As she spoke, the disappointment of eighteen years of expecting a fairy-tale life once she reached Nimway, the sadness of having to rethink each thing he’d said to her knowing that he’d likely said them all before and meant them before – it was too much. A tear ran down her cheek and plopped onto the bosom of her gown.
Adam, though, continued to stare at her. She wished he would go away, or at least have the good manners to look away, but he did neither. He just gazed at her, unblinking.
“Nothing to say?” she prompted. “Then I ask you once again to go back to the house. I would like to be alone.”
His mouth opened and shut again. “I should have told you everything, after all,” he finally said quietly.
“It’s too late n—”
“You’ll listen to it anyway,” Adam snapped, then blew out his breath. “I did love Elizabeth, though I’m not convinced Alton ever did. He loved her dowry; I know that.”
Isabel couldn’t hold back a sob. If he’d told her he’d once had his heart broken, she would have understood. If he’d told her, her own heart wouldn’t be breaking now. Turning away again, she put her hands over her ears. “Just go away!”
“Elizabeth… Elizabeth Driscoll. She was my sister, you see,” he went on anyway, his voice muffled but still understandable through her palms. “She was a year older than me. Twenty, when Alton met her. He dazzled her, I think, and after two months she accepted his proposal of marriage.”
She lowered her hands. The pain in his voice, though – she didn’t want to turn around to look at him, for both of their sakes. This… She hadn’t expected this. His sister?
“Before they were married she went for a ride on her mare, Lily, as she did nearly every morning in the country. This time Lily stepped into a badger hole. She broke both her forelegs, and Elizabeth broke her neck. My father got her back to the house and summoned a doctor and sent for the rest of us, and sent word to Alton.”
Adam cleared his throat. “When Alton came to see her, he was the very image of heartbreak, I’m told. My family felt sorry for him, for the life he’d just begun to plan for the two of them that they now would never have. He said he wanted to return with the parson of his own parish, a man who was like a father to him, to sit and pray over her with him. She was becoming feverish but seemed happy to see him, so my father agreed.”
“Adam—”
“Let me finish, for God’s sake,” he hissed. “I never want to tell this story again.”
Isabel shut her eyes. “I’m listening.”
“I was at my uncle’s estate when I received word of all this. Elizabeth and I… We were close. It took me six hours of hard riding to get back home. I ran up to her bedchamber, and found the door shut and her maid, Abby, in the hall, weeping. She said Alton and his parson friend wanted privacy to pray over Elizabeth. I burst in anyway, to find Lizzie so feverish she didn’t even recognize me – and this…holy man in the midst of declaring my sister and Alton husband and wife. He wanted her dowry, you see, more than he wanted her. If I hadn’t arrived when I did, if I hadn’t ripped the marriage license from the priest’s hand before Alton could put own signature beside Elizabeth’s… And they’d forged her name, because she couldn’t move her arms. Or her legs.”
Oh, she couldn’t stand it any longer. Isabel whirled about to wrap her arms hard around Adam, and his closed around her back. It must have been so awful. So awful. And Alton… To believe she’d thought herself lucky to meet such a handsome, charming, unmarried lord. “You should have told me,” she whispered.
“You are so genuinely good,” he returned roughly, “if that was what attracted him to you and vice versa, I thought perhaps he’d changed. Become a better man. And I tore up the license and burned it. I had no proof.”
As she recalled every conversation she’d ever had with Geoffrey Bell-Spratt, she had to shake her head. “I don’t think he’s changed. He can’t own my timber rights or my water rights, but he could certainly sell off half of Balesboro Wood, especially if we were residing elsewhere.” It had always seemed to come back to the timber. Every chat, every jest. And not very subtly, either. She’d just been too trusting to hear it. That money wouldn’t have lasted, because once the Wood was gone it would be gone forever, but what a bounty it would have been while it lasted.
Adam held her back from him, and abruptly she worried that she and her jealousy and her…crutch of magic and the orb had ruined this, too. “I want you to know,” he said slowly, “that you are the first and only woman with whom I have ever fallen in love. The only woman I ever mean to love.”
