Seth and Helena awaited him, seated on milking stools at a jury-rigged table of planks set across a cart. They’d lit a couple of lamps, sending cheery light around the dusty barn and over the plentiful meal. As Daniel tossed his clothes in a corner and hid the pistol in them once more, he realized he’d lost his appetite, too. Though the food looked mighty enticing and Seth had brought them fresh milk to wash it all down with, what he desperately wanted was some ale. For himself and Helena, since that seemed to be the only thing that took the starch out of her spine.
Why could she only be easy with him when she was half-drunk? Why must her expectations for him be so bloody rigid?
Then again, it served him right for hiding his true self from her. He’d learned long ago not to do that, because it always ended with people discovering he was something other than what they thought. He’d known she’d get her back up if she found out that she’d allowed one of those “nasty, evil men” to kiss her and touch her intimately. Yet the reality of it was twice as agonizing as he’d expected.
Because a tiny part of him had hoped she might be different.
She wasn’t. That was clear enough throughout their meal, which she only picked at. She ignored him pointedly, bestowing all her queenly kindness on Seth. Never had Daniel felt so much like wringing a boy’s neck just for being young and friendly. Why couldn’t the stripling have slunk off into the house without bothering them?
Instead, Seth had eagerly accepted Helena’s invitation to join them for their meal. At first, he stuck to questions about where they were headed. But when he heard they’d come from the city, it sent him into a fever of excitement.
He exclaimed that he’d dearly love to see London. Question tumbled after question, and Daniel soon realized that the lad wanted to hear about every bloody piece of the entire wretched town. Even worse, Helena seemed more than eager to oblige, though she probably knew as little about London as Seth. No doubt she wanted to postpone the moment when she and Daniel were alone. God knew he dreaded it himself.
Not to mention that he wasn’t sure how to handle the sleeping arrangements. Letting Seth prattle on to Helena, he left the table to survey the barn. Helena couldn’t climb a ladder, so the loft wouldn’t do. They’d have to use a stall. Thankfully, there was one that looked as if it had been empty for years. No doubt the family had been forced to sell some of their horseflesh when the farm fell on hard times.
Lending only half an ear to the boy’s chatter, Daniel climbed into the loft and tossed down some hay. Then he brought a lamp into the unoccupied stall and swept the dust and cobwebs out. Laying down plenty of fresh hay made him all too aware of how small the stall was. Christ, for all intents they’d be sharing a bed if they both stayed here, yet he didn’t like the idea of sleeping in the loft and leaving her down here alone. What if by some chance Wallace’s men showed up?
No, he and Helena would have to share the space. It wasn’t much, but it would do once he threw a horse blanket and his greatcoat over it. And surely he could keep his hands off her for one night—especially since she’d probably shoot him before she’d let him touch her again.
She and the lad were still jawing when he finished, but Daniel had had as much as he could stand. Though it took repeated hints about their tiredness before he could get rid of the boy, he did at last succeed. Even then the lad insisted on coming back to bring them linens to throw over the horse blanket that Daniel had tossed down.
“Won’t your mother be angry to find her linens filthy?” Helena asked as Seth held out a pile of sheets and a blanket.
He shrugged. “I’ll wash ’em out in the morning. Besides, a fine lady like yourself shouldn’t have to bed down on a horse blanket.”
“I agree,” Daniel snapped, whisking the linens from the boy’s hands. “Now if you’ll excuse us, Seth, we need our privacy. My wife and I would sorely like to shed these mud-caked clothes and go to bed.”
Seth colored, then mumbled about how he understood and scurried out the barn door. Daniel shut it with a rush of relief.
“You didn’t have to be so rude to the poor boy.” Helena stalked to where their saddlebags were hung over a stall door and began to rummage about in them. “He was only trying to help.”
Snorting, Daniel added his coat and pistol to the pile of linens and strode past her into the stall. “Trying to get into your good graces, is what he was doing. I should’ve warned the boy it was pointless.” Daniel spread the sheet and blanket over the horse blanket, then placed the pistol in the corner of the stall.
“And what is that supposed to mean, pray tell?”
He strode back to where she was tossing out the contents of the saddlebag with jerky movements. “What that means,” he snapped as he halted a few feet from her, “is that you are bloody unforgiving. Let a man make one mistake and—”
“One mistake? Is that what it was? A mere mistake?”
Noting her haughty posture, he gritted his teeth. “All right, so it was more than that. Yes, I was Crouch’s lieutenant.” The carefully banked anger that had smoldered in his breast all evening flared to blazing heights. “But it was a long time ago, damn it! I haven’t dabbled in free trading in years, yet you act as if I’m still doing it!”
She dropped the flap of the saddlebag and whirled on him. “I don’t care about the free trading! You were young and you did what you had to. I can’t pretend to understand what it’s like to have to scrabble for every penny, so I couldn’t possibly judge you for doing whatever you did.”
“Now who’s the one telling lies?” he growled.
“You arrogant wretch! I’d already begun to figure out you were not some child apprentice to smugglers. Last night you were quite expert on the subject of free trading. I wasn’t so drunk that I couldn’t tell you knew a great deal more than I’d expected.”
