No Other Love (28 page)

“If that is what kept you alive, then I am glad you hated me,” Nicola said.

He glanced at her, surprised. “I thought you despised me now, thought me a coward and a fool.”

“No, I thought you were a man who never loved me as I loved him.”

“I loved you more than anything in the world!” he shot back.

“Then why did you not believe in me? Why do you even yet not trust me? Do you think that I have never married because no man of my class wanted me?”

“Of course not.”

“Then why? Why would I never have fallen in love, or, if I am the venal, wicked person you think me, why would I not have snared some wealthy lord for his money and his position? I had the opportunity.”

“I am sure you did.” Jack felt as if a huge fist was clutching his chest, squeezing his lungs until he could not breathe.

“Then why?” Nicola demanded tartly. She reached out and prodded his chest when he did not answer. “Why did I find no other man? Why did I remain a spinster? A virgin! Why, Jack?” She poked him again, her voice rising. “Why? What other possible reason could there have been except that I loved you too much ever to love anyone else! I had had the greatest love I could have known. I could not settle for less. Can you understand that? How can you think that I would have betrayed you? I have been faithful to you for ten years, even though I thought you dead!”

Her voice broke on a sob, and she whirled around to run away, but Jack’s hand lashed out and gripped her arm, holding her back.

“No! You cannot just say something like that and run away!” he told her gruffly. “Look at me.
Look at me!
”

Nicola whipped around, holding her head high, her chin up and her huge eyes defiant.

Jack let out an incoherent noise and jerked her to him, his mouth coming down to cover hers.

N
ICOLA CLUNG TO
J
ACK
,
LOST IN A
burst of sensations and emotions. The love she had felt for Gil swept over her, mingling with the desire that her mature self had known with Jack. She wanted, she hungered, she melted with love. His hands dug into her back, pressing her closer and closer against him, so that his body was imprinted on hers, melded so intensely that his heat became hers, her scent his. They held on, lost in memories and passion, their yearning swift and thundering, pounding through their veins.

Thought and hesitation vanished, swept away in a torrent of elemental hunger. They kissed over and over again, relearning the pleasures of each other’s mouths. They touched and explored, their hands roaming where they would, remembering and discovering, trembling under the force of their desire.

His lips were soft, his teeth sharp, his mouth hot and wet, and Nicola felt newly alive wherever he kissed her. Slowly his mouth moved from hers, trailing languid, velvety kisses across her cheek until he reached the lobe of her ear. He took it between his teeth, worrying it gently, laving and nipping and arousing her until Nicola moaned from the pleasure of it.

She caressed his body, bolder than she had ever been as a girl, her hand slipping beneath his shirt and exploring the hard plane of his chest, the softer flatness of his stomach. With her every touch, she could feel the excitement ratcheting up a notch in him. His breath caught and shuddered out when her eager fingers found the flat bud of his nipple. Teasingly, she played with it, reveling in the sounds she pulled from him.

He said her name as he unfastened the buttons of her dress, breathed it like a prayer as he pushed back the open bodice, shoving it off her shoulders and down her arms. He stopped, his eyes going to the ring that hung on a long chain, usually hidden by her clothes. Slowly he reached out to touch it.

“My ring? You have my ring?”

Nicola nodded, watching him. Emotions flitted across his face too swiftly for her to be sure what they were. “Yes. I went back later—just to sit there. And I saw it glint. It had landed on a ledge below the edge of the Falls.”

“You kept it all this time….” His voice hoarsened as he said the words, and his eyes went from the ring back up to her face. A flame burned fiercely in his dark eyes. Not taking his gaze from hers, he placed his hands flat on her chest, sliding them down under her chemise and onto the soft white orbs of her breasts, and all the while he watched the pleasure that took her at his caresses. He moved over and under her breasts, pushing the chemise down out of the way. Her breasts were creamy white against his hard, tanned hands, startling and arousing in the contrast. He caressed her pink-brown nipples with his thumbs, watching them harden and elongate, eager for his touch. Nicola gasped when he touched her there, a shock running down through her from her nipples to explode in her abdomen, turning her insides molten. The desire that she had felt for him in the past was as nothing compared to the tidal wave of passion that ran through her now.

