A fine birthday, she thought as she drifted off to sleep. Ian’s enchantments couldn’t find her here.
Yet when a shadow fell across her, she came awake without surprise. No, his enchantments could not find her. But he could.
She couldn’t quite see him as he stood silhouetted against the sun. Yet she could tell he was tall, broad-shouldered, and very much a man. She squinted at him, trying to see the truth. Was he magical? It was possible. She’d been raised on such stories, and sometimes when the storms pressed close and the ocean raged, she thought she could hear voices from the waves.
Foolish fantasies, surely.
Yet she couldn’t accuse him of getting into her mind and creating dreams. She suspected that if he had been as earthbound as one of her farmers, she still would have dreamed of him. He had that kind of presence.
“You’ll burn that fair skin,” he chided, and dropped her straw bonnet over her face.
“Aye, mustn’t damage the merchandise.” Then, sorry to ruin the day’s good humor, she lifted the hat toward him as display. “Thank you. I’ll wear it on the way back to Fionnaway.”
She sounded polite and meek, and her good manners irritated her, but she didn’t want to goad him today. As the days slipped past, he had shed his formal clothing. His cravat had disappeared the first day. His coat the second. His shiny boots had grown scuffed as he trod through the mud and the grass, and now he wore only a white lawn shirt and dark trousers tucked into those boots. He looked casual, intimate almost—and they were alone out here.
Ever since that kiss outside his father’s bedchamber, he’d restrained himself to such an extent she might have thought he’d lost interest in her.
But sometimes she felt his reserve tottering. Some night soon, she suspected she’d be sharing her bed with not just the dream, but the man, and although her skin heated and her blood sizzled at the thought, some reticence in her mind shouted caution. If she gave in to him, he might swallow her whole.
Uncomfortable with the way he studied her as she sprawled in the grass, Alanna sat up and straightened her skirt. When she looked reasonably civilized, she asked, “What have you got?”
“Got?” He looked faintly shocked. Then he followed her gaze and seemed to realize she spoke of the basket that rested on his arm. “Oh, that.” He chuckled. “Soon you’re going to get all of your questions answered. The ones you don’t ask, as well as the ones you do.”
“I don’t understand you.”
“Yes, you do.” Out of the basket he drew a plaid blanket, shook it out, and laid it beside her, crushing the long grass with its woolen weight. “There’s luncheon inside,” he said. “Cook worried you would get hungry.”
Perversely, that annoyed her. “Cook worried? And here I thought you were the one who nagged about the food.”
“You’re not eating enough and you’re doing too much.” He sat on the blanket and jerked off his boots. “Ah,” he sighed. “That feels better.” He wiggled his toes in the grass in an endearing motion, but what he said was not endearing. “Someone has to watch over you.”
“And you think it should be you.”
“I have the right.”
The way he said it, the way he watched her, informed her he was willing to quarrel if she wished. And she wouldn’t win, she knew.
Moving slowly so as not to wake his slumbering ire, she placed the hat at her side.
He nodded. “Intelligence is attractive in a woman. Now come onto the blanket and lie next to me.”
Heat raced across her chest and bloomed in her cheeks. Rolling down that hill must have addled her senses. The dream the night before had begun in just such a manner. He’d commanded she lie beside him. She had done it willingly, because in her dream she was always willing.
“Alanna.” His tone demanded.
“I am comfortable as I am.”
He swooped toward her, picked her up, and placed her on the blanket in one swift motion. She lay stiff as he leaned over her.
Just as he had in the dream, he grinned, his lips soft and tender across strong white teeth. “Very good. You do learn.” With a groan, he stretched out beside her, hip to hip, shoulder to shoulder, yet not touching, looking at the sky.
Barely breathing, she wondered why he lay so still, but she didn’t have long to wonder.
“That’s a dragon,” he said.
What was he talking about? Then she saw his finger waving in the air, sketching the outline of a cloud.
