Page 60 of A Night of Forever
But she hadn’t expected him to continue their conversation either.
“I became a very rich man in Brazil,” he said. “And yet I have not spent any of my wealth on either my family estate or my London residence. My townhouse looks tired and worn. I’m ashamed to show it to you.”
Her heart leaped in her chest. He was opening up. He wanted to try.
“You will think it strange that I have spent so little of my wealth,” he went on as they strolled across the dew-covered grass. “But I still feel that the money is not mine. Half of it belongs to Jonathan. And yet he is dead and I am not.”
Isobel’s slippers were getting wet, but she would not interrupt him for the world. This was “opening up” with a vengeance.
“Jonathan is dead,” Arend said, “because I believed I was in love, and I am alive because my attacker believed he would fight a soft, pampered nobleman. We were both wrong.”
Soft? Pampered? Isobel could not imagine Arend as ever being either. He must have been different in Brazil. Even so, how had his enemy not seen his iron core? There was an entire story in those few words.
Don’t rush. Let him take his time.
But she couldn’t wait for some things. “Take me to see your townhouse, Arend. Tonight. I’d love to see it before you change anything so I can understand what your childhood was like.”
He hesitated in his walk, then moved on. “You’ll be the first woman to set foot inside the house since my mother died.”
“But will you take me?”
She wished he could share what he was thinking and feeling, but he remained silent.
As they approached the terrace, Isobel halted.
“Do you really want to go back into that stuffy ballroom with people who watch us just so they can gossip?” she said. “I hate how they stare at us. At my face.”
“Your face is still beautiful. You’re beautiful.”
She drew her arm free and turned him to face her, stepping into him and widening her eyes. “Show me your home, Arend.”
“Isobel.” The planes and angles of his face seemed to sharpen in the shadow. “The first thing you must learn about me is I’m a nobleman, not a gentleman. It’s not safe for me to take you home—”
He broke off as she pressed closer. The fabric of his jacket grazed her nipples through the thin material of her gown, and he growled something in French that did not sound at all polite. But he didn’t move.
“I dream of that night in the stable,” she whispered. “Your lips, your hands. I wake up in the night and wish you were with me. You say I would not be safe. Don’t you understand? Even unsafe with you, I’m safer than I’ve ever been. I am addicted to un-safety.”
His beautiful mouth softened into a wide smile. “There is no such word. You have no idea how tempting you are,ma cherie.”
“When I see the way you look at me, I do.” Her voice was becoming breathless as her body reacted to the flare of desire in his eyes. “I believe that looking over the house by night is an excellent idea.”
“Soft candlelight will hide a multitude of sins.” Soft candlelight could also open the door to a multitude of sins—if she was lucky, she thought. She pressed on. “Tonight I feel like we have turned a corner in our relationship. I want to continue on this journey of new beginnings.”
When he pulled her into his arms she forgot the presence of the cream of society behind the drapes and windows above them. When he brought them both to a halt behind a tall rhododendron, when his lips crushed hers, she forgot everything in the blaze of heat in her belly and the roar of blood in her ears.
This wasn’t the kiss a gentleman gave a lady. It was the kiss of a man desperate for his woman.
His lips devoured her as if he were starving. Her body grew warm, and yet she shivered and couldn’t stop. She needed him. Needed to be closer. Her heart pounded behind breasts that felt heavy and full, aching for his touch. Tingling waves of heat fluttered and curled low in her belly, and lower still, between her thighs.
When his large palm caressed her breast she could not hold back her moan.
As the sound hummed in the cold night air, Arend broke the kiss with a guttural curse. “Mon Dieu.This is madness.” His breathing sounded as if he’d been running for his life. “Do you still want to see my house?”
No. She wanted him to kiss her, to hold her, to make her his entirely. “I might not yet trust you with my heart, but I trust you with my body.”
His laugh held both amusement and pain. “Words you should never say to a rake,ma cherie.It gives him wicked ideas.” And with that, he all but spun her about and pulled her around the side of the house and toward the carriages.
She could not help the thrill that rippled through her and made her want to giggle like a naughty child. “Should we not return to the ballroom and let the others know we are leaving?”