She knew that she loved him. What he had done or what he believed about her could not change how she felt, even as the intervening years could not alter it. She loved him; she would always love him. He was part of her and had been from the moment she met him. No matter what happened, he always would be. Beyond that knowledge, there was no thought—no question of right or wrong, of smart or foolish. What was happening between them was all emotion and sensation, and it had been inevitable from the moment he had stopped her carriage.

With a wordless noise, he swept her up in his arms and carried her into the bedroom. There he laid her down gently on the bed and knelt beside it. He began to kiss her, working his way down her throat to her chest and onto the lush mounds of her breasts. He explored her breasts with his tongue and lips, teasing her nipples as his fingers had done. Nicola moved restlessly, digging her fingers into his arms and shoulders, sliding her hands up and into his hair, clenching her fingers when a sizzle of pleasure even more intense than the others struck her. But he did not even feel the slight nip of pain when she tugged at his hair, so lost was he in pure sensation.

With a noise of frustration, he pulled back long enough to unbutton his shirt and pull it off. Nicola watched him, her breath catching in her throat at the sight of his tanned chest, lightly covered with dark curling hair. As he moved back to her, she stretched out her arms eagerly to meet him, and when her fingers touched his flesh, he let out a shuddering groan and buried his face in her breasts.

They loved each other with hands and mouths, heedless of time or place. Neither thought of the unlocked door or of the tasks that waited outside. The only things that mattered at this moment were their hunger and the slow, sweet lovemaking that would satisfy it.

His mouth fastened upon her nipple while his fingers sought out the dark heat between her legs. He slid over the slick, tender flesh, arousing them both. Nicola’s breath rasped in her throat. His heat surrounded her, and she felt lost in an endless, swirling haze of pleasure. With every breath she took, every beat of her heart, her pleasure grew, equaled each time by another leap in the intensity of her hunger. She felt his response, the same wild, furious heat that bloomed within her. It was as if their hearts beat in time, their blood coursed between their veins, their flesh melted into each other’s. They were consumed and fed by the same yearning.

Hastily they stripped away the remnants of their clothing, and he moved over her. She opened her legs, taking him inside her, and the flash of pain hardly registered against the urgent, intense pleasure of being joined with him. They moved together in an ancient, timeless rhythm, seeking what they had missed years ago. Tears formed in Nicola’s eyes and rolled silently down her cheeks. She didn’t know why she cried, only that what she was experiencing was so beautiful and pleasurable it bordered on pain. She wrapped her arms tightly around him, her hands digging into his back, and buried her face in his shoulder.

Jack let out a hoarse cry, shuddering to his fulfillment, and Nicola clung to him, stunned by the wave of pleasure rushing through her. She loved him with all her heart and soul, and in that moment she did not know whether she was fortunate, foolish, or doomed to a life of despair.

He collapsed against her, his chest heaving, his skin damp with sweat. He let out a faint laugh and rolled over onto his back, wrapping his arms around Nicola and pulling her with him so that she lay on top of him.

“Sweet Jesus, I had not expected that,” he said. His hand stroked down her hair, which had come tumbling down somewhere along the way. It was like golden silk beneath his hands, and he closed his eyes at the pure sensory pleasure of touching it. He felt alive to every sensation—the feel of Nicola’s skin against his, the sound of her breathing, the taste of her on his lips, the wetness of her cheeks…. “Here…what’s this?”

He reached up and stroked his thumb across her cheek. “Are you crying? Did I hurt you?”

“No.” Nicola shook her head. She wanted to add “not yet,” but she did not. She had known the likelihood of getting hurt when she lay down with him; she would not blame anyone but herself for whatever happened.

“Why are you crying? Are you sad?”

“Maybe a little. For the past ten years. But it’s more from joy, I think.”

“Good. I…don’t want to hurt you.”

Nicola raised her head and looked down into his face. He looked more like the boy she had known—his face relaxed and alight with happiness, the crooked smile she had loved so much spreading across his face, his dark eyes bright and mischievous. She smiled and laid her head back down on his chest, letting out a sigh. This moment, right now, was enough. She pressed her lips against his bare chest, then snuggled into him. Soon she heard the steady rhythm of his breathing and knew that he had fallen asleep. She smiled again as she, too, drifted into slumber.

When she awoke, he was gone. She sat bolt upright, a little panicked, and her dress, which he had laid over her for warmth, slid down. She scrambled into her clothes and grabbed all the hairpins she could find, pinning up her tresses as best she could. She hurried through the house to the front door. As soon as she opened it, she saw Jack near the gate, wielding a hoe against some stubborn weeds. She relaxed with a sigh, telling herself that she was being foolish.
Did she think he had just vanished?

