Hope took in the hurt in his eyes and knew what she had to do—what Wilfred intended for her to do. Tonight was her last chance to exorcise herself from Felix’s romantic daydreams so he’d pledge himself to Wilfred’s sister, Annabelle—heart, body, and soul. Little matter that it was Annabelle who was as complicit in Hope’s fall from grace as her brother.
So, as Hope revealed herself as the rotting corpse of noble, high-minded Mr Durham’s dreams, the young heir to a viscountcy would be free to pledge himself to Wilfred’s sister, so that pretty Miss Annabelle Hunt, the squire’s daughter, could look forward to a title and a life of leisure in the house on top of the hill.
Hope forced her tone to sound light. Madame Chambon was an exacting teacher. Her standards were high and her tolerance for failure as low as Wilfred’s. Between them, Hope stood no chance.
Unless she resigned herself to the gutter.
“And now I am here. It’s true I stand before you in a guise that sits uncomfortably with you, but you’d be far from alone if you took your pleasure with me, Mr Durham, when I am already paid for.”
Even though her heart was close to breaking, she must shore up her remaining reserves and follow through with this hateful charade. For Charlotte.
When he didn’t respond, she gave a light shrug of her shoulders and went round the bed to stand just in front of him. “What will you do, Mr Durham?” She put her hands on his shoulders and smiled, as if she cared nothing for the parody role she played. The angel had fallen. She offered what
he’d always wanted—but she was a poisoned chalice.
He stiffened and turned his head away, but she felt what it cost him to deny himself.
It both angered her and ripped at her heartstrings.
A moment went by. She couldn’t believe it. He wasn’t going to succumb when she felt scorched by the heat of attraction. Yet he truly was going to turn away from her.
And deny her the only pleasure she was likely to ever enjoy on this earth again?
Not only that, he’d prove how truly abhorrent he found her. And yet, he’d enjoyed her body but a few days beforehand with complete abandon.
No, she would not allow him to do this to her. To make her feel so worthless, when she relied on him to nourish her if she were to make anything of her future.
Carefully, she lowered herself onto his lap and draped her arms around his neck.
He didn’t respond other than to stiffen slightly. He didn’t move his own arms.
With a soft sigh, she pressed her cheek against his.
Although he still didn’t move, she heard him catch his breath. And she felt the effort it cost him to hold himself deathly still. He was on a knife edge. He couldn’t bring himself to push her away, which must mean he was dangerously close to caving in.
Using her eyelashes to trail a sensuous journey from the sharp delineation of his cheekbones to the corner of his lips, she felt the straining of his thigh muscles and tautness of his chest.
When she lightly ran the tip of her tongue across the seam of his lips, she knew she had won.
With a terrible cry of agony, he clasped her tightly against his chest and pressed his hungry mouth to hers. Hope had never embraced a kiss more. Or rather, the hope in that kiss. Pushing him onto his back on the mattress, she straddled him, securing each of his wrists above his head in a light clasp he could break as easily as a fly’s if he chose.
But he did not. He was her willing slave for the moment, taking every drop of love she spilled from her lips until she rose to alter her position, and he reached up to pull her down, flipping her onto her back and caging her body beneath his.
They were both fully clothed but now began the torturous, exciting, and desperate race to divest themselves and each other of trousers, coat, and shirt in Felix’s case, and Hope’s elaborate bustle skirt. It unclasped at the waist, and she was skilled at wriggling her hips so that it shimmied down past her ankles and she could kick it gracefully free. Beneath it, she wore nothing but her stockings.
His eyes were closed, their mouths fused, when his seeking hands registered this. She felt his shocked awareness and the swelling of his member against her belly. Arching her back so that it pressed against her belly, she quickly worked the fastenings of her cuirass, wriggling expertly out of it so that the only garment she wore was her corset.
It nipped in her waist to a tiny twenty inches, but it would take too long to unlace. Besides, she knew he enjoyed the sensation of entering her when she was so confined. He had before, anyway.
And right now, Hope was determined Felix was going to enjoy her—consciously—even more than he had last time.
She had to prove she had some semblance of power over him. Even if it was only for the twenty minutes they were destined to spend together. What happened after that, she would not dwell on for there would be only these few moments to enjoy what she once might have forever, had her future not been swept away from her by Wilfred Hunt.
What a cruel irony, that Wilfred was both facilitating and destroying these final few moments of pleasure—these only few moments of pleasure—Hope would ever have to call her own.
Felix Durham’s eyes blinked open a moment and caught her in the blaze of his despair. She might have lost him then had she not gripped his manhood and again covered his mouth with hers. Oh, she’d have let him go if he truly found her abhorrent. If he had no feeling for her. If there was no desire beyond lust.
But he had carried a candle for her; raised it to her memory. Admitted he desired to be her champion. Every tortured admission of what he’d been prepared to do to discover her whereabouts, reclaim her, was an admission of that love.