Chapter Seventeen
Alex paused before the room assigned him, trying to decide whether to knock.
But surely she would be abed. Hopefully asleep. He certainly did not wish to waken her.
He opened the door. An oil lamp flickered on a table in the room. She’d apparently left it lit for his convenience.
He pulled off his boots and his waistcoat, then sprawled in a chair, looking wistfully at the large feather bed.
She was lying on her side, her hair spread over the pillow. He longed to go over and run his fingers through it.
Hell, he longed to crawl into bed next to her and sate the ache in his loins. He would not sleep this night. He knew that. Not as long as she was in this room.
Alex saw her dress and the petticoat laid neatly on a chair, the bonnet she’d worn next to it. She had been shielded by clothes earlier. He wondered what armor she wore now.
He damned himself for such thoughts. Yet they would not go away. He trod quietly to the window. Dear God, how he was tempted to leave this room now and return to his ship. But that would belie the marriage they’d claimed, and one lie would suggest another.
To want something so badly, and be in such proximity to the object of that want, was akin to walking through hell.
He suddenly realized that he had not said a kind word to her tonight. Not a compliment or even the slightest expression of gratitude. He told himself it had been his shock, then lack of opportunity. Or was it resentment because he had been thrust into the position of owing a Campbell?
She was no longer a Campbell in his mind. She had, instead, become a woman unfettered by convention and traditional code. In his estimation, that took more courage than a man doing what was expected of him and going into battle. It was that woman who so intrigued and attracted him.
The woman with eyes the color of the sea and the wide generous mouth and the soft and lovely voice.
His nerves tingled. The ache throbbed. His skin seemed to burn even in the breeze that cooled the room.
He turned and found her watching him. In those few moments she had awakened—if she had been asleep at all.
He strode to the bed and sat down beside her. She seemed to withdraw into its depths.
“I did not thank you earlier,” he said softly. “I thank you now.”
“A Campbell?” she asked warily.
He then saw a small trail on her face. Dried tears. In all that had happened, he had never seen her cry. And then she had cried alone.
He felt like a bastard. A man who had forsaken his sense of justice in favor of hatred of a mere name.
“Aye,” he said. “A Campbell. And a brave and bonny woman.”
Her eyes widened.
“I did not thank you, either, for all you’ve done for Meg.”
“I did not do it for you.”
“I know that,” he said, knowing a smile was playing along his lips. How well he knew that.
“Has the governor changed his mind again?” she asked suspiciously, as if she believed he could have no other reason to be kind.
“Nay, you thoroughly charmed him with your tale of a wayward husband and bairn to be.”
“I could not think of anything else,” she explained, obviously unsure whether he approved or not.
“It did take me by surprise,” he said.
“You did not act like it.”
“I learned long ago not to react to circumstances.”
“And I am a circumstance?”
“Aye, a very intriguing one.”
“Why?” Her expression turned from wary to curious.
“Why would you help your captor? The man who kept you from your marriage?”
“Because … I did not want the children to be at risk.”
“At the cost of your own future?”
He watched her swallow hard. “I have never met the man I was to marry.” He saw pain in her eyes, a pain so deep that it reached out and touched a heart hardened to tragedy.
“Then why?” he asked.
“You have seen my arm,” she said bitterly.
“Aye, a birthmark.”
“Many do not see it that way. They believe it is the devil’s mark, or that I am … tainted in some way. My family kept me away from others. There were no … suitors. Mr. Murray’s wife died. He needed a wife, a mother for his children. My father also offered a … substantial dowry.”
He closed his eyes for a moment. She was being discarded because of something over which she had no power.
He touched her cheek, gently running a finger down the trail of dried tears. “Why did you accept?” he asked.
“I want … children.”
There was so much anguish in her words. He wondered whether she had ever been loved for herself, ever felt the security that he had as a child. He and his sister, Janet, had lost everything, but they’d had a heritage of love.
Janet had married the first time for the same reason as Jeanette was giving. She’d lost the one man she’d ever loved, and settled, instead, for a marriage with a man who had three daughters because she loved children. It had been a marriage made, consummated, and endured in hell.
Had Jeanette been sailing toward the same fate?
Yet he had nothing to offer, either. Any woman foolish enough to care about him could soon be a widow with a traitor’s name. Still, that odd attraction was more compelling than ever. He saw in her eyes a recognition of that fact, and he felt that they were both about ready to be swept into a whirlpool of currents that resisted all reason. He needed to step back, to get away from her.
Now.
Instead, he smoothed his thumb across her eyebrows, feeling the silk of them, over cheeks, feeling the heat, the softness. “Do not settle,” he whispered.
She moved, her hands appearing from beneath the coverlet, revealing the nightdress and its low neck. He could see the slight swelling of her breasts, the slight movement as her heart beat. She regarded him silently, her eyes full of questions.
“My sister married someone because she fell in love with his children,” he said. “He was a monster.”
“What happened?” she said.
“He died,” Alex said shortly, still trying to fight the urge to touch, to comfort, to savor.
