Meanwhile Luke was kissing his way along the pared-down curve of Chloe’s jaw, as if it was uniquely fascinating to feel his mouth there. Ah, just one more minute, she promised her inner woman as her breasts seemed to swell and kick up against the buttons of his waistcoat and the leashed strength of him, begging for release from the demure gown and very correct corset she’d imposed on them for some reason that eluded her right now. Somehow her nipples felt as if they had a life of their own, needs they hadn’t fully told her about until this moment and now they were hard and tight and begging to be satisfied.
Under their disguise they pouted and longed, then made her sigh when she shifted against the cool silk and jet of his black waistcoat, fine buttons and him, then felt them tighten even more. Far better with his bare skin over taut muscle to writhe against her, her wildest instincts whispered sneakily. Chloe moaned at the very idea and almost wished it hadn’t sprung into her head that to feel his fingers explore her might go beyond pleasure into something desperate and driven and even needier.
Maybe he read her mind because he rolled a little closer, lay half over her and she felt those wanton breasts of hers bloom with satisfaction against a hard wall of muscle and her almost painfully hard nipples tightened even more mercilessly. He raised his head to look down at her with so much in his eyes she had to blink and decided there was no point trying to hide her arousal from him. She held his hot grey eyes with steady acceptance they wanted each other more than she’d known a man and woman could. No use guarding herself from him any longer, no point pretending he was only a man just like any other. Luke was the man; the only one who could build a universe for her; spin stars and planets into the sky, and if only this world was different, go on doing so for the rest of their lives until it was vast and beautiful and all theirs to explore together.
‘I want you so much,’ she murmured as reason slammed back into his dear grey eyes and she finally saw his beloved northern skies, clear cool moorland air and the full depth of his fine mind and loving heart in them.
‘You know I’m on fire for you,’ he muttered, endearingly gruff about the fact, so explicit now even she could hardly help but know it.
‘I want it all with you, Luke Winterley, everything a mature woman can share with a very well-grown and mature man,’ she murmured with dreams in her eyes and far too much love in her heart to hide it from him. He’d awoken a wicked sensuality she hadn’t even known she was capable of until now and it whispered of endless delight and satisfaction to be had, if they were not who they were.
‘But?’ he whispered and the knowledge there was always a ‘but’ for them was deep in the clear depths and complex shadows of his gaze.
‘You know why,’ she said with Verity’s secrets misting her gaze with tears.
‘Aye, I do,’ he acknowledged roughly, as if saying so hurt.
‘Not because of you,’ she said as if that might make it right.
‘Yes, because I’m me,’ he argued and it nearly broke something in her when he levered himself away to put distance between them. ‘If I wasn’t a titled aristocrat with more houses than a one man can decently live in, you would give yourself to me heart and soul, Lady Chloe Whoever-You-Are. If I could offer you decent obscurity and a full heart, you would marry me and be my love for the rest of our lives, but because I’m Farenze and will be until the day I die, you won’t see what we could be.’
‘Oh, I see,’ she argued shakily, ‘but I won’t do. You don’t believe in love and swore to marry again only for convenience. In your wildest dreams you could never describe me as convenient.’
‘Marry me anyway,’ Luke asked, stubbornness in his intent eyes.
‘You don’t even know who I am,’ Chloe objected even as joy sang in her heart and a flock of butterflies seemed to take up permanent residence in her fluttering stomach, then fly lower to whisper of delights unmapped and infinitely pleasurable.
‘I know you’re Chloe; Verity’s aunt and mother in all but giving birth to her. I know you would give everything for someone you love, let alone your sister’s child, a girl you love deeply for her own sake. I’d be a fool to try and part you from her. How can I not want that for our children, Chloe? How can you refuse it to the red-headed, mule-tempered brats we could have between us, if only you would let go of your pride and allow them to live?’
‘Who I am would come back to bite you and our black-haired, dark-eyed wild things, the ones we can’t make because of me,’ she argued sadly, feeling the air chill between them. They sat upright on the graceful little seduction of a chaise, designed for two lovers to while away a long winter evening together.
‘Don’t I deserve to even know why not, Chloe?’
Of course he did, even though he would know she was right as soon as she told him. She had no reason to prolong the sweet moment when she might reach out and grab her wildest dreams, if only she loved him less.
She delved in the pocket no fashionable lady would have permitted to spoil the line of her high-waisted gown and silently held out the letter, addressed in Virginia’s elegant sloping hand to Lady Chloe Thessaly.
Watching him read those three damning words, she waited to see all she dreaded cloud his face and make him frown with revulsion, but there was only mild interest in his eyes. Hadn’t he heard her family name under all the notoriety her father and brother heaped on the title until it stank like three-week-old fish?
‘My father was Lord Crowdale,’ she made herself admit.
‘Mine was a fool, but it doesn’t prevent us marrying,’ he insisted.
She was shocked into meeting his gaze and saw anger deep in the silver-and-gold-rayed irises and clear black pupils; besotted Chloe mused how she might lose herself in such complication for hours on end, if only she dared and he’d let her.
‘Don’t you realise what a scandal my resurrection from whatever early death they made up to account for losing two daughters would be? Far better for Verity to remain the daughter of an obscure housekeeper who might or might not have been widowed tragically young. Nobody will care enough to argue the birth of a girl of the middling sort as they would about Lady Daphne Thessaly’s child.’
‘And you would narrow all her choices to that? Being a nondescript girl of the middling sort? Oh, no, Lady Chloe Thessaly, you can’t make a nonentity out of a girl who carries all the promise of being as inconveniently beautiful as Virginia once was. Haven’t you noticed she has the fine bones, character and colouring that will take the world by storm in a few years’ time? Foolish of you if you haven’t, but as the child of a mere housekeeper she is going to have a terrible time without a father to protect her from the storm her looks and grace will bring down on both of you as soon as she’s old enough to attract the wolves to your door.’
‘I...’ Chloe ground to a halt and wondered if he was right.
‘Yes, you...?’ he insisted mercilessly, temper now sparking in his grey eyes and knitting his brows in a formidable frown.
It made her want to love him even more. His fury was part on Verity’s behalf and part because he seemed, wonder of wonders, to want to be her daughter’s father.
‘I can’t simply change my mind and say yes because it suits me to have a noble husband, that wouldn’t be right.’
‘Oh, Chloe,’ he said on a choke of unwilling laughter that chased the thunder clouds from his stormy gaze. ‘My Chloe,’ he said as if nothing would ever change that fact, whatever she did to argue him out of it, ‘I would say never change, but I’m not quite sure I could mean it when you’re keeping us apart