Engraved (A Private Collection)

by Fresina, Jayne

  The breath froze in his lungs.

  “They say she’s a witch too. I suppose she cast a spell on you and that’s why you can’t stop looking at her; but once she marries Mr. Carbury you won’t have to worry anymore. He’ll keep her out of your way. All he has to do is make her marry him and take her away.”

  He didn’t wait to hear more.

  Take her away?

  Over his dead body.

  In that moment he made up his mind, because he knew now that there was only one soul in the room he wanted to impress. He had done it all for her. Without Lina there was no point to anything.

  Chapter Ten

  Evangeline saw him coming, his long, forceful stride dividing the dancers like Moses parting the Red Sea. Jonas Carbury was distracted, his back turned to her while he spoke with one of the villagers. No one else would stand up to protect her from Adam. Or stop her going to him.

  He took her hands, tugged lightly, and they were dancing, absorbed by the crowd.

  “You haven’t accepted his proposal yet, have you?” he demanded, stooping to whisper in her ear. “You lied to me. Again.”

  “Wrong.” Where his hands touched her she was on fire, the silk melting until there was nothing between his flesh and hers. She tossed her head back, letting her hair tumble down over the arm he held around her. “I accepted him on the way here tonight.”

  “You won’t marry him.” His lips barely moved, but his feet were fast, leading her away from Jonas Carbury and down the long ballroom to the French doors at one end. “You can’t,” he added, “because I love you.”

  Across the ballroom she spied Miss Hawkesworth and Lady Cheswick trying their best to turn her to stone.

  She laughed. It was the only thing she could do. “You’re as mad as your father.” But joy raced through her. She’d made him say it. Whether he meant it or not was another matter, but her spells had worked, for once, it seemed. For once she was making things happen, not just seeing them before they did.

  “I’ve loved you from the first moment I saw you,” he said. “I didn’t realize what it was then. I know now.”

  She wanted to argue, but her tongue wouldn’t cooperate.

  He steered her through the dancers and then, ignoring her struggles as she pulled in the opposite direction, he dragged her out through the doors onto the moonlit patio.

  “And then you shunned me, humiliated me,” he continued breathlessly, “so I tried to forget. I didn’t even want to believe that what I felt for you was anything more than lust, because then I’d have to admit you didn’t love me in return.” He allowed a small grin to pierce the solemnity of the moment. “I wasn’t as invincible as I thought I was. How could I bear it?”

  “Adam Blackwood, you wouldn’t know love if it ran up and bit you on your—”

  He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. Hard.

  They were outside, but in full view of the dancers. The French doors were open and the moon was full.

  “Ass,” she finally finished, hands pressed flat to his evening jacket pushing herself away.

  “Now I just have to make you love me, don’t I?”

  “Never!” she gasped out, wiping her lips with the back of one white-gloved hand.

  “But remember my thumbs,” he chuckled, raising them to show her. “I’m very, very methodical and I work hard for what I believe in.”

  “That was the shape of your hand, not your thumbs!” She turned away, warning over her shoulder, “I’m going inside now and Jonas will take me home.”

  He caught her around the wrist and held on. Inside the ballroom, dancers pretended not to notice, but they would soon be in a tangled wreck with everyone forgetting their steps and losing the rhythm.

  “Why did you come here like that tonight then? In that gown? With you hair loose?” She fought him and he let her go, opening his vise-like fingers so abruptly she almost tripped. “Do you even know what you want, what you need, Lina Parker?”

  She didn’t know how he learned her maiden name. It caused her to stop, one hand gripping the ivy beside the open door. “What I don’t need is a damnable clock,” she spat, still enraged by the thought.

  “A clock? What clock?”

  “That monstrosity of your father’s. The one you left for me tonight on my doorstep.”

  Adam stepped toward her, his face quizzical, candlelight from the ballroom dancing over the strong, handsome lines. “I didn’t send you any clock. Why would I send you a clock, of all things?”

  “That’s precisely what I wondered,” she cried out, her voice too high, embarrassing her. People inside the ballroom turned again to look.

  “Wait a minute. You mean my father’s skeleton clock from his library?”

  She nodded, too angry for speech.

  “But his solicitor took it away today, said he found a new note among my father’s papers bequeathing that clock to someone else. I was happy enough to see the back of it. I didn’t bother asking…”

  Ivy leaves rustled against her cheek as she sank further into the greenery. Hands to her face, she hid for a moment, straightening her thoughts. He groaned, frustrated, making her peep through splayed fingers, a timid girl suddenly.

  “I don’t know what…” He held out his arms in supplication. “I think you’re just searching for something to fight about. Evidently you’re in the mood to stir things up coming here like that, with him.”

  “I thought I was invited,” she answered smartly, tipping her chin, dropping her hands from her face. “Was it not an open invitation to the village? Perhaps I don’t count.”

  Sighing, he bent his head, knuckles resting on his hips. “Of course I wanted you to come. And I didn’t send you that clock. Someone must be playing a practical joke.”

