So in Love (9 page)

He devastated her completely with a soft kiss, a gentle murmur. “Jeanne.” Just her name and nothing more than that.

In that instant, she allowed him inside the most guarded part of her—not her body, that he controlled as he began to surge within her—but her heart.

The boy who’d loved her had promised her fidelity and yet had not been faithful. The boy she’d adored had vowed his constancy and yet had vanished. The man was a stranger, but in this act of passion he merged to become the boy she’d loved.

“Douglas,” Jeanne whispered, as if to call him to her.

He bent and kissed her, hard, deeply, and she was caught
up in a maelstrom of sensation. Even her fingers tingled and yet he didn’t move faster; he didn’t seek to find his own pleasure before hers. He had always been a considerate lover but now he was a maddening one.

She gripped his shoulders and bit her lip and arched beneath him. His patience and endurance summoned her response from where it lay hidden all these years.

Wrapping her arms around his neck, she almost whispered the words that were forbidden between them.
I love you
lay muted on her lips as pleasure flooded through her. All the various parts of her separated in that instant as mind, body, soul flew away. When they rejoined, she felt weak, her hands trembling where they lay against his shoulders.

Her face was warm, her nipples erect and brushing almost painfully against his chest. She gripped his buttocks and pulled him to her and he acquiesced, surging into her deeper than before. A small gasp of surprise emerged from her as she climaxed again.

And then he exploded in her arms, and she held him, her arms wrapped around his shoulders as she felt him breathe harshly against her hot cheek.

Her eyes closed, the better to savor the tremors that resonated through her body. In the depths of her mind she spoke a simple benediction, comprised of only two words. Nevertheless, it seemed to be a prayer.
Douglas. Beloved
.

F
luffy streaks of clouds colored pink and gray stretched across the sky. Lit from below, they formed a blanket for dawn, adding depth to a magnificent sunrise. Beyond, at the edge of the horizon, the sky was tinted the palest blue, while closer the hue was indigo.

Morning had come to Edinburgh.

Jeanne felt Douglas leave the bed. In a brief, unplanned entreaty, she stretched out her hand. His fingers touched hers gently before moving away. A confession without a word spoken, a way of telling her that perhaps he knew how she felt. Or maybe it was nothing more than a silent farewell.

The entire night had been a joining of memory and flesh. She had been the Jeanne of her youth for a brief matter of hours. In that time she’d felt no guilt or remorse. The world had been a kind place, giving her no reason to hate.

For a brief span of hours he’d given her back a sense of herself, a person the convent had tried so hard and so long to extirpate. She felt almost innocent, naïve and joyous, as optimistic as a child. She wanted to thank him in words,
but somehow they wouldn’t come. Now was not the time for speech or confession.

After hearing the door click shut, she opened her eyes. Her shadow lover was gone and in his place, the impression of his head on her pillow, the scent of warm bodies, and a hollowness.

Had it not been for the sweet feeling of lassitude in her body, she might have thought herself the recipient of a long and sensual dream.

What had she done?

If she were wiser, she’d leave. She would obtain a position as a scullery maid or shopkeeper’s assistant. She should leave Douglas MacRae’s house and go about the business of her life before he discovered things about her, or realized how weak she was when it came to him.

She didn’t want to leave. Perhaps that was the true meaning of sin, to weigh the consequences of an act and still perform it, to laugh in the face of retribution, and to dare for the sake of pleasure.

Turning onto her side, she stared out the window. The room faced east and the sun was making its appearance on the horizon now.

She’d been labeled a harlot long before now and had paid the price during the last ten years for any number of sins. Let the world damn her again; she no longer cared.

Those months in Paris had been the most beautiful of her life, and last night had proven that her memory wasn’t false. He touched her and her body trembled in awe of it. He smoothed his hand across her thigh and incited sensations she’d never felt before or since. Her flesh pebbled and her sigh encouraged the passage of a finger down to a knee and upward to a hip. She wanted his touch everywhere, to single out each separate place on her body and to mark it in a special way no man ever had.

The world was not the kind place it had seemed for a few
hours last night. Instead, it was filled with men like Robert Hartley. Here was safety, for a time, and pleasure, for as long as she wished it.

If the past months and years had taught her nothing else, they’d taught her the value of the moment. She should savor nourishment when it came, delight in beauty when it appeared, and treasure the absence of pain. Why should she not treat love the same and cherish it whenever it occurred?

