Seven Lovely Sins (The Northumberland Nine Book 7) Page 10

  “I will concede to a kiss and nothing else. Your playing can’t be that good.”

  “It was enough to draw you from the castle.”

  “It wasn’t as if I was sleeping,” she said. “I was simply bored, and my room was too warm.”

  “I’ll agree that my playing is not as divine as your voice, but I don’t believe for one moment it was boredom that brought you from your room and not wanton curiosity.”

  She sucked in her breath. “Wanton? How dare you. Don’t be absurd.”

  “Why not? We need absurdities in our lives or we become dull.”

  “I don’t need to hear you play,” she said.

  “And yet here you stand. You came all the way down to the bluff just do it.”

  “Is that not price enough?”

  “Not for me and I didn’t invite you down here. You were spying.”

  She rolled her eyes. “The bluff is not very secretive.”

  “What do you know of secrets?” he asked. “What’s the most scandalous secret you’ve ever kept?”

  “The entire events of last night,” she admitted. “I’ve never done anything like that.”

  “That’s good, otherwise you’d be a fool and an easy mark for men like me.”

  “What do you mean men like you?”

  “Men like me who might take advantage of a woman like you.”

  “But you didn’t,” she said, a little breathless.

  “No, I’m getting on in my years, and I was tired last night, but tonight I just might change my mind.”

  Nic didn’t believe him for one second. He was not the monster he pretended to be, or he wouldn’t be here as one of the prospective husbands. Why did he want to pretend to be something he wasn’t?

  Why did he want to play the villain so badly?

  Both Luna and Georgie would say it was because he was hurting. He was defending a part of himself. Was it all because of his brother? Did she truly wish to know? The closer she got to him, the more she knew of him, the more her foolish heart would succumb to his charm.

  Why couldn’t she leave? What spell had he cast over her that made her want to stay, made her so curious about this elusive man?

  “I’ll pay your price,” she said. She saw a flash of amazement cross his features.

  He shook his head at her. “You think you’re safe with me? That I won’t hurt you? The truth is I hurt everyone I know, intentionally or not. Go, my siren.”

  “I don’t want to go,” she said. “I want to hear you play.”

  “You want to bargain with the devil, is that it?” he asked. “You crave excitement and mischief. I am all those things and so much worse. Go, Nicolette.”

  He picked up his violin and turned away, and Nic stood there, feeling rather rejected and miffed. He’d pestered her until she sang for him, and now she would do the same.

  She ground her teeth together. “I said I’d pay your price,” she called after him. “Kiss me.”

  His shoulders bunched together, but he did not turn around. “Go to bed, little siren.”

  Little she was not. She was no child, and she would not be treated like one.

  A hum of agitation built in her throat and turned into a throaty vibrato that squeaked past her restraint, and before she knew it, she was singing a siren’s song.

  He paused in his stride, giving her his profile as if he used the one ear to listen.

  Her heart drummed as he turned, and he set his violin to his chin. The strains of his instrument filled the air, accompanying her voice. An invisible arm came around her and drew her forward as if this whole event was orchestrated by fate. She sang, he played. They moved closer together until only the music stood between them, and her voice rose into the heavens and came crashing down as she drew in a full breath. He dropped his violin to his side and onto the ground, and then he pulled her into his arms, and his mouth crashed down on hers. In her heart, she was still singing, wild and free, the sound of their music living on inside her.

  Her head grew light, her lungs tight with the need to breathe. She finally had the chance when his lips slid to her neck, painting her feverish skin with his tongue and lips, setting fires in the dormant rooms of her heart. Was this his price? She’d pay anything for this.

