Bitten by Desire

Marguerite Kaye

On a moonlit night, Imogen, Dowager Duchess of Strathfyne, wishes for something to end her loneliness. She has no idea that her wish would summon Vaelen, a striking, otherworldly stranger whose sensual touch brings her more pleasure than she has ever known. In the morning, Imogen is sure the erotic encounter was simply a dream—until she starts seeing Vaelen everywhere she goes….

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Epilogue

Chapter 1

London, Spring 1816

“Oh, Allegra, why must you always have your own way,” Imogen exclaimed. The sleek blue-grey cat cocked her head to one side and gazed impassively at her mistress. Mirroring Imogen’s own mood, she had been restless all evening, padding about the bedchamber, scratching at the door, wrestling her way under the heavy drapes to mew at the window, before finally jumping onto the four-poster bed and swiping her soft velvet paw at Imogen’s hair on the pillow.

“Come on then.” Wearily conceding defeat, Imogen pushed back the sheets and stumbled over to the window, pulling back the curtains to open the sash and allow the cat out. The pitch-dark night was illuminated by the pale glow of a full moon. Below, in Berkeley Square, the few lanterns still alight cast dim shadows onto the cobblestones. She could hear the faint clatter of a carriage in nearby Bruton Street, no doubt bringing some weary rake home from a late session at his club.

Wrapping her arms around her knees and tucking her feet under the flounce of her nightgown, Imogen settled on the window seat and watched as Allegra leapt fluidly from the little wrought iron balcony down onto the wall which formed the border with the extensive gardens of Lansdowne House next door, into which she disappeared. In the distance, the new gaslights on Piccadilly cast a faint glow. The moon hung low in the sky, fat and buttery. It was said to be at its most potent when full like this, Imogen recalled, the most auspicious time for making wishes.

Long hours of reading to Alfred in an effort to take his mind off his suffering had cluttered her brain with such pieces of useless information. A bit like the attics here in Strathfyne house, stuffed full of broken chairs and mouldy hangings and dusty portraits of ancestors no one could recall. Imogen’s own portrait would no doubt end up there too some day. She and Alfred had been married less than four years. There would be no cause to remember a duchess of such short duration, one moreover who had been unable to produce an heir before her husband tragically succumbed to the consumption which had been the reason for their very unequal match having been made in the first place.

The melancholy which Imogen had been striving to keep at bay all day settled on her like a lowering November sky. Poor Alfred, his suffering had led him to embrace death when it finally came. She’d loved and pitied her gentle husband in equal measure, though more in the manner of a sister than a wife. It was almost exactly six months since he had died. Time to put off her blacks and emerge from the cocoon of mourning.

Imogen twined a long strand of her hair round her finger. While Alfred’s death had been a welcome release for him, it had becalmed her. Try as she might to look to the future, she seemed quite unable to shake off this sense of walking on sand, of being enveloped in treacle. It was as if the energy she had put into looking after Alfred had been buried with him. What she needed was something to jolt her out of this all-encompassing lethargy. Feeling slightly foolish, she screwed shut her eyes and wished. Yearning shuddered through her like a summer wind over a barley field, ruffling the tiny hairs on her skin. A violent shudder made her shoulders bunch. Someone walking over her grave. Or something waking from it.

Imogen opened her eyes. The moon’s glow was temporarily obscured by a black cloud creeping ominously across the sky. She shivered again. Apprehension, rather than cold, made her skin prickle, forcing the soft hairs on her arms to stand on end. A fleeting spark of fear flamed in her, like a taper lit in a draught and instantly extinguished, but it was enough to send her scampering back to bed, pulling the monogrammed sheets up tight to her chin.

In her haste to get back into bed she’d left the window open, the drapes pulled wide. As the black cloud slithered across the moon, ghostly fingers of light penetrated the gloom of her bedchamber, casting long jagged shadows across the floorboards, glancing off the mirror which hung over the mantel, creeping up the Chinese hand-painted paper on the opposite wall. Telling herself that there was nothing in the world to be scared of, she nevertheless huddled under the sheet, pulling it up over her face. She began to count, an old trick from childhood taught her by her mother. She reached eighty or so before she fell asleep, sinking into the most extraordinarily vivid dream.

She dreamt she heard the curtains ruffle. The brass hoops jangled on the pole, followed by a soft footfall on the uncarpeted boards. Then came a lithe, padding step muffled by the Turkish rugs. The cat, she thought.

Then her skin prickled. A premonition. Whatever it was, it wasn’t the cat. There was someone, or something, in the room. A dark, brooding presence which was watching her. She could feel its eyes upon her. She sat up, pushing her long fall of black hair back from her brow.

He was standing at the foot of the bed. A man. A very tall man, strikingly handsome, gazing at her intently. She opened her mouth to scream, but as ever in a nightmare, no sound came out. She tried again, fighting panic. She couldn’t move. The cool night air whispered over her skin, making it clammy.

Be careful what you wish for.

“I didn’t wish for this.” The words shaped but did not form. She made herself look straight at him, as if looking would force him back to where he had came from, somewhere in the depths of her imagination. As if looking would waken her, unfreeze her limbs, give her voice.

He had grey-green eyes, the colour of a stormy sea. Strange, but she could see them so clearly though there were no candles lit and the heavy damask drapes were drawn across the other two of the three tall windows. Coal-black hair, worn longer than was the custom now, fell sleekly back over his head, a stray strand flopping over his brow.

She was cold, an icy cold which seemed to emanate from the man at the end of her bed. He had a pale face, with prominent cheekbones. A memorable face. Handsome but too austere for beauty, too…too… She couldn’t find the right word.

Autocratic? Aristocratic? Intimidating?

All of those. Other-worldly. A Roman emperor or an Egyptian pharaoh. A man accustomed to command.

He looked so real.

Too real. All of her senses felt stretched taut. Acute. Attenuated. The paralysis of her body that his appearance had cast eased the tiniest fraction. Enough for her to lick her lips, which felt dry and parched. Enough for her to grip the sheet, her knuckles white with the effort. She cleared her throat. “Who are you?” To her relief the words emerged, sounding hoarse.

“Vaelen. I am Vaelen.”

His voice was husky, smoky, like the remnants of a wood fire. Imogen found she could move. She shuffled up against the pillows, putting a few vital inches between them. His brow raised just a fraction, the corner of his mouth twitching into the ghost of a smile. She didn’t ask herself how it was that she could see every detail of his face when the gilded ormolu clock on her nightstand was a block of grey. She thought it must be the moon, shining directly on him. Or maybe it was the luminescence of his skin.

“Vaelen.” She had never heard of such a name. “What are you doing here?” Her voice was breathless, tinged with strangeness and a presentment of something she did not know whether to run from, or towards.

“You summoned me.”

“I summoned you?” She was still frightened, but her fear was mingled with recklessness. She dreamt and knew she was dreaming. She’d wished on the moon and this—Vaelen—was the result. Is that what he meant? Longing washed seductively over her like warm honey. She wanted it to be true. That she had conjured him. Vaelen. The product of the moon’s magic and her own desires.

As if released by her understanding, he moved towards her. She could see the perfection of his skin now, pale as the moonlight, oddly smooth like marble; his eyes which gleamed not bright but darkly, like strength or power would, if it could manifest itself. It sapped her will, that look, drew it from her like a blotting sheet, leaving her pliant when she should have been resistant. Oddly, satisfyingly helpless. Mesmerised.

Vaelen surveyed the woman before him. Young, though not completely untouched, the unsatisfied yearning which had caused her to summon him shimmering around her, almost tangible. Her eyes were unusual, a curiously luminous blue, smoked with grey, alight with anticipation, darkened with trepidation. He could still smell the remnants of her fear, acrid wisps of it mingling with the muskier scent of her imminent arousal. A combination he was used to, but subtly different too—or his reaction was, for he was already hard. More hard than hungry, not a trace of his usual ennui. This woman was no ordinary feast. He would need to be careful.

