“Have I always been this way?” She didn’t look at him when she broke the heavy silence.
He remained staring forward, focusing on the horse pulling their conveyance as though it required tremendous concentration. Was he going to ignore her completely?
“What way?”
It seemed cruel that he’d make her spell it out to him.
“Forward. Needy.” She inhaled. “Wanton.”
More silence. She hated silence!
“This isn’t fair,” she complained when he failed to answer right away. “You know everything about me, about you—about us! But I’m completely in the dark. Are you angry with me? Are you sorry you married a woman who would do something so improper?” She shook her head, marveling at the confusion in her mind. “I know what is proper. I think I’ve been proper for most of my life. But…”
How could she explain that with him she had felt free to act on her impulses, free to express her emotions? She hated the shame she felt today.
“But…?” In urging her to complete her thought, he expressed more interest than he had all morning long.
“But… When I woke after my fall, I felt so… empty. But you were there. And I experienced… what felt like… unconditional love. I thought I did anyhow. And so I imagined that I could… love without restraint as well. I didn’t feel like I needed to hide any part of myself.”
They rode along in silence, and Tabetha pondered everything she had just told him. She hadn’t realized her feelings until she said them out loud.
“It was foolish. I went too far.” A sob threatened to choke her but she would not cry! She would not!
She turned her head to stare away from him, at a distant cluster of downy birch. The silvery leaves fluttered, looking temporary, while the trunk and branches anchored the meadow. Vivid but then elusive memories taunted her as the small copse drifted with the landscape.
She had been foolish to risk her recovery simply because she wanted to have marital relations with him. But pushing him to risk her recovery was an even greater offense. All he’d asked was to wait three more days. But she’d been too impatient.
She’d thought she knew who she was—who he was—but she’d been wrong. It had been reckless of her to act only on impulses.
But what if everything changed when she regained her memory? What if she didn’t like what she learned about herself? What if she didn’t like what she learned about him?
Did reality consist of the here and now, or was it her past and her future?
Would it all make sense when put together?
“You didn’t go too far.” He moved the reins to one hand and covered hers with the other. “You are not foolish.”
She turned her hand over without even thinking, entwining her fingers with his.
Holding back her tears was no easy feat.
“Then why are you being this way today?” Why was he so angry? Why had he withdrawn?
“I’m the one who went too far. I’m supposed to be protecting you.” Disgust sounded in his voice.
She wanted to remind him that they were married, that the feelings they had were perfectly normal. Yesterday, she would have done just that.
Inhibitions silenced her today.
“I won’t provoke you in the future.” She swallowed her guilt… and anger… and frustration. She’d done something wrong, and she didn’t understand it completely.
“I like it when you provoke me.” He squeezed her hand. “Too much.”
“But you also hate it.”
“I hate that…” He pulled the cart over to the side of the road and then turned to face her. “I hate that you don’t remember who you are. I’m taking advantage of you. That is what I hate. I hate that when your memory returns, you’ll regret what you did last night, the things that you said. That’s what I’m trying to protect you from. That’s why I was angry.”
What he was saying made sense, and yet it didn’t. But… “You don’t think less of me for… the things I said. What I did?” Staring into his eyes, Tabetha’s heart cracked.
“I could never hate you.”
She gulped, helpless at holding back her tears any longer. Only, by now, they were tears of relief. Because she had felt only half-alive all morning, and she couldn’t imagine life without him.
He pulled her close but Tabetha dipped her chin, hesitating rather than raise her mouth for a kiss. One arm around her, Rock tipped her head back, allowing her no choice but to look at him.
“I made you cry.” He brushed away a tear with his thumb. And then he trailed it down to her lips. “Forgive me?”
She barely nodded, fearful that forgiveness wouldn’t be enough.
“I don’t know what to do,” Tabetha admitted. “Yesterday, I didn’t even question my instincts, but today... I’m more confused than ever.”
If anyone was a fool, it was him. Strike that, make it a fool and an ass.
Stone was wrong in wanting the two of them to go on like this, but that didn’t stop him from wanting it. And whatever this was between the two of them seemed more impossible with each passing day.
And God help him, he couldn’t drag his eyes away from her. She’d never looked more beautiful. But she was more than classical features and kissable lips. She was more than voluptuous temptation. More than soft sensuality.
She was sensitive and proud and brave. How had he not noticed the depths of courage in her eyes?
“Never doubt yourself with me.” I made her cry!
She blinked. “Do you love me?”
Love?
Oh, hell.
She’d mentioned loving him more than once already. He ought to have been prepared for this question. And of course, she must have assumed that he did. He’d done nothing to contradict it.
If he didn’t admit to loving her now, he would lose her trust. And if she didn’t trust him, it would be impossible to protect her.
But she needed his answer now.
“Yes.”
She studied his expression, her gaze flicking back and forth between his eyes. “Really?”
