Chapter 18

Eleanor stumbled out of the ballroom, hardly seeing where she was going.

Acting out that scene with the Duke of Norwood had been horrible, and by horrible, she meant perfect.

The reason that was so particularly awful was because for the first time, Eleanor had caught a glimpse of what it felt like to have the regard of an attractive man. To be the one who was pursued, the one who was desired. And not with any attractive man. Oh, no—she’d managed to experience it with the very man she secretly would have chosen above all others.

And it had been nothing but an act. Jasper St. James despised her. She knew that. He had made it inescapably clear on a number of occasions.

And yet, as soon as he had begun to recite Shakespeare’s flirtatious lines, her poor, stupid heart had tripped over itself. She knew it wasn’t real, knew that there was not the slightest possibility that Jasper St. James actually wanted to woo her to his wife. And yet, when she was on stage with him, looking him in the eye while he recited those lines, it had felt that way.

She was not an experienced flirt who could engage in such coquetry and then forget all about it by teatime. She was going to be a wreck for the rest of the house party, blushing and stammering like a sixteen-year-old debutante whenever the duke walked into the room. And she suspected that the memory of enacting that scene with him would send her heart pounding for years hence.

She heard voices from the end of the corridor. She needed to find an unoccupied room in which to compose herself. She laid her hand upon the first knob she came to and pulled open the door.

She stumbled into the music room, which would do well enough. Eleanor slumped onto the piano bench. She tried to take slow, even breaths, hoping it would calm her pounding heart. It didn’t work particularly well, but at least no one was there to witness her in her discomfiture.

Unfortunately, her solitude did not last. After a couple of minutes, there were voices in the hall. The door opened, revealing a pair of housemaids who appeared as startled to see her as she was to see them.

“Oh! Beg pardon, miss!” one of them exclaimed.

Eleanor flushed. “Oh, no—it’s quite all right. I’ll just…”

The maids were already backing out the door. Rising from the bench, Eleanor stumbled toward a door on the far side of the room. She wasn’t sure which room it connected to, but perhaps it would prove a bit more private.

She slipped inside what proved to be a tiny room with connecting doors on either end. It had probably once been a powder room dating to the time when powdered wigs had been fashionable, where guests could duck inside to freshen up their coiffures. A couple of cabinets had been installed, and it now appeared to be used to store musical instruments.

She shut the door behind her, pressing a hand against her chest.

Only then did she realize that the little room was already occupied.

Jasper St. James was leaning against the wall, partially obscured between the two cabinets of instruments. He looked different somehow. His face was slack, and he was standing in a shaft of sunlight that had managed to find a gap in the clouds. It made his brown eyes glow almost gold. He looked softer than he usually did, unguarded. Almost boyish.

They regarded each other in silence for seven fraught seconds.

Then they moved with one accord. Her arms slipped around his neck as his hands seized her hips, pulling her flush against him.

And then, his lips descended upon hers.

Eleanor had never been kissed before, but she rather thought it didn’t matter. A thousand milquetoast kisses would in no way have prepared her for Jasper St. James. He kissed her like he wanted to devour her, as if he could not decide whether he wanted to seduce her or strangle her. Perhaps both; that was certainly how Eleanor felt about him.

Suddenly he pulled back, breathing hard. One of his big, warm, solid hands came up and framed her face as he studied her.

With a growl, he lifted her off the floor as easily as if she were a doll, settling her with her bottom on the windowsill. It was not wide enough to serve as a seat, but that hardly mattered as he immediately stepped into the vee of her legs, pinning her in place. He started kissing her neck, causing Eleanor to shudder.

“You are,” she gasped, clutching fistfuls of his hair, “the most infuriating man.”

“I, infuriating?” He sealed his lips on the side of her neck and gave a deep pull, causing Eleanor’s head to swim and her body to tremble. “You are the most vexatious woman I have ever had the displeasure to meet!”

He was kissing his way back up toward her lips. “I detest you,” she panted.

“And I… despise… you!” he said between kisses.