  Yes, and she knew who it was. Mary had merely said, “Mr. Blackwood left something for you, ma’am,” and hadn’t specified which Mr. Blackwood. The card had said, “Evangeline”, but Adam never called her that. She’d assumed it was a gift from Adam, but it was a bequest from Randolph Blackwood, put into her slovenly maid’s hands at the front door by his solicitor. The old devil knew she hated that clock. He’d sent it to her deliberately to provoke her. It was as if he’d known in advance about this ball.

  Did the man think he was her damned Fairy Godmother?

  “Lina,” Adam was saying calmly, “you married your first husband to make your family proud. You married your second husband for respectability. Shouldn’t you marry your third husband for something better, something more? Something just for you, Lina?”

  Through the glass door, she saw Jonas approaching, his face stern. There would be a confrontation and someone would be hurt.

  So she ran in the other direction, across the patio and over the lawn, holding up her skirt to keep from tripping. She lost a slipper, but didn’t break her stride or her pace.

  * * * *

  It was a good three miles back to the village, and in the copse bordering the Blackwood property it was dark, eerie. Any other woman would have turned back to the comforting lights of the manor house, but she ran on, a stitch burning in her side. Tree roots, thick and treacherous, lay in her path. She was cold now, her bare shoulders falling prey to the night air. A pair of silk evening gloves was little protection for her arms against the scratches and tears as she moved deeper into the trees, relying on a very poor sense of direction to find her way. Her skirt caught on thorny brambles and tore, but she wouldn’t stop. Had to get back to the cottage.

  She never should have come out tonight. It was that damned clock that made her do it, she realized, horrified. That clock was the incendiary device that started all this and turned her from a self-possessed woman intent on denying her desire for him into a shameless hussy who wanted his notice, sought it openly, didn’t care how she got it.

  In the cool, quiet darkness of the copse she began to regain her composure. Then she heard rustling and the gentle thud of horse hooves, the rattle of a bridle.

  She tripped a
gainst a tree root and put out her hands to catch the rough, grizzled trunk.

  The horse emerged from the trees to her right and he was on her, a beam of moonlight, drifting down through the branches, catching under his lashes and shattering into a thousand tiny sparks.

  “Where the hell are you going?”

  He must have sped to the stables, saddled, and mounted a horse before she was half way across the lawn.

  “Home,” she replied.

  Swinging down from the horse, he walked up to her. She turned her back to the tree and waited for him, even with her mind screaming at her to run. Suddenly her feet wouldn’t oblige. Her face lifted to his.

  “Adam.”

  “No. I’m Prince Charming,” he replied somberly, showing her lost slipper in his hand. “And you must be Cinderella.”

  “I stopped believing in fairy tales many years ago, when you were still a little boy clinging to your mother’s skirts.”

  He shook his head, hunkering down to put her slipper back on her foot. “I never clung. She left when I was three. There was nothing to cling to.”

  A whisper of sadness crept through the branches. Although aware his mother left, she didn’t realize Adam was so young at the time.

  “While I’m down here…” Sinking to one knee in the crunching bracken, he looked up at her, tendrils of moonlight and leafy shadows caressing his face. “Will you marry me?”

  She swallowed. “Am I your mother figure? Is that what this is?”

  He stood, low laughter bubbling out of him. “I hope not. You’re only five years older than me, Lina.”

  “Six.”

  “Shocking!” he muttered, lowering his lips to hers.

  “It feels so much more.”

  This kiss was gentler. He’d made his point earlier, in full view of his guests. Now he kissed her purely for the enjoyment and she kissed him back in the same way, her hands on his arms, but not to defend herself this time. Within seconds she was aware of his rising lust, his hips moving against her, rustling her crimson silk.

  “I await your answer,” he said, hoarse.

  Rather than speak, she reached for him, sliding his jacket over his shoulders and then moving her hands to his trousers. Quicksilver passion enveloped them both in the secretive shadows of the quiet copse, surrounded by nature and the ancient, solemnity of trees. It felt to her more sacred even than a church, and when he eased her down into the soft, dewy moss, she opened for him, welcomed him as if they were married already and this was the night of consummation.

  His tongue swept her bosom, his teeth nibbled on her skin and his fingers pulled on those tiny velvet buttons, freeing her nipples to the moonlight. Finally. That corset had begun to feel much too tight, forcing her breasts together and up, presenting them like a sacrificial offering for his approval.

  As they spilled free of the lace and silk, Adam took them, one after the other, in his mouth and then his hands, squeezing and kneading while she lay under him, wanting more.

  He was astride her waist, his manhood already prepared, but he didn’t use it where she expected. Instead, her breasts gathered in his hands, he slipped the warm, engorged organ between them, thrusting and withdrawing, first the purple tip and then the thick length sliding into the warm sheath he made for it.

  “Adam,” she gasped out.

  The friction caused a pulsing heat, radiating from the inner fullness of her breasts to her nipples, stroked by his thumbs and way beyond. His expression was strained, his jaw tense as he gazed down at her and his hands tightened possessively.

  At last he drew back, his breath exhaled in short, hard clouds into the crisp night air. He was parting her thighs, pushing his way between them. “No! Adam.” Somehow she wriggled out from under him, while he knelt, dazed, holding himself. “My turn.”