“Don’t you think it’s a dragon?” he asked.
“I…uh…suppose it could be. But”—her gaze sharpened—“it could be a cat.”
He sounded utterly relaxed. “Too long for a cat.”
By gradual degrees, she let her rigid muscles relax. “Too fuzzy for a dragon.”
“Well, it is now! Look at how fast it’s moving! ’Tis a dragon transforming itself.”
She sighed in disgust. “A typical male way to win an argument.”
“A typical female denial of logic.” He sounded bland as egg custard, and she turned and gazed at him.
A mistake. Bland could never describe the man at her side. Heart-stoppingly, unbearably handsome would do better. His profile loomed as rugged as the rocky fells around them. His skin toasted in the sun. Eyebrows accented the jutting brow. Eyelashes, when viewed from the side, swept upward in a ridiculous curl. His beard formed a dark shadow across his chin, and in a futile attempt to relieve her tension, she snapped, “What are you hiding beneath that beard? Tell your valet to shave you.”
Curiosity brought his head around, and those brown eyes, she was startled to see, had silver sparks deep within. “My valet didn’t come with me.”
His well-defined lips moved under his mustache. He looked so mild and comfortable, and she wondered at how well this man fit in the open air of her home. Previously she had associated him with dark and storms, but perhaps she should associate him with the elements that made up the storms—air and water, fire and earth. “I’ll find you a valet.” She hesitated, fascinated with his countenance, almost unconscious of her words.
Those lips curved up, charming, rueful. “Should I allow one of your servants near my throat with a razor?”
When his suggestion sank in, she sat up, offended. “They’ll not slit your throat without my word.”
“Precisely my point.”
She said nothing, staring out to sea. Her chin jutted, aching as she clenched it tightly. When he tugged her hair, she refused to turn, so instead he wooed her with words.
“Your servants would do anything for you. They talk about how you were such a carefree lass, wild and swift as the birds that soar. How impulsive you were, yet never cruel. How you somehow found enough money to keep Fionnaway thriving even during bad harvests.”
She tried not to think of the cache of stones hidden behind the chimney in the master’s chamber. Ian seemed to see her thoughts, perhaps even to sense them, and Armstrong had said someone listened at her door.
Ian? Not likely. Sneaking wasn’t Ian’s way. But the fact remained, Armstrong was gone to Edinburgh, and until he returned, she would worry. About him, about his daughter Ellie, and about the stones.
She swung her head around and urged, “Go on.”
“As you wish.”
But he still watched her as if he were trying to divine her secrets, and she fought the panic that rose in her throat. “The servants,” she prompted.
“The servants,” he repeated obediently. “Should you desire to be rid of me before our wedding, your servants will gladly noose my neck.”
Her sense of peril faded—about the stones, at least.
He said, “Should you wish to be rid of me during our wedding feast, they’d feed me poisoned mushrooms. Should I maltreat you after, they’d drop me off that cliff—at the least.”
The wedding. Always the wedding. Always the threat of him doing with her what a man does with a woman. Ian frightened her, for Ian, she knew, wouldn’t be satisfied until she’d sur
rendered everything. “You’re an opportunist,” she said. “You’ll do anything to gain my lands.”
Without hesitation, he agreed. “Yes. Land hunger is a powerful motive for any man.”
“You’d take to wife a hunchbacked, cross-eyed grandmother to get the land.”
“Or a witch.”
He sounded so solemn, she slewed around and stared at him, and found an invitation to laughter in those dark eyes. An invitation she resisted—but barely. He was the composite of charm, of responsibility, of magnetism. Did he have to be amusing, too?
His hand found hers. He tucked his fingers between her fingers and squeezed gently. “I loved the witch’s wit. Perhaps you could find it again.”
Briefly she remembered their first conversations and the banter they’d exchanged. Then she remembered the events that had followed, the dreams that haunted her, and she felt the stroke of his thumb across her knuckles. “I think all the wit the witch could find was contained in her hump,” she said.
