Never Seduce A Scoundrel Read online

  “I’m sorry,” she moaned, realizing that the sentiment could apply to so many areas of her life. But what she was most sorry for at that moment was that Oliver Bellecote was taking so very long to have her.

  “It’s too late for that now,” Oliver growled. “I mean to have my revenge on you. Would you deny me?”

  Cecily’s pulse thudded wetly in her ears as the most intimate parts of her body throbbed. The night swirled around her head, muddling her thoughts. All she could feel was his heat, his arm around her, the wanton display of her flesh to the blackness of the inside of the ruin.

  “Cecily,” he demanded sharply, bringing her back from the brink of her ecstatic self-absorption. He nudged further into her and Cecily hissed. “I’m going to punish you. Are you ready?”

  And then it was as if the night went multicolored around her, blinding her, deafening her to the meek words of restraint spoken by the girl she had been for so many years, and once more she became the woman of the old stone ring.

  She pushed back against him and leaned up to whisper opposite his mouth, “Do your worst.”

  He took her mouth then, pushing her head back to the ground so swiftly that her skull knocked against the stones, and he kissed her deeply. His tongue swirled in her mouth, his lips pulling at hers. She could feel the scratching of his slight beard, smell the masculine scent of his sweat and faint cologne, taste his desire for her body in his own mouth. She was the one who felt drunk now.

  He broke away, leaving both of them gasping. “You mock me?” he challenged down into her face.

  “I simply don’t feel very punished as of yet,” she panted. “You talk and talk and—”

  Oliver Bellecote growled and then took Cecily’s virginity with a single, hard thrust, and she in fact did scream. It did not slow him though.

  Cecily cried out with each thrust—the pain was very real. But there was something beneath it, a hunger for him that was not yet sated, and she welcomed each intrusion. “Oliver!”

  “Feeling it now?” he asked in a low, hard voice, never slowing his pace.

  “Yes!” she cried.

  “Good. I want you to remember this the next time you think to speak to me so coldly, Cecily Foxe.” He turned his head away for a moment and groaned in his throat. He drove into her deeply and paused. Again, and then paused. He was breathing through his nose now, as if attempting to restrain himself.

  The sharpest pain was gone from Cecily now, replaced by an uncomfortable but compelling throbbing of her flesh, an opening of her body to him. She arched up into him, whimpering at his lack of attention.

  “Oliver,” she said again, hearing the keening want in her voice.

  “What is it, Cecily?” he asked hoarsely, taking up maddeningly deep, slow strokes. “Tell me what it is you desire.”

  “More,” she whined.

  “More?” he taunted, and she could feel the shuddering of his thighs against hers, the shaking of his left forearm as it pressed against her shoulder.

  She turned her forehead into his arm and nodded.

  “Ah-ah,” he chastised darkly. “You must say it again. This is your punishment and you will accept it as I command.”

  “More,” she moaned, arching her neck and her back.

  He drove into her swiftly twice and then slowed once more. “Is that what you want?” he teased.

  “Yes!”

  “Tell me,” he pressed.

  “More,” she repeated. “Faster.”

  He increased his pace, but did not enter her fully. “Like that?” he taunted.

  “Nooo,” she moaned.

  He leaned down near her ear, licked it. “Tell me,” he ordered darkly.

  “Hard,” she panted.

  Oliver obliged her with her next breath, driving into her until Cecily cried out.

  “Is that it?” he demanded. “Is that what you wanted?”

  “Yes!” she cried out. “Yes!”

  “I’ve watched you for years,” he said at her ear. “Wondered what lay beneath those drab gowns, fantasized about having the pure, sweet Cecily beneath me.”

  With his every scandalous word, Cecily could feel herself drawing nearer release, as if his voice was pushing her toward the edge.

  “Don’t stop,” she pleaded.

  “Oh, I won’t,” he said in a pained voice, and drove into her even harder. “You dirty little liar.” He claimed her mouth again, pushing his tongue inside.

