Adele Ashworth (41 page)

She dropped her lashes at last, staring at her coffee cup through blurring vision and memories of so long ago. “You were right, too. In Paris. You said I started loving you years ago, and I did. But I couldn’t talk about that night because I was mortified after it happened—about the way I kissed you and the things I said to you. I’m embarrassed about it to this day.” She shook her head. “I was so very foolish then.”

“I didn’t think you were foolish. I thought you were enchanting and beautiful, so innocent.”

Those softly murmured words were meant to calm, and they liquefied her. “I thought you were beautiful, too, Jonathan, and dashing and sophisticated. I dreamed about you for months after that night I dreamed of your lips on mine and hearing you tell me that you loved me, too.”

“You were so young, Natalie.”

She raised her eyes to his again, and the look he gave her—one filled with such utter gentleness and keen comprehension of her feelings—nearly took her breath away. Her throat constricted, and she swallowed hard, wiping away a single tear as it slid down her cheek.

“Yes, I was young,” she explained in a rough, faraway voice. “And naive. I didn’t know you then, didn’t really know anything except that I felt a small, innocent love for you in my heart like . . . like the beauty of a single rose, or a violin or harp playing a soft melody.” Her gaze became intense. “But the love I feel for you now is different. I know your weaknesses and strengths, your moods. I know how much you adore women—”

“Natalie—”

“Shh . . . Let me finish, my darling Jonathan, before I lose my nerve.”

He lifted her hand to his lips, tenderly kissing her fingers, her knuckles, and wrist until she felt a tingling within. Still, he never took his eyes from her face.

“I love you so much more as you are today,” she continued passionately. “And you wouldn’t be who you are without the experiences of your past, and this includes the women you’ve known. I love your intelligent humor and the way your mind works so cleverly to expose the ultimate good. I love the way you argue with me over silly things like the appropriate dinner wine and stealing the covers. I love the way you flatter me with a small, suggestive glance and tease me with your voice and make love to me as if you’re sharing the secrets and longings of your soul. I know how much you adore your ridiculous weapon collection, and the theater and fine brandy and expensively tailored clothes. I know your favorite color is lustrous, ruby red and that your greatest worry, your greatest fear, is losing me.”

He’d gradually stopped kissing her with her intimate disclosure, his breath becoming uneven and raspy as she felt it on her wrist. For a second or two, Natalie was certain he was close to losing his composure in front of her.

She smiled with trembling lips and squeezed his hand, her voice once again dropping to a whisper of profound intent and fervent conviction. “I said I loved you then like a rose or a harp—something innocent and delightfully sweet—and I did. But I love you now, Jonathan, like a—a conservatory filled with the dazzling color and fragrance of hundreds of exotic flowers, like a symphony of music—from flutes to French horns to cellos—playing rich concertos and beautiful waltzes.”

She leaned toward him, running her thumb along his knuckles. “I don’t need to promise to love you, Jonathan. I love you enough to last a lifetime, and you know this already.” Eyes once more brimming with tears, she confessed in warmth, “But I swear to you, right now, that if you promise to cherish my heart with all the love and goodness in yours, I will give myself to you completely, faithfully, and trust you always with everything I am.”

For a long time he just stared into her eyes. She’d given more than he’d expected to hear, much more. She could see the wonder in his gaze, feel it flow from him in currents, and suddenly emotion surfaced and the love he felt for her was a discernible force, radiating from him in joy, suffusing her to wash the past away. Forever.

“Natalie . . .”

It was a whispered plea for her to come to him, and she responded, raising herself on unsteady legs and walking two feet around the corner of the table to his side. He brought her knuckles to his lips, not kissing them this time, but just placing them against him, gliding the fingers of his free hand down her silk wrap as she stood before him—from the side of her breast, over her hip to her thigh. Then at last he pulled her onto his lap.

She curled into him, erasing the world outside with his powerful embrace, fitting her bottom snugly against his hips as she wrapped her arms around him and nestled her face in his neck.

“I will never break your heart,” he assured her in a violent, whispered vow, his cheek to her temple, his lips to her ear.

