The Anonymous Amanuensis Page 17

  A short, harsh laugh burst from her. How could she not, if it were the only way she could have James? He would never consider marrying a woman so sunk beneath propriety as to masquerade as a man.

  Eve was not uninformed about the physical relationship between man and woman, for she had observed the matings of horses and cattle, dogs and cats. She had listened unwillingly to Charlotte's frequent whining complaints about Alfred's thoughtlessness in demanding his connubial rights when he knew that to his wife it was merely an unpleasant and distasteful duty.

  Yet Eve knew, from observing her own parents, that marital relations could be both pleasant and satisfying. How often as a child she had seen, without understanding, the soft, slack expression on her mother's face when her father had kissed her.

  In fact, she told herself with a rueful smile, if her body's involuntary responses to Quinton had been any indication, the words pleasant and satisfying drastically understated the case. She felt her breasts tighten and a warm glow in her middle at the memory of the emotions she had experienced that afternoon.

  * * * *

  James excused himself from further intercourse with Penny and Miss Comstock after dinner, saying he had business concerns upon his mind. He intended to retire to the office and spend a few hours at work, for he had found concentration difficult the past few days.

  Instead he went to his bedchamber. Carrying a brandy decanter with him, he slowly climbed the stairs and walked along the hall. Briefly hesitating at Eve's door, he shook his head and passed beyond to enter his own. The fire was dying, so he tossed a few fresh logs upon it and kicked at them to stir up the flames.

  Two hours later he still sat in his wing chair, staring into the fire, the snifter of brandy standing practically untouched upon the table at his elbow. For all of those dragging two hours, the scene in the glade this afternoon had replayed itself in his mind. What demon had taken possession of him that he should have behaved so to a dependent female?

  What must Eve think of him? Disgust? Fear? Hatred? He was no nearer to answers than he had been when he first threw himself into the chair.

  Her reaction puzzled him. She had seemed almost angry at his apology, rather than at the actions that prompted it. He knew now that she was completely innocent, sexually inexperienced, despite the accusations he had flung in her face a few days before. Her first response to his kiss had proven that to him without a shadow of a doubt.

  Yet she had responded with passion. Or had she? Perhaps she had been so overset at his presumption, so distressed at the unmistakable evidence of his desire, which he had, admittedly, ground against her soft belly...

  James considered that possibility. Eve was still very young, in years if not in experience. Perhaps she was infatuated with him, as Penny had been with Eve's masculine persona. Might not that have influenced her reaction to his assault on her virtue?

  In memory he tasted her mouth, felt the softly hesitant touches of her tongue to his.

  How I hungered for her then!

  He still did, though now the need was a steady smolder, rather than the hot fire he'd felt this afternoon.

  Knowing he could not sleep until he had resolved his dilemma, James decided to go to Eve, to repeat his apology and to make her understand why he had offered her such an ignoble insult. Stepping next door, he lifted his hand to knock. But there was no bar of light beneath the door to show she was still awake.

  His quiet rap went unanswered.

  Discouraged, he turned away, then decided he should check her to make sure she was not weeping in the darkness, still distressed at his behavior. He would just look in upon her to assure himself that she was all right. He turned the knob and slowly, quietly pushed the door open.

  Eve was sitting on the floor in front of the fire, head bent. Her nightshirt, lit from behind by the flickering fire, scarcely concealed her slender curves. She did not move, did not even seem to realize he was there.

  James stood quietly, gazing at her, burning for her.

  Her fair hair, tousled as if she had repeatedly run her fingers through it, shone like a golden radiance about her head. Although her face was in shadow, the sweet curve of her cheek and the droop of her head infused in him an almost overpowering feeling of protectiveness toward her.

  He took a silent step into the room and eased the door closed behind him. She remained apparently unaware of his presence, and he stood still, drinking in the sight of her. Finally he could stand it no longer. He took two more steps and fell to his knees beside her.

  She started, gave a small cry, hardly more than an indrawn breath.

