Helen Dickson (24 page)

‘I have every confidence that you would have succeeded—although I would not have taken kindly to being deprived of your charming company. So, Maria,’ he said, walking slowly across the room, ‘how do you like being back at Gravely? Is it as you remember?’

‘Yes and no. Before I went to France my father was there, but now the house seems—empty—as though it’s lost its heart.’ She sighed and sat in the chair by the dying fire. ‘Nothing stays the same.’

‘No, it never does.’

His voice had a hint of regret and Maria looked at him curiously. ‘You said that with feeling, Charles. Were you sorry to leave India?’

He nodded. ‘At the time.’ He grinned. ‘India has a habit of getting under your skin, into your blood.’ Sitting across from her, he stretched out his long legs, crossing them at the ankles, calmly watching her.

Maria lowered her gaze and idly smoothed out the creases in her robe. ‘That was what my father said. He never did settle in England—well, not really—for all his wealth. I think he would rather have stayed in India a pauper than live in England a rich man.’

‘It was no secret that he amassed a large fortune in India.’

‘Which enabled him to buy his beautiful Gravely.’ She raised her head and looked at him. Her expression was soft and her magnificent eyes suddenly glowed like bright green jewels. ‘Did you know that I was born in India?’

Charles regarded her with frank curiosity. ‘I recall my mother saying something of the sort. Whereabouts?’

‘In Simla. To avoid the heat, Mother always went to the coolness of the hills during the summer months. She died soon after I was born and Father—who was not a well man—brought me to England to live.’

‘And chose to settle in Sussex.’

‘Yes. He did love living there. Leaving India was difficult for him, but he wanted me to be brought up in England.’ Her expression became sad. ‘Little did I know how short a time I would have with him.’

‘You were close, I can see that.’

‘Yes. He was all I had. Nothing was the same when he died.’

Charles leant his head against the back of the chair. Maria saw his body relax, slackening perceptibly. He was silent, but his silence was as devoid of tension as
his body, and the familiar sense of safety and reassurance that his presence would bring her, gradually smoothed out the turmoil in her mind.

Charles had always been able to give her this feeling of security, and, looking at his abstracted face, she thought how strange it was that this would always be so. Now that she had discovered she loved him, she did not feel embarrassed or shy in his presence. But she was a single woman and they were no longer fleeing for their lives in France, but installed in respectable society where it was shockingly improper for her to be alone in a bedroom with a man, a man she was convinced was in love with another woman.

But the feeling of security was only temporary, for she knew when Charles had left for Dover her anxiety would return and she would know no peace until he returned with Constance. She was profoundly afraid for him.

‘Charles, I’m sorry.’

‘You are? For what?’

‘Placing you in this situation. I—I cannot bear to think I am placing you in danger like this. If anything should happen to you, I will never forgive myself.’

‘Why, what’s this, Maria?’ Getting up, he took her hands and drew her to her feet. ‘You sound as if you care.’

‘Of course I care,’ she uttered passionately. ‘I care that you may be hurt yet again because of me. Was it not enough that I let you fight that wretched duel…?’

She was silent for a moment or two, and Charles, watching her, said gently, ‘Does that make a difference?’

Maria’s gaze came back to his, and she said thoughtfully, ‘Yes. But I don’t know why it should.’

‘Better or worse?’

‘Worse.’

Noting the tension and anxiety on her face, Charles lifted a hand and brushed his fingers lightly across her forehead. ‘Don’t frown so, Maria,’ he murmured. ‘It can’t matter as much as all that.’

She wanted to cry,
But it does
. It mattered more than anything else, but she could not tell him that. ‘I may have refused to be your wife, Charles,’ she said quietly, ‘but that does not mean I wish you harm.’

‘I do know that.’ Charles was aware of nothing but her. The complexity of his emotions both overwhelmed and exasperated him. He was prepared to do anything if he could win her to him—even travelling to France to rescue her cousin if it would help his cause where she was concerned. When he spoke his voice was very serious. Gently cupping her chin in his hand, he turned her face up to him.

