by Sophia Nash
“What sort of man did you hope to find then, Elizabeth?” He pulled her to within inches of his face.
“A man like you. A man capable of caring for me the way I would care for him.”
“And what way would that be?”
“A love that never questioned, never doubted, never feared. A love without end.”
He closed the gap and nibbled at her lush lower lip, and then moved his lips to her ear. “Well, then that just proves I’m not the man for you if you think for a moment I would never fear for you. And doubting…hmm, well, I think you know I was born with doubt instead of blood in my veins. So, you’ve misjudged the matter entirely. In fact, I’m of a mind to show you just how bad I am for you.” His heart felt light in his chest and he chuckled. He would not think about the fact that in a few days, a week at most, she would be separated from him. She in France, and he facing ruin. But at least she would be saved from that hell named Pymm.
Elizabeth could barely speak for all the lies she’d dared utter. She wasn’t sure how she had gotten this far. There was only one thing of which she was certain. She wasn’t going to have to wait until death for her punishment. Oh, she would go to the Pulteney Hotel and search just as she had said she would. But she knew how carefully officers locked away papers of importance. And she had already set a course. So she had constructed her overly complicated story.
That utterly masculine scent of his drifted through her senses, and in one long, smooth movement he drew her closer so she could rest her head on his shoulder. “Rowland,” she whispered into the silence that enveloped them. His fingers lightly skimmed the flesh of her arms.
“Mmmmm?”
“The last time I had to beg to…”
“Yes?”
“To give myself to you.”
He smiled knowingly. “And?”
“I don’t want to have to beg you to take anything I offer ever again.”
He drew away from her and smiled in a fashion that made him appear so much younger than ever before. “You are a demanding wench,” he whispered. “If I have the right of it, you don’t want to have to beg, and at the same time there’s to be no questioning, doubt, or fear.”
“That’s right.” Honesty tasted so good on her tongue.
“You know, you never had to worry about the first one, mhuirnin. I’m essentially a selfish bastard, or haven’t you heard?”
“You and I both know it’s just a façade. A way to keep everyone at a distance. You’re the least selfish man I know.”
“Really?” he drawled wolfishly as he perused her form.
“Yes, really.”
“Well then, you won’t consider it a problem if I tell you that you have exactly five seconds to take that bloody night rail off before I tear it from you,” he growled. “With my teeth.”
She bit back a request.
He smiled. “You’re not scared, are you? I thought there was to be no fear.”
“Ummm, could you at least blow out the candle?”
He raised his eyebrows. “That sounds very like a question, Elizabeth. And no, I will not blow out the candle. Bloody hell, you’re breaking every rule you just set for a man.”
He had no idea how much he had the right of it. But at least she would make certain he would never doubt her love for him. Not after tonight. And certainly not after the remainder of this week played itself out on the rickety stage of her life.
She looked into his pale green eyes. She wondered if he knew how much she loved him. She wondered how she was going to live without seeing him ever again.
The first time they had lain together she had been determined to have a memory of him to hold close to her heart always. She had wanted to see the desire in her soul reflected back in his eyes. But now, armed with the knowledge of his past, of his sister and mother, she could only imagine how impossible it must have been for him to take her innocence.
But this time, this last time they would be together, she would leave him with the untainted happiness of a summer night to withstand all the winter days that would follow for all the seasons of their lives. She was determined to give him the memories he would need to see the depth of her love for him. Only then would he fully understand later why she had broken the promises she made to go away to France. For he was a man who deserved a surfeit of love after such solitary deprivation.
All thoughts of promises and doubts and fears were lost in a vortex of desire sparked by his hands as he pushed her back into her downy bed and removed every last article of clothes between them.
Chapter 15
It was as if he had never tasted her before. Rowland closed his eyes and breathed in the perfumed valley of her breasts. Such great whorls of longing unfurled within him. He no longer bothered to harness the feelings she evoked in his breast.
Yearning for a woman was something so little known to him. Until now, physical release had always been a momentary, empty sensation. Meaningless at the best of times, and something quite worse at other times.
But with Elizabeth? It was something sacred. Something not of this earthly plane. It was everything good. Without a doubt he knew why. It was because it was freely given. Always in the past there had been a price extracted from his soul. But this…this was a celebration of the very best life had to offer.
And he’d be damned if he didn’t take every minute, every hour here to pour out his heart to her through his actions.
Rowland grasped her in his arms, protecting her in the way he wished he could do for the rest of his life. He kissed her forehead, her eyelids, her nose, and finally her beautiful smiling lips, tilted to meet his.
He kissed her until he was left drunk by the sweet passion of her. They kissed until one kiss blended into another and he was lost in her. All the while, he could feel the tips of her fingers weaving through his hair, down his neck, and his arms, tracing the raised veins on his forearms that gripped her to him.
When he tried to hold her still, she made little sounds of protest and refused to be put off. She prowled down his body as he had wished to do to her. She nibbled and nipped her way past his lips, his neck, chest and belly. He held his breath, his gut clenched in pain. In a rush, the exquisite sensation of the tip of her tongue ran along his arousal. And then he felt a swirl and he nearly passed out from the pleasure of it.
