Forever in Your Embrace (52 page)

“Now that statement I must challenge, madam. Not that you don’t have a fine head, my dear,” he rejoined, intentionally misinterpreting her point. “None better, to be sure. Indeed, it was unquestionably your fair looks and form that caused me to fall prey to your whims.”

Synnovea glanced away in frustration. She was beginning to think that this particular Englishman could be as infuriating as he was aggressive.

Having won the argument, at least for the moment, Tyrone bent his attention to his latest wound. He dragged the tail of his bride’s nightgown out from under her and began wiping away the blood that had once more collected. As much as he yearned to be made of stone at the moment, it was hard for him to ignore the slender limb and winsomely curving hip which he exposed.

He snorted as he failed to stem the flow. “The way I’m now bleeding, our friends will likely lend you sympathy for having endured my savagery.”

“ ’Twould seem you’re far too acquainted with serving a death blow to your enemies to be anything less than brutish with a blade in your hand, sir.”

“I keep the weapon keen for such a purpose, madam. I never once considered that I’d be turning it upon myself. But then, my zeal of late seems to be my own worst enemy.”

Synnovea watched his attempts for a long moment before she dared to speak. “Whatever it’s worth, Ty, I’m grateful you provided the blood. Otherwise your friends and mine might have thought me…” she paused, wondering if she should put words to his thoughts, and then managed to strangle out, “a trollop.”

Old memories came flooding back to haunt Tyrone, and he looked away with a pensive sigh. “I suppose preserving his wife’s honor is the least a husband can do.”

Synnovea’s eyes gleamed with sudden moisture. “I have trouble believing you’re of such a mind to consider me worthy of your protection, especially when it’s a matter regarding my virtue.”

“You know little about me, Synnovea,” he replied, not caring to explain further.

“That’s true,” she agreed gloomily. “I know you not at all.”

Tyrone heaved another pensive sigh. “I once knew a man who, after hearing the gossip that another had spread abroad about his wife, called her lover out in a duel. The swain made light of her affection and let it be known that he had used her merely for a whim and had tossed her aside when she began to bore him. He was one of those casual gallants who plucked fruit from every skirt he could lift with his charming lies. Had the husband been as vindictive as Aleksei, he might have gelded the man and left him to pine in remorse for all the women he had once bedded.”

“What happened after the duel?” Synnovea asked hesitantly. “Did the lover apologize?”

“The husband killed him,” Tyrone replied with rueful bluntness. “He found the roue and challenged him to a duel nearly a fortnight after the woman had foolishly tried to rid herself of his child. By that time she was in her fifth month and thought to make amends to her husband, though he had pledged to take her to the country and stay with her until the child was born. For some reason, she had imagined that she could make everything right again if she just rid herself of the other man’s child. In her quest to dismiss the babe from her life, she threw herself down the stairs while her husband was away, thinking to kill the child she was carrying. She accomplished her goal, but she took a fever and, a week later, died in her husband’s arms.”

Synnovea lifted her eyes to search his. “You seem greatly troubled by your tale, Ty. Was this woman someone you were fond of?” A long, silent interlude followed as he stared off into space, and she tried again. “Your sister, perhaps?”

Tyrone finally released a sigh. “No matter now, madam. She’s gone, buried in the grave.”

During another long passage of a moment, Synnovea considered his aimless efforts to stem the bloody flow, until she finally felt led to break the painful silence with a soft query. “Will you not let me tend your arm now, Ty?”

He was set to brush aside her offer, but he realized with some surprise that he was unwilling to injure her with another brusque refusal. Grudgingly he relented. “If you must.”

Suddenly a-smile, Synnovea leapt from the bed, incognizant of the view she presented to her husband as her gown swirled away from her body. The sight of her lithe limbs and shapely derriere nearly made him gasp. It certainly gained his full attention.

When she returned with a fresh basin of water, he was seated upon the bench to which she had earlier directed him. He had draped a towel across his naked loins, allowing her to keep her mind on the task of dressing his wound. Gently she did so, aware of his unrelenting stare while she cleansed and wrapped bandages around his arm.

