The Captain's Wicked Wager (6 page)

Little kisses nuzzling her back to consciousness… Abruptly, Belle sat up. Reluctantly, she pulled herself away. She untied him.

Ewan smiled at her lazily. “How does it feel to win?”

“How does it feel to lose?”

“Surprisingly good.” He sat up, massaging his wrists.

To her embarrassment, there were red wheals where the ribbons had been pulled too tight when he had strained against them. “I’m sorry,” she said contritely. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

He shrugged and pulled her down on top of him. “It’s of no consequence.”

His hands stroked her back, pulled her close, so close she could hear the thump of his heart. Her head fitted snugly onto his shoulder. How could three days have passed so quickly? Why could not the night last longer? She was dreading daybreak.

“Belle, about tomorrow,” Ewan said.

“There is no need to say anything,” she mumbled into his chest, unwilling to hear any reminder of their terms or, God forbid, his thanks or his excuses. She would leave without betraying herself if it killed her.

Assuming they were in perfect accord, Ewan smiled contentedly. She was right. There was no need for words to frame something so fundamental. But he would say them all the same in the morning. Unconventional this courtship may have been, but it must be formally sealed. He slept deeply and dreamt of their future together. When he awoke she was gone.

“Why did you leave without so much as a word?”

Ewan pushed passed the maidservant and slammed the door of the small parlour firmly behind them. He was clearly angry. It showed in the hard glitter of his eyes, in the rigid way he held himself, leaning against the door, muscles tensed as if waiting to pounce, holding her in a gimlet glare she dared not break.

Isabella shook her head helplessly.

“I thought things were understood between us,” Ewan said harshly, pushing himself from the door and closing the distance to her with three long strides. “Last night, you said we need not say anything, I thought you realised—” He stopped abruptly, ran a hand over his unshaven jaw, up to his hair, copper and gold in wild disarray, in tune with his mood. “Isabella, have you any idea how I felt? I did not even know where you live.”

She smiled nervously. “We did not get around to such common place information.”

“No. What we shared was rather more fundamental,” he said, taking her hand. “Luckily, the footman who summoned the hackney for you this morning has an excellent memory.”

Hope flickered in her breast, but she could not yet turn it into belief. “We certainly reached a—a frankness in a very short acquaintance which few people achieve in a lifetime.”

Navy blue eyes met amber. Each searching desperately for reassurance. It was Ewan who spoke
first.

“Two days and three nights that is all, yet I feel I know you. I feel you know me, too.”

He was frowning, his mouth a tight line. It was a look which could have been frightening, so fierce it was, but she was not frightened. Uncertainty, need, too, were reflected there. She had never seen him look so anxious. Never heard that note in his voice, not even at the height of their passion. She recognised it all. A reflection of herself.

But still she sought reassurance. “You said last night we had no need for words.”

“You thought I meant no regrets,” he said, understanding slowly dawning.

She gave a ragged laugh. “I thought you were reminding me of our terms. That you had had enough of me. I could not bear to say goodbye.”

A smile lurked at the corner of Ewan’s mouth. “Goodbye! One word we will never say. No, it was not that. It was just—something so elemental as we share, it seemed to me sacrilege to speak it.”

“Elemental,” Isabella whispered. “That is how it felt.”

“An irresistible force. We called it a battle, but it was more like an explosion, so powerful it was, that thing which brought us together.” He pressed her hand between his,.then.knelt at her feet. “We fought for control, when we should have simply surrendered. We are two halves of one being, Isabella. One creation far more powerful than its components. Do you not realise that?”

She knew only too well. “
My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears
,” she quoted softly. “I know that
I love you, Ewan, if that is what you mean.”

“I look at you and see me. That, my lovely Isabella, is exactly what I mean,” he said. “And though our wooing has been rather unconventional, that is what it was after all, a wooing. So I would beg you in the most conventional way to be my wife, for the most conventional of reasons, that I cannot live without you and my life would be empty without you.”

She fell to the floor beside him, wrapping her arms around him. “And I must reply in the most conventional of ways that I will, I will,
indeed
I will.”

“I love you, Isabella,” he whispered into her ear. “A mere three days we have spent together, but we have been meant for each other since the beginning of time.”

Finally, his lips met hers. Tongues tangling. Breath mingling. Hot, hard kisses. Arms entwined. Bodies pressed so tight together nothing could ever come between them.

A mere two hours they had been wed. They left on the morrow for the New World.

“You’re shivering,” Ewan said, running his hands down his wife’s arms.

“I’m nervous,” Isabella replied. “I know it’s foolish, but I feel as if this is the first time.”

“It is. Before, we indulged in love-making. Tonight we will be making love. I am as nervous as you are.”

Shyly, she untied the fastening of her chemise and let it fall to the ground. She came towards him, white skin, black hair, blue eyes, pink mouth.

“Beautiful,” Ewan whispered. “Beautiful Isabella.” He ran his hands down the line of her spine to cup the curves of her bottom, pulling her close against him. “My wife. I love you.”

“My husband,” she whispered, rubbing herself sensuously against him. “I love you.”

He kissed her, and his touch sent a jolt of fire through her. Ewan’s hair clenched in her hand. Herself pushing, arching her hips into his, relishing the hardness of him against her. He lifted her onto the bed. Touching. Stroking. Licking. Sucking. Her mouth. Her breasts. Down to the heat between her legs. She moaned his name. Began to fall. Then he was on top of her, kissing her, thrusting deep inside her as she climaxed, arching against him, feeling him spill into her at the same moment, kissing, clutching. Calling her name. Calling his name. Drifting weightless, dispersed like a thousand stars into a new sky.

One. They were one. That is how it ended. And that is how it began. In a new world.

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ISBN: 978-1-4089-1754-1

The Captain’s Wicked Wager

© 2009 by Marguerite Kaye

First Published in Great Britain in 2008
Harlequin Mills & Boon Limited
Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR

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