Straightening, he curled his hands beneath her arms and rose to his feet, lifting her with him. He carried her to the open window, where the long gauze curtains fluttered in the night breeze and the moon lit up the white of her nightgown.
“Take it off,” he told her, and stepped aside to watch.
Tipping her head back, the way he’d seen her do when she’d been riding through a desert storm, raindrops pelting down on her, her long dark hair streaming in the wind behind her, she lifted the garment over her head and let it fall to the floor. Bold, without hesitation, she stood before him, her skin pale in the faint glow of the moon.
His heart pounded in his chest. Not moving at all, Declan waited for the need to feel her naked body against his to grow until it filled the room, until filled the vast plateau outside and the starry sky above, and only then did he quickly strip out of his own clothes. Standing bare before Victoria, he drew her into his arms, molding the pliant curves of her body against the hard planes of his own.
He spoke softly into her ear. “You owe me a wedding night.”
“It’s you who owes me one,” she replied.
Declan heard the calm confidence in her voice, and the last kernel of doubt inside him eased. When it was all over, he’d find a way to hold on to her, to take her with him, provide for her. For an instant, his mood grew dark at the thought of what he had to do. She’d probably hate him for a while, would regret not letting him hang at the end of a rope, but if she truly loved him, she would understand and learn to forgive.
With a sharp shake of his head, Declan pushed the future aside. Only now. Touching, Feeling. Hot mouth on soft skin, eager hands roaming and touching, as two bodies prepared to join in the intimate act that made a woman belong to a man.
****
Victoria stood in Declan’s arms and buried her face in the crook of his neck, breathing in his scent, a combination of leather and dust and man. Tonight would change her life. Tonight would close the doors on her future, perhaps drive a wedge between her and her father. Right now, she didn’t care. Her hands, eager and restless, roamed Declan’s back, savoring the feel of his bare skin beneath her palms.
Her husband. Declan Beaulieu.
All those years she’d dreamed of him, she hadn’t even known his name.
Declan made a small grunting sound. His arms loosened around her.
“Easy,” he murmured. “My ribs...”
“I forgot.” She looked up to his face. “Do they still hurt a lot?”
“You’ll help them heal.” He dipped his head and brought his mouth back to hers, a bold, demanding kiss, tongue slipping between her teeth. For a moment, Victoria embraced the sensations that consumed her. Then she flattened her palms against the solid wall of his chest and pushed. A sound of protest vibrated in her throat.
Instantly, Declan pulled back. “What’s wrong?”
“I want to look at you.” She stepped back and ran her gaze down his body—sleek chest dusted with a coating of hair, ridged muscles on his abdomen. In the moonlight, she picked out the fading bruises on his torso. The biggest mark was on the right, at the lower end of his ribcage. Gently, she explored the area, applying pressure with the pads of her fingers.
“Does this hurt?” she asked.
“Not...at...all,” he replied on a breathless growl.
A small chuckle escaped her. The flash of humor blossomed inside her, making everything seem right, as it should be. The fear of ruining her future, of deceiving her father, it all seemed unimportant against the certainty that she wanted Declan Beaulieu, and this would be the wedding night they owed each other.
With more daring than she’d known she possessed, Victoria looked down again. Girls at school had speculated, some had even claimed to know what a naked, aroused man looked like. She brought her hand close to the rigid shaft that jutted up from a patch of curls at his groin and let her fingers hover there, almost touching. Close enough to feel the heat of him, but not quite bold enough to make contact.
“Show me,” she whispered. “Show me how a woman loves a man.”
“I’ll show you how a man loves a woman.” He bent at the waist and scooped her up into his arms. She heard him choke back a grunt of pain as he straightened and carried her across the room to the bed.
“Let me down,” she said. “You’re hurting.”
“No.” The corners of his eyes crinkled with a smile that was rueful, and yet full of tenderness. “I don’t care. A man values pleasures for which he has to suffer more than those that come to him too easily.”
His smile lingered as he lowered her to the bed. Then he straightened, and for an endless moment he stood still, watching her. Victoria trembled as he drank in the sight of her, his gaze sliding along her reclining form, from the dark hair that fanned over the pillow, to the tips of her toes that curled into the bedding, and then back again to her face.
“So beautiful,” he said. “And mine. All mine. Tonight and forever.”
“Tonight and forever.” She whispered back the words.
He eased down beside her, and repeated the same survey, but now with his touch. The rasp of his callused palms drew fire on her skin as they traveled her length. It crossed her mind that they had forgotten to lock the door. She didn’t care. It didn’t matter if people found out. She’d be happy to cling to the weathervane on the rooftop and shout out that she belonged to Declan Beaulieu, outlaw and cattle thief.
Endlessly, he touched and stroked her. The slender length of her arm, the dip of her waist, the taut curve of her buttocks, the supple groove of her spine. He found secret places on her body and brought them alive with his hands, with his mouth.
Finally, when she became restless, driven by an impatient tug that knotted low in her belly and thrummed somewhere lower still, Declan settled on top of her, his powerful body caging her against the mattress.
“It will hurt, but not for long,” he warned her.
“It will be all right,” she replied, even though she had no way of knowing.
