“I despised myself for living when they died.”
The words hung stark in the air. Her hand tightened around his. The silent communication crushed the seeds of self-hatred still lurking in his heart. Her voice vibrated with sincerity. “My love, if you hadn’t lived, you couldn’t have saved me. The workings of destiny are mysterious.”
Her words echoed the odd moment of perception last night where he’d struggled to view himself as an outsider would. When he’d felt the shades of Parsons and Gerard hover uncannily close in the thick darkness, so reminiscent of the pit where his friends had died.
He’d always imagined his colleagues must hate him from beyond the grave for living when they’d perished in pain and humiliation. But the spirits that kept him company through the long hours of blackness in the mine had been benign, not angry at all. Ever since Rangapindhi, he’d remembered them as gruesome specters. Last night they’d visited him as they’d been in life. Fine, brave men who had sacrificed everything for duty.
Only then, blessed by his dead colleagues at last, had Gideon taken the most terrifying step of all.
He’d contemplated establishing a life at Penrhyn with Charis and, God willing, children. Trevithicks to fill the rambling old house with laughter and chaos and love. That hope had sustained him through the darkness and the violence and the incarceration. He wanted to build on the love that already grew between him and Charis and stoke it into a blazing, endless fire to light his days.
If she agreed.
His hand closed ruthlessly around hers. “And I thought about you.”
“I should hope so,” she said unsteadily. She looked up at him, and he caught the sparkle of tears in her hazel eyes.
“I thought how I love you and what an arrogant ass I’ve been.” He paused and spoke with difficulty. “Last night, I realized I’d reached the limits of selflessness. I sat in that cave and imagined living without you. I couldn’t bear to contemplate it.”
She lifted her free hand to touch his face in a gesture that cut right to his aching heart. “Oh, my love, you don’t have to live without me.”
He came to a standstill. “Charis, I can’t promise I’m cured, I can’t promise anything beyond my eternal love. But you need to know I’ll never willingly give you up. You’re mine forever.”
The radiant certainty in her eyes warmed him to his bones. “Gideon, I love you. You love me. That’s all that matters.” Her smile took on a hint of seduction that fired his blood. “Now take me back to Penrhyn and swive me silly.”
Her gaze held no questions. She accepted him as her future just as he accepted her. More than accepted. Greeted with open arms. His doubts melted away like snow under the sun. He’d have time for explanations and apologies later. Or perhaps explanations and apologies would never be needed.
He dropped Khan’s reins. “Come here, Charis. If I don’t kiss you, I’ll go mad.”
Laughing, she fell against him. The kiss was an act of passionate gratitude for their survival, a wild melding of lips and tongues and teeth. It was a physical expression of a love that touched his soul. A love he knew would last the rest of his days. They were both breathless and trembling when they finally drew apart.
He lifted her up on Khan’s back and leaped into the saddle behind her. “Hold on!” he shouted and headed for home at a breakneck gallop.
Khan came to a rearing stop in Penrhyn’s front court, his hooves clattering on the stone paving. For Charis, the ride had passed in a rapturous blur of wind and color. She clung to Gideon, lost in a tumult of emotion. That extraordinary kiss still heated her blood, made her heart thunder.
A groom dashed out to hold the restive horse while Gideon jumped down and tugged Charis after him. Her feet fleetingly touched the ground before he swung her into his arms.
“Gideon!” she gasped, as he strode up the worn stone steps to the front door that opened as if by magic. Her heart swooped and skipped a beat. She felt like she was being kidnapped. It was incredibly exciting. “You make me breathless.”
“I will before I’m finished,” he promised in a low voice, marching into the house.
Ooh, yes, please.
She hooked one hand around the strong column of his neck as he passed the curtsying maid who had opened the door. The dark, cavernous hall flashed past, then they climbed the staircase. He turned at the landing and swept her into his room.
She’d never been in here. She had a momentary dazzling impression of light and casement windows opening onto a sparkling sea. Old carved furniture. A breeze smelling of the ocean.
Gideon started kissing her, and she didn’t care where she was as long as he never let her go. She closed her eyes and gave herself up to the hungry predations of his lips.
“I love you,” she said over and over in broken sentences, kissing his face and his neck and the skin revealed by his torn shirt. What exquisite freedom it was, finally to say the words without restraint.
He kicked the door so it banged shut behind him and carried her to the bed. He came down over her, kissing her as if he starved. The musky scent of his arousal filled her senses. Ruthlessly, he tugged his coat off and tossed it to the floor.
She’d long since known he wanted her. Their days in Jersey had been replete with sensual exploration. But the unfettered desire in his touch now was new. The barriers he’d always raised against her in his heart had dissolved to nothing.
She’d never felt claimed before. She felt claimed now.
And reveled in the possession because she knew he gave himself into her keeping with every touch, every kiss.
Shaking, she ripped at his shirt while he feverishly ran his hands over her body. Her breasts swelled and ached for his touch. She yearned to feel the glide of his skin against hers. She yearned to welcome him inside her in the most intimate touch of all.
Impatience made her clumsy. She ended up tearing the ruined shirt until it fell in shreds from his heaving shoulders.
He tugged her upright and struggled to undress her while she rained kisses across his bare torso. Fresh bruises and abrasions marked his scarred skin. Reminder of what he’d endured for her sake. She bit down delicately on one light brown nipple and felt fierce reaction shiver through him. She did it again, harder this time.
