Stronger than Yearning Read online

  Francis, for his part, made no secret of his reasons for marrying her. He despised her for her low birth but he wanted her wealth—his father wanted her wealth and Francis did not have the strength of mind to withstand his domineering parent. She did not like Sir George. There were disturbing tales about the death of his wife, stories that he had mistreated her in some way. However, that need not concern her. Once she had provided Francis with an heir they could go their own separate ways in life, their marriage merely one of mutual convenience.

  Eyeing her reflection in one of the long mirrors on the wall she frowned, not seeing herself but the man standing behind her, Francis’s younger brother. Unlike her husband-to-be he did not favour foppish, dandified clothes, but was clad from head to foot in black, apart from the contrasting white of his cambric shirt. She felt the rage shimmering inside her boil to the surface as she watched him.

  She had seen him once or twice in London, his expression always cynical and mocking. Like Francis he had no money, and if Francis did not marry and produce an heir he would be the one to inherit—providing always, of course, that he outlived Francis. He had a reputation for embroiling himself in duels and living dangerously, as well as a predilection for other men’s wives, which suggested that his life expectancy would not be a long one. And that was not all. Rumour had it that he was not really Sir George’s son…that Sir George’s wife had played her husband false and that his second son had been fathered by the lady’s lover. She had no idea whether the gossip was true, but it was a fact that James Deveril did not favour either his father or his brother, and he certainly did not live in accord with either of them. She had seen that much for herself.

  The first time she saw him she had been conscious of a powerful magnetism emanating from him; he constantly taunted her, reminding her in a thousand subtle ways of who she was—and how lowly her birth compared with his own. She detested him and once she and Francis were wed, she would see to it that he was no longer made welcome at Deveril Hall. She had heard that Stuart blood ran in his veins, and while his dark arrogance attested to this gossip, she herself was not inclined to believe it. She did not want to believe it.

  She and Francis opened the ball, dancing together, his hand felt cold and clammy in her own and she deliberately closed her mind to the fact that within the week he would be entitled to do far more than merely touch her hand. She would have what she wanted, and she could endure the price to be paid for it. Pray God she conceived quickly.

  ‘This dance, I think, is mine.’

  She watched him approach, his hair as black as his clothes, his eyes the same colour as the sapphires in her betrothal ring, wishing she could simply turn away and ignore him, but knowing that she could not, that they were being watched. He had a reputation with women that made many members of her sex find him additionally exciting—and there was no denying that the way he moved suggested that, beneath his evening clothes, his body was hard and firm unlike that of his brother.

  They danced in silence, and she was so intent on holding herself away from him and maintaining her frigid distance that she was not aware that he was carefully manoeuvring her into the shadows and out of sight of the other guests until, abruptly, he stopped. He had taken her from the ballroom into a small salon off it where a buffet meal was laid out in readiness for later in the evening. When she turned away from him he grasped her wrist. Shock waves of tension burned her skin. No gentleman touched a lady—especially an unmarried lady—with such familiarity.

  ‘You still intend to go through with this marriage?’

  Her eyes hardened as they met the sapphire blue of his. ‘Yes.’ She snapped the word out at him, daring him to challenge her determination.

  ‘So brave,’ he mocked, laughing at her. ‘My brother is no expert lover, madam. I hope you realise the price you will have to pay for the title of viscountess.’

  ‘I care nothing for lovers, my lord,’ she returned curtly. ‘As a tradesman’s daughter, I am more used to dealing in realities than fictions.’

  ‘And you barter your father’s wealth for my brother’s title? You will breed him strong sons to displace me from my hopes of inheriting from him.’

  ‘By all accounts you are not justified in entertaining such hopes, sir,’ she challenged recklessly, wishing she had held her tongue when she saw the black rage sweep down over his face.

  ‘By my troth, madam, you will pay for that,’ he told her thickly, watching her.

  She knew she was treading dangerously but was too incensed to stop herself, her whole body going rigid as she felt him sweep her up into his arms. She cried out to him to put her down, but her protests were ignored as he strode from the room and up an ancient flight of narrow stairs.

  She was as yet unused to her new home. It was a hotch-potch of styles and passages, each generation apparently having added to the original whole but her abductor seemed to know his way through the warren of passages and narrow flights of stairs, for he never once checked until he stood outside a stout oaken door in what she assumed must be the older part of the house—as yet unexplored by her.

  Securing her with one arm, he ignored the fists she was hammering against his shoulder, to open the door and drag her inside, locking it behind them and tossing the key on to a tallboy.

  A fire was the room’s only illumination, and she felt her stomach muscles clench as she recognised the room’s entirely male ambience. On a chair before the fire she could see a ruffled shirt, thrown carelessly down as though its owner had disrobed in haste.

  ‘Unlike Francis, I cannot run to the expense of my own valet,’ she was told by a mocking voice. ‘But tonight I am in luck, for you may perform that service for me.’

  At first, she had been too angry at his effrontery in dragging her away from the ball to register her own danger, but now, suddenly, it overwhelmed her. Just to be found in a gentleman’s company unchaperoned meant the complete destruction of an unmarried female’s reputation. To be found alone with him in his bedchamber ..! She shuddered and ran despairingly to the door, even though she knew it was locked, hammering on it with protesting fists, crying out for aid.

