All the Sweet Tomorrows (67 page)

“Do you intend to eat me, or just paint me, little girl?” he inquired humorously as he opened his eyes and looked up at her.

“I was just deciding what a handsome man you are,” she said frankly.

“You mean you never noticed until now?” he demanded in a slightly aggrieved tone.

“No,” she giggled, “but gazing at you in sleep, I looked closer than I ever have. I’ve always thought you were handsome, but on more acute inspection I have decided you are
very
handsome.”

She was resting on an elbow looking down at him as she spoke, and now his arm came up to draw her down to him. “Come here to me, little girl,” he said in a low, deep voice, and then his mouth was finding hers, tenderly kissing it, gently seeking a response that he knew existed, despite her protests. For a moment Skye was startled, even surprised, although she had been expecting him to ask to make love to her. Then she realized that it was because for the first time in well over a year she was being kissed with love, not just lust. This was not Kedar with his voracious appetites for her body, with his insane passion to possess her totally. This was Adam—Adam, her gentle giant who had loved her for so long. She felt her tears flow unbidden as a mixture of joy and relief flooded her. He lifted his head slowly, and tenderly began to lick the tears away. Skye shivered at the pure sensuousness of his simple action, knowing at the same moment that she wanted him not just for now, but for all time.

She wanted to laugh at how foolish she had been in her grief over Niall’s death. Adam had understood, bless him. He had understood the pain, and the disappointment, and the anger that had welled up in her, and he had loved her nonetheless, and said he could be patient. Men were born to die, and if she had lost previous husbands it had only been in the fabric of life. Do not fight your fate so hard, Osman had always warned her. With a sudden burst of clarity Skye knew that Adam de Marisco was her fate.

“Oh, Adam,” she whispered almost brokenly, “I love you!”

He lifted his great head, and with a mischievous grin he replied, “I know that, little girl. Why do you think I was so damned willing to be patient? You simply needed time to come to yourself again.”

She hit at him weakly with her fist. “How could you know when I didn’t?” she demanded.

“You knew too, Skye O’Malley, you knew that you loved me. You were just not willing to admit to it. I was sure, being the sensible creature you are, that eventually you would.” With a smooth action he turned her so that she now lay upon her back, and he hovered over her. “I love you, my Celtic witch. I have loved you from the first, but you were not ready then to love me. In my foolishness I thought that you should be married to a more powerful, more important man, but I was wrong, little girl. I am
the only man for you, Skye!” He bent his leonine head down and brushed her mouth with his very lightly, sending a pleasant tingle through her. “Yes, I am the only man for you, my darling, and you are the only woman for me!”

“I am still not sure that I want to marry again,” she said softly

“That feeling will pass,” he said with such certainty that she had to laugh.

“Adam!”

“Well, it will! Besides, we should wait a year.”

“A whole year?” she teased him.

“Well,” he reconsidered, “perhaps not a whole year. After all, little girl, Niall was presumed dead over three years ago, and the Queen gave you no time to mourn then.”

“That is why I need a little time now, Adam,” was her reply. “I was hustled into marriage with the Duc de Beaumont de Jaspre three months after Niall’s alleged murder. It was indecent of Elizabeth Tudor, but I needed her help, and she needed a bride to send to the duc. Give me time now, my darling. We will go up to Paris with your family, and enjoy all the festivities that go with the marriage of a royal princess and an heir to France’s throne. We do not need to be married to have a good time, my darling Adam!” Her eyes twinkled humorously at him. “We have never needed to be wed to have a good time, my lord of Lundy!”

“You are a minx,” he said, and his own eyes twinkled back at her. Then his hand moved to the little pearl buttons on her rose-colored caftan. “Do you remember the last time that you wore this for me?” he asked. Skye shook her head in the negative. “When I came to London just before you departed for Beaumont de Jaspre. You told me that you were being sold into marriage, a loveless marriage, and that before you went we would spend our time together loving each other so we might have sweet memories. Do you remember now, Skye?” He bared a soft, round breast and, bending, kissed it tenderly.

“Yes,” she whispered. “I remember, Adam.”

“Did he love you, your duc?” His tongue flicked out to begin a tortuous encirclement of her sensitive nipple.

