That was going to change. This night, there would be no one in that room with her but him.
***
Angelique was surprised when James pulled away from her. She thought that after carrying her up the stairs in such a wonderfully masterful manner that he would toss her onto the bed and have her without even drawing off her dressing gown. She could feel the hunger in his touch, though his kiss was restrained and controlled.
He stepped away from her, his dark auburn hair falling across his face. The firelight caught the red in it, and it glinted like bronze.
He tossed his ribbon onto the table by the fire and stood with one hand on the mantel, bracing himself with his polished boot on the grate. A log of apple wood fell, and its scent filled the room as the fire rose.
“I will not fight you, Angelique,” he said. “I do not want to conquer you. I do not want to be conquered.”
She blinked at the defeat in his voice. At first, she was certain that he had simply changed the rules of the game, that he sought to manipulate her emotions, to draw her into some web of deceit in which he would hold the upper hand. She took a step forward so that she could see his face better in the firelight.
He did not look at her but stared down into the flames. She waited for a long moment, but he did not move or speak again. She watched him, looking for some sign of a lie in his countenance. She was an expert at reading people, both liars and knaves. If this man was lying, she could not see it.
“What do you want?” she asked.
He turned to face her then, and his eyes were cast in shadow. He stepped toward her but did not move to take her in his arms. She could not remember when, if ever, she had spent so much time speaking with a man who would be her lover. In her experience, men preferred carnality to discussion.
She was beginning to see that this man might be different from the rest.
“I want us to be honest with each other.”
“I am honest with you,” she said. “I have told you nothing but the truth.”
“You fight me every step of the way. Even when you’re in my arms, you’re fighting me. For one night, I ask that you lay your weapons down.”
Angelique stood perfectly still and listened as another log fell into the grate, sending up a shower of sparks. She stared into his eyes. He did not flinch or turn away, but let her look her fill.
The deep blue of his eyes was clear. They made her think of the open sea, where lies cost men their lives. The sea was as honest as it was cruel, which was why she loved it. The sea forced every man to meet it on its own terms.
James Montgomery had thrived in that place, as her father once had done. There was a strength in him that came not from his time on the oceans of the world but from within. That inner strength was the thing that let him sail the seas and return home richer than when he left. This was a man who accepted what was. If he could accept the oceans of the world, if he could respect their power, perhaps he could also respect hers.
She closed the distance between them, a distance that seemed more of a chasm than a few feet of carpet. He did not take her into his arms even when she stood close to him.
She did not touch him either, but raised her head to meet his eyes. She forced herself to drop her mask of indifference, her mask of mockery, her pretense at superiority. This man was her equal, and she would treat him as such, until he proved her wrong.
“No weapons,” she said.
“No lies,” he answered.
“So be it.”
It was he who kissed her, drawing her close very carefully, as if she might break into shards between his hands. His touch on her was feather light, as if he did not want to startle her or break the solemnity of the moment. His lips caressed hers, making her hunger for more even as he pulled away.
James extended his hand to her, and she took it, her small palm disappearing into his. He did not kiss her fingertips or her palm, nor did he perform any other empty gallantry. He did not sweep her into his arms in an effort to whisk her away from herself, to overcome her reason and her sense with her own desires. He simply led her one step at a time toward her bed set in its alcove, its midnight blue coverlet already turned down, its white silken sheets embroidered with her crest in dark blue thread.
He ran his fingers over the bird and flames. “The phoenix rising.”
No man had ever commented on her crest or on its meaning, not even Anthony. A lump rose in her throat and she swallowed hard to dislodge it.
“Yes,” she said. “She rises from the ash, a new creation.”
“The flames destroy her again and again,” James countered. “What creates her as she rises from them?”
Angelique stood transfixed, for she had never thought of this notion as he put it to her, much less shared it with another living soul. She stood quiet, thinking that she might simply ignore the question. But she saw in his eyes that if she tried to make love to him without answering, he would leave her.
“She creates herself,” Angelique said.
James smiled, and she felt as if the sun had risen in the room, driving out all shadows. He drew her close until her body was pressed against his, but he did not run his hands over her curves or feast on her flesh. He laid his lips on her hair, taking in the scent of her orchid perfume, which enclosed them both like a cloak, shutting out the rest of the world.
“No woman who has not suffered and been reborn could ever be as strong or as beautiful as you are.”
Angelique felt tears rise in her eyes unbidden, and she blinked them away. She found that she had lost her voice. She, who was never without a witty remark or the best defensive jab, stood silent in the arms of this man who was almost a stranger.
He leaned down and kissed her gently, his lips as soft as a blessing. She leaned into his strength, letting it surround her as his arms did, her weight resting against him. She would work at letting her defenses drop. She had promised that she would, and she always kept her word.