The keening thrum in her veins, the way her heart galloped – she couldn’t mistake the exultation she felt, or what it meant. “I love you, Adam Driscoll, you impossible man.” But the orb! Why in the world had it approved of Lord Alton? And what would happen to her and to Nimway Hall if she went against it?
“Do you have any idea how much I’ve wanted to hear you say that?” he murmured, brushing his fingers along her cheek and clearly not reading her thoughts.
Another warm tear slid down her face. He was being honest, because he’d always been honest. She needed to be the same. “I do love you,” she repeated vehemently, “but the orb chose Alton. I don’t know what might happen if I ignore it. I know you think that’s ridiculous, but it’s important to me. And to Nimway Hall.”
His brow furrowed again. “You would still allow that piece of rock and metal to dictate the course of your life?”
“I have to. That’s how it’s always been.”
Releasing her, he dug into his pocket. “Tell me this, then. If your orb chose Alton, why does it keep ending up in my room? I sat down to eat my damned dinner, reached for my glass, and found it in my hand instead.” He pulled the orb from his coat and held it out to her. “This is why I decided to join you for dinner. For just a second, I thought perhaps something beyond my understanding might be at work.”
“It fell off the table in the drawing room,” she mused, reaching out to touch the orb. “I don’t…”
She trailed off as the moonstone beneath their two sets of fingers began to glow. Softly at first, then more and more brightly it blazed, as bright as sunlight. White touched with iridescent greens and blues and reds buried deep in the stone surrounded the two of them, and reflected off the trio of boulders around them. Far, far away, Isabel could swear she heard a lone female voice, singing a wordless tune.
Adam’s green eyes met hers, their emerald startling in its clarity. He held her gaze as the orb’s light began slowly to fade, leaving her almost blind in the filtered moonlight and the dim lantern set behind him. “Did you see—”
“I did,” he returned, in the same stunned tone. His gaze lowered to the dark moonstone they both still touched. That they’d never touched at the same time until now.
Isabel swallowed. He’d always been so logical. What might this do to him? “Did you hear…”
His eyes snapped up to meet hers again. “A woman. Singing.”
Isabel nodded. “Do you believe me now?” she whispered.
“I believe in what I see and hear,” he returned. “I saw this. I heard the voice. I heard the owls, as well. They led me here. I have no explanation but the one you’ve been offering me since you arrived. Magic. Genuine magic.”
Putting her hands on either side of his lean face, she leaned up and kissed him. This, this, was what finding the love of her life was supposed to feel like. The heat, the lifting sensation, the ecstasy in the rightness of touching him, of being touched by him.
And the explanation for Alton and the orb had to be the simplest one – the viscount had lied. The moonstone hadn’t heated when he’d touched it, then instantly cooled the moment she took it back. It had done nothing, just as it had done nothing every time she’d tried to convince it or herself that she was meant to be Lady Alton. Because she wasn’t.
Still kissing her, Adam shed his jacket, backing away for a heartbeat to spread it out on the grass. “I’
m not waiting any longer,” he said, shifting his attention to her jawbone with shiver-inducing kisses and nibbles. “I’m not missing my chance.”
“I knew,” she breathed, helping him undo the buttons of his dark waistcoat, and that garment joined the first. “I knew it was you, because you kept interrupting every thought I had. But you didn’t believe.”
“I do now. I believe,” he murmured, his tone a heady mix of wonderment and desire. Desire for her. She felt it as well, all the way to her bones – the wish, the need, to be with him, to touch him skin to skin, with nothing separating them. That was why her feet had guided her here tonight. To Isabel’s Bower.
Here, with the ancient stone carvings, the moonlight, the dancing waters of the stream behind them, was where they were meant to be tonight. The small glen felt magical. And this time she didn’t need to convince him of that.
