by Kelly Bowen
“I kept those drawings as a reminder that we are all perfectly and inevitably flawed, and one’s beauty is because of it, not in spite of it. Teaching me that lesson was the only good thing Anthony ever did.”
The magnificence of Rose’s work had distracted him, but the very mention of Anthony’s name stopped him cold, anger and abhorrence finding a renewed purchase deep within him. Eli felt as if he were standing on a ledge, unable to go forward but unable to find a way back. “How are you not consumed with hate?” he asked. “What he did to you…”
“I was, for a while,” Rose answered quietly, carefully picking up the paintings and setting them aside against the wall. “But hate is exhausting, and Anthony Gibson wasn’t worthy of the effort.”
“I hate him.” It was out before he could stop it.
Rose lowered herself to the edge of the bed and gazed up at him, her dark eyes searching his face. The only sound in the room was the steady ticking of a clock on the mantel. “Why?” she finally asked.
“At Waterloo,” Eli whispered, the words torn from his damaged throat, “he left me to die.”
* * *
“You win,” she said.
Eli laughed, but there was no humor in it, and it came out as more of a gasp. He took a step toward her and then another before he sank to his knees. She reached for him, caught his hands in hers, and held them fast.
“Do you want to tell me?”
He squeezed his eye shut. “I promised myself I wouldn’t speak of it to anyone. I told myself that there was no honor in further vilifying a dead man.”
“The word honor and Anthony Gibson have never been uttered together.”
Eli opened his eye and gazed down at their entwined fingers. “I came here tonight for you. Not me. This isn’t what I had intended to do. Not what I came here to say.”
“But it needs to be said, I think,” she said softly. “Because this is what we do, right? Discuss difficult things.”
“Rose—”
“Eli. Do your worst.”
He released a ragged breath. “That last day of fighting was horrific. Our advances had suffered massive losses to French cuirassiers. Horses dead, men dead or scattered. I made it back to our artillery lines, alone, on foot. They too had taken heavy causalities and were struggling to keep the guns fed. I stayed. Ran shot and fuses from the munitions cart to the gunners. I was standing next to a munitions cart when it was hit by a French round. I don’t remember the explosion, I don’t know how long I lost consciousness, but when I opened my eyes, everything was on fire, and the French were bearing down on our devastated line.” He stopped. “The gunner—the boy—who had been beside me was still alive, but he’d lost part of his arm. There was an artillery horse trapped in its harness, and I cut it free. I was hanging on to its bridle with the boy on its back, but by then I could barely keep my feet. I thought if I could get him to a surgeon in time…”
Rose tightened her fingers around his.
“And then Anthony was suddenly there, standing in front of us. I ordered him to help the gunner.”
Rose could feel the tension rolling off him in palpable waves. “And?”
“And he pointed a pistol at my head and told me to give him the horse because the French had broken through. He was running.”
Rose closed her eyes, sorrow and grief spearing through her.
“I refused. Told him that the horse was for the injured boy.”
She opened her eyes.
“So he shot me. He missed, mostly,” Eli continued quickly, as if he were afraid that if he stopped now he would never finish. “Took whatever was left of my ear. But the horse bolted, and I fell. And from the ground, I watched a French infantryman shoot Anthony with far more accuracy than he had afforded me.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. Because she didn’t know what else to say.
“I don’t have a clear memory of what happened after,” Eli said wearily, as if the telling of his truths had left him depleted. “It comes sometimes in dreams. I remember crawling. I remember trees and silence. And then nothing. Nothing until I woke up in a farmhouse, in a world of pain so excruciating I wanted to die, with an old woman insisting I would not.”
“I’m glad she was right,” she whispered.
“I don’t even know what happened to the gunner. The boy I put on the horse.”
“Perhaps he survived.”
“Perhaps,” Eli mumbled bleakly. “I want to think so.”