“Then someday soon”—he lifted her hand and kissed her fingers—“I will go on a quest and rescue the hump and the wit so we can both laugh again.” Separating their fingers, he turned her palm to his lips and nuzzled it. “Here at Fionnaway, you’re surrounded by your people, and they feel guilty about what almost happened with my father. They will never let you be abused again in any way.”
“I can’t be so sure of that, not when it concerns you.” She turned sullen, which she knew and detested, but her resentment spilled forth. “You’ve wooed them since your arrival. All I’ve heard sung is the praises of Mr. Ian.”
“Really?” He sounded so sure of himself, and grinned with such cocksure arrogance, that she’d have slapped him if she dared.
She didn’t dare. “From the villagers. From the maids. And today from the beekeeper and the shepherds. They might throw you off the cliff, but they’d do it reluctantly.”
He chuckled, deep and low and very amused. “Is that supposed to comfort me?”
She made the mistake of looking into his eyes, and found herself caught. By his gaze, and by the pure pleasure of looking at him. It seemed reasonable to wish she were as beautiful as Wilda; to wish her looks were in some small way congruous to Ian’s seemed absolutely deranged.
Still smiling, he said, “You’re making this wooing much too difficult.”
“I don’t know any other way.”
He sat up and looked down into her face. She thought he must see each freckle, he looked her over so carefully, but he said only, “I do.” Putting his hands on her shoulders, he eased her down to the blanket.
“What are you doing?” As if she didn’t know.
“There’s no reasoning with you.” He loomed over her, blocking out the sunshine. “So I am done with reasoning.”
Chapter 18
Ian didn’t look angry, or aggravated, just…determined. And, she realized, he had looked much the same since the moment he had tracked her down and offered her her hat. The dreams she had fled from this morning had caught up with her with the express intention of becoming reality. And she very much feared the siege of the past week had weakened whatever resistance she might have had.
Softly, trying not to upset the beast, she whispered, “Ian.”
“Alanna.” He gave her name an exotic intonation. “Little witch. I’ve given you time. Don’t you remember that you’re mine even now?”
“Nay.” She mouthed the word rather than said it. It wasn’t true, was it? Those dreams had been simply dreams, induced by his magic. They couldn’t be fragments of memory, replaying in her head…
Leaning down, he smoothed it from her lips. “Don’t tell me ‘no.’ I won’t allow it.”
“Please kiss me.”
“I am kissing you.”
The echo of their voices from another time haunted her…until his lips, petal-smooth, drifted across her skin. His breath, warm and heavy with sensuality, coaxed her to try and capture it, and when she opened her lips to do so, his tongue touched her. Briefly, almost chastely, but laden with promise of more.
“More,” she whispered.
He complied. In little teasing portions, he enticed her to open her mouth wider, to join him in a feast of flavor so sensual she imagined she had tasted him like this before. Her eyes drifted shut, and as they did she heard a rumble of thunder, saw a flash of lightning so bright it struck beneath her lids.
Her eyes flew open. She shoved at Ian, and when he lifted his head, she stared around, stricken.
The meadow looked as brilliantly green as it had all afternoon. A blue so intense as to be azure tinted the sky, and the clouds were white and puffy…She stared at one right over her head as it formed a dragon, complete with scales. She blinked, thinking it would disappear, but instead it opened its mouth and blew a wisp of smoke.
Her gaze shot back to Ian. “Did you do that?”
“Kiss you?” He smiled with slow, sentient intent. “Yes, it was definitely me.”
Magic. Not that she needed reminding of it, but the man made magic. He’d caught her in his coils as surely as a dragon captured treasure, and like the dragon, he gazed at her with eyes that coveted and promised.
Briefly Alanna thought of the Quaker girl, and pitied her. Nowhere in this world would that girl find another man who could kiss like Ian, and she would always compare. Always. No woman could kiss Ian and not remember.
