Texas Viscount (24 page)

      
“Tell me about your family,” he said, intrigued as he watched the way her eyes glowed in the moonlight. Her hair fell like a silky cloak around her shoulders, wind-tossed and begging for his hands to comb through it. But if he tried to do that, he knew she'd bolt like a skittish colt. Besides, he found he really did want to know more about her—everything about her. That had never been true of his feelings for any other woman.

      
Her face lit up as she began to speak. “My father and mother live just outside a small village in Sussex. He's a squire with a modest income, and Mama's father was vicar of the local parish. They grew up together and were married by him. They've had such a wonderful relationship, a true sharing of their lives and dreams. It's what every girl wants, I imagine.”

      
“But you didn't?” Somehow he doubted that that had always been true, given the dreamy expression on her face when she talked about her parents' marriage. Then a look of profound sadness flashed into her eyes. She quickly masked it, looking out to the shoreline.

      
“Oh, I did when I was seventeen.”

      
“What happened?”

      
“He went to Africa. Dexter Goodbine was an admirer of Sir Cecil Rhodes and wanted to make his mark on the world, not settle for the life of a simple country squire. He'd always talked about it when we were growing up, but I never realized how much it meant to him. Especially after he asked me to marry him. I thought he'd given up on such fancies, but then an old school friend of his made a fortune in the diamond trade, and off Dex went. It was three days before we were to be wed.”

      
“I'd say he oughta be roped and dragged behind a mule over a mile of sharp rocks, but he really did you a favor. Fellow like that would never have made you happy like your pa did your ma.”

      
She looked back at him. “You're very perceptive. After recovering from the shock and embarrassment, I realized it was true.”

      
“Just because he was a no-account doesn't mean there weren't other men,” he said softly. Sabrina laughed but it sounded sad.

      
“I had other offers, but once a woman becomes older and wiser...well, let us just say none of them interested me. Sussex isn't exactly overrun with witty, charming young gentlemen who want their wives as outspoken as the Edgewater females tend to be. I became bored with them.”

      
I never wanted another man...until I met you.

      
Her mind shut down, knowing the painful impossibility of that dream. Rather than dwell on it or on past betrayals, she continued with forced brightness, “As I had three younger sisters for whom my parents had to provide dowries, in addition to three brothers to be educated, it seemed best that I make my own way in the world. And there was Edmund to consider also.”

      
“Edmund?” he echoed, feeling as if he were betraying her by prying into her relationship with his uncle's suspicious clerk.

      
“My young cousin, Edmund Whistledown. His parents were killed when he was seven. My parents took him in and raised him as if he were our own. I rather adopted him, since he was the youngest and I the second eldest in our large family. Poor Edmund was always being picked on by the older boys, my brothers and others at school. He was recently employed by your uncle. You may have run into him.”

      
She went on describing Whistledown, and Josh admitted he'd seen him a time or two. It was obvious that she loved the fellow dearly and indulged him far beyond what was good for a man of nearly twenty. By that age Josh had survived two trail drives to the Dakotas and was saving money to buy his first beeves. But he was certain Sabrina had no idea that her darling Eddy might be involved in treason.

      
Wishing to change the subject, he asked, “Are your sisters married off now?”

      
“Not the youngest, Edna, whose health is frail. I fear she'll be with my parents and then my eldest brother for the rest of her life.”

      
“You come from quite a brood. How many brothers?”

      
“Gerard, he's the eldest, will inherit our father's small estate, and Donald is in the military. Jeffrey followed Grandfather into the priesthood. He now tends the same flock.”

      
“I never knew my family,” Josh found himself admitting, something he rarely talked about. There was a quality about Sabrina that invited confidences, at least when they were alone together and she let down her very proper guard.

      
“Are all the stories in the newspapers true?” she found herself asking.

      
Josh heard no censure or prurient curiosity in her tone, only quiet concern. “My pa was killed in a card game in west Texas and left my ma alone with a newborn. Seeing as how they were foreigners and all, the only one who'd take her in was Gert.”

      
“The lady who ran the...”

      
“Bordello,” he supplied. “No one ever accused Garter Gertie Greer of being a lady before,” he added with a grin. “Gert was good as pure gold, though. My ma was sick even before Pa died. Consumption. Didn't matter to Gertie and her girls. They took care of her, and after she died, they raised me. I was a handful, but I never could put one over on Gert. She was the only ma I ever knew, except Rosie and Dolly. They were kinda like aunts, I reckon.” He stopped short of mentioning Verla, Suzie and Lupe, younger recruits to the Golden Garter whose interest in a strapping fifteen-year-old had not been exactly maternal.

      
“What an extraordinary life you've led. Only in your United States could a self-educated man without connections go from poverty to such riches as you've earned.”

      
“I only wish I coulda done it sooner. By the time I sold my first herd and got back from the Dakotas, Gert was gone. But she's got the damn biggest marble tombstone in all of Fort Worth. I was able to provide for Rosie and Dolly,” he added, swallowing hard as he spoke.

      
Sabrina could detect the sheen of tears in his eyes for a moment before he blinked them away. Without realizing it, she reached over and placed her hand on his. It seemed so natural to touch him, to offer understanding for his highly unorthodox upbringing and the loyalty he felt for those women.

      
He turned to her, and their gazes met. When he silently cupped her chin in his hand and tilted her head back, she did not resist. His mouth slowly drew closer to hers. And still she did not resist.