Her mouth was luscious—a burst of petal pink, sweetly curved, a generous mouth, though he could sense that she had not been smiling much recently. She was beautiful, though more in the fashion of fifty years ago than now. Curves, dips and swells, no sharp angles or jutting bone. The hair tumbling down her back was black as moonlight on deep water. The bosom rising and falling above the neckline of her nightgown was full. There were dimples on her arms, which were soft and round. There would be dimples on her thighs, soft and round too. Vaelen, who had lived through every possible definition of beauty, was surprised to find himself thinking her quite delectable.

Succulent. A twisted smile tugged at his mouth. It was not like him to indulge such thoughts. He’d had them once, many lifetimes before, and had spent the lifetimes since avoiding them. He banished the memory before it surfaced, but was too late to stop the piercing sweetness of longing from twining itself around his insides, twisting into a tight knot in his gut.

Vaelen cursed under his breath. Necessary as it was, he wished he had not responded to her call. There would be others. There were always others, so willing as to be tedious. He should go, but he was here now. She had summoned him to her chamber after all. Why leave without slaking his thirst?

Her gaze, both clear and smouldering, was as ambivalent as he felt. He took a step towards her and his senses stretched and strained as they always did at this time, so acute as to be painful. Her smell, so sweetly female. Her skin, creamy soft. Her breath, warm and shallow. He could hear her heart beating and feel her pulses fluttering, strong and fast, driven by a mixture of excitement and fear. A fast-racing, heady mix. Vaelen’s own blood rushed too in response, but cold and sharp, like a melting glacier. “What is your name?” he whispered.

“Imogen.”

“Imogen.” Soft, like her body. He sat down beside her on the bed. She would not resist him. He already knew that, as he already knew it would be a mistake not to resist her. He reached out to touch her hair, running the flat of his palm down over the delicate shape of her head. Watery silk. “Lonely Imogen.”

It was a statement, not a question. “How did you know?” she asked.

“Why else would you summon such as me?”

Vaelen watched her think about this. He enjoyed watching her, the way her expression softened as she pondered the truth of it, and her mouth, her luscious mouth, turned up into the trace of a smile as she nodded to herself.

An aching hunger gnawed at him. The kind of hunger which would not be ignored, which he knew he could not resist, even though there was something about this one, something vulnerable that he didn’t want to damage.

He wanted her. The realisation astounded him. It had been so long since wanting had been any part of him, so inured he thought he was to allowing only acts of necessity, lifetimes of reined-in passions which he handled like a team of bolting horses with the consummate skill of a charioteer.

“Imogen.” Her name tasted sweet and soft. As she would. Her eyelids flickered and widened when he said it. Her tongue flicked pink and moist over her lips, the action connecting directly with his manhood, which hardened into immediate readiness. “Imogen,” he said again, aware of the rough edge of need in his voice now, waking like a wild beast from hibernation.

And by the gods, she smiled at him and sealed her fate—a sleepy, uncertain smile, but an unmistakable invitation all the same. Did she know what she was asking? He wondered fleetingly who she was, what was her life, before he dipped his head and touched his lips to hers and ceased wondering, for the touch inflamed him as no other had, save once.

Chapter 2

Was this really happening? She felt too raw for it to be real, as if her skin were thinner, her senses nearer the surface. His lips were cool. Gentle but not soft. He kissed as if he were supping on her, nipping on her lower lip, his tongue tracing the contours of her mouth from corner to corner, the soft skin inside. He moulded her mouth to his shape, deepening as she complied, so that she tumbled from anticipation to passive pleasure to eager participation in a matter of seconds without ever realising she was crossing forbidden thresholds. As he kissed her, warmth seeped from her body to his, from her mouth to his. His hands stroked her hair, her neck, her cheeks, her eyes, learning her shape, lulling her into allowing him more and still more.

Which she did without question, as a dreamer must in such a dream. He pushed her gently back onto the pillows. She was hot, though his hands were still cool, raising goose bumps which felt like pulse points where he touched her skin. As if there were no skin there at all. As if it were her raw flesh he caressed. Her heart beat unevenly. It beat as it would if she were frightened, which she should be. Her blood raced, making her dizzy, rousing a restless feeling inside her, like a voyager seeking a hidden path. He kissed her deeply, his tongue thrusting into her mouth, making her body arch under the sheets. She wrapped her arms around his neck. His hair fell over his shoulders. She clenched her fists into it, returning his kiss passionately. The buttons on his coat dug into her skin. He was still fully clothed. She struggled to undo them but he pushed her hands away. “Patience,” he said, though she wasn’t clear if he meant her or himself.

He kissed her neck. Little sucking kisses caressing the tender skin, lingering tantalisingly on the pulse point at the base of her throat. Away from her lips, his mouth cooled quickly. His hands stroked her shoulders, untying the ribbons of her nightgown, and his mouth followed. More soft, licking kisses down the valley between her breasts as his hands eased the filmy silk and lace out of the way. She watched him covertly, aroused by his obvious relish of her body, too aroused to try to cover herself, too caught up in the trickle of slow-released and long-pent-up desire to do anything other than his bidding.

Vaelen layered pleasure on pleasure. He was like wickedly sharp steel sheathed in velvet. She allowed him his way because she must. She took pleasure because he left her no option. The lack of choice excited her. Steel and velvet. Lethally opulent.

His hands cupped her breasts, his cool touch rousing her nipples from pale pink buds to hard blushing peaks. His mouth—soft but insistent—sucked and tugged, first one then the other, kindling a flame from an ember buried deep in her, eliciting a spark between his hands and his mouth and her nipples and her sex, which was beginning to tighten and throb. Her restlessness became a determined seeking, entreating for more of this thing building and climbing inside her like a tower made of heat.

Vaelen looked up, gazing deep into her eyes, his own lambent with desire. He kissed her, a drugging kiss so deep it made her toes curl, as if he was dragging something up from the depths of her being. Then he kissed her again, thoroughly, covering her body with his, the cloth and fastenings of his coat rough on her sensitised skin. She could feel his erection pressing into her through his breeches, but he made no move to disrobe. He kissed her again, retracing the path down her throat, her breasts, lifting up her gown to reveal the soft curve of her belly, pulling her over to the edge of the bed as he kissed, kneeling on the floor between her legs, his breath whispering over her curls to the soft skin of her inner thighs.

“What are you doing?” Confused, she tried to sit up, but he stalled her.

“It’s what you wanted. It’s why I’m here.” The truth, both sides of it. Vaelen drank in the feast that lay before him. Luscious, creamy thighs, exactly as he had imagined them. He was hugely aroused, achingly aroused and horribly tempted, but he would not break the code he had enforced on himself. Though, he had never been tempted like this before.

Imogen. Her name so soft and giving, like her body. Tenderness fluttered fleetingly over his cold heart. He wanted to give her pleasure beyond what was necessary. She would not remember, but he would. That he already knew he would not forget her should have been a warning. He longed to have her heat envelop him. He nudged her thighs wider and kissed the tender flesh.

His mouth was hot now on her skin. She was hot too, burning-hot, shivering-hot. Where he touched her, flames leapt. He was kissing her where she had not… Had never… But now that he was doing it, she knew she had only to surrender. His tongue. His lips. His kiss on her sex as it had been on her mouth, tasting, learning, tracing her shape.

A knot of desire took firm hold inside her. Sharp-edged, bladed, it twisted as he deepened his intimate kiss, his tongue caressing her, licking the steel she could sense turning and burning, gouging out need and urging her to rush forward and clench back at the same time. She was a diamond. He was honing and polishing her with a languorous lapping that became maddeningly slower when she wanted it to spark and speed. For as he slowed, her desire raced until she felt a wrenching and slipping, tumbling over and over in a twisting, shivering, endless falling, so caught up in the hot wild pleasure of it that his lapping on the delicate inner crease of her thigh was subsumed.

Vaelen sucked carefully, but with pleasure so extreme he thought he would be unable to contain himself. So hot and sweet her taste, it filled him with acute tenderness and sorrow and longing even as it sated his baser needs. The feral part of him growled its gratification, greedily demanding more. It was an immense wrench to stop, but he timed it by the pulsing of her climax, ceasing as it faded, licking carefully over the tiny wound.

