But then he opened them again, pinned her as she lay beneath him. “This,” he said, his voice gravelly and low as he withdrew and then thrust deep and hard again, “was the final proof.”
She’d thought her nerves were shattered, wrung out, unable to respond, not again, not so soon. But they were already sparking, tensing, tightening. As for him . . . “I didn’t think . . .” That was all she could manage to say as he filled her again.
“Don’t think.” He lowered his head to rest alongside hers. “Stop thinking. Just feel.”
She didn’t take orders well, but this time she complied.
His breathing harsh by her ear, her own breath coming in panting gasps, his heavy body moving over hers, her own responding, his hips and legs pinning her, spread and open, beneath him, she really had no choice as he settled into a driving, pounding rhythm that rescripted all she’d ever known about what could pass between a man and a woman.
Flames rose and enveloped them. Cindered all thought, any lingering inhibition. When she felt him tug one of her knees, she responded, raising her legs and wrapping them around his hips, opening herself even more.
For him to take. To fill. To ravish.
Logan didn’t hold back. She’d given him a telling piece of information—her comment about Queen Elizabeth. About her position here. Her other lovers would have known it and bowed to it—and so failed. She was too strong a woman to be made love to gently, reverently, at least not at first. She didn’t need a man to bow to her but to take her, possess her—to show her what it was like, how it felt, to be desired and possessed.
So he took, gave desire and predatory hunger free rein and unrestrainedly possessed. He demanded, commanded, and took all she had to give, savoring her moans, her gasps, her surrender, until her ulitmate climax brought on his own.
The ensuing cataclysm rocked even him.
As he hung above her, gasping, waiting for his thundering heart to slow, his sawing breathing to ease, he looked down, and watched as, this time sated well beyond thought, she slipped, boneless and relaxed, into sleep beneath him.
He felt a satisfaction deeper than any he’d ever known as he withdrew from the clinging clasp of her body, then slumped beside her.
For however long he remained here, for however long this odd hiatus in his life lasted, she would be his. His to possess whenever he wished.
Whenever he could persuade her to it.
December 12, 1822
Mon Coeur, Torteval, Guernsey
L ogan woke to dawn seeping through the room, and an empty space in the bed beside him. As the events of the night replayed in his brain, he found himself grinning, but as the reality of the situation impinged, his sense of euphoria faded.
He didn’t yet know who he—Logan Monteith—was, not as an adult, not now. He didn’t know what he did, how he made his living—didn’t know where he lived, nor where he’d been going. He needed to jog his memory and remember, but regardless, one fact stood crystal clear.
Despite his lack of memory, he had to have a life he needed to return to. Ergo, his time here, with Linnet, was limited.
He’d known that, and she knew it, too. Indeed, in a way she was counting on it, knowing that, regardless of whatever grew between them, he would eventually leave. The critical point being that she and her position stood in no danger from him.
Pushing back the covers, swinging his legs from the bed, he frowned. The knowledge that their liaison was already slated to be temporary, fleeting, sat poorly . . . as if he’d endured many such meaningless encounters in the past and no longer found succor in them.
That might well be true. Grimacing, he stood, crossed to the armchair by the window, and lifted the robe Linnet had given him. Shrugging into it, belting it, he decided he needed to do all he could to bring his memory back.
Going along the corridor, he washed, shaved. Twisting before the small mirror, he tried to unpick the knot securing the bandage around his chest, but couldn’t. He wanted to take a look at the wound, but would need help to do so. Turning his attention to the bandage about his head, he started unwinding it, only to discover it had stuck to his scalp and he couldn’t get it loose. Frustrated, he rewound it as best he could.
Returning along the corridor to Linnet’s room, he saw one of the little maids standing outside the door trying to balance a pile of clothes well enough to knock.
Hearing his footsteps, she turned, brightened. “There you are, sir—I’ve brought these up for you.” She offered the pile. “These are what you was washed up in. We’ve done the best we can with them, but Miss Trevission says that if you find anything unwearable to please continue to use the clothes she gave you.”