Angelique drew off her dressing gown, letting the silk fall to the floor at her feet in a pool of sapphire blue. James did not look at Anthony’s gift but only at her body revealed beneath the thin silk of her negligee. He raised one hand and cupped her breast in his palm, hefting the weight of it, running his thumb over the mound and nipple in a soft caress.
A moan rose in her throat, and she moved toward him, but he held her back so that he could continue to look at her body. James raised his hand to cup her other breast, caressing it in the same way he had the first, before bringing his eyes to hers. “You are beautiful,” he said. “I want you under me while you’re wearing this gown.”
Angelique lay down on the bed as if she always allowed men to command her. But he had not issued an order as Anthony might once have done; he had simply stated a desire.
She pushed Anthony from her mind, for part of the honesty of that night included having no ghosts of other lovers standing between them.
James stripped away his coat and waistcoat, his shirt, breeches, and boots until he stood naked before her. His body was well muscled from his years at sea. He was not one to sit idly by while the crew worked, but worked the ship himself. His limbs were tan from the sun and wind, and his blue eyes seemed even bluer as he lay down and smiled at her. She raised her hand to touch his cheek. His stubble prodded her fingertips and scratched the softness of her palm.
“I should have shaved before I came,” he said.
“You can shave after you come, if you wish,” she said, grinning at him, a wicked gleam in her eye.
This time he laughed with her, rolling until he was on top of her, drawing her nightgown up to her waist. His hands explored her legs as he drew the silk along her flesh. The warmth of his touch made her shiver, and when his fingers disappeared between her thighs, she shuddered with the first hint of promised bliss.
He toyed with her for a moment, testing
her warmth and wetness, but he did not linger there. He raised himself over her, watching as her breasts rose with her breath. He pressed himself between the tight contours of her thighs and entered her in one long thrust. Her whole body shook with his motion, and she said his name.
James began to move inside her, but he did not take his eyes from her breasts as he moved. They swayed with his thrusts and he drank in the sight of them. She watched his desire for her rise, and her own desire grew with it. His body moved in hers and over hers, driving her closer and closer to the edge of reason. She lifted her legs to give him better access, but he pushed them down again until she was splayed beneath him, a willing prisoner.
He pressed himself deep into her, picking up speed as he moved. She cried out as her pleasure built, but when she tried to touch him, he took her hands in his and raised them over her head.
James thrust into her, varying his rhythm so that she almost could not catch her breath. He kept his eyes on hers, his naked longing laid out before her. He held nothing back, and she found that she could not. She came in a spiral of ecstasy with her eyes on his, his name drawn from her lips a second time, her body quaking beneath him. He joined her then, emptying his body into hers, speaking her name as if it were a prayer.
When they both were sated, he lay on top of her like a great boulder, or a tree that had been felled. Angelique did not move except to wrap her arms around him so that he would not leave her. He raised his head to look into her eyes.
“That was the best sex of my life,” he said.
She smiled. “So far.”
For once, he did not banter with her. For once, he did not smile back.
“It’s better with no lies between us,” he said.
She did not answer but drew him close. He seemed to understand her unspoken request, for all that night, he did not pull away. They lay together, spooned between her silk sheets, the music of their breathing lulling them both to sleep.
Twenty
Angelique woke in the morning to another world. For the first time in over a year, her lover lay beside her, still sleeping. James Montgomery had spent the night in her bed, and now she wondered if he would choose to stay a little longer. She surprised herself when she discovered that she did not wish to be rid of him.
She wanted him to linger with her, to eat with her in the sunny breakfast room downstairs, to sip coffee across the table from her as Anthony Carrington once had done at her house in town. She wondered at herself, that she favored this man so much. There was something bewitching about him, something that drew her into the web of his honesty and guilelessness. He was different from any man she had met. For all his seeming openness, she began to think that it would take her longer to know him, if she ever truly did.
She did not know many people well, nor did many people know her. Arabella Hawthorne, run off to Derbyshire with her old flame, Pembroke. Lisette, her maid. There the list ended. She had once thought that Anthony Carrington knew her, but he had defected to his young wife’s side, never to return. That was for the best, for Angelique had lived too long and loved her own life too much to take another woman’s leavings.
So that morning she was alone in the country with this Scottish captain, a virtual stranger. She stared at him, watching him breathe deeply in the confines of her bed, the silk coverlet gathered loose at his hips, revealing the contours of his muscled chest with its light dusting of reddish hair. The tone of his breathing and the sight of his face relaxed in sleep told her nothing of who he truly was. Only that he was beautiful, and for the moment, he was hers.
He seemed to feel her watching him for he woke, his blue eyes opening beneath his gold-tipped lashes. He did not startle or seem to wonder where he was or with whom. He simply gave her a warm, inviting smile as he reached for her.
“Good morning, my lady.” James brought her close but did not roll her beneath him. Instead, he buried his face in the softness of her hair, breathing in the perfume of orchids.
