“’Tis the only thing I’ve a will to do.” Taking her face between his hands, he captured her lips again. They were soft and sweet and blessedly eager, rising to him, seeking him. He tasted them, tasted her with his tongue, and she let him inside. His fingertips sank into her hair, and the heat of her mouth, the grip of her hands, the caress of her tongue went through his entire body. He shuddered.
“Perhaps more than kiss,” he said against her lips.
Then she was wrapping her arms about his neck, and he was drawing her body to his and feeling her entirely. Her hands were tight around his shoulders and she was having him, taking him, hungrily, pressing her breasts and thighs against him, and then her hips. She was small and strong and willingly, eagerly climbing up him. Finally.
Some shred of self-preservation that yet remained in him, some mote of reason learned before he had sold his soul to the devil, made him spread his palms and fingers across her back and pin them there. He wanted his hands on her round behind, pulling her tighter against him. She rocked to him and her sigh of pleasure mingled between their lips with his strangled moan.
He dragged her off him and backed to arm’s length. Her eyes were unfocused, her hair thoroughly tousled from his hands, and her lips ripe red and glistening.
In desperation, he cast his eyes upward.
“Yes,” she said breathlessly. “Yes, good idea.” She pulled away from him entirely and smoothed her palms over her hair. “Best not to do that again. Especially not in full view of the house and sheep farm—and me. Good heavens, you do have a knack for making me forget my scruples.”
“Damn the house, damn the farm, an’ damn your eternally stupid scruples, woman. We will do that again, an’ much more, I assure you, as soon as can be.”
Her eyes flared with surprise. Then with anger.
Gabriel’s chest filled with the most unwisely heady optimism.
“Those”—he pointed to the clouds rolling over the hills—“are carrying a mighty ice storm. I have no intention o’ making love to you for the first time with you fearing for your life.”
“I am not afraid of storms,” she said, turning her face toward the clouds. In profile, her nose was too pert, her chin too pointed, her brow too high. She was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen.
“I have not feared a storm since the hurricane,” she said. “You did that to me. You changed me—obviously in other ways too,” she added with an absent gesture of her hand. “But for quite literally teaching me calm in the midst of storm, I should have thanked you years ago. So I will finally. Thank you, Urisk.”
“I could eat you whole.”
“That was not the response I expected. But I suppose by now I should be accustomed to that—”
“I am mad for you.”
“—and to my body’s betraying reactions to at least half of the things you say to me.” A pink flush had overtaken her cheeks and neck. Her gaze scanned him, jaw to knees, lingering meaningfully about his hips, and finally resting upon his mouth. “What is the actual likelihood of rain or snow falling here soon?” she said with glorious unsteadiness. “And if it did rain or snow, how wet and cold do you think we would become?”
He could hardly breathe. “Very wet.”
“You are not referring to the rain, I think.”
“An’ no’ in the least bit cold.”
“I daresay,” she said upon a thick inhale.
“Go.”
“Go?”
“How is it that you canna understand the word go, woman?”
“I can! It is only that you say it to me at the most inconvenient and frankly unlikely moments. It is really no wonder I don’t always anticipate what you will say. You are contradictory.”
“Get off this hill an’ away from me. Now.”
“Do you see? Contradictory,” she said, backing away. “Am I to go away from you or the storm?”
“’Tis one an’ the same at present.”
“I see,” she said, beginning to turn toward her descent. “But I may not offer you this opportunity again.”
“You will.”
“Contradictory and overly confident. Are you coming?”
Not quite, but he was perilously close.
She took the hillside in long, indecorous steps. Five and a half years ago the girl straining to be free of her restraints had captivated him. This woman, entirely free of shackles, filled every part of him with truly insane euphoria. He watched her body move, her arms swinging, the wind wrapping her skirts about her legs and buttocks, and her hair flying every which way. His cock was as hard as a yardarm. He needed her riding it. He needed her coming while she rode it. Twice. Thrice. Four times, each time deeper, her shouts louder, her hands—
“Are you coming?” she called over her shoulder.
“I’m waiting till you’re far enough away that I’ll no’ be able to catch up with you.”
“I am a quick runner,” she shouted back.
“I will take that under advisement.”
Her laughter caught on the wind and tripped up the hill, wrapping around him. Judas, if he stared any longer at her perfect behind, at her thighs—
Her back was straight, proud, yet she was a little thing—a little thing he had dreamed of taking like this, on a lush hillside in the wind, grasping those shoulders with his hands, urging her knees apart, spreading those thighs—
He scraped his hand over his face. He must wrest control of the damn fool green lad clearly still in command o’ his bollocks. And his brain.
When she was far enough away to assure safety, he called to his horse and followed.
The snow fell wet and thick. Entering the house, he enquired of his false butler where to find her ladyship.
“She’s in Maggie’s bedchamber with the little one,” Hay whispered then cleared his throat. “Your guests have gathered in the drawing room to play a game of charades, Your Grace,” he said at full volume.
Damn his own rule never to enter any of the residents’ bedchambers at Kallin, for any reason. And if she were with the nursing mother she wished to be away from him, clearly. She was wiser than he, most certainly.