‘You know, Maria, when you left for Gravely, I thought I could put you out of my mind, yet the moment I laid eyes on you again, the moment I saw your face, I was astonished by the depth of my feelings. When I asked you to be my wife it was because I wanted to look after you. I also need a lover, a friend, as my wife, to share laughter and love.’

She wanted to tell him that it was not enough, to shout that she wanted more than that, that she wanted him to say he loved her and only her, that there was no one else and never would be. Her senses swirled under the power of his proximity. How was it possible that he could dispel her resolve to stand against him just with a touch of his hand? She clenched her hands to stop them from trembling, but that only made the tremors race up
her arm and through to her innermost being like molten heat. Charles was looking at her hard, and somehow she felt compelled to look back. Their gazes locked.

‘Charles,’ she whispered, her voice heavy with objection and longing. ‘What do you think I am? Do you presume that because I am in your house alone with you, I’m fair sport to be ravished in my bed?’

His light blue eyes were sharp, speculative, darker now as they looked into her face. ‘I do not, Maria. If I had wished it, it would already have happened. There have been many opportunities for me to seduce you, but I respected your naïvety and your innocence. Now it is different.’

She gasped at his arrogance. But the potency of his desire couldn’t be denied, and she knew his words were true. She returned his look and a sudden tension in his tall figure woke her senses, her female senses, to the danger—not danger from Charles, for he would never do anything to hurt her, but the hazards she was allowing herself to be led into by this familiar and fascinating man.

‘The hour is late,’ she whispered, not wanting to make it too easy for him, nor of letting him think she was almost drowning in her own pleasure as the wanton sensations ran through her body at his very touch. ‘I—I think you should go. Tomorrow—’

‘What we do now will not interfere with what I have to do tomorrow, Maria. At first light I shall be on the Dover road, so don’t fret. I do not know what it was that turned you away from me—fear, maybe, of committing yourself to another man so soon after Winston. But whatever it was, you cannot deny your feelings. Your eyes give you away.’

Maria stared at him, beginning to panic. She had to make him leave while she was capable of letting him go. Her heart was racing now, and instead of obeying the frantic urgency of her thoughts, her fingers were curling round his wrist as his hand still held her chin instead of thrusting him away. She drew a deep breath, unaware that she had been holding herself stiffly, her shoulders slightly hunched as though to defend something vulnerable inside her that exposed the slender column of her throat and lifted her breasts beneath her robe.

From beneath hooded lids Charles smiled down at her. ‘You see, Maria, you do want me, and I will show you how much.’

She made one last effort to draw back from this perilous moment, for she finally knew this should not be happening, but when he started to draw her into his arms and his mouth found hers, she felt her lips parting.

Their bodies pressed together, breast to breast, thigh to thigh, their mouths fused, caressing, their tongues touching. Maria gave herself up to the magic of his kiss. Charles put his hand to the back of her head, entwining his fingers in her hair until it fell about her, a tangled mane of blackness. She lifted her chin and his lips slid along it and along her jaw, taking her earlobe gently between his teeth, and with a groan they both fell to their knees, as though the strength had left them.

Maria held his head as his mouth slid down her neck, his hands tearing open the front of her robe, the fullness of her breasts outlined beneath her nightdress, the hardness of her nipples clearly defined, the dark flush a tormenting shadow just discernible beneath the fine fabric. He slipped her arms out of her robe and slid the
shoulders of her nightdress down, easing her breasts free so that he could feast his eyes on them—his eyes, his lips, his tongue savouring their texture, their responsiveness to him as he slowly sucked them into his mouth.

Maria gasped when she felt her nipples swell and ache with longing, a longing that shocked her. It was as though she had taken on the identity of a wanton, the sensations he was arousing in her lapping at the most sensitive part of her. When he took her mouth in a deep, devouring kiss once more, reality faded, and exciting, dangerous intimacy followed the discovery of her womanhood and the sharing of their feelings for one another.