Jack looked up and saw her, then smiled and gave her a wave of the hand. Nicola smiled back in what she hoped was a nonchalant manner and went out to join him.

For the rest of the day they worked together in the yard in cheerful amity, digging weeds and cutting back shrubs and flowers, joking and talking. It was as if the last ten years had fallen away. They did not speak of love or the Earl of Exmoor or the past, by unspoken consent steering clear of anything that could cause unpleasantness.

The tea was long since ruined, but they ate Nicola’s lunch together, and later that afternoon, she brewed another pot of tea and they sipped it in tired silence, sitting on the front stoop of the cottage and looking out at what they had accomplished.

When Nicola rose to take the cups back inside, Jack reached up and curled his hand around her wrist. “Will you be coming back tomorrow, then?”

Even his voice sounded more like his old self, with the faintest touch of an accent.

“Yes.” Nicola avoided looking at him, afraid of his answer. “And you?”

“Aye, I will be here.” He stood up. “If you are.”

Nicola looked up at him. He was gazing at her, his face solemn now. He reached up a hand and cupped her cheek. “If you’re wanting answers, I don’t know what to say.”

“I don’t need answers,” Nicola replied promptly. “I don’t even want to ask questions right now.”

“Nor I.” His grin was quick and warm. He took the cups from her hands and set them down on the stoop, then pulled her into his embrace.

Being in his arms was wonderful, Nicola thought. Before long, she might want more, but right now this was enough. This was all she wanted.

He laid his cheek against her hair as he hugged her tightly to him. “You are the most beautiful woman I have ever known.” He kissed her on the mouth, a hard, quick kiss. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

And he was gone as suddenly as he had arrived, striding around back to get his horse. She heard the jingle of the bridle, but she did not see him leave. Nicola sat down on the stoop again, feeling bereft. She wrapped her arms around her knees and pulled them up close to her body, resting her chin on her knees.

Her life had changed irrevocably today, she realized, and she was not even sure how she felt about it. She loved a man whom she was not sure loved her back—or trusted her. A man who could be gone in a day or a week and she would never know what happened to him. He was dangerous and daring, and most people, she supposed, would consider him a scoundrel.

But he was the only man she had ever loved, and she had realized something today: she would not, ever again, let her chance to love him slip away unheeded. She would seize the moment as it came along, and if and when it was over, she would at least have memories. She would at least know that for a while she had truly lived. She would not live with regret for the rest of her life.

T
HE FOLLOWING WEEK WAS THE HAPPIEST
of her life. She rode to Granny Rose’s cottage every day—except for one afternoon when it rained too hard to make any excuse for riding out feasible—and she took with her a basket of food. Sometimes Jack was there when she arrived, his horse tethered in back of the house where it could not be seen, and sometimes she got there first and was already working when he came up noiselessly behind her and wrapped his arms around her, nuzzling her neck.

They worked in the yard the first few days, weeding, pruning, planting. She laid out the herb garden as she remembered it. Some of the plants were still there, grown wild, like the apple-smelling German chamomile, and she was able to trim them, restoring them to their neat mounds and rows. She cultivated the ground, thinking that in another two months she would be able to plant the rest of the plants—the marigolds and comfrey, the onion, garlic and rosemary, the delicate white-flowered yarrow. Nicola liked to think of how the garden would look this summer, and then she would catch herself and remind herself how pointless it was to make plans.

There was no future here, no past. There was only the present and the little magical, secluded world of Granny Rose’s cottage. That was all she needed. She asked no questions and gave no explanations. She did not try to argue away Jack’s suspicions; she simply ignored them, and so did he. Nor did she try to determine the extent and intent of his feelings for her. For the moment it was enough to work alongside Jack, to talk and laugh and be with him. To sit at the table with him and eat, to pour his tea, to look into his face and see the light in his dark eyes as he looked back at her. To slip off to the bedroom and make love with him, sometimes in a rush of heat, other times slowly and gently, driving each other mad with long, lazy kisses and caresses. She loved him; that was the only knowledge that she needed. None of the rest of it mattered now.

When the garden and yard were finished, they still came to the cottage, meeting and going for a ride, or simply spending the afternoon together before a fire.