Gasping, the two of them broke apart, shaken by the frigid damp. Blinking in confusion, they watched water sluice into the room, pouring across the floor like a falls. Lightning flashed and cut a jagged arc in the sky, turned inky black despite the morning hour. Unleashing its full fury, the rain pounded harder.
Springing into action, Kit set her on her feet and rushed to the window. Fighting the wind, he closed the panes and shut the downpour outside. As if in complaint, the tempest beat a relentless tattoo that pattered and pummeled against the glass.
He turned, rainwater glistening in his hair, on his skin. Crossing to her, he bent and scooped her off her feet, then carried her to the bed.
“No sheets,” he murmured, nuzzling her neck as he lay her down, “but I suppose we can make do. Let me get the quilt. I’ll be back in a moment.”
But a moment was long enough for her conscience to kick in and give her a sudden, painful jab.
Mercy, what am I doing? She was about to sleep with Kit. Again. A kidnapping, a rescue, a consoling hug, and she’d practically thrown herself at him, ready to surrender, body and soul. But despite his gallantry in saving her, nothing between them had changed.
Shivering now with cold, her mind began to clear as though emerging from an intoxicated stupor.
He returned with the coverlet and spread it over her. “This should keep off the chill.”
“Kit, we can’t do this,” she stated, struggling to sit upright against the lumpy mattress that seemed determined to draw her downward.
Setting a light hand against her shoulder, he tumbled her backward, then followed her down. “Can’t we?”
“No. In case you’ve forgotten, I am engaged.”
A heavy scowl settled over his brows. “You don’t have to be.”
Surprise rippled through her. “What?”
“Don’t marry him.” Leaning over her, he gazed into her eyes, his own glittering like fragments of green and gold glass. “Marry me instead.”
Confusion knotted beneath her breast. “We’ve been through this before. You don’t want to marry me.”
“Don’t I?” A soft breath soughed from his chest as he glided his lips across her cheek.
She shook her head. “You only want my body.”
He nipped her earlobe, then feathered a series of kisses along the column of her throat. “Is that right?”
“It’s obligation talking,” she rushed on, “because you desire me. Because we are here together alone, and if we do this I will be quite thoroughly compromised yet again.”
Lifting the quilt, he slid under it. “I should say you will be, since I plan to ravish you until we both collapse from fatigue. But this,” he paused, pressing the unmistakable length of his iron-hard erection against her hip, “has nothing to do with obligation.”
“Lust, then.” She struggled to move away.
Catching hold, he gently pressed her back onto the mattress, capturing her wrists to pin her hands next to her head. In the dim stormy light, she met his gaze. “Please, Kit. Please let me go.”
Slowly, he shook his head. “I can’t. Believe me, I’ve tried, but it quite simply cannot be done. And though I unquestionably ache with lust for you, my emotions run far, far deeper than that.” His expression serious, he brushed a kiss across her mouth. “I love you, Eliza.”
At first she didn’t think she had heard him. “What?”
“I love you. I should have told you sooner, but I was too much of a fool to even realize it myself. When you were taken…well, I knew my life wouldn’t be worth living anymore, not without you in it.”
The air rushed from her lungs, leaving her head spinning as though she had taken a bad fall. He couldn’t be saying these things, she marveled. She must in truth have hit her head and was hallucinating. All of this, perhaps even the kidnapping, nothing more than a fantastic dream.
The tantalizing stroke of his thumbs against the inside of her palms brought her back, let her know that everything she felt was indeed reality. His touch set her body aquiver, her nerves ablaze.
“Say something, sweetheart,” he urged. “Tell me if you think you could feel the same. If you could stand to marry me and share my life and bear my children. I know you want babies. I assure you, it will be my very great pleasure to get you with child, and keep you that way, as many times as you wish. All you need do is say yes. Please, Eliza, please say yes and let me spend my days making you happy.”
Her lips trembled, a torrent of emotions building up inside her. Like a spring dam overflooding its gates, she burst into tears. Turning her head, she began to sob.
