The thought chilled her. She caught his face between her palms, stilling his mouth’s exploration. The stubble of his whiskers pricked her. His valet had not shaved him, and the rough abrasion felt good against her skin. The contact jolted her but she did her best to pretend as though she was unaffected.
“Lord Ravenscroft, someone almost killed you last night. Do you not have a care for yourself? You must rest and regain your strength so that you can discover what truly happened and prevent it from happening again. If someone wants you dead, he or she will surely try again once their lack of success becomes apparent.”
He closed his eyes, seeming to gather his strength, leaning into her even more. “It was likely a case of mistaken identity.”
It was not, and they both knew it. His attacker had meant to kill him. He’d been right outside his residence.
“I fear for you, Julian.” At last, the truth was torn from her.
His eyes opened, vivid and brilliant. “You fear for me, but in every other sentence you remind me that you will leave me, and that you want no part of this marriage, no part of me. You cannot have it both ways, little dove. You must choose.”
She stared at him, stricken by the one word she’d nearly blurted. You. But no, she wouldn’t say it. Wouldn’t give up on her dreams. Who was he to her? A stranger who’d taken advantage of her foolishness? The man who’d cozened two hundred thousand pounds out of her father?
She’d spent each day since her father had brought her to England longing for her eventual return home. So many years had passed that Virginia had become hazy and indistinct, a soft and warm memory, beating within her heart but not within her mind’s eye. Why, she could scarcely even recall most of it with proper detail. And she would not abandon her cause of helping her fellow women to gain the vote that was rightfully theirs.
“Choose, damn you,” he said again, his face so close to hers, their lips almost brushing. But he did not kiss her. “I won’t force you. I won’t have you knowing that you’d prefer to be somewhere else, in someone else’s arms. Do you understand me?”
She still held his face in her hands. She couldn’t choose. It should have been easy, a quick sentence leaving her tongue. I choose Virginia. I want to go home. But the words wouldn’t come.
“I can’t,” she forced herself to say. He wanted too much from her, and too soon. They’d been wed for one day. She was not even accustomed to the layout of his household, and already all her plans had been dismantled. He’d been attacked. The unwanted feelings she’d developed for him during their impromptu courtship added to her confusion. Her body betrayed her, even now longing for him, for the weight of his frame pressing into hers, for his body against her, claiming her.
His expression was harsh, demanding as his tone, as the man himself. “I’m telling you now, Clara. You must choose. If it’s a cold piece of ground you long for, I’ll have my man take you straight to a hotel. You can bide your time until the next passenger ship departs for Virginia.”
He shuddered against her then, swaying. She reached for his shoulders, anchoring him to her until the spell subsided. Hours before, she’d been stained in his blood. She’d watched over him, praying for him to wake. Back in her chamber that morning, she’d scrubbed her hands and face, tossed her ruined dressing gown into the dust bin. The blood was gone, but what had happened to him remained. Someone meant to do him harm. How could she sail away from him forever? What if the person who’d attempted to kill him would return, this time succeeding? How would she feel from an ocean away?
“I reckon it’s Virginia then.” A grim acceptance tempered his voice. He attempted to push away from her.
No.
She overpowered him in his weakened state, holding him to her when he would have retreated. “You,” she breathed before she could think better of it.
Because a strangeness had overtaken her from the moment she’d first stepped into his study, a feeling that he alone could unlock the secrets within her. He was a mystery to her, a man who claimed to be a jaded cynic. A man who had misled her, who had courted her, who had listened to her opinions. He wasn’t as hardened as he pretended to be. He wasn’t as careless. He had decorated her chamber, had taken in his sisters. He wanted her to be his wife when allowing her to go would be the easiest path.
“It’s you,” she said again, as much for her own benefit as for his. She closed the scant distance between them to press her lips to his in a quick and nervous gesture. There. That ought to be…wifely.
Wife. Suddenly the word held new meaning. What had she done? She’d never intended to be his wife in truth or in deed. But the promises she’d made the day before resonated, as real as his hot flesh beneath her fingertips. Yes, he was hers now.