He wanted her in his arms again. And then in his bed.
She had given a moment’s consideration to making love to him on a hillside in the freezing rain. He was dying.
Glancing at the falling snow and considering walking out into it to cool off, he went instead to the drawing room.
Bellarmine, Miss Campbell, and Iris Tate were enacting a farce for the elder Miss Tates, their father, and Mrs. Aiken. They all greeted him and returned swiftly to the game. Jonah sat removed from the others, his hooded eyes on Jane Tate. Gabriel took the seat beside him and curled his fists around the chair arm ends.
“Charades, cousin,” Jonah drawled beneath his breath during a burst of laughter from the play actors. “Shoot me now.”
“I’ll gladly level a pistol barrel at you, but no’ for your sake.”
“Aha,” Jonah said. “You and the fair English widow have spoken about my little lie, I see. She inquired about that earlier.”
“You read my letter.”
“Of course I read it, you dolt. You were raving mad about the girl, beyond what I had ever seen. You sent her a secret letter, for God’s sake. What true friend would not have read it?”
“Why did you lie to her?”
“I believed you were being too precipitate. I wanted her to marry the parson so that you could head off to naval glory.”
“You wanted me to die at sea so you could move one place closer to the title.”
“Not true.”
“I would kill you, Jonah, an’ toss you in the river if I thought nobody would find the body.”
“Go ahead,” he said dully. “I’ve nothing to lose now.”
Across the room, Jane Tate cast Jonah a shy glance then dropped her lashes.
“You have something to live for there, it seems,” Gabriel said.
“Ah, yes,” Jonah said,
subdued. “The maiden whose father intends her to be the next Duchess of Loch Irvine.”
Gabriel’s hands relaxed about the chair arms. “No’ if I’ve a say in the matter. Which, fortunately, I do.”
“I used to dream of coming into the title,” Jonah said, his eyes still on Jane Tate. “Not of you dying. I never wished that. But of being your brother, instead of that lout enjoying that honor.”
“Why did you come here now, Jonah?”
“There was nothing left for me on Jamaica. Would you like to hear my confession, Gabriel?”
“No. I am having a good day.” Exceptionally good. If Amarantha did not appear in the drawing room soon, he would go looking for her. He could borrow Pike’s shillelagh and knock on Maggie’s door from a distance.
“When Charlotte died,” his cousin said, “I was devastated. For months. I had no will to do anything, not work, not even drink. Sometime in the midst of it I realized that what I was feeling—the unspeakable grief—was what your little English girl must have felt when I gave her that lie.” His fingers played absently with a frayed fringe of the drapery beside his hand. “And so I did an odd thing, cousin.”
“Did you?”
“I courted her husband.”
Gabriel turned his eyes to Jonah. “Beg your pardon?”
“I sought the reverend’s friendship. I made a deal with him. I told him that if he occasionally indulged with me in the pastimes of regular men, a drink, a game of cards, that I would attend his church.”
“You’re daft.”
“Did you ever meet him?”
“Aye,” he said, and felt his teeth grind.
“He was so starched and righteous and tight,” Jonah said. “She was miserable. She wore a fine façade. Nobody knew it.” The animation slipped from his features. “Few knew it,” he amended upon a shaking breath. “I wanted to fix him. Change him. Because of what I had done—the lie. I wanted to make him more like you.”
“Fool.”
“That is the thanks I get?”
“Aye.”
“My plan was not, unfortunately, a success. He was not wise enough to know what he had. But he was not all bad, Gabe. In fact, I came to quite like him. He had good intentions, if little imagination. And he was enormously well-read. We had some fine debates—”
“I dinna care.”
After a moment Jonah said, “She was mystery to him. An alien creature.”
A renewed round of laughter arose from the game players.
“Duke!” Iris Tate called, bouncing in her chair. “You must come play, even if Mr. Brock cannot due to his twisted ankle.”
Gabriel offered Jonah a skeptical brow. “Twisted ankle?”
“Will you come play, Duke?” Iris shouted.
“Aye, Miss Iris,” he said, standing up. “But I’ll no’ be donning ridiculous hats an’ false moustaches. It doesna suit my consequence to playact.”
Chapter 26
The Unexpected
20 March 1823
Castle Kallin
Central Highlands, Scotland
Dear Emmie,
It rains and snows at once today, and all here have eschewed the outdoors. I have spent the afternoon with Tabitha, writing her story as she dictates. As we near the end I am more persuaded than ever that her tale must be told. To force a woman to live in containment is to destroy her spirit. To make her live in fear as well is to destroy her will . . .
By closeting herself with her writing partner for the entire snowy afternoon, Amarantha managed to stave off the urgent need to satisfy her desire for the Duke of Loch Irvine’s lips and body against hers again.
After dinner, as the ladies arose from the table to retire to the drawing room, the duke announced that he had no interest in port, thus forcing the other gentlemen to accede to their host’s whim. As they all went from the dining room, Amarantha felt her skirt snagged, and halted to detach herself.