Kit stared, devastation filling him as he watched her cry. Releasing her wrists, he hovered for an uncertain moment, stroking her hair away from her wet cheeks as tenderly as he would a child’s.
Yet as much as it pained him, he had to ask, his voice ragged when he finally managed to choke out the words. “Do you love him, then? Brevard? Is it him you truly wish to wed?”
Weeping, she shook her head. “N-no.”
“No?” Perplexed, he rubbed a hand along her arm. “Then why? What is it, sweetheart? What’s wrong? If you don’t want to marry me, I’ll wait. I know you may not love me now, but—”
A muffled laugh hiccuped through her tears as she reached up and looped her arms around his neck, urging him to silence. “Shh, you d-don’t understand.”
“Don’t understand what?”
“That I love you. So much, too much. I’ve loved you for years, so long I’d given up hope of you ever feeling the same about me.”
“You have? Then why did you refuse me before when I asked you to marry me?”
She sniffed and curled closer. “I thought you were only being honorable. I suppose most women would have accepted, but I couldn’t trap you—or myself, for that matter. We both deserved more than being shackled inside a loveless marriage. I couldn’t bring myself to settle for less than the full measure of your love.”
“Nor should you have. God, what an idiot I was to talk of duty and honor when I should have been telling you how much you mean to me.” Bending downward, he pressed his lips against hers in a slow, gentle merging that left both of them trembling. “Forgive me for being such a slow-top. I don’t know why it took me so long to see the truth, to recognize the treasure I had, waiting right there in front of me all this time.”
Her lips curved in a radiant smile. “You see me now, that is all that matters. There is nothing to forgive.”
Joy burst like a radiant sun inside his chest. “Say yes, then. Tell me you will be my wife. Tell me you’ll be mine.”
Her eyes turned dreamy. “I am yours, Kit. For now and always. Of course I’ll be your wife.”
Crushing her lips beneath his own, he sealed their promises, using his touch to forge vows and bonds in the oldest, most intimate way a man could with the woman he loves.
Neither one of them was breathing steadily by the time he raised his head from their tempestuous kiss. His body rampant with need, he yanked off his coat and tossed it to the floor.
After doing the same with his waistcoat, he reached for the fastenings on her dress. “Let’s get you out of these damp clothes. I wouldn’t want you to take a chill.”
Her hands moved to his shoulders, fingers shifting impatiently. “Yes, we both should be careful.”
She lay quiescent as he stripped her to her thin, linen shift. Leaning down to plunder her mouth, he swallowed the humming sounds of pleasure she made, fondling her as he untied the ribbon on her undergarment to free her breasts.
Outside, rain drummed on the roof, the wind howling and whining around them like a banshee. But Kit heard nothing beyond a dim hiss, a whisper, drowned out by the pounding of his own heart. The pounding increased to an almost deafening roar when Eliza’s small hand slid beneath his shirt and traced the hard plain of his chest.
Shuddering beneath the power of her still innocent touch, he let her caress him, trail the edges of her small, inquisitive fingers over his
skin. As though dipped in fire, she set him ablaze, heating him from the inside out. He groaned aloud when her fingers circled one flat male nipple, then the other, flicking each with the tip of one nail before gliding lower. Slipping just beneath the top edge of his trousers, she stroked his belly, the light sensation enough to push him right to the edge.
“I never did get to see you,” she murmured, unknowingly coquettish.
Brain buzzing, he had to focus on her words. “What?”
“When we made love the first time, I never really got to see you.”
His brow arched upward. “Did you not?”
“No.”
A slow, crooked grin tilted his lips. “Well then, shall we rectify that omission?”
She nodded, the eager look in her eyes confirming her answer.
Leaning up, he peeled his shirt over his head, his arousal thickening in response to her gasp of appreciation. He stiffened even more when he shucked off his trousers and bared himself fully to her gaze.
“Oh, my,” she exclaimed, staring straight at the part of him he could no longer even attempt to control.