  ‘You waste your breath—no one will hear you. My father’s impecunious state means that what servants we have are all employed on duties connected with tonight’s ball.’

  ‘Why?’ she demanded, turning to face him, her back pressed against the door. ‘Why are you doing this?’

  ‘Oh, there are any number of reasons.’

  She watched in horrified fascination as he removed his coat and set about unlacing the ties of his shirt. His skin beneath the fine white lawn was brown, his chest covered in fine dark hair. Jenna had never in her life seen a man without his clothes, apart from servants, who did not count, of course, and even though caution warned her to drag her gaze away it was as though he had bewitched her and she could not.

  ‘You are a very proud and arrogant young woman,’ he told Jenna mockingly. ‘And, moreover, by your meddling determination to buy yourself my brother’s title, you have upset all my own plans. Before your arrival in my life, it was odds on that my charming brother would either drink himself to hell or be despatched there by one of his gaming cronies.

  ‘My father has been most anxious to encourage Francis to take you to wife. Should Francis die without legitimate issue, his title and therefore my father’s would eventually come to me, something my revered parent is at great pains to prevent. And shall I tell you why?’ His voice had dropped to a soft, almost mesmeric whisper that she was powerless to deny even had she wanted to. ‘It is because I am not my father’s son, merely my mother’s.’ His mouth twisted bitterly. ‘Having made my mother’s life so miserable that she willed herself to death in order to escape from him, he would now like to see me destroyed also.’

  He stopped and laughed harshly. ‘I realise now that there is nothing I can do to stop this marriage. You are plainly set on it. Had you been of a different nature there was always the possibility that I might b
e able to persuade you to transfer your affections from Francis’s title to my person.’ He sneered openly as he looked at her. ‘But you are not woman enough to fall for such a ploy. Therefore, it came to me that if I could not rely on inheriting my brother’s glories for myself, I could secure them for my son…For I am sure that you, unlike my poor mother, would never betray by whom your child was fathered.’

  ‘Your son, but…’

  ‘Come, madam, you are not really so naïve as not to understand what I mean.’

  In that second, with the sapphire eyes fixed implacably on her own, she did, and the knowledge galvanised her into frenzied action. She flung herself away from the door and towards the window, thinking it might offer a means of escape, but he was there before her, barring her way, laughing deep in his chest as he picked her up and tossed her easily on to the four-poster bed. The brooding look she had seen in his eyes when he spoke of his mother was gone, and in its place was one of devilish determination.

  ‘Surely, madam, you do not mean me to believe that death is preferable to enduring my embraces? I assure you you will take a deal more pleasure in them than in those of my brother, and the result in the end is all the same, is it not? What matters it to you which of us fathers your child, so long as you are secure as my brother’s wife?’

  ‘I will be missed!’ she burst out frenziedly, struggling to disentangle shuddering limbs from her skirts and escape from him. ‘Francis will——’

  ‘Francis will be too drunk to know where you are, and if he asks you will tell him you had a headache and retired to your room. Of course, you could always tell him the truth, but do you think that he will wed you if he believes you might bear my bastard child?’

  What he was saying was all too grimly true, but she had something of her father’s determined spirit and would not give up so easily.

  ‘Stop!’ she warned him, backing away as he advanced towards the bed. His shirt was open to the waist now, the wristbands untied to display dark sinewy arms.

  ‘If you let me go I shall pay you well,’ she told him, panting slightly in mingled fear and outrage, ‘and, moreover, I shall say nothing to—to Francis of what has passed between us.’

  When he threw back his head and laughed she longed to tear her nails down the olive mockery of his face, to destroy for ever that cynical male beauty and to give vent to her anger.

  ‘I think I already have the better deal,’ he told her softly. ‘It will give me great pleasure to see your belly swell with my child and to know that he will inherit this estate from my foolish brother. A fine idea, think you not, madam?’

  She moved blindly, instinctively warned by the soft menace in his voice, but she was too late. The bed subsided beneath his weight, her attempt to escape foiled by the smothering weight of his body over her own, her wild, twisting, thrashing of limbs and torso, succeeding only in tangling her in a web of bedclothes.

  He plucked her from them as easily as though she were only a child, staring down at her trapped body in its flimsy muslin gown, his legs pinning her to the bed, his fingers cruel bands of steel that tightened round her wrists as she tried in vain to lift her hand to push him off. She could see the faint shadow darkening his jaw, and the heat of their struggle had raised tiny beads of sweat along his chest. He smelt male and alien, and she gave a despairing cry as she tensed her body and tried to thrust him off.

  ‘Be still! Remember, it is no different from what you might expect to endure on your wedding night at my brother’s…at my half-brother’s hands,’ he told her harshly, underlining the real relationship which existed between Francis and himself, as though doing so gave him some additional measure of pleasure. ‘And you were ready enough to accept that,’ he added curtly.

  ‘Because Francis would have that right as my husband,’ she managed to spit bitterly. ‘You have no rights! You are a vile seducer!’