Because it would bring incredible anguish when it ceased.

She was all too knowledgeable about despair and loneliness, and dreaded them both. Such familiarity should have made her stronger. After all, the limits of her endurance had been reached, stretched, and reached again. Loving Douglas would be almost like stepping beyond the boundaries one more time and testing herself further. All the while, expecting him to leave her once again, or banish her from his house.

A wiser woman would thank him for the gift of the night before, for allowing her to pretend for just a little while. A wiser woman would simply kiss him passionately one last time and take her leave. A wiser woman would stride away from this beautiful house and never look back.

But she had never been wise in regards to Douglas MacRae. If she had, she wouldn’t have been so lonely in the past ten years.

When she’d first gone to the convent, she’d awake to the sound of the wind whistling through the corridors at night, the sound similar to a baby’s cry. She’d shiver from the chill, and begin to cry, the tears like ice on her face. Two years had passed before she realized that no one was coming to rescue her. Slower still, she’d come to understand that her imprisonment would last until the day she died. Over time her tears came less until only her nightmares remained, confusing, chaotic expressions of her greater despair.

She no longer cared what they did to her at the convent, what punishments she endured, what she suffered from day to day. With her apathy had come a type of freedom and, in time, a release. She’d changed even further as the years passed, becoming stronger in her weakness than those who had once been the masters.

She also began to understand that there was nothing that could be done to cure the past. It was simply there, accusing and unremitting. Yet she still wanted it to be different with every breath she took and with every beat of her heart.

The house was waking around her, commonplace household noises marking the start of another day—maids walking down the hallway, the low murmur of conversation. Life was going on regardless of her participation. She felt outside of it at the moment, an observer. But then, she hadn’t been part of the world for a very long time.

Standing, she walked to the basin, surprised to find that the water was warm. Evidently she had slept through the maid’s arrival. Once that might have embarrassed her, but she was far removed from such petty concerns as reputation. If she had cared that much for the gossip of servants, she would have removed herself from the house the moment Lassiter saw her last night. She was not foolish enough to think that the elderly majordomo would remain silent. Even the most loyal of servants talked. She didn’t delude herself into thinking that they were ignorant of what had transpired the night before.

She pulled out one of her dresses from the valise, smoothing the fabric repeatedly until most of the wrinkles were gone. Dressing took longer than it should have. Anytime a garment touched her skin, Jeanne stopped in remembrance of what Douglas’s touch had felt like on that spot. A sleeve sliding against her arm recalled his teasing kiss. Fastening her bodice reminded her of his stroking fin
gers on her breasts. Her palm pressing gently against her throat recalled his lips.

As she fastened her collar she realized that something was missing.

The locket she’d worn since returning home to Vallans was gone. How had she left her mother’s locket behind?

Twice she went through the valise that Douglas had carried to her room, certain finally that it was not there.

She had lost one of the last mementos of her former life.

Perhaps it was an omen.

Douglas was furious with himself. What the hell had he done? He’d lain with a woman he despised. He’d kissed her with gentleness, tenderness, and touched her as if he held some respect for her. Lust shouldn’t have transformed him from a rational man to a beast, but it had. Dear God, it had.

Last night he’d paced in his room, thinking of her. He’d almost worn a path in the carpet before he lost the battle with himself, finding himself in front of the door to the guest room.

If Lassiter had discovered him, he didn’t know what he would have told his majordomo.

Now Douglas entered his library and closed the door behind him, still conscious of the fact that the woman he had hated for ten years lay asleep above him.

She’d come into his home and he’d immediately lusted after her. She’d sat on his couch looking tired and what had he thought? Not that now was the perfect time to accuse her. Not that now was the opportune moment to avenge Margaret. Not that he would have the opportunity to punish Jeanne for past deeds. No, all he thought was that she’d been a pretty girl, but she’d matured into a voluptuous woman.

The night before had proven that he was a fool around her.

She had to leave. Now. Immediately, before his curiosity and his lust overwhelmed him again. And his curiosity.

The words returned, softly spoken and stated in a voice that didn’t ask for pity. She had stood straight and tall in front of him, clutching the sheet to her chest. But he had the impression that she would have been as filled with pride naked. There was something about Jeanne, some sense of herself, perhaps, that he’d never witnessed in another woman.

Or never wished to see.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, willing his headache away. He’d slept for a while, and then awakened holding Jeanne, all the memories of Paris he’d thought forgotten replaying in his mind.