“May I tend your back now?” Synnovea questioned, bracing herself for another tirade. She kept her gaze carefully lowered and her attention focused on tying off the cloth.

“Do what you must, madam. I’m too tired to argue with you.” It was a lame excuse for giving in to her beguiling manner, but it served Tyrone well enough for the moment. He
was
tired and had no desire to fight with her any longer.

Much to his relief, she went to fetch his dagger and the jar of ointment, allowing him to ease his breath out in slow drafts. Whenever she was near, he could hardly breathe, wanting her as he did.

Synnovea gently washed his back with a mild soap before she applied the tip of the blade carefully to the pusfilled lesion. Tyrone stiffened slightly as she slit it open, but he was nevertheless amazed by her gentleness. During his years as a soldier, he had become well acquainted with the hurried roughness of military surgeons. In sharp contrast to their abuse, the touch of her hands seemed like a lover’s caress.

Working quickly, Synnovea flushed the wound until fresh blood oozed from the newly opened gash. Then, with tender compassion, she smoothed the balm over the area and wrapped strips of clean cloth around his chest, leaning close over his shoulder as she brought the ends together. As he accepted the strips from her hands, the green-brown eyes swept downward from his temple to the crisp lines of his jaw. Though in recent weeks she had enlivened many a deficient daydream with images of her Englishman, she had never examined his features from this particular angle before. She found the view no less intriguing than all the others she had stored in her memory.

Synnovea moved around in front of him and secured the bandage with a double knot over his chest. “I never meant for this to happen, Tyrone,” she stated in a cautious tone, wary of bringing up the subject, but feeling a need to speak her mind. “It was never my intention to see you hurt. You seemed so adept as a soldier, I never dreamt that Aleksei would be able to catch you unawares. Nor did I expect that he and Ladislaus had joined forces.”

Tyrone laughed with caustic disbelief. “I could almost be convinced of your charity toward me, madam, except that I’ve been painfully instructed not to trust you. That particular lesson has been seared into my memory as deeply as the scars on my back.”

“I was desperate,” Synnovea pleaded in a strained whisper, dearly hoping he would understand. “I couldn’t bear the thought of marrying Vladimir. I favored the loss of my good name rather than his attentions as a husband. And you were so willing…so tenacious in your desire to have me…”

“Aye! I was willing!” Tyrone readily acknowledged. “How could I not be? Your beauty tempted me from the very beginning, and in your resolve, you deliberately lured me on with a sweet promise. I saw it in your eyes and on your lips. How could I have known you’d be leading me into a trap, one that nearly cost me dearly! I’m much relieved to find my head still attached and my cod in good working order!”

A hot blush warmed Synnovea’s face as her eyes were drawn to his scantily clad loins. “I never dreamt that Aleksei would become so violent—”

“The hell you say!” Tyrone growled. Coming to his feet, he made no further attempt to hide his nakedness as he strode past her to the far end of the room. Then, when she turned to face him in some bewilderment, he came back to stand close in front of her. At least his rage helped to cool the heat in his loins, if not the roiling resentment burning within him. Settling his hands on his narrow hips, he leaned toward her slightly and gave vent to his vexation. “I don’t know the exact moment you singled me out as your victim, madam, but no well-tried harlot could have accomplished the task with such winning appeal. You were as alluring as any earthbound goddess ever craved to be. Aye, madam, that you were, and though I’ve wandered to countries beyond your imagination, I’ve seen no finer wench, no fairer form, than you. ’Twas the cunning way you employed your charms that saw me entrapped like some foolishly rutting apprentice. You were so sweet and beguiling, I never had a chance against your powers of persuasion. Your eyes were so warm and inviting, your lips so soft and yielding, your breasts so eager to be touched, and like some blind, weanling fool, I thought your silken thighs would welcome me. Even now I yearn to mount you and appease my desire. There’s an unrelenting ache in my loins, and although I’m gratified to be able to feel this lusting need, I’m distraught nonetheless because of this damnable yearning that sorely besets me. I know well enough, should this continue, you’ll rend my privy parts more thoroughly than Aleksei’s blade ever could.”

