by Anne Gracie
His strength, his tenderness, his open satisfaction and delight at every small tender gesture she made; all these were a balm to her lacerated sense of self, her crushed feeling of worth. His every touch soothed away the shame and the fear and the endless prospect of loneliness she had faced. And she poured out all the love she felt, in every way she could, returning embrace for embrace, kiss for kiss, caress for caress. Hoping it would be enough. And knowing it could never be.
After a time, he slowed, pulled back slightly. She opened her eyes and found him staring at her. She opened her mouth to ask him what was wrong, but his hands cupped her face as if they held something infinitely precious cradled between them. He simply held her, his thumbs smoothing back and forth along her jawline, tenderly, staring into her eyes.
"I need to make you mine," he said quietly. "If you do not wish it to happen now, Kit, say so and I shall stop.''
Kit saw the need, the pride, the quiet, desperate hunger and felt her heart shatter with love anew. How could anyone not love this big, gentle, passionate man? She certainly could not help herself. She was his forever, even if they were together only this one last time.
It must happen. She was an innocent in these matters, but when a man and a woman lay down on a bed, and with such feelings within them that they must explode to be let out somehow...
She wanted it to happen. So very, very much.
Like a squirrel, she had hoarded up moments of joy throughout her life. They didn't come often; she treasured them when they did. And this, to lie down with the man she loved more than life itself, to become one with him... This would be the greatest moment of joy in her life. She wanted it—every moment, every gesture, every touch.
While they were here, together in the tiny cabin, it was as if the world did not exist. It was only they two: one man, one woman, one love. One great, splendid, conflagration of joy to last her the rest of her life.
Oh, yes, she wanted it.
For outside, winter was coming. And she knew it would be the coldest, bitterest one yet. Even worse than when Mama and little Jamie had died.
She reached up and traced his mouth lightly. "I need you too, my dearest love."
His eyes flamed with—what? Relief, triumph, exultation? And then his mouth lowered to hers and she felt as though her heart must burst, to feel so much, all at once.
He carefully peeled away the many layers of her clothing. And if there was shyness in her response, if there was hesitance in this, her first experience of nakedness with a man, there was also a tentative, joyous blossoming of pride in his response to her.
It was probably sinful to feel so...so worshipped, but, oh, she gloried in it. Every look, every touch. Tender. Needy. Loving.
She watched, wide-eyed and enthralled as he shrugged himself out of his coat and shirt. His shoulders were magnificent.
"I fell in love with your shoulders the first time we met."
"My shoulders?" He looked down at them doubtfully. "You don't mind them being so...big, then?"
She smiled and it was the smile of Eve. Pure feminine appreciation. She reached out and stroked her hands over the broad muscled strength of him and a tremulous shiver passed though her whole body. He felt his own response surge, deep in his loins. Desire. Passion. He gazed into her eyes as she pulled his mouth down to hers. Love.
And then she learned him anew, learned the difference between lying with a man fully clothed and lying with him naked, skin to skin, mouth to mouth, heat to heat.
She gloried in the sensation, of the feeling of him tasting her as she tasted him, learning each other in ways she had never known before. His warm, calloused hands moved across her skin: over, around, beneath, between, leaving trails of shivering sensation...
She stored up every tiny sensation, each splendid golden acorn, against the long winter, a bittersweet memory for the future.
His possession of her. Heat and pleasure and passion spiralling, speared with a single sharp instant of pain. It was the pain which told her it was real, it was true; the very heart of exultation.
Her possession of him. He was at the core of her now, deep within her heat, lost on a pounding tide of sensation ... unto oblivion.
Afterwards they lay on the small, narrow bunk, their breathing slowing, their hearts full, gazing into each others eyes. Skin to skin, limbs entangled, unable still to stop touching. Wonderment. Joy. Passion only slightly slaked. A new world of sensation and intimacy.
"Are you all right, love?" His deep voice cracked as he spoke. His big square hands caressed her.
She nodded, tremulously. "Never better." It was the truth, and yet the concern and love she could see in his eyes undid her, and her tears spilled over. "Never better," she sobbed and he gathered her to his warm broad chest and let her weep. And when the storm was over, she lay against his long hard body and explored him dreamily, finding him endlessly fascinating. The hard, the soft, the smooth, the hairy, the strong, the tender...
And he explored in return. "Your skin is like silk," he murmured in wonderment.
She ran a finger along his beautifully sculpted jawline. "Yours is like sandpaper."
He drew back. "I'm sorry. I did not think—"
She smiled and pulled his head back. "Oh, but I like it," she whispered softly and butted her face gently along his jaw, like a cat.
And so, they loved again.
"You will have to marry me now," he said much later, sitting up on the bunk and reaching for his breeches.
"You know I cannot."
He turned back and kissed her possessively. "My dearest girl, I know nothing of the sort. We shall be married as soon as possible."
She twisted away from his embrace and with clumsy hands jerked her chemise on over her head. She felt at a disadvantage without her clothes on. He had only to look at her and she melted. It had been difficult enough to stand against him before. Now, after what they had shared, opposing him was infinitely harder. But she had to oppose him.
She could not marry him. She would not shame him so.