  This was the music of her heart. Her skin, her muscles, and her nerves begged to be touched, caressed, and worshiped by his hands. In the echoes of her mind, she knew she ought to feel frightened. She was committing the most grievous of sins of her sex. She was experiencing pleasure, not at the hands of her husband, but from a man who’d made her no promises, and yet she didn’t care. If this was sin, she was now in love with sin. She wanted to eat, sleep, and drink in sin with this man. The promise in his hold and the firm cage of his arm might be a lie, but for this moment, Nic wanted to believe he meant to protect her, to cherish her. How could that be a lie? Could her body lie so thoroughly to itself or was this real? Was this something neither of them could control?

  Nic didn’t want to be in control anymore. She’d given her life over to her family. She’d been a good, dutiful daughter. Right now, all she wanted was to feed this passion inside her. He gave her the same joy as singing. Made her feel like she could leap from the bluff and fly. The farther his lips moved down her neck, the harder it became to think. He swept her into his arms, and then he lowered her to the ground, parting her cloak and bringing his body down on top of hers with only her cotton nightgown to buffer his weight. Nic gasped with delight and her wits scattered. The only sound she could recognize was the pounding of her own heart as he swept her away on a sea of desire. His hands were everywhere at once, his lips and tongue artful explorers on the delicate skin covering the valley of her breasts.

  He whispered things to her skin, words like entrancing, mesmerizing, soft and silky. He stretched the fabric tight over her breasts. He bent his head to the shadowed peak of her nipple. The heat of his tongue burned through the fabric.

  “Say my name,” he said. “I want to hear you say it.”

  “Theo,” she cried breathlessly.

  He drew her nipple into his mouth, and she felt the tug low in her womb. Her body cradled his. Between them, she could feel his arousal pressed against the cleft of her body, and her hips rose up to greet the hardness on their own primal urge. She hadn’t known she could feel like this. She was meeting an entirely new side of herself. The Nic who cried out a man’s name and carried a knife, the Nic who sang on the bluffs in her nightgown. Is this who she’d been all along? Is this what bound them together, why she found herself willing because she recognized something of herself in him?

  He pressed his face in between her breasts, his warm breath panting against her skin, whispering words she couldn’t understand but felt down to her marrow. His hand moved in between them to the apex of her thighs. She protested at first—he’d taken away the delicious friction of his arousal. His fingers moved against her, probing the vault of her womanhood through her nightgown. Friction so deliciously fraught and exciting that she whimpered and parted her legs in welcome. She shuddered as wave after wave of pleasure gripped her.

  Theo’s fingers moved faster, his breathing harsh, but he took nothing for himself. He did not move his hips, he did not lift her skirts and expose her flesh to him. When he touched her so perfectly, she wanted to stay like this forever. She was rising, flying toward the sun, crying out his name.

  “Theo…Theo.”

  And then she eclipsed the sun, and her body fractured in ecstasy, and she floated back down to earth. The slide of his fingers slowed, soothing her sensitive nerve endings, and she could feel the dampness between her legs. He came up to his haunches beside her and wrapped her cloak over.

  “You were built for pleasure,” he said, “and I’m a saint for not robbing you of your innocence.” He looked down at his tented breeches.

  Nic was rapidly curious about the weight and feel of that turgid organ. She felt robbed, not of her innocence but of something she had never known she wa
s craving. Not the action itself. There was something about this man that made her this way.

  “Next time I ask you to go back, go back.”

  “Why would I do that when the alternative is so…” She bit her tongue.

  He scowled. “You’re dancing with the devil, you know.”

  “Perhaps he’s not as bad as he seems. Perhaps he’s no devil at all.”

  “And just a man with a lonely heart?” He scoffed and came to his feet and offered her a hand up.

  Nic shivered as she tied her cloak around her, her flushed skin cooling rapidly in the ocean air.

  “I will not apologize,” he said.

  “Good.”

  Her body still sang, not a grand aria like before but a quiet lullaby. Her blood bubbled like champagne and thick like honey. She blinked slowly, counting the seconds before he said something that would likely ruin the pleasantness of the moment. She could not find a trace of regret inside herself. If anything, she wanted more. She wanted him to hold her, to stretch out this night as long as possible, but he was clearly waging some war inside himself.