“Thank you.” He took the pile of neatly laundered clothes.
The maid bobbed a curtsy, turned, and clattered away. Logan entered the bedchamber, closed the door, then laid the clothes out on the bed. He studied them—the plain coat and linen shirt, the black breeches—tried to recall anything about them—where he’d bought them, even when or why he had—but they told him nothing. He didn’t even feel any sense of ownership. Perhaps he was the sort of man who cared nothing for his clothes.
That didn’t sound right, didn’t feel right.
Inwardly shrugging, he donned the clothes, discovering slashes in the shirt and coat corresponding to his wound neatly mended. The breeches were a better fit than Linnet’s father’s had been. He continued using the stockings Linnet had given him, and her father’s boots—wearable, if a touch tight. His own had yet to reappear.
Feeling oddly more himself, he went downstairs and headed for the dining room and the babel therein. Today he was early enough to catch the other men at the table. Exchanging nods and greetings, he slid into the vacant chair next to Linnet’s.
Brandon reached over the table, holding out a belt. “This is yours. We reoiled it and it came up well, but we couldn’t save your boots.”
“Thank you.” Logan took the belt. Uncoiling it, he saw the buckle was . . . something he should remember, but didn’t. Shifting in his chair, he slid the belt through the loops on his breeches, cinched and buckled it.
As the other men rose and left for their work, Linnet caught his eye. “Your boots were Hobys.”
When he blinked at her, she asked, “Do you know what that means?”
He nodded, but couldn’t work it out. A gentleman’s boots were usually made to measure and therefore not readily transferrable—witness the current pinching of his toes. So the boots he’d been washed up in were almost certainly his own, and Hoby was one of the ton’s foremost bootmakers.
The other little maid—Molly, he thought her name was—brought him a plate piled even higher than the day before. He thanked her and absentmindedly fell to eating while he tried to solve the riddle.
In case he hadn’t seen it, Linnet murmured, “Your expensive boots don’t match your ordinary clothes.”
He glanced at her, but said nothing.
Linnet left him to his thoughts. The children finished, and she dispatched them to their various chores and lessons. Buttons followed Jen, Chester, and Gilly out, shooing them ahead of her to the schoolroom.
With only herself, Muriel, and Logan left in the room, Linnet transferred her gaze to Logan, and waited.
Eventually he looked up and met her eyes. Grimaced. “I have no idea what the discrepancy between my clothes and boots means.”
He fell silent again, his forehead—what showed beneath the now lopsided bandage—deeply furrowed. Linnet looked down the table at Muriel, sipping her last cup of tea, and arched a brow. Her aunt saw, considered, then nodded.
Linnet rose, went into the parlor, retrieved both the scabbarded saber and the wooden cylinder, returned to her chair, then placed both items on the table before Logan. “These were the only other things you had with you, other than your clothes and boots, and the dirk.”
He glanced sharply at her and reached for the saber.
Unperturbed, she responded, “As I belie
ve I mentioned, we’ve”—with her head she indicated Muriel, watching from the table’s foot—“had significant experience with temporary loss of memory. It never pays to push, to try to recall too much at once.” She watched curiously as he withdrew the saber and examined the blade. “Regardless, I was going to give you the saber yesterday, after the dirk had been so helpful in bringing so much back to you, but, if you recall, you were tired after that, so pushing again then didn’t seem wise.”
He glanced at her, grimaced, then looked back at the saber. “Despite your solicitousness, this isn’t having the same effect as the dirk.”
“Perhaps it isn’t yours,” Muriel said.
Logan slid his hand into the saber’s guard, grasped the hilt. Hefted it, rolled his wrist a little, gauging the weight. “No—I think it is mine. It feels . . . familiar. But . . .” Frustrated, he shook his head. “I just can’t remember what it means, what it tells me.”
