Love in the Afternoon

by Lisa Kleypas

  Christopher shook his head. No good. No words could help him.

  Beatrix reached out to him then, unable to hold back any longer. She let her hand glide gently over the warm golden skin of his shoulder. “I don’t think you should blame yourself,” she said. “But it doesn’t matter what I believe. You’ll have to come to that conclusion on your own. It wasn’t your fault that you were faced with a terrible choice. You must give yourself enough time to get better.”

  “How much time will that take?” he asked bitterly.

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “But you have a lifetime.”

  A caustic laugh broke from him. “That’s too damned long.”

  “I understand that you feel responsible for what happened to Mark. But you’ve already been forgiven for whatever you think your sins are. You have,” she insisted as he shook his head. “Love forgives all things. And so many people—” She stopped as she felt his entire body jerk.

  “What did you say?” she heard him whisper.

  Beatrix realized the mistake she had just made. Her arms fell away from him.

  The blood began to roar in her ears, her heart thumping so madly she felt faint. Without thinking, she scrambled away from him, off the bed, to the center of the room.

  Breathing in frantic bursts, Beatrix turned to face him.

  Christopher was staring at her, his eyes gleaming with a strange, mad light. “I knew it,” he whispered.

  She wondered if he might try to kill her.

  She decided not to wait to find out.

  Fear gave her the speed of a terrified hare. She bolted before he could catch her, tearing to the door, flinging it open, and scampering to the grand staircase. Her boots made absurdly loud thuds on the stairs as she leaped downward.

  Christopher followed her to the threshold, bellowing her name.

  Beatrix didn’t pause for a second, knowing he was going to pursue her as soon as he donned his clothes.

  Mrs. Clocker stood near the entrance hall, looking worried and astonished. “Miss Hathaway? What—”

  “I think he’ll come out of his room now,” Beatrix said rapidly, jumping down the last of the stairs. “It’s time for me to be going.”

  “Did he . . . are you . . .”

  “If he asks for his horse to be saddled,” Beatrix said breathlessly, “please have it done slowly.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Good-bye.”

  And Beatrix raced from the house as if demons were at her heels.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Beatrix fled to the one place where she knew he wouldn’t find her.

  The irony was hardly lost on her, that she was hiding from Christopher in the place she had most longed to share with him. And she was well aware that she could not hide from him forever. There would be a reckoning.

  But after having seen his face when he realized that she was the one who had deceived him, Beatrix wanted to put off that reckoning for as long as possible.

  She rode pell-mell to the secret house on Lord Westcliff’s estate, tethered the horse, and went upstairs to the tower room. It was sparsely furnished with a pair of battered chairs, an ancient settee with a low back, a ramshackle table, and a bed frame propped against one wall. Beatrix had kept the room swept clean and dusted, and she had adorned the walls with unframed sketches of landscapes and animals.

  A dish of burned-out candle stubs was set at the window.

  After admitting fresh air into the room, Beatrix paced back and forth, muttering frantically to herself.

  “He’ll probably kill me. Good, that’s better than having him hate me. A quick throttling, and it will be over. I wish I could throttle myself and spare him the trouble. Maybe I should toss myself out the window. If only I’d never written those letters. If only I’d been honest. Oh, what if he goes to Ramsay House and waits there for me? What if—”

  She stopped abruptly as she heard a noise from outside. A bark. Creeping to the window, she looked down and saw Albert’s jaunty, furry form trotting around the building. And Christopher, tethering his horse near hers.

  He had found her.

  “Oh God,” Beatrix whispered, blanching. She turned and set her back against the wall, feeling like a prisoner facing execution. This was one of the worst moments of her entire life . . . and in light of some of the Hathaways’ past difficulties, that was saying something.

  In just a few moments, Albert bounded into the room and came to her.

  “You led him here, didn’t you?” Beatrix accused in a furious whisper. “Traitor!”

  Looking apologetic, Albert went to a chair, hopped up, and rested his chin on his paws. His ears twitched at the sound of a measured tread on the stairs.

