The Last Killiney
Page 49
Chapter Seventeen
When they left London the next morning, Paul was elated. He’d gotten virtually no sleep, but he didn’t care. Having spent the night alone with his racing thoughts, he’d been happy to stumble outside in the predawn stillness, eyes blurry, head aching, yet completely content when at last he was able to take Ravenna’s hand.
Does she even know what she’s done t’me? That she’s changed m’point of view?
Helping her into the carriage, Paul wondered if she could imagine as much—that in her eager, inexperienced kiss he’d found something altogether deeper than passion. He’d lost himself in her innocence. He’d soaked up her hurry, her trusting nature, even her bewilderment in her own responses, and seeing that love in her eyes as their carriage rattled out of Charing Cross, Paul felt changed.
And yet he couldn’t tell her. He wanted to. Indeed, all night he’d been able to think of nothing else. But as much as he craved wrapping her in his arms, whispering those things he’d realized in the hours they’d been apart, still he didn’t, for he’d noticed something strange in the last few days.
James and Sarah never showed affection.
Paul couldn’t figure it out. Even in the carriage that morning, when no one but themselves were likely to see, James and Sarah acted the same. They didn’t whisper. They didn’t kiss. In fact, James wouldn’t even sit next to the maid, much less hold her hand. The pair did talk, but no more amongst themselves than with Paul or Ravenna. If he hadn’t already been told as much, Paul would have never even guessed the two were lovers.
Not that he cared what James and Sarah did. It was only that Paul reckoned he ought to be following the guy’s lead, behaving the way an eighteenth-century nobleman behaved. If that meant he didn’t sit with Ravenna as he wished he could, if James thought it proper to chaperone or whatever, then Paul should go along, yeah?
So he made a vow in the darkness that morning: Keep your hands t’yourself. Maybe James didn’t have a problem with it, public affection and all that, but Paul wasn’t about to start a row in the midst of a three-day carriage ride.
Even so, when the light strengthened and he was able to see Ravenna more clearly, he found himself straying. Where she leaned against the window, gazing at him with wistful eyes, she seemed delicate, fragile. She obviously was thinking about last night at the church, and this, along with the snug fit of her blouse, that pout to her lips so suggestive of things she’d never even heard of, let alone done…Paul could hardly stand it. He had to be near her. The memory of their kiss burned in his mind, and he seriously considered ignoring James’s example then, scooping her up in a rough embrace, searching the contours of her soft little mouth.
This he didn’t do.
Behaving himself all the way to Yeovil, Paul kept to his side of the carriage. He asked Ravenna questions, as many as he could think of about motor boats, killer whales, whatever, all the while stifling his wilder thoughts in the gravity of James’s face. When this didn’t work—as Paul had become so worked up in learning every detail of Ravenna’s life he’d forgotten all about James and Sarah—next he tried napping. He closed his eyes, hoping to avoid temptation this way. He only ended up dreaming about her, even worse as his dreams were vivid enough to make him awaken uncomfortably aroused.
Thank God it’s dark, he thought.
Such was the cut of him, infatuated, rigid, when at last they arrived at the coaching in. James got out first. When Paul followed him, stepped into the pouring rain and inches-deep mud, he stopped Ravenna at the carriage door. Slipping his arm behind her legs, in one swift movement he tossed her over his shoulder and carried her, along with the bedrolls, through the inn’s door to the warmth of the drawing room.
Setting her down beside the fire, he heard voices in the passageway, James questioning the innkeeper about their room.
“I’m afraid there’s just the one, m’lord.”
“One room? For the four of us?”
“Afraid so, m’lord.”
Hearing those words, Paul felt in that instant all the longing of their carriage ride bundled inside him, a pulsing knot of anger deep in his groin. One shaggin’ room. How would he manage it?
Where she lingered near his arm, she was already more than irresistible. Her hair was damp from the rain outside. Her fingers were cold when she asked for his fob watch, and in handing it back to him, unblinking, weary, she gazed up at Paul with the most loving eyes. In the dim light, she looked like a picture of heaven, and he almost kissed her then and there, for he knew James had gone upstairs with the innkeeper. Only Sarah would witness the deed, and so Paul leaned closer, craving Ravenna’s lissome frame, wanting to hold her, needing her so much…
But before he could act on these unbridled thoughts, she turned away. “I didn’t either,” she muttered, answering something Sarah had said. “Maybe I could talk him into some bread or—”
“You’ll do nothin’ o’ the sort,” Sarah replied.
A frown crinkled Ravenna’s pretty black brows.
“You’re in no fettle to go runnin’ about, bickerin’ with innkeepers,” the maid insisted. “Now we’ll just see what Jem says about the room, then you’re off to bed.”
“I’m fine, I’m just tired.” But tainted with too many sleepless hours, her words sounded frail. She was swaying, Paul noticed it now, and it crossed his mind that maybe in all his selfish ardor he’d done it again—he’d overlooked her needs, ignored everything about her save what he’d coveted in the midst of his lust.
Scolding himself, Paul dared to put his hand on her shoulder. “You’re hungry?”
“Yes, but it’s too late,” she whispered, pleading him with those doe-dark eyes. “Sarah and I were thinking if we could just get a sandwich, maybe a drink of water—”
Paul’s heart suffered when her fingers, still wet with rain, worked their way softly into his. “Can you get us something to eat?” she asked. “I don’t care what, I just…don’t feel very good, that’s all.”
“All right…OK.” Slipping his free hand down her back, Paul felt grim for the way he’d forsaken her. “Em, I’ll see what I can getcha when that fellah comes back.”
He pushed her gently in the direction James had gone, and handing the bedrolls to Sarah, he urged the maid to take her upstairs. “Don’t mess about, yeah? Just make her lie down. I’ll be there soon.”
Watching them disappear into the passageway, he crossed his arms tightly, fought with himself for the pain inside. How could he have been so self-absorbed? Touching her, making love to her…these things were important, but not to the exclusion of everything else, especially her feelings. In the carriage, where she’d gazed at him so longingly, and now, when she’d implored him with her hands wrapped in his, she’d not been seducing him. She’d needed him. And to think he’d been too enraptured with her earlobe to notice.
When the innkeeper came back, Paul got the food—cold beef, a loaf of bread, a tankard full of warm ale; taking it upstairs on a wooden tray, he found two bedrolls laid before the fire. James was already stretched out on one. That’s where I belong, Paul thought, on the floor, until I’ve learnt a thing or two about the way I’m goin’ here.
He took the tray to Ravenna, and although she lay sylphlike and beautiful amongst the blankets, Paul didn’t say a word. He set down the food. Smoothing back her hair, touching a kiss to her lovely widow’s peak, these pleasures were strictly forbidden, he decided, at least until he’d come to terms with this tremendous need he felt inside.
Instead, not daring to meet her eyes, he merely backed away. “I’ll leave you to yourself, then,” he said to her quietly.
He knew well enough what he had to do.