Setting it back on the table, he picked up the wooden cylinder. Examining the strips of wood that formed it, held together by brass clasps, he frowned. “This tells me even less. I’m fairly certain it’s not mine.” He tried to open what appeared to be the top, secured by a combination of brass levers, but nothing he did seemed to release the lid.
“It has to be important to you,” Linnet said. “You were carrying it, wrapped in oilskins, in a specially designed leather sling—the cylinder rested along your spine, secured by a belt loop and two other straps that went over your shoulders. We had to cut the sling off you to tend to your wound.”
“I can’t open it—I’m not sure I ever could.” Setting it down, he stared at it. “I must have been a courier—presumably taking that to someone, somewhere. But why? And to whom? And where was I heading?”
No answers came.
After a moment, Linnet rose. “Never mind that now—my advice is to leave it and it’ll come to you. However, as you’re clearly going to puzzle over it anyway, come and let me take a look at your head while you think. That bandage needs retying.”
As the loosened bandage had developed a tendency to slip down over one of his eyebrows, Logan grunted and rose. Muriel rose, too, and headed for the kitchen. Logan followed Linnet into the corridor leading to the back door, then she turned off it, down a narrower corridor. Stopping outside a door, she opened it and went through, into a small bathing chamber.
“Sit there.” She pointed to a bench beside a sink.
Noting that her voice of authority had returned in full measure, Logan somewhat grumpily sat.
Linnet ignored his frowning, undid the sloppily tied knot—one he had clearly fashioned—and carefully unwound the bandage, removing the various lumps of padding they’d included to protect the wound.
“It’s stuck,” Logan informed her, just as she reached that point. “That’s why I couldn’t take it off myself.”
“You shouldn’t have tried.” She looked, then humphed. “I’ll need to moisten it, dampen it to remove it. Wait here while I fetch some warm water.”
She went out and to the kitchen. When she returned minutes later carrying a basin with warm water, Logan was sitting exactly as he had been, hands braced on his knees, his gaze fixed in the distance, his brows drawn down in a distinctly black frown.
“If you keep on like that, you’ll give yourself a brain fever.” Setting down the basin, she squeezed out the cloth she’d dropped in the water, then drew his head forward, and gently, carefully, wet the patch where the bandage had stuck.
He shifted, but she kept hold of his head. “Does that hurt?”
“Not of itself—only when you press.”
“Good.” The bandage finally came free. She lifted it away. “Lean further forward so I can check the wound—you might not need another bandage.”
He obliged. Lifting the thick locks of his hair, she inspected the contusion. Although still raised, it looked nowhere near as angry as it had two evenings before, and the break in the scalp was closing nicely.
She straightened. “Let’s leave it unbandaged through the day. The air will help it heal. But you might need padding to sleep comfortably—we’ll see.”
“I sleep on my side or stomach mostly.”
She recalled that he’d tended to sleep draped over her—more on his stomach than not.
Sitting up, he caught her gaze. “I need to check the wound in my side—it’s itching, but until I look at it I can’t tell if that’s good or bad, but I couldn’t untie the knot.”
“Just as well. That’s my handiwork— I’ll untie it and check the dressings and the wound.”
He shrugged. “As you like.” He eased out of his coat. She helped him free his hands, then turned away to lay the coat aside.
When she turned back, he had his shirt half over his head. She leapt to help him draw it off and down his left arm. Pulling it free, she shook it out, then laid it on the coat and turned back to him once more.
Inwardly frowned as her mouth went dry at the sight of him. She wondered how he could possibly seem larger—broader, harder, more powerfully muscled—than he had in her bed last night. He’d seemed more than big enough, powerful enough, then. Of course, then, the bleak winter daylight hadn’t been washing over him, highlighting every line, every curve, every sleek bulge.
And she hadn’t, then, had time to stare.
Realizing, she gave herself a mental shake and briskly walked closer, waving him to swivel so she could reach the knot in the middle of his broad back.