  "Eve. Oh, Eve," he murmured and took her into his arms. She sat passive in his embrace as he rained kisses over her hair, her sweet face. His hands moved to her shoulders and he held her away from him, looking into her eyes. "You are so lovely, so desirable," he whispered hoarsely.

  Still she did not respond, but only sat staring, her face vacant of emotion. He buried his face against her throat, his hands moving slowly, sensuously over her back. The thin nightshirt let him feel the warmth of her body and its delicious curves. Grasping it, he pulled upwards. It moved only a little, for she was sitting on the tail. Frustrated, he lifted her body toward him and tugged again. Relieved of her weight, the garment slipped free.

  As if awakened from a daze, Eve moved then. Her eyes opened wide, staring straight into his.

  "Oh, no!" She had not been dreaming! James was here. And he was trying to undress her.

  Instinctively she wriggled from his embrace and scrambled to her feet. Backing away from him as he also rose, she came up against the edge of her bed. "No, please! You should not be here! Please, Mr. Quinton, go away."

  As if he had not heard her words, Quinton continued to advance. The expression on his shadowed face was fierce, relentless in the dim light.

  She climbed up onto the bed, still backing away from him. Not quite frightened, she was wary, nonetheless. His advance seemed so relentless, as if he was in the grip of an irresistible force. When his thighs encountered the edge of the bed, he bent forward, looming over her, his hands indenting the mattress on either side of her bare legs.

  Trapped!

  Exactly where she wanted to be, she realized. What would happen if she threw herself into his arms? She wanted to. Oh! How she wanted to.

  Before she could move, Quinton grasped her uninjured ankle and pulled her across the bed towards the edge. Her nightshirt stuck to the quilt and remained where it was as she moved slowly but inexorably closer to him.

  Helpless within his grasp, Eve simply watched him, memorizing the fierce need writ on his features, the blazing heat of his gray gaze. This moment had been inevitable, she admitted, since the day she decided to don trousers and become his secretary.

  Strangely, she was not frightened. He would not harm her, no matter what he did to her. And had this not been the most compelling of her fantasies? She was in his arms, exactly where she most wanted to be.

  To be his, if only this once. To belong, however briefly, to this man for whom she felt such overpowering love. She wanted one memory to cling to through the long cold nights in her attic room at Elmwood.

  No longer fighting against him, she tried to free her hands so that she might touch his face, stroke his strong shoulders and chest. But he only held her all the more tightly. His mouth explored her face and neck. Eve was aware for the first time of his tremendous strength. With what appeared to be little effort, he heaved himself astride her thighs and transferred his grip on her hands to one of his own. With his free hand he took hold of the placket of her nightshirt and gave it a great yank. The ties parted and the rest of her body was exposed to his view.

  She froze. Although he touched her nowhere but at wrists and thighs, her skin burned, as if his hungry gaze were a tangible force.

  James looked at Eve as she lay motionless under his hands. Her body was pale against the dark bedspread, long and slim, with narrow waist and small, high breasts. How had he missed see
ing the delicious curve of her unmistakably feminine hips?

  She must have lost weight during her convalescence, for her hipbones were evident, her belly an exquisitely concave curve between them. His taste had always run to voluptuous women. Now he wondered at how he could have desired so much soft flesh.

  Her eyes were enormous as she stared unblinking into his face. James ran his hand gently along the smooth curve of her shoulder and down between her high, rose-tipped breasts. As his fingers trailed across her belly, she shuddered.

  "Oh yes, James," she whispered, so softly that his ears barely caught the words. "Yes, please." Her tongue darted out to moisten her lips.

  Eve's words were like cold water dashed into his face, even as his body responded to her invitation. He jerked his hands from her as if they burned. He pushed himself upright and turned away from paradise.

  "Cover yourself," he told her hoarsely.

  An implacable expression turned his face into an austere and pain-filled mask. Eve pulled her nightshirt around her as she sat up, crossing her arms under her breasts to hold it.

  "I was not asking you to stop, James," she told him, marveling at her own boldness.