      
This was madness. They were all alone out here. There would be no officious servants to interrupt and save her from herself. If she wanted to be saved. The instant his lips touched hers, Sabrina forgot about the past, the future, all the rules by which she'd fashioned her life. This was now, and she wanted him to kiss her...wanted so much more than that...what she'd been denied long ago and would never be able to have.

      
Josh leaned over her, gently tasting her lips, rimming them with his tongue until she opened for him. But instead of plunging in, he invited her tongue to play, teasing it with the tip of his until she dared to dart it into his mouth, once, then once more. By that second time, the kiss was becoming far more hungry. He could feel her hands clutching his shoulders as their tongues dueled, entwining, withdrawing, dancing the dance of love.

      
Sabrina was melting. Suddenly the cool night air was heavy, laden with a spiraling heat that owed nothing to the weather and everything to the man whose clever fingers moved over the ridges of her collarbone and down the delicate vertebrae of her spine as she arched into his embrace.

      
She was so soft, so pliant, her mouth so sweet that he nearly forgot his resolve to go slowly. A virgin lady such as Sabrina could not be tossed on the sand like the experienced women he'd known all his life. She required special care...the kind several of the young prostitutes at Gert’s had taught him. If he were not so desperate to have her, he would walk away. He
should
walk away. But he knew his need was all too quickly overriding his conscience.

      
The least he could do was go slow and make it good for her. He ran his fingers through her long, soft hair, murmuring, “Like silk,” as he inhaled the faint fragrance of wildflowers on the moist salt air. He pressed kisses to her eyelids and moved down to her throat, where he could feel the furious beating of her pulse. His lips suckled the soft skin at her nape, and she gave a low whimper of pleasure, pressing her breasts against his chest and clinging to him, lost and eager.

      
He could not do this to an innocent! Gently he broke away and held her at arm's length, his breath coming in harsh pants as he whispered, “Sabrina, no matter how much I want you, I shouldn't take advantage of a lady like—”

      
She placed her fingers over his lips and shook her head, letting it fall forward. Her hair curtained her face so he could not read her expression, but her voice was a low, soft hum of desperation. “Please, Josh, don't think ill of me. I'm not what I seem.” She raised her head and met his gaze with a plea in her eyes. “Why do you think I became a teacher of deportment—a paragon of propriety?”

      
His smile was puzzled as he answered, “Because being a vicar's granddaughter, you just couldn't help it.”

      
“No.” Her voice was flat. “I'm a fraud, even to myself. I've buried the past for too long. What happened between my fiancé and me was as foolish as it was wrong. Dex assured me that consummating our marriage vows a few days before the wedding was perfectly acceptable. That we were already married in the sight of God. I agreed.

      
“He left the next day,” she whispered bitterly. “And do you know the saddest part of all?” she asked with tears thickening her voice. “It was degrading and painful, but at least, mercifully, it was over very quickly.

      
“So you see, I'm not the innocent, nor the fine lady you and the rest of the world imagine me to be.” She threw her head back, faintly defiant yet so painfully vulnerable that it tore at his heart.

      
Josh pulled her to him and held her in his arms, rocking her back and forth as he stroked her hair and murmured, “Sabrina, girl, you're plumb wrong. You are the finest lady in England and as innocent as a newborn lamb. That Dexter, whatever his name was—you're not to blame for what he did.”

      
“I allowed it,” she said softly.

      
He heard a faint flicker of hope in her voice and raised her chin so he could look in her eyes. “He took advantage of you, saying you two were married all the while he was planning to leave.”

      
“Maybe he left because I—I couldn't please him.” The words came out in a tortured whisper.

      
“It's up to a man to please a woman, not the other way around. Never let anyone tell you different...and if you want me to, I'll show you how right I am.”

      
“I'm afraid, Josh...now that I've had time to think—”

      
“Too much thinking, even for as smart a woman as you, can be a worrisome thing,” he drawled, letting his fingertips graze her temple and lightly brush back her hair. He waited, searching her eyes for assent.

      
Sabrina felt the fear and shame all jumbled up with desire, a hungry inexplicable yearning that she had never felt before, not even with the man she'd believed she loved, the one she'd intended to marry, the one to whom she had given her virginity. After Dex's betrayal, she had seen the men who attempted to court her as shallow and self-centered. She'd told the truth when she said none of them were strong enough to engage her interest, but there was more to it than that. She was also afraid of being disappointed again.

      
Somehow she knew Josh could satisfy her desires. But he could also break her heart. There was no future for the daughter of a lowly country squire with Lord Hambleton's heir, even if the thought of marriage had crossed Josh's mind, and she knew it had not. But this was her one chance to know what it meant to be a woman in the arms of a man to whom she was desperately attracted.

      
There might never be another.

      
Slowly Sabrina reached up and placed her hand over his as he caressed her face. She brought it to her mouth and kissed his callused palm, eliciting a sharp gasp of pleasure from him. “No more thinking, Josh...only feeling,” she whispered, her eyes imploring him.

      
“I'll make it as good for you as I possibly can,” he murmured. Glancing around at the sand mounds surrounding them, he quickly slipped off his shirt and spread it on the ground, then laid her upon it.

      
She watched the ripple of his lean muscles and traced with her eyes the cunning pattern of dark hair on his chest, tapering down to the waistband of his jeans. She remembered how scandalized she'd been the first time he'd appeared with an open collar that gave her a tantalizing glimpse of what lay beneath.