As she reached around him to pick the knot apart, the scent of him—a definable scent that screamed male —teased her senses.
She held her breath and concentrated on the knot.
It came apart before she expired.
Straightening, surreptitiously dragging in a deep breath, she started unwinding the long bandage. Series of bandages. He had to help, but eventually, after she once again applied her damp cloth, the bandages and the dressings were stripped away, and he sat naked to his waist on the bench.
“Here.” Grabbing his left wrist, she lifted it. “Lean on the sink. I’ll need to check the stitches—you might have pulled some.”
His dark eyes watched her, but he said nothing, simply complied.
Ducking under his raised arm, she followed the line of the wound down, inch by inch checking each stitch, running her finger along the side of the gash—still angry but healing, and with no sign of infection, thank God. She worked her way down the side of his chest, bending to examine the spot where his rib had been exposed, then continuing her inspection down to his waist.
As she neared the point where the wound disappeared beneath his breeches, his right hand moved to the buttons securing the waistband, but then paused. “Do you want to check the rest?”
The lower part of the wound, the part that swept across his belly, hadn’t needed stitches, but she and Muriel had applied a salve. “I should check it for infection. Just in case.”
He could have checked that section, but she preferred to see for herself.
“As you wish.”
There was something in his tone that made her look up at his face as he obliged, his hand shifting as he freed the two buttons, but when her eyes met his, he merely arched his brows.
She frowned, then looked down.
Leapt up and back. “Oh!”
Color flooded her cheeks. Her gaze remained immovably locked on the head of his fully erect penis. She hadn’t thought . . . hadn’t expected him to be standing to attention quite like that.
Hauling in a breath, she wrenched her gaze upward, narrowed her eyes on his. “You did that on purpose!”
He laughed. It was such a lovely, rolling sound that she was caught, blinked. Then his eyes returned to hers. “I assure you it doesn’t respond to commands.”
She’d known that, but . . . the sight of him like that had temporarily scrambled her brain. Beyond her control, her gaze slid down again, to where he stood, if anything even more rampant. That part of him looked a lot bigger than she’d
imagined . . . had she really taken all that inside her?
“From the look on your face, I take it your previous experiences all occurred at night, or at least in a bed.”
She managed to haul her gaze up to frown at him. “Where else . . . oh.”
She’d never get her color back to normal if she kept thinking. . . .
“Clearly there’s a lot you’ve yet to experience. I’ll be happy to show you . . . but did you want to check my wound first, or not?”
She blinked at him, gathered her wits. “Yes.”
“In that case”—he waved with his left hand, the one propped on the sink—“be my guest.”
His other hand was splayed on the bench beside him. She suspected he could, if he wished, use it to help her, but from the gleam in his eye, the damn man was baiting her. Challenging her.
She’d never refused a challenge in her life.
Steeling herself, she stepped closer. His knees were wide spread; she halted between. Then she looked down. Boldly reached for his erection, closed the fingers of her left hand about it, and tilted it to the side.
She couldn’t see the gash well enough while standing. Fluidly dropping to a crouch, she slid her fingers down his length, keeping the head tipped aside so she could focus on what was now a red, healing welt. The salve had helped seal it. As far as she could see, the seal had withstood his exertions of the night.
Satisfied, she tensed to rise, but beyond her control her eyes shifted left. To the solid rod she held between her fingers, more or less level with her face. The flaring rim caught her eye, as did the dark color, more purple than red. The skin beneath her fingertips, fine as a baby’s cheek, seemed odd in contrast to the rigid, steely strength. Fascinated, she shifted her fingers, stroked.
Realized he’d grown not just silent but still.
Totally, utterly still—like a massive cat about to pounce.
Before she could react, his hands closed about her shoulders. She rose as he drew her up.
“Don’t let go.”
The words were bitten off, a command—after one glance at his face, one she deigned to obey. Excitement slithered through her, anticipation streaked down her spine.
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