Heather Graham (19 page)

Yet as he moved away to shed his trousers, she came up on her knees, then slipped from the bed. He turned to her, dropping his last piece of clothing, curious and surprised. If anything, he had been expecting an exceptional freeze from her this evening, after their encounter in the woods.

But she didn’t speak. She moved quickly to him. The blue velvet robe hung loose, and when she reached him, twining her arms around his neck, the rise of her breasts against his chest teased, then the full length of her body pressed erotically to his. She kissed the flesh of his chest. She rose on her toes, and her kiss fell against his throat as the taut brush of her nipples raked against him.

Sweet Jesus.

He didn’t move. He didn’t dare move. She reached up even higher, her eyes just touching his, then her lips forming lightly against his mouth, withdrawing, then the tip of her tongue encircling them.

He swept her into his arms, kissing her deeply, pulling her tightly against him. Letting her feel the hardening rise of his desire against the mound of her sex. The ache to possess her surged through him. He fought it. Fought the urge to sweep her up. He had to see where she planned to go next.

Down his throat. Kissing him. Lightly. That erotic flicker of her tongue. She was experimenting as she went, he knew. Tentative at first, then growing more secure. Her fingers roamed over his chest, fell lower. She followed with the liquid dance of her tongue. She stroked his sides with her knuckles. He waited, catching his breath, all of his being seeming to concentrate in a wealth of desire that pulsed against her.

He slipped his hands upon her shoulders, forcing the robe to fall to the floor. He lightly ran his fingers down the length of her spine, up again, down again. He began to hear the rush of her breath, feel its heat against him. Her head bent low. The softness of her hair rubbed against his chest, his hips, fell teasingly over the fullness of his erection. He groaned aloud, tensing. Ready to whisper that she was a temptress. To sweep her up into his arms, and down upon the bed. But she moved then. Laving him with the heat of her tongue. Going down slowly before him. Touching him, her fingers light and hesitant, brushing against him, curling more tightly. She buried her face against the fur of his belly, then he gasped out an amazed oath, for he felt the incredibly erotic flicker of her tongue against him. In seconds, a searing climax exploded throughout him. He swore again, near savage when he swept her up and into his arms, staring at her incredulously. She cried out at the dark tension restricting his features. “I meant to please you!” she whispered. Her emerald eyes were wild, her body was a golden flame in his arms.

She had given him so much. It didn’t matter. He wanted more. The very feel of her in his arms brought a sweet aching need to strengthen him again. Even as he laid her down, he wanted to be inside her. To drown in her. To be enveloped by her. His body followed hers. Melded within it. He closed his eyes and felt a fierce rigidity come pounding into him, and he forced himself to move slowly, to watch her eyes, to feel her body, and listen to its rhythms. He held himself above her, watching her lips, how the breath came and went within them, how she moistened them. He watched her eyes. How they opened to his, how she closed them quickly. And he watched how their bodies met, the subtle arch of her hips, the thrust of his sex sinking into her. She began to toss her head, breathing quickly. Her body suddenly arched violently against his. A cry escaped her, a gasp, a soft sob.

He cradled her in his arms, finding his own release, gentler than that first, startling explosion, exquisite nonetheless.

He listened to their breathing, loud and harsh in the silence of the night, fading to normal at last.

He leapt from the bed, striding for the fire, lighting a candle to set beside the bed. Uneasily she reached for her blue velvet robe, sweeping it quickly around her. Her eyes met his. She bit her lower lip, quickly looking downward.

Then she cried out, startled when he swept her up and carried her to the huge chair before the fire. He sat with her there upon his lap, raising her chin to his.

“Forgive me: I can’t help but being incredibly curious. You wanted my throat earlier. Yet tonight was near a paradise. Jesu, lady! What warranted that?”

She lowered her lashes. He eased his touch from her chin and she stared at the fire.

“Your search for Mary Kate. Especially after—this afternoon,” she said very quietly.

“Ah, I should have known,” he murmured.

“I didn’t mean to make you angry!” she said quickly, and her gaze found his again.

He exhaled slowly, thinking of how very young this unwilling bride of his was. And just how exquisite with her emerald eyes, shimmering copper hair, and temptress curves. If it weren’t for the extraordinary guilt. If it weren’t for the pain …

Yet perhaps there was some kind of a future. For both of them.

“That was a thank you? Milady, I will have to do my best to see that you are eternally grateful to me!”

