The Delicate Matter of Lady Blayne (46 page)

“Don’t thank me, Catriona, it is I should be thanking you for opening my eyes to what was really important.” He clasped her hands.

She stared at her hands in his. How pale and small her fingers looked next to his long, tanned fingers. She never realized how small her own hands could appear until compared to his.

She didn’t know if she wanted to touch him like this.

“Things may not always go so smoothly between Benjamin and us. He is bound to experience a myriad of changing emotions as he grieves. He will chafe against our authority, he will feel honor bound to reject our affection at times he may need it most.” James squeezed her hands. “Are you prepared to face all of that? I must know because it will be a solemn commitment, once we bring him into our house, as a child of that house, we can never send him back. It would be too crushing. Better to leave him where he is now.”

“I will commit to him. A person can learn how to give love.” She looked up at him. “Can’t they?”

His expression softened. “Yes. A person can learn how to love, if only others will be patient with him.”

She dared not breathe.

“I love you, Catriona.”

Her heart started pounding and she tried to pull her hands back. ”No, no, don’t say that.”

“I do. I love you with all my being.”

“Please, please, I can no’ hold out against such tender talk. If you are lying, if you are stretching the truth, then I will no’ be able to bear the pain this time.”

“I have never lied to you, certainly not about something this important. But I have lied to myself. I denied my own love for you. I believed love was something that I now realize was an illusion.”

She shook her head. “I can no’ follow your pretty talk.”

“I was like the others, Catriona, I was dazzled by Sunny’s charm. I adored the way she made me forget myself and how happy she made me feel. I wanted to own that girl and put her in a high tower somewhere, a star that had fallen from heaven that I alone would enjoy and possess.”

“Sunny is gone.”

“I told you the other night, I have no need for Sunny now. I have Catriona, the woman, I have you.” He squeezed her hands again. “I
need
you.”

“Please do no’ say these things. I am not strong, I will weaken to you.”

“Weaken to me then. Please.”

“I am scared to be weak to you now. You are so strong. I can no’ stand strong against you.”

“Haven’t you already?”

“No.”

“Yes, you have. You were strong to me in the exact way I needed you to be. You forced me to look at my life and see what I truly wanted. I truly want a life with you.”

“What kind of life?” she whispered, afraid to ask too loudly for fear he would vanish into thin air, a figment of her imagination.

“We shall live in the country and raise sheep and fill our nursery. We shall socialize with the local gentry. When there are important votes in the House of Lords, we shall have a lovely few weeks in Mayfair and then return home. Sussex is beautiful, peaceful. You will love it, I know you will.”

“Oh James…”

He cupped her face, his eyes so silver-blue they transfixed her. “Marry me, Catriona.”

“Oh James.” She repeated, dumbly.

He put his mouth to hers and kissed her so hungrily it took her breath. Only when she had to press against his chest so that she could breathe, he lifted his head and buried his face into the crook of her neck. “I have been so cruel to you, these past weeks. I have been fighting myself. I have been a hollow man for so long. When my heart became so full of you, I was a stranger to myself, I was beside myself.” His voice was hoarse, breaking on the last words.

His anguish spoke straight to her heart. She reached up and touched his hair. “Oh, my love.”

“I don’t want to be that hollow man any longer.”

“James.”

“I have had my whole life planned out for me. But you have made me see how different and how rich my life should be. I want to share my heart and my home and my life with you. Save me, Catriona fair, save me from myself.”

She had waited to hear this, all of this. He loved her.

Loved her for herself.

What more did she expect him to say? Yes, he would have to prove himself to her, day by day, but she had to allow him that chance. She opened her mouth, ready to accept his declarations.

He kissed her neck. Shivers of pleasure shot through her, weakening her knees.

Weakening her to him. Stealing any last vestiges of rationality from her. Her bones became pure jelly. He groaned in his throat, grasped her by the back of her hair and pulled her head back. His lips claimed hers once more, his kiss sucking the very soul from her then breathing it back into her, renewed, vitalized. He was all masculine strength and fiery desire. And she wanted, very badly, to be burned. Consumed by him.

She went limp even as she put her hands to his shoulders and clasped him.

He put a hand to the front of her simple day dress and began slipping the buttons undone. Soon the dress was open and his hand rested on the swell of her breast above her tight stays. He hooked his hand into the top of that garment and pulled it down. Her breasts popped free, a sudden release that enabled her to breathe more deeply. His palm grazed her stiffening nipples, stimulating her. Then he was pinching a nipple between his thumb and forefinger, twisting it with just enough pressure to cause her to grit her teeth with the sudden intense pleasure that darted through to her womb.

She moaned.

He cupped and squeezed her breasts. “Let put my mouth on you,” he said.

Why did he ask? Why didn’t he just do it?

Then she realized that he wasn’t speaking of her breasts. No, he was talking about putting his mouth to her sex and loving her that way.

“Oh, I don’t know…”

“Let me. Let me taste all of you.” His voice was impassioned. Heated. Determined.

He leaned away from her and pulled her hands off his shoulders then drew her wrists together. “Let me take you to your bed and tie your hands together, tie you to the bed. Let me do this and I promise I will drive you mad with pleasure.” He pulled her gathered hands to his lips and kissed them. “Let me do that for you. I will make you scream. I will make you beg me to never stop.”

He leaned forward and put his mouth to hers, his tongue snaked over her lips, giving her a promise of what he could, would do to her, if she would but say yes.

“Let me bind you to the bed, trust me with that.” He kissed her again, hard, brief. “Trust me with your body. Trust me with your heart.”

