Beauty Like the Night Page 11

  “Our parents are dead,” Helene insisted, jerking her head away, “and perhaps we shall never know the truth. Perhaps my mother was indeed misled, but it matters little now.”

  He moved so quickly, Helene could not help gasping as his fingers dug into her arm, his other hand sliding into the small of her spine to roughly pull her against him. “By God, Helene, it matters to me,” he muttered, as his mouth came down to crush hers.

  Helene’s hands came up to fight, to shove him away, but her willful fingers curled into the fine lawn of his shirt instead. Cam’s blazing anger, his protestations of innocence—indeed, his very loss of self-control—sent bittersweet pleasure coursing through her.

  Blinded by a need too long denied, she let his heat and anger wash over her, even as his mouth slid over hers. New sorrow fused with old dreams, hot and uncontrollable in the pit of her belly. Cam’s lips were certain, his touch demanding, as he dragged her high against his chest. He drove her head back, rasping her skin with his beard.

  Unlike the boy she had once loved, this man was neither tender nor tentative. But it seemed she did not care. She could not resist. Did not want to resist. Helene clawed against his chest, drawing him closer. The warm male scent of him filled her nostrils and his tongue filled her mouth. It was as if the empty years had never been. As if a horrible error had been put to rights. Her heart flooded with relief, and surged with passion.

  Wordlessly, foolishly, Helene begged him for more. In harmony with her thoughts, Cam’s hand left her arm and slid beneath her breast to shape the weight of it in his broad hand. When he moved to pull away the thin fichu which discreetly covered her neckline, she shuddered against him.

  Cam understood that he should stop. The tremor which ran through Helene warned him, too late. As if some wall of restraint had exploded, his long repressed desire swelled forth. Desperately, he urged Helene’s dress off one shoulder. When she responded, arching against him, relief fanned his need to an open flame.

  She still hungered for him. She was still offering.

  Yes. And this time, he would take. This time, by God, no one would stop him, either.

  His actions were rash—even dangerous. And for once in his life, Cam ignored that fact. Dragging Helene into his arms, he settled himself across the window seat. The fine silk slithered further, baring one full breast. In his memories, Helene’s breasts were perfect; high and small, with nipples of pale pink. Now, swelling from the top of her stays, they were much fuller, the nipples dusky rose, and hard with need. Still high and perfect, they were a woman’s breasts, begging to be suckled until pleasure and pain became one.

  Groaning with desire, Cam touched his tongue to one tight bud and Helene writhed in his arms. “Oh—!” she softly exclaimed into his hair. Helene wanted him, and in that moment, Cam would have walked across the fires of hell to please her. Undoubtedly, she had been alone for far too long. Certainly, he had.

  His former resolve forgotten, Cam decided this had to be right. He resolved to take his time. To pleasure her fully. His pulse pounding, Cam skimmed his hand up the silk of her stocking, dragging her hems past her garters, and brushing the satiny skin of her inner thigh. Across his lap, she stirred seductively. So, so sweet! God, he would explode if he did not have her soon.

  In answer, Helene’s fingers speared into his hair, burning the skin of his temples with her eagerness. “Ahh,” she breathed, her voice a sigh, as his fingers pushed away the soft cotton of her drawers to slide into the silky wet flesh beyond.

  Helene felt herself melting. Reduced to a puddle of warm desire. Rough but gentle fingers slid between her thighs to cup and caress her most private of places. As always, she felt no sense of shame with Cam. Instead, the blood thrummed and pulsed through her body with a sensation of perfect rightness. Wantonly, she opened to him, savoring the slickness of her desire. She understood—indeed, embraced—her body’s signal to welcome Cam. She wanted him to know the evidence of her desire, and to revel in it.

  That her actions were reckless, she vaguely understood, but mindless need overwhelmed reason. Cam’s fingers slid further, probed deeper, until at last, he entered her, then slid the ball of his thumb up through her heat to find the core of her pleasure. Helene bit back a scream at the sensation, but Cam’s touch was sure.

  Shamelessly, she arched against his hand, wanting, demanding, until he returned his touch to the sweet, secret place, moving against her in earnest until a bone-deep trembling took her, hurtling her over an invisible edge, into a bright light of pleasure so extraordinary that Helene ceased to think, or even to breathe.

