Catherine nodded. “A brother I’d never known existed. Harry had written that if I were ever in need, I should send word to his address. I dashed off a letter to let him know the trouble I was in, and I gave it to William to deliver—”
“Who is William?”
“A little boy who worked there … he carried things up and down the stairs, cleaned shoes, went on errands, whatever he was told to do. I think he was the child of one of the prostitutes. A very sweet boy. He delivered the note to Harry. I hope Althea never found out. If she did, I fear for what happened to him.” She shook her head and sighed. “The next day I was sent to Lord Latimer’s house. But Harry came just in time.” She paused reflectively. “He frightened me only a little less than Lord Latimer. Harry was extremely angry. At the time I thought it was directed at me, but now I think it was the situation.”
“Guilt often takes the form of anger.”
“But I never blamed Harry for what happened to me. I wasn’t his responsibility.”
Leo’s face hardened. “Apparently you were no one’s responsibility.”
Catherine shrugged uneasily. “Harry didn’t know what to do with me. He asked where I wanted to live, since I couldn’t stay with him, and I asked if he could send me somewhere far from London. We settled on a school in Aberdeen, called Blue Maid’s.”
He nodded. “Some of the peerage send their more unruly daughters or by-blows there.”
“How did you know about it?”
“I’m acquainted with a woman who attended Blue Maid’s. A severe place, she said. Plain food and discipline.”
“I loved it.”
His lips twitched. “You would.”
“I lived there for six years, teaching for the last two.”
“Did Rutledge come to visit?”
“Only once. But we corresponded occasionally. I never went home on holiday, because the hotel wasn’t really a home, and Harry didn’t want to see me.” She grimaced a little. “He wasn’t very nice until he met Poppy.”
“I’m not convinced that he’s nice now,” Leo said. “But as long as he treats my sister well, I’ll have no quarrel with him.”
“Oh, but Harry loves her,” Catherine said earnestly. “Truly he does.”
Leo’s expression softened. “What makes you so certain?”
“I can see it. The way he is with her, the look in his eyes and … why are you smiling like that?”
“Women. You’ll interpret anything as love. You see a man wearing an idiotic expression, and you assume he’s been struck by Cupid’s arrow when in reality he’s digesting a bad turnip.”
She looked at him indignantly. “Are you mocking me?”
Laughing, Leo tightened his arms around her as she tried to struggle from his lap. “I’m merely making an observation about your gender.”
“I suppose you think men are superior.”
“Not at all. Only simpler. A woman is a collection of diverse needs, whereas a man has only one. No, don’t get up. Tell me why you left Blue Maid’s.”
“The headmistress asked me to.”
“Really? Why? I hope you did something reprehensible and shocking.”
“No, I was very well behaved.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“But Headmistress Marks sent for me to come to her office one afternoon, and—”
“Marks?” Leo glanced at her alertly. “You took her name?”
“Yes, I admired her very much. I wanted to be like her. She was stern but kind, and nothing ever seemed to disrupt her composure. I went to her office, and she poured tea, and we talked for a long time. She said I’d done an excellent job, and I was welcome to return and continue teaching in the future. But first she wanted me to leave Aberdeen and see something of the world. And I told her that leaving Blue Maid’s was the last thing I wanted to do, and she said that was why I needed to do it. She had received word from a friend at a placement agency in London that a family of … ‘uncommon circumstances,’ as she put it, was searching for a woman who could act as both governess and companion to pair of sisters, one of whom had recently been expelled from finishing school.”
“That would be Beatrix.”
Catherine nodded. “The headmistress thought that I might suit the Hathaways. What I never expected was how much they suited me. I went for an interview, and I thought the entire family was a bit mad—but in the loveliest possible way. And I’ve worked for them for almost three years, and I’ve been so happy and now—” She broke off, her face contorting.
“No, no,” Leo said hastily, taking her head in his hands, “don’t start that again.”
