Dark Angel (45 page)

It was meant to be a light kiss, a kiss of comfort and understanding. A kiss between parents, not lovers. But to his surprise, Caroline responded. Her lips, warm where the rest of her was so cold, parted beneath his own in mute invitation. She tasted of wine and grief and longing.

As always, the merest brush of her flesh against his own was enough to make his blood run hot and his loins harden with desire. Groaning, he sank his fingers into her hair and crushed her against him, losing himself in the intoxication that was hers alone. In three weeks he had scarcely touched her. Need sang through him, sharp and blinding.

Adam ended the kiss abruptly. If he did not there would be no turning back.

Caroline looked at him, her eyes smoky, her lips wet and swollen. The shadows were not gone from her face, but the tension had eased. Her mouth curved in a smile. "We have a bed tonight," she said. "And Emily is sound asleep down the corridor."

Adam's hands stilled on her shoulders. She had had another shock, as wrenching in its way as her experience in the river, and she was turning to him again for solace and escape. They had hurt each other so much in the past. Now they could offer each other comfort. If he could not give her anything else, at least he could give her this.

But he felt an undercurrent of bitterness. Caroline wanted an escape. He wanted Caroline.

Adam lifted Caroline's left hand, tugged off her smooth white glove, a symbol of the world which had pulled them apart, and tossed it to the floor. Her skin was already paler than it had been in Acquera. The light from the brace of candles beside the bed shone against the gold of the ring which bound her to Jared. Adam pulled the ring from her finger and threw it after the glove.

Caroline watched him, her gaze unwavering. Adam seized her hand and brought her palm to his lips.

She seemed to melt against him. Her hand, which had been so cold, now burned to the touch. He kissed the pulse beating at her wrist and felt the blood thunder in his own head. Her skin was so soft, softer than he remembered. It smelled of carefully distilled hyacinth and roses, as it had on the night Emily had been conceived.

The scent stirred a need in Adam that went beyond longing or desire. He straightened up and looked into her eyes. Despite the disorder of her hair and the marks of grief and passion on her face, she was still the beautiful, remote woman who had left for Granby House five hours ago. Adam's chest tightened.

His eyes not leaving her face, he tugged off the second glove and tossed it to join the first. With great deliberation, he unclasped the velvet cloak and pushed it from her shoulders. Then he pulled the heavy silver comb free and sent her hair streaming down her back.

Caroline said nothing until he was done. He watched her, desperate for a sign that she understood. Suddenly she laughed and tossed back her head so that her hair cascaded over her shoulders like moonlight.

It was a gesture of liberation and it freed something within Adam that had remained hard and unyielding for so many years. Feeling suddenly light in body and soul, he got to his feet and swept her up into his arms.

He had carried her to bed the last time they made love and had seen her desire give way to desperation when he laid her on the sheets. Slowly, almost tentatively, he began to unfasten her gown, trying to gentle her, savoring the precious moments when she would still accept tenderness from him.

The light silk fell loose on her shoulders. Caroline lifted her arms and pulled the gown over her head, not hurriedly but with an earthy sensuality that was as languid as it was erotic.

The gown pooled on the floor beside the bed. Her corset followed. The candlelight flickered over her skin, warm and mysterious. Adam drew in his breath, feeling her warmth sear through him. His hands growing more and more unsteady, he traced the taut outline of her breasts beneath their thin linen covering. The evidence of her arousal made his own arousal stronger still. Blood and desire surged through him.

As he fumbled with her lace-edged underclothes, Caroline loosened his shirt and unfastened his breeches, eager but still not frantic. When he found her breasts with his mouth, she moaned but seemed content to let him linger, her fingers tangling in his hair, her body arching beneath his touch.

Reveling in the luxury of a soft feather bed, they rolled over and over on Margaret's clean-smelling sheets and explored each other with fingers and lips, gently at first, then with an urgency which made the bed groan. The quick, harsh sound of Caroline's breathing and the salty taste of sweat on her skin told him her hunger was as great as his own, but it was as if their lovemaking had changed into an entirely different key. Caroline was surrendering not only her body but her very soul.

The need had become unendurable. Adam groaned in desperation and apology. He lifted her hips and her thighs parted beneath his own. As he entered her, she looked into his eyes, her own luminous in the candlelight. "Adam."

The simple sound of his name filled him with joy and echoed round his heart. He braced himself on his elbows and looked down at her, willing himself not to end their joining too quickly. When he began to move within her, Caroline pulled him against her and said his name over and over, her mouth against his throat, her legs wrapped round him, her hips moving beneath his own. And in that moment, Adam knew she was giving comfort as much as she was receiving it.

The chords of desire built into a shattering crescendo. Caroline cried out and arched against him, shuddering from something other than grief. The feel of her convulsing round him destroyed his last shreds of control. He breathed her name and exploded inside her.

Caroline cradled Adam against her and kissed his sweat-dampened hair. Nothing had changed. Talbot had still spoken those devastating words. Her efforts to protect her child had still been destroyed. But she felt whole somehow. Complete. She could not put a name to what had passed between her and Adam but she knew it was different from the other times they had lain together. For the first time she had looked into Adam's eyes and seen the extent of his need and felt no fear.

"Caro." She felt the vibration of Adam's voice against her skin. He raised his head and looked down at her, his expression so vulnerable it stopped her heart. His eyes held a longing that was like a kind of desperate thirst. "What did Emily look like as a baby?" he asked softly.

It was the first question he had asked about Emily since he learned he was her father. Caroline lifted a hand and brushed the hair from his brow. "Beautiful," she said. "And tiny. I couldn't believe a baby could be so small, though everyone told me she was perfectly healthy."

