One Forbidden Evening (Zebra Historical Romance) Read online

  “No. Cybelline managed the finances. She says there was nothing like that, and he made provisions for her. It would have permitted her to live in modest comfort for several years, more if she was frugal. Of course, Cybelline has her own inheritance, so Nicholas did not need to provide for her financial well-being, only her emotional one.”

  “If that was his true intent, then it’s been undone by his mistress.” Ferrin could only shake his head. “How did Cybelline’s inheritance not come under his control?”

  “Caldwell petitioned for exception on her behalf. I don’t know the details of how it was accomplished, but he managed the thing. I can own that I admired him for it. He was adamant that she understand that he was no fortune hunter.” Sherry reached for his drink and knocked back another swallow. “He was in every way a model husband.”

  Ferrin said nothing.

  Sherry found the silence telling. His dark eyes narrowed. “Now you are the one who knows something. What is it?”

  “Precisely what you know. He had a mistress. If that is the model, then the ton has become too tolerant. We have become too tolerant.”

  Sherry nodded slowly. “Does Cybelline blame herself?”

  “Sometimes. Less now than when she was yet in London.”

  “Your influence?”

  “I do not count myself as having much sway over your sister’s thinking, but it’s my opinion that she’s angrier at Caldwell now than she is unhappy with herself. The letters seem to indicate that Caldwell married Cybelline in order to father a legitimate child. I believe he grew to love her but that it paled in the face of the feelings he had for this other woman.”

  It was what Sherry believed as well. “I want to see these letters.”

  “I understand, but I don’t know if Cybelline will permit you to read them or even if they’re here.”

  “I will ask her, of course, so you must be prepared for her opposition of feeling when she realizes I know about them. I suspect she will refuse me.”

  “And then?”

  “If they’re here, I shall read them.”

  “But how will you find them? They might be anywhere.”

  Sherry arched one eyebrow and regarded Ferrin consideringly. “I believe you’ve met the scoundrels.”

  “Well?” Lily demanded when she saw her husband at last was coming to bed. “I do not like being kept in the dark, Sherry. That was the most uncomfortable supper I have ever experienced in this house, and afterward…in the music room…I despaired that we would find any topic that would engage a conversation. Even your turn at the pianoforte was uninspired.”

  Sherry did not turn back the covers. He sat on the edge of the bed and loosened his stock. “Cybelline is out of all patience with me.”

  “That was clear enough. She did not exchange more than a dozen words with you.”

  “That is because we had words in private.”

  “Did you tell Ferrin his suit wasn’t welcome?”

  “The subject never came up.”

  “Never came up? But Cybelline told me that a proposal was imminent.”

  “Mayhap it is, but he’s not proposing to me now, is he?”

  Lily’s brows rose in tandem. “You are adopting a tone I do not care for, my lord.”

  Sherry raked back his hair and drew in a calming breath. “I apologize.” He saw that Lily was not particularly mollified. “I will explain all of it, but tell me something first. Has Cybelline ever confided in you that her marriage was not as it should be?”

  Lily’s reply was cautious. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean did she tell you something was amiss, perhaps something…” His voice trailed off, and he shook his head. “No, I don’t suppose it matters now.”

  Extending her hand, Lily laid her fingers over Sherry’s arm. “Something intimate? Something about her relations with Nicholas?”

  Startled, he glanced sideways at Lily. “Yes. Exactly that.”

  Lily sucked in her bottom lip and worried it gently as she considered her response. “Were you aware that while Cybelline was carrying Anna, she and Nicholas often slept apart?”

  “No, but that is not unusual.” He frowned. “Is it?”

  “I have no idea. You did not leave my bed.” She observed him thinking on that, then she said, “And afterward, when Cybelline was ready to resume her—” Lily stopped because Sherry’s sensibilities were being tested mightily. “You understand, do you not?”

  “Perfectly.”

