by Lucy Gillen
Ile blue eyes looked down at her for a long moment in silence, then he half smiled, that sensual lower lip pursed as he put a hand under her hair at the back of her neck and, gently stroked the soft skin. "I don't believe you," he said.
The hand behind her head was insistent in its pressure and his other hand was at her waist, drawing her to him until she was in his arms, held firmly against the bold, masculine warmth of his body, his face pressed to the softness of her neck, lips gently
persuasive as he spoke against her ear. "Why do you always fight me, Isabella?" he whispered. "It isn't because you don't like me, I'm vain enough to know that isn't true, so what is it?"
Isa kept her eyes closed and she was almost unaware of putting a hand to the side of his bowed head, her fingers stroking the dark hair above his ear. "I'm—I'm afraid," she confessed in a small voice, and his hands tightened their hold for a second before he raised his head and looked down at her with a frown between his brows.
"Afraid?" he echoed. "Of me?" She did not answer and he lifted her chin gently with one hand and held it while he kissed the trembling corners of her mouth. "Oh, why, my darling, are you afraid of me? Don't you know that I love you?"
Isa looked up then, her eyes wide and blank with disbelief, her lips parted as she tried to believe what he had said. "I—I don't want to be—" She hesitated, finding it hard to put Chris's harsh remarks into words. "I don't want to be just a—an affair, Toby. I couldn't bear that!"
"And Chris Burrows suggested that was all I had in mind for you, did he?" Toby asked. Isa nodded without speaking. "And you believed him?" This time she did not nod, and after a moment of telling silence he drew her close into his arms again, holding her so close she felt every muscle straining her to him. "Now believe me!" he said in a harsh whisper, and brought his mouth down forcefully over hers, parting her lips with the fierceness of his kiss, drawing every ounce of resistance from her.
It seemed like hours before she drew breath again and her head was spinning with the effect of it, like a runner who has reached the limits of endurance. Her pulses were pounding wildly and her heart seemed to have gone completely out of control, thudding crazily at her ribs and making her even more breathless. "Toby !" She had no idea what instinct made her do it, perhaps it was a reminder of other times, but she glanced over his shoulder at the row of bells on the board above the door, and Toby laughed. "You won't be saved by the bell this time, my love!" he told her with that wicked glitter of laughter in his blue eyes as he looked down at her. "Grandmama has been threatened with all manner of terrible fates if she dares to touch that bell while I'm in here with you! "
Isa stared at him, her eyes wide. "You—you've told Lady Carmichael what—where—"
"I told her I was coming in here to the kitchen to propose to you," Toby told her blandly. "Even Grandmama wouldn't want to interrupt that !"
"Propose to me?" Isa's heart lurched wildly and she felt suddenly as if everything she ever wanted to happen was happening at once. "Toby, I—"
"Will you?" Toby asked, without giving her time to finish, and Isa nodded, her head back, leaning against the enfolding arms.
"I love you," she said simply, and he gazed at her for a moment in silence, then swiftly he bent his dark head and buried his face in the soft riot of her freshly washed hair, his mouth warm and ardent against her soft skin as he kissed her neck and
throat and the little pulse that raced wildly at the base of her throat.
"Then marry me," he whispered. "Please, my darling, will you marry me?"
"Chris said I was a fool to ever think you would marry me," she said softly, and Toby looked up swiftly, his eyes glittering darkly blue between those long lashes.
"Three months ago," he said, "I'd have said he was bound to be right." He bent his head again and kissed her mouth slowly and lingeringly, his arms folding her yet more tightly to the curve of his own body. "You've had all the long summer to change my natural instincts," he whispered. "But I'm a willing convert, my darling."