“Yes,” she rasped, grinding her hips against the hard ridge beneath the falls of his trousers that was pressed against her core. She had spent all her life in the countryside. It wasn’t as if she didn’t know what that was. “I can feel the full extent of your revulsion.”

He snarled as his lips fell on hers again. Eleanor put her hands on his chest, intending to push him off. But her disobedient fingers instead grasped handfuls of his jacket, pulling him closer. Oh, but that motion she had done with her hips had been a mistake! She hadn’t realized it would feel so good, and now she couldn’t seem to stop herself from rubbing up against him like a cat.

His lips curved into a smile beneath hers. “Oh, yes,” he said, grinding that delicious stiffness against her, “I can tell just how much you dislike me.”

She cried out, her head lolling back as waves of pleasure washed over her. “Jasper,” she gasped. “Jasper, help! Something’s happening. I… I don’t know… I’ve never…”

She didn’t know why she said that, why she expected the man who had just informed her that he despised her to do anything other than laugh in her face.

But Jasper’s hands began stroking tender circles across her back as he continued to rock his hips against her. “It’s all right, Eleanor. I’ll show you.”

If she’d had a single shred of presence of mind, she might have asked, show me what? But she simply could not think while he was doing that. She was so far gone, so focused on her craving for the beautiful sensations he was building between her legs, she uttered not a word of protest when he untied her wrap-front gown.

She watched in detached fascination as he reached inside the cups of her stays, lifting her breasts out as far as they would go. He groaned at the sight of her dusky rose nipples, taut and distended, peeking out over the tops of the cups. He began thumbing her nipples and Eleanor jolted so hard she would’ve tumbled off her tenuous perch on the windowsill had his hips not been relentlessly holding her in place. Oh! She never would have imagined that would feel so good! And it seemed to intensify the pleasurable sensations that were building at the juncture of her thighs.

Suddenly, one of his hands abandoned her throbbing nipple and came up to cover her mouth. Startled, she looked up at him.

He released her mouth as quickly as he’d covered it. “Sorry. But I said your name twice, and you didn’t seem to hear. You’ve got to be quiet, darling.”

Darling? Had he just called her darling? Eleanor had no idea what to make of that. Had she been making noise? She supposed she had. Even now, with his reminder fresh in her mind, she couldn’t hold in a whimper as he drove her higher and higher.

“Jasper,” she gasped. “Please. That feels so good.”

He bucked his hips even faster. “You’re going to come for me. Let’s see how much you hate me when you’re shattering in my arms.”

She didn’t understand what he meant. All she knew was that he mustn’t stop, not if the building should catch fire around them…

His breath was hot in her ear as he growled, “And to think, they call you a wallflower. You have everyone fooled, don’t you, Eleanor? If men had any idea that you’re like this, you’d have been married at sixteen. There’s not a man alive who wouldn’t want you in their bed.”

Eleanor was sure that was wrong. She’d never had a suitor, not even one. But her tongue felt thick and slow in her mouth, and she couldn’t seem to form any words other than, “Please, Jasper! Please! I need… I need…”

“Hush, minx,” he whispered. “I know what you need.”

Eleanor wasn’t so sure, because the next thing he did was remove his marvelous hands from her breasts. She mewled in protest, which made him laugh. He reached down and started drawing up great handfuls of her skirts. Eleanor must have been a shameless wanton, because she allowed him to do so without a word of protest.

Once her skirts were bunched up around her waist, she tried to pull him back to her, but he brushed her hands aside. She trembled as his fingertips traced the inside of her thigh, then jolted as they settled between her legs. He somehow unerringly found the place that was throbbing like a heartbeat for him and began to rub.

Suddenly Eleanor’s entire body was trembling. “Jasper,” she gasped, clutching his shoulders. “Jasper, I’m… you’re… I… Oh, my God!”

The bliss was so pure, Eleanor had never imagined that such feelings could exist in this world. She clung to it, never wanting it to end, but it kept building higher and higher until she burst over the crest. Her thighs began shaking violently, her hips bucking up off the windowsill. She clung to Jasper, who was the only thing keeping her from falling to the floor in a trembling heap as wave after wave of pleasure swept through her.

