“I’ve been pressed into maid service, as ya see,” he said mock-plaintively, his back unconsciously tensed as he waited for Pearl’s reaction to the unexpectedly cozy scene they had interrupted. Very possessive of Alec, was Pearl, and very quick of temper, too.
“And here I thought we’d been left to starve to death.” Alec levered himself up off the bed with easy grace, and negligently began to gather up the cards. He grinned at Isabella as she scooped up her forfeited hairpins and began to twist up her hair. Her expression was self-conscious as she felt herself scrutinized by three pairs of eyes, one smiling, one dismayed, and one actively hostile.
“Alec—Mr. Tyron—has been teaching me piquet,” Isabella offered, feeling compelled to explain the obvious as both Paddy and Pearl stared at her. Pearl set the tray she was carrying down with a clatter on the dressing table near the door.
“Oh, aye, our Alec’s a wonderful teacher. He’s taught me scores of things over the years.” Pearl’s lip curled, and she threw a hard look at Isabella, whose eyes widened in response. “Take care he don’t do the same for you, angel. I doubt you’re up to his weight.”
“And just what does that mean, exactly?” Alec frowned at her. Pearl tossed her head at him, making her curls bob fetchingly even as she glared.
“You’re so smart, you figure it out. I’m needed below. I do have other gentlemen who need taking care of besides you, you know. Just because you own the place doesn’t mean you have me at your beck and call,” she said coldly. Alec said nothing, just stared after her as she stomped from the room.
“What the devil ails her?” he asked Paddy after Pearl had left. Paddy, still holding the second tray, shook his head. He had no intention of getting involved in a clash between the two people he cared for most in the world. Either one of them was perfectly capable of annihilating him in the scramble for the other’s throat.
Alec shrugged. “Well, whatever it is, she’ll get over it, I suppose. She always does.”
“Aye,” Paddy said, sounding strangled. Isabella, feeling guilty as she, not being a dense male, had no trouble divining the cause of Pearl’s annoyance, looked up at Paddy with large, troubled eyes.
“If you’ll bring me my tray, please, I would eat and then read awhile. I’m quite tired.” Her voice was very small.
“Of course, miss. Uh, my lady.”
Alec looked from Isabella’s uncomfortable face to Paddy’s equally uncomfortable one as Paddy deposited the tray across Isabella’s lap.
“Would someone please tell me what the hell is going on? I suddenly feel like I’m at a funeral.” Alec’s eyes swung to fasten on Isabella. “You weren’t tired a minute ago.”
Isabella’s chin came up. “Well, I am now.”
If he didn’t recognize Pearl’s very obvious jealousy, she was not going to point it out to him. It was too ticklish a topic, implying as it did that Pearl had thought Alec found her, Isabella, attractive. The thought was both unsettling and exciting, but Isabella had no intention of dwelling on it. She would eat her supper, read and go to sleep. Alec Tyron’s opinion of her, for good or ill, interested her not at all. Or so, at least, she told herself.
“I take it that you would prefer to dine alone?” Alec’s voice had a clipped undertone to it that told her that he was not pleased, to put it mildly.
“Yes.” Her voice and eyes were both steady. The cheerful camaraderie that had enveloped them during the afternoon had dissipated like fog in the sun. Blue and gold eyes were equally cool as they took each other’s measure.
“Very well, Countess, you may certainly have all the privacy you wish.” Alec’s fingers clenched around the neat deck of regrouped cards as he turned toward the dressing room. “Paddy, would you care to join me, or do you, too, have a pressing desire to dine alone?”
“I’ll join you,” Paddy said, casting an apologetic glance at Isabella as he picked up the other tray and followed Alec into the dressing room. Once inside, he shut the door.
Isabella was left alone to eat her dinner, read her book and fall asleep, just as she’d stated was her wish.
But the supper was tasteless, the book dull, and her sleep troubled by dreams in which she knew she was in mortal danger, knew she would be killed if she did not run, but was rooted to the spot as the killer, whose identity remained horrifyingly secret, approached.
