Cates, Kimberly (23 page)

He collapsed against her, burying his face against her breasts. She stroked the sweat-damp mane of his hair as the tremors of pleasure still shook him, her heart too full to speak, the soft sheath of her body still clinging to him, cradling him.

"Gavin," she whispered at last. "Beautiful... it was so... beautiful."

She felt a tremor wrack him, something hot and wet against her breasts. He was silent, achingly silent. At last, she asked him softly, "What are you thinking?"

"That I must have done something right, something decent in all this madness for the fates to give me this precious gift." His voice was an open wound as he whispered by the flickering light of the fire. "I didn't deserve this loving, Rachel. I thought it was one more dream that I'd lost along the way, that I would never know what it was like to... truly make love with the lady of my heart." He ran his sensitive fingertips over her face, as if to memorize every curve and dip, hollow and plane, his glorious silver eyes filled with awe. "You gave me that gift, Rachel. I vow to you that when death comes, this will be the moment I remember. I'll go to heaven or to hell cradling the memory of this loving in my heart."

"Oh, Gavin." Her voice broke, her heart feeling bruised and torn, wide open and cherished. "You've given me so much: you taught me how to laugh, how to love." Tears welled up, exquisite, burning droplets of emotion.

"I taught you something else," he whispered in aching regret, his thumb gliding over her cheek, gathering the warm dampness. "Ah, Rachel, Rachel. I taught you how to cry."

"How could I cry when I never loved anyone or anything enough to shed my abominable pride? How could I cry when I wouldn't allow myself to feel... feel pain and grief, but joy as well, Gavin? And love— love so great it bursts inside me, leaving me no place to hide? Love me again, Gavin. Please, please love me again and again and again."

With a low groan, he gathered her close, and she kissed him, as if her love alone could freeze the relentless hands of time, hold back the world beyond this tiny croft. She knew the world waited to snatch the bold rebel Glen Lyon from her arms and hurtle him back into buildings aflame, amidst sword battles and orphans' cries. The world loomed, like the reaper of death, greedy for vengeance on the one man who had dared to stand strong against the madness.

CHAPTER 14

Gavin lay in the firelight, Rachel draped across him like a drowsy kitten, naked and soft, vulnerable and so beautiful she broke his heart. He had loved her to madness, until the croft had rung with their cries and urgings, their groans and pleas.

Every fantasy had been brought to glowing reality, every wisp of curiosity satisfied, each single moment crammed with as much sensation, emotion as possible. And in those astounding, wondrous moments when he had plunged deep, felt her open to him, Gavin had reeled with the exquisite beauty, the overwhelming power of that joining.

He craved her as a madman does the fire of delusions, devoured her like a starving man cast into a world made of marchpane and sweetmeats and honeycomb.

Every muscle in Gavin's body still ached and trembled from an onslaught of a passion so wild and fierce he'd been stunned by its strength. Nothing in his life—not his beloved legends or books, not his own idealistic dreams or his youthful forays into physical passion, not even the great love of his father and Lydia—had prepared him for the reality of what had happened here, in this tiny hovel tucked in the Scottish Highlands.

Had it been a miracle wrought to nourish his wounded spirit? Or was it the cruelest of torments, devised by the dark one himself, to show Gavin everything he could never have?

He struggled to shove away the bleak thought, not wanting to waste a moment of his time with Rachel, knowing that it would vanish all too soon.

He buried his lips against the crown of her head, the silky curls a caress against his beard-stubbled chin. How many times, during the hours they had loved, had touching her smoothed away the rough edges of reality, the tearing claws of the world that, even now, was attempting to rip its way into the paradise they had created between them?

Yet whatever wild enchantment had shielded them the past hours seemed to be melting away with the soft smear of gray dawn.

Instinctively, Gavin's fingers tightened on Rachel. A sharp-edged knot of something akin to panic hardened in his chest.
No, damn it, not yet,
he railed in silent anguish.
It's too soon... too soon.

She stirred, her lashes fluttering on the rose-kissed curve of her cheeks, her nose nuzzling against the hair-roughened plane of his chest.

