Between the Devil and Ian Eversea (16 page)

“A charming house. I remember how much I liked the garden when I saw it last.”

“I loved the garden. My mother planted so many of the flowers there. I had such a wonderful time helping her. And my brother would chase me around it, pretending he was a British soldier and I was an American. The joke was on both of us when we went to live in America and we couldn’t decide who would be the enemy.”

Ian laughed. “Brothers are experts at torment.”

“I suppose you would know. You’re fortunate to have so many.”

“I suppose I am. Did you know Lilymont is for sale?”

“Oh.”
It was a syllable of pure yearning. “How fortunate the new owners will be. I wonder if you can still see my name on the wall where I scratched it there with a little knife. Underneath the ivy in the corner next to my mother’s favorite apple tree.”

Ian was quiet. His hat remained in his hand, and the wind ruffled the hair away from his forehead. He had the eyes of a rifleman, she thought.

And there was a look of contemplative assessment in them, the same look her mother would get when poring over the kitchen budget looking for errors. As if he’d needed to erase an impression of her and start over at the beginning.

Suddenly his eyes focused at some point on the top of her head, flicked to and fro.

Where they stopped.

And then he slowly grinned.

“
Now
why are you grinning at me? It can’t mean anything good.”

He seemed to love it when she was riled. He did it very easily, riling her.

“It’s . . . well, you should see your hair. It’s every which way.”

“No!”
Her hands flew up to her head, aghast. “Is it? Well, I’m certain it’s nothing compared to yours.”

He gave her a look of pity. “Good try. As if I mind what my hair looks like.”

“You
should
,” she muttered darkly.

She could see him struggling mightily not to laugh again. “And where the devil is your bonnet? I assume you went out wearing one.”

She felt around the back of her neck but already knew it was gone. “Bloody—that is,
drat
.”

“Left it behind, did you, while you were burying victims, eh? Or trysting?”

She rolled her eyes. “I
thought
I felt it fly off. It was such a pleasure, you know, to ride like that, and I suppose I didn’t . . .”

He craned his head behind them. “I don’t see it. Perhaps you left it . . . wherever you were. Why don’t we go and fetch it?”

She rolled her eyes at him again. “Good try. But . . . I’ll need to repair my hair before I return.” She was fussing now. “I can’t go home looking like I’ve been ravished.”

She slid him a tentatively minxlike sidelong look.

He just shook his head slowly.

“Leave it be, Miss Danforth. I like it this way. It makes you look as wild and disreputable as you truly are.”

“At least you like
something
about me.”

A curious silence ensued.

He looked a bit taken aback. And thoughtful.

If she’d hoped he’d launch into a list of all the things he liked about her, she was sorely disappointed. He remained quiet, watching her, with a look that started a little ballet of butterflies in the pit of her stomach. She sensed there
were
other things he liked about her, but he couldn’t say them aloud. At least not to her.

“I wish I had a mirror,” she said finally.

He appeared to give serious consideration to her dilemma.

“Perhaps you can see yourself in my eyes.”

She blinked.

And then went very, very still.

The words had been issued oh so offhandedly.

She had no doubt he would see the impact immediately, because he was watching her.

It was a dare. Suddenly, out of nowhere, without warning . . .

Was Ian Eversea at last flirting with her?

Or . . . testing her?

Or some interesting combination of both?

Chapter 16

S
HE PONDERED THIS CONUNDRUM.

He maintained a neutral expression.

How many times had he said this sort of thing to other women?

Surely
she
of all people would be able to call his bluff.

“Perhaps I
can
see myself in your eyes,” she said cautiously.

She took a step toward him.

And then another.

And another.

She saw his mouth begin to curl at the corners at her cautious progress.

At last she was close enough to catch just a whiff of what she suspected was bay rum and starch. Her head swam. Her heart lurched.

And then she subtly squared her shoulders and tipped her head back and looked into his eyes.

It was only marginally less difficult than looking into the sun, for different reasons.

His eyes were so blue she felt them like an ache inside her, and she felt her fingers curl into fists, withstanding the impact. It seemed such an intimate thing to know about a person, that a darker ring of blue surrounded the lake of his iris, that his eyelashes were black but burnished a sort of russet at the tips, that his pupils had gone large and dark and his breath seemed to have stopped and—

Her nerve failed.

She exhaled, which is how she knew she’d stopped breathing, in a long shuddery breath, and ducked her head. And took a step backward.

He was deep water, and she was in over her head, as he never tired of pointing out.

She thought she could hear him breathing. How very still he’d gone. There was a suppressed energy about him. She was reminded of a fox patiently waiting for just the right time to pounce on a vole. She did indeed feel like the only woman in the world just then.

“No. I can’t see myself very well in them,” she said, her voice gone small.