“Too much?” he asked, reaching for the quilt.
She stopped him. “No, don’t.” Her cheeks pinked at her boldness, her eyes skittering away. “May I touch?”
His erection twitched as if she had already wrapped him in her little fist. He nearly groaned, forcing himself to relax. “Be my guest.”
Instead of beginning with the part of him that was obviously begging for her touch, she laid a palm against his upper thigh. His muscles jerked and tensed, her hands delicate and cool as they traced his heated flesh, flesh that burned hotter with her every caress.
Eliza swallowed and put aside her qualms, refusing to let herself feel shy or hesitant. Kit had taught her to be confident. He’d helped to make her the woman she now was.
Independent, assured and no longer afraid—not even of herself.
Feeling bold, she stroked his skin. From thigh to foot, belly to arms, she traveled a wondrous path, learning his shape and texture, fascinated by the fundamental differences between his masculine physique and her own.
Hard where she was soft. Large where she was slight. Strong where she was frail. Yet she didn’t feel frail, realizing the power she held over him, his body literally trembling beneath her questing hands by the time she eventually paused.
He groaned aloud when she curled her hand around the most obviously male part of him, awed by the sensation of holding him so intimately. Arching into her grasp, he urged her to touch him as she’d never thought to do.
And she again became the attentive student, letting him instruct her in all the ways he yearned to be pleasured.
After long minutes, he clasped her wrists and drew her hands away. “Enough, you siren, before you make me lose what little control I have left.”
Rolling her onto her back, he stripped off her garment, baring her naked body to his fiery gaze, his eyelids heavy with undisguised hunger. “My turn now.”
Before she could take a full breath, he claimed her with his touch. Senses whirling, desire spiked hot and wet between her thighs as he caressed her. She didn’t know how, but with a few deliciously magical strokes, he brought her to peak, her sighs ringing loudly on the stormy air.
Then with a dazzling flick of his fingers, he did it again.
But he wasn’t through. “One more time, Eliza. You’re so pretty when you come. Come for me again.”
“I can’t,” she panted.
“You can,” he promised.
Then he was driving her up again. Impossible as it seemed, he soon had her melting, making her arch hard against his fingers as the most devastatingly intense pleasure lashed her from within and without.
Helpless, she twisted beneath him as he built her hunger higher, made the quivering ache rise and go deeper, so deep she feared for a moment it might claw her apart.
Then the rapture caught her, her wail of completion drowned out by a crash of thunder, as if the heavens were urging her on. Thick and golden, an exhilarating joy spread through her like hot, viscous honey.
Stunned, her arms fell limp at her sides.
But Kit was far from finished.
Feasting upon her, he took her mouth in a series of long, deep, drugging kisses that made her blood sizzle and her brain grow muzzy. Then he began to kiss her breasts, drawing upon her, caressing her in a way that, to her awe, brought her need roaring back to life.
She was ready for him by the time he parted her legs, her body welcoming his, gladly accepting his impressive penetration.
There was no pain, she discovered, only pleasure as he plunged deep. Intense, unrelenting pleasure that wrung little gasping cries of delight from her throat, sounds she could no more stop than she could stop her own lungs from breathing.
Establishing a primal rhythm that vibrated through her, he thrust and thrust hard, over and over again. Doing her best to match his pace, she held on as she climbed toward her peak. Yielding her body utterly to him, she let him guide her, knowing he would lead her where they both most longed to go.
Another clap of thunder splintered the air, the storm rattling the windows as her climax hit, shaking her like a rag doll. She screamed against the intensity of her release, nearly overwhelmed by the profound depth of the sensations. Carried aloft, she sobbed out her ecstasy.
Kit stroked inside her a few more, almost brutal times, then stiffened. “God, I love you, Eliza,” he called out as he claimed his own, plainly devastating, satisfaction.
“I love you too,” she murmured, holding him as he quaked. Stroking her hand over his hair, she cradled him close, smiling as he nuzzled his face against her neck.