  Christopher entered the room, having to bend his head to pass through the small medieval doorway. Straightening, he surveyed their surroundings briefly before his piercing gaze found Beatrix. He stared at her with the barely suppressed wrath of a man to whom entirely too much had happened.

  Beatrix wished she were a swooning sort of female. It seemed the only appropriate response to the situation.

  Unfortunately, no matter how she tried to summon a swoon, her mind remained intractably conscious.

  “I’m so sorry,” she croaked.

  No reply.

  Christopher approached her slowly, as if he thought she might try to bolt again. Reaching her, he took her upper arms in a hard grip that allowed no chance of escape. “Tell me why you did it,” he said, his voice low and vibrant with . . . hatred? Fury? “No, damn you, don’t cry. Was it a game? Was it only to help Prudence?”

  Beatrix looked away with a wretched sob. “No, it wasn’t a game . . . Pru showed me your letter, and she said she wasn’t going to answer it. And I had to. I felt as if it had been written for me. It was only supposed to be once. But then you wrote back, and I let myself answer just once more . . . and then one more time, and another . . .”

  “How much of it was the truth?”

  “All of it,” Beatrix burst out. “Except for signing Pru’s name. The rest of it was real. If you believe nothing else, please believe that.”

  Christopher was quiet for a long moment. He had begun to breathe heavily. “Why did you stop?”

  She sensed how difficult it was for him to ask. But God help her, it was infinitely worse to have to answer.

  “Because it hurt too much. The words meant too much.” She forced herself to go on, even though she was crying. “I fell in love with you, and I knew I could never have you. I couldn’t pretend to be Pru any longer. I loved you so much, and I couldn’t—”

  Her words were abruptly smothered.

  He was kissing her, she realized dazedly. What did it mean? What did he want? What . . . but her thoughts dissolved, and she stopped trying to make sense of anything.

  His arms had closed around her, one hand gripping the back of her neck. Shaken to her soul, she molded against him. Taking her sobs into his mouth, he licked deep, his kiss strong and savage. It had to be a dream, and yet her senses insisted it was real, the scent and warmth and toughness of him engulfing her. He pulled her even more tightly against him, making it difficult to breathe. She didn’t care. The pleasure of the kiss suffused her, drugged her, and when he pulled his head back, she protested with a bewildered moan.

  Christopher forced her to look back at him. “Loved?” he asked hoarsely. “Past tense?”

  “Present tense,” she managed to say.

  “You told me to find you.”

  “I didn’t mean to send you that note.”

  “But you did. You wanted me.”

  “Yes.” More tears escaped her stinging eyes. He bent and pressed his mouth to them, tasting the salt of grief.

  Those gray eyes looked into hers, no longer bright as hellfrost, but soft as smoke. “I love you, Beatrix.”

  Maybe she was capable of swooning after all.

  It certainly felt like a swoon, her knees giving way, her head lolling against his shoulder as he lo
wered them both to the threadbare carpet. Fitting his arm beneath her neck, Christopher covered her mouth with his again. Beatrix answered helplessly, unable to withhold anything. Their legs tangled, and he let his thigh nuzzle between hers.

  “I th-thought you would hate me . . .” Her dazed voice seemed to come from far away.

  “Never. You could run to the farthest corners of the earth. There’s no place you could go where I wouldn’t love you. Nothing you could do to stop me.”

  She shivered at what he was doing, his hands opening her clothes, sliding inside them. Her breasts felt hot, the tips hardening as he touched them. “I thought you were going to murder me,” she said with difficulty.

  A ghost of a smile came to his lips. “No. That wasn’t what I wanted to do.” He brought his mouth to hers, kissing her with rough, hungry ardor. Unfastening her breeches, he found the taut surface of her stomach. His hand insinuated farther into the loosened garment, curving around her bare hip. His fingers explored with a gentle but insistent curiosity that made her squirm, gooseflesh rising.

