Because she was Aria. That was likely reason enough.
Another step. “I am certain you can. However, you are not alone in that regard either, that ability to take a life. Back on the plantation, I saw one man kill another. It was over a woman, if you must know. I saw a man I thought the most gentle of souls squeeze the very life out of another man that almost everyone feared because of his vile temper. It was then that I understood that we are all capable of great violence. Even me. And when the man’s wife forgave his murderer, I also learned that people are capable of great kindness as well.”
“Not me. I am not kind in the least.” Aria was so close to him now that Michael could almost feel the heat of her body and it nearly drove him to the very edge of his restraint.
“Pish posh,” Aria said softly with a wave of her hands. “You are capable of kindness, Michael. I have seen it. You cloak that kindness in your medicine so that you do not have just justify it, but you possess that kindness just the same. What other man would care for a lame boy like Owen, keeping him on because you know he would surely die elsewhere? Or any of the other people you have on staff here, for that matter? What other man would save the life of a wretchedly ill woman he discovered hiding in his stables and then offer to save her again by marrying her?
She was so close now that he could smell her, the scent of lemons and roses mixed with beeswax from the chapel ceremony earlier still clinging to her skin. Had she been put upon this earth just to torment him? Michael supposed so.
“You are wrong, Aria. There is so much you don’t know about me. So much that would make you fear me and flee in horror if you did.” He looked off into the distance, making a quick decision. “Do you wish to know why there are no clocks here at Thornfield?”
“If you are willing to tell me? Yes.” Michael heard the rustle of fabric as she moved.
Damn her, but he could hear her breathing as well. She was close. Too close.
Still, she was here and she had a right to know. Maybe this tale would be enough to convince her that she needed to run while she still could. If she still could. There was, of course, the strong possibility that she was already carrying his child.
“The night my commander died, I was attending to him in my field tent.” Michael pinched the bridge of his nose. “He had been gravely wounded in battle that day. A bullet to the gut. I knew he was going to die. So did he. However, I hoped to make his passing as easy as possible for his wounds were severe and extremely painful. He did not want his men to see him pass, so we were alone.”
Aria put her hand on Michael’s arm. She was so close now that he could feel the silk of her gown against his bare forearms. “That must have been difficult.”
“More than you will ever know.” Finally, Michael turned to Aria, certain the pain of that night was still written all over his face. “I was about to administer another dose of laudanum when the Frenchies attacked. They were screaming and chanting in a language I had never heard before. I later learned that it was a native Haitian Creole tongue. The language of Vodou. They were cursing me, wishing me to the devil as they attacked me, slashing at my eyes.”
Aria’s arms came around him then. He should have pushed her away, but he was too weary from his battle with the large sandbag to do so. Not to mention that she felt so right there beside him, resting against him. Absorbing the hurt he had carried with him for so long.
How she performed such magic, he could not say, but he did not question it either. It simply felt good to be rid of the pain after all of this time.
“Oh, Michael.” Aria placed her hand over his heart. “I am so sorry. You did not deserve that. Not even if you were at war.”
“The French did not care.” He had come this far. He needed to confess the rest and pray that she alone would understand. She was here. She hadn’t yet run. Perhaps he still had a chance with her. To win her heart. To keep her forever. “To them, I was the devil incarnate, or at the very least his assistant, and I needed to die. Even now, I cannot say how I defeated them. I likely lived only because my physician’s training had taught me where on the human body to make the most fatal and swift of blows. I used my knowledge of medicine to kill and not to heal, something I had sworn never to do. But in the end? They were dead and I was alive. I was the only one alive.”
“And the clocks?” she asked softly, her arms never leaving him.
“My commander’s field clock was beside him as he lay there dying. He had wished to count the hours until his death as they passed. As I fought the French, I heard that relentless tick in my brain and nothing else. I did not hear the screams of pain, though I knew there must have been many. I didn’t even hear the curses spewed in my direction after a time. But I did hear the clock. Always the clock. Just ticking away. It nearly drove me to madness.”
Slowly, Michael lowered his head to rest on Aria’s shoulder, certain this was the last contact he would have with her. She could not want him now. No woman would, not even the whores. He had just admitted to slaughtering men using his medical knowledge. He had admitted to having the ravings of a madman on the battlefield. He was the candidate for Bedlam here, not her.
But he needed to touch her, to seek out one last moment of rest in her arms before she left him. He hoped and prayed she would grant him that, for he was exhausted down to his very soul, the weight of carrying this secret for so long having nearly crushed him over the years. He hadn’t realized it, but it had happened all the same.
That weight was gone now. It belonged to the past. He’d had no idea that speaking the truth would free him from the crushing weight of guilt that had pressed down on him for so long, but it had. Somehow, he had found the strength to break free of his past.
All because of Aria.
Finally, she blew out a long, slow breath and Michael prepared himself for the worst. He prepared himself for the words she would say that would cut all ties with him and leave him in the darkness where he belonged. Satan’s Physician. Alone and unloved, just as he had always been.
