Tarnished Amongst the Ton

‘You were having a nightmare and I thought it best to wake you.’ He kept his voice low and matter of fact. ‘Do you sleepwalk?’

‘Not for years.’ In the warm candle-glow she seemed to lose colour.

‘It was a bad dream, I heard you call out. What was it about?’ Perhaps if she spoke of it the thing would become less terrifying.

‘You,’ she whispered.

‘Me? You were having bad dreams about me?’ The shock made him pull back, his hands still cupping her shoulders, jerking her towards him.

‘You were trapped under all those portraits of your ancestors, as though they had fallen off the walls and somehow thrown themselves at you. They were talking, gibbering.’ She shuddered and he brought her close against his chest for comfort. ‘I could see your left hand and you were wearing your father’s signet ring. Then you threw them all off and got to your feet, but they were reaching out of the frames for you, all those white hands with the same ring, all reaching, scrabbling.’

Ashe encircled her with his arms and she burrowed in, her cheek against his shirtfront, her hands sliding under his coat to hold him. At that moment Ashe was as glad of the human contact as she seemed to be. He could well do without that image to come back and haunt his own dreams. As soon as she was settled he was going up to the Long Gallery to face down the spectres himself.

But now the cold finger of superstition was being thawed out by the pleasure of holding an armful of warm, soft woman. ‘Thank you for having my nightmare for me,’ he murmured in her ear. Strange that she had been so perceptive, so in tune with his mood, despite his reserve and ill temper.

Phyllida gave a small laugh, her sense of humour apparently resurfacing as the dream faded. ‘I do not think it works like that, but perhaps I was a lightning rod for it. Thank you for waking me.’

‘I was passing.’ His hand, of its own volition it seemed, stroked down the supple curve of her back, warm through the thin lawn of her nightgown. His thumb ran down her spine, traced each vertebra, and she arched against his palm like a cat being stroked.

‘Ashe.’ She wriggled a little and looked up, her head tipped back because she was so close.

He had no idea what she was going to say, nor any conscious intent to kiss her, but he dipped his head and found her mouth with his, and was lost.

Chapter Twelve

Phyllida was all soft, warm, scented femininity against him, every inhibition seemingly lost in the haze of waking from her nightmare. Her arms were around his torso, her breast heavy and rounded in his hand as he palmed it, the nipple hard beneath the thin veil of lawn.

Urgent for her touch on his naked skin, he fought his way out of his coat, ripped off his neckcloth, pulled his shirt over his head, all the time with one hand touching her, caressing her. He caught her up and felt her gasp as her hands pressed against his back, heard the soft whimper of arousal as he bent his head to bite gently along the white slope of her shoulder, into the angle of her neck, up to the alluring soft skin below her ear.

‘Ashe.’ It was a whisper.

He lifted his head and read the trouble in the darkness of her eyes, the tremble of her lip, smooth and plump, ripe for his kisses. He only had to close his eyes against hers, only had to take her in his arms and use all the expertise he had to overcome her fears and scruples and the thing was done.

Damn it. He couldn’t do it. Persuasion, not seduction. As though it was physically painful he forced his body further away from her. His hands slid down to rest on her forearms, her fingers turned up to clasp his wrists.

All his mistresses before now had been Indian and he had loved the contrast of his pale golden skin on theirs. Now the whiteness of Phyllida’s long fingers on his arms was like cream over honey and he bent to run his tongue-tip along one of them.

‘Ashe, no. I cannot. I cannot be your mistress.’ She pulled her hands back until their fingers meshed as they had in that impromptu minuet days before.

‘Why not?’ he asked, trying not to make it a demand, calming his breathing as if he was about to take aim with a bow and arrow and must be utterly still. ‘When we kiss—’

‘I want you. I am not such a hypocrite to pretend otherwise. We spoke of this, Ashe. I have not changed my mind and I thought you had understood that.’

‘I had. I do.’ Was that a lie? No, he understood her decision, but he was determined to change it. ‘When I came into this room I had no intentions other than to make certain you were safe. When I took you in my arms it was to offer comfort and then—’ he met her eyes squarely ‘—then my intentions changed. I have no excuses.’

She should make a fuss, be indignant, make him feel guilt and shame and then he would never tempt her again. ‘Yes, there are excuses. Real ones,’ Phyllida found herself saying. ‘I reacted as though I would welcome your caresses.’ She forced herself to as much honesty as she dared. ‘I did welcome them. I wanted to touch you, to kiss you. Most men would not have stopped, would have argued that I led them on.’ Stop pretending you don’t want it, you need a real man to show you… Somehow she repressed the shudder lest he think it was for him.

So close to his naked torso, her hands still on him, she wondered again what would it be like to lie with Ashe. Would his kisses sweep her away so the fear was lost, submerged by a roaring wave of passion, or would he coax her out of her fears, softly, gently, replacing nightmare with pleasure?

Or would she panic when those caresses moved beyond kisses? She closed her eyes, imagining her own screams, her nails ripping down his cheek. And he would know her deepest, darkest secret, that she had given herself, her innocence, to another man, not out of love but for money. Like a whore. Not like, the inner voice of her conscience chided her. You were a whore.

‘No, you did not lead me on,’ he said as he freed her hands and stood up. ‘I take responsibility for what I do and I may want you too much for my own peace of mind, but I am not some rutting beast whose lusts must drive him. Are you all right now? Perhaps you should ring for your maid, send her for some hot milk or chocolate to soothe you.’

‘It would take more than chocolate to soothe me after that kiss,’ she said wryly. ‘And why should the poor woman lose her own sleep because I am restless?’ She watched him pull on his shirt and tuck it into his evening breeches, deliberately heaping coals on the smouldering fires he had kindled. The feel of that smoothly muscled back, the memory of the trail of dark hair from his chest down past his navel, the easy breadth of his shoulders—those were going to haunt her dreams for nights to come.

‘Goodnight, Phyllida.’ He caught up his neckcloth from the back of a chair and draped it around his neck. ‘Dream of rare porcelain and precious gems. Sleep well.’

Phyllida slept and, if she dreamed, did not recall it when she woke, wincing, to the clatter of curtain rings.