"Do you care to be married in London, or would you prefer to be married from Gelliford House?"
"I do not care to be married at all!" Kit said. "If you are feeling guilty because of...of what just happened, then there is no need to be. I wanted it as much as you did."
At this last sentence, the anger on his face softened a little.
Kit did not think she could bear to see that tender, possessive expression in his eyes. She hurried on, "Men tumble women all the time. It does not have to lead to mar-ria—"
Hugo smashed a fist against the cabin wall. "I did not tumble you! We made love! And we shall do so again and again, as often as we want for the rest of our lives! In our marriage bed and wherever else we—" He broke off. He must have seen something in her face of the distress she was feeling, for his tone moderated. "I am forgetting your inexperience, my love. This was no mere coupling of a man and woman. It was a...a—"
She wrapped her arms around herself, defensively. She had to keep herself separate from him. It was almost impossible to refuse him while her body hearkened unto him.
His voice was deep, vibrating with emotion. "It was a plighting of troth. Yes, that's what it was. We plighted out troth, my love. With my body, I thee worshipped. And..." he fished in the pocket of his coat, hanging on a peg, and took something out "...with all my worldly goods I thee endow." And he crossed the tiny cabin in two steps and
carefully pinned the small gold phoenix tie-pin to the bodice of her gown. "The ashes of the past, love, or a golden future?" Two tears spilled down her cheeks. She dashed them away. His words, his actions, had torn her in two. She wanted, so badly to say yes to him, to let him marry her and take her away to his home and dwell with him forever, but the knowledge of her shame, her disgrace, held her silent. He was such a good man, a generous, decent, beau-tiul man.
She had not been unaware of the slights he'd faced in society, because of his mother's backgr
ound, his own years of menial labour and his current activities in trade. Even if he managed to keep her from prosecution by the law—and she trusted he could do it—the scandal would still be whis-pered about. She was sure that by now, Lady Marsden would have informed all her friends of that frightful scene in the green room at Woodsden Lodge; the ton would be gossiping about how Rose Singleton introduced a thief into society.
Bad enough the damage Kit had done to Rose. Rose would eventually be seen to have been duped. But there would be no question of Hugo Devenish being duped. If she married him, all she would be doing is giving the cats of society just one more weapon to wound him. She could just imagine it: Devenish? In Trade, you know—well, blood will out, my deah. And married to a thief—yes, really. The Chinese Burglar turned out to be a woman. And he married her. Well, my deah, all tradesmen are thieves at heart, are they not? Accompanied by genteel, spiteful tittering.
"No," she said and stepped away from him. "I will not marry you." She fumbled at the phoenix pin, but her hands were shaking and she could not undo it.
"Keep it," he growled. "If you try to give it back to me again, I will not be responsible for my actions." A small nerve twitched in his clenched jaw.
There was a silence as she finished dressing. He watched her with bleak, angry eyes. She ought to have been embarrassed by putting on her stockings with a man watching, but this was the first, the last, the only time it would happen, and she was storing up the memory. There was something wonderfully intimate in putting on a pair of stockings in front of the man who had earlier removed them, stroking down her legs with warm, shaking, rough-skinned hands. She shivered as she thought about it. Even if he was now hurt and furious.
"What if we made a child today?" His deep voice broke into her thoughts.
She stilled, then touched her belly, wonderingly. "Then I shall love it with all my heart."
"And yet you would deny it a name, a father, a heritage. And you would deny me my child."
She was mute, unable to answer him. What he said was true. Which would be worse, the shame of a mother who was a known thief, or—?
"This is nonsense!" he exploded. "I shall have Captain
Patchett marry us here and now and that will be an end to it!"
"No, Hugo, I won't marry you. I mean it."
He clenched his fists. "But you said you loved me, dammit. Was it a he?"
She shook her head, miserably. "No. I do love you. Too much to see you shamed by a wife who is known to be a thie—"
"Known to be a thief! What rubbish! Nobody knows. The ton loves a mystery and what better than that of the Chinese Burglar who mysteriously appeared on the scene one year, stole a series of fabulous treasures, returned them just as mysteriously and then—pouff! He disappeared!"
"Nobody knows, you say? What of Sir William and Lady Marsden?"
"They will say nothing."
"Oh, indeed, even though Sir William is a magistrate and Lady Marsden despises me!"
"She doesn't—" Kit gave him a disbelieving look and he added, "Or if she does, she'll come around."
"And what of Rose and Mr Cranmore?"
"Rose will say nothing of—"
"And the butler who tied me up?"
"A sum of money will shut—"
"And will you also bribe the footmen who locked me -way and the maidservants and—?"
"Enough, dammit! None of these people will blab!"
"How can you know that?"
"Because they like you, you thick-headed, stubborn little mule! You don't believe me? Very well, let's put it to the test! Let us return to Woodsden Lodge and see exactly how everyone there reacts to you."
"And when Sir William has me arrested?"
"Confound it, Kit, he won't. I know him." Hugo held up his hand to stop her flow of argument. "And if he does
look like doing any such thing—which he won't!—I'll get you away and onto the nearest ship. I'll have one waiting at the closest port. But he won't have you arrested!"
