“I love presents!” Arabella told him, adding wistfully, “It has been so long since I have received one.”
“I would fill a room full of presents for you,” he said extravagantly, “if you would but let me!”
The blush that rose to Arabella’s cheeks was an honest one, for there was sincerity in the duc’s compliment. “I have a small gift for you,” she told him, and handed him a little package wrapped in a piece of cloth of gold and tied with a red silk ribbon. “You must open it at once!”
With a smile the duc undid the ribbon and unwrapped the parcel. Inside he found a fine pair of Florentine leather gloves, dyed a clear, bright scarlet color and embroidered with black jets and gold beads. “Ma Belle!” He was genuinely touched, for he knew the gloves to be of the best quality, and her income meager at best. “These are beautiful, and I thank you!”
“I won at cards before Christmas,” she told him airily in answer to his unspoken question.
He laughed. “For a woman of such unimpeachable virtue, you are becoming quite adept at survival,” he teased. Then he handed her a delicately carved pearwood box. “For you,ma Belle.”
What did the beautiful little box contain? Arabella wondered. Would the gift be an indication of the esteem in which he held her? With strangely clumsy fingers she lifted the carved gold latch that held the box fastened, and raising the lid, gazed, stunned, at the exquisite square-cut ruby with its dainty filigreed gold chain nestling in the white velvet.“Ohhhhhh,”she half gasped, half whispered, unable to move, unable to say anything else.
With a smile of satisfaction Adrian Morlaix lifted the jewel from the box and fastened it about Arabella’s neck. The ruby lay glowing just above the shadowed valley between her breasts, shimmering against her fair skin.
Arabella turned her head just slightly and looked up at the duc. “Oh,monseigneur,” she murmured, “‘tis the most beautiful thing I have ever possessed in my whole life!” Their eyes met suddenly, and she saw the desperate passion in his, but barely masked. “Ohhh,” she said again, even as his mouth came down on hers for the very first time, setting her own pulses to racing furiously. It had been so long since she had tasted a man’s lips on hers, and how could she have forgotten the lesson that Jamie Stewart had unwittingly taught her;that passion without love could exist between a man and a woman.Oh, Holy Mother, Arabella prayed silently, let me be strong in my resolve!
“Oh, Belle! Ma Belle! Ma petite et precieuse Belle!I must have you! Do not say nay to me ever again, ma Belle! I worship at the shrine of your beauty! I adore you!” the duc declared passionately, an arm now firmly about her waist, one hand plunging into her bodice to cup a plump breast. “Ahh,ma Belle! I am wild with love for you!” The hand fondled her breast expertly, its fingers pinching teasingly on her nipple.
“Oh,monseigneur,” she cried softly, but she did not struggle or attempt to remove the marauding hand. “We must not!What of your spouse?” Did she sound too coy? Pray God she did not sound coy! Arabella could barely suppress the soft moan that escaped from between her lips. His touch felt marvelous!
“Anne-Claude is in Normandy,ma Belle. I do not love her.I love you!‘Twas but a marriage of convenience. Give me your lips again,chérie,” he pleaded, and Arabella found she was unable to refuse him, no matter her firm intentions.
His kisses were intoxicatingly sweet. Deep, hungry kisses that seemed to warm her to the soles of her feet. She was quite aware that he was carefully undoing her bodice even as he kissed her, and finally she felt it incumbent upon herself to once again protest, lest on reflection he grow suspicious of her sudden acquiescence. Tearing her head away from him, she caught his big hands in her little ones, pleading softly. “This is wrong, monseigneur. Surely it is wrong!”
“Tell me that you do not feel passion for me as I feel it for you!” he demanded of her fiercely, his blue eyes blazing with his determination to have his will.
“I…I…I do not know!” she cried, knowing that even as she spoke, she did know, and he knew too. She did indeed feel passion.
“You lie,” he told her, and the bright blue eyes shone with his triumph. Ripping the neck of her camisia away, he cupped her now naked breasts in his two hands, murmuring as he bent to cover the creamy flesh with hot kisses, “You are mine,ma petite Belle! Mine alone!”