Despite her reasons for refusing to become his wife, she was a woman who had senses and emotions, whose body wanted fulfilment, to meet a need so strongly rooted within her and so fiercely suppressed that now it turned against her and overwhelmed her with its intensity, and his scent, the reality of the man, was all the more dangerous because of her own denial. She recognised with all her youthful passion that she wanted him with the hungry intensity of the woman she had become, awakening sensations so unexpected and unknown to her that she moaned and recoiled from him.

When Charles swung her up into his arms and carried her to the bed, where he laid her down on the covers, soft and ready for them, she was made to realise that there was no going back, no escaping what was to happen.

‘Charles!’

When she spoke his name he raised his head to look into her eyes, his darkening as he recognised the desire in hers. He wanted her so much. Her mouth was soft, her lips parted, moist and inviting.

‘What is it you want, Maria? For me to stop?’ He gave a small sensual laugh. ‘Or is it more of this you want?’ And he again took her mouth in a savage kiss.

Maria shuddered, her senses whipped by pleasure and pain, her body so acutely sensitised that the sweet ferocity of his kiss sent darts of aching heat through her body.

When he pulled back from her and said, ‘Is it, Maria? Tell me?’ she reached out to draw him back to her, her lips finding his, seemingly mesmerised by his seduction.

‘Yes,’ she told him fiercely, her awakening needs dictating all thoughts of common sense or decorum. ‘Kiss me again,’ she pleaded softly against his mouth.

Charles paused. Now was the time to reject her as she had rejected him, but instead he lowered himself on to her, his hands thrusting into the thickness of her hair so she could not escape. Opening his mouth on hers, he explored its softness, revelling in the taste of her, until Maria moaned and clutched at him with pleasure.

For a second a small lance of sanity seemed to make her pull back and question her behaviour. She was like a demented woman, lying on the bed with a man who was not her husband. She was shocked, but only for a moment.

Thinking she was about to wriggle free, Charles raised his head. ‘What is it?’ he demanded. ‘You said you wanted me to kiss you.’

‘I do, Charles. I do.’

‘Maria, you know what will happen if we continue.’

‘Yes,’ she gasped, knowing what he was saying and accepting it.

Maria watched him pull off his clothes, admiring the breadth of his shoulders, the solid muscles of his thighs, the strength of his arms and held out her arms to him.
He came to her and lay beside her, removing her nightdress, pausing for a moment to stare, absorbed, at the naked beauty of her body, the flush of her skin, its warmth, its softness, its responsiveness, before drawing her against him, his arms tight about her, her full breasts against his furred chest. His kisses trailed over her body, slowly and lingeringly, as if he had all the time in the world. She became helpless with desire, allowing it all to happen, wanting it with primitive ferocity.

There was no gentleness in him, nor in her when he entered her. She was almost delirious with the new sensations and by the powerful response of her own body, exquisitely pulsating and seeming to have a will of its own.

Afterwards they lay together, not speaking, her face buried in his neck and shoulder, his against her tangled hair, both replete. Maria knew nothing would ever be the same again. Charles had put his masculine mark on her, discovered the woman in her, the latent desire of which she had never known. The little green devil of jealousy of the other woman pushed its way into her consciousness just when she least expected it. She lay in the bed with them, a drifting, dangerous ghost.

In the cradle of Charles’s arms, Maria bit her lips hard. She was aware that he had not said he loved her in the heat of passion, but not for the world would she spoil these moments by questioning this, for they would never come again. Nothing could be so sweet, so perfect, as this first time that she lay with a man, a man she loved so desperately.

Charles said nothing for a long time, content to simply hold her to him, and then slowly he disentangled himself and reached for his clothes. Bending down, he
touched his lips to hers, and whispered against her mouth, ‘You and I are as good as married now, Maria.’