  He ran a hand through his hair in an agitated fashion and started to pace a square into the ground.

  “Christ, it’s like I slip into a trance whenever I’m around you, and I can’t help myself. I’m sorry, Nicolette, but I just can’t do this. I’m trying to be a better man. I’ve… I’ve done so much wrong in my life that I can’t make right, but I have to try. Do you know what I mean?” He didn’t wait for her to answer before continuing. “I’m at the end of my tether here. I’ve got no more chances left. You could at least help me by not being so”—he spread his arms—”so damn beautiful.”

  She shrugged. “I’ll do my best.”

  He narrowed his eyes at her. “Do you think this is funny? I’m in real trouble. I’m in so much trouble I have to leave England.”

  “Why can’t you face the trouble?”

  “Because,” he said and resumed his pacing, “it is not the kind of trouble one can face. It’s the kind of trouble you can only run from.” He rubbed his neck as he said this.

  “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry I seduced you,” Nic said, a giggle bubbling up inside her. “I won’t let it happen again.” But she certainly hoped it did, she thought, but then her hopes died. He seemed so distraught, yanking on his hair. Was she truly to blame? No, she couldn’t be. It took two partners to dance, and he was the more experienced of the two.

  “You’re verging on hysteria,” she said in annoyance. “You didn’t even take off my nightgown. Stop being such a ninny.”

  He paused and glared at her. “Did you call me a ninny?”

  “Yes, we kissed and… You touched me, and it was all lovely, so stop ruining it.”

  His glare melted away. “I’m sorry. It was lovely, and I bet it was your first.”

  “It was and now I can’t even enjoy it because you’re so upset about it.”

  He strode forward and took hold of her shoulders. “I’m sorry, you should enjoy it. As wrong and sinful as our elders wish to make pleasure seem, it’s not. How can something that feels so wonderful be so bad?” he asked. “Sure, there are risks, but there are no real repercussions for what we did other than the emotional kind. How are you feeling emotionally? No, never mind, a man should never ask a woman that. It’s bound to lead to trouble, and I don’t think men can comprehend the expert emotions of women. We’re not built to, we’re too simple.”

  “That sounds like an excuse,” Nic returned. “But I’m feeling fine anyhow.”

  “Fine? That’s it?”

  “I was feeling glorious until you threw your little fit.”

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “I suppose I did. I don’t deny it. We had a bit of fun and that was all.” He looked around. “There’s no one here to catch us, but it can’t happen again. I’m trying to turn over a new leaf.”

  “Are your troubles really that bad?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  There was something about the weight in his voice that made her believe him. She didn’t need to ask anymore. He would tell her if he wanted to but she had a feeling he didn’t, and she was reminded of an earlier thought about Theo being sad and having invisible wounds. He wore a mask of a rogue, but underneath there was a man who needed much more than physical pleasure. He needed love.

  Her breath hitched, her throat growing tight. Something swelled inside her, something that felt like purpose. But she was languishing on the sea of satisfaction, and she couldn’t be sure if it was real or if she was lost in the moment.

  “We should stay away from each other,” she said.

  “That worked out so well before, didn’t it? Whatever it is, we seem to be drawn to each other. We may as well just accept that for the remainder of our short time together. I enjoy your company and you enjoy mine.”

  “It would seem,” she muttered.

  “Let us be friends, Nicolette, and as far as what happened here tonight, we have to resist at all cost. No more late-night excursions,” he said. “Will you promise me? I promise I’ll keep to the castle and so will you?”

  “Very well,” she said.

  “Come along.” He took her arm and they walked back to the castle and snuck inside. Nic returned to her bed, her limbs weighted by satiated exhaustion. She still held on to the strange feeling that he needed her and wanted her. Being with him, whether on the bluff overlooking the ocean at midnight or in the castle sipping tea, she was right where she was supposed to be.

