The Heather Moon (36 page)

"She has concluded that on her own," he said.

"And what are we to do about it?" Tamsin asked. "She is devoted to the idea that we are wed, now—that we belong together, Merton and Rookhope! And you have done naught to dissuade her! What will she do when we announce our intention to divorce according to Romany custom?"

"She willna like that much," he murmured, and leaned back in the chair, resting his jaw pensively against his fist.

"I didna want to let my father know about this," she said, fisting her own hands, "because I know he wants this too. I didna want him to be sad when we dissolve the marriage, as we agreed. But I didna think about your mother, or your sister, for I didna know them! You never told me you planned to tell them about this marriage. You just did it, and surprised me as much as them."

"I had to tell them," he said quietly.

"Did you never think that they too might be upset by what will come later, between us?"

He sighed. "I was a fool, and you may berate me for it. But hey, lass, remember this," he said softly, his calm voice a counter to her own anxious tone, "they are deeply upset about Malise Hamilton's efforts to take my daughter from us. And that is precisely why I told them. This marriage is a comfort to them. I just didna think how much of a comfort it might be," he added, shoving a hand through his hair.

She began to speak, but subsided, understanding why he had agreed to their impulsive marriage. The thought of anyone taking Katharine out of this loving home was unbearable to Tamsin too. Had the child been her own daughter, she would have snatched at any hope of protecting her. She huffed out a breath and resumed circling in the middle of the room.

"This is foolish," she muttered. "So foolish!" Her cap and veil slid sideways, and she tore them off, flinging them on top of the clothing piled on the bed as she went past. Her hair spilled over her shoulders in curls and waves, and she shoved its thickness back ineffectively. "What could we have been thinking, to agree to such a lackbrain scheme?" She knew why, rationally, but her temper needed to emit steam.

"As I recall," he drawled, "we thought about helping one another. The solution suited us both. You needed to avoid a gypsy husband, and I needed a wife quickly."

"Aye," she said angrily. "A false wife in a fine gown, to fool a fancy lord of the royal court!"

"I will do what I have to do to protect my daughter." Quiet words, but she heard the anger flare beneath.

"Aye, even take a troll to wife," she snapped, turning. One of her full undersleeves slid down, and she yanked at the ribbons that attached it to the gown. Inadequately knotted by her earlier, the pieces came loose easily, and she threw them on the floor.

"Tamsin, you are hardly a troll," he said. He slouched, relaxed, in the chair, but she saw the tension hardening in him. It matched her own. "You are as beautiful as any court lady," he said. "More so."

She huffed doubtfully, her mouth tight with anger, her back turned to him. Her heart pounded as she realized how much she wanted him to mean those words. But she could not accept that he did. "I know you need a wife for the nonce," she said. "But such ready compliments willna gain peace between us. I didna mean for this arrangement to hurt anyone!"

"Nor did I." He sighed and ran his fingers over his brow.

She pulled at the silken belt and the amber beads, and pooled them on the coverlet. The exquisite emerald and gold ring glittered on her finger. She examined it for a moment. She had never owned a ring before, and loved this one not only for its beautiful design, but for the meaning that it held for Lady Emma. She slid it off and turned toward William.

"Take it." She held it out to him. "I feel like a thief."

"Keep it for now, lass," he said. "For my mother's sake."

She hesitated, and slid the ring back on. "Only for her sake," she said stubbornly. "Not for yours." Her heart beat oddly as she said that.

"As you will." He stared into the fire again. His composure in the face of her ruffled temper had a calming power, but she would not give up her anger. She wanted to shout at him. She wanted to release the heat of her embarrassment. And she wanted to, and could not, satisfy the sultry, steady fire that his glances stoked in her.

She whirled away and folded her arms. "Lady Emma said she wanted us to wed before a priest," she said. "What will you tell her? That you have a mock Romany marriage, and will keep to that so long as it suits—but a fortnight or so?"