  Tonight she was bold enough to take it.

  Leaning down, she planted a row of little kisses along his shaft, then around the broad head. His breathing changed again, his hands grabbing at her hair for balance. Slowly she took him into her mouth.

  * * * *

  He rolled his head back and stared up at the fragmented silver moon through the shifting branches. Small, crisp leaves and pert, spring buds formed a bower overhead delicate as lace. And she relished him with her warm, slippery mouth, tugging with a gentle suction. The reality was much worse than the fantasy this time, because he simply couldn’t hold back.

  Fingers winding around her hair, tightening, he urged her head away from him before he spilled.

  “Yes,” she breathed, licking her lips. “I’ll marry you. If you think you can handle me.”

  With a grunt he covered her, wrestled her down to the moss, and impaled her with one thrust of his aching, rigid cock. He knew there were rough tree roots at her back, but she didn’t seem to care. She was laughing softly, her body moving under his, urging him on, her legs curled around his hips and then higher, around his waist as he ground into her. He was smoky hot, ravenous. Under him in her torn, scarlet gown, he finally felt her trusting, submitting fully to the ruthless desire she’d tried to hide from him. She was his. And she wouldn’t leave. She was a part of him now, as he was of her.

  With a cry he began to climax and then, somehow, held back.

  * * * *

  The unearthly sound he made might have been the howl of a wolf or some other wild, nocturnal creature. Her arms flung out, she gleefully abandoned herself, not waiting for him. The quakes followed quickly, rumbling through her, a series of rapidly increasing tremors until the last shook her into oblivion.

  When she opened her eyes, coming back to her senses, he was still hard within her, watching her finish while he delayed another split second.

  Breathless, his face dark, eyes wild, he allowed himself the pleasure, flooding into her, his hands clamped hard around her hips.

  He had asked her to marry him and she had recklessly agreed, a girl again, suddenly.

  A girl in love.

  Fire burned high inside her, thawing every chilled inch of her bones, welding her body and her soul to his.

  No sooner had he collapsed on her when she heard a sound in the bracken. She pushed at him, poking with her fingers.

  He groaned, “Lay still awhile.” Pulling on her skirt, he wanted her back under him.

  “Someone’s coming,” she explained, reclaiming her petticoats from his rough hands.

  He was alert, head up, sniffing at the air, but he stayed kneeling, one hand re-buttoning his trousers. Evangeline pulled herself up with the aid of the nearest tree trunk, distressed to find her legs as weak and uncertain as a newborn foal’s. She wanted to laugh. One hand clamped to her mouth, she turned away pretending to pet his horse just as the footsteps crunched nearer. There was a loud rustling and a man appeared, holding a lantern.

  “Young Master Adam! You should take care out here, sir. Poachers been leaving traps out.”

  “Thank you, Finch,” he grunted. “Mrs. Phillips just took a fall from the horse and I was helping her up.”

  The gamekeeper looked at her, his grizzled face bemused in the swaying amber lantern light. “Aye. So I see.” He touched his cap. “Ma’am.”

  “Mr. Finch. Good evening.” She ran her fingers through the coarse mane of Adam’s horse and did her best to look like a woman just abruptly dismounted. Which, in a way, she was. For now.

  “We’d best go back to the house, Mrs. Phillips,” said Adam tightly, holding his jacket over his arm, carefully placing it in front of his trousers. “Mr. Finch, why don’t you come up to the house for an ale?”

  “Couldn’t do that, sir,” the gamekeeper burbled, shifting from one boot to the other. “Wouldn’t be fittin’. Not with your fancy guests up from London like.”

  “I don’t think they’ll be around much longer, Finch.” Adam had been glowering through the trees in the direction of the house, but now he looked at Lina again. She shot him a sympathetic smile and that wiped away the brief moment of pensiveness. “Will you join me,
Mrs. Phillips?” He held out his free arm and waited.

  It sounded so strange on his lips, the polite invitation. It made her want to laugh again, this time with real, unmitigated joy.

  “We do have a marriage to announce,” he added, brows lifted, eyes warm, daring her to argue.

  Fate would have its way and so would Adam Blackwood. It wasn’t really as if she had any choice. She was, after all, as she saw in that moment, going to have his child in less than nine months.

  The vision came to her in a flickering display, like an arcade peepshow she once saw on the promenade in Brighton.

  A son with black hair and brandy-colored eyes. Another Blackwood male. More trouble.

  She supposed that was as good a reason as any to marry the infuriating young man; therefore, she took his arm and walked back with him through the trees, leading his horse across the unkempt lawn.

  “You haven’t said you love me,” he reminded her.

  “Haven’t I?” She tipped her head toward his waistcoat pocket. “Did you never look at your watch, Mr. Blackwood?”

  Frowning, he stopped and fumbled for it.

  “Open the case.”

  “But I—”

  “Just open it,” she urged impatiently, her hand still around his arm.

  His gaze pinned wonderingly to her face, he flipped the gold watch case open, then he looked down and read, for the first time, the words inscribed inside the case.