Imogen opened her eyes, staring up at him hazily. Sated she looked; delectably sated. Would that he felt the same. She held out her arms, but he ignored her mute invitation. She had already tested his resistance far beyond the usual bounds.

“Sleep, lovely Imogen,” he whispered, relieved to see that she closed her eyes obediently. It pained him, but he pressed his cool hand to her brow and said the words which would obliterate him from her mind. To be forever unremembered was one of the prices he paid. Usually it cost him nothing. Imogen sighed and settled. He pressed a kiss to her brow. Then he left the way he had arrived, suddenly and silently.

Imogen woke in the morning feeling light-headed. The ribbons of her nightgown had come undone; it was rucked up around her waist. Her sheets were tangled. She struggled up through the mists of sleep. The room was chilled, for the window was still open. Allegra, exhausted from her night’s ramblings, lay sound asleep on the end of the bed.

Such a dream. It came back to her as she fixed her nightgown. The memory made her blush. A slight ache between her legs revealed a small bruise on her inner thigh and some tiny abrasions crusted with blood. Her nails obviously needed trimming.

Blood rushed to her head as she sat up. She felt euphoric, dizzy, exhausted. As she lay back down again a cold, handsome countenance swam before her. Vaelen. Her sinful secret. Her dark angel summoned from the black, full-moon night.

Over the coming days the memory of the dream tormented Imogen. Vaelen haunted her thoughts so much she could not settle to anything. Even her mother-in-law, who normally paid her scant attention, felt moved to comment on it. “Really, my dear, you are in a most distracted humour these days. What on earth has got into you?”

What indeed? When her fevered mind started to hallucinate him, to conjure him outside the confines of her bedchamber, she worried that her mind was affected. He made his first appearance in the theatre. Attending Mr Kean’s renowned performance of Shylock, she was certain the shadowy presence whose gaze touched her like a mist from a box opposite was Vaelen, but when she glanced up at the interval the box was empty, and remained so.

In the early morning, as she rode in Hyde Park accompanied by her groom a day or so later, she was sure it was he who rode past her at a fierce gallop astride a black stallion shining with sweat, though his face was a blur, and he passed so quickly that only the drumming of the horse’s hooves on the track reassured her it was no ghostly vision.

She often thought she glimpsed him across crowded rooms at parties, but he seemed always to melt away when she tried to approach him, or even to meet his gaze. Was she going mad? But surely the very act of wondering meant she was sane. Despite this she was not reassured. He seemed to have got into her blood, like an illness or an elixir. He possessed her. She could sense him before she saw him—or thought she saw him—an awareness so acute that it hurt. Each time it happened, panic clutched at her, squeezing its vice-like grip round her insides as she forced herself to contemplate the idea that he might be real. Because if he was…

But then he disappeared like smoke or mist or whatever ephemeral thing he was made of. Yet she longed for him to exist, for if he did not it was becoming clear that she could not either. Not in any meaningful way—not any more. Her fate, her very existence, seemed irrevocably entwined with his. Which was a truly mad idea. But she could not seem to stop herself thinking such irrational thoughts. The more elusive Vaelen was—or the illusion of him was—the stronger became her obsession.

Chapter 3

“Six ruffians I tell you, and not a one left standing at the end of it. By Gad, I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Come, Aldridge, we all know your tendency to exaggerate. Two in the morning you say it was? So you’d have had at least four bottles by then. You must have been seeing double.”

A burst of masculine laughter greeted this, but Lord Aldridge was insistent. “I tell you, there were six of them. Footpads, there on the Strand, after his purse. It’s a damned disgrace.”

“And did you not feel inclined to go to Kilmun’s assistance?” Lord Cullen enquired.

“Well, of course I damn well did, but by the time I’d crossed the road he’d dealt with them himself. Why, I doubt even Tom Cribb in his prime would have shown a handier pair of fives,” Lord Aldridge declared. “Anyway, if you don’t believe me, ask the man himself.”

The Earl of Kilmun strolled into the card room and, waving away a footman bearing a tray of Lord Cullen’s excellent claret, joined his host at the far end of the room. “Ask the man himself what?”

“About the other night. Six of ’em, weren’t there?”

The earl shrugged. “Poor specimens. Nothing to boast about.”

“Nothing to— For God’s sake, man, they could have killed you.”

“I very much doubt it,” the Earl of Kilmun said drily. “Not armed only with cudgels.”

“I hear you took fifty thousand off Mannington in one sitting of piquet the other night,” Lord Cullen interrupted.

This piece of news drew several exclamations of amazement, but the earl was dismissive.

“Do you ever lose?” Lord Cullen asked.

“Why, do you want to put me to the test?”

“Lord no, you have the devil’s own luck.”

The Earl of Kilmun’s smile was thin. “Indeed I do.”

Lord Aldridge drained his glass of claret in one long swallow, snapping the fingers of his other hand to summon the waiter for another. “What’s this I hear about Sally Emerson? It’s all over town that she’s given Malfrey his conge in favour of you.”

“Shallow waters and thin blood. That is one well drunk rather too dry for my taste.”

The men laughed knowingly. “Dammit, Kilmun, you’ve the luck of the devil with the ladies, as well as with the cards. Whether you choose to taste what they offer or not, they lose all interest in the rest of us when you’re here, and yet you look through most of ’em as if you can’t see them.”

“Believe me, I see them. In fact, sometimes, I am forced to see rather more of them than I would like to,” Kilmun said with a shudder.

Lord Cullen guffawed. “You’re an incorrigible dog. Why, only the other day I was saying…”

But the Earl of Kilmun had already left the room.

In Lady Cullen’s magnificent formal salon, a group of women taking tea were also conversing upon the subject of the fascinating and elusive Earl of Kilmun.

“They say that there is a locked room in his town house full of gold and precious jewels.”

“Aside from his several estates in England, he has a chateau in France, a palace in Prussia and castles in each of the Baltics.”

“And as for his reputation with the fairer sex—well…”

The four ladies edged closer on their gilt chairs. Cornelia, the Dowager Duchess of Strathfyne—the first Dowager as she had come to be known by her particular friends since her beloved son, Alfred, passed on, leaving his widow to stake a second claim to the same title—tinkled her teaspoon on Lady Cullen’s second-best Spode and pursed her lips. “They say that even our hostess has flung her cap at him,” she said confidentially, “and as we are all too aware, what Melissa Cullen wants, Melissa Cullen gets.”

Knowing nods greeted this statement. “And did Lady Cullen succeed with the earl?” Emily, Lady Alkington, raised a delicately enquiring brow.

“Oh no, and nor, as far as anyone can ascertain, has he shown the least interest in any of the ladies of the Ton, though it is not for the lack of opportunity,” the dowager said acerbically, “for some had as well trussed themselves up and offered themselves on a platter.”

“I cannot blame them. I would myself, if I were not so long in the tooth,” Lady Emily said with a coy smile, “for even were he not as rich as Croesus, there is something fascinating about him, do you not agree?”

Mrs Frances Burlington shuddered. “I don’t know about you, but I find him rather frightening. That look of his… I declare, I feel as if he is stripping me of my clothes, and whether it is to flay me alive or use me in a more particular way, I cannot ever quite tell.”

“Frances!”

“No, I know what she means,” Lady Emily said. “One can never quite be sure whether one is safe with him or not.” Her generous décolletage rippled as she shuddered delicately. “I would not like to cross swords with him.”

The Countess of Innellan dropped a slice of lemon into her teacup. “Not cross swords, perhaps, Emily,” she said maliciously, “but you would like to unsheathe his, I think.”

Scandalised titters greeted this sally, though it was generally felt that the Countess of Innellan had, as ever, gone too far. It was left to the dowager to restore some modicum of propriety to the conversation. “I heard he does not permit anyone to visit that mansion of his,” she said. “I don’t know where you got that story about the room of gold, because I haven’t heard of a single caller who has been allowed across the threshold. Nor has he any living relative that anyone has heard of. He is a most singular man.”

“Good evening, ladies. How do you all do?”

“Imogen, my dear, how well that new gown suits you.” The elder Dowager Duchess held out her hand to the younger. “Do you wish for tea?”

