Harlequin Historical May 2014 - Bundle 2 of 2: Unwed and Unrepentant\Return of the Prodigal Gilvry\A Traitor's Touch (21 page)

When he said her name, his voice was hoarse. She kissed him lingeringly, then lifted herself just a fraction, allowing her nipples to graze his chest, his belly, and his shaft.

He swore. That word he had used back in Glasgow that first day. She teased him again, kissing him first, then working her way back down from chest, to belly, to the straining length of his erection.

‘Take those things off, Cordelia. I need to be inside you.'

She shook her head, circling her fingers around him. Her hands, slick with oil, slid up with ease. Iain closed his eyes. His hands curled into tight fists. She slid her hand down to the base of his shaft, leaning over him, so that he was nestled between her breasts. ‘Open your eyes, Iain. I want you to watch.'

‘You will kill me.'

‘No.' She kissed him again, forcing him to kiss her back slowly. ‘I won't kill you,' she whispered, ‘but I will make sure you never forget this.'

‘Cordelia, I don't know what you're planning to do, but I can assure there's no need. This is already more than memorable, but if you don't take those things off and let me— It will be memorable for all the wrong reasons.'

She laughed then. ‘Iain Hunter, I think you underestimate us both,' she said, and began her assault.

This time, she did not hesitate. She remembered how he had kissed her in this most intimate of ways, and it seemed the most natural thing in the world to kiss him in the same way, her tongue flicking over his tip, her lips nuzzling down the length of him and back. She glanced down at him. His eyes were wide open, utterly focused. She wrapped her hand around his member and stroked him, then dipped her head back down to kiss the tip once more.

His chest rose and fell rapidly, but he lay rigid, holding himself clenched tight, his eyes riveted on her. She opened her lips, and took him inside her, letting her mouth do the work of her hands, letting her tongue slide over his most sensitive part as his had slid over hers. She forgot herself as she kissed him, stroked him, tenderly, lovingly and then finally, when she sensed he was about to lose control, passionately.

As his climax tore through him, he pulled her up against him, kissing her wildly, his arms like manacles, binding her body to him as he came, his heart hammering against hers, his mouth hot, hard on hers, and between them, the shuddering, pulsing of his orgasm.

Not even that first time had she felt such an elemental joy, the elation of being one being, of abandoning everything she was and surrendering it all to this new creation. She lay as sated as he, spread over him, their breaths mingling, utterly at peace.

‘Cordelia.' With a horrible sense of doom, she lifted her head. She should have known that Iain would not be so easily put off.

‘We need to talk,' he said.

* * *

The moment he had seen her in the courtyard he knew. He was in love. He really was in love. Still, he had not intended to tell her, determined to allow her to get this meeting with her cursed sister out of the way, unsure of whether he had even a chance of her returning his feelings, until she had done this.

But now! Surely she would not have done this most intimate act unless she loved him? And surely nothing mattered more than that he told her he loved her? Not even the blessed Lady Celia.

Studying Cordelia as she sat on a heap of cushions, resting her back against one of the corner fountains, Iain felt an unwelcome shadow of doubt creep into his thoughts. If he did not know better, he'd have said she looked quite dejected. But he did know better. Bloody Celia.
Was
he being selfish?

He grimaced inwardly. It was hardly selfish to tear open the wound that had never quite healed, just so Cordelia could inspect it. He felt quite ill at the thought of it, but it was the only way he could think of to show her how he felt, and the only way he could think of to persuade himself he had nothing to fear. ‘Ach!'

Cordelia looked up with the ghost of a smile. ‘Iain, whatever it is you are torturing yourself with, there is no need. I know what you're going to say.'

He had been pacing the courtyard as if it were the deck of a ship. Now he came to sit beside her, not on the cushions but on the edge of the fountain. ‘You guessed?'

‘It wasn't so difficult. After last night...'

‘Aye. It was then I realised, though not until today that I was sure.'

‘Then Akil made the decision for you.'

