this, for weeks now. There was no point in pretending any more that the pleasure she took in his company was for Linah’s sake. No point in pretending that the urgent ache consuming her, the thing that held her fast to him, made her lips long to cling to his, was anything other than base desire. He wanted her. Her wilful heart wanted him. ‘Yes,’ she whispered, not really knowing what she was agreeing to, save only that she was agreeing. ‘Yes.’
Jamil hesitated. Lovely, delicious, irresistible as she was, honour and duty dictated resisting. But for once, for just this moment, Jamil had had a surfeit of honour and duty. He wanted the pleasure she could give him and he wanted the oblivion such pleasure would grant him. To be, just for a while, merely a man, not to have to think, lost in the sweet delight of a woman. This woman. He tilted her chin up with his finger. Angled his mouth towards hers. And kissed her.
He kissed her softly, lingering on the soft pillow of her luscious lips, tasting her. She was so sweet. So heady. Like peaches and English strawberries, laced with fire. His kiss deepened. His manhood hardened. Pliant in his embrace, she was soft, lush and ripe for the taking. He kissed her harder.
Cassie moaned softly under the onslaught. Kisses such as she could never have imagined, dark delights such as she could never have dreamed, consumed her. Her body was on fire. His kiss demanded things from her she didn’t know how to give, though she wanted to. She wanted to so much. His lips moulded hers into a response she hadn’t known she could make. She opened her mouth and his tongue slid in, touching hers, sparking like a shooting star, sending echoing shivers out to the extremities of her body. Her fingers curled into his robe, her toes into the cushions on which she stood. Now she knelt as he eased her down, now she lay as he eased her further, still kissing, kissing, kissing, dark and hot and velvety.
Little kisses on her eyes now, then her throat and her neck. Her hands fluttered over the breadth of his shoulders, feeling the heat of his skin through his tunic. Daringly, she pushed his head dress back, touching his hair, then his cheeks, with their faint traces of stubble.
His lips fastened on hers again and Cassie closed her eyes. His hands traced the line of her waist through the silk of her gown, making her shiver with expectation. She could feel his legs pressing against hers now. She could feel something building inside her, a knot of something that wanted to unravel. His tongue touched hers again, and she bucked under him. He pressed her back against the cushions, stroking her, her waist, the side of her breast, making her jump again, making her nipples ache in the confines of her chemise, her stays, her dress. Her clothes felt too tight, she felt too hot. His tongue touched hers again. Should she like it so much?
She didn’t care, she did like it. His hand moulded her breast now, and she liked that, too, though her nipples strained, hard, tingling, exciting. Should she feel that? Like that? And that?
She didn’t know. All she desired was that he do it again. Fingers brushing her breasts, lingering on the place where her nipples pressed into the fabric. More sparks. More yet as he stroked down, over her belly, her thighs, cupping the roundness of her, as if to show her how different she was, for at the same time her own fingers were boldly exploring his back, his arms, the dip of his stomach, wondering at the sheer delight of male heat and male muscle and male otherness. He was so different. So very, delightfully, different. She felt as if she was melting.
Jamil kissed the mounds of her breasts, but the lace of her dress got in the way. The fastenings were at the back. Complicated fastenings. Too complicated for now. Need, raw need was taking a hold on him. He kissed her with a new urgency. He was hard, more than ready. Still kissing, he found the hem of her dress and pushed it roughly out of the way. Toe. Ankle. Calf. Knee. The skin so soft, the shape so curvaceous. She was panting under him, her hands clutching at his robe, seeking skin. Above her knee was some sort of undergarment. He hadn’t expected that. Her thigh beneath the cotton was smooth and creamy. His hand roamed higher, to the apex, and found to his surprise the undergarment was split. Curls. Damp and warm and inviting.
Through the delicious haze of her growing excitement, the words leapt unbidden into Cassie’s head, delivered in that familiar clipped, censorious tone. Remember, child, once a female has abandoned her corsets, there is no saying what else she will abandon. Aunt Sophia’s parting words to her. The effect was instantaneous; the fire of Cassie’s passion was extinguished as effectively as if she had been doused in cold water. ‘No! Stop!’
Jamil froze.
Cassie began to wriggle free of his intimate embrace.
He released her immediately. She pulled her dress down over her legs and sat up, her breath coming fast and shallow. ‘I’m sorry—I …’
Jamil got to his feet, tugging his tunic back into place. Sitting before him on the cushions, her hair falling down in long golden tresses over her breast, Cassie looked a picture of abandon. He had never wanted anyone so much in his life, never felt such frustration.
‘Jamil, I didn’t mean to—I’m sorry.’
But he was in no mood to listen. He was in no mood, either, to question his own motives. ‘There is no need to apologise,’ he said, gathering up his cloak, his head dress, his emerald pin. ‘You have my gratitude, you have spared us an experience we would both ultimately regret,’ he said tersely, as he strode off.
The doors closed behind him with a snap. Cassie made no attempt to stand up. Her knees wouldn’t hold her. She was appalled. Not at Jamil, but at herself. The liberties she had granted him. The liberties she still wanted to grant him. The wanton way he made her feel, as if to abandon all restraint was her heart’s desire. She was mortified. She sank slowly back down on to the floor and covered her head with her hands.
‘Ah, Henry, my dear fellow, how the devil are you?’ Lord Torquil Fitzgerald strode over to where his old friend was seated alone in the library of Boodle’s, enjoying an after-dinner snifter of brandy. ‘Haven’t seen you for an age.’
‘I’ve been in Lisbon for the last three weeks, at Castlereagh’s behest. He has some notion of possible unrest in Portugal.’
‘More radicals!’ Lord Torquil exclaimed, his eyebrows shooting up alarmingly, making him look like a startled rabbit, and betraying the accuracy of his old Harrovian nickname.
Lord Armstrong had know Bunny Fitzgerald since their schooldays. He shrugged. ‘Liverpool is reading conspiracy into everything, since Cato Street. I don’t think it will come to anything. Managed to pick up a barrel or two of port while I was out there though, so it wasn’t exactly a wasted journey.’
‘Heard congratulations are in order, by the way. A son after all this time. You must be mightily relieved.’
‘James. A fine boy.’ Lord Henry smiled proudly.
‘A toast to the whippersnapper, then,’ Lord Torquil said, helping himself to another snifter. ‘Be nice to have another man around the house, I’ll wager. Quite overrun with all those daughters of yours till now. Which reminds me,’ he said, thumping his forehead with his glass, ‘bumped into Archie Hughes the other day, he was telling me that the fair Cassandra is rusticating.’
Lord Henry’s genial expression faded. ‘Cassandra is visiting her sister in Arabia. I would hardly call it rusticating.’
‘A bad business, that entanglement with the poet. You must have been sick as a dog. Little beauty like that, she’d have gone off well.’
‘Cassandra will still go off well enough,’ Lord Henry said determinedly. ‘When she returns, she will be betrothed to Francis Colchester. It is not quite the brilliant match I had intended, but it will do well enough.’
‘Colchester? That the boy who was one of Wellington’s protégés? A younger son, I think, but a sound choice. He’s predicted to go far. Provided, of course, you can tear her away from that sheikh of hers,’ Lord Torquil said with a throaty chuckle.
‘Your brain’s befuddled as usual, Bunny. Prince Ramiz of A’Qadiz is married to my eldest daughter, Celia. Had you forgotten?’
‘’Course not. Rich as Croesus,