The strength of his conviction unraveled her, and she started to cry softly, silently, against him.

He held her quietly for several minutes, pulling the pin from her hair so the mass of it flowed in waves over her shoulders and down her back, tunneling his fingers through it, kissing her forehead and brow, cradling her in his arms. “Did you know, Natalie sweet, that since that night in the garden five years ago, I’ve never been able to get you out of my mind?”

She sniffled but didn’t move her face from the curve of his throat. “With such variety at your fingertips? I don’t believe you.”

He chuckled in a velvety tremor that shook her to the spine.

“I lied to you in Marseilles,” he admitted, choosing his words carefully. “The truth is, after that night, I didn’t ask about you occasionally—I thought about you constantly for months, and later asked about you often.”

She stilled in his arms, but he carried on without notice.

“I knew who courted you from time to time, and I was more than irritated when I learned Geoffrey Blythe had serious intentions, because it was so obvious to me that the two of you didn’t suit.” Very slowly he added with a thread of discomfiture, “No less than seven times during the last five years, Natalie, I dressed for you to notice me and left this town house to call on you formally.”

Amazement pulsed through her, and she raised her head to lock her startled eyes with his.

He smiled wryly. “I wasn’t sure how you’d receive me, knowing my reputation, and especially after sharing that first incredible kiss and your innocent confession of love for me. And because of this uncertainty I never got past a drive down your street, except once. About a year ago I actually rang the bell and spoke to a parlor maid, but you were out, and I was too nervous to leave a card.”

His eyes grazed her features as his palm slid across the wetness on her cheek. “I swear it was by fate that you walked into my home when you did. You were embarrassed to be here, but in some small regard I expected it. I was surprised to discover you in my study that morning, but not at all surprised that you’d come back into my life.” He grasped her jaw with tight fingers as his tone grew passionate. “You’re so vibrantly alive, and your presence and friendship enrich my life in so many ways, giving me something I’ve never experienced with anyone else. I dreamed of loving you like this, Natalie, and yes, I cherish it. I always will.”

She didn’t think she’d ever been more shaken by a disclosure in her life. His beautiful gray-blue eyes pierced hers with stark memories, with honesty and abounding hope. She placed a palm on his cheek and drew it over a day’s growth of stubble, the tingle of it on her sensitive fingers making her toes curl and desire for him burn anew. Then she touched his lips with hers, kissing him, tasting the lingering traces of coffee and inhaling the warm, masculine scent of his skin.

He reacted in kind, pulling her closer, untying the sash at her waist, demanding more as his hand reached in to caress her back and hip in sensuous strokes.

“Marry me, Jonathan?” she begged against his mouth.

“I was beginning to fear you’d never ask,” he whispered in fast reply.

She smiled inside, squirming against the marvelous feel of his growing erection now stiffly nestled in the curve of her bottom. “Our courtship has been so unconventional.”

He moved his hand to her breast, sliding his palm across her nipple in slow circles until it hardened, and she sighed from the welcomed invasion.

“To avoid gossip,” he said against her mouth, “we’ll tell everybody I courted you in Newburn while you were there visiting your great-aunt for the Season. I, of course, was there on a scouting expedition for ancient English swords.”

She laughed softly against him, and he pulled back a little.

“We’ll say we met at . . .” He tilted his head in thought. “At Mrs. Peabody’s soiree.”

She frowned. “Who’s Mrs. Peabody?”

“I’ve no idea, but I’m certain there’s more than one in Newburn.”

“As ingenious as that is, my mother won’t believe it,” she warned in a teasing voice, brushing her fingers through his hair.

His eyes rounded in challenge. “I’ll charm her into believing it. I can be very convincing.”

“Indeed,” she said dryly. “I imagine you’ll spend years using your convincing charm on her.”

He pursed his lips. “I think . . . perfecting it on her would be more accurate.” Another small laugh escaped her, and he leaned in again to nuzzle her neck. “What about your father?”

She inclined her head to give him better access. “At this point my father would approve of my marrying almost anyone.”

He chuckled. “Then you’re stuck with me, I’m afraid.”

“I think I can manage to be happy,” she purred.

