by Jane Ashford
Gavin raised a skeptical eyebrow, but he didn’t speak.
“You don’t understand. I didn’t really understand myself until recently. You see, I became one of the invisible women.”
“The…?”
“You have no idea what I mean, because you have never noticed them yourself—all the governesses and maiden aunts and poor relations with their drab clothes and downcast eyes. They are expected to want nothing for themselves, to care for the children and run the errands and listen if there is no one more interesting to talk with.”
“I have encountered a number of such women who were hardly invisible,” Gavin objected.
“The discontented ones,” she agreed. “There are many of them, of course. But this is what I have learned recently. If you can manage to really want nothing, you vanish.” Somewhat to her surprise, Laura had to gulp back a sob.
“Do you want nothing?” asked Gavin in an odd voice.
“I did. To live in that household, I learned to want nothing. And I disappeared.”
Silence fell over the room. The rhythm of the rain embraced them.
“And now?” His voice held a peculiar intensity.
Laura looked up at him. She couldn’t tell him that everything was different now, and that it was his fault. She couldn’t say that his presence in her life had shattered forever her ability to fade into the background. He had brought the excitement of great events, the satisfaction of being useful, and most of all—himself. Her old life was mere memory, Laura thought. She could never go back to not wanting. “I’ve forgotten how,” she murmured and felt a tear slide down her cheek.
“Laura.” He stepped forward and enfolded her in his arms.
She rested her head on his shoulder, listening to his heartbeat. She felt as if she belonged in this place, as if all her worries could be set aside for the moment. Her breath sighed out, and the anger that had been sustaining her ebbed with it.
“Laura,” he said again.
This wasn’t wise, a part of her warned. She shouldn’t have spoken to him so freely. She shouldn’t be at ease in his embrace. He hadn’t revealed anything of himself. She had proffered her confidences and asked for none in exchange.
She raised her head. His gaze was warm, questioning. His body spoke to hers in a myriad of silent, fiery tremors. Not wise, the inner voice repeated, promising regrets. What was wise? she responded. The years she had spent becoming nothing—was that wisdom? Reading about desire and having none? Was she never to have anything she wanted? Was she to return to invisibility and die there?
His hand moved slightly on her back, leaving a trail of heat.
“I want you,” Laura whispered.
He bent his head a little. “What?”
Could she not, for once, take what she wanted as others seemed to do? Trembling with excitement and her own daring, she brushed her parted lips across his.
Gavin looked startled. His eyes darkened and his arms around her tightened. “What are you…?”
Throwing wisdom to the winds, Laura kissed him again.
The result was breathtaking. He took her unpracticed kiss like a gift and deepened it until she was dizzy. She clung to his shoulders as her knees went weak, then let her arms slip around his neck and draw him even closer. He pulled her against him, his arms wrapped around her as if he never intended to let go. His lips drew out her desire, coaxing it as a man does tinder to the flame. Every inch of Laura’s skin prickled with the need to be touched by his hands. As if he knew, his fingers grazed her side and came up to caress her breast. She caught her breath.
His other hand found the buttons at the back of her gown and unfastened a few. Pushing one sleeve off her shoulder, he dropped kisses down her neck. When he teased her with his tongue, Laura was astonished by the sensations that jolted to her very core. “Oh,” she breathed. “I didn’t know it would be like this.”
“Did you not?” he murmured, pushing down her other sleeve and letting his mouth roam.
When he captured her lips again, his hand stayed busy with the buttons. With an amazing lack of concern, Laura felt her dress peel away. It was as if some annoying impediment had been swept aside. But when Gavin drew back and gazed at her, standing before him in a shift that was already half off, she pulled one of the straps back up. “What about you?” she said.
“Me?” His eyes devoured her.
“You haven’t undressed.”
He glanced down at his clothes and then up again. “I haven’t, have I?” He grinned, almost feral. “Would you care to help?”
Feeling at once shy and excited, Laura moved closer. Taking the lapels of his coat, she eased it back over his broad shoulders. He moved them, and the garment slipped off. She began to undo the buttons of his waistcoat. He ran his hands up her sides, over her breasts, and down again. Laura’s breath quickened as she tried to concentrate on her task.
The waistcoat went the way of the coat to lie at his feet. Laura started on his shirt. With each button, her fingers brushed his bare skin, while his brushed hers in an extremely intimate way.
The shirt slipped away. Laura ran her palms over his chest, marveling at the sculpted muscles and the curling golden hair.
“Enough,” Gavin said thickly. In one swift movement, he picked her up and carried her to the bed in the corner. When he had settled her there, he sat on the edge and pulled off his boots in two quick motions. Then he was beside her, kissing her more intensely than ever.
Laura had never imagined such a flood of sensation. All of his body seemed to speak to hers, communicating secret desires and wishes long hidden. When his hand slid up her thigh, pulling her shift along with it, she wriggled out of the thin garment gladly. His next touch was so intimate, and so arousing, that she gasped aloud.