Slowly, Declan joined his body with hers. She gasped at the sting, the tearing burn, the sense of invasion. He paused, his weight braced up on his elbows, his blue eyes dark as he studied her fraught expression.
“Can you let me all the way in?” he asked.
She gave a small, jerky nod, more of determination than certainty.
In the night sky outside, the three-quarter moon had climbed high. A wedge pale light fell across the bed, casting a silvery halo on Declan’s fair hair. The wind had stilled, the night air grown soft. Scents from the flowering verbena and red mint beneath the window drifted into the room. Somewhere far away, a lonely coyote was calling out in search of a mate.
Victoria closed her eyes, tried to store sounds and scents and sensations in her mind as new and exciting tendrils of passion flowed through her. Declan was moving inside her now, slow and cautious at first, but soon he picked up his speed, sending their bodies rocking on the bed, the cotton sheets tangling beneath them.
She opened her eyes, and quickly shut them again as she saw the grim expression on his face. Love was not all silver and moonlight, she realized. There was a violent, untamed element to a coupling, one that stripped away the veneer of civilization and reduced humans to the basic instincts of a wild animal.
And soon, that wildness soared within her. It was a hot spiral of pleasure that rose and rose, until she tumbled into its dark embrace. Victoria arched up on the bed and cried out. If Declan hadn’t clamped his mouth over hers to capture the frantic sounds, her screams would have echoed around the house.
Above her, she felt his body tighten. He thrust deep inside her one more time and held still. She could feel him pulsing where they were joined, and then he collapsed on top of her, his breath rasping by her ear, the sheen of perspiration on their skin cooling as they lay tangled together, too exhausted to move.
Finally, with a muffled grunt of pain, Declan rolled onto his back. He hauled her into his arms and cradled her
close. For long minutes, they lay entwined, not talking, enjoying the closeness, the sense of that he rest of the word was far away and of little importance.
Then a rooster crowed outside, shattering the peace. The shadows in the room started lifting as the first glimmer of dawn broke in the sky. Tears sprang to Victoria’s eyes. The night had been like a dream. Now reality would intrude. She would have to face the consequences of her actions, most of all her father’s wrath when he found out.
****
Victoria crouched on her haunches by the edge of the stable yard and wielded a hammer. Thump-thump-thump, the sounds echoed in the air as she nailed a cage, made of steel rods covered in padded fabric, to the corral gatepost. Inside the corral her palomino, Buttercup, was making friends with Declan’s blue roan, Vali. In the next corral her father’s black stallion pranced about, alone and aloof, as if aware of his superiority.
“What the devil are you doing?” The clatter of her father’s approaching footsteps didn’t interrupt her steady rhythm of hammering, and neither did the sharp tone of his voice, for she had been waiting for him to appear. The view from his office window gave in this direction.
“I’m making a game for the ranch hands,” she replied without glancing up. Tension rippled along her body. They had missed each other at breakfast. This was their first meeting since last night...since she and Declan had...color washed up to her face.
Did her father suspect? She knew he’d been keeping an eye on her. Had he heard something last night? Might he be able to tell merely by looking at her? Would something in her eyes, in her face, in her manner reveal that she was no longer a virgin? Raising her arm, Victoria pushed back the brim of her hat and wiped a trickle of sweat from her brow, and muttered a few words to blame the sun for her discomfort.
Confused emotions crowded her mind. She felt guilty, and yet she didn’t regret what she had done. For years, she had dreamed about her blue eyed outlaw, rejecting all other suitors. She had worried it was a mirage, the immature dream of a teenage girl. Last night had removed all doubt. Her love for Declan was real. The love of a grown woman. He had stirred her passions as no man ever had. One way or another, she would find a way of holding on to him, a way of making her hasty marriage into a success.
“What game?” her father asked.
Victoria delivered the last blow with the hammer, stood up and faced him. He was dressed in a gray vested suit that matched his pewter eyes. Hatless, he appeared to have rushed out of the house on an impulse, although the formal clothing revealed he was about to ride into town on business.
“Can you go to the bank?” Victoria asked. Yesterday, she’d looked for money, planning to ride into the post office to mail the letters she’d written to school friends, but she’d noticed that the cash box in her father’s office was empty.
“What game?” he prompted her again.
“A game of skill.” She shoved the hammer into a loop on the side of her denim overalls and slapped the dust from her knees. “I’m fed up with the men shooting at tin cans when they want to compete about their skill. Instead, they’ll have to practice throwing alphabet blocks.”
She pointed ten yards away, to the cement well in the middle of the yard. Next to it stood another cage made of steel rods encased in padded fabric. This one was filled with wooden cubes about two inches in diameter. “They’re alphabet blocks,” she explained to her father. “Toys, from when I was a child. I found them in the attic when I went up there looking for my old clothes.”
Her father gestured at her outfit. “Have expensive dresses gone out of fashion?”
“They are impractical for ranch work.”
“Where did you get this from?” He gripped the rim of the wire cage and rattled it to check how solidly she had fastened it to the gatepost.
“From the Ladies Fashion Emporium in Boston.”