When Eleanor next knew anything, she found herself sitting boneless on the windowsill, her head slumped against Jasper’s chest. She stiffened as she realized her situation. She had just behaved in the most wanton manner imaginable, and she had done so with a man who had just openly admitted that he despised her.

What had she been thinking? She could have no expectation that the Duke of Norwood would have a care for her reputation. Much to the contrary, he would probably delight in nothing so much as bringing about the ruination of her, and along with her, her sisters.

A deep voice rumbled in her ear. “You’ve gone stiff as a board. What can be going on inside your head?”

Eleanor drew back, eyes fixed upon the floor. “I should not have done that.”

“Whyever not? You clearly enjoyed it.”

“As a woman, that should be the least of my concerns,” Eleanor muttered as she tugged her skirts back into place. “I suppose that was precisely what you wanted. Now you’ll be able to ruin me, as well as my sisters, in one fell swoop.”

His voice contained a note of anger. “That was precisely what I wanted, was it? If you can manage to raise your eyes as high as the falls of my trousers, you’ll see that I haven’t got quite everything I wanted. You’ll also see the reason why I kissed you. How low your opinion of me must be, that you think I would stage a seduction for the sole purpose of ruining you!”

“You expect me to believe that you were swept up in desire for an aging spinster?” She gave a bitter laugh. “Even if I were gullible enough to believe that, there is the fact that you just told me you despise me!”

“I do,” he reassured her. “But not in the way you think. I despise the fact that you have managed to outmaneuver me where Felix is concerned. I cannot believe you had the gall to shoot me with that bird bolt. And I do not have words to express how vexing it is that you were right about Timon of Athens and I was wrong!”

“What?” Startled, Eleanor tore her gaze from the floor. The duke did indeed look annoyed. “Did you just admit that I was right?”

“I went back and looked at the text before luncheon,” he snapped, dark eyebrows slanting in an angry vee. “I must own that you have a point. It does read rather like a first draft. Some of the scenes don’t even sound like they were written by Shakespeare.”

“The banqueting scene!” Eleanor cried. “And the scene in the Senate.”

“Precisely,” he said, sounding more annoyed than ever that they were in agreement. “How is it possible that I did not see it before? I feel like such an idiot.” He glowered at her. “You are the most exasperating woman I have ever had the misfortune to meet.”

There must have been something wrong with Eleanor, because a warm glow had settled over her. He might find her exasperating, but his words also betrayed a grudging admiration.

He leaned forward, looming over her. “In any case, no one will hear about this interlude from me. You have my word of honor. Are you satisfied?”

Suddenly she was conscious of how close he was standing. The air in the tiny chamber seemed to shift, to become charged with latent energy.

Some strange impulse made the words, “Perhaps not entirely satisfied,” rise to her lips.

His eyes went from furious to molten in an instant. “Eleanor,” he breathed, hands coming to her waist.

She was leaning in, her hands sliding up the firm planes of his chest, her lips yearning toward his, and—

“Looks like she’s gone now,” came a cheerful voice from the music room.

Eleanor and Jasper froze as another feminine voice answered her companion in tones Eleanor couldn’t quite make out. “Housemaids,” Eleanor whispered.

Jasper nodded. “You leave first,” he said, nodding toward the far door. “I’ll wait a few minutes so we’re not seen together.”

Eleanor felt something squeeze in the center of her chest. Had he truly meant to ruin her, all he needed to do was open the door to the music room so the maids would discover them together.

Instead, he was letting her escape.

“Thank you, Jasper.” Even though she whispered the words, she could hear the emotion in her own voice.

She started to slip past him, but a huge, meaty hand snagged her arm. “We are going to have this out,” he hissed in her ear. “You will meet me at the folly at midnight because I am not finished with you.”

She swallowed as she nodded. “Very well.”

She hurried from the room, wondering what she had just agreed to.