His lips moved provocatively over her flesh again. “With the courtship issue respectably explained, we can be married within the month.”

“That’s not enough time to plan a wedding, Jonathan.”

“We have to, Natalie, to avoid scandal,” he clarified, nibbling her lobe with his teeth. “In case you’re carrying my baby.”

Color crept into her cheeks. “Oh.”

She felt rather than saw his broad smile of satisfaction, annoying her that he should enjoy flustering her with such considerations.

“And speaking of your parents,” he whispered, his mouth to her skin, “I fixed your mother’s little problem.” He pushed the silk over her shoulder and trailed her throat with his tongue until he sucked her collarbone.

“Wh-what?”

“The problem with the letters,” he explained seconds later, his breath so cool against her suddenly burning flesh.

His hand found her nipple again, teasing it, brushing it lightly with his thumbnail. Then he leaned over and licked it, sucked it, and she reached for him in response, raking her fingers through his hair and delighting in the sharp, tingling pleasure she felt between her legs.

“Mmm . . .”

“Did you hear me, Natalie?”

He stopped tormenting her with his hands and mouth until she raised closed lashes to look at him.

“What about the letters?” she asked in a rush.

“Do you remember a footman employed in your household called John Russell?”

She tried to force her head to clear, to concentrate on what he said exactly. “I think so.”

But Jonathan made it so extraordinarily difficult for her to focus. He pushed his hand through the silk until it fell open completely and draped down the sides of her body. Then he slid his palm lower and lower on her belly until he cupped her between her thighs.

“Jonathan—”

“Russell was dismissed about three years ago by your mother for stealing silver,” he continued, watching her, his voice now labored with his own need.

Deliberately he began to stroke her as she tried so very hard to pay attention to what he was saying.

“He overheard the arguments between your parents, and when he was forced to leave without reference he began blackmailing your mother with rumors of the love affair. There were never any letters—at least not in England.”

Through the fog and his ever more intimate coaxing of her body, Natalie was beginning to understand his words. She grabbed his wrist to still his hand.

“What are you saying, Jonathan?”

He grinned almost bashfully. “In about an hour, Sir Guy Phillips and one or two others are going to call on Russell at his home to discover the duke of Newark’s priceless emeralds in a flour tin. They will then inform the man that in exchange for his silence about your mother, he will not be arrested and prosecuted for stealing a necklace he, of course, didn’t steal at all. The emeralds will then be returned to their rightful owners, and your mother should finally be free of her scandalous secret.”

Natalie’s heart thundered from pure emotion—from physical passion he built in her so tenderly, from exhilaration at the Black Knight’s conquest in her honor, but mostly from joy in discovering a love in Jonathan Drake.

“You did this for me,” she said in awe she couldn’t mask.

His expression melted, and he resumed the sensuous stroking of his fingers. “Last night, before I came home.” He put his lips to hers once more to whisper, “I’d do anything for you, Natalie.”

And she believed him. “Love me. . . .”

“I do.”

“Take me to bed,” she pleaded.

He grasped the back of her head and planted his mouth firmly on hers to kiss her deeply, his tongue invading her, sweeping across her lips in slow form, making her body turn to liquid fire, making her wait, making her insane with want as he glided his fingers in steady rhythm over the slick heat between her legs.

With effort she pulled her face away from his. “Jonathan,
now.
”

He stood, lifting her easily in his arms. “I’m going to Amsterdam in five weeks,” he mentioned as an afterthought, brushing her cheek with his as he carried her to the stairs. “To steal an already stolen Rembrandt at auction.”

“Wonderful. . . .”

“Join me?”

“That’s a ridiculous question, Jonathan,” she replied breathlessly, tightening her hold about his neck and pushing her breasts into his chest. She traced a line along his ear with her lips, then admitted in a whisper, “I’m already mentally planning my wardrobe.”

He tripped, nearly dropping her before they reached the bedroom.

Author’s Note

W
hile I was writing this story, I knew having Natalie hide an emerald necklace in the heel of her boot might seem far-fetched to some readers. This plot device was not merely a product of my imagination.