Let Me Be The One (59 page)

Elizabeth pushed herself upright. A cascade of water fell over her shoulders. Her movement caused a small tide to lap at the curves of her breasts and against the side of the tub. "But you, North? I do not want your silence because of some imagined debt. I want us to speak of it now and never again because you know that Battenburn lied."

North heaved himself to a sitting position. Pain made him wince, but it was all the attention he gave it. He threw his legs over the side of the bed and closed the distance to Elizabeth in a few strides. His nightshirt billowed around him as he hunkered beside the tub. Ignoring both her startled look and the way she pressed herself against the copper tub's curved back, North cupped her chin and held her steady.

"If ever I believed Battenburn's accusations—and I did not—the notion would have been immediately dismissed by your own response. I do not know if he could have said anything that would have unleashed so much fury or so much strength. When I felt you clawing at my back, seeking purchase to haul yourself up to the embrasure, I was not certain you could do it. In order to help you I would have had to reveal your presence. It was Battenburn who made that unnecessary. He put forth a lie so abominable to you that it had the power to catapult you over that wall."

Elizabeth searched North's face. He met her gaze frankly, willing her to believe him and put this demon doubt to rest. "Why did he do it? Why should he want you to think he was my—" She broke off, unable to even say the word.

"How can we ever be certain? Battenburn did not know you were there, so what he said was meant for me. I suppose he intended that I should go to my death mistrusting you. He expected to see you again, Elizabeth, and I have to believe he would have taken some satisfaction in relating what his final words to me were."

"He would have tortured me with it," she said softly.

"And he
has
done exactly that. You have never understood that it doesn't matter to me if he was lying or telling the truth. I have always accepted there was someone before me. Not only did you make no secret of it, you painted yourself with a very black brush. Was there ever a time I wished it were different? Yes. Do I wish it now? No."

Elizabeth's brows knit. "You don't?"

North found her hand. "No, I don't."

"It seems odd to hear you say so. Don't men want a... I mean, isn't a..."

"Virgin?" he asked.

"Yes."

He chuckled. "I cannot speak for other men, but I want the woman who stumbles over a word like
virgin
and can say
whore
without raising a blush." His smile faded and he spoke soberly. "Your soldier... your first love... and every circumstance that followed in some way brought you to me, and while I can wish that you had never had your heart hurt, that you had never suffered even a moment of doubt, of pain, of sadness... of betrayal, I also know that you would in some way be changed. It would have made your life different. Mine also." North gave her hand a light squeeze. "Whether we are shaped by the circumstances of our lives, or by our perceptions of them, I still find I very much admire the shape you have become."

A hint of a smile lifted one corner of her mouth. "Is that so?"

North blinked, suddenly aware of his double entendre. "I didn't mean... that is, I was being..."

"Prig," she whispered affectionately. "The tips of your ears are—"

Releasing her hand, North stood and drew off his nightshirt, whipping it over his head in a fluid motion and letting it fly backward to the bed. Elizabeth was laughing and protesting and warning and all the while trying to make room for him in the tub. A tidal wave washed over the sides and spilled across the floor as North lowered himself into the water. He drew Elizabeth forward onto his lap. Her slippery thighs opened on either side of his. Her arms lifted to his shoulders and her breasts brushed his chest. She raised her face and touched his lips with hers.

"I suppose we do fit," she said.

"Mm." He kissed her with a thoroughness that left her flushed to the tips of her ears. Now that they were a matched pair, he leaned back and rested his arms along the sides of the tub. Hers slid down his chest and disappeared under the water. After a bit of fumbling she gave him a wicked look. "Soap," he said succinctly.

"Oh." Elizabeth dropped the bar and found him. She repeated her wicked look and this time wrested a small groan from North. "I collect this is better?"

"Infinitely." The word came out brokenly but perfectly intelligible.

Elizabeth smiled. "Yes, it is." She rose to her knees and tipped her hips forward, guiding him into her.

He watched her intently, his eyes darkening as she settled back on his lap. He listened to her breathing change; heard the water lap against the tub. He smelled... lavender. North tipped back his head and groaned softly.

Elizabeth stilled."What is it? Your shoulder?" She began to rise, but he grasped her hips and held her securely just where she was.

"The bath salts," he said deeply. "I am going to smell like a veritable garden."

Her laughter was husky. She kissed him lightly on the mouth. "I like it. You'll be wearing my fragrance."

"I'd rather be wearing you."

She wrapped her arms around his neck again and tipped her pelvis ever so slightly. "You are."

