Regency Christmas Proposals Page 24

  ‘Perhaps I should see for myself—’

  Those grey eyes glittered. ‘Amelia—’

  ‘Did you allow your valet to at least redress it today?’

  ‘Damn it, Amelia—’

  ‘Would you leave us, please, Watkins?’ Amelia turned to smile graciously at the butler. Having only secured his return a few hours ago, she did not think Gideon would appreciate having the butler leave again because he had taken offence at her tone! Besides, it was Gideon she was cross with, not Watkins. ‘I will ring when you are needed again,’ she assured the older man warmly, waiting as he had vacated the room and closed the door softly behind him before she placed her napkin upon the table and stood up.

  ‘Amelia—’

  ‘My Lord?’ She deliberately held Gideon Grayson’s gaze with her own as she walked slowly down the length of the room.

  A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw as he watched her approach through narrowed lids. ‘I swear, Amelia, if you do not stop “My Lording” me in that superior tone—’

  ‘Shall I return to calling you Gideon, then?’ she murmured throatily as she halted beside him.

  Gideon would not do, either!

  Gray wished that Amelia were not standing quite so close beside his chair. So close, in fact, that he was once again assailed with that perfume that was uniquely Amelia: elusively floral and utterly feminine! So close that he could see the rapidly beating pulse at the base of her throat. So close that the ivory swell of her breasts was on a level only inches away from his narrowed gaze.

  So close that just her proximity caused his body to stir!

  ‘You will need to once again remove your jacket, waistcoat and shirt, Gideon,’ she prompted. Dear Lord…!

  How much was a man expected to stand? Gray wondered achingly. To resist? And he must surely resist where Amelia of all women was concerned…!

  ‘I have absolutely no intention— What do you think you are doing?’ He turned to look at Amelia as she moved to the back of his chair and placed her hands upon the collar of his jacket.

  She raised challenging brows. ‘Helping you, of course.’

  ‘Damn it, Amelia—’

  ‘You should not swear so often, Gideon.’ She tutted reprovingly.

  ‘Your stubbornness is enough to make even a saint swear, Amelia,’ he assured her through gritted teeth, and he resisted her efforts to tug the tightly tailored jacket back over his shoulders despite the added discomfort it gave to his aching arm.

  She gave him an exasperated look. ‘And those scars upon your chest and back attest to your never having been that!’

  Gray stilled at this reminder that Amelia had seen his scars the evening before. Honourable scars, if she did but know it, from injuries he had received during his years of working secretly for the crown. Years when Gray had necessarily allowed all who knew him—including his brother Perry and his family—to believe he was something of a rake and a wastrel who preferred not to involve himself in the messy business of war. No wonder, then, that Amelia had twice now referred to those scars as having been gained dishonourably rather than honourably…

  ‘Your waistcoat and shirt now, if you please,’ Amelia murmured with satisfaction, having taken advantage of Gideon Grayson’s brief distraction of thought to pull the jacket ably down his arms before removing it altogether.

  ‘I have no intention of taking off any more of my clothing in your presence—Amelia, cease this instant!’ He raised his voice as she moved to stand in front of him and deftly began to unfasten his waistcoat.

  Amelia ceased. Not because Gideon had instructed her to, but because of a sudden awareness of the tension that emanated from him; his jaw was set grimly, eyes blazing darkly, and his hands were clenched into fists until the knuckles showed white as they rested on his muscled thighs.

  She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. ‘I am only trying to help, Gideon…’

  He breathed deeply as he continued to glare at her, that nerve pulsing rapidly now in his tightly clenched jaw. ‘What you are doing, Amelia, is playing with fire,’ he warned her harshly.

  Amelia could barely breathe as she looked searchingly into that arrogantly handsome face. At the way the unhealthy pallor of Gideon’s skin gave his eyes a dark and dangerous appeal as they blazed up at her. At the grim set of his jaw and those sculptured and sensuous lips.

  She began to tremble, to shake at how desperately she wanted to feel those lips against—devouring!—her own…

  ‘Do not, Amelia!’ Gray groaned as she stepped between his parted thighs and even the light brush of her gown became an unbearable torment against his ultra-sensitive erection.