  “Christopher,” she said brokenly, fumbling with the front of his trousers, but he caught her wrist and pulled it back.

  “It’s been too long. I don’t trust myself with you.”

  Pressing her burning face against his neck, where his shirt had been laid open, Beatrix felt the strong ripple of his swallow against her parted lips. “I want to be yours.”

  “You are, God help you.”

  “Then love me.” Feverishly she kissed his throat. “Love me—”

  “Hush,” Christopher whispered. “I have little enough self-control as it is. I can’t make love to you here. It wouldn’t be right for you.” He kissed her tumbled hair, while his hand smoothed her hip in an unsteady caress. “Talk to me. Would you really have let me marry Prudence?”

  “If you seemed happy with her. If she was the one you wanted.”

  “I wanted you.” He kissed her, his mouth strong and punishing. “It nearly drove me mad, looking for the things I loved in her and not finding them. And then beginning to see them in you.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You should have told me.”

  “Yes. But I knew you’d be angry. And I thought she was what you wanted. Pretty and vivacious—”

  “With all the wit of a toasting iron.”

  “Why did you write to her in the first place?”

  “I was lonely. I didn’t know her well. But I needed . . . someone. When I received that reply, about Mawdsley’s donkey and the smell of October, and the rest of it . . . I started falling in love right then. I thought it was another side of Pru I hadn’t yet seen. It never occurred to me that the letters were written by someone else entirely.” He gave her a dark glance.

  Beatrix returned his gaze contritely. “I knew you wouldn’t want letters from me. I knew I wasn’t the kind of woman you wanted.”

  Rolling Beatrix to her side, Christopher brought her against his aroused form. “Does this feel as if I don’t want you?”

  The hard pressure of him, the rampant heat of his body, dazzled her senses . . . it was like being drunk . . . like drinking starlight. Closing her eyes, she leaned her face into his shoulder. “You thought I was peculiar,” she said in a muffled voice.

  His mouth brushed the edge of her ear and settled against her neck. She felt that he was smiling. “Darling love . . . you are.”

  An answering grin curled her lips. She shivered as Christopher moved over her, pushing her back, using his thigh to part hers. He took her mouth with endless kisses, deep and impatient, turning her blood to fire. He began to caress her with strong, callused hands, a soldier’s hands. Her breeches were dragged away from her pale hips.

  They both gasped, breath fragmenting, as his palm cupped her intimately. He stroked the humid warmth, parting and spreading her, a fingertip stroking the entrance to her body.

  She lay quiet and unresisting, a mad heartbeat resounding everywhere. He touched inside her, his finger pushing gently past the innocent constriction. Lowering his head, he pressed his mouth to the tender curves of her breasts. A moan escaped her as she felt him take a hard bud between his lips. He began to suckle, his tongue lapping between each rhythmic tug. His finger went deeper, the heel of his hand teasing an unspeakably sensitive place.

  Beatrix writhed, seeing nothing. Desperate tension folded in upon itself, and again, centering low and tight. A whimper escaped her as a wave of unimaginable pleasure caught her, and he guided her farther into it. She managed to speak through dry lips, her voice stunned and shaken. “Christopher—I can’t—”

  “Let it happen,” he whispered against her flushed skin. “Let it come.”

  He stroked her in a wicked, sensual cadence, pushing her higher. Her muscles worked against the alarming rush of sensation, and then her body began pulling it all in, her veins dilating, heat surging. Groping for his head, Beatrix sank her hands into his hair and guided his mouth to hers. He complied at once, drinking in her moans and gasps, his beguiling hands soothing the wrenching spasms.

  The delight receded in lazy ebbs, leaving her weak and trembling. Beatrix stirred and opened her eyes, discovering that she was on the floor, half undressed, cradled in the arms of the man she loved. It was a strange, delicious, vulnerable moment. Her head turned in the crook of his arm. She saw Albert, who had fallen asleep in the chair, supremely uninterested in their antics.

  Christopher caressed her slowly, his knuckles trailing through the valley between her breasts.