Stone lifted her hand to his heart. “I do.” The assertion didn’t feel nearly as forced as he’d expected it to.
He leaned forward to seal his declaration with a kiss but stopped when the hairs on the back of his neck stood up.
A vehicle approached.
Of course, it couldn’t have come along before he’d thrown caution to the wind and declared that he loved her.
He frowned. Something familiar in the rattle and rhythm put him on alert.
It approached from the direction they had just come from. Stone flicked the reins and headed off the road into a thick cluster of trees about twenty yards off to the right.
“You think it’s that Culpepper fellow?” She’d grasped the bench with one hand and was cradling Archie protectively with the other.
“I’m not sure.”
It shouldn’t have been. Unless his source had been paid off to tell him otherwise—much like Culpepper’s housekeeper had told them he’d gone to his country estate.
He’d seen through the woman in London, but was his obsession with Tabetha causing him to lose his edge?
When had his life become so complicated?
Driving into the copse, Stone pushed branches away, ducking but also tucking Tabetha into his side as they entered the foliage. “Stay low.” He didn’t bring Poppy to a halt until he was certain they couldn’t be spotted from the road.
In the ensuing silence, he met Tabetha’s eyes and held a fingertip to his lips. After she nodded in understanding, he silently hopped onto the ground and crept to a spot that provided him sightline to the road.
Sure enough, the vehicle that drove around the bend, flanked in front and back with outriders, was the same one he’d been chasing down less than a week before.
Odd to be on the opposite side of a hunt now.
From the corner of his eye, he noticed Tabetha leaning forward, squinting to see through the
trees. Would seeing the coach summon any memories?
How would he act in her situation? How might he feel if he didn’t remember his family or his friends? Who would he be if he didn’t remember anything of his past?
Her courage flummoxed him.
Once Culpepper’s entourage was out of sight, he sauntered back to the gig but didn’t climb back up.
“Let’s wait a few minutes. Allow enough time for them to put some distance between us.”
She’d turned on the bench to face him but made no move to climb down. Still upset with himself for making her cry, he rested his hands on one of her knees protectively.
More and more, he was drawn to her.
By the time all this was over, would he even know the difference between what was real and what was pretend?
It’s all pretend, he reminded himself. Because when she remembered who she was, who he was, she’d realize that he wasn’t at all what she wanted.
“How do I know this duke?” she whispered, looking down at him.
Questions like this were going to be his ruin. Even keeping his answers as close to the truth as possible, he was beginning to lose track of all the lies he’d told her.
“How do you know Culpepper?” he stalled. Keep as close to the truth as possible. “He wanted to marry you. But you were betrothed to me.” He squeezed her knee. “I hurried you up to Gretna, unwilling to risk losing you.” Some devil on his shoulder goaded him into adding, “You could have become a duchess, after all.” Would such a reminder nudge her memory?
“You call me duchess.”
“You’ve always been one to me.”
She stared at him with wide eyes. “I don’t care if he’s the king himself, I never would have married him. I love you.”
Her words whipped around him like a whirlpool, sucking him into the fiction he’d been playing at.
It was the opposite of everything she’d stood for in the past, and yet he’d never heard her sound so sincere.
As though sensing the change in the air between them, Archie leapt out of her arms and onto the bench beside her.
Their gazes locked, and she covered his hands with hers. “Nothing… no one compares to you.”
Never in his life had he been the object of so much affection.
“Tabetha.” Tangles of emotion flooded through him—caring, guilt, lust, and others he couldn’t begin to identify.
He had a hand on each of her knees now and slid them higher on her thighs.
“Touch me,” she whispered.
The image of her watching him, the memory of her hand gripping him, and the words she’d murmured ghosted through his mind. None of that had felt like pretend.
Slowly, he dragged his palms down until he was gripping her ankles.
All the while she watched him, lips parted, her eyelids heavy.
Stone gathered the material of her skirts in his fist and as he did so, dropped his gaze to appreciate her delicate feet, contoured calves, and then the sweetest knees, a tiny dimple on each. She edged them open in encouragement and his mouth watered. Everything about her aroused him. Even after his release last night, he’d struggled to sleep beside her.
He pushed her knees wider, anxious to give her the same relief she’d given him--anxious to finally see her climax. He’d learn what she liked, what made her squirm and beg for more.
Already, she was grasping the bench with her head tipped back, her breaths coming in little pants.
She was quickly becoming the woman of his dreams, which was dangerous, but in the moment he pushed her skirts out of his way, he would have risked everything to be with her.
Dark pink folds, delicate, swollen, and glistening. She was his. Only his.
“Touch me,” she begged this time.
“You’re so damn beautiful.” His own voice sounded barely recognizable. God, she was soft beneath his fingers—buttery velvet. She moved with his hand, slowly, gently at first. He slid inside, and she bucked against his palm.
“Let go, sweetheart.” He stroked her nub with his thumb, gliding in and out, and in, curling just so, gauging what she liked by her breathy little moans.