  ‘Do not what, Gideon…?’ She placed her gloved hands on his shoulders beneath the silk of his waistcoat.

  A touch that instantly burned, seared through the thin material of Gray’s shirt. Making him long for there to be no barrier at all between Amelia’s hands and the bareness of his chest.

  She easily held his gaze with hers as she stepped closer still, the warmth of her legs a delicious torment now as they pressed softly against the inside of Gray’s thighs, causing him to become harder still.

  Gray had been in one state of arousal or another since first setting eyes on this beautiful and desirable woman. Physical. Emotional. Temporal. Amelia—with her courage, her honesty, her undeniable beauty—challenged him on each and every one of those levels.

  He closed his eyes briefly before looking up again. ‘If you do not step away now, Amelia, I cannot be responsible for what happens next!’

  Instead of doing as he asked, Amelia smiled. Slowly. Invitingly. The softness of her lips parting slightly as she moved so that the fullness of her lips were now mere inches away from Gray’s own.

  ‘Do not say I did not warn you…!’ Gray gave a brief, self-disgusted shake of his head even as his hands moved to fasten tightly about the slenderness of Amelia’s waist to pull her in tightly against him, so making her completely aware of the fullness of his erection.

  Her eyes widened slightly as that arousal pressed revealingly against her, before her tongue once again moved moistly across those red and parted lips. ‘I promise to say nothing at all, Gideon, if you will only kiss me…!’ she invited breathlessly.

  It was too much—Amelia herself was too much!—and with a low groan Gray moved the short distance that separated them and claimed her mouth with his own.

  Amelia gave a deep and satisfied sigh in her throat, and her fingers clasped tightly onto Gray’s shoulders even as her lips parted beneath his. It was an invitation Gray readily accepted as he deepened the kiss.

  She tasted of warmth and honey. Unlike anything Gray had ever tasted before. A taste as unique as Amelia was herself, and just as addictive…!

  Gray drank of her hungrily, deeply, as he crushed her breasts against him, running his tongue lightly across her lips in warning before venturing inside the heat of her mouth. Her tongue met his shyly, gently duelling, before ceding to his dominance. Gray’s tongue surged inside, taking, claiming, in deep and rhythmic thrusts that matched the deep and aching throb of his thighs pressed so intimately against her.

  As Gray had known would happen, he wanted more. Wanted to feel the silkiness of Amelia’s skin beneath his hands, to see and touch the ivory softness of her breasts.

  Even as he continued to kiss her his hands were busy with the tiny buttons at the back of her gown. One. Two. Three. Until her gown was unbuttoned halfway down her back. A shift in position, an easing away, and Amelia’s gown fell gently down to her waist.

  Gray dragged his mouth from hers, placing kisses upon her neck, her throat, before raising his head to look at the fullness of Amelia’s breasts revealed beneath the thin material of her chemise. His hands moved up instinctively to cup beneath those orbs. Her breasts seemed fuller tonight, heavier, and the nipples were already hard beneath her chemise.

  A light tug of that material revealed those breasts in their full glory, allowing Gray to gaze upon
her nipples, his breathing becoming ragged as he looked on their fullness and likened them to the colour and ripeness of raspberries.

  And Gray was fond—very fond—of raspberries…

  Amelia knew she should be shocked, possibly outraged, at the things Gideon was doing to her. But instead she had been thrilled to her core when he had kissed her. Had trembled with anticipation when her dress fell down about her waist. And now she could only gasp in pleasure as his lips closed about the bareness of her breast as he drew the aching tip deep inside the heat of his mouth.

  Her hands moved instinctively to cup the back of his head, to hold him to her. She entangled her fingers in the darkness of his hair as he feasted upon her, first suckling, then gently biting, before rasping his tongue across her sensitive flesh and suckled her again, whilst all the time his hand caressed the rosy tip of her other breast.

  Pleasure such as Amelia had never known, never guessed at, coursed through her body. Her arms tensed, her back arched, and a fire seemed to burn in the pit of her belly. An aching heat, a need she did not completely understand but knew well enough that only Gideon could assuage.

