by Olivia Drake
“Yes. Thank you.”
She snapped the lid shut and turned to put the box on the dressing table. Her wooden response perplexed him. He felt as if he was foundering in too-deep waters. “Norah, what’s wrong?”
She swung around, her hands braced on the table behind her. A troubled expression knit her auburn eyebrows. “You’re still trying to buy my affections.”
I won’t be bought. I’m not like your other women. Too late, he saw his mistake. In his usual arrogant manner he had taken the easy path. He had hoped to bridge the fortnight-long rift between them in one swift move, rather than rebuild her trust stone by slow stone.
And yet...he had put a great deal of planning into the parure. She had unknowingly lured him into becoming a better man, the man of her dreams. Now, her instant misjudgment pricked his anger. “Since when is it wrong for a man to give the woman he loves a gift?”
Her gaze wavered and her lips softened. Then she steadied her eyes on him again. “I’m the prize in your petty battle with Jerome. You’re only trying to win me.”
“It isn’t petty. He wants you all for himself, Norah.”
“That’s absurd. In all the years I’ve known him, he’s been nothing short of kind and caring and absolutely wonderful.”
The fangs of jealousy tore into Kit. “He’s a paragon all right. Let me tell you what Adrian found out when he went to the convent—”
“So you did send him.” She planted her hands on her hips, cinching her nightgown against her trim waist. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I didn’t want to alarm you.” Kit raked his hand through his hair. “When you were first attacked, the night of the fire, I began to worry that Maurice’s murderess might be stalking you, too. I wondered if she could be someone from your past, so I went back to your beginnings. I sent Adrian to visit the nuns who raised you.”
“Lord Adrian Marlow—among nuns? I gather he’s as much the rake as you.”
Kit suppressed a smile. “I was a rake, but not anymore.”
She gave him a strange sidelong look as she swept past him and began to pace. “You had no right to pry.”
“I most certainly did. I’m concerned for your safety.”
“Well, I don’t understand what you hoped to find out. What would my childhood have to do with Maurice’s murder?”
“I don’t know. I just took a chance.” Savoring triumph, he added, “And luck paid off. I did find out something interesting.”
Norah stopped cold. “Did you learn the identity of my parents?”
She clasped her hands so tightly he could see the delicate bones and fine blue veins. He cursed himself for failing to foresee this need in her. “No. I’m sorry, I didn’t. But I did discover that it wasn’t the Mother Superior who arranged your marriage. It was Jerome St. Claire.”
The light from the fire behind Norah set her hair aglow and limned her nightgown in golden radiance. The moonstones and diamonds on her cloth-draped bosom enhanced her natural beauty. “Jerome? That can’t be true,” she said, frowning. “I didn’t meet him until after I married Maurice.”
“I see no reason why the Mother Superior would lie.”
Norah bit her lip. “I don’t, either. So maybe Maurice sent Jerome as an emissary—because he travels so much on the continent. There’s nothing so strange about that.”
“I wonder.” Kit racked his mind for a way to convey his uneasy feelings. “There’s something peculiar about Jerome. I think he’s hiding something.”
She snorted. “Oh, please. Jerome has always been scrupulously honest with me.”
“Then why didn’t he tell you he’d arranged your marriage?”
“He probably didn’t think it was important. Or maybe Maurice asked him not to.” She threw up her hands. “For heaven’s sake, it’s over with and done. The circumstances of a marriage made nine years ago have nothing to do with our investigation.”
“I wish I could share your certainty.” Fighting the demons of fear, Kit crossed to her. His fingers formed bracelets around her wrists. The daintiness of her bones, the faint throbbing of her twin pulse points, deepened his terrible sense of helplessness. “I wish you would marry me.”
Norah heard the tremor in his voice and longed to believe he spoke from his heart. Clad in a dove-gray suit, he towered over her like an exotic prince. His midnight eyes mirrored the flames on the grate. Yet more than his physical perfection drew her. Somehow her need for him had grown beyond that of a friend and a business partner. She admired his strength, his intensity, his dedication, even his newfound honor. The fact that he had planned for so many weeks to give her the parure proved his dedication to loving her.