She sighed, an angel's sigh. Her breath was sweet and warm against his skin as she raised her head. Adorable confusion clouded the luminous depths of her eyes; then he could see the past night flooding back into her memory. Delicate pink stained her cheekbones, and she caught her lip between her teeth. But even her sweetly flustered appearance did not pierce Gavin with its heartbreaking beauty as deeply as the smile that she gave to him—the first smile of the morning, the first sweetly knowing smile of a girl newly made a woman by her lover's hands.

He threaded his fingers through the tangled lace of her curls and drew that trembling mouth to his in a kiss of fierce tenderness. Her mouth melted into his, eager and shy, hopeful and wistful, filled with the taste of dreams. When he broke the kiss, the last vestiges of unease were gone from her face. She held him tightly, a dimple appearing in her cheek.

"That was even more wonderful than I remembered. I was almost afraid to wake up, for fear it was all some wild imagining," she said in a voice still webbed with sleep. "Do people who are together forever love this way, Gavin? after a dozen years?"

"I don't know." Gavin could barely force the words past the sudden thickness in his throat. "I'm only certain that if I die tomorrow, I will know that I loved more in this one night than most people love in a lifetime. I'll always remember the gift you've given me, Rachel. I'll always cherish it."

A brittle laugh echoed from her lips, a dart of something painful clouding her gaze. "You make it sound as if our loving is over—but it's just beginning." She levered herself up, her hip still pressed against him, her arm braced straight on the other side of his chest. The length of her hair draped about delicate breasts, still tinged soft rose in places from the abrasion of his stubbled jaw. "I'm not a starry-eyed fool, Gavin. I know the situation is difficult, but it's still possible that we can have forever."

He stiffened, the bittersweet pain, the yearning, the throb of fulfillment that had gripped him the past hours splashing away as if in a tide of icewater. "What the hell?"

She didn't so much as flinch, just met his gaze with her own determined one. He thought he'd never seen anyone so heart-rendingly brave. "I'm not going back to Dunstan. I'm going to stay with you."

Gavin gave a brittle chuckle. "Of course you are. We'll set up housekeeping in the cave. You can decorate it any way you like. Perhaps something in blue. No green—I detest the shade. My mother had a green salon and it made me a trifle seasick every time I entered. We can get a few sheep, and you can learn to make bannocks over an open fire."

"Don't laugh at me." The quiet words struck Gavin like a blow in the pit of his stomach. She was serious, dead serious. Those eyes that had fired with passion, brimmed with tenderness, were suddenly solemn; the mouth that had been so soft beneath his was painfully earnest.

Gavin's heart stumbled, stricken. "Rachel, I— You must understand that what you're suggesting is impossible."

"No. I don't understand. I love you. You love me. We belong together." She hesitated, swallowing hard, a flicker of something unbearably vulnerable in her eyes. "You do love me." She didn't phrase it as a question, but it was one—one that struck Gavin to the heart.

"Of course I love you! That doesn't change a damned thing. I can't have you, Rachel."

"You already do have me. Forever."

Gavin reeled, able to see for the first time the legacy this loving would leave on her beautiful face, the hurt, the sense of abandonment. The knowledge that he would be the man who left her thus seared him to the marrow of his bones. Had she come to his bed believing in some forever dream? A dream he'd known was impossible before the first time he touched her, kissed her? Was that why she'd come to him so willingly, given to him with such generosity? Because she'd imagined bridal rings and wedding vows and a future that could never be? The possibility that she'd been betrayed by her own innocence and by his selfish desire was too hideous to contemplate.

He untangled himself from her, every brush of her soft skin against his suddenly excruciating, stabbing him with self-blame. He stalked over to grab up his breeches. "You can't truly believe we can be together," he snapped, his voice roughened with anger and regret.

"Of course I believe it. Surely, you must see—"

"I see. A hell of a lot more clearly than you do. There's nothing I can give you except exile and poverty. Do you think I'd condemn you to the life of a fugitive from the crown?" He jammed his legs into the garment, heedless of the stinging wound left by the soldier's sword the day before.

"You're not
condemning
me to anything!" She grabbed her shift, pressing it against her breasts, her chin jutting up at that belligerent angle that always broke his heart. "I would rather make my bed on this heather ticking forever, with your arms to hold me, than sleep in a grand state bed with any other man. It's my choice to make."

