She laid her face on his shoulder, felt the beating of his heart against her cheek. She could smell the deliciously spicy scent of his shaving soap. He wrapped his arms around her. She allowed herself to relax. His hand moved down her arm, tracing the curve of her elbow. His body hardened. Hers softened in aching surrender. His quiet strength was irresistible, she thought with grudging admiration. So was his timing.
Heath Boscastle. Cool, restrained, detached, the demon of her lost dreams. No one could unnerve him. Still waters that ran too deep to fathom or a woman might drown in them. The perfect Englishman. The consummate gentleman.
The gentleman who was calmly untying her nightrail, shoving it down to her waist, and suddenly kissing her breathless as he walked her bare-breasted to the bed. It had all happened in seconds. Her head swam. Her breasts pressed against his hard chest.
“I don’t think I need to ask what does interest you,” she whispered against his mouth, unbalanced, fighting for breath, for sanity. “I— Do you realize what you’re doing?”
He grinned and caught her swiftly in one arm before she collapsed across the blue silk coverlet. “Of course I realize.” He lowered her deftly to the bed, his hand fondling one breast in sensual possession. She arched her back, shivered in reaction. “I realize a lot of things now.”
“Perhaps,” she replied, with another deep shudder, “I shouldn’t ask what those things are.” No, she wanted him to show her. She wanted to feel him without restrictions, to experience the sexual hunger she had seen in his eyes. She did not want to think of Russell’s betrayal. If she were honest, what Odham had told her tonight had not hurt her as deeply as it should have. She knew why . . . her mind had already been lured away to another man.
Heath sensed his advantage. He captured her mouth in a deep, sensual kiss before she could question him. He wasn’t sure that anything she could say would have changed his course. Her hot-blooded response to his behavior granted him all the license he needed. Her half-naked body was trapped beneath his. Her slim white hands had already lifted to his chest.
Not to push him away. But to explore. To tease. To learn what he liked. He was only too delighted to show her, to give her a hint of how fully they could enjoy each other. Perhaps not tonight. He’d learned restraint over the years. He wanted her to want him so desperately that there was no doubt at all in her mind that she would be his. But the rogue in him wanted to taunt her with a taste of what she was missing.
She raised up on her elbows to take a gentle bite of his shoulder. A moment later her tongue caressed the small injury. “On second thought,” she murmured, “perhaps I should ask.”
He buried his face between the valley of her beautiful breasts. “Ask what?” he said, his attention more focused on continuing what they’d begun than conversation.
“What are we doing in my bed?” she whispered, her hand positioned directly upon his heart.
He snared her wrists in his hand and held them above her head. “Whatever you suggest,” he murmured with a devilish smile.
“I’m not suggesting anything.” But her eager response told him otherwise.
He eased her left knee up over his hip, opening her lower body to his exploration. His gaze drifted over her, taking in every detail. “In that case, I’ll have to take the initiative.”
She strained her wrists. He tightened his hold.
“Now wait just a minute—”
“I think I’ve waited long enough.”
“No, you haven’t,” she exclaimed, giving a helpless laugh. “Heath, you aren’t supposed to be here.”
“I’ve been ordered to be your bodyguard.” He pressed his groin to hers. She was half undressed. He was still clothed. “Agreed?”
She narrowed her eyes, a faint smile on her lips.
“Yes, but—”
“Well, I’m protecting you.”
She laughed softly. “No, you aren’t.”
“I guarantee no one will get to your body with me on top of you.”
She started to speak, lost the thought as emotion and sensation inundated her. She felt exposed, damp with desire, caught up in only him. He demanded—and got—her full attention.
He’d left his mark years ago. Her heart, her body remembered all too well, responded, yearning for completion. To be part of him, to take him inside her. Unfinished pleasure. A shadow ache. He shifted position, pressed himself into the moist hollow between her legs. His stiff arousal branded her, and she moaned. She could feel how hard he was for her, how he needed her, and her instincts urged her to give him fulfillment.
