Green Eyes

by Karen Robards

  Not as he, Julian, loved her. Not with this burning need to possess and protect and cherish her for all the days of his life.

  Paul had not been capable of a love like that. Julian knew it in his bones.

  Why could Anna not see?

  Julian propped his feet up on the huge teakwood desk, leaned back in the leather chair, and took another swallow of whiskey.

  Folly or no, he meant to get good and drunk. Drunk enough so that he would pass out. Drunk enough so that, for one night at least, he could get Anna out of his head.

  Blessed oblivion sounded pretty good at the moment.

  XLIII

  It was very late, or, rather, very early, since the clock had chimed midnight some two hours before. Anna, pacing her chamber, had given up any attempt at sleeping. The beautiful green dress was hung neatly in her wardrobe. Her shoes and underclothes had been stored away too. There was not one visible reminder of the evening just past, but still she couldn’t get it out of her mind.

  Julian had been like a bear with a sore paw as he had driven her home. To do him justice, the few necessary remarks she had addressed to him had been icy. Perhaps she had deserved to have her head snapped off in return. But the last half hour of the drive had passed without so much as a single word being exchanged between them. Then, when they had reached the house, he had said something under his breath that had made her eyes widen, and had dragged her into his arms.

  The kiss had been long and shatteringly intimate. He’d held her twisted across his lap, his arms tight around her, his hands bold as they moved over her. Anna had begun by resisting and ended by twining her arms around his neck.

  Then he had practically pushed her from the carriage and driven toward the stable in the rear.

  Since then she’d been listening for his step on the stairs. But he hadn’t come to bed. She wasn’t even entirely certain he was in the house.

  And until she was certain, she couldn’t sleep.

  She had tried a hot bath, soaking in scented water until her skin was rosy pink. She’d washed her hair, drying it with long brush strokes, an activity that had never failed to soothe her—until tonight. In despair, she had even managed to drink a glass of warm milk, although she hated the stuff.

  But here she was, at quarter past two, still wide awake.

  Because of Julian, Everything wrong in her life could be laid squarely at his door.

  Where was he, the devil?

  Anna paced from door to window, and then, for variety, from dressing table to wardrobe. The plank floor felt cool beneath her bare feet. The long windows were open to the night, the mosquito netting that swathed them billowing in the breeze. The ends of her nightdress fluttered, too, as a welcome draft swept the floor. The garment was prim but sleeveless, in deference to the tropical heat. It ended at the throat in a tiny, upstanding ruffle, and more ruffles adorned the hem and edged the armholes. The thin muslin was elaborately pin-tucked in front, affording her some modesty where she needed it most. The single layer that made up the back was translucent.

  It was a garment strictly designed for sleeping alone—or with a lover. At the thought of Julian seeing her in it, Anna shivered. She forced the erotic image away.

  Julian was a problem that, for the sake of her own peace of mind, had to be dealt with. Did she love him?

  Her heart shied away from that question.

  Did he love her? Or did he merely want her flat on her back in his bed?

  She shied away from that question, too. But that was the issue that had to be addressed. If he loved her … Her heart pounded at the thought. If he loved her, then perhaps she might loosen the iron grip she had tried to keep on her emotions and allow herself to love him, too.

  Maybe, just maybe, the girl who had loved Paul had gone away with him. Maybe it was the woman who’d taken her place who longed for Julian.

  There was a faint crash from somewhere downstairs. Anna’s head came up, and she stared intently at the door. Then she made up her mind. Snatching up her wrapper, she shrugged into it and tied the sash even as she made her way out the door.

  If Julian was up and about, then she would have it out with him. The time had come to ask him point-blank what his intentions toward her were.

  And if she didn’t like the answer, why, then, at least she would know.