“Where is she now?”
He was silent for several moments, unsure how much he wanted to tell her. There was already too much intimacy between them. He could not let her know his true name, nor his sister’s, or he could put Janet in real danger, along with her new husband.
“Safe,” he said more curtly than he intended.
She nodded. Accepting. For the first time, he wondered whether “safe” had meaning for her. He thought about her earlier words. My family kept me away from others. No self-pity. Just a statement of fact.
He had not thought he could feel empathy again. He thought it had all been crowded out of him. Too much death. Too much misery. Too much pain. But now he knew he still felt. He still wanted to right injustices. And Jeanette Campbell had obviously endured an injustice.
What an irony to think such a thing. He who had given up honor.
She asked no more questions, as if she knew she would receive no answers. Her left hand plucked at the top of the coverlet. Her right one, the one with the birthmark, was again under the cover. He turned down the coverlet and took that hand in his.
“You do not have to hide it,” he said.
Her face flushed. “I am not hiding it.”
“Aye, and there is no need,” he said.
“’Tis ugly.”
“Nay,” he said gently, surprising himself. He had not realized gentleness was still possible inside him.
He touched her arm, his fingers skimming the length of the birthmark, then back again. “You should not hide it. It is nothing of your doing, and is as natural as those eyes of yours. They are …”
Once pretty words had rolled easily from his lips. Once he had had the world at his feet. Once he’d had a face that had at
tracted lasses. A title that had made him welcome in any household.
Now he had no pretty words, because they would lead to where he could not go.
But her eyes were wide and intent on him. The light from the lamp made her hair look as if it were spun gold. His right hand left her arm and went again to her face. Then, against every grain of sense he thought he had, he leaned down and his lips touched hers.
It was a kiss that he’d never experienced before. Her response, tentative and shy, took his breath away. He had kissed many times, but never had he known the rush of emotions he felt now. A need to bring a smile to eyes that did too little of it, a desire to pull her into his arms and protect her from everything that had hurt her, every cruel word, every taunt.
Stop, he warned himself.
But her hand touched his face in a wondering kind of a way and trailed the scar as if it were something fine rather than a mark of damnation. How he’d hated that scar. It was as if it separated him forever from civilized people.
She did not seem to think so. Instead, there was a tenderness he had never known in a woman’s touch before. Sweet and cleansing.
Bloody hell, but his body was tied up in knots, consumed by an ache that had spread to the empty places inside him. He hadn’t realized how empty he had become until now. Yes, he had the children, but he’d kept them at a distance, afraid to once more know the same pain he’d experienced when he’d lost his family and friends. Or was it that he hadn’t wanted them to know more loss? He’d known from the beginning he could not continue to care for them.
He was a fool. He had no better future today than he’d had earlier when she had intruded into his world with her tale of marriage. Until then, he’d managed to keep her at a distance, even if there had been the intense attraction between them.
Two lost souls, he thought wryly. Except he’d had a part in his own destruction. He’d made conscious choices, even knowing he was fighting for a lost cause and probably an unworthy prince, a man who claimed Scotland’s throne but hadn’t cared enough about the country to speak its language. It had been the aftermath that had destroyed all the good parts of him.
But her touch was bewitching. He pressed his lips against hers once more in a deeper kiss. The yearning between them exploded. All his doubts faded in a compelling fierceness that brooked no denial. Not when her lips responded to his. Not when they parted slightly to allow his tongue entrance. His hands touched her shoulders, ran along her arms, feeling the softness, sensing the welcome.
His kiss suddenly gentled, their breath intermingling. Her fingers had left his face, but now they returned, touching with a tenderness that made him weak.
He felt the tremors in her body, but they were not of fear. He knew that because he was experiencing the same uncontrolled need. Her body moved, arching under his hands, and the nerves in his body became raw and burning.
Wrong, so wrong, and yet so completely natural. Need quickened inside him as his tongue teased her tongue, and his hands seduced her body. He slid his hands to the top of the nightdress, the low-cut neckline that allowed him entrance. He caressed her breasts and she moaned, her body going so rigid he thought it might break. He drew away, reluctantly ending his exploration.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Don’t stop,” she whispered. She touched his face with a searching tenderness that made him weak.
He felt heat curl inside his loins, even as he hesitated to go further. She looked so wistful, so vulnerable, yet there was a strength in her that was even more attractive to him.
He knew she must be a virgin. Her touch was tentative, her responses shy, even as they seduced. He had never taken a virgin before. He’d always sought out experienced women who knew and accepted the ways of a wandering man. He had no right.
He had no choice. Not when she was looking at him with those wide eyes that undid him every time. Now the spectacular blue green was slightly misted with passion, her mouth swollen by his kiss. He put a hand on her left breast and felt the ragged beat of her heart and the hardening of her nipple. He felt the pounding of his own heart.
He needed her. He needed her warmth and belief in him. He needed the gentleness of her touch and the sweetness of her lips. He needed the magic in a life that had been made cold and barren.