  Her climax came over her like falling from the top of Fallstowe’s tallest tower. Her entire body tensed, seized, her breathing stopped. Oliver pulled his mouth away from hers suddenly, and Cecily gave voice to her deep, forbidden pleasure, her cry echoing off the stone ruin in waves.

  “Oh, Cecily,” Oliver panted. “Perfect, so—” And then his hoarse yell chased the fading chorus of her cry as he drove into her a final time, so deeply that Cecily screamed.

  Oliver gripped her throat with his weak right hand and moaned over and over as he pulsed inside her. Cecily realized she was weeping with the power of what they had just done.

  After a moment, Oliver leaned down and kissed her mouth, deeply again, but so slowly, gently. Then he pulled out of her and rolled to his back at her side. Cecily’s chest was hitching, and she raised one hand to swipe at her cheeks with the back of her wrist.

  She felt positively reborn.

  “Jesus,” Oliver gasped.

  Cecily turned her head to try to see him in the humid pitch black, scented with their recent passions. His profile was a darker shadow against shadow.

  “My fucking arm hurts,” he wheezed. “Ribs, too.”

  “It shall be tended properly when we return to Fallstowe in the morn,” Cecily said timidly. She was unsure how to take him now. “Perhaps your horse will still be about after all, and we won’t be forced to walk.” She pushed her skirts down awkwardly and then rolled over on her side to face him. “Can you feel your hand at all?”

  Silence pressed between them.

  “Oliver?” she queried softly, leaning toward him.

  He snored loudly.

  Chapter 4

  Great pain woke Oliver.

  He gasped, and the sudden, deep motion of his lungs brought another hellacious wash of torture upon him, so that his breath was stolen away. He lay still, his jaw clenched, his eyes squeezed shut, his mouth pulled into a wide grimace. He tried to bring his left hand across his chest to reach the wellspring of the most intense pain, but the motion of his bicep pressing so slightly into his chest bit into his breath again, and even though his left hand was still more than six inches away from his right arm, the pain increased, as if warning him not to touch it.

  “Gah!” he shouted, and opened his eyes as his left arm fell back to his side, against a hard, rough, cold surface.

  A roof was above his head, or at least, it had at one time been a roof. Now a semicircle of low, gray clouds mated with a corresponding arc of sky-shot black. The stone walls supporting the decaying shelter were also curved, gaping holes letting in the day where many of the squares had tumbled away as if at the insistence of prying years.

  Where was he?

  God, his head hurt. He tried to recall the events of the previous night—the feast of Candlemas at Fallstowe Castle. He remembered drinking—heavily—and then trying to no avail to get Joan Barleg alone. But the damnable woman had run off, thinking to engage him in another one of their old games, and Oliver had given chase on a horse stolen from the Foxe stables. He’d tracked her for hours, it had seemed, and then—

  Then what? He couldn’t remember.

  Oliver gingerly turned his head to the right to look at his arm—the slim-fitting sleeve over his bicep looked as though it was ready to burst. He tried to clench his hand into a fist and felt a queer mix of nothing and stinging tingling. He was certain that at least a pair of his ribs were broken on his right side—Jesus! Even his knees felt butchered.

  He heard muffled footsteps approaching.

  “Hello!” he
called out, and his head threatened to split open from the bridge of his nose up and over to the very base of his skull. A black outline appeared over him a moment later, and he squinted as his eyes tried to adjust. A gorgeous, pale, solemn face coalesced within the darkened hood of a cloak.

  “Good morning, Lord Bellecote,” she said. “How is your arm feeling?”

  “Lady Cecily?” Oliver frowned. And then in an instant he remembered flying through the air, landing against something very stationary.

  She returned his frown, only hers was tinged with a wariness that Oliver could not explain. “Yes?”

  As her brown eyes skittered over his face, Oliver’s mind was muddling together pieces of nonsense, Lady Cecily naked—an old fantasy, but this time, there was detail, nearly the caliber of an actual remembered event. Snippets of a female voice, throatily speaking to him in a manner more befitting a harlot.