Catherine was so shocked to feel his lips brush her cheeks and closed eyes that the tears instantly evaporated. When she finally brought herself to look at him again, she saw that he was wearing a faint smile. He smoothed her hair, and stared into her grief-ravaged face with a depth of concern she had never seen from him before.
It frightened her to realize how much of herself she had just given away. Now he knew everything she had tried to keep secret for so long. Her hands worked against his chest like the wings of a bird that had found itself trapped indoors.
“My lord,” she said with difficulty, “why did you come after me? What do you want from me?”
“I’m surprised you have to ask,” he murmured, still caressing her hair. “I want to offer for you, Cat.”
Of course, she thought, bitterness welling. “To be your mistress.”
His voice matched hers exactly for calmness, in a way that conveyed gentle sarcasm. “No, that would never work. First, your brother would arrange to have me murdered, or, at the very least, maimed. Second, you’re far too prickly tempered to be a mistress. You’re far better suited as a wife.”
“Whose?” she asked with a scowl.
Leo stared directly into her narrowed eyes. “Mine, of course.”
Chapter Eighteen
Hurt and outraged, Catherine struggled so violently that he was forced to release her.
“I’ve had enough of you and your tasteless, insensitive humor,” she cried, leaping to her feet. “You cad, you—”
“I’m not joking, damn it!” Leo stood and reached for her, and she hopped backward, and he grabbed, and she flailed. They grappled until Catherine found herself tumbling backward onto the bed.
Leo fell over her in a controlled descent—a pounce, really. She felt him sinking into the mass of skirts, his superior weight urging her legs apart, the muscular mass of his torso pinning her down. She writhed in distress as excitement went skimming and tickling all through her. The more she wriggled, the worse it became. She subsided beneath him, while her hands kept opening and closing on nothing.
Leo stared down at her, eyes dancing with mischief … but there was something else in his expression, a purposefulness, that unsettled her profoundly.
“Consider it, Marks. Marrying me would solve both our problems. You would have the protection of my name. You wouldn’t have to leave the family. And they couldn’t nag me to get married any longer.”
“I am illegitimate,” she said distinctly, as if he were a foreigner trying to learn English. “You are a viscount. You can’t marry a bastard.”
“What about the Duke of Clarence? He had ten bastard children by that actress … what was her name…”
“Mrs. Jordan.”
“Yes, that one. Their children were all illegitimate, but some of them married peers.”
“You’re not the Duke of Clarence.”
“That’s right. I’m not a blueblood any more than you are. I inherited the title purely by happenstance.”
“That doesn’t matter. If you married me, it would be scandalous and inappropriate, and doors would be closed to you.”
“Good God, woman, I let two of my sisters marry Gypsies. Those doors have already been closed, bolted, and nailed shut.”
Catherine couldn’t think clearly, could scarcely hear him through the pounding in her ears, the wild clamor
of her blood. Will and desire pulled at her with equal force. Turning her face away as his mouth descended, she said desperately, “The only way you could be certain of keeping Ramsay House for your family is to marry Miss Darvin.”
He gave a derisive snort. “It’s also the only way I could be certain of committing sororicide.”
“Of what?” she asked in bewilderment.
“Sororicide. Killing one’s wife.”
“No, you mean to say ‘uxoricide.—”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes, uxor is the Latin word for ‘wife.—”
“Then what’s ‘sororicide’?”
“Killing one’s sister.”
“Oh, well, if I had to marry Miss Darvin, I’d probably end up doing that too.” Leo grinned down at her. “The point is, I could never have this kind of conversation with her.”
He was probably right. Catherine had lived with the Hathaways long enough to fall into their style of banter, slipping into the verbal detours that could start one talking about the increasing problem of the Thames River pollution, and end up debating the question of whether or not the Earl of Sandwich had actually invented sandwiches. Catherine restrained a miserable laugh as she realized that although she might have had a slight civilizing influence on the Hathaways, their influence on her had been much greater.