She flushed, her lashes lowering again. “You don’t understand—”

He pressed a finger against her lips. “I do understand.”

“Mary Kate is very dear to me. She has been with me for years.” She looked to the fire again. “My father would be delighted, of course, to give you a ship for assuring me of her safe return, but I understand that you already have several.”

He laughed, gazing into her eyes, and wondering if she teased him or if she was serious.

“Well, milady, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I believe you already owe me a ship or two, and a great deal of money. I never did heard the exact specifications, but I understand you were to have an extraordinary dowry if I married you. But,” he said politely, “the thought was there, and I do appreciate it.”

She pushed against him, struggling to rise, soft color swirling to her cheeks. He tightened his arms around her, whispering huskily. “Ships are fine. But this other thank you gift you decided to give me …”

“Don’t mock me, please!” she murmured. “I just wanted you to know that I was grateful.”

“And I found your gratitude completely enchanting.” He gently stroked her cheek. Her features were so very perfect, her skin so soft and smooth. “Tell me,” he demanded. “Is life with me so very, very horrid?”

“I—”

“The truth, Rose.”

She would not meet his eyes. She shrugged. “Well, I—I’ve yet to slit my wrists,” she murmured, dark lashes falling over the flashing emerald of her eyes.

“My!” he exclaimed. “What an incredible declaration of emotion, my lady!” he teased.

He could well imagine that she blushed, but now her head lay against his chest, and the fire of her hair hid her expression.

He rose, sweeping her off her feet, carrying her along with him to the sweet encompassing softness of the bed.

This time, he made love to her. Tenderly. Completely. Leisurely. Stroking and arousing her. Wanting her hunger to reach unbearable heights, and her ecstasy to reach the same. He wanted to love her unselfishly. Undemandingly …

But even in that, he realized, the enchantment enwrapped him again. She awoke the wildest demons within his own soul. And there were things that he wanted from her, things he demanded.

“Whisper my name!” he urged her. “Whisper my name!”

She did so.

“Pierce …”

She arched and writhed. Whispered it again. And finally, “Please … oh, please!”

His fingers laced with hers and he glided into her, held her hard and firm beneath him. Moments later, her fingers were still curled tightly in his as she reached a volatile climax. He covered the cries of it with the tender fever of his kiss.

He slept well that night, entangled in the fire of her hair, in the silk of her limbs.

Slept, captured forever by the emerald of her eyes.

“I THINK THAT THIS
is the most perfect place in all the world,” Pierce told her. He was leaning against a giant oak with branches that dipped over a narrow, bubbling stream, idly watching the water as it danced on its way. The grass on either side of it was beautifully thick and rich and green, the water itself light blue and white where it skipped over the rocks. The foliage around them was encompassing, and though Castle DeForte was just over the rise behind them, it felt as if they were in a strange cool Eden. Gentle rays of the sun fell through the cover of foliage and trees. The light itself appeared to be green and gold in magical shafts. It was a beautiful place.

Rose, seated on the coat he had thrown down for her on the soft velvet grass just beyond the water, hugged her knees to her chest and looked out over the water smiling. She didn’t think that she’d ever felt quite so restful, so peaceful or happy.

She set her chin down upon her arms and watched him and felt the warming swell of her heart.

Don’t love Pierce DeForte! she warned herself, but the warning came too late, just as it had been too late the very first time she had silently given in to him.

He was too easy to care for. Arrogant, confident, commanding as he could be, she simply found herself too quickly beneath his spell.

Beneath the spell of a man who wanted her, but loved another woman.

She didn’t want to care for her husband, but she did. She definitely didn’t want to love him. There would be nothing but pain for her in loving him; that much seemed obvious.

But it also seemed that something infinitely tender had entered into their relationship now. She was convinced that, at the very least, he no longer thought that she had been any part of the conspiracy.

And she wished desperately that she could close her eyes and pretend that the past had never been. Because the present was as sweet and glorious as the cool, clean air that drifted from the water gently swirling by them.

How odd. In so very many things, he was the wiser of the two of them. He was older, far more powerful, stalwart, and incredibly strong, the warrior who had stood by his king in good times and bad.

But he didn’t understand. Yes, she still held back. Not the way that she had longed to hold back. For all his greater wisdom in the ways of the world, he just didn’t realize that she could never forget that he was really in love with another woman.