Only this wound would hurt more than the others because Michael cared for Aria so very deeply. More than he had ever imagined he could care for another. Now that he was about to lose her, he could finally recognize how much she meant to him.
And in that dark moment, Michael did something he had not done in years. He prayed.
He prayed to God – be God a Catholic or Protestant or some religion he did not yet know – and silently begged forgiveness. He begged for absolution from his sins, whispering in the corners of his mind that he knew he had not done enough, even though he had provided so many of his former military colleagues and their wives shelter and employment upon returning to England. And he begged and prayed that even though he knew he was not worthy of Aria, that she cared about him enough to allow him a second chance. Perhaps not today, but at some point in the future. At the very least, he begged that she not despise him in the same the way he sometimes despised himself.
For Christmas, Michael reminded himself, was the time of miracles and forgiveness. The time to be made whole. He hoped those sorts of miracles extended to damaged, war-torn men like him as well.
“I can understand, then, why you dislike clocks.”
Of all of the things Arai could have said just then, that was the last thing Michael had expected.
Pulling back, he gripped her by the shoulders. “That? That is what you take away from all that I have just said? That you understand why I don’t care for clocks?
Aria reached up to cup his cheek almost tenderly, her fingers once more tracing his old scars, and he was too afraid to hope. “What would you have me say, Michael? You were at war and set upon by men determined to kill you. You were outnumbered and, though you have not said as much, I suspect you were terrified as well.”
He had been terrified. He simply hadn’t admitted that to anyone. Not even Aria. But she had known. Somehow. She always did. “And?”
“And I will not be the one to judge you for what you d
id. No one should. Nor should you judge yourself.” She placed her hand on his chest and he felt his heart leap in his chest at the contact. “I care for you. No. Wait. Let me be accurate, for I know that you value the details. I love you, Michael, and war is just that. War. You survived and you are here with me now so that I might love you. That is all I care about.”
Something in the vicinity of his heart shifted and then cracked. “You…love me?”
She blushed now just as she had done in the tunnel earlier. “I do. I love you. I cannot say when I began to fall in love with you, but I do know for certain that I love you. Today, when my cousin appeared? All I could think about was a life without you and I knew then that was no life I wanted to live. I would have rather died than been without you.”
His mind reeling, Michael gripped Aria’s arms, though not so hard as to hurt her. He would never hurt her. “Are you certain that is love, pet? How can you be certain?”
“I can’t be.” Aria shook her head. “In fact, I am not at all certain there is only one way to define love. Perhaps love is different things to different people. I am no philosopher or poet. But the idea of leaving here? Of losing you? Of living a life without you by my side? Those ideas fill me with dread while being with you, even when you are at your most temperamental and angry, fills me with more joy than you can possibly know. To me, Michael, that is love. I love you. And I suspect that I have from the very first.”
He had no idea what to say. In truth, he had never thought this day would come. He was Satan’s Physician – unlovable, hard, unfeeling.
Except that he wasn’t. Not really. Not underneath everything else. He was tired and lonely and yes, perhaps even a bit frightened. Or he had been. Before Aria. Now? Now there was just her, and she filled him with something he could not explain or define and suddenly he realized might not need to. Perhaps love just…was.
Reaching up, Michael pushed away an errant lock of hair that had fallen in Aria’s eyes during her impassioned speech. “I would have killed him, you know. I would have done it for you. I would never have allowed him to take you away from me, pet. Never.”
“Why?” Aria gazed up at him with wide eyes filled with so much emotion – including love – that Michael felt his heart nearly split in two inside his chest. “Why would you have done that for me?”
Michael cupped her face in his hands. “Because I love you, Aria. And I think I have from the first.”
Chapter Eighteen
Michael’s kiss was different now. Aria knew it from the moment his lips came crashing down on hers. His kiss was both tender and passionate at the same time, filled with promise and possession. It was, in short, very much Michael.
“God, I love you, Aria,” he whispered as he kissed the length of her collarbone before lapping at the hollow of her throat. “I love everything about you, the way you laugh and the way you tease. I love the way you taste and the way you feel when you are beneath me.” He pulled back and tilted her chin up so that she would look at him. “But most of all, I love that you see me. You see all of me, including the darkness of war that still haunts me and you love me anyway.”
Being bold, Aria parted his shirt so that she could rest her hand against his warm chest. “I love you, Michael. All of you. Even the darkness. That will never change.”
With a growl, he swept her up in his arms and crossed the room before depositing her beside the bed. “I need to show you, pet,” he whispered as he began to undo the lacing and buttons down the back of her gown with as much haste as he could manage. “I need to show you how much I love you.”
Aria turned and offered him her back, glancing coyly over her shoulder. “That is not necessary, Michael, but I will never turn down an offer for you to bed me. For that is one of the things I love about you, your physical passion. You treat me as if I am beautiful and I cherish that.”