Savoring their connection, they both drifted to sleep.
Chapter Twenty-three
Eliza and Kit arrived in London two afternoons later.
Seconds after the coach Kit had hired for the journey rolled to a stop, Raeburn House’s front door flew wide.
Violet raced down the steps. “You are home!”
Kit barely had time to lift Eliza free of the vehicle before Violet crushed her in a fierce embrace. Happily Eliza returned her friend’s hug.
“Are you well?” Violet demanded, worry crashing like a rough sea in her blue-green eyes.
“Quite well,” Eliza reassured.
“He didn’t harm you?” She clucked, outraged as a mother hen whose chick had been endangered by a fox.
“No, though he would have if Kit had not found me when he did.”
“Well, thank the stars for Kit.” Violet showered her brother-in-law with a jubilant smile. “He is a prince.”
Eliza met Kit’s gleaming hazel gaze with a special one of her own. “Yes, he is.”
Too excited to notice the import of the intimate exchange, Violet continued. “Darragh is here. He received Kit’s note from the road, and returned only a few hours ago. Jeannette and the girls are waiting inside as well. And we’re expecting Adrian and Lord Brevard to make it home by this evening. Once everyone has arrived, we shall have a special meal in celebration of your safe homecoming. And as an additional thank-you to Kit, I shall have François bake an extra tray of honeyed Bath buns, just for him.”
“Bath buns for me!” Kit’s handsome features creased with clear appreciation. “I see I shall have to rescue Eliza more often.”
He waggled his brows, causing them all to laugh.
“Well, come inside where you can tell me everything,” Violet said, slipping her arm around Eliza’s waist. “And once you are finished, we shall never again mention that man’s name. I always did think Philip Pettigrew was a thoroughly loathsome toad.”
“You’ll get no argument from me.” Eliza hooked her arm around Violet’s waist in return and let her friend ferry her inside.
In her bedchamber, Eliza bathed and washed her hair, then changed into one of her own freshly laundered gowns. All the while, she regaled Violet with the details of her harrowing adventure, careful to omit m
ention of the most important part of the tale, the glorious turn of events between her and Kit.
As much as she was dying to confide in Violet, Eliza decided she owed Lance the dignity of telling him first. Once she had broken off her engagement to him, she would share her ecstatic news with her friend. She couldn’t wait to see Violet’s reaction, since she knew Violet would be so surprised.
A few hours later, she sat on the saffron-and-white-striped sofa in the family drawing room, sipping a predinner sherry. The others were gathered with her, including Darragh and Jeannette’s entire brood, all of them awaiting the anticipated arrival of Adrian and Brevard.
Not long after, soft footfalls tread across the Turkey carpet runners in the hall, Adrian and Lance striding unannounced into the room.
Abruptly nervous, Eliza set her drink aside and climbed to her feet. Guilt assailed her when she saw the viscount’s travel-stained condition. His jaw was unshaven, eyes red-rimmed with clear exhaustion. Without pause, he crossed instantly to her and pulled her into his arms.
Before she could say a single word, his lips were upon hers and he was kissing her passionately, uncaring of their audience.
“Darling,” he said, “I am so grateful you are safe. I was frantic until I had Winter’s note, and all the way home, well, Raeburn and I didn’t know if he’d found you or not. I am so relieved you are here. I assume you are well?”
“Yes, I’m fine.”
Eliza plunged into the same series of reassurances and explanations she had already given everyone else. Cradled inside Lance’s grasp, she delicately tried to extricate herself without making an obvious issue of it.
But Lance wasn’t letting go.
Aware of the glower of jealousy and displeasure that must be riding Kit’s face, she kept herself from glancing in his direction.
“Lance,” she said in a low voice, “we need to talk.”
Gently, she tried again to remove herself from his embrace, but he failed to take the hint.
He smiled down at her. “We will talk later, dearest. First, just let me hold you, let me feel that you are all right.”
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