Forget Me Not (10 page)

Brian swallowed, hard. She fit so perfectly within his arms; as though holding her was the most natural thing in this world. He could feel every luscious swell of her body, and relished the gentle rise and fall of her chest. It was enough simply to see her breathing.

Perhaps he was a fool, or perhaps he was a romantic, or perhaps he’d never had anyone to right and properly love?  But for whatever reason his heart
ached
, his skin tingled, and he knew the heady sense of falling in love with her. Again.

It couldn’t be real, was nothing more than an illusion, but…

His gaze fell to the perfection of her heart shaped lips. For a moment he warred internally. What was one last taste?  Lydia slept so soundly, she would never know…

Just one last stolen kiss.

Silent as a whisper he leaned in to graze his lips across hers.

Chapter Six

Toasty warm at last, Lydia wiggled her toes and snuggled into the extremely warm, firm, and undoubtedly comfortable nest she was tangled in. If she never moved again it would be too soon. Never in all her existence had she known such cold as yesterday afternoon. Even in the dead of winter she’d never been far from a safe roof or blazing fire. After yesterday she had newfound respect for soldiers such as Brian and her father who spent weeks or months on end bivouacking in such deplorable conditions as she had survived the day before.

Becoming ever more wakeful she wiggled and may have rolled to her back except that she seemed to be quite stuck. Even before she managed to open her eyes the reality of her sleeping arrangements dawned. She was curled on her side,
trapped
as it were, wrapped extremity for extremity alongside Brian’s body. His chest pressed the full length of her scarcely clad back, his chin on top of her head, naked arms curled around her, his left leg—also devoid of clothing—draped across both of hers. The position was so warm and intimate that while she knew she
should
move, she did not immediately do so, not even when his left hand curved around her right breast
inside
of her shift!

Lydia hardly dared breathe as she contemplated her next move. She supposed a proper young lady would
hit the ceiling, but she rather enjoyed the intimacy, the physical contact of the pose; in all she was rather tired of being a proper young lady. Moreover curled in Brian’s arms she was more than warm… she was perfect. Tentatively her fingers lifted to dance across the soft flesh of his forearm. Ripples of delight flickered in her belly as he responded to her touch, the tight cords of his muscles bunching beneath her fingertips.

“Lydia,” he murmured, sliding his hands and arms along her body. One of his large hands splayed across her abdomen as he shifted to nuzzle her neck and press his lips to her shoulder. Flutters erupted in her stomach fraying every nerve to the root. His knuckles ran up the back of her arm, and the flat of his palm curled around her other shoulder as he rolled to press the length of his body atop hers. She whimpered, lost, drowning in sensations that she could no more
describe than identify. Brian reached down, sliding a hand up the length of her inner thigh. In that instant she realized the shift was up around her waist, and his hips—covered by what felt like a scrap of wool blanket—were delving ever deeper between her thighs. Proof of his arousal pressed long and hot against her leg, snapping her back to reality. Dear God!  She wasn’t ready for…
that.

Brian,” she murmured, pressing restraining hands against his shoulders, “please, wait.” He did not immediately respond and Lydia panicked. “Please,” she pleaded again. “This is too much. Too fast.”  She shoved against his chest, effectively removing his hands from her womanly parts, and heaving to her feet. Teetering on the straw mattress she used the wall for balance and speared Brian with an accusatory glare.

He blinked a mixture of confusion and sleep from his eyes as she stepped over him to hop in a less than ladylike fashion to the packed dirt floor. “For the love of Christ, Lydia, it’s not the first time ye’ve slept in me arms, or let me kiss ye fer that matter.”

“Why didn’t you stop when I asked?” Her eyes darted about the measly cabin, honing in on their clothes stretched before the fire. “And you did not have my permission to–to—” At a loss for words she gestured to her scarcely clad figure.

“Forgive me seein’ after yer good health,” he said sarcastically, rolling to sit at the edge of the bed. She flushed hotly as a glimpse of his more manly parts was revealed in the transition.
Dear God, he wore nothing beneath the makeshift kilt!
  “The next time I’ll let ye freeze to death.”

“And in what way did sliding a hand up my shift aide in your life saving efforts?”