Leo’s head lowered, and he kissed the side of her neck with a slow deliberation that made her squirm. Clearly he had lost interest in the subject of Miss Darvin. “Give in, Cat. Say you’ll marry me.”
“What if I couldn’t give you a son?”
“There are never guarantees.” Leo lifted his head and grinned. “But think of how much fun we’ll have trying.”
“I don’t want to be responsible for the Hathaways losing Ramsay House.”
A new seriousness infused his expression. “No one would hold you responsible for that. It’s a house. No more and no less. There isn’t a structure on earth that could last forever. But a family goes on.”
The front of her bodice had gone loose. She realized that he had been unbuttoning her as they had been talking. She moved to stop him, but he had already managed to spread the front of her bodice open, revealing her corset and chemise.
“Therefore the only thing you’ll be responsible for,” Leo said huskily, “is going to bed with me as often as I wish, and participating in all my heir-inducing efforts.” As Catherine turned her face away, gasping, he bent to whisper in her ear. “I’m going to pleasure you. Fill you. Seduce you from head to toe. And you’re going to love it.”
“You are the most arrogant and absurd—oh, please don’t do that.” He was investigating her ear with the tip of his tongue, a silky-wet tickle. Paying no attention to her protests, he kissed and licked his way along the taut arch of her neck. “Don’t,” she moaned, but he took her panting mouth with his, and let his tongue play there as well, and the sensation and taste and smell of him made her feel drunk. Her arms groped around his neck, and she surrendered with a weak moan.
After her mouth had been teased, searched, and thoroughly ravished, Leo lifted his head and stared into her dazed eyes. “Do you want to hear the best part of my plan?” he asked thickly. “In order to make an honest woman of you, I’ll have to debauch you first.”
Catherine was dismayed to hear herself giggle in witless amusement. “No doubt you’re good at that.”
“Gifted,” he assured her. “The trick is for me to find out what you like best, and then let you have only a little of it. I’ll torment you until you’re absolutely miserable.”
“That doesn’t sound at all pleasant.”
“You think not? Then you’ll be surprised when you beg me to do it again.”
Catherine couldn’t hold back another helpless giggle.
Then they were both motionless, flushed, staring at each other intently.
She heard herself whisper, “I’m afraid.”
“I know, darling,” Leo said gently. “But you’ll have to trust me.”
“Why?”
“Because you can.”
Their gazes held. Catherine was paralyzed. What he asked was impossible. To give herself over entirely to a man, to anyone, was anathema to her very nature. Therefore, it should have been easy to refuse him.
Except that when she tried to form the word “no,” she couldn’t produce a sound.
Leo began to undress her, pulling the gown away in rustling armfuls. And Catherine let him. She actually helped him, loosening laces with shaking hands, lifting her hips, tugging her arms free. He unhooked her corset deftly, betraying easy familiarity with women’s unmentionables. He was in no hurry, however. He was slow and deliberate as he removed the protective layers one by one.
Finally Catherine was covered in nothing more than a blush, her pale skin scored with temporary marks left by the edges of the corset and the seams of her clothes. Leo’s hand descended to her midriff, fingertips moving sensitively along the faint lines like a traveler mapping unexplored territory. His expression was absorbed, tender, as his palm skimmed over her stomach … lower … softly grazing the fluff of intimate hair.
“Blond everywhere,” he whispered.
“Is that … does that please you?” she asked bashfully, gasping as his hand ascended to her breast.
There was a hint of a smile in his voice. “Cat, everything about you is so lovely, I can hardly breathe.” His fingers caressed the cool rise of her breast, toying with the tip until it was taut and rose-colored. He bent and took it in his mouth.
Her heart missed a beat as she heard a noise from downstairs, a clatter that sounded like dishes being dropped in the tavern, the pitch of a raised voice. It was unimaginable that other people were going about the perfectly ordinary business of their day while she was naked in bed with Leo.
