Belinda staggered around the fire and stumbled against Sabrina, the impact jarring the letter from her hand. It hung, suspended in midair, for what seemed an eternity. The assembly held a collective breath. Finally, like a feather on the wind, the delicate paper fluttered softly away from the flames to rest gently on the sand.
For a split second no one moved. Then chaos erupted. Chatsworth and Sabrina lunged, their actions mirror images. Nicholas leaped toward them, Matt less than a step behind. The four scrabbled on the ground, and Sabrina lost sight of the precious paper.
“I have it!” With a cry of glee, Chatsworth held up the letter.
“No!” Sabrina screamed and threw herself at him, Chatsworth’s gun pointing straight for her.
“Bree!” The cry tore from Nicholas’s throat and he charged, pushing her out of the way. She tumbled and sprawled on the sand.
Chatsworth’s crazed laugh echoed in her head. His weapon gleamed in the firelight. Motion slowed as if in a dream. He raised the pistol toward Nicholas, the barrel no more than an arm’s length from his heart. Fear for him squeezed her in a viselike grip. She could not, would not let him die. Her hands clenched in a spasm of terror, and sand scraped her palms. In a last, futile effort, she flung the grains and screamed, “Chatsworth!”
His gaze flicked toward her. The grit and Nicholas struck at the same instant. The two men struggled on the ground in a blur of arms and legs. Sabrina could not tell who was who. Who had the advantage. Who had the pistol.
The shot echoed in the night. Abruptly all movement ceased. Her breath caught in her throat. Her heart stopped. Her mind screamed a prayer. Please God, not Nicholas! Please, let him live!
It was forever, or perhaps less than a moment. The bodies on the ground shifted.
Chatsworth rose to his feet in awkward, jerky movements like a poorly manipulated marionette. Sabrina froze in horror, her gaze locked on his face. Chatsworth’s eyes gleamed red in the firelight; his soul stared naked and evil. He gasped and collapsed in a heap.
Like a valiant warrior from a battlefield of old, Nicholas stood behind him. Blood drenched his shirt. An odd smile quirked the corners of his mouth. He shrugged, a strangely hesitant look in his eye. “I do believe, my love, if you seriously want to do away with me, the sharks may well be more efficient.”
A sob of relief burst from her. “Oh, Nicholas!” She flung herself into his arms, laughing and crying and meeting his lips with hers to assure he was indeed well and truly unharmed.
“Is he…?” Medvale said, unease and apprehension in his voice. Sabrina and Nicholas broke their embrace, but his arm stayed protectively around her shoulders.
Matt knelt beside the crumpled body and glanced toward them. “He’s dead all right.” He plucked the wrinkled letter from Chatsworth’s still clutched hand.
Sabrina gazed at the fallen suitor, shock lingering in her voice. “He killed Jack.”
Nicholas’s arm tightened around her. “You did not suspect?”
“Never.” She shook her head. “Who would have? Jack died while in the pursuit of an idiotic wager. His death came as no surprise to anyone.” Her voice dropped to a bare whisper. She spoke more to herself than to him. “Especially not to me.”
“Sabrina, I hope you understand we knew nothing of this.” Norcross’s voice jerked her attention away from the bloodied body at her feet and the persistent, unbidden memories crashing through her head. “We would never have gone along with him if we’d had so much as a hint of his true purpose.”
“Our intentions were always of the noblest sort,” Medvale said. “Quite above reproach. Please believe us.”
“Of course,” she said under her breath, once again mesmerized by the scene before her, the broken body, the blood oozing into the sand.
“Gentlemen, I have no doubt Sabrina holds you blameless in this unfortunate incident. However.” Nicholas gazed at Sabrina with a troubled expression. “I am concerned as to leaving Chatsworth’s body here for even a short period. If you could be so kind as—”
“Quite,” Medvale said, anticipating the question. “If we could perhaps get some assistance in moving him to our horses, and our camp. It is not far. We shall take care of any difficulties there may be with the local authorities. It seems the least we can do to make up for”—he waved a hand vaguely in the general direction of the body—“all this.”