Absently his hand flexed, an expression of supreme amusement dancing across his features as he dropped an assessing eye to her breasts. At last he shrugged. “I’ve seen better.”

“Oh!”  Indignation afresh flared to life. However improper it may have been for him to take such liberties with her person, it was infinitely more deplorable to insult her after having done so. She clamped an arm across her torso, the flush creeping up her neck flaming to life. At the very least he could have lied. It hurt to know her body was wanting, worse
he
—Apollo incarnate—found her less than worthy. “Are you intentionally trying to upset me?”  Memories of
their stolen kisses, and her hypothesis from the final night at the Baker’s farm tickled her brain. Was he intentionally pushing her away?  Even now something forbidden lurked in the depths of his eyes, something that left her unsettled and burning deep in her soul.

He grinned, leaning back on his elbows. She gulped as a ripple flexed across his bare chest,
the incarnation of Apollo indeed
. “It doesn’t seem to take much to rile yer temper, Lydia. Of course ye are rather fetchin’ when ye’re mad. Those perfect little cheeks of yers turn a most becoming shade of pink, and ye
have the most bewitching eyes—

His voice, smooth and melodically low as a base cello, washed seductively over her.
What about my eyes?
she wanted to scream, hungry for his words. His smoldering gaze bore straight into her, heating her spirit. No man had ever paid compliment to her eyes or any part of her person for that matter.

“—yer eyes glow as the sun in the dawn, like pools of amber in the lighting sky.”

There was a moment of dead silence. His words robbed the very breath from her lungs. For a single heart shuddering second the world fell away, and there was nothing—not the pounding of the rain, or the blaze of the fire—save for the two of them. The swirl of his eyes was a physical entity pulling her toward him, body and soul. An invisible string wrapped around her heart and he alone held the ability to manipulate it.

“Of course ye yap a fair score less when ye’re mad. It does create a tempting incentive to cross you.”

And that quickly he ruined it.

If the heavens had not unleashed a fury of rainfall upon their small haven she would have stormed righteously from the house dressed or otherwise. His words were the kindest, if not the only, compliment anyone had ever given her. Betrothed at fifteen men had never seen fit to court her, what would be the purpose, and so she’d never been blessed with nonsensical poems or plied with flowers and trinkets. No one had bothered to call her pretty. The viscount certainly never paid her any special mind—the viscount did not pay special mind to any living creature save for his hounds and horses—and it was no kept secret that his interest in their marriage was limited to how her inheritance would flatten his debts. Sir William was militaristic to a fault and she could
not recall a single occasion for a compliment to have escaped his throat. Olivia never failed to tell Lydia she was lovely, but if such were true shouldn’t someone other than her mother take note?

At parties she was always the girl left along the wall. The outcast. No one bothered dancing with her. She was just Lydia Covington, daughter of an important man, but little more than a social climber, and far too plain to be tempting. For a split second she’d almost believed her eyes were something other than boring and brown, that her cheeks were not a little too
round, she’d almost believed there was something special
about her.

And if the whole of the conversation—if not the situation—wasn’t mortifying enough Lydia felt the fresh hot sting of tears not
threatening
to spill forth, but choking her.
God, please, no, I can’t cry. Not here. Not now. Anywhere but in front of him.
Panicked she spun away from Brian’s probing eyes, busying her hands with assessing the dampness of her gown.

Gasp
.

It was still wet but not so much that she couldn’t suffer through wearing it, dressing would give her something to do, distract her long enough to beat back the urge to cry. If only she could manage without Brian’s assistance.

Hiccup
.

A fat tear slipped over her bottom lid and plopped onto the back of her hand. A sob slid up her throat impatiently battling the frantic swallowing intended to keep it down. She sucked a whistling breath deep into her lungs, and held it.

A rustling toward the back of the room indicated Brian rising from the straw mattress. He cursed under his breath, a word she didn’t recognize, no doubt one of the colorful adjectives soldiers were so privy to. “Lydia,” his tone was patronizing in its gentleness, “are ye cryin’, lass?”

A croaked, “No,” was all the reply she managed.

