He was left staring at the elegant curve of her back, the long white stem of her neck, the soft roll of hair at her nape. Of her face he could see only the curve of one pale cheek, and the dainty outline of her nose and chin.
Suddenly he was conscious of a dull, thudding pain in the region of his heart.
“Isabella.” He gave up trying to pretend that everything was as usual and came around to sit on the bench beside her. “Do you regret last night?”
She looked at him then, her lovely eyes widening as though she was surprised at the question. Her hair formed a nimbus as soft-looking as a cloud around her face. Her expression was serene. That luscious mouth which she considered a fatal flaw and he thought was too erotic to look at without kissing was curved in a faint smile.
“Do I regret last night?” she repeated musingly. “Do I regret behaving like a wanton and coming into your bed though I have no business whatsoever there? Do I regret violating my marriage vows and my own honor? Do I regret the wicked things I did?”
He went very still then, his eyes on her face, feeling himself vulnerable as he had never been before. He was sore afraid she was sorry.
“No,” she said softly. “If I could relive the evening again, I wouldn’t change a thing. Not one thing.”
Speechless for what must have been the first time in his life, he picked up her hand and carried it to his lips.
“Isabella.” His voice was hoarse. “Isabella.”
“I’m in love with you, you know. I never meant it to happen, but it has.”
Unable to speak, he kissed her hand again, laid it against the side of his face. Her fingers were very cool against his skin. His eyes met hers, and he tried to speak but couldn’t. A scratchy dryness in his throat threatened to unman him. Never in his life had anything affected him like her sweet voice speaking of loving him.
She went on. “You needn’t look so worried. There’s no future for me with you, and I know it as well as you do. You don’t have to try to pretend otherwise. It’s funny, though. I wouldn’t be your mistress for a home, or security, but I’ll do it for love.”
Love. The word was like a sword piercing his heart. He kissed the palm of the hand that rested against his cheek, and held it.
“What do you mean, you don’t have a future with me?” If his voice was rough, he considered himself lucky to be able to talk at all. For the first time since he was a tiny lad lost in a frightening world, he felt the sting of tears at the backs of his eyes. She was so brave, and so beautiful, and so gallant, and his heart ached with wanting to keep her safe beside him forever.
“You’ve as much a future with me as you want to have. Do you think I don’t have a care for you? Hell, I would wed you tomorrow if I could.” His lips were as dry as his throat. He moistened them, and looked at her with a humility as foreign to him as the tears burning the backs of his eyes. That she should love him … He had never expected that.
“You would … marry me?” Her eyes searched his face. Her hand quivered in his. “You needn’t try to make things easy for me, you know. I’m perfectly prepared to be your mistress for as long as you want me. You needn’t make pretty speeches that you don’t mean.”
He smiled then, crookedly, as the aching in his throat eased. “I never make pretty speeches I don’t mean. At least, not to you. I love you, Isabella, and I’ve never in my life said that nor wanted to say it to another human being. So how’s that for a pretty speech?”
The crooked smile went even more crooked as her eyes met his. Her lips trembled. Her fingers curled around the hand that held hers.
“Do you mean it? Really, truly?” she asked low.
“Aye, I mean it,” he said gruffly, and took her in his arms.
LII
They had a week. A single, glorious week. All thought of shame, and sin, Isabella banished from her mind. She loved, and was loved in return.
Never in her life had she expected to experience such happiness.
The daylight hours were spent in a golden glow of bliss, walking around the estate, continuing Alec’s riding lessons that were tenderly hilarious now, playing at cards or some other game. But after dinner—which was served early on Alec’s orders—they retired to his room, together. And in his room, in his bed, Isabella awakened to what it truly meant to be a woman in love.
It was early May now, and the few times that Isabella thought of it, it seemed incredible that three months ago she had been living very much retired at Blakely Park. The plain, unloved Countess of Blakely seemed like a different human being altogether, with no connection besides a name with the Isabella who danced and laughed and played with Alec.
When thoughts of the future threatened to rear their ugly heads, she banished them. The present was too unbelievably wonderful to worry about what might happen at some distant time. The future would just have to take care of itself.
Then the message came from Paddy.
“I’m going to have to go to London for a day or two,”
Alec told her ruefully, looking up from the screw of paper that one of his men had just brought in to him. They were seated on opposite sides of a small table in the library, playing at piquet. Under Alec’s coaching, Isabella was becoming quite proficient at the game. Occasionally she even won a hand, although she suspected him of—and he loudly denied—cheating to let her win.
She put down her hand of cards and looked at him with a gnawing disquiet. The first intrusion into their Eden. Of course, he had businesses to run, things to see to. Had she really thought that the two of them could stay here at Amberwood, undisturbed, for the rest of their lives?
“This is from Paddy,” he said, displaying the note. “He wouldn’t send for me if it wasn’t urgent. I’ll be back as quickly as I can.”
“I understand, of course.” And she did, really she did. But the sense of reality intruding on their idyll was strong.
“I’ll leave most of the men here, to keep an eye on things. Don’t stray far from the house.”
“No. I won’t.”
He looked at her closely then, and frowned.