“Devil take it, Charis. I’m filthy. I need a shave.” He clamped one powerful hand in her hair and drew her head back from his chest. His face was vivid with arousal. Color bloomed along his cheekbones and his eyes burned like black fire. “Do you want me like this?”
She laughed low in her throat and tore at his breeches. If he was a new, more dominating lover today, she’d transformed into an utterly shameless hussy. “Yes.”
“So be it.”
His face set with determination. Roughly, he wrenched open the jacket of her riding habit. Buttons flew through the air and bounced across the floor. He tore at the white shirt beneath. Within seconds, skirt, stays, and shift lay on the carpet.
The abrasion of his shadow beard on her naked skin made her cry out in delight. She arched so her breasts jutted forward, demanding attention. She fumbled at her hair, sliding pins free until it fell about her shoulders in an untidy mass.
“I love you,” he groaned, burying his hands in the tumble of hair and bringing her up for a famished kiss. “How I love you.”
“Tell me again,” she said in a vibrating voice.
He did. Repeating the declaration, he pushed her back onto the silk bedcover. He kissed her breasts and belly and dragged boots, drawers, and stockings off until she lay before him bare, open and ready.
Soon he was naked too. He surged above her. No more preliminaries. She didn’t mind. She craved this joining as much as he.
He thrust hard, as if proclaiming her his kingdom.
Then he lifted his head and stared at her with such reverence, her heart cartwheeled. She drew him down for a deeply passionate kiss. Even as her tongue pushed into his mouth, his body moved in hers.
The rhythm, his weig
ht, his spicy scent, the heat of his skin, all were familiar. All were utterly new.
As they spiraled into ecstasy, her soul expanded, took flight. The experience was unlike anything before, for all their desperate passion in St. Helier. It was as if he flung open every gateway and invited her in. And she entered victorious to blaring trumpets and fluttering banners.
The triumphal music reached a dazzling climax. She arched and cried out as her world erupted into blinding light. Bright angels chorused around her, repeating one phrase over and over in harmonies that made her skin sing.
I love you, Gideon. I love you, Gideon.
She quivered with wild delight, lost in the brilliance. She knew Gideon was with her. He’d be with her always.
She opened her eyes to find him raised on his arms above her, watching her intently. His black gaze glittered in unmistakable possession as he looked down at her.
“I’ve never…” Her voice trailed away.
He looked like a man who had conquered the world. He looked like a man who had fallen in love deeply and irrevocably.
“I know.”
She raised one shaking hand to his cheek. His gaze was intent and told her he, like she, had been reborn in fire.
She’d never seen his eyes so clear, so unguarded, so full of love. Her heart overflowed with a happiness more precious because she’d believed it eternally out of reach.
“No shadows,” she whispered, at last recognizing the difference in his face.
“No shadows,” he echoed. He bent his head to kiss her, silent promise of a shining future.
Acknowledgments
I always love writing the acknowledgments page, where I get to thank everyone who helped me along the way with a book.
As always, my deepest gratitude goes to everyone at Avon Books in New York. I’d particularly like to thank May Chen, my fabulous editor, the brilliant art department, and Pam Spengler-Jaffee and her amazing team in marketing. I’d also like to thank the great people at Avon Australia, especially Linda Funnell, Shona Martyn, Cassie Marsden, Christine Farmer, and Jordan Weaver.
Special thanks to my wonderful agent, Nancy Yost. Nancy, I love working with you!
This book involved some tricky research questions. I’d particularly like to thank Brenda Ross from the Société Jersiaise’s Lord Coutanche Library on Jersey in the Channel Islands, who rushed to save me when all other avenues of investigation had come to an end.
Thanks, as ever, to my wonderful critique partner, Annie West. I’d also like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Sharon Archer and Christine Wells, who came to my rescue at a difficult moment in this book.
I’d like to thank all my friends at the Romance Bandits, Romance Writers of Australia, and Romance Writers of America. You’re an unfailing source of inspiration. Thanks also to Michelle Buonfiglio, Kim Castillo, Maria Lokken, and Marisa O’Neill for your stalwart support.
Finally, a big thank-you to all those readers who have enjoyed my books! I can’t tell you what a thrill it is to know that my stories have touched your hearts.
About the Author
Always a voracious reader, ANNA CAMPBELL decided when she was a child that she wanted to be a writer. Once she discovered the wonderful world of romance novels, she knew exactly what she wanted to write. Her first historical romance for Avon Books was the multi-award-winning Claiming the Courtesan, followed by another Regency noir, Untouched, which was featured on several “best of the year” lists. When she’s not writing passionate, intense stories featuring gorgeous Regency heroes and the women who are their destiny, Anna loves to travel, especially in the United Kingdom, and to listen to all kinds of music. She has settled near the sea on the east coast of Australia, where she’s losing her battle with an overgrown subtropical garden. Anna loves to hear from her readers. You can contact her through her website at www.annacampbell.info.
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By Anna Campbell
CAPTIVE OF SIN
TEMPT THE DEVIL
UNTOUCHED
CLAIMING THE COURTESAN
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
CAPTIVE OF SIN. Copyright © 2009 by Anna Campbell. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Adobe Digital Edition September 2009 ISBN 978-0-06-195924-0
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