Adam's eyes were still dark with intensity. "What was her first word?"

"Light."

"Light?" He laughed, a rich warm sound that washed comfortingly over her.

"Yes," Caroline said. "She used to go about watching me light the lamps in our rooms in Lisbon every evening. She was fascinated by them. I felt slighted. I wanted her to say 'Mama' so badly."

"Poor Caro." Adam kissed the tip of her nose. Then his face grew serious. "Was it—was the birth difficult?" he asked.

Caroline grimaced, recalling sweat-drenched sheets and violent, interminable spasms of pain. "I thought so. But Jane kept telling me I was lucky, first babies are usually much more difficult."

Adam traced the line of her jaw with gentle fingers. "I wish I'd been there."

"So do I." Caroline laid her hand over his own. At the time of Emily's birth, she had been so angry with Adam. Yet there had been a moment, in the throes of the birth pangs, when she had wanted him beside her with an intensity as strong as the spasms which wracked her body. She had put it down to delirium. Now the memory brought her joy.

Adam took her hand and pressed it against his lips. "I don't want Emily to grow up without a name."

Caroline felt a stab of the anguish that had overwhelmed her earlier. "Nor do I."

"Then there's a simple solution." Adam's voice was soft, but there was a strange light in his eyes, as if he was making a desperate gamble. "Marry me, Caro. Let Emily be a Durward."

It was the obvious thing for him to say, yet Caroline had not expected it. Though he had come close to it ten years ago and again perhaps in Lisbon, Adam had never before spoken those words. For a moment she felt an irrational pain because he had said them for Emily, not for her.

That was ridiculous, of course. This was no time to be thinking of herself. Yet how could she not think of herself when her own life as well as Emily's would be forever changed by her answer. For all she and Adam had just shared, the instinctive fear that they would bring each other more pain rose up in her throat, stifling speech.

"Don't be foolish, Caro," Adam said, taking her by the shoulders. "This isn't about us. It's about Emily."

He was right, yet the words made her feel strangely hollow inside. She had told herself so often that she could not be Adam's wife, but most of the reasons were now meaningless. Jared was dead. Wealth and position no longer seemed important to her. The hurts of the past might not be erased, but they had healed more than she had ever thought possible. Adam knew about Emily and clearly felt far more than responsibility for her.

"Are you sure you want to be burdened with a family?" Caroline asked, recalling her worries when they talked in Lisbon.

"I may not be as rich as Jared was when you married him," Adam said, a grim note creeping into his voice, "but I'm not a pauper. And I'm a deal more responsible."

"I know that," Caroline said quickly. "I just don't want to take advantage of the situation."

"Christ, woman," Adam said with feeling. "I've asked you to be my wife. You've known me for twenty years. You've had my child. We've crossed two countries together and faced God knows what dangers and you're lying in my bed. Give me an answer."

Something in his tone made Caroline smile. "Yes," she said.

A light flared in Adam's eyes, but his gaze remained steady. "Yes, what?"

She swallowed, still not quite able to believe they had finally come to the point where she could say it. "Yes, I'll marry you, Adam Durward." The words brought a curious lump to her throat.

Adam released his breath on a harsh note. Then he pulled her against him and kissed her with unexpected fierceness. "I won't let you regret it, Caro," he said, his lips against her hair.

There was a note in his voice that made her long to offer reassurance, but before she could respond, his mouth moved back to her own and another sort of response swept words aside.

Much later, lying in the curve of Adam's arm, feeling the comforting warmth of his body and the steady beat of his pulse, Caroline said, "We have to tell Emily."

"That we're getting married?" Adam asked, his fingers trailing gently over her skin.

Caroline laid her hand on the tangle of dark hair on his chest. "That you're her father."

She felt his quick intake of breath. "There's no telling whom Talbot may talk to," she said, pushing herself up on one elbow. "If he wants to discredit me, he might decide to spread rumors in every club and drawing room in London. I want Emily to learn the truth from us first."

"Talbot doesn't know I'm Emily's father," Adam said in a careful voice.

"No," Caroline agreed, "he doesn't. But I want Emily to know it."

The look in Adam's eyes told her she had said the right thing. It was early morning before she left his room, her body aching from his lovemaking, her mind strangely contented. After so much turmoil, her future was settled, after a fashion. Whatever else she faced, she did not have to face parting from Adam. She slipped into bed beside Emily and fell into a more peaceful sleep than she would have thought possible a few hours before.

Emily looked from Caroline, seated beside her on the sun-dappled parlor window seat, to Adam, who was leaning against the white-painted molding. "You mean Adam's my real father?"

Caroline nodded, wondering if she had framed the story correctly, wondering if she should have spoken at all. She glanced at Adam. From his expression one would think there was nothing out of the ordinary about the scene, but his knuckles were white.

Emily's brows drew together, as if she was trying to puzzle the story out. "Is that why my other father never liked to play with me the way Uncle Victor plays with Juana and Beatriz?" she asked.

Caroline's throat closed. She heard Adam draw in his breath but didn't dare look at him. "Of course not," she said. "Your fath—Jared loved you. That's why he called you his daughter."

Emily nodded. She seemed curious, but not as shocked as Caroline had expected. It occurred to Caroline that the very young were far more matter-of-fact about these things than their elders. Emily knew how children were made, but perhaps she hadn't put together what Adam being her father implied about her mother's relationship with him. Caroline had just reassured herself with this thought when Emily looked at her out of grave eyes. "Does this mean you were like Adam's wife, the way Elena is like Hawkins's wife?"

Caroline glanced at Adam and saw a gleam of appreciation in his eyes. "In a way," she told Emily. "Very soon I really will be his wife."