Her father stood back, eyed the contraption, cast a look at the other similar one in the distance. “It’s a corset.” He voice was flat and yet, beneath the cool indignation, Victoria detected laughter attempting to break free.
“Bravo,” she replied. “Didn’t know you had it in you to recognize one.”
“I still get around some, Ria.” His face colored with a rare sign of fluster. “Sorry,” he added in a low voice. “Didn’t mean to embarrass you, or sully your mother’s memory.”
Love for her father surged in her heart. Always, always he considered what was best for her. Most people only saw his stern manner, the dark, brooding looks and the intensity of his indomitable will. They failed to see the kindness, the keen sense of humor, and the way he took the side of the weak, insisting on fair play and justice for all.
And that is why it hurt so much to deceive him about Declan.
“It’s all right, Pa,” she said, using the casual form or address she had replaced with the more formal ‘father’ since she returned from boarding school. “Ma has been dead for nearly two decades. I don’t begrudge you a little pleasure in the arms of a woman every now and then.”
She poked at the metal cage with the toe of her boot. “I hate wearing a corset, and I can’t get into my gowns without one, so you’ll have to get used to seeing me in pants.” She paused, and then she added, “Anyway, I’m getting the impression that my fine gowns might have to last a long time. You’ve not hired a new maid, and you let some of the permanent hands go with the seasonal ones, and we are low on supplies, this morning I found the cash box empty.” She leveled her eyes at him. “Father, are we short of money?”
Hesitation flickered over her father’s lean face. He was about to reply when five riders, one of them Declan, streamed into the yard. They dismounted and jostled by the well, cranking the hand pump to splash water on their faces.
Hank and Stan, the two older cowboys Victoria had known all her life, homed in on the padded cage filled with alphabet blocks. Hank picked up a wooden square and turned to Declan for explanation. Frowning, Declan took it from his hand. He pushed back his black Stetson as he studied the object. Then he gave a shrug and strode up to her. He nodded a greeting to her father before facing her and asking, “What’s this for?”
“It’s a game.” She explained the purpose. The other cowboys drifted closer.
“Hell,” Stan said with a toothless grin. “I might learn me to read.” Retreating to the pile of tiny cubes with a different letter on each of the six facets, he started studying them. Lenny, in his usual swagger, was the first to try tossing the blocks into the empty cage nailed to the corral post.
“I dislike the noise when they shoot up the place for fun.” Victoria spoke in a low voice to keep her words between herself and her father as they moved out of the way and watched. “But I also thought it might be a good idea to stop wasting ammunition.”
Her father, standing half a step behind her, curled his hands over her shoulders and squeezed—a steady, reassuring pressure, the way he liked to do when he attempted to steer her through the turbulent events of life. From the familiar gesture, meant to deliver comfort and courage, Victoria understood that she had guessed right—that their financial situation was indeed precarious.
Her father left one hand on her shoulder, as if to indicate a prior claim, and turned his attention to Declan, who stood observing them both beneath the brim of his hat.
“Will you join us for dinner tonight?” Andrew Sinclair asked.
“Perhaps.” Declan looked up from the alphabet block in his hand. “If Victoria wishes my company.”
Her father’s fingers tensed on her shoulder, biting into her flesh. She could feel his chest swell as he inhaled an angry breath. “Let’s get this right,” he said. “You are my daughter’s husband, but only as a temporary arrangement to save your worthless life. It’s not so that you can enjoy the company of a lady. My daughter is not for the likes of you.”
“I’ll let Victoria be the judge of that.” Declan turned toward her. He inclined his head and touched the brim of his hat before walking off to join the
other ranch hands in the game.
“The insolent whelp,” Victoria heard her father mutter.
Her hands fisted at her sides. It couldn’t have been clearer. They had been like two dogs growling and snapping at each other. For whatever reason, Declan wanted to deliberately antagonize her father. She did not understand it, and she hated being caught in the middle of it. With a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach she realized that in some aspects her husband might not be the man she had conjured up in her dreams. Unlike her father, who always gave up to her requests in the end, her husband might not.
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Chapter Seven
Declan raked his fingers through his damp hair, pushing unruly strands from his face as he studied his reflection in the mirror of the washstand. His features were almost healed, the remaining yellowing bruises hidden by the deep tan on his skin.
He had not taken up the invitation to join Victoria and Andrew Sinclair for dinner tonight. He had eaten in the cookhouse, and then he’d loitered outside in the evening cool with the other ranch hands. The older ones gave him good natured teasing about being the biggest of the injured animals Miss Victoria had rescued and brought home. The younger ones stole covert glances at him, most likely wondering if he would try to seduce the girl and make the marriage stick—some perhaps speculating that he might have already done.
Restlessly, he paced the small room, torn between his need for Victoria and the problems that would arise if her father found out.
He waited until he heard the clock strike midnight. Then he slipped out, through the kitchen corridor, up the stairs. The sky was overcast, with no moon tonight to ease his passage in the darkness. He found her door by feel, running his hand along the wood paneling along the wall. As his fingers curled over the brass knob, he heard the click of a hammer and felt the cool steel of a gun barrel pressed against the back of his neck.
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