Captive of Sin (33 page)

His pulse racing with a mixture of anticipation and trepi
dation, Gideon led Khan up to Charis. He felt like a nervous schoolboy. Absurd after all he’d been through with her. But recent events had created a new map between them, and he wasn’t yet sure how to navigate it.

“I should get you back to Penrhyn.” Before she could object, he caught her by the supple waist and tossed her up onto Khan’s back.

She laughed breathlessly and found her balance with the confidence of a natural horsewoman. “Apparently I have no say in the matter.”

“None at all.” He ignored her startled eyes and turned to shake Sir John’s hand again. “Come by the house tomorrow, and we’ll sort everything out.”

“I wish you good day, Sir Gideon, Lady Charis.” The man’s eyes held a spark of amusement. Obviously, he hadn’t forgotten what it was to be young and newly married.

Gideon shoved one booted foot in the stirrup and flung his other leg across the saddle. The high-strung horse danced under the double weight, but Gideon quickly brought him under control.

Charis sat across the front of the saddle, her back against Gideon’s arm, her skirts cascading down Khan’s side. He relished her sweet warmth. She wasn’t wearing a hat, and strands of soft bronze hair tickled his chin.

Raising a hand to Akash, who watched them with a faint smile, Gideon urged Khan to a canter along the path to Penrhyn.

“That was high-handed,” Charis said in a neutral voice once they were away from the crowd. Gideon noted she made no great effort to wriggle away. No effort at all, really.

He laughed and tightened his hold on her. “Black Jack lives in my veins, remember?”

He slowed Khan to a walk. The need to get back to the
house and confirm she was his in the most basic way was a fever in his blood. But he wasn’t a barbarian, much as he felt like one right now. They had to talk before he tumbled her into his bed.

She turned her face toward his. Her expression was unexpectedly grave. “Does all this mean you no longer want to send me away?”

Uncomfortable heat crawled up the back of his neck. “I never
wanted
to send you away.”

“Nevertheless that was—is—your plan.”

She wasn’t letting him wriggle out of this. He knew he had to lay his heart before her like a tribute before a despotic queen. Good God, he owed it to her, after acting such a self-righteous clodpole.

“That’s something we need to discuss.”

She arched her eyebrows. Suddenly the
grande dame.
“Oh?”

“I think…I believe…I hope…”

He stopped. Damn, he made a hash of this. Drawing a deep breath, he strove to present his case with a modicum of address. “I seem to have overcome my…problem.” At least it was a complete sentence, even if he stumbled over the last word.

He’d never settled on how to describe the creeping horror that suffocated him when the ghosts of Rangapindhi howled. In his mind, he’d always called his affliction the demons, but that seemed too melodramatic a description in the clear light of day.

Charis’s eyes were unwavering. “I know.”

He made a frustrated sound deep in his throat. “Curse you, you don’t sound very pleased.”

“Of course I’m pleased.”

“Or surprised.” He spoke over the top of her declaration.

“You forget I saw you in the mine. I’ve never beheld a man more in control of himself or circumstances. Even bound as you were.” Her voice softened. “What happened, Gideon?”

“It’s hard to explain.” He paused, seeking the words. “It goes back to learning to touch you. That changed the world for me.”

“And after all that, I nearly lost you when you handed yourself over to my stepbrothers.” He couldn’t mistake the anger in her voice or the furious gold sparks in her eyes.

“I’d die to keep you safe.” He spoke from the depths of his heart. “You know that.”

“Yet you say you’re not a hero,” she said bitterly.

“I’m just a man, Charis. But protecting you is part of who I am. You can’t ask me to change that. I couldn’t, even if I wanted to.” His voice lowered to persuasion. “Come, sweetheart, let’s make peace.”

“I suppose I’ll forgive you.” There was a misty light in her eyes as she surveyed him. “Eventually.”

The time had come. His gut clenched with nerves as he realized his happiness depended on the next few minutes. She wouldn’t call him a hero if she knew the sheer unadulterated terror that closed his throat. He meant to offer her everything he was and everything he had. If she refused him, she’d cast him into darkness again.

“Walk with me. It’s not far to the house.” Over the next rise, they’d see the sea and Penrhyn.
Home.

