He
still gazed at her in that blank way. Had he shut his mind and his
heart to her because of his pride? Did he see her differently now? In
his eyes had she become another Judith Gilford—the heiress
whose petty tyrannies, Aunt Clothilde believed, had driven him away?
It
didn't matter what he saw, Mirabel told herself. She would not give
him up, no matter what it cost her.
She
stood firm, chin up, her hands clasped to white-knuckled tightness
and pressed against the knot of fear that was her insides.
"I
was unreasonable," she said. "Captain Hughes approved of
your revised plan. He read my letter only because he'd promised he
would."
She'd
known her father would not appear at the canal meeting, no matter how
earnestly he promised. He'd insisted on setting out early, and
walking, as he always did. She could hardly force him to drive with
her and Mrs. Ent-whistle in the carriage. She'd prepared the letter
for the likely eventuality of Papa's nonappearance, and given it to
Captain Hughes the day before the meeting.
"I
should have signaled or sent word to him not to read it," she
said now. "Your new plan was most accommodating and well thought
out. I've been silly not to accept it. I cannot expect everything to
remain exactly as it was. The world changes, and we must change with
it. I ought to be happy and grateful for all the trouble you took on
my account, instead of causing you more difficulty."
"It
was a good plan," he said.
"Yes,
very good."
"But
not good enough," he said.
"No
plan could be good enough," she said. "I wanted Lord
Gordmor to close up his mines and go away and stop troubling us with
his transportation problems. I didn't want any more Lord Gordmors or
any other enterprising men, including my neighbors, finding new ways
to make fortunes on Longledge Hill. I didn't want increased trade. I
wanted the peaceful, simple country life I'd grown up with."
"Then
I shall find a way for you to keep it," he said.
She
looked down at her still-clasped hands, then up into his starkly
handsome face. The tenderness she saw there lightened her heart. "You
are not to waste your time on any such thing," she said. "You
are not to risk everything you have worked so hard for. I came to
tell you so. Mine would be a poor sort of affection if I could not
sacrifice a very little comfort for your sake."
"I
think you'd lose more than a little comfort," he said.
Yes,
the truth was, it would break her heart to see her home changed. But
she knew what he, what any reasonable person would think. One
couldn't make time stand still. Times were changing, and she must
change with them.
Her
mother had been dead for half her life, and recreating the world Mama
had lived in and making her dreams come true would not bring her
back. This man was very much alive, and Mirabel loved him. She'd
rather make a life with him, under any conditions, than go back alone
to her solitary life in her beautiful arcadia.
She
said, "I have been in love before, you know, and let it go
because I could not abandon my land and roam the world as he
wanted—as he needed—to do. I broke off my engagement, and
came home, and resigned myself to spin-sterhood. Yet it seems I am
not fully resigned. I asked myself a short while ago whether I was
willing to sacrifice my affection for you. I decided I was not."
"He
was a fool to go," he said, his voice low and fierce. "He
should have stayed and fought for you. But I'm glad he was a fool,
because I'm selfish. I want to be the one who fights for you."
Her
hands unclasped, and her heart banged crazily. "You don't have
to fight," she said. "I'm won. I'm yours."
"Are
you, my love?" He smiled then, and opened his arms, and she ran
straight into them.
As
soon as those strong arms closed about her, she knew she'd made the
right decision. She'd learnt to take care of herself, to do without a
man's protection or even affection. She could do without his if she
must, but only if she had no other choice, only if he abandoned her.
She
would do everything in her power to make sure he didn't.
"I
must send you back to your room," he rumbled into her hair. "In
a moment."
His
hands came up and tangled in her hair. He kissed her forehead and her
nose. She tilted her head back, offering her lips.
"We
had better not," he murmured, raising his head.
"No,
we really mustn't," she said.
Liar,
liar. She didn't care what they must or mustn't do. It was late, and
they were alone, and the storm seemed to shut out the world.
He
slid his hands down to her shoulders. He gazed deep into her eyes, as
though she harbored unfathomable secrets—as though she had
anything left hidden from him.
She'd
opened her heart. She'd let him see and touch—and do things she
had no name for—to parts of her body she'd once felt depraved
merely looking at.
"I
want to be good," he said. "I've taken appalling advantage
of your inexperience."
"Yes,
it was very bad of you," she said, drawing away. "And it
was bad of me not to discourage you. It was bad of me to come tonight
in all my dishabille. Despicable, really. I am not wearing a scrap of
undergarments. And this gown—what was Aunt Clothilde thinking,
to send such a frilly, flimsy little nothing to a respectable
spinster?" She looked down and fiddled with the ribbons at the
front of the low neckline. "I suspect it is French. No decent
English dressmaker would make such a thing."
"Mirabel."
His voice had thickened. "Please. I am not made of iron."
"I
know that." She smiled. "You are flesh and blood. Very
muscled. And the hair on your chest is more generally golden than on
that your head." She untied the topmost ribbon. "Whereas I
am quite, quite smooth in that area." She glanced down. "But
a good deal more rounded."
"Yes."
One strangled syllable. "I think your body is perfection, but I
must not look at it now. Mirabel, you are not to untie the next
ribbon. It is the worst sort of cruelty. You know I must resist you.
We shall be wed, and I absolutely will not anticipate the wedding
vows."
She
untied the second ribbon. "I thought you already had," she
said. "Twice."