She ached, arched, twisted into him. His mouth closed around one nipple and suckled hard until blackness swam behind her eyes. His hand stole up her nightrail, his fingers stroking her flesh before sinking into the moist cleft that welcomed the invasion.
Her body clenched. She heard him draw a deep breath. His fingers penetrated her in tantalizing degrees, withdrew, repeated the play until she shivered with raw sensation, her breathing suspended. He teased her without mercy, pinned her writhing form down with his powerful thigh.
“I can’t believe . . .” The words caught in her throat, a gasp of surprised pleasure. “I can’t believe that we’re making the same mistake.”
“The only mistake,” he whispered, pressing his fingers deeper inside her, “is that I let you run away from me six years ago.”
“I didn’t know—”
“I’ve waited forever to touch you like this,” he said quietly.
She felt tears well under her eyelids as he kissed her again, a kiss that tasted of desire too long denied, of loyalties questioned, of male conquest. How many times had she ached for this moment? How had she existed without him?
She was supposed to marry Russell. His face floated like an elusive cloud in the back of her thoughts. She fought to remember what it had felt like to kiss him, to remember how good he had been to her when her father was ill. Had Russell betrayed her? She knew it must be so. But no one on earth could kiss like Heath Boscastle. His mouth was like a medieval torch that could raze an entire castle, a village, a woman’s heart. Deep, soulful kisses that made her head reel, made her ache for hot, uninhibited sex.
She uttered a soft cry, the pleasure he gave her cresting like a wave. She had tried to hold back. She wanted to cling to one last thread of control. He took her further than she’d ever dreamed she could go, deeper. She throbbed against his hand, drenched him, inhibition washed away in a rush of rapture, flooded.
His hand gripped her hip as the contractions subsided. He smiled at her, a knowing smile, as if she did not realize what he had just proved.
How effortlessly he could seduce her. And how many times had this fantasy, or a variation of it, dominated her awareness when her late husband visited her bed before hurrying off to his beloved army. So now she and Heath both knew. She heaved a deep breath, felt her heartbeat begin to slow.
“I knew there was something different about you in the theater tonight,” she whispered, twining her arm around his neck. Her fingers threaded through his thick hair. He closed his eyes. “And then when you touched me in the street, the way you stared at me. What has come over you?”
“Perhaps I’ve come to my senses.”
He shifted, drawing her into him. His eyes flickered open. For a dangerous moment she began to move with him, against him, not knowing what she was doing, except that her feelings for him were overwhelming, complicated, too potent to deny. Her nightrail had twisted around her hips, completely exposing her to him. Even through his evening trousers she felt the hard power of him, his erection arousing a deeper ache inside her, pushing against the slick folds of her sex. The fact that he was fully dressed made their position even more erotic.
“Poor rogue,” she said slowly, her eyes locked with his. “You did not find your release.”
“You’d be surprised how much self-control I have learned to exercise in six years.”
“Nothing about you would surprise me,” she said v
ery softly.
And if he hadn’t shown the willpower to stop right then, Julia had no idea what might have happened. More than likely she would have dredged up some control before they went any further. But it was as if they both realized at the same moment that they must stop.
For Heath it was more a matter of what was best for her than gratifying his physical lust. His body craved her with a gnawing need that would keep him awake for hours, but he decided he’d gone far enough for one night. Too fast and he risked losing her. He wasn’t merely playing a game of seduction. He was playing to win her heart, her devotion.
He eased away from her, casting one last rueful look at her lying on the bed, her breasts and dark rose nipples flushed from his kisses, her mouth moist and inviting. In the end she would be his, but he would make certain before he played his hand that the odds were in his favor. Heath would make her admit what she wanted.
She wanted him. He saw the naked desire in her soft gray eyes before confusion and concern set in. She sat up, making a belated attempt to cover herself as she did. She gave a reluctant laugh. “I am worried about you—”
They glanced around at the same instant as a door slammed downstairs. Raised voices reached them from the hall below. Julia had already slipped into a dressing robe, straightened the bedcover, and Heath was on his feet by the time the knock came at the door.