He murmured her name, but Laura was overwhelmed by a need that was building beyond all reason. When he pulled away from her, she reached for him like a drowning woman.
“A moment only,” he said, stripping off his breeches with one rapid gesture. Then he was with her again, his lips and hands driving her nearly mad.
Just when she felt that she could take no more without dissolving, Gavin shifted, and she felt him inside her. There might have been a flash of pain. She wasn’t sure, because it was immediately followed by an explosion of pleasure that reverberated through her as Gavin moved. Waves of delight crashed from her core through all her limbs. Her breath came out in a soft cry. In that moment, she felt utterly physical, as complete as a wild creature in the forest depths. She wanted to laugh and cry at once at the sheer unassailable beauty of it.
Gavin groaned and held her in a viselike grip for an instant. Then he came to rest above her, his heart pounding, his breath coming hard. Laura held him. It seemed to her that all the difficulties and tensions of the last few days had been whirled away, leaving the two of them alone together.
* * *
The fire had fallen into ash. Faint dawn light filtered through the windows, muted by the rain that drummed on the roof as if it meant to continue for some time. Tendrils of cool, damp air edged around the door and into the room, bringing the scent of wet grass and stone.
Propped on one elbow, Gavin looked down at Laura, sleeping beside him. Her hair spilled out like a cloud of ink. Her skin was milk white in the dimness, and the delicate outline of her face, with its thick fringe of black lashes, was blurred. A twenty-nine-year-old virgin, he thought, recalling a phrase he had used months ago when he had first heard her name again. She really had been.
He still found it incredible. Not that he’d thought she was lying when she told her story of living in the Leith household; he simply didn’t understand half the things she’d said. Invisible women and disappearing—it sounded like a fairy story. And yet, she had, in fact, escaped the villain. He shook his head. It was just one more thing that made her such an extraordinary creature.
As he looked back down at Laura breathing softly, an inner voice asked what the devil he was thinking. He wasn’t some settled householder to worry over winter drafts. Comfort hadn’t been his prime consideration for years and years. He had discovered vital information; it had to be conveyed to his government. His only concern was getting off this island and fulfilling that mission. There was no space in his life for…entanglements.
What was she going to expect when she woke? he wondered. Some sort of declaration? What had become of his careful policy of taking his pleasure only with women who understood the game, who knew quite well what he was offering?
The anger at being trapped, which had affected him so deeply the previous day, returned to Gavin with even greater intensity. He hated having the power to act wrenched from him. If Laura was disappointed, it was her own fault, he thought. She hadn’t played the innocent last night. She hadn’t held back.
The memory of what she had done coursed through him, and he felt himself becoming aroused. He wanted her. Of course he wanted her. He wasn’t made of stone. And their bodies spoke to each other in a simple, utterly compelling language that asked nothing of the future. But the result wasn’t simple. It was so complicated that he had begun to dread the moment when she opened her eyes. If there had been anywhere to go, in this moment he would have chosen escape.
Moving very gently, Gavin eased himself off the bed and pulled on his shirt and breeches. The floor was cold; he added his boots before going to stir the coals and put wood on the fire.
He was ravenous. Seeing the plate Laura had left for him last night still on the table, he went and began to eat the cold biscuit and cheese. His mind started reviewing all possible ways off the island, with as little success as yesterday. There had to be some means at his disposal. He had never been outwitted before.
Gradually, the sensation grew on Gavin that he was being watched. He looked up, and found Laura’s eyes focused on him, her expression unreadable. “Good morning,” she said.
“Good morning.”
“You’ve dressed already.”
Did she sound disappointed? The idea startled Gavin. “Yes.”
“I wanted to see if you were like the drawings.”
“What?” He would have sworn she was disappointed.
She flushed. “Nothing. I don’t think I’m quite awake.”
“What drawings?”
“Never mind.” Laura looked around as if not sure what to do. She saw her shift and reached for it, pulling it over her head and wriggling as she pulled it down.
Gavin experienced a twinge of desire and regret. “What drawings?” he repeated, curiosity overcoming his earlier concerns.
She shrugged. “The earl had a number of portfolios in his library,” she said, speaking rather quickly. “With drawings.”
“Portfolios often contain drawings. What was their subject?”
Laura raised her head and looked at him again. “You are teasing me,” she commented. “They were drawings of men and women in…in various intimate positions.”
“The earl left these where anyone could examine them?”
“He didn’t care. And he was often away, of course.”
“And you took the opportunity to, er, familiarize yourself…”
“I was curious.”
“Indeed?”
Surprisingly, she laughed. “I was shocked at first. But then I began to find them rather…interesting.”
Gavin was silenced.
“And the…experience of last night was so much more overwhelming than what I had read about it that I wanted to see if…”
“If I differed in any particulars from the drawings?” he finished, his voice unsteady.
She nodded, rather more flushed.
“I take it the earl had books as well as pictures.”