On the contrary, she saw herself there very well indeed.

A peculiar prickling started up at the back of her neck. The butterflies were now performing a vigorous reel.

As he’d implied before, she didn’t know quite what to do about it.

Which made her feel young and gauche again.

And a little angry. He never seemed to tire of pointing out her naive inadequacy to her in all manner of ways.

There was an odd little silence as they perused each other from a safe distance.

He cleared his throat.

“Ah. Well, there’s a stream, nearby, Narcissus.” His voice had gone gruff. “I think you can see yourself reflected in it. Have a look, if you must.”

They rode over to a likely place, and he dismounted, produced a handkerchief, and spread it out along the ground at the bank, which was mercifully not too damp. He gestured with a flourish for her to kneel.

Just like Sir Walter Raleigh. Well, almost like Sir Walter Raleigh.

Like an empress, her nose exaggeratedly in the air for effect and just to make him smile, she strode over and gracefully knelt, and bent to see if she could indeed use the surface of the stream as a mirror.

She could. And he was right. If they were going to reference the Greek myths, she would have to go with Medusa.

She set about pulling out the pins which were askew. A swift run of her hand over her head told her she’d lost a few of them. She thrust her fingers up through it and gave it a good raking, an attempt to tame it.

She was so preoccupied with the reconstruction of her hair it took her a moment to realize he’d been absolutely silent for quite some time.

She turned to make sure he hadn’t disappeared.

An expression she couldn’t decipher fled from his face as she did.

She might have called it “rapt,” but it was gone far too quickly for her to be sure. Perhaps it had just been gas.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Just engaging in the time-honored pastime of suffering the loss of precious minutes of my life for the sake of a woman’s vanity.”

“Oh, you poor thing, to be so very ill-used. You’re fortunate you’re passable looking, Captain Eversea. Because if you actually possess any of that vaunted charm, I’ve yet to witness it.”

This, as she’d suspected, just made him laugh. “Hurry,” he said ungraciously, just to prove her point.

She managed to twist and tame her hair and jab pins into it, and she was satisfied with the result.

“How did I do?”

He studied her, wearing a faint frown, so long and in such a way that it suddenly became a bit more difficult to breathe.

“Less interesting, but more presentable,” was his cryptic verdict.

She eyed him suspiciously for signs of mockery. None was evident.

He looked a little preoccupied himself, in fact.

He hadn’t blinked in quite some time. Unnerving.

She felt a bit like prey.

And again, she wasn’t quite certain what to do about it. The butterflies did a slow orbit in her stomach. This is why I oughtn’t ride alone, she thought.

She stood without his assistance, plucked up his handkerchief, and he took two steps toward her horse in preparation for hoisting her up again.

And then—

Later, she would find it ironic that she hadn’t actually thought to feign a stumble before then.

All she knew was that she was upright one moment and on her way down the next. She saw the ground coming at her and thrust her hands out with a muffled shriek and—

She hit what felt like a wall.

Which turned out to be Ian, who had lunged for her with lightning speed. Her head thumped his chest, and her hands latched into his shirt and pulled as he levered her smoothly upright again, as if they were performing some sort of awkward tango.

When she’d oriented herself again she realized she’d managed to yank open his shirt and her hand had slipped between the buttons.

It was a moment before she realized:

She was touching his
skin
.

Instantly she felt the leap and tension of his muscles.

She stopped breathing.

Judging from the tension in him, so had he.

The moment seemed suspended in time.

Her fingers fanned out, tentatively, just a little. She just couldn’t help it. She wanted to touch a little more of it, while the opportunity presented itself. She wanted to imagine the rest of him unfurling from just that spot.

And a beat of held-breath silence ticked by before he spoke.

“Don’t,” he said gruffly.

It was too late. She couldn’t have moved her hand if he’d aimed a pistol at her.

His skin was hot and silken over a chest that was frighteningly, fascinatingly, hard. She was a little afraid now, but she could not have pulled away if she tried. “Tansy . . .” His voice was a soft warning.

He didn’t pull away from her, either.

Time suddenly seemed to slow, to thicken, to soften, like . . . like . . .

Lava.

His voice was softer now. The edges husked. It stroked over her senses like rough velvet.

“You try too hard, Tansy. Do you know what you remind me of?”

“A dream come true?” she whispered it.
I’m touching Ian Eversea’s skin I’m touching Ian Eversea’s skin.

“Someone who always grabs the soap too enthusiastically, and finds it flying out of her grasp over and over.”

“Imagining me in the bath, are you?”

He laughed. Shortly, though. A distracted laugh. Somewhat pained.

“I think you come at everyone before they can come after you, Tansy. You’re afraid to be—”

He stopped abruptly.

