Promise Me Tonight (13 page)

“What are you
doing
?” Isabella squealed.

“What does it look like I am doing? I will be damned if I will sit here in these wet clothes. And I will be damned if I will let you sit around in that gown. Take it off.” He sat on the floor and tugged at his boots.

“Excuse me?”

James looked up from his task. “I beg your pardon, did you need my assistance?”

“No! I—I am not taking it off.”

“Like hell!” James didn’t particularly care that he was in the presence of a lady. He gave a vicious yank, and his second boot came off. “Get out of those wet garments, or I will do it for you.” He rummaged around in an old chest and found several quilts. He threw one at her. “You can use it to cover yourself.”

He turned his back to give her some privacy. He heard the intermittent thuds of her sodden garments hitting the floor, and then there was silence.

Oh dear Lord, she was naked!

He’d left his wet breeches on in deference to proprieties, though there was nothing remotely proper about any of this, but even the chilly fabric couldn’t mute his body’s reaction to the knowledge that Isabella was naked and within his immediate grasp.

Damn, damn, and damn again.

“You can turn around now.”

He did. She had swathed herself in the large quilt so that only her head was visible and had seated herself with her back to the fire. Not so much as a toe was in sight, which was probably a good thing. A toe might have sent him over the edge, might have had him falling on her like a ravening wolf. He glanced down at his bare feet. Nothing there to inspire lust. He looked back at her. God, but she was beautiful.

Firelight played on the hair cascading down her back, making it gleam like burnished gold. The warm glow lit on her face, too, giving her the radiance of a Renaissance Madonna. His belly clenched just looking at her.

He forced himself back to the task at hand. “I need to explain why I said . . . what I said.” He didn’t want to repeat the hurtful words any more than he supposed she wanted to hear them. “It isn’t you. It’s me.”

She laughed, a hoarse, ugly, hurting sound. “How original.”

“I never meant to hurt you, Izzie.”

“Did you take this out of a book somewhere?”

“I am telling you the truth. It isn’t you. I made a decision long ago never to marry.”

“How wonderfully convenient,” she said, sarcasm coating each word.

Funny, his body thought it was pretty damned inconvenient, given that he couldn’t have her without marriage, and yet he was only a quilt tug away from having her naked. Best not to think of that, he reminded himself. He needed to explain why he wouldn’t—couldn’t—marry her. She deserved nothing less than the truth.

The problem was, he didn’t think he could tell her the truth. How could he make her understand his fears, with her family so healthy and loving and whole? She didn’t know what devastating loss could drive a man to do; he hoped she never would. But he did. He knew it all too well, and he had promised himself never to be that vulnerable.

Because he knew how it would end. In his heart of hearts, he knew with deep certainty that he was, in every way, his father’s son. The magistrate had deemed his father’s death an accident, a tragic fall down the stairs, but James knew the truth. It was no accident. His father had wanted to die, and no matter what it looked like, James was certain he’d thrown himself down that staircase and killed himself as surely as if he’d put a bullet through his brain.

James couldn’t tell her that, though. It was a secret he had kept for too long. Besides, he didn’t think he could bear for her to look at him with pity or disgust. He’d have to try a different tactic.

“I won’t marry, Isabella, because it wouldn’t be fair to my wife.”

He saw he had her attention now.

“The only reason my grandfather ever tolerated my presence was that I was his damned heir, the future of the bloody Sheffield line, but as you can tell from the contents of his will, he despised me. He despised the fact that my father fell in love with and married a woman who happened to be Irish.”

His mother’s face rose up in his mind. She had been so beautiful, so loving. . . . He swallowed hard against the lump in his throat.

“Well, I am going to have the last laugh. He thought my mother’s blood stained the family name? With me, that family name will cease to exist. Do you understand me? I will never,
never
have children.”

He had dropped down to his knees beside her so she could see the truth written across his face. Family meant everything to Isabella. She wouldn’t want him now.

Her eyes were huge in her face, a face that was still too damned pale, and he could see her fighting not to cry. He watched her draw in a deep, shuddering breath and attempt to pull herself together.

“So it’s the—the children you’re opposed to?” she asked.

He frowned, taken off guard by the question.

She took his silence as assent. “I have heard . . . ,” she began, pausing to lick her lips, a gesture he felt all the way down to his loins. “Well, I overheard the maids. . . .” Her face had turned bright pink. He was dying to know just what was going through that pretty little head of hers. Nothing good, he’d wager.

“I have heard there are ways for a woman to keep from getting with child.” The words flew out of her mouth in a rush, and her face turned several shades darker, but her eyes never left his. He had been right. Nothing good. Because he could think of far too many ways to do what she’d alluded to, and the images were running through his mind in quick succession, threatening what little composure he had left. He buried his head in his hands.

“I don’t know exactly how . . . I mean, I didn’t quite understand what they . . . Is it true?”

“Yes,” he groaned, “but they’re whores’ tricks. You shouldn’t even
know
of them, let alone bring them up in conversation.” Especially with a man who’s ready to tear that quilt off you and show you just how they work, he thought.

“If I . . .” Her voice wavered. “If I agreed not to have children, would you marry me?”

His head jerked up to look at her. She couldn’t mean it. The thought was ludicrous. He raked a hand through his hair. She was killing him, and he deserved it. If ever there was a woman destined for love and marriage and motherhood, it was Isabella Weston. But she was serious, he saw. Deadly earnest. She was willing to give that up for him. If he’d still had a heart, it would have broken right then and there.

“I would never do that to you, Izzie,” he said quietly, regret infusing every word. “As I said, such a situation would be unfair to any woman. You deserve to marry a man who loves you and will give you children.”