  “Well, Nicholas did not visit her often. She asked me about it, but I couldn’t advise her.”

  “I see.”

  “Do you? His neglect hurt her, Sherry, and she could not divine the reason for it. Frankly, neither could I. Nicholas was completely attentive to her outside of the bedroom.”

  “He had a mistress.” Sherry told her everything then, and when he was done he simply held her, or perhaps it was that she held him. There were many things about being married to Lily that he no longer questioned. They just were.

  Still dressed, he lay back when she released him and cradled his head in his palms. She curled against him and was quiet. He could sense her waiting, trying to anticipate the turn of his mind.

  “Do you think he loves her, Lily?”

  “Ferrin?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought Nicholas loved her. I don’t want to make a judgment about someone else’s heart. I know what’s in mine. That’s enough.”

  He smiled. “I was thinking the same.” He lifted his head to kiss the crown of hers. “Do you think they’re intimate?”

  “Sherry. You really do not want to speculate.”

  “I’m not. I put the question to you.”

  “Then I do not want to speculate.” Lily was not proof against the silence that followed. She sighed. “You can make of it what you will, but I gave his lordship the suite of rooms across the hall from Cybelline.”

  Sherry gave Lily’s shoulders an affectionate squeeze. “That’s just as well. Unless they are extraordinarily careless they will not be caught out.”

  “My thought exactly.”

  Cybelline looked up and down the hall before she marched across it and opened Ferrin’s door. He did not look up as she entered, nor when she closed the door with more force than was required. He was sitting in front of the fireplace with his legs stretched before him and his feet resting on a stool. A book lay unopened on his lap, and he appeared to be in deep contemplation, oblivious to her entrance.

  “I know you are not sleeping,” she said as she approached him.

  “A fair observation, as my eyes are open.”

  “Then you were ignoring me.”

  “Not possible. You haven’t made the least attempt to be quiet. I could hear you before you left your room. It occurred to me that I could expect a visit.” He looked up at her. “And here you are.”

  “Do you never tire of being right?”

  “Do you never tire of being predictable?”

  Cybelline’s mouth opened, then closed. She dropped slowly in the chair behind her and absently tugged on the belt of her robe. “Am I?” she asked quietly. “I hadn’t realized. That does not bode well for us, does it?” She mocked herself with a short, humorless laugh. “You will not want a wife who bores you.”

  “God, no.”

  She nodded. “I suppose it is better to know that at the outset.”

  “Indeed.”

  Cybelline stopped tugging on her belt and untied it. She only had to shrug once before the robe slipped off her bare shoulder and revealed the high, white curve of one breast. She watched the center of Ferrin’s eyes darken as his lashes lowered to half-mast. Her smile was a trifle smug. “I know that look, my lord. Do you never tire of being predictable?”

  He suppressed his laughter but not his deeply appreciative grin. “No, not about this. And you will thank me for it.”

  “Perhaps later.” She covered her shoulder, removed the temptation of her breast, and cinched the belt tightly.
“First, there is the matter of your conversation with my brother. I did not give you leave to tell him about the letters, Ferrin. That was for me to do.”

  “I don’t disagree, but as you have avoided it from the very first, I was compelled to disclose it myself.”

  “Compelled? In what way were you compelled?”

  “By honor. By concern. By obligation.” He pushed the stool aside and sat up. “There is your welfare to consider. And Anna’s. The letters come more frequently of late. I know you realize it. You must also be aware of the increasingly threatening tone. I fully anticipate the arrival of more letters while we’re at Granville, and I will not be at all surprised if the first one is delivered within a few days. Tell me you have not already considered it.”

  Cybelline could not. As she looked down at her hands, the admission came reluctantly. “I have been dreading it. This woman—Nicholas’s mistress—she seems to know where I will be almost before I do.”

  “I know. And if a letter arrives shortly, we will perhaps know something more about her than we do now. I believe there are not many people privy to your decision to depart for Granville.”