Skye shivered as the warmth of his tongue and the cool air of the early evening worked together to bring her nipple to a hard point. “Fabron did not know how to love,” she gasped as he bared her other breast and began to tease at it. “He was a sad man. Damn, Adam! You will drive me wild! Stop!”

“I adore you wild!” he chuckled indulgently.

Her answer was to fumble with the laces on his silk shirt, and successful at that, slip her hands inside to caress his broad back. She could feel the hard muscles beneath his skin tense as he restrained himself. Wickedly she ran her sharp nails lightly down the skin, and heard with total satisfaction his sharp intake of breath. She impishly caught at the lobe of his ear and gently bit it.

“Wench,” he growled with mock fierceness, “you shall pay for that liberty!”

“Make me!” she taunted, and then squealed as he yanked the caftan apart, baring her to his fiery gaze.

His hands slid with delicious familiarity over her torso, and to his vast amusement she sighed with great delight. “Wanton!” he muttered at her.

“You don’t understand, Adam,” she said. “The last time a man made love to me it was not because he loved me. It was because I belonged to him, and he sought to relieve his lust. When you touch me it is with love. Oh, my darling Adam, I want you to touch me with love! I want you to make love to me! I so very much need to be loved again as a woman, and not as a possession!”

His smoky blue eyes gazed down into hers. “It is not a very hard task you set me, Skye,” he said softly.

“Love me,”
she repeated as softly, and his mouth again descended upon hers to make her his warm and willing captive. Her arms slipped up around his neck to draw him even closer, her round and tender breasts pressed hard against his furred chest. He had never kissed her with such deep passion, his sensuous mouth seemingly welded to hers, sending alternate shivers and waves of heat throughout her body. He demanded much, yet he gave as well, and Skye felt herself soaring under the sweet pressure of his lips. She yielded herself to him, to his care, and he kissed her hungrily, muttering fiercely against her mouth, “I love you! I love you, my sweet Skye!”

Then they heard it, the insistent knocking at the bedchamber door. With a smothered curse Adam broke away from her, roaring, “What is it, dammit?!”

The door opened. “It is time that you begin to ready yourselves for the evening meal,
mes enfants,”
Mignon said calmly with all the smug privilege of an upper servant of long standing.

“Go away, Mignon!”

“Non
, M’sieur Adam! Your maman has had the cooks preparing
for days for your arrival. She would be most distressed if you did not appear in the dining hall tonight.” Her cherry-black eyes twinkled. “You had best eat,
mon chou!
I suspect you will need all your strength for later.” She chuckled. “Up with you now, and go to Guillaume. He is waiting to dress you.”

Grumbling about no privacy and being treated like a lad not yet breeched, Adam de Marisco got up and, with a regretful look at Skye, left the room.

With a pretty blush Skye drew the two edges of her caftan together and sat up. “Were you able to salvage one of my gowns?” she asked in an attempt to change the subject and save her dignity.

“Oui
, madame,” came the cheerful reply, “and madame must not be embarrassed. We French understand about love, and it is most obvious that you and M’sieur Adam love each other. Then, too, you are betrothed, and who is to gainsay you if you love a little while you wait to wed.” She smiled at Skye. “Come now, madame. I have managed to ready a lovely silk gown for you the blue-green color of the sea. Let me bring you your jewelry case so you may decide what you will wear with it.”

“I have no jewelry case with my clothes,” Skye said. “My jewels went back to England with my tiring woman.”

“Perhaps she forgot, madame, for there is a small carved ivory box among your things,” Mignon replied.

Skye shook her head. She did not remember an ivory box, and it was not like Daisy to forget her jewelry. “Bring it to me,” she commanded.

Mignon disappeared into the garderobe a moment, returning quickly with a rectangular box carved of creamy ivory. “There you are, madame,” she said, placing the box in Skye’s lap.

As the maidservant turned away to finish her chores, Skye turned the little gold key that was in the lock, opened the box, and gasped with a mixture of shock and surprise as the lid raised to reveal the contents. Stuck within the lid was a folded parchment, and pulling it out, Skye opened it to read:
Doucette, I had these made for you when I thought you might return to me. Since I will not give my wife jewelry made for another woman, I beg that you take this small offering that was meant only for you. Nicolas
.