He kissed her again, fitting their lips together, setting his lower lip between hers. His teeth nipped her upper lip, tasting her, testing her resolve. “Thank you, little dove,” he said against her mouth, a benediction. “Thank you.”
* * *
A man could grow accustomed to such treatment.
Julian watched his wife as she directed the placement of the breakfast tray she’d ordered for him. Much as he would’ve loved to fuck her senseless, slide home inside her before she changed her mind and raced off to Virginia, for the first time in his life, he didn’t possess the stamina. Odd bouts of dizziness struck him with an unpredictability that had rendered his intrepid venture to the breakfast room ill-advised. He must have lost a great deal of blood as well, the aftereffects of which left him uncomfortably feeble.
His pride in tatters, he’d allowed her to assist him back to his chamber and into his bed. With his haphazard valet missing once more, she acted the part without bothering to ring for him. She removed his shoes, helped him with his jacket and waistcoat, and plumped pillows behind his back. She was a capable woman, his wife.
It was all rather endearing, for he hadn’t fancied her the tender sort. Fierce, foolish, and brave, yes. Determined and stubborn, also. But tender…now that was an unfamiliar side to her. A side he found he rather enjoyed. A side of her that made the strangest sensation lodge in his chest.
Indeed, the sole benefit of his unexpected brush with death was the sea change it worked upon his lovely American bride. She’d been furious with him yesterday after discovering his intentions. But her ire seemed to have faded in the face of his near-demise. She’d been hovering at his side, seeing to his comfort, checking his brow for sign of fever. Christ, she’d even taken charge of his rapscallion sisters and his sadly disreputable household.
Perhaps she didn’t dislike him quite as much as she wished she did. Perhaps she wasn’t as impervious as she pretended.
Suddenly, he wanted everyone who wasn’t Clara gone from the chamber.
“That will be all,” he informed the maid and footman dancing attendance on them. He sincerely hoped that wasn’t the maid who’d been frolicking in his library, but he kept his silence as the two took their leave, despite a strong urge to warn against their impending fornication anywhere else in his home. Ah, he would freely admit that his household badly needed a woman’s touch.
The door closed, leaving Julian and his wife decidedly alone. If only his bloody head would stop thumping and the room would cease spinning at the most inopportune moments. Clara stood a few paces from the bed, hands clasped at her waist. She couldn’t have slept much during the night. Thrice, he’d shuddered awake to find her sleeping in the chair at his side.
But looking at her now was akin to gazing upon the verdant beauty of a summer day. She was like sunshine. Necessary. Life giving. Glorious.
Jesus, where was this maudlin tripe originating from? One blow to the head was all it took, apparently, but he couldn’t look away from her. How lowering to be thus affected by such a small, fine-boned creature. He’d never imagined the like.
“Will you take your breakfast now, my lord? You do need your strength.” Courtesy steeped her tone.
Damn it, back to the impersonal and circumspe
ct form of address. Too impersonal for his taste. With Clara, he wanted anything but. He wanted familiar. Intimate. He wanted to know every inch of her, from her golden head to her dainty toes, and everywhere in between. Especially everywhere in between.
But not now. Not yet. For the moment, all he had in his arsenal was words. “I’m your husband. You may call me by my given name.”
“Very well.” She bustled to the table where the breakfast tray lay abandoned and gripped its silver handles, notably avoiding the use of his name. “Where would you have me put this?”
He wasn’t hungry. The smell of food made his stomach queasy. “Leave it. I find I’ve lost my appetite.”
“But you must eat, for how else will you get well again? Have a care for yourself, if you please.” The drawl she took great pains to hide was more pronounced than usual.
“Darling, I haven’t had a mother in many years, and I certainly don’t require one now.”
She flushed, her lush lips flattening into a line of displeasure. “Do you ever take anything seriously, sir?”