  ‘Gideon—I need…!’ she groaned.

  Gray was reluctant to relinquish the honey taste of her breast, lingering to bite gently before slowly raising his head to look at her. ‘What do you need?’ he encouraged hoarsely.

  Amelia’s cheeks were flushed, her eyes a wild, deep blue. ‘I do not know!’ She shook her head. ‘I ache, Gideon. Here.’ She took one of his hands in hers and moved it lower, cupping the heat between her legs.

  Her gown was so thin and silky that Gray could feel her curls as he cupped her there, pressing his palm gently against her in a slow, rhythmic caress. ‘Gideon…?’

  ‘Feel, Amelia,’ he encouraged throatily, and his hand left her briefly to move beneath the hem of her gown and travel the silky length of her legs, seeking and finding her most sensitive spot before caressing it rhythmically.

  Gray drew her nipple back into the heat of his mouth as he heard her gasps of pleasure, the rhythm of his hand matching the movement of his mouth on her breast.

  ‘Open your legs for me!’ Gray encouraged hungrily, groaning low in his throat as she did so, opening herself to him as he continued to caress her.

  Amelia cried out as pleasure such as she had never imagined ripped through her body in wave after surging wave. She felt the long slow thrust of Gideon’s finger inside her. Clinging weakly to his shoulders, she moved instinctively with him until she was so sensitised to the pleasure she could no longer bear it.

  Amelia allowed her damp forehead to drop down weakly onto one of Gideon’s muscled shoulders as he moved his hand away from her. Only the sound of their erratic breathing now filled the otherwise silence. Low, throaty gasps on Amelia’s part, as tiny ripples of pleasure continued to consume her. Loud and hoarse on Gideon’s as he—

  As he what? Amelia wondered sinkingly. She had allowed Gideon to touch her with an intimacy that made her blush to think about it. And what had Amelia given him in return?

  She could feel the hard warmth of his thighs still pressed against her, knew that Gideon had not reached that same earth-shattering release as she. Her inexperience in such matters, her lack of knowledge, gave Amelia no indication as to how she might achieve that. What did a woman do? How did she progress in pleasuring a man? Perhaps if she were to touch him as he had touched her—

  ‘No, Amelia!’ Gideon’s voice rasped harshly in the tense silence as she reached down between his thighs, his fingers biting painfully into the flesh of her upper arms as he put her firmly away from him.

  Amelia was trembling, shaking as she looked down at the blaze of fury in that hard and arrogantly handsome face. Gideon’s eyes were a glittering black, his cheekbones standing out in the raw savagery of his face, his mouth a thin and angry line above a tense and clenched jaw. ‘Gideon—’

  ‘Not a word, Amelia!’ He turned her firmly, to readjust and refasten her gown. ‘There is nothing you can say—no justification for what just happened,’ he bit out in disgust as he stood up abruptly.

  ‘But—’

  ‘I should never have come here.’ Gideon looked down at her coldly. ‘Never have—’ He gave a tense shake of his head. ‘It was my original intention to spend only two days at Steadley Manor before travelling into Gloucestershire to spend Christmas with friends. I had thought, after I arrived here, to change those plans. But I think it better, in light of what has just happened, if I proceed with my original plan.’

  Amelia’s heart sank. ‘You are leaving…?’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘First thing in the morning.’

  She swallowed hard as she blinked back the tears that were threatening to fall. Knowing that there was nothing she could say, nothing she could do, when Gideon was so disgusted, so shocked by her behaviour, that he could barely stand to look at her, let alone spend any more time in her company.

  Chapter Eight

  In the event, it was much later than first thing before Gray was able to take his leave of Steadley Manor the following day.

  Aware of the need to stay completely away from the vicinity of Amelia’s bedchamber, Gray had instead waited downstairs for her to appear in the breakfast parlour. When eight o’clock and then nine o’clock passed, without any sign of her, Gray was forced into sending one of the maids upstairs with a request for Amelia to join him immediately.