Skye gently put the parchment aside and concentrated on the jewelry before her. There was a marvelous assortment of pink-tinged pearls and a huge ring set in gold. And there was an absolutely stunning necklace of diamonds with matching earrings;
a collection of hair ornaments of diamonds, pearls, and rubies set in gold; several more rings; bracelets, and additional earrings of sapphires, emeralds, and rubies set in gold. It was a small fortune, and for a moment she wasn’t sure what she should do with it.

It had been wonderfully kind of Nicolas to send along the jewelry, but could she keep it? She was to marry another man. He was a married man. Then common sense took over. He had had the jewelry made for her before he married Madelaine, and before she agreed to marry Adam. He might have kept it, but he had chosen to give it to her, anyway. She would consider it a wedding gift, and tell Adam only what she had to.

“I think I shall wear the pearls,” she said to Mignon. “I shall save the diamonds for Paris.”

“Very good, madame,” the tiring woman approved as she re-entered the room carrying the gown.

Skye stood up, and donned the silk undergarments that were handed to her, but when she slipped on the bodice and the skirt of her gown both she and Mignon gasped with surprise, for they were too large. “I knew that I had lost weight,” Skye exclaimed, “but I did not think I had lost so much that my gowns would not fit.”

“Do not fret, madame,” Mignon soothed her. “I shall pin the garments for tonight, and we shall have the seamstress come tomorrow to alter all of your gowns for Paris. The necklines must be lowered, for one thing, as it is now more fashionable.”

“It is?” Skye was a trifle surprised, for she thought that the necklines were low enough.

Mignon worked quickly. All her movements were swift, and the little tiring woman seemed to waste neither energy nor time in anything she did. She firmly sat Skye down and brushed her hair out before fixing it in the lovely simple chignon that Skye favored. “When we go up to Paris, madame, and you visit the court,” she said, “I am going to try doing your hair in the long curls that are the coming fashion. The style is most provocative, and M’sieur Adam will adore it.” She fastened two white roses into her mistress’s hair. “There, madame,” she said, pleased. “Now, the gown.”

When Mignon had finished with her Skye stood looking at herself in the pier glass. It was the first time in so long that she was dressed as the lady she really was. The bodice of her gown had a low, square neckline, and was embroidered in tiny crystal beads with gold thread. The sleeves were leg-of-mutton, padded
and puffed, and the wristbands, held by many tiny gold ribbons, were embroidered in crystal beads and turned back to form a cuff. The silk overskirt of the gown was blue-green, separating in the front to show the skirt of the undergown which was striped in the same color and gold. Her stockings, which would only show if she danced, were pale-pink silk embroidered in climbing roses, and her shoes matched her gown.

“Vous êtes très belle, madame,”
Mignon said quietly, as she daubed essence of damask rose on Skye’s pulse points.

“Why is it you women take so damned long to dress, little girl?” Adam demanded from the connecting doorway.

She whirled prettily and curtseyed. “Is it not worth it, Adam?” she teased him, taking in his own appearance. She had rarely seen him dressed as magnificently as he was now, in an elegantly fitted velvet doublet embroidered in gold thread and, she would swear, small diamonds! His jerkin was sleeveless and edged in ermine. He was dressed entirely in dark blue, which flattered his eyes.

Slowly he inspected her, and Skye found that she was blushing. Her heartbeat quickened, and she realized that she very much regretted Mignon’s untimely intrusion. Raising her eyes to his, she could read in them that he felt the same way. He reached for her hand and slowly raised it to his lips. His mouth scorched her skin, but the warmth of his gaze filled her with rapture, and she could not tear her eyes away from him.

“How is it possible that you grow more beautiful with each year, little girl?” he asked wonderingly as he tucked her small hand into his.

“Adam …” she began, and then her voice died, for she was at a total loss for words. His deep and abiding love was so plain, and Skye was beginning to realize how different he was from the other men who had been in her life. Those whom she had loved had indeed loved her as well, but they had taken boldly of her, though giving something of themselves in return. Adam, she realized with some surprise, intended to take, but he was the first to truly consider her well-being and her own feelings along with his own.