“Isabella.” Pushing his chair back, he stood up and came around the table to rest his hand on the vulnerable nape of her neck, bared by the elegant new upsweep of her hair. “ ’Twill only be for a day or two, love.”
The warmth of his hand cradled her neck. With his index finger he absently stroked the tender skin just below her ear, the caress both coaxing and stirring. Isabella looked up at him then, determinedly smiling even if the smile was a trifle forced.
“I know. I’m being ridiculous. It’s just that … I’ll miss you.” Her voice went husky on the last words.
“I’ll miss you too, love; never doubt it.” As her smile faltered the golden eyes took on a gleam with which Isabella was becoming totally familiar. “What say we skip dinner tonight, and turn in early? I can leave for London in the morning.”
His hand slid from her neck to fondle the soft curve of her shoulder where it was bared by the fashionable décolletage of the taffeta afternoon dress. It took no more than that—the glint in his eyes and the most decorous of caresses—to kindle longings that she had never, before Alec’s expert tutoring convinced her otherwise, dreamed she possessed.
“All right.”
Alec pulled back her chair for her, and with a rustle of skirts Isabella got to her feet and turned to face him. Still determined to put a brave face on it—how ridiculous to feel so devastated by the prospect of a few days’ separation!—she essayed another smile. As her eyes met his, the smile faltered and died. He was regarding her intently, his eyes twin flames of gold, his mouth straight and a little compressed.
“I will be back, Isabella. Not all the catastrophes in the kingdom could keep me away. And you’ve no need at all to fear for my safety. I’ve been taking care of myself quite adequately for longer than you are old, if you care to remember.”
“Of course you have, old man that you are,” she managed to reply cordially, having t
o use real resolution to resist the idiotic urge to weep instead. His prickliness about his relative youth made the topic foolproof fodder for her teasing, and in the halcyon days just past she had needled him about it often, with frequently delightful results.
“Wet-behind-the-ears miss,” he retorted as he always did, smiling crookedly even as he reached for her.
That heartbreakingly familiar smile was her undoing. It brought home to her just how very dear he was to her, and how fragile was their hold on each other. A million circumstances could conspire to force them apart.…
“Oh, Alec!”
Feeling as though that smile had stabbed her clear through to the heart, Isabella abandoned all attempts at bravery and flew into his arms. They closed around her, pulling her against him in a hug that threatened to force the very air from her lungs. Even as her arms wrapped around his neck, his mouth came down on hers, kissing her with a fierceness that told her that, for all his brave words, he dreaded their coming separation as much as she did.
The knowledge made Isabella shiver.
She tightened her arms around his neck, answering his kiss with a desperate hunger as her fingers clenched in the raw silk of his hair. With the urgency of parting looming over them, she couldn’t seem to get him close enough. She wanted to imprint on her mind and body forever the hard masculinity of the body to which she clung; the feel of his chin and cheeks which all these hours after his morning shave had grown rough again, abrading her sensitive skin; the faint taste of ale that clung to his tongue, and the warm smell of man that enwrapped her as completely as his arms.
Holding him close, she could pretend that she never had to let him go. Then he lifted his mouth from hers to press molten kisses along the line of her jaw.
“I love you,” she breathed into the hollow between his shoulder and neck, her hands releasing their death grip on his hair to slide across the broad planes of his linen-clad shoulders and then down over the long muscles of his back.
By way of reply he muttered something unintelligible into the soft skin of her neck, where he was tracing tiny devouring kisses from her ear to her collarbone, his arms tightening around her so fiercely that Isabella would have feared for her ribs if she had been in any condition to think of something so mundane. But she was not. Instead she pressed herself so closely against him that she could feel his heartbeat pounding against her breasts through his shirt and her gown, feel the urgent hardness that trumpeted his need of her more clearly than any bugle call, swollen and enormous against the softness of her belly.
“Alec,” she whispered his name, going on tiptoe to press a kiss into the vulnerable skin just below and behind his ear.
“Isabella.” His voice was hoarse. “See what you do to me.”
Reaching for her hand, he guided it between them, pressing it against the front of his breeches with blatant sexuality. Only a few days before, Isabella would have been shocked speechless. But in the brief time since she had thrown her cap over the windmill and admitted her love for him, Alec had tutored her well. She felt the familiar tightening in her body even as her fingers closed willingly around him, squeezing and stroking as he had taught her despite the barrier of cloth.
His tongue was in her ear, tracing the convoluted whorls with delicious effect, so she could very clearly hear the moment his breathing went ragged. Her fingers were opening the top button of his breeches, crawling down the hair-roughened, board-hard warmth of his abdomen to free the second.…
“Oh, God, Isabella,” he groaned, and then he was lifting her off her feet and laying her down on the carpet before the fire with more haste than care, freeing himself from his breeches with shaking hands even as he came down on top of her. Impatiently he pushed the rustly taffeta skirt out of his way, and then he was thrusting into her while he groaned and she cried out his name.
The fierceness of their need was so intense that neither could wait, and their mating was over in moments. Alec lay on his back before the fire, spent, his clothes askew and his breathing only gradually returning to normal. Isabella curled at his side, her head on his shoulder, one hand resting comfortably on his chest. A thought occurred to her and made her smile.