She made a face. “It’s probably Odham and Hermia in another battle.”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
He was right.
Hermia stood in the doorway, her face an unnatural shade of white. She didn’t question the fact that Heath and her niece were alone together in Julia’s bedroom. In fact, Heath was not sure that the woman really noticed.
“Come downstairs, both of you,” she said, motioning in distress. “Drake has been stabbed in the street. Odham has already gone for my physician.”
Julia took stock of the attractive man who was half reclining on the sofa, his expression one of tolerant resignation. Her face paled as he repositioned himself, and she noticed the blood-soaked cloth he was holding almost casually over his left hand. She thought again how easily he could be mistaken for Heath.
The same compelling hawk-nosed profile, the crisp black hair. And in that black greatcoat—he was wearing Heath’s coat.
“He looks like you,” she said to Heath, who clearly wasn’t listening, reaching Drake moments before she managed to move.
“Who?” she heard Heath ask his brother, his voice controlled but clearly shaken. “Where? And why?”
Drake shrugged, accepting the glass of brandy that Odham had passed him. “A ruffian—a foreigner by the looks of him. Devon chased him into the rookeries.”
Heath’s face hardened as he examined the wound on his brother’s wrist. It wasn’t fatal, but who knew what had been his assailant’s intention? “How did you and Devon end up together?”
Drake hesitated. “We were apparently on our way to the same young lady’s lodgings. A private dinner party.”
Heath’s mouth thinned in amusement. “Not very discriminating as to whom she invites, is she?”
Drake lifted his brow. “I resent that. And stop making such a fuss. It’s a pinprick. He cut my hand. I came back here only because I felt guilty for leaving you the way I did. It was rude of me.”
Heath straightened. “I suppose you’ll live, and yes, you were rude, but I’ll forgive you. Did your attacker take your cash?”
“No, he didn’t. I think I surprised him. At least he looked surprised when I turned to plant him a facer.” Drake examined his hand. “He’ll be more surprised, I wager, when he realizes he’s lost two front teeth.”
The physician arrived, a trim-bearded Scotsman who announced he had just been about to attend a dinner two houses down, and wasn’t it fortunate he was available? In the flurry of activity that followed, Julia could pick out only snatches of Heath and Drake’s private conversation.
“Did he follow you from the theater?” Heath asked.
“I’m not sure,” Drake said. “I wasn’t paying much attention. We stopped by Grosvenor Square for Devon to change. We could have been followed from there.”
“Was he French?”
“No. Hired from the gutter. German or Dutch, I’d guess.”
“Why did you let him get away?” Heath gave a deep sigh. “Don’t tell me. It was the woman again. I hope she was worth it.”
“She wasn’t,” Drake said emphatically, wincing as the physician began to poke and prod. “She had another man there and wouldn’t let us in. A very rich one, she claimed.”
Heath stood to allow the physician more room to examine the wound. He turned to look at Julia. She caught his hand.
“Look at him, Heath.”
“I did. I believe he will live but probably not learn.”
She lowered her voice. “That isn’t what I meant. Look at Drake.”
“Yes?”
She met his gaze, and found herself frustrated that his face revealed so little of what he thought. “He looks exactly like you in that coat. You don’t suppose his attacker had the wrong brother?”
He smiled fleetingly before he turned to the door. “Probably not. Keep him company a moment, would you, but don’t get too friendly. He’s like me in more ways than one. I won’t be long. I want to look around the house a little bit.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Just to be safe, Julia.”
Heath walked through the servants’ quarters, searched the wine cellar and scullery, then exited into the garden by the kitchen door. The rain was lighter than before but still falling steadily, turning the small rectangular garden into puddles of muck. Julia’s cat streaked past him for the warm haven of the house. He headed for the shed.