  Her cheeks began to pinken as he remained silent, and Oliver blinked and glanced away. “I apologize.” He knew he had likely embarrassed her, staring at her so boldly. He looked back into her face. “Where are we, and how did I get here?”

  Her fine brow crinkled for only an instant, and Oliver wondered if he had imagined her fleeting look of surprise. “We’re at the old Foxe ruin,” she said evenly. “You ... you were thrown from your horse into one of the stones in the Foxe Ring.”

  That explained his memory of flying through the air. Perfect! August had only been put in the ground a month ago from the very same accident. Oliver noticed that he was trembling.

  “I think my arm is broken,” he said to the lady as she sank to her knees at his side and pushed back the hood of her cloak. She folded her hands primly in her lap over her drab skirts, and Oliver’s eyes followed her face as she glanced down the length of his body and then back to his face. “My ribs, as well.”

  She nodded. “Yes, I do believe it is. I would have cut your sleeve to examine it, but I have no blade, and I was afraid of exposing your skin to further chill lest we remain here for any length of time. I’m afraid you left your cloak in the ring, and it has been rendered useless by the rain.”

  “Have you been caring for me since last night?” he asked incredulously.

  After only a breath of hesitation, she nodded a single time.

  God, the woman was truly a saint! Alone the whole of the night in what had to be for a woman a frightening location. And he had been so drunk that he could not remember one whit of what had transpired after his accident. He prayed silently that he had not been his usual, crass self.

  “I owe you a great debt,” he said solemnly, and he meant it. He realized then that, alone after an accident like that and so very inebriated, he might have died. “Surely you did not drag me here?” She was so slight, so fragile looking, she could not possess such strength.

  “I ... I washed you up a bit,” she confessed, her face going a wild shade of scarlet. “You came into the ruin on your own though.” Cecily gave him a little smile and a nervous huff of a laugh, but her eyes remained wary. “You nearly fell into the pit. You don’t remember it at all?”

  “No. No, I—” He broke off, looked away as again a sordid fantasy of the chaste woman bloomed in his mind, begging him to take her, over and over. He forced himself to look back at her. “Did I hit my head as well?”

  “Yes,” she said. “But you also seemed quite ... ah, well.”

  “Drunk?” he offered with a grin that increased the ache in his head. She nodded and her eyes darted away toward his knees. This conversation must be torturous for her. “Yes, I believe I was. Again, my most sincere apologies.” He paused, and then although he knew it might cause her some discomfort, he had to ask, “Lady Cecily, did I ... I didn’t say anything untoward last night, did I?”

  She looked back at him, and her face took on an expression Oliver could not decipher. “Not at all, Lord Bellecote.”

  “Are you certain?” he pressed. “Don’t feel as though you need to spare my feelings. I am fully aware how boorish I can be when into my cups and I would never wish to offen—”

  “No,” she cut him off abruptly, and then softened her tone somewhat. “I was not offended by you in the least.” She cocked her head and her gaze was curious, as if there was a question she wished to ask him but didn’t dare.

  Oliver was struck once more by how very lovely Cecily Foxe was. So much softer, warmer, more human than her older sister. He had the sudden notion that she would smell sweet, like honey on warm bread, were he to lean close enough to her to place his nose just beneath her ear.

  “It’s just—nothing. I simply must have endured some strange and punishing dreams while I slept.”

  “Well, you certainly slept deeply. Your back had no sooner met with the ground then you were snoring.”

  He would have laughed had his head not warned him better of it. “I hope I didn’t keep you from your rest.”

  She shrugged. “I wanted to stay awake to ... to keep watch over you, and in case anyone happened to search for us in the night. I didn’t wish for us to be overlooked.”

  Oliver knew he did not deserve such compassion and kindness after he had made such a terrible ass out of himself. Fallstowe would be losing its finest resident when Cecily Foxe devoted herself to the religious life. For some reason, the thought of that now brought an odd pang to Oliver’s gut.

  “Would you like something to drink?” she asked. “The old keep well in the back of the ruin is still sweet.”