  He laughed then—so heartily that she wanted to kill him—plainly not the slightest bit put out at her insult.

  ‘You prick my ego, madam! I assure you there are many who would give a great deal to be where you are this night.’

  That she knew from gossip that he spoke the truth only infuriated her the more.

  ‘Well, I am not one of them, sir,’ she stormed back at him. ‘You flatter yourself indeed if you think I will ever pant after your favours like a bitch on heat.’

  She knew she had made a mistake the moment the insulting words left her lips. Without a word he stared down at her until she felt as though his eyes bored into her very skull, and laid bare every single thought that was there.

  ‘Say you so, madam?’ he said silkily at last. ‘That being the case there is no need for me to waste my poor talents on convincing you otherwise, and the deed might as well be done with all despatch possible.’

  ‘It cannot be over soon enough for me,’ she responded bitterly, knowing now that there was no escape, and that no matter how she railed or argued she could not shake him from his purpose. She would, after all, endure no more than she might expect to endure with Francis. Wives could expect little consideration from their husbands after all. And if she did conceive…She grimaced inwardly. She had no love for Francis; it mattered little to her whose child she carried as long as Francis accepted it as his own. Afterwards, once she was safely married to Francis, she would find a means of dealing with his arrogant half-brother.

  ‘Well, then,’ her tormentor said softly, ‘let us to work.’

  His hands gripped the top of her gown, his wrists twisting deftly as he rent it from top to hem, leaving her clad only in her silk stockings and garters. Her overriding instinct to cover herself from him was thwarted by the strong grip of his fingers round her wrists, forcing her arms above her head. She was fashionably slender with narrow hips and a well-formed bosom, but had never thought particularly about the appeal of her shape to the male eye until now.

  As a tradesman’s daughter, no one had ever thought to protect her from the realities of sex as they might a true young lady. She knew all about the physical coupling of a man and a woman, and had lately endured several lectures from her aunt about the correct behaviour of a young bride, who ought not to question the wishes of a husband but simply accede to them. She had thought herself strong enough to do so, to be able to separate her mind from her body and simply blot out that which was unacceptable to her, but it seemed now that she had overestimated her own powers of self-control and a shudder racked through her helpless body as her tormentor continued his slow scrutiny of her.

  ‘A prize delectable enough to tempt any man.’ The words were drawled in a mocking tone, but she noticed the glitter darkening his eyes as they roamed her body for a second time, and she tensed automatically, sensing something outside her own experience.

  The dark head bent towards her, his torso arching over her, her arms ached from being imprisoned. She longed to twist despairingly away but sensed that he would enjoy subduing her if she did, and so she stared as steadily as she could into his eyes until there was nothing but their vivid blueness. She felt his breath caress her skin and, in spite of her determination, shivered at the intimacy of it, waiting until the last moment to turn her mouth away from his, her body stiff and tense as she felt his soundless laughter.

  ‘By all means, if that is the way you wish to play it,’ he whispered softly into her ear, biting the tender flesh with sharp teeth, making her wince. ‘I merely thought to make it more pleasurable for you.’

  He moved and she closed her eyes, gritting her teeth, shocked by the sudden sensation of his torso touching her own, her breasts pressed flat against hard muscle, his weight constricting her breathing so that she had to pant. His mouth touched her shoulder and moved slowly along it, her tension increasing with every breath she took. She hated him for drawing out her torment, willing him to get the deed over and done with. This was a greater torture than if he had simply taken her and gone, and she sensed that he meant to punish her for her earlier challenging words.

 
; His mouth burned her throat, his teeth sharp against the delicate skin. She wanted to move beneath him, to writhe away from the too-close contact with his body. Her skin felt hot where his mouth had touched it, and she was conscious of a strange dizziness, which she put down to the pain in her arms. His mouth moved tormentingly over her skin, and against her closed eyelids danced mental impressions of his dark head against her body. He moved, easing his weight off her slightly, and she drew in a much-needed breath, expelling it on a sharp, high cry of shock as she felt his mouth against her breast.

  This time it was impossible to stop her body’s bitter writhing to break free, but her hands were firmly pinioned and his mouth retained possession of the deep rose centre of her breast firmly sucking on it until she felt a totally unfamiliar sensation flower into life inside her. That her tormentor knew of it too was shamingly obvious when he slowly released her wrists, lifting his head from her breasts and then cupping them both in his hands. She found she was trembling as though held in the grip of a fierce fever, her body shaking with an ague, which she told herself came purely from the pain of the blood returning to her aching arms. Too weak as yet to thrust her tormentor off, she willed them to recover from their imprisonment, closing her eyes the better to martial her concentration.

  Her breasts ached and throbbed with a pain that was wholly unfamiliar and she jerked protestingly against the tormentingly intimate caresses being inflicted on them. When her arms finally stopped tingling she lifted her hands to his shoulders, trying to push him away from her, but he merely laughed, his mouth once again caressing her breasts, moving slowly from one to the other until in the fireglow cast over the bed she could see that her nipples had grown a rosily dark red and that, unlike her mind, they seemed to have no objection to her attacker’s continued ravishment of them, seeming rather to enjoy the moist attention of his lips and tongue.