One of his hands slid beneath her hips, aligning her exactly with the hard ridge behind his trousers. She whimpered against his lips, shaken by intense pleasure, wanting to stay against him like that forever. He kissed her deeply, and down below his hand pressed her against him in a corresponding rhythm, the voluptuous nudges driving her into some new dimension of feeling. Closer, closer, lapping waves urging her forward … but then he was easing her away. She made an agitated sound, her body aching with unspent sensation.
Leo sat up and stripped his clothes off, revealing a powerful masculine body, efficiently lean and paved with muscle. There was hair on his chest, an intriguing dark fleece, and more of it lower down. His body was ready to couple with hers, she saw. Her stomach clenched in nervous anticipation. He returned to her, gathering her against him, length to length.
She explored him hesitantly, her fingers moving over his chest to the sleek skin of his side. Finding the small scar on his shoulder from their mishap at the ruins, Catherine pressed her lips to it. She heard his rough intake of breath. Encouraged, she inched lower on the bed and rubbed her nose and mouth through the soft mat on his chest. Everywhere their bodies touched, she felt his muscles tighten in response.
Trying to remember Althea’s long-ago instructions, she reached down to the upthrust shape of his arousal. The skin was like nothing she had ever felt, thin and silky, moving easily over astonishing hardness. Timidly she leaned down to kiss the side of the shaft, her lips brushing against a strong pulse. She looked up to gauge his reaction, her gaze questioning.
Leo wasn’t breathing at all well. A tremor shook his hand as he passed it over her hair. “You are the most adorable woman, the sweetest—” He gasped as she kissed him again, and laughed unsteadily. “No, love—it’s all right. No more of that for now.” Reaching down to her, he pulled her up beside him.
He was more insistent now, more authoritative, in a way that allowed her to relax completely. How strange that she could so easily relinquish all control to him, when they had been such fierce adversaries. He parted her thighs with his hand, and she felt herself turn wet even before he touched her there. He teased through the protective curls, spreading her intim
ately. Her head tilted back against his supportive arm, and she closed her eyes, breathing deeply as his finger slipped inside her.
Leo seemed to luxuriate in her response. His head bent to her breast, and he used his teeth gently, licking and gnawing in time to the slow thrust of his finger. It seemed her entire body aligned with that coaxing rhythm, every quiver, pulse, muscle, thought, surging together, and again, until sensation amassed into one exquisite rush of pleasure. She sobbed, riding the swell, letting it take her, letting the heat pump and swirl and ripple all through her … then finally she subsided into trembling weakness.
He loomed over her, panting, staring into her dazed face. Reaching up, she pulled him closer, her limbs moving easily to accommodate him. As he pressed against the entrance to her body, a sharp pain burned through her. He went deeper. Too much of him, the intrusion slow and hard and relentless. When he had gone as far as her resisting flesh could take him, he held still and tried to soothe her. His mouth slid gently over her cheeks and throat.
The intimacy of the moment, the sensation of holding him within her body, was stunning. She found herself trying to soothe him as well, her hands stroking his sleek back. Murmuring his name, she slid her palms to his flanks and urged him to continue. He began to thrust cautiously. It hurt, and yet there was something assuaging in the deep, low pressure. She opened to him instinctively, pulling him closer.
She loved the sounds he made, the quiet groans and fragmented words, his roughcast breathing. It became easier to take him, her hips lifting naturally with each forward motion, slippery flesh plunging and grasping. Her knees bent, angling to cradle him. His body trembled roughly, a grunt of something that sounded like pain coming from his throat.
“Cat … Cat…” Leo withdrew from her abruptly and thrust against her stomach, and she felt heat spill in wet pulses over her skin. He held her tightly, groaning into the joint of her shoulder and neck.
They lay together, trying to catch their breath. Catherine was limp with exhaustion, her limbs heavy. Contentment had saturated and softened her, like water seeping into a dry sponge. For the moment, at least, it was impossible to worry about anything.