Rose untangled her fingers from his but kept hold of his hand, turning it over to trace the lines that cut across his callused palms. “My brother is fond of saying that adversity does not build a man’s character but reveals the truth of it.”
Eli dropped his head. “I saw the truth of Anthony’s character far too late.”
“Or perhaps you saw it at exactly the right time. Perhaps what Anthony Gibson showed you was less about him and more about your own character. That his cowardice and callousness were the necessary adversity for you to prove to yourself who you were. Who you are.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“Why didn’t you give Anthony the horse?”
“Because the gunner was wounded and Anthony wasn’t. He could have still fought.”
“But he didn’t.”
“No.” Eli’s lip curled in revulsion.
“But you did.”
“No.” He shook his head, frowning. “I told you, I barely remember what happened after—”
“I’m not talking about after. You fought for the gunner.”
He stared up at her.
“Why? Or even more to the point, why didn’t you take the horse?”
“What?”
“Why didn’t you take the horse for yourself? You were an officer and the son of an earl, and a grievously wounded one at that, while the boy was only a soldier. Anyone would tell you that you were, by far, the more important individual.”
“This ‘anyone’ you speak of is an idiot,” Eli grumbled. “I watched that gunner—a mere boy—sight those guns, never wavering, never retreating, even when everything was going to hell around him. His unwavering bravery in the face of unspeakable carnage was astounding. Inspiring.”
“One might suggest your actions on his behalf were no different. Brave and inspiring.”
Eli looked away. “I didn’t feel brave or inspiring. Mostly I felt terrified.”
Rose gazed at him before pulling her hand from his and standing. She stood and went to the armoire, pulling away a third wrapped painting that rested against its side. She brought it over to the bed and set it down beside him before stepping back.
“Open it,” she told him.
He glanced up at her but did as he was told. The canvas and rope fell away, revealing a portrait of a man. A Man of Sorrows. Completed, it was riveting. The detail was superb, Lucy’s portrayal of Eli’s power and masculine magnificence utterly striking. But it was the expression Lucy had captured that made this work unparalleled. The stoic sadness borne from betrayal was still there but, beneath it, a steely resolve to stay the course. To finish what had been set into motion with honor and courage.
Eli was staring down at it, and Rose could see where his knuckles were white around a length of rope he still held. For a moment she experienced a twinge of disquiet, wondering if she had made a mistake showing him this.
“What do you see?” she asked.
He didn’t answer her.
“Shall I tell you what I see?” Rose asked, not waiting for him to respond. “A man who is strong. Noble. And imperfectly perfect.”
Eli reached out and touched the side of the canvas.
“It’s Lucy’s work, not mine,” Rose told him.
“Why do you have it?” His voice was hoarse.
“I asked her if I could keep it.”
“Why?”
So I can remember this moment. Remember you.
“Because it’s you,” was all she said.
Very slowly he stood and s
et the canvas aside, back against the wardrobe. The other two paintings followed. He came toward her and stopped a breath away. “Look at me.”
She lifted her eyes to his.
“Shall I tell you what I see?”
Rose felt her heart banging painfully against her ribs as her throat tightened.
“I see the woman who makes me whole. The woman who knows me better than I know myself. The most brave and inspiring person I’ve ever met.”
She could feel her nails digging into her palms, the strength and the conviction to protest battered and stripped away by his ruthless, gut-wrenching honesty of this night. He was wrong. She wasn’t inspiring, and she certainly wasn’t brave. But she couldn’t bring herself to tell him. Couldn’t bring herself to care what would happen tomorrow, or a week from now, or a year from now. Tonight would be about them. Only them.
“Stay,” Eli whispered. “Stay with me.”
“Yes,” she said, because she was powerless to say anything else.
The heat that ignited in his gaze was a living thing, something that wrapped around her and caught her fast. Arousal roared through her, and she was torn between the need to move and the need to remain perfectly still lest she falter before she could control it. Beneath her chemise and robe, she could feel her chest rising and falling, even that simple movement setting her hardened nipples to chafing against the fabric. The ache within her pooled low in her belly, radiating to her sex, and she could already feel the dampness between her thighs.
