The Taming of the Duke
Page 60

His arms were tight around her. "Not for the night, of course. But you could have a bath, if you wished."
Her mind was reeling. "Gabriel?" Her voice came out soft and a little shaky.
He bent his head, and it was a moment or two before she could finish her sentence, and then she didn't remember how to phrase it.
But he saved her from embarrassment. "I could wash your hair," he said into her curls.
"No!" she said instinctively. She would never feel comfortable allowing a man to see her completely naked.
The carriage came to a halt, and the door sprang open. "Out of my carriage, you two!" the driver said, his tone nicely calibrated between disgust and appreciation for the sovereigns nestled in his pocket. "I'll wait for you, shall I?" He smirked.
"No." His voice was so chilly that Imogen almost shivered. "We'll find someone in a more liberal frame of mind."
The driver shrugged. The Horse and Groom was a sturdy little inn, the sort that catered to farmers coming to town year after year to sell their goods at the market. The door was so low that Imogen had the feeling that she should duck or she might strike her head on the lintel.
"My wife and I would like a room and a hot bath immediately. We suffered an event at the pantomime."
The innkeeper looked at the smeared cream in Imogen's dark hair and snapped into a bow. "I see that, sir. Right danger those pantomime players are. No respect for persons. Right this way, sir."
Two minutes later he deposited them in a pleasant, low-ceilinged room, with the promise of steaming water to follow directly.
Which was delivered, as promised, in a mere moment.
Imogen was thinking as hard as she could about Griselda, and those affairs that Griselda had had while no one, including her brother, had the slightest idea.
"Gabriel," she said, once a sturdy man had deposited the bathtub and poured quite a lot of steaming water inside.
"Imogen," he said, throwing her a teasing glance.
Their chamber roof was barely over his head, a line of massive beams. The little leaded-glass window squinted under the eves.
"This is my first affair of this nature—"
"And your last," he said, perfectly clearly.
Imogen started. "Well, that is as may be. I certainly do not plan on making—I do not—" she floundered to a stop. "I should like to take a bath now. Alone," she added. "Then I shall—" she stopped again.
"Why don't you take a brief rest?" he asked, for all the world like a courteous butler.
Imogen nodded jerkily.
And that was how she found herself wearing nothing more than a chemise, with a quantity of damp hair bound up in toweling.
Waiting to become an immoral woman.
One has to suppose that every bird of paradise had this moment in her life: a before and after. There must always be the hesitation before the first plunge into sin, the teetering at the river's edge before becoming a light woman, a lightskirt, a light-heeled maid.
He walked in quietly. Imogen was seated on the bed— not lying down; that reminded her unpleasantly of her wedding night. She was wrapped in a blanket. And she'd thrown her clothing to the side.
In for a penny, in for a pound.
No one could say that Imogen Maitiand, once embarked on a life of sin, did so with maidenly docility or shyness.
Her companion walked across the room and snuffed one of the candles, using the little tin hat designed for that use.
Wasn't he in a hurry, the way she was? Imogen's heart was beating quickly.
Then he looked back at her, and there was something in his eyes, just glimpsed in the shadow, that gave her courage. He walked to the mantel and snuffed that candle, leaving only one lit, on the table by the window. Its small light played fitfully with the pale moonglow coming through the small leaded panes.
And then, after another glance at her, he put out the final candle. "If you'll forgive me my foolishness," he said in that slow scholar's voice of his. "Theatrical mustaches leave a red lip in their wake. I have my vanities, as you see."
Imogen couldn't help laughing: the idiotic, welcoming laugh of a fallen woman. She was aware that a moral conscience appeared to be missing in her character. She was positively thrumming with enjoyment. This meeting in a strange room in an inn with a beautiful, lean man who would lavish her with kisses wasn't raising a single qualm. Instead, joy and anticipation poured through her veins like molten fire.
The thought drifted through her mind that she was well and truly a fallen woman and floated away. She was more interested in the long line of male flank as he leaned over to pull off his boot. It was beautiful, all that hard-muscled leg.
The room was so dim now that she couldn't even make out his face. Imogen shook with the excitement of it. No wonder women made fools of themselves committing adultery: there was the pure liquid gold excitement of it. His second boot hit the ground and then his clothes followed. His body was just a shadow in the darkness, the body of a demon lover.
Rafe turned around, finally. Imogen was all shining white shoulders, the drab blanket slipping off. She'd let her hair down, and it fell like black water to one side.
"God, you're beautiful," he said, sitting on the bed to slip a hand by her cheek.
This was the moment that would make or break the evening: would she look at his face, mustache-free, and run shrieking from the room? But her eyes fell closed at the touch of his hand, so he just leaned closer and tasted her… a nip on her plump lip and then a fierce assault to answer her little pant. Somehow that moment when she was supposed to look at his face and recognize him was lost, because he kept kissing her as he pulled her blanket away.
There she was, as beautiful as he'd ever dreamed. Her eyelids flickered, so he gave her another fierce, open-mouthed kiss. Then he slowly let his body fall onto her soft one, telling himself to memorize this first time of feeling her, Imogen, under him. He felt dizzy with the raw pleasure of it.
But the sense—the dragging sense—that she would open her eyes and realize who he was… "Did you watch while you made love to Draven?" he asked. The sound of his voice growled in his ears. He used Mait-land's first name deliberately.
And at the same time he ran a hand down, down the velvet sweep of her neck, over to the soft, unsteady weight of her breast, to the delicate curve of her ribs.
"I—" she gasped, turning her head.
"Did you make love in the darkness, under the covers?" he growled.
Her eyes were open, but he knew his face couldn't be seen because he was brushing his mouth back and forth against her breast.
"Yes," she choked.
"Then close your eyes," he said, his voice rough. "Close your eyes, Imogen. Stay still."
He began to stroke her breast with his tongue, and she fell back into the darkness, her hands reaching blindly for his hair, her body shuddering.
It was sometime later that Imogen realized that making love to a demon lover who won't let you open your eyes, who strips you naked in the night air, who bites you and licks you and nips you all over—
Has nothing in common with making love to a husband. Nothing. She kept trying to fill her lungs, kept trying to stop the little shudders, kept trying to ignore the sensations between her legs. Because he said—he said to keep her eyes closed. And not to move.