The heel of the duke’s boot was hard upon her hem.
Then his hand was wrapping around hers and he was dragging her out of the light and beneath the stairs into darkness.
“This is most unusual, Urisk,” she whispered.
“This dress,” he said, putting her firmly between himself and the wall, and his fingertips just barely touching her forearms. “You wore it to drive me mad.”
“This is an unexceptional gown.”
“Must be the exceptional woman wearing it, then.”
“And you are already mad.” She rested her hand on his arm, and the madness filled her too in fine tendrils of pleasure. “You admitted it yourself just today. And I think at other times. I don’t remember. I am having trouble remembering anything at this moment.”
“Except how irresistible you find me.”
“I needn’t remember that. I experience that with no effort whatsoever.”
Without any preamble, any permission asked or granted he kissed her. His breath upon her lips was soft, his touch gentle, at first tentative, as though they had not tried to consume each other on a mountainside earlier that day. One of his hands circled her waist, warm and big and holding her lightly.
A sigh began in the depths of her chest and escaped her throat.
His lips moved to the corner of her mouth, then to her cheek and ear where he set tender, beautiful kisses everywhere until she was sighing again and again, and smiling.
“This is, admittedly, a much better end to today than I had anticipated upon waking.”
“The day’s no’ finished yet, my beauty.”
She pulled back from his caresses. “Please do not call me that.”
“Beauty?”
“Yours.”
“I will make a deal with you, lass.”
“What sort of deal?”
“I will call you whatever you wish if you’ll put your hands on me again. Now.”
She obliged. A sound of thorough contentment rumbled beneath her palms.
“I’ll be howling at the moon tonight,” he uttered.
“This was your idea.”
“I enjoy howling,” he said, and bent to her cheek, where he laid one soft kiss after another. Then her neck. “You hid from me this afternoon.”
“I was with Tabitha, writing. She is well. Relieved. And she is eager to return to Edinburgh. She hopes to depart as soon as the snow abates.”
“A fine plan. Now, where were we?”
“You were preparing to howl at the moon.” Both of his hands were on her body now, easing her toward him until her hips met his. Her eyelids dipped. “I will be returning to Edinburgh with her.”
His hands halted their descent down her back. “No.”
“No?”
“You’ll no’ leave here so soon.”
“You cannot order me to stay.”
“I can try to convince you.” His fingers threaded through her hair and he kissed her, this time longer, then more, taking her upper lip then the bottom lip one at a time, then her whole mouth. “Open for me, ambrosia woman,” he murmured, and she did so and tasted his desire upon her lips and in the caress of their tongues. There was such heat opening in her body, and need. She lifted her hands to his shoulders and felt it, felt him.
“You make me . . .” she whispered between kisses. “Want,” she breathed. “Want you.”
“’Tis good news.”
“But I will not be convinced to remain here with lovemaking.”
“Then I will ask,” he said, stroking his thumb over her lower lip. “Will you stay here at Kallin long enough for me to memorize every shape an’ texture o’ your lips, Amarantha?”
“The mystery of Luke’s father is not here.”
He drew back.
“Yesterday I spoke with everyone here,” she said. “None of them have ever heard of Penny. I don’t believe I will find the answers I seek here. I must return to her family and to those who knew her.”
“No.”
“No?”
“You’ll no’ sail to another continent in sea
rch o’ anyone, especially no’ a phantom man. For pity’s sake, woman,” he said, tilting her face up to his. “When will you leave off living your life for everyone but yourself?”
“I promised Penny that I would find her son’s father.”
“Then we will hire an investigator.”
“How could a stranger discover intimate details of my friend’s life that I cannot?”
“He makes his living at it, so he must. An’ while he is busy at that, you will stay here an’ continue to kiss me.”
She pushed against his chest and he released her.
“You will stay here voluntarily,” he amended.
“Just as the residents of this house must stay? You cannot contain women, Urisk.”
“The locks on the gates are no’ to keep them in, but to keep others out.”
“What if the men who are the legal masters of these women—Maggie’s betrothed, Cassandra’s father, the man who bought Molly off the auction block, the father of Rebecca’s child who would have the right to seize Clementine—What if any of those men hunt until they find this sanctuary?”
“We must hope they willna.”
“Even if they do not, even if no one ever comes looking for them, this is not a complete life, hiding away from the world. Don’t you see that?”
“Aye, I understand no’ living a complete life,” he said soberly. “What do you wish, lass?”
“Freedom for the women here to go and come as they please.” Her voice was soft steel, her eyes overbright. “To live and—and to love as they wish.”
“Then they’ll have it.”
“What will they have?”
“Autonomy.”
“The women of Kallin?”
“Aye. ’Tis a brilliant idea, in fact. No more endless letters filled with minutiae. Why didna I think o’ it myself?”
“Because women have the best solutions to everything,” she said. “Women should also have noble titles in their own rights, by the way.”
“Some Scots do.” His hand curved around her waist again, drawing her close.
“Clearly Scots are more civilized than all others.”
He laughed. “A civilized beast, am I?”
“Women should captain ships too.”
The Duke Page 25