Tingles marking his approach tickled the nape of her neck.
Tingles can’t be good
. She tried her damnedest to ignore the sensation, to shove away his effect on her, but his essence
pervaded every corner of the small room, engulfing her. She meant to grab for her gown and maintain a face of indifference, really she did, but his hands found her shoulders in a touch so soft she could almost believe it caring. And…

She crumbled.

Sobs erupted with gale force, racking her body with such intensity it hurt. His arms snaked around her. “Don’t touch me,” she shrieked. “Let me go!”  She shoved against his chest, wrestling the strong hold, but Brian held firm securing one arm around the small of her back and the other against her shoulders, burying his hand in the tangle of her hair. Imprisoned against the wall of his chest, the heat of his arms seeped into her in bittersweet bliss.

“Why would ye be cryin’, lass?”  Brian’s breath breezed across her ear.

“As if you need to ask.”  She fought the overwhelming pull of his scent, spicy and masculine mingled with the smell of fresh rain. It wasn’t fair. The man could insult her and still make her weak enough to swoon.

He leaned down, rubbing his bristly cheek against hers. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “My greatest weakness is letting me mouth get the better of me. Forget everything I said.”

She cried harder, too upset even to fight his hold. “I don’t want to forget. That was the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me, but—but—”
hiccup,
“—you ruined it. You didn’t even mean it.”

“Oh, no, Lydia, no, I did mean it. Every word.”

“Which part?  The bit about my eyes, or talking too much, or-or—”

“Well, uh…
Damn it,”
he cursed under his breath. “All of it I suppose.”

“Oh,” she wailed. “So my breasts aren’t good enough!”  Her tongue and ears were sure to burn for this conversation, but she couldn’t seem to leash her tempter or the words sailing forth. Humiliation reigned supreme. “You may not be a gentleman, Brian Donnelly, but I am quite certain any man with half his wits or a brain would not have said such a thing.”

He stiffened, and gripped her upper arms as though to implore her, but she refused to look up at him. “They’re perfect, Lydia, I only said it because I was upset.”

“And what would you have had to be upset about?”  Her gaze remained fixed on the tanned curve of his shoulder.

“Ye flew from the bed as though ye’d woke beside the devil himself.”  His brogue thickened in testament to his mounting frustration.

“Perhaps I had.”

He tensed as though biting back another retort.

Lydia yanked against his hold once more, breaking free. Attempting to adopt her most condescending guise she flicked her eyes the length of him and said, “It’s a wonder any woman has allowed you to see her breasts.” Oh, yes, Olivia would die of palpitations if she learned of this conversation.

Brian’s eyes narrowed. “You did.”  Before she could wrap her tongue around a suitable retort he strode forward, visage softening. “Now, before ye go off spouting another stream of epithets hear me out. From the sound of that rain poundin’ the roof we’re going to be stuck here for a long while. I don’t want to spend all that time arguin’. Would you please allow me to apologize, Lydia?  ‘Twas not my intention to upset you.”

Her heart skipped a beat. Why did he have to look at her that way?  With eyes so soft and smoldering she could melt…  Lydia sighed. She
was
melting, and right into him. She stiffened, clenching her teeth and straightened. “Very well.”  She pertly inclined her head, and placed her back to him.

“And Lydia?”

“Yes?”

“Yours are the loveliest eyes the sun and moon have ever been blessed to smile upon.”

Delight tugged at her lips, she pursed them to keep a betraying grin at bay and refused to turn around. He wasn’t out of this yet. Brian didn’t like her chatty nature?  Fine. See how he liked the silent treatment.

Twenty minutes later, seated at the small scarred table, Lydia recognized the only flaw in her silent treatment plan. While she could not take the boredom Brian seemed perfectly capable of maintaining a comfortable silence. She managed a few minutes of distraction eating her share of the meager food stores and then a few more surveying the contents of the cabin. Four wooden walls with mud and clay packed into the crevices, the small table her fingers were impatiently drumming, one chair—Brian had burned another—and the wooden box bed complete with a straw mattress. Any trinkets or personal belongings had long been removed leaving nothing of interest in the room save for the three old woolen blankets Brian had found stuffed beneath the mattress. She would have liked to don the rest of her damp clothes, but to do so would require Brian’s assistance and for that reason alone the activity was out of the question. For a while she attempted carrying on a conversation in her head, but found that less than entertaining as she always knew what would be said.