Angelique took in the scent of him, a bit of salt and warm flannel, almost like the scent of the sea. He carried the sea with him even this far inland. Angelique missed the ocean, so she indulged herself, reveling in the fragrance of his skin, forgetting herself completely.
He nudged her, and she returned to herself, to where she was and with whom. She felt her heart lighten for the first time since Anthony had left her. She and James barely knew each other, but she liked him. She would enjoy this stolen season for as long as it lasted.
“Good morning, Captain,” she said, stretching her naked body against his. He did not accept her invitation, though his blue eyes heated with longing. Instead, he raised his lips to hers and kissed her gently, sweetly, as if they had all the time in the world, as if he never planned to leave.
“So formal, Countess,” he said. “You might call me James.”
She smiled, savoring the lingering taste of his lips on hers and the warmth of his body so close beneath her sheets. “I might,” she said.
Angelique knew that she was in danger of staying in bed with him all morning, but something nagged at the edges of her mind, some reason why she could not abandon herself to pleasure.
The girl. Sara. Her husband’s daughter was being brought up to the house today. And she still was not sure how she would make her welcome, how she would begin to bridge the gap between them.
Angelique felt a chill run along her spine, though she was tucked in bed with a large and good-looking man. James seemed to sense her sudden distraction, for he pulled away from her and sat up. “Your daughter is coming.”
“My husband’s daughter,” Angelique corrected him automatically.
“You just remembered her.”
Angelique sighed and sat up with him, drawing the sheet up to cover her nakedness. “You have an excellent memory.”
“I saw the girl just last night. I pity her.”
She could not allow him behind her wall on this subject. Her longing for a child was too personal, her grief for her dead husband still a living wound, one she never showed another, not even Arabella. She could not afford to let this man discover this weakness, not if she meant to see him again. And she wanted to see him again.
She used her most casual tone, the one she used in drawing rooms among women who hated her. “Orphans are often pitiful. But I will care for her. She has no need of your pity.”
“Your High and Mighty Highness is back on her high horse, I see,” James said.
Angelique’s eyes flashed as she looked at him, but when she saw no mockery in his face, her shoulders relaxed.
“I fall back on my old ways when I feel threatened,” she said, invoking their agreement to be honest with one another.
James did not use her honesty against her, as he said he would not. He nodded. “Don’t we all? I tend to reach for my sword before using my tongue.”
Angelique laughed at that and slid against him, running her hand down his chest. “You use both to good effect, Captain.”
“I meant in disputes with other men,” James said, but now he was laughing. He caught her hand in his. “Call me James.”
“James it is then.”
She kissed him fleetingly. She thought he might draw her down with him and pull her beneath him, but when she moved away, he did neither.
Angelique rose, tossing the covers aside. She drew her dressing gown up from the floor and put it on, crossing the room to ring for Lisette.
James did not follow her but watched her as she walked, his eyes caressing her body, though his voice stayed calm and dispassionate. “Would you like me to stay and greet the girl with you?”
“There is no need,” Angelique said.
Lisette opened the door from her dressing room and stepped in. The fire had been built up while they slept, but Lisette, who was thin and easily chilled, added another log before coming to her mistress.
&n
bsp; “Some warm water, Lisette,” Angelique said. “And the blue day gown and matching shawl.”
“Yes, madame.”
Lisette eyed James for a moment, admiring his torso where it emerged from the bedclothes. James did not spare her a glance but kept his eyes on Angelique.
“You can’t face her alone,” he said, as if they had never been interrupted. “You need someone with you.”
Angelique opened her mouth to lie, catching herself even as she began to dismiss him. She saw in his eyes that he had already guessed something of her hidden pain, though he was too polite to ask of it. He had offered her trust, in return for her own. She had trusted only two men in her life, both to her peril. But she had given her word. They were in their stolen season. She owed him honesty still.
“I do not wish to face her alone,” Angelique said, laying her usual defenses down. “Please stay.”
James smiled but did not gloat over his victory. He nodded as if he had asked an easy thing, as if she had granted some small request and not laid herself open to pain.
He rose from the bed to draw on his breeches, which had been laid by on a chair. He dressed quickly, and Lisette turned her back at once, but when Angelique saw her maid smile, she knew that the Frenchwoman had taken a peek at her lover. Angelique thought to reprimand her but winked at her instead, pushing aside her fear of the girl she was taking into her life, her fear that she might fail her.
She took pleasure instead in James, and in the fact that he was with her. He was a well-wrought man, and for the moment, he was hers. Let Lisette enjoy a glance if she was fortunate enough to catch one.
Angelique dressed while James looked on. She had never done such a thing before, and it seemed to deepen the air of intimacy between them. Lisette did not speak at all that morning, her usual tirade in French silenced by James Montgomery’s presence. James sat sprawled in her armchair beside the fireplace in his breeches and shirt, his long legs stretched before him, one Hessian boot crossed over the other.
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