He’d spent the last decade or so of his life taking nothing seriously. A man who’d lived as he had couldn’t afford to turn the sober eye of scrutiny to himself. And so, his years had been a swirl of decadence, drink, pleasure, and ruin.
Not any longer, however. Once, he’d thought that nothing changed. That life was an endless cycle of misery that only hedonism could diminish. Once, he’d thought he could never change. And then, a beautiful Virginia girl had walked into his study wearing the ugliest hat he’d ever seen.
The chamber stopped spinning about him. He took her in with perfect clarity, meeting her gaze. “I take you seriously, Clara.”
His words seemed to take her aback. She swallowed, biting her lower lip before releasing it. “Sometimes, I’m not certain that you do. Sometimes, I feel as if I’m your entertainment. A joke you keep to yourself.”
How little she must think of him to feel that way. Emotions were not his forte, not for some time. Feeling anything at all had become as foreign to him as that land she called home. But he didn’t wish for her to misunderstand. Julian took everything about her as seriously as he had ever taken anything in his dissolute life.
He sat up and swung his feet to the floor, mustering his strength. “You’re anything but a joke to me, little dove. If I laugh at anyone, it’s myself.”
For she made him weak. Weaker than blood loss or a blow to the head. She made him long for her. She’d captivated him and held him in her thrall from the moment she’d stepped into his dark world.
He braced his hands on the bed to leverage himself into a standing position. But she was quicker than he, flying to him and staying him with palms pressed to his shoulders. Her face hovered over his, undisguised worry hardening the soft planes.
“Please. You must rest.” Her tone was gentle, cajoling.
He could almost believe she cared. Damn it, he needed to believe she cared.
“What am I to you that you should so concern yourself with whether or not I heal?” He shouldn’t ask, shouldn’t press her for more than she’d already given, but he was a greedy bastard. He wanted to hear it from her lips. If she wanted to be his wife in every way, there would be no more barriers between them.
She startled him by caressing his jaw. Just a fleeting swipe of her fingers over his skin before she placed her hand back on his shoulder. She treated him as if he were a wild creature she didn’t dare trust to pet for longer than a moment.
“You’re my husband.”
Her dulcet admission undid him. His cock surged against his trousers at the combination of her small surrender and her touch both, his ballocks tightening. But he would not attempt to bed her now, not when he was weak and couldn’t take his time and bring her the sort of prolonged pleasure she deserved. When the time was right, he would lay siege, batter down her every defense.
“Yes I bloody well am. I’ll not let you forget it.” His voice was gruff and low with suppressed desire.
“I’m not likely to forget.” She pushed gently at his shoulders. “Now have a care for your wellbeing. You need to rest, and you need some sustenance. At least a bit.”
He allowed her to guide him back into the mound of pillows she’d arranged for him. He doubted she realized that her ministrations put the temptation of her beautiful bosom practically at eye level. The urge to press his face into the seductive swell was strong, but he rallied his self-control and refrained.
“I don’t want breakfast.” He settled for resting his hands on her waist. “Come, sit with me, won’t you?”
She eyed him warily. “I don’t think a man in your condition ought to…”
Her words trailed off, a sweet pink flush staining her high cheekbones. Damn, but she truly was an innocent. An innocent that he would happily debauch at the first possible opportunity now that she was his.
“You needn’t worry on that account,” he assured her. “When I bed you, it will be with my full strength. I merely want your company now.”
She hesitated, perhaps weighing her options. Or how much she trusted him against how black a reputation he possessed. “Won’t you eat something first, my lord? And then I shall sit with you to your heart’s content.”
If she was attempting to rout him, she would have to try harder than that. He had the determination of an entire army when sufficiently motivated. And Clara was certainly ample motivation. But he excelled at games of chance, and he knew sometimes a risk predicated a great reward.
And so he capitulated, releasing her. “What would you have me eat, love? Not the oeufs cocottes, if you please. The mere notion of eggs makes the bile rise in my throat.”