Imogen smiled her greeting to her mama-in-law’s three closest cronies, and sat down next to her. The dress had been delivered by the modiste that morning, pewter silk, the deep flounce trimmed with silver ribbons. She had been quite astonished by the transformation it made to her appearance to put off her widows weeds. The woman who looked back at her from her mirror, with her hair newly dressed à la Méduse to make the most of her natural curls, looked as if she were waking from a long sleep.

Despite her troubled nights, her eyes seemed to have a new sparkle, her skin a new lustre. She would have liked to attribute it to an easing of the suffocating weight which she was only now realising she had been carrying in the long months leading up to Alfred’s death and had been bearing since, but was secretly certain that it was rather the awakening of her darker, twilight self. Her shadowy other half.

“No tea, thank you.” Imogen eased away from the heat of the fire. “Of whom were you talking?”

“The Earl of Kilmun, my love. Not a man I would recommend you become acquainted with.”

“Why not? Is he a rake?”

“Imogen!”

“Oh, Cornelia, don’t be such a prude,” Lady Emily said. “Imogen may look like an innocent, but she was married for nigh on five years. The Earl of Kilmun is a conundrum, Imogen, my dear, for he gambles like a rake but always wins. He is as irresistible as a rake, yet he resists, and of course, the more he resists, the more irresistible he becomes. So one could not really call him a rake, though quite what he is we cannot decide.”

“You will ignore Lady Emily, my dear. The Earl of Kilmun is most definitely not the sort of man you should be acquainted with.”

Lady Emily smiled wickedly. “I’m afraid it looks as if she might have no choice in the matter.”

“What on earth do you mean?” the dowager demanded angrily.

Lady Emily gestured over Imogen’s shoulder where a striking figure, accompanied by Lady Cullen, was heading through the crowded drawing room directly towards them. Dressed in an exceedingly well-cut black tailcoat with dove-grey pantaloons and a silver waistcoat, the simplicity of his toilette served to focus the attention on the man himself. His figure alone made him stand out in the crowded salon, for he was taller than most and better built too, with wide shoulders, his coat buttoned over a broad chest tapering down to a trim waist, his legs long and muscled. The pristine white linen of his neckcloth, elegantly tied, but neither so high nor so starched as the height of fashion dictated, drew attention to the clean, austere lines of his face.

“Your Grace, may I present a gentleman most eager to meet you.” Though she addressed Imogen, Lady Cullen’s eyes were on the man by her side. Her fingertips gripped his jacket. Her smile was brittle. “The Earl of Kilmun, Her Grace the Dowager Duchess—the younger Dowager Duchess of Strathfyne.”

“Your Grace.” He bowed flawlessly in front of her.

“My Lord Kilmun.” Imogen made her own curtsy, feeling as if she might faint clean away.

Vaelen! It was him, and he must be real because everyone else could see him too. Heat flushed her cheeks and coloured the soft rise and fall of her bosom, so that the pearls which she wore gleamed pink with it.

He was here, and he was real. And angry. Though he disguised it well, she could sense it; a glittering thing, sharp and sparkling. Danger. Imogen’s heart beat too fast. Her breath came shallow and rapid, as if she had been running.

The earl held out his arm. “May I be so bold as to speak to you in private?”

She was vaguely aware of the dowager clucking in the background, but there was no question of her doing anything other than obeying him. Imogen touched her fingertips to his and felt the contact like a shock. She stumbled and he caught her to him. Then they were alone in a small side room and she had no idea how they got there.

“Vaelen. I thought I had dreamt you.”

“You remember?” He found it difficult—too difficult—to wish that she did not, that his protective cloak of anonymity had been preserved. She remembered him. Something like warmth touched his cold heart. He had suspected as much, had known from that first night that she was different from all the others. It was there, that straining of his feelings on the leash he normally had no problem holding, feelings he had thought himself outgrown centuries ago. But that road led to tragedy for both of them. The very existence of temptation should be enough to warn him. He had been right to seek her out, to warn her she risked her very soul by becoming involved with him.

“Who are you?” She could still not quite believe this was happening.

“As you heard, the Earl of Kilmun. I’m sure your mother-in-law has filled you in on my reputation,” Vaelen replied. He could not resist touching her, running a finger down her cheek, watching the colour rise to his touch. A long tress of curling black hair was swept over her shoulder, trailing down over her bosom. Satin black on milky white. His manhood stirred.

“It was you? You came to my chamber. I didn’t imagine it?”

“No, but you would do well to pretend that you did. It should not have happened. It must not happen again. That is what I have come to tell you.”

“But I don’t understand how it happened in the first place.” Colour stole up her neck, flushing her cheeks. “I thought I was dreaming.”

“You called to me. You should be careful what you wish for.” Imogen looked startled, and he saw that she remembered it all, even those whispered words of warning before he crossed her threshold. “Do you regret it?”

She swallowed nervously, seeing in the pulse that beat at his temple, sensing in the flare of heat in his eyes that her answer mattered, though she also sensed he would deny it. She didn’t understand what was happening to her except that he was the cause of it, and since it had happened—though she was alarmed and frightened and unnerved—she had never felt so alive. “No,” she said emphatically, “I don’t regret it. Do you?”

Vaelen drew back from her. “Yes,” he said coldly. Not the truth but it should be.

Imogen twisted her bracelet around her wrist. The pearls felt clammy, like her skin. She was beginning to feel rather sick. “I don’t believe you,” she whispered shakily.

“It would be better for you if you did.”

Her fragile hold on her control broke suddenly. “Why must you speak to me in riddles? It is like trying to grasp smoke. Who are you? What have you done to me? Why can I not stop thinking about you? Why do I feel so—so possessed by you?”

Her words plucked at a chord buried deep in his being. The restlessness and the loneliness of his wandering, he could see it reflected in those beautiful eyes of hers. The aching of wanting. The pain of yearning. No wonder the taste of her had been so sweet. No wonder he had been unable to stop her from haunting what passed for his dreams. “As if you were seeking something you did not even know you were missing,” he said with a twisted smile. “Something you know you should not want, but cannot help desiring. Is that how you feel?”

“That is it precisely. I can’t help myself. The very idea of you being real should be mortifying. Part of me is terrified, but another part of me is—is elated.”

Vaelen closed his eyes. Her words rang so piercingly true, her presence was so sweetly tempting. “Elation.” He took her hand, pulling her hard against him. “You should be wary of elation,” he whispered, almost to himself, “for it is very close to death.”

His long fingers were cool on hers. The contact reverberated, tingling up her arm, licking shards of heat inside her, making her acutely aware of her skin inside her dress, her flesh inside her skin. His eyes were fixed hungrily on her mouth. Trepidation and desire. Elation. A frisson of it twisted low in her belly.

She knew he would kiss her and he did. She was possessed by his kiss, possessed by the desire which flamed instantly inside her, possessed by an urgent need to be possessed. It was different from before, this kiss; darker in hue, more singular in tone. He kissed as a conqueror, as one who would plunder, and she kissed him back in complete surrender. His mouth was hard on hers. She could not remember how to breathe. Vaelen’s breathing was ragged.

His fingers clenched in the heavy fall of her hair to tug her head back gently so that more and deeper kisses could be pressed upon her. Hands roaming down her neck, her throat, brushing her breasts, making her nipples ache, back to her neck. Stroking. Kisses on the pulse at her throat. Sucking kisses. Suckling kisses. Excruciating pleasure, as if all her blood was rushing to the one spot where he touched, as if her pulse beat only for his lips.

Vaelen pushed her away so suddenly that she stumbled. “No.” No, no, no. He wiped his hand over his mouth, relieved to taste no trace of her essence. Other women served that purpose. Women of whom he could drink his fill without guilt, using them in the same way as they used him, to satisfy a hunger. Thin-blooded women, but sufficient. Imogen would never be sufficient. After one taste of her, he knew that. Why else had he resisted going back for more? Another taste and he would become addicted. “No!”

Imogen was slumped in the chair into which he had pushed her. “What is going on between us? Have I done something wrong? What is happening to me?”