She awoke with a cry in the shadowy stillness of her bedroom. A dark shape loomed over her. Reflexively she gasped.
“Al … Alec?” she squeaked. But she knew his identity before he even said a word. Of course, who else would be in her bedchamber in the middle of the night? But logic wasn’t how she knew the shadow’s identity. There was an aura about him that would have identified him to her in the bowels of the darkest cave anywhere on earth.
“You were having another nightmare.” His voice was even, low. Isabella abruptly sat up, her mind still befuddled from the dream. The darkness with its shadows closed menacingly about her. Only Alec was real.
“I—someone—or something—was chasing me.” Remembering the dream, she shivered, wrapping her arms around herself for warmth.
“Are you cold?” He was still speaking in that same low, emotionless voice.
“A little. Yes.”
He moved away from her. She could see him, then, as he crouched before the dying red embers of the fire. He was shirtless, his breeches only partially buttoned. She supposed she could consider herself lucky that he had bothered to pull them on at all. He was barefoot, and his hair, unconfined, was tousled. The white bandage that was the only visible reminder of his wound bisected his chest. As he tossed more wood onto the fire, stirring it with a poker, Isabella watched him. The growing light touched his hair, outlining the tawny color of it in pure gold as it hung in deep waves almost to his shoulders. The firelight touched his shoulders and arms, too, burnishing them with the same gold as his hair. The strong planes of his back were deep in shadow, but she could still see the indentation of his spine, and the sharpness of his shoulder blades above the bandage. As he moved, his biceps bulged and rippled. Isabella watched the firelight play over his muscles with growing fascination.
She had touched that strong back. The memory made her tremble.
“Better?” He turned to look at her suddenly. Embarrassed to be caught staring at him, Isabella just managed to nod. He replaced the poker, and got lithely to his feet. Standing in front of the fireplace with only his breeches covering his nakedness from just above his hipbones to his calves, he was an impressive sight. Isabella felt her heartbeat quicken as she looked at him. Never in her wildest dreams would she have imagined that the mere sight of an unclothed male body could affect her so.
“Then I’ll say good-night.”
He headed toward the dressing room. Isabella felt a sudden clutch of loss. She didn’t want him to go.…
“Alec.” It was out before she could stop it. He had taken no more than a few steps, so that he was still between her bed and the fire, while the open dressing room door was clear on the other side of the room.
He stopped walking and turned to look at her.
Now that she had his attention, Isabella did not know what to say. She only knew that she did not want him to leave. And it was not only that she was afraid of the dark.…
“I enjoyed myself, this afternoon.”
“Did you now?”
He was giving her no encouragement at all. Isabella could feel his eyes moving over her face, but she still could not read his expression through the shadows.
“Yes. It was kind of you to teach me piquet.”
“I wasn’t being kind. I’m not kind.”
“Oh, but you are! You were kind to save me from those dreadful men, and kind to give me shelter until we know something about why it happened, and kind the other night when I was so frightened, and—”
“And none of that means that I am kind. I am not, I assure you.” He sounded as though something was setting his teeth on edge.
“No?�
�� It was a tiny question.
He made a sound midway between a snort and a grunt. “No. Now go back to sleep.”
He started to move away again.
“Alec!” She reacted in almost a panic.
He stopped, turned. “What now?” He sounded exasperated, but still his voice was low.
“I’m frightened.”
It was the truth, but not the whole truth. The rest of what she felt was something she had not quite worked out for herself yet. Even when she did, she doubted that she would share the information with him.
Alec muttered a word under his breath that Isabella didn’t quite catch, but she didn’t have to understand it to know that he swore. He moved toward her, coming to stand beside the bed looking down at her, his hands planted in loose fists on his hips. The shifting glow of the firelight behind him cast a red glow over the muscles of his shoulders and arms, and made him look enormously tall. Again his face was in shadow, but she got the impression that now he was positively scowling at her.
“Alec?” she ventured when he didn’t say anything.