He drew Khan to a halt, slid to the ground, and lifted her down. His hands lingered at her slim waist, and again he fought the impulse to kiss her. They must settle everything first. Then, God help her, she’d spend the next week naked in his bed.

Hell, the next month.

They fell into step on the pale winter grass. The sun shone warm on his head, bright promise of a new spring.

For a few moments, they walked shoulder to shoulder, him leading a placid Khan. Gideon tugged off his gloves and grabbed her hand. He’d tried to resist touching her, but it was impossible. The memory of her, her voice, her face, her sweetness, were all that had sustained him through the long,
dark night of captivity. He needed to have her near more than he needed air to breathe.

Her fingers twined around his bare scarred hand with a welcome that made his heart stumble to a lovesick halt. Despite his hunger for her, he found himself reluctant to shatter this sweet idyll. There had been so much strife and anguish between them, this serenity seemed a benediction.

Typically, Charis was the one to confront all that lay unspoken. “Gideon, what happened at the mine?”

“I found myself again.” It was as close to the truth as he could manage. “You changed me. The memory of you kept me from losing my mind. And as the night went on, I discovered the dark was just the dark and people just people. The wild fancies of my imagination…vanished.” He put a vague thought into words. It was as good an explanation as any for the glorious change that had overtaken him. “A miracle.”

“No.” Her voice sounded husky as it always did when she succumbed to deep emotion. “It’s no miracle. Your own courage brought you clear of the storm. You faced your horrors when you surrendered yourself to my stepbrothers for my sake.”

Was she right? Would he ever know? It didn’t matter why he’d changed. What mattered was he
had
changed. “And being tied up in a mine gave me ample time for reflection.”

Charis released a spurt of unwilling laughter. “You sound like you recommend a period of incarceration.”

He gave a dismissive huff. “I wouldn’t go that far.” He sobered. He floundered for an explanation that made sense. Difficult, when none of it made sense to him. “I have to live with what happened in Rangapindhi. It wasn’t my fault my colleagues died…”

“But your conscience lacerated you because you couldn’t save them. It’s that overdeveloped protective instinct again.”

“I despised myself for living when they died.”

The words hung stark in the air. Her hand tightened around
his. The silent communication crushed the seeds of self-hatred still lurking in his heart. Her voice vibrated with sincerity. “My love, if you hadn’t lived, you couldn’t have saved me. The workings of destiny are mysterious.”

Her words echoed the odd moment of perception last night where he’d struggled to view himself as an outsider would. When he’d felt the shades of Parsons and Gerard hover uncannily close in the thick darkness, so reminiscent of the pit where his friends had died.

He’d always imagined his colleagues must hate him from beyond the grave for living when they’d perished in pain and humiliation. But the spirits that kept him company through the long hours of blackness in the mine had been benign, not angry at all. Ever since Rangapindhi, he’d remembered them as gruesome specters. Last night they’d visited him as they’d been in life. Fine, brave men who had sacrificed everything for duty.

Only then, blessed by his dead colleagues at last, had Gideon taken the most terrifying step of all.

He’d contemplated establishing a life at Penrhyn with Charis and, God willing, children. Trevithicks to fill the rambling old house with laughter and chaos and love. That hope had sustained him through the darkness and the violence and the incarceration. He wanted to build on the love that already grew between him and Charis and stoke it into a blazing, endless fire to light his days.

If she agreed.

His hand closed ruthlessly around hers. “And I thought about you.”

“I should hope so,” she said unsteadily. She looked up at him, and he caught the sparkle of tears in her hazel eyes.

“I thought how I love you and what an arrogant ass I’ve been.” He paused and spoke with difficulty. “Last night, I realized I’d reached the limits of selflessness. I sat in that cave and imagined living without you. I couldn’t bear to contemplate it.”

She lifted her free hand to touch his face in a gesture that
cut right to his aching heart. “Oh, my love, you don’t have to live without me.”

He came to a standstill. “Charis, I can’t promise I’m cured, I can’t promise anything beyond my eternal love. But you need to know I’ll never willingly give you up. You’re mine forever.”