Tears glinted in the depths of her eyes. He took a step towards her, forced himself to look at the tiny mark on her neck, to think what would have happened, and stopped. He could not. He would not! No matter how much his body urged him, no matter how strong was this beguiling notion clamouring to be heard that this time it would be different. It was his blood lust, a dangerous beast only just under control, offering false hope in order to be sated. Imogen could not save him, no-one could. It was a myth, as he had discovered to his cost. To poor dead Lucilla’s cost.

“I must go. You must forget me.” The words should be easy, but it felt as if they were torn from him. He could leave, disappear from this society as he had from so many others, but not until she released the cord binding them, untied the knot he had unwittingly tightened when he tasted her. “Do not think of me, Imogen. Put me from your mind, or it will be the end of you.”

The autocratic look was gone. For a second he looked vulnerable. Imogen pushed herself to her feet, reaching for him, but Vaelen drew back, his face a harsh mask she shrank from, his eyes the dark green of an angry sea, the hunger in them unmistakable.

Vaelen’s smile was a snarl. “You see, forgetting me would be much the wiser course. Do not wish for me again.” Then he was gone.

Imogen stood alone, staring at the space in which he had been. Something momentous had occurred, though she couldn’t understand what. Splinters of meaning shattered as she tried to grasp them. The room was empty, but she could not recall his leaving. Shaken to the core, she collapsed back onto the chair.

Eventually, she composed herself enough to totter to the ladies retiring room and collect her cloak and gloves, sending a message to the dowager that she had the headache and had gone home early. Catching a glance of herself in the mirror, Imogen saw a spectre, all dark shadows and clouded blue eyes. She looked like a wraith. The pearls on her breast were dull, like a string of stones.

Chapter 4

She lay wide awake long into the night, reflecting on the evening’s events. So little they had said, but so much. So many things he had said which she could not understand.

Who was he?

Why had he come to her?

What was the force which drew them to each other?

What was it that made him so determined to ignore it?

Vaelen was no figment of her imagination. Imogen knew she should be shocked by the liberties she had granted him, but she was not. She should be embarrassed, mortified at their meeting again, horrified by her wantonness, but all she desired was to be more wanton still. When he was a dream, Vaelen was her dark fantasy. Now he was no longer a fantasy, her secret self longed for him even more. She desired him, and she knew he desired her, though he would deny it.

Vaelen. She said his name, and conjured his image, so clear it felt real.

Vaelen. A twisting ache of need.

Vaelen. Her missing self. She wanted him. She wanted the freedom he could give her to be herself. Without him she would be a prisoner, living half a life with half a soul. All her life had been a waiting room, though she had not known it. She could not bear to return to that grey gloom. Vaelen had liberated her and she could not go back, but without him she could not go forward.

All this from two encounters? Far-fetched, outrageous, madness, foolishly romantic, but true all the same. As if by magic, she had conjured him but it was he who had put a spell on her.

Vaelen. The man she loved.

“I love you, Vaelen,” Imogen whispered into the dark, hugging the gift of her new-found knowledge close. Love. Not some pleasant, gentle emotion at all, but a ripping, tearing, inexorable force that arrived like a whirlwind. Love. “I love you, Vaelen,” she said, louder this time. “I love you, and we were meant to be.” She felt it in her bones, her heart, her blood. Enchanted. Entwined. Beguiled. Possessing and possessed.

Love.

Imogen slept. A sleep too deep for dreams. She awoke both drained and elated with an unusual sense of complete certainty. It would take all her courage, but she knew what she would do.

It was a long week, waiting for the next full moon, her mood swinging between ecstatic certainty and panic. What if she was wrong? What if he did not come? What if…

Now it was finally time. Imogen crept out of bed and huddled into her wrapper. Cautiously opening the door of her bedchamber, she listened for signs of life in the household, but all was still. The dim glow of an oil lamp burned at the head of the staircase. With Allegra following at her heels, she made her way downstairs, through the green baize door to the servants’ quarters and, after a struggle, released the bolts on the side door which led out to the small garden at the back of the town house.

Careless of her bare feet, she followed the little path to the statue of Diana at the centre of the lawn. The ruffles on her wrapper trailed on the damp grass. The night air was sharp on her bare skin. Allegra wove around her ankles, her tail straight up in the air. Imogen stared up at the glowing moon and wished.

A light breeze ruffled her hair. She sensed his presence before she saw him. The attenuated coolness of the air surrounding him, the way her skin tightened, her heart picking up and chiming with the beat of his. She looked over her shoulder and there he was. Allegra froze, the hairs on her back rising in a stripe, before she hissed viciously and shot off in the opposite direction from Vaelen.

“I’ve never seen her react like that before.”

He shrugged. He was standing directly in front of her. She sensed not only his power but his ire. “I told you to cease wishing for me.”

“I can’t!”

Though he was angry that she had not complied with his command, he was also exultant. She could not forget him. He did not want her to; he could not want her to, no matter how he tried. She was in his blood.

“Vaelen.”

The way she looked at him, he could not resist. Not yet. “Imogen.”

He took her in his arms and kissed her passionately. His mouth was cold, his lips frozen, but almost immediately he drew heat from her, and when their tongues touched the spark was fiery. He kissed her deeply, drawing a response from her that would not be denied, drugging her with desire, inflaming her so that she moaned, wrapping her arms around his neck, standing tiptoe to tug him closer, trembling as he kissed and pressed closer and tighter.

Reluctantly, Vaelen broke away, breathing hard.

Imogen clutched at his waistcoat. “Please, don’t just disappear again. Please, I need to know the truth.”

“Believe me, you don’t.”

“But I do. I need you. I know you want me too, but you won’t admit it, and I need to know why. Please.” Imogen rubbed her hand over her eyes. The ribbons of her wrapper had come undone. She pulled the sash tighter, unwittingly drawing Vaelen’s attention to her state of undress. He saw her bare feet, white and slender, on the grass. So beautiful. So vulnerable. And so mortal.

His heart lurched as he finally acknowledged the depths of his feelings. No wonder he had lost all taste for others. A coup de foudre. A blow to the heart which would fell them both if he did not stop it. He was caught, but that did not mean he would surrender. Taking Imogen’s hand, he pressed a kiss to her wrist, his lips lingering over the pulse that jumped there, testing his reserve, relieved to find only desire and not hunger.

“What are you, Vaelen? Are you some kind of sorcerer?”

“I am no magician.”

In the moonlight she could see his shape, his eyes, the pallor of his skin, but not the detail of his expression. He was still holding her hand. Anguish and desire, she sensed from him, a blue haze and a red mist. “If not a sorcerer, then what are you?”

“If we allow ourselves to succumb to this thing between us, I will be your murderer,” Vaelen replied bluntly. “I would not mean to kill you. It is the last thing—I swear on whatever god you choose that it is the last thing—but it would happen. Sooner or later, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself.”

“I don’t believe you.” But she did, for the blue haze of anguish had given way to a black cloak of despair.

“Imogen, if I show you, if I prove it to you, will you promise to do as I say?”

She nodded. He wrapped his arms around her, tucking her head under his chin, her face into his chest so that she could not see. A breeze ruffled the flounce of her wrapper, and she had the sensation of weightlessness, the floating feeling she sometimes had when dropping off to sleep. Then the sensation of falling which was often the prelude to her waking. He let her go, and she blinked in astonishment, for she was standing at the foot of the stairs in a completely strange house.

“My house,” Vaelen said.

“How on earth did we get here?”

“Come.” Picking up a lamp from a small table, he led the way up the wide staircase which angled round on itself. The stairs were covered in a deep red carpet which muffled the sound of their steps. On the first floor a long hallway stretched out before them. All the doors were closed. The walls were panelled below the dado rail. Above it were hung a collection of paintings such as Imogen had not seen before, no matter how grand the house. Though she was no expert, she recognised several from the Dutch school, one she was sure was a Rembrandt.

“You like my paintings?” Vaelen paused, holding the lamp higher so that she could inspect the picture of a man in a blue velvet suit. “Van Dyke,” he said. “Much favoured by the king, but I told Charles many times that he was rather too stylised.”

“King Charles— You mean, the one who was executed?”

“Yes.”