“Thank you,” Nicholas said. “Erick, Madison, if you would accompany them and lend some assistance. Wynne, take Belinda back to your tent.”
Wynne nodded, her usual exuberance dampened. She wrapped an arm around a pale, shaking Belinda. “Adventure,” Wynne said softly, “does seem to have its trying moments.”
Matt cast an appraising look at Sabrina. She smiled absently, then turned an unseeing gaze on the dead man.
Nicholas glanced toward her and frowned. “I shall remain here.” He nodded slightly at Matt and drew the American a few steps away. “She has not taken this revelation about Stanford’s death well. Did she love him so very much, do you think?” Nicholas fought to keep his voice even.
“Remember, she was very young when she married him.” Matt shrugged. “I met Sabrina after Stanford’s death. I really have no idea of her feelings.”
Nicholas plowed his fingers through his hair in a gesture of futility. “I don’t know how to help her.” Frustration sharpened his voice. “I don’t know how to compete with the memory of a dead husband.” His gaze flicked to Sabrina. She stood silently, her stare blank, arms wrapped tightly around her as if to ward off an unexpected blow. “What do I do, Madison?”
Matt’s gaze trapped his for a long, steady moment, his expression unreadable. Abruptly the American nodded as if he had found whatever he searched for in Nicholas’s eyes. “Just take care of her, Wyldewood.” He passed Nicholas the letter. “Take care of her.”
Nicholas released a breath he was not aware he held. In some odd manner, a bond had forged between the two men. In spite of their differences, both cared deeply for the same woman. Gratitude surged through Nicholas; whatever else Madison was, or had been in the past, his concern for Sabrina could not be faulted.
Madison took charge of the moving of Chatsworth’s body, and within moments Nicholas and Sabrina stood alone by the fire. Helplessness filled him, an unfamiliar emotion. “Sabrina.” He chose his words with care. “I believe it would be best if—”
“I want to go,” she said quietly. “I want to go now.” Relief coursed through him. “Of course, my love, we can head back to Cairo at sunup and begin the journey home to London.”
“London?” Her head jerked up and her gaze met his. Her eyes blazed with … what? Pain? Sorrow? Anger? “I cannot return to London yet. Not without the gold. I wish to get it tonight. Now.”
“It’s out of the question,” he said patiently. “You have suffered through quite an ordeal and I—”
“That is precisely why I want to go now. Chatsworth may not be the only one who knows about the gold.” Annoyance rang in her voice. “If you will not accompany me, I shall go alone.”
“You most certainly will not,” he said, his voice rising. “It would be nothing short of idiotic to go off alone into the desert at night.”
She glared angrily. “Well, do not hesitate to add it to the list of my foolish acts. With you or without you, I will go. And I will do so tonight.”
Fury flared in his blood. All he wanted to do was protect her, take care of her. All she wanted was his assistance in an impetuous, ill-advised, completely ridiculous act. It was not his nature to behave in so reckless a manner. He would not dash off, unthinking, in the middle of the night. Not like… His eyes narrowed. “I imagine Stanford would have had no hesitation about falling in with your plan?”
“Jack?” Surprise underlay her words. “What does he have to do with this?”
“Oh, come now, Sabrina.” Impatience fueled his irritation. “I am fully aware of the differences between Stanford and myself. He was well known for his wild be
havior. His rash acts.”
“Jack is dead and gone,” she said slowly.
“Dead perhaps, but is he gone?”
“Yes.” She turned away quickly as if to end the discussion, but he clasped her shoulders and spun her to face him. He gazed deeply into her eyes, emerald fires of defiance.
“Hear me out. I have had more than my share of what my sister would so charmingly call adventure. And like tonight, it is very often not pretty. I have risked my own life and that of my companions but never without cause. For my country, for my honor. My courage, even daring, has never been questioned.” He pulled an unsteady breath. “I am as different from Stanford as night from day. He was your first choice. I cannot fill his shoes. I only hope that you can put him in the past. That you can someday love me as you loved him.”