Enough to destroy her life?
How much of a bastard was he?
He sighed, released her lips, and sat there looking at her. She stared back at him gravely, her eyes glazed with emotion. Desire. Need.
“I canna do it to you,” he said. “You … still have your … wedding. I do not have much honor left, but I have tha’ much.”
“Nay,” she said. “If I have learned one thing on this journey, it is that I will not go to a man out of necessity or pity or money. I have thought from the beginning that if we did not suit, then I would sail for America and become a governess or teacher or something of worth.”
She did not add that the past week with him probably would further complicate any marriage. She would not lie. She would not say that she was forced to do anything. She would not further blacken the name of this man.
Truth be told, she had learned in these weeks that she need not depend on anyone. She had discovered she was of value. She would never let anyone tell her she was not again.
And she was not going to let this moment go. She was not to live her life as a spinster who had never known what it was like to be a woman. She did not care about the cost. She would have this moment.
His touch was magical. Jenna had never known she could feel like this, that every sense could come alive. That she would feel such a warm puddling wanting inside. That there could be such a yearning, such expectation, for something unknown. The sheer strength of her need frightened her, but she had to follow it. She had to finish the journey she’d started, not only the journey to a new world, but her own personal journey, and this was part of it. With her newfound courage, she wanted to meet that fear and conquer it. She must, or she would wonder her entire life what she had missed.
He had awakened her entire body. For the first time in her life, she felt wanted and she reached out for him. Her hands went to the back of his neck and her fingers tangled in the thick dark hair. Then they fell to his shirt. He had dressed for tonight and though he had discarded his waistcoat, he was still wearing his shirt and cravat. The white of the fine linen garment contrasted with his sun-bronzed face.
She sat up in the bed, unafraid now to leave her arm uncovered. She untied the cravat and the shirt fell open at the neck.
“Jeanette,” he whispered. He said it with an awe that filled her with pleasure, even wonder.
He turned around and slid in next to her, though he still wore breeches and shirt. His lips trailed kisses along her cheek, starting just below her right eye and moving along the bone to her throat, searing her with a brand she knew she would carry forever, exploding greedy wildfires in her body.
His tongue found its way into her welcoming mouth, and teased and stroked until her body shuddered with unaccustomed sensations.
“You are very bonny,” he said.
She had never believed it, but now she saw his eyes, the intense fire in them, and she did believe him. For now, at least. For this moment. And that was all that mattered.
He shifted his weight, and she took that opportunity to pull his shirt from his breeches, feeling wild and abandoned and wicked. And desired. For the first time in her life, she felt desired.
Her fingers touched the skin underneath the material of the shirt, and it was warm to her touch. Warm and seductive. His body was lean and muscled, and tense. Ever so tense.
He moaned slightly as her hands ran up his chest. “All the saints in heaven,” he murmured, then sat up. He unlaced his breeches and pulled them off. She watched every movement, and the want inside grew as he turned back to her.
“Are you sure, lass?” It was the first time he had called her that, and it sounded warm and intimate and loving.
> “Aye,” she replied. Part of her wasn’t sure. She had heard both wonderful and terrible things about the act of joining, of loving. Some said it was a curse. Painful and humiliating. Because of those reports, she had dreaded marriage even while she had coveted the fruit of it.
But others had obviously reveled in it, glorying in the union between man and woman.
And how could anything that made her body sing like this be less than wondrous?
She held out her hand to him.
He gave her a crooked smile that went straight to her heart and erased the last of her doubts.
He took the coverlet completely off the bed and then slowly, lazily tugged off her nightdress, caressing her as he did so, each touch igniting new fires, sending more expectant sensations flaring through her.
Then his lips were on hers again, this time with a kiss sweet and searching and gentle all at the same time. She felt the restraint behind it, a concern that lessened any remaining apprehension. She felt like a very precious object. It was a new feeling and she relished it, knowing she would remember it always.
She touched his body, felt its tension. Then her hand moved up to his cheek and touched the scar. He flinched.
“Nay,” she said. “It gives you character.”
“I am truly glad something does,” he replied seriously, but the half smile on his face broadened. She smiled inside. She had not realized before he had humor. He had been very good at hiding it.
His lips seized hers again, and his hands wandered down her body, touching her breasts again, then moved to the triangle of hair, his fingers soothing and searching, creating shock waves of sensations. His kiss deepened, and now there was little gentleness, just a hard, driving need that fired her own.
Her body arched in instinctive reaction and her arms went around him, drawing him to her. She felt the probe of his body at the entrance of the most secret, private part of her, and after the first stunned reaction, she knew a craving so strong and so deep that she cried out. Her body moved shamelessly against his and she savored the contrast of her soft skin against his taut, hard body.
Yet still he hesitated, even while the brush of his arousal made her moan with frustration. Then he moved slowly into her. Hot. Pulsating. A strange fullness, and then pain. Pain so sharp and unexpected that she cried out again.
The Diamond King Page 22