And he hadn’t even touched her yet.
Eli hadn’t moved, simply looked at her, his gaze hot and dark and possessive, and Rose suddenly understood why women had fallen so willingly beneath his spell. He had the power to make her believe that she was the only woman in the world. He lifted his hand, and her skin instantly tightened, anticipating his touch. Except he didn’t touch her. His fingers went to his cravat, and he slowly but deftly undid the complicated knot, pulling it from his neck.
“Turn around,” he said hoarsely.
Rose released a breath that she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.
“Please,” he whispered.
She turned, every one of her senses straining toward him. She felt his fingers first, against her temples, gently stroking her hair away from her face and neck and setting it over her shoulders. She could feel the heat of him through the delicate silk of her robe, could feel the warmth of his breath against the side of her neck. She bit her lip, the need to face him almost unbearable.
She felt him duck his head, and now his lips were where his fingers had just been, pressing soft kisses along the side of her neck. She let her head fall back and to the side, wondering if he could feel the pulse that pounded there. She didn’t want to wait. She wanted him to touch her. Wanted him to take her with the urgency and desperation she could feel building within her. To bury himself deep inside, where she needed him to be.
She tried to turn, but he caught her with his strong hands. “Not yet,” he whispered. “Close your eyes.”
Rose stilled, her back pressed against him. She could feel the rapid rise and fall of his chest.
“Please,” he said again, and Rose complied.
She felt the softness of warm linen slide over her forehead before she understood what he was doing. The faint scents of starch and sandalwood reached her as he gently drew his cravat over her eyes.
“Eli—”
“It’s been a long time,” he whispered roughly against her ear. “I want this to be perfect.”
She reached up, intending to draw his hands away. He still held the ends of the cravat, and as her fingers curled around his, she realized that they were shaking. Her hands stilled, and she understood then what he was asking.
“I don’t need you to do this,” she whispered back.
“I know,” he rasped.
I need to do this. She heard the words he hadn’t uttered.
She let her hands fall.
Eli rested his forehead against her shoulder and then he lifted his head, his fingers tying the ends of the cravat at the back of her head. Rose felt him shift, and the heat at her back vanished as he came to stand before her.
It wasn’t so different from the very first night. When she had stood close to him in the darkness as a thunderstorm had receded, excruciatingly aware of every movement and sound and scent. Except now Eli Dawes was no longer a stranger. Now he was…
Pulling on the sash of her robe. Running his strong hands along the inside edges of the embroidered silk where it had fallen open, lifting it over her shoulders and pushing it away from her body. She felt it pool soundlessly at her feet, cool night air caressing her fevered skin under her chemise, and she shivered, though she was far from cold.
He had yet to say anything, nor did he as his fingers went to work on the laces at the center of her chest. She felt the ribbons slip through their eyeholes, the gathered top loosening, and then the thin lawn slipped down her body to join the robe at her feet.
It was unnerving, to be standing thus before a man without being able to see his face. Without being able to read what he held in his eyes, to measure what he held in his expression. But she could hear the uneven cadence of his breath. She could still feel the heat of him, smell his soap, mixed now with the muskiness of arousal. An electrifying anticipation bloomed, making her breath hitch and her body sway.
Eli moved, and the air around her stirred. His fingers grazed the side of her cheek. “You are so perfect,” he whispered. His fingers dropped to her jaw, then her neck, and then over the ridge of her collarbone. He pressed his palms flat against her skin, sliding down to cup her breasts, his thumbs brushing the peaks of her nipples. He bent his head, and now it was his mouth on her throat and shoulder, his lips and tongue exploring the path his fingers had taken.