“You are teasing me. He died over a hundred and fifty years ago.”

“One hundred and sixty-six, to be precise.”

“Vaelen, you can’t mean…”

He opened the door and ushered her into the room. Kindling a taper from the fire, he lit the candles which sat in heavy silver branches on either side of the marble mantel. The room revealed was opulent, something between a study and a sitting room, with a large desk facing out from one corner, intricately carved, inlaid and lacquered in a style Imogen had never seen. The walls were tempered a soft gold, the carpet into which her bare feet sank was silk, the scattering of comfortable chairs, sofas and little tables were of varying styles, some she recognised, some not. The overall effect was both exotic and comfortable. A large Chinese vase, the figures finely painted, took pride of place on a side table. A chess set of ivory was laid out by the fireside on another table, the game obviously nearing its end for white, as far as she could tell. Imogen picked up a small gold object, attracted by the winking of the emeralds embedded in it.

“A scarab beetle, the symbol of rebirth. This one was buried with the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten.”

The beetle seemed to glow hot in her hand. Vaelen took it from her and put it back on the table, turning her round to face him. The heat from the fire made her feet tingle, sending a warm glow over her skin which the night had cooled, but Vaelen’s hands were still cold to touch. Only his eyes gleamed warm, almost she would call it tender, as he looked at her. Were they not tinged with a heartbreaking and anguished sadness?

“Are you absolutely sure you want to know the truth?” he asked her. “Can you not trust me when I tell you it would be better for you to remain in ignorance and to let me be?”

She shook her head. “I am already in too deep,” she said, eerily echoing his own thoughts. “I feel as if I am swimming out of my depth, but I need to know, even if the knowledge drowns me.”

Vaelen sighed deeply. “Very well.” Upon the table beside the Chinese vase was a decanter. He poured himself a measure of brandy, swallowing it back in one gulp. It was the first time she had seen him drink. “What do you think of this painting?” he asked, returning to join her by the fireside.

The picture hung over the mantel. A full-length portrait of a man in the same style of cavalier dress as that worn in the Van Dyke which hung in the hallway. A black velvet suit, wide-skirted coat and breeches. Gold-buckled shoes, a heavy fall of lace at his throat and wrists. The subject’s hair was long, silken black. He wore no beard. His face was pale, autocratic and strikingly handsome. The eyes were stormy green. “If it is an ancestor,” Imogen said, “he’s uncannily like you.”

“It is me.”

“How can it be? I don’t believe you,” she said defiantly, her tone brittle.

“But you do. It is why you are afraid. I can hear it in your voice.”

“I fear the unknown, that is all. I wish you would be blunt with me.”

“That is me in the portrait as I was almost two hundred years ago, just as I am now. I have others I could show you, going back many centuries.” Vaelen spoke calmly, though Imogen listened with increasing incredulity, scarcely daring to breathe. “I have existed since the time when the Romans ruled your land. I have walked on this earth for longer than the history books can teach you. I have walked with gods and kings and creatures you cannot imagine. I will walk for eternity. That is my reward and my punishment for being who I am.”

Imogen’s legs were shaking. She backed away, onto the chair which sat by the side of the fire, sinking into its depths, never taking her eyes from Vaelen, whose face was pale and taut, the confession taking a physical toll on him.

“Who are you?”

“There are names, words used to scare children, the language of mythology, but none are accurate. I am one of the ancients. We inhabit the world between reality and illusion, a middle ground known only to ourselves. We have powers you cannot comprehend. We have no shadows and no reflection, we are enchanters and beguilers. Though I cannot see myself, I know that my form pleases. It is how we are made, for we must be irresistible to survive.”

“No.” She could not bear to hear any more. Fantastical as it was, she instinctively knew he was telling the truth. But she did not want this truth. She did not want to hear what came next, for already she could guess—the dark lurking thing in the corner of her mind, the memory of that bruise, that feeling of extreme euphoria. “No.”

“We are predators, Imogen. Though I fight it, have fought it, have managed to control it for years, centuries, it is what I am. And you, the likes of you, are my prey.”

“Vaelen, no.”

“You asked me into your house. You invited me into your arms. I gave you what you wanted. I took what I needed.”

“No, no, no.”

“I will take it again. And again. And again. I won’t be able to stop. Not with you. You are not like the others, you see. The others are mere sustenance. You are my lifeblood, Imogen, and that will be your downfall. I cannot resist you. Do you understand now?”

Chapter 5

“No!” Her voice was so high-pitched it would have been a scream, were she able to take a breath. She would not believe it. She could not believe it. She got to her feet and threw herself at him, her arms around his neck, her body pressed into his, sobbing and begging, feverishly pleading. “No, no, no. Not us. Not this. Not when it feels like this.”

He fought to restrain her, but even as he tried to imprison her arms, he entwined his own around her delightfully soft body. The sash of her wrapper came undone. Through her nightgown her breasts rose and fell as she struggled, her skin warming his even through the barrier of his clothes. The longing for skin on skin, for flesh on flesh was extreme. He fought her, but he could not fight himself. His needs were too strong, her presence here, in his private sanctum too powerful. The scent of her was like the scent of no other. Not even Lucilla had been able to exert such power over him. No one in all the lives he had led had ever had the effect of Imogen.

Irresistible. The word countless numbers of women had applied to him. Now he knew what it meant. His lips found hers. His arms drew her close. He heard her sigh in submission. He sensed her heated confusion but though he forced himself to look for it there was no resistance; nothing save a desire to submit and a need as strong as his. It was like looking in a mirror and for the first time seeing his reflection. Her mind pleaded with him. Fatally pleaded with him.

His kisses were hungry, but so too were hers. Claiming kisses, and claiming hands, touching and tugging. His coat was discarded, then his waistcoat. His neckcloth, her wrapper. Imogen kissed and was kissed and thought of nothing save the next kiss and the next touch and this driving need, beyond her control, to be possessed by him, to know him and to prove him wrong. He was her other half. If he was her other half he could not harm her, for to do so was to harm himself. So she reasoned as she kissed, her hands seeking out his skin at the neck of his shirt, tugging his shirt free from his breeches to touch his back, revelling in the way her touch turned cool into heat, revelling in the extremity of feeling that her stretched-sensitive fingertips roused.

Vaelen pulled his shirt over his head, revealing a smoothly muscled torso, hollowed stomach, tapering waist. Like a statue, only she could warm him. Pygmalion, only in reverse, Imogen thought hazily as she drank in her fill of him, rubbing her cheek on his chest, stroking her fingers down his sinewy arms, reaching round to trace his spine. “Love me, Vaelen,” she whispered, pressing little kisses onto the line of his ribcage. “Love me.”

He tugged the neckline of her nightgown over her shoulders to reveal her breasts, drew in his breath at their lush beauty, moulding them in his hands, his thumbs grazing the nipples so that they hardened and peaked, pleasure scattering out from his touch to heat her belly, to heat her sex. Her body was blooming. Vaelen’s mouth replaced his hands, his tongue caressing first one nipple then the next.

He pulled down her nightgown so that she stood naked in the light of the fire. Flames licked inside her. Heat coated her. Where she touched him, she could almost see the trails of warmth she laid on his skin. Vaelen’s hands moulded her bottom now, kneading the flesh, his breath coming harsh and urgent, his mouth trailing from her breasts to her throat, her throat to her breasts, extracting such pleasure that she barely noticed the change from licking and sucking to nipping and softly grating.

She was mindless with desire, urgent with the need to be filled, bent back in his arms like a bow as he tended to her, throat and neck and breasts, breasts and throat and neck. He pulled her closer. The hard length of him pressed into her through his pantaloons. She stroked the contours of his buttocks and moaned with pleasure.

Vaelen was in danger of losing control. He had never been so desperate to possess. She was intoxicating. He discarded what was left of his clothing, closing his mind to all but the need to give her pleasure, and in doing so, to take his own. As he stood before her, naked, he watched with exultation her eyes widening, the little flicker of her pink tongue on her swollen bottom lip. He had grown so used to seeing his body as a tool, knew himself to be well-formed, his manhood to be well-endowed, but had cared not, save that it served his purposes. Now he was glad of it.

