Amber (Jewel Trilogy, Book 3) (16 page)

"Hmm?"

"Can you not...touch me?"

He pulled back and gazed into glassy light-green eyes. "Nay, I cannot," he said, though he had to force the words past his lips. "Should I touch you, I may not be able to help doing more. And I promised I wouldn't seduce you in bed." He teased her lips with his. "But you like the kissing, aye?"

Her hands tightened in the hair at his nape. "Oh, heavens, yes. I like it. I just want—"

"Hmm?" His tongue traced her trembling mouth. Let her ask for it. "What do you want,
leannan
?"

"I...I don't know," she whispered, burying her face against his neck.

"You know," he said softly. "We both know. Say it, Kendra."

Instead of saying it, she took a ragged breath and released it with a shudder.

"It won't hurt, lass. It was just that first time, I promise. It won't ever hurt again."

Kendra felt the words, the promise, vibrate in his throat. She ached for him—truly she did. But what good were promises from a man she couldn't trust? And even if he were right—even if it wouldn't hurt—how could she share her body with a man who refused to share his life?

She was touching him now, but she wasn't really. Her hands were upon his body, but she had yet to reach him where it counted. A barrier stood between them, and she couldn't bring herself to risk the crossing.

He had built it. He would have to be the one to bring it down.

"What do you want?" he asked again.

"I want—" She turned her head away, staring up at the underside of Trick's red silk canopy. Not hers. No matter how many times he insisted that what was his was hers as well, she didn't feel that way in her heart. Not while he kept the most important thing of all from her.

Himself.

"I want to go to sleep," she whispered.

He trailed his fingers lightly across her cheek. "One more kiss?"

"I think...no," she said on a sigh. Another kiss would only make her more sad, and the lump in her throat was hard to bear already. She rolled away from him, turning her back. "Good night," she whispered.

The words seemed to hover in the heavy air of the still room.

After a moment he snuggled against her, and she could feel the hardness that said without words just how much he wanted her. "Do you think you might miss me, lassie?"

A groan rose from a place where she ached deep inside, and he went to sleep with a smile on his face.

She knew, because after his breathing evened out in the pattern of slumber, she turned and gazed upon him, filling herself with the sight of him to hold her through the weeks ahead.

It took her longer than ever to drift off that night, and when she awakened, he was gone.

"Mrs. Kendra?"

"Yes, Thomas?" Kneeling in the grass by little Susanna, Kendra squinted up at the impish towhead.

"We're athletes in the Olympic games, am I right?"

"That's the idea."

"Well, then..." A gleam came into his sparkling blue eyes as his hands went to the fabric draped over his shoulder. "Shouldn't we be naked?"

"Leave that on, you rapscallion!" She was hard put not to laugh at his pout. "I never said we were strictly authentic."

"Aw, all right." With a mischievous grin, he ran off.

"Stand still, Susanna." Kendra tucked the girl's "toga" more tightly, smiling to herself. Luckily her lessons hadn't covered fashion, so her students were ignorant of the fact that the Greeks had worn solid colors, not brightly flowered calico. "There you go."

"My thanks, Mrs. Kendra."

"You're very welcome." She patted Susanna's blond curls and stood, knowing as she sent her off that the girl would be back in a few minutes to be tucked in again.

She'd learned that togas weren't the ideal clothing for young children.

That was her only miscalculation, though—the rest of the party had gone brilliantly. The children's retelling of their favorite myths had been riotous. Now they were participating in Olympic "games," and the victory wreaths she had woven from laurel leaves might as well have been solid gold crowns considering how much they were cherished. Fortunately, she'd brought enough for everyone, and she was not above fixing the contests to see that each child came out a winner.

The party was a wild success, and they hadn't even feasted yet. Nor had she distributed the favors. Her baskets of goodies were still hiding beneath a blanket in the caleche, and she couldn't wait to see the children's faces when they received them.

Wrapped in stately blue stripes, young Andrew tugged on her toga. "Who are you, Mrs. Kendra?"

"Why, Hera, of course." She looked down into adoring dark eyes—his crush had not abated over the weeks. "Do you remember who she was?"

"Zeus's wife," he said proudly. "And the protector of marriage."

"Very good," she returned, although, for her, the job description seemed an ill fit at best.

Rather than protecting her marriage, she'd sent her husband off alone. She should have argued until he agreed to let her go with him. Surely if she'd put up a fight, he would have relented—her brothers almost always did. But she'd never really tried.

Andrew shifted on his feet, looking shy. "I memorized one of the poems about her."

"Did you?"

He nodded and began to quote.

"Golden-throned Hera, among immortals the queen,
Chief among them in beauty, the glorious lady
All the blessed in high Olympus revere,
Honor even as Zeus, the lord of the thunder."

He finished with an awkward bow that should have brought a smile to Kendra's lips. But in contrast to the Hera of the poem, she was feeling anything but glorious at the moment.

"Mrs. Kendra? Are you all right?"

"I'm fine, Andrew." Amazed at the young man's perception, she forced a smile. "Mrs. Jackson is organizing a chariot race," she said brightly, glancing over to where the buxom woman was lining up four wheelbarrows. "I imagine a tall, strong boy like you, with little Susanna in his chariot, could come out a winner. Run along now—I'm fine."

But despite how well the party was going, she wasn't fine at all.

Trick should have been here. He was supposed to have been Zeus.

He'd made this happen, repeatedly risking his life to feed and shelter these boys and girls. Her gaze followed Andrew as he joined the other laughing children. None of them, herself included, would be here today without Trick.

Hera had always been zealously covetous of Zeus, and God help her, she missed her man.

