Stranger in Camelot (15 page)

“But it was ugly. I’m sorry you saw me that way.”

“John, I love your gallant ideas about protecting my ideals, but don’t worry so much. I wasn’t disgusted by what you did. We’re both alive and unhurt because of you. Think of me this way—I’m as tough as one of those medieval women who supervised the crops, doctored the sick, made the family’s clothes, and went hunting when she needed meat for the dinner table. You can treat me like the lady of the castle, but Lady Agnes is no wimp, Sir John.”

His face tightened at her whimsical lecture. He looked almost angry. “I know I did the right thing, but I don’t want you to think I have a dark side I never told you about.”

She caught his face between her hands and gave him a kiss, despite the watchful gaze of a sergeant at the desk across the room. “We gotta stop making out in
public places.” Aggie swallowed a knot of emotion in her throat.

The affection in his eyes warmed her. “Let’s go home, then.”

She nodded happily. Home. She loved the way he included himself in it. He held out his good hand and she grasped it. As they left the police station it occurred to her, he hadn’t answered her question about martial arts. Oh, it wasn’t important, anyway. She knew all she needed to know about him and had never been so confident before in her life. She loved him desperately.

His past was catching up with him, not in a way other people could notice but inside him, because the half-truths he’d let Agnes believe about himself were a black shadow on their future. John watched pensively as she crossed her living room to switch on a window air conditioner.

He clenched his bruised hand and hardly felt the pain. He had to merge the John Bartholomew she knew with the man he really was, the man who’d demonstrated the difference blatantly tonight. She not only still trusted him, she trusted him completely. To her there was nothing strange about a proper British businessman suddenly doing a switch worthy of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Mr. Hyde isn’t a monster, he wanted to tell her. He’s even won some awards for public service. He’s honest and loyal, despite evidence to the contrary.

“John?” She came to him and took his hands, studying him anxiously. “Come sit down. You look worn out and upset.”

“I didn’t enjoy hurting those men. But it couldn’t be helped.”

“Sssh. Stop explaining to me. I understand.” She led him to the comfortably sprung chintz couch, tossed his
coat aside, then lightly pushed him down into the couch’s corner. “Lean back.” She stuffed throw pillows behind his head, then propped his feet on an ottoman she pulled from under a lamp table. Quickly she removed his soft camel-colored loafers. “There. Are you hungry?”

“Not really.”

“I know what’ll be good! Be right back.” He had to smile. Agnes was unstoppable. Five minutes later she returned from the kitchen with a bowl of vanilla ice cream and a tall frosted glass rattling with ice. “Sugar and liquor,” she intoned wickedly.

John sank deeper into the cushions and chuckled. Her inventive attention delighted him. Sipping a stiff gin and tonic, he watched her curl up beside him. She fed him a spoonful of ice cream, and its coolness followed the liquor’s fiery path down his throat. “Wonderful,” he admitted.

“I thought you’d like it. By the time you finish all this, you’ll be under my spell.”

“That sounds intriguing. Then what?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Let’s be spontaneous.” She fed him more ice cream. He downed half of his drink in a deep swallow then gazed at her through half-shut eyes, a purposeful little smile on his lips. He wanted her to love him. That was the first step toward making things right. “What can I do for you, Agnes?” he asked in a thick whisper, the gin relaxing his throat.

She stroked her fingertips across his forehead. Tears glistened in her eyes, but she looked serene. “Enjoy yourself,” she answered. “I’m going to make you feel better.” She dabbed the smooth vanilla on the cleft of his lips, leaned forward quickly, and licked it away with the tip of her tongue.

Languid desire wound through him. He felt weighted to the couch. His heart was beating faster, and his skin was hot and sensitive. He kissed her hand. “There’s a
lazy, tired sultan in my head who’d love to lounge here and let you play harem slave. But that’s not fair to you. You’re tired too.”

Slipping another spoonful of ice cream into his mouth, she shook her head. The seduction in her eyes made the ice cream melt on his tongue. “Don’t be a gentleman tonight,” she commanded in a husky tone. “And I won’t be a lady.”

The breath soughed out of him. She winked and got up from the couch. “What are you leaving for?” She was already halfway down the hall to her bedroom.

“To put on my harem outfit.”