  “No. Very few on my staff know that I am not returning to London.”

  “So even though you recognized the necessity of certain precautions, you still elected to keep your brother ignorant of your fears. It isn’t fair to him, Cybelline, and you shouldn’t expect that I will follow your lead when I think you’re mistaken.”

  Bracing herself not to flinch from Ferrin’s implacable stare, Cybelline glanced up. What she found instead was compassion. “He wants to read the letters,” she told him. “That is too much. He must be made to see that. You shouldn’t have told him I brought them here.”

  “I didn’t. I told him I didn’t know if you had them.”

  “Then he tricked me. I did not think I could be so easily caught. It is just the sort of thing he did to me when we were children.”

  “Then you didn’t agree to allow him to read the letters.”

  “No. And do you know what he did? He threatened me with the scoundrels. I will tell Lily, of course, and she will put a stop to that nonsense. She doesn’t hold with using the boys as bloodhounds.”

  Ferrin’s lips twitched. “No, I suppose she doesn’t. Can they really find the letters?”

  “Given time, they can find anything. I cannot hope to hide the letters well enough to prevent that end, and there are too many to hide on my person—not that they would be safe there, either.”

  “Really?”

  Because Ferrin was still wearing his evening clothes, Cybelline asked him how many handkerchiefs he was carrying.

  “Two,” he said.

  “Show me.”

  He reached for one, then the other, and each time he came away with nothing. Impressed, he asked, “When did they do it?”

  “I think it was when they came to the music room to bid us goodnight. They crowded around you while Sherry and Lily were at the piano. It’s the rum-hustle. I’ve seen them do it before, and something is invariably missing at the end of it. They’ll return your handkerchieves. Indeed, they may already be in your chest of drawers. The boys only do it to keep their hand in.”

  “A literal truth, it seems,” he said dryly, putting the book aside. He shifted, leaned forward slightly, and regarded her with more gravity of expression. “Do you not think some compromise is in order, Cybelline? You have convinced me that the scoundrels will find the letters if your brother requests it of them, and I am convinced that Lady Sheridan will want to put a stop to it. Do you really want to be at the center of the controversy? Could you not find from among all the letters in your possession a few to show to Sheridan?”

  “Not Nicholas’s letters,” Cybelline said. The heat of humiliation flushed her cheeks. “Please, Christopher, I cannot.”

  Ferrin nodded. It was all he could do not to reach for her, but if he touched her now he would give into her, and this was a battle that he could not allow her to win. “Very well, then the letters from his mistress. Share those. Allow your brother to make his own assessment.”

  Cybelline was long in answering. She stared at her hands and nodded once.

  Releasing a breath he hardly knew he was holding, Ferrin leaned across the distance separating them and took Cybelline by the wrist. It required only the gentlest persuasion to bring her out of her chair and into his.

  “This doesn’t mean I’ve forgiven you.”

  Ferrin fingered the satin collar of her robe. “You came to my room wearing nothing but you under here. I remain hopeful that you mean to forgive me eventually.”

  “I don’t like being bullied.”

  “I thought I was advancing a solution.”

  “It’s bullying when you take my brother into your confidence to get your own way.”

  “My own way? What way is that exactly?”

  “You are determined to protect me.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I am. Anna, too. Do you have some objection?”

  “Only to the bullying. The rest I find rather comforting.” She slipped one arm around his neck and leaned in to kiss his cheek. “I was unconscionably ill-mannered at supper.”

  “And afterward. Don’t forget about afterward.”

  “I played the pianoforte with all the feeling Sherry lacked.”

  “You pounded the keys.”

  “I was angry.”

  “And now?”

  “I am never angry with Sherry for long. It’s not possible.”

  “I understand that you’ll make amends with your brother, but I think you can appreciate the nature of my own interest is more selfish.”