Kit took a deep breath and glanced out at the sullen grey sky beyond the porthole. There was only one way Hugo would accept that a marriage between them was impossible. She would have to prove it to him. But the thought of going back, back to where she had betrayed her friends, back to where they had stared at her with hurt and contempt... The thought of doing that chilled her to her bones.
"Very well, I agree to return to Woodsden Lodge and...and face whatever happens."
"What will happen, my stubborn little love, is a wedding! And I'll have your promise on that, if you don't mind."
"I...I..."
"Your promise, Kit, or I fetch Captain Patchett to wed us here and now!"
"Very well, if the scandal has not spread and Rose and the Marsd&is forgive me, I will marry you." She knew it was impossible.
"Aha!" he began triumphantly.
"But if they react as I know they will, with anger and disgust..." she closed her eyes, recalling the scene in the green room "...if they despise me, and... Then I shall leave England immediately and you'll not stop me. Agreed?"
"Agreed."
She was a little stunned by his easy capitulation. And a little suspicious. "So you'll allow me to leave without argument?"
"Yes, of course. We shall depart the instant you feel the slightest discomfort. We shall men be married by Patchett and sail away to live in—Italy, was it? Or Ireland? Whichever you prefer."
Kit gasped at the generosity of his offer, but shook her head. "I lived with an exile all my life, Hugo. I could not bear to watch you become more and more embittered as the years passed. You might agree to it now, but in the end you would come to resent it. And to blame me for it."
He gestured to the ship surrounding them. “You forget, I have already been an exile. I was sent far away from this country as a young boy. And my loving family certainly hoped I would never return."
"But you did return."
He inclined his head.
"And you carved a place here for yourself and against all odds found acceptance in society. I have some idea of how difficult that must have been. Do you think I would let you throw it all away—for me?''
He shrugged. "I am a man with a reputation for knowing a good bargain when I see one. How did the poet put it?— 'To count the world well lost for love.' If it was a choice between you and the world, my dearest, stubborn love, I would take you every time. For the world is fickle and faithless and cares not the snap of its finger for Hugo Dev-enish. But Kit Singleton, ahh, she loves me. She told me so, and she is not a liar."
"No. Only a thief," she said in a desolate voice.
He smiled, took her face in his hands and said in a deep, soft voice, "Make up your mind to it, my love. You cannot tell me you love me one moment, take me to paradise the next and think I will just tamely let you walk away afterwards. One way or another, you're going to marry me, my girl, and you have my promise on that!" And he kissed her. a hard, possessive kiss.
And he called her stubborn! Surrendering temporarily, she kissed him back, twining her hands into his short cropped hair, for there was a limit on how much you could reject a man for his own good and Kit had reached it.
She would regain her strength of purpose later, at Woodsden Lodge.
Chapter Thirteen
Kit's heartbeat quickened as the travelling carriage turnec off the road between the stone-mounted gates of Woodsder Lodge. She felt ill; she had been able to eat nothing all day She listened to the wheels crunching the gravel of the long winding drive which led to the house, carrying her ever closer.
She had always assumed she had at least a little courage She knew better now. The risks she had taken so light heartedly in the past were not courage, but foolishness She'd always been able to run away from the consequences before. This time, the consequences had faces—beloved faces. And feelings. Feelings which she had trampled on.
She did not want to face them.
The carriage turned a curve and there stood the
beautiful old Elizabethan house. The late afternoon sun glinted or the mullioned windows and the waters of the lake. Kit shivered. The dark stone of the house, the walled stone terraces and the deep, shadowed valley looked more and more like a prison to her.
She had decided what she would do.
There was no possibility of the Marsdens and Aunt Rose forgiving her betrayal of their friendship. She would never marry Hugo Devenish. She would face them, apologise and be off out of the country as quickly and stealthily as she could manage it, leaving Hugo behind in the world he had fought so hard to find a place in.
It was all very romantic to count the world well lost for love, but Kit knew what an exile's life was like. She knew what it was like never to belong, never to be able to mix freely with English visitors for fear that they would learn she was the child of an outcast. Even the locals knew they were not welcome in their own country. And once you had been thrown out of your own country, you could be tossed out of any country. Kit had experienced it often.
She did not want that life for him; she did not want it for their children.
The carriage drew into the courtyard. Her palms felt clammy. She did not want to face Rose, Sir William, Lady Marsden and the little girls. Especially the little girls...
"Please do not make me do this, Hugo," she said in a low, shaking voice.
He looked at her white, set face. He reached across and took her hands in his. They were cold and shaking. "I am not making you do anything, love. This was your choice. I will marry you, no matter what, you know that."
"I do not know if I can bear..." She bit her lip agonizingly. "The little girls."
His face softened and his warm grip on her hands soothed. "Have faith, love."
This time no servants ran out to greet them as the carriage pulled up at the front entrance. Griffin stepped down and lowered the carriage steps. Hugo held out his hand to assist Kit down. She shook her head. "Griffin, would you please inform Sir William and Lady Marsden that we—that I have arrived." Hugo made a small sound and she whirled on him. "I will not gain entry to their home on false pre-