  Beatrix tilted her head back to look at him. Perspiration had given his skin the sheen of polished metal, strong masculine features worked in bronze. His expression was engrossed, as if her body fascinated him, as if she were made of some precious substance he had never encountered before. She felt the soft, hot shock of his breath as he bent to kiss the inside of her wrist. He let the tip of his tongue rest against a tiny pulse. So new, this intimacy with him, and yet it was as necessary as the beat of her own heart.

  She never wanted to be out of his arms again. She wanted to be with him always.

  “When are we going to marry?” she asked, her voice languorous.

  Christopher brushed his lips against her cheek. He held her a little more tightly.

  And he was silent.

  Beatrix blinked in surprise. His hesitation affected her like a splash of cold water. “We are going to marry, aren’t we?”

  Christopher looked into her flushed face. “That’s a difficult question.”

  “No it’s not. It’s a very simple yes-or-no question!”

  “I can’t marry you,” he said quietly, “until I can be certain that it will be good for you.”

  “Why is there any doubt of that?”

  “You know why.”

  “I do not!”

  His mouth twisted. “Fits of rage, nightmares, strange visions, excessive drinking . . . does any of that sound like a man who’s fit for marriage?”

  “You were going to marry Prudence,” Beatrix said indignantly.

  “I wasn’t. I wouldn’t do this to any woman. Least of all to the woman I love more than my own life.”

  Beatrix rolled away and sat up, pulling her loosened garments around her. “How long do you intend for us to wait? Obviously you’re not perfect, but—”

  “ ‘Not perfect’ is having a bald spot or pockmarks. My problems are a bit more significant than that.”

  Beatrix answered in an anxious tumble of words. “I come from a family of flawed people who marry other flawed people. Every one of us has taken a chance on love.”

  “I love you too much to risk your safety.”

  “Love me even more, then,” she begged. “Enough to marry me no matter what the obstacles are.”

  Christopher scowled. “Don’t you think it would be easier for me to take what I want, regardless of the consequences? I want you with me every moment of the day. I want to hold you every night. I want to make love to you so badly I can’t even breathe. But I
won’t allow any harm to come to you, especially from my hands.”

  “You wouldn’t hurt me. Your instincts wouldn’t let you.”

  “My instincts are those of a madman.”

  Beatrix wrapped her arms around her bent knees. “You’re willing to accept my problems,” she said dolefully, “but you won’t allow me to accept yours.” She buried her face in her arms. “You don’t trust me.”

  “You know that’s not the issue. I don’t trust myself.”

  In her volatile state, it was difficult not to cry. The situation was so vastly unfair. Maddening.

  “Beatrix.” Christopher knelt beside her, drawing her against him. She stiffened. “Let me hold you,” he said near her ear.

  “If we don’t marry, when will I see you?” she asked miserably. “On chaperoned visits? Carriage drives? Stolen moments?”

  Christopher smoothed her hair and stared into her swimming eyes. “It’s more than we’ve had until now.”

  “It’s not enough.” Beatrix wrapped her arms around him. “I’m not afraid of you.” Gripping the back of his shirt, she gave it a little shake for emphasis. “I want you, and you say you want me, and the only thing standing in our way is you. Don’t tell me that you survived all those battles, and suffered through so much, merely to come home for this—”

  He laid his fingers against her mouth. “Quiet. Let me think.”

  “What is there to—”

  “Beatrix,” he warned.

  She fell silent, her gaze locked on his severe features.

  Christopher frowned, weighing possibilities, inwardly debating the issue without seeming to come to any satisfactory conclusion.

  In the silence, Beatrix rested her head on his shoulder. His body was warm and comforting, the deep-flexing muscles easily accommodating her weight. She wriggled to press closer to him, until she felt the satisfying hardness of his chest against her breasts. And she adjusted her position as she felt the firm pressure of him lower down. Her body ached to gather him in. Furtively she brushed her lips against the salt-scented skin of his neck.