  Cybelline’s mouth hovered above his. She could feel the warmth of his breath against her lips. “You were right to be hopeful.” She kissed him, lightly at first, just enough to savor the taste of him, then gradually increased the pressure when the mere taste no longer could satisfy. He returned her kiss with a fullness of passion that made her breathless and weightless and insensible.

  She found herself lying under him on the bed with no clear recollection of ever having left the chair. Certainly her feet had not touched the ground. Her robe was open, and he was pressing kisses along the line of her collarbone. She could feel the damp edge of his tongue make a tracing across her skin. He moved lower, then lower still, and suckled her breast, worrying the darkening rose nipple between his lips and teeth. It puckered to the hardness of a pearl, and he attended to it as if he held the jewel itself.

  When he rose, her hands slipped under his frock coat and she helped him shrug out of it. His loosened stock unfolded easily. She held one tail in each hand and used them like reins to draw his head down to hers. She kissed the corner of his mouth, his jaw, and then just below his ear before tossing the stock to one side. He caught it midair, and before she understood the meaning of his wicked smile, he had it wrapped loosely about her wrists and was drawing them over her head.

  “What is that in aid of?” She did not recognize her own husky whisper.

  “Trust,” he said. He fixed the linen tails to the bedhead, then rolled away to remove his clothes.

  Cybelline twisted a bit, trying to free herself, but the stock actually tightened. She stopped immediately and stared at his naked back. She heard one boot drop to the floor, watched him shift slightly, then heard the other. “I shall scream.”

  “Eventually.”

  She blinked. Her next breath came more raggedly. She continued to stare at him as he stood and stripped out of his remaining garments. When he turned to face her she simply couldn’t breathe at all.

  “I think I’ll choose to be flattered,” he said. He sat down again at the level of her waist, then bent to kiss her. “You know we fit. We always have.”

  Still uncertain, she nodded slowly while searching his face.

  “Part your lips.”

  Surprise did it for her.

  His mouth covered hers. He wet her lips with his tongue, then plunged deeper, past the r
idge of her teeth to draw on hers. It was a long, leisurely kiss, deeply satisfying, and he lifted his head only when he heard the whimper at the back of her throat. “You see? Our mouths fit.”

  Cybelline closed her eyes.

  “Oh, no,” he said. “Watch me.”

  She felt his fingertips on the soft inner side of her elbow and instinctively tried to turned her head toward his touch.

  Ferrin shook his head. “No, look at me.” He lifted his hand until her eyes were on him, then began again, grazing her elbow and the underside of her extended arm. He scored her skin with his nail just under her shoulder and traced the bottom curve of her breast. His thumb flicked her nipple and then he cupped her breast in his palm. “We fit here.”

  Cybelline arched slightly, pushing herself into his palm. She frowned, unsettled, when he pulled back and bid her watch him again. She tried to relax, to think of anything but what he was doing to her, but that was not possible. His eyes never strayed from hers, while his fingers made an exquisitely torturous route from her breast to her hip. She clearly saw his desire and his denial. She imagined herself mirrored in the black center of his eyes. His expression was unyielding, yet she yielded to him. The taut planes of his face gave him the sharp, severe look of an ascetic, yet his touch could not have been more tender.

  She tried to close her eyes when he grazed her thigh. He only had to lift his hand to make her attend him again. She felt him follow the curve of her leg as far as her knee, then pause.

  “Lift it.”

  Cybelline drew up her knee. The movement made her feel the dampness between her thighs. He meant to touch her there. She watched his nostrils flare and knew he’d had the scent of her sex. The whole of her stilled in anticipation of his touch. He smiled instead.

  Frustrated, she tugged at her bonds. She was not looking at him the moment his hand slipped between her legs. Her entire body went rigid with the intense pleasure of the pressure he applied. Her heels dug into the mattress, and her hips lifted. He moved his fingers between the folds of damp flesh and stroked her. She was reaching the crest so quickly that she couldn’t catch her breath.

  He removed his hand.