“No.”
The single syllable struck him like a dagger through the heart. Anguish tightened his hands on her shoulders. She winced, and he released his grip abruptly.
“I see,” he said softly.
Sabrina sighed. “No, Nicholas, you do not see. You see nothing at all.” She drew a deep breath. “I was seventeen and straight from the schoolroom when I married Jack. He was gay and dashing and romantic. And I loved him with all the passion of an infatuated child.” Bitterness and sorrow tinged her words. “But even children have to grow up. And Jack never did. We lived from one party to the next, with no cares and no worries beyond which invitation to accept and which gown to wear. It was great fun.”
Confusion muddled his mind. “I don’t understand.”
She laughed, a tight, strident sound without mirth. “Of course not. No one would. It was not the way I had wished to live my life. It was a lovely dream but it was not real. It was never real.” She paused and stared past him at a distant spot in the night, or perhaps a distant time. “Still, I did not want him dead. I never wanted him dead.”
“Bree,” he said gently, “his death was not your doing.”
“No, I know that.” She fell silent, and he wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms. Uncertainty held him back. After a moment she gazed up at him and smiled. “Thank you.” Her manner turned brisk and bright. “Let us be off. If we leave now, we shall surely return before sunrise.”
He stared, speechless. How could the woman change an altogether serious discussion so abruptly? And would she ever listen to him? “Sabrina.” A warning lingered in his voice. “I believe I have made myself clear on this point. We will not go tonight.”
“And I have made my feelings plain as well.” She glared. “I am going, alone if need be.”
“You cannot go by yourself,” he said firmly, irritation at her irrational insistence rising once more.
She stepped away from him and planted her fists on her hips. “And why not?”
“Why?” His mind groped for a response. It all seemed so very logical to him; he was nonetheless hard-pressed to come up with a reason to sway her stubborn determination. He suspected her adamant demand to forge ahead after the gold at this moment had more to do with the emotion churned up by Chatsworth’s death and revelations, coupled with her own feelings about Stanford, than any real desire on her part to conclude her quest. Still, she tried what little patience he had left. “Why? It would be extremely dangerous to go off through the desert alone.”
“Hah!” She scoffed. “What is not dangerous here?” She ticked off the points on her fingers. “To date we have been abducted by grave robbers and held at gunpoint by a crazed, rejected suitor. I suspect there is little more that can happen. I am not afraid of what the desert or the night might hold.”
He shook his head in frustration. “You’re being ridiculous.”
“Am I?” she said sharply. “Am I being foolish again as well?”
“Foolish is not the half of it.”
“I don’t care,” she said, her voice rising.
His tone matched hers. “I do.”
“Why?”
“I do not want any harm to come to you.”
“Why?”
“Blast it, Sabrina, you are my wife!”
“I daresay that will do me a lot of good.” Her eyes snapped with rage. “You will no doubt discard me the moment we return to London!”
“Discard you?” How on earth did this woman’s mind work? “I would never discard you.”
“Why?”
“Because I love you!” His voice thundered in the night.
“How would you know?” she said with disdain. “You’ve said the words so many times to so many women, what could you possibly know of love?”
“What do I know of love?” He grabbed her arms and pulled her tightly to him. She glared, her green eyes dark and stormy and challenging. Anger and urgency powered his words. “I know when I first saw you in Madison’s arms, I wanted nothing so much as to slice him to ribbons. I know when I returned from recovering the horses and found you missing, my heart stopped with the fear of what might have become of you. And I know when Chatsworth aimed his pistol at you, I realized my life would not be worth living without you in it.”
“And how do you think I felt when that blasted weapon went off and I did not know if you were alive or dead?”
“How?” He shot the word like a marksman aimed at a target.
“As if I too would die if you were killed.” Her words rang loud and strong. “Bloody hell, I love you too.”
He gave her a quick shake, as if to force the answer he wanted desperately to hear. “What about Stanford?”