  He kept his back to her. "I came to beg your pardon for my inexcusable conduct this afternoon, Eve, and now I must do so doubly. Please accept my apologies for forgetting that, as one of my dependents, you should be free of my...ah, my attentions."

  "No!" Eve was determined not to let him retreat into his habitual formality. "I do not accept your apology, James. I will not forgive you."

  "Why..."

  "Hush. Let me speak." She held up her hand. "I tried to tell you this afternoon that I welcomed your kiss. Tonight I welcome your...your attentions. I shall be leaving you soon, James. Let me have this brief time with you to remember."

  Jerkily he turned. Stared at her, evidently stunned by her words.

  "If I were to accept your apology and let you go away now, I could forgive neither myself nor you." She shrugged her arms free of the remains of her nightshirt, held them out to him. "Come to me, James. Make me yours, if only for tonight."

  James heard her words and read her desire in the tremble of her mouth, the longing in her gaze. It was the final straw.

  With a groan of surrender, he threw himself on the bed and clasped her to him. "Eve. Eve. My lovely Eve," he whispered into her ear before his tongue tasted its convolutions.

  Her hands scrabbled at his back, pulled his shirt free from his trousers. Her hips pushed against his, driving him into a frenzy of desire. Somehow together they managed to disrobe him.

  No gentle foreplay preceded their coupling as they came together in mindless passion. His need was so great that he thrust himself within her without thought for her maidenhead. When he felt her wince, he was beyond stopping.

  She clawed at his back as her body stiffened. He felt her spasms of completion even as he emptied himself into her.

  Together they soared into passion. Together they fell into satiation.

  The fire was a mere glowing of coals when Eve again came to her senses. She was conscious of a feeling of lassitude. It was just as intense but quite unlike that she had felt earlier, for it was induced by the delicious warmth permeating her whole body.

  James' hand stroked along her spine, moving slowly, making her want to arch her back against its strength. She could feel the hairs by her ear moving in the slight breeze from his nostrils as his breathing slowed to its normal rhythm. When his soothing hand moved once again over her buttocks, she moved, snuggling closer and stretching her free arm across his chest. A long sigh of pure delight escaped from her lips. His hand stopped its movement.

  "Ah, Eve," he murmured, "how could I have escaped seeing what loveliness was hidden in those baggy, drab garments you wore?"

  "Mmmm," she answered, not wishing to speak, afraid the spell would be broken.

  "I am not in the habit of ravishing virgins, you know," he said, his voice soft. "Did I hurt you, love?"

  "Hush, James. Do not speak." She reached to lay her hand over his mouth, afraid his words would bring reality back to them. His tongue moved against her palm, sending a thrill down her arm. She moved her hand lower, her fingertips trailing gently across his chin and down his chest. Scribing small circles along his breastbone, she explored the thick tangle of hair there, wondering if it was as red as that on his head, but not caring enough to look. After eliciting small gasps of pleasure from him when she toyed briefly with his tiny male nipples, she explored further.

  He inhaled sharply as her fingertips played about his navel then moved even lower to tease the hair at his groin. Amazed at her own daring, Eve withdrew her hand a moment. Emboldened by his lack of resistance, she resumed her teasing. Her hand slipped to the inside of his thigh and she drew her short fingernails along it until she could reach no lower.

  His hand on her back stopped its stroking. His breathing had become shallow. Eve continued to stroke and tease, each circle of her fingertips coming ever closer to their goal. But she had scarcely touched his hard, swollen manhood when, with a grunt of effort, he grabbed her waist and swung her above him.

  A moment's awkwardness, then Eve found her position astride his hips. As he entered her, she lost herself in the incredible sensations that radiated again through her body from the point of their joining.

  This time there was no urgency, no haste. He worshiped her body with hands and mouth, led her again and again to the edge of culmination. At last he took her to the peak and, with a joyous shout, followed her down the other side.

  Eve awoke to sunlight. Her first thought was that she would be late to breakfast and that Quinton would frown at her for her tardiness in coming to the office.