The radiant certainty in her eyes warmed him to his bones. “Gideon, I love you. You love me. That’s all that matters.” Her smile took on a hint of seduction that fired his blood. “Now take me back to Penrhyn and swive me silly.”

Her gaze held no questions. She accepted him as her future just as he accepted her. More than accepted. Greeted with open arms. His doubts melted away like snow under the sun. He’d have time for explanations and apologies later. Or perhaps explanations and apologies would never be needed.

He dropped Khan’s reins. “Come here, Charis. If I don’t kiss you, I’ll go mad.”

Laughing, she fell against him. The kiss was an act of passionate gratitude for their survival, a wild melding of lips and tongues and teeth. It was a physical expression of a love that touched his soul. A love he knew would last the rest of his days. They were both breathless and trembling when they finally drew apart.

He lifted her up on Khan’s back and leaped into the saddle behind her. “Hold on!” he shouted and headed for home at a breakneck gallop.

Khan came to a rearing stop in Penrhyn’s front court, his hooves clattering on the stone paving. For Charis, the ride had passed in a rapturous blur of wind and color. She clung to Gideon, lost in a tumult of emotion. That extraordinary kiss still heated her blood, made her heart thunder.

A groom dashed out to hold the restive horse while Gideon jumped down and tugged Charis after him. Her feet fleetingly touched the ground before he swung her into his arms.

“Gideon!” she gasped, as he strode up the worn stone steps to the front door that opened as if by magic. Her heart swooped and skipped a beat. She felt like she was being kidnapped. It was incredibly exciting. “You make me breathless.”

“I will before I’m finished,” he promised in a low voice, marching into the house.

Ooh, yes, please.

She hooked one hand around the strong column of his neck as he passed the curtsying maid who had opened the door. The dark, cavernous hall flashed past, then they climbed the staircase. He turned at the landing and swept her into his room.

She’d never been in here. She had a momentary dazzling impression of light and casement windows opening onto a sparkling sea. Old carved furniture. A breeze smelling of the ocean.

Gideon started kissing her, and she didn’t care where she was as long as he never let her go. She closed her eyes and gave herself up to the hungry predations of his lips.

“I love you,” she said over and over in broken sentences, kissing his face and his neck and the skin revealed by his torn shirt. What exquisite freedom it was, finally to say the words without restraint.

He kicked the door so it banged shut behind him and carried her to the bed. He came down over her, kissing her as if he starved. The musky scent of his arousal filled her senses. Ruthlessly, he tugged his coat off and tossed it to the floor.

She’d long since known he wanted her. Their days in Jersey had been replete with sensual exploration. But the unfettered desire in his touch now was new. The barriers he’d always raised against her in his heart had dissolved to nothing.

She’d never felt claimed before. She felt claimed now.

And reveled in the possession because she knew he gave himself into her keeping with every touch, every kiss.

Shaking, she ripped at his shirt while he feverishly ran his hands over her body. Her breasts swelled and ached for his
touch. She yearned to feel the glide of his skin against hers. She yearned to welcome him inside her in the most intimate touch of all.

Impatience made her clumsy. She ended up tearing the ruined shirt until it fell in shreds from his heaving shoulders.

He tugged her upright and struggled to undress her while she rained kisses across his bare torso. Fresh bruises and abrasions marked his scarred skin. Reminder of what he’d endured for her sake. She bit down delicately on one light brown nipple and felt fierce reaction shiver through him. She did it again, harder this time.

“Devil take it, Charis. I’m filthy. I need a shave.” He clamped one powerful hand in her hair and drew her head back from his chest. His face was vivid with arousal. Color bloomed along his cheekbones and his eyes burned like black fire. “Do you want me like this?”

She laughed low in her throat and tore at his breeches. If he was a new, more dominating lover today, she’d transformed into an utterly shameless hussy. “Yes.”

“So be it.”

His face set with determination. Roughly, he wrenched open the jacket of her riding habit. Buttons flew through the air and bounced across the floor. He tore at the white shirt beneath. Within seconds, skirt, stays, and shift lay on the carpet.

The abrasion of his shadow beard on her naked skin made her cry out in delight. She arched so her breasts jutted forward, demanding attention. She fumbled at her hair, sliding pins free until it fell about her shoulders in an untidy mass.