  So late at night, the house was deserted except for Moti, who darted along the upstairs passage at Anna’s heels. The stairs, barely lit by the fairy light at the top, were dark and shadowy and drafty. Below, all was silent. Reaching the downstairs hall, Anna strained to listen. She had heard nothing more, but a light shone faintly around the bend in the hallway. Heading toward it, she turned the corner that led to the rear veranda and found that the light was spilling from beneath the office door.

  It took her only a moment to turn the knob and walk in.

  The sight that met her eyes caused her to pause inside the threshold, her hand still on the knob, her eyes widening, Julian lounged at his ease in the chair in which she usually did the household accounts, his booted feet on the desk, his evening clothes wildly askew. The smell of whiskey was almost overpowering. A large, yellowish stain on one whitewashed wall trickled tiny golden rivers toward the floor, where lay the shattered remains of a bottle in a puddle of liquid.

  “Well, well, if it isn’t milady Green Eyes herself.” There was the faintest slurring to the words. He smiled, a nasty mockery of amusement, and his booted feet hit the floor. He stood, slightly unsteady on his feet, and executed a travesty of a bow. “Do join me, milady.”

  “You’re drunk.”

  His eyes narrowed at her, and he sank abruptly back into the chair;

  “Damned right I’m drunk. And why not, pray? You’re enough to drive any sane man to drink, you may take my word.”

  It was not much more than a mutter, and seemed to be directed as much to himself as at her. Fearing that their voices might carry and awaken the household, Anna eased the door shut behind her and stepped farther into the room to eye him with some exasperation. Clearly there would be no getting any sense out of him on this night!

  “You should go to bed,” she said in the scolding tone that mothers habitually use toward wayward children. Skirting where he sprawled in the chair with some caution, she crouched beside the mess on the floor and began to carefully pick up the shards of glass.

  “Now there’s a suggestion.” Julian watched her progress broodingly. Then in a much sharper voice he snapped, “Leave it! The maids can get it in the morning.”

  Anna glanced up at him. “I don’t want them—”

  “I said leave it!” It was a snarl. “Go back to bed and leave me the hell alone, will you please?”

  Carefully cradling pieces of broken bottle in one hand, Anna rocked back on her heels to study him.

  “I should do just that, but I’ll not abandon you in this state. You’re liable to break your neck on the stairs.” Her brows twitched together thoughtfully.

  “Shall I send Jim to you?”

  “To bloody hell with Jim!”

  Anna’s lips tightened with impatience. Standing up, she moved to drop the broken glass in the wastebasket by the desk, then stood leaning against the far corner, frowning at him. He met her eyes with an insolent stare, then slowly dropped his gaze over her. The suggestion in that bold look was unmistakable. He was doing it merely to antagonize her, Anna knew. She frowned at him.

  “That’s something I must say for Paul: never, in all the years that I knew him, did I ever see him …”

  Julian’s head rose with the awful menace of a cobra’s. His mouth twisted in a furious slant.

  “… drunk,” Anna finished lamely, her eyes widening at the rush of blood that rose to darken Julian’s face.

  “Don’t you ever, ever again compare me to bloody Paul!” he said through clenched teeth, his knuckles white as his hands gripped the arms of the chair. “May the bugger burn forever in hell!”

  His body was tensed as if he would
shoot from the chair at any moment. The muscles in his shoulders and arms, the outlines of which she could clearly see through the thin linen shirt, were bunched. He looked like a man on the brink of extreme violence.

  “Why, you’re jealous!” she said in surprise.

  “Ruby said you were, but—”

  He shot up from the chair as if it had catapulted him forth and was around the side of the desk to stand looming over her before Anna could do more than shrink back.

  “You’re damned right I’m jealous,” he said through his teeth. He was so close that she was forced to half sit on the edge of the desk, leaning away from him; so close that the whiskey on his breath hit her in a sickening wave. His hands came up to rest on either side of her face, tilting it up toward his. Then they slid upwards, his fingers threading beneath her hair to massage her scalp. His eyes bore down into hers. His lips parted to show the faintest gleam of white teeth in a predatory smile.