He grasped her shoulders and dragged her on top of him. His voice nearly broken, he stroked her gorgeous honey mane of hair, “Come here, my darling…my beautiful mhuirnin.”
“What does that mean?” she whispered.
He could not tell her the truth of it. It would only make parting more difficult. “It means I want you.” He rolled her to her side and proceeded to show her what he could not tell her. What he dared not tell her. She was his beloved.
He supposed, as he kissed her lovely shoulders and her breasts, he had somehow known a long time ago that she would steal his heart.
She was his counterpart. Never had there been created a woman so good, so trusting and guileless. Someone the very opposite of him.
He sighed and felt the softness of her against the roughness of his hands.
Elizabeth looked at him, into his enigmatic eyes, dark with passion. He eased her beneath him, and proceeded to tease to heightened awareness every last part of her.
Her hands found purchase on the molded contours of his back. The sinews and muscles of his body flexed beneath her fingers. The man did not possess a single spare ounce of flesh.
With a feverish look he whispered to her, staring at her, “Elizabeth, I should take more time to please you—ready you. But I want you too much. Stop me if—”
“I want you,” she interrupted. “I always will.”
His large hands gripped her hips then, and tilted her. Staring into her eyes, he rose onto his forearms and entered her slowly. The obvious effort he took to hold back caused tremors to race along his sides.
The sensation was unbearably pleasurable. There was no pain this time, just a long sli
de as his thickness tested her depths. He stopped and dropped his head, his longish dark hair brushing her breasts.
She pulled him closer.
“Impatient?” he whispered, looking back into her face.
“Yes,” she admitted tremulously. “Impatient to know if it was all a dream the last time.”
He bowed down and kissed her for long minutes. And yet he still didn’t move.
She pushed her hips forward, and he groaned. He was so very careful with her as if she were fragile, breakable.
“Don’t move,” he whispered. “I want to draw this out—savor you. I don’t want to forget it.”
And without a single movement, Elizabeth felt herself begin to pulse against his length. Rowland surged fully within her and stopped again, taking away her breath and her reasoning, giving her all the pleasure he denied himself.
There was just this one starving man, determined to please her instead of himself. But she wanted the reverse. She would always want the reverse. She finally regained her breath and he waited silently, still deeply within her. For endless minutes they stared into each other’s eyes. She stroked his hair back from his face, memorizing every line, every angle. She would never forget his eyes, so piercing, so mesmerizing.
“My mhuirnin…Oh God,” his expression pained, he finally gave into his desire to move. He pushed even deeper inside of her, his thickness filling her completely. The unrelenting tempo, the desperate look in his face caused her to shatter into exquisitely sharp pieces. He held her there, his body trembling.
And yet he made no move to follow her. He merely stilled for a few moments, the first signs of his fatigue evident on his brow, and tremors again racing along his back and arms. One last time, he brought her to the pinnacle, and teased her by balancing there for long moments before pushing her over the edge with the gentlest of motions.
She could not stop the tumble of words that escaped from her hoarse throat when she felt sweat trickle along his spine. “Rowland, please. Please, you must be in pain. Find your ease now. With me.”
He was at her breast again, her nipple almost sore from his ministrations. “Are you begging?” His voice was nearly gone. “I thought there was to be no begging.” She could feel the hint of a smile on her breast as he pressed a soft kiss there.
She then clasped him ever so tightly with her legs and pulled him as close as she could. She clenched all of the muscles inside of her, savoring the feeling of him.
With a silent cry his head fell back. The next moment he tried to withdraw from her but her legs would not allow it. She felt a warm gush deep inside of her body.
“Oh, Elizabeth,” he moaned. He sighed heavily and clasped her tightly to him.
God, it was the most exquisite sensation he’d ever experienced. She was so very warm and soft. He’d never, ever allowed himself to release his seed inside of any woman. He was a bastard. And he sure as hell didn’t want to create more of the same on this earth. It might be the only sacred belief he had. No child should have to suffer—
“What are you thinking,” she asked softly. “Just now?”
He rolled them both to their side, still clasped to her, hipbone to hipbone. “Why do you ask?”
“Because you look troubled. Have I done something to displease you? To—”
“Hush, Elizabeth. You are perfect. So perfect it is almost painful to be with you. It’s just…” He closed his eyes.
“Yes?” Her voice was anxious.
“Well, now you might become with child.”
She exhaled. “It’s very unlikely. I overheard the wives of the men in my father’s company speak of such things.”
“Nonetheless, you will write to me. You will tell me. I would give the child legitimacy even if my name is not…But I would come to France to marry you even if I would not stay. I would send you money when I—”
“Of course you would,” she interrupted, her voice still unnaturally low pitched. “And I would write to you. I promise. But I truly doubt I will have to go to France, you know. I will find those letters. And I won’t find myself with child. I—”
Suddenly, a flash of yellow fluttered above them, and Rowland instinctively raised his arm to guard them against whatever it was.