Agony twisted in her chest. If only she weren’t the wrong woman for Kit. If only she dared risk more than a fleeting love affair with him, this one night.
She lowered her gaze. “You needn’t go to such lengths to protect me.”
His grip tightened on her wrists. “Look at me.”
Slowly she complied, though the steady burn of his eyes singed her. “Of course I want to protect you,” he murmured. “I said I wouldn’t badger you, but I won’t lose you either. I want the sort of happiness my parents share. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want our children to play hide and seek in these rooms. I think you want all that, too.”
A knot of agony formed in her chest. The deep feeling in his voice resurrected the girlhood dreams she had entombed long ago. Yet now the harsh colors of reality stained those fairytale images. Once, she had disciplined her outspoken nature and submitted to a husband’s will, then Maurice had broken her trust. Even though her heart ached to embrace Kit’s love and the future he offered, her head warned her to guard her emotions.
“I can’t,” she whispered. “I won’t marry again.”
“Dammit, why not? If it’s your independence, I promise not to stifle you. You can design jewelry until we’re both old and gray and you’re too feeble to pick up pencil and paper.”
She pulled free, walked to the chimneypiece, and pressed her brow against the warm delft tiles. Her hand cradled the cool stones of her necklace. “I know you respect my talent, Kit. But there are so many other reasons why we’re wrong for each other.”
“Oh?” he scoffed. “Tell me some.”
Turning to face him, she plucked an argument from the list she had compiled to console herself on lonely nights. “For one, I lack the breeding to make a suitable wife for a marquess. I can’t even tell you who my parents are.”
“I’d be the last person to criticize your bloodline.”
He stood stiff and straight, a statue chiseled from sun-warmed topaz. Remembering his hostility toward his natural mother, Norah said softly, “Oh, Kit. Don’t belittle yourself. I thank God that your father once loved a Hindu woman named Shivina.”
Their eyes held, his reflecting unguarded need and hers the tenderness and love she dared not voice. His mouth softened and the tension in his physique eased. His lashes lowered slightly, but not before she spied the glitter of pain.
“How can I believe you?” he said bitterly. “You don’t care enough to commit yourself to me.”
Dear God, he deserved to know the truth. He deserved to recognize the horrid failure she hid inside herself.
“I do care,” she murmured. “But I just couldn’t ask you to...” Tears scalded her eyes and throat. Mortified by the swift collapse of her defenses, she spun around again, burying her face in her palms.
His hands closed on her shoulders and kneaded her rigid muscles. “Ask me to what?”
“To accept a woman who’s less than whole.” Her voice dropped to an anguished rasp. “Oh, please don’t make me say this.”
“Norah, you owe me your honesty.”
The desperation to convince him burned away her restraint. “There’s something wrong with my body.”
A log popped, and she heard the quiet swish of his breathing. He drew her close, molding her spine to his chest and crossing his a
rms beneath her breasts. “Bosh.” His exhalation tickled her ear. “Your body is perfect.”
“But I could never bear your child. Haven’t you guessed?” She forced herself to agonizing candor. “I’m barren.”
The damning word lashed like a scourge inside her skull. Barren. Barren. Barren.
Focusing on the tiny blue windmill etched on one of the tiles, she braced herself for Kit’s withdrawal. Instead he snuggled her closer, subtly fitting her thighs to his, gently pressing her bottom against his groin. The intimate position awakened a memory of pain, yet somehow the turmoil inside her seemed enticing, the antithesis of fear. With vivid intensity, she coveted his nearness. It seemed natural and right for her hands to settle atop his folded forearms, where his warmth guarded her empty womb.
“It takes two people to create a baby,” he said. “Maybe the flaw was in your husband.”
“No.” The suggestion startled Norah into tilting her head back to view Kit. “No, it’s in me. The doctor told me so.”
“And you accepted his diagnosis?”