It was hard to think clearly with the lustful anticipation coursing through her blood. “Can I, James? Dare I trust you again?”

“Yes, you can. Oh, Cat, I may stumble. I may blunder greatly, but I will never, ever intentionally harm you and I will always strive to be a good husband.” He cupped her hands with his. “Will you let me do these things? Will you let me tie you to the bed? Will you let me taste and tease you? Will you let me give you some pleasure, some small start at a recompense for all the pain I have given you in the past weeks?”

At his sensual tone, wild, heated shivers wracked her body. Love for him welled in her heart and filled every part of her being, filled her until she felt likely to burst with it. Love that she could finally admit. Love built between them in the weeks spent alone when he had listened to all of her sins and had comforted her fears. And he
had
loved her, even without realizing that he loved her. Even his recent cruelty had been born of that love. He had fought his love for her because of all the ideas about family duty and honor that had been drilled into him from birth.

He had been hurt by his upbringing. He had not been loved for himself. He had been treated as a pawn by the Blaynes. He had been afraid to love, all the while yearning to be loved for himself.

Her heart gave a pang.

Yes, of course he had. He had asked her marry him years before because somewhere deep, deep, deep inside, he had needed her love. She had rejected him and wed Freddy. Freddy who had never really needed her. Freddy who did not know how to love at all.

James had merely been led to believe that he could not love. But his tender care of her at Brownwood had proved that he did have love inside of him.

James did have love to give her.

Catriona’s heart soared with the knowledge.

But that love had been locked inside of him. Yet, he could learn to
show
her that love in real ways, just as he had just told her he could.

If only she would be patient with him.

He had been so filled with the need to bring honor and power to the Blaynes. He had lived for that alone with no room to feel his own need to give and receive love.

He had been as broken as she had.

Yet, he had fought all of damage, just as she had fought her own sense of shame and unworthiness.

They had both faced very bleak truths about their lives, their families and their own hearts. And in the hurt of those admissions, they had begun to heal.

Yes, she could hold his feet to the fire now and leave him hanging in uncertainty. She could reject his pleas for forgiveness. Looking into his eyes, she knew the depth of his need for her and she felt the depth of her own. They had already wasted too much time on all the hollow years. Now was a time only for forgiveness and healing.

And love.

Elation filled her.

“Yes, yes,” she found herself saying. “I give myself to you. Tie me, bind me, make me yours completely.”

He groaned deeply, the sound rumbling deliciously through her own chest. Gooseflesh dotted her nape and her nipples went stiffer than ever. Ever.
Ever.

He was staring into her eyes, his own gaze so brightly blue, it seared her with its hunger.

She was getting wetter and wetter, her sex clenching so desperately.

She moaned. “Oh, why do you delay?”

He growled then and gathered her into his arms and carried her to the bed.

She writhed and watched him reach into his pocket and withdraw a length of fine, silk rope, the bright yellow color contrasting sharply with his dark blue coat. He made quick work of tying her wrists together then securing them to the bed spires.

She tugged against the constraints and couldn’t free herself. The sense of being helpless, vulnerable sent thrills jolting through her, quicksilver like lightning. She writhed all the more and enjoyed the feeling she had from struggling against the bonds.

He took hold of her legs, parted them wide then knelt between them. He shoved her skirts to above her waist. He cupped her buttocks in his large hands and lifted her pelvis off the bed. “God, you are lovely, the most delicate, precious flower.” He put his face closer.

She whimpered, half in lustful hunger, half in dismay. She had forgotten how intensely intimate such an act was.

“You smell divine, like hyacinths in bloom.”

The mention of herself with hyacinths in bloom, said so passionately in his deep voice made her laugh. The laugh died in her throat as his tongue caressed her flesh, moving slowly, oh so slowly. Teasing her, not quite touching where she most wanted him to. She hadn’t known this could be so painfully sensual. She wanted to grasp his head and show him what she most craved. She wanted to arch her hips. But with her hands bound and his strong hands gripping and holding her hips, she was helpless to do anything else but moan and plead.

And that helplessness thrilled her. Increased her excitement.

When he finally touched his tongue to her throbbing, erect nub, she did cry out. And when he drew it into his mouth, she came undone, she screamed and begged for him to never stop, just as he had said she would.

Later, after he had wrung every bit of pleasure that her body could give her, she lay limp. He untied her hands.

“I love you, oh dear heavens how I love you,” she said, cupping his face and ignoring the pins and needles in her hands.

“I love you, more,” he said, pressing one of her hands to his face, then taking it and kissing the palm.

“You couldn’t possibly love me more.”

“Time will tell, my love, time will tell.”

“Shouldn’t you get undressed?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“But…”

“You should call your maid and have her dress you, but first—“ He reached into his coat pocket and withdrew something.

Something that flashed fire and glittered with rich, green jewels. An elegant gold hair comb adorned with diamonds and emerald stones.

Only she didn’t believe this one was paste.

She glanced up at him, open-mouthed. “James!”

“You need some worthy adornments.”

“But how much—”

“Ah, ah, no —a lady should never ask a gentleman what a gift cost.” His gaze warmed. “Especially not a gift of the heart.”

She glanced back at the comb. “It is so lovely.”

“It will appear dull next to your eyes.” He took the comb from her hand and secured it behind her ear. “I want to take you for a ride in Hyde Park. I want everyone to know my intentions toward you. I want everyone to see my gorgeous Catriona. I want them to seen that glow that I have put in your cheeks today. I want them to be eaten alive with envy.”