you will not.’ Sara scooped up her valise. ‘We will both sleep in the remaining bedchamber.’
‘Sara, we agreed about this.’
‘We agreed that you would not want your lover befriending your little sister. Well, your little sister is in there in bed with a man she is not married to and you need a good night’s sleep because you have a lot of thinking to do in the morning.’ She blinked at him, almost too weary to focus. ‘Please, Lucian. I will only lose sleep worrying about you otherwise.’
Lucian picked up the pistol and sword cases. ‘Anything to keep you from worrying.’ His smile was wry as he added, ‘I really do not think I am a threat to any woman’s virtue tonight.’ He led the way down the passage and pushed open a door. ‘This is the one, I think. Yes, it does appear to have a ceiling.’
Sara stumbled into the room. She was beyond tiredness, she realised hazily, and hardly aware of what he was saying. She tugged her turban loose with one hand and began to unbutton her coat with the other. On the far side of the bed Lucian was dragging off his clothes in just as random a manner. When she fell into bed dressed only in her shirt she was barely conscious of the covers being pulled over her shoulders or of Lucian’s breath warm on her ear as he murmured goodnight.
Fingers drifted across his chest, encountered a nipple, sifted through hair, then drifted on, downwards. Lucian woke slowly, coming up through layers of sleep to the awareness of that erotic touch, to the realisation that this was not a dream, that this was not his bed, that his shoulders ached dully and that something was lurking that he did not want to deal with. But just now, at this moment, there was nothing but pleasure. Sara.
He opened his eyes, savouring the sensations, unwilling, yet, to hurry anything. The weak light filtering through thin cotton curtains at the window showed it was early, not much past five. He turned his head on the pillow, his cheek touching the rough silk tumble of Sara’s unbound hair and realised that she was still no more than half-awake.
The fan of her lashes fascinated him, thick and long and much darker than her hair. Her lips were slightly parted, her breathing light and fast, her cheeks faintly flushed. She was aroused, he realised, even though she was still virtually asleep.
Her wandering hand slipped down, making the skin tighten beneath its warmth, then the tip of one finger found his navel, dipped inside, and Lucian doubled up with a snort of laughter.
‘Mmm—?’ Sara blinked awake.
‘I am ticklish there.’ Lucian came up on one elbow so he could kiss her. ‘But do not let me stop you exploring,’ he murmured against her lips.
Sara kissed him back, slowly, languorously, as her hand bumped against the blatant evidence of his arousal and she enclosed him in a perfect grip, firm, unhurried, wickedly skilled.
‘Sara, we had agreed not to do this,’ he said, coming fully awake with a jolt, reaching for self-control with an effort that hurt.
‘Why on earth did we do that?’ she asked, sounding as distracted as he felt.
‘Shocking Marguerite, as I recall. That seems a little redundant now.’
Sara nodded. ‘Absolutely.’ She gasped as he let his fingers roam.
He had forgotten, somehow, that she had been married, that she would know exactly what she was about—and that she knew what she needed also, he realised, as she arched up to meet his own seeking fingers.
Mouths joined in an endless kiss, they moved together, became one undulating, shifting, yearning body, stoking fires even as they soothed them, teasing and tormenting, then gentling, caressing. Sara was like liquid silk in his hands, against his body, demanding, yielding, giving, challenging him to demand more, give more.
When he finally rose up over her, caging her between his elbows, fitting himself into the cradle of her curves, she became still, gazing up into his eyes from the fathomless moonstone-grey of her own. ‘Lucian. Yes. Yes.’
It must have been some time for her, he made himself remember that, made himself go slowly and she let him lead, quivering in his arms with little moans of encouragement as she opened like a flower to take him, then held him within her, tight, hot, still. And she stayed motionless in his arms, as her inner muscles rippled and stroked with a subtle, devastating pulse that had him shaking with the effort to hold back his climax.
‘Wicked, clever woman,’ he whispered and finally let himself move, take over the rhythm, drive them both tighter and higher into a spiral of pleasure that became a sharply focused endless moment of sensation made up of the sound of their bodies working together, their mingled, sobbing breath, the scent of their arousal, until he knew he could not hold on much longer. ‘Come, come for me now...’
And as Sara arched up, eyes wide, lips parted on a keening cry of pleasure, he wrenched himself from her and shuddered to completion on the silken skin of her belly.
* * *
‘I suppose we should move,’ Sara suggested as she lay with her cheek pressed to the admirably hard planes of Lucian’s chest some unfathomable time later.
‘Yes,’ he agreed, his voice rumbling under her ear. ‘Excellent idea.’ He did not stir.
‘It must be seven o’clock.’ He grunted, sounding suspiciously like a man drifting off to sleep again. Sara blew on his nipple, which produced some reaction, although one that was not very conducive to getting out of bed.
‘Someone has to be strong-minded,’ she announced, mentally cursing eloping couples and her own sense of responsibility that told her she must somehow create a happy ending for Marguerite and Gregory.
‘Are you a nag, madam?’ Lucian sat up, catching her by the shoulders to pull her up with him. ‘Am I to rise and go forth and deliver lectures and chastisement?’
‘No. You are to rise and think of some way of extracting those two from this pickle with reputations intact.’
‘London is quiet. I could get them back to the town house and married from there by special licence. Or St George’s, Hanover Square, with a show of openness, but safe in the knowledge that virtually everyone is out of town.’ Lucian got off the bed, stooped to give her a rapid kiss, then threw on his robe and pulled the bell rope.
Sara burrowed down under the covers when a tap on the door heralded a maid servant who was promptly sent for hot water. ‘And plenty of it. And breakfast in half an hour.’
‘That all seems rather hole-and-corner,’ she remarked ten minutes later as she sat up in bed, arms wrapped around her knees, and admired the view of Lucian, naked, shaving. He really does have the most excellent backside, she thought, indulging in a long, sensual stretch. ‘Especially with her not being out yet.’
‘I know it. What I need is a house party, if only I knew who to trust. Then the pair of them, finding themselves away from the normal environment of my town house, can make the startling discovery that they are in love.’
‘And you can be persuaded, in full view of the interested onlookers, to yield to the pleas of young love and all will be well?’
‘Exactly.’