He turned the larger gold circlet on his own finger. "Marriages have been made on less," he said thoughtfully.

"Marriage!" She looked at him. Her heart pounded hard now. She had misheard him, she told herself. He did not mean to offer her true marriage. Surely he meant only to sustain the ruse for his benefit and convenience. "You would have me stand before a priest, now, to make marriage out of this mockery? I willna enter into a church-made marriage to avoid an embarrassment!"

"Tamsin..." He sighed. "I willna brangle with you. When you calm your temper, we will discuss this."

"Then I bid you good night, for I only wish to brangle," she said stiffly. Her breathing felt tight, constricted by the flat, hard busk. She began to pull at the tiny laces that fastened the side pieces of her bodice.

She knew he stood, and thought he would go into the antechamber to sleep on the narrow cot there. Ignoring him, she pulled at the small knots he had made, biting her lip over the difficulty. She was very tired. Her head was foggy and ached from the wine she had overdone earlier. Her hands fumbled, and she finally yanked at a knot with a yelp of frustration.

William touched her shoulder and turned her around firmly. "Let me do that," he said. "You will tear the ribbons and my mother will have to repair the gown. She will think I tore it off of you to ravish you. And then what will we tell her, hey, my lass?"

His voice was mellow, soothing her when she preferred to rant. His long fingers were at her waist, nimbly undoing the laces. Her heart quickened and she felt the curious melting sensation that he had awakened in her before. Each time, it seemed more intense.

She scowled at him. "You wouldna want to ravish me."

"Aye, I would," he said mildly. She stared at his head, at the dark waves that fell, thick and silky, over his brow.

"What?" she asked breathily, as if he had knocked the air, and the anger, out of her with those gentle words.

His fingers eased up the side of the bodice. Her breath returned as the busk was loosened, but faltered again with the movement of his hands. "I said," he murmured, "that I would like to ravish you. Very much."

She stared at him. He looked up, the spark in his gaze so direct that she felt, suddenly, as if she flared, head to toe. Surely he heard the thunder of her heart.

"What if I wanted it too?" she asked, scarcely a whisper.

His gaze slid down, up. Without answer, he bent to loosen the other side of the confining busk. In his silence, Tamsin thought that she had made a fool of herself again.

Men were more direct about their physical passions, she knew, from listening to her father's comrades and to Romany men. The lessons of modesty and obedience, taught to her by the Romany even more than the Scots, struggled with her own natural need for freedom, again fed by both cultures, in different ways. Tamsin felt caught between both worlds.

A slow, hot blush flowed up her throat into her face. She had always suffered from uncertainty, thinking herself undesirable, but she had a natural streak of boldness too, when she needed it. The strength of that streamed through her now, overtaking the rest.

Too much wine in her, she thought, then realized she felt the unaccustomed sensation, warm and expansive, of desire. The urge insisted that she discover what passion with this man would be like.

"What if I wanted it?" she asked again, more forcefully.

Still he did not answer. He released the last ties of the busk and tossed it aside. Freed from the flattening confines, veiled by her chemise, her breasts seemed to blossom. William's gaze slid there, and rose to meet hers. His body glided against hers, his fingers slid along her waist. His touch was aching hot through the thin chemise.

Still he did not speak. He sought the ties of her underskirt and freed it. She slid it off, stepping out of the hooped linen, now wearing only the opened black kirtle and the chemise. She wondered if his continued silence, his slow, chaste hands on her gown, meant that he intended to help her undress and no more.

That thought saddened her. But her throbbing heart, and the sultry heat emanating from him, told her that he did want her. And she wanted him.

She looked up at him, standing in the pool of the underskirt, her gown hanging open from her shoulders. Their gazes seemed to touch, sending shivers through her. She leaned in.

With a low growl, he pulled her to him and dipped his head. His mouth slanted hard over hers, taking her breath. She looped her arms around his neck and felt his solid chest against her breasts, linen and lawn between them. His lips were tender over hers, coaxing her to open her mouth to his.