She wrenched out of his grasp. “He’s dead! He’s dead and buried! And I know now, and God help me I’ve known almost from the first but I’ve never said the words aloud and I’ve never even dared to say them to myself. They were wrong and disloyal and without honor. But I never truly loved him and—” She stopped as if thunderstruck by her own words. Her eyes widened and her voice broke. “I have always loved you.”
Her words hung in the air between them. Their gazes locked. Elation flooded him, and he saw his wonder reflected in her eyes. He grinned slowly and held out his hand. She reached hers to his. Electricity sparked between their fingers. In less than a moment she was in his arms.
His lips crushed hers with a ravenous hunger that swelled with the taste of her, the touch of her. He swept her off her feet and strode toward his tent. Her hands clasped around his neck with an intensity that equaled his own.
The silken walls fluttered at their passage and they plunged into darkness, the shelter abruptly shutting out the glow of the fire and the shine of the desert stars. He released her and she slid from his arms, down the long length of his body to stand before him in the night. In a frenzy of urgent need and unrelenting desire, they blindly tore the clothes from each other without heed until the garments lay forgotten at their feet. Her body pressed into his, her breasts crushed against the hard planes of his chest, the rough mat of hair rasping her already taut nipples.
She tunneled her hands through his hair and drew his head down to greet his lips with greed. Her mouth parted beneath his, and they joined together in mindless fervor as if each sought to steal the very life breath from the other, or perhaps the very soul.
He splayed one hand across her back and cupped her buttocks with the other, pulling her tighter against him. His erection, hard and powerful, throbbed against her stomach, an iron staff shared between them.
They sank to their knees, unwilling, unable to break the bond of flesh to flesh, heat to heat. She dragged her lips from his and along his jaw, rough and firm, to the strong line of his neck. He groaned, and she trailed her tongue to the hollow at the base of his throat, pressing her hands flat against his chest. She reveled in the taste of him, of salt and heat and power. Lost herself in the sheer pleasure of his strength beneath her fingertips.
He pulled away and claimed her lips with his own, a declaration of possession and passion and promise. His impatient hands roamed her sides until they grazed her breasts, his very touch a blaze of scorching, sizzling o
bsession. She moaned and her head fell back, her neck arched, her chest thrust forward like an offering to a pagan god. He cupped her breasts and bent to taste first of one, then the other until the sweet singe of his lips, his tongue, left her breathless with need.
He laid her back amid the blankets and discarded garments, and she strained upward in relentless yearning for the fusion of his desire with her own. He trailed kisses of fire and chills down the valley between her breasts to the flat of her stomach and lower, ever lower until his fingers parted the silken curls and his tongue flicked the point of her passion. She gasped and gripped his shoulders as if to push him away, as if to urge him on. Never had she known such exquisite sensation, such delicious sin that pulsed and throbbed from his touch to fill every part of her. Tension built within her, deep and taut until she existed only in the skillful caress of his lips, the masterful brush of his hand.
She called his name and he drew back to tower above her, a figure only of shadow and dark. Reaching for him, her hands fell upon his erection, soft as velvet and hard as rock beneath her fingers. Her own urgency spiraled. He moaned, a sigh of tortured delight. “Bree.”
He poised between her legs and plunged into her yielding softness, hot and moist and tight. She surrounded him, engulfed him, welcomed him. He no longer knew where one began and the other left off and no longer cared. Dimly, in a last coherent moment, he marveled at the potency of this aphrodisiac called love.
She arched upward to meet his thrusts with a wanton eagerness that defied mere mortal pleasure. He plunged harder and faster, his fury forging with hers until she thought it would surely tear her asunder and gloried in the sheer power of it all.
Together they moved in a rhythm ancient and primeval, merged in a dance uncivilized and elemental, fused in an uncompromising frenzy of unbelievable sensation and inconceivable joy. And when each thought they could not survive the unadulterated pleasure of their joining, the desert night erupted around them in wave after wave of magnificent, shuddering rapture, and for the barest moment, or perhaps forever, glimpsed eternity. Until finally they clung to each other with an exhaustion born of passion spent and enchantment shared.
The Perfect Wife Page 27