Good God. It was the bloody canary. With a curse, Rowland reluctantly disengaged from her and struggled against the sea of tangled bedclothes to close the window. He collapsed back into Elizabeth’s soft bed and they both laughed.
She pulled him into her warm embrace. “You are in for it now. Ata may very well try to marry you herself. She’s been pining for her escaped bird for the last six months.”
“Well, I’ll trust you to tell her we found the damned thing in the mews instead of here. Otherwise there’s a very good chance I’ll face the wrong end of Helston’s bloody pistol.”
“Luc? But you have nothing to fear in that corner, Rowland. He likes you. I learned a long time ago that the more he scowls at a person, the more he respects them. He’s sort of like you that way.”
He scowled.
Elizabeth smiled and he pulled her roughly to him and kissed her.
“Those bloody dimples of yours were planted by the devil himself to tempt all men to madness. It’s no wonder Pymm is obsessed. It’s—”
Elizabeth stopped him with her lips. She couldn’t bear to have him pollute the air they breathed with that name.
He spent the next hour kissing and murmuring endearments to her in between an avalanche of instructions. He told her how to search the general’s apartments at the Pulteney. He told her how to bribe the valet if she was unsuccessful. He even explained how to pick a lock, and provided the instrument. And then he extracted a final promise from her to feign a headache and to return to Helston House as soon as the Prince Regent conferred the duchy on Pymm.
If she had not secured the letters by then, they would leave a letter for Ata and disappear from Helston House that very night. He would arrange for several of his men to help them. And if she did find the letters, he would join her aristocratic friends—the duke, marquis, and Rowland’s brother and they would go to Pymm to break the betrothal on the morning of the wedding. He would not hear of her trying to face down a crowd at Carlton House.
And she agreed to it all. Without a hint of hesitation.
Before the night threatened to deliver a new day, Rowland left her embrace. Pressing a last kiss to her brow, he disappeared out the window. Elizabeth sank back into the bed, hugging to her breast the pillow on which he had lain his head. A moment later she laughed despite her welling eyes as a particularly foul curse floated back to her from the trellis.
And then the tears fell in earnest as her fingers touched her abdomen. She dared not think of a child. His child. Of course, it was not so. She would not be…Her thoughts flew forward. She refused to consider what Leland Pymm would do if he ever detected a resemblance. But—she closed her eyes—if she did find herself with child, and had to endure hell on this earth with Pymm, at least Rowland’s child would be her small piece of heaven.
The next morning Elizabeth tore herself away from the most recent phalanx of dressmakers Leland Pymm had sent to Helston House to drive her to silken distraction. She retreated behind the privacy screen in Ata’s vast apartments to don the last of the gowns—the one she most dreaded.
It was the elaborate ensemble she was to wear to Carlton House for Leland Pymm’s “crowning,” as she thought of it now. And for her wedding immediately following. The color of the ostentatious, heavy gown matched the golden tones of her hair, and she thought she looked as stiff and colorless as a haystack while wearing it. The seed-pearl-encrusted bodice was dangerously tiny despite her pleas to the dressmaker to make it more modest. The woman had reminded her that she was following the general’s instructions.
As the modiste and assistants fluttered about, cooing at the perfect fit of their creation, Elizabeth heard not a word. On a table nearby, Pip, too, flitted about in his cage, and Elizabeth suddenly felt very much
like Ata’s beloved canary.
Soon she would be living in a gilded cage of her own. Even now, these over-elegant clothes stifled her, and she chafed against all the new restrictions. She could not wander gardens or gallop in a park without a bevy of chaperones and a detachment of Pymm’s men following discreetly in the background. The fashionable columns in the newspapers delighted in detailing her every movement. If only she could—
The door burst open sans notice and Ata flew in, her eyes wide and a smile diffusing the wrinkles on her face.
“Oh, Eliza, you will never guess!” Without waiting for an answer, she burst out, “Lord Wymith is below and he just requested a private audience with Sarah. Oh, I cannot stand the suspense.” Her one good hand rested on her cheek.
Elizabeth had known this was in the offing. She also knew why her happiness was mixed with melancholy. “Oh, wait. Let me remove this gown. We were just finished, yes?” She ducked behind the screen with the dressmaker.
As she quickly redressed, she caught glimpses of Ata moving restlessly about the chamber, rearranging a bouquet of flowers, straightening a small stack of books.
Elizabeth could not stop the poignant memories of Sarah’s husband, Colonel Pierce Winters. Admiration was not a strong enough word for how she remembered him. She had always considered him the embodiment of everything true, good, faithful, and courageous, as an Englishman and as a husband.
They had been an impossibly perfect couple—he so handsome and so devoted, and Sarah so gentle and loyal. Indeed, Elizabeth had yet to see their equal. And the thought of Sarah giving her heart—for indeed, if her friend married again she would do that—to another man seemed next to impossible.
She put on her best face when she dismissed the dressmakers and rejoined Ata. “There is no doubt, then? He will marry Sarah?”
Ata stood staring at Pip with a small smile. “Even I could not have imagined a more brilliant match for her. He is exactly as a gentleman should be—excellent character, a fine fortune, handsome.”