“But I don’t
want
to,” she cried, tears spilling down her cheeks. “I love
you
. I want to marry
you
.”

“Izzie, don’t you want children? Honestly? Haven’t you dreamed of holding a baby in your arms?”

“Well, yes, but it was ours—”

“That will never be. But you are meant to be a mother, Izzie. Don’t say that you would sacrifice that for me. I would spend the rest of my life feeling guilty, and besides, despite what you think right now, you would come to resent me for it.”

“I wouldn’t. I
wouldn’t
. Please,
please
, James. I love you. I love you so much.”

She began to sob, heart-wrenching, body-wracking sobs, and he couldn’t stand it. He reached for her and pulled her into his lap again, rocking her as he clumsily patted her hair. Oh God, she was ripping him apart with every jerk of her body, every cry that broke from her mouth. He had to make it stop.

So he did the only thing he could think of. In truth, it was the only thing he’d thought of since that night in the library. All he’d thought of in all the long, lonely nights since then. He slipped a hand under her chin and lifted her face to his. She was so beautiful and sweet, even with her face blotchy and her eyes red. And she loved him.

He lowered his head until his lips brushed hers ever so lightly. He heard her small gasp of surprise, felt her body tense. And then she twisted her arms out of the quilt, ran them up into his hair, and dragged his mouth down on hers. It was a kiss filled with desperation, fear, anger, and passion, undeniable passion—passion that clouded his brain and swamped his senses, shutting out everything that existed outside the two of them.

James knew he’d slid into dangerous territory. As he ran his hands over the silken curves of her shoulders, aware to his toes that there were a thousand other silky curves waiting to be discovered, warning bells clanged in his head. But as her tongue skimmed over his bottom lip, she made a little sound of pleasure at the back of her throat, and suddenly he couldn’t care that what they were doing was the height of foolishness, if not outright stupidity. Apparently they had come to the right place, because as he lowered her to the floor, James realized why these secluded little buildings were called follies.

She was so weak where he was concerned, it disgusted her. He’d just told her that he wouldn’t marry her, and still she wanted him. Wanted him with every fiber of her being, every beat of her heart, every dream in her soul. It was painful, this wanting.

She could tell that he wanted her, too. It was in his kiss. It was in the gentle sweep of his fingertips along her collarbone and in the ragged edge to his breathing. But wanting was different than loving, and it wouldn’t make him marry her. She knew it with some sort of feminine instinct. She needed to make him love her, but she wasn’t sure she could. There was so much hatred inside of him, so much of the lonely, hurt little boy still lurking beneath the surface he’d worked so hard to make impenetrable.

It scared her, it really did, because she wasn’t sure he could ever love her more than he hated his grandfather. And yet she still wanted him—wanted every glorious second fate allowed her to spend in his arms. What that said about her character, she didn’t want to know. All she knew was that she wanted James Sheffield. Desperately. She wanted his kisses, the way his arms felt around her, the soft feel of his palms cupping her cheeks, the wildness that he seemed to ignite within her with the barest touch of his hands.

She shivered at the feeling of his lips moving over hers, the warm, solid, utterly masculine taste of him. Everything he did with her, to her, was magical. Perfection. She only wished she could incite the same glorious feelings in him. Not for the first time, Izzie cursed her inexperience. All she had to go on were a couple of kisses, some overheard conversations between the parlor maids, and that book,
Godly Love
, she had stumbled upon in Henry’s room. She’d spent sleepless nights imagining James doing some of those wicked things in that book, thoughts that never failed to send little streamers of warmth shooting through her belly. And now she was on her way to making fantasy into reality.

A reality where he had made her no promises, spoken no vows. And she didn’t care. That couldn’t be good. But being good paled in comparison to the feel of his weight stretched out on top of her body.

He settled more intimately against her, rocking his erection against the place between her thighs. She couldn’t hold back the moan that slipped from her lips. He opened the quilt farther, kissing his way down her throat. Izzie held her breath in anticipation as he neared her breasts. He blew a stream of cool air across one, then the other, making her squirm. Then he began to lick—long, lazy circles around the outside of her breasts, nearing but never reaching her nipples, which peaked and pouted for attention.

“James,” she begged.

He gave one last, long lick, then lightly bit down on one nipple, tweaking the other with his fingers. She cried out and bucked her hips up into his, overcome with pleasure. The place between her legs was throbbing now, aching for fulfillment. He suckled greedily, first at one breast, then at the other, and Izzie thought she’d die from the sensations rocketing through her.

It was too much and not enough.

It was the library all over again.

And more.

His fingers were burrowing under the quilt, unwrapping her. It seemed her modesty had gone the same way as her good sense, for she wasn’t ashamed by his perusal of her body. She took the same delight in learning him, tracing the smooth muscles of his back, curling her fingers in the springy gold hair on his chest.

“Do you still think I don’t want you?” he whispered against her ear, before once more claiming her mouth. “I don’t seem to have any control with you,” he muttered between kisses. “I want you so bloody badly, I’m ready to burst. But you don’t have any idea, do you?” he rasped. “You can’t begin to understand what it feels like. How I feel I’ll die if I can’t come inside you.”

But she
did
know, Izzie thought. She wanted to tell him, to explain about the empty ache inside of her, but all she could manage was, “Yes.” It seemed he understood after all, for he groaned and kissed her, his fingers moving down to the soft thatch between her thighs.
Yes
, she thought, as he traced up and down the wet entrance to her body. He stroked her slowly, gliding his finger up and down the cleft, then swirling it about her wet, aching entrance.

When he finally slipped one long finger inside her, she was beyond speech or thought. She was beyond herself, existing only in some otherworldly realm where sensation ruled. His thumb brushed the hidden bud at the peak of her sex, making her gasp and writhe against his hand.