"That
was irresponsible and selfish. And anyway… Anyway, you are
intact—barely—by the grace of God. Oh, why am I talking
about this? You must go. Good night." He limped to the door and
opened it.
She
stood where she was. She untied the last of the ribbons and shrugged
out of the dressing gown.
He
shut the door.
"Don't,"
he said.
"I
won't," she said. "I want you to take it off me. You are so
good at dressing and undressing."
He
stalked to her, eyes flashing gold sparks, and she wondered if he
meant to pick her up and eject her bodily from the room.
He
grasped her shoulders. "You," he said. "You."
"Yes,
this is truly me." She reached up and dragged her fingers
through his sleep-tousled hair. "I did not know a wanton lived
inside me. You found her and set her free. Now you must live with the
consequences." She tugged him down, and his mouth sank onto
hers, and in an instant he swept her into another realm, where she
was young again, and fresh, and utterly happy.
She
curled her hands round his neck and stood on tiptoe, trying to get
more of him. He deepened the kiss and dragged her down into a drunken
darkness. No fruit of the poppy could be half so intoxicating as the
taste of him. With his tongue he played inside her mouth and made her
remember the more intimate way he'd played with her not ten days ago.
Heat skittered along her skin and under it. Dry reason evaporated,
and pleasure seeped in, cool and dark and dangerous, to make her
someone else, the wanton he'd brought to life. No longer cautious, no
longer responsible, no longer in control.
She
moved her hands over his shoulders, his powerful arms, and relished
the answering caresses, his long, skillful hands sliding over the
frilly nightgown, making it whisper under his touch as though it were
alive. He made everything come alive, created a wild, vibrant world,
mysterious and exotic and yet so familiar, as though it had always
existed inside her.
She
slid her hands down to the sash of his dressing gown. His hands got
in the way, nudging hers aside, unfastening the ribbon of her
nightgown, loosening the bodice. He pushed the thin fabric down, and
she caught her breath as his hand closed over her breast.
"Perfect,"
he murmured against her mouth. "You're perfect."
She
leaned into his caressing hand, savoring the touch and seeking more.
She wanted him to touch her everywhere. The neckline of the gown slid
down her arms, to her waist, and she felt the cool air of the room on
her naked torso. She hardly noticed the coolness. All her being was
fixed on the warmth of his hands kneading her breasts. They ached and
tautened, and her whole body seemed to ache, hungering for more,
more, and still more.
She
was distantly aware of being led somehow, back, and back again.
Something hard against her spine. Something to hold onto. She leaned
against the bedpost, dizzy with the feeling swirling in and around
her, and watched, as though from a long way away, her nightgown slide
down, down, to the floor. She looked up, dazed and stupid. The
firelight glinted in his eyes, so dark now.
"Beautiful,"
he said, his voice pitched so low it might have come from the floor,
where her gown lay. He slid his hand from her throat, between her
breasts, and down to the place between her legs where he'd pleasured
her. "My beautiful girl."
But
he was more beautiful than she. She reached again for the sash, and
this time he let her. She untied it and pushed the garment down from
his shoulders, down his long arms, and watched it slither into the
folds of her discarded nightgown. She reached for his nightshirt, but
too slowly. He yanked it off and let it fall among the rest.
The
flickering light glimmered gold in his thick brown hair and glowed in
his eyes. It traced the sculpted contours of his face and played over
the rippling muscles of his torso and limbs. She reached out and slid
her hand down as he'd done to her, from his throat to his taut belly,
but he pulled away before she could do anything bolder.
Then
he bent and made a tingling path of kisses down from her shoulder to
her breast. He lingered there, his tongue playing lightly over her
skin, then pausing to suckle. She moaned and pushed her fingers
through his hair and held him there, though the pleasure—the
ache—whatever it was he did to her, was nigh unbearable. And
when he lifted his head, she nearly cried out, but he wasn't done yet
and tortured her a little longer.
Then
down again, his mouth, so wicked, between her legs. Sin, sin, sin.
Her mind was black and hot. She wanted… She didn't know what
it was. He must tell her. She reached for him, dragged him up.
"Yours," she gasped. "Make me yours."
He
made a choked sound, and caught her up in his arms, and lifted her
onto the bed. He knelt at her feet and stroked upward from her
ankles, and she opened her legs and would have dragged him up over
her if she could have reached him. But he was just beyond her reach,
and she sank back and let him turn her into hot liquid. She writhed
under his touch, wanting more, still more. He kissed her knees and
licked the beauty mark, and she wanted to scream.
He
shifted upward, sliding his hands up her legs as he went. And then
she felt his thumb between her legs, in the place where he'd tortured
her before, but this was beyond anything, pleasure beyond bearing.
She was reduced to feeling, to hot, pounding need. And then it came,
a splintering joy that made her shriek. His mouth covered hers while
pleasure erupted from what seemed the very core of her, and spilled
outward in cascading sensations.
And
in the midst of it, she felt him thrust into her. She stilled,
conscious of a strange, uncomfortable pressure.
"Sorry."
Two rough syllables against her mouth. "I meant—"
"Oh,"
she said breathlessly. "That's you." She squirmed, trying
to get more comfortable.
"Mirabel."
She
squirmed the other way.
"My
love."
She
felt his hand caressing her in the place where they were joined. By
degrees, the pressure eased. Then it was all right, oh, very much so.