“You are beautiful,” he informed her as he finished with the back of her gown and then turned her around to face him once again. “To me, you are the most beautiful woman in the world. In fact, you are magic.” Then he sank to his knees in front of her, pulling her gown down along with him.
Standing before him clad only in her stays and chemise, Aria supposed she should have felt naked and exposed. Instead, she only felt loved. “You are beautiful to me as well, Michael. Even the scars. Even the darkness.” She threaded her fingers through his hair, and he leaned into her, nestling his face against the soft swell of her stomach. “To me, you are everything. You are magic, too.”
“Dark magic,” he corrected her.
“As you say,” she laughed. “But even so, you are still mine and mine alone.”
Those were not words that she might have said a month ago, for Aria was no poet and not truly sentimental. Except when it came to Michael, for she understood that beneath his hardened exterior was the heart of a gentleman. A damaged heart that needed to be repaired. It was her duty as his wife to repair it. And for him to repair hers.
Michael looked up at her then, his eyes dark, but not shadowed any longer. Instead, they were filled with glittering passion and unspoken desire. “Let me love you, Aria.”
She slid her hands down to his face and cradled it in her hands. “As you like, Michael. As you like.”
In an instant, he was on his feet, stripping away the last of her garments and her slippers, along with her stockings and garters. He bade her to keep the jewelry on and there was no way she could do anything other than oblige him in his request.
Aria thought Michael might lay her back on the bed then, but instead, he stood before her, his gaze locked with hers and began to slowly undress. The candles burned brighter here than they ever had in the love nest and she was surprised that he did not douse a few before disrobing. Before, while he had not been ashamed of his scars, he had not been overly eager to share them either.
Now he stood proudly before her as he stripped off his lawn shirt, his waistcoat and tailcoat already long gone. That was followed by his boots and stocking until finally, he was clad only in his breeches. “I love you, Aria. By God above, I love you and tonight when I take you, it will be as my wife.”
Aria sank down onto the bed and opened her arms. “Come, husband. I am ready.”
And she was. She was already damp between her legs, his act of stripping away her garments more erotic than anything she could remember even though this was not the first time he had disrobed her. She could feel her sex throbbing restlessly and her nipples ached, begging to be touched. She wanted him, more than she ever had before – which was saying something quite powerful indeed.
Michael’s golden skin glowed in the firelight and his black hair was burnished with blue highlights. He was a god, his body hard and sculpted, his muscles truly a work of art. Even with the scars, he was perfection, at least to her eyes, the flex of his muscles so lovely that she wanted to spread her legs and have him inside of her. Now.
But she would wait.
For she loved the tease as much as she did and Aria understood he would never take her before he was certain she was ready for him. That was simply Michael. His kindness was not written on the hard lines of his face, but it was there. One simply had to know where to look. She was thankful she had taken the time to find the man inside of the hardened outer shell, for he was well worth the effort.
The bed dipped as he knelt down beside her before shifting his weight to cover her body with his. “I love you, Aria,” he said again as he leaned down to take one already peaked nipple into his mouth. “And I will love you forever.”
Then there was no more talking. There was only Michael laving at her breasts, his talented fingers palming first one and then the other. His fingers rolled and pinched her already aching nipples before his mouth descended upon the soft, warm globes. When he drew one of her sensitive tips into his mouth, she whimpered and arched into him. When he bit down on the tight bud before soothing the area with his tongue, she cried out in pleasure and shifted her hips restlessly.
“So sensitive,” Michael whispered as he bit down on her ear. “And so mine.”
For she was. Aria belonged to him now. In truth, she had from the first night he had carried her from his stables, but now she was his by law as well. And he would spend every moment for the rest of her life protecting her and cherishing her. He would love her until the end of his days.
He showered her face with kisses, licking at the sensitive spot just below her ear while his hands caressed her flesh. She was so soft and responsive that he gloried in her reactions to everything he did to her. Even though they had come together many times over the last few weeks, tonight felt different and new. Tonight they were more than mere lovers. Tonight they were husband and wife.
Michael kissed his way over Aria’s breasts and down over the curve of her stomach, stopping to lap at the jut of her hipbone. In time, he knew, that sharp edge would fade as she continued to regain her health. But for now, it was a reminder of her flight across England and he wanted her to understand that he found even that part of her beautiful as well.
Given the way she sighed in contentment, he knew he had succeeded.
Then he went lower, his lips and fingers skimming over her legs, down her thighs to her calves before he knelt at the foot of the bed to suckle her toes. It was a new experience for her, and she arched up and found her release immediately as he drew first one toe and then the other into his mouth, her body reacting to the new, unfamiliar sensations as he hoped she might.
He was careful to avoid the still-healing cut on her leg, but he paid attention to every other part of her he could reach. Finally, when Aria was panting and writhing beneath him, Michael spread her legs apart and began to kiss his way up her inner thigh. He nipped at the delicate and sensitive flesh with his teeth, properly marking her as his. He placed hot, open-mouthed kisses there as well until she was mewling like a kitten once more, her body begging for another release.
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