  Then she remembered. He had come to her, had made her his. Once in desperate, mutual need. Once in slower, more teasing luxury. And a third time, when both woke briefly from deep sleep, in quiet, gentle tenderness.

  At the first gray light of dawn he had kissed her and whispered that he must leave, that it would not do if they were to be discovered.

  She had watched him gather up his strewn garments in the dim light of her bedchamber, admiring his slim, well-knit body. But she had not spoken, still afraid that if she did so the magic spell that had surrounded them both for a few hours of wonder would be lost. When he had slipped silently from her chamber after one last kiss, she had fallen into a deep, satisfying, dreamless sleep.

  Eve jumped from bed, feeling better than she had for weeks. Even the splint on her arm no longer irritated her, despite its clumsiness as she washed herself. What a wonderful morning! She awkwardly clothed herself. As she quickly brushed her hair in front of the mirror, she saw that her eyes had not lost the faint purple shadows that had lain below them since her accident.

  She looked closer and saw that her lips were swollen slightly. No wonder, for he had returned to her mouth again and again, kissing her as if he could not stop, nibbling, suckling, invading her mouth with his tongue. At the memory, Eve's body shook with a brief frisson of desire. She laughed shakily.

  This is no way for a lady to feel, she told herself sternly.

  "But I am not a lady," she spoke aloud. "I am a young gentleman, and gentlemen are allowed to admit their passions and even to indulge them." She sketched a quick bow to the tall, golden haired gentleman whose reflection she saw, and came very close to skipping from the chamber.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Quinton was just leaving the breakfast room as Eve arrived. He greeted her quietly, his face expressionless. He did not look directly at her. A clammy feeling of fear spread through her chest.

  "Good morning, sir," she said, forcing a suddenly false cheerfulness. "I am late, but I will eat quickly and come to the office as soon as I am finished."

  He nodded curtly and brushed past her.

  "Grump. He must have gotten foxed last night." Penny cast a disgusted look at her brother's departing back. "Eve, you look tired this morning. Did you not sleep well?" Penny smile
d over her cup of chocolate. "Or was your ride yesterday too much for you?"

  "I imagine that it was, Penny, for I was exhausted when I returned," Eve replied as she carried her plate to the sideboard. None of the many dishes there looked appetizing, but she took a rasher of bacon and a boiled egg. Penny passed her a covered basket of rolls as she seated herself at the table.

  "My brother probably led you to ride farther and faster than you should have. Sometimes he is thoughtless of others. You should have left him and returned to the stables when you tired," Penny said in maternal tones.

  Eve could not help but chuckle. "Oh, Penny, you sound just as if you were my mother. Do not be concerned. I am nearly recovered and the ride did not hurt me." At the girl's doubtful expression, she said, "As a matter of fact, I did leave Mr. Quinton and return alone, so I was not neglectful of my own health." But her health was not why she had left him in the glade. Eve fought to contain the smile hovering about her lips.

  Still, the chill was back in her middle and breakfast sat in an indigestible lump when she slowly climbed the stairs to the office. Why had he looked at her so coldly, she wondered, when his last kiss had been so tender and loving.

  The stairs had never seemed so high before, nor had the corridor to the office seemed so long. Eve paused in the doorway when she saw him already at his desk. He did not look up from the papers he was perusing.

  She went to her own desk. There were none of the papers on its surface that usually awaited her. Could he be as distracted as she this morning?

  She folded her hands atop the leather-covered surface and waited expectantly, her eyes on his beloved face. How handsome he is, even when he is scowling. But he was not scowling last night. A vision of his passion-filled face swam before her eyes and she shivered.

  Minutes dragged by as James gave all his attention to the papers in his hands. Finally he laid them on his desk with a sigh. His chin lifted and he looked across at Eve for a long time. The longer he stared at her, the more cold the feeling within her chest. She could not think, but only sat, returning his stare and feeling the color rise in her cheeks as she did so.