Arabella’s heart hammered wildly at his masterful tone. She would have never expected it of the elegant and civilized Duc de Lambour.
Releasing her breasts, he held her against him while the fingers of one hand skillfully undid the tapes holding her skirts up. They fell away from her, puddling to the floor with just the barest noise. The duc tore the remainder of her silk undergarment away and carelessly threw it from him. Her only adornment now was the ruby she wore about her neck. As he slowly undid her braid, she thought her legs would give way, but they did not. Spreading her hair over her shoulders, he stepped back a moment and smiled. Then picking her up, he walked across the room and laid her upon a large, dark fur rug spread before the warm fire. His impassioned gaze as he looked down upon her sent a flush of sudden pink embarrassment to her face.
“Mon Dieu!”he said feelingly, “you are perfection,ma Belle! In my wildest dreams I could not have imagined such exquisite perfection!” He turned away from her momentarily as he disrobed himself.
There was some humor in the situation, Arabella considered as she watched him, faintly amused to see that Adrian Morlaix’s knees were just a trifle knobby, though his other parts were certainly well-made and upstanding. It was fortunate that she had decided to yield herself to the duc, because he had obviously decided he would have her, whatever the cost. She had not really considered how desperately he desired her, for she had never thought of herself as the kind of woman who drove men to passion; but then there had been Jamie Stewart. What was it about her that made men such damned fools?
The duc now knelt and lay beside her on his side, letting his fingers wander provocatively over her flesh, placing little kisses upon her face and again smiling warmly at her. “I will not hurt you,ma Belle,” he said sincerely. “These past months I have come to treasure your chasteness, even though it meant I must be denied your loveliness. I cannot, however, deny myself any longer. I love you, and I would have you love me.”
“Oh, Adrian,” she murmured, using his name for the first time, “whatever we may feel for one another, surely this is wrong of us.”Careful,Arabella thought, amazed that she could think at all, she could not continue to protest when she was, in fact, yielding herself to him. Still, just a trifle more demurral before she allowed him the final victory. She sighed deeply.
“Ma Belle,” he said quietly, “life is so very short that to waste one precious moment of it is surely a crime against God. We have wasted so many moments these past months, but no more! I am mad for you! I suspect were your adorable little conscience not so strict with you, that you would admit to some feeling for me.Hein?”
“Ohh,monseigneur,” Arabella whispered, hiding her face in her hands.
“Admit it,ma Belle! You love me too!” he said, pulling her hands aside.
“What if I should disappoint you?” she fretted, neatly sidestepping his question, although he did not notice it, so intent was he on his pursuit of her. “I have known but a husband’s loving. I am no courtesan, skilled in the arts of Eros, Adrian. You have pursued me for months. What if the reality we find in each other’s arms is not as wonderful as the anticipation? I will have compromised myself for naught!”
“You are charming,ma Belle,” he answered, smiling down on her indulgently. “Your lips are like the first strawberries of summer, my love. When I kissed you I could feel you thrill with my very touch. Your breasts are like sweet, ripe peaches, royal fruits worthy of a king. I shall never be able to get enough of them. I shall touch and taste and explore every inch of you,ma Belle, and there is no way under heaven in which you shall disappoint me, I swear it!”
“But what if you should disappoint me?” she asked him gravely. He should not futter her as he flittered other women, Arabella thought to herself. To retain his interest, she must be clever. To simply surrender herself to him would be most foolish. Let him not be totally satisfied with their relationship until he was certain in his own mind that he was the best lover she, or any other woman, could possibly have. Until she obtained the information she needed from him, this entanglement could not end. It would not be easy, she suddenly realized, but she would succeed, and in the wake of her success would come the return of Greyfaire Keep and a journey home to reclaim her child.
“Disappoint you?”His tone was startled. Such an impossible thing had obviously never occurred to him.
“My husband was a fine lover,” Arabella said candidly. “He gave me much pleasure. I have heard it said, however, that not all men are equal when it comes to love. Have I been misinformed? Is this not so?” she finished ingenuously.