  As Cam felt Helene’s tremors subside, he brushed his lips across her brow, then lifted her smoothly to stride across the room to the door. With one deft motion, he twisted the key which hung in the lock, then returned to lay Helene down across the soft carpet before the glowing hearth.

  As he stretched out along her side, Cam was amazed at Helene’s size. She was tall, and yet, beside his length, she looked infinitely more fragile. For a moment, Cam was seized with a fear of hurting her. But when he looked into her eyes to see the moistness which shimmered there, when he felt her arms draw him down in invitation, reason vanished.

  Helene was no innocent. This time, she had to comprehend. And he had to have her. Abruptly, he reached out to capture her hand and drag it to the thick bulk which strained against the close of his trousers.

  “Helene,” he breathed, his lips pressing fervent kisses across her face. “I want you. God help me, but I can think of nothing else.” He opened his mouth possessively over hers and surged inside again, thrusting into the warmth of her mouth in an urgent, sensual imitation of his intent.

  In response, Helene let her hand tighten and slide down the taut length of his erection. Suddenly, she swallowed hard, her eyes flying open. He felt a rush of masculine pride. Ordinarily a humble man, Cam knew he possessed one particularly fine asset. He was relieved to know Helene was impressed.

  And in that moment, Cam could no longer think of one single reason why he should not ask Helene to be ... to be his. Devil take it, he was hard put to recollect why he had not already done so. Certainly the wish had been intuitively bedeviling him since her arrival. And now, she was in his arms, her eyes luminescent with passion, her every gesture begging him to take her.

  In that moment, all Cam was certain of was that he had suffered too long without her. He whipped off his coat and waistcoat. He yanked loose his shirt hems with a violence. The fact that Helene made him feel as mindlessly avaricious as his father ceased to matter. He was losing control. Drowning. Willingly sliding into the madness Helene always created.

  He was aware of nothing but the burning need to have her beneath him. The need to drive himself into her warm, welcoming depths. It was lust, pure and simple. And for once, he meant to slake it. Beside him, Helene moaned softly, sliding one hand beneath his shirt to skim around his waist and slide lower still.

  Then he remembered.

  Bloody hell—! Joan!

  Damn. Joan. What a tangle. But he’d have to deal with that later. His hands tore at his neckcloth. His mind—what was left of it—raced. He had to have Helene.

  But the blasted linen knotted fast. Suddenly, it felt too tight about his neck, like a hellish noose twined out of guilt and lust. Just then, Helene slid her palms enticingly around the curve of his ribs. His skin shivered at her touch. Sweet heaven! Helene was going to drive him insane. But he was supposed to marry Joan. Yet he wanted Helene. A wife and a ... a what? A mistress—?

  Yes. Some men had both. He tried to jerk free the stubborn neckcloth, nearly strangling himself.

  A mistress! Christ, was he crazy? Yes. No! He simply had to persuade ... who? Helene? Himself? Oh, he’d always avoided the chaos that a paramour would bring. But he knew the requirements; the house, the carriage, the gifts.

  Perhaps—yes, perhaps it could be finessed. With a desperate moan, Helene eased her eager fingers into the bearer of his trousers. Good God—it had
to be finessed! With one last burst of frustration, Cam ripped free the cravat and began to jerk open the close of his trousers.

  As his fingers freed each button in turn, Helene tentatively touched her tongue to one corner of her perfect, pink mouth. Cam was almost undone by the sweetly erotic gesture. He stifled a groan and moved his fingers faster. Yes, his wedding could be postponed. He would insist on a long engagement. Very long. Perhaps Joan would find someone else. Perhaps the devil would fly away with his aunt.

  Cam’s fingers caught on the last button and he tried to force it free. Yes, he could make do with Bentley as his heir. With Helene as his mistress—available, but kept at a distance—perhaps his undisciplined lust would not drive him to total ruination.

  As Cam pushed away his clothing, his throbbing rod sprang free, rising up from the crumpled fabric between them, and his need knew no bounds. Eagerly, Helene’s hand returned to caress him, and with another soft sound of amazement, she drew her slender hand down the swollen length of his bare, burning flesh.