“Please.”
He reached deeper.
“Yes.”
Again.
Unable to resist, he leaned forward and touched her with his mouth.
Her hips lifted off the bench.
“Rock!”
He swiped his tongue along her seem, still stroking her inside. Her hands were in his hair, clutching him closer.
He loved her taste. It was warm, and silky, and earthy and it inflamed his other raging appetites.
But this was for her.
“Tabetha.” He rolled his tongue over her clit. When she pulsed into his mouth, beautiful and uninhibited, he vowed to memorize her every response. He wanted to learn exactly what she liked, what she needed, and what gave her the greatest pleasure.
He exhaled a long breath, and then grazed his teeth over the tender nub.
And then she was trembling and crying out and if he hadn’t supported her with his other hand, she would have tumbled from the gig onto the ground. When she relaxed, she slumped forward, boneless, satiated.
Stone kissed her and then drew back to see her face. He kept one arm around her hips, and his hand remained touching her intimately.
“I didn’t know,” she gasped, flushed, her eyes shining. “I didn’t know.”
“Shh.” He squeezed her waist. What was he going to do with her?
What the hell was he going to do?
Chapter 19
Fleeting Recollections
When Tabetha finally caught her breath, Stone gently withdrew his hand, caressing her, and then arranged her skirts, smoothing them down her knees and calves.
And when he met her gaze, he raised his fingers to his mouth, slid them inside, and relished the taste as though they were covered with raspberry preserves rather than…
Tabetha’s entire body flushed hot.
He was not going to hide from their intimacy this time.
“Feeling better now?” The smile that stretched his mouth was wicked and unchecked and… wonderful.
“Much.” And this was positively true.
Archie meowed beside her, an unlikely audience to her debauchery.
Tabetha was supposed to feel awkward and embarrassed, and ashamed. She knew that. Any lady would know that. Even if the man who had just had his hand up her skirts was her husband.
But she had not. She did not. She refused to be a hypocrite.
Ten minutes later, having stretched her legs, relieved herself, and cleaned up with her handkerchief and water from a nearby stream, she returned to the gig, and Rock steered them onto the road again.
“That a girl, Poppy,” Stone encouraged the single gray mare pulling them.
A memory flashed, a sensation, and then a more definite memory. “We rode Poppy before.” She had been sitting in front of Rock. And she remembered the feel of him behind her, how excited it had made her feel. “I sat in front of you.”
He jerked a startled glance at her. “You remember?”
“Yes.” She laughed. “Perhaps love making isn’t such a terrible idea after all.” She was only half-joking.
“Tell me more of what you remember about riding with me.”
She closed her eyes. “We were not in any hurry. I was holding Archie, and you were holding me. And then later, we were in a hurry. But I remember feeling safe with you. I remember how I felt having your arms around me.”
He looked almost startled. “You don’t remember being irritated with me?”
“Why would I be irritated with you? You were fighting!” The memory jumped in and out but not so much that she couldn’t remember him tussling with more than one man while… “I wouldn’t give him the cat. That was Culpepper, wasn’t it?”
Rock stared at her. “What else?”
Tabetha closed her eyes and concentrated. Trouble was, as she tried to summon more memor
ies, the teasing sensation of recollection scattered.
“That’s all,” she choked out, wanting more, excited but also afraid. Along with the memory came a wave of unanswered questions.
He slid his arm around her waist and pulled her close. “I’m so proud of you. Let it go for now. It seems it’s going to come on its own, when you aren’t expecting it.”
She nodded in agreement. “You saved me.” And then she frowned. “There were more of them, but you flicked them away like they were nothing.” She shivered at even the memory of the memory.
“I told you I box.” He flexed his hand holding the reins.
“I know. But…” He’d all but obliterated those men. She glanced at him in time to see a grin tip the corners of his mouth.
He shrugged. “It comes in handy.”
“I suppose I didn’t picture you actually… using it to hurt people.”
“I had no choice. Fight back or take a beating.”
“When?”
“Mostly at school.”
She peppered him with questions until he admitted that he had had to defend himself from bullies.
“A handful of us eventually smartened up and realized we were safer if we didn’t get caught alone. But that wasn’t always possible for me. And since I was one of the only boys without a title, they seemed particularly happy to pound on me.”
“How did you end up in a school of spoiled aristocrats?” His father must have been a very influential solicitor indeed.
“An aunt paid for us to attend. Me and all my brothers.”
Tabetha sat quietly, pondering this new information about him. “Is that where you met my brother?”
Silence…
“Yes.”
“He is a lord?”
“An earl.” Although driving and keeping his arm around her shoulders, he stiffened beside her.
“So…” Tabetha mused. “I am a lady?”
He nodded.
That explained why she was familiar with the ins and outs of the ton. It also explained why a duke might be interested in marrying her.
“You made your come out not quite a month ago.” It was the first information he’d offered up voluntarily.
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