As he turned onto the rhododendron-lined pathway, he heard a door creak open at the back of the house. He hoped to God that Hermia had not followed him again. Not that he anticipated finding anything in the shed, but it never hurt to be cautious.
He pulled open the door and stared into the dank gloom. Pots, a wheelbarrow, the odor of humus and damp wood. No ghosts from the past. What had he expected? He should have felt more relief instead of this vague unrest.
He did not realize until that moment how he wanted to face his fears, to dispel the shadows that still haunted him. He wanted to be in Russell’s place, hunting down Auclair. It might have brought Heath a measure of peace to confront his former captor himself.
There was a hesitant footstep on the leaf-strewn path that led to the shed. He backed out of the door in resignation, hoping he did not encounter Hermia and her flowerpot again. As he turned his head, he caught sight of Julia’s elderly butler Payton sneaking behind the trees. The old servant was probably trying to be helpful, and Heath was grinning as he reached back around to close the shed door. He didn’t call out. No point in giving Payton a fright—
“Stop right there!”
He swung around, expecting Payton to recognize him, to stammer an apology—expecting almost anything except the sharp blow to his head and the black oblivion that followed.
Chapter 15
The murmur of voices brought Heath back to consciousness. He forced his eyes open and examined the woman leaning over him. Her lovely oval face was pale with concern. Her gray eyes reminded him of English mist. And his head hurt like bloody hell.
He sat up, embarrassed to find himself smothered under layers of perfumed silk sheets and a pink silk coverlet, which had been tucked around his shoulders. His brother Drake, his left hand bandaged, grinned at him like a gargoyle from the bottom of the bed.
Julia’s hair spilled across his chest as she leaned lower to plump up his pillows. “Did you shoot me again?” he asked her. “What am I doing in bed anyway?”
“Do not jest, Heath. I almost died when I saw you. But no one shot you.”
He grunted, glanced down, and realized that his shirt had been removed. “Someone undressed me. I hope it was you.”
Julia caught her breath and glanced back at Drake. He shrugged helplessly, his eyes gleaming, and slid off his stool. “I’ll leave you two alone for a moment. Let me tell Grayson the patient will live.”
Heath cursed softly, testing his shoulder, his arms. “What happened, Julia? I was in the garden, and I saw Payton—”
“My butler hit you with a shovel,” she said, chewing the edge of her lip. “He thought you were another intruder. Apparently, you had warned him to be on guard.”
“Bloody hell.”
“He thought he was being helpful, doing his duty. Oh, Heath, if only you’d told the servants you were sneaking out into the garden . . . Payton feels dreadful.”
“He feels dreadful?” He rubbed his neck. “Why am I in bed?”
“You fell against the shed quite hard and hit your head. There’s a sizable knot on the back of your skull.”
He lifted his hand behind him, glancing past her with a disgruntled look. “This isn’t your room. Where am I?”
She brought a cool cloth to his head. “In Hermia’s bed.”
“Hermia’s bed? Was that necessary?”
Julia’s eyes sparkled with warmth in the candlelight. “It was Drake’s idea, to be honest. Her room was closer. Heaven knows I expect the disapproval of the whole Boscastle brood to come down upon my head. Both of you injured in the same evening.”
“You do not think Drake’s assault was a coincidence?”
“No,” she said slowly, shaking her head. “He looked too much like you in that coat.”
“I’m not sure I share your suspicion.”
“Well, at any rate,” she said, giving his pillow a final plump, “I shall have to protect my bodyguard, won’t I?”
“Only against your aunt and butler.”
He leaned back thoughtfully against the headboard. Julia turned the cloth over in her hands, then stretched forward to straighten the bedclothes. The bedclothes that had covered him had slid down off his shoulder, revealing his bare chest. For a moment Heath did not realize what had happened. Then he heard Julia’s sharp intake of breath, looked up and saw the compassion in her eyes.
The Wedding Night of an English Rogue Page 16