  Her reluctance to be anywhere near him was made more than obvious when she appeared a few minutes later, pale and beautiful where she lingered in the doorway, as if half prepared for flight.

  Gray tightened his mouth at the reason for her reluctance, knowing he should not have kissed Amelia the previous evening, let alone touched her as intimately as he had. No doubt he had frightened her out of her wits with the intensity of his passion, he acknowledged.

  He thrust his hands behind his back. ‘I have been waiting to leave these past two hours, Amelia.’

  The same two hours, probably, Amelia realised, during which she had been crying as if her heart would break. As she had cried long and hard the previous night. Hot, shameful tears that had left their mark this morning in the dark and bruised look to her eyes and the deathly pallor of her face.

  She had not wanted to see Gideon again before he left. Had not wanted to see the coldness in his eyes when he looked at her. To know, to feel the disgust he must now feel towards her. It was too cruel of him to demand that she be present now, when he departed for Gloucestershire.

  Her chin rose proudly. ‘I am sure that you and I have nothing left to say to each other, Gideon.’ She met that narrowed and cold gaze unflinchingly as she defiantly continued to call him by the name she always had.

  ‘If that is your wish,’ he finally allowed remotely. ‘Right now my only concern is how soon I can expect you to be ready to leave.’

  Amelia gaped at him. ‘Leave for where…?’

  Gray eyed her impatiently. The situation between the two of them was difficult enough, his temper already frayed from waiting overlong for Amelia to come downstairs, without his having to repeat himself. ‘I am sure that I told you I intended to start our journey to Gloucestershire first thing this morning?’

  She shook her head, her golden curls tightly confined this morning, held in place by a ribbon the same golden-brown as her long-sleeved gown. ‘You made no mention of my accompanying you.’

  ‘Well, of course you will accompany me!’ He snapped his impatience. ‘What sort of monster do you think I am, Amelia, that you imagine I would leave you alone here over Christmas?’

  Unfortunately Gray already knew the answer to that question. As he knew the reason why Amelia was so reluctant to be anywhere in his vicinity this morning. It was a reluctance that was perfectly justified when Gray knew he only had to look upon Amelia’s loveliness to want to make love to her all over again.

  Damn it to hell!

  ‘Well?’ he demanded.

  Amelia looked across at him, a puzz
led frown between the deep blue of her eyes. ‘I do not understand. You said you were going to stay with friends. Surely those friends will not want an unknown woman foisted upon them? Especially at this time of year…?’

  He gave a hard and humourless smile. ‘I have no doubt the St Claire family will welcome you with open arms! Besides, you are my ward,’ he added bitterly.

  Amelia shook her head. ‘But—I do not know the St Claire family. I have no gifts for any of them.’

  ‘I have gifts for them,’ he drawled. ‘You are my ward, Amelia, and as such the gifts will come from both of us,’ he added impatiently as she still frowned.

  Much as Gray might not have liked Alice Wycliffe’s suggestion that he take Amelia with him to Mulberry Hall for Christmas, as reluctant as Gray still felt to introduce her to the St Claire family, with their arrogant disregard for the unwritten rules of Society, he knew that he no longer had a choice. He could not stay alone here with Amelia any longer—just as he could not just depart for Gloucestershire in the knowledge that he was abandoning Amelia to spending Christmas alone at Steadley Manor.

  As much as Gray knew he should keep his distance from her, he simply could no longer even bear the thought of leaving Amelia alone here…

  If Amelia had thought, hoped, that three days of travelling across the country into Gloucestershire would allow herself and Gideon to reach at least the same amount of understanding as had existed between them before those intimacies had taken place between them, then she was to be disappointed.

  Two coaches travelled into Gloucestershire: one bearing Amelia and the maid who had been chosen to accompany her, and the second carrying Gideon and his valet. The trunks containing the clothing they would need for an extended stay were divided between the two carriages.

  Their two overnight stays at coaching inns were equally as lacking in private conversation between them, as on both evenings Gideon ate his meal in silence before leaving Amelia to the attentions of her maid by retiring early to his bedchamber.