“Yes.”
“And you availed yourself of these also?”
“You needn’t sound so superior. You would have looked at them if you had been there.”
“Undoubtedly.” Gavin didn’t know whether to laugh or be scandalized. The implications of her knowledge were fascinating. Her naïveté about it was touching.
“There is no need for you to stare in that way. I read a great many other things as well.”
“I’m sure you did.”
Laura looked at her dress, which was lying in a heap on the floor some distance from the bed. She hesitated, then rose and went to pick it up, and slid it over her head. She began, a little awkwardly, to do up the buttons in the back.
Her hair was tumbled about her shoulders. Her bare feet showed below the hem. Gavin couldn’t resist. “Can I help you with those?” he asked, rising and placing his hands over hers.
Laura looked over her shoulder at him. Her eyes were shifting pools of dark and light. “Thank you,” she murmured.
He did up the buttons slowly, letting his fingers linger along her back. Laura’s breathing quickened.
“I don’t know…” she began. “How does one behave after…? Is there some sort of…?”
“Etiquette?” The scent of her perfume and the feel of her under his hands was erasing all other thoughts from his mind.
“I suppose you could call it that.”
“I can think of only one.” Tempted beyond bearing, he bent and placed his lips on the soft skin of her neck. His arms slid around her and pulled her against him.
She leaned there. He let his mouth and hands rove, exulting when he made her breath catch and her body tremble.
After a while, just as he was wishing her to, she turned into his embrace and laced her arms around his neck. Their kiss was like oil on flames. He held her hard against him and felt her yield in every limb to his demand. He ached with wanting her.
“Are you undoing my gown again?” she said dreamily.
“I am.”
“Oh, good.”
It fell from her shoulders. Laura looked at him with wide passion-blurred eyes, and then pulled her shift up and off, standing naked in front of the fire. Her slender curves showed all the allure that was usually hidden. Her gaze seemed to dare him. Responding, he shed his own clothes and faced her, feeling at once taunting and tender.
She blinked and breathed, “Oh.”
“Do I match your studies?” he asked hoarsely.
“You are all golden.”
“Some parts are hard as metal,” he acknowledged and stepped forward to sweep her up and into bed.
Once again he coaxed from her the passion he had recognized in the beginning. Once again, their bodies fell into an inevitable rhythm with each other, and desire rose unspoken. There was no place for thought or reason, no chance of hesitation. She touched him and he almost cried out.
“Not cold as metal though,” she whispered.
He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t wait. He had to have her now. It was all he could do to hold back until she moaned in release. And then he let go and allowed the sensations to crash through him like a storm battering jagged cliffs. The pleasure was so intense it made him shudder. It rebounded from every part of him and left him utterly spent. He was so shaken he was afraid to collapse on her, afraid he would crush her with his weight. With his last strength, he turned, holding her close and pulling her onto his chest. He came to rest on his back, pulse hammering, breath ragged, and waited for the world to return from the whirlwind.
Minutes passed unheeded. Slowly, his heart resumed its normal beat. His muscles regained some resilience. He was aware of his surroundings again. The rain was heavier; droplets strayed down the chimney to hiss in the fire.
; Laura’s head rested in the vicinity of his collarbone. Her legs straddled him. One of her hands cupped his shoulder. Gavin’s earlier qualms came rushing back. He hadn’t meant to do this. Uneasy, he cleared his throat.
Laura pushed up on her hands and looked down at him, her black hair falling around them. “You’re very good at this, aren’t you?” she said.
He blinked.
“I heard some Frenchwomen talking about you once. They said you were ‘a poet of the bedchamber.’”
“I beg your pardon?” Gavin hastily searched his memory for Frenchwomen and came up with none. “I assure you that I have not…”
“And now I know what they mean.” She smiled down at him.
She sounded like a scholar pleased at some new bit of learning, he thought. And she looked rather like the cat who had managed to unlatch the canary’s cage. She was an incomprehensible woman.
“I wish we could stay here forever,” she said, looking around the shabby house with far more fondness than the furnishings deserved.
This was more what he had expected. Gavin cleared his throat again. “Ah. I realize that my behavior has gone beyond the bounds of propriety.”
Laura turned to look down at him again. She appeared astonished.
“The situation was irregular,” he continued. “Though I do not mean that it excuses—”
“You didn’t seduce me,” interrupted Laura bluntly. She straightened, pushing her raven hair back behind her pale shoulders. “Please don’t begin talking of proprieties and convention and reputations. As far as I am concerned, they have nothing to do with me.”
Gavin found himself speechless.
She moved to kneel beside him on the bed. “I will be going back to England to find a new post when we escape, as I had always planned to do.” She got up and went to put on her shift. “There is nothing else to discuss,” she finished. “Are you hungry? If only we had some tea.”
She continued to dress as Gavin stared at her. After a while, his only option seemed to be to follow suit.
“Bacon,” she said, looking through their stores. “Just the thing.”