Trial by Desire (Carhart 2)

“Calm and control come so easily to you. Even when you’re most upset, you’re always in control.” Those words, from another man, might have sounded harsh and embittered. From Ned, they felt like a caress.

Kate leaned back against the table. It wiggled lightly, and she heard some ceramic object—a vase set upon it, perhaps—rock, but there was no escape from his intensity. She folded her arms about herself, but the gesture offered scant protection.

“I’m jealous,” he continued, “of the way that you let nothing stop you—not fear, not even marauding, brutish husbands. If you’d found yourself bebothered by some odd thing, you’d never stay in bed. You would face it calmly and matter-of-factly, and then simply vanquish it with a shake of your head. If you wanted to prove yourself, you’d never have run off to China to do it.” His fingers brushed her cheek.

He was towering over her now, the heat of his thighs radiating into her legs.

“I’m jealous,” he whispered, “of every breath that enters your lungs through your lips.” He was so close, she could almost taste his words, wafting to her on the wind. “It’s utterly unfair that you should be so self-possessed, when I am desperate to possess you for my own.”

Kate’s breath sucked in. “That… Actually, that can be arranged.”

He set his hands on her hips. “How many petticoats are you wearing tonight?”

“Five.”

He leaned down to her. “I hate them all.” He held her, his hands clamped about her waist, his body canting over hers.

“Take them off,” she suggested.

His fingers cut into her flesh through all five of her hated, useless petticoats. Then he lifted her a few inches into the air and deposited her atop the polished table behind her. It creaked as she settled onto it, but subsided into silence. “No,” he said. “It would take too long. I’ll get used to the jealousy.”

He pressed against her, his body hard and demanding. He parted her legs, his hands sliding up to her knees. She felt a momentary breeze against her thighs—and then he stepped into that space. His fingers slipped upward. She couldn’t see his hands to anticipate where they would fall. The touch on her thigh came as a tickling surprise. He leaned down and nuzzled her ear. Oh, yes, the ear; sensation blossomed and she let him possess her.

How long they stood there, his hand caressing her leg beneath her skirts, his lips nibbling the curve of her ear, she did not know. But when his hand slipped up her leg, he found the slickness of her desire. He slid across her sensitive flesh. Yes. Touch me there. Kate bit back a shaky moan; he let out a shuddering breath.

She reached up for a taste of him. Her skin ached to brush against his; her mouth found his in the dark. That long kiss transformed into a fumble, his hands against hers, racing to undo the buttons of his breeches. He leaned over her, adjusting her legs—and then he filled her, thick and hot.

She stretched around him. This wasn’t self-possession; it wasn’t any sort of possession at all. Instead, it was an admission, a deep-seated requirement, as if the circling of his hips had become as necessary as breath.

He rocked into her, slowly, steadily. The table creaked under her weight and his thrusts. He kissed her throat, up to her chin. His kisses came in time with each thrust. His breath was on her lips, as if she were his air; his tongue met hers, as if she were the only taste he desired.

He was holding himself back from release; she could feel it in the tensing muscles of his shoulder through his coat, in the exquisite control as he took her. Beads of sweat slid down his face. She could feel what waited in the burn of her own body, in the delicious coiling of pleasure in her center. She lifted her hips to his, and pleasure enveloped her, starting in her slippered toes and thundering through her as relentlessly as an autumn squall.

His thrusts came harder, filling her with sweetness as she reached for ecstasy. Her world shuddered; a great crashing noise sounded in climax.

And then he grasped her hips. He didn’t cry out, didn’t so much as let a moan escape him. The only evidence of his passing pleasure was the clutch of his hands on her.

After what he’d done to her—in the drawing room, with the hallway wide open for anyone to see, she realized—his own release seemed curiously restrained. And she realized as he pulled away, adjusting his clothing, it had been restrained. Because for all Ned’s talk of self-possession, he had been the one to possess her. He’d been the one to give her pleasure. And even in the throes of ecstasy, he’d maintained control.