  This time, Cam did groan, a deep, guttural sound of compelling need. She slid her hand back up again, and he prayed he would not disgrace himself. “Ahh, Helene—!” He rasped out the words, the backs of his fingertips stroking lightly over her cheek. But out of nowhere, some dreadful fear of losing her—some urgent need for reassurance—checked his lust. He couldn’t have her once, and then never again. No, not that!

  Cam dragged in his breath. “Please, my darling—!” he begged. “You need to know that this is more than lust run mad. I want you, Helene. Not just tonight. Forever. I’ll take care of you. Provide for you. Say yes. Please.”

  Against the pulsing heat of his cock, he felt Helene’s hand jerk, then still. He felt a stab of uncertainty.

  “Will you, Helene?” he whispered fiercely. “Will you have me? And no other?”

  “Ma foi!” she softly breathed, here eyes wide. “You wish—you want—a belle amie?”

  Cam let his hand slide beneath her chin to gently cup it. “My lover, Helene. And I swear, darling, that I will treat you as no man ever has.”

  Helene squeezed shut her eyes. “Why ... somehow, Cam, I do not doubt that for a moment,” she murmured, her voice increasingly unsteady. The warmth of her fingers was gone.

  Oh, God! He was losing her. Again. And this time, he could not bear it. Desperation took hold. “Helene,” he said, urgently taking back her hand, “I shall take good care of you. Money is no object. I swear you’ll want for nothing. Just name it ... ”

  Cam let his words dissolve. Helene had rolled away from him and onto her back. Flickering firelight played across her swollen breasts, where only moments earlier, his ravenous mouth had feasted.

  Levering himself onto one elbow, Cam stared down at her, watching her breathe, feeling awkward and uncertain. The sweet promise of passion was gone. Briefly, Helene had wanted him, but now he could hear her mind at work. Despite his near-stupefying lust, Cam knew it for a bad sign.

  “Cam, my dear,” she said abruptly, yanking upward on the sagging décolletage of her gown. “I’ve inadvertently led you on.” Smoothly, she pulled herself into a seated position and began to adjust her sleeves upward with neat, hard jerks. “I have no interest in becoming your mistress. Indeed, I have not the time for it. It would interfere with my ... with my duties. Teaching duties,” she clarified, jiggling her breasts into place inside her bodice.

  “Oh, Helene—!” he said softly. “No!”

  But she simply stared past him, blinking rapidly as she viciously stabbed dangling hairpins back into place. “In fact, we both seem to have confused my place here altogether,” she continued, as coolly as if she had been discussing the probability of rain. “We are employer and employee, Cam.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “And I am paid to teach, not to lie upon my back and give you pleasure, n’est-ce pas? I think we had both better get that straight.”

  In mute shock, Cam watched her spring gracefully from the floor. Helene shoved her feet into the small, kid-skin slippers which had somehow fallen off, then shook the wrinkles from her chemise and gown.

  Cam, still stretched out across the rug, let his head drop back with a thud. The ignominy of his position on the floor escaped him. Cam couldn’t think straight. He was in over his head. He had completely forgotten that his shirttail was rucked up. That his trousers were undone.

  Helene was leaving. Bloody, bloody hell! He had ignorantly managed to say or to do the wrong thing; his worst adolescent nightmare had come to life. He lifted his head to plead with her, just in time to see Helene’s wrist flick open the lock, and her skirts go whirling out the door.

  For the first time in his adult life, Camden Rutledge failed to rise as a lady left the room.

  Damn, damn, and damn, he thought, staring up at the plasterwork ceiling. Helene Middleton had done it to him again. She had bewitched him, melted his reason, enticed him into recklessness, then left him, leaving everything—everything but a relentlessly hard cock—lying in a crumpled heap.

  Suddenly, Boadicea slid from the shadows, settled on the rug beside his outstretched arm, and began to rumble contentedly. Despite the suddenly overwhelming sense of despair, Cam’s shaft twitched with insistence, cruelly tormenting him.

  “Oh, God, please just go away,” groaned Cam, hitching up the fall of his trousers.

  7

  What! Must I hold a candle to my shames?

