Page 58 of The Truth About Lord Stoneville
“I can make you forget your promise,” he growled, bringing one hand up to cover her breast, kneading itwith a delicate touch that sent pleasure coursing through her veins.
When his other hand slid down to caress her between the legs through her gown, a strangled sigh of need escaped her. He kissed her ear, his breath heavy against it as his teeth tugged at the lobe. The cornucopia of sensations aroused her so deeply that she found herself arching against him like a wanton cat, rubbing her bottom against the hard bulge in his trousers.
With a growl, he turned her in his arms and took her mouth again while he filled his hands with her breasts, thumbing the nipples through her gown, making her insane. She grabbed at his shoulders, reveling in the power of their taut muscles as she pressed herself into his questing hands.
Why was it that he alone could turn her into this creature of fiery desires? That he alone could tempt her to forget every principle of decency?
A knock sounded at the door. They froze.
“What is it?” he snapped, holding tight to her when she would have left his embrace.
“Is Miss Butterfield with you, Oliver?” It was Celia’s light voice.
“Yes,” Maria called out, seizing her chance to escape him. And her own weakness.
Though he cursed under his breath, he let her leave his arms.
Celia burst in, her inquisitive gaze swinging from Maria to Oliver and back. “Minerva says she’s found the perfectshoes to go with your gown for the ball. Do you want to come try them on?”
“I’d be delighted, thank you.” It was all Maria could do to quell her frantic breathing; there was no way to quell the thundering pace of her heart.
Walking toward the door, she felt Oliver’s heated gaze boring into her back. Just as she reached Celia, he said, “I do hope we can finish our discussion later, Maria.”
She whirled to see him holding up Minerva’s book, his face wearing as brooding a mask as that worn by any Gothic hero—or villain—she’d ever imagined. But his voice was soft as velvet, the voice of temptation . . . the voice of sin. “We haven’t come to an agreement about the reason for Rockton’s villainy.”
She met the hot intensity of his eyes with a look of sheer desperation. “I doubt we’ll ever agree on that, my lord. Our philosophies don’t match. So I see little point in discussing it further.”
As she left the room arm in arm with his sister, she prayed that he would take no for an answer. Because the more he tried to tempt her, the more her resolve weakened, and she feared that one day all her discipline and morality and lofty talk about promises would fly right out the window.
Then she would be the one who was doomed. And that must never happen.
Chapter Fifteen
Oliver hurled his book across the room. His brothers and sisters were determined to keep her from him. It was not to be borne!
He’d spent the past week in an agony he was unaccustomed to enduring. He’d expected his family to charm her; instead she had charmedthemwith her frank and unusual opinions, and her habit of saying exactly what she meant. He was ignored and relegated to keeping Freddy from harm, while his sisters fawned over her, and his brothers—
A murderous scowl knit his brow. If he saw Jarret flirt with her or Gabe make her laugh even one more time, he was liable to throttle them both. Jarret had probably told Gabe about her fortune, and now the two were competing for her favors, figuring that if one of them secured her for himself, he could solve some of the family’s problems. And since Oliver had made it clear thathewould not marry her . . .
He balled his hands into fists. His brothers couldn’t have her. Hyatt couldn’t have her. He wouldn’t allow it!
And in a flash, he knew why. Because he was jealous. God preserve him, he was jealous of his brothers.
He’d seen his friends suffer jealousy, watched his mother languish away because of it. He’d always thought them mad for letting it affect them so. No woman had ever roused the spurious emotion inhim;he’d assumed he was immune.
To discover that he wasn’t, that Maria held such astounding power over his feelings, terrified him to the bone. He couldn’t deny it, for it ate at his gut worse than cheap liquor. He would have to find a way to deal with it. And keep his brothers away from her.
How will you do that? They at least offer her a respectable connection. You offer her only disgrace.
Therein lay his problem. If he offered her more, he would be sentencing her to the same hell his mother had suffered. But if he offered her less and she accepted, then he was sentencing her to an even worse fate.
The only way to win was to let her go unscathed. But that meant he had to stand by and watch her either marry someone else, or inherit her fortune and return to America. He didn’t want either one.
He scrubbed his hands over his face, tired beyond words. This mad obsession consumed his energies at a time when he had more important concerns. Like the ever-present worries about money. In town, he’d been able to turn a blind eye and let himself sink into debt without thinking of the consequences.
But here he was constantly reminded that he wasn’t sinking alone. His family sank with him, as did the servants and his tenants. It was this damned house—it dragged him down into remembering the life he’d deliberately left behind.
He’d spent his boyhood being schooled by his father in how to run the estate, how to govern his tenants, how to make sure that their money was well invested . . . how tocare. He’d promised himself that the sacrifice of Mother’s happiness so Father could keep Halstead Hall afloat wouldn’t be in vain. But then had come that fateful afternoon.