He’d remembered their first kiss, the first time they’d loved, the sound of her laughter. She would bring books from her father’s library and they would read together, and argue points of logic or philosophy. He’d see things during the day that he couldn’t wait to tell her and would jot them down in a small book he carried for simply that reason. He’d stand outside in the street until the curtain slowly closed and then opened again, a sign for him to meet her at the entrance to the terraced garden.

They were as attuned physically as they were in thought. Last night her arm had slid across his chest and every pore on his skin had responded. She trailed a finger from his shoulder to his elbow and he shivered. When he’d entered her it was like coming home, the feeling so blissful that he registered it with a note of warning.

Why the hell couldn’t he get Jeanne du Marchand out of his mind and out of his life?

Because he’d invited her into his house, offered her a position, bedded her with gentleness, touched her with restraint, and even now replayed the memory of cupping his
hands around her beautifully shaped bottom and lifting her so that the angle of his thrusts would bring them both greater pleasure.

He halted, recognizing his own idiocy with some chagrin. Even now he couldn’t stop thinking of how it had been.

Going to the fireplace, he looked above it to the painting he’d had commissioned of Margaret. She was seated not in the formal pose as was customary, but outdoors at a place they called Iseabal’s Knoll. Behind her was the great fortress of Gilmuir, the MacRae ancestral home.

There were some in the family who said that Margaret resembled him and others who said that she looked more like Moira, his grandmother. But his daughter reminded him of his mother, Leitis, with her black hair and brilliant blue eyes.

But in nature she was as bright and curious as Jeanne had been. What had happened to the girl he’d known?

They found it expeditious to enforce some lessons.

He concentrated on the portrait of his daughter, banishing, with some difficulty, the memory of Jeanne’s words.

Margaret was, from the moment he’d rescued her, the most important thing in his life. He had restructured his future for her, had changed his life’s course in order to rear her. He’d even built this house for her, in a proper section of Edinburgh where she’d be known as a wealthy heiress to his fortune.

For her sake, and to prevent her from being labeled illegitimate, he’d started the rumor that he was a widower. Even his servants thought him a man who grieved for his long-dead wife.

His relationships with other women had been circumspect at first, then gradually declining. He hadn’t wanted his behavior to taint Margaret’s future. Only recently had he begun thinking of marriage, to the extent that he’d actu
ally attended some events in the newly constructed Assembly Rooms. His requirements for a wife were remarkably simple. Not only must he love her but Margaret must love her as well.

The only reason he’d reacted so feverishly to Jeanne was because it had been a long time since he’d had the company of a woman. He was simply lonely.

Going to his desk, he sat heavily in the leather chair behind it. He stared at the wall, envisioning the night before. She always bit at her bottom lip and arched her body when she found her pleasure, the better to savor the sensation she was feeling.

“It’s like the world is ending inside of me and beginning again,” she’d said once.

They’d been young lovers together, perfectly matched in needs and desires. He’d never known a woman since then so responsive to his touch. Last night proved that nothing had changed between them.

As he sat there, he recalled every single moment, and knew he always would. He ached to reach out even now and smooth her bottom lip with his thumb. Or cup her face in his hand, or touch his lips to her nipples.

Douglas stood, deciding that there was only one way to end this. She had to leave.

He took the stairs two at a time, striding past his chamber, past Margaret’s room located in the middle of the second floor. Finally, he came to the guest room. Before he had time to reconsider, he rapped sharply on the door.

Jeanne opened it quickly, as if she’d been standing there waiting for his summons.

For a moment, he forgot why he’d raced up here. Her cheeks were deep rose, her mouth still swollen from his kisses. He knew every inch of her body as he knew his own. To his surprise, he realized that the girl was only a faint rendition of the woman she’d become.

He’d fallen in love with the girl, but the woman attracted him as much as she confused him.

“Would you like to come in?” she asked, stepping aside. She looked at him quizzically and he realized he must have, indeed, been acting like an idiot, standing there speechless.

He shook his head.

“This won’t do,” he abruptly said.

She studied him with grave eyes. As a girl she’d been filled with enthusiasm. As a woman she was the personification of poise. Or was it coldness? After all, she’d sent a newborn infant away to be fostered, uncaring whether it lived or died.

“Have you given any consideration to my offer?” he found himself asking. They were not the words he’d intended to speak.

“I have.”