John set the dishes on an end table, laid his head back on the pillows and shut his eyes, his thoughts whirling. He’d won her trust. Could he win her love?

Aggie stripped off her clothes and, going to her bedroom closet, took out a pearl-gray silk robe she’d bought after her divorce to cheer herself up but had never worn, until tonight. Her knees quivered, but she wasn’t nervous. Her body hummed with tenderness and arousal. Touching her nipples, she sighed at their heavy, strutted excitement.

She carried a damp washcloth with her when she returned to the living room. John lifted his head as she sat down beside him again. The admiration in his dark eyes scorched her. Slowly their gaze moved down the robe’s sheer surface to the black tie-belt at her waist. She’d arranged the lapels to show a vee of pale skin down the center of her chest.

Her breath shuddered when he reached over and brushed a fingertip across the tiny beauty mark between her breasts. “A lovely landmark for wayward travelers.”

“You have a way with words.” She knelt on the couch and began gently cleaning his face with the cloth. With her other hand she unbuttoned his shirt down to the slim leather belt at the waist of his white trousers. Her
eyes met his as she pulled the shirt open and ran the warm, wet cloth in slow circles on his chest.

His face was flushed and had a primitive look of hunger along with the slightest hint of a smile, which made her realize this languid tiger was patiently waiting to eat her up. The danger in him still shows, she thought with a hot rush of pleasure.

Some people used that kind of emotional power as a weapon. Richard had. Her parents too. But with John she shared a sense of security and partnership. Their backgrounds had nothing in common, but he seemed to understand her problems and needs.

Aggie’s fingers trembled with desire as she unfastened his belt and trousers. His quiver of response aroused her even more as she smoothed the cloth over his belly and the hard welcome there.

Curling her arms around his legs, she bent forward and placed kisses on that eager, intimate part of his body. His hands sank convulsively into her hair and his back arched. His pleasure sang in her blood.

She tantalized him slowly, listening to his soft baritone murmurs of encouragement, half-formed words mingling with the heavy rhythm of his breath. Suddenly he gave a harsh groan of restraint and pulled her up to him. She lay across his chest, her robe wrenched open, as his hands stroked and squeezed her breasts. He kissed her roughly, and she clung to him.

Seconds later they were both naked and stretched out on the couch, winding themselves around each other. Aggie curved her hand down the sloping muscles of his back and sighed with pleasure when he slipped his leg deeply between hers. She gripped him with her thighs. He pulled her against him and flexed enticingly. Aggie was quivering with sensation.

She encouraged him wildly, lapping her tongue into his mouth, loving the taste of vanilla and gin. John reached over her and pulled his coat from the back of
the couch. It tumbled down on them, smooth and inviting on her skin.

He retrieved something from an inside pocket then tickled the slim soft edge up her arm. Aggie lifted her head to look at the plastic packet. They traded a quiet, serious gaze as he brushed it across her lips. “I bought a few of these today.”

Aggie kissed the packet and nodded, satisfied. He was as perfect as she’d expected. “I bought some today too,” she admitted. “I told you that I never know what’ll happen next between you and me. I decided to be ready.”

She prepared him with slow, provocative hands, while he sank his fingers into her hair and kissed her. Then he knelt between her knees and pressed her onto her back atop the comfortable cushions. His gaze holding hers intensely, he stretched out on her deeper and deeper until suddenly he was inside her. Her moan of delight made a keening sound.

“My lady, you’re humming like a bell that’s just been rung,” he whispered against her ear. Aggie wound her arms and legs around him. An ecstatic laugh bubbled in her throat. “Oh, how well you do the ringing, Sir John.”

Smiling, he put his mouth on hers, stopped the laugh, and took the last of her control away with his body’s movements. She whispered his name as if it were the soft, sweet echo of a timeless song.

John stood in her dark office, a glass of milk in his hand, a pair of shorts hanging, half-fastened, on his hips.

Her old rolltop desk looked ridiculously easy to open. The drawer locks wouldn’t last a minute when he coaxed them with the slender metal pick he kept in his backpack. When Agnes went to work at the pub Thursday
night, he’d pop the drawers and check their contents.

Maybe she didn’t have the books. He had to find out, then decide how to tell her why he’d come here. If she didn’t have them, he still wouldn’t have an easy time explaining himself. But dammit, he’d convince her, somehow, that the books were a separate problem and had nothing to do with his feelings for her.

