Punish Me With Roses - a Victorian Historical Romance (20 page)

He hustled her inside where--to her infinite pleasure--it was warm and dry.

She wasn't given much time to be thankful for the respite from the rain. Because right after she went in, Alex followed. The space became more confined.

The structure was tiny--that much had become clear in less than a second. If the leap of activity in her stomach was any indication, Alex's body was indecently close to her own.

"What is this place?" she asked.

"I guess you could call it a small, childhood fort."

"You played here?"

"Yes. I'm the only person who knows about it, along with my brother." His expression turned sad. "That was when we used to get along."

"You mean you don't like him either?" The moment after she'd said it, she clamped her hand over her mouth. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. He's an ass." He laughed. "You see? I made a faux pas too and I'm completely unconcerned."

His humor helped to distract her from how close the walls were and how Alex was even closer. But nothing could make her forget it and as soon as the conversation lulled, her heart started to pound.

He saw her shiver and assumed a different reason for her condition. He handed her a blanket he'd pulled from behind him. "I keep this here for emergencies."

He helped her drape it over her shoulders and she almost wished he wouldn't. Each time his hand brushed against her, a trail of fire burned from that point to her lower belly. The added warmth from the blanket that she couldn't refuse made her feel as though her entire body was flushed. Then their eyes met.

Until then, even in such close quarters, they'd avoided each other's gaze. Or at least, she'd avoided his and she'd assumed he'd been doing the same. It was difficult, especially with the air between them full of something that was almost tangible.

Their gaze held and she felt something in her break. "Why, Alex?"

He was a hazy vision through her tears. "I'll tell you everything."

She cried into her hands, ashamed that he was to see her in such a way. "Why did you do it all in the first place? You
knew
, Alex!"

"Mark Freely was my cousin, Victoria."

She killed his cousin!
"I'm so sorry, Alex."

"I'm not telling you to get an apology. I just want to explain the reason why I'm involved in this at all." He sighed. "My father wanted me to find out if we could prove you did it."

Her mouth fell open, and salty tears trickled onto her lips. "Like a detective?"

He nodded.

She started to rise, words of betrayal thick in her throat.

He pulled her down. "But that was only in the beginning, Victoria. That ended quite soon, even sooner than I wanted to admit."

Seeing sincerity in his steadfast gaze, she listened.

"How could I prove you guilty of murder when every time I looked at you all I could think of was how much I desired you?" Alex gripped her arm tightly with strong fingers. "How could I ask you questions when every time one of them affected you, I wanted to comfort the pain out of your eyes?"

Her voice quivered with fear. "And then, you were with me, for me?"

"I'll grant you that I was still confused, darling, but I think my mind convinced me of that more than the truth did." He rubbed her arm with a passion that matched his words. "I think you had me the moment I saw you standing in the daylight, the sun shining through your hair like on the wings of a raven."

Her body was precariously close to submission. "You kissed Jane," she said excruciatingly.

His shook his head. "As you know, Jane was there the night it happened. She knows all. She's threatened to return to Blackmoore and turn you in upon her arrival." He took a deep breath. "I can't let that happen."

"You kissed--"

"Yes, I kissed her, but it was only to shut her up. For some unknown reason, she's taken it upon herself to seduce me. My attention is the only thing that's keeping her here." Everything he said implored her to trust that he wanted her. That she
didn't
have false dreams and foolish hopes. "I did it for you, and only you."

She cried again, warm and fat tears covering her face. Doubt encroached upon what she wanted to believe, what she had to believe in order to go on. "How can I trust you, Alex?"

"Surely you can see it in my eyes."

"What am I looking for?" she asked with a sob.

"The knowledge that I care deeply for you, Victoria, and
only
you. More than I ever have for a woman. More than I
ever
will again."

Their eyes met and as the gaze held, she felt something inside her change. Walls fell down, the city of her resistance burnt to the ground.

He kissed her.

They leaned into one another as soon as their lips met. He was gentle and his movements were leisurely. Her insides melted when she realized what that meant. He didn't intend to run away this time. It was the truest expression of his feelings and one that matched her own. All traces of insecurity disappeared from her head. She ceased to worry about the meaning behind the kiss and whether or not she was doing everything right. She just enjoyed it and it felt as though she'd been kissing him all of her life. Right then, she didn't know why she'd ever want to kiss anyone else.

They connected like puzzle pieces. His lips were soft and pliable, unlike the violence of her great passion. An invisible rope wrapped around her and pulled her against him. She felt as though she had no control over her actions. They were just too ingrained and automatic. Furthermore, his will was too strong and compelling to be resisted.

Somewhere, from deep within his chest, came the soft hum of passion. With it came a quickening of the pulse she felt beneath her hand, the palm that was up between their bodies and pressed against his chest. The tempo of his kissing almost made her blind to the muted sounds of the forest and the sweet smell of wet grass. It had never been such a lovely odor before, but from thenceforth it would be. Slowly though, as the kiss deepened and her attachment to him solidified, everything around her disappeared.

All she knew was his body. His overpowering aura tightened around her and she felt as if something more than merely his hand was brushing the damp hair away from her face.

Please let this moment never end!

His lips left hers for the slightest of seconds, but she didn't have the chance to protest. Because as soon as the soft sucking was away from her mouth, it was on her cheek. Then it was on her neck. She clung to him and sighed with decadent pleasure.

"Oh, Victoria, how can so simple an act change everything?"

She had been wondering the very same thing. "Perhaps it cannot change anything that hadn't already changed."

Chest to chest, there was only an inch of space between them. "What it can do is make imagined conflicts disappear and minimize emotions at war."