Synnovea stared up into eyes that fairly blazed into her own, not knowing what to say to ease his indignation. He seemed more incensed by the fact that he had let himself be deceived by a woman, and yet she had been carried away as much by his ardor as he had been by her wiles. Her enticement, at best, had been totally unskilled, whereas his manly persuasions had been firmly bolstered by experience. It was true she had set out to accomplish her will, but somewhere in the midst of it all, she had surrendered not only her body to him but her heart as well. She’d never have been so eager to yield him her virginity had he not worked his own enchantment upon her. Yet if she tried to convince him of that simple fact, she’d no doubt be ridiculed for concocting a farfetched fantasy.

“Ty.” Synnovea’s voice was soft and gentle, much like a silken caress smoothing down the nettles of his pride. “Could we not go to bed and talk for a while…I mean, about each other? I really don’t know you at all…and I would like to…very much.”

A terse laugh escaped Tyrone as he dropped his head back upon his shoulders and stared at the shadowed ceiling. He tried to collect his thoughts, but he was like a caged beast distracted by his lusts, an animal smelling the scent of a bitch in heat, driven to a raging hunger by her nearness; and yet, because of some hidden barrier that hearkened back to his injured pride, he refused to salve the rutting instincts that drove him to distraction. And all she wanted to do was go to bed with him—and
talk!

“Synnovea, Synnovea,” he groaned as if plagued by a great pain. “You turn my being inside out, my night into an excruciating anguish, my day into a living hell…and then cajole so sweetly in my ear. What am I to do, deny you when you pluck the gutstrings of my manly mettle with your silken pleas? I lose heart for diatribes when you ply your fetching ways upon me.”

Synnovea waited in silence until he lifted his head and fastened those penetrating blue orbs upon her. Her voice was barely a whisper in the stillness of the chambers. “Truly, Ty, I didn’t foresee such hurt to come to you. You were the one I wanted to claim as my lover, whether by truth or a lie. ’Twas never my intent to bind you to me against your will.”

Tyrone sighed heavily and gestured lamely toward the bed, knowing what distress it would cause him to lie down beside her and not touch her. Yet for the time being, he was willing to allow the arguments to lie dormant. “We can talk if you wish, Synnovea, or go back to sleep if you’re of such a mind.”

Purposefully he took a deep, steadying breath, as if about to plunge beneath a gigantic wave. Following her to the edge of the bed, he watched her crawl to the far side while his eyes longingly stroked the curving hips and the valley between her buttocks, which the gown molded so enticingly. She slipped beneath the covers and, drawing them up beneath her chin, kept her gaze carefully averted as he stretched out beside her. When he drew the sheet up over his lower torso, she turned eagerly on her side to face him, as if expecting a whole flood of revelations to gush forth from his lips.

Tyrone mentally groaned at the idea and, rolling onto his stomach, reached back for the candelabra. Bringing it near, he blew out the tapers and soon became appreciative of the darkness that shadowed their faces. It was a cold, hard fact that he could lose himself in the variegated depths of those beautiful green-brown eyes.

“Can we not just go to sleep?” he sighed wearily. “Of late, I’ve been unable to get much rest.” He didn’t care to elaborate by telling her that he had found most of his nights haunted by his lust for her. “I must confess that I’m in desperate need of it now.”

“Whatever your pleasure may be, Tyrone,” Synnovea answered softly, grateful for his cordial manner. Her eyes followed his movements as he reached down to the foot of the bed and pulled the down-filled comforter over her. Smiling, she wiggled deeper into the warmth he had provided, content to have him near.

The sun had climbed above the treetops and was just spreading its radiance over the city when Tyrone reluctantly drifted up from the depths of rapturous dreams and roused to a vague awareness that he hadn’t been basking in just another lustful fantasy. Full reality suddenly penetrated, and he flicked his eyes open, half expecting to find Synnovea awake and deliberately teasing him. She was there, all right, but sleeping soundly with her head on his pillow and a slender thigh resting across his naked loins. He could feel the faint, tickling brush of her breath against his shoulder and, through her gown, every enticing vale and mound of her softly curving form. Bound as he was to the mattress, he felt as if he had been lashed with silken bonds to a rack upon which he was being scourged by sweet, delectable torture.