“Yes, I consulted our family physician two years ago.” Looking into the fire, she relived the nagging anxiety that had driven her to make the appointment, the embarrassment of the examination, the furtive groping of his cold hands beneath the concealing cloth. And she remembered Maurice’s fury when the doctor came to consult with him. She’d asked him what was wrong, but he had subjected her to a moody silence that lasted for weeks afterward. Haltingly she added, “The physician said that failure to conceive is the fault of the wife—unless the husband had contracted certain illnesses, which Maurice had not.”
“Mm. Well, I can’t claim to know much about medical matters, but your doctor could be mistaken. Perhaps my mother knows a specialist you can consult—”
“Please don’t involve the duchess.” Norah kept the door locked on fruitless hopes. “Even if another doctor declared me healthy, I couldn’t let you risk your future. You have a duty to produce an heir.”
He shrugged, his chest shifting against her back. “There’s Thomas, my younger brother. If need be, he can inherit.”
Kit’s nonchalant attitude shook the foundation of her assurance. She turned in the circle of his embrace and lay her arms over his, her fingers curling around the smooth material of his sleeves and finding the firmness of muscles beneath.
“Kit, you said you want a marriage like the one your father and stepmother share. But children are a big part of their happiness. I can’t give you a family. You wouldn’t have a brood of children to bring laughter and light into your life. You wouldn’t ever know the joy of holding your own baby, or watching him take his first steps.”
“But I’d have you.”
His smile illuminated a dark place deep inside her. Wary of her budding hope, she said, “A wife alone can’t be enough. Someday you’ll regret never having children.”
He pressed his finger over her lips. “If it matters so much to you, we’ll adopt one of the boys. Lark or Screeve, even Billy. Good God, if it makes you happy, we can take in the whole bloody school.”
The startling suggestion drew her gaze over the brown column of his throat to his face, to the curve of his mouth and the beauty of his cheekbones, the bronzed skin and the jet-black hair. Now she could discern kindness where she had once seen dissipation, gallantry where she had seen hauteur, sincerity where she had seen a charming deceiver. In defiance of sensible judgment, elation bloomed in her, unfurling in a smile.
“Oh, Kit, you’re so good for me.”
He released a pent-up breath. His stubbled cheek rubbed against hers. “You’re good for me, too.”
His hand moved in hypnotic circles over her back, massaging away the remnants of anxiety. Yet like weeds in a rose garden, troubling questions marred her contentment. Could she bind herself again when she had just sampled the fruits of freedom? Dare she trust the depth of Kit’s feelings?
“I’m afraid,” she admitted. “What if you want me because I’m the only woman you can’t seduce?”
Laughter rumbled deep in his chest. “Now there’s one argument I know for a pack of nonsense. Believe me, darling, I’ve never really tried to seduce you.”
“Oh? What about in the museum?”
“That wasn’t seduction. This is seduction.”
He nuzzled her ear, then brushed his moist lips along the side of her neck and tracked over to possess her mouth. The slickness of his tongue, the caress of his hands on her derriere, started shivers that rippled like waves over her skin and penetrated the very depths of her. Wanting the kiss to last and last, she lifted herself on bare toes and outlined his jaw in her hands. Her fingertips rejoiced in the strength there, then greedily moved over his head, learning the intricate design of his ears and sifting through the rough silk of his hair.
Abruptly he pulled back, his expression moody. “Twice before when I kissed you, Norah, you pushed me away. If you’re going to do so again, I’d as soon leave right now.”
The muscles of her stomach tightened. The specter of painful memories shrouded her in shadows.
Only the familiarity of his face, so close and so beloved, kept her from falling into the abyss of panic. Like fine wine, the taste and texture of his kiss lingered on her lips. The trepidation within her transformed into an aching awareness of her own body.
She wanted to take the chance. She wanted to know.
Reaching for his hand, she skimmed his hard knuckles and marveled at the dainty paleness of her skin against his dusky flesh. “Kit, I’m afraid to promise you my future. But I do want you to make love to me tonight. That’s why I undressed.”
His eyes remained steady, though a subtle softening eased the strict line of his mouth. “I have one stipulation,” he said. “That you take this off, too.” He tapped the wedding band on her finger.