  Chapter 17

  After escorting her back to the corridor where the sisters were housed, Theo went back to his room and stared at the dying flames in the hearth. He sat at the foot of his bed, his elbows resting on his thighs and his fists under his chin.

  He managed to muck things up again. He’d lain an innocent woman down on a bluff battered by the ocean breeze and took advantage of her enthusiasm.

  Just a month ago, he would’ve applauded himself for his restraint at not having rent her nightgown in two and sunk into her heavenly body. He would have made sure she enjoyed every second of her ruination, and yet he was unsettled by his actions tonight, by his patent lack of control around Nicolette Marsden. Something about her was so intoxicating, it made him unable to think, which in the moment had been a blessing because before she’d arrived on that bluff, his thoughts had been dark indeed. A turbulent river of self-loathing and blame. Regret plagued him like a specter hourly, following his every step, moaning his name, rattling chains up and down the halls of his mind. When Nicolette was near, that terrible voice was silent, and he had peace. He wanted to be a man who could deserve her, who might have a chance to live a good life. But he seemed to ruin anything he touched. What was the matter with him? Why couldn’t he ever do the right thing? He scarcely knew her, but he wanted to do the right thing, so why couldn’t he just do it? Why couldn’t he leave her alone? Why couldn’t he just be a friend, bring her cups of tea, fetch a plate of food, and not end up on top of her? He was beginning to think there was something fundamentally wrong with him.

  Was he evil? Perhaps he should consult the Bible. He never put much stock in things like heaven and hell. He referred to himself as the devil all the time, and just maybe he was right. He was no good for anyone.

  But could he repent with the one woman who needed him? Show her a taste of pleasure? Not just the physical kind. She needed to believe in herself and in her voice. Her world was so small. Perhaps that was what he needed. A purpose. He spent his life mostly looking for ways to entertain himself, to block out unpleasant feelings, but maybe what he needed to do was not focus on himself but someone else. Someone like Nicolette, who deserved far more than some small life, tucked away in the north of England. Her destiny could be greater with a voice like hers. She could change her life, bring prosperity to her family, if only she had the courage to do it.

  The stubborn will.

  Something he had in abundance. He liked to take risks. What if he turned his mind
to helping her find a future that didn’t involve pushing out offspring? Her future could be brighter than she ever dreamed. What if he could help her see that? She had the key to her own happiness inside her.

  Before he left England, he would help Nicolette face her fear of singing in front of others. He could show her that her voice was the key to saving her family and herself from a disgustingly ordinary and dull life. No one else would encourage her to do it.

  Invigorated, his soul feeling lighter, Theo undressed and climbed into bed. While he couldn’t touch her in his waking hours, his dreams were another world, one in which he could have whatever he wanted, including Nicolette Marsden.

  Two hellish days passed. He wasn’t the only one apparently enthralled by a Marsden. Nicolette’s sister, Miss Lunette knew a little too much about he and his brother. She was worming her way into his brother’s heart even though they were both leaving England. Meanwhile, those hypocrites were not pleased with his relationship with Nicolette, but he didn’t care. Nicolette was fast becoming the only thing he could tolerate about England and maybe the only thing he would miss when he left, which he found troubling. While the thought of leaving his home country had never endeared itself, somehow the idea sickened him even more because he was going to leave Nicolette. She was probably going to marry some worthless dolt who could never make her happy, never appreciate her inner and outer beauty. He had to convince her before he left that she deserved more than that.

  While the two days had been rather strained between he and his brother, every moment with Nicolette was a balm to his soul. Today he was following her down to Marsden House where she intended to do a bit of weeding.

  “We’re not supposed to be doing this, you know, but if I don’t, the weeds will take over by the time I come back, and we’ll have no vegetables for the winter.”

  Theo wondered if she and her sisters had ever been hungry before. He pictured Nicolette as a skinny little girl, her stomach rumbling while her wealthy neighbors feasted. The thought appalled him.