  Talking to your cat?” asked a cheerfully drunken voice from the doorway. “Or are you addressing that pathetic excuse of a cock-stand you’re doubtless suffering?” To Cam’s utter humiliation, Bentley strolled into the room, a broad, semisober leer on his face, a half-empty glass in his hand.

  With a grace that defied his obvious inebriation, Bentley smoothly swooped down to seize something from the carpet, and came back up swinging Helene’s lace fichu from his fingertips. Muttering a vile curse under his breath, Cam jerked inelegantly to his feet, feeling as if Bentley had just kicked him in the ballocks. Savagely, he began to stab his shirttail into place as Bentley continued his drunken taunts.

  Cam tried to think straight. Obviously, the boy had observed Helene flying out of his study, as if the hounds of hell were on her heels. No one, not even an inebriated lout, could have mistaken the cause of her distress. Damn it, he had not meant to insult her. Nor openly humiliate her. Yet he’d somehow managed both. Good God, could life possibly get worse?

  “Tut, tut, Saint Cam!” chortled Bentley, dangling the lacy garment in Cam’s face. “Seems yon fair maiden has spurned your offer! Apity! Why do you not just continue clutching that precious virtue of yours, whilst I follow her upstairs to show her how it’s properly done?”

  Giving the night he’d had, it was just one damned step too far. Cam took his brother down with one solid blow to the chest. Bentley’s brandy glass was hurled back against the marble mantel to rain shards of crystal all about them. They tumbled onto the carpet in a flying knot of knees and elbows, grunting and shoving like rutting bulls.

  At some point in the fracas, Cam succeeded in wrapping Helene’s fichu around Bentley’s neck. He was well on his way to throttling him, but the delicate garment was not up to the task. It tore apart with an ugly ripping sound. Bentley responded by jerking his knee sharply upward in a gesture clearly aimed at destroying what was left of his brother’s manhood. But Cam was sober and swift.

  Almost effortlessly, he pitched Bentley onto his belly, then with a fistful of his brother’s hair, proceeded to pound his face into the rug. But Bentley was feeling no pain. With a stroke of luck and a well-placed yank on Cam’s flying shirttail, Bentley wrestled his way back on top. For the most part, they then proceeded to roll around aimlessly, thumping against furniture, terrorizing the cat, and generally thrashing the devil out of one another, but to no good end. Bentley was too drunk to present any serious challenge, and Cam’s heart just wasn’t in it.

  Oh, but he did want to throttle someone. Himself.

&n
bsp; After a half-dozen good blows had been landed, and each of them sported a split lip, Cam simply staggered up from the carpet, shook the glass off himself, and went up the stairs to brood. Somehow, it just didn’t seem worth the effort to give Bentley the drubbing he so richly deserved. Why the hell bother? Even half-sprung, the boy had immediately discerned what had just occurred. It was insult heaped upon injury.

  Helene managed to cling to her composure just long enough to dash up the two flights of stairs to fling open her bedchamber door. She fell back against it, her damp palms pressed against the cold, smooth wood, her breath perilously close to deep, shuddering sobs.

  Gingerly, she pressed the back of one hand to her mouth, then lifted her eyes to stare across the dimly lit room, catching her reflection in the gilt pier glass which hung opposite. Her flushed face, her disheveled hair, her nearly bare bosom, still trembling with agitation; yes, all gave evidence of what she had very nearly done. Of what she had almost become.

  Rutledge’s whore.

  She’d once heard those words whispered behind her mother’s back. The tears flooded forth then, hot and bitter. They trickled down her nose and over her cheeks, but Helene could only stare at herself in the mirror. Good Lord, she had tried. She had tried to make something of herself; to be something other than what destiny had decreed.

  Since her last lapse in judgment so many years ago, Helene had struggled to educate herself, to cultivate a professional reputation, and to suppress, to the extent it was humanly possible, her impulsive nature. And she had succeeded rather admirably until now.

  Until she had been foolish enough to return to Chalcote Court. To Camden Rutledge. She had come to work with his child, for pity’s sake! A child who desperately needed her, and whom Helene desperately wanted to help. And perhaps—just perhaps—she needed Ariane, too.