That took him off guard. Then his eyes narrowed. “But you didn’t know I was Crouch’s smuggler, did you? You didn’t know of my connection to the man who had your sister abducted. And now that you do, you think me even more of a scoundrel than before!”
“Yes, you’re right!” she snapped, her eyes clouding with hurt. “But not because of your connection to him. Because you lied about it, damn you! You promised never to do so, then turned around and did precisely that!”
He stood there stunned, his own anger ebbing as he tried to grasp the source of hers.
“I trusted you,” she went on, warming to her subject, “I told you things I’d never told any man. I asked you to do things that I would never—” She broke off, averting her wounded gaze from him. Her breath came in harsh gasps, and every one stamped an echo in his conscience.
She went on in a whisper. “All the while, you weren’t showing me the least bit of trust. You were keeping the truth from me, pretending not to know Crouch when you really did, pretending the situation wasn’t that dangerous, lying to me about why Crouch kidnapped Juliet—”
“I didn’t lie to you about that. I told you exactly why I think he did it.”
“But you assured me you’d told me everything, and that was all a lie.”
His gut twisted into a painful knot as he saw the look of betrayal on her face. Christ, he’d mistook everything. It wasn’t his past that bothered her, but the fact that he’d kept it from her.
What had he been thinking? Farnsworth had lied to her, her father had lied to her, and he and Griff had lied to her and her sisters last summer. Just when she’d started thinking that perhaps not all men lied to get what they wanted, just when she’d forgiven him for his part in Griff’s scheme, he’d gone and lied to her again.
What an idiot he was.
He reached out to grip her shoulders, and she flinched. She tried to wriggle free of his hands, but he wouldn’t let her go. “Listen to me, sweetheart, just listen,” he murmured. “I should’ve told you about Crouch—I see that now. I’m so sorry I didn’t.”
“Y-you sat there this morning pretending that Crouch had chosen Juliet simply because
Griff is rich. Yet you must have known he’d chosen her because of his connection to both of you.”
“It’s probable, but—”
“How long have you known about his involvement?” she persisted. “Since we left London? Have you known from the beginning that your…former friend had my sister?”
“No! Bloody hell, is that what you’ve been thinking? That I kept it from you all this time?”
Her lower lip quivered. “I wasn’t sure. The day I went to your lodgings, you seemed determined not to help me. Then you changed your mind the next day, and I’ve always wondered why.”
“Only because I’d learned that Pryce really was a free trader. I would never have taken you with me if I’d thought Crouch was mixed up in it. Never! I wouldn’t have risked it.” He softened his tone. “I found out about his involvement the same time you did, sweetheart—last night at the inn. You have to believe me.”
She glanced away, blinking back tears. “How? Every time I start to believe you, I find out how foolish I was. I thought you were being honest with me. I thought you were different from the others—”
“Please, lass, please understand—I couldn’t tell you.” He cupped her cheek, brushing tears away with his thumb. “I couldn’t bear to have you look at me with contempt in your eyes.”
The minute her gaze swung to his, fiery and furious, he knew he’d said the wrong thing. “That was why you lied to me? Because you thought knowing about you and Crouch would make me despise you?”
Her anger gave him pause. “The possibility did occur to me, yes.”
“Why, you…you…big…stubborn…ox!” She punctuated each word by poking a finger at his chest, tears coursing down her cheeks. “After last night, did you really think that could possibly make me stop wanting you?”
The words thundered in his ears, tilting his world on its axis. She wanted him. She was stone-cold sober, yet she wanted him—despite everything she’d learned about his past, and all her rules of propriety.
“Yes, I did,” he said in a husky whisper. “But now I know better.”
As if realizing how much she’d revealed, she paled. Wrenching free of him, she backed away. “I-I didn’t mean that the way it sounded—”
“Too late to take it back now, lass,” he said as he stalked her. “You want me. You said it, and we both know bloody well you meant it. So I’ll be damned before I’ll let a few of my stupid lies stand in the way of you and me being together.”
She continued her retreat. “You shouldn’t have lied to me, Danny.”
“I know.” He caught her and hauled her into his arms.
Her chin quivered as she stared mutinously up at him. “You…you should have told me everything about Crouch this morning:”
“I know.” He bent his head toward hers. “And I’m sorry for it. Let me show you how sorry I am for it.”
“No!” Panic flared in her eyes, the panic of a woman who was afraid to trust her own instincts. “I’m not going to let you…get away with lying to me, blast it!”
“That’s your pride talking, not your heart.” He caught her chin, held it still. “Well, lass, I think it’s time you tell your pride to stubble it.”
He didn’t give her time to think, to argue, to protest. He just kissed her the way he’d been wanting to all day, seeking solace from her soft, sweet lips. And though she balked at first, she didn’t balk long. With a little moan of acquiescence, she threw her arms about his neck and opened her mouth to him.
Yes, he thought, yes, sweetheart.
Suddenly she tore her lips from his to whisper, “A pox on you, Danny! You’re such a devious rascal.”
He scattered kisses over her cheeks. “If I am, it’s only because I want you so badly I’d do anything to have you.”
