“Julien!” His name escaped her lips with a kind of desperation that he understood only too well. For that same desperation had claimed him also.
Continuing his ministrations, he did not stop until she was straining against him, pressing herself against his mouth as she clung to him fiercely. Shuddering, his name carried past her lips on a chorus of soft cries, he gloried in every sound. Every revelation of her desire. And when his hand slid beneath the hem of her nightrail, to coast along the satiny skin of her thighs, she made no move to halt him. In fact the exact opposite was true. Whether driven by instinct, desire or curiosity, Caroline met his touch eagerly, her thighs parting as his hand slipped between them. And when he touched her intimately, feeling the slick heat of her, it was both pleasure and torment. The need to sink into her, to feel the warmth of her surrounding him, was almost too much. But that was not what tonight was about. Tonight, he reminded himself, was about answering at least some of her questions, about showing her what pleasures awaited them once she was fully his. Because whoever much he desire her, he would not take her innocence without first giving her his name. But that didn’t mean he could not ease the ache of desire he’d built within her.
Deliberately, with patience and practiced ease, he stroked the tender bud nestled between the soft folds. With each pass, his fingers stroking gently over the most sensitive part of her until he felt her tighten, every muscle in her body tensing .
“Let go, Caroline.”
“I do not know how,” she whispered brokenly.
“Hide nothing from me,” he urged her. “Scream, cry, moan, tremble… shudder with the force of your pleasure. Share the glory of it with me.”
Increasing the pressure and tempo of his strokes, he let the exact moment when her release claimed her, the small pearl-like bud pulsing beneath his fingertips as she buried her face against his neck, her cries drifting scorchingly over his skin.
And when the last shudder subsided, when her body was limp against him, he continued to hold her. He continued to touch her, but with touches designed to soothe, to ease her back from that soaring height. And all the while, he ached for her. But it was so very different from every other time in his life when the need for her, the desire for her, had left him a state of arousal without ease. Because now there was hope. There was the anticipation that his desires would finally, at long last, be assuaged. And for that, he could cling to patience for a bit longer while savoring the gift she’d given him… of trusting him. Of offering herself up to him with such sweetness that he had no hope of resisting, even had he wished to.
When she ceased trembling, he kissed her gently. All the while carefully righting her clothing. Tugging her nightrail down to hide the length o her legs. Doing up the delicate ribbon tie and hiding the lush curves of her breasts from his view. The wrapper came next. And then was as mostly covered as she had been when first she came to him.
“If I had the strength to resist my own inclinations, I would do that again,” he told her. “Again and again. But I do not trustmyself any longer. And I will not go beyond this until we are wed… until it is my right to do so. Much as it pains me, you must go. You must go while I have the ability to let you.”
Chapter
Fifteen
Morning brought with it a clarity that might have been unsettling had it not been so entirely welcome. There was no lingering confusion, no doubt or sense that she had acted rashly or beyond her own understanding. Instead, she was left only with quiet certainty that something fundamental within her had shifted, and that whatever lay ahead of her now had been profoundly changed by the events that had transpired. Changed in the most miraculous way.
Rising from her bed, Caroline moved through the familiar rituals of her morning toilette. It was rather bemusing that she could feel so different while looking and acting precisely the same as she had on any other day. How could her entire world have changed and it not be written clearly upon her face?
Leaving her bedchamber, she moved along the corridors of Lakewood House as if by rote. Her composure was such that she might have appeared to simply be in a pleasant mood, eager to greet the day. Yet beneath her composure, there was a lightness, an almost euphoric state that contrasted dramatically with the steadiness of purpose that she felt. Purpose had not been hoped for previously, but never fully realized until that moment. The knowledge that Julien Harcourt would become her husband,even if the details of how that would occur remained vague, altered her to the very core of her being.
Entering the breakfast room, she realized almost instantly that, while the servants might not take note of the alteration, others would. In fact, it seemed as if those who knew her best sensed it almost immediately.
Eleanor had always been perceptive where those she loved were concerned, and there was little that escaped her notice even under ordinary circumstances. Now, with Caroline scarcely able to conceal the quiet warmth that lingered beneath her composed facade, it was inevitable that the difference would draw her attention. Though she said nothing at first, her gaze followed Caroline more than once across the expanse of the table, thoughtful rather than suspicious, curious rather than concerned, as though she were attempting to piece together something that had not yet been openly spoken.
A commotion arose in the corridor, the sound of clattering crockery and cutlery. Eleanor seized the opportunity and sent the two footmen in the breakfast room to help. “Do be so kind as to help the maid clean up the mess. No doubt the trays were too heavy for the poor girl to carry unaided.”
Immediately, the servants departed and they were left alone, even if only briefly. Caroline knew that Eleanor would waste no time in acting upon that curiosity. With that knowledge, Caroline braced herself for what was to come.
“I am quite certain something has changed,” Eleanor said, her tone light, though there was nothing careless in it, her gaze steady upon Caroline’s face. “And as I know you too well to believe you would conceal anything from me without cause, I must conclude that there is a cause… perhaps discretion?”
“Discretion should certainly be called upon in such circumstances,” Caroline answered with a diplomatically vague truth.
Eleanor arched one brow, “Should I be pleased for you or angry with my brother?”
Caroline felt the faintest rise of warmth in her cheeks at the question, though it was not embarrassment that prompted it so much as the awareness that there was no reasonable means of deflecting Eleanor’s perception without resorting to a falsehood she had no desire to employ. For so long she had been accustomed to holding her thoughts close, to guarding what she felt even from those who cared for her most, yet that instinct no longer held the same power over her, and she found that speaking plainly, at least in this instance, required far less effort than she might once have expected.
“You may be pleased,” she replied, meeting Eleanor’s gaze with a steadiness that reflected the certainty she now possessed. “Though I do not know that I could answer for how you ought to feel beyond that.”
Eleanor’s expression brightened at once, the hint of restraint she had maintained giving way to a more open eagerness that was entirely in keeping with her nature. She leaned forward slightly, her attention fixed more intently than before, though she did not press with undue haste, as though she understood that whatever Caroline chose to share would be given more freely if she were not driven to it.
“Then I shall be pleased and await the details,” she said, a smile touching her lips. “Are matters between you and Julien settled, then?”
There was no censure in the question, no hint of reproach or disapproval, only an honest desire to understand what had passed between them, and perhaps a hope that what she suspected might prove to be true. Caroline did not hesitate this time. There was no advantage in doing so, and no desire to diminish what had occurred by cloaking it in vagueness.
“The matter of marriage has been raised,” she said, her voice even, though the significance of the words was not lost upon her. “While we are notyetformally betrothed, there is an understanding between us.”
For the briefest moment, Eleanor simply stared at her, as though the words required time to fully settle into place, and then the reaction came all at once, unrestrained and entirely genuine. Delight transformed her expression, banishing any lingering uncertainty and replacing it with a brightness that seemed almost irrepressible.
“I knew it,” she declared, the quiet composure she had attempted to maintain giving way entirely. “I knew there must be something of the sort. One does not look as you do this morning without cause, and Julien has been no better. If he believes himself capable of subtlety, he is very much mistaken. When he left the house this morning, his direction quite secretive, he appeared to be positively giddy—well as close to giddy as he has ever been.”