Taking her hand, he laid it on his shaft. The stab of pleasure that her tentative touch gave him was almost his undoing. He circled her fingers around him, showing her how to touch him, at the same time slipping his fingers into her moist folds. This time pleasure was like a jolt, his muscles contracting in response to hers, in unison with hers. He slid his fingers deeper inside her, flicking his thumb over the swollen nub of her sex and felt the first tremors of her climax building. He kissed her. Her nipples grazed his chest. He slid his fingers, slick with the evidence of her arousal, up and over, around and over, revelling in the clenching, clutching of her muscles, until he knew she was ready.

He kissed her again, and it was different. She felt it, in the way his lips ravaged, sensed his abrupt submission to hunger in the way his body stiffened, his erection swelled in her hand. His fingers ceased coaxing and commanded her surrender, and even as she did, tumbling so suddenly into a climax that she had nothing left to be frightened with, Vaelen’s face changed. He leaned into her neck as if to bite her, then recoiled in horror.

She thought it was over then, when he pushed her from him, but it was not. He bent her over the chair, his arms around her waist, and plunged into her, hard into her, so that her climax took on a deeper and darker force, his shaft claiming her, branding her with such force that she had to steady herself by holding onto the arms of the chair. She thought he could go no higher, that she could fall no further, that it must surely be over for both of them. Except that every time he withdrew, his next thrust claimed more of her and more, until she felt the hot rush of him coming into her. She was lost, spent and doomed. She thought she would die of the pleasure and wished that she would.

His withdrawal was not gentle. One moment there was a warm presence, the next an icy absence. Shaking, Imogen righted herself, and already Vaelen had pulled on his shirt and pantaloons. Unthinking, she put a hand to her neck, feeling the tenderness there, where he had bit her. She was bruised, but he had not broken the skin. She risked a glance, and flinched at his harsh countenance, the set of his mouth.

“Don’t worry, I did not do it, but I need not tell you it was a close-run thing. You see, I cannot stop myself.”

Imogen pulled her nightgown over her head. She picked her wrapper up from the floor and fumbled with the sash. Her fingers didn’t seem to be working properly. She was cold. “But you did stop yourself, Vaelen,” she whispered.

“This time.”

She gave up trying to tie her sash, and slumped down on a chaise-longue, avoiding the chair. “There’s something I need to know.”

He shook his head, leaning against the fireplace, seemingly oblivious of the heat the embers gave out, crossing his arms over his chest. His hair was rumpled. His mouth was swollen with their kisses. On his cheek there was a tiny scratch which had not bled. He took her breath away. Longing gusted through her.

“You want to know about the others,” he said bleakly. “There have been many across the years. It is how I live, how I survive. But never have I taken from an unwilling woman, and never have I taken more than required to satisfy my needs. I have never killed. You must know that. Save once.”

Imogen caught her breath. “Once?”

“Long ago. Her name was Lucilla. There is a legend among my kind that the lifeblood of a true love has a special magic, the power to grant mortality to us while guaranteeing that no harm befalls the giver. But it only works if the love is pure and true. She said she loved me. I thought I loved her too. I was young then, and relatively innocent, and I was wrong. She died. The legend is just that, a myth. I pledged then that she would be the only one. I have kept my pledge and lived a solitary life ever since.”

“A solitary life is what you are condemning me to,” Imogen said, clasping her hands tightly together in her lap and digging her toes into the carpet in an effort to control the violent trembling which shook her.

“At least you will be alive, Imogen.”

“I won’t. I didn’t have a life before I met you. How can I live after you? I love you.” The words were wrenched from her. She made no attempt to hide the tears which followed them, but nor did she throw herself at him as she wanted to do. Only, she could not go without him knowing.

Vaelen gripped the marble lintel of the fireplace. “Imogen, don’t make this any harder.”

She blinked at him, her eyes were drowned in tears which sparkled on her lashes and glittered on her cheeks, but the love she had declared glowed from her like a live thing. The heat of it crept towards him, warming his skin as the embers of the fire failed to do.

“I love you,” she said defiantly. “I know you love me, else you would not have such a care for me. Just say it. Please, Vaelen, just once.”

Her absence he would cope with as a labour of love. Her doubting him, he could not. “Of course I love you. You know I love you. Never forget that.”

Now she did get to her feet, rushing towards him. Vaelen wrapped his arms tightly around her, holding her as if he would meld her into his skin. Imogen closed her eyes. He felt like home. They were meant to be. She was right after all. He was hers.

A soft breeze ruffled her hair. She was flying with the ecstasy of his embrace. Then her stomach plummeted and she opened her eyes. Her feet were cold. It was dark. She was back in the garden. Alone. Save for Allegra, sitting on the plinth of the statue at Diana’s feet and blinking at her.

Chapter 6

Imogen was withering, like a plant deprived of water, a flower deprived of sun. Everyone noticed. “It is as if the light has gone out in you,” her mama-in-law said, and talked of taking her to Bath to partake of the waters as a cure. But Vaelen was her light and the lack of him was the illness from which she suffered. No spa waters nor powders nor tonics could effect a cure.

He was not gone yet, but her sense of him was fading. She loved him too much not to try to do as he bid her, though it cost her dearly. When he crept into her mind, she painfully closed the door on him. She lay wide-eyed, lids burning, awake until dawn, only then allowing herself a few restless hours of sleep, knowing that in the broadest hours of daylight he was safe, for he could not hear her. Vaelen was her light, and she was wilfully extinguishing it. Before long, she too would become a creature of the twilight.

It came to her as she sat gazing out on the waning moon. True love. He said it was a myth, but what if it wasn’t? What if Lucilla died because she had not loved him enough? Or perhaps he had not loved Lucilla as much as he thought he had. So simple, she wondered Vaelen had not thought it before. He loved her as she loved him, of this Imogen had absolutely no doubt. They were meant to be. It would work, it had to work.

Without giving herself time to think, she closed her eyes and called to him fervently, desperately, pouring her love for him into her summons. And he came. Tortured, misted in grey, with his light dimmed like hers, he came to her chamber.

“Imogen.” His voice was raw with defeat.

“Vaelen.” Seeing his beloved face again made her heart ache. She was afraid, suddenly, of how much she was asking of him. “Vaelen, I have been thinking. The legend…”

“My love, I’ve told you it is just that, a myth.”

She pressed her hands together to stop them from shaking. “The lifeblood of a true love. What if it is not a myth? I know how much it is to ask of you. Perhaps it is too much to ask you to give up, selfish of me to even think of it, but…”

“Selfish! How can you think so? Immortality is a curse when there is no one to share it with.” Vaelen took her hand, his cool lips pressing a kiss to her palm before he rubbed it to his cheek in a tender gesture that brought a lump to Imogen’s throat. “I would give my immortality up in an instant for a year, a week, a day with you as a mortal. But I can’t. It won’t work, and I won’t risk it, your life is more precious than my happiness. You would die, Imogen. And if you died, my eternity would be purgatory.”

Imogen wiped her tears away with the back of her hand. “She didn’t love you enough. Lucilla, she didn’t love you enough. Don’t you see, she didn’t love you as I do? No one could, or ever will, no matter how many more lives you have.” She plucked at his sleeve. “Vaelen, Lucilla was not your true love, or maybe you were not hers. Did you feel for her what you feel for me? Was it the same?”

“In the way as a shadow is the same as its owner. No, it wasn’t the same. What I feel for you I have never felt for anyone.”

Imogen’s heart jumped, plumping with hope. “So, you see, it could work.” Excitement tinged her voice. Pleading sparked in her eyes. She gripped his sleeve in supplication.

But Vaelen flinched from her beguiling—too beguiling—supplication, the lines of his face harsh with pain. “I can’t. Imogen, I can’t risk you. That you love me enough to offer will be my solace.” He looked down at her, his eyes glowing, a vibrant green she had not seen before. He stroked her brow, planted a kiss there. “I could not risk harming a hair on your head.”