“What’s so funny?”
Isabella looked up to find his golden eyes fixed on her face. Her smile widened.
“I thought you were too old and too fond of comfort to make love to me on a rug.”
He frowned slightly, and then as he remembered, his lips twitched.
“Words spoken in haste are usually repented.”
“Are they indeed?”
“Yes, ma’am. I now see that I could make love to you on a rug forever.”
“You’re not too old?” Her fingers slid between the buttons of his shirt to tickle his chest as she teased him.
“Minx,” he said, catching her hand and bringing it to his lips for a kiss. “Let’s go upstairs.”
His eyes were on her. From the growing gleam in them, Isabella realized that despite the fierceness of what had just passed between them, his desire for her was far from sated.
She sat up. “Certainly not. At least, not until I’ve had my dinner. I find myself suddenly extremely sharp-set.”
“Worked up an appetite, have you?” He grinned suddenly, and got to his feet with easy grace, reaching down a hand to pull her up beside him. “Well, so have I. We’ll tell Shelby to bring us up a tray. I just might be able to wait the length of time it takes us to eat.”
Isabella laughed. Smoothing her skirt and then doing what she could to restore her maddening hair, she watched with interest as Alec made repairs to his own appearance. “He’ll think us scandalous.”
“I’m sure he does already. Do you care?”
She shook her head. “No,” she said, surprised to find that it was true.
“I’ll make a wanton out of you yet, Countess; see if I don’t,” he said, grinning, and sliding an arm around her waist, he hugged her close. Arm in arm, her head on his shoulder, they walked from the library.
The next morning came all too soon. Knowing that she was being idiotic, Isabella nevertheless could not stop herself from weeping as she stood on the front steps watching as Alec prepared to leave. The sight of her tears as he swung his portmanteau inside the closed carriage made him groan, and curse, a rush of red staining his cheekbones as he glanced around at the interested audience of Shelby, a footman and half a dozen of his men. But to his credit he ignored them, coming back to her and holding her close, kissing her and whispering sweet love words into her ears. But his tenderness only made her dread of losing him worse, and the more he tried to soothe her, the more she sobbed, stricken by the fear that if he left her now, she would never see him again.
“I must go, love,” he said finally, putting her away from him and stepping up into the carriage with a signal to the driver. Alec had agreed to the precautions of a closed carriage complete with armed driver and a small vanguard of his men with much reluctance, to ease her fears that he might be attacked en route.
But not even these safeguards could quiet Isabella’s growing sense of impending disaster. As she stood on the steps, one hand shielding her eyes and the other brushing the tears from her cheeks, watching the carriage until it was out of sight, Isabella trembled with the strength of her conviction that their parting was not for a day or two, but for good.
That night Isabella slept in Alec’s bed, her arms clutching a pillow that she could not, with the best will in the world, successfully pretend was him. Staring sleeplessly into the dark, she realized that she had never, not even on the dreadful morning after her marriage, felt so alone in all her life.
With the rising of the sun her spirits lifted slightly. After all, Alec had promised to be gone no more than one or two nights. With luck, he might be home before she had to spend another sleepless night in his bed. Clinging to that thought, she dressed in the rose pink muslin that she knew was a favorite of his and took extra care with her hair, in the hope that he might make it home tha
t afternoon. If somewhere deep inside her dwelled the conviction that he would never return, she refused to allow herself to acknowledge it. Such megrims! she scolded herself, and chalked up the inner dread she could not completely banish as one of the exigencies of being head over heels in love.
Restless after luncheon, she went for a walk along the lane. If Alec was to arrive at all today, it would not be until much later, she reasoned. Alec’s men were about somewhere, she knew they were, but they kept discreetly out of her sight, and she felt herself very much alone as she strolled along. The sun shone brightly, the trees were in leaf, and spring flowers bloomed in colorful profusion along both sides of the lane. It was a beautiful day, and Isabella’s spirits rose to match it.
In the sparkling sunlight her fears were exposed as the ridiculous things they were. Alec would be back soon, and they would go on just as before. To fret herself into a headache was absurd.
She wandered down past the stable, waving at the groom who had become a friend. A little farther along, near the meadow where Alec had had his first riding lesson, she stopped to pick a bunch of bachelor’s buttons for her dressing table. Inhaling deeply of the soft blue blooms, she became aware of the sound of carriage wheels approaching.
Alec! He was home even earlier than she could have expected! It had to be he, for who else would be bowling along a private lane?
Smiling foolishly, she moved to the side of the road, watching as the carriage came into sight. It was travelling at a moderate speed, but as it approached her, it slowed. Pressing the small bouquet to her bosom, she waited with breathless anticipation for Alec’s tawny head to appear.
It was only as the carriage was almost upon her that Isabella noticed that it was not the same vehicle in which Alec had left. And the stone-faced driver was a stranger.…
The carriage pulled up next to where she stood on the thick carpet of grass at the side of the lane. The door swung open, and a man jumped out. He was of medium height, stocky and blunt-featured. Isabella had never seen him before in her life.
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