  His mouth felt as though it had been scrubbed with a burnt piece of firewood. She gave him a thin smile as she rose to her feet.

  “I’ll be back directly,” said Lady Cecily.

  She turned and began walking away from him and Oliver noticed the back of her cloak—the material seemed to have been nearly shredded. It also came to his attention that Lady Cecily seemed to be moving quite gingerly.

  Had she been injured in his accident?

  “My lady!” he called out.

  Cecily stopped and half turned. “What is it, Lord Bellecote?”

  “Your cloak—were you also injured in my accident last night?”

  The cold air inside the ruin seemed to go thick and humid. A breeze rushed through, blowing Cecily’s hair from over her shoulder to flutter behind her back, and she chuckled. Oliver’s breath caught in his chest at the sight of her.

  “This old rag? It’s a disgrace, I know. My mother made it for me many years ago, and the material is simply giving up its life. Its poor condition and my stiffness are simply the only witnesses of my back against stones last night. Nothing more.”

  Oliver smiled his relief and Cecily turned to disappear from his line of sight. He stared up at the half ceiling, waiting for her to return, while in his mind the last word she’d spoken to him needled him incessantly.

  More. More ...

  Cecily wanted to weep, but she was unsure whether it was from relief or frustration as she struggled to extract the small, folded leather cup in the pouch on her chained belt. Certainly, she had been quite anxious about meeting Oliver Bellecote in the light of day after the night of reckless sin they had shared. Would he think her a harlot? A shameful, sinful woman no better than any tavern wench? Would he tell his friends of his conquest of the meek and chaste Cecily, forever exposing her to painful gossip and damaging her reputation? Those had been some of her worries.

  And in the darkest hours of the night, she had also foolishly dreamed. Dreamed that he would awaken and be completely enamored with her for her secret boldness. He would swear to love no other above her. He would rush to Sybilla, broken arm and all, and beg for Cecily’s hand in marriage. She would become the lady of Bellemont, her husband the most sought-after bachelor in all the land. Their sudden love affair would set all of England on its ear.

  But he didn’t even remember.

  She bit her lip as she filled the cone-shaped leather. He remembered nothing beyond being thrown from his horse. Oliver Bellecote had taken her virginity, and the only one w
ho knew it was Cecily.

  She drank the water that was in the cup and then refilled it slowly, buying time before she must return and face him once more. Would her reputation still take a lashing? It was completely unseemly for an unmarried woman to spend the night alone with an unmarried man—even one who was so desperately injured.

  Especially if that man was Oliver Bellecote. Obviously his reputation was spot on—a broken arm had been little hindrance to him in his conquest of her. Verily, Cecily had all but thrown herself beneath him. She hoped that she would not have to endure the sideways glances cast upon a woman tainted with whispered scandal, but in that same instant, she wondered how it would feel to be thought of for once as reckless, dangerous.

  What of poor Joan Barleg, though? How would she withstand the rumors of her betrothed spending the long, dark night alone with an unmarried woman? Speculation would be thick, and ugly, surely.

  Shame filled Cecily then. She was an adulteress. A liar. A woman of no moral fortitude whatsoever. Thank God the only mortal who would ever know it was she. Cecily composed her face and then turned to walk back around the pit to Oliver.

  He had propped himself up against the stone wall, and Cecily’s heart clenched at how haggard he looked. His dark stubble was more beard than shadow now against his gray skin, and deep purple crescents cupped the undersides of his eyes. He held his right forearm over his stomach, his right knee drawn up and his left one crooked and falling open—his pants over them ruined. Cecily saw a straggling lace trailing along the stones at his hip and it made her stride falter.

  She had mistied his breeches in the dark.

  Cecily recovered and held out the cup to him before she had even come to his side.

  “Here you are,” she said lightly, sinking to her knees and placing the cup in his left hand. “No gulping—’twill only aggravate your ribs.”

  He sipped obediently, pausing often to take shallow breaths, and Cecily realized how much pain he must be enduring. When the cup was empty, she took it, and he looked up at her, his face solemn.