  Anna felt the steely caress of those large hands on the delicate bones of her skull, and for a moment, just a moment, she was afraid.

  “Let me go,” she said clearly.

  He laughed, the sound brutal, and his hands slid down to curl around her neck.

  “Do you know what you called me, that first night after I made love to you? You were smiling in your sleep—for me, I thought—and then you called me Paul. I wanted to strangle you. It was all I could do to keep my hands from wringing your pretty little neck.” His thumbs caressed the delicate tracery of bones that marched up the front of her throat, while the rest of his fingers spread out, sure and strong, along the back of her neck. “It would be so easy—I could snap your neck with a flick of my wrists. Then you wouldn’t be able to think of Paul anymore.…”

  “You’re drunk, Julian. You don’t know what you’re doing,” Anna said in as reasonable a tone as she could muster, given that his thumbs were now pushing up under her chin, forcing her head back. She was not afraid of him, not really, and yet—this Julian was a stranger. She had never seen him in such a state, never guessed that he could turn such savagery on her, for such a cause. He must be wildly, madly jealous to threaten her with violence. Insane as it was, her heart speeded up at the ramifications. Then what he’d said registered: he had left after that first night because she had called him Paul!

  His thumbs now rested against the base of her chin, forcing her head to tip so far back that her hair, left loose to finish drying, spilled in a silvery cascade across the desk.

  Her lashes lifted so that she was looking him full in the eyes. Her eyes blazed green as emeralds in the white oval of her face, cutting through the fog of whiskey that befuddled him to bring a sudden frown to his face.

  “You have no reason to be jealous, Julian,” she said softly. “It’s you I love, not Paul.”

  His fingers stilled, tensed. His eyes narrowed on her face.

  “Lying bitch,” he said.

  Anna shook her head. “I’m not lying.”

  Julian stared at her a moment longer, then all at once his face contorted. “God help you if you are,” he said hoarsely, and then his mouth was on hers, kissing her fiercely, while his hands slid from her throat to cradle the back of her head.

  Anna parted her lips on a little sob, her hands moving to clutch his arms, his shoulders. His tongue thrust into her mouth, urgent, demanding, and she met that urgency with a hunger of her own.

  He leaned over her, pressing her backwards, one hand slashing violently sideways as he sent all the items atop the desk crashing to the floor. Then she was lying on her back on the polished surface, and he was coming down on top of her, kissing her greedily, his hands pulling at her clothes.

  XLIV

  “Anna, Oh, God, Anna.” It was a broken whisper. He pressed stinging kisses over her face and throat, nuzzling the soft underside of her neck, tracing the outline of an ear. Uncaring of his drink-fueled roughness, Anna wrapped her arms around his neck, murmuring soft endearments, stroking his rough black hair. The smell of whiskey, at first so overpowering, was forgotten in the blinding heat of passion. She loved him. How she loved him!

  His voice was unsteady as he murmured her name, over and over, like a litany. His hands were unsteady too as he jerked her nightdress and wrapper out of his way, leaving her naked from the waist down while he tore at the buttons on his breeches. One popped, flying across the room to land with a clatter on the floor. Then he was free, coming into her where she lay ready for him, his need too hard and urgent to permit him to wait a second longer.

  As he pushed himself inside her, Anna gasped, then moaned. He was huge, hot, filling her to the point of bursting—and she trembled at the sheer wonder of it. His mouth was on her neck, his hand on her breast, squeezing and kneading and caressing her through the thin muslin, while he thrust, hard and fast, in and out. Anna arched her back to meet him, barely aware of the unfamiliar feel of the hard polished wood beneath her bottom. He groaned, his lips turning to burn against her neck, his hand closing hard over her breast.

  And then with another deep thrust and a cry he lay still.

  Anna, on the brink of ecstasy, trembled in anticipation as he lay unmoving atop her. It took a moment for her to realize that he, at least, was sated. For a little while more she lay there, her hands automatically caressing his rough black head, willing back her disappointment. But her body, unrepentant, continued to throb and ache.