When Kendra arrived home, she stopped only long enough to switch her toga for a riding habit and grab a key from Trick's desk drawer. Then she ran to the stables, mounted Pandora, and fairly flew over the Downs to the cottage.

Once inside, she could almost smell him. Since this morning when she'd awakened in his home, something—his vibrancy—had been missing. Instead of feeling free, she'd felt bereft.

But here in the cottage, she could feel his presence. Unlike Amberley House, this clearly wasn't designed by his father. Trick's personal style was stamped on the walls, the floors, every piece of furniture.

It was astonishing the loss she felt, given she'd known him only a few weeks. Just when she was beginning to form a fragile bond with him, he'd left. She strode straight to unlock the drawer and dig to the bottom.

The poetry was gone.

She riffled through all the papers to make sure. Gone, all of it. Her knees buckled, and she sank to the floor, her heart sinking along with her. Not only was her one link to him missing, he was clearly intent on keeping her at arm's length.

Rushed to begin a long journey to a foreign land, he'd nonetheless taken the time to stop and remove the pages. Remove any possibility that by reading his words, she might discover who he was, deep inside.

She couldn't allow him to isolate himself like that. Not if they were to live a lifetime together.

She should have gone with him.

"He left," Kendra told Caithren the next afternoon. "He had no choice."

"Of course he didn't." Cait stopped beneath one of Amberley's many arbors and played with the ends of her dark-blond hair. "But why didn't you go along?"

"He didn't want me." Kendra squinted at her sister-in-law in the shadows. "Isn't this the loveliest garden?" Her gesture encompassed more than the vine-covered walkway. "The head gardener told me it was designed by Salaman de Caux himself."

"Salaman who?"

"De Caux. The celebrated Frenchman. Have you not heard of him?"

"Nay. My garden at Leslie was filled with herbs and vegetables." Cait's lips turned up in a self-deprecating smile. "Nary a posy in sight."

Amberley House's gardens were the most extensive Kendra had ever seen. Geometric configurations of flower beds, knots, and borders surrounded a lake where fishes darted beneath the clear water. Avenues lined with painted and gilded stone lions flanked a massive bowling green. Walls of fruit trees divided the charming wilderness garden from those more formal, like the privy garden they were heading toward.

As they strolled from the arbor into the sunshine, her gaze trailed to the massive mansion that loomed over it all. "I'm afraid Trick's father depleted his entire fortune building this place."

"Has Trick said so?"

"Not in so many words," she said, hesitating to say more. Confiding Trick's financial instability might lead to speculation about his continuing highway robbery.

"Then I wouldn't assume so," Cait said. "The estate is very impressive, but then, Trick
is
a duke. And you're very good at changing the subject."

Kendra flashed her a wry smile. "I was hoping you wouldn't notice." She reached overhead to pluck off a fragrant flower, worrying its soft petals between her fingers. "Part of me still cannot believe I'm married. Do you know, even as we rode away that day, I was sure Colin would come riding after us to say it was all an elaborate joke. I'd convinced myself the parson was in on it—that somehow the ceremony wasn't valid."

"But it was."

"I was furious. I still am. I don't feel like talking to my brothers—any of them." Her voice dropped. "Then I found myself alone with Trick, and still I didn't quite believe it."

"How did it go? The first night, I mean."

"Not well." She looked away, studying the way the light filtered through the leafy canopy of a yew. "Did it hurt you very much that first time?"

"I suppose it did, but only that first time, of course. And I was in no state to take notice of it overmuch."

"Well, is Jason very...big?"

Caithren's eyes widened. "Crivvens, what a question! I've nothing to compare him to, aye? I can only say that to look at him, he seems too big, but he always seems to fit just fine." Her half-embarrassed laugh rang through the garden; then she focused on Kendra, shading her hazel eyes with a hand. "It went better for you the second time, I expect. Surely it didn't hurt."

Kendra bit her lip. "There hasn't been a second time."

"What?" If possible, Cait's eyes widened even more. "You've been married almost three weeks!"

"I won't let him. He...we don't fit. Not everyone does, I expect. In fact, I wonder now why it is that men insist on wedding virgins. You'd think they'd want to try the woman out first and make sure it will work."

"It will work, Kendra." Cait bit her own lip, but clearly not in consternation—rather to keep from laughing. "By all the saints, did your brothers not tell you anything? Jason will hear from me about this."

"Please, no." Kendra felt her face heat. "He'd make fun of me all my days. What is it he failed to tell me?"

"It hurts most women at first. But only the once, aye? Only that first time, when your maidenhead—"

"I may have heard that word." Kendra frowned. "But I never knew what it meant."

"It's a membrane, inside every woman. Every virgin, that is. You could say it guards your entrance. I read once that it's properly called a hymen."

"Hymen is the Greek god of the wedding feast."

"Really? How fitting." Caithren cleared her throat. "Now, the first time you make love it is torn, and you bleed—"

"I did," Kendra whispered.

"But you won't next time. And it won't hurt, either, because the maidenhead will be gone. And he'll fit, I promise."

Trick had been telling the truth, then. A wave of relief washed over Kendra, tempered by a stab of regret. She should have believed him.

And now she
really
wished she'd gone with him.

In obvious wonder, Cait shook her head. "Almost three weeks."

And another month, Kendra thought, until he'd be back. Remembering his kisses, the way he'd made her feel last night—the way she'd nearly given in—she could barely stifle a groan.

Cait knelt to inspect some bell-shaped flowers. "He must be the most patient man on earth," she murmured. "Even I could see how much he wanted you. However did you manage to keep him away?"

Kendra gave an evasive shrug. "We were strangers. We still are."

"You will come to know each other. Just give him another chance." She frowned down at the plant. "You have dwale growing here!"