“I’m not your father, you know. Or your brother, or your cousin, or any kind of relation to you at all.”
Those abrupt, puzzling words brought a frown to Isabella’s face. “I know that. Of course I know that.”
“You should be telling me to get the hell out of your bedroom, not encouraging me to stay. Unless you mean it, of course.”
Isabella’s eyes grew huge as she stared up at his shadowed face so far above her. “But … but you said—”
“I said I don’t force myself on unwilling females. I never said I wouldn’t take what’s offered me. So unless you’re purposely putting yourself on offer, quit making sheep’s eyes at me and cover yourself up and let me the hell alone.”
This last was said in such a savage tone that Isabella flinched. His eyes shifted deliberately from her face to her chest, and her eyes flew downward in the wake of his.
In her fascination with his body, she had completely overlooked the fact that the replenished fire might be revealing hers as well. Now, as she looked down at herself, her eyes widened. She was sitting up, the bedclothes a rumpled mass around her waist. Her hair, braided for sleep, trailed down her back. She wore another of the diaphanous nightrails, and in it she might as well have been bare to the waist.
As it had done with his, the firelight painted her skin gold. The nightdress was no more than a sheer, sensuous veil covering the creamy peaks of her breasts. Isabella was shocked to find her nipples distended, the small buds pushing wantonly against the inadequate cloth.
Crimsoning, she pulled the covers up to her neck.
“Isabella.” This was said in a soft voice when she refused to look at him.
Still she kept her eyes on her knees where they tented the silken coverlet. The shock of feeling she’d experienced when she’d realized that he was seeing her near-naked flesh left her tongue-tied. Well-bred ladies are not subject to such tumultuous quickenings.…
“Isabella. Shall I stay?”
The question electrified her. Ashamed to look at him for fear he might read what she was feeling in her eyes, she stared steadfastly at her knees, replying with a single, negative shake of her head.
She could feel him staring down at her. Her heart pounded. Shall I stay? The question wormed itself into her heart and mind and soul. She closed her eyes.
“Oh, God, you are so young that you break my heart,” he said in a strange, abrupt tone, and before she knew what he was about, he was sitting on the bed beside her, his hand sliding beneath her chin to lift it. “I didn’t know there were chits like you anywhere in the world.”
With his hand under her chin tilting her head up, she at last looked at him. What she saw made her knees tremble. He was close, so close she could see the darker streaks marbleizing the golden eyes. Isabella stared into those flickering depths, and was lost. Her fingers, suddenly nerveless, released their death grip on the coverlet. It slithered downward. Alec’s eyes followed its path, then moved up to pin hers again. His lashes were thick, several shades darker than his hair, casting shadows on his high cheekbones. His lips were slightly parted. As he stared at her, Isabella saw that tiny flames had ignited in the golden depths. Mesmerized, she couldn’t move as those blazing eyes fastened on her mouth.
“You take my breath away,” he murmured. And then he leaned forward to touch his mouth to hers.
XVIII
If Isabella had died in that moment, she would have died happy. The feel of his lips against her mouth was the most exquisite sensation she had ever experienced. Fire shot through her, searing her senses, curling her toes. In a response that came as naturally to her as breathing, her eyelids fluttered down and her lips parted.
It was the briefest of kisses.
Even as Isabella’s world rocked on its axis, Alec withdrew his mouth, sitting up again. His hand still cupped her chin. His thumb caressed the fragile line of her jaw.
After a long moment, her eyes slowly opened and she stared at him. He had barely kissed her, and yet the whole world looked different. She was different. For the first time in her life, she knew what it was to want a man’s hands on her.
He stared back at her, his golden eyes slightly narrowed. He looked like a man who had received a shock, and not a particularly pleasant one.
His mouth opened as if to say something. Isabella, not wanting to be brought back to reality just yet, lifted a hand to touch his face. Her fingers just brushed his cheek, and yet the contact set off shock waves of feeling deep inside her. Although he’d shaved earlier, the beginnings of a beard roughened his skin. His face was very warm. Her fingers tingled where she touched him. Quickly she drew her hand away.