‘Akil?' Iain frowned. ‘I remember now.
The blessing of a true companion in life is indeed one of the greatest.
It was well put, but I think I'd already made up my mind. The only question was the timing of it. I was going to wait until you'd seen your sister, but after tonight, I can't.' He held up his hand when she would have spoken. ‘No, don't say anything, for it's hard enough. I've never told anyone before, you see, what I'm going to tell you. About my mother.'

‘Your mother!'

‘Aye, you may well look surprised, but she's the reason, you see, why it took me so long to—to...' Iain stopped. His head was in a tangle. He didn't want to just blurt it out. He had to explain first. ‘I'd best start at the beginning'.

* * *

‘My mother was a very beautiful woman,' Iain said. ‘I mentioned she was from the Highlands, I think. Well, what I didn't tell you was that she didn't leave of her own accord. She got herself into trouble, as they say. She was pregnant.'

Cordelia stared at him. This was not at all what she had been expecting. ‘But didn't they—in the Highlands—I am no expert, but they seemed to me very tight-knit communities. Was not the man who was responsible made to marry her?'

‘Aye. No doubt he would have, but my mother was having none of it.'

He looked distinctly uncomfortable. With a horrible feeling of déjà vu, she began to understand why. ‘She didn't love him,' she said.

‘No. She didn't.'

‘I can see now why my story resonated so deeply with you,' Cordelia said with a sinking feeling. She frowned down at her fingers, which had found the golden belt holding up her pantaloons to play with, and had already managed to unravel one strand. ‘But she did marry him though, in the end, because you said your father...'

‘The man she married wasn't my father. I called him that, but I knew, for she told me on several occasions, that he was not.'

‘Yet he took care of you.'

‘As best he could, when he was sober. He wasn't a bad man, just a very disappointed one. He loved my mother, you see, to his dying day.'

‘But it was the loss of his daughter that killed him,' Cordelia said.

Iain shook his head. ‘Jeannie was no more his flesh and blood than I was. My mother called herself a passionate woman. Our neighbours called her a floosie.'

‘Oh, hell, Iain, I am so very sorry.' She made to get up, she wanted to sit beside him, to offer him some sort of comfort, but he warded her off.

‘I need to get this out of the way. I need you to understand.'

Indeed, she thought she did now, in a dreadful, final way, but she bit her tongue, refusing to let her selfish, heartbroken tears fall, for what good would they do Iain? ‘Go on.'

‘There's not much more to tell. As you can imagine, it's coloured my views on love and marriage so that they've always been more or less black.'

‘Considering your formative experience, I think you have done remarkably well.'

Iain shrugged. ‘I thought I'd succeeded in life despite the odds, but I'm coming to think that my upbringing was the making of me. No, don't get me wrong, I'm not going to tell you I wouldn't have had it any other way, but one thing I've learned since getting to know you, that being born with a silver spoon makes not a whit of difference.'

‘You cannot possibly compare us, Iain. I have had every advantage...'

‘Save for a mother's love. Or a father's. Think how different you'd be if your mother hadn't died, or if Celia had stayed longer to play the mother. Think what your life would have been like if your father had given a toss about you,'

‘Pray, don't mince your words.'

‘I would, if I thought you cared, but I think you've finally grown out of that.'

Cordelia's smile was bittersweet. ‘You are the only person on this earth who knows me so well.'

‘I used to think that was a weakness to be avoided at all costs, but that's another thing you've taught me,' Iain said. ‘No, for once just take the compliment, Cordelia. I've accused you a good few times of not trusting anyone, but I've never, until you forced me to, considered that the fault in me might be just as big a problem.'

‘Thank you,' she stammered, for tears were clogging her throat.

‘And I wanted to be absolutely honest with you. I—when you told me about D'Amery, I— It was wrong, but I...'

‘It made you think of your mother.'

Iain nodded. ‘The circumstances are not at all the same.
You
are not like her, but...'

‘But what if I am?'

‘But you're not.'