He scrutinized the books and papers stacked on the desk. She’d put all her medieval textbooks and notes away. All he saw now were veterinary manuals and forms to be filled out on the new colt so he’d be confirmed by the country’s official registry for purebred quarter horses.

John idly toyed with the ceramic vase holding a silk begonia while he burned inside with grim speculation. Had Agnes deliberately hidden the evidence from him? He’d never given her any reason to worry about his motives. Maybe she didn’t trust him as much as he thought.

John angrily thumped the vase. As it had the other time he’d disturbed it, the vase rattled inside. Quickly he turned it upside down, jabbing his fingers into the fake begonias so they wouldn’t spill.

A tiny, rusty key fell out.

His breath rough in his throat, he inserted the key into the desk’s top drawer, tested it, and felt the lock click. He had a dull sense of victory. Agnes wasn’t very good at hiding things. Not exactly skilled in the sleazier arts of deception, the way he was.

Or maybe she’d believed him too decent and honorable to look through her desk. John locked the drawer without opening it, tossed the key into the vase, and left the room.

Still carrying his glass of milk, he returned to her bedroom. John scowled at the glass and mocked himself. Wholesome, yeah. He halted at the foot of the bed
and watched Agnes sleep. She was an enticing pale shape half covered by the sheets. She lay on her back with one hand unfurled over her breasts and the other tossed aside on his empty pillow.

He promised her silently that he wasn’t going to steal from her or hurt her in any way.

She shifted, stretching sleepily, her body as supple as a dozing cat’s. The thin white sheet accentuated the inviting sight. Bittersweet desire and concern almost made him dizzy.

Her hand feathered over his pillow. She rose on one elbow and looked around groggily. “John?” He went to the side of the bed and knelt, stroking a hand over her hair. “Sssh. I’m right here. I went for a glass of milk. I have to keep my strength up, you know.”

“Hmmm. Keep it up.” She lightly ran her hand over his chest, as if reassuring herself that he was real. “Hmmm.” Her fingertips tickled their way down his belly and found his unzipped shorts. “Hmmm.”

John inhaled sharply. “My milk is turning into a milkshake.” He held the glass to her mouth and she took a sip. “I have a cow mustache,” she told him, chuckling.

John set the glass on the nightstand, bent over her, and took her face between his hands. He licked the crest of milk from her upper lip. “All gone.”

“Too bad.” She curled her arms around his neck and nuzzled her nose to his. Then she said his name tenderly. “This night makes a whole lifetime of loneliness seem worth it.”

John retrieved the glass of milk, pushed the sheet off her, and began kissing her thighs. He tilted the glass over them and trickled milk into the fluffy auburn hair at their center.

She gasped. “We’ll have to change the bed!” But her voice was breathless.

“I won’t let one drop escape,” he promised, catching the milk with his tongue.

“Whatzit?” Oscar demanded as soon as she walked into the pub on Thursday evening. A few tourists were eating sandwiches at the big, rustic tables covered in checkered vinyl cloths; the pub was an after-dinner hangout, and the crowd wouldn’t arrive for about an hour.

Aggie grinned at him mysteriously and began tying a white apron around her white shorts. She made an X over the center of her bright-red blouse. “Cross your heart and promise not to tease me?”

“Got no heart.” Oscar made an X over the midsection of his white T-shirt. “I’ll cross my stomach. That’s the part I pay the most attention to. Well, almost.”

“Close enough.” She bounced onto a tall chair behind the bar and swung her feet cheerfully. “I’m in love.”

“Yow! The British guy?”

She nodded. “Not just in love, but absolutely crazy about him. Just your basic once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing. Do you think anyone can tell I’m happier than I’ve ever been before?”

“Have you said all this to him?”

“Not yet.”

“He said it to you?”

“Uhmm, not yet.” She frowned at Oscar. “We agreed to live in the present. We’re takin’ things slow. We just met about two weeks ago!”

“Huh. Slow, right. But he’s already Mr. Forever.” Oscar looked doubtful. “He’s gonna love you in the future, but not now?”

She stopped swinging her feet. “Oscar, if anybody ever asks you to play Cupid, break their face.”