Ah, she thought dazedly, I am the one who is jealous. She wanted all of him, without reservation. But that greedy urge passed as the pounding of her blood faded. For a long while they stared at each other, breathing heavily. Then he took a step—an oddly crunching step—and swore.

“Damn,” he said quietly. “Whose brilliant idea was it to decorate these tables—these lovely tables, set at such a perfect height—with vases?”

Kate glanced down in confusion. It took her a moment to understand what those tiny shards were, glinting in the dim light. That final crashing noise she had heard as she reached ecstasy had not been a product of her fevered imagination.

She couldn’t help herself. Despite the unquiet misgivings inside her, she started laughing. She pulled Ned close and buried her face in his shirt. He was sweating; so was she. It was a warm autumn evening; she was still wearing those five hated petticoats, and his heart thumped in rapid time with her own, through every layer of their clothing. His hand patted the damp hair on her head.

“Next time,” she said, “remove the petticoats. Please.”

She could feel his cheek press into a smile next to hers.

It wasn’t possession. It was still some damnable form of inequity, where she let him have all of her, and he held himself back. She could cry about it. She could accuse him of poor sportsmanship.

But what good would that do? She’d take what she could get, and fight for the rest as best she could.

She let out a long breath, exhaling her fears away. “With glass strewn underfoot, I see we have only one option.”

“Oh?”

It hurt to smile, but she did it anyway. His arm snaked around her waist.

“Have you seen how thin my slippers are?” she whispered in his ear. “With all this danger about, you’ll have to carry me to bed.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

BY THE NEXT AFTERNOON, the glass had long been swept away. But as Kate left her house, she felt a chill prickle up her neck, as if danger itself were still present. She had one silk-slippered foot upon the carriage steps, one kid-gloved hand on her footman’s shoulder.

There was a man standing on the pavement, not three yards behind her. He was dressed in the blue uniform of a metropolitan police officer; the cuffs of his jacket were frayed at the edges. He watched her, and as she halted, he walked toward her.

“Are you Mrs. Carhart?” he asked. As he spoke, he sh

ifted his truncheon from one hand to the other. He didn’t look as if he planned to use it. His gaze dropped down her form—not in sexual interest, but in wariness.

Kate turned from the carriage that awaited her. She drew herself up to her full height—which, compared to the man who approached her, seemed nowhere near full enough. Still, in her experience, officers and servants alike were more likely to speak with respect if they knew precisely with whom they were speaking. Short as she was, the yards of lace at the hem of her gown would make the man think twice. Lace was dear; more importantly, it was a symbol that she was the sort of woman who could purchase such a thing and wear it, even on something so mundane as a morning call. Police officers did not often mix with ladies.

“Officer,” she said sternly, “I am more properly addressed as—”

“Yes or no will do, ma’am.”

Kate touched the pearls at her neck. “Yes, but I am La—”

He interrupted her again before she could finish.

“Well, then. I have a warrant sworn out for your arrest, and you’re to come with me.”

All those yards of lace stopped feeling like armor. Instead, she felt nakedly vulnerable. “My arrest?” No. She wasn’t going to flutter like a useless sparrow. She balled her fists. “See here, Officer.” She glanced at his jacket collar, where his designation was marked. “Officer 12-Q, what do you mean by ordering my arrest?”

Officer 12-Q took another step forward. “Didn’t,” he explained. “The warrant’s signed by Magistrate Fang. I don’t order anything—I just execute it. If you’ll excuse the witticism.”

She stared at him blankly.

“I just execute it,” he repeated. “Execute. See? Heh. Heh.” Despite that odd chuckle, Officer 12-Q had not even broached a smile yet.

Kate let her blank stare take on a chilly component.

“I suppose,” the officer allowed slowly, “it would be less amusing to you, what with your having to stand trial and all.”

“Stand trial! On what charges? And when?”

The man came forward, and Kate stepped backward. Beside her, her footman winced. No doubt he was trying to figure out precisely how far his loyalty to his employer stretched.