He caught that fugitive hand and brought it to his mouth, kissing the backs of her knuckles. Then, as she watched, her eyes darkening with feeling, he kissed each separate finger, drawing the tip of it into his mouth and sucking on it lightly. By the time he was finished, Isabella was holding her breath. Never in her life had she experienced the sensations she was experiencing now.
“Alec …” When he reached for her other hand to repeat the performance, she shook her head and put it childishly behind her back. A kind of panic assailed her as she realized that the pit of her stomach was quivering helplessly. With as much volition over her own actions as a straw caught up in a raging river, she realized that she was being drawn into treacherous currents way beyond her depth.
Then Alec smiled at her, a lazy, sleepy smile as seductive as his kisses had been.
“Shy, Countess?” he asked softly, the word both a taunt and a caress.
He was smiling at her, holding her hand in his, his thumb stroking over the backs of her knuckles. The firelight glinted off his golden eyes and illuminated features that had been chiselled by a master hand. Tawny hair waved down to shoulders so wide that they blocked her view of the hearth. The hard contours of his chest were in shadow, darkened more by whorls of crisp hair that curled over the edges of the bandage. The muscles of his arms rippled and gleamed, outlined in orange by the fire. He was so handsome that just looking at the man made her mouth go dry.
“You’re gorgeous,” she whispered, shaken, and her other hand emerged blindly to do what she had been wanting to do for days: touch him. Her fingers sought his arm, resting lightly where the muscle bulged just above his elbow. The skin there was warm and satiny smooth against her fingertips, the muscle beneath iron-hard. He stayed motionless as she ran her fingers along the length of his arm, but she thought he suddenly seemed to cease to breathe. The knowledge that she could stir him as he stirred her was enthralling. She smiled at him, tremulously, as her hand withdrew from his arm. He caught her hand, his eyes blazing into hers. Then he leaned forward, slowly, oh, so slowly, to catch her lips again.
She made no effort to evade him. Instead, her heart seemed to stop as she waited for the touch of those perfectly sculpted lips.
His mouth was very warm, and very soft, an
d very gentle. Isabella felt the heat of it clear down to her toes. She sighed her abject surrender, her eyes closing. The sensation evoked by his lips was the most exquisite she had ever experienced.
He let go of her hands, and they moved of their own accord to rest on his wide, bare shoulders, her nails curling ever so slightly into his flesh. His left hand came up to burrow beneath her hair, his long fingers curling around her skull, holding her head cradled for his mouth. His right hand tilted her face up to his.
This time, when he kissed her, the pressure of his lips was firmer. He angled her head for a better fit, his lips parting hers, the kiss still leisurely, unhurried. His tongue came out to touch her lower lip, run along the line of her teeth, which remained closed to him.
“Open your mouth for me.”
The words were a mere breath against her lips, but Isabella heard. For a moment the tumultuous excitement building inside her quavered, and threatened to collapse. She had been kissed in just such a fashion before, by Bernard. His tongue, tasting of the wine served at their wedding supper, had thrust almost all the way down her throat, making her gag.…
But the warm sweetness of Alec’s lips against hers blotted out the memory of Bernard’s. This kiss was like no other. It made her long for more. Obediently she let him in.
Alec’s tongue was slow and hot and gentle, sliding between her lips, touching her teeth, the roof of her mouth, the insides of her cheeks. He tasted faintly of tobacco and brandy, and as he tutored her in the sweet art of kissing, she drew a deep, shuddering breath. With her nose so close to his smooth, warm cheek, she drew in the heady aroma of bay rum.
His tongue touched hers as it cowered behind her lower teeth, stroked it, and then was withdrawn.
“You’re supposed to kiss me back,” he complained in a half-teasing, shaken-sounding whisper against her lips. Without giving her time to reply, he drew her lower lip into his mouth and sucked on it. Isabella trembled. A series of tiny, rhythmic contractions began to build from somewhere inside the very center of her being.
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