The time would come when he found where Jamison had taken Anne. What then? What of the passion and the love she had discovered, even in the midst of their argument? She admitted now that she had been drawn to him from the very beginning, when he had pulled her into the water. Drawn by his eyes. Drawn by the heat and tempest in his hands when he touched her. Drawn by the way that he loved her, so passionately, with no quarter given, with complete demand …

And with such startling tenderness.

And since that night when she had awaited him, things had changed. Several days had passed now, but each morning when the dawn broke, he was still with her, stroking her shoulder, her back. Whispering softly. Sometimes ardently. Awakening her.

He sent messages that he would dine with her. He told her when he was going into London for business, and when he would return.

Last night he had spent the night away. But when he had returned in midmorning, he had sent Garth looking for her immediately, asking her if she would be so good as to ride with him.

And he had brought her to this beautiful embankment. He had lifted her down from her mare with tender eyes, touched her lips when she had slid against him.

He had doffed his long coat, and set her on the grass, and now stood by the tree, looking out over the water. Clearly he loved this place. Seeing him here, she felt as if he had opened a bit of his soul to her, and she shivered suddenly, afraid.

“It is the most beautiful place in all the world,” he said softly. “When I wandered with Charles, wondering if I would ever come home again, I didn’t really miss the castle. I missed this place.”

Rose could well understand his feelings. But she smiled dreamily, feeling a tug at her own heart. “Oh, it’s beautiful!” she agreed. “Very, very beautiful. But it’s not the most beautiful place in the world.”

“Oh?” His eyes focused on her with their silver sizzle. His lip curled at one corner into an amused, sensual smile. “Where, pray tell, my well-traveled lady, might the most beautiful place in all the world be?”

“In the Virginia colony,” she said softly.

“A great planter’s house. Your father’s home?” he inquired.

She shook her head. “It’s a place very much like this. My father’s house sits on the river, so that his ships may come to dock. But inland from the house is a stream. It runs over flat land, not gently rolling like this, but truly, you cannot imagine the color of it! Nothing on earth is so green, or so very rich. Except in fall, and then you have never seen such shades of gold, deeper than any fire. Red like blood. Oranges, crimsons—it is extraordinary. And the water rushes by cool and incredibly sweet to drink. I know what most Englishmen think of the colonies. That they’re wild and savage and barbarian. But it’s not like that at all anymore.”

He came and sat down beside her, plucking a blade of grass from the ground, idly chewing it. His silver gaze touched her. “What is it like?”

She arched a brow to him. “My home?” He nodded. She shrugged her shoulders. Having had so much to say a moment ago, she was suddenly hesitant. “Well, the main house is really wonderful. Years ago, not long after the first settlement at Jamestown, there was an awful uprising by the Pamunkey Indians under Powhatan. So many settlers were massacred! But after that, the colonists came very strongly against the Indians. They forced them back inland.” She hesitated. “Actually, we stole their land,” she murmured. “In a way, though, many of them are still with us.” She smiled at him. “And many of our people with Indian blood have very blond hair—intermarriage does not take long in a lonely wilderness.”

“Tell me more. Tell me about this great paradise that is so wonderful, you were willing to risk life and limb to escape me and reach it.”

“Pierce, I …”

“Never mind. Tell me,” he laughed.

“There is not so awfully much to tell,” she said, but smiled. “What we have is called a ‘hundred’ for a hundred acres, but it’s far more than that. Father wound up getting grants and titles to thousands of acres. And he meant to become very rich right from the start, so he hired on dozens of indentured servants, and he enticed them with promises of land to give away. So now, on his ‘hundred,’ there are hundreds and hundreds of people. He rules like a little king, although he really has no title at all, except that he was very excited the last time I spoke with him because he was expecting to be knighted for his services to the king. That would make him Sir Ashcroft Woodbine. I haven’t heard, of course, whether the king has decided to do so or not, but Father would be very pleased. I don’t think that it would matter very much in Virginia anyway—the people all call him ‘m’lord,’ and they scurry about when he is near! He’s managed to acquire vast fields of cotton, sugar, and tobacco. He’s quite kindly for a tyrant. And he believes in absolute religious freedom, unlike the Puritans in the Massachusetts colony.” She sighed. “Not that Father is really such a theologian. Actually, he doesn’t want to be bothered by such things as religion, and so he tolerates absolutely anything, although the high-standing members of the community do worship at the Anglican church. Father really could be a king, except, of course,” she added hastily, “that he is such a fierce loyalist!”