She straightened and stepped away from him with a swiftness that suggested she wasn’t as unaffected as she pretended. Her aquamarine morning skirt swished as she strode to examine the contents of the tray. “Perhaps some Bayonne ham and some bread would be more the thing, then? Would you care for tea as well?”
Some devil within him toyed with the notion of asking her to feed it to him, but he knew he didn’t dare press his luck. No one had ever waited upon him in such a manner who wasn’t a servant. The ladies of his past acquaintance would never have dreamed of taking on such a role, as it would have been beneath them. Likely, Clara’s equanimity was down to her American origins. Lesser women would have fled from the sight of a bleeding man. Lesser women would have fainted, called for a servant. Lesser women would never have shown the undeserved dedication she gave him now.
His appreciation for her grew by the second. “That will be sufficient,” he said through a throat gone suddenly thick with an emotion he didn’t care to question.
Silence descended upon the chamber as she removed the unwanted eggs, kidneys, and whatever else had been sent up, placing all on the table with care. At last, she lifted the tray and turned back to him. He studied the symmetry of her face and thought she would make a fine muse for an artist. Hers was a rare brand of beauty, the classical blended with the original. Cupid’s bow lips and blue eyes set apart by a decadent fringe of lashes, cheekbones exotic slashes. Her forehead was high, that errant eyebrow of hers a mark of endearment.
She placed the tray gently upon his lap. “Here you are, my lord.”
No, he was having none of that. His hands closed over hers on the handles of the silver tray. “Julian.”
Her gaze met his then, and he felt as if a spark settled deep into his gut. “Julian.”
He smiled, liking the way his name sounded in her drawl, wilder and more lush than it had ever sounded upon anyone else’s tongue. The dizziness was mercifully absent. Even the aching in his head had lessened. He released her again although the loss of touching her left him momentarily bereft.
But he was determined not to rush or press her. She would be worth the wait. “Sit with me, Clara?”
Her lips pressed together for a beat, and he feared she’d deny him. But then she nodded. “Of course.” She grabbed fistfuls of her skirts
and hiked them up before sidling on his bed rump first.
The act was not meant to be sexual in the least, but his cock hadn’t softened since the bloody hall. Watching her scoot toward him made him even harder. She was very much in his territory now, on his bed at his side. Her musky orange scent enveloped him. As she slid her legs on the bed, he caught a glimpse of her trim, stocking-clad ankles and calves.
She attempted to settle herself with prim decorum at a safe distance from him but wound up being drawn closer by the sheer mechanics of his larger body sinking deeper into the bed. Soft, warm, delicious-smelling woman pressed to his side.
Ah, perfection.
“Forgive my lack of grace, if you please.” She glanced at him, cheeks tinged more red now than ever. The growling of her stomach punctuated her apology with comical timing.
He recalled that when he’d come upon her earlier, she’d been inundated with questions from his irrepressible sisters. She had yet to break her fast. She must be starving. And yet she’d not had a care for herself. Only for him.
Julian’s arm went around her waist, hauling her even closer. His hip brushed hers, the only barrier inhibiting him the crinoline cage that gave her skirts their fashionable shape. “You must be famished. Share breakfast with me. There’s enough here to feed a family.”
In anticipation of Clara’s arrival at his home, he’d hired the best cook he could find. The fellow was French and damned expensive, but worth the price. Along with Julian’s careful decoration of her chamber, it was the only expenditure he’d approved since signing the marriage contract that guaranteed him a tidy fortune. Using the funds hadn’t felt right. Not, at least, until Clara would reap their benefits as well.
“It is you who concerns me now, my lord.” She pressed a fork into his hand. “You need sustenance.”
The chamber swirled about him in an eerie dance just then, giving credence to her words. He was still weak. His mind still jumbled. His fingers tightened over the hilt of the fork. Yes, perhaps she was right, this persistent American wife of his, and he ought to eat after all. He’d need his strength if he was going to discover precisely who the hell it was that wanted him dead.
Heart’s Temptation Series Books 4-6 Page 41