Beloved (9 page)

“If you would rather leave—”

“No!” She advanced slowly, arms outstretched, feeling for obstacles.

“In God’s name.”

Ella stopped. He had spoken softly, but with such pain. “Saber, what has happened? What is it that has kept you from me? I
love—”

“Do not say that.”

She covered her mouth.

“Will you let me touch you, Ella?”

Touch her? “Of course you may touch me. You are my friend. You said you would always be my friend.” Two more steps took her
close enough for his shadow to become a presence. She felt his substance. A warmth emanated from the man, a warmth and an
essence of him, of his body and spirit. “You sent me a message.”

“You sent me many.”

“And you ignored them all.”

“Until now.”

She took one more step. “You sent a gift. A beautiful gift.”

“A cold gift. And another message.”

“A false message. The gem is cold, but your heart is warm, my dear friend. Since the night in Cornwall when you returned from
the fair to comfort a troubled girl, I have known your heart. What I felt for you at first has only grown, Saber. And I believe
you spoke your true feelings then.”

His tracing over her hair was so light, she reached to brush it away as she might a cobweb.

He trapped her fingers. “You said I could touch you.”

“You surprised me.”

“This will be the only time we can be together.”

She reached for him, found his solid chest, and filled her fingers with his jacket. “Why do you say such things? There is
no impediment to our being together now. I am no longer a child.”

His hand moved from her hair to her face. With the delicacy of a butterfly’s wings, he traced her brow, her eyelids, her cheeks—and
settled a forefinger on her mouth. “I remember your mouth, little Ella. God help me, I remember everything about you.” He
breathed out, long and slow. “I remember the scent of you. Wildflowers. You still smell of wildflowers, and sun on warm grass—and
sweetness.”

She held very still, but inside she trembled. “And I remember you. Everything about you. Why did you go away after you had
recovered from your injury? I wanted to be with you. You told me we would be together one day.”

“I had to go. Please do not speak of that. I had to return to India.”

“But you have come back again now, and—”

His finger on her lips sealed her words away. “This will be the only time, Ella. Should you prefer to leave me now?”

“I do not ever want to leave you!”

“What I want, I should turn from. What I want is wrong.” She pushed close and rested her cheek on his hard chest. “Whatever
you want should be yours. Tell me. I’ll get it for you.”

He laughed at that, a short, bitter laugh. “You have brought me what I want—and what will ensure that the remains of my miserable
life will be a penance.”

She did not understand. “I struggled against coming here tonight. Struggled and lost. But perhaps that is as well. We are
both in need of finding some peace for ourselves.”

“You mean together?” She could not hide the hope she felt. “No,” Saber said. “Apart. You must give up this pursuit of me,
Ella. I cannot bring you happiness.”

“I will not give you up.”

“Then I must make you do so.”

He spoke in riddles. “There is nothing you can do to drive me away,” Ella told him.

His sigh hurt her. “If only that were true.” Saber settled his hand on the back of her head and held her to him. “You do not
sound exactly as you did when you were that child in Cornwall.”

She smiled. “Mama—Lady Justine, as you knew her then—she made certain Max and I learned not to embarrass the Rossmaras with
our crude speech. Who would know that Max was once the property of a master pickpocket in Covent Garden? He’s a gentleman
now—at Eton, no less.”

“I’m glad,” Saber said, although he did not sound glad at all. He sounded ever more removed from Ella.

“And my owned wretched past—”

“You are who you were always meant to be,” he said sharply, and his fingers tangled in her hair until her scalp hurt. “You
are Ella. There will never be another like you.”

Then why did he say they could not be together—other than now?

“May I touch you, Ella?”

“Yes. I told you so.”

“And you have not changed your mind?”

“No, Saber. Do so. Please.”

For moments he remained still, then he set her a little way from him. “Your skin is golden, Ella.” He stroked her jaw and
her neck, until his fingertips settled on her bare shoulders. “And so soft. I have seen it often. I saw it when I was in India—and
on the ship—and I see it whenever I close my eyes and wish our lives had been different.”