An exquisite craving streamed through her. The first touch of his tongue upon her lips was a luscious astonishment, and she let him dip inside her parted lips, let him taste her, as she tasted him. She sipped at his lips again, drinking in the deepening pleasure of his kisses.

Unsure what would come next, she did not shy from him, but responded to his mouth, loving the warm, sure glide of his hands. She yearned for more of the taste and feel of him, the comfort that his arms, his lips, his body offered her.

His hands plunged into the mass of her hair, his fingers shaping her head as he shaped his mouth to hers. She tilted back, leaned against the bed, half seated now. Her arms circled him, her left hand fisted, her right exploring as she traced the width of his shoulders and the powerful muscles of his back.

When he rested a knee on the bed, she sank down into the luxury of the thick feather mattress and damask coverlet, and lay back. He went with her, and she turned into his arms, feeling as if she had been released from a prison she had not known existed. Hungry for his touch, she opened her lips to him and declared her desires silently, laying her feelings out like jewel-toned cards upon a table, revealing her heart.

He touched the neck of her chemise, where the band fastened with a hook and a thread loop, and undid it deftly. His hand slid inside the generous opening, fingertips gliding over her collarbone and down to graze the upper swell of her breast. Shivers slipped through her, delicate, consuming.

His lips found her throat, his breath warm there, his fingers skimming lower until he cupped her breast in the palm of his hand. She gasped, a quick intake, and arched into his touch, never hesitant, suddenly knowing in the deepest part of her soul that she wanted this, with him, only him.

As his warm palm eased over her breast, her breath suspended. The exquisite sensation echoed in her lower body. When his fingers touched the warm pearl of her breast, brushing, coaxing, she released a soft cry of pleasure and glided her body closer to his, fitting against him through layers of fabric and texture.

He placed small, shivery kisses along her throat and over the swell of her breast, until his mouth took her nipple, drew upon it gently. She uttered a dulcet sound and pulled him closer, shifting to roll toward him, raising her knee, foot upon the mattress. Her chemise slid down her thigh to pool at her hip, and his arm rested warm against her bare leg.

Emboldened by passion, beyond the effects of the wine that only made her languid, she felt as if she grew brighter and more beautiful in his arms. She pressed against him, letting the firm curves of her body plead with the harder planes of his. He growled low in his throat, a deep, raw sound. His hand circled her waist, slipped downward, and touched the most intimate part of her body.

She jumped a little, startled by the suddenness, startled more by the fervor of her own hunger, the fearlessness of it. Moving as if in a dream, floating in a warm sea of exquisite sensations, she arched into the palm of his hovering hand. His touch caressed, dipped, discovered. She gasped, low, breathy, full of longing. She welcomed his fingers, seeking him as he sought her.

He shifted his mouth upon her breast, found its twin, tasted her there, while he explored her with tender fingertips. She moaned in her throat and pulled his head up to capture his mouth for herself. One hand cupped his face, the other slid over his lean, muscled back, her touch thwarted by clothing, searching for an opening, craving the warmth of his skin. She found the heated, hard bulge of him beneath heavy black serge, where he wore no codpiece. Her hand paused there, trembling, and she boldly let it stay.

His breath caught. She gasped a little, for his fingers slipped within her, and encouraged her body to find a rhythm that matched her quickening breath. Pulsing and hot, a light burst suddenly, somehow, within her, in the rich darkness of pure sensation. She lost all sense of where or what. She only felt, and floated, and succumbed. Joy streamed through her, body and soul, and settled to burn in the core of her being, clarified into love. She felt it form, in that moment, and nearly spoke the word aloud.

Her body slowed, weak and fulfilled. She became aware of his lips on hers, his tongue tracing her mouth, gentle, hot. Her hand still cupped over his hardness, and he shifted away, letting out a long breath.