said, “I don’t quite understand it.”

He tipped his head to look at her, his eyes shaded by the brim of his hat. He smiled. “You are a lovely woman. I think you would make a wonderful wife.”

“But you must realize”—her face flushed and she lowered her voice, forcing herself to be blunt—“I cannot produce an heir.”

“Ah.” His look was sympathetic. “I know when a couple is barren, it’s generally considered the wife’s fault. But it might not be. The Grey men aren’t known to be the most…virile. Charles only had one sibling. I have none.”

“But what if it
is
me?” she insisted. A part of her was horrified to be speaking so candidly about such an intimate topic, but she knew it needed to be done if he was considering a future with her.

He leaned back and contemplated her before turning his attention back to the reins. “It wouldn’t matter.”

“You will change your mind,” she said wearily. “You feel obligated to me because you didn’t hasten to my side immediately. But marrying because you think you are indebted is unnecessary. I’ve already forgiven your absence.”

“I do feel obligated to you,” he admitted. “But if we marry, it will be because I want you as my wife. Or I should say, it will be because you accepted.”

She blinked. “Are you proposing to me?”

“I am. I’ve admired you for some time.” He smiled again, a slow, self-deprecating thing. “Surely it cannot come as such a shock to you.”

The carriage rolled closer to two women with parasols, bright spots of color in the dull grayish-green of spring.

It
was
a shock to her. When she and Michael had met each other, she’d been newly married to Charles, smitten with her husband, hoping to please him—though it hadn’t taken long to realize he was impossible to please. She hadn’t spared much thought for his cousin, except to note that he seemed like a good, kind sort of man.

If she accepted, she would stay the true Countess of Thornhill instead of being reduced to a dowager when Michael married. Under his guidance and wealth, the estate would have a chance to prosper again. She could move away from her parents and back into the country house. Old, unpleasant memories would be replaced with new, happier ones.

She had no doubt he would be a far better husband than Charles ever was.

They moved past the women. Her gaze was drawn to their parasols—frilly, lacy contraptions that would be ruined in a heavy rain, not like the sturdy black umbrella Cale had bought her.

Cale Cameron would never offer her marriage. No, he offered her something else entirely. Something dangerous and tempting, fatuous and passionate, as transient as a falling star.

Only a ninny would be thinking about Cale Cameron when the Earl of Thornhill had just proposed.

“I need time,” she said. “This is all very sudden, you understand. I cannot make a decision yet.”

“Of course,” he said, clasping her hand briefly, a quick, dry pressure, glove to glove. Very chaste. Very proper. “Take whatever time you need.”

…

Cale sent one more letter a few days later, informing her of the date and time of his dinner party.

And that was it.

Nothing to try and persuade her. No innuendos. No jests. Nothing to sway her one way or the other.

He was truly leaving the decision in her hands.

It was both daunting and effective. If he’d pushed, perhaps she would have pushed back, but now there was nothing to fight against. If she went to him, it wouldn’t be because he’d talked her into it, it would be her own will, no one else’s.

She had no doubt the devil knew exactly what he was doing.

How many other women had he done this dance with? Was this how he’d won over the duchess?

Elizabeth tossed the letter on her bed, suddenly annoyed, and walked to the window. She gathered a fistful of the cream-colored drapes as she looked out. Thinking of Cale’s duchess had a tendency to sour her mood, and she didn’t like it. She reminded herself that she had no claim on him.

That alone should have been enough to dissuade her from attending the dinner party. He wanted a dalliance, and she had no experience with that sort of thing. What if she grew too fond of him?
What if she already had?

But then she saw a curricle drive past Middleton House, and the young couple inside caught her attention. They were clearly aristocrats, both dressed in the latest, most expensive styles. The woman looked as though she could have stepped out from the pages of
Ackermann’s Repository
.

And not once did they look at each other. Not once did they speak. Was that how she and Charles had appeared to the casual observer—young and fashionable and as distant from one another as the earth from the moon?

The curtains slid from her grasp. Perhaps the decision should have been more difficult. But in the end, it was astonishingly easy.

For once she wanted to live. Truly live.

…

Cale had been nervous all day. It wasn’t like him. Damn frustrating it was, to find out he was worried about the answer of one woman, as though his fate rested in her elegant, aristocratic hands.

His philosophy was to enjoy life. The only thing he threw himself into wholeheartedly was his work. Lovers, friendships, they slipped in and out of his life like changing ocean tides. He never tried to hold on to them too tightly. Once he started to covet, he started to worry, and it took all the pleasure out of things.

It shouldn’t matter whether Elizabeth attended or not. It wouldn’t be difficult to find another woman to occupy his time.

But now a new worry crept into his thoughts, insidious and unwelcome. What if he couldn’t find another woman to match her? It occurred to him he’d never met a woman he’d liked quite as much as he liked Elizabeth. She was a unique blend of beauty and genuine warmth, wit and easy banter, confidence and vulnerability.

The vulnerability was an unpleasant reminder of how much he desired her. He would have thought it a weakness in anyone else, an obstacle that would take too much time and effort to overcome. But because this was Elizabeth, he wanted to overcome it, he wanted to smooth away all the little hurts her husband had inflicted until she realized what he’d seen almost immediately—earl or not, the man hadn’t deserved to lick her shoes.

Cale stopped by a gilded mirror in the hallway to straighten his cravat. From a distance he heard a knock at the door and the murmur of his butler. The first guests had arrived.

With an irritating jump of nerves, he walked to the staircase and descended. He stopped on the landing above the entrance hall and saw Mr. Stapleton, a historian who’d just published a book, and his wife.

But his gaze was riveted by a flash of fair hair behind them.

As though she could feel his interest, Elizabeth looked up, and her cobalt-blue eyes met his, sending an electric jolt through him, as though she’d brushed her fingertips along his face.

She lifted one shoulder in a dainty shrug.

All of his tension abruptly eased. He laughed and moved toward her, guided by her answering smile like a vagabond following the North Star.