"It's not your goddamn choice!" Gavin yanked his breeches into place and wheeled on her, with savage, tearing hopelessness. "Do you think I could bear watching you grow thin and exhausted, hunted like a roe deer month after month? Never certain if a sword thrust awaits you around the next bend in the road?"

"Do you think I'm too weak to survive? In the past few weeks, I've been kidnapped, shot a man, tended his wounds, watched a village be destroyed, and saw you fighting to save the helpless. I fell in love with you, and—and took you into my bed. And I'm glad, Gavin. It was glorious. I wouldn't change a minute of what happened, as long as I could end up here, with you loving me."

No executioner's knife could have tortured him with more fiendish finesse. Gavin ground his teeth at the pain of this woman's courage, her fierce passion, her belief that he was strong enough, brave enough to save them both.

She plunged on. "Maybe there won't be a sword-thrust waiting for us. Instead, there could be a future neither of us ever expected. We can sail with the orphans in six days' time, find someplace to build a life for them, and for each other. I'm willing to follow you, my lord, my love. Anywhere you name."

Her offer was a flaming brand to his soul, a utopia so fleeting, so beautiful, it crushed his throat. For a heartbeat, Gavin was tempted to reach out, grasp Rachel's vision with both hands, and hold on with every ounce of strength he possessed. But reality swept in, harsh and bitter, ripping the dream away with a savagery that almost tore a cry from his throat. He lashed out in the mindless pain of a tortured beast.

"You'd give up everything you own? Forsake everyone you know? I'm a pauper. The crown took everything except what funds I had in France, and those have been spent on the ship and passage, money to give soldiers and their families new starts away from this hellhole. And in the end, my land and fortune won't be enough to sate the crown's fury. England is greedy as hell when it comes to traitors. Your Britannia will take my life, no matter what the cost."

"Only if you let them," Rachel retorted. "Or is that what you want? To offer yourself up to pay for your sins? Die so you won't hurt anymore?"

"Don't be ridiculous."

"That is what Adam thinks. I know it. He won't leave you. I'm not leaving you, either." Determination fired her eyes.

"You want to spend the rest of your life as a traitor's woman? You saw the brand of justice the English dispense to women foolish enough to bond themselves to Jacobites. They could kill you—and worse—before they knew who you were. Hell, if they ever suspected that you dared to love me, Rachel, and that I loved you—they'd torture you beyond imagining for your betrayal of your country."

"But it would be an honest torture. Not like the one you have planned for me."

"I don't want to hurt you! For God's sake—"

"Don't you? Think of what torture it would be for me, sitting helplessly in England, knowing that you might be hurt or dying and that I would never know it until it was too late to come to you. Maybe you're right, and we only have a little time left to us. Maybe the worst will happen. But doesn't that make every moment we have even more precious? too precious to waste?"

Anguished yearning streaked across Gavin's face, his wanting cutting so deep it was raw agony in his eyes. "What if I got you with child? Jesus, Rachel, you'd be so damned helpless."

"I might already be carrying your babe."

Blood drained from his face, his fists clenching at the memory of the Scotswoman he'd rescued from the flaming building, her pregnancy making her awkward, vulnerable to the ravening wolves Sir Dunstan had set loose across the Highlands.

"If you gave me your baby, Gavin, I would be overjoyed—to have a child made out of our love. What could be more beautiful? You'd be the most wonderful father—"

"Damn it, I wouldn't be a father at all! I'm hunted. I'd probably be dead before the babe was born, before our son or daughter could even recognize my face. I'd leave you both alone, unprotected, so damned vulnerable. God in heaven Rachel, what have I done?"

"Loved me. You loved me, Gavin."

Self-loathing surged into his veins, a hot poison already far too familiar. "I had no right!"

"It's a little late to be making that observation, isn't it?" Anger, hurt, and confusion whitened the oval of her face, tightened the mouth that had driven him to madness what seemed an eternity ago. "What did you expect me to do after we made love?" she demanded. "Trundle myself back to Edinburgh and continue stitching on my trousseau? Follow through with my marriage to Dunstan and pretend this night never happened, that you never loved me?"