“Just tell me no one else is looking for me here,” she said, grinning, tangling her fingers into his dark hair, and shivering a little as his big hands slid from her waist to her hips, tugging her closer against him. What had been wrong with her, to ever think for a moment that she’d wanted Alton touching her like this? That had never even occurred to her before now; in her daydreams a match with the viscount had been a companionable partnership. As if he would ever share anything. As if he would ever have cared about her dreams.
“I don’t think anyone else knows about this place,” he returned, pulling the pins from her hair. Abruptly, though, he stopped, his gaze searching her face. “Isabel, I want you. I want you in my arms, and in my life. You’re already in my heart. But I’m selfish enough to want to know that it’s not the orb that’s convinced you.”
“Oh, hang the orb.” Pushing aside his hands, she pulled his shirttail from his trousers so she could run her palms up his warm, bare chest. “It took me far too long to figure myself out, but it wasn’t the moonstone. I’ve lived such an unconventional life, and I decided I needed someone…perfect to make me perfect. And because I’m an idiot, I saw exactly what Geoffrey wanted me to see, and I ignored what should have been plain in you.”
“You’re not an idiot,” he countered. “I saw a woman who believed in magic, but not in herself.” Adam smiled a little. “I’ve believed in you nearly from the beginning. And I think tonight you realized you can believe in yourself, as well.”
Isabel took a deep breath. She did feel different. After weeks of feeling inadequate and uncertain, tonight she’d made a decision, and she’d done it without the orb. The fact that the moonstone had then confirmed what she already knew in her heart – yes. Everything had changed. And now that she knew for certain what she wanted, nothing was going to get in her way. Not even herself.
“I’ve had a good teacher,” she whispered, helping him lift his shirt off over his head.
He had the body of a man who worked hard, who didn’t spend his time at cards or drinking while other men saw to his duties in exchange for coin. More than that, he cared about Nimway Hall, and her, and all of her tenants, and even the bees.
“When I first arrived here,” Isabel said slowly, “I imagined the avenue would be lined with knights in shining armor astride white horses, all of them vying to win my hand. And I would solve every problem with a flick of my fingers.” She lifted one hand, and he twined his fingers with hers. “The truth I’m discovering is that I’m glad it’s not that simple. That nothing is simple or straightforward.”
“Are you certain? There is some old armor in the portrait hall, I believe. I might be able to squeeze into it.”
A warm shiver ran down her spine, and she chuckled. “No, I think it’s too small for you.”
His smile heated the rest of her. “I’ll take that as a compliment. Now turn around.”
She did so, and as his fingers opened the quartet of buttons at the nape of her neck she shivered again, every inch of her awake and anticipating his touch. A forefinger trailed down her spine, his warm mouth following. Goodness. Most of her daydreams became rather nebulous at this point, but this was no daydream, no fairytale. And she was exceedingly thankful for that.
He moved around to face her, his gaze on her face as he bent down to gather the mauve-and-black material of her skirt in his hands, then slowly drew it up above her knees, past her thighs, her hips, and upward. “Arms up,” he murmured, another slight, sensuous smile touching his mouth.
When Isabel complied, Adam pulled her gown and shift over her head, then dropped them to the ground as if they’d ceased to matter. She watched as his gaze lowered, watched as he took her in from her feet to her face. Her skin warmed, not with embarrassment, but with a heated anticipation. The orb could fly up into the air and strike the moon and she wouldn’t have spared it a glance. Just as well, then, that the claw-gripped moonstone seemed to approve.
“You belong here in Isabel’s Bower,” he said, “with the moonlight touching your skin. A forest nymph, too lovely to be real.”
“I see you’ve come to embrace the idea of magic fairly quickly,” she returned, lifting an eyebrow.
Adam laughed. “I surrender. You are magic. I believe in you, so I must believe in magic.” Keeping his gaze on her face, he kicked out of his boots, unfastened his trousers, and stepped out of them.
Oh, my. While she’d seen a plenitude of naked men carved in marble and plaster back in Florence, none of those statues did Adam Driscoll justice. He was…magnificent. And aroused, with wanting her. She knew that already, but now she saw the evidence of it.
