“Certainly.” He kissed her hand before releasing it. “I’ll be back in a trice.”
Then he was gone, giving Bel a few precious moments to collect her thoughts and reevaluate her life. She’d fallen in love with her husband, and now everything was ruined. Wasn’t it?
How could she fully devote herself to service and charity, with this loud, symphonic love suffusing her body, drowning out all her best intentions? She tried to recall her schedule for tomorrow. She was certain she had some appointment, some visit scheduled … perhaps a meeting with the house staff about the upcoming demonstration of flue-sweeping machinery?
But for the life of her—for the love of Toby—she couldn’t remember. The champagne’s effect had faded now. Bel saw clearly what she needed to do. She must choose. This love had infected her unawares, but perhaps she still had hope for a cure. It was not too late to deny this passion, to push her husband away and refocus on her work. She’d been in London society long enough to understand the polite, affectionless arrangements that characterized most marriages. She could insist upon the same.
Or she could love. Freely, deeply—embracing both passion and terror at once. She could place her soul in the keeping of a man well known to be a suave, charming rake. Really, there was no choice at all.
“Here we are.” Toby slid back into the box, a dewy glass of water in his hand. Bel took it, tipping the glass and downing the water gratefully. Slowly. So long as she was drinking, she need not speak. Soon the lights dimmed again, and Toby pulled his chair close to hers. Close enough that she felt his warmth, even in the dark.
“Are you able to understand the opera?” he asked in a low voice. “I don’t suppose you have any Italian?”
“No,” she whispered back, setting the water glass aside. “But I learned Spanish from my mother. It’s similar enough that I can follow the story.” And what a story it was—the dashing, infamous lothario and the besotted women who would follow him anywhere, even to his grave. Out of blind, unrequited love.
Yes, she’d learned this story from her mother in more ways than one. If her father had had fewer lovers than Don Giovanni’s thousands—it surely was only because their island was so small. And yet, despite the man’s faithless philandering, her mother had loved him with a fierce, loyal passion—even beyond the boundaries of reason and health. The doctors said her mother’s madness was a lingering effect of her brain fever, but her mother had believed otherwise.
She insisted she’d gone mad with love. El amor es locura, she’d said. Love is madness. An all-consuming, feverish passion that robs the mind of sense, that spins a soul toward darkness and despair.
Bel would be a fool to follow that example. Her gloved hands fisted in her lap. She must resist this love. She must break free of the bond he’d somehow tied around her heart. Then the woman on stage began to sing, Toby’s hand covered hers, and she knew. She didn’t truly want to be freed.
“Have you seen this opera before?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“How does it end?” She turned to him. “I need to know how it ends. Happily?”
“No, darling.” He chuckled. “Our hero dies, alone and unrepentant, and the devil takes his soul to hell.”
Oh, God help her.
As she listened to the haunting aria, the hairs rose on Bel’s neck and a familiar, terrible heaviness formed in her chest. She wanted to cry, but the tears wouldn’t come. Until a few weeks ago, she’d believed this to be the sort of tension a woman could only resolve by weeping. Now, thanks to her talented husband, she knew there to be another cure. Her body cried out for the pleasurable release only he could give.
“Remarkable, isn’t she?” Toby’s whispered question mingled with the fading applause.
“Yes,” she whispered back. “The way the note hangs in the air, even after she ceases to sing …
I know I’m not actually hearing it any longer, but I feel it, resonating in the air. In me.”
He was silent. Bel’s cheeks heated. She must sound ridiculous and naïve.
“I understand perfectly,” he finally said. His voice held no trace of amusement—only warmth and tenderness. “I think I feel that way sometimes, when I’m parted from you. Even when you’re not with me, it’s like … there’s an echo of you that settles in my chest.” He lifted her hand from her lap and brought it to his lips, then pressed it to his solar plexus. “Here. I feel you here, always. Sometimes it hurts.”
Bel swallowed hard. “Toby?”
“Yes, love?”
“Would you take me home? I want to go home.”
“Are you certain?” His eyes searched hers in the near dark. “The second act has only just started. Don’t worry about the ending. It’s a comedy, you know.”
“I want to go home. Immediately.” Bel squeezed her eyes shut to gather her strength, then opened them again. “I want you,” she said meaningfully, lifting her free hand to cup his strong, handsome jaw, “to take me home.”
He said nothing. Only sat motionless in the dark, like the chiseled marble likeness of a Roman god. But as she inched closer, Bel thrilled to the evidence that he was very much alive. His breaths came thick and ragged, and his pulse hammered against her hand. Scooting closer, almost into his lap, she craned her neck to kiss him. “I want you,” she murmured against his lips, kissing him again to silence her moan as his free arm lashed about her waist. Oh, how she needed his hands on her. Needed it more than she needed air. She was mad for him, and she didn’t care what price she would pay tomorrow, or for the rest of her life and beyond. Tonight, she just wanted him.
“I want you to take me home,” she whispered, licking lightly against his ear. “Take me home and make love to me, Toby.”
A few minutes later, they were in the carriage.
It really was a remarkable feat. Toby doubted Isabel could appreciate the amount of strategy, charm, and discreetly exchanged silver required to collapse what was normally a twenty-minute process to less than five. Amazing, what a man could accomplish when his lady lit a fire under him.
Lit a fire within him, more like.
