Page 29 of Taming of the Rake
He smiled, the impact of it devastating. “It’s too bad you’ll never know if it’s actually arrogance, or irrefutable truth. Good evening, Regina. Send word when you are ready for me to return.”
Without a look back, he jerked the door open and left without bothering to shut it behind him. Powell appeared a few seconds later, his face expressionless. Still, Regina could see in his eyes that he’d heard every word.
Mortified, she ran a hand over her face. Had he also heard her keening like a deranged lunatic when the pleasure had overtaken her? The thought had her cheeks burning hot with embarrassment.
“Want me to break his arms?” Powell offered.
A little laugh bubbled up from her throat, though she was certain the man was only half-joking. Nevertheless, his quip had broken through some of the tension clogging the room.
“No, let him go. He didn’t do anything wrong.”
Saying it aloud only made her feel worse, because in truth David had been trying to give her something. Dare she even say his efforts were those of kindness?
What a foreign concept. No man had ever given her anything out of the goodness of his heart, save Powell. Randolph had certainly never gone out of his way to ensure she enjoyed herself in the marriage bed. Her mother had insisted that Regina was wrong to require attentiveness and care from her husband. Her job was to produce children and please her husband. Marital relations were a duty to be taken seriously and endured, full stop. Her father and brother had chided her for complaining to them about the man who owned her per the law.
Before marriage to Randolph, life had been simpler and Regina had understood her place in the world as a young woman, a daughter, a sister. Her mother had doted on her, and while her father hadn’t been particularly attentive, neither had he been cruel. He praised her for her ladylike comportment—the results of years of governesses and an expensive seminary school education.
That all changed in the months leading up to her eighteenth birthday, when she began hearing arguments between her parents over money. Her mother often came to breakfast with red-rimmed eyes, avoiding Regina’s gaze. Not long after her birthday had passed, Regina was been introduced to Randolph. She’d been so enchanted by his handsome face and charm that she hadn’t realized what her parents had done until it was too late.
Her hand in marriage in exchange for the money to set their own affairs right—that was the price her parents had been willing to pay. Regina’s father had been determined she fulfill her part of a bargain she hadn’t even realized she’d taken part in. Her mother had shown sympathy, but followed her husband’s lead, becoming cold and distant. To this day, she wondered if that was her mother’s way of coping with what she had done. If she pretended her only daughter didn’t exist, she would not have to face the fact that she and her husband had made a deal with the devil and given up one of their children to do it.
A pounding began between her eyes, and Regina was suddenly very tired. She felt as if something inside her were being pulled in several different directions at once. Nothing made sense, and she couldn’t begin to figure out how to work through her convoluted thoughts.
“I am going to bed now, and I suggest you do the same,” she said, turning away from Powell. “Tomorrow will be soon enough for me to smooth things over with Mr. Graham.”
She paused in the midst of straightening the bedclothes, looking up to see that Powell hadn’t moved. He was watching her intently, eyes narrowed as if he were trying to see past her words and her feigned composure.
“You … want him back?”
She frowned. “Of course. He’s already been coming for weeks, understands my rules, and doesn’t strike me as being weak enough to quit me just because we had a little spat. There is no need to go looking for someone else. It will only prolong my mission.”
Nodding slowly, he never took those dark, penetrating eyes off her. “I see.”
Regina cleared her throat, staring from him and back to the bed, turned down and ready for her occupation. When she raised questioning eyebrows, Powell nodded and reached for the door.
“Right then. Good night, ma’am.”
“Good night, Powell.”
She climbed into bed once he had left and burrowed beneath the bedclothes. A desperate groan escaped her as she inhaled the now-familiar scent of David infused in her bedsheets. The phantom twinges of her recent orgasm made themselves apparent with a lingering ache between her legs. As she sank into the dark comfort of her solitude, Regina recalled the urgency of the moment before her world had exploded like a shower of stars, and shivered.
David hadn’t seen anything wrong with what he’d done, and perhaps Regina might not have either—before Randolph’s cruelty had made it necessary for her to protect herself. She’d done that for years by mastering her emotions and managing things that were within her power to control. That included being in command of her own body, and maintaining her sense of safety. David’s wandering hands and skillful plying of her body had shattered that so easily it frightened her.
For, if he could break through her façade so easily, what else might he be capable of? How badly might she be hurt if she gave in to the overwhelmingly powerful sense of vulnerability that had swept through her in the moments following … what had David called it? An orgasm. Such a simple word and a seemingly meaningless thing. And yet, even now that he was long gone, Regina felt turned inside out and exposed. Weak. She had vowed never to let anyone else make her feel that way again.
But then, just before she drifted off to sleep, Regina was forced to admit—even if only to herself—that something deep within her craved more. That part of her pulsed and yearned for pleasure and satisfaction.
For David.
Chapter 7
“Your bath is ready, ma’am.”
Regina turned away from the window, where she stood staring listlessly out at the horizon. Her lady’s maid hovered near the steaming tub, which had just been filled for her. She’d been so lost in her disconcerting thoughts, she hadn’t even noticed the footmen trailing in and out with buckets.
“Thank you, Mary,” she replied, moving away from the window. “You may go.”
With a slight dip of her head, the maid retreated, leaving Regina alone with the specter of David Graham. Despite knowing she would eventually have to mend the rift caused by her reaction to last night’s events, she had spent most of her day trying to avoid the inevitable. That proved more difficult as the hours passed, making it impossible to think—let alone read, or reply to her correspondence, or lose herself in the mindless task of needlepoint. Every time her mind began to wander, it settled on David and the bewildering encounter that had left her feeling wrung dry.