"Mm. So I am." He found the soap and began lathering her back. She sighed, leaning into him and burying her face in the crook of his neck. "Don't fall asleep," he murmured.

"Not bloody likely." Elizabeth bit him gently on the neck then kissed him in the same place when he affected a grunt of pain. A moment later she kissed him on his bandaged shoulder and then raised her face and touched her lips to the corner of his mouth. "I have plans," she whispered.

North turned, catching her mouth with his. The soap fell and he let it go, running his hands down either side of her spine and cupping her bottom. She rose, breaking the kiss, something like a sob caught in her throat. Her tight nipples grazed his chest, and the shiver that started in her ended in him. He lifted her higher and accepted her offering, taking the tip of one breast into his mouth. She did cry out then. Her fingers threaded into his hair and she held him close, guiding him in time to her other breast, wanting nothing so much as the sensation of his teeth and tongue and lips tugging on her skin, drawing out the pleasure that was still wound tightly inside her.

More water splashed onto the floor. Neither of them noticed. Their shared passion was like the moon's pull on the tides. Water lifted, crested, and cascaded over the side. Elizabeth's damp hair clung to her temples and neck. The tips curved darkly around her shoulders and spilled into the water each time she rose and fell against North's body.

He kept her close. Every heartbeat was like one of his own. Her passion enveloped him. Her slender frame surrounded him. She carried him with her to pleasure's end, drawing him out so completely that he might have gratefully sunk below the surface if she had not also been his lifeline.

There were slippery, slithering moments on the wet path to the bed. Laughing, grappling, they managed to finally fall on the mattress, the groan of the giant four-poster not so different in pitch and timbre from the one North gave up. Elizabeth was immediately solicitous of his wound, but he would have cut off his right arm at the shoulder rather than admit to any discomfort.

"Martyr," she said.

He supposed it was an improvement over
prig.
His head fell back against the pillow while Elizabeth scrambled over him to retrieve the towels. She dried him off with linens warmed near the fireplace and drew the blankets up to his neck before she wriggled under them herself. He reached for the candles at their bedside and snuffed them.

For a long while neither of them spoke. The silence was meant to be appreciated, comfortable. North's arm fell lightly around Elizabeth's waist. She rubbed his foot with her own.

"I suppose," she said rather absently, "that we shall have to find a way to explain how my limp has disappeared. No one commented this evening, but I thought West was looking at me rather oddly."

North pressed his smile to her damp hair.

"What?" she asked. "What is it?" Elizabeth strained to turn her head around and see his shadowed features, but he pressed her back. "What are they up to? A wager?"

"I'm afraid so." He added hastily, "But nothing to do with your limp, or lack thereof."

Elizabeth remained suspicious. "Well?"

"West is trying to determine if you are
enceinte."

Her eyes widened. "He has ventured a wager on... on..."

"On whether I have got you with child, madam." North heard a strangled sound coming from Elizabeth's throat but could not divine what it meant. "But he is not alone. I warned you. South is in for three shillings. Eastlyn, of course. My mother is bound to raise the stakes, and do not think for a moment that my grandfather will not take part. It may be that he is the one who started it."

When Elizabeth made to turn over this time, he let her. "And you, my lord? Do you have an opinion in the matter?"

North's palm slipped along the curve of her naked hip until it came to rest on the flat plain of her belly. "My opinion is that if you are not, you soon will be."

Elizabeth arched one brow. "Really? You seem very certain of yourself."

He shrugged modestly. "I have it on good authority."

That gave her pause. "On good authority? I do not even know myself, North. What exactly are you saying?"

"Madame Fortuna," he said. "When I went to her weeks ago looking for you, she told me—"

"North!"

"I did not seek the information," he said quickly. "She offered it."

Elizabeth considered this, drawing his hand back to her belly when he started to pull away. She held it there, wanting to believe what he was telling her, almost afraid to do so. "She said we would have a child?" she whispered finally, her voice husky.

Emotion closed North's throat. He merely nodded and held Elizabeth tightly when she launched herself into his arms. He stroked her hair, her back, and kissed away her tears. In time she slept, and he cradled her with his body, mutual comfort in the curve of arm and hip and thigh.

Someday he might tell her, he thought, that Madame Fortuna had not precisely spoken of a child. Perhaps, he decided, when they were celebrating fifty years together and surrounded by three generations of loved ones, he would find the right moment to tell her that Madame Fortuna had spoken only of a certain ripening peach.

Apparently he and Elizabeth were to bear fruit.

The End

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