Vulnerable
, she completed silently in her head, astonished. Certain that’s what he meant.

It was astonishing for a number of reasons.

Because it was true.

Because he’d been unnervingly insightful.

And because she realized he’d stopped because . . .

He’d been talking about himself.

She didn’t dare say
that
out loud.

She turned her face up to him.

He must have seen the wondering realization in her face, because his eyes almost
literally
shuttered. Cool, inscrutable. If it was a color in an artist’s palette, she would have called it “Warning Blue.” She’d have to be a masochist to want to breach that defense. He’d immolate her with a few drawled words.

“What happened to you?” she whispered, before she could stop herself.

Because after her parents died, she’d stopped knowing when to be afraid.

Something
had made him the way he was. Just as something had made her the way she was.

Somewhat distantly she was aware of his heartbeat quickening beneath her palm. A glorious feeling. How incongruously soft and warm his skin was in contrast to those cold, guarded eyes. Her imagination wandered. Would his skin be like this everywhere on his body? Would she find different textures, curling hair, more muscle . . . his hands were on her thighs.

His hands were on her thighs!

She’d been so distracted by her own reverie, she hadn’t noticed, and now it was too late. They’d landed softly, stealthily. And now he was drawing his fingertips up along them, up over the curve of her hips, lightly and achingly slowly, as if pointing out to her precisely how female she was, how he saw her, how ensnared she was.

Because she certainly was.

The hairs stirred upright at the back of her neck and over her arms; her nipples were suddenly almost painfully alert, and his dragging fingertips over the fine, fragile muslin sent rivulets of flame fanning out through her body. It was so exquisite and fascinating, she forgot to draw breath.

In seconds he’d knit a net for her out of her own desire.

Then, with the speed of a wolf seizing a hare, he scooped his palms beneath her buttocks and pulled her hard against him. And held her. He looked down into her eyes, his pupils large, black. He waited, it seemed, just long enough for her to feel the beginning of what would undoubtedly prove to be a very fine erection. For her body to soften, to yield, to fit to him. For her hands to slip around his neck and clasp him.

What followed wasn’t a kiss so much as a siege.

When his lips landed against hers—magically, her head was already tipped back to receive them—she tensed. An instant later it seemed the rightest thing in the world, the fit of his mouth over hers. Suddenly, it was the answer to everything. Ah, and too late she understood,
here
was the danger of which he spoke. Firm, warm, sinuously clever, he brushed his lips over hers, introducing her to the universe of pleasure that could be had from her lips alone.

Before he plundered.

Her mouth parted beneath his with a sensual knowledge as old as time and stronger than sense. Her hands slid down and she clutched at his shirt for balance as layer upon layer of new pleasure was revealed to her in the stroke, the dive, the twining of his tongue with hers. And somehow what began as a proving kiss of near violence evolved into something different. Something sensual, depthless, heady, drugging. She could feel him slow, his body ease. She was spiraling in some place where gravity didn’t apply. She would fall forever if she didn’t hold on to him; the kiss was her world now.

She moaned softly, her pleasure, wonder, spilling into sound. His body tensed as he pulled her more tightly. She could feel the outline of his hard cock at the crook of her legs, and a shocking pleasure cleaved her. She pressed herself closer still, and he ground himself against her, and it hurt, and it felt wonderful. She wanted to disappear into him.

“Tansy,” he breathed hoarsely. “God.”

And suddenly she knew that he could take her right here, right now, and she would not have minded. She wanted something from him with a savagery she’d never known. His hands moved up over her back, slid upward to cradle her head, to hold her at her mercy as his mouth took and hers gave, and he hoarsely whispered,
“Sweet.”

He gently dragged his fingertips over the bare skin of her throat, leaving fine little fiery rivulets of sensation that traveled, shockingly, boldly to her breasts. Lightly, one of his fingers hooked into her bodice and he dragged it roughly over her nipple.

It was exquisite and terrifying.

“Ian.”
A raw gasp. She wanted more. And she was afraid.

He tore his mouth from hers, dropped his forehead against hers. His breath was hot, swift, ragged, against her face. And like that they breathed together, her breath so tattered it sounded nearly like sobs.

She would never be the same, she was certain.

And then he abruptly released her and stepped back.

Which seemed an unthinkable cruelty.

The two of them stood and stared and breathed like pugilists backing into their own corners again.

Her senses were in utter ruins. She would be ages collecting them again. Perhaps she’d never get them back in the proper order.

It could have been an eternity or seconds later when he spoke again.

“Many, many men wouldn’t have stopped, Miss Danforth.” He said it quietly.

Ah. So this was yet another lesson. Or at least that was what he wanted to pretend. How altruistic of him.

She gave a short, bitter little laugh.