Without hesitation, she worked off the gold ring and dropped it on the side table, among the litter of her pencils. Her hand felt as naked as her emotions. She searched her mind for regrets but found only a boundless sense of release. For nine years she had borne the weight of the ring and the duties it represented; now she reveled in freedom, like a diamond pried from a too-heavy setting.
She put her hands on his chest, pushed them beneath the lapels of his coat, and let her palms absorb the thudding there. “Your heart is beating as fast as mine.”
“Because we’re meant for each other, Norah. We’re meant to be partners in more than just a jewel shop. And for more than one night. You’ll see.”
He caught her by her waist. In one elegant motion, he sank into the wing chair and drew her down onto him. Her bottom met the rock-hard muscles of his thighs; her head fit the cradle of his shoulder.
Confused, she glanced beyond him, at the bed. “But...don’t you want to lie down with me?”
He smiled. “Eventually. I don’t need a bed to prove I love you. For right now, I want to hold you...kiss you...touch you.”
In that instant she knew he appreciated her fear, and his thoughtfulness intensified the bond between them. She wanted to kiss him, too, partly out of ardor and partly out of a cowardly desire to delay the moment of reckoning.
She tilted her head up in the same moment his hand cupped her cheek. Their mouths melded in a sweetly sensual kiss that whirled her into a realm of throbbing darkness, yet this darkness aroused none of the old familiar alarm, only the profound consciousness of Kit protecting her in the tender power of his embrace.
She clung to his neck and inhaled his musky scent, felt his hands slide up and down her back in a rhythmic motion that mimicked the silken sword thrust of his tongue. Her heightened awareness heated into a fever. She squirmed against him, meeting his kiss with her own. His hands came under her arms and shaped around her unbound breasts. Despite the enfolding fabric, his thumbs flicked over her nipples and sent shock waves radiating down to her belly.
His lips brushed back and forth over hers. “You’re naked under this nun’s robe.”
“Yes,�
�� she breathed, awed at feelings so new they had no name. “But I don’t feel like a nun.”
“Nor will you ever with me.”
Gold flecks glimmered in the shadowed pools of his eyes. His lashes were thick, half lowered. Her breasts felt warm and weighted within his palms, aching for his unique stimulation. Abruptly he released her, and she made a sound of dismay.
He smiled in the wicked way that suggested untold pleasures to come. “Patience,” he murmured. “You’re too precious a gift to open quickly.”
He unfastened her necklace and set it aside, then worked his way down the myriad buttons securing the front of her gown. Delving inside, he spread his broad palms on her bare shoulders, then pressed outward, pushing the fabric away and half exposing her bosom. On a rush of modesty, she caught his wrists, where his fine white cuffs delineated brown flesh and black hairs.
“Shouldn’t we blow out the lamp?” she said huskily.
“How would I see you then?” he countered.
Already he transported her beyond the realm of her experience. She had known physical intimacy only in darkness, so late into the night that the hearth fire had burned to embers. Even then she had never fully unveiled herself, merely lifted the hem of her gown. But the prospect of Kit viewing what no man had ever seen made her hands melt downward, granting him the liberty to do as he willed.
He guided the garment down over her arms and let it pool at her waist. Oddly, she felt pure and new, Eve before the fall from grace. His hands came up to span her rib cage, his thumbs testing the underside of her breasts. Her heart beat so fast she thought he must surely take notice.
His jaw clenched and his gaze flitted to hers. “God, you’re lovely,” he muttered. “I want to kiss you.”
“I want to kiss you, too.”
Her lips parted and she swayed closer. But instead of taking her mouth, he bent his dark head to her breast and suckled her peak. The shock of his tongue circling the delicate point uncoiled a ribbon of delight that hastened downward to the private place between her thighs. The ribbon pulled deliciously taut, provoked by the nip of his teeth and the tug of his lips. Never had she felt so aware of her own body. When he blew gently on her moistened flesh, she felt the sensation unroll straight down to her curled toes.