Her tears overflowed, tracking a silvery path down her cheeks but she ignored them. “My life means nothing to me without you.” She gripped his hand fiercely. “Please, Vaelen, I love you. I love you more than life itself. Without you I am a shadow too, living but barely alive. The only difference between us is that there is an end to my sentence.”

“You would do this for me, even though you know who I am and how I have lived?”

“I would do it for us. You will no longer be a slave to that way of living if you are mortal. I love you as I know you can be, as the man you will be, for the honourable man you are, who has fought his very nature to survive on his own terms. I love you, Vaelen. Can’t you see that? I love you. My heart and my soul are yours.”

“Imogen, my own Imogen, you can’t love me half as much as I love you. I wish—if only—I wish… But I can’t.” He kissed her then, fluttering kisses on her brow, her lids, her cheeks, the soft line of her jaw, licking away the salt of her tears, with every kiss saying it over and over like a spell. I love you, I love you, I love you.

He loved her. He had loved her from the moment he cast his eyes upon her. He could see that clearly now, now that he allowed himself to look for the signs. And she loved him, of that he was certain. He could see his own feelings reflected in her eyes, echoing in her touch. When he thought of the sacrifice she offered him, he felt as if his heart were being squeezed in a vice. The sweet temptation of the legend was overpowering. What if it was true after all? There could be no doubt that his love for Lucilla was but a pale shadow of what he felt for Imogen. What if it worked?

“Imogen. In all my lifetimes there has never been a woman like you. I love you.” He kissed her delectable lips.

She smiled. “Never? Do you really mean that?”

“You know I do.”

Her smile curved further. “Then I am the one?”

The one. She was the one. Could it really be that simple? Vaelen swallowed hard. Every part of his being told him it was. Certainty flooded him like light, but still he hesitated. So much to risk. So much more to lose?

“Vaelen?”

If he did not take the risk, they would both regret it. He forever, she for a more human lifetime, but regret it they would. “Imogen. The one. My one. The only one. Are you sure?”

“Kiss me, Vaelen, I have never been more sure.”

“I love you,” he said huskily, and did as she bid him.

It was not like before. Not at all like before. His kisses were tender, shaping the words of love she knew he was thinking, for he opened his mind to her as well as his heart. She found she could do the same, telling him she loved him over and over as she responded to the gentle urging of his mouth and his hands, shaken by the depth of feeling he was rousing in her so that she trembled all over, heating him until they were both burning.

He laid her back on the bed and quickly discarded his clothing. His body gleamed, the broad contours of his chest, the dip of his stomach, his muscled thighs, his manhood standing proud and ready. She looked at him, unashamedly relishing the very masculine lines of him, hard and unyielding in contrast to her own soft and pliant body. He leaned over her and untied the strings of her nightgown, easing it down so that she too was naked. Now she understood fully the reason for her curves. They were two halves of one being, she and Vaelen. Imogen held out her arms and Vaelen covered her body with his, skin to skin, lips to lips, chest to breast, thigh to thigh, at every point of contact pulses jumping, blood rushing, that raw, exposed over-attenuated ragged feeling soothed with the balm of love.

He kissed her again, not gently this time but with hard passion, and she sighed. His hands caressed her face, her throat, her breasts, his thoughts encouraging her to follow, to mirror him, the pleasure painted on his face telling her that what she did to him felt exactly the same as what he did to her. His mouth, heated by hers, trailed kisses of fire onto her breasts, sucking her nipples so that she gasped as the needling, jolting pleasure took hold in her belly and in her sex. His erection was hard between her legs, the tip nudging at her damp entrance. She wanted him inside her. If she did not have him inside her now, she would, she would…

He read her thoughts, smiled with potent promise as he stroked her hair, and kissed her languorously. Then slowly, achingly slowly, he moved into her, and into her, and into her, his thick shaft making her muscles clench and shiver, little pulses of pleasure like sprays of stars arcing up, lighting her from the inside. Vaelen tilted her carefully and pushed higher. She moaned and clutched at his back, pulling him to her. He kissed her—a deep, hot crimson kiss, dark with delight. He said her name, or thought it.

Imogen.

Vaelen.

Then he moved, slowly withdrawing to the tip of his manhood, slowly back, and again, and again, each time a little faster, a little harder, saying her name in time. His eyes were fixed on hers, watching every nuance of pleasure as he thrust and withdrew, saying her name with each thrust, Imogen, Imogen, Imogen. She felt herself swelling and shattering at the same time. She cried out, and bucked under him, felt him swelling too, felt the contraction of his own climax seconds after her own, his pulsing and her pulsing together. He filled her. She was so shattered with pleasure that she thought she would fly apart were he not holding her, melding into her, kissing her.

“Now,” she panted. “I love you, Vaelen. Do it now.”

He hesitated. Looked deep into her eyes and saw no hesitation at all. “I love you, my own darling Imogen.” His voice was husky with something that in another being would be tears. He licked the pulse that beat at her throat. “I love you,” he said fervently. “I love you.” A prayer.

Then he fastened his lips on the tender skin of her neck.

Epilogue

Although the bride was still in half-mourning, the groom’s desire to flaunt his love before the world and the world’s desire to attend the most talked-about match of the Season made the wedding of Imogen, formerly the Duchess of Strathfyne, and Vaelen, the Earl of Kilmun—for he chose not to reveal his litany of other titles—an extravagant affair indeed.

It took place at St James’s church one bright June morning. The bride wore a gown of sea-green silk with a jade over-dress of sarsenet lace. The bodice was low, the puffed sleeves slashed. Her only adornment was a long string of freshwater pearls which glowed pink on her creamy bosom. Though some—such as Lady Cullen—looked down from their willowy heights and claimed they thought her too lacking in stature for beauty, her bosom rather too full for the fashion, most agreed that Imogen looked radiant.

Certainly her groom, standing at the altar, had eyes only for her. As she had eyes only for him. As the Dowager Duchess of Strathfyne—now, thankfully, about to become the only Dowager Duchess of Strathfyne—remarked in a whisper that echoed round the arched chapel, “It was as if there was no one else present save the two of them. I declare, if Alfred had been alive still, he would have been most touched.” To this non sequitur not even Lady Innellan had an answer.

But the dowager, wiping a tear from her eye with a black-edged handkerchief, spoke the truth. Though he had wished the world to see his bride and to hear his nuptials, now his wedding was actually underway, Vaelen saw and heard no one but Imogen. Love swelled his heart. Such a thing, he had not thought possible but it was true. As it was true that warm blood ran in his veins, that the only hunger he had was to make love to the beautiful woman standing before him.

The couple said their vows with such a firm certainty that even Lady Cullen was touched. “I now pronounce you man and wife,” the vicar said, evoking a collective sigh and no few tears from the congregation.

“I may be mortal now, but my love for you will live for ever,” Vaelen, the Earl of Kilmun whispered to his new countess. And then he took the bride he had waited more lifetimes than anyone could count into his arms, and sealed his promise with a kiss.

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Born and educated in Scotland, Marguerite Kaye originally qualified as a lawyer but chose not to practise—a decision which was a relief both to her and the Scottish legal establishment. While carving out a successful career in IT, she occupied herself with her twin passions of studying history and reading, picking up a first-class honors and a Masters degree along the way.

The course of her life changed dramatically when she found her soul mate. After an idyllic year out, spent traveling round the Mediterranean, Marguerite decided to take the plunge and pursue her life-long ambition to write for a living—a dream she had cherished ever since winning a national poetry competition at the age of nine.

Just like one of her fictional heroines, Marguerite’s fantasy has become reality. She has published history and travel articles, as well as short stories, but romances are her passion. Marguerite describes Georgette Heyer and Doris Day as her biggest early influences, and her partner as her inspiration.

Though she continues to write regular pieces for a number of Scottish magazines and also publishes short stories in women’s weeklies, romances are her passion. When she is not writing, Marguerite enjoys cooking and hill walking. A confirmed Europhile who spends much of the year in sunny climes, she returns regularly to the beautiful Highland scenery of her native Argyll, the place she still calls home.

Marguerite would love to hear from you. You can contact her at: Marguerite_Kaye@hotmail.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-4268-5288-6

Bitten by Desire

Copyright © 2010 by Marguerite Kaye

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