Remember…
“Nay.” She turned her head away. She wouldn’t remember.
The warmth of the sun struck her through her chemise, and she realized he had pushed her gown off her shoulders.
How did he always do that? Just last night, he’d stripped away her nightgown before she had realized it. But that had been a dream. A dream that seemed so real…She caught his wrists in her hands. “This isn’t civilized.”
“Civilized?” He flung back his head and laughed, hearty laughter that echoed in the open air and made mockery of her refined protest. “Civilization is the last thing on my mind right now. What I want is primitive, basic, hot and sweaty, and so good it’ll bring tears to your eyes.” Leaning closer, he whispered, “Let me make you want it, too.”
He offered a secret. A secret no one else knew about, a secret that would change her life. A secret no well-bred lady should know, but one that she, Alanna, desired. His face filled her vision; his gaze compelled her.
“Alanna.” On his lips, her mere name created an incantation.
She responded. Beneath her chemise, her breasts tightened, wanting his mouth. His beautiful, carnal mouth.
Slowly his lips formed a smile. With large, warm hands, he lifted her necklace and looked a question. She nodded and helped him remove it, placing it with care into the basket. Then he drew down her chemise. She was bared to the air, to the sky, to the sun, and when he looked on her, his wonder created a havoc of pleasure.
Then he kissed her breast, and the brush of his lips against the outer arc of flesh banished whatever modesty clung to her mind.
“Oh, please.” She strained upward, wanting him to open his mouth on her, to suckle, to somehow assuage the craving she experienced in each sensitive place in her body. In the most sensitive place of her body.
“Alanna.”
She woke from the repeat of an oft-repeated dream, and found him with her, real and strong, caressing her breasts with his fingertips.
“You’re beautiful,” he murmured. “The perfect size.” He cupped her. “Skin the color of cream, with toasted flecks to dazzle the eye.”
“Freckles,” she said, trying to gain a grip on reality.
“I will kiss each one.” Holding her, he bent and started on his task. “Promise me they’ll lead me down to the seat of heaven.”
Deep in her belly, the familiar ache formed. From his tempting words? Or from his skillful touch? She couldn’t say. She didn’t know. With each caress, he pulled her deeper into her own dreamworld. A dreamworld he’d produced out of storm and wind. Had he enchanted her, or had she
conjured this out of her own fertile imagination?
She looked down at his head, at the glossy hair sweeping her skin. She touched it, felt the strands between her fingers. She delved deeper, massaged his scalp, moved to trace his ears.
This was real. He was real.
He rubbed his cheek against her chest. “You are innovative.”
Her fingers checked. “What did you say?” He’d said that before.
Lifting his head, he smiled at her. “I said—it’s time to remember.”
Before she could demand he explain how he could repeat every utterance of her dreams, he rolled her over.
“Ian, please tell me—”
“You already know.” Untying her petticoats, he slid them down her legs.
She knew, yes, but she didn’t dare believe. If she could, she would turn and confront him, but…she was almost nude. Her short chemise reached no farther than her knees. Her garters tied her stockings in the middle of her thighs. And while her boots protected her feet very well, she doubted Ian cared whether he caught an illicit glimpse of her toes. Briefly she thought of Wilda and her pantalettes, and sent a small apology toward Fionnaway. The pantalettes she’d scorned would have provided at least a little protection from his gaze.
“Lie still,” he whispered, close against her ear. “Listen.”
She stiffened. She didn’t want to be caught half-clothed and tangled in his arms by shepherds. Frozen, she listened for voices, but heard only the swish of the waves, the call of the gulls, the faint rustle of the wind.
“What do you see?”
“The blanket, the grass,” Frantically she looked around. “There’s nothing here.”
His hands roamed up her legs, pushing the hem of the chemise ahead. “Exactly. There’s no rescue to be had. Only the birds can see, and they approve. Believe me, they approve.”
Furious with him, she said, “The devil take you.”
A Well Favored Gentleman Page 17