Rose arched into the heat of his touch, pushing herself into his hands, a sound she didn’t recognize escaping from the back of her throat. His hands slipped lower to cage her hips, and then over the slight curve of her buttocks. He was kneeling now, she realized, his breath hot against her navel as he pressed soft kisses over her abdomen. He stroked the backs of her thighs, the tips of his fingers brushing the dampness between her legs.
She put a hand down to steady herself, her fingers finding the solidity of his shoulder. This absence of sight was a torture of the most intense sort. Every touch, every sensation, every nuance was heightened. Eli’s hands came around the fronts of her legs, settling against the soft skin of her inner thigh. She could feel the gentle pressure as he urged her legs farther apart and she complied, though they were no longer steady. His fingers moved upward, and he stroked her the way he had done on the beach. Slow, deliberate movements that sent spirals of pleasure ripping through her and left her panting.
But his clever fingers weren’t what she wanted this time. This time she wanted him. All of him. Wanted to feel him in her, around her, possessing her so completely she would forget where he ended and she started. Her hands slid into his hair, and she pulled gently, lifting his head up.
“Take me to bed, Dawes.”
Before her he was still and silent.
“Please.”
She didn’t hear him move, but she suddenly found herself swept up into a pair of arms and deposited on the wide bed, the coverlet cool against her back. She could hear the sounds of him undressing, the shucking off of his coat, the quiet snick of buttons as they were released, each sound building the agonizing anticipation, each sound amplifying the ache that was pulsing low in her belly. Her hand drifted down over the sharp ridge of her hip, over the rise of her pubic bone, and through the soft tangle of curls—
“Don’t you dare, Rose,” Eli snarled softly, and then he was beside her on the bed, the mattress dipping beneath his weight and rolling her toward him.
He caught her hands in his, pinning them over her head, and now there were no gentle explorations. Now he moved over her, his mouth claiming hers in a filthy, explicit kiss that was all tongue
and teeth and heat. He nudged her legs apart with his knee, coming to kneel between them, his weight on his arms as he levered himself over her, kissing her relentlessly.
He lowered himself, and Rose could feel the weight of him settle over her body, the heady, intimate claim of dominance that she had craved. She could hear his harsh breathing, the scent of his soap lost now under something more primal. His chest was against hers, the mat of golden hair rubbing against her breasts and nipples and sending new currents of pleasure spiraling through her. The ridges of muscle that defined his abdomen were pressed tight against the rise of her pubic bone, and with each of his movements, the exquisite friction released a shower of sparks deep in her core. She writhed, wondering if he would undo her just like this.
She arched helplessly, tilting her hips against him, letting her legs fall open in a silent plea. He broke their kiss, and Rose whimpered at the loss, but then she felt the head of his cock hard and heavy against her entrance. He dragged himself through her slick folds once, twice, and then thrust into her, urgent and deep and full, and Rose almost wept with the pleasure of it.
He let go of her hands and set his arms at her sides, supporting himself so there was only a single point of contact between them. Rose’s world dimmed, everything focused solely on the white-hot pleasure that was building from that single point. Eli flexed his hips and withdrew before thrusting himself forward again. Rose wrapped her legs around the backs of his thighs, her heels digging into the hard muscle, and he drew back and thrust again. Rose bit her lip to keep from crying out.
Eli was moving faster now, and she heard him gasping, felt the slide of their sweat-slicked bodies, smelled the scent of her arousal mingling with his. Her hands fisted in the coverlet as if trying to find an anchor in this storm of crippling ecstasy. Her release, when it came, was sudden and devastating, a torrent of pleasure that pulsed outward, crashing through her limbs with such force that it scattered any coherent thought she might have been clinging to.
Eli hissed, and he ground against her, changing the angle of his hips, drawing out each intense wave of bliss that was hurtling through her, not giving her time to catch her breath. With a ragged groan, Eli pulled out of her, and she felt him shift, one of his hands brushing against her hip as he fisted himself between them.