Ella did not dare speak. She tingled where their skin met. Was this what they spoke of, the girls who twittered about the
way they felt in the company of men? Ella knew nothing of those feelings. She had never experienced them until now.

“Soft and golden,” Saber murmured. “I promised myself I would wait until you were old enough. And I was so certain our time
would come to be together.”

“And now it has,” she whispered, resting her palms on the smooth front of his shirt beneath his jacket and waistcoat. “I know
Papa—”

“You said I might feel you. May I kiss you, Ella?”

Kiss
. She had never been kissed. In her dreams, both waking and sleeping, she had imagined a kiss and it had always been Saber’s.

“May I kiss you and forget that there has been any past— or that there will be a future?”

“Kiss me, Saber.”

His head bowed over hers. His breath crossed her face, soft and warm. His lips met hers lightly.

Ella closed her eyes. She did not breathe. She thought her heart did not beat. She existed only where Saber’s lips rested.

Back and forth his mouth brushed, the softest of brushing while a deep sound came from him. A groan. His lips hardened, sought
she knew not what, pressed and parted, parted her lips also. Ella gasped, her breathing flowing into Saber, his breath returning
to fill her.

Her eyes flew open. His tongue ran along the seared skin inside her bottom lip, and passed her teeth—and met her tongue. His
tasting of her turned blood to water, bones to nothing. Her body and his—one. If he released her, she would fall.

“Mmm,” she murmured.

“Mmm what, Ella?”

“I like this kiss.”

“I like it too. I like kissing you.”

“Then perhaps you should kiss me again.”

He kissed her again, and again and again, and every kiss pressed deeper into her mouth. She clung to his shirt, his neckcloth,
whatever she could hold. The heat of him beat through to her, reached her skin and beyond. Strange sensations. Pulsing in
places she could not name but where she wanted to feel those sensations more and more—with Saber.

“It is not enough,” he told her.

“No.” What wasn’t enough? He would make it plain.

“Is it all right if …I will not pressure you, Ella. You have already suffered enough in your life.”

“And I have been very fortunate in my life, also.”

“Brave little Ella. Just once—may I feel your loveliness just once?”

“I am not lovely. But whatever I am is yours, Saber.”

He straightened, and she heard the rustle of his jacket as he took it off and tossed it aside. He moved more in the darkness,
removed his waistcoat. His shirt shone white in the gloom— until that, too, was gone.

Cautiously, Ella slipped the backs of her fingers over his chest. Soft hair. Smooth, warm, firm skin over bone and muscle.
So different in form from her own body.

Gently but firmly, he took her wrists and placed them at her sides. He turned her around and began unfastening her gown. She
sucked in a breath, but made no effort to stop him.

Slowly, cool air swept over the skin he bared. Her gown was undone, and her chemise. He slid them slowly from her shoulders
and down her arms, pulled the sleeves over her hands and let them fall.

Ella bowed her head and waited. If this was what Saber wanted, then she wanted it too.

She was naked to the waist. Never before had she been naked in front … Ella pressed away the memory that crowded in. It did
not count that she had been forced to suffer the scrutiny of men while she’d worn only a transparent scarlet gown. Her mind
had fled that moment, just as it had fled the sights that had surrounded her on that terrible night, in that terrible house
of evil. And at least, thanks to Papa, she had been saved from the full extent of whatever dreadful fate had been planned
for her in that house.

Saber kissed her again, this time on the vulnerable back of her neck. She shivered.

“Cold?”

She shook her head and hunched her shoulders, fighting an urge to cover herself. With Saber this was right, it was as it should
be.

He urged her against him. Her back met his chest and she leaned. Then his caressing hands rose over her shoulders and across
the tender place at the dip in her throat, and passed lower to stroke over her breasts.

Ella smothered a cry. This was Saber, the man she loved. He covered her breasts, lifted and supported them, and rested the
sides of his thumbs on her nipples.