“You mean, lie and deceive me,” she grumbled even as she arched her body against him. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
“I am thoroughly, heartily ashamed.” His voice thrummed low. “Let me show you the full extent of my remorse.”
“Now see here—”
Silencing her with his mouth, he kissed her more boldly this time, thrusting his tongue deeply, intimately into her mouth, giving her full warning of what he wanted from her. He kissed her like a man kissed the woman he intended to seduce.
Because that was exactly what he intended. If he didn’t make Helena his this very moment, he feared he’d never have a chance with her again. And he very badly wanted a chance with her—any chance.
If he waited to make love to her until he was sure of her, she’d spend every minute hardening her heart against him. She’d invent a thousand nonsensical rules for why she shouldn’t allow him in.
Well, he wouldn’t let her. It was time to shatter her rules once and for all. Time to make room for him in her heart. And if that meant making love to her in a goddamned barn on a bed of hay, then that’s what he’d do. Because he refused to lose her.
Chapter 15
And when we arose from the green mossy bank
Through the meadow we wandered away
I had plowed my true love on the green mossy bank
And I plucked her a handful of may.
“Queen of the May,”
anonymous ballad
It’s not fair, Helena thought as Daniel’s mouth plundered hers, intense and needy. Why must he be the one who does this to me? Why can’t I push him away?
Because she wanted him, wanted this. She hated that she did, but it changed nothing. From the minute he’d explained why he’d lied, she’d begun weakening. How could any woman resist a man who’d lied to keep her from despising him?
Yet he’d promised not to. He’d promised! She wrenched her mouth from his. “You cannot simply kiss me into submission, Daniel. It will not work.” Actually, it was already working, but she didn’t want it to work.
“It’s not submission I want from you, sweetheart. It’s your fire and your need that I want.” He looked as starved for her as she felt for him. His hot gaze drifted over her, hinting at all the delights he had to offer.
“You had my ‘fire’ and my ‘need’ last night, and you didn’t appreciate it.”
She whirled away from him, but not swiftly enough. He caught her from behind, wrapping his brawny arm about her waist. When he tugged her against his massive body, remembered pleasure swamped her, draining her will to resist.
“That’s not true, y’know,” he rasped. Nuzzling her damp hair aside, he brushed her ear with his lips. “I appreciated it far too much or I wouldn’t have lied to you today trying to hold on to it. It was stupid—I admit it. And it didn’t even work. It only made you despise me.” He kissed her ear sweetly. Too sweetly.
She stifled a groan. “I-I don’t despise you.”
“Don’t you? At the very least, you’re extremely vexed.”
Vexed? That sounded vaguely familiar. Then he tugged on her earlobe with his teeth, sending a wanton shiver dancing along her spine and driving all rational thought clear out of her head. “I am not.”
“Not what?” He ran the tip of his tongue around the outside of her ear, and delicious feeling flooded her, mocking her feeble resistance.
“Extremely vexed.”
His free hand slid around her to cup her breast, and his voice rumbled seductively. “If you’re not vexed, then prove it.”
Now she remembered why this exchange seemed so familiar, yet the words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. “Prove it? How?”
“Let me make love to you.”
It was the merest whisper, yet it thundered along every nerve like a siren’s lyric, shattering her defenses, stealing around her heart. She fought to block its seductive song. “You can’t make me forget that you lied to me merely by…making love to me.”
“P’raps not. But I can show you how sorry I am for it.” He brushed her nipple with a light caress that she felt even through the layers of muslin and linen. “Let me make amends by giving you pleasure.” His hand was hot where i
t stroked her breast, deftly, cleverly.
Tempting her to all manner of wickedness. “You are…very naughty, Danny,” she said, trying for sternness and disapproval and instead speaking his nickname in a throaty whisper.
“Compliments upon compliments.” Both hands were kneading her breasts now with sweet, silken caresses that made her ache and yearn. “Though I’ve come to learn you can be naughty yourself when you wish. Show me your naughtiness, lass. I know you want to.”
As he played with her breasts and branded her neck with kisses, her very bones melted. Lord, he was right—she wanted to be every bit as naughty as that woman under the lamp in London being fondled by her companion. She loved how he rubbed her breasts until they tingled and hardened.
“Daniel…” she whispered, grabbing for one of his hands. But she merely succeeded in pressing it more firmly to her breast.
He groaned. “That’s good, lass. Show me what you want from me, what you need. Show me how to make amends.”
Horrified that she was helping him touch her, she dropped her hand, but he did not drop his. His hands were like waves lapping rock, wearing her down, smoothing her out, softening her rough edges. Already the place between her thighs grew as damp and warm as it had last night, craving more of his touch, his scandalous touch. His arousal thickened against her bottom, and his breath came hard and fast against her ear.
One hand left her breast to unbutton her gown. In seconds, he had it open and was sliding it off her shoulders. Her head fell back against his shoulder as he divested her of gown and petticoats, then resumed fondling her breasts. With only her chemise separating his flesh from hers, she felt every caress of his large, warm hands with an acute intensity near pain.
A Notorious Love Page 21