  When he lifted himself off her, he looked as unsteady as she felt.

  “See what happens when you tell me you love me?” he asked with a rueful smile as he adjusted his breeches.

  Anna, still lying on the desk top as he had left her, suddenly recollected how indecent her posture was and sat up, pulling her clothes down to cover her nakedness. She drew her knees close to her chest and wrapped her arms around them.

  His eyes were both hooded and faintly wary as they regarded her, from the top of her tousled head to the small pink toes protruding from beneath the hem of her crumpled nightdress.

  “You did mean it? I didn’t just scare you into saying it, did I?” He took a deep breath, faint color rising to his cheekbones. “I wouldn’t really hurt you, you know.”

  “I know.” For a moment she had an urge to tease him, but he was so still, so very still, despite the casualness with which he had tried to infuse his voice, that Anna realized her answer was important to him. Why, he’s as vulnerable as I am, she thought with amazement, and suddenly all the tenderness for him that she’d fought for so long to keep hidden rushed to the surface.

  She rose to her knees and moved the short distance to where he stood, tense and waiting by the edge of the desk. For just a moment she looked at him, drinking in the height and breadth of him; the hard, dark, handsome features; the glittering eyes; the disordered hair black as a starling’s wing. Then she slid her arms around his neck and pressed a quick, almost shy kiss against lips that were as rigid as if they’d been carved from stone.

  “I meant it,” she whispered, watching him. At first he didn’t move, didn’t so much as blink. Then his eyes widened, lightened, until they were more blue than she had ever seen them, blue as rich velvet. His muscles relaxed, and his mouth curved into the faintest of smiles.

  “Oh, Anna.” He turned his head, pressed a soft kiss to the silky skin on the underside of her arm, “My Anna.”

  There was a slight emphasis on the possessive that told her what he wanted.

  “All yours,” she agreed tenderly, her fingers threading into his thick dark hair.

  “And Paul?” There was a steely undertone to that.

  “He was only a boy and I only a girl when I loved him. Now I’m a woman grown, and the man I love is—a man.” Even as she said it, she knew it was true.

  “I’ll not have you moping after him.”

  “I won’t mope.”

  “Nor sighing his name in the middle of the night.”

  “I won’t sigh.”

  Julian eyed her. “And no more of Dumesne, either.”

/>   “Charles is just a friend.”

  “Still, I won’t have him hanging about.”

  “Dictatorial, aren’t you?”

  “What’s mine is mine.”

  “I’m far from faithless, Julian.”

  That earned her a wry smile. “That I have reason to know very well.”

  “I expect you to remember that.”

  “I’ll try my best.”

  “And, Julian.… ”

  “Yes?”

  “What’s mine is mine, as well.”

  “Are you admitting to a jealous streak? For shame!”

  “Don’t laugh. I mean it.”

  “I think I’d enjoy making you jealous.”

  “You wouldn’t, I promise you. I’ve discovered that I can be quite fierce where you are concerned.”

  He grinned, clearly delighted. “Can you indeed? The thought makes me shake in my boots.”

  The look she gave him was severe. “It should.”

  She still knelt at the edge of the desk, her arms looped around his neck. His hands had risen to grip her waist, and he gave her a quick hard squeeze.

  “You’ll never have cause to question my faithfulness, I give you my word.”

  “That’s better.” She smiled at him and slid her hand around to tweak an ear. “Is there nothing else you have to say to me?”

  He lifted his eyebrows questioningly.

  “You drunken dolt.” The words were half affectionate, half exasperated. “Will you leave me no pride at all? Must I spell it out for you?”

  Still he looked all at sea.

  “Do you love me?” It was an exasperated demand.

  “Oh, that.”

  “Yes, that.”

  “I suppose I must.” His eyes glinted teasingly down at her. Anna, her arms sliding from his neck to cross over her breasts, subsided onto her heels with an affronted “Hmmph!”