When he took that one step back to her, she wasn’t certain what to expect. It certainly wasn’t that he would sweep her into his arms, and she gasped and wrapped her own arms around his neck. He kissed her again, deliriously long and deep, then knelt on the edge of his coat and set her down gently in front of him.
She refused to relinquish her grip on him, and he settled along her body as she sank onto her back. She was finished with making mistakes – or at least ones of the magnitude of the one she’d nearly made by not truly seeing the man who’d stood at her shoulder almost from the moment she’d arrived in Somerset. Then he slid down and took one of her breasts in his mouth, and her mind stopped thinking at all. There was far too much to feel.
He licked and teased at her breasts until she couldn’t breathe. Just when she felt ready to faint he lifted his head and moved up to kiss her again. That seemed to only be a distraction, though, because while his mouth was occupied, his fingers trailed up the insides of her thighs, then touched her…there.
Isabel jumped, then uttered a groan she couldn’t stifle as he slid a finger inside her. Heat spread from her center out to the tips of her fingers and her toes, sending a delicious shudder down her spine. Beneath his ministrations, even as she writhed in pleasure, she felt…everything. A part of everything. Him, the land, the night, the trees around them – together they became whole.
“I’m hearing music again,” he murmured, as he nibbled at her earlobe. “Is this going to happen every time I’m with you? Because I intend to have you very frequently.”
Her eyes practically rolled back in her head. She could hear it too, more as a rhythm matching her fast pulse than with her ears. “I hear it as well, and I have no idea,” she returned, her voice sounding ragged even to her own ears. “I look forward to finding out.”
As she spoke she reached between them to brush her fingers against his hard manhood, and had the satisfaction of seeing him jump. God. Because while this might be about her becoming a woman and the Guardian of Nimway Hall, it was at least as much about the two of them, together.
“Show me what’s next,” she breathed, arching her back as a second finger joined his first.
“This isn’t enough?” he asked with a grin, lifting his head to look down at her.
“I feel very…ah, wonderful,” she managed, “but you seem to be in an unsatisfied state.” She wrapped her fingers around his shaft.
Adam drew in a hard breath. “Pleasing you pleases me,” he returned, his o
wn tone not quite steady. “But you have asked me to teach you some things.”
“Then teach me this.”
Moving up the length of her again, trailing kisses along her skin as he rose, Adam nudged her knees apart. Alive. Every inch of her felt so alive. And that was because of him. “I’m told this may hurt,” he said, gazing at her intently. “I know of no other way to make you mine, and it won’t hurt again. But I still need to know you’re ready. That this – me – is what you want.”
He would stop if she asked, because he was a gentleman, a true gentleman, down to his bones. But then she would never know what came next, for her or for the two of them. And she very much wanted to know. Isabel raised her head and kissed him. “I’m ready.”
Settling himself between her legs, Adam caught her mouth again, at the same time canting his hips forward. With an exquisite filling sensation he entered her. Deep inside her she felt pressure, then a sharp pain that made her wince, before he sank deeply into her. Isabel squeezed her eyes shut, determined not to cry out. A few hard beats of her heart passed before she realized how very still Adam held himself inside her.
Opening her eyes again, she forced a weak laugh, the feeling of him buried inside her intensifying as she took a deep breath. “I won’t break,” she said unsteadily.
“Good,” he whispered back, his voice hard and husky. “You’re Nimway’s guardian, but Nimway had best understand that you and I are a pair. Forever.”
With another deep, openmouthed kiss he began moving inside her. Arching her back, Isabel dug her fingers into his back, holding on as he rocked into her. Good heavens. Her legs fell open with an abandon she would never have expected of herself, but all that mattered was her being as close to him as she could get.
He moved slowly, then faster and faster, tension growing tighter and tighter inside her. She moaned, wrapping her ankles around his thighs to invite him in even more deeply. Abruptly everything went white, and she shattered into a thousand pulsing, shivering pieces.
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