It certainly made Blackmoore seem as though it were miles away, in measurements far more important than actual distance. Maybe she and Alex could have a future! The realization was momentous. It all seemed so simple when she was in his arms. She supposed that was what was meant by "living in the moment." She never really knew, until then, how necessary such a thing was to living a healthy life. She'd never had cause to worry about it before.

"I never want to leave this fort," she said.

"It is kind of like a fortress, isn't it? A barrier against our pasts...against slights and sins."

She looked over his shoulder, knowing what those words meant for her, but wondered what relevance they could have for him. "But we can't stay here, can we?"

He tilted his head to one side, looking at her with what she then felt was affection. "You know that we cannot. We live in a world where dragons must be slain in the open."

And would he slay those dragons? Her heart leapt with joy because based on his response, she thought it sounded as though he would. "I need you, Alex," she gasped.

"Oh, Victoria!" He pulled her against him once again, crushing her breasts against his hard chest.

She sighed with mingled pleasure and relief. "I wish we could stay like this forever," she said.

"It's too bad that we can't. In fact, it's probably time we got you home. Your uncle might get worried."

If her eyes betrayed any of her emotions, she hoped her steady gaze was a temptation to stay awhile. Though she knew as well as he that her uncle would be wondering where she was.

He began to get up. "To get us out of any more trouble, I must be the strong one."

The rest of their time together that evening was short. Victoria lived through it all in a daze. The time was actually spent walking back to her uncle's house arm-in-arm coming up with a poor excuse for being so late, and being hustled into dry clothing and a warm foot bath. In her mind, however, she was getting married to Alex, giving birth to a healthy son, and having the kind of home she'd always dreamed of. One that was not only loving, but also stable and permanent.

Transient lives seemed to be all too common within her family, and she was determined that the trend stop with her.

Chapter 11

"Victoria, darling?"

She knew it was Alex's voice that she heard through her post-slumber haze, but she couldn't understand why. Did he come to wake her up for the day? Why would he do such a thing?

She would investigate, if only the concept of opening her eyes didn't seem so exhausting. "Alex, what are you doing here?" she asked in a husky voice.

"Waiting for you to wake up." His voice was soothing, comforting.

"But, why? What time is it?"

"You've been in bed with a fever for two days now."

She forced her eyes open. Seeing him sitting beside her bed was certainly a way to heal her soul, if not her body as well. "Oh, Alex, the dreams I've had!"

"Some of those things you dreamed of happening probably actually did."

"Then how do I know the difference?"

He came to sit beside her on the bed. "Anything after the time we spent in the fort is probably a dream."

She smiled.

"I have to ask you something, but if you're too tired to talk about it, that's all right. We'll have to do it some other time."

She sat up in bed. "Since I'm feeling somewhat refreshed, ask me now." She marveled at the new feeling of openness between them. Never had she thought such a thing could be possible.

"I'd like you to tell me exactly what happened on the night your cousin died."

"Why?"

"It's possible that it wasn't completely your fault. Maybe not at all."

She told him the entire story from start to finish. Throughout it all, he paid her the utmost attention, only stopping to clarify and repeat her words to ensure he understood. Finally, she was done.

"Now that I know the full story, I have even less reason to believe you were the true villain."

"That's so wonderful to hear," she said, and it was. Even if her heart found it hard to believe.

"It's time to figure out who
is
the culprit."

It was an impossible dream. "You'd go to such trouble for me?"

“I care about you more than anyone." He caressed her cheek with his hand, smiling with a soothing expression unique to him.

A feeling of incompleteness rose in her chest, but she squashed it down. What else could she want? She knew that the worse thing she could do would be to let her insecurities reign supreme over her common sense.

"You already know that Mark was my cousin and that we knew about the murders from the very beginning. We also knew you were a prime suspect, but you probably don't know why."

"No, but I assumed you had some sort of inside information."

He nodded. "I had these letters to learn from." He pulled a sheaf of papers from his pocket. "Mark talks about you in them."

She sat upright, practically grabbing for the papers. "I didn't even know Mark. He wrote about me?"

Alex was visibly taken aback by her statement. "Really? You didn't know him?" He put his hand on her shoulder and leaned forward. "We have to be completely honest with each other if we want to find out who really was to blame. Arsenic was only found in Mark's body; therefore you couldn't have poisoned Hugh."

She nodded. "I agree that we should reveal all. I did not know Mark. We barely spoke to one another."

"Did he witness many of the goings on of the house?"

She shrugged. "I can't be sure, but I wouldn't say so. He would have had to be hiding himself while he was watching."

"How strange."

"What kinds of things did he say about me in the letters?"

He took them back from her and quickly scanned through them. "He spoke of a lot of violent fights between you and your cousin."

She laughed. "Violent fights? I hardly think so."

"No?"

She shook her head. "My cousin and I may have disliked each other, but we were hardly the type to have
violent
quarrels."

"How strange."

"You already said that." She smiled. "Really, it's not strange at all. There's a simple answer to it all: your cousin was a liar."

He nodded.

She looked down at her lap then, noticing his lack of response. "I'm sorry, Alex. I guess that's not a nice thing to say, especially about the deceased."

"Oh no, Victoria! I'm not upset. I want you to say everything that comes into your mind. We both have to, if we ever want to figure out the meaning of all of this. If you feel there's no way Mark could have possibly misunderstood, then you're right. He must be a liar. I need to know that." He sighed. "My father took these letters as absolute evidence. How foolish we've been!"

"No. You did what you could with the information you had."

"That's very generous of you considering the way I harassed you."

She smiled. "In retrospect, it wasn't so terrible. I got to be with you more, didn't I?"

He returned the smile and she realized that she was happier than she'd been since before her parent's died.

Then she realized something else. "Wait...the roses. I didn't like
that
at all." She gasped. "Were you in Blackmoore?"