She took little gulps of air. Her breasts ached. Her nipples grew hard beneath the flicking brushes of his thumbs. Hard and
searingly aware. Arching against him, she rolled her head, seeking. Seeking? What could feel so? What could pass through a
woman’s body like white hot strands, strands of pleasure that demanded to be drawn through her without end?

His next kiss lingered on one shoulder, his breath slipping over her breast.

She did not need to see him to know his face, to know his form, to
feel
him.

When he took his hands from her breasts she was bereft, but waited patiently for his command. Very quickly he slipped her
clothes from her hips until they fell about her feet.

Clad in only her stockings and slippers, she stood in a strange room, in a strange house, with the man she had loved since
she scarcely knew what love meant.

Her ribs, her waist, her belly—he explored them all with reverent care. Her thighs received his patient attention.

They had no need of words.

There was no before. There would only be now and forever. He touched her there! “Hush,” he said against her shoulder when
she made a sound. “Whatever you have known is in the past. This is what I want you to know now—and to remember. My wish is
to give you pleasure.”

The place at her center burned at his probing.

Bewildered, Ella twisted to face him. She tried to hold him but could not. He bent and licked the tip of a nipple.

“Saber!” Her legs jerked, and she gripped his tensed arms. Cupping her breasts, nuzzling between, he captured first one nipple,
then the other. He drew her deeply into his mouth, and she was helpless. Nerve and flesh, all wanting—all taking.

He straightened, and claimed her mouth again.

Ella slipped her arms around his waist and pressed her breasts to his chest. His hair teased her nipples, inflamed the hot,
white threads again, and this time she knew where they began and where they sought to bury themselves. The curls between her
legs hid the source of tormenting desire that did not fulfill or release her.

Saber’s hips met her belly. The part of him she knew was his manhood thrust against her. Huge in its strength, it sought her.
Again the dim but awful images hovered in her memory. They had no place here. Those were other bodies, other mindless bodies
that providence had kept from harming her.

With greedy fingers, she sought the weight of him, surrounded and held it, heard his broken moan, met the fresh lunge of his
hips.

His mouth on hers swallowed her cry as he walked her backward. Her bottom met the edge of something solid.

Saber’s mouth left Ella’s, and she looked up at him. In the darkness his eyes glittered, and his teeth. She knew those eyes.
They were the deep green of deep water. Then the light was gone again and once more his lips covered hers—and his fingers
delved into the curls where pleasure hovered.

She felt the slick wetness of her own body and blushed. He would feel it too. He used that slickness to slip into her most
private place, to slip in and slip out. He used her own womanly elixir to glide over a tiny hardened bud where all ecstasy
was centered. The ecstasy hovered, begged for what she could not form in her mind.

Again he found the passage that closed without bidding around his fingers. Again he returned to the swollen bud. This time
his mouth fastened to her breast, and while he took her nipple between his careful teeth, he worked the bud ceaselessly.

Tension brought her thighs together, clamped his hand.

White hot. It shattered, frayed, blossomed black and red and consumed her. Ella cried out—a scream she could not swallow.
He had rent her, and she welcomed the wound, the beloved wound that needed no healing. Might she never heal from this moment.

“My beautiful Ella,” Saber said against her breast. “I thought I could convince you—convince myself that our lives must never
touch. Perhaps I thought I might do that through teaching you a lesson, poor fool that I am—teach you that I am a poison,
to myself and to you. You must go on. But how shall I ever live now?”

She struggled to understand. While all her body throbbed, she fought to clear her mind. And she reached for Saber, for his
strong arms and wide shoulders—for his broad back.

“I should like to touch all of you too,” she said timidly. “Might I do that?”

He held still.

Beneath her right hand, a knot of flesh marred the skin of his shoulder. She pressed her lips together and felt his tension.
“This is where you were wounded, my dearest. Let me soothe you. There is more to this thing between us, isn’t there? What
you have made me feel tonight. You need me to do for you what you have done for me.”

“What have I done for you?” His tone was no longer gentle.

“Brought me so much joy.”

“No,” he said. “I have tasted joy to which I had no right. And I was weak enough to relish every stolen moment. It is more
than I deserve.”