She felt sick to her stomach, but he had been so painfully honest, she could not bear to allow him to continue in ignorance. ‘I have never had a child. I have never married, but Gideon is not the only man I have taken into my bed, Iain. There have been others.'

‘Others?' He looked at her blankly.

‘Other lovers,' Cordelia said.

‘‘How many? No, don't answer that.' He cursed. ‘I wish you hadn't told me. Why are you telling me now?'

Because she loved him. Which was no reason. ‘Because I don't want you to feel guilty about telling me to go.'

‘Go?'

She could sit still no longer. ‘It's what you've been working up to, and I can't bear it. I know you are tired of the lies, Iain, but I find I am not. Though in a way I am. Oh, God, I'm not making any sense.'

She took a hasty turn to the next fountain and back again, remembering as she did how she had counted out her steps in his lodgings, when she had told him the truth about Gideon. So long ago. As if she was a different person. But she was not, and she could no longer deny her history.

‘Five,' Cordelia said, ‘not counting Gideon. I have had five other lovers. I told myself they were none of your business. Then, when you reacted so—after what happened between us the night of my father's party, I decided I didn't want any other man getting between us. I wanted you, you see. And I— Yes, I will say it. I thought that you would judge me more harshly for six men than one. They meant nothing to me. Until you told me about your mother, I thought that was a fact in my favour. I see now that you cannot but hold it against me.'

‘Yet you told me all the same,' Iain said. ‘Why?'

He did not sound angry, but she was far too overwrought to judge the matter. ‘I told you, I don't want you to feel guilty.'

‘Guilty! God almighty Cordelia, do you know, I came here tonight pretty sure of what I felt and what I wanted to say to you. And then you—we—you did that. I thought it was because you felt— I thought— And now you tell me this. And it's not just this either, for this damned thing with your sister is still hanging over you, and it's my belief until you get it out the way, then I haven't a hope in hell of getting through to you. I should have waited.'

And if he had waited, if he had not made the parallels between herself and his mother crystal clear with this shocking revelation, Cordelia shuddered to think how the conversation would have gone. She would have told him that she loved him, and then they would both of them have been hurt. At least she had spared him the shame of having to reject her. ‘I am glad you did not,' she said. ‘At least now you know the full truth you need not feel guilty.'

‘I don't feel guilty. I feel bloody confused.' Iain ran his fingers through his hair. ‘Just what was that all about, any road?' he asked. ‘All those things you said about making me remember you. Do you think there's any chance in hell I'd ever forget you! I sometimes wish I could, do you know that? My life would be a damned sight easier without you in it.'

Which brought them right back to what she'd been trying to avoid hearing him say. And which confirmed without doubt that her confession had done exactly what she'd expected it too. ‘Then it's as well that I will be gone from it sooner rather than later,' Cordelia said.

‘I didn't mean that. Cordelia, what you did, I thought...'

‘No!' She could not bear it if he realised what she felt. She simply could not bear it. The urge to run, to flee from him right now, was so strong that she had to curl her toes up inside her leather slippers to prevent herself. ‘What I did,' she said, ‘was prove to you that I am not so inhibited as you accused me of being.'

Her words came out sounding satisfactorily careless. Dismissing her feelings, making so light of what had meant so much, made her curl up inside, but she held his gaze and stood her ground, and she refused to think about what that wounded look of his meant. He was not hurt. Or if anything was hurt, it was simply his male pride.

‘I see.' Iain's expression tightened, and then became unreadable. ‘Another first for you to chalk up. I should be honoured. I assume it was also farewell?'

‘You were the one who said you were tired of lying, Iain. I thought— I did not think— I was being selfish. You are right. As ever,' Cordelia said with a lopsided smile. He looked as if he would protest, though she could not understand why. Tears threatened to clog her throat. She fought desperately to contain them, forcing a yawn and another queer little smile. ‘I am very tired and I have an early start, and you will no doubt want to be fresh for my brother-in-law's arrival, so I will bid you goodnight.'

She could not bring herself to say goodbye. It was not really goodbye in any case, because their paths would be bound to cross at some point in the near future at least.