Toby was burning for her like he had burned for no woman in his life. The air in the carriage was arid with heat. All his plans for hours of slow, sensual teasing? Evaporated. He wanted her, as soon as he could possibly have her.
And apparently—miraculously—she felt the same.
She gripped his arm, pressing her body to his as the coach lurched into motion. The soft swell of her breast against his biceps was pure, sweet torture.
“How long will it take us to get home?” The throaty pitch of her voice sank straight to his groin.
Toby cleared his throat. “Ten minutes… perhaps fifteen.”
She fell silent, still clutching his arm. He clenched his hands at his sides to keep from mauling her. She had asked him to take her home, after all. Take her home and make love to her properly. Not sweep her off for a crude, sweaty tup in the coach.
Suddenly, she launched herself into his lap, hiking up her red silk skirts to straddle his hips. The sound of fabric ripping registered in his brain just an instant before his wife’s husky whisper: “I can’t wait that long.”
Oh, thank God.
Toby scarcely recognized the woman tugging impatiently at his cravat, thrusting her tongue into his mouth, scraping her teeth along his jaw. Was this truly his solemn, saintly wife? She was frenzied with passion and desire. She wanted him, just as desperately as he wanted her. They were fighting to get closer, kiss deeper, expose more skin to press against hot, damp skin. They ceased the tussle just long enough to unite against the common enemy of her skirts, hiking yards of silk and petticoats up to her waist until the fabric settled around them in a shimmering cloud. He grasped her hips and pulled her feminine core flush against his aching erection. A fierce groan rose from his chest. Straightening her spine, Isabel rode him eagerly, rocking her hips against his hard length again and again. Even through the layers of his smalls and trousers, she felt warm and soft and absolutely amazing.
So. Damn. Good.
She leaned forward, grasping the seatback behind him for leverage. And now her breasts were thrust in his face with each rolling tilt of her hips. Yes, this passionate, lustful woman was indeed his wife. Toby would know these magnificent breasts anywhere. He pressed his face into her cleavage, inhaling deeply, then stroked over their exposed tops with his tongue.
“Delicious,” he murmured. “You taste of champagne.”
“Yes,” she gasped, straightening in his lap and pulling her bosom out of his tongue’s reach. His disappointment was short-lived, however, for she grasped her bodice in both hands and eased it downward, aiding the process with erotic, wriggling motions of her shoulders. “Yes, taste them. Touch them.”
Her breasts finally sprang free, in all their bounteous, dark-tipped glory, and Toby thought he would spill in his trousers for the first time since the age of fifteen. He gratefully caressed, lifted, suckled, and she rode him faster, grinding her hips against his in a frantic rhythm. She gave a little cry, and he knew by the timbre of it that her peak was near. It was tempting to slide a hand between them and stroke her over the edge. Better yet, wrench open his fall and slide into her just at the moment she came. But instead he held back. This time, he didn’t want to bring her to pleasure. He wanted to observe her as she pleasured herself. There was nothing more arousing than the feel of her riding him, the acceleration of her breath against his ear. He allowed her to set her own pace, learn the rhythm and pressure and precise angle that would send her into bliss.
She did it all on her own, his passionate lover, his beautiful wife. But as her climax rocked her, it was his name she called.
And that was when Toby knew himself to be the luckiest man on earth. Isabel was still quivering in his lap and breathing hard against his neck, when the carriage rolled to a halt. He helped her adjust her bodice and skirts as best she could, offering his coat for her modesty as they alighted from the coach. She ducked her head as they entered the house, avoiding the curious gaze of the servants. Toby sent them away with a pointed glance.
“Look at me,” she whispered as they entered the foyer, indicating the wine-stained, bedraggled condition of her gown. “What a state I’m in. Perhaps I should clean up, before …”
“Before?” he prompted, a grin spreading across his face.
“You know what I mean.” She blushed.
Toby thought about telling her that he rather liked her mussed and soiled, and what ever repairs she made to her appearance were likely to be undone in seconds … but he supposed he could rein in his desire for a few more minutes, to indulge her feminine sensibilities. A very few. He pulled her close, thrusting the hard ridge of his arousal into her hip. “How long?” he asked gruffly. “How long before you’ll be ready for me?”
She pulled away and gave him a coy, seductive smile. Good Lord, but he’d done himself no favors, teaching this woman to tease.
“Ten minutes,” she said, fluttering her jet-black lashes. “Perhaps fifteen.”
“Minx.” Toby lifted her into his arms and swept her into the nearest room with a door, which happened to be the blue parlor. “You know I can’t wait that long.”
He kicked the door shut and pressed her against it, using one hand to lift her leg over his hip and working his way under her skirts with the other. The moment his fingertips found the slick warmth of her sex, there was no more coy conversation. There was only need—mindless and intense. He needed to get inside her, and he needed to come. Ideally in that order. With shaking fingers, he unbuttoned his fall and freed his straining erection. She helped him, hooking her legs around his waist and tilting her hips to ease his way. He positioned himself and thrust, sinking straight into her moist heat with no resistance. His body came alive with bliss. Lifting her backside with both hands, he pistoned his hips, pounding her against the door again and again. He thrust fast and hard, shamelessly using her snug, willing body. Pursuing his own release just as selfishly as she’d chased